In the past few days, I've seen a fair number of movie trailers and such, and a few have piqued my interest or ire enough to comment on them.

First off, Hero. I actually saw this film some time ago in subtitled form, long before Quinten Tarantino picked up the rights to bring it out over here.

Thing is, the movie they talk about in the trailer has fuck-all to do with the movie I watched. "A hero must fight the strongest army in the world to make the wrong things right"? There's not a single line in the trailer that has anything at all to do with the plot.

This might seem like a minor beef, trailers rarely properly represent the story of thier movie, but in this case they're just making shit up. It's like they showed some videoclips to some schmuck that'd never seen the movie and had him make up a trailer. I can't help but wonder if this is a sign of something more worrisome. As in, Changes to the actual -plot-. Given what an impressive film the original was, I'm going to be somewhat annoyed if this turns out to be a hacked up version.

Another trailer worthy of discussion is Team America, not for the trailer itself, (which is awesome) but for the reactions it has gathered from the fair and balanced conservative community.

I am a registered independent. I try hard not to take -sides- on issues, so much as have -opinions- on them. I think the liberals and the conservatives both have their valid points and arguments. With regards to individuals, at any rate. I do, however, tend to hate the politicians on both sides.

But when I see the kind of knee jerk idiot reactionism that comes from the right when they hear about this movie, it makes me want to go change my voter registration with a big fat "D".

For those not in the know, Team America is an irreverant parody of high budget action movies devised by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of South Park.

It's about Terrorists, Politicians, Hollywood nutjobs, Kim Jong Il, and lots and lots of explosions. Told through puppets.

It's completely unserious and has pretty much done nothing to slight either side of the political fence. It does what Bugs bunny and numerous other comical figures throughout history have always done. It takes a serious issue, and parodies it. This is neither new, nor is it particularly unwelcome. We need to be able to laugh, people. It's IMPORTANT.

If you forget how to laugh, the terrorists win.

Yet, despite the fact that the film doesn't slam any particular administration, (and in fact seems more unkind to the hollywood liberals then anyone, from what I've heard about the thing) Within days of the trailer's release, The Bush administration was talking about how terrible it was, and how inappropriate it was.

It's a fucking movie, people.

It has been said that the guilty are the first to profess their innocence. The Team America trailer doesn't even criticise the Bush administration. It mocks terrorism and hollywood, and politics in general, but christ, if social satire is so reprehensible in this new America, I don't think I want to live here anymore.

Other conservatives have compared the concept to World War II, claiming that it would have been unthinkable to make such light of the world situation back then. But as Trey Parker himself has pointed out, that's exactly what the CARTOONS of the era were doing. Once again, the right is so goddamn quick to cry foul and spout nonsense that it's hard to trust people like that.

You have to have a sense of humor. I'm sorry, but that's all there is to it. The world is -DAMAGED-. And it's not going to be fixed for a very long time, and we have to -live- through it, if mankind is going to have a future. If we're going to live, we have to have happy, hopeful children. We have to have a concept of hope and levity. You know why people like Osama Bin Laden can justify the wanton massacre of thousands of innocents? Because they have no fucking sense of humor. They look at the world and they see nothing but problems and evil and injustice and that makes them ANGRY. And anger BLINDS. It blinds us to all the good people are capable of. It blinds us to the consequences of taking someone's life. It blinds us to the very real solutions that exist to the problems in this world.

And when we become so angry over a movie trailer that we can't even think straight enough to make informed statements, when we can't reserve judgement...

I don't like the trailers for "Hero", but that doesn't mean I'm going to judge the film, it's message, and everthing about it's theatrical release harshly. I'm going to wait and see and form my opinion based on the FILM. Not some knee jerk reaction to a minuite's worth of -hints-.

Learn to THINK, people.