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thessalianIt occurred to me yesterday what's wrong with the world. And it came from the most unlikely source -- one of my friends.
Quite often,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cholten99 will call "Got a minute?" down the corridor to show me some piece of Internet funny that, had I been remotely interested in, I'd have found myself. I don't mind going now and then because, well, it does one good to expand one's horizons, it gets me some exercise (okay, very bloody little, but you know what I mean) and I don't want to be antisocial. Last night, however, it was, "Would you be at all interest in the Star Wars III trailer?"
My response? "No, not really. But what the hell." So I went over and watched it.
It. Was. Appalling. The only speaking done in the whole thing was actually Sir Alec Guinness in "A New Hope", which does not bode well for the dialogue. Actually, a good third of the images were also from ANH. All you got after that was a few quick shots of the previous two movies, a few long-shot things blowing up, a few close-ups of people who looked insane, some lightsabres, and a lot of Yoda standing around looking Samuel L Jackson-ish. And the SFX! Seriously, the last thing you think of when you think of George Lucas is cheap special effects, but for pity's sake, when you can see the green-screening in this day and age, something's either very cheap or very wrong.
That wasn't the worst bit. I hadn't been expecting much anyway. The worst bit was whencholten99 sat there and justified the SFX by saying, "Well, they were pretty obvious in the first three, too." Excuse me -- the first one was released in 1977. ANH was bleeding-edge SFX in 1977. The other two? Same deal. You cannot look at 80s SFX with a 90s eye; it's not fair. However, you can look at SFX done a year ago and say, "This looks cheap".
It's the justification of crap that gets me more than anything else. You can, apparently, not expect things to have plot or decent dialogue or anything other than shit blowing up because "its target market is twelve-year-old boys". Excuse me? You can lower your expectations to "stuff goes boom" because it's meant for the young? If anything, the sheer lack of substance displayed in things designed for youthful audiences is a worse thing than just crap for crap's sake. It shows an utter terror that the youth of the nation(s) will wake up and actually start thinking for a change, and woe betide the adults, or something.
And there's a hypocrisy in that. Parents holler at their children, "Don't you ever think?" Of course they don't. They're trained not to. TV's this soft, bland pablum that can just be taken in without ever engaging the brain, as is cinema. And as for school -- repeat a bunch of rote facts that may never be discussed or debated, and you will pass, but that's the only way. And people apparently like this. They like the lack of challenge. Or at least, they can't be arsed to do anything about it. It occurred to me that one of the reasons that I write is the fact that I defy this whole culture of mindless entertainment. I want to think, and to make others think. It's only by questioning one's beliefs and the beliefs of others that one might come to some compromise with the world at large.
The not-so-ancient argument: Dead Like Me. I sort of pop in and watch this in snippets whilecholten99 has it on, and ever week it's the same. He says, "See, I don't understand why they do this. You get this character, find out just enough about them to say, 'Oh, this seems like a nice person' and then *wham*; they're dead". And when I point out that it's the way of the world, he says, "Yeah, but ... this is supposed to be entertainment. Something you watch for fun".
Argh. I despair of the world at large. Why fun and thinking have to be mutually exclusive I have no idea. I don't just sit there and consume the crap because there's nothing else -- I do something. Fine, in my own small way, but I still do. I create -- sometimes it's crap, but it's never mindless crap. I just don't understand why people are content to accept whatever society throws at them and then learn to like things that are beneath them.
Quite often,
cholten99 will call "Got a minute?" down the corridor to show me some piece of Internet funny that, had I been remotely interested in, I'd have found myself. I don't mind going now and then because, well, it does one good to expand one's horizons, it gets me some exercise (okay, very bloody little, but you know what I mean) and I don't want to be antisocial. Last night, however, it was, "Would you be at all interest in the Star Wars III trailer?" My response? "No, not really. But what the hell." So I went over and watched it.
It. Was. Appalling. The only speaking done in the whole thing was actually Sir Alec Guinness in "A New Hope", which does not bode well for the dialogue. Actually, a good third of the images were also from ANH. All you got after that was a few quick shots of the previous two movies, a few long-shot things blowing up, a few close-ups of people who looked insane, some lightsabres, and a lot of Yoda standing around looking Samuel L Jackson-ish. And the SFX! Seriously, the last thing you think of when you think of George Lucas is cheap special effects, but for pity's sake, when you can see the green-screening in this day and age, something's either very cheap or very wrong.
That wasn't the worst bit. I hadn't been expecting much anyway. The worst bit was when
cholten99 sat there and justified the SFX by saying, "Well, they were pretty obvious in the first three, too." Excuse me -- the first one was released in 1977. ANH was bleeding-edge SFX in 1977. The other two? Same deal. You cannot look at 80s SFX with a 90s eye; it's not fair. However, you can look at SFX done a year ago and say, "This looks cheap".It's the justification of crap that gets me more than anything else. You can, apparently, not expect things to have plot or decent dialogue or anything other than shit blowing up because "its target market is twelve-year-old boys". Excuse me? You can lower your expectations to "stuff goes boom" because it's meant for the young? If anything, the sheer lack of substance displayed in things designed for youthful audiences is a worse thing than just crap for crap's sake. It shows an utter terror that the youth of the nation(s) will wake up and actually start thinking for a change, and woe betide the adults, or something.
And there's a hypocrisy in that. Parents holler at their children, "Don't you ever think?" Of course they don't. They're trained not to. TV's this soft, bland pablum that can just be taken in without ever engaging the brain, as is cinema. And as for school -- repeat a bunch of rote facts that may never be discussed or debated, and you will pass, but that's the only way. And people apparently like this. They like the lack of challenge. Or at least, they can't be arsed to do anything about it. It occurred to me that one of the reasons that I write is the fact that I defy this whole culture of mindless entertainment. I want to think, and to make others think. It's only by questioning one's beliefs and the beliefs of others that one might come to some compromise with the world at large.
The not-so-ancient argument: Dead Like Me. I sort of pop in and watch this in snippets while
cholten99 has it on, and ever week it's the same. He says, "See, I don't understand why they do this. You get this character, find out just enough about them to say, 'Oh, this seems like a nice person' and then *wham*; they're dead". And when I point out that it's the way of the world, he says, "Yeah, but ... this is supposed to be entertainment. Something you watch for fun".Argh. I despair of the world at large. Why fun and thinking have to be mutually exclusive I have no idea. I don't just sit there and consume the crap because there's nothing else -- I do something. Fine, in my own small way, but I still do. I create -- sometimes it's crap, but it's never mindless crap. I just don't understand why people are content to accept whatever society throws at them and then learn to like things that are beneath them.
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Date: 2004-11-05 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-06 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-06 07:08 pm (UTC)