Right now, I’m going to do a little bit of speed blogging for you. This one is an assignment for PR class. I’ve got a time limit and everything. It’s like blog time trials. Okay here I go.
Today’s post is about the new movie The Social Network. I’m pretty sure everyone has heard of it, and if not, everyone has for sure heard of Facebook.com. That’s exactly what The Social Network is about: it is a dramatization of Mark Zuckerberg’s life during the period in which he created the immensely popular social networking website.
From what I’ve heard from talking to other people I have been given the impression that most people seem to think that this movie was a great achievement. I’ve heard so many people say that they thought it was such a good movie, an Oscar contender even. I think I even remember hearing someone say that they thought that this movie defined our generation. Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and here’s mine.
I didn’t really like this movie very much. I don’t think it was the worst movie ever, but it’s not great. It’s not even good; on the other hand, it’s not awful,or terrible. The Social Network is averagely bad like the Kings of Leon. You know, sort of boring, sometimes mildly entertaining, but over all unremarkable.
I’m not going to do a total breakdown of the movie. There might be a spoiler coming though, so if you haven’t watched it yet, you might want to put off reading any further. Now just to get things moving I’m going to do a quick overview of what happens I’m not planning on going into much detail. Basically, the movie opens with Mr. Zuckerberg getting dumped. His girl friend feels that he’s being an arrogant asshole. She has enough and kicks him to the curb. From that part on he’s in a bad mood, and ends up screwing over pretty much everyone. He does all these shady dealings where he kind of steals intellectual property or right out screws over his best friend. A big part of the movie is made up of litigation scenes where he is getting sued, and they’re just having meetings with lawyers going over the cases. That part takes place after the main story in the time line, but those scenes are intermingled with the scenes of the process of the creation of Facebook throughout the movie.
The movie really makes Zuckerberg look like a jerk. He starts off arrogant and then switches to a more devious persona where he’s kind lying to people and doing things behind their backs. Then he kind of turns back arrogant, with an I’m rich so I’m more important than you and I can do whatever I want kind of attitude. He’s really not shown in the best light. However, in some ways he’s still a likeable character. It doesn’t ever seem like he’s evil or inhuman. I would describe him more as a character that sort of loses himself and makes the wrong decisions. I’m pretty sure everyone has made a wrong decision before. So people can still relate to him.
I think that Zuckerberg’s response to the movie makes sense. It’s just a movie. I don’t think that all of a sudden he is going to find himself vilified by all the users of Facebook just because of this movie. In some ways I think that audiences will be able to relate more to Zuckerberg after watching The Social Network. He came off like a twenty-something college kid, who hadn’t fully grown up yet. Isn’t that the same demographic that most Facebook users find themselves in? I think that when he said that his life really wasn’t that dramatic, it was a very good response to the film, because it’s probably pretty likely that his life wasn’t that dramatic. It is a movie after all. I don’t really think that the establishment of his charity foundation and the donation of 100 million dollars was really a big deal. Yeah the timing was a little sketchy, but I figure that if he waits a bit, and then donates another hundred mil, and then does it a few more times after that, so that it just becomes something he does; people are going to forget that the first time he did it was when The Social Network came out. They’ll just think, “Man that Zuckerberg, he sure gives away a lot of money. Good for him.”
I don’t think the movie will affect Facebook in anyway: people are going to keep using it. What it might do, referring back to what I said earlier, is give people in our generation a reason to say, this our movie it’s about something that happened when we were the target consumer demographic. Other than that, as far as I can tell, and I’m no expert, Facebook is an unsinkable ship.
Now, I just want to leave with two more thoughts:
The thing that really bugged me about the movie was, like I said, it was slow moving and I waited two hours and ten minutes to find out that he decided to settle his lawsuits out of court. I mean, really. It actually happens like this: the one lawyer is like, Okay, you’re probably going to lose in court. You should settle. And then, “I don’t think you’re an asshole. You’re just trying really hard to be one.” If that quote isn’t exact, sorry. Oh, and then he pines over the girl that dumped him in the beginning for a bit more. And then, let’s wrap it all up in a nice bow by explaining what happens to everyone with their own text paragraph. You can’t see it, but I’m making an unimpressed face.
And the second and last thing I want to say is that the best part of the whole movie. And I mean best part by far, was when the credits rolled and Baby, You’re a Rich Man started playing. Seriously, that nearly made the whole movie worthwhile.
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