On The Value of Popular Entertainment
4 November 2007 in Blog | Comments enabled

Something has been bugging me lately.  In certain circles there is an attitude that popcorn films are somehow not important films.  That if a film is fun to watch, it has no value to society.  Well, I call bull.

Popcorn films are just as important as every Crash, Magnolia, or whatever other “serious” film is popular with the cultural elite.  Don’t get me wrong, I like a well made “serious” film.  Crash was a beautiful film that made me cry.  My intent here is not to dog art films or issue films.  (Although, some can be very pretentious.)  No, my intent is to point out that a well made blockbuster is just as important to society.

What would the world be like without Star Wars, Jaws, Indiana Jones, ET, Back to the Future, Lord of the Rings, The Princess Bride, etc?  These are the movies that fuel our imagination and take us out of this world.  Who hasn’t ended a hard week at the office with a trip to a movie theater to live someone else’s life for two hours?  A life of adventure where good guys win and the impossible is possible.  These movies make us believe in magic, and the best of them teach us things without us even knowing it.

Think about it.  The oldest stories we have are not “important” stories about serious cultural problems, they are epic stories about love and war and magical journeys full of peril and adventure.  I guarantee you that Homer wasn’t trying to initiate huge cultural change and prompt society to think about serious issues by telling them an allegorical tale about a man’s spiritual journey home.  No, he was trying to give his audience a thrill by telling them a story of a man battling cyclopes and encountering various other dangers while trying to get home to the woman he loved.  Thousands of years later, Homer’s Odyssey is considered important because it is a thrilling story that has captured people’s imagination again and again throughout history.

It’s stories like these that help us dream.  We see stories of people accomplishing the impossible and we know that we can accomplish the impossible too.

This is why we make the types of movies we make.  We don’t pretend to have made anything life changing, but we are darn proud to have made a movie that will allow people to escape the real world for 90 minutes and experience some thrills.  We think that is important, and we can’t wait for you to see it.  It’s a fun ride.