I was just thinking recently about how so many movies are getting so dang short. The most recent case was Jumper… I went in expecting at least a two hour movie since I hadn’t really looked at any stats on it and was rather disappointed when it ended so early. Perhaps one of the worst cases here is Eragon. That movie should have been twice as long as it is. It was terrible anyway but they could have at least given it the scope it deserved. I suppose this is part of why I like The Lord of the Rings so much. Peter Jackson was actually smart enough to realize that they were making an epic movie and that you just can’t fit epic in an hour and a half.The even worse problem with this though, is that the filmmakers feel constrained to a certain time. If the movie is under two hours I better not see one deleted scene on the DVD unless it just makes no sense. I’ll hear in the commentary about it something like, “We really wanted to include this in the movie, but it just made it too long and we had to cut it out.” Good grief… leave it in. You can send some people home whining about it being too long but I for one am going to feel much more like I got my money’s worth and had a good experience. C’mon Hollywood (yes, Hollywood is much worse about this than other venues… hey look, LotR wasn’t made in Hollywood, what a coincidence…), don’t short us on length anymore!
