Splitting Kill Bill into two movies made a shitload of money for those in a position to profit. How much more? Considerably more. Hundreds of millions of dollars more when you count home video and cable and everything else.
In terms of raw value I’m of the opinion that both Kill Bill films had more in them to see and to like than the vast majority of well funded studio releases. That in and of itself isn’t exactly saying much considering the vast majority of well funded studio releases are pieces of litter floating by your passenger side window as you fly down the road, but, point being: neither of them felt like you got totally jipped exactly. It wasn’t that you were getting less per se, it was that, in the opinion of this moviegoer, you weren’t getting a complete experience/flick/thing either time you plunked your ten bucks down.
How important completeness is feels like a fuzzy personal matter. I don’t think this is the time or place to broach this particular Pandora’s box but let’s say for the sake of argument that it’s real important—which I believe it is. How are we to feel when Tarantino and company ask us to pay twice for two incomplete experiences. Hey Seth, this is show business, show business. There’s no show without the business. OK. But how fucking far does that go. Commercial art sure, it’s a balance right? But selling two halves of a whole without ever feeling the satisfaction of a complete experience is in my mind: criminally unacceptable. From an artistic perspective. Balance yes, absolutely, but this wasn’t it. In contrast I’m sure the bean counters loved it. Went home and played with themselves under the covers staring at an excel printout with a flashlight loved it.
For punctuation to this story of artistic degradation Tarantino again toe in toe with his money grubbing benefactor (and currently towards the end of a free fall of failure) Harvey Weinstein recently released their new film Inglorious Bastards (one volume this time) at the Cannes film festival. How did it do? My favorite entertainment reporter Anne Thompson named it 10th on her list of Cannes Ten Best Films and it didn’t win no Golden Palm.
This story is probably old hat to most of you but try this on for size: Valve Software is doing almost the exact same thing with Left for Dead except this time the halves aren’t even full size. You’re actually getting two fifty minute segments of kung fu over here and expected to pay full price twice.
Those who know Valve know they like the idea of episodic content. Seems like a good idea right? They tried it with Half Life 2 and it didn’t seem to work out so well in the sense that, well, they never got around to producing the episodic content in a timely manner which was supposed to be the whole point of it really. At least for the time being it looks as though they have given up on the Half Life front as they put their weight behind Left for Dead.
When Valve released Left for Dead Vol. 1 at the full $60 console price no one could deny it was light on content. The multiplayer and AI was so good though it was mostly forgiven. But now, here’s the kicker, they’re releasing the rest of the game, exactly one year later, and though no pricing details have been announced I bet dollars to fucking doughnuts it’s going to be full price again. You know what else they’re thinking of doing? Releasing the original LFD campaigns with the ‘sequel’ so you’ll have it all on one disc. Makes sense right?
No one makes a full release AAA first person shooter in one year. It simply doesn’t happen. The standard even for assembly line sequels from behemoths like Activision is two years. Only sports titles dare to expect you to pay that much dollar per incremental addition and they are only able to get away with that due to the nature of their domains. Bean counters get stiffies thinking about sports franchise revenue spreadsheets I’m sure.
Valve still likes the idea of releasing episodic content. Only caveat is they want you to pay full price for each release. Taking a page from the film industry playbook they are likely to ask you to pay for the same content twice, including the first half of their game on the same disc as the second half. You tell me dear reader, is this reasonable? This is a capitalistic system right? Who is anyone to judge them for trying to make as much scratch as they possibly can? Maybe I’m seeing it all wrong. For the moment from where I’m sitting it looks like a bullshit money grab from a company that isn’t known for pulling bullshit money grabs.
