Blarg's Beefs

Apparently Lucas is not satisfied with destroying the Star Wars movies by turning the first three movies into one big trailer for his video games. Now he's gone and told his special effects company, Industrial Light and Magic to use the same software as his game company, LucasArts, so that the video game company can directly manipulate shots provided by the special effects company. More proof that Lucas simply doesn't get it. On the one hand he talks about how "film is art", while on the other hand he is cranking out more and more video game trailers on film. Either Cartoon Network or EA should just hire him so that he can officially move out of the film business altogether. He should no longer relevant to the movie industry, he's only hurting it.

So in San Francisco the bus system is called MUNI. For all the downtown area stops, there are turnstiles where you have to pay to get a ticket before you can even get to the platform, but outside that area you can board right off the street and you're expected to pay as you get on. The problem is, for some bus lines there are so many commuters that they actually hitch two buses together and they move as one unit. At the front bus, the driver can make sure that everyone who gets on pays, but on the back bus there's nobody there ... it's all on the honor system. If you've paid you'll have a ticket stub that the machine prints out for you, if not then you don't. (This is similar to the system they have in the LA subways, except that in LA it's 100% on the honor system.) There are signs warning that police may check for your ticket stub, but you don't really see any police around.

I've always thought that these "honor system" things were a little bit retarded. I mean on the one hand people should be honest, but on the other the system shouldn't make it so easy for people to cheat. How can such an open system possibly hope to deter people from cheating? If I lived in one of those far-lying areas, I'd be tempted to cheat myself.

Then today, during the busy rush hour commute, the police were on the bus checking for tickets. A couple got busted, two older people who looked very well-dressed. So the entire train is packed with people, with more squeezing on at every stop, and standing over these two older well-dressed commuters are two police officers, slowly writing out tickets to both of them. It takes them at least ten minutes to write out the ticket, during which time the bus makes four or five stops. Everyone who gets on gets a look at what's going on because this couple happens to be seated right near the door.

And I realize then that getting a ticket for something as silly as trying to save $1.50 on a crowded bus like this has got to be one of the most embarrassing things that could happen to someone. For the sake of saving just a little bit of money, not only will this couple have to pay a fine that is many many times larger than the $1.50 fare, but they will have to endure having the entire bus know that they attempted to cheat the system. All those eyes watching them for ten minutes while the police officers slowly write them tickets. I'd say that that's the only deterrent I'd need to not be dishonest!

I've had numerous accounts on these "online community" sites for a while now, and up until now it's kind of been a pain in the butt because each site is good for one thing, but not others, so I ended up logging in to all these sites to do everything I like to do. I would use meetin.org because I liked their events, match.com for online dating, myspace.com for fun profiles, blogger for blogging, and ofoto.com for posting pictures. But I would have to keep sending links from one site to the next because I'd want to point out my blog on one site, then tell people about new photos I uploaded on another site, then post funny stories on a third site. It all got to be a real pain in the butt.

Then I tried Yahoo! 360, and I realize that it ties everything together so nicely! Any photos I upload to Yahoo! Photos can be shared right on my profile page. My blog entries update right on my profile page, but I can also link to all of my blogger posts as RSS feeds right on my profile page. I can add reviews that people will be able to search on. I can create lists of things I like that people will be able to read easily, unlike most profiles where there's just a big textarea blob where people dump ten million things. I can link to Yahoo! Groups for social events, and even Yahoo! Personals so that people can a better feel for what type of person I am. And because so many people I know use Yahoo! Mail and IM, they're linked to me almost automatically.

It feels like Yahoo! 360 is the easiest out of all the personal sites out there for setting up a profile and really doing all the things that I like to do online. If you haven't tried it yourself, give it a shot.

Lucas recently said the following according to numerous web sites:

Movie mogul George Lucas predicts Hollywood will soon start shifting away from mega-budget blockbusters in favor of making more independent films for less money. Alongside Steven Spielberg, Star Wars creator Lucas is cited as being chiefly responsible for the blockbuster phenomenon that has gripped the movie industry for the last three decades. But he now believes big-budget films can no longer be profitable and are going out of fashion, as evidenced by this year's Academy Award nominees, including independent movies Crash and Good Night, And Good Luck. Lucas tells the New York Daily News, "The market forces that exist today make it unrealistic to spend $200 million on a movie. Those movies can't make their money back anymore. Look at what happened with King Kong. I think it's great that the major Oscar nominations have gone to independent films. Is that good for the business? No - it's bad for the business. But movie-making isn't about business. It's about art. In the future, almost everything that gets shown in theaters will be indie movies. I predict that by 2025 the average movie will cost only $15 million."

Is this guy really that stupid? How many ways can we debunk this idiotic reasoning? Let's count:

1. King Kong's gross so far stands at an estimated $519 million. Do you think King Kong has recouped its $200 million costs? And this is before DVD, cable, and other post-theatrical revenue streams. Same with War of the Worlds. And I don't think movies like Spider-Man 2 or X2 have had too many problems recouping their investment. Heck, even Pearl Harbor has made its money back and then some! So Lucas is flat out wrong when he says blockbusters can't make their money back anymore.
2. How much did Lucas spend on his little, tiny, independent Star Wars films? The budget for Star Wars Episode III is estimated at $115 million, not exactly the $15 million per film he thinks films will cost. He couldn't do it for $15 million, why does he think everyone else will?
3. "Movies aren't about business, they're about art"??! These words coming from the man who is credited with opening up movies to commercialization and product placement, when he created his Star Wars toys and made millions upon millions of dollars? These words coming from the man whose last THREE films have inarguably not been at all about art but instead about toy and videogame tie-ins? These words coming from the man who created the Jar Jar Binks character so that kids would have someone to laugh at in a movie? This man believes movies are all about art??? Sounds like a man who's made his millions and has lost touch not only with the public, but with himself and who he has become inside.
4. $15 million by the year 2025. I think with inflation, those $15 million are going to be about $7 million in today's dollars. Somehow I doubt that $7 million is going to be the "average" budget of all the fimls. Even when studios go cheap on a movie they spend more than that. For example, She's All That, a film with a cast of young teenagers who weren't making blockbuster money and a director who wasn't exactly A-list, still received an estimated $10 million budget.
5. Blockbuster movies have always had a place in Hollywood. Remember Gone With The Wind? Ben-Hur? Throughout time people have wanted to see huge spectacles, sweeping epics, big dramas, on the screen, and those types of movies cost a lot of money to make. This isn't going to change.

Once again, George Lucas shows he is an idiot who is full of himself and his own idiotic ideas. Hollywood moves in cycles. After several big-budget calamities in the past few years I'm sure a lot of studios (most notably Sony) will go into low-budget mode. But all it takes is one monster hit and blockbusters will be back again. Saying anything else is just ignoring the facts and loving the sound of your own voice a little too much.