Hollywood's Writers Strike...An Original Idea

It's been over two months since the writers began striking in Hollywood. I don't think people expected it to run quite as long as it has but it doesn't look like it's going to be ending anytime soon. Now rather than debate who is write in this case and who is wrong, I will just state my view by simply saying that I think the writers are privy to some form of compensation considering it is their work that continues to garner attention rather than the work of the studios. I mean after all, if they didn't write the shows then what would Hollywood produce? I think I speak for the majority of us out there when I say that reality TV is fine but most people look at TV as a means of escaping reality and not a means of looking at it from another angle necessarily.

But has the strike really changed all that much for the average viewer? For TV fans it certainly has. I mean almost daily you can hear people complain about the fact that they can't watch their favorite shows or are dying for TV shows to start again. Networks are losing so much viewership due to the fact that their popular shows remain unaired due to not having any new episodes. "Lost" is supposed to premiere tonight and for those of us faithful viewers, it was supposed to be a season of potential answers. For three seasons we had watched and come away with more questions than actual answers but this season, the producers had promised that we would certainly get the answers we all had been craving. At least to most of the questions. So then why am I not as excited as I should be? Because I have this gnawing suspicion that the strike will not be resolved by the time the produced eight episode run ends. Even if it is, will they have the scripts ready in time for the remainder of the season? Who knows.

But besides television has anything else really been affected? There are a dearth of scripts out there already procured by studios (from what I understand) and so they have a lot to choose from. Perhaps this will be the time for budding young writers to be discovered. Their scripts will be picked up and lo and behold they will pay their fees, join the Writer's Guild and join the picket lines officially. It might be a nice change of pace for some of them but on the whole, I feel that perhaps this incident will put a spark back in Hollywood. This strike will end at some point (or perhaps I'm being too optimistic) and when it does, the writers and the rest of the Hollywood apparatus will get back to the business at hand. What I'm hoping is that this will at least lead to some new ideas. What do I mean? Well I don't know about the rest of the people out there but I'm getting a little worn out by the number of remakes or "re-imaginings" that are going on in Hollywood these days.

Once in a while was okay when you revisited a storyline or character and approached it from a different point of view but when you are using the name of an older film or story and then changing the very essence of it, you are ruining the original more than paying homage. Lately there have been so many movies of this sort that are remakes of old movies and due to the advent of technology, writers and directors are writing in much more extravagant storylines that require the use of special effects either to enhance the story or push it over the top. I don't really understand the point of it if it doesn't do anything to help serve the storyline in some way. Being a semi-movie buff I have seen a lot of the original movies that a lot of today's movies are based on and I can honestly say that I see it as nothing more than cashing in on the popularity of the original. I have yet to run across a remake that I have enjoyed a lot more than the original (okay... the remade Oceans 11 wasn't bad).

But I want the studios to embrace change and new ideas. I think ever since "independent" movies started winning Best Picture Oscars, the studios began to realize that perhaps it wasn't necessary to produce mega blockbusters all the time but that original story ideas on smaller scales were much more appealing to people. The nice thing about Hollywood is that there isn't one particular genre that is favored over others; I think it's fair to say that most every type of movie gets a fair shake at being made. If I was part of the Writers Guild (no... blog writers don't have a guild as far as I know....hmmm... maybe I should go on strike to get one), I would also protest the fact that Hollywood is simply pushing us to make remakes of existing stories which stifles creativity and the chance for newer story ideas to come to the forefront. Why remake classics when we have the classics themselves to admire and remember.