Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)

[NC_Skins]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

The movie industry isn't "running out of ideas". Their wasn't some magical event that removed creativity from the individuals in the industry and potential creatives outside it. They are just reacting to the market. Why would they spend a certain amount of money to make and promote a film that will only make limited money? It's easier (cheaper and less risky) to retread stuff because they can better predict how the market will react. Perhpas the studios were run by more creatively focused individuals in the past and that steered them to try more creative ideas and take gambles...but today they're run by business people who don't care about artistic endeavor but rather making money.

This.


Piracy and other influences don't stifle creativity. It's a false conception that they want you to believe.(much like the fact they are losing money) It's bogus, false and absolutely no truth to it. They retread crap because they know they can make money off of it because only the American public will be stupid enough to continue buying the same product over and over again, even if it is slightly changed.

Rebooting King Kong 2 times.
Rebooting Bat Man.
Rebooting Spider Man.
Rebooting The Fog.
Rebooting Friday the 13th.
Rebooting Nightmare on Elm Street.
...and so on.


If these guys were losing money, they'd never create these reboots. The fact is, they know good and well they'll cash in even if it is the same material.

[JoeRedskin]

Out of curiosity, I googled the top money making movies of 2011. They are:
1. Cars 2
2. Harry Potter Deathly Hallows, Part II
3. The Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn (Part One)
4. Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides
5. The Hangover 2
6. Thor
7. Super 8
8. Green Lantern
9. X-Men: First Class
10. The Muppets

As I see it, of these, only "Super 8" was a film developed from an original idea with film as the originally intended medium.

Just saying ...

[skinsguy]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

The movie industry isn't "running out of ideas". Their wasn't some magical event that removed creativity from the individuals in the industry and potential creatives outside it. They are just reacting to the market. Why would they spend a certain amount of money to make and promote a film that will only make limited money? It's easier (cheaper and less risky) to retread stuff because they can better predict how the market will react. Perhpas the studios were run by more creatively focused individuals in the past and that steered them to try more creative ideas and take gambles...but today they're run by business people who don't care about artistic endeavor but rather making money.

No one really said Hollywood was running out of ideas. We're just saying Hollywood has not been as creative as it appears it has been in the past. And it's possible that reasoning is because they are focusing on the "sure thing" big name movie. Kind of makes me think Vinny Cerrato is managing Hollywood...lol!

But, I would also argue if Hollywood is being run more by business men, then those businessmen obviously are stuck in the past in regards to distribution of their works.

[mlmpetert]

Originally Posted by skinsguy

No one really said Hollywood was running out of ideas. We're just saying Hollywood has not been as creative as it appears it has been in the past. And it's possible that reasoning is because they are focusing on the "sure thing" big name movie. Kind of makes me think Vinny Cerrato is managing Hollywood...lol!

But, I would also argue if Hollywood is being run more by business men, then those businessmen obviously are stuck in the past in regards to distribution of their works.

Yeah exactly. I would also guess that that more entertainment is being consumed now than ever before, because entertainment is cheaper, more readily available, and because of unrelated technological advances that give us much more time to spend entertaining ourselves. With so much demand, retreading old stuff allows suppliers to better fulfill that demand.

But I would say that there may have been a bit of a “magical moment” that changed creativity once creator and consumer were both given the immediate ability to have cultural and historical reference to everything and anything. Generation Y has so far failed at creating a musical genre and many of the products that people from all surviving generations want seem to take cues from the past; from movies to cars to art and fashion. Current artistic creativity seems to be less fully original and it seems this all started when we entered the “information age”.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by skinsguy

No one really said Hollywood was running out of ideas. We're just saying Hollywood has not been as creative as it appears it has been in the past. And it's possible that reasoning is because they are focusing on the "sure thing" big name movie. Kind of makes me think Vinny Cerrato is managing Hollywood...lol!

But, I would also argue if Hollywood is being run more by business men, then those businessmen obviously are stuck in the past in regards to distribution of their works.

Originally Posted by skinsguy

But anyways, it seems now more than ever, the movie industry just seems to be running out of ideas.

Ha!

[Dirtbag59]

It's not just the retread movies. It's the whole damn business model.

Basically the MPAA wants you to go to a theater, pay $10 to watch one showing, where you can't pause and have to hope that you're not sharing the theater with someone who is more then willing to talk on their phone during the movie. Then they want you to wait 6 months or something like that and either pay $5-$7 to rent or pay $20 for a DVD and $30-$50 for a Blu-Ray. Heck on I-Tunes they charge $20 for HD versions of movies and $14 for SD versions and those are designed for use only on ipods and computers.

They have little desire to licence these movies to affordable streaming services nor any desire to reduce the price on home DVD's and Blu-Rays which by the way come with unskippable trailers and PSA's. It's no wonder their main demographic, teens to young adults, turned to piracy.

The price was already way to high and when free options became available enough people jumped on board. The need to make their content more affordable and accessible has been long overdue and instead of doing that they've opted to raise prices and make legitimate options harder to come by.

Not to mention rather then create good will with the public they've attacked their customers with lawsuits, threats, and power grabs with bills like SOPA. And the funny thing is that Hollywoods main demographic, the one doing most of if not all the downloading, is teens to young adults. A whole group of people that absolutely love pissing off old people.

[FRPLG]

Yeah it is too expensive...but it does costs millions to make these movies. I am constantly baffled at the amount of money they spend to produce these movies.

[That Guy]

my price is $5. If I see a DVD I like for $5 or less, I'll buy it. $10 for Blu-ray.

That's the price where it's just easier to buy it. For games its $5-20, depending on quality... for metal bands it's I'll show up at your show.

and creativity isn't dead, hollywood has always liked remakes (charley chaplan plays the same guy in about 42786 different movies, indy and star wars had 3 movies each in the 80s, evil dead had 3 (and evil dead was pretty much exactly the same), ghostbusters, batman in the 90s, etc.

there's still the donnie darkos, the inceptions, the mon oncle ameriques, run lola run, etc etc etc.

[skinsguy]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

Ha!

LOL! Except for me of course...LOL!! :cheeky-sm

[skinsguy]

I think what Dirtbag59 said really hits it home. The business model is all screwed up. This is what happens when your business is ran by greedy rich people who don't know the value of a dollar. Yes, it can cost millions of dollars to make a film, but the films with those high budgets aren't always the best films either. I don't have any pity on their bloated budgets for film making. The truth is, the average family around my region of the country brings in a net income of approximately $30 - 40k a year combined. If just one person is working, that drops to about $20-$30K per year. This is actual take home pay. Once you take away living expenses (food, shelter, clothes, electricity), and maybe add in a car payment here and there, you don't have much left. And, its human nature to want to sit down and be entertained. Heck, it's almost necessary for one to remain in good mental health! But, if you can't afford to go out to the movies, and the price of an instant download rental is too ridiculous, what do yo do? Not everybody lives within walking distance of a Redbox, and Redbox may not have what you're looking for anyway.

The only time I spend more than $10 - $15 on a DVD/Bluray is if it's something I have desperately gotta have... That isn't very often for me.

[NC_Skins]

[Dirtbag59]

Also consider this. If the MPAA and RIAA had gotten their way to begin with here's some of the things that wouldn't have happened.

First of all we wouldn't have had VCR's and Tape recorders and as a result we wouldn't have DVD's and burnable disc. Hollywood claimed in the beginning that VCR's would ruin them. Now they can't fathom being without their home video sales.

The MP3 player would have never hit the market had the RIAA won it's suit against Diamond's Rio Player, and Apple, one of the biggest contributors to the economy would never have experienced a renaissance seeing as how the capital to contribute to R&D on the iPhone and iPad would have never been generated without the money earned from the iPod.

Furthermore the I-Tunes store wouldn't have emerged which offered individual tracks at the reasonable price of $0.99. Streaming services like Netflix would have either never been invented or wouldn't have emerged until recently.

YouTube would have been dead a long time ago.

TiVo? Forget it. On demand? Gone. Hulu? Watch the damn show when we tell you to watch it. Pandora? Maybe, but it would have been on the RIAA's terms.

And had SOPA passed we would have had extremely watered down versions of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Redit, and many other key sites that people use. Also who knows what next great innovation we saved by killing SOPA?

No good comes from giving into these two media cartels. Absolutely NONE. All the jobs and GDP produced by the tech industry was fought by the cartels at EVERY TURN. They have never embraced innovation and have always had to be dragged kicking and screaming. The time has come to let them throw their tantrums in the cereal aisle and pretend like we don't even know who they are.

MPAA: A Medieval Guild, Committed to Fight Progress at Any Cost

[SirClintonPortis]

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

Just like how folks supported American slaves by buying cotton. Yep, no way the top dogs would hoard most of the money for themselves.

[SirClintonPortis]

Originally Posted by Dirtbag59

MPAA: A Medieval Guild, Committed to Fight Progress at Any Cost

I must point out that this ****ing idiot author uses the year 1512 as part of the medieval period when that year is 20 years past the traditionally labelled end of that epoch(1492).

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by SirClintonPortis

I must point out that this ****ing idiot author uses the year 1512 as part of the medieval period when that year is 20 years past the traditionally labelled end of that epoch(1492).

To be fair, sometimes people cite 1517, the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, as the end of the medieval period.

But you are right that 1512 is a little random. Either 1492 and 1517 makes a better date.