How The Jedi Stole My Lunch Money

On the Shoulders of midgets on the shoulders of dwarves on the shoulders of men on the shoulders of half giants on the shoulders of giants.

Longest title ever! It will actually make sense, at least to my twisted world view at a certain point in my meanderings. Oh also, a review of the new Star Wars movie.

So, what is the dragon on about? He is on about creativity…..again. This time not just his own, but also that of every other paper tiger and moving picture hack. You see, there is nothing new anymore. This is a tragedy. Even I must steal from me in order to complete my latest assignment. That’s right, this is an amalgamation of an old thing I wrote a few years ago and new content relevant to my feelings on Star Wars The Last Jedi

Today’s assignment is waxing philosophic on the state of the creative world.

I recently had a convoluted idea of a story, which in my head was greatness. It was going to change the way people saw the world. This idea was going to shape the generations that follow. It would be so profoundly mesmerizingly interesting, creative and insightful that I would live off of it for the rest of my life.

This one idea would put food on my table, give me something to do and force others to worship me….you know not in that god way, but like they would any flavour of celebrity or minor deity of genius…or at least like Val Kilmer. This joke works because Val is a minor celebrity, and was in a movie called Real Genius…which btw is the third best movie ever made).

I had it all mapped out in my head. It had compelling characters, a gritty raw emotional feel that would be understood and felt by all. It had just the right amount of explosions and boobs…which is pretty much the hardest equation to accomplish. It could be said that Under Seige had either too little boob or too much explosion for example. My idea had emotional and spiritual attraction for the ladies, and knife fights for the dudes. It had no pirates either, gay or otherwise, though I imagine in my mind Johnny Depp would still want a part in the movie version because that guy knows genius.

I percolated on said idea for a few days, really shaping it and molding it in to the brilliant idea that would not only win me writing awards, but also an Oscar and the love of a good Jennifer Lawrence. All was going well, until I shared my idea with anouther person/destroyer of dreams.

I laid bare my plan for winning the hearts and minds of the masses, and this is what she said.

“Oh, so like lost, but in a bomb shelter.”

For the 37th time, she broke my heart. I believe she now takes joy in it, as if it was a sport, or at least a hobby.

She also managed to put a small, shrill, disaffected voice to my other thought. There is no creativity anymore.

I can Prove it.

CSIMINDSINTHENAVYORDEROFNUMBEREDBONES… in Poughkeepsie

BigShamelessArcherMouth.

BreakingSaulintheOzarks

I first noticed this trend of patheticism during the summer of discontent in which every movie was about some type of Ragnarok. Ben Affleck needed to save the world from a deep impact or some such nonsensical Armageddon.

Not only are people purchasing the rights to other stories, they are now simply rebooting dead movies.

I noticed this with Batman. It had been a whole series of movies, then it died. Then it was reborn with a new, grittier feel and a scary crazy actor. Now it is even rebootier with the aforementioned Batfleck.

Blue Jasmine is Streetcar.

Look, people liked Ghostbusters, now those people have even more money, let’s do it again, for the first time. What makes it the first time? Girls!

That brings me to The Last Jedi, two movies in one. One shitty movie ripping off a great movie, and one great movie ripping off a mediocre one. The Finn and Rose side plot, which has absolutely zero impact on the main story in any way whatsoever, is a haphazard retelling of most of Empire Strikes back. They even try and recreate the love story between Leia and Han. The primary plot with Rey is almost entirely Return of the Jedi, including the Emperor scenes that are almost shot for shot. They throw in the training stuff from Empire. This attempt at nostalgia and “like Luke, but with breasts,” fell flat for me, not because of the girl; whether a Mary Sue or not, rather because it wasn’t a new idea. I don’t mean a new idea in general, I mean not even a new idea in the same series of stories. Who’s laughing at the George Lucas poetry comment now?

So you see, where Force Awakens was a retelling of A New Hope, this new one was a ramming of two movies together in a disjointed way. This created a whole that was lesser than the sum of its parts for me. I really liked the Rey story, I thought the acting was great, the story was compelling and the action mesmerizing. The Finn stuff not so much. It really was two movies, the Rey movie had me leaning in and on the edge of my seat, the Finn story had me sitting back and rolling my eyes.

The good news is that they are out of original movies to copy. The bad news, there’s still something called the prequel trilogy they could rip off.

What we see is the old carbon copy analogy. Each copy is not as good as the one that came before, and slowly the story degrades until it is just Arnold quipping one liners while blowing stuff up, even if the story used to be Hamlet. Each story is retold in a new place or with a new character. There has to be a twist on that character, or something spectacular about the location if we are to buy in to it. The current trend, which for the record I have zero problem with, is to recast the characters with a female perspective.

I kind of like that trend as it can be a great new perspective, as long as it isn’t done cynically or in a binary fashion. Add secondary sex characteristics and nothing else and the story is not interesting or different.

The setting trends are almost a rehash of the 80’s Tarzan… but in space idea. Ok sure, whatever.

These trends will continue as long as there is money or free advertising in it. They are going to continue to simply remake old movies. They are going to continue to remake television shows, spin offs, prequels and the like.

What is worse than all of those examples is the trend of noticing someone else`s success, and rather than using it to motivate you to reach for your own pot of gold, it drives one to envy, jealousy and desperate measure. It drives one to write the exact same story in a new location. It drives one to copy what others have done, set it in an exciting, exotic locale, slap your own name on it and resell it to people.

If you liked CSI, then you will love CSI Tahiti. Same great dead bodies, now with 60% more bikini clad women and speedo wearing six packs.

I get that there are true victims in all of this…besides the dulled minds of the masses, those victims are the barely creative wannabes like me.

Having never seen lost, I had no idea I was copying them. In that case, I could have continued with my idea and felt reasonable that I was being creative. Yet in the end, I would only be disappointed by the masses when they in fact paid me for my product; after all, we buy no name ketchup right? There must be some kind of math equation hollywood uses to determine the deteriorating return on a good idea.

AB-u=X
ab-u=Y
Repeat step 2.
When Y=0 search for A

A=new idea
B= Sales of new idea
U-Budget costs
X equals profit
a=retread
b= diminishing returns
u= ridiculously low production cost.
Y= reduced profit Margin

That seems about right. Spend high at first, then reduce quality, dilute product until the masses no longer accept the product, then start over.

I know what you are going to say, MARVEL! As long as Y=craptonofbenjamins then it doesn’t matter if a is recycled A. The same goes for Star Wars. As long as the brand of Ketchup is strong, it doesn’t matter if the quality of the ketchup diminishes. Look at modern politics. All they talk about now is personal brand. As long as the marketing behind the politician is strong, it matters little what they actually do or don’t do. They (marketers and spin doctors, not the lizard people they) keep telling us what we like and what we want to hear, and we keep buying it, even as others tell us it is not really what we think it is, or worse yet, it might even be something bad for us. See tobacco industry and the Donald.

I fail to see the appeal in this. I fail to see why we should reward people for stealing other’s ideas, repackaging them and giving them to us, even if it is at a reduced price…which it rarely is, or if it is, it is because quality is so pathetic. And some prices are just too high, see the Donald.

Having said all of this, I think it matters to point out that Shakespeare stole all the good ideas anyway, so what are we left with?

Pretty much stuff that goes Boom or stuff that goes Bump.

The Last Jedi is a great example of a playground that has seen the best it ever will, and the weeds are growing and the tetanus is a real worry. People love the brand and will forgive a lesser product in the ketchup since they just came out with a superior mustard (Rogue One).

To sum up, Shakespeare is a jerk, short people are mean, I am un-creative…accidentally, and I managed to make a Val Kilmer reference and a Paris Hilton reference in a single blog post. Now that takes creativity.