A few days ago when I pleaded for First Blood being a good movie even if it was rated PG-13 in today's standards, I thought it'd be my last post on the PG-13 issue and things would get better, some producer or Stallone would come out and say something nice to appease fans, people would be pumped up again to look forward to EX2 even PG-13 and so on, well I'm an optimist, even in my day-to-day life.
But the recent events and comments made by Crews forced me out of my optimism and I felt obliged to react to comments that fans, my friends and I did not find fair towards those who truly supported the first movie and carried it financially to become the franchise it is today. React to the silence of EX producers, Stallone and the cast, for not saying: we appreciate you, you the true fans who made all this possible, after all if it wasn't for your support on the first movie, we wouldn't have a business case to release $100M to make a sequel, we couldn't get Norris, we couldn't get Van Damme who didn't want in the first movie because he thought it'd be a flop. We couldn't afford $1.5M to Schwarzenegger to film his 5 days or convince Willis to have a more substantial role. We couldn't afford the extra expenses to shoot in China just to accommodate Li because he didn't want to do the movie outside his home country. We heard you, rest assured we'll do our best to make EX2 the movie you have waited on for nearly three decades, we won't let you down.
But all we heard was from Crews desperately trying to defend the movie going as far as bringing up movies like Inception and The Dark Knight, what are we supposed to think, did we go to see EX for the same reasons we would go to see Inception, this is what they think? Are they missing the point so badly? Do they know who we are and why we have been carrying the EX franchise and looked forward to even a third movie? Do they understand that we grew up with Rambo, Terminator, Die Hard and Bloodsport? Do they think we are just crying out for R because we are gore freaks and don't have the intellectual capacity to appreciate a good story? I don't know about you but I feel misunderstood here...
Sirs, don't let those who supported you down, do not forget the essence of The Expendables, do not let a generation of fans who stood by the heroes of this movie for more than a quarter of a century see their action idols ridiculed. We understand we live in an era of greed where money has the last word, but leave a tiny space to principles and dreams, HEAR US OUT before it's too late, although it might already be...
