Thursday, November 15, 2012

Comic Change

I've got 56 minutes before class starts, and I just finished watching "With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story". If you have Netflix, definitely give it a watch. I'm not the biggest comic book reader, since I never grew up on them, and read other things, however, with the recent (past 10 years?) rise of comic book films becoming an incredibly strong staple in American, and now international entertainment, I've started to look into what makes these films popular, and where the film's stories come from the originals. It's quite interesting to see how much goes into the details of not just the comic book film, but the comics alone, and how amazing of an art form it is.

However recently, I had a discussion with a old high school classmate about the recent Star Wars buyout from Disney, and then it led into Marvel's buyout as well. Disney is ruler of Hollywood, in my opinion. They own so much that people don't realize actually how much they own. I mean, look at the list:

ABC Broadcasting
ESPN
Buena Vista Home Distribution
ABC Family
Disney Channel (world wide)
Hyperion Books
Marvel Entertainment
The El Capitan Theater
Muppets Studio
Hollywood Records
Pixar Studios
Touchstone Pictures

and now Lucasfilm, which also includes one of, if not the biggest VFX studios, ILM (Industrial Light and Magic).

They're huge. This doesn't even cover the span of theme parks, cruise lines, food or clothing products, or buying the licensing rights to James Cameron's Avatar for a new land in Orlando's Animal Kingdom.

My friend tried to say how buying out Marvel and Lucasfilm is bad. How the stories, books and comics will be ruined. And I realized, are they really going to be? I really doubt it.

The thing is, books and comics aren't as popular anymore. I'm sad about it, because I love reading a good novel or story like any other coffee drinking hipster who dwells in the corner of Barnes and Noble. But the fact is, Disney bought out these two companies for a reason. To entertain, and create new stories and bring things otherwise shuttered, to life. I highly doubt that Ant Man would have been brought to life on the silver screen if it wasn't bought out by Disney. Not just that, but also, why would someone (meaning the general public) want to read a comic that has a photo of an explosion, with a few lines of dialogue, when they could go drop $10 and see two hours of explosions, with snarky, well written one-liners, and now a cast of actors that blows the roof off any other comic book films previously made to Iron Man?

We're living in a time where people want mindless entertainment. The late Timothy Leary had it right, and the saying goes for people today. All they want to do is Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out. Why else would trash shows such as Jersey Shore, or 16 and Pregnant be as relevant to pop culture? Or a film like Transformers 3 be as "good" (Yes, the action was fun, but for the love of Autobots is that film long in the tooth...) as others?

My final question is this: Where is the quality anymore? Why aren't popular films like the calibre of the films of old like Casablanca, or African Queen? Where is the storytelling in the popular culture films? It's in films that Marvel is cranking out. The next few years are going to be explosive, and not just literally. We very well may see a rise in these films that would rival anything ever put out. With the way Marvel has blended the worlds of their characters, and laid them out to each have their own story in individual films, then tying them all into the Avengers, and soon to be Avengers 2, this is going to be a long haul of films coming out, that only scratch the surface of the Marvel universe. And soon, the same could be said for Lucasfilm, and the galaxies of Star Wars. Who's to say Disney isn't already scheming up plots for a Boba Fett film, or do something outside of the Jedi realm? There are infinite possibilities. Now that Disney holds the keys to Marvel and Lucasfilm, the rest of Hollywood better look out, and get their fingers to the keyboard to crank out scripts to compete. Otherwise, the Mouse is going to reign big.


Thursday, November 1, 2012

Finding A Window When The Door's Shut


Declined. 


But that's okay. There's a reason for this, and actually, I'm not too upset over not getting it. Sure, it'd be cool to get the internship. However, the reason I'm not upset over it is because I can have family time now. I'm not going anywhere now for a while, and I'm happy with that. If you don't know why I'm happy, please read back to my last post (here: link ). I missed out on a lot of family stuff the past nine or ten months, and I don't want to miss more of it than I have to. 

I'm even planning on doing my major here, since they offer the same thing I was going to go south for, and it's cheaper for the same thing (Win goes to the chain  school system that is Cal-States). So I can save all my money, and not live poor and half-starved like I was gearing up for down south. Sure, it's pushing moving out of here a few years back, however long term, I believe this will pay off a lot better, considering the relationship I have now is blossoming into something great, and I have time to spend with my family that I really don't want to miss out on. I'm young. Why should I rush being alone in some apartment in the city yet? There's still time to be with my family like I always have, and I'm happy with this. So in a round about way, thank you, Disney for not accepting me (just yet, hopefully). There's still unfinished life to live where I am now, and I'm going to finish it here. 

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