The best way to make money is to confuse your customer because ignorance = profit. Why?
Well, I feel that Pixar is one of the finest teams of people making films these days, and the quality and care of each of their projects is unmatched even by Disney's own efforts. I know Disney owns Pixar now, but if they didn't, movies like "Home on the Range" would be their 'big' animation features. And if that was the case, then I submit that the Disney Magic is nearly dead.
But anyway, all this is to get to the point that there have been some spectacularly popular animated features in recent years and it has of course lead to knock-offs.
As I perused the DVD section of my local everything store I noticed a DVD for a computer animated movie about a rat that is a genius in the kitchen; a movie called "Ratatoing".
Ratatoing?!
Holy lack of effort, Batman. These people didn't even try to mask this blatant rip off. It's amazing how these things even come into existence. As far as I can tell, a movie like that is aiming to be bought by three groups of people. Here they are in order of least to most likely to purchase:
- People who have seen and were delighted by the original film and now have a hankering to watch a shoddy duplicate that looks as if it were animated by a team of seventh graders or prisoners.
-People who realize the DVD is a cheap remake and honestly believe it will fool their kids.
-People who think they are buying "Ratatouille".
It's this last and most likely group that concerns me, because I've seen this stuff for years. I can't count the number of times I've dug around in a discount bin of movies and discovered a copy of "The Wee Mermaid" or "The King Lion" or "Snow White and her Seven Dwarf-like Companions". It's just a waste of material and effort, and it's preying upon stupid parents who don't know any better.
This sort of thing happens in the gaming industry as well. For every great game there are 50-60 horrible games that should never be purchased. The only reason those games sell at all is because they contain words like awesome, pirate, and turbo. You'd better believe a game called "Awesome Turbo Pirates" will be a hit. I really feel bad for the kids who begged their parents for a specific game for months and ended up unwrapping "Math Ninja" on Christmas morning. It breaks my heart.
2 comments:
From Amazon.com:
"Ratatoing is a city in Rio de Janeiro where the most gifted chef in town is.a rat! Every Thursday night, Marcell goes on a mission with his assistant Carol and his friend Greg, the worst waiter in town to search for rare ingredients that can only be found in restaurants owned by humans. They are faced with real dangers like rat traps and cat attacks! Their adventure gets even more dangerous when a bunch of jealous decide to get together to try and put an end to Ratatoing's culinary success."
Those lousy jealous...
Roland gave this to me for christmas... I gave him that new Nintendo Wii hes been crying for...
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