The following article is all my opinion. This should not sway anyone's judgment. Hey, guys and gals, this is a response to Romack's article about boycotting CBM's from Sony and Fox. I read the article and have posted a few comments. Now while he has made some good points, his overall message seems to be the ramblings of an angry fan boy longing to have masterpieces every time, rather than pieces of crap. I'm not bad mouthing him article in any way, but the way I read it seemed that way. So I'm gonna give my counter points to his article and hopefully clear some of the anger and tension amongst our community.
First, I would like to mention that we as a fan community are minority. Whereas the majority is the average movie-goer, kids and parents go to see these films for the general amusement of seeing something they never seen before. In terms of having a faithfully adapted comic book film, it is going to be hard when the majority supercedes the minority. Whenever a studio owns the rights to a comic license, they attempt to get it right not just for the general audience, but for the fans amongst the crowd. Studios work hard to incorporate the entire audience. They do what they can to serve fanboys and the majority. It is difficult for them to strike a balance, since siding with fanboys may alienate the majority. Now a few films have been able to be near perfect adaptations. Those were typically limited graphic novel series's like “Watchmen,”” 300,” and “A History of Violence." Another mention is that these teen based films are being aimed for their target audience. “X-Men: First Class” and the Spider-man reboot are aimed for bringing in the younger crowds, because they can be relate to the characters. Whereas we older people appreciate the films on a higher thought. For example, “Iron Man” and “The Incredible Hulk” were targeted for a more mature audience, yet parents brought in their kids thinking they were just action movies and not so character driven.
The next point I like to bring up is that having the rights belong to a single studio is a double edge sword. In the ROMACK article, IronBat made a comment about why shouldn't we all hope for the X-Men and Spider-Man Licenses go back to Disney. Now that’s a good idea. I said, how's that going to better the films? Disney has not always made big hits. They have made some flops and not every film is a hit. Also there’s another studio that owns all the movie licenses to a comic company...oh yeah WARNER BROTHERS! Remember they own ALL of DC’s comic movie licenses. Look at the recent movies they released: “Losers,” underwhelming, and “Jonah Hex,” a failure. They are totally fixated on Batman and Nolan while totally ignoring The Flash, Wonder Woman, Martian Man-hunter, Hawk-man, and tons of other BETTER titles out there. They have plans for a 3-D “Swamp Thing” and a “Sgt. Rock “movie set in the future. While “Green Lantern” may be their equivalent to “Iron Man,” it seems too little too late to bring these characters all together. That seems to be the one problem when one studio owns all the licenses, they tend to pick the more OBSCURE titles in the hopes they can make it big, rather than have the MAIN STREAM titles blend into one awesome film. So while Marvel is working hard to make a movie-verse, DC has barely come out of the gate.
Third point: Not the Studio's fault. It seems in this day and age, we are always trying to point the finger at someone to blame for the failure in our CBM's. We used to blame the actors, directors, and writers, but now it all goes straight to the top. I would like to remind you all that despite the recent films they released, 20th Century Fox has made GREAT MOVIES. What doesn't help is that they are the ones who are jumping on the remake/reboot bandwagon more than any other studio out there. While Sony has some titles under their belt, they own a bunch of smaller studios that they use to make their films. This sort of ties in to the previous point I mentioned. We immediately blamed WB for the failure of “Jonah Hex,” but we also had people attack the director, actors, and the film all together. So don't be quick to point fingers unless you have good reason.
Final point: Boycotting a film is just plain old silly. Saying you’re not going to see a film isn't going to stop the film from making lots of money here and overseas. No one tells you to go see these films anyway. If you don't like the product, you don't have to invest your money in it at all. I would like to boycott the Twilight films for being terrible to the decency of the youth and how sexist they are. But it would be like shooting a tank with a pea shooter: it would do no damage and you get steamrolled under its force of annoying twihards. In actuality, having any form of protest against such things seems a waste because it’s not going stop it from making money.
In closing, I respect ROMACKS article and while I don't agree with it, I still applaud him for speaking his mind when most of us tend to just go with the flow. So, be it a good or bad film, we must have some high hope when these films come out. We have a while before we even see a single press release picture or even a trailer. I always remain optimistic when a film is announced or shown. I would immediately have my reaction to it once I see it, but for now, lets’ try to remain in good faith. Until next time, Aki87 out!!