There are 2 problems currently with movie audio. One is that the channel separation is not as good as it used to be. New movies have 5.1 audio the effect is minimal which no longer justifies the expense on the sound system. People online are saying this is because many movies are made for primarily for streaming and that majority of people listen on their TV or sound bar instead of dedicated surround systems.
The second issue is what you described, the mixing is just bad, sound effects and music are much louder than dialog making it impossible to comprehend without subtitles.
> The second issue is what you described, the mixing is just bad, sound effects and music are much louder than dialog making it impossible to comprehend without subtitles.
The trend of mixing sound effects much louder has been in vogue for longer than star wars exists and not a lot of movies drown out everything in super loud music (Christopher Nolan films being exhibit number 1 lol). I think part of the issue stems from the audio not being adapted for home releases. There used to be special sound mixes for VHS, TV shows and even DVDs (as stereo version of the 5.1 track) that lowered the dynamic range and made everything fairly clear even on your 70s CRT TV speakers.
Nowadays sound engineers probably marvel at how nice and crisp their work sounds on a studio kitted with 1 million worth of audio gear and call it good enough for playback in all systems. Add some directors wanting more "natural" dialog requesting actors to speak softly and the deal is sealed, only the 0.1% can watch anything without subtitles.
I honestly think the solution is for the industry to adopt a standardized audio gain control solution. The only reason we didn't get that in the past was because implementing such things on consumer gear was far too expensive (it was far more cost effective to just pre-process it and deliver the low dynamic range mix right in the medium, with the advantage of the possibility of a custom tuned mix). Today's TVs all have some kind of audio normalization functionality but they are all kinda bad (they alter loudness balance making everything sound tiny, a proper solution requires proper equal loudness contour compensation) and not suited for sudden and constant jumps of volumes like in movie action scenes. It also doesn't helps that every manufacturer does it differently.
For most people a good 2.1 system vs surround or soundbars is where it’s at these days. As you say most surround mixing is an afterthought now anyway.
The physics of moving air to create sound hasn’t really changed in any meaningful ways; the biggest upgrade is usually larger drivers fed with more power. I think most would experience that as much more of a theatre like experience than 7+ tiny underpowered satellites outputting an already bad mix.
I'd say "specific format surround mixing" like 5.1 or 7.1 is mostly an afterthought, but Dolby Atmos (which is "mix once and it automatically folds down properly to the actual number of atmos speakers" has become huge in the audio world according to multiple interviews I've read with pro audio mixers and film/video/TV post folks.
Be careful about Atmos. Most Atmos discs (I refuse to stream it) are a 5.1 TrueHD main setup with atoms layered in. So it's still 5.1 or 7.1 with some atmos effects.
That being said, I have a 7.1.4 Atmost setup and it is on the level of "HOLY SHIT" good.
I mean, I am an audio/videophile with a proper 7.1.4 Atmos setup at home.
I cannot even watch streaming tv or movies on it as it sounds so bad.
But I put in a 4K UHD disc and wow. It sounds better than a real movie theater.
I just think most people are never exposed to what high end movie audio sounds like anymore. I can tell you that channel separation is as good as ever. It's just most people never realize what's possible at home or don't have a room conducive to the setup. Or frankly don't care. My wife loves good movies and she could care less about the sound quality.
Which is weird, because everyone producing video should know that audio is the most important element in a video.
As a point of reference my wife also loves good movies and cares whether she can hear the audio properly but it might be because English is her second language.
The second issue is what you described, the mixing is just bad, sound effects and music are much louder than dialog making it impossible to comprehend without subtitles.