A Sane Man of an Insane World

Source: Escapist Here is what I have to say to you, Activision. This could of had been yours. This hard rocking game of a gem could have had your nice little label on it, and you could of have made oodles of cash on it. You could of had it Activision! You could of had it all, only if you wouldn't make it a Guitar Hero spin-off! But noooo, you had to have that cursed spin-off, you couldn't perceive the brilliance of any marketing strategy outside of it. You didn't dare have the awesome power of metal burn your faces off like butter sitting on a freshly warmed knife! So you got rid of it! You abandoned Schafer's baby in the cold desert of 'No Publisher', leaving all those years of labor for naught. And when EA swoops down to save it, what do you do? You panic! You go "Oh noes!" and you decide to pull off the biggest douche bag move you could ever conceive of pulling off. You try to use the legal system to delay it, you good for nothing sons of mothers! You tried to stop the great charge that was Brütal Legend. But you can't stop it! You can't! Even the legal system urinated you in the face! You had your chance to do something good with the gaming world, but you shrunk back! And you got nothing for it all! And that is all you deserve.

“This was the time when the Oscars actually meant something”. So commented Skac01 7 months ago to a YouTube video of Jerry Goldsmith winning his one – and unfortunately, only – Oscar for his score to The Omen – and what a score that was!

But I’m not going to write about that fantastic score. I’d much rather talk about that comment, what it meant, and why it rings so true… or at least to me.

The Oscars first came about in 1929. That was when movies were still young. They were fresh and exciting! Sure, we didn’t have CGI, or Computer Generated movies, or even color. Now that I think about it, we didn’t even have sound. But we did have stories. We did have images that moved. That was something new. After millions of years of just being content with having pictures that stayed perfectly still, they could now be animated.

It was something new, something exciting.

And the Oscars were supposed to award those that were truly great.

With that in mind, a question should be raised. Is the reason the Oscars no longer mean anything is because movies no longer mean anything.

I’d wager a yes.

More and more, I am seeing a trend in our general media. The mass audience go for the cool things. Big shiny robots, cool explosions, a simple good against evil plot. Things that are nice to stare at and say “Oooooo” for 90 or so minutes, but beyond that, not much more.

We have our cool special effects, the awesome fight scenes, the copy cat romantic comedies, and one has to wonder, why even bother anymore? If all of the movies are cookie cutter duplicates, with minimal difference in characters and plot, why should we even care?

And the answer is we shouldn’t.

So, Academy, if you want to make the Awards worth something, allow me to give you a big hint. Nudge those Studios to make movies that are worth something. Then you will see people flocking to their televisions to watch the Academy Awards again.

Just a hint.