Movies
All The Greed In The World
Do you think making money is a good enough reason to be praised and respected?
At the end of the 2023 movie BlackBerry, Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) unboxes the BlackBerry phones ready for sale and tries to fix them because there is a problem that causes the phones to sizzle. However, despite this malfunction, production continued.
Mike Lazaridis continues to fix the phones, knowing that what he is doing is just a drop in the ocean.
It remains unclear whether this dramatic scene actually happened, but from a storytelling perspective, it represents a shining example of a man who takes pride in his work but unfortunately tarnishes it with his mistakes.
Mike Lazaridis’ net worth as of June 2011 is estimated at $800 million. At first glance, he may not seem like a man who has made a lot of mistakes or messed up. So why do I say he made mistakes?
For me, Mike Lazaridis is one of the most influential people in the history of technology. The reason he’s so underappreciated and unrecognized is because he lacks the vision to leave his mark on history.
Do you think making money is a good enough reason to be praised and respected? If so, I have a movie recommendation for you: All the Money in the World (2017). It’s about J. Paul Getty, the richest man of his time. But history does not remember him for how much money he made and how successful he was. It remembers him as a greedy, selfish, grumpy old man who refused to pay the ransom demanded by bandits for the life of his kidnapped grandson.
Blackberry and All the Money in the World are two examples of two events in history dramatized and transferred to cinema.
Have you ever wondered, “What will movies based on today’s events be like in the future?” I have.
I recently wrote an article for The Ugly Monster titled “What Does ‘Justice League’ Tell Us About the Film Industry?” where I talked about how producers ruin a good story for the sake of money.
Today I want to give two more examples.
First, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. From 2008 to 2018, more than 20 movies were created, all interconnected and based on basically one story.
These 20 movies led us to Avengers: Infinity War (2018). In it, the creators made a groundbreaking decision by allowing the villains to triumph at the end of the movie. This was an unprecedented event in comic book movie history.
The movie broke box office records and became the most talked about event of the year.
But for me, ‘success’ is not about breaking box office records. It’s about touching people’s hearts and carving your name in the history of cinema in a way that will never be erased again. Like Star Wars did.
Still, Lucasfilm is not innocent either. They tried to continue a story that had been told in every aspect without leaving any gaps. I’m talking about Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Yes, maybe they made some money. But they ruined an IP that has an important place in the lives of millions of people. Panicked by the backlash, they found the solution: Resurrect Palpatine in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
But with the release of The Mandalorian that same year, they seemed to realize that it’s not only about making money. It’s about handing the reigns over to people who are passionate about it and not putting obstacles in the way of creative thinking.
In the end, Marvel suffered the same fate as the Star Wars universe. It couldn’t finish a good story where it should have ended. That’s why the quality of their movies and their box office continues to decline.
Today they are trying to fill this void with familiar faces (Tobey Maguire, Hugh Jackman, Hayden Christensen, etc.) and appeal to our nostalgic feelings. They have neither the vision nor the energy to create a new Iron Man because of their ambition to make a profit.
Still, it’s great to see my favorite characters and actors again, I can’t deny that.
Many more examples can be given. However, I don’t want to talk more about these companies, which are the apparatus of capitalism, and I don’t want to advertise them.
It is clear that this system, which encourages seeing everything and everyone as prey and predator, is not sustainable.
Humanity will eventually find a freer, more just model of life to replace it.
My concern is that until then this system will continue to cause irreparable damage to the world, humanity and art.
