I sit in a darkened room, surrounded by many strangers. At first, it is quiet, but then the room slowly gets darker as images begin to flash right before my eyes. After what seems like 45 minutes go by, I pull out my bazooka, scream "You and your CD can burn in hell, whore!" and promptly shoot the screen on which these images appear. Satisfied with my actions, I sit back in my seat and smack the hippie sitting behind me who is crying about my violent actions, effectively shutting him up.
I then wake up, for it was all a dream. A dream about what? A war-zone? You may find yourself asking that very question after reading the above paragraph. Surprisingly, the "war-zone" I speak of is the eternity of nonsense that you have to sit through in the movie theatre before viewing the feature-length movie that you just plunked down nearly $10 to see. These are not necessary and, in my opinion, are ruining the movie-going experience by providing the viewer with bazooka-filled daydreams.
There are two kinds of pre-movie crap that you are forced to watch before actually getting to the thing you paid for: Public Service Announcement lies and product commercials. Let's deal with the pre-movie commercials first.
Is it not enough that we see product advertisements on TV, busses, cabs, magazines, newspapers, billboards, on our popcorn and soda cups, other peoples' clothing, and during sporting events? I guess the "higher ups" in the advertising business felt that we do not receive enough advertisements. We need more of them. Let's put them in the one sacred spot that the average Joe is safe from the ad-nazis for three hours: the movie screen!
Not only are these products being advertised before the movie, but there is also product placement in the movie itself. Last time I counted, "Minority Report" had about 15,000 cleverly placed "Product Placements" in it. Not even one commercial before a movie is acceptable. One commercial translates to one of those TNT "mini-dramas" that were shown during the summer time. These things would go on and on and on. Don't worry TNT, I will never again doubt your knowledge of drama. Message taken.
Second, and at the height of aggravating unnecessary pre-movie crap are the MPAA's anti-piracy public service announcements. These little announcements introduce us to the "little people," the non-big money stars such as the stunt guy/lady/sloth or a sound effects guy/lady/cat. Joe Stunt Man comes on the screen (cue the sappy heartwarming background music) and speaks his mind about people file-sharing movies. He states that people doing this should think about how it effects the everyday man not making millions of dollars, such as him. HA! I laugh!
I have nothing against these people, and I honestly understand where they are coming from. My problem is with the MPAA and their approach in this matter. These blue-collar movie workers can just as easily turn around and say, "Hey big movie star, take a million-dollar pay cut and give some to me! Hey, big time movie producer, stop making movies with billion dollar budgets and make room for me!" Piracy is definitely illegal and it may be morally wrong, but I am pretty sure that if all of these big time directors and movie stars care so much about Johnny Blue Collar worker, they can find it in their hearts to take a $8 million paycheck instead of their usual $10 million one.
Instead of wasting the movie goers time before a movie by making us watch these gut-wrenching commercials and PSA's, why not just stick them in a pamphlet that can be placed in front of the theatre? If that won't work, give the money made from these commercials to the blue color workers complaining about their paychecks being hurt from movie piracy. At least that way we only have to wait an hour to see the feature movie we paid to see instead of an hour and half. Brilliant!