Where I probably piss off a bunch of fellow nerds.

Years ago, there was a comic shop I used to go to called Between the Covers, which was owned by a guy named Bart. He was an incredibly smart man... Way too smart to run a comic book store. (And this was during the 90's when it was actually a profitable business.) He had trouble understanding how the hell to judge what books will be popular and what books won't. You know, during a time when every comic put out was a first issue or a special event, or had some special foil cover or was polybagged with a trading card or something. Many comic book store owners had this problem, and this is why the number of comic book stores are depressingly now in the low thousands, as opposed to the upper ten thousands in the mid-90s. He had a slew of overstock, and he ended up making sales that upon retrospect were kinda hilarious, like buy issue #2 of Green Goblin and get issue #1 for free. And he was befuddled... X-Men was still selling like hotcakes, during that time period after Jim Lee left and before Age of Apocalypse. (That period of time that was only known for the introduction of the now-dead Revanche and not much else.) Ghost Rider was stinking up the shelf with the Post-Midnight Sons storyarcs, Iron Man reverted to alcoholism and became a villain, and this was replaced by his younger time displaced self (seriously), Wolverine was losing his nose (that's not a joke) and Spider-Man was well on his way to being revealed as a clone. And Bart, saddled with all these overstocked books, unable to tell which ones were actually in demand and which ones weren't, said the wisest words I have ever heard someone say about us nerds:

“This buy this crap, but they won't buy that crap!”

Seriously, we like crap. But because we like it, we defend it by saying “No, you just don't understand! It's actually good!” I would go into elaborations on all this, but I'm willing to bet that the majority of the people reading this blog would probably agree that at some point in their lives... They have defended garbage that they like. And sometimes, we'll lift the veil from our eyes and realize that it's garbage, but still admit to liking it. And we still do this, to this day. There are movies that we will praise and movies we will condemn, based purely on if they're by nerd-sanctioned creators. We'll forgive blatant exploitative schlock like 'Piranha 3D' or 'Hobo with a Shotgun', because they're 'supposed to be stupid movies', but we'll condemn movies like Battleship for being a stupid action movie based on a board game... When it was obvious to anyone with a fucking brain it was meant to be a stupid action movie. It's a shame too, because I had a blast watching it, and I plan to by it on video when it comes out next month. It was the exact opposite of pretentious. Shit blew up, the characters were pretty likable, and it was possibly the most 'toyetic' movie I've seen in years. (Including the Transformers movies.) Oh sure, it was dumb, but there was no one making that movie that thought they were making Hamlet. Everyone was having fun, and you could tell. But apparently, a lot of people had bugs up their butt about the whole 'board game movie' thing, feeling it was crass commercialism. Guys and gals? They're ALL crass commercialism. MovieBob recently ranted about the Amazing Spider-Man being a movie thatwas created by accountants... He gives too much credit to other movies. You think The Hobbit's getting made because the movie studios feel it's a wonderful story that needs to be adapted into film? They're making it because it's gonna make them a shitload of money. The fact that it'll be a good movie has no bearing in the decisions. Warner Brothers isn't green-lighting Nolan's third Batman movie because it's high art. They're doing it because it's going to make them a mint. That's ALL movies made by the major studios.

But I'm saying nothing that we all don't really know. Deep down, we all know it's all commercialism. But in order for us not to get jaded and cynical about all movies, we kinda ignore it. It's probably for the best, but it helps to at least keep it in perspective. Because in the wake of Avengers, I have learned something: You can get away with making a stupid action movie, as long as you're a nerd-sanctioned creator. Oh, I know, I just opened up a can of controversy with that statement. And moreso, I meant it. Look, I liked Avengers. I saw it twice and loved it. But you know what? It's the same movie as 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon." Let's play the "What movie am I talking about?" game.

It's a 3D movie about a group of shiny good guys from earlier movies who join forces to stop an alien invasion, which is orchestrated by an almost brother-like traitor to a main character. The traitor ends up killing a recurring likable character from the previous movies, which pisses off the heroes. The invasion starts after the group of good guys are torn apart and thought defeated, through the destruction of their ship, and this downtime for the heroes results in a major American city getting devastated. The final battle lasts a long time (45 minutes to an hour?) as the aliens, who are rather generic looking and sharing almost no individuality, flies around on these silly sky-sleds that one of the heroes takes over to assist in fighting them. There's a giant worm like creature, that the red metallic hero, after gearing up in his new fancy battle armor, takes out in a rather spectacular method. The bad guys are defeated when the wormhole-portal thingie in space is collapsed. The biggest difference is that one movie has the traitor being brought back home a prisoner, and the other has the traitor getting his head blown off by a fusion shotgun.

It's possible you've made a compelling point, but it
doesn't make you less of an asshole for it.

Look, those area lot of similarities between the two movies. I'm sure the fact that they're both put out by Paramount might have had something to do with it. And in the end, Avengers IS the better movie, and I enjoyed it a lot more. Whedon's movie had Iron Man, Thor and Cap to carry the entire movie, where Bay only had Optimus Prime. But they're both silly action movies. We nerds give a pass to Avengers because its made by the 'nerd-sanctioned creator', and Transformers is made by the 'soulless corporate shill'. But the results are the same in the end, because they both made over a billion dollars and guaranteed a sequel to be made.

If you take anything away from this, it's that it's okay to like stupid things. (I certainly do.) But just be honest about why you like it.

Okay, you can ream me out for comparing Avengers to Dark of the Moon now...