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!

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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.^↩