You know, I'm a little shocked that you didn't pick up on this Bob.
President Obama = sports geek
President Obama = sports geek
Stop Blowing My Mind!
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Even though I'm one of those who agree with you I'm going to take a stab at it.Abanic said:
While both movies follow the The path to Hell is paved with Good Intentions shtick, the way that they approach them is entirely different.
With Batman, his previous choice to spare his love interest the possibility of becoming a retaliatory target has pushed her into the arms of another man, thus making her a target and leading to her death anyway. Also, despite the fact that at the end of the film he becomes the scape goat to save the name of another, it was a conscious decision. Said decision also leads to batman becoming hunted and kills his name for the general public. However as Bruce Wayne he suffers none of the associated backlash with his actions.
Now for Watchmen, you have a super hero who's actual identity is known to the world and has been used to make him very wealthy. Prior to the movie he had embarked down a path that would lead to the deaths of millions of innocent people in a bid to create world peace. During the movie he ends up murdering a fellow hero, who also had ties to the CIA and was rather morbid in his own past. Led to himself being hunted by a sociopathic hero (the movie really did not do Rorschach justice as a character.) that when it has become apparent, gives all of his known information to a right winged political publication......you know what for this I'm just going to say that it's the complexity of the characters and the implication that instead of saving the world from itself, Ozymandias simply set in motion the final pieces for nuclear Armageddon, even if most of the implications from this angle of the comic were removed from the movie itself.
Al Gore has nothing to offer the nerd community, nor is he anywhere the most influential non-elected political force. That's about as much of a joke as his "global warming" farce is.
I think you are wrong on this one, Bob. Scott Pilgrim, Watchmen, and Kickass are all very, very geek-centric, but there is still dissent about whether they are any good. I for one consider Scott Pilgrim to be drivel, and when I heard the movie was coming out the only thing I felt was a resounding "meh". I'd never, ever heard of Kickass before the movie, and Watchmen, while good, was poorly translated between media forms. To me, these don't appeal at all to the mass market, not just to "the average movie-goer", but to the nerd community in general. These aren't "classics." They sure aren't Batman, or Iron Man. You can attribute Iron Man's success to Robert Downey Jr. if you want, and I have no doubts that he was a major player in that respect, but you also have to remember that this was one of his break-out films. While he was a great actor before Iron Man, he was by no means a household name. I consider myself somewhat movie-literate, and the only thing I recognized him from was U.S. Marshals, and Shaggy Dog, both of which he did very well in. Now, look at him: He's been Iron Man, he's been Sherlock Holmes, he's scheduled to played Edgar. Mother-Loving. Poe. Iron Man re-launched his career.
Geek Movies are not dying, friend. They are just beginning. On a sidenote to all of you, not just Bob: Can we stop with the Blind-Side jokes? It was a decent movie, despite what you want to think about the message. Get over it already, it is in no way responsible for any perceived wrongs in the movie industry. Sheesh.
I think you are wrong on this one, Bob. Scott Pilgrim, Watchmen, and Kickass are all very, very geek-centric, but there is still dissent about whether they are any good. I for one consider Scott Pilgrim to be drivel, and when I heard the movie was coming out the only thing I felt was a resounding "meh". I'd never, ever heard of Kickass before the movie, and Watchmen, while good, was poorly translated between media forms. To me, these don't appeal at all to the mass market, not just to "the average movie-goer", but to the nerd community in general. These aren't "classics." They sure aren't Batman, or Iron Man. You can attribute Iron Man's success to Robert Downey Jr. if you want, and I have no doubts that he was a major player in that respect, but you also have to remember that this was one of his break-out films. While he was a great actor before Iron Man, he was by no means a household name. I consider myself somewhat movie-literate, and the only thing I recognized him from was U.S. Marshals, and Shaggy Dog, both of which he did very well in. Now, look at him: He's been Iron Man, he's been Sherlock Holmes, he's scheduled to played Edgar. Mother-Loving. Poe. Iron Man re-launched his career.
Geek Movies are not dying, friend. They are just beginning. On a sidenote to all of you, not just Bob: Can we stop with the Blind-Side jokes? It was a decent movie, despite what you want to think about the message. Get over it already, it is in no way responsible for any perceived wrongs in the movie industry. Sheesh.
Oh dear. Leftism, hooo!
Then there's the masseuse thing, that must be pretty embarrassing, even if the charges aren't true.
Anyway, politics aside, what will really kill geek movies in the future is that a lot of them are terrible. Hollywood's formula thus far, in regards to a "geeky" franchise, is to hand it to people who don't understand it, give them a special effects budget equal to Obama's deficit (ok, I guess I wasn't done with politics after all), then cough something out. The result has been movies like Michael Bay's Transformers movies and the new Clash of the Titans flick, mediocre films scraping by only due to their special effects. THAT is the sort of unfulfilling garbage which will really turn audiences off after a while.
OTOH, it was nice to see ROTF suggest that President Obama would make a futile attempt to try and negotiate with Megatron. Oops, there I go again! But you know Obama totally would, though, which is why it's hilarious.
He was. Then the Climate Research Unit scandal happened, showing that the premise for man-made global warming is pure bunk. They fabricated their research and then destroyed it so that no one would be able to tell what they did. So, nowadays Gore has nothing except emotion, peer pressure, and ignorance to propel his agenda (which will probably be demonstrated by responses to this post, i.e., "HOW COULD YOU SAY THAT GLOBAL WARMING IS NOT REAL WHAT ARE YOU DUMMMMB!? UR REDUMBLICAN!").
Then there's the masseuse thing, that must be pretty embarrassing, even if the charges aren't true.
There's a lot of things I could call Obama. Apathetic. Cold-hearted. Marxist. Condescending. Incompetent. Fraud. But geeky? No.
Anyway, politics aside, what will really kill geek movies in the future is that a lot of them are terrible. Hollywood's formula thus far, in regards to a "geeky" franchise, is to hand it to people who don't understand it, give them a special effects budget equal to Obama's deficit (ok, I guess I wasn't done with politics after all), then cough something out. The result has been movies like Michael Bay's Transformers movies and the new Clash of the Titans flick, mediocre films scraping by only due to their special effects. THAT is the sort of unfulfilling garbage which will really turn audiences off after a while.
OTOH, it was nice to see ROTF suggest that President Obama would make a futile attempt to try and negotiate with Megatron. Oops, there I go again! But you know Obama totally would, though, which is why it's hilarious.
Don't entirely disagree with you, but do some research on that scandal bud. The leaked documents contained communications between scientists regarding climate change research. On the whole, it didn't prove sh!t, but that didn't matter. Once they were leaked to the public, no-one bothered to read them, because everyone already "knew" what they said.RDubayoo said:
People are dumb.
I want to state for the record that when I said the science on climate was undecided, I meant it. It's undecided and there's not enough evidence for either side to say the science backs them up to the exclusion of the other side.
And this is completely off-topic, because everything I had to say about the article I said in my last post. Oh, well.
And this is completely off-topic, because everything I had to say about the article I said in my last post. Oh, well.
The message here seems to be less that geeky films are failing and more that niche geeky films are failing. Yes, Tron: Legacy will likely do terribly but the next Batman and Star Trek films will make absolutely ludicrous amounts of money.
As long as huge moneymakers like those are around, geekdom will remain in movie-making for a long time to come.
As long as huge moneymakers like those are around, geekdom will remain in movie-making for a long time to come.
I've heard it said that a geek is someone that does to excess what a normal person does casualy. As such, geek culture and non-geek culture are usually at odds. A geek will look at a premis, cast list, director and overall hype and use that to decide to go see a movie or not, while a normal person will go "Michael Cera....pass, Stalone blowing shit up...cool."
Let's make one thing clear, at leas some of the Dark Knights success has to come with that fact it's friggin' Batman: a household name practically worldwide. The fact it came out well, and somewaht inteligent was a bonus that brought a lot of people back, but that might not have happened with a less rocognizable character or an original. (Hollywood's prone to this, like how most of the marketing for inception pimped it as by the director of the Dark Knight.) And I say somewhat inteligent because while well told, it was just a basic hero / villan story that made the afterschhol special point of there being good and evil in everybody to some degree. Good guy won, no one leaves the theatre uncomfortable.
Watchmen on the other hand wasn't well known outside of comic and other geek circles meaning a lot of people would pass it over. Those that took the plunge got a very nihlistic piece without clear cut heroes, villans, or morals.
But back to point, as much as geek cutlre has seen some success, it's been the more recognizable / watered down have have been the sucesses. People saw Lord of the Rings because it was Lord of the Rings, and if it was released as say, Dragonlance, a lot of it's sales would have been nonexistant. Iron Man may be geeky, buy it was also very audience friendly such that a non-geek would mistake it for just that year's sci-fi blockbuster attempt (the way no one knew Men in Black was a comic book first.) If we're just riding the coat tails of the popular crowd, the current spread of geek culture will end.
Or not. I was taught the theory was less survival of the fittest, and more survival of the most adaptable to their environment. As much as we'd like to drag normal people to geekdom, it won't happen overnight if at all, so we might need to make sure our geek movies are, like Dark Knight and Iron Man, made as much for the normals as they are for us, and more importantly, marketed to the normals. You keep hearing it. Scott Pilgrim missed it's marketng as people mistook it for a kids movie. Kick-Ass looked rather dopey in it's ad to the point of loking like a parody. They tried to appeal purely to the geek culture, and it failed as these indy projects really don't have the fanbase they seem. I know you know this. One of your game overthinker videos said the same thing about needing to apeal to the casual gamer market, and it's no different for films. Like I said, these aren't people that are going to look deeply into any project presented to them, and we may need to lead them in better directions a step at a time while not losing aspects that appeal to them.
As for Tron, I think the 3D will at least make sure it doesn't totally flop.
Let's make one thing clear, at leas some of the Dark Knights success has to come with that fact it's friggin' Batman: a household name practically worldwide. The fact it came out well, and somewaht inteligent was a bonus that brought a lot of people back, but that might not have happened with a less rocognizable character or an original. (Hollywood's prone to this, like how most of the marketing for inception pimped it as by the director of the Dark Knight.) And I say somewhat inteligent because while well told, it was just a basic hero / villan story that made the afterschhol special point of there being good and evil in everybody to some degree. Good guy won, no one leaves the theatre uncomfortable.
Watchmen on the other hand wasn't well known outside of comic and other geek circles meaning a lot of people would pass it over. Those that took the plunge got a very nihlistic piece without clear cut heroes, villans, or morals.
But back to point, as much as geek cutlre has seen some success, it's been the more recognizable / watered down have have been the sucesses. People saw Lord of the Rings because it was Lord of the Rings, and if it was released as say, Dragonlance, a lot of it's sales would have been nonexistant. Iron Man may be geeky, buy it was also very audience friendly such that a non-geek would mistake it for just that year's sci-fi blockbuster attempt (the way no one knew Men in Black was a comic book first.) If we're just riding the coat tails of the popular crowd, the current spread of geek culture will end.
Or not. I was taught the theory was less survival of the fittest, and more survival of the most adaptable to their environment. As much as we'd like to drag normal people to geekdom, it won't happen overnight if at all, so we might need to make sure our geek movies are, like Dark Knight and Iron Man, made as much for the normals as they are for us, and more importantly, marketed to the normals. You keep hearing it. Scott Pilgrim missed it's marketng as people mistook it for a kids movie. Kick-Ass looked rather dopey in it's ad to the point of loking like a parody. They tried to appeal purely to the geek culture, and it failed as these indy projects really don't have the fanbase they seem. I know you know this. One of your game overthinker videos said the same thing about needing to apeal to the casual gamer market, and it's no different for films. Like I said, these aren't people that are going to look deeply into any project presented to them, and we may need to lead them in better directions a step at a time while not losing aspects that appeal to them.
As for Tron, I think the 3D will at least make sure it doesn't totally flop.
The watchmen is more intelligent and grittier then batman, hell no, it was adapted with all the mindset of a 13 year old whom favorite movie is 300, anything intelligent was thrown out, wasn't bad, but The Dark Knight was a much better film.
OT: it's too be expected honestly, people are eventually going to get tired of superhero movies and all things geeky (or micheal sera), in about 20 years it will come back and then go away after a few years, just like 3D.
OT: it's too be expected honestly, people are eventually going to get tired of superhero movies and all things geeky (or micheal sera), in about 20 years it will come back and then go away after a few years, just like 3D.
Anybody can look at any group of people and giggle about what a bunch of what a bunch of mindless nincompoops they are, or call them a sheep blob, or whatever. Most the people have far more complicated reasons to see a movie than "herpderp I'm a dummy!!". Some people have worked long and hard and just want to kick back, the movie doesnt matter. Maybe they figure it'll be decent because its well-funded. Moviebob even mentioned a few reasons, like "this is something my friends and I comprimised to see." Hell, I know an incredibly intelligent adult who goes to dumb movies just to sleep through them, and another who watches them to feel smarter than the ninmcompoops who enjoy these kinds of movies.Chunkyfudgelover said:
Things are much more complicated than they seem. I'm sure the "average movie goer" would love a wonderful, thought provoking film if they were in the right mood. But the bland, big budgeted peice of horse pucky succeeds because its vauge and broad audience strokes can draw in a huge variety of different reasons to go see it.
Holy Smoke! I had no idea Inception did so well. I knew it did good, but:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=inception.htm
Back on topic.
A lot of you have written that as long as there's money to be made, geek culture will thrive. True. But, heck, I'm seeing a lot of genres descend into mediocrity or worse... and hollywood, bereft of ideas is STILL churning out Jason movies, Nightmare on Elm Street, Prom Night, etc.
So Geek Culture's future is assured.
Here's the difficult discussion coming: Much of Hollywood film making is a financial crap shoot. I have no idea why Transformers made so much money but GI Joe made substantially less. I thought Titanic sounded like the dumbest idea I've heard in a long time. I thought "The Kids Are All Right." was very interesting and wish it did better.
It's a crap shoot. As it stands, Watchmen did pretty freaking well. A Box Office disappointment, sure. They were hoping for another 300 level hit. That's like trying to win the lottery consistently.
But a movie that cost $130 mil to make and makes 180 world wide is not going to frighten investors away.
Anyone know what the biggest budget bomb of the last 10 years was? I dunno, I'm asking. I promise you, it wasn't Watchmen.
The real thing to worry about is Hwood beating this thing into the ground with mediocrity. Iron Man 2 was fun enough, but if I knew I would feel about it as I did, I sure wouldn't have run out to the theater to see it.
Hwood is going to have the same problem with geek culture that it has with any genre: maintaining quality while dealing with the terror that it is all such a crap shoot.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=inception.htm
Back on topic.
A lot of you have written that as long as there's money to be made, geek culture will thrive. True. But, heck, I'm seeing a lot of genres descend into mediocrity or worse... and hollywood, bereft of ideas is STILL churning out Jason movies, Nightmare on Elm Street, Prom Night, etc.
So Geek Culture's future is assured.
Here's the difficult discussion coming: Much of Hollywood film making is a financial crap shoot. I have no idea why Transformers made so much money but GI Joe made substantially less. I thought Titanic sounded like the dumbest idea I've heard in a long time. I thought "The Kids Are All Right." was very interesting and wish it did better.
It's a crap shoot. As it stands, Watchmen did pretty freaking well. A Box Office disappointment, sure. They were hoping for another 300 level hit. That's like trying to win the lottery consistently.
But a movie that cost $130 mil to make and makes 180 world wide is not going to frighten investors away.
Anyone know what the biggest budget bomb of the last 10 years was? I dunno, I'm asking. I promise you, it wasn't Watchmen.
The real thing to worry about is Hwood beating this thing into the ground with mediocrity. Iron Man 2 was fun enough, but if I knew I would feel about it as I did, I sure wouldn't have run out to the theater to see it.
Hwood is going to have the same problem with geek culture that it has with any genre: maintaining quality while dealing with the terror that it is all such a crap shoot.
That's because MovieBob is living in a world of this own, but to his defense, so are we all.Kollega said:
As a softcore trekkie, I loved the last Star Trek movie even for all it's silliness, and I hated Scott Pilgrim because it reminded be of all the mid 90 hipster garbage I was forced to grow up with.
(of course most of the mid 90s hipster flicks were also slasher movies, so if only Jason Voorhees had made an appearance in Scott P Vs. World and slaughtered the fucking lot of them I would have been a happy camper)
There's always going to be difference of opinion, and I'd hate, I'd absolutely would fucking hate to see Robin in the next Batman movie . But I know Moviebob would feel the complete opposite.
....
You know, I think we'd all benefit if we could just be a little more open minded about things, I mean hell, Robin was actually handled pretty well in the animated series from what I remember...so!
Maybe, The Expendables wasn't such a bad movie after all, at least for some. I mean at least we can all agree Rambo 4 was fucking awesome, can we?
=P
Yes it is. Think about the fact that they advertised it as a film with Stone Cold Steve Austin and Randy Couture from WWE and UFC respectively, both considered to be geek pasttimes in their own right.Sicamat said:
What people don't get is that the term "geek" has a broad spectrum that it emcompasses. While I might love comics from Marvel and DC, I don't give two shits about the indie books from Oni Press (Scott Pilgrim comes to mind). So while I will run out and see Spider-Man, Iron Man and Batman I'm not going to go out and see Scott Pilgrim because it doesn't appeal to me.
You can be a geek and love Devo or be a geek and love KISS and hate Devo. You can be a geek and vote Democrat or be a geek and vote Republican. Everyone has some geek tendencies, not matter how "anti-geek" they seem. The frat boys that hate RPGs for all the geeky number crunching does all that geeky number crunching every Sunday night when they figure their Fantasy League standings.
tldr; the geekiness of media will never end because every form of media is a geeky pasttime for someone.
Possibly the real point to this is movie makers should diversify there focus. Rather than have the entire industry focus with laser like intensity on one sub-genre before exhausting appetite for it and moving on much like with tv, books and music a broader spread is needed.
After all geeks and nerds are the intellectuals of the world (for now atleast). Rarity if nothing else will ensure we are never truly mainstream. Therefore focusing all your available budget to make media just for us will never have the return on investment movie producers desire that a more diverse approach would.
After all geeks and nerds are the intellectuals of the world (for now atleast). Rarity if nothing else will ensure we are never truly mainstream. Therefore focusing all your available budget to make media just for us will never have the return on investment movie producers desire that a more diverse approach would.
It didn't disprove anything, they were not talking about a decline in temperature, but I'm guessing you don't even know what I'm talking about, because you just took it at face value and ran with it.RDubayoo said:
Man made global warming is pretty much accepted as being true in the scientific community.
We are going with the second one right? The everything being crap?
The opoint is that unlike say, opera, films and cinema going are universal in appeal and don't especially appeal to braniacs or Johny idiot. Particular films might but as a whole I don't think you can say so.
Memory does of course play funny tricks on us, I still am amazed at how rude some people were when I worked in the service industry.
It was my fault for the wording.
We come into a tricky subject here though, how do we view something as good or bad? This is a seperate (though related) issuse to what we like. An example for me is the film "Laurence of Arabia" is a great film IMHO, but I'm not sure how much I would like it, I could only watch it once and I admired the filmmaking but didn't warm to it.
"Date Movie" is IMHO a horrible unfunny film but I'm sure someone would argue that it was a cinematic triumph (though they might happen to be the directors). My problem is how do I prove the primacy of my opinion over there's? I don't think I can so ultimately my opinion is limited to myself, rather obviously actually but so was the wheel.
How bizarre. These people actually exist? I thought they were some hyper idealised version of teenage life where clans were created to make dramatic tension ("Oh no she's dating outside here clique, jow could she?").
Hot damn, another chance to use this
That makes my running count like 4 now, right? I really find it annoying when people generalize everyone who sees a movie, and yes, imad.
While the comments on these items have become really a depressing thing, I'll say this
Society, in short, essentially ended the whole struggle thing.
And 370999,
As far as I know, those clan type things, they don't exist, atleast where I'm from.
That makes my running count like 4 now, right? I really find it annoying when people generalize everyone who sees a movie, and yes, imad.
While the comments on these items have become really a depressing thing, I'll say this
Society, in short, essentially ended the whole struggle thing.
And 370999,
As far as I know, those clan type things, they don't exist, atleast where I'm from.
Please don't be so insulting; he's got a right to his opinion, as much as you do. I thought the same thing, myself: Expendables is by definition a type of geek entertainment, because it revels in presenting old action hero stars in a common film, exploiting the tropes of its particular genre. It's not the same kind of movie as Scott Pilgrim, by any stretch, but you don't have to fill a film up with ridiculous video game references, young actors, and loads of ridiculous nonsensical special effects to qualify for geek-dom*. There are layers here, many of them; that's why I think Movie Bob's article is only reflecting a basic fact that's been overlooked: to be geek is not to be united.The Stonker said:
* may or may not be accurate as I haven't seen either film. But I am a geek, even though I couldn't give a rat's patootie about Scott Pilgrim; it's not catering to my specific brand of geek (or age): D&D playing Sci Fi junkie with a couple hundred games from Steam.
I really don't even understand your distress here about "geek movies". As others have said you could call serious fans of any genre a geek. As far as I'm concerned I never really saw any particular activity or hobby automatically define someone as a geek or not a geek. Plus many of the movies you gushed about weren't too good, so I wouldn't mind seeing those kinds of films disappear.
Also, I really resent this feeling that so many geeky people think they are of the highest intelligence. More than anything self proclaimed geeks tend to just be more opinionated, elitist, and hard-headed. I know plenty of people who often watch brainless flicks and are just as intelligent, if not more intelligent, then you. Also, I know many people have the opinion that if a movie is in a genre they despise than it can't be as smart or fun as a movie in a genre they like. There are people who can find messages in everything. Even the dumbest of movies can seem intelligent if the right person twists it enough.
Entertainment is just that, something to entertain. It doesn't necessarily need a profound message or pop culture references to do its job. Besides, most styles in movies never truly go away. They just tend to come and go at random.
Also, I really resent this feeling that so many geeky people think they are of the highest intelligence. More than anything self proclaimed geeks tend to just be more opinionated, elitist, and hard-headed. I know plenty of people who often watch brainless flicks and are just as intelligent, if not more intelligent, then you. Also, I know many people have the opinion that if a movie is in a genre they despise than it can't be as smart or fun as a movie in a genre they like. There are people who can find messages in everything. Even the dumbest of movies can seem intelligent if the right person twists it enough.
Entertainment is just that, something to entertain. It doesn't necessarily need a profound message or pop culture references to do its job. Besides, most styles in movies never truly go away. They just tend to come and go at random.
Hmm..Maybe I'm just kind of out there but I always felt the problem with global warming was more that we were accelerating it not causing it. I don't really see that effect as being debatable. Human kind has too much of an impact on the earth to not throw something out of wack. To me what I find more debatable is when global warming has truly picked up, species are lost, and others flourish will we really be in terrible shape as some predict? We might just get along fine in a different way or we may lose some people when ways of life are really threatened.dathwampeer said:
I agree with your last statement though. We can't really cause something like that just effect it in one way or another.
Let me stop commenting on this its going off subject.