Reading Terra Ignota now. I think that would work as a trilogy (it's 4 books). Recently read Lillith's Brood. Also trilogy suitable. And Schismatrix Plus perhaps. In fantasy... any major material that stops at 3ish and hasn't been done? I think Gormenghast perhaps.
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3 movies is really optimal for a single storyline. Another that nails the medium-story fit is the Nolan Batman trilogy. Original Raimi Spider-Man tried, but unravelled completely in the third part. By the time we got to Avengers, the extended universe context made it different.
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I actually can't think of any single storyline movie series that worked to 4+ parts. Things like James Bond are more like sitcoms in that they are episodic stand-alone stories within an unchanging context (though latest Bond thing tried a bit of extended universe long-arc-ing)
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I'll never cease to be impressed by a single human brain grappling with the limits of heterogenous complexity at vast scale, across dozens of modes.
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The key is heterogeneity. The complexity here is arguably of a higher order than of what say a mathematician like Grothendieck wrangled into submission, since that is a kind of cognitive monoculture inside a savant brain. Ditto people who architect say big pieces of software.
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What kind of brain can keep a zillion moving parts of *different types* in its head with auteur rigor like this? Story, vast laboring crew, actors, top creative lieutenants, props, fx tech, capital raising politicking, schmoozing governments, field infrastructure...
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I can keep fairly big piles of ideas and thoughts in my head, but it's... just thoughts, and even with that least forgiving of material, I can't reach these scales of mental heavy lifting. Even with the best project management discipline.
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And note the sheer time pressure. Many CEOs run more complex empire, but they do so one quarter at a time at a steady tempo for years on end, with no definite expectations. This was an intense 438 day heavy lift where 90% of the complexity was being wrangled all at once.
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I'd say during that one core production year, Peter Jackson was probably operating at like 3x Steve Jobs or Musk-level. A one-rep max, but still. I'm surprised he didn't break down into a screaming nutjob by the end of it.
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Zeal for the source material was probably key to maintaining morale, and also likely allowed an eager computation approach, where all his prior filmmaking efforts caused him to imagine “but what if I faced a similar problem on those movies I *really* want to make?”
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