Hollywood just can't seem to do right by me, although I'm certain that I don't matter to Hollywood, anyway.
It's just that, I've been a devoted and loyal follower for so long, and it feels like Tinseltown, you've abandoned me; you are a two-faced traitor with no soul!
Take Star Trek, for example. I was as excited about it as any Trekkie would be. The old movies, the TV shows, all were great intellectual journeys, for the most part, feeding the mind of their valued and appreciated audience of the time. The writers weren't playing silly tricks to fill time, they cared about being smart. The respected me and knew that I wouldn't fall for cheap gimmicks and mirrors, and so they gave me my money's worth.
I assumed the new film would do the same. The trailer, at least, made it out to be so! At the theater, I couldn't wait for it to be over. The trailer lied! The film may as well have been a High School Musical in space. It was a teen movie.
G.I. Joe did not fare any better. The trailers were fantastic, but you couldn't pay me to finish the movie. It was silly, stupid, insulting, disappointing. In other words, it was for adolescents. A teen movie.
Transformers: Great trailer. Yet another teen movie.
This list goes on.
I'm afraid for the future. Tron is on the horizon. I cringe at what you will do to it.
Is it over? Are all of our great stories doomed? If Glen Gould were around, and if he were a film maker, would he quit, run away, go seek a solitary life in the mountain caves of Tora Bora?
Have the teenies taken over our world? Have we been vanquished? Is it over?
Does no one value the art of filmmaking, anymore? Don't the studios have any talented artists on their payroll anymore to write the films? Don't the studios have any shame? Are they hiring laid off Enquirer caption writers? Does talent only exist in the periphery of Hollywood, in the indie circuits?
Please wake up. I know you have to make money, but do you really have to sacrifice your souls?
You are doing a great social injustice to our next generations. You are lowering their standards, and one day, when they belly ache, as I am doing, they will compare the latest film to what they will consider the all-time great Not Another Teen Movie. That will be as good as it gets for them.
And it's all because of you. No one will know what the Godfather (Part 1 and 2, but not Part 3) was. They will have forgotten Casablanca, Apocalypse Now, and Memento!
From now on, I say you let the directors of the trailers make the movies. They get it. They really do. They must be the most tortured souls in Hollywood. Knowing what could be, and what will never be.
James Cameron comes along and makes Avatar. An amazing movie experience. But it wasn't because of a great story. The story itself was your run of the mill average predictable tale. It was all the effects.
The problem is, because we have been exposed to so much that is sub-par, we all feel awed by the ordinary, the average. Something that shouldn't be awesome, awes us.
Dear Hollywood, please don't ruin Tron.