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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wedgeski" data-source="post: 1708790" data-attributes="member: 16212">I haven't seen the flick yet, but I will. I thought the trailer looked okay and I'll basically watch Lance Henriksen in anything. I like this discussion though, and it's one I've had with myself many times. The problem is this: everyone has to decide what they want out of their money. There is a world of difference between using your money as a bludgeon to force Hollywood to make more so-called 'good' or 'worthy' films (in which case the only movies you see are those that thousands of other people have already taste-tested for you and declared 'good'), and being happy to plonk it down for a minimal level of entertainment. I'm in the latter category. If I think there will be something in the film that I will enjoy, I will usually go to the flicks to enjoy it. AvP is a good example. I will never 'expect' it to live up to 'Alien' (my favourite film ever, as it happens), or 'Aliens' (somewhere in my top ten), because I'm pretty sure from the start that it won't, given the people involved and their track record. This is not to say that I *know* it won't, because that is a smug attitude and I like being surprised ('Terminator 3', for example, was much better than it should have been). However, I am confident that it will have a few aliens in, and predators, and that they'll duke it out. That'll be cool. I'm also reasonably sure that there will be a few competent special effects, and even a thrill or two. Sounds good. Here's my six quid, thank you very much. Every now and then, something wonderful happens. A couple of years ago, I paid my money (£5.50 then, as I recall) and walked into a film called 'The Fellowship of the Ring'. I walked out of that experience thinking that I would gladly have paid fifty pounds for that film. That I got it so cheaply seems like a wonderful bargain. Same a year later, and the same again a year after that. Less than twenty quid for some of the most mesmerising eight or nine hours of my life. I'll take two thanks. Personally, I'm positive that, overall, I get good utility out of my cinema budget. There are very few films that I feel cheated out of my money on. But, and this is probably the point of all this rubbish, I do not feel that Hollywood owes me anything whatsoever. This is in the same way that, for example, I don't feel that the Foo Fighters owe me another CD as good as 'One by One', or that id software owe me another game as good as 'Doom 2', or that Margaret Weis owes me another Raistlin book, and so on. The creators put their works on the shelf and offer me the chance to purchase them. Just because I do doesn't make me some kind of silent partner in their endeavours. No-one put a gun to my head, as has been said a gajillion times probably. The silent contract between people who create works like these, and people who consume them, reads: 'I agree to risk this small amount of money on the chance that I might be amazed.' It does not read, as some people seem to think, 'I demand to be amazed, or I want my money back.'</blockquote>

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