Posted by sean at spider-tk021.proxy.aol.com on August 07, 2001 at 22:20:10:
In Reply to: Re: Uhm... posted by jgoines on August 07, 2001 at 21:58:39:
: Kevin accused Tim Burton of theft. Thats not a joke. If Kevin meant it as such his humor barometer needs some tinkering. Its a serious and a seriously unfounded accusation and should not be brushed off by Smith's fans or Burton himself.
I accused Burton of theft as well, initially, and it was completely a joke. See, the thing about jokes is that they take something that's true and they look at it in a funny way. [Unless you go by "The State"'s definition; then, something is funny if it isn't true.] For example, the fact that the panel in question contains the exact same idea as the end of Planet of the Apes. That much is absolutely true as any fool with half a brain can see. (If you need help with that bit, I'll understand.) So then the joke is "Oh, Burton stole it, what a hack", which is extra funny because of the history between Kevin and Tim. Kevin jokingly suggesting that he'd take it to court is absurd when you look at it from the obvious point of view that Kevin himself has "stolen" more from other movies than was stolen in this instance. I mean, I don't see Speilberg kicking up any fuss over the "Jaws" scene in "Chasing Amy". But if he did, I'd like to think that Kevin would be a bigger man than somebody who would say "Oh, SPielberg? Well, I guess his old stuff is okay. But i've never even seen 'Jaws', and even if I did, I didn't like it, and whatever I did like about it, I wouldn't have stolen."
"Kevin accused Tim Burton of theft. Thats not a joke"
You make it sound like Kevin is accusing Tim Burton of brekaing into his house late at night and running off with his DVD collection. Even if he had, that obviously was *not* the issue Burton had with it. Burton didn't seem to take offense at the idea that he would steal things, but rather at the idea that he would ever read anything by Kevin. Obviously not, since the man has absolutely no storytelling ability of his own. He does have really good ideas, but imagine if a movie he made had a good script too, hw much better it could be.
Would Kevin's joke have been funnier if he were spouting out stock cliches written out by some hack, but surrounded by a bunch of computer-generated fake looking things that were all much more developed characters than he is? Or if Kevin were a lovable but solitary individual with a singular drive in his life that nobody, even the bullies nor the rich folks, can stop him from?