People keep telling me 'Hollywood is dead'. When you look around, it's hard to argue the point - a death long overdue.

Originality has collapsed into endless prequels, reruns, sequels, remakes, and reboots - a looped mirror of a reality that's also rerunning itself.

In the Human Experiment, redundancy is the first sign that the Simulation is winding down.

Film has morphed into digitized images another reflection of reality. Will AI take over the industry? It is already - for better or worse.

Hollywood films have simply become too expensive - both to produce and to watch in a theater - where movie-goers pay for the expense of production - forever increasing.

Theaters often feel like luxury experiences at a time when the dominant theme in American life is affordability. Why pay for a seat in a crowded venue when most people prefer the comfort of home where they can pause, rewind, eat, answer messages, take bathroom breaks, and avoid the distractions of strangers including sick people, and parents with restless young children.

The decline of Hollywood didn't happen overnight. The shift away has been unfolding for decades. Many of my friends in the industry have spent years traveling across the U.S. and around the world, seeking locations where production costs stay within budget. As most of us know, whatever the original budget is, double that by the end of production.

Independent films - versus big-budget productions - have become more popular, but they're generally built around a screenwriter presenting a story about 'dealing with issues,' usually their own or someone else's. That's not something I'm programmed to enjoy. I'll take an action-adventure film any day. My favorites usually star Jason Statham, Gerard Butler, Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Denzel Washington, and others in that genre.

The film industry has always been riddled with abuses, scandals, gatekeepers, and astronomical production costs that inevitably bleed over to consumers. Abusive systems eventually collapse - especially when climate change and institutional dysfunction push everything closer to breaking. This will happen with the Trump administration by the end of ACT III.

Award shows are another factor, often creating their own dramas - before, at the event, and afterwards. Declining audiences are no surprise.

I am one of those people who fall under the heading ... "I haven't read a book in years because I don't like to read". I get my news online from the more reputable publications - and take everything with a grain of salt including TV and documentaries - and like everyone else process what I see and hear through my own filters. As a visual learning that works best for me + discussions with Z.

I watch films online even if I have to wait a couple of months after they air in theaters. I don't like melodramas, reality shows, or anything else that elicits tears, fears, and emotional overload. If I don't experience that in life - why would I want to watch it on the screen? People watch "issue films" because they are a reflection of their own issues, that hopefully they can overcome - much like the characters onscreen. "We are broken in the same way. I can heal like that character". Memo: Only if you're programmed to.

Sci-fi isn't what it used to be in terms of action-adventure. Again, it's all about emotions but that is what the human experiment is about so I guess that's what people seek.

I still enjoy writing my daily blogs - but how many times can I recycle the same script to make a point? Apparently, that number stretches endlessly as does the Fibonacci Sequence that creates and shapes our storylines - adapted from patterns encoded in the simulation itself.

"Healing your issues" is popular with many people who return here seeking answers - but not the way that arc spiked in the grids years ago. What I think most readers are waiting for is something that triggers a memory about closure.

Each blog awakens a specific group of people, but the final message remains encoded in my DNA and yours - waiting to be hermetically unsealed at the end of time ~ Ellie & Alchemy 101.