Foolish Hopes

It seems that every person who follows the industries of film and books and music has foolish hopes. Foolish hopes are those impossible things that you wish that could happen but almost never do happen.

I have my own foolish hopes. Quite a few, actually.

For instance, one of my most foolish hopes is that, someday, the film industry will produce something that is both clean and well-made.

The movies that are clean tend to lack in other areas, such as in plot, character development, and so on. The prime example of this is in children's movies. While there have been some brilliant movies directed toward younger audiences (How To Train Your Dragon and Megamind, for instance) the tendency is to recycle the same story-lines over and over, wedded with new “ideas”. What the film industry doesn't seem to realize is that the ideas don't make the story; the story makes the story.

And children's movies lack a certain amount of depth, as well. You can only go so far in exploring deeper themes when you are limited to a child audience.

The movies that are “well-made” tend not to be clean. Gratuitous violence and suggestive content are all over in movies targeted towards adults. There are, however, some stunning exceptions. The Lord of the Rings is a good one. Another one is Ender's Game, a newer movie that stands as a beacon of what the film industry can do. There is no suggestive content, and you can count on one hand the amount of curse words that were used, all of which were mild. Best of all, it has an incredible and remarkably deep storyline.

What if more movies like Ender's Game were made? What if Hollywood, for once, experimented in “clean”, and yet deep, stories? The result could be wonderful.

Here's another foolish hope of mine: that someday, someone will remake the French play Cyrano de Bergerac. So far, nothing has come close to beating the 1950 black-and-white version. And indeed, beating it would be hard even if the producers of a modern version were strict purists. But sometimes I wonder what it would be like if someone made a long epic of a movie out of the play, with incredible actors, stunning cinematography, and a screenwriter committed to preserving the original text of the play. It would be beautiful.

The trend is there. Les Miserables, like Cyrano de Bergerac, is an old French piece of literature – and it turned out to be a success. Perhaps Cyrano could make it back on the screen one day, providing that he was properly adapted. No adaption is better than a bad adaption.

Also, while we're wish-granting, how about a three-volume leather-bound set of the Complete Works of G. K. Chesterton? No such collection even exists, much less in a three-volume set. And a shiny, new, high-quality hardcover of the Hooker translation of Cyrano de Bergerac would be pretty cool too.

What about you? Do you have any foolish hopes for the various “story” industries? A movie you'd like to see made? A book you'd like to see in an awesome edition?  Comment and let me know.  

'Cause sometimes dreams have to come before reality can follow.