Jurassic World, Star Wars, Terminator, Teaser Trailers for Teaser Trailers and 2015: The Year of the Franchise

Unless you hate the internet or are Robin Williams' chracter from Jumanji you've seen both the new teaser trailers for Jurassic World and Star Wars: Episode VII.  Well today, we've got another one.  Not a teaser trailer, but a teaser trailer for the teaser trailer.  This time for the upcoming 5th installment to the wayward Terminator franchise: Terminator: Genisys (actually its a reboot, but whatevs).

Yeah, that's right, there isn't very much to see.  For a franchise that has been unable to find its mojo ever since 1991, fans seem pretty wary.  Regardless of the film's quality, this pre-teaser marks a trend for big tent pole films that is dangerously close to becoming a staple of big budget films.  With Jurassic Park and Star Wars setting the precedent it would appear that movie studios are very close to finding yet another way to cash in.

For years now, the quality of trailers have gotten higher and higher.  It is the norm for trailers to feature exclusive music score and dialogue.  Completely mediocre movies have had heartstopping traielrs (Man of Steel).  It would be no stretch at all to see websites start paying big bucks for exclusive rights to certain trailers (at least, for the first few weeks of their release).

Hollywood has approached a time in their history when making a good trailer can actually be just as lucrative as making a good movie (Man of Steel grossed over 668 million dollars).

Hunger Games 4, the search for even more money.

2015 is likely to be a big year for the box office.  Between the aforementioned films, the final Hunger Games, Avengers 2, and yet another James Bond movie it is likely to be one crowded summer action plate.   So brace yourself for total saturation of the trailer for the trailer of the trailer.  I can deal with all of these unorginal, over long, nice looking but mostly hollow action adventrues, but I just ask that I am spared the absurd hype machine surrounding them.  I could call them Overrated but that won't save me from them.  Next summer is going to be very noisy and I'm probably not going to spend much time at the movie theater... except for Star Wars, I'm so excited to be disappointed by that shit.

Jurassic World, Deep Blue Sea... With Dinosaurs?

When I was probably around ten years old I was your average American boy, in that, I really liked dinosaurs and sharks.  I also had big dreams of being a screenwriter.  I wrote a lot of little stories and mapped out other, grander tales but I rarely shared them with anyone.  One Thanksgiving night, with the whole family gathered in the living room my older sister started asking me to share one of my ideas for a movie.  I didn't want to, not being incredibly confident in my artistic abilities and realizing also that most of my ideas were pretty half baked, but she would not relent, insisting that she wouldn't make fun of me.  So, finally I told her and some of my other family members about an idea I had that involved an open ocean aquarium type place that studied sharks and was also open to the public.  Through a series of mishaps, the sharks get lose in the facility and mayhem ensues.  Needless to say I was mercilessly mocked for this idea (particularly by my oldest sister), as it was seen as a blatant rip off of Jurassic Park only with sharks.  The whole experience was very upsetting.

But lo and behold, a few short years later there was a little movie called Deep Blue Sea.  It was remarkably similar to my original idea, right down to the shark whispering character played by Thomas Jane.

Well, it seems Steven Speilberg also saw Deep Blue Sea.

Despite a trilogy that pretty much had the sole message of People+Dinosaurs=Disaster, the first glimpses of Jurassic World have been unveiled to the galaxy.

It is hard to say thus far what to expect from this movie, it might be really cool, it might be Kingdom of the Crystal Skull part two.  One thing that is pretty clear, however, is that movie's plot seems to be suspiciously similar to Deep Blue Sea.

Seeing as how Deep Blue Sea is a rip off of Jurassic Park they wouldn't have to do very much to make the movies more alike, but it is as though the makers of Jurassic World watched Deep Blue Sea, took what little they could find that was distinct about it, and inserted it into their screenplay.

Lets break it down from what we know from the trailer.

Deep Blue Sea:

- Scientists breed genetically modified sharks in an effort to cure Alzheimer's.  A side effect of this is that the sharks become highly intelligent.

- The super intelligent sharks at one point eat another shark.

- The sharks get lose in a power failure and run amuck.

- There is a hot female scientist (Saffron Burrows) that arrogantly thinks she can play God with wild animals.

- Their is a cool, shark whisperer type character (Thomas Jane) that the other characters look to for leadership.

My Awesome 10-year-old screenplay

- Everything above minus the female scientist and Alzheimer's thing, plus facility is open to the public.

Jurassic World

- Everything above but swap "shark" for "dinosaur", probably minus Alzheimer's angle.

Literally, everything from above.  Chris Pratt is playing the velociraptor whisperer and Bryce Dallas Howard is the sexy mad scientist.  There's even a scene in the trailer of a prehistoric sea creature eating a shark (possibly meant as an eff you moment to Deep Blue Sea).  There is no reason given why they are genetically modifying the dinosaurs in the trailer, but it is likely there is some sort of hypothetically beneficial reason similar to the Alzheimer's thing.

Deep Blue Sea, Sexy ScientistSexy Scientist, Jurassic World

So, with all of this, my question is: why?

Is it all just a crazy coincidence?  Did they just hope no one would notice?  Did they do it purposefully to shove it in the faces of the makers of Deep Blue Sea?  Did someone raid my old writing journals?

I'm fine with whatever the answer is as long as we get a scene with Samuel L. Jackson giving an impassioned speech while sitting on a toilet only to get suddenly chomp'd by a T-rex.

Shia LaBeouf Has Made The Greatest Comeback Ever (Without Really Doing Anything)

Six months ago, Shia LaBeouf was public persona non grata numero uno about town.  He'd gotten drunk, punched in the face, did Transformers 3, got arrested, plagiarized, plagiarized again, put a bag on his head, got really drunk, got arrested again, and declared he wasn't famous anymore.

Well, if there is one thing that is true in Hollywood it's that you do not get to decide if you are famous.

This DIDN'T kill his career

In the past I have been back and forth on Shia.  I never thought he was a bad actor, but he did have a knack for somehow always being on an upward trajectory despite appearing in several crappy movies and multiple run ins in the law for dopey behavior.  A favorite thing to say to actor friends on their birthdays was that no matter how old they ever got they would never be as famous as Shia LaBeouf.

But now, without seeing him act in anything since Wallstreet: Money Never Sleeps, I find myself with a new opinion of Mr. LaBeouf:  he's awesome.

Okay, so my actual take on him is a little more complex than that, but there is no denying how entertaining Shia has been of late.  Just by being himself.

I mean, sure, Shia did put out a movie this past week called Fury also starring Brad Pitt and it is getting pretty good reviews (80% of RT).  A lot of what Shia has done the past few weeks in his media blitz could ostensibly be attributed to promoting Fury but upon closer inspection it is clear there has only been one goal:  The resurrection of the LaBeouf.

First there was this charming tale of misdemeanor debauchery on Kimmel:

Regardless of where you stand on his antics, you have to admit, he spins a good yarn.  Even Alan Cumming agrees.

Now this story by itself, coupled with positive buzz around Fury, was enough to get Shia back in the black.  But Shia wasn't done.

Shia lended his name and face to a Rob Cantor live performance that can only be described as transcendent.  A song all about a chance(?) encounter with the crazed cannibal Shia LaBeouf which quickly becomes a battle of life and death in a secluded forest.  It has a gay men's choir, a children's choir, ballet dancers, a woman performing with aerial silks, paper mache heads, and the myth himself.

Watch it below and submit to the reign of Shia LaBeouf.