I despise spoiler whiners, especially when it concerns a huge, mindlessly insincere corporate franchise that has no bearing whatsoever on the reality of anything.
There’s no substantive difference between the crafting of certain corporate entertainments and mass servings of McDonald’s Sausage McMuffins. Talk to anyone who knows anything at all about life or movies or the art of creating fine narrative tension, and particularly those who respect the craft and submission and devotion that goes into making something (a real, actual movie, I mean) actually work.
It’s not the ending but the journey that matters. Any film lover over the age of 11 or 12 will tell you that, but I was so gobsmacked by an ending of a certain upcoming film that I couldn’t imagine that it would be kept a secret. It’s a huge, HUGE thing, and not just in terms of the film but in terms of a personified motion picture brand that has endured for nearly 60 years straight.
Because this ending isn’t about a decision to end a certain film but a decision to symbolically terminate a certain mindset or attitude or mentality or set of assumptions that lie at the heart of a character…a fictional attitude of (describe it however you like) solemn grit, ironic machismo, smug aloofness, wry amusement…a certain “heroic” male mindset mixed with blithe disregard that has been a cultural constant — a “thing” — since the JFK administration.
And…wait, hold on…the universal reaction to this decision is “mum’s the word?” Big news is big news. You can’t smother it, and yet many insisted it had to be. And they cried like babies.
If I had been the reader and not the writer, and had read what I wrote I would have been fascinated and looking forward to seeing how it plays out in story terms. I’m not an infant and I don’t care about the latest corporate hamburger product, or what kind of special sauce they’ve put on it. But a lot of people out there do.
What I know for sure is that what happened today is TRULY HISTORICAL, and by my way of thinking you don’t sit on something like this. It was a 7.5 earthquake and the community said, “Did you feel a slight tremor? Naah, probably nothing. And even if it was something, don’t say it happened.”
Pssst, did you hear about JFK? Somebody shot him in Dallas. Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. I know some people will be upset to hear this but it’s better to keep it under wraps. At least for the next few days. But wow, what a thing.