So, for a while now, I've thought about writing a series of essays on the ever growing problem of Hollywood ruining things from my childhood. From video games, to toys, to cartoons, to even board games (see: Battleship: the Movie) it seems now there is increasingly less and less of my childhood to for people to ruin by making a terrible movie from them. What really worries me is not so much that people in charge of such decisions will continue to do so, but rather, that they are narrowing the field.
I will likely, as this little mini-series unfolds, go through a few examples of movies where Hollywood bungled a potential money maker by putting their own idiotic spin on it. I know that I might be going out on a limb here, but there has to have been more potential to a Super Mario Bros. movie then Dennis Hopper chewing scenery while that guy from Who Framed Roger Rabbit and John Leguizimomo (sp?) run around looking somewhere between befuddled and glad just to be working on a big Hollywood movie. No, I'm not saying that there was the room for anything than a goofy romp, but that doesn't mean you can't do it with a bit of intelligence, does it? I hope I don't sound pretentious here, it just seems like it was a waste of franchise material when you take a world-wide recognizable icon like Mario, and flush the idea completely down the toilet. Actually it's worse than that, it's like Hollywood takes great money makers and purposefully ruins them. At least that's what I think has to be going on. Doesn't it?
Furthermore, they take stuff from my childhood, and even when it makes money, they make large portions of it so stupid, so raunchy, so filled with sucker punches to my beliefs, that I regret the times that I see them. Yeesh. Is it that hard not to make a movie and say, "You know what this movie really needs? It needs a scene where a giant fighting robot pees on some guy." What's worse, is that some of the so-called valuable writers that make up the Hollwood writing industry write now are complicite in it. They must be sitting there thinking, "Should it be Optimus or Bumble Bee that does the peeing?" Or the endless stream of fart jokes. Can we let up on those too? That's probably a whole article in itself. People use to hold themselves to a higher standard and didn't have this elitist attitude of "Well, the masses like that stuff." Really? Did you go out and poll people on this? I would have loved to have participated in that survey.
Poller: "So, how do you feel about robot urination?"
Me: "What? I don't think I get the question."
Poller: "You know, say we were making a movie about gigantic robots that fight each other, which may or may not be based on some part of your unspoiled youth. Who would you prefer to see peeing, the leader or the heroic, witty side kick?"
Me: "Wha--no! Just no to all the peeing, why would that even, I just--"
Poller: "I'm sorry sir, but 'no' isn't an option. It would negate the follow up question about how big and long the stream should be."
Me: now openly weeping "why...Why...WHYYYYYYY!"
See, I don't necessarily believe that movies based on things from my childhood need to be filled with crude humor, sex jokes, and drug references. If I went to see a movie that's based on something from my childhood, it likely didn't have those things. If something like the cartoon Transformers had held even a fraction of the things that the movies did, my parents would not only have forbid me from watching the show, but would have punished me for watching it.
What I'm trying to get at is that even when there is proven, popular material, Hollywood finds a way to make it awful. Why is this did this have a clear start? I don't know off the top of my head, but I'm willing to give it look. Next time, I'll be looking at a few big successes, big flops, and "what could have been" that were based on bits from my childhood. I'll be trying to point out what I think were the reasons for the failure of the films, even if they were big money makers at the box office.
Thanks for reading.
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