Movie Sequels

So... why do movie companies produce sequels that are absolutely horrendous?

I should probably preface that thought. Having just read Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, I decided that it actually wasn't that bad. The romance was kind of cute, the setting was interesting, and although it definitely lacked in the plot category, it was still a fun read. So I thought: "Self, you should go see the new Twilight movie."

Now, let's be clear. I haven't seen the movie. I am going to see it, but the fact that I haven't seen it is irrelevant, because when 99 out of 100 viewers of a movie said it was crap, then odds are it's crap. Supposedly this is due more to special effects being awful than the acting, but it's still supposedly a horrible movie.

The segue there was that the director producing this movie knew that he was going to have to fulfill the dreams of the hundreds of thousands of Twilight fans out there. If this is (and it is) the case, how on EARTH did he manage to get the movie produced if it's so bad? Like, aren't there test audiences who watch the movie and tell the director how bad it is? I just don't get how movie companies can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a movie, and not realize how bad it is.

I know what they need. Movie companies need to hire high school english teachers. Hear me out. English teachers spend about half their lives correcting and grading the deranged ramblings of their students. Replace "students" with "directors", and you've got the perfect formula for success. Before a director goes anywhere near the final stages of producing the movie, get an average joe English teacher to read over the script, look at the preliminary version of the film, and grade it. An "A" is a go-ahead. "B" and "C" mean some revision is needed, probably in the witty dialogue or plot coherency department, and anything less should be scrapped and started over.

This would save us from all sorts of cinematic travesties. Shrek 3 comes to mind. I would bash the second and third Pirates, but I love Captain Jack too much. I know people say that the POTC sequels were awful, but in truth the first was simply too amazing for anything else to come even close. Yes, the second was very bizarre and very unfulfilling, and the third was ridiculously complex, and I understand that, but at least they were viewable. Shrek 3 was so painful I had to leave the room. Spiderman 3, except for that hilarious Peter-emo scene, was suicide-inducing. The Scorpion King, I haven't seen, but I've been told by very reliable sources that it sucks.

Oh, and need I mention Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Or the entire Star Wars prequel trilogy? I love Ewan McGregor in anything he does, but the rest of those films can go to hell in a handbasket, as far as I'm concerned.

As can be seen, there are many, many sequels that are absolutely atrocious, and they could have been easily avoided if they had just used my movie-editing system discussed above. We'll call it the English Teacher Factor - the ETF for short. I like acronyms. The next time a director decides to make a sequel (*cough*Ironman*cough*), all he needs to do is pull out his friendly neighborhood English teacher, sit them down in front of the script and/or partially filmed movie, and let them go wild with it. Draw red lines all over the script, yell at the emotionless actors if necessary, anything to make the sequel not suck.

I love sequels as much as the next person. Prince Caspian, from the Narnia series, for example, was a thousand times better than the first, and with the addition of scrumptious Ben Barnes it was incredibly watchable. Sequels to the ORIGINAL Star Wars were heaven-sent. The third Indiana Jones rocked, and if anyone even mentions the fourth movie I'll slap them upside the head.

So directors! Movie producers! Anyone and everyone involved in the creation of movies! PLEASE stop making sequels that make movie-goers want to poke their own eyes out! The world is slowly suffering from a defecit of eyeballs, and you know exactly who is responsible! Employ my unpatented and completely available ETF, and your movies will be box-office hits! You'll win Academy Awards! People won't ridicule you for making crappy films! It's a win-win situation!

And, god forbid, you might actually produce a decent sequel.

Fascinating Fact of the Day: The word fascinate comes from the Latin fascinum, which was an amulet shaped like a phallus worn around the neck that was supposed to attract the evil eye. So if you want to avoid bad luck, wear a phallus necklace. How awesome were the Romans?

EDIT: I have been informed that Directors are not the only ones involved in the creation of movies. This is fair. I used director as a blanket term for everyone involved in the movie-making process. However, because when people think movies they think "Shrek the Third by Director Whats-his-name", I'm using director. And seriously, why would anyone want to have their name attached to a horrible movie? Sheesh. 

Anyone still follow the Greek pantheon? Maybe we should take a hint from that...

I hate religion.

Sure, I definitely understand that it was created thousands of years ago by ancient societies trying to find a way to explain the inexplicable wonders of the cosmos. Although of course people are going to disagree with me on this, as the bible goes on and on in excruciatingly dull fashion about faith and belief and the will of God, etc. Whether an invention of man or of "God", religion is imbecilic and a poison to society.

Hear me out. Let's say there actually is a God, for argument's sake we'll call him the Christian God, since Chrisitianity is what prompted this post. This God is supposed to be good, kind, blah blah blah, and we are all supposed to live our lives the best we can so that we can achieve eternal salvation. Disregarding those ridiculous Calvinist theories about only like five thousand people being destined for heaven, this seems like a fairly sound principle to live life on. Treat your fellow humans well, and you'll be rewarded. Nice. If there is a God, that's definitely what he would want.

Then you take the simplest subject in the world: gay marriage. Simple? Ha! The world would disagree, it seems, because as far as I can tell the sole purpose of religion is to deny people the right to happiness. Okay, you've got two men who love each other. They don't engage in displays of public affection, they don't dress horrendously flamboyantly, they aren't any threat at all to Christian society because they aren't even on the radar. Since marriage is NOT a Christian invention - sorry, it's not, it's been around for thousands of years, get over it - they should care absolutely zilch as to whether it's a man and woman or a same-sex couple getting married. Except, oh wait! They do!

Religion, you see, is all about control. The Roman Catholic church used to reign supreme in Europe - remember the Middle Ages? Might as well call them the Catholic ages, because that's what they were. The church was all powerful in Europe, the people were oppressed, corruption was rampant, it was just a horrible place to be. I would know, I'm a history major. But when people started to -gasp!- think, things took a turn for the worst. Why are we giving all our time and money to the church, they said, when most of their beliefs are antiquated and nonsensical, the vast majority of them contradict the other, and myriad other reasons I can't even begin to imagine. Thus Protestantism - still religion, sadly, but at least a step in the right direction - was formed, although now if you look at the bible belt in the States, it's kind of a pity that they ever broke off in the first place. At least the 16th C Catholics weren't brainless rednecks.

Okay, I'm generalizing, and I know that. But... seriously, Adam and Eve? You really think that a rational, civilized person can believe that women in general are the source of all the evils that befall us? Propaganda, people! If you make the women think they're inferior to men, of course they're going to believe it. But, wait a minute, we're both members of the human race, so wtf mankind? Forgive the vulgarity, superiority complexes irritate me nearly as much as football and those stupid "ug" boots or whatever they're called. Oh, and fat-people-rights societies. For the overweight people who are medically incapable of being the proper weight, fine. For all those idiots who live off McDonalds and cry that society is opressing them, get a life. Or better, get a treadmill.

What was I talking about again? Right, religion. Gay marriage. Okay, I don't remember the name off-hand, but like ten years ago there was a young, gay man who was beaten and killed by two straight men just for being gay. At his funeral? Christian protestors with signs that essentially stated the man deserved to die for being homosexual. Yeah, well, you deserve to die for being emotionless bastards who elect morons like George Bush. Seriously, if Barack Obama hadn't won that election, I would... I don't even know. Mass genocide of every person who voted against him comes to mind, but that's probably illegal, and I like to think that they just suffered from temporary insanity.

Okay, enough with the terrorist ramblings. I really do like humanity, on the whole. But... I mean, really? As if you need a reason to hate religion, all you have to do is look at those middle-eastern suicide bombers. I know they're the zealots, the extreme edges of their quite normal religion who, oh yes, make women cover their heads to protect their modesty (I'm sorry, WHAT?), and have like a zillion terrorist groups. I'm not hating on middle-eastern people, I actually have a lot of friends from that part of the world, and they agree entirely with me. Have I mentioned that they're all atheist?

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to believe that there's a god out there somewhere watching over us. Hell, there probably is. But if there really is one, you'd think he'd have the decency to come down and give us a sign once in a while. The Greek gods supposedly did it all the time; the Christian god used to, but now he's randomly M.I.A. and I highly doubt he's coming back anytime soon. So in the meantime we've got to fend for ourselves. Like, isn't it possible for people to be good, upstanding individuals without belonging to semi-insane religious groups?

Somewhere through this rant I think I've hit upon a solution. Yes! A solution! To religion, to human idiocy, to pretty much everything that's wrong with society. I'm starting my own religion - no, as we've established, that implies ignorance and stupidity. Alright, I'm starting my own... checking thesaurus... faction. I like it. I'm calling it the FSP - the Faction for Sane People. We worship not god, but reason and common sense. We believe not in smiting all heretics and non-believers, but accepting the existence of morons in society that must be tolerated, while we gradually work towards their eradication, hopefully by brainwashing, probably by breeding them out or jailing them. Do I sound crazy and quasi-despotic? Oh yeah. Does that make me wrong? Probably, but would a world ruled by intelligent people who care for and protect the rights of their fellow man, who build schools and hospitals rather than weapons, be so bad? I don't think so.

FSP. It'll be a thing. Our first meeting will probably never happen, because no one reads this blog, but I still hope that for all you intelligent, sane people out there who aren't held under the thrall of religion, a better future will be in your grasp someday soon.

Random fact: John Smith was not blonde, nor did he wear shiny blue armor. Pocahontas was eleven when he met her, and her father was deceptive and homicidal.

I'm paying $50 for this...?

The Setting: History of International Relations Class

The Players: My professor (known as Mr. X), myself, and approx. 50 classmates

So today I dragged my weary body to my dreadfully dull evening class, ready for three hours of Mr. X's hopelessly mangled attempt at explaining history in the most convoluted manner possible.

Then I get into class, and discover the Obama presidential election speech - you know, the one where he's ridiculously inspirational and you wonder how anyone could even think of voting against him (that wasn't sarcasm). Fair enough, the election was yesterday, and this is a semi-polysci class. 

But by the one-hour-in mark, we're still talking about the American election. Now, I love a good ol' politics chat as much as the next hopelessly dull individual, but I'm here to learn about the HISTORY of INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, not a modern day election, regardless of how interesting it may be. 

What is going to happen to the lesson plan Mr. X had set out for today? Are we doing it next week instead? But that would set us back a week, and there are only so many weeks in a semester. Drop the lesson altogether? But... you can't just leave out a chunk of history, it puts everything out of context (not that there was much to begin with in this class).

You can see the problem I have with this. Now, I'm all for professors shaking things up a bit and trying new things, but seriously, that's only alright for like an hour, tops. I'm sitting on a painfully hard wooden chair, wishing I could be researching my essay (due on Monday, which I've barely started), and Mr. X is babbling on for THREE HOURS about something NOT EVEN RELATED TO THE COURSE.

I suppose I should be listening. I'm sure he has lots of insight to offer on the current state of world politics. But you know what? I have only a passing interest in politics, and I certainly don't want to talk about it in a classroom at 9:30 on a Wednesday evening. Call me irrational, call me a diehard, old-school fanatic, but really, when did lecturing your students on the SUBJECT OF THE COURSE become so radical a concept?

Now Mr. X says "I'd argue that our discussion this week is more important than... our discussion next week". What does that mean for his lesson planning abilities? I genuinely like Mr. X, but really, he needs to learn how to plan his lectures better. And on that note, professors in general need to learn how to make powerpoint presentations. Slides that say:

The American Revolution

- economy

- social issues

- military power

-- are NOT good slides! How the hell are you supposed to take notes from that? Any idiot knows that the economy, military, and society were a part of the American Revolution. Give me names, dates, or something that I can use for the invariably impossible final exam!

All I can say is: learn to teach, professors. We're paying you something obscene like $50 an hour each to fill our minds with knowledge, so fill them already!

Interesting Fact: the first tv show to have a toilet onscreen was Leave it to Beaver.

Librum versus Movieum

--LEGEND OF THE SEEKER--

Finally, the much-celebrated novels of Terry Goodkind are coming to the television screen, and you know what? I'm about ready to bash my skull straight through this dirt-encrusted monitor. We all remember Lord of the Rings? That awesome trilogy which made obscene amounts of money, catapulted Orlando Bloom to stardom, and generally kicked arse? I thought as much. It was dramatic, it was romantic, it was thrilling... and if you actually bother to read the books, its completely different in nearly everything except the overarching plotline.

Let's try another example. Okay, Harry Potter. Children's book series, JK Rowling, multi-million dollar franchise, paved the way for today's children to actually pick up a book and stop wasting their lives following professional wrestling, or whatever nonsense they're throwing their brain cells away on nowadays. Movies? Not so good, it's true, but not because they didn't follow the books to a tee. The first two were rather infantile, the middle two didn't make a whole lot of sense, and the latest was actually pretty decent, likely due to the increasingly mature content.

My point? The new Legend of the Seeker show is being bashed by every Dick and Sally out there because they feel that the first 30 minutes (released a few days ago to spark interest in the Nov. 1 premiere) are nothing like the books. That's fair enough - I've seen the first 10 minutes (we'll get to why that's infuriating in a second) and there's some nonsense about the Book of Counted Shadows being in Kahlan's possession, her sister being momentarily alive, Richard randomly building bridges for no apparent reason. The list continues.

What really grinds my gears is that people assume from this that the show is going to suck. If you didn't like the cinematography or acting in the clip, fine, you get your own opinion and I will begrudgingly accept it. If you didn't like the books, well, you need serious mental therapy, but I guess that's a fair reason not to watch the show. What you don't get to say is that the show will be awful because it deviates from the book. Guess what? The book had about four characters for most of the first quarter of the novel, and that translates rather poorly to a television show.

That isn't to say that I like the changes they're making. I don't mind adding characters, or interesting side adventures, but changing the fundamental plot of the story seems a bit... pretentious of them. But what you have to remember is that Terry Goodkind gave them the go-ahead on this project. He's the author, and if he accepts it, I think that should be good enough for the rest of us. He created the world, remember?

But back to my point. Any book to screen adaptation is going to be different, and that's just a fact. Moaning in forums about how different it looks is just a waste of your time and mine. Then you get those idiots who go on and post embarassingly ignorant statements like "this looks like garbage" or "i'm not watching this, it'll just massacre the book". And no, those weren't actual examples, as I doubt any of these literary geniuses would know what 'massacre' means, let alone have actually read Goodkind's series. Look, guys, if you aren't a fan of fantasy or Goodkind, then bugger off and go watch sports. If you are, then give it a chance before you denounce something that you haven't even seen. I'd almost compare you to that ridiculous American woman who tried to ban the Harry Potter books for allegedly containing demon worship and anti-Christian values, but even I'm not that cruel.

Also! The American economy is destroyed, their president is an idiot, they are quite possibly going to elect another idiot to take his place (and if Obama doesn't win, seriously, the Americans deserve every terrible thing that happens to them), and yet everything still seems to be centered around the mighty US of A. I'm not actually trying to bash America here, but seriously, why is everything based around this fundamentally flawed society? The actual thing I wanted to say was that I'm ticked off at how non-Americans can't access certain features on American sites, and how they can't download anything from the USA itunes store, but now that I think about it, we need to get over our obsession with America.

That pretty much wraps up my rant. For everyone who skipped to the end, here's the summary: don't assume something is crap merely because it is different, don't assume something is crap merely because you don't understand it, and all Americans should pick up a non-American-published history textbook and learn about the men and principles their society is actually based around.

Noggin Scratcher of the Day: voracious -- original definition = to eat. Therefore "a voracious eater" = an eating eater.