EPTNeedless to say I've had a little to drink tonight. Not too much. Just enough to feel excited about starting a spark and see if people feel like helping me make a fire, and maybe throw in some wood after that.
I don't know if there were others talking about a starcraft movie and I don't really care. Not checking previous blogs is not a crime, regardless I think I have something to say that hasn't been said. If not I apologize for not caring.
I don't know if there were others talking about a starcraft movie and I don't really care. Not checking previous blogs is not a crime, regardless I think I have something to say that hasn't been said. If not I apologize for not caring.
Tell you what I'd hate to see , a blockbuster. I'm sure many would disagree, stating "well what's wrong with a high-budget production with high-profile actors and proven directors and special effects?"
It would be shit. By shit I mean it would have to traverse the digestive system of Hollywood, through all that analytical and statistical filtering and come out an awe-inspiringly polished piece of turd. Serious capital gets injected into a movie only if someone can vouch for its success; that someone is usually the mindless selection entity, consisting of a set of principles proven to bring big revenues. There's a clutch documentary about this .. if you know which one I mean good for you.
The point is the blockbuster machinery of Hollywood is a thing. It's a man-made organism subject to the laws of evolution in a blasphemous way. Take for instance the journey of a script; until it gets to the stage of being handed out to actor candidates it gets rewritten about 100 times, not to mention all the changes that come afterwards (before and during actual filming). So even at this stage it is impossible to maintain a level of originality, genuine artistic inspiration because it all gets washed away by all these renown writers who pick up the original script and add their "recipes of success" to it, even if they don't know anything about the domain of the themes portrayed in the film, until it's a mosaic of sterile eye-candy and senseless mind-fucking like Sucker Punch. And the ironic thing is that the level of capital investment grows proportionally to the number of hands the script passed through. Thus the more hype a script creates the more people get involved and the less likely it is that the movie will be about starcraft and not about some movie with aliens and a foxy bug queen getting humped by some muscular Dwayne Johnson type at the end. Ironic thing #2, the movies that somehow managed to defy being assimilated into this digestive process are the best movies ever made, cult movies. Movies with character.
The degrading influence of this degenerate billion dollar market doesn't stop at movies, where one would think it has reached the limits of its influence; I firmly believe the polished eye-candyness of sc2, roughly 95% of the content / innovation added to BW, is a byproduct of it. The mainstream gaming industry has become just as corrupt and immune to honest creativity. It simply marginalizes that which matters most.
Don't get me wrong, there wouldn't be a problem if this sort of movie-making and game-development could get along with real movies and games, but blockbusters starve unconventional movies; and games with shiny graphics and fancy explosions push aside revolutionary-concept games. The money is a fixed value in this equation, not a variable.. it just is a steady stream and it gets dam-ed and rerouted; i mean you will go to see movies and play games even if the standard is low. Just look at how low it is today. I haven't seen a Hollywood instant classic since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). Haven't played a game worth dedicating oneself to be good at since Brood War. Whatever, forget this part. Don't you try to troll me by saying my taste sux cause that will just result in your comment being deleted. Instead try to grasp the inefficiency of the blockbuster concept, it's like a bully in the schoolyard.. squeezing the life out of bright students who have it in them to make amazing impact on the world.
Tell you what I'd like to see, an anti-blockbuster. By the rough definition I gave above, the opposite of a blockbuster is not necessarily a low-budget, unknown cast / director production; but rather a movie which sticks firmly to the theme and subjects portrayed. It's still teamwork but without fragmentation and reediting that reaches further than it should, meaning there is one or two writers, 1 director and talented, modest actors without fits and making air about their character not being stressed enough, like I imagine Milla Jovovich and most of the cast of Resident Evil bitched about in the most recent Resident Evil. There's a perfect example for everything I've been saying, fucking Resident Evil man, How awesome it was and how shit it has become. I doubt anyone will ever be claiming Afterlife or RE5 to be a classic, whereas RE1 was the definition of awesome and I guess the first two movies were pretty nice.
Anyways,
Like the economy, the movie- and games industry has its loopholes and its fuck you sides. A good producer knows how to navigate inside this entity, knows its language and how to take advantage of the dimensions and imbalance of supply and demand in order to create shitty clones of movies.
A legendary producer knows that if he goes for a project that is the exact opposite of what the machinery says it should be .. then it's pure gold. Have total disregard of any proven standard and techniques they teach at film schools and sterile gists that the connaisseurs like to implement, and you're on the right fucking track. Why? Because with blockbusters everything that has ever been established in the industry is a reaction to the demand of the public, the viewers. That's why it will always be 2 steps behind. Even if originality hits the industry people in the face they'll always wait for a testing / digestive cycle or two, waiting for the publics reaction before they can assume that it's safe to throw big bucks at it, and even then it will just mash up with the rest of recipes for successful revenue making. And by then it will be unoriginal on all accounts. You want instant connectivity with the world, fresh and vibrant newness .. not some lagging, limping Frankenstein ball of spaghetti.
An idea for an anti-blockbuster:
+ Show Spoiler +
Tell you what .. i'll add this later on if I still feel like it.
