Cynicism is a disease
Doctor Brown getting zapped with lighting? Force-feeding us the third movie (as we conveniently get a preview for it as soon as the movie ends)? Marty meeting different versions of himself? Please, for the love of God don’t get me started on rehashing most of the great scenes from the first film to further our story. Sadly, It is time to put our love of this tale of the time traveling Doctor and his Delorean to rest my friends And as for you, Mr. Zemekis and Mr Spielberg, you should be ashamed of yourself for destroying your wonderfully original story, just so you could “cash in” on our culture of sequels and franchises. *Spoiler Alert* Doc makes it back just fine and creates a new time machine out of a flying steam engine train, does it get any worse, really?*End Spoilers*
Did that first paragraph annoy you? Are you up in arms right now about how dare someone talk bad about a classic movie? Well good, im glad you are, it means you have a soul. But what is more troubling to me is that were our cynical internet fueled complaint department of a society around in 1989 I guarantee you that the above article would be very real and very common amongst internet movie reviews.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet (and not just for the free downloads and endless videos of people falling down). I love being able to get news and information anytime, whenever I need it, from hundreds of different sources with different interesting opinions on the matter. What I don’t like is how this freedom to give our opinion has turned us into a society of cynical crybabies. Nothing is good enough for us and in terms of the motion picture industry there is no such thing as a great movie anymore because everyone is too busy complaining to actually fall in love with a movie.
Maybe Im too passionate about the topic, Maybe im just crazy, but I grew up loving the movies. Some of my fondest memories are of going to the movies for a Saturday morning matinee and seeing 2-3 movies in one day, just because I couldn’t imagine there being anything better. Movies sucked me in, whether they were good or bad; I just got on for the ride and hopefully enjoyed it. See I think that’s where our biggest problems stem from nowadays. Instead of heading into a movie with an open mind and the willingness to enter a world that has nothing to do with the “real” world, we walk in with a mental notepad ready to criticize and rip apart the film scene by scene (my favorite criticism always being that something doesn’t look “real” enough: Because wizards and superheroes and monsters are “real”). By the time the film ends there’s nothing left to salvage.
It could be that im the last of a dying breed or maybe im just complaining as much as everyone else, but in a different way, who knows? What I do know is that movies are meant to entertain us. They are not meant to be real (for the most part), they are simply there to keep us entertained and there is nothing wrong with that. So please, do me a favor, the next time you go to the movies leave your pen and pad at home and pick up a soda and popcorn, stop worrying about how green the Hulk is, how old Indy and John McLane are and whether or not the giant transforming cars are “real” enough for you; and just watch the movie for what it is, hey, you might even end up enjoying yourself.
Im your favorite ramblers favorite rambler! Personally I thought the first 25 minutes of back to the future three were great. The research in the library, digging up the Delorean soooooo cool. After he went back to the Wild West it was all down hill. I do like the car crash scene with needles too. that was cool.
ReplyDeleteI think BTTF was 2.25 Great Movies. And .75 a so-so movie.