Hollywood Making Cr@p for the M@sses: A Video by Taualumna

[Taualumna]

Yeah, I know, I shouldn't really be reading from my notes like that...

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[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by Taualumna

Yeah, I know, I shouldn't really be reading from my notes like that...

YouTube

can we start off with Epic Movie, Soul Plane, Meet the Spartans to name a few?

Hollywood relies far too often on the same old stupid formulae and sadly enough, there are a few stupid people that PAY to see these movies.

And if one stupid group pays for this flick, that is enough encouragement to make more...can you say...SEQUELS AND REMAKES?

I got a better one...you were going on a tangent about foreign flicks...how about....why does hollywood take perfectly good foreign horror flicks and water them down?

It's like the square peg round hole thing.

A lot of these movies should just be left alone

The Eye
The Ring
and
Dark water to name a few...

While slightly rambly, it's a good spot on observation that even I have noticed for years.

[Leslie Anne]

The film industry is unlike any other huge money-making industry. It's filled with a really strange mish mash of people. First there are the writers, actors, directors, etc. Some of them can be considered "artists" and within this group is a very wide range of backgrounds and levels of education (from highschool drop-outs to PhDs.)* Then there are those who are merely opportunists.

The studio executives are often more highly educated but wouldn't know "art" if it fell in their lap. They're looking at profits and nothing else.

One of the problems is that you get these two sets of people together and there's going to be conflict about "the product" they produce. Often the result is a compromise that leaves the real artists as well as the public disappointed.

Personally, I see a lot more cr@p being produced for television than film. I watch very little television anymore because of that.

Taualumna, could you be more specific about some of the films? I think that would make for an interesting discussion.


*Note: the comparison made about the levels of education among the artists isn't meant to suggest that the more educated ones necessarily produce better work. IMO

[DSTCHAOS]

Boring video.

As for the the topic, people have been saying that America is dumbing down and that's why the movies are the way they are. That has yet to be substantiated and we also don't know which came first, the dumber movies or the dumber people. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy because when people know they are going to see the same formula, they will continue to pay to see the same formulas in movies. People also will stop expecting to think when they go to theater.

I don't think that foreign movies are better or "smarter." I also don't think that foreign people are smarter. They are just filling a cultural niche. The Ring was interesting to many Americans because many didn't know that it was a Japanese film first and that the original was better. It was an interesting "introductory" concept.

We can't use The Oscars as a metric for quality movies or where the better movies come from. The Oscars are Hollywood politics.

[CutiePie2000]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

As for the the topic, people have been saying that America is dumbing down and that's why the movies are the way they are.

It's not just movies that are "dumbed" down. Let's not forget Harry Potter Book #1, where its REAL TITLE is "HP and the Philosopher's Stone", not "the Sorceror's Stone".

As for European movies, one thing that I definitely notice is that actors/actresses are not quite as coiffed to perfection as their American counterparts, onscreen.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by CutiePie2000

It's not just movies that are "dumbed" down. Let's not forget Harry Potter Book #1, where its REAL TITLE is "HP and the Philosopher's Stone", not "the Sorceror's Stone".

Is the former supposed to sound "smarter" or something?

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

Is the former supposed to sound "smarter" or something?

I dont even think it has so much to do with foreign flicks being smarter as it is with foreign flicks don't always follow the same old formulae that a lot of Hollywood films have done over the years...some of the more exciting and interesting movies that i have seen within the past 5 or so years haven't been Hollywood flicks.

I think what this is really about is that we get sick and tired of paying for the same old crap taht;s long on hype and CG and short on story.

I was feeling what she said about The Departed and I agree, it won all teh accolades but they may as well have handed the awards to those that made Infernal Affairs.


and yeah...in actuality, the title was 'dumbed down'

http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20020123.html

[Taualumna]

Originally Posted by Leslie Anne

Personally, I see a lot more cr@p being produced for television than film. I watch very little television anymore because of that.

Taualumna, could you be more specific about some of the films? I think that would make for an interesting discussion.


*Note: the comparison made about the levels of education among the artists isn't meant to suggest that the more educated ones necessarily produce better work. IMO

I do agree with you that there's much more cr@p on TV (e.g. many of the new game shows that rely more on chance than on the brain), but I've found that lately, there's just so much more "guy comedies" that are a complete turn-off. Mr. Tau rented Superbad a few months ago, and I absolutely COULD NOT watch it. Too offensive for me.

Other movies:

Disney's The Little Mermaid and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. OK. I have to admit that I was a little kid when Little Mermaid came out and loved the movie a lot. But at that time, I had not read the original Hans Christian Andersen version and didn't realize that Ariel actually died. Did Disney really have to change it? Why can't kids accept that things don't always end happily ever after? Same thing with Hunchback. Actually, I don't think Disney should have done Hunchback to begin with. Victor Hugo's writing isn't exactly kid-friendly. Making it kid-friendly was a bad, bad thing.

Let's take a look at Shall We Dance. The original Japanese movie apparently had two versions. The original version is over two hours long, while the version released in the US (this IS NOT the 2004 Richard Gere/J.Lo movie) was some 20 minutes shorter. According to something I found online, one of the scenes with the main character's wife was altered to suit how Americans/the west see the typical Japanese wife. I wouldn't know, since I've never seen the 2 hour+ version of the film. Never mind that the Richard Gere/J.Lo version wasn't nearly as good.

(I have also heard that the original Korean version of The Lake House had a completely different, sadder ending than the Keanu/Sandra Bullock movie that was more Hollywoodized.)

As I said in the video, I originally made the video to discuss the altering of the main characters' ethnicities in the upcoming movie 21 (the movie is based on a true story of students from MIT. These students were of Asian descent). I wouldn't have had much of a problem with it if some people said that they did the change to keep the original people anonymous or whatever, but according to several things I read online, the change was made because they wanted the movie to make money (not sure if they really should have said that, IMHO). So yeah, Hollywood is dumbing down to parts of our society who have trouble seeing characters who aren't of their ethnicity in mainstream roles. If this movie were "artsier" the cast would likely have been more reflective of the original story.

Mainstream Hollywood is unlikely to make the following types of movies because mainstream society wouldn't watch it:

• Story of hate crimes against Catholics (you have to admit that even in 2008, some parts of the US are hugely anti-Catholic. Especially in some parts of the Bible Belt. BTW, when was the last time a television show had a main character that was openly Catholic that wasn't a priest, nun or from a culture that is historically RC? I can only think of Donna Martin from 90210, and the show went off the air 8 years ago.)
  
• A gay character that is just "one of the guys/girls" but happens to date someone of his/her own sex
  
• Story about immigrants/children of immigrants who are not poor (I read somewhere that an Eva Longoria movie was called off because people felt that a story about a wealthy Latina wouldn't sell... not sure if this is true, since she plays this type of character on Housewives..maybe what's okay for TV isn't okay for movies? But also, we don't know long the Solises and Gabi's families have been in the US.)
  
• Difference between Evangelical Christians and mainline Christians. Maybe even issues that these groups have. I think it could make a good Romeo and Juliet type of story.

I want to know this: Why won't people buy tickets for these movies? Is the general public really that out-of-touch? Is the general public really as stupid as Miss Teen South Carolina, who thought Europe was a country?


ETA: Re Harry Potter - Yeah..what's wrong with "philosopher"? Kids really aren't that dumb, are they? They didn't change the title in Canada (and usually we get the US title on everything) and the entire series did well. I heard that Harry Potter and the PHILOSOPHER'S Stone wasn't exactly a best seller when it first came out in the UK, anyway.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

and yeah...in actuality, the title was 'dumbed down'

http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20020123.html

Like I said, the original title doesn't sound "smarter."

The title was changed for American audiences but it wasn't "dumbed down." From what I've read, that's people putting their own spin or interpretation on it. It was changed so that people could identify the subject matter and so that people who don't know about this genre/author/story line could be drawn to it. The original work was published in 1997 in London so it was designed to familiarize others with the line of work and appeal to a larger audience. Forms of American media often have to do the same when they go national and international.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by Taualumna

Kids really aren't that dumb, are they?

No. LOL. Kids are only as dumb as the adults so if kids are dumb we have ourselves to blame.

"Philosopher" is boring in a title and as a kid I wouldn't find it kid-worthy. "Philosopher" doesn't sound magical or mythical. Based on what a philosopher is. It sounds educational. Not wanting to be educated everytime we are being entertained shouldn't make America less "smart" than the UK.

[Taualumna]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

Like I said, the original title doesn't sound "smarter."

The title was changed for American audiences but it wasn't "dumbed down." That's people putting their own spin or interpretation on it. It was changed so that people could identify the subject matter and so that people who don't know about this genre/author/story line could be drawn to it. The original work was published in 1997 in London so it was designed to familiarize others with the line of work and appeal to a larger audience. Forms of American media often have to do the same when it goes national and international.

But why did it have to be changed for American audiences when it wasn't in other parts of the English speaking world? Like I said in my last post, even Canadians got the original British title, and we usually get what the US gets. The original British title for Confessions of a Shopoholic was The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopoholic. We got Confessions, not Secret Dreamworld.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by Taualumna

But why did it have to be changed for American audiences when it wasn't in other parts of the English speaking world? Like I said in my last post, even Canadians got the original British title, and we usually get what the US gets. The original British title for Confessions of a Shopoholic was The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopoholic. We got Confessions, not Secret Dreamworld.

Does "Secret Dreamworld" sound smarter than "Confessions" to you? It doesn't to me. "Confessions" sounds catchier and probably fits the theme better.

But we'd have to seek the answers to these questions. We could speculate all day. I'm sure the official statements from the publishers/producers/authors wouldn't tell Americans that we are dumb, even if that's why the names were changed.

[CutiePie2000]

Originally Posted by Taualumna

Other movies:

Disney's The Little Mermaid and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. OK. I have to admit that I was a little kid when Little Mermaid came out and loved the movie a lot. But at that time, I had not read the original Hans Christian Andersen version and didn't realize that Ariel actually died. Did Disney really have to change it? Why can't kids accept that things don't always end happily ever after? Same thing with Hunchback. Actually, I don't think Disney should have done Hunchback to begin with. Victor Hugo's writing isn't exactly kid-friendly.

I believe the mermaid in the original was "nameless", but yes, the Little Mermaid does die, as does the Little Matchgirl and other protagonists in many other fairy tales. When you ask: "Why can't kids accept that things don't always end happily ever after?", I don't think it's kids, I think it's meddling, overprotective parents groups and Disney trying to dodge anything controversial ("Song of the South", anyone?). I guess it's Disney's way of keeping everything happy happy in Happy Land.

The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen and the aptly named Brothers Grimm are gruesome and brutal, and as a little kid being read to by her German (what else?) Grandma, that's how I liked 'em! LOL In Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf definitely ATE Red and the Grandma (one would surmise he swallowed them whole) and then the huntsmen came, CUT OPEN the stomach, out they jumped and he sewed in some big a$$ boulders and then the wolf went to get a drink from the river, fell in and drowned. There was none of this "the wolf put them in a cupboard" business, which is the sanitized Disney version.

Another thing about Disney movies that I have noticed. In the final showdown, even though the antagonist "gets it" in the end, the protagonist NEVER, EVER, EVER, is left with the proverbial blood of their enemy on their hands, because for them to actually "kill" their enemey would make them "bad", too, right?

Lion King: Simba vs. Scar - Scar slips and plummets to his death.
Beauty and the Beast: Beast vs. Gaston - Gaston slips and plummets to his death.
Hunchback of Notre Dame: Quasimodo vs. Evil Magistrate Guy - Evil Magistrate Guy slips and plummets to his death.

Any other Disney movies with the cop out 'plummets to their death' cause-of-death that I'm missing? Surely there must be more.

[DSTCHAOS]

I grew up on Hans Christian Andersen and Brothers Grimm, in addition to "Song of the South" and the extremely racist cartoons of Warner Bros and, to a lesser extent, the sometimes questionable imagery of Disney. [sidebar: I also read the excellently illustrated tale of Bilbo Baggins/Lord of the Rings in the 1980s when a lot of adults didn't even know what that was and other kids were still stuck on Dungeons and Dragons. Some people thought that novel was too graphic or complex for kids but my parents didn't.]

I can completely understand why some parents took charge when they realized that adults were feeding children some images that they were uncomfortable with their children being exposed to. That could be violence or anything else. For example, the things that I found entertaining as a kid were extremely offensive as I got older and realized things like the black baby with the bone through its hair and Tom from Tom and Jerry in blackface.

I don't think that makes parents overbearing and kids afraid of reality. There's enough reality in the world that most kids are exposed to and it's okay for kids to see a movie or tale where the main character doesn't perish. [Or for kids to not be exposed to characters that are used for sexist, racist, or other -ist imagery by adults with an agenda] However, the bad person often does perish in these stories, which sends kids messages about what happens to bad people and that's still "happily ever after" and unrealistic. I also notice what a lot of people notice--American children stories tend to give the bad person foreign accents which is another message that adults are sending.

[Taualumna]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

Does "Secret Dreamworld" sound smarter than "Confessions" to you? It doesn't to me. "Confessions" sounds catchier and probably fits the theme better.

But we'd have to seek the answers to these questions. We could speculate all day. I'm sure the official statements from the publishers/producers/authors wouldn't tell Americans that we are dumb, even if that's why the names were changed.

Ehh...I was just asking why some titles are changed.

I also notice what a lot of people notice--American children stories tend to give the bad person foreign accents which is another message that adults are sending.

Not just foreign accents, but any accent that isn't standard American (unless story takes place in a location where a regional accent is used).