Friday, June 15, 2012

I saw movie tonight and was utterly disappointed by it.  What movie did I see?  Prometheus.  From the advertisements, it looked to be a promising flick.  And it was…for the first thirty minutes or so.  Long enough to ensure that audience members couldn’t exit the theatre and get a refund from the box office.

Looking around the theatre before the show began, I was stunned and excited to see that all but a handful of seats were taken.  It was fun to be in an almost full theatre again.  That hasn’t happened in a long while.  Mostly, I attribute the latter to the poor state of he economy.  Course, the dismal feeling that seeped over me during the movie made me feel bleak about the full theatre.

When leaving a movie, the best part of said movie shouldn’t be that you’re leaving it.  Looking around the theatre once the lights came back on, I wondered if others felt as cheated by the movie as I had.  I’d say a good number did.  Though there were still those who appeared as though they’d gotten their money’s worth.

Hmmm….

In my opinion, this movie cheated audience members with every possible angle, up to and including “stealing” images from past movies, “borrowing” themes from other movies and overall just plain insulting the intelligence of moviegoers. 

Now before you get upset, I’m fully aware that Prometheus wasn’t meant to be some profound movie whose lasting impression was going to alter the lives of those who watched it.  But I did expect to see originality, as the trailers had promised.  Instead, what those trailers showed were the best parts of the movie.  The rest…well, if you’ve seen other alien creature movies over the past two decades, then save yourself the expense and frustration of bits and parts of those very movies regurgitated at you on the big screen under the guise of being an original movie—Prometheus.

Leaving the theatre, I found myself questioning: is this what entertainment has come to—the dummying down of storylines, cheating audience members and also mindless dribble with shock factors, all blended together into a disappointing two-hour span? 

A number of years back, I realized the direct correlation between intelligent TV programs and how they’d get cancelled almost before they began.  What took their timeslots?  Mindless dribble shows that are full of chaos and or programs whose “storylines” treat viewers as if they have the intelligence of slugs.

But the movies…those had at least maintained a higher level of intelligence in their story lines and originality content…until now.