It started with “Avatar,” then picked up steam with “Alice Wonderland.” And now with “Clash of the Titans,” the rippling effect of the 3-D and IMAX movie must cease.
After seeing the latest of the three films last week, I have determined that it is up to the people that fill the cinemas, and allow movies like this to be made, to boycott these expensive, over-hauling movies in order to protect the art that is film.
The film industry is in jeopardy. As more and more directors choose to depict their vision with special eyesight, the more and more money is being made, which is influencing the rest of Hollywood negatively.
Instead of making films meant to please the eyes, directors should be interested and aspiring to create motion pictures that touch the soul and speak to the human mind.
What we have now in the latest of dazed, visual flicks, is a movie that is so horrendous, “Clash of the Titans,” that the thing I was most angry about was not how incomplete the plot was or how awful the acting was along with the atrocious script, rather I was most appalled by the visual effects.
In James Cameron’s “Avatar” at least the visuals lived up to expectations and despite its clichéd plot, was still able to be a movie that touched the audience spiritual side. Walking away from it, audience members thought individually as well as about the world they live in.
However for “Clash,” breaking away from “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland,” cannot make up for the film’s flaws with great graphics and allows the audience to see just how drastically terrible the film was construed.
I ended up watching the last 20 minutes, before leaving five minutes early as the predictable ending showed on the screen, without my 3-D glasses. This was a film that was pitched as an experience though failed in accomplishing the easiest of tasks.
However when I was walking out of the theater and into the parking lot, I was not upset at the movie or Sam Worthington for making his third straight movie deriving from mostly visual aid—”Terminator Salvation,” “Avatar” and “Clash of the Titans”—rather I was more disappointed in myself.
I had gone to a movie strictly based on the visual hype, despite knowing how often they let me down.
These movies are catastrophes. I know the word, catastrophe, seem drastic, but to me, a person who loves great movies with a passion, cannot say it is anything less.
Focus on satisfying the audience with visual effects should never be a top concern of a director, however we have now been used in three movies in the past five months, which have all produced large intakes. As long as these movies, that appear beautiful on the outside, are produced they are falsely identifying themselves as films that need to be seen; this could not be more contrary to what I believe.
I feel that these movies do not teach us anything; don’t make us feel anything. Rather they engage for two hours into a world that is so unbelievable because of just horrific dialogue and acting. Now the sad part is, these movies are now becoming more unrealistic in the visual department, which is what they are suppose to be expertise in.
With high grossing and record-setting totals, these movies appear to be here to stay, but I think that the audience has the power to change this.
Instead of wasting $14 or $15 on a 3-D or IMAX ticket, why don’t you go to a theater playing just simplistic normal movies—anything. I don’t care if it is “The Last Song,” as long as it is not in 3-D then I don’t care. I bet you will save more than $5 if you do this and more than 75 percent of the time you will see a movie that satisfies you way more than any of these action imagery movies.
It is this movement that can put the artistic integrity back into films, but it depends on the audience. The movie industry has always been an entity that was defined by two philosophies. One is survival of the fittest, or that the weak will die off. The second is supply and demand.
If the demand is to ignore making movies like “Clash” or “Avatar,” then Hollywood will supply audiences around the world with spectacular works of cinema such as the magical “Slumdog Millionaire” or the gritty, yet inspiring “Million Dollar Baby,” just to name two of the best films of the last decade.
Although there are still plenty of terrific filmmakers in the industry, it is hard to believe we will have the memories of this past decade in film when we reach the year 2020.
It is our future to write through, and as a population of movie viewers I insist we find a better quality of film before it’s too late.
