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How Hollywood (and Especially George Lucas) Keeps You Addicted
You spent money or maybe you like an actor, or enjoyed the first one, so now you are obligated.
If you don’t like the movie after paying to get in then it is clear that you have made a mistake. Most people do not like admitting that they have made mistakes, in fact many will follow a bad decision down the road to destruction to keep from facing the fact that they got off on the wrong exit. Most people have a limited entertainment budget, and movies in the theater are not cheap, this means that they have to be carefully chosen. The audience has hopes for it. You go into a movie you expect to be entertained. If you are not then you wasted money, and hours of your life that you will never get back, just to sit in a darkened room and be bored or appalled with a bunch of strangers. It means that this movie that you looked forward to, told your friends that you were going to see, anticipated all day, let you down, your instincts let you down. No, it’s better to find something worthwhile in all that. It’s better to say that while parts of it sucked, there were good things too and struggle to think of those good things, than to admit that Hollywood screwed you over again.
This means that any movie seen in a theater will seem to be a better experience than it really is.
Case in point:
Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull
Image via Wikipedia
You should have walked out with that prairie-dog nonsense in the beginning, but did you? No, you had been waiting for it for so long, you had to stick around, right? The chase through the jungle should have made it clear that Spielberg had no respect whatsoever for his audience, and not just that, but an overwhelming contempt that he was willing to spend millions of dollars just to display. To mock us. But you stuck around, because not all of it was that bad, and the first movie was sooooo good. You had memories, loved that scene where he shot that sword guy in the first one, and so on. If you didn’t stick around then you wasted your money.
Things that you daydream about carry weight. You had an emotional investment in this being worth it. When the Last Crusade came out, many were hoping for good things, but The Temple of Doom had left a slightly bitter taste in our mouths (not that it was a bad movie, but not really fun either), so people were nervous. Maybe it would be good, maybe it would be awful. Then it turned out to be awesome. Not as good as the first but better than the last, and so, better than expected, and that’s all you really need, right? So now those of us who saw them as children get to see the first fresh Indiana Jones movie of our adulthood. We get to see a movie that we first saw with our parents, or with people now dead or far away. It turns out to be the worst of the three, by far, and Stephen Spielberg’s worst movie, again, by far. Yet it makes millions because nobody wants to admit that something that they expected to bring them joy, in which they had so many memories, so much nostalgia, so much of what was sweet about their childhood, wrapped up, could suck ass to that degree. Nobody wanted to think that a franchise that seemed (relatively) infallible could put forth such a truly execrable installment.
Image via Wikipedia
It is easier to buy the ticket, buy the merchandise, and just pretend that it was at least OK, than to betray your childhood self. George Lucas knows this, and so the Star Wars prequels were exercises in profit-making with no real pretense to art or quality. He knew that pretty much anything he put out would coast on the desire of countless die-hard fans to not be disappointed. He did the same with this last Indiana Jones movie, and it is safe to say that he will do so for the rest of his career with everything he does or is involved in. You will buy it because he owns your memories thus making you his box-office bitches.
