I watched the movie The Meg on Netflix. I thought it was supposed to be campy, which might have made it fun, but it was mostly serious, which made it boring. Then it got worse. Midway through the film I started rooting for the megalodon shark to eat everyone. It was a bad movie, but not bad so it's good (e.g. Plan 9 from Outer Space). Just plain bad.
However, maybe my low opinion of the film is due to being American. By contrast, the movie was a success abroad. It seemed primarily catered to the mainland Chinese. It mainly takes place in a super hi-tech underwater research center off the coast of China. Shanghai as I recall. The main scientist in charge of the lab is Chinese. The main love interest is Chinese. She has a cute little daughter. China and the Chinese are positively depicted for the most part. It looks like The Meg made approximately $145 million domestically. Its production budget was $130 million so it would've been considered a commercial failure (making "only" $15 million) had it only been distributed domestically in the US. However, The Meg made approximately $385 million internationally. So its grand total was a little over $530 million. The largest percentage of any nation in the total looks to be mainland China ($153 million). Overall The Meg did quite well commercially, largely thanks to international audiences. (Source is Box Office Mojo.)
I guess it's no surprise, but many movies now seem to be made primarily with the international market in mind. Often the Asian and especially Chinese market. Another example is the Pacific Rim series of movies. I presume the main reason is because that's where all the money and potential money is. Of course, this makes sense from a business perspective. However, what happens if (say) an American film production's business collides in significant enough ways with American values? Or even undermines American values? Suppose it becomes quite lucrative for an American studio to film and distribute communist Chinese propaganda.
Of course, this has wider implications than the entertainment industry. For instance, consider how tech companies like Google and Apple try to do business in China. In the US, these big tech companies rail against all sorts of social injustices. However, in China, these same companies tolerate human rights violations and other ethical issues as the price of doing business in China. At what point does business stop becoming "just business"? Remember when Google's motto used to be "Don't be evil"?
I didn't watch it because I read the book and...well, this was my review of it:
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Have you ever wanted to write a book but found that you had a severe lack of talent? Well, that didn't stop Steve Alten from writing "Meg", and so can you!
Open your word processor and start typing. Take a stupid, implausible premise. Add in extremely predictable characters who lack a second dimension, let alone a third. Make sure the characters are really stupid. Demonstrate this by having them repeat the same lines multiple times, while also missing the blindingly obvious plot “twists” that could be foreseen by imagining literally any short story you wrote in the 8th Grade. Give no motivations for characters to do anything spontaneously, but rather ensure they are merely interchangeable labels. Couple that with random mood swings, so that a character is angry and yelling hatred on one page and literally falling in love on the next. Spice it up with some dinosaur/shark techno-jargon than you pulled from watching “Shark Week” reruns late one night when you had the stomach flu and lacked the energy needed to change the channel. Print all that out and slap a cover on it.
Congratulations, you have now written “Meg” too.
To be fair, there are a few things worse than "Meg". Being forcibly converted to Islam by a member of ISIS. Having to go bobbing for apples in the gaping maw of an erupting volcano. A Thanksgiving Dinner with the in-laws. Reading "Inferno" by Dan Brown.
But that's about it.
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Funny review! And I'm sure it goes without saying it's far better than the book. :)
DeleteIt wasn't sure whether it wanted to be a parody or serious. It was stuck in no man's land.
ReplyDeleteI recently watched another shark movie - 47 metres. Interesting how 21st century CGI sharks don't look as real as a 1970s rubber shark.
I hear the best shark movie is the original Jaws, but I saw Jaws years ago. I think sometime in the 1990s. I remember liking it, but I've forgotten too much to know if I'd still think it's good today.
DeleteBut you raise a serious issue. A politician here had to resign. He was found to be on the Chinese payroll. Chinese money equals power. China lending money to countries who can't repay. It's putting it's tendrils everywhere.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Andrew. Good way to put it too - China putting its tendrils everywhere! So yeah, I was trying to make China the main point of my post, and The Meg was supposed to an example of that, but I probably didn't do a good job arguing that. I probably should've led with China rather than the shark movie.
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