"Hackneyed" is one of my favorite words. It is an adjective meaning, "lacking in significance through being overused." It's awesome because it is a single word that sums up what sucks about being trendy. I'm not saying that popularity is a bad thing, because it isn't. I am saying that when the wrong people get their hands on something good, they tend to ruin it.
There are lots of things that are fine for the mainstream. Ford F-150s, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Budweiser. All of these things are good, and perfectly suitable to be liked by just about everyone. It is when you get into some fringe things that have a somewhat cult following, that mainstream exposure and general favor are a bad thing. "Fat Tire" used to be awesome because it was not just a good beer, but a sign of someone who took their time to find a good bear out of the morass of available stuff at BevMo to get something that was simultaneously drinkable and enjoyable. Now, it still has that great taste, but it has lost that additional meaning. Comic Books are next sadly.
Comics used to be awesome, because they contained cool art, awesome stories that actually had depth and intellectual meaning, and they happened to be kick ass at the same time. Now that the movie industry has pushed "Spider-Man" and "Iron Man" into the everyday vernacular, comics are still cool to read but they don't mean that much anymore. Before they were enjoyed by people who refused to grow up, people who remember the first time that they saw Star Wars and how supremely awesome Batman the Animated Series was. Its cool for the guys that make these movies, because they are cashing unbelievably huge checks to themselves for bring the things that they are passionate about to the forefront. So that money that lines their pockets is unfortunately the blood money of the nerds who never gave up on the medium in the first place. I am afraid that genre that I am a big fan of is next, and I don't like it.
I already gave up on the Spy Novel. I love them, love to read them and to watch them, but they don't have that cool mystique to them anymore. Watching something like "Covert Affairs" where they have to make a main character that has to act stupid and disobey orders just to make the show interesting is a sad waste. Rather than create a character that can simultaneously be entertaining and engaging and conflicted is too difficult. That conflict is a lot easier to create when it simply disobeys logic and the way that things should work. James Bond is awesome, but if the bad guys really wanted to kill the spy, it wouldn't have been to hard. Just shoot the only guy in the fancy restaurant wearing the white dinner jacket. Reading something like Robert Ludlum, I know that it can be done better. Much better. I enjoy finding the good stuff through the stuff that isn't good, and trying to come up with ways on my own that would make it better. I like that. But when the cool Zombie genre comes under attack by the people that know how to mainstream a product rather than actually improve it, I don't like that.
I believe there are at least 4 different shows currently filming and scheduled to come out that revolve around Zombies. World War Z is in production, and although I know it is based on the supremely excellent Max Brooks novel, I don't have hope that Hollywood is going to follow the line that has been drawn in the sand about what makes a Zombie a Zombie. It is too easy to give into the paycheck when it is forced upon you by Pepsi saying that Zombies should only drink their beverage. "Maybe this is what allows them to ward off infection and decay?" the marketers are going to say. Or producers who think that Zombies should be allowed to sprint after people, because they don't understand the unwavering suspense that can come from a slow moving, yet seemingly unstoppable force. The slow burn is a good thing.
Trying to buck the trend by going way off the reservation isn't fresh or new. Deciding that only a momentary lapse of the laws of physics or common sense isn't forgivable if it is the simplest solution to solving a complex problem. Sometimes people need to really think things through, because in every good show, in every good book it is those little twists and turns which are obvious only after they are revealed which make it worth while. Not the BS of simply phoning it in like "Lost" saying "well maybe it was all a dream" or like the "Matrix" where "maybe it was just an alternate reality within an alternate reality." Really? That's the best that you can come up with? People pay you by continuing to pay attention, follow the ungodly complex story to the end because they want that payoff. They want how it is all going to come together and make sense. Do them a favor and don't simply be predictably unpredictable. If you don't have what it takes to really put out a product, go produce records for Ke$ha or Lady GaGa, their fans only want the mainstream anyway without the added through that goes into it.
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