The Hollywood Equation

 

 

 

 

The Hollywood Equation

 

Are we getting what we asked for?

 

There was an episode of the Geeks Guide to the Galaxy podcast recently that discussed sci-fi movies. More specifically the asked if we should support crappy sci-fi, or big budget spectacle sci-fi films so Hollywood will continue to produce them in the hopes that they will get better over time.

 

My first reaction was to say hell yes we should support them.  Then I started to give the issue some serious thought.

 

I thought about the movies I had seen and supported recently; Jupiter Ascending, Edge of Tomorrow, Automata, Oblivion, to name a few.

 

Some of the movies listed above I enjoyed immensely while others were barely good enough to entertain me, and I’m fairly easy to entertain. Each and every one of these films left me feeling a little disappointed. It wasn’t hard to see that the plots could have better, stronger. Some had decision made to play it safe and appeal to all of us watching that are too stupid to get the deep philosophical stuff (fuck you for thinking that Hollywood!).

 

I started to wonder what the movie landscape would be if we held Hollywood to higher standards. While i did love the fuck out of all the transformers movies, what could they have been if the plot and characters were just as important as the 3D renderings of Optimus Prime?

 

Should I really sacrifice quality for quantity?

 

The answer is no.

 

If we stop supporting big budget halfway decent or shitty movies then they stop being made, or so I hope. Which leaves us, possibly, in a world full of those guilt riddled, over acted, pretentious, I studied at Cambridge so go fuck your own face Oscar bait movies. I can’t tell you how much I hate those movies. Not that they are all bad, but just on principle alone. Put that same level of quality into all of your movies or just stop making movies all together.

 

There is one way we can send a message about what we want to see, two really.

 

First, stop spending money to see these movies. We could, and the maker forgive me for suggesting this, pay more attention to what the critics say before seeing a movie. Not the over blown loud mouths that are mean and nasty for no good reason, but those that do a good job of analyzing a film and giving good honest reviews. They are out there, I promise.

 

Second, we support the people that really I’ve the genres we do and make good films. For the most part this means indie films. There are a lot of really good indie films that don’t receive the attention they deserve. If they did, and those movies pulled in a good chunk of cash, then we would most likely get more films like them, possibly with bigger budgets.

 

It’s going to be hard to not go and see a big budget, explosion riddled, colorful and prety blockbuster, but I think I’ll manage. Will you?