Movie Watching

I'm not crazy about the way Hollywood treats certain stories. For example, the Harry Potter flicks diverged too much from the books for me to really approve. (Actually the first two weren't bad interpretations, but after Harris passed things went downhill fairly quickly.) After the 6th, someone pointed out that they were successful at the box office, and I answered that they could have a movie comprised of stick figures and it'd still sell well - and lo and behold, in the last movie they did feature a segment with stick figures. But the story, as relayed by the books, was compelling enough that people would go see the movies no matter what. That provides a false metric for movie makers to go by, and reinforces their tampering with, and in some cases completely screwing up a story.

The usual justification is that some changes had to be made to transfer a tale from pages to film. My usual response is "bullshit!". While some changes are necessary for the switch in mediums, most are simply a director wanting to tell his story, not the story.  The omission of The Scouring of the Shire from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Ring films, and the Burning of the Burrow which was inserted into Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince are two examples of a director's whims adversely affecting the tale they claim to be telling. Of course Starship Troopers, Noah, and Exodus: Gods and Kings are atrociously different from the source materially, to the point that only the names give a clue as to what story they're claiming to tell.

With that in mind I'm real damn skittish about Disney's handling of Star Wars. I've been a Star Wars fan since about 1977, and in fact it could be argued that John Williams (the composer, not to be confused with the other John Williams, who's a helluva guitarist) score pushed me in the direction of a musical career. So I want to like it, I really do. But I know how Hollywood has a way of screwing up stories - hell, Lucas did a fair job of screwing up the story that was his! (I of course refer to the prequels that must not be named).

In short, I don't really want to know what color Pinocchio's nose saber is gonna be, or find out that there is, indeed, a Darth Jiminy.

Le sigh.


(I did watch the first season of Star Wars: Rebels and thought it was decent, but I don't want to get my hopes up too high.)

So I reluctantly did some looking online. It's been about a decade since I went to a theater to watch a movie and wanted to see what theater options were available. Turns out none. The theaters within my town all have no weapons policies. Of course I could just keep my coat on & no one would be the wiser, but that would mean I was giving money to folks that want me to be disarmed. I'll pass on that.

My personal boycott won't cripple any of the theaters around here, and I doubt if all the gun owners in the area called them and reported their disdain for the no weapons policy that the theaters would change their tune. But I just don't want to do business with those that would prefer I was defenseless. I don't want any part in sustaining their distasteful practices.

I still may look around for a theater in a neighboring town (other than Denver proper of course) or I may just wait til it comes out on DVD. Should be around May or so, which everyone but the execs at Disney know is the proper time to first view a new Star Wars film. (The heathens!) Besides, I can smoke while watching DVD's, and not have to go through a credit check and establish collateral for an extra large bag of popcorn that may or may not be fresh. Plus, should anyone bust in and try to shoot up the place I'll have better options than a hogleg with which to quell the miscreants.

For now I'll make do with an in depth review of the BlasTech DL-44 from Jerry Miculek, which can be found here.