Slashdot Mirror
Uwe Boll To Quit Making Movies With 1M Signatures
An anonymous reader writes to mention that Uwe Boll, the infamous German director behind such video game adaptations as House of the Dead, BloodRayne, Dungeon Siege and Postal, has recently admitted that he would retire from making movies if enough people want him to stop. When FearNet mentioned to Boll a petition online signed by 18,000 people requesting that he cease making films, Boll responded that '18,000 is not enough to convince me.' So how much would be enough? 'One million,' Boll said."
Where do I sign? Do you need blood? Money? A donation? How many times can I sign? Fucking I'LL SIGN!
That, you autistic dorks, was what normal people call a "joke".
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
http://www.petitiononline.com/RRH53888/petition.html
Having never seen a Uwe Boll movie, can someone tell me what's so bad about him? He's got some serious hate going on on the internet, and I'm just a bit curious as to why?
Does this guy know about the Internet, and the fact that there are millions of people using it, including people who do random things such as siging online petitions?
I don't care about his movies, but like many, it would be fun to see someone give up his job just because a million people clicked a button on a webpage somewhere..... such a feeling of power!
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
How come the studios don't stop him from making movies? It's not like they're drowning in the money he's raking in with Bloodrayne. They have focus groups that must be universally telling them that fans of the original property don't want to see his movies. And the reviews, well the reviews speak for themselves.
I think this is it:
http://www.petitiononline.com/RRH53888/petition.html
Somehow, I think it might succeed with the goal of one million now...:-)
Boll is actually quitting because the German government recently closed the tax loophole that allowed Boll and other German filmmakers to set up their "films" as tax shelters for businessmen (with no intent of ever making any money). The gravy train has dried up and the scam is over.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
If you say you like it, you get free pizza.
alias possession='chmod 666 satan && ls
Bad move. Never challenge geeks. We'll always find a way to overcome.
Morbo stop making fun of Earth of 1 million puny earthlings sign up to be Morbo's slaves.
- "Private" means your email address is stored in a secure private location, for signature validation only. Yeah, right! As if they do more than a regex to check, and why not delete after the regex? Even if they send confirmation mail, why not delete the mail after confirmation??
SIGNED!!!! Also...go see "ebeeto" on youtube.com for his educational video on how to produce this sorry mother fucker's name.
Yeah, yeah, I've seen this a bunch of times when pro wrestling is promoted. The heel "retires" and then comes back as a celebrity referee or manager, so he's still in your face all the time. C'mon, people!
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
I don't get it. Why petition the guy to stop making movies? Maybe his movies will be quickly forgotten, maybe they'll be cult classics 50 years from now. As long as he manages to finance them somehow and stay in business, who cares? If you don't like his movies, do what I do: just don't go.
I'd never sign such a petition. He can make whatever films he wants, so long as people are willing to pay. It's a lot more hurtful to try to convince him to stop with 1 million people asking. That's... well, that kind of thing hurts. The only thing that could lessen it is the whole idea that, chances are, the petition wouldn't really have had 1 million people sign it, but maybe 300 000 sign it 3 or 4 times on average.
-Devin Jeanpierre
He makes averagely bad straight-to-video style films - yet rises above the mass of other jobbing directors with his ability to drum up publicity. FFS - how may other 'directors of his calibre' can you name? Reason he's working (putting aside tax breaks), is that he takes a relatively small amount of money from producers, rights for a computer game and makes them all money on the film he produces.
My signature was number 62041. There probably are a million gamers online who are more familiar with Dr. Uwe Boll than they ever wanted to be. Personally, I hope his last film will be Springtime for Hitler.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
The petition can be found here.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -Aldous Huxley
I never realized that the "Springtime for Hitler" scam in The Producers was for real!
This is nothing but a scam to get Uwe more publicity. Right now he's a hack director, I doubt a million people are even really all that aware of him.
This only makes sense if there is a petition to sign asking him to KEEP making movies.
And does it really matter? Nobody has to watch the movies he makes. Let the market decide.
The AntiJoey
I know one of you slashdotters are in command of one of those massive bot-nets. This is where your purpose comes into play my friend, this is where your purpose comes into play...
He's holding the world hostage for... one million dollars!
bwuaahahahaha... bwuahahahaha... BWUAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.. *cue austin powers music*
Previewing comments are for sissies!
Where do I sign?
If my grandmother rolls her eyes at the idea of internet petitions, what reason is there to think that Uwe would stop making movies from one? Just because someone name Soukin McCocksoff said he's a bad man and should go away on the internet means he'll do it.
I read the internet for the articles.
I was at the premier for Dungeon Siege and Postal, and I met the man himself.
Postal is a good movie for what it is, and for the rest of them you can't expect much from movies based on games, it just isn't the format they were meant for.
Uwe himself is pretty nice, but not in a way everyone can appreciate. He is like a real life troll and hes good at it.
He pushed peoples buttons and lets them make fools of themselves, like at the charity fight, he beat them good(or badly), but it was a fight, and he came prepared to fight, he has nothing to apologize for that or his movies. (but it would be nice if a challenger appeared, and I think he would agree.)
If the German government kicks in x% for a film, that means that they believe that producers can't break even if they have to pay those x% themselves. That's not a "tax loophole", it's government subsidies working as intended, keeping the German film industry in business and keeping actors and film crews from starving between the occasional blockbuster. Of course, most of the subsidized movies will be trash, but it's either lots of bad movies with the occasional good movie, or just commercial, generic US imports.
I would think the fewer number of signatures would result in him having an increased chance of quiting. If they got 1 million signatures, that would mean that nearly 1 million people actually heard of him! He could claim that he has the presence to draw large numbers of people to his movies!
If he was only able to get 20~ 25,000 signatures no studio is going to look at and say "His works are so beloved that they are not complaining about him!" His career would be over.
The opposite of love is indifference. If you want his career over ignore him.
I happened to like Dungeon Siege. Sure, bloodrayne sucked, but every director makes a movie that tanks. Look at spielburg, and most of his movies suck. James Cameron - He directed Titanic which has got to be the WORST movie ever! (Think of all the times that stupid song gets played... )
I don't care what kind of movies he did - it doesn't really matter. What matters is to have self-esteem, and that means noone is going to tell me what I should or should not do. It's not a democracy; when it comes to my life, I am the only one responsible to make the decisions. If I feel that my movies have a value, then just because there's lots of people who disagree doesn't mean much. You know the saying: eat shit - one billion flies can't be wrong.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
He improves civilizations in some ways, degrades it in others.
Like most of us.
For some reason the thought of this cult just scares the shit out of me.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
Signed and sent requests to everyone i know to sign this!! :D
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
LOL... I doubt he'd stop anyhow, but I signed. What a tool that guy is.
Loading...
It's a lot of work but worth it.
This kind of hatred over a filmmaker who's creating something is really sad, pathetic and unhealthy. No, his movies might not be very good, and yes they are in fact terrible, but they're hardly the worst films ever made unless you've never seen 90% of the horror\musical genre, or anything made for youtube.
Filmmaking was and never ever has been a democracy. This idea of writing petitions to DEMAND that he stop making movies that you don't ever have to watch or think about is pathetic. 99% of movies are released weekly around the world that you'll never ever know about, simply because you don't care enough. His movies aren't mass-marketed, they're not shoved in your face on TV or fast food restaurants. The only people who are shouting about Uwe Boll loud enough for ANYONE to hear are the people who hate him. Stop hating him, stop shouting about him, and he'll likely go away a lot faster. In fact, if he had been ignored like most other filmmakers he may have gone a long time ago.
No member of the public has a say in who gets to make movies. It's not a democracy. If they want to vote, vote with their dollar. If enough people still pay to see the movies, such that the filmmaker is still in work, then nobody has a right to demand that he goes, except his business partners. That's life. Suck it up. There are bigger injustices in the world to worry about.
Signing a petition is just hilarious and pathetic, and will probably have the opposite effect people intend. This kind of hatred is unhealthy. Have some perspective people. He's not answerable to any of you. Fanboys need to stop kidding themselves into thinking that they have any say in what filmmakers do. They don't. Filmmaking has been a business since its inception, and still is. Even if there were a million signatures he's under no obligation to do anything that a bunch of deluded movie geeks "demand" of him.
He could make a movie where he prints those signatures out, laughs at them, tears them up, and posts the resulting video on youtube. Don't fanboys ever see that the more they are outraged at something inconsequential like this the more ridiculous and hilarious they appear to the rest of us? Pick your battles.
Petitioning online may be as useful as [insert really useless concept here], but let it be known that I signed, and that I intend to get as many friends as possible to sign as well.
(Disclaimer: I just don't care enough one way or another to bother with something this silly. Of course, discussing it on /. is another matter entirely!)
If I were to sign this petition, it would be as an indication of encouragement. "Uwe," my signature would say, "your movies really aren't any good. There's probably something else out there that you'd be MUCH better at, and why not dedicate your resources to finding that instead of spending more of your life on bad films? It's just not your forte, man."
The take-home message here, is that I have a terribly eloquent signature.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
"If someone says you're drunk, he might be wrong. But when two people say you're drunk, maybe it's time to go to bed."
By now, most everyone is reviled by some attempt by George Lucas to destr^H^H^H develop his Star Wars franchise. But at least it was Lucas's to make and to break, as it were. Bolle has the distinct role of the parasite who takes on a piece of property for the sole purpose of making the worst possible film out of it.
If he wants to make his own terrible video or own terrible moving using only his ideas, I'd say more power to him.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Uwe Boll's wobble, but they don't fall down.
... will it take to stop Vista SP2?
Have gnu, will travel.
I'll wait for the John Woo petition.
No kidding, I think it is hilarious how Uwe has once again managed to turn the people who hate him into a free source of publicity.
So the more people sign, the proof that more people have seen his movies.
...should be a piece of cake for /.
The petition has exploded to over 65,000 signatures. Good work, geeks!
Here's a sampling of some of my favourites:
Aaaaabk Wheaton: Your movies make my eyes bleed.
Aaaaabl Wheaton: Every time you make a movie, God kills a kitten.
Aaaaabm Wheaton: It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a Grue.
Aaaaabn Wheaton: Your father was a hamster, and your mother smelled of elderberries.
Aaaaabo Wheaton: Don't be a dick.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
http://www.petitiononline.com/bollsave/petition.html
don't agree? sign this.
what the hell is the point of this, aside to prove what a dick you are? if you don't like his movies, don't watch them. you don't have to go signing petitions against the man. and fyi, i have never seen a single one of his movies.
FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
Well the ladies burst out laughing first but then we joined in...
It was basically
"Hey, your hot- and there is a jail door behind you"
"okay let's do it!"
and off they went.
Without actually saying those words even.
Ahh... if life were only that simple.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
> Where will they buy the rights to destroy movies for a couple thousand dollars?
YouTube. There's an endless sea of crap.
I'm surprised someone hasn't done it already, honestly. Oh wait, I think some have, albeit not quite in MST3K format.
.... for him to kill himself?
10 million?
I saw Postal at a movie festival, and it was good. So I won't sign...
While the petition to stop him just reached 72000 signatures, the one to save him clocks in at 6, I repeat, six signatures. See for yourself:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?bollsave
I'm all nerves watching this...
he'll have to fight me for it.
I don't think people realize just how much one million actually is. If this had any chance of succeeding, I would expect it to be in the six-figure range by now, especially after hitting Digg, Slashdot, and Reddit. One million is a lot of people.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
Yeah and Uwe Boll will stop making movies the same time Arek Bardwin moves to Canada due to the results of the 2004 erection!
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Can someone explain exactly why I should care if some filmmaker stops making movies based on video games or not?
No, really, I don't understand why this is "stuff that matters".
I'm still waiting for the referendum to legally change Stockwell Day's name to Doris.
Once Doris bows to the will of the Canadian people, then I will start to believe in Uwe Boll. And the Tooth Fairy. And the Easter Bunny. And all that other stuff that Doris believes in.
This guy's film making career is about to get slashdotted.
If you have $5000 of your income in the C% bracket, and you donate $10,000 to drop down to the B% bracket, your net income after taxes will decrease, not increase -- because the higher C% rate only applied to that last $5000, not your entire income.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
If he's any relation to Heinrich Boll, I'll sight the petition. I hate The Clown.
I haven't even heard of any of the movies mentioned in the summary, so I guess that must mean they are pretty awful.
what sig?
Sign my petition or I'll follow you home and kill your cat
</postal2>
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
you seem pretty broken up about that experience; want to talk about it?
Claim: Signing and circulating online petitions is an effective way of remedying important issues. Status: False.
I saw the world-premiere screening of "House of the Dead" here in San Francisco. It was before the movie even had a national distribution deal.
... it's a zombie movie based on a videogame. How good could it be?" So we bought a pint of Jim Beam before the flick to sneak into the theater.
... uh-oh. There's a guy at the entryway to the theater, and he's frisking everybody in line. People are being asked to open their bags and the whole bit.
Of course, at that time nobody knew how bad Uwe's movies could be, because this was his first major feature. But we figured, "Hell
On the way in
We don't have much choice at this point, so my friend dutifully submits to the pat down and: "What's THIS? What's in your back pocket??!" He: "Uh..." and he sheepishly removes the bottle from his pocket and shows it to the guy. The man inspects it and says, in a funny accent, "Ah, BOOZE! Booze iss fine, ve chust want no cameras." And with that, we were in.
It wasn't until the Q&A session after the screening that we realized that the man who patted us down was Uwe Boll.
So for that alone, I say I WILL NOT sign this petition. (But, having seen "Alone in the Dark," I can tell you there's precious few other reasons not to.)
That, and his film adaptation of "Postal" is supposed to be so bizarre, creatively deranged and twisted that it's a genuine gem.
Breakfast served all day!
I for one would like to encourage Uwe Boll to continue making films that I will never see, because hearing people's reactions to them is worth the money I didn't pay for a ticket.
http://www.petitiononline.com/RRH53666/petition.html
Also, I think people should get over cross-media flops already. Complaining about Uwe Boll's House of the Dead film seems to me like complaining about Christina Aguilera's Hay Wain album.
If we really wanted to stop him from making movies, the time was during the "Raging Boll" boxing matches. Putting somebody in the ring against him that could actually throw down should have been the goal. Try to pound Uwe's head hard enough to cause brain damage.
That would have either stopped the movies from coming, or, at the very least, improved their quality.
Andrew Borntreger
Champion of cinematic disasters
Michael Bay needs to be stopped much more so than Uwe Boll.
You can't collect 1 million *anything* from the brain-dead morons that watch this guy's movies. 90% of them can't even properly spell their own names, much less sign a petition. Good luck!
10% there! We can do it! DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN!!
Online petitions aren't worth the paper they aren't printed on.
You can sign whatever you want, but as long as his movies make money, he'll keep making them.
Hint: If you don't like his movies, don't watch them.
WE are legion! We are Anonymous! Oh wait, how the hell does anon sign this thing?
This goes out to the 100,000+ ppl and memes who signed that anti-Boll petition:
/. has devolved to? Promotion for stupid self-referential gags?
WTF? For a class of people who are soooooo concerned about their rights to free expression, you SOBs sure are quick to saddle up the horses in some ill-conceived internet attempt to run Uwe Boll out of town.
Look, just because it is EASY to join an internet petition, that doesn't absolve you of the responsibility to THINK about the consequence of your action.
Yeah, I realize this petition against Boll is the latest in-joke. But humor is so very hard to do--leave it to the pros. Is this what
If you signed the petition as a serious statement, then I'll remind you that it is a very easy thing to avoid seeing the films that Boll makes. Let the man continue to fill his niche, and you go about your life filling your niche and each can live in freedom.
Doesn't anyone here watch his movies to laugh? To me, its a lot of fun to sit down with some friends and some booze, laughing at Uwe Boll movies.
Sometimes the market doesn't get a choice. I remember when we went to see Bloodrayne; I still remember parts (such as the absurdly short "sex" scene) being hilarious in a MST3K sort of way. But our "votes" (tickets) never counted because of the way the theater we went to was operated. On the dates Bloodrayne was showing so was Broke Back Mountain, so for whatever reason (lower royalties/personal preference of ticket stand operators/ etc.) the ticket sellers only gave out BBM tickets reguardless of what was requested. The ushers were familiar with the situation so there was no problem actually going to the movie we intended to see, but I've always felt bad that the royalties were mis allocated. We've switched to buying tickets from those computer terminals to avoid such problems in the future.