Looks into crystal ball.
Blockbuster burnout births a robust fan culture structured around incorporating the troubled protagonists of writer/director Paul Schrader into fan films based on the Silent Hill and Avatar franchises, with hard-boiled guest stars laterally drifting into the mix from various genre works.
Now we have the fanmade opus Silent Hill: Double Taxi Hell Scroll in which Travis Bickle must navigate a fog shrouded purgatorial city while being confronted by other disturbed folks: a porno theater in which a raging George C. Scott holds court; a seductive phantom lady played by a Cybil Shepherd cosplayer; a muttering mutilation killer in the image of Joe Spinell; Peter Boyle's Joe stalks Bickle with a shotgun; a holographic Tatsuya Nakadai reprises his slasher villain from The Sword of Doom; Sweet Sweetback challenges Bickle to a bare knuckle brawl; a John Travolta cosplayer challenges Bickle to a disco duel in the middle of a gory, glittering abattoir while freshly skinned day players hustle in tight formation all around the arena; and, for the penultimate boss, Bickle must battle the raging Advent Children level CGI specter of a youthful Jodie Foster who then metamorphoses into the True Final Boss: Mothra.
Blue Collar merges with Avatar: The Way of Water: the goodie two shoes family values vibe of James Cameron's overblown sequel evolves into a sophisticated Post-Hope bummer in which Jake Sully tries to live up to the fatherly and heroic expectations placed upon him, but the guy just feels trapped by all that fuckin' structure. Any chance he gets, Sully contrives various excuses-"Honey, I gotta go away for a few weeks to forge an alliance with the Water Tribe"-so that he can give brats'n'wife the slip so he can snort drugs and have group sex with relative strangers. This bold new fan film bears the title Blue Illusions.
Post-Hope is rough. Yes. But the unauthorized culture is killer.
I'll take it.
