Deja view November 30, 2005
Posted by Aaron in : News , trackbackSo I was channel surfing late last night and came across “The Skulls 2″ on tv. Surprised that such a thing existed, I hopped over to the channel and demanded that my tivo give me a plot synopsis. What it said baffled me, but let me start at the beginning so that you too may be baffled.
Here is part of the synopsis on imdb for the first Skulls movie:
For Luke McNamara (Joshua Jackson), an invitation to join the prestigious secret college organization, The Skulls, is a dream come true. Until murder befalls another student, and Luke finds himself one student amidst the sinister and well-connected brotherhood and now he must summon the strength to stand alone against immeasurable odds.
Now a synopsys from “The Skulls 2″:
After joining the Skulls, Ryan Sommers (Robin Dunne) is warned not to betray any secrets about the organization or its high-powered members. However, when Ryan witnesses a murder within the Skulls’ private chambers, he finds that the closer he gets to revealing the truth - the more dangerous life becomes.
There is actually a 3rd movie but it actually seems to vary enough that I won’t make fun of it (after all at least its a woman lead and its her boyfriend who gets killed not a stranger, ok so I should still probably make fun of it).
Anyway, going back to the first two movies… is anyone else seeing what I’m seeing? Does it appear that these movies are in fact, the same movie rehashed? Incidentally if you can’t imagine scathing enough criticism for the 2nd movie, go read the big user review that is listed on that page.
Ebert was recently quoted as saying… well heck, here is the entire quote:
I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art. To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.
I agree with him on a few points, with the dozen mortal combats and dooms (and those are just the major ones) out there its hard to point to video gaming as a whole as a means of making myself “more cultured, civilized and empathetic”. But I should also point out that for every Minority Report or Princess Bride, there are many more movies like Catwoman and Charles Angels. The real point isn’t that he’s wrong in what he says, its just that there is more than enough worthless crap to point at in either industry.
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