So, I’m sitting here watching the AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time (10th Anniversary Edition) special, and I just saw a commercial for Blade Runner: The Final Cut, coming soon on DVD and (according to this commercial) to theaters this fall. Leaving aside my conviction that acknowledged classics shouldn’t be revised or messed with (and also that Ridley Scott is horribly misguided in his efforts to convince us that Deckard is a replicant), it was pretty exciting to see this film being advertised again. However, something about the ad really grated on me: the obligatory slogan, “The One That Started It All.”
I say “obligatory” because it seems these days that every single film that has inspired sequels or imitators uses it; for example, it popped up again recently when the original Shrek was aired on TV a few weeks back. I hate this slogan. It’s hackneyed and virtually meaningless. What the hell is “it” anyway? “It” is never defined, and there are apparently lots of different “its” out there, since Shrek‘s “it” most likely is not Blade Runner‘s “it” (although it’d be interesting if it was — imagine a dystopian future-noir fairy tale…). Really what “it” is, is lazy marketing. It’s a simple, cliche’d fix for a copywriter who’s staring down a deadline and doesn’t have the slightest original thought in his head about the movie in question. As with all the other stuff that bugs me, this slogan will be forbidden when I become the Unquestioned Ruler of the Universe.
That is all. Back to the AFI list now…
Jun202007
Meant to watch the AFI show, but missed it. Stupid business travel on delayed flights….
Anyway, I’m not much into Blade Runner, but I’m willing to bet that the “it” that Shrek is referring to is the Shrek movies (i.e., “the one that started all the Shreks…”)
I was trying to be funny, Brian, and probably not succeeding. Sigh.
Realistically, it’s not too difficult to infer what “it” is; you’re right about the Shrek movies, and the Blade Runner “it” no doubt refers to the cyberpunk-flavored and/or urban dystopia movies that followed in its wake (other movies based on Philip K. Dick stories, Dark City, The Matrix, etc.) What bothers me is that (a) the slogan is overused, (b) it is needlessly vague when you could just as easily say something like, “Blade Runner: Ridley Scott’s visual masterpiece,” or “the seminal cyberpunk movie,” or “The first movie of the Shrek series,” or whatever is appropriate.
Saying “the one that started it all” strikes me as just one more example of how our society is losing its knack for plain speaking.