This Week In Trailers

In tandem with my post yesterday about how YA books are being made into movies, yesterday, three trailers were released for two semi-popular franchises. Beautiful Creatures is an upcoming paranormal romance movie that I honestly have no idea what it's about from the trailer. I say this as I have the book sitting about three feet away from me and I'm pretty sure that it's due within the next week at the library but I haven't had time to read it between having a job and no life and school. But anyway.

The trailer for Beautiful Creatures can be viewed here. Or, you can just watch it below.

I don't know. I'm not sure that I really have an opinion on it, because I haven't read the book and generally I like to read the book that the movie is based off of so I can nitpick at everything that was wrong with it (not really, but you all saw how much I completely loathed Hunger Games). But I suppose that it looks okay. The concept--she's turning dark in a matter of days, and if the darkness overcomes her or something the world will be destroyed? I don't know. That's what I got out of it from Emmy Rossum and Emmy Rossum is great. So we'll mark it down as a 'maybe' in terms of whether or not I'll actually go see it. I'm not into the actors playing Lena and .... whoever the boy's name is. (Ethan. Wikipedia, yo). I've never even heard of the male actor, Alden, and he was in an episode of my favourite TV show, Supernatural. Huh. The more you know.

Then, there's The Host. You know, the not-Twilight books from Twilight Author Stephenie Meyer. The trailer is here. It would look good except for the obvious lack of Jake Abel in the previews, which I find disturbing since he's kind of important. I mean, in my world. Maybe he's not important in the movie. I don't know. But the trailer just didn't make any sense. For people like me who have not read The Host, the trailer just did not bring me in or make me want to see the movie. So, we'll have to see about that one.

And finally, there's The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, which is the new answer to Hunger Games and Harry Potter and will eventually be the replacement for Twilight since there are like 345456 books in this series (okay, okay, there are five. Six.) And while the trailer (here) for this movie just doesn't really look that good, the poster is pretty cool.

Here's the trailer: 

I mean, okay. On the off chance that I publish a book and it gets turned into a movie, great. But that's not happening for probably at least another decade. And I'm not happy with how any of these movies look. ):

In Which I Examine How Movies Are No Longer Original Concepts

This post has been spurred by a project that I have to do for a class. I was thinking about how there is practically nothing original coming out of anything lately. We have prequels for sequels of movies and remakes of old movies and reboots of not-so-old franchises and books based off of other books and just, none of it makes sense. Where's the originality? What's happened to the world that there's no such thing as originality anymore in the media industry?

Let's take a look at film. Movies. We love them. I love them. Heck, my favourite movie this year was a movie based off a comic series. But in terms of original movies? What was there? Looper, perhaps. Pitch Perfect, though that seemed more like a grown-up Glee movie.

Consider the top ten grossing films of the year:

1. The Avengers
2. The Dark Knight Rises
3. Ice Age: Continental Drift
4. The Amazing Spider-Man
5. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
6. The Hunger Games
7. Men in Black 3
8. Skyfall
9. Brave
10. Ted

When we look at these, what do we see? Perhaps two "Original" movies (Brave & Ted), FIVE sequels (TDKR, Ice Age, Madagascar, MIB3, Skyfall), and then four films based off of other works (Hunger Games, Spider-Man, Batman, Avengers). 

A new trend in the film industry is to take every YA book that even LOOKS like it could be translated to film and DO IT. And sure, we can blame this fully on Harry Potter, but at least the Harry Potter movies were GOOD. Hunger Games was by far one of the worst movies I'd seen this year. So, let's look at some YA franchises that are going to be turned into films, shall we?

1. Twilight. Finishes this year, but it comes out this year so I'm counting it.
2. Catching Fire (2nd Hunger Games movie, and then the 3rd THG book is going to be split into two films. That's right. They're copying off of Twilight who copied off of Harry Potter.)
3. The next Percy Jackson film comes out next year.
4. The Mortal Instruments.
5. The Maze Runner has been optioned for film and has a director.
6. Beautiful Creatures is being filmed currently. 
7. The Selection is a book that's being turned into a damn TV show.
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower was turned into a movie.
9. The Host is now going to be a film (a weird-ass one, from the looks of it)
10. Divergent is going to be a movie
11. Before I Fall has been optioned for film by Fox
12. Ender's Game is going to be a movie

I mean seriously, the list goes on and on. Why? Why are so many YA books being turned into films? It's not like they're any good (the movies, not the books. Many of the books are stellar), but with the release of Hunger Games I just lost all creative interest in it. When I see a movie based on a YA book, I want a MOVIE. Not the book in movie form. Does that make any sense? I love Jennifer Lawrence so much but she played Katniss like a cardboard cutout of the girl from the book. Katniss is obviously NOT the most wonderful character in the world but she was so BORING to watch in Hunger Games.I got NO emotion from her, compared to say, Emma Watson as Hermione Granger. Just go watch the scene where she's all emotional over Ron. THAT is an actress EMBODYING the character she was told to play. 

Sorry. I just really hated the Hunger Games film.

FURTHERMORE, with the success of Marvel's Avengers, even more comic books are being turned into movies, which I'm okay with, for the most part. There are some things that I'm not going to be cool with, I'm sure, but we shall see how it all ends up. 

This has turned into a rant about how much I hate movies based off of books. Let's steer away from that and back to the originality/sequel concept. Let's talk about movies that came out this year.

1. Bourne Legacy: a movie based off a former trilogy with the same name but different characters. Yeah, the movie was great, but ... what?
2. Total Recall. A remake of a movie. Okay. Sure. Let's throw Colin Farrell in there because let's face it, dude's hot. But it wasn't new. Sure, we got all kinds of high-tech views and some new ideas, but we knew what was supposed to happen.
3. Taken 2. TAKEN AGAIN.
4. Skyfall. Okay, aside from the fact that this movie was mind-numbingly perfect, it's still a sequel. And while it was a great Bond movie, this is probably the only franchise that I'm okay with movies still being produced. That and Avengers. And while we're at it....
5. Avengers technically was a sequel to a whole bunch of other movies.
6. The Dark Knight Rises. Again, another fantastic film, but a close-out to a trilogy. 
7. Wreck-It Ralph. Another great movie. But based off a game?
8. Breaking Dawn Pt. 2. I think the "part 2" gives it away
9. Red Dawn: A remake....
10. This is 40: A spin off of Knocked Up?

Again, I could go on and on. So, what has been original this year?

Bueller?

Bueller?

Off the top of my head I've got Looper and Ted. And yeah, I'm sure there are more, but my point here is that originality is dead.

And that's just plain sad, when you look at the future of film.

Just for fun, let's look at what's coming out next year in terms of movies that are sequels or based off of books:

JANUARY:
Texas Chainsaw 3D
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (dark spin on a fairy tale)

FEBRUARY:
Beautiful Creatures
A Good Day To Die Hard
MARCH: 

Jack the Giant Killer
The Last Exorcism 2 (isn't that title a little redundant?)

Carrie
Oz: The Great and Powerful

GI Joe Retaliation
APRIL: 

Jurassic Park 3D

Scary Movie 5 (5. SERIOUSLY.)
MAY: 

Iron Man 3
The Great Gatsby
Star Trek into Darkness
The Hangover Pt. 3
JUNE:
Man of Steel
Monsters University

Kick-Ass 2
JULY:
Despicable Me 2
Independence Day 3D

Grown Ups 2
The Wolverine (I count this since we already have Wolverine)
The Smurfs 2
AUGUST:

RED 2
300: Rise of an Empire
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters
The Mortal Instruments
SEPTEMBER:
The Little Mermaid 3D

Cloudy 2 (??????)
Star Wars: Attack of the Clones 3D

OCTOBER:
Sin City: A Dame to Die For

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith 3D (did not know this one)

NOVEMBER:

Ender's Game

Thor: The Dark World
Catching Fire
DECEMBER:

The Hobbit 2.

So, there you go. Twelve months in the year, and 36 non-original movies.

Originality. It's not a thing.

MTV doesn't believe in music anymore.

Earlier this week, a video appeared on the internet under the title above. “Why doesn’t MTV play music videos anymore?”

The video is intended to be sarcastic–the guy in the video doesn’t really work for MTV and of course, MTV wouldn’t admit to what they’ve done to their channel, (Jersey Shore, the spinoff of Jersey Shore, the spinoff of the spinoff of Jersey Shore, etc.) but what’s being said really rings true. When I was a kid, MTV actually played music videos. We had TRL and the cool thing to do was watch that when you got home from school. The fact that MTV no longer plays music videos anymore is a touchy subject among kids of the 80s and 90s. MTV is obsessed with Twilight, promoting their reality shows, and doing interviews with actors and artists who are popular. The “M” in “MTV” got lost in translation somewhere between 2002 and now, and people are starting to notice. Comments like “Why is MTV still even called MTV? There’s not any music playing anymore”, and “MTV really should change their name since they don’t even try anymore” come from people all over the internet, and MTV has been receiving ridicule for their brainless programming and pandering to popular artists for years now.

The video, posted below, addresses the question that a lot of people really are asking. (Warning: language).

Why doesn\’t MTV play music anymore?

This video really puts the state of the media industry into perspective and addresses the bigger problem at hand–the decline of the media industries due to our almost unlimited access to movies, music, and books. With the advent of social media sites, media is extremely accessible–whether it be music, films, or even books. People can download anything wherever they are, whenever they want, at lightning speeds. People aren’t going out and buying CDs or movies anymore. Why would they? Albums are leaking early, movies are being released into torrents, and e-books are being published online. We can listen to music for free through services like Spotify and Pandora and we can watch music videos for free (albeit, with some annoying commercials) through Youtube. It’s just so much easier to get the things for free and never leave the house, and it’s easier to instantly call up that Carly Rae Jepsen song on YouTube instead of waiting hours for it to maybe pop up on MTV.

In addition, we are given the freedom to download things as we please. Social media allows the links to these downloads to spread extremely fast around the internet and by the time the parent company finds out, hundreds of thousands of people could have downloaded it. It’s not so much that social media is completely to blame here, but without the ability to post things on the internet instantly, what’s happening wouldn’t be a problem.

Obviously this isn’t true for all aspects of the media industry. Marvel’sAvengers film leaked online as a torrent about a week before the actual film came out and that’s not hurting them at all–the film itself made $1.5 billion (500m more than the next-highest grossing movie, The Dark Knight Rises). They could probably care less that the highest grossing film of the year was leaked onto the internet. But for the little hometown band that is trying to make their living, when one fan buys the album, listens to it, uploads it and tells all their friends to download it, they could go under. Or for the independent film that was just released to DVD following rave reviews but nobody buys it because they all saw it online, it’s considered a failure.

But it's not really a failure. It's just how the industry works nowadays.