The fabled Blog Post - Movies to Watch
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It's me again! Today, a good friend texted me asking me which film I wanted to see. So I hop onto my computer, and google rotten tomatoes and see what's out. I'm greeted with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II. And then it hits me. The reason that all these movies are going down the toilet is that none of them are original – all of them cheap spin-offs or sequels.
None of the other Harry Potter books were significantly longer than the Deathly Hallows. Every single one of the other books fit into one movie. Why did the last one need 2 parts? Especially since the first part was honestly a disgrace to movie making, just one long trailer to the second part of the film. Yeah, I think the answer is that the guys at Warner Bros spotted a smart, business, art crushing idea, and took it.
Another company is DreamWorks. Yes, the name is pretty goddamn awesome. But, after Shrek the 4th, I really didn't care. Filled with old gags and laughs, and a storyline that was about as good as a child's pop out book, this film seemed like a terrible way to end what I had found to be a hilarious idea and execution. In the first movie that is. I was joking the other day, telling my friends about a world where "Shrek the 415th. This time, it really is the last one!" was actually a reality.
Another thing. Michael Bay, are you listening? Michael Bay is actually the worst film director I have ever watched. All his movies are packed with explosions, crap story lines, and huge runtimes. Just look at the Transformers series. Ok, the first one was just about watchable, and for a 9 year old version of myself, it was rather good. Still long, still explosive (the nice way to put it). But original (sort of?). The next one was atrocious, a long winded story again full of special effects that were totally unnecessary. There was one poignant scene (in the snowing forest if you were curious) and the rest were laughably bad. Transformers 3, which I really didn't want to see (but eventually did), wasn't good either. Same consensus, too much fighting, too many explosions, nothing above that, no meaning, no depth. Enter Inception. A film, even with all its flaws, that creates a successful mixture of violence, fast paced action, and mind blowing ideas. I, for one, vote that we send Mr. Bay thousands of copies of the script of Inception. That's how it's done.
So now you think I'm a cynic, a pompous ass. Well guess what, there are movies that I like. And funnily enough, one studio has created most of them. Pixar. How do they do it? A film that can make adults and children cry, laugh and enjoy, all at the same time. The Incredibles. Toy Story. Cars. Wall-E. And notice, no cheap sequels. The Incredibles – one of my favorite films, could have been cheaply rehashed and branded and Pixar could have made millions. But no. As Brad Bird (Director of the Incredibles) once said;
"I think at Pixar, the bottom line is the story that you're telling. And Pixar does not look at sequels as a financial plan. We feel we have a relation ship with the audience and that they believe in each movie we put out. We believe completely in every movie we put out. If I can come up with a story that is as good or better than that first film, then I'd love to return to that world, but it would have to be story first."
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~Kartik
