Take Back The Movie Night [movies]

Remakes, sequels and reboots

You are Hollywood's bitch and you're too weak to do anything about it

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Being a science-fiction fan in this day and age is a lot like being on the losing end of an abusive relationship.

Ever since Hollywood discovered that us nerds would gladly open up our wallets on nothing more than a wink and a promise of an epic spaceship battle, or a little bit of alien side-boob, they've been milking us for all we're worth. And we're so eager for the love that we just smile and take it.

They churn out disappointing rehash after disappointing rehash, recycling concepts that Asimov would have considered outdated, thinking that if they just throw in enough explosions or CGI monsters that we won't notice. And the sad thing is that most of the time, we don't.

Our abusers are consistently letting us down, falling short on their lofty promises and yet we always take them back, no matter how severely they've embarrassed us in front of our friends. Why do we do it?

Take "Transformers" as an example. Even if you were never a fan of the cartoons or the toys back in the 1980s, the basic concept of giant, shape-shifting alien robots battling for supremacy itself just sounds so damn good on paper that it's hard to imagine how it could ever go wrong. And indeed, with all the possibilities that arise out of that basic premise, it really should have been a no-brainer.
Yet somehow, Hollywood found a way to widdle all that promise down to nothing. How, you ask? By completely ignoring it to focus instead on the petty relationship problems of a teenage boy and the object of his newly pubescent lust. Don't get me wrong, Megan Fox is a hottie for sure, but given the choice to watch her run around cock-teasing in a skimpy T-shirt or witness a gang of badass robots waging all out war across America, I'd totally go for the epic robot battle.

Hot birds are a dime a dozen, but how often do you see a diesel truck transform into a huge mech and then throw another huge mech into the side of a skyscraper?

So why the hell are we watching these high school students awkwardly trying to put their genitals together when there is robot destruction to be had? High school students are the people I push out of the way to get on the train in the morning, they're the people I have to explain my Carl's Jr. order 15 times before they finally get it. They are not cooler or more interesting than Megatron.

I'm sorry, but in no version of reality would that ever be the case. So why did Shia LaBeouf get more screen time than Optimum Prime? Why was the main character in a movie called "Transformers" not, how do I put this, a Transformer?

But like the reliable punching bags we are, we all still went and saw it, and most of us will even make the same mistake a second time around when the sequel comes out. they show us a flashy trailer of all of the coolest parts of the movie in rapid succession, and we ignorantly think that they've changed, that somehow this time things will be different. And maybe, just maybe, there will be an original script, a fresh perspective, a unique vision at the end of that rainbow.

How long has it been since that happened? I honestly can't remember the last new sci-fi movie I wasn't merely settling for in some way.

Let's take another example, "Alien vs. Predator," Like "Transformers," this one should have been a no-brainer, but somehow the filmmakers made the strange choice along the way to try their hardest to not give the audience what they wanted to see. Not only was the movie rated PG-13 when neither franchise had yet turned out anything less than a hard R, but the battles between the Xenomorphs and the Predators were poorly filmed and wildly unsatisfying.

We went in wanting to see aliens take on predators, and what we got was cartoonish predo-human buddy cop shenanigans and a Tomb Raider-esque pyramid of booby traps.

Regardless of how entertaining these films may or may not have been, they both failed on a fundamental level. They just weren't about what they should have been about for no good reason. If this was a school assignment, they both would have been given F's because they wrote 10-page essays on ancient Egypt when the assignment was to solve a math problem.

The main connection between these two films is that they both rely on non-human characters to tell a story. The writers and producers in Hollywood gave been operating for a very long time under the idea that no audience will be able to enjoy a movie unless they are able to directly relate to the protagonist and thus the "useless story vessel" is born.

The main character in "Transformers" is a teenage boy not because it has anything to do with transforming robots, but because Hollywood just doesn't believe giant CGI robots can carry a movie on their own. The concept that audiences who came out in droves would somehow leave the theater severely disappointed that their Transformers movie didn't focus enough on human issues is completely ludicrous.

Nobody came to see anything but Transformers, so why would they be let down if the story was told from the Autobots perspective? They can talk, they have personalities. What's the problem?

"AvP" is a little different because neither species can communicate in English. But seriously, off the top of my head, I could think of 20 cooler setups for that movie than the one that was delivered. They even had a better concept built right into the movie that they totally slept on -- the ancient Aztecs' first encounter with the Predators. It was right there in the movie and would have been a way cooler story. But instead, they went with the more generic "scientific expedition encounters unbelievable horror" route.

Personally, I think "Apocalypto" meets "Alien" meets "Predator" would have been much more satisfying and much more original, but hey, nobody's paying me to write this crap, so what do I know? All I really know is what I like and what I don't like. I don't like movies that water down their subject matter for the sake of mass appeal.

When will Hollywood open its eyes and realize that people like sci-fi just the way it is? People love "Terminator," they love "Alien." They love Star Wars. But what they don't love is watered down sci-fi that's afraid to commit.

As the victims of constant letdown by the Hollywood system, how can we geeks take back our self respect? How can we break the cycle of abuse?

The answer is fairly simple -- don't believe the hype! Don't let The Man's smooth talking ways seduce you. If they want to get into your pants, make them work for it!

An awesome trailer does not make a good movie. In fact, the more awesome stuff you see in a trailer, the less impressed you should be because it means they're trying to pull the wool over your eyes. If you show up at the midnight screening already wearing the officially licensed T-shirt on your back before you've even seen the first five minutes of the movie, then you're playing right into their hands, and they're going to keep on shafting you time after time. They'll only try what they think they'll be able to get away with.

Support independent filmmakers. With blossoming genre scenes growing out of Korea, Japan, Spain, Mexico, Russia and many other countries, there really is no shortage of alternatives to the big Hollywood blockbusters that have become so stagnant lately. With the cost of special effects and CGI slowly becoming affordable to small production houses, the playing field is being leveled and it's no longer necessary to have a Hollywood budget to get Hollywood-level production values.

A year or two of poor box office turnout might cause the big studios to re-evaluate their game plans, and maybe try a little bit harder to make them worthwhile films.