Dear Editor: According to the recent compilations of the World Almanac and Book of Facts, the top-grossing movies of 2004 were Shrek 2, $436.7 million; Spiderman 2, $373.4 million; The Passion of the Christ, $370.3 million; The Incredibles, $251.7 million and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, $249.4 million.
With the exception of The Passion of the Christ, we have a film, Shrek, consisting of design and images and voice-overs while Spiderman 2 is based on a comic book character. In the Incredibles, the audience is presented with a computer animated project and Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban is a tale of witchcraft and wizardry.
Is this juvenile group of motion pictures actually an indication of the mentality of today’s viewers or an insatiable desire on the part of the public to be diverted by any kind of entertainment? One would think that it is probably a combination of both for, in a period of increasingly advanced technology, the people are prone to do less thinking while adhering to anyone or anything that seems to be beyond their comprehension.
Unfortunately though it may be, the average person has forfeited the right to think in favor of slavish obedience to the will of others, in a word, the drivel force-fed to us by authoritative beings.
If only a wasted two hours in a movie theater were the only obstacle to man’s attempt to reach a higher level it would not be that bad, but merely look about in any library and you will see countless students riveted to rows of computers for the purpose of extracting information, data dealing with subjects of every kind. Obviously instantaneous facts are beneficial as is the acquisition of new patterns of approach in order to reach a solution, but all at the tremendous cost of individual thought and imagination.
If the computers were to universally malfunction, would people, suddenly faced with the need to think, be able to do so?
Howard Lawson