Because many of these films have left much to be desired, we’ve had fewer reasons to justify spending over $30 on a semi-enjoyable DVD ($50 if you’re in Japan), and it’s becoming painfully obvious that the era of originality is long gone as every movie seems to be a remake of a remake, and an exceptionally poor one at that.  Movie-goers need something new to keep us interested, and movie companies need something new to bring in the huge revenues they enjoyed in the latter part of the 20th century.  But how can they do this?

Remakes, Re-Tellings, and R-Kelly’s

Over the last few years we’ve seen a number of big-budget remakes.  Batman, Superman, Charlie’s Angels, Indiana Jones, Hulk, Daredevil, Spiderman, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Star Trek, Transformers, the Bourne trilogy … the list goes on.  Of the movies in this list, none were watchable with the exception of the excellent Bourne movies.  In every case, the movies made after 2001 were almost a complete re-write of the original stories where only the character names were left intact.  These radical story changes were unwelcome by almost everyone who had enjoyed the orginal stories.  In some cases, movie fans were R. Kelly’d with explanations involving alternate timelines, in other cases there was no justifyable excuse for the complete story re-write.

But this wasn’t going to stop anyone from paying the ridiculous ticket prices to see these computer-enhanced films with bastardized story lines. No-sir-ee.  Instead many of us went to the theatres knowing that the movie was going to require that we leave our cognitive functions at the door and sit back to ooh and ahh the increasingly realistic computerized explosions and impossibly massive scales of enemy machinations.  The hideously incomplete plot lines, redundant one-liners, and completely pointless sex scenes were just “bonus” features.

Enter the Competition

The chances of movie studios movie away from the highly lucrative existing franchise story re-writings is slim and none, so we’ll probably see an increasing number of underwhelming stories released in the next few years until the video game industry perfects their interactive movie technologies.  So, to pass the time until such a day actually arrives, I have a suggestion to the big movie studios to help them boost (apparently) sluggish movie attendance and low DVD/Blu-Ray sales: a profits competition.

The premise would be incredibly simple.  A single story is selected to be made into a mega-blockbuster, and several production crews work in separate teams to out-do the other.  The finished movies will all be released the same month, and customers who attend the movie will have a website address on the ticket as well as a unique id number that will give them the opportunity to say whether the movie was good, okay, or complete blah.  Of course, people who have seen one movie can watch the other movies at a discounted rate, giving them the opportunity to see the different versions which will undoubtedly all have different plot twists and enough differences to not bore the audience.  Once all the votes are tallied, the movie with the highest number of positive votes will win all the profits to the three movies.  The other movies will only have their production costs covered.

Of course there would need to be certain monetary caps put in place. Actors, directors, and everyone else with big contracts would only be paid a base, with bonuses dependant on the results of the audience surveys.  There are undoubtedly a few other areas that I don’t know about which would need to be complicated by contracts and whatnot, but this could usher in a new kind of movie-going experience.  No longer would we feel powerless to voice our complaints against a bunch of multi-millionaire entertainment-types who delivered a shoddy product!

But would this work?

That’s the question, isn’t it? Would people be willing to watch two, three, or four movies with the same characters and (heavily modified) base script and give their opinions online afterwards?  It would be a nice revenue stream for the big movie companies if it did work, though.  Not only could they sell the “winning” DVD later, but they could make bundles with the losers raking in a passive income as well.

Alas, this will probably never come to pass. Why do something that could excite the consumer when it’s more profitable to sue them for stealing the current not-so-creative works online?  I’m not being unreasonable with my expectation to receive a quality and mostly creative product for my hard-earned money, am I?

Do you think current movies are still worth today’s admission price? Would a competition for profits improve the quality of “blockbuster” films?  I’d love to know your thoughts.

Like all movies of this genre, the story is incredibly simple.  The guys are all testosterone fuelled muscle nuts who are also pretty handy behind the wheel of a super-tuned machine.  They go through women at roughly the same rate as they do NOS and, when they’re not behind the wheel, they’re using mostly regurgitated sentences from various magazines and movies in such a way that you’re left wondering whether a script was ever written in the first place.  Throw in a lot of money, partially clothed women, a drug dealer, and some anal-retentive FBI agents, and you’ve got yourself a highly anticipated guy flick.

“But these movies are so stupid!” you say?  You’re right.  They are.  But they have one thing that so many other supposed blockbusters don’t have: an incredibly small list of expectations from movie-goers.  Fast & Furious might not be up for any Oscars, but the movie will undoubtedly entertain people far better than any Hollywood film that’s won one of those ridiculous awards in the last decade.

To prove the point, let’s take a quick look at some of the other highly anticipated movies and see how they stack up against Justin Lin’s car chase movie.

Star Trek

Highly anticipated, and acclaimed by literally hundreds of people, Star Trek turned out to be little more than a middle-finger to every true Trek fan in the known universe.  An alternate universe?  Another one?  Are you kidding me?  A brand new Constitution Class vessel that is also the flagship of Star Fleet is crewed by a bunch of children?  How many people over the age of 25 were on that ship?  Two?  What happened to all the seasoned veterans?  Romulus is destroyed in the (original) timeline, now?  C’mon … isn’t that a little much for the Sundered?  They were already forced to leave Vulcan centuries before, and now this?

Or how about the illogical state of affairs in terms of planetary defense forces.  Are you telling me that a planet as old and powerful as Vulcan had ZERO war ships to defend itself with?  Sure, these people may not be as violent as Humans or Romulans, but they were essentially the intergalactic police when Archer was around just a few decades prior.  The same thing is seen around Earth near the end of the movie.  Were was the local military?  Star Fleet had zero ships inside the solar system?  The Earth, despite having changed to a mostly-altruistic society, didn’t have anything to attack that huge laser with?

Oh, but that’s right.  This is an alternate timeline.  None of this actually happened.  Pfft.  It’s almost as insulting as those TV shows where you find out at the end of a show that everything that just happened was “just a dream”.

I have enjoyed Star Trek for most of my life, seen every episode of every series, read almost every novel written and, although there is a tendency for a planet’s population to tremble in fear while waiting for the valiant crew of the Enterprise to arrive from some distant corner of the local galaxy to save the day, I cannot believe that the home worlds of such historically militaristic peoples would be so helpless.

Terminator 4

For a group of quick-thinking killing machines that want to ‘terminate’ all humans, they sure are stupid.  First off, why would you want to turn the planet into a freakin’ wasteland at the same time as exterminating a species?  Sure, you hate people.  But what will be done with the planet after they’re eventually wiped out?  Or does layers and layers of debris not interfere with the ability to mine the world’s resources?  Also, why not just release some highly infectious disease?  Why waste so much time hunting down every last being when disease would be far more effective and carry zero consequence for the race of machines?  To that matter, why destroy humans at all?  Why not just leave the planet to convert the moon into some private world all your own?  No muss, no fuss.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

I shouldn’t even have to say anything about this one.  There’s plenty all over the internet about how this farce should never have even made it out of the transcript stage.  Neither Speilburg nor Lucas should be permitted to work on a film ever again.  This was proven after that last joke of an Indiana Jones movie.

More of the Old …

The one thing that really upsets me about almost every recent Hollywood movie is the fact that nobody can create anything new, anymore.  Every big movie that comes out is little more than a remake of something that was incredibly popular before.  How many “alternate story lines” can we really have for Batman, Spiderman, X-Men, Star Trek, Transformers, Indiana Jones, and everything else?  How hard is it for a group of authors whose job it is to think of new things to actually think of a new story and present it?  It’s gotten to the point where it’s no longer worth paying the $3 to rent a movie because I work harder to earn that $3 than the writers and director did to make the movie.

Alas, I digress.  So long as this trend does not begin to leak into Japanese anime and manga, then I’ll survive.  I don’t think I could accept an alternate storyline to stories like Hikaru no Go, Midori no Hibi, Detective Conan, or Chibi Maruko.

What do you think of the current spate of Hollywood movies?  Is it even worth the money to see these visually spectacular farces in the theatre, anymore?

The movie is said to be inspired by the Hans Christian Anderson classic, “The Little Mermaid,” but there will be very few similarities between the original story or the Disney re-telling.  The story’s main character, Ponyo, wants to see more of the world and escapes her home on a jellyfish.  After running into some trouble with the excessive amount of man-made garbage in the oceans, a boy named Sosuke helps her out and vows to protect the girl from harm.

I won’t go into too much detail, as that would spoil the fun of the movie, but it’s one of those films that people will think of as an instant classic the moment they see it.

That said, perhaps due to my limited Japanese skills, there are some areas that are difficult to understand.  The comments about the proximity of the Moon and how most of an island was completely drowned by the ocean continues to leave me perplexed.  Yet despite the slight confusion, the 110 minute journey into the life of Ponyo and her quest to grow up is a great story for anyone regardless of age or linguistic ability.

Not Miyazaki-sensei’s Last

I’ve had the opportunity to enjoy most of Miyazaki’s works, with the first being Nausicaa.  He’s been said to be one of Japan’s biggest cultural exports and his last film, “Howl’s Moving Castle,” broke box office records in Japan before winning a following among anime affectionados around the world.  What’s interesting, though, is that he has stated repeatedly that he’d like to retire.

Viewers of Gake no Ue no Ponyo will probably notice that there is absolutely no computer animation involved in the movie.  Miyazaki has said that using pencils will be the only way for the Japanese animation market to stay alive, as it sets them apart from the rest of the world.  Regardless of how accurate the statement might be, the hard labour involved to create this motion picture classic can certainly be appreciated.  170,000 hand-drawn pictures were used to animate characters and objects.  A record number for anything done by Miyazaki.

There are also a number of manually drawn pictures as the background, which can be seen with every scene where the small town (possibly in Kobe prefecture) is visible.

Mr. Miyazaki is getting close to 70 years of age, but I certainly hope he doesn’t give up his art.  The man does deserve a rest and to enjoy his remaining  years on the Earth but, at the same time, he clearly loves his craft and it would be a shame if the youthful wonder he adds to the films were to be limited.

If you get a chance, go see Gake no Ue no Ponyo.  Young or old, married, single, other … it doesn’t matter.  The movie is a timeless classic that can be enjoyed by all people, regardless of what moment in life we happen to be in.

Naturally, the characters were permitted to be a little more brazen on the big screen.  Marge took the Lord’s name in vain, Homer gave the middle finger, and we even get to see Bart skateboard through the city naked (not that I’m interested in seeing young boys skateboard through a city in the buff, but it was funny nonetheless).

I’ll admit that before going in to the show I had my doubts.  The three trailers I had seen had nothing to do with each other, and I couldn’t piece the story together mentally beforehand, but the writers certainly came through with a decently put together script that had the theatre laughing.

Of course there were a few times I found myself to be one of a few people laughing at the jokes (Mr. Burns’ racial comment had me laughing pretty hard while the audience remained silent), and the characters came through with their classic wit.

Okay … I think I’m rambling here, as it’s way past my bedtime

If you get a chance to see the movie, I’d certainly recommend it.  If you haven’t watched Simpsons for a few years, then this will remind you of what the show used to be.  For anyone with an encyclopedic knowledge of The Simpsons (guilty), you’ll love all the vague references to the 400+ previous episodes.

If you have seen the movie, what did you think?  Worth the money (or download) ?

I’m not sure what it is about this idea, but I have this strange sense of excitement about it.  Perhaps it’s because I will actually be able to relate to the people that are chronicled in the documentary, or perhaps it’s because this is the first time I’ve heard of such a film.  But then of course, the word “documentary” is enough to get me excited most days alone, regardless of the subject ….

With Paperplane Productions producing the video, Mr. P (a.k.a. Sneaky Bastard) will scour the earth in search of 10 bloggers that blog everyday to ordinary people.  These can be the authors behind popular, new, professional, personal, rambing, random, adult, elderly, and niche sites.  If there’s a category I missed, that’s okay, because he’s looking for those, too!  The key is to have a story that the world will love (or hate) to relate to, and Mr. P will fly to anywhere in the world to let you tell the tale.

At the moment, there is no way we can apply to be a part of the documentary, but if you keep checking his Blogging the Movie site, the instructions will soon be posted.  Chances are that a contest will be posted and people will be invited to submit their sites that way.

Personally, I hope it’s a contest where readers vote for the winners.  People could post their site, and if visitors think that the site is worth a mention, they give it a point.  Not only would this have the potential to save Mr. P countless hours of labor, but it would give the blogging community as a whole the opportunity to play a role in this film about their world.

This has the potential to become one of the biggest contests the blogosphere has ever seen, so stop by and check it out.

Since hearing about this movie, everyone has known that it would be 95% war and 5% back-story.  We were not disappointed.

Frank Miller’s 5 issue graphic novel was published by Dark Horse Comics almost ten years ago, and I remember reading this shortly after moving into my first apartment.  The story line is pretty simple:  Persians approach Greece with plans of global conquest, and Sparta is but one of a few states that try and prevent it.  The movie barely strays from the original.

There’s plenty of blood, dismembered body parts, CG animated enemies and sceneries, and even a few sex scenes.  While I wouldn’t recommend this kind of movie for anyone that can’t handle excessive death, blood and gore, this is a pretty enjoyable movie.

Rather than get into the details of the movie, I would suggest watching it.  To quote some of the reviews I’ve seen elsewhere; this is made of win.