Why I love movies

I watched a movie yesterday.  I do that sometimes.  Okay, I do it a lot.  But guess what?  It totally got my creative juices going.  The movie was The Expendables, and holy crap, I've got to find more time to write!

Quick review of the flick: The Expendables is about a mercenary group called, of course, the Expendables, headed by a freakin ripped Sylvester Stallone.  (Also including Jet Li, Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, and a bunch of wrestler dudes I don't know).  They get this job offer to take out a small army trafficking drugs in the Caribbean, and the boss (Stallone) goes to scout out the island where the drug op is.  To make a long story short (spoiler warning) They chose not to take the job.  However, there is a girl that serves as their contact on the island, and they decided they need the rescue her.  That's it.  About the simplest plot they could have come up with.

So I thought the movie was okay.  Probably won't ever watch it again.  But that isn't the good part.  The good part is how I thought of a gazillion ways to make the story better--like adding magic, among other things.  Also, it got me thinking a lot about mercenary tales, and how it is really hard to have a merc with morals.  I mean, these dudes spend their time killing people for money... what kind of soul does a person like that have?

This was one thing that bugged me about the film, though they did have a nice little scene with Mickey Rourke, where he is remembering a time where he could have saved a life and chose not to.  He regretted it, felt that he damned his soul by letting a woman commit suicide.  Anyway, it was a nice scene, and I believed he felt remorse, but I wasn't buying Stallone's character for a second.  I just don't think someone like him (at least not from the glimpse of him we see in the movie) would feel anything at the loss of life.  Course, I don't really know, having never shot at people for cash.  And I don't have bulging muscles like him, so maybe I'm too disconnected from his way of life to judge.  Hmm...

My point: despite The Expendables' light plot, the movie really got me thinking.  This is why I can justify watching a movie (sometimes) rather than writing.  Now I have a story in mind of mercenaries using magic.  Not original, but I can make it my own with great characters and plot.  My one problem is that I honestly believe a merc is a bad dude.  So I'll have to go the anti-hero route and have a group of guys that are bad, but still fun to be around.  (Funny mercs have already been done with Schlock, so can't do that).  And I'll have to write it under a pen name so as not to offend anyone I know!

And that is why I love movies.