Official Movie Website Miscogony

All right, I've got a complaint. It goes out directly to all you sneaky marketing types who THINK you know exactly what the public wants.

Official movie websites...have you tried to look at one lately? Its torture! After looking at many of them, I have come to the conclusion that the majority of them are designed exclusively for people with DSL connections who aren't interested in knowing anything about the movie whose website they are looking up except perhaps to confirm that the movie does indeed exist.

Case in point: The new Highlander: Endgame official website. The first thing you'll notice upon going to the URL (and I recommend you don't) is that the website takes total control of your computer and decides to block out any other windows or toolbars you may have had up. The sheer arrogance of this little programming "feature" boggles the mind. Evidently the marketing geeks who designed the site are absolutely certain that their website is THE most important thing in your entire life.

Next you will notice that the entire website is in flash, with no option to go to a non-flash site. Again, marketing dorks assume that everyone in the world has a cable modem. The truth is that most people have dialups and if you have a dialup connect it will take a good 15 minutes of loading before you can enter the site. So since the stinking site has taken over your entire computer screen and you can't do anything, you get to spend 15 minutes staring at a blank screen. Lovely.

At last! The site loads and you enter eagerly to discover that it contains NOTHING! No cast bios, no plot synopsis, no teasers, no movie stills, NOTHING but a couple of brief blurbs about the two main characters and a place to download the movie trailer. (2 more hours of waiting...I think now!)

Sadly, this type of official movie site is now the rule rather than the exception. High tech wonders filled with boatloads of jack crap. I mean is it so much to ask you execs to throw in a picture or two, or an interview, or a .wav file or SOMETHING?

Why should I waste any of my time struggling with your slow loading futuristic bells and whistles when I can go over to Joe Schmo's low tech, fast loading, fan page and get better stuff?

The point is that I shouldn't. And neither should you.

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