I'm not a fan of how watered-down and toothless the internet has rendered the "mobilizing" consumer outrage via letter-writing, petitions, boycotts, etc - it's so damn easy to now legitimate greivances now fight for attention with (and get afforded the same weight as, i.e. NONE) asinine fan petitions to change the casting of Batman. That having been said, when a corporation makes an ASININE decision that promotes something truly stupid... yeah, I've got ZERO problem saying they should get inundated with angry letters, phonecalls, etc.
With that in mind, lets ALL bug the ever-living HELL out of Walt Disney Inc. for THIS abomination: They want to start encouraging people to bring their iPads to movie theaters to play games along with the film.
Before everyone jumps down my throat: Yes, I can tell that (by all appearances) this is for a special-engagement thing where doing this is the "point" of the screening (a re-release of Little Mermaid, in this case.) But the precedent is just all-around bad news. "iPad/Phone-enhanced" screenings is one stop away from "iPad/Phone-ALLOWED" screenings, which is another step towards kissing the idea of asking the mongrel hordes of Joe & Jane Sixpack and their 2.5 rugrats to behave like civilized human beings in movie theaters goodbye.
Hell, time was bringing kids to a movie theater was a good way to teach them how not to be assholes in public: "Sit down, behave yourself and shut the fuck up because there's a movie up there for you to watch" was good training for "sit down, behave yourself and shut the fuck up because we're in court/church/a-nice-restaurant." Now, "family moviegoing" seems more an more like a way for exhausted parents to inflict their brood on everyone else for a few hours ("No, fuck YOU everyone else whose different life choices I desperately envy right about now!")
This should get nipped in the bud. "People who value a good theater experience are attacking Disney in waves!" should be a story on Deadline/Variety/etc tomorrow. At the very least, they should be shamed into having to issue an apologetic/clarifying "this is only for specific showings" press-release - at BEST, they should have to do a "face-saving" move of putting a message about how you SHOULDN'T bring you're goddamn iPad into a "normal" theater before the screenings.
Appropriately, it's not easy to find where to send a complaint to the Disney Corporation. For now, here's their guest services page. If I find whatever email/number it is people use to lob complaints at this particular monolith, I'll post it then.
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