Personally, I'm right there with you in a lot of this. Bearing, I have no true feelings towards modern culture, and whatever recognition or appraisal I may get, I rather want from an actual quality work. Not because its socially acceptable. I think the most recent movie I can legitimately hit all the right notes and more for me in both storytelling, design, structure, and character dynamic without throwing shade into what I enjoy, or the style of stories I wish for, was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It wasn't because of Miles Morales being the new Spider-Man that drew me in. It drew me in because well, one, it was a Spider-Man animated movie. Something I've wanted ever since the original 2000s Spider-Man trilogy. Two, because the trailers and animated wasn't any kind of substandard animation style, nor was it bogged down by the modern virtues of Marvel Comics itself or the heavy hand of Disney. It was like it's own film. It's own film with its own story, and brought on a true message of hope, capability, and strength. It never added no political undertones, or need for showing how a certain group would feel. We've had shows like that up the wazoo, even back then. It was a straightforward story, with memorable characters, and gave an impact that literally made the viewer feel truly like they were worth the dime in their pocket and onward.
As for movies that gave me what I wanted in the creativity, adventurous, or fun side of things without needing to be overly dramatic or sad, there's been favorites like the entirety of the Toy Story franchise, the Hotel Transylvania movies, Jurassic Park, Congo (basically like jurassic park but with gorillas and an ancient treasure), The Mummy (with Brendan Fraiser), Donald Duck Comics (especially the Carl Barks/Don Rosa comics), and some good ol' video games that stood the test of times, childhood or commonly agreed on.
The view on primal need is quite true, and has been true for ages, but at least only for the basic things like sex and violence. But accounting what most critics and hollywood hunchbacks want nowadays that doesn't make a profit, or in a sense chases their core audience away, those original primal needs are kinda exemplified a bit too harshly, which it makes it a detriment to itself (in some ways, its to the benefit of the show, especially when you're exemplifying a character's traits and such). Most people can complain and has their own right to show distaste for something (we all do), but if you don't want such things to be a problem, then make something of true quality that brings it down to a balanced level. I like some good ol' slapstick, the occasional mild language (unless the joke is where its overboard like something from the Angry Video Game Nerd), and some violence whether somewhat graphic or just outright nonsensical, but that's my basic wants in a show. And there used to be enough to fill up the wonder over yonder. Warner Bros., Disney. UPA. The 90s and 2000s Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. Universal's Live Action Movies. Even stuff from the 80s too like Commando starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Studio interference is harsh, and has been since filmmaking's beginning. And its a double-edged sword. Companies want more and more and more and more money. Let's never forget things like the EA Lootbox fiasco, or what's happened with the DCEU (and soon with Marvel Studios if they make some poor choices). In some ways, the "good" part is so they can keep their main core casual audience who actually at least generally watches their program, with only little regard for the outliers since they're few and sometimes far between. To make something for an audience that's so little, or for that matter doesn't even consume that certain media (and instead insult/complain about it), is literally doing nothing for the industry. Sure, the casual folk who stumble on it (and the discussions surrounding it) won't know of the issue, and will simply agree with those who think what companies demand is okay or "is about time they did it," but in reality, its creating a race for the latest and greatest short-term production schemes possible. "We gotta make more and more, we'll do anything for it. Don't stop. Don't make our long-time audience happy. don't invest into anything new-new. Just hire off-the-street employees (which is cool sometimes because we all want to entertain, i'm not gonna lie) but then give them an old dead property we haven't touched and have them ruin it. Section off free resources behind paywalls and streaming services." And so on, and so forth.... Heck, I don't have a nintendo switch, but I loathed when they finally started doing Online subscriptions similar to Xbox Live and Playstation Plus JUST TO PLAY ONLINE. It's no wonder I switched over to Steam because though I'm hardcore when playing online regardless of time, its hard to even get to play with family, or my girlfriend, over the internet on consoles because when they want to play, my membership's expired (or the other way around), and I mostly have not enough money to get a renewal. The only gripe is that not all games are on every platform, and its hard to scrape enough money to choose even at least ONE membership to renew.
Lack of Focus and accountability are something I did reference in your last post, but to re-iterate here. It's because of the kind of trendy storytelling and artstyles that people want to follow these days which can detriment a story. Heck, I've seen stories here where I love the art (or even highly respect it.) But the story just falls apart in some areas because there's only one thing there, or its something that tries to prove a point of teen existence, when really we're all going to grow old and sometimes just the same as those we've wanted to bring down for bringing us down. Or search for a group that is literally almost non-existent and labeling those who slightly disagree as harsh words that just are uncalled for. More uncalled for than the actual insults themselves. Or sometimes, when there's a real problem with the show, its easy to have a fanbase or "community" call out the instigator rather than assess the criticism. It doesn't apply to everyone, but it does apply to a good majority (which ironically is the same vocal minority, haha.). If we can't own up to our mistakes, what does that make us in the long run? We're already capable of changing who we like and how our bodies should really look and say its who we are, why are we disguising it under the veil that nobody feels the same, or that we're born that way. Humanity is backwards for sure, but I didn't think it was going to go this backwards.
Saturation is a company's survival. There's no fight against it. But with social media and the constant attention we give our younger generations to our new devices and games and trends and memes to their easily molding brains, I can see why too much of something is a detriment. Heck, I love revivals (reboots are okay, but revivals are not reboots. Let's get that straight). I love when something I used to enjoy, or still enjoy to this day, comes back for another run whether it be the second time, third time, or twelfth time. But man.... sometimes I don't want something back in the modern climate because I fear for what they're going to do. A reboot is different because sometimes you (or the showrunners) can treat it as an alternate universe instead of a full-on restart (Star Trek is a good example with the Prime timeline being all the television shows of the past, and the reboot being the Kelvin timeline, which is an alternate universe, though taking place at the same time as the original show without replacing it entirely).It's the age of reboots and revivals where something that literally was bookended is suddenly restarted without warning, changing things to start a new (which is fine for the most part), but is then undertoned by the same keywords that want to "evoke change" but fail on every level, thus tying in to the lack of focus scenario. What if someone did reboot Super Mario or Mickey Mouse? 30 or 90 years of classic imagination, content, enjoyable products with stories you could right until the end of time, then we restart. We toss out steamboat willie. We give mickey mouse some off-kilter backstory, and we essentially turn him into a submissive little crybaby who gets what he wants regardless, while donald duck becomes this abusive gangster of sorts, then goofy's a drug dealer, and minnie's a redlight district dancer trying to make a living so they find something to make us sympathize with her. Or for Super Mario, we just make him super weak (thus denouncing his Super name) and making Princess Peach not even a princess... at all. What audience is that for? Nobody would want that? If you were telling that story as a joke towards friends, its fine, but as a mainstream story or series that disrespects the entire legacy of the characters and franchises outside of weaponized nostalgia and threatening fanservice? No. No one would buy that. at all. That's a TERRIBLE IDEA.
Overall, some of this stuff I've said might be vague, or others may see this differently. But I feel ya', man. The current landscape truly has gone screwy. It's like the jokes and statements and warnings and traits and quotes we've seen others make on tv and old movies and books ages ago have somehow predicted what our current future would turn out to be. And some cases, what we've got is pretty awesome. Especially when some people still respect their past enough to at least acknowledge it. But in other cases, we've not only gone down the rabbit hole. We've created our own rabbit hole. And we can't escape. We've sucked into our own cognitive dissonance, and we have nothing to show for it, outside of a small group of those those who just want things back to the way they used to be, or change for what's truly better, before the storm washes us all away.
Boy, this is a long post. I'm sorry.