Stop Right Now...

It's a classic song among, well, virtually any teenage girl my age - give or take a few years. What Spice Girl song isn't "classic" for us? Given the lyrics, aren't we all amazed (and slightly sickened) when we all start singing along? But that's another matter entirely.

They had a good point, those girls... Some things need to "Stop Right Now." Especially lately, there have been several things where I want to wish a great big karmic reprieve; where I'd love the Spice Girls to come waltzing out of the nearest closet and sing this song right in certain people's faces.

What people, you ask? Good question. Those silly people who are making the Mummy movies come to mind first off. Goodness, gracious - enough already. Yes, the first two rocked, they're awesome, you rule, go die rich... but a third? Really? The Scorpion King AND a sequel for that? REALLY? 

This leads to a slightly bigger point that rumbles around my mind for ages after any jaunty trip to a movie theater. Stop with the sequels and three-quels, already. If you've got a series like Bond, Batman, or Harry Potter, movies that naturally continue, that feel no slow and painful slow of momentum, by all means, continue. I'm the last person you'll hear complain about the Pirates sequels, after all. My real problem comes with movies that are born with all the pain of real labor. Movies that don't have a natural story arc, but that are being forced. 

Spiderman. Goodness gracious. It's enough of a problem that they should have stopped at the second (don't even get me started on that third movie), but the fact that they're planning production on a fourth when the two main leads have already dropped out? Arrrrghhh! The Mummy falls in this category too. Maybe I would have felt a much higher inclination to like the third one if it wasn't missing one of its primary characters: Rachel Weisz. Of course, the character was still there, but filled by some random stranger pretending that nothing had happened. Not okay. 

This leads to my next point - the next "thing" that needs to stop. Greedy Hollywood C.E.Os. Sure, I don't know how the business works all that well, but I know when I see greed motivating a decision more than artistic drive. I know when I see upper-level studio executives interrupting an otherwise smooth process of imagine-write-film-voila! 

And, please, give a warm round of applause to Warner Brothers themselves for making a wonderful example of this. What are they thinking with this Harry Potter decision? ("What arrrrr you doing?" as Barbossa would ask). 

In case you haven't heard, Warner Brothers pushed back the release date of the next Harry Potter movie from this November, as it's been planned for a while now, to next July. When asked for a reason, they didn't really have one, other than they saw a better opportunity to release it in the summer than in the fall. Translation: they'll make more money. No, it doesn't need to be delayed - it's in post-production and everything is golden there ... they just saw that the writer's strike from this past spring caused fewer moves to be released next summer, meaning they could make more money if they release then. Stupid. 

My final point is basically unrelated to any of this, but goes to the sensationalism that Hollywood is playing into. Everything has to be more exciting. It's easy to see the connection between the money-making fever I was just venting about and this, but this goes a bit further. It annoys me even more, shall we say. If I could walk into a screenwriter's office right now and give them one word of advice that they'd have to obey, it'd be this: History and Literature are quite fine the way they are. You don't need to make them more exciting.

Robin Hood. A wonderful, er, horrible examples. It's a classic story, we all know it - Robin is in love with Maid Marian but can't marry her until King Richard returns and all is well in the land - until then, poor Robin fights injustice, robbing from the rich to give to the poor. One of the reasons I was so enamored with BBC's latest revamp of this story (aside from the gorrrrgeeeous Jonas Armstrong) was that you could count on the ending - that ending. This was very refreshing, especially when paired with drive-you-up-the-wall-uncertain shows like Lost. And then they went and did the stupid Series 2 Finale. (Spoiler Alert...) You don't kill Maid Marian. It shouldn't, it can't, it musn't be done. I don't care if the stupid actress wanted to leave - actors have been forced to keep their contracts before. Armstrong is only contracted through Series 3 anyway, so that girl would have only had to stay on for 13 more episodes. You can't change this story. 

Right, hopefully the Universe will hear me here and send these messages out into the void ... We're friends, you know, the Universe and I - I get emails all the time. 

Now, I would hate to leave you feeling down, so here's a final thought. Things that don't need to stop at all? Michael Phelps. You go, man. Rock on.