In the 1990s, there was a failed experiment in the Arizona desert called Biosphere 2. The idea was to create a self-sustaining orb where pretend astronauts of the future could live without contact with the real world for at least a year. They would grow their food, slaughter their own animals, and breathe their own air. If they were successful, they might be able to plop the orb on Mars to ensure the future of humanity after climate change destroyed the planet.

It turned out to be a disaster. They ran out of food. They ran out of oxygen and almost suffocated. They starved. There was tribal warfare, and eventually, Steve Bannon (yes, the same one) was brought in to fire the scientists and salvage the project for investors.

I often think of Biosphere 2 when I think of what happened to the Oscars. They, we, built a self-sustaining bubble cut off from real life. At first, we celebrated the artificiality of this construct with names like “Hollywood” or “Tinseltown.” But as the Oscars approach their 97th year, with the threat of ending their long reign on network television for the luxury of streaming, it seems clear that our artificial dream factory is now suffering the same fate as Biosphere 2, minus the intervention of Steve Bannon.

A massive creative bottleneck has choked the life out of Hollywood, but I don’t have to tell you that. You already know. Movies simply aren’t as good as they used to be. The spark of urgency and originality that galvanized movies as a must-see activity from city theaters to rural drive-ins is gone. For every well-marketed sequel in a decades-old franchise like Top Gun: Maverick, there are hundreds of films no one wants to see—and almost nothing in-between.