Once upon a time movies were original. Many were adaptations of novels, short stories or plays. Sadly- times have changed.

Many of todays movies are regurgitations of successful movies of yesterday.

This Christmas season, there were four BIG movies that were re-writes in part or in total. The one that did the best, Will Smith's I Am Legend was a post-apocalyptic horror story, re-did Charlton Heston's Omega Man of the seventies which was in turn based on a novel. Wil Smith's version of the movie is a rare exception where the rewrite surpasses the original.

Another type of movie is the franchise. These are series of movies like Star Wars, Star Trek, Bond movies, the Aliens movies, etc. Franchise movies have a built in fan base and will make lots of money whether or not it sucks.

This Christmas season's franchise movie was Aliens Vs Predatator Requiem and it stank up the big screen. Predatators are BAD. Aliens are BAD. Put them together and you should have a winner right? Wrong. Requiem was the right name for this movie: it may be the funeral of the franchise. When one does Sci-fi, for it to work there are two elements that come into play: suspension of disbelief and a logical plot. One depends on the viewer and the other is a function of the writer. Requiem was a tense, bloody gore-fest that ended with the nuking of thousands of people, aliens and one predator. It left me wishing that I had just bought the comic book.

More types of movies:

Movie of the Weak: low-budget, made for TV movie which is a waste of consciousness the first time.

Independent Film: low-budget, weird piece of shite that sucks and there is no one to blame since it is independent.

B Movie; short for BARF movie. 50s and 60s were the height of this low.

Cult Classic Movies which have 50 fans nation-wide and no one else gives a shite about.

B & W movie: Barf and Wretch movies: gross, bloody and horrifying eg. Nightmare on Elm Street