It's almost Thanksgiving again, which means I will not be at home for a few days next week. I am going to be spending Thanksgiving at my parent's house, which means I will be gone from Wednesday until around early Sunday afternoon. In addition, since my parents have shitty internet up there, I will not be able to go online at all while I am gone.

Furthermore, this is an advance notice (and I'll mention it again as it gets closer), but I'm going to Albuquerque for Christmas and I'll be gone most of that week. Unlike when I visit my parents, I should have reliable internet access there, but I probably won't be around as much as I normally am. Expect more details on this in a few weeks.

Now then...as I promised last time, here's the second episode of Independent Thoughts...

Independent Thoughts #2: Why Hollywood continues to make shitty movies

Just over 100 years ago, the first motion picture cameras were first invented and were put into use to document things such as the aftermath of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and the San Francisco earthquake/fire of 1906. Along the line, people got the idea of telling stories through motion pictures while entertaining the masses and making a living while doing so. Thus, the first true motion pictures were born. However, it really wasn't until motion pictures with sound hit the big screen that the movie market took off.

Today, motion pictures are a multi-billion dollar industry, with many of the most popular films easily eclipsing sales figures that seemed be record-breaking about 30 to 40 years ago. As for the quality of the movies produced, ever since the advent of the feature film, the quality has been mixed. Some movies were good, some were not as good, and some of the older movies didn't age well with time as the world became more politically correct and less judgmental over things such as race, religion, or sexual preference (however, there's still work to be done in these areas). However, one of the biggest changes to occur in the movie industry that began close to the same time where TV became common in households were the way the movies were used as advertising vehicles. Furthermore, as children's programming (mostly in the form of cartoons) became more popular, so did the need for movie makers to adapt said shows into movie form. The video game industry also factored into this as well, using the silver screen to adapt a video game into reality.

Adapting such things into movies has been met with mixed results in the past. Adaptations made from books tend to be the most faithful examples and often do a decent job of adapting the story into a screenplay. Movies such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Harry Potter series are good examples of movie adaptations done right. Other areas where film adaptations have some success are when they are based off comic book characters, such as the case with the Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan Batman movies, the Iron Man movies, and The Avengers just to name a few of them.

However, for every good movie adaptation, there's about 800 shitty ones...things such as EITHER of the Power Rangers movies, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, and ugh...the Super Mario Brothers movie, just to name a few. Reasons why movies are poorly adapted are many and vary between either the screenwriters not giving a damn about the material they're supposed to be adapting, bad writing and/or acting, horrid CGI, thinking the audience coming to see the movies are complete morons, or all of the things I just mentioned combined. This is where the major problem begins...

In the past several years, it seems like Hollywood has been content at bombarding us with shitty movie adaptation, remake, pointless sequel, pointless prequel, or anything else they can pull out of their asses in the sake of "entertaining the people". When I watch a movie, I care about two things while doing so, is the movie entertaining (for the RIGHT reasons) and is the story engaging. A movie may be able to get away with having a shitty story if it's also entertaining as all hell (as in a "so bad it's good" way), but no movie can survive without being entertaining. The problem with a movie being entertaining is that there are three types of entertaining...the good kind where a movie is genuinely trying to entertain it's audience and succeeding because it treats them like human beings (I.E.: Aliens, A Christmas Story, just to name a few), the "guilty pleasure" which are movies that aren't necessarily "good" but can provide some entertainment value to certain audiences (In my case, that would include movies such as Howard the Duck, which I honestly don't think it's quite as bad as some reviews lead you to think. I already did a review about that though), and then there's the "bullshit" movie which is where Hollywood thinks that the audience coming to see the film are nothing but morons and pull just about every cliched, low-brow, and crude trick in the book to get people to flock to movies like sheep and keep feeding "the beast".

The following is a list of things that Hollywood has done wrong to the moviegoers in the last several years and are the reason why I'm taking the time I could be using to write some of my own damn stories to bitch about...

<linkarasuperboyprimevoice>"If the people give their money to us, it means they want to see more of this, no matter how shitty our movie is"</linkarasuperboyprimevoice>
This is the cardinal sin of the industry and unfortunately it's not just them that's to blame for it. The moviegoers of the world also share the blame by thinking that just because a movie is "hyped up" or is starring some big name actor or actress or it has a lot of action, it means it must be "good". The truth is, Hollywood's main goal is to sell tickets and make MONEY and the more people spend on a movie, the more they're gonna think that these types of movies are acceptable to the people who go see them. Most film writers, directors, etc, don't give a rat's ass about the people who see their films as they're more intent on turning in a profit rather than making quality products.

<linkarasuperboyprimevoice>"People seem to think jokes about farts and shit are funny, so we're gonna put that in our movies"</linkarasuperboyprimevoice>
No...no it is not funny, there is rarely an instance where these types of jokes are legitimately funny. For example, a lot of you know that I've been a fan of the Angry Video Game Nerd for a few years now and there are several instances where he's taken a "shit" on various games, console accesories, or even one case in a kid's halloween bag. Personally, while I do find most of what he says funny since he's describing what has happened to all of us in the past, whenever he does one of these stunts, I have to ask myself "what in the hell compelled him to do that?!!" However, in James' defense, he did do a couple of "shit jokes" that actually seemed to work fairly well, like during the second part of his Atari Jaguar review where he commented that when you put the Jaguar CD on the console and a game in the cartridge slot it resembled a toilet or during his second fight with "Bugs Bunny" where Bugs takes his own dump over the Nerd as retribution for the Nerd doing the same to Bugs in a previous episode (that particular incident actually made me turn AWAY from the screen when it was on after I had watched it the first time). However, in general, these types of jokes are usually not funny and only further Hollywood's thinking into the "people are morons" mindset.

<linkarasuperboyprimevoice>"Adapting this video game/board game/etc. is too difficult if we follow the original story, so we'll just make some shit up"</linkarasuperboyprimevoice>
Before I go into details, I have one word that can describe all that is wrong with this type of thinking...BATTLESHIP! (or as I prefer to call it...BattleSHIT!)

This kind of thinking is an almost certain recipe for failure. When you take something that people are familiar with and add unfamiliar and uninteresting elements to it, people will react with hostility to your product and therefore not watch it. There are other examples of movies that have done this, including The Super Mario Bros. movie as well as Double Dragon. These movies took well-established characters, themes, and plot devices and completely fucked them all up by doing things that were completely unlike the source material. Such was the case for Battleship. Admittedly though, even if they did follow the general plot of the game, it would've made for a weak story regardless, as there are many other sea battle movies out there with the same general plot as the board game. Adding aliens to it was just downright stupid and unnecessary, I mean, how many Independence Day clones do we really need?

Finally, there's the movie adaptations that DO try and follow the plot of the source material, such as Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat for example. While Street Fighter had significant problems with fitting in just about every character in the game, having a story line that was far too jumpy, and overall bad acting (no disrespect intended to Raul Julia), Mortal Kombat was a bit different. In my opinion, and in many others, Mortal Kombat was the closest thing to a "truthful" adaptation from video game to movie. It followed the basic plot of the game and didn't add anything stupid or unnecessary, the acting was decent enough and it had a few good jokes in it. Plus, the action sequences were decent as well. Some people have complained about how the movie wasn't violent enough (considering all of the fatalities that were in the game), but in all honesty, I didn't find this to be an issue when I watched it. Now, is Mortal Kombat a "good" video game-based movie, well...I wouldn't go THAT far. However, it is at least a "passable" one (unlike it's sequel, which I mentioned above).

<linkarasuperboyprimevoice>"People need to see a whole bunch of products place within the movie, no matter how stupid and shameful these plugs are"</linkarasuperboyprimevoice>
No, we do not...there is plenty of that on the TV as it is! For example, when I watch a movie like Transformers, I do NOT expect to see things like Furby or My Little Pony being plugged in the movie. I don't give a shit if Hasbro had a hand in making the movie and that those products are made by them, putting them in a movie about giant robots is absolutely dumb!

<linkarasuperboyprimevoice>"Our movie was such a success that we need to make a sequel to it, no matter how unnecessary it is"</linkarasuperboyprimevoice>
Before I go into details on this one, I have two words for everyone to think about..."Cars 2"

When the first Cars movie came out in 2006, I went to the movie theater and saw it for myself. Overall, I liked what I saw...granted it was a lot of the same pablum that we've all been fed storywise, but it was still an enjoyable experience for me. I never expected there to be a sequel to this, nor was there any real indication that there would be one. However, last year, Pixar produced Cars 2, which is to this date one of Pixar's biggest mistakes when it comes to making movies. It was bad enough that they made a sequel to a movie that really didn't need one. But to also make it a movie about cars as spies?!! Not only did that violate the "unnecessary sequel" bit, it also violates the "make shit up" one as well!!!

Pixar, you have made some great movies in the past two decades...and I mean those that are great for the RIGHT reasons, like Wall-E and Toy Story for example. These are the kinds of movies I expect from you, ones that are truly creative and interesting, not those that are made for the sake of popularity.

In conclusion...

We all need to do our part to stop these movies from continuing to be made and to get better quality and more interesting films back into our lives. There are several lines of defense that exist to help you decide if a movie is worth spending your hard-earned cash on. Such as the following...

> Sites like IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes (who take the averages of all the accredited reviewers who've viewed the movie and compiles a score that's easy to understand). I usually use Rotten Tomatoes, but either site will work just fine.
> Internet Reviewers (like Brad Jones for example), who are average human beings and a part of the general movie-going public and are generally less cynical than the most accredited film reviewers.
> Individual Film Critics (this can be a bit tricky though since one critic's opinion can vary from another and it's entirely possible that the critic has been "bought off" by a movie studio to say things that aren't true. It's also possible that they could be biased for or against a certain type of movie. Still, most honest critics will try and give a fair and unbiased review on what they thought of a movie)
> Your own instincts (find out all you can about a movie, read articles about it if available, watch previews and trailers of it. Decide for yourself if there is anything in the material you see that sets off warning signals in your head. If this is the case, avoid the movie like the plague!)
> See who's involved in making the movie (if the movie is made by known hacks, (I.E.: Michael Bay, Roland Emmerich, or Uwe Boll), the movies should be avoided given the past history of these people.

If people follow this advice and make more educated decisions about what they watch, perhaps the quality of movies will begin to improve and we'll get more truly entertaining material, rather than the same old slop over and over again.