YOU FINALLY, *REALLY* DID IT

I’ve been on the Internet a long time; seen a lot of strange stuff but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe there’s one all-powerful Force controlling everything. No; wait.

I’ve been on the Internet since the ubiquitous free-AOL-disk days. The Compuserve era. Just missed GEnie, you know? And this whole time I’ve been talking comics and movies and pop culture with like-minded folks and complete and utter nutjobs. Usually when a movie is announced, a certain type of “fan” announces into the ether that Whatever: The Motion Picture is going to suck, and the casting is just wrong and they’ll never go see it. And then a picture is leaked and another sort of fan jumps in and says the movie is going to suck and the casting is just wrong and the characters are straying too far from the original concept and there’s no way I can see Mr. Mom as The Dark Knight Detective.

Then the previews come out and another sort of fan jumps in and makes his judgment on the final film based on some marketing intern’s idea of a good trailer. The movie is going to suck, of course, and the casting is just wrong and the characters are straying too far from the original concept and there’s no way I can see Mr. Mom as The Dark Knight Detective and the music sounds shitty and I just think the whole thing is a travesty. And all of these guys will be in the front row, skipping school or work on opening day anyhow, hoping it’s awesome anyway or maybe to be proved right to crow to their buddies or whatever. The fact remains every one of these chuckleheads springs for a ticket after months of belly-aching. It’s no wonder Disney didn’t target the Hall H guys, because where’s the fun? They’re going to whinge and bring everybody down yet warm the seats anyway.

Sixteen, seventeen years I have kindly pointed out, relentlessly made fun of these guys, or made them weep little girl tears with my magic ninja word powers about the sheer and utter waste of time and energy it is to complain… online! about a movie! you haven’t seen yet! I honestly felt that these folks had just lost the capability to be entertained. Just let the lights go down, settle in, and let the storytellers tell you the tale. The fact that a movie is made at all is such a logistical miracle, such a cosmic alignment of everything-going-right, of an army of people trying to work some magic for you around a flickering campfire to ward off the cold night of your daily existence, that it’s an insult to the form to whine before the credits roll, much less after the first press release hits the wires.

But Hollywood has finally done it. They’ve made me one of them.

The movie is going to suck, of course, and the casting is just wrong and the characters are straying too far from the original concept and there’s no way I can see Captain Jack Sparrow as the faithful Indian companion Tonto and the Lone Ranger is wearing black for God’s sake and I just think the whole thing is a friggin’ travesty. And yet I will be in the front row, playing hooky on opening day anyhow, hoping it’s awesome anyway because the first four times I dressed up for Halloween in my life I dressed up as the Lone Ranger.

You Hollywood bastards.

I’ll be going to see it anyway.