Boycott The Batman

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

http://www.reddit.com/r/boycottthebatman/

A community created to organize the opening weekend boycott of The Dark Knight Rises. Entertainment lobbyists were able to spend millions to craft special legislation (SOPA/PIPA) that would have disregarded the rights of American citizens and profoundly changed the internet as a whole. The reddit and Wikipedia blackouts raised awareness, but we can do more.

It's simple.  We, uh, boycott the Batman.

[Dome]

I don't get it...

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

Boycott the opening weekend of the new Batman movie.  Wait a week to see it.

Supposedly this will work because of some legal voodoo that says the studio gets most of the money from the opening weekend, and the theater gets more share of the money as the weeks go on, until no one sees the movie anymore.

I have my doubts.  But hey, reddit.

[Kaijyuu]

Do exactly what I was planning on doing anyway, AND pretend I'm fighting for some completely ineffectual cause?

Sign me up!

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

What's the deal with all this "It'll never work" crap?  Is everyone on the internet an overly self-conscious teenager who doesn't want to sound stupid, so always tries to act worldly and wise by being excessively cynical for people who've seen very little of the world?

Because I just got off reddit, and it is filled with world-weary 14 year olds saying the exact same things.  I'm 26 - still young - and I've seen enough shit to tell you all that sometimes you win.  But only sometimes, and only if you fight in the first place.

[Kaijyuu]

Then go occupy wallstreet or something. Boycotts only work if you've got a LOT of support; good luck getting it for this.

[DonalbaneBeoulve]

God you try to get support or even inform people of a cause and all you get in return is fecal-matter thrown back in your face. This "Squall Leonheart-esque give it up" attitude that has been plaguing forums these days makes me want to give that up. Oh and in advance yea I'll go occupy a corner and cry to someone who cares kthnxbai.

[Kaijyuu]

Nice bump.


And no, I was not going to tell you to go cry in some corner. In fact, I'm pretty sympathetic to all this. It's just that there's a place for pragmatism; you can spend your effort trying to squash the bad apples of society, or you can fix what's poisoning the tree in the first place. Boycotting a movie is squishing an apple, even if it worked. A waste of good effort.

Voting with your wallet doesn't work in an economy this large. Making a stink doesn't work in a country this large. You wanna change stuff, you change the system; throw yourself on the gears until it stops working. That's why I suggested Occupy Wallstreet, since they were actually doing something. Actually stopping something. It's true they've failed for the most part now, but they made a good effect until they were beaten out of the way with police batons. Far more effective than spreading images of bad cops, or making passive aggressive forum posts about "the Man" and how you'll fight him tomorrow, or any of that silliness.

I'm not advocating violent action, but rather that if you want to stop a tank marching down your street taking away your freedoms, you step in front of it. Don't just yell at it from the side. Don't just throw fruit. Use your time and effort in a manner that actually does something.

[Neophyte Ronin]

I'm the GODDAMNED BATMAN!

Seriously odd that you would not bother with the first few weeks of the Box Office and then show up later to support the Theater.  Performed repeatedly, this will do two things: negate the budget of studios a little bit, thus making them think critically about which project to finance (and how much, which will erode overall quality even though there are theoretically "better" stories that come out), and then in a trickle-down effect, the theaters make less than before due to the fact that later projects will not be on the same par as so-called Golden-Age-Five-Years-Ago Hollywood, which makes the audience leery of shelling out cash to see them.  And then the concessions get jacked up beyond belief.  Again.

In other words, Boycotting an entertainment medium destined for home distribution anyway (because some people like my family doesn't give a rat's fuck about theaters to begin with but will watch movies on occasion, and I bet we're not alone in this sentiment) won't send any kind of message.  Even though money corrupts, it buys you what is needed to finish a job and finish it well.  You want them to make movies on a lesser budget?  Go to see movies made on a lesser budget.  Duh.  If there is one thing everyone must learn out of any of this, it is that you can devise some very low-budget awesomeness by knowing where to put whatever money you have.  It's not what you tell, it's how you tell it.

It's nice these people want Hollywood to catch on, but they're better off getting a screenplay designed to be made on a budget approved and then having it sell several times more than the budget, from advertising to production.  It's a matter of dodging wrenches.  If they have the intelligence to organize a boycott and coordinate with people about it, then they can produce or pen a fucking movie.  It doesn't take much.

You know all those people driving around with their headlights on in broad daylight just because they think it makes them safer?  You know what would be fun?  To smash head-on into a guy like that, just to prove the idea doesn't work.

[Dome]

Lol @ this thread considering what actually happened at the première

[Kaijyuu]

I'm not advocating violent action, but rather that if you want to stop a tank marching down your street taking away your freedoms, you step in front of it.

The guy forgot the bolded part.

[Dokurider]

We should have listened...