Comment by mrandish

> I'm not convinced it's necessarily a lack of creativity, but more just a lack of knowledge and expertise around what's even possible.

Agreed. Great creatives are still great (and still too rare). In addition to the lack of technical proficiency and creative aspiration, I also suspect there's an element of some directors/DPs on VFX blockbusters assuming all the sensational VFX elements in the frame simply overwhelm beautifully subtle, artistically expressive in-camera cinematography or maybe make it matter less. I can't really fault them for assuming that as it's sometimes at least somewhat true (for some viewers). But then I look at an extraordinary outlier example of VFX-soaked comic book movie lensed brilliantly like The Batman compared to a typically competent example like recent live action Spiderman and realize... nope, it still matters - it's just really hard to do well and integrate with VFX. (Some good comparison examples in this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STynLl-2FqU).