The King of Wrong: Short Version
For Sunday I will give you my full thoughts on King of Kong, the questions people asked of my initial posting, and a large variant of tangential subjects. It will be very long, even for me. It required me to waste a number of hours on this subject, followed by watching the stupid movie again, and then do a lot of research (which a lot of people helped me with, by the way).
Whenever I write something long, I run headfirst into the "Too Long; Didn't Read" crowd, who I am not interested in interacting with under any circumstances. So hello TLDR crowd, don't read tomorrow's weblog entry, thank you for visiting.
So here we go, in bullet form:
- King of Kong is a well-edited movie, assuming you don't care how accurate it is. Basically nobody has watched it and doesn't get wrapped up in the "story" and cheers or boos as is necessary.
- For some people, they need to know it's "real". Those people would be disappointed.
- For other people, it's just a movie, it doesn't need to be anything else. We're done here, you can go home.
- Other people seem to think it doesn't matter if it's real or not, yet still insist on heaping abuse on the human beings appearing in the film. These people are Fuck Sausages.
- Some of us care how accurate the story is. I care professionally, others care because they want to think they're seeing some level of real.
- It is generally accurate except that a few premises are shifted around and a few matters of convenience which add additional tension are not based much on reality.
- Billy Mitchell is not an Angel.
- Steve Wiebe is not Satan.
- People pointing and giggling at the competition and rule controversies in the film apparently haven't watched enough competitive sports.
- I will never make a movie like this, and I have been faced with the prospect/opportunities to make movies like this.
See? That was easy. Tune in tomorrow when I bitchslap you with a dictionary's worth of Me.
Comments
Looking forward to the long version, actually, but I really like the idea of prefacing with a kind of crib notes.
I agree very much with point 1, and I'm mostly one of those point 3 people, but I can't really reconcile my enjoyment of the film with knowing it might actually harm people who "didn't deserve it."
Bring it on!
Posted by: Phil Nelson | February 10, 2008 02:45 AM
Did you mix up Steve Wiebe (who is portrayed as a saint) and Billy Mitchel (satan) in your list?
I was disappointed to hear that the story was so misleading, but I'm looking forward to more info about it.
Posted by: Will | February 10, 2008 08:13 AM
Somehow this weekend I talked the wife into sitting down and watching the King of Kong DVD. She's not a big fan of videogames, and I didn't warn her about any of the film's alleged inaccuracies. She loved it. Only after the film was over did I mentioned a few things to her. "What if I told you Billy Mitchell DID go in to the restaurant at the end, and DID buy everyone's lunch INCLUDING Steve Wiebe's?" I asked. "Huh, that's weird," she replied. It didn't ruin the movie for her at all, and had I not brought up some of these things, I suspect she would have never known. On one level it kind of upset me that these things didn't upset her more, but on another level it helps me understand why there's not a bigger uproar over all of this. Continue to fight the good fight sir Scott; I look forward to today's entry.
Posted by: Flack | February 10, 2008 10:04 AM
All media is fiction, on some level. Even raw live footage involves the cameraman's decision on what to shoot. There's always a filter between the viewer and the event that creates an artificial experience.
This is why Point 3 is valid. While the movie is about real people, there are lots of movies about real people. I don't see how this one is terribly different because the real people in question are alive.
You need to do more to explain why Point 3 isn't important. I understand that you're totally in love with Billy Mitchell but I kind of get the idea that he can take care of himself. If he's materially harmed by the movie--if he loses his job or something--then he can sue Seth Gordon for libel. And if he isn't materially harmed, then, well, oh no, people he doesn't know and won't ever meet are going to think bad things about him! How will he ever survive?
Posted by: DensityDuck | February 11, 2008 12:55 PM