False advertising and the movie industry
We went to see Lord of War this week... It sucked... Bad.
It's not that the movie was in and of itself BAD I suppose (it definately isnt for everyone)... It's that I didnt get what I paid for. The crux of the problem is, I believe, wide spread: false advertising.
No, Seriously.
If I were to go to the store and buy, say, lucky charms I would, rightfully, expect a bunch of marshmallows mixed in with my cereal. If, when I opened the package, I found raisin bran with 3 little white marshmallows thrown in... I would be rather pissed. And the company packaging the product would be sued for false advertising. This is why you see disclaimers on cereal boxes when things dont measure up, things like "not actual size, picture enlarged to show texture" is pretty common because the cereal companies have to cover their respective asses when it comes to truth-in-advertising.
Where the idea of truth in advertising falls down, somehow, is the movie preview. Yes, for the record here and now a movie preview is a damned TC commercial, classified ad, and full page magazine advertisement all roled into one. We saw the movie preview for Lord of War a while back, and it looked great. Nick Cage with funny lines, guns, in (what appeared to be) a kind of Snatch-esque style movie.
It wasn't
What we got was a slow monologued mild mannered shockumentary (not quite a real documentary, a retelling, and focused on evoking shock and outrage on a topic) on the idea of our governments involvement in arms smuggling.
So, I bought my product (for $30 thats 2 prime time tickets, popcorn, and sodas)... but I didnt get what was advertised on the box. I would have taken it back, except, to whome?! It's not the theatres fault that the movie industry lies through its teeth.
I can understand WHY the movie industry does it... lets be realistic... they produce CRAP... their movies tend to be large piles of fly ridden beetle infested monkey crap... They have to package it as something else to get people to buy it. And the MPAA cant figure out why people are pirating movies? HAH! If they were worth buying people WOULD! (remember, children, the MPAA are a bunch of greedy dumb *****)
My burning question is: why have we let the movie industry get away with it for so long? A class action for false advertising, mandating a full refund ($9.50, average, say?) to every person owning a ticket stubb for the pile of dung in question... The MPAA and the RIAA are busy sending THEIR messages to US: "stop pirating", lets send one to them "STOP ASKING ME TO BUY SOMETHING NOT WORTH MY MONEY". Wait the RIAA too? YOU BET! You pay $20 for a CD with 1, 2, MAYBE 3 songs worth listening to... so... 7 songs to 20 dollars... thats $2.85 per song... so you pay $20 for a maximum of $8.57 worth of product... that means because you likes 3 songs you had to buy $11.42 worth of songs which you will likely never listen to again... Gee... you're making me pay MORE for the songs I dont want than the songs I DO want...
So... one false advertising suite to the MPAA, full refund for movies not closely enough matching their advertisements, and another to the RIAA for a full refund for any song on a CD which the purchaser wont listen to. False advertising, and... kidnapping? extortion? what would that fall under...
Anyhow... thats how I feel.
DK
It's not that the movie was in and of itself BAD I suppose (it definately isnt for everyone)... It's that I didnt get what I paid for. The crux of the problem is, I believe, wide spread: false advertising.
No, Seriously.
If I were to go to the store and buy, say, lucky charms I would, rightfully, expect a bunch of marshmallows mixed in with my cereal. If, when I opened the package, I found raisin bran with 3 little white marshmallows thrown in... I would be rather pissed. And the company packaging the product would be sued for false advertising. This is why you see disclaimers on cereal boxes when things dont measure up, things like "not actual size, picture enlarged to show texture" is pretty common because the cereal companies have to cover their respective asses when it comes to truth-in-advertising.
Where the idea of truth in advertising falls down, somehow, is the movie preview. Yes, for the record here and now a movie preview is a damned TC commercial, classified ad, and full page magazine advertisement all roled into one. We saw the movie preview for Lord of War a while back, and it looked great. Nick Cage with funny lines, guns, in (what appeared to be) a kind of Snatch-esque style movie.
It wasn't
What we got was a slow monologued mild mannered shockumentary (not quite a real documentary, a retelling, and focused on evoking shock and outrage on a topic) on the idea of our governments involvement in arms smuggling.
So, I bought my product (for $30 thats 2 prime time tickets, popcorn, and sodas)... but I didnt get what was advertised on the box. I would have taken it back, except, to whome?! It's not the theatres fault that the movie industry lies through its teeth.
I can understand WHY the movie industry does it... lets be realistic... they produce CRAP... their movies tend to be large piles of fly ridden beetle infested monkey crap... They have to package it as something else to get people to buy it. And the MPAA cant figure out why people are pirating movies? HAH! If they were worth buying people WOULD! (remember, children, the MPAA are a bunch of greedy dumb *****)
My burning question is: why have we let the movie industry get away with it for so long? A class action for false advertising, mandating a full refund ($9.50, average, say?) to every person owning a ticket stubb for the pile of dung in question... The MPAA and the RIAA are busy sending THEIR messages to US: "stop pirating", lets send one to them "STOP ASKING ME TO BUY SOMETHING NOT WORTH MY MONEY". Wait the RIAA too? YOU BET! You pay $20 for a CD with 1, 2, MAYBE 3 songs worth listening to... so... 7 songs to 20 dollars... thats $2.85 per song... so you pay $20 for a maximum of $8.57 worth of product... that means because you likes 3 songs you had to buy $11.42 worth of songs which you will likely never listen to again... Gee... you're making me pay MORE for the songs I dont want than the songs I DO want...
So... one false advertising suite to the MPAA, full refund for movies not closely enough matching their advertisements, and another to the RIAA for a full refund for any song on a CD which the purchaser wont listen to. False advertising, and... kidnapping? extortion? what would that fall under...
Anyhow... thats how I feel.
DK
posted by apokalyptik at 10:31 PM
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