[Aperion]

No, Jaws and Star Wars didn't ruin Hollywood, they made Hollywood, but they destroyed good film. In any genre. If you are an auteur, it is basically impossible to get your films made and have a career. People like Spielberg, Lucas and Cameron aren't auteurs, they are businessmen. That said, I even enjoy some of their films.

I am in LOVE with 1970s giallo films. Almost every single one of these has some wack-o convoluted plot. But you know what? Almost every single one is way better made in every single way than every movie out of Hollywood in the past 30 years. Digital equipment and post-production technologies have made filmmaking better sure, but it has also made the abundance of crap a lot easier to get made and distributed. Look at how many supremely stupid and awful horror movies come out direct to DVD/onDemand every year?

Granted, I and probably many others on this forum like watching them, but at least 99% of those films are beyond awful. Then look at mainstream movies in theaters, they are not much better, if at all. Total crap designed by studio heads, marketers and investors to maximize profit at the box office - content of any film is almost irrelevant.

This current paradigm is due to Jaws and Star Wars.