I saw a television commercial about the movie Final Destination 3 coming out or already in the marketplace on home DVD ... maybe you've seen the commercial in which the announcer says, "Blah, blah, blah who lives or dies ... YOU decide."
I have a real problem with this advertisement and the whole concept of "YOU decide." This is a fucking movie, and the director had something in mind when he made the movie. That's how we describe movies ... an Alfred Hitchcock movie, a Frank Capra movie, a Ridley Scott movie, and so on. It's not up to me to fuck with the director's artistic interpretation of the screenplay.
But the producer, in an obvious attempt to make billions of dollars more than he did when the movie premiered and played for two or three days, introduces 6 gimmick, interactive movie-making. You, the viewer, decide how the movie develops and comes out in the end. You decide who lives and who dies in the movie.
This is a classic example of the bait and switch. You pay a lot more for the opportunity to be the director/writer of the movie, and you think you have some kind of control over the story line. You don't. Why would James Wong, the director, allow some, in his mind, dumb fuck moron (because that's how directors think) to mess with his product? No fucking way! Let me clue you in on a definition ...
in - ter - ac - tive adj. Acting or capable of acting on each other.
Have you thought about what that means? "Acting on each other" means that it's a two-way street; and the angry, ego-maniacal director has most certainly planted the geo-markers of your final destination into the home DVD.
Many think that I'm paranoid, an alarmist, a stupid asshole; but be very careful when you decide, while watching, nervously fingering the DVD player's remote control, to allow one of the good-looking babes or handsome studs who died in the movie to live on in your version of movie reality. Someone must die in that person's place, or so it goes, ... and who, in an interactive world, Mr. or Ms. Remote Controller, would be the most likely to get fucked?
You have been forewarned.
Posted by Bill at July 28, 2006 08:12 AMIt doesn't bother me so much. I used to play dungeons and dragons (Nerd! yes i admit it!) and we would have a kind of loose script of actions where we would decide what happens next. a roll of a certain 20 sided die could end our lives or put us in peril or make us rich.
I think that there is a video game out there that allows your character to develop based on the decisions you make... be they virtuous or vindictive. and watching what happens when you have control over choices makes for some compelling story development.
and, one could make a righteous choice that does end up in shit... a good choice does not always have the best result. it could get you into dutch with someone who now wants to kill you. it could end up that your pockets are empty and you're on the street because you tried to do the right thing.
as for final destination, in the end, they all die. you just get to decide in what order.
and in the end, that still is the suck.
Posted by: christine at July 28, 2006 05:17 PM