Extended thoughts

I saw Repo: A Genetic Opera last weekend.  I have known that it has been out there for some time but never was really that inspired to borrow it.  I don’t much like horror films, especially slasher films.  The reason for this is due to my distaste for gory imagery, and also because most every character in a typical Horror film is an idiot.

But there is another film coming out that takes the core concept of Repo and washes all the Indy right off.  It pulls an Aeon Flux and turns the dark edgy steam-punk visual style into a movie shot in an Apple store.

So I wanted to watch it, throw my two cents in, and then talk about a related thought.

Here are my two cents.  There was only one aspect of the film that was excellent.  The visual style of the sets and costumes were very well thought out.  Everything seemed to fit in that world and most everyone was well cast for the look of the parts they played.

Now the parts themselves were horrible.  None of the characters had consistency in their actions and dialog.  Their interactions were almost like people talking via instant messenger rather than a face to face conversation.   And when they weren’t talking awkwardly, they were singing awkwardly.  Yes, it is a musical.   It might be a bit ambitious to call it an Opera, but that is what they called it.

Like Sweeney Todd, this musical had no really memorable, or even good, music.  I got the impression that the authors had seen good musicals and tried really hard to mimic what they saw.  There was only one song that didn’t tempt me with the skip ahead button on my DVD player, and even then I would be embarrassed to show it to other people without context.  I don’t think there is a single song in Phantom or Les Miserables that couldn’t stand on its own.

Oh, one last minor annoyance.   They would show a scene in a cool comic book style that got the information across very concisely and with a lot of style.  Then 5 minutes later they would show the exact same scene but now with actors.  I got the information the first time and it was a clever vessel for exposition.  Then they ruin it by cheapening it with rehashing. I can’t believe they didn’t catch that in editing.  This happens with at least three repeated scenes.

The comic book tie in leads me to my tangent quite nicely.

I want to talk about the cheapening of good media though bad movies.  Repo started its life as an acclaimed play.  The authors then wanted to have their work seen by more and made this movie.

My question is, what is so bad about something what it was meant to be in the first place?  No, it has to be adapted so the movie going masses can experience it without waiting for it to come to their town.  How come so many good comic books, novels, radio dramas,plays, and video games have had their quality lowered just so they could have a theatrical release?  Because there is money to be made?  Yes, because there is money to be made.  I am a firm believer in capitalism, but what happens when artistic integrity is sacrificed for mass appeal.

A few months ago I was made aware of a television adaptation of Terry Goodkind’s “Wizard’s First Rule”.  This is a great novel and the start to a pretty decent series of books.  I then watched a couple episodes of this show.  It was so bad I had to reconsider my opinion of an author that would sign off on such a mangling of his vision.  The casting was bad, the scripts were mediocre, and they changed major plot points.  This is a TV series that has lowered the quality of a once quality story.

The sad fact is that this happens in much more subtle ways in other adaptations quite often.  The Watchmen movie was great film, and I could hardly ask for it to be more faithful to the comic book.  But they did leave things out, and that is a compromise.  Maybe it is worth it to get the basic story seen by more people than nerds and comic book fans.  I can’t say that for sure.  But for every Watchmen we get a “Batman and Robin” that does years of harm to a strong franchise.

I guess what I am really saying is that if you see a novel, comic book, video game, or whatever that you enjoy; suggest it to your friends.  Let people know about it in its pure form.  This won’t stop the problem, but at least people will have a better working knowledge of the source material and an appreciation for stories that take longer than 2-3 hours to complete.

No big post today. I finished studying for a test and only 10 minutes to class. But I did come to a decision, instead of shilling out 199 dollars for a full copy of windows to upgrade my release candidate(beta) that will expire in a month, I will be trying something new.

I have been hearing good things about Ubuntu for some time now and it seems an ideal opportunity to give it a shot and re-familiarize myself with Linux(Which Ubuntu is one version availble).

If it works well I may just keep it. If not I will just reinstall my old vista disks and try and find a good deal on the upgrade to 7.

One post a week is better than I have managed in the past but it still does not do the job, as it were.  The point of a blog is to allow oneself to express their thoughts and concerns alongside items of interest.  Perhaps I have been going about this thing all wrong. Maybe I need to find a particular focus and occasionally take side notes into my own personal issues.

Lets review topics that I know about.  Video games, Movies, Techno, Scifi/Fantasy Literature, the Internet, Journalism, counterculture webcomics, programming, graphic design.

Most of those things either have excellent coverage already on the web or would be incredibly boring to read about.  Perhaps a video blog.  Anyway, I have two quizzes today, though I am all studied up a bit more review couldn’t hurt.