The complaint is usually phrased badly: “movies don’t look like movies anymore.” That is not quite right. Some of them do. Some old movies looked terrible. Some new ones look gorgeous. The useful complaint is narrower: too many images show everything equally, with little control over where the viewer looks.
That distinction matters because otherwise the argument turns into lazy nostalgia. The movies you saw between 10 and 20 tend to become your permanent definition of what movies look like. Robert Tolppi makes a version of this caveat in his video on “Netflix lighting,” and it is worth considering. Nostalgia explains some of the reaction. It does not explain all of it.
Production norms changed.
Tolppi’s useful point is not that digital cameras ruined movies or that LED fixtures are fake light. That version is too easy. Modern sensors capture more color and contrast than older cameras could. LED units are brighter, cooler, lighter, more efficient, easier to rig, easier to hide, and easier to control. The tools got better.
Those improvements also make it easier to defer visual decisions.
What the complaint describes
“Netflix lighting” is not a company style guide. It is a production behavior: high-key, low-contrast, front-filled, evenly exposed images where most of the frame is clearly visible and little distinguishes the subject from its surroundings.
Blaming Netflix alone is too convenient. This shows up anywhere production culture prizes safe flexibility over visual authorship. Flat light is not always ugly. High-key images can be beautiful. The issue is not brightness. The issue is non-commitment.
Correct exposure does not establish where the viewer should look.
Lighting is not just illumination. It is shape. A backlight separates a body from the background. Negative fill gives a face structure. A motivated source connects the light to something in the scene. Contrast and shadow direct attention by making some details more visible than others.
The point is not to make every frame noir. The point is to decide where the eye should go and what can remain unseen.
Flatness is rational
Of course productions drift toward flat lighting. It keeps everything usable. It protects coverage. It helps VFX. It survives HDR delivery, streaming compression, executive notes, uncertain downstream decisions, reshoots, pickups, changing edits, and the client who suddenly notices the background actor in the corner. If the set is broadly filled, you can turn around faster, cover more angles, save more takes, and leave more decisions for post.
Those practical benefits can make a visually undistinguished image easier to approve.
The problem is not that nobody knows how to make the image more interesting. The problem is that interesting images often require someone to make a decision before everyone who reviews the footage has had a chance to request changes.
A specific lighting choice limits later options. If one side of the face is allowed to fall off, that is a decision. If the sun is backlighting the scene, the schedule has to respect the sun. If the key is motivated by a lamp, blocking has to respect the lamp. If the frame is built around shadow, somebody has to defend the shadow when the note comes back asking whether we can see more.
Blanket coverage feels safer because it preserves options.
Preserving all those options can weaken the composition.
Cinematography is partly the art of making irreversible decisions before the movie is fully known. That is uncomfortable under modern production pressure, because production workflows often encourage teams to defer decisions. More data. More takes. More notes. More recovery. More flexibility.
If every setup serves that flexibility, the images may begin to look alike.
Why Wicked is a useful example
Tolppi uses Wicked because fantasy musicals should be the easiest place to justify stylized, committed lighting. Oz is not a documentary location. If there is a genre where color, shape, theatricality, and motivated unreality should have permission, it is this one.
That does not mean Wicked as a whole is bad. This is not a review of the movie, and a trailer clip or selected scene is not a full artistic judgment. The useful point is narrower: when even a huge fantasy production can produce examples that feel broadly filled and ordinary, the issue is not lack of available technology.
The daylight problem Tolppi highlights is a good operational example. Put actors into harsh front sun and the image flattens: squinting faces, flat exposure, no separation. Put the sun behind them, then shape the face with bounce or soft fill, and the frame gets depth.
The crew still needs to ask: where is the sun? Where is the key? What side of the face is allowed to fall off? What remains black? What is the viewer supposed to look at?
Those are specific choices the crew must make.
The production-tech pattern
The lighting argument connects to VFX, virtual production, and AI without turning into a complaint about any of them. Virtual production can restore intention by letting directors, DPs, production designers, VFX supervisors, and producers see context earlier. That was the useful point in When Game Engines Meet Hollywood: real-time tools matter when they let teams assess decisions earlier and make changes more cheaply.
But the same tool can become another reason to use general, low-contrast lighting. A volume can give actors and camera a real environment to respond to, or it can become a dim wraparound wall that encourages soft, general, noncommittal light because that is the easiest thing to keep from breaking.
AI image tools have the same trap. They can generate polished images quickly. They can be useful for reference, planning, mood, iteration, and disposable exploration. But they do not know which constraint should remain. They do not know what should be dark. They cannot decide which imperfection matters to this scene.
These tools help when they make a chosen look easier to achieve. They become less useful when they allow the team to keep postponing that choice.
That is also the point of Friction Is About to Become a Luxury. Not all friction is waste. Some time and effort are necessary to make a visual choice.
Lighting has always understood that. Waiting for the sun is friction. Cutting light with flags is friction. Reblocking around a motivated source is friction. Defending a dark frame in review is friction. Some of that friction is the work.
What still requires judgment
When tools get better, taste matters more, not less.
That is the through-line from Phil Tippett to Toy Story to NVIDIA. The tool changes. The interface changes. The cost of output changes. The crew still has to decide what suits the scene.
The scarce thing is no longer exposure. The camera can see into the shadows. The lights can fill the room. Post can recover, isolate, mask, track, relight, denoise, compress, expand, and rescue more than ever. The machine can preserve more information than the old one could.
The cinematographer still has to decide which details the viewer should see.
Knowing when not to fill. Knowing what to leave black. Knowing where the viewer should look. Knowing when a face needs softness and when it needs structure. Knowing when the background should disappear. Knowing when a beautiful image is wrong for the scene and when an unusual image best expresses what is happening.
Better equipment cannot make those decisions for the crew.
Make the choice earlier
Better cameras, lights, planning tools, and post tools should help teams see a proposed look, assess it, and maintain it through production.
That requires agreement about what matters in the image: where the viewer should look, what they need to see, and what can remain dark. Resolve those questions early enough that the schedule, blocking, and lighting can support the answers.