Thirty years ago there was no Internet, the TV, Cinema and games hits were ten or at much twenty titles a year... There was time and space to create a fandom, even if you weren't on a specific niche. That's why there's a Transformers fandom. A TMNT fandom. Even a Masters of the Universe Fandom.

Just look at all those reboots an look the age of that fandom.

Today there's an overload, there's no time to consolidate a fandom over a hit before another hit comes and kids lose interest in the previous. I'm in my forties and I'm seeing a replay of my teenage years, but renovated. I have two kids of seven and they are all over something for it being forgotten next week over the next MOST GREAT BIG THING OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!!!.

I know NCIS but usually when an episode comes out, I change to some other channel. It just seems, I don't know, quite a boring police/crime TV series. I wonder what makes it that popular then? Maybe it is because the content is tame (or is it? I am not sure) so many people accept it?

Or is it that old punk rocker "girl" that people want to see in it? (What is she like, 50 years old, and dressing like a teenager?) Also I am not sure if the crew has changed in the series completely, on some episodes the actors seem completely different than some others. Does it have different branches like CSI? Some older episodes have that grey-hair lead actor, the geeky guy with big cheeks and the punk rocker girl, while some others have that muscular afroamerican and the nerd from Scent of a Woman running and shooting around? Or am I mixing different series up?

EDIT: So IMDB tells that there is at least the original NCIS, and NCIS: Los Angeles, right? So a bit similar like with CSI?

Apples and oranges

Avatar was a one-off movie which is still a landmark film due to its visual effects, though the story was a bit bland. So it is more remembered in the industry than among 'the public'.

Transformers was the next installment in a large and long running franchise, which had an established fan base before release, and still have after.

Frankly, when I think about NCIS (not the LA spin-off which apparently has more shooting), I get a similar feeling as "Murder, She Wrote" or "The Golden Girls" or "Hercule Poirot" or "Yes, Prime Minister!". Tame content that doesn't irritate anyone, so maybe that is the key to wide success? Of course they also have to be well written etc...

We actually had a German remake of Doc Martin set in Frisia, but I think it was dropped after a season. From what I can tell, it was basically a straight-up adaptation of the original. It was alright, just pointless if you know the original. I have the British originals on DVD (imported, obviously).

Even been down to Port Isaac and seen the house. We actually bumped into two other German couples there, so Doc Martin can't be that unknown outside of the UK.

Well I think this is pretty hilarious and it destroys a lot of forensic science: Adam Ruins Everything.

You can watch the full episode here, it goes more in detail about the flaws of lie detector tests, fingerprinting, hair strand matches and bite mark analysis which often send innocent people to jail and explains which methods can be trusted.

The worst of it- poor quality 3D conversions seems to have gone away, but almost every major movie still releases with a 3D version, which over here often makes it a real pain to find a screening that is neither dubbing nor 3D. And seeing a movie in Imax but not in 3D is often simply impossible.

deleted

I'm not sure it had no influence. The movies foundation was showing an alien jungle world in vivid psychedelic colors. And I think this left some kind of imprint.

All GOG's front page mostly share the same style: a horizontal blue-red color gradient. Discrete as it is, it still has a bit of a psychedelic flair:
Turok 2
Kingdoms and Castles
Either One Redux
The Witcher III

Likewise I have noticed a lot of movie posters lately has aimed for psychedelia:
https://i.imgur.com/iudd1QR.jpg

(Of course, there might be other reason for psychodelia to come back in style. I have considered if it could be a result of the VR hype, since crazy-ass color palettes always had been part of how we imagine VR)

What do you mean with "artistic sense" exactly?
The fact that the movie hasn't explored new concepts or that it hasn't become a cult?
Blockbusters have never been famous for that.. it's usually lesser known flicks that obtain such goal.

For me Avatar meant a 3D milestone, due to its cool special effects and the new camera + facial motion caption techniques.
Sadly, the director didn't use the same care while checking the plot and the characters. :\

Well, shows like NCIS have a considerably broader appeal than shows like Game of Thrones. For one thing they are much more family-friendly in comparison, not to mention having a greater appeal among more mature viewers.

In general, fantasy and sci-fi seem to loose out to shows with realistic settings, they are still a required taste.
The exception seems to be modern fantasy and sci-fi, shows like Supernatural and Daredevil.

For the record I think NCIS is much better than Game of Thrones. And 'no' I really don't think Game of Thrones will leave a cultural footprint. Give it 5 years and people will have more or less forgotten all about the show.

As to your topic question, these feel relevant:

The Hunger Games, it seemed really popular at the time, but I can't see it leaving a cultural imprint.
Inception is another one. It was very popular at release but doesn't seem to have left much of a mark.
The Da Vinci Code. The first movie raked in a great deal of money, but interest for the franchise seems to have waned after that.
The Twilight Saga. Again, very popular at the time, but who would give a crap today ?
Independence Day ... it's mainly liked by Americans, and I don't get the impression that it has left a mark on American culture, but maybe I'm wrong since I'm not American or don't live in the US.
...

Looking at the lists of best-selling movies of all time, 80% of them I can't see having left a significant cultural mark.
So the majority of the movies I've been looking at would probably meet the criteria.

Swedish shows and movies tend to focus on crime and drama, and to be frank I think we do crime shows better in Europe. Swedish humor is its own thing. So I think there's a rather strong limit in how much Hollywood can influence European tv culture. The main cultural import from the US has been all these reality TV shows, which we have made our own versions of.

I was just pointing out it was a great show, sorry. :P

I'll leave you alone now.

I've personally always found NCIS to be a bit on the silly side, overstylised, and not in a good way. It think it tends to appeal to people in their early-to-mid 20s.

I always hated how what was supposed to be a police procedural always ended up being more about weird machinations that the team gets mixed up in than the cases. It also irritates me that much of the crime solving tends to be done using deus ex machina solutions whisked up by someone sat at a computer (usually Abby) instead of being character-driven (this is actually a typical sign of lazy writing - see also the Arrowverse series, where the resident computer hack is almost always the one to find the bad guy by GPS, tracking materials, forensics or something).

Law & Order and in particular Special Victims Unit were always the better - and more mature - police procedural series, with much broader appeal, not to mention more logical conclusions.

So you're saying that forgettable flicks are indeed quite forgettable? Amazing.