<CYNICAL RANT ALERT>
It just annoys the hell out of me that their views are so skewed in their industry. They pay the main actors MILLIONS of dollars for one movie, and the actor gets residual benefits from any DVD/CD/merchandise sales, and the directors/producers/executives also take a large chunk of change out of that to line their wallets. Then when they hear about someone doing something that will have negligible effect on their income, they attack him/her FULL FORCE with lawsuits and legal action, not in an effort to do what's right, but rather to protect the flow of cash into their coughers. THEN they think it's fine to charge $15 dollars for a disk with mediocre media on it when it only costs them $0.25 to produce. ON TOP OF THAT they complain that piracy is hurting all the media industry workers who work hard to create it, only to have it pirated by someone on the internet, but they turn a blind eye to the fact that most of their workers make a meager income while the majority of the income from the aftermarket sales of the media goes to the actors/directors/producers. Now I know the A/D/P have a good deal of involvement in the making of these films, but NONE of it could have been done without the COUNTLESS people behind the scenes who get none of the larger dollar from these productions. Much of the aftermarket products that pull in the majority of income created by films today has very little to do with the film at all. For example, the Spiderman box-office movies were put out and were a hit. Good for them. The people who work to ensure those films were created should be compensated. But then after that, the merchandising comes in, and an even LARGER income flow is created. With the Spiderman movies, the much of the merchandise for sale afterwards had NOTHING to do with the movies. Spiderman was a poor struggling high school student then college student with no cash. HOW IS IT THEY ARE SELLING A "Spider-Copter" and "Spider-Boat". Spiderman had no speedboat or helicopter! But this nonsensical merchandise is put out there JUST to pull more money in for the Actor/Producers/Directors/Creators.
I'm near positive that Stan Lee never wrote a "Bat-Boat" into any of his intellectual property (comics). And in NO WAY does the Spiderman action figure look like the actor Tobey Maguire (Spiderman), and so should not entitle him to any likeness rights. I can't slap my nametag onto a lump of coal and say that there was some manufacturing issues that make it's likeness to me, somewhat flawed. I definitely can't go on to charge $10.95 to anyone who wants a hunk of coal (for whatever reasons). Even if I could, I definitely wouldn't then keep 99% of the profit to myself and not compensate everyone else who helped produce it (the diggers, taggers, packagers, then donate the majority to earth-saving causes since it IS a lump of coal. But the movie industry does this EVERY DAY, and then goes even further to KICK anyone who wants to share the creation. I admit that I've viewed pirated movies. I don't keep them, because they are ALWAYS of lower quality than the official versions. So any GOOD ones that I like and believe are actually deserving of the money I buy actual versions of. The crappy ones, I would just watch and then toss, knowing that the same thing will just be showed for free a month later on television (in a final death-throw attempt to create demand for the merchandise). But (back to the article way, WAY above) the European movie company is taking legal actions against a slightly similar concept to their 1979 movie. Now HOW IN THE HELL is a CURRENT DAY movie similar to one created over 30 years ago. The majority of the draw to this type of film today is for its special effects. Most of the dumb-ass moviegoers today don't pay attention to any deep plot (or obvious plot for that matter), subtext, political commentary, or controversial issues brought up in films. They just go for the Ohhhs and Ahhhs of the special effects. (Special FX, Which the animators and CG software developers & technicians are not being equally compensated for,...but that's another issue.) Most of the moviegoers go more for the effects than for the plot, and 70's affect CAN'T HOLD A CANDLE to the effects of today. The only reason the plaintiff execs are making a fuss is because they see other people making some money (granted not too much as the flick didn't do as good as it could have) and they want a piece of it. So they look for ANY SIMILARITY to whatever they have already done, no matter how insignificant, and try to exploit it.
Who wants to pay $8 for a ticket, and $10 to $15 for SNACKS (not a
meal) just to sit in a DIRTY theater where the employees don't do the job they used to do (but left up to a 5 second encouragement ad before the movie) and enforce silence and courtesy of other rude patrons/teens/children/CRYING BABIES, like they used to for a movie that is so chalk-full of blatant advertisements for products that the plot and any story-line fall by the wayside. Movie theaters are not worth the time.
Grrr.
If collecting DVDs wasn't a hobby of mine,
I'd boycott the movie industry all together.
I definitely won't be attending any movies in theaters any time soon,
I'm too sick of prying jujubes off the soles of my shoes.
</CYNICAL RANT ALERT>
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