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Bobbie's avatar

I couldn't agree with you more. Hollywood seems so bereft of interesting ideas. Everything in the pipeline seems to be a twist-up recycled idea. Although Wicked is refreshing, it is a recycling of a stage play. Have any people in the movie-making business ever walked into a bookstore? There is so much unused potential.

And I'd buy a ticket to one of the movies based on your ideas in the article.

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Jeff Somers's avatar

When Hollywood calls, you will be the first to know!

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Daniel Davis's avatar

Love any reference to Willy Wonka.

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James Carrier's avatar

The creativity is there. No shortage of amazing story-tellers. The amalgamation of all the content producers into one or two MegaDisneys has resulted in an industry that's phenomenally risk-averse and this will surely have to be addressed at some point.

As for Romulus, and I say this as someone who thinks Alien represents the pinnacle of film-making - I enjoyed it more than anything in the series since Aliens. If they had just dropped some of the more egregious references it would have been... fine. It looked and sounded amazing. It fell apart in the third act but it was clearly made with love for the Alien Universe in a way that, say, the immediately forgettable Covenant just wasn't. Even Prometheus was better than that steaming heap.

Nonetheless, the obsession with nodding to the audience (like Blofeld in the last few Bonds) got tiring and took me out of the story every time. Films like Rogue One and series like Andor show that it's possible to tell interesting, fresh new stories in well-established cinematic Universes without just rehashing the same old plot. So there's hope! But, like you, I'll go back for the next one. Mea culpa.

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Shane Elliott's avatar

It starts off so strong! I went to the theater and after the first 15 minutes I could not believe I was loving an Alien movie again. Then it took a giant nosedive and never recovered. What a shame.

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