This week notorious internet news nanny Matt Drudge reported the
presence of advanced bootleg prints of The Two Towers floating
about online available for download. While the validity of this
story is actually quite questionable and completely unconfirmed,
for me it raises the question why?

Why would anyone want to download bootlegs to begin with? Sure,
I'm not a total innocent; I've dabbled in it once or twice and
know what I'm doing well enough to find the same things all you
hardcore bootleggers find. But I simply don't see the point.
Presumably hardcore downloaders are doing this for the love of
film. It takes a real movie lover to put that kind of time and
effort into hunting down something just to have the chance to
see it first. As a movie lover, how could you watch something so
totally inferior?

Put aside questions of legality or morality involved with such
things, this isn't a rant about breaking the law or the unjust
behavior of fat cat studios that makes them richer and screws
the rest of us over. I'm talking about loving movies. Bootlegs
are an inferior product. Generally they are grainy, fuzzy, and
of poor sound quality. Most of them are taken by some guy with a
camcorder in a movie theater, recording what's up on the screen.
There are a few high quality prints out there, most of these
from stolen press screening copies, featuring the type of
quality you'd expect from a purchased dvd but these are rare and
still not perfect.

So you download and if you're lucky you manage to find a quality
bootleg that's actually watchable, instead of the aforementioned
camcorder mess. You download and you sit, hunched over a tiny
computer screen. Alone. Isolated. Squinting to make out pictures
compressed onto your 17-inch monitor. Listening intently to the
tinny sound coming out of your outdated Altec-Lansing computer
speakers. Imagine this is the way you see The Two Towers or the
next Star Wars installment for the first time. Not in a theater,
not on opening night, not surrounded by other movie lovers
basking in the glow of a crystal clear 75ft screen enraptured by
pure digital surround sound that pumps out every click, boom,
and ping from Howard Shore's magnificent soundtrack. No not like
that. Instead you get it early, you get it at home, and you
watch it alone in the dark squinting for clarity.

That's not a movie experience that's a disappointment. If you
REALLY love movies, why would you CHOOSE to watch any film much
less one you care about, in such a sub-par, low-tech
environment? You're doing yourself and the film an injustice.

So why do we bother with bootlegs? Are people so set on one
upping their friends by seeing things first that they don't care
HOW they see it? Maybe. As a critic it would do wonders for my
career to see things further ahead of time. I won't tell you
that I don't receive such things occasionally from a few folks I
know trying to help snag The Film Hobbit an exclusive sneak
peak. And I'm grateful. I watch. I'm happy. But to do so on a
regular basis, or to watch a film you really CARE about, a film
like Lord of the Rings... that's a shame.

I'd rather wait in line outside the UA MacArthur Marketplace 16
here in Dallas for days rather than spend 3 hours in a
hardbacked chair at home glaring at my computer. There's magic
in the movies. If you lose that, and reduce films to just a
bunch of pixels on your screen, you've lost what movie making is
all about. The first time you see something should be the best
time.

You only get one opportunity to experience each movie as
something totally new. Don't waste it on some slacker's attempt
at underground bootleg fame. Your movie health depends on it.

About the author:
Joshua Tyler is the Owner and Creator of CinemaBlend.com, a
movie news and review resource updated daily and available for
paid syndication.

Author : Joshua Tyler
Site : www.goarticles.com

BobPaton.com � 2010
Hosted by Midsouth Marketing

Online Games | New Media Blog | City News Magazine | Collierville Advertising | Collierville Dragons