Why Doesn't the Movie Industry Pander to Nerds? **Spoilers** + Other things

Ladies and Gentlemen, I watched Star Trek: Into Darkness....in the IMAX. Seeing an IMAX film in the BFI rekindled my love for that hulking titan of a screen and the barrage of SFX on my senses was almost overwhelming. What an exciting evening! In regards to the movie, I enjoyed it thoroughly.¹  As I said, the special effects were awe inspiring, the humour was great, the story and character development could have been a bit better but aligning my expectations with the fact that this was a sequel, I think a high 7.8 or 7.9 on the imdb scale.² Now as someone who was brought up on Star Wars and never saw Star Trek (not that they are mutually exclusive) I went into the cinema as a huge fan of the first film and was not disappointed as all the characters returned with some great performances (Karl Urban IS the law). However I couldn't shake the niggling feeling that if I had been a 'Trekkie' this film would have been as blasphemous as Iron Man 3 was to me as detailed in my last post. Now when I say Trekkie I don't mean the casual watcher, I mean the full on nerds who know almost everything about the universe, speak Klingon, would kill someone if they insulted Star Trek and did kill someone when they saw Zachary Quinto's apparently mediocre performance as Spock (a sentiment I do not share). Why is it the case that these long term fans and supporters of franchises are the ones who are often the most disappointed?

It seems slightly unfair, doesn't it? The people who have supported the franchise through its low points as well as the highs are not given a voice in what they want to see from the film. Having seen the film around a week ago now and seen the Trekkie response I was pleasantly surprised at how mixed to positive the reviews were. Looking at recent releases of the umbrella 'nerd' genre you can see some reasoning behind the decision of the industry. The Hobbit was slammed by critics and self proclaimed fans of Tolkien could not handle the sheer length of the film.³ I thoroughly enjoyed the film and it was an undeniable box office success and it ticked all the boxes of hard core LOTR fans but we saw film fan's and the general public's poor response to the film compared to the lofty podium LOTR rests on. Without trying to repeat myself, I believe Iron Man was the complete opposite to The Hobbit with its critical acclaim and commercial success but hatred from the comic book audience. Is it fair? No. Will Hollywood continue to chase profits? Yes, after all they are a business with investors and various parties to attend to. Frankly, the reddit hivemind has instilled a general feeling of disgust towards this attitude of the movie industry but while on reddit one we may seem like a large crowd, in reality it is a small number of people who are generally very lazy and like to talk out of their our arses (which they we believe to be much cleaner than everyone else's).

I've decided there isn't much more to say on this topic so I've decided to stop there. Of course this blog will have little or no impact on how things are run in the movie industry, but to conclude: the industry should pay more attention to the audience who had the most influence in the conception of the movie and not just to make it for as wide an audience as possible (because I say so). You never know, you might just make something brilliant (see: Kick Ass). Making a good film and a nerdy film are not mutually exclusive and many audiences will appreciate not seeing a cheese fest like the MCU in the lead up to the avengers. Realistically I would like to see the era of comic book movies come to a close and if the announce a JLA movie at the end of Man of Steel I will turn around and punch Porridge in the face. So, just like in real life (as Jake knows too well) I'm going to change the subject to something completely unrelated!

I want to put on paper (well the interblogs) my thoughts on a couple of video games. Firstly, I've been thinking about modern FPSes. What the fuck is up with games like BF3 and COD's reloading system? Do they understand how magazines work? They don't magically fill up when you reload (COD I can excuse but BF3 was just unnecessary). Also you'd think that some developer somewhere would have thought of a more realistic way of portraying how a player shooting appears on the map (a clear red dot does not accurately represent this). My suggestion was a system that changes the size of the dot depending on the sound's distance from the player. Also back to my problems with BF3 (I play it a lot more than COD), hardcore mode which Chris insists we play is just stupid. There's removing the HUD for the sake of immersion and then there's removing everything for absolutely no reason. For example, a soldier would know how many magazines he has left and what firing mode his gun is on, but in hardcore mode, I don't.

Sorry for the low quality of this blog post compared to my first one. My time spent writing it was very fragmented and there's no point in me writing another post in this fashion. Next time I promise to do better!

---

1 Please take note Marvel, this is how you please fans of the series. Make the reveal of the villain a surprise, not the removal. Spergs.^↩
2 I don't think I explained the imdb scale in my last post. So I am a believer in imdb's voting system as the most accurate rating for a film in the business (less accurate for tv shows). In my mind if a film is above 6.5 it is worth watching; above 7 is good; above 8 is great; and above 9 is a film that HAS to be watched. i.e. Into Darkness was just short of greatness. ^↩
3 As a two time (soon to become three) veteran of watching the extended editions of LOTR (11h30!), The Hobbit was a veritable walk in the park but the prospect of an extended edition of An Unexpected Journey has me quaking in my boots.^↩ 

First Post: Why I Hated Iron Man 3 **SPOILERS**

You were the chosen one! You were meant to bring balance to marvel not destroy it. Yep, it's official, I have lost my faith in the marvel cinematic universe. Drastic measures you say? I wouldn't say so. I have been repeatedly disappointed with their recent attempts. But all these problems were set to disappear with Iron Man 3.

Gilded promises were waved in front of my eyes through the constant flow of trailers. A new, action oriented director to hopefully inject the spark I've not experienced from high budget comic book films (I mean comic books are pretty heavy on the character development; I want to see the action, previously reliant on the reader's imagination, come to life in my movies). An adapted version of the Extremis storyline, one of the best in the Iron Man comics and certainly my favourite in which the line between biology and technology is erased, something I hope to see by the end of my lifetime.¹ And finally to top it off, the Mandarin...ah the Mandarin, but more on that later.

I saw Iron Man 3 in the BFI IMAX on the Friday after a week of stressful second year medical exams, having booked them around two months in advance for 10 people.² I'm becoming very picky with the IMAX and unless I get the best possible seats available I'm generally very unhappy.³  Also, call me picky but the Digital Remastering on non IMAX films looks a bit grainy and generally lacking in colour to my eyes, something I noticed in the Hobbit as well. I was genuinely very stressed going into the movie as I had broken my one rule⁴, around half the party had arrived late effectively locking themselves out of the auditorium and the ticket machines at the IMAX had churned out all 30 tickets I had booked with them. But that's enough info about my feelings, I want to talk about the movie.

It was a good movie to watch. Fun and funny, a great film to watch for leisure and an effective way to pass a couple of hours of time....for the average film-goer, not for the amateur comic book aficionado, Iron Man fanboy and critical (often controversial) film watcher I consider myself to be. Sometimes the film just watched horribly, like a 5.0 imdb film. The script didn't click and the editing seemed low quality, but these incidents were few and far between and I attribute it to an inexperienced director. Scarcity of action is not always a negative, again looking at Iron Man which had I'd say about 4 real action pieces, all which sated the audience's appetite. However, if you're going to swap out Jon Favreau for Shane Black of Lethal Weapon and increase the budget riding on the success of The 'billion-dollar' Avengers, I want to see more action and less fluff.⁵

I felt that considering the strength of the source material, what they did with the Extremis story line was inexcusable. For the sake of saving everybody's time I'm just going to reel off the changes they made that I disliked:

• Maya Hansen, creator of extremis and major player in the comics was made into a nobody. She did nothing at all and then they killed her for no reason.
• For a movie that seemed to want to focus on humour they really jumped the gun on removing Sal Kennedy
• Giving him psychokinetic control of his armour without going through the extremis process (Why??)
• Making Aldritch Killian a bad guy (curveball: I actually really liked this) Edit: But making him the main bad guy...Nah
• "Operation Clean Slate"  WHAT THE (FUCKING) FUCK?!

I also think that making Pepper Potts Tony's girlfriend was a bad idea. Iron Man had an amazing on screen chemistry between Stark and Potts⁶ which was effectively held back by them being in a relationship in 2, 3 and the Avengers. The three way romantic friction that should have existed between Hansen, Potts and Stark just didn't play out like it should have. Also giving her extremis and then just magically taking it away in the epilogue? Sloppy writing.

Phew this is getting big. It feels like I'm writing an essay on the subject. This was all just floating around in my head post Iron Man 3, but now it's time for the part that makes me want to scream and tear all my hair out. Just watch this trailer: 

That was the first look we got at Iron Man 3. Note the dark music, grim themes, the Mandarin, it just looked incredible. People went straight to the comments and said this was going to be a copy of The Dark Knight Rises (Shut UP).⁷ All that excitement and build-up. This was it, Iron Man's major fight, going toe to toe with his arch-nemesis and he didn't even know it. When what they had done dawned on me, I laughed. I laughed because it was funny and unexpected and brave of them to attempt. But most of all I laughed because that was when my love for the Marvel Cinematic Universe was torn from me. And it's probably going to scar.⁸

I really have exhausted myself with this post. I honestly can't think of anything else to write. I think that's a good thing? It means I won't have to think about hating Iron Man while I slog on with bloody Science and Patient (urgh). Truth is if they do make this the last one (which is possible considering the ending and the salary fiasco that's going on) I would be incredibly disappointed that they left it like they did. OK you called my bluff, I'm going to go see Thor 2 and Captain America 2 and Hulk 2 and I'd sacrifice my first born to go to the premiere of The Avengers 2 (THANOS!), but please please please Marvel, don't disappoint me again.

Join us next time on Journey to the Center of the Samick whenever I can be arsed to write another one.

P.S. They're called the Argonauts you ingrate.

---

---

1 Who knows, maybe I'll get involved with some research project that will be directly involved with making this a reality^↩
2 £120!!!! I mean come on Sanchit it was supposed to be a small group^↩
3 This required a whole day of constant refreshing for Star Trek and Man of Steel but I did get some fairly good seats.^↩
4 Always, and I mean ALWAYS go to the toilet before the cinema. Created circa. Pirates of the Caribbean 3.^↩

5 ac-tion, /ˈakSHən/ , noun: the ass kicking of enemies by Tony Stark or Colonel 'Rhodey' Rhodes enclosed in an armored, powered exo-skeleton, ideally brand new in features and function, both of which are specified to some extent. ^↩
6 The 2008 film captured the Stark-Potts relationship perfectly. The super intelligent, womanizing yet lonely Stark and his assistant who cares for him but can't keep up with his speeding intellect. On screen this was achieved because Downey Jr. kept improvising and deviating from the script leaving Paltrow flustered. Brilliant.^↩
7 No seriously shut up. You were wrong and always will be wrong. Kindly take your head out of Batman's arse.^↩
8 MCU Hatred Syndrome: Treat with a direct dose of Civil War and wean on Iron Man v4 and hope that the next one won't be so bad.^↩