Story Originality

I saw Avatar for the first time last night. I went in expecting to enjoy it, and I did. I am a big James Cameron fan, so I pretty much knew I would like it, but I didn't know how much I would like it. I REALLY liked it.

So, after seeing the movie, I came home and looked up what critics were saying. For the most part, professional film critics like it. Film students and internet film buffs seem to despise it, wishing it to fail just because.

The biggest complaint I have read? The story is unoriginal. Newsflash for the uneducated, young, and ignorant people: NOTHING UNDER THE SUN IS NEW. Yes, Avatar has a plot that is similar to Dances With Wolves and at least a dozen other movies. There are no new plots out there, people. Read some books and you will find that everybody reuses the same plots. Why? Because there are only so many stories to tell.

Do yourself a favor and read a half dozen Shakespeare plays. Now you know the plots to 90% of movies ever made. The Taming Of The Shrew? Othello? Romeo and Juliet? Even movies that are not direct copies of the plot use large chunks of it. Why? Because Shakespeare himself didn't invent these issues and plots. They are stories from when men started to tell stories, passed on down the time line.

Common plot themes that tons of movies use:

Industrialized, "civilized" men attempt to bring "civilization" to the "backwards" indigenous people. They may be the good guys, but usually are portrayed as the aggressors who are exploiting the natives and destroying the environment. (Avatar, Dances With Wolves, Fern Gully)

Man and woman marry/fall in love/have a child/become friends... Man or woman is from a race/species/sex/family that others in society do not approve of. Strife follows. (Othello, Enemy Mine, Romeo and Juliet)

And the list goes on.

A plot cannot be original. The way you tell the story can, and I think Cameron did an excellent job with Avatar.

You know someone is an idiot when...

...they give you a "fact" but then when you ask them to prove their fact with a link or some sort of evidence, they link Google and tell you to find it.

People should be required to pass a course in debating before they are allowed to post on internet forums. You don't state something and then try to pass off the burden of proving your statement to the person you are debating. That just means you don't know, you didn't research it, so your statement is bullshit until YOU can prove otherwise.

Comrades cry like little girl over Indy 4

STORY

Aw, did da wittle movie huwt yow wittle feewings?

Fuck off, ya commie bastards!

Experts: Indiana Jones pure fiction

STORY

Public to experts: No shit.


Gee, you mean archaeologists don't get to pack pistols and bullwhips and fight Nazis?

Gator on the golf course, stupid journalist.

STORY

Despite being one of the world's greatest players, all eyes were on the large amphibian instead of Davis Love III as it rambled into the golfer's game.

There are so many things wrong with that paragraph, all I can do is laugh. All Eyes is one of the greatest golf players? An alligator is an amphibian? Davis Love III rambled in to the golfer's game?


Fucking moron. You and your editor should both be smacked with a 5th grade English textbook.

Uwe Boll: Gigantic idiot!

Yeah, I know, that's not really news.


Uwe Boll, master of the disastrous video game to movie conversion, is gracing us with another pile of stomped shit this spring in the form of a Postal movie. As if that weren't bad enough, as if he hasn't given us enough reasons to want to see him tried and imprisoned for torturing people with his "movies", he is now releasing Postal on the same weekend as Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.

Now, in and of itself, that's a pretty fucking boneheaded move. In the movie business, releasing against an anticipated blockbuster is akin to financial suicide unless your movie is in a completely different genre. (Say, Indy is action/adventure, releasing a mushy romance movie might appeal to people that like romance and not action/adventure.) I guess Uwe figures complete shit is a genre, so he can release that weekend with no issue.

On top of this blatant stupidity, Uwe actually regales us with fantasies that Postal will out-perform Indiana Jones at the box office. Mr. Boll, I guarantee you that the only category any of your movies will ever outperform any other movie in is the Suck category.

Uwe also goes on to claim he is a better actor that Sir Ben Kingsley, a better director that Steven Speilberg, and that Harrison Ford is too old to draw crowds at the box office. Clearly he is heavily medicated, or he lives in a complete fantasy world.

STORY

$1 Billion needed to compete with WoW?

STORY

As per the norm, upper management and investors are totally clueless. You guys want a way to compete with WoW? I wrote an article on it: HERE

It doesn't take a billion dollars. It takes some people with an ounce of fucking common sense and a pinch of perception.

And by the way, Captain Activision: Sony didn't fail when making MMORPGs. They wouldn't be putting out the dozens of expansions for EQ and EQII if they weren't making good money on them.

Speaking of Sunshine

I was reading a review from a supposedly intelligent sci-fi fan on Netflix. They thought the view of Mars was spectacular.

Really? Mars? Going from Earth to the Sun takes you past Mars?


Mercury, people. Mercury is on the way to the Sun. I know it starts with the same letter, but come on. They teach you this shit in what, 2nd grade?