Quentin Tarantino calls Yellowstone a “soap opera” due to its ‘forgettable’ format

As Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone wraps its final, and possibly last, season, Quentin Tarantino has revealed he is a fan… to a point.

Our current era is an excellent one in many ways for fans of quality television. Series like Game of Thrones and The Rings of Power are getting movie-grade budgets, while bona fide movie stars like Nicole Kidman, Dwayne Johnson, Harrison Ford, and Kevin Costner are now gracing the small screen.

Tarantino, a bit of an iconoclast, has always been known to voice strong opinions and to advocate for the importance and value of movies. His latest comments have thrown down the gauntlet against the entire idea of prestige TV, Yellowstone included.

Even the best series don’t have a true payoff, Tarantino says

Paramount

In an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience (with his Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary), Tarantino admitted that cinema-grade technique goes into the best modern television series.

“Everyone talks about how great television is now. And it’s pretty good, I gotta say, but it’s still television to me […] they’re using cinematic language to get you caught up in it.”

Tarantino used Yellowstone to illustrate his perspective. “I didn’t really get around to watching Yellowstone the first three years or so, then I watch the first season and I’m like ‘Wow, this is f*cking great!’” He went on to describe happily watching a few seasons of the series, as well as its spinoff 1883.

The binge prompted an epiphany for the director: “While I’m watching it, I am compelled, I’m caught up in it. But at the end of the day, it’s all just a soap opera. They’ve introduced you to a bunch of characters… and then everything else is just your connection to the soap opera, of what’s happening to this [or that] character.”

He contrasted this against a top-shelf Western film. “I’ll see a good Western movie and I’ll remember it the rest of my life,” Tarantino continued, “There’s a payoff to it, but there’s not a payoff on this stuff. There’s just more interconnectional drama, and while I’m watching it, that’s good enough. But when it’s over… I don’t remember any of the details of it.”

Tarantino discusses Yellowstone at the 1:56:23 timestamp below.

Yellowstone’s Season 5 finale is surely long enough to be a movie, so here’s to hoping it lands enough dramatic gravitas to change the director’s mind.