Attn. Hollywood: Please Stop Listening To Nerds So Much

Apr 24th, 2009

C'mon - would you trust their judgement?

When I read opening sentences like this one that CNN foisted upon me last night:

Geek buzz flying around the Internet suggests that "Star Trek" could be one of the summer's biggest movies.

I just want to cry. Hollywood, we all know that geek culture is AWESOME. It's given the world the iPhone, the revamped BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, Comic-Con International, Neil Gaiman, Super Mario Bros. and affordable digital music. All of these - and more - are arguably fantastic advancements in the history of the human race.

But it's also given us horrors like the Star Wars Prequels (Jar Jar Binks can never be forgotten or forgiven), Super Mario Bros.: The Movie, Furries, Harry Knowles and Rob Liefeld.

So, yeah Hollywood. We do want you to continue to mine our culture and creations for new ideas. There's plenty of gold in them there hills to be mined. But, man, stop looking to us to accurately gauge whether or not something is going to be a huge hit or not. After all, look where that got you with WATCHMEN...

Editor's Note: I actually liked WATCHMEN just fine. It was a decent, if flawed adaptation of Moore and Gibbons' work, and I'm genuinely looking forward to the 14 hour Director's Cut. But Hollywood's expectations were way out of whack for it.