Monday, August 22, 2011

UPDATE on My "Say What, Netflix?" Post

Okay, this is too weird. A few weeks ago, I posted a little snippet about how somebody at Netflix had written an absolutely horrid description for the classic 1954 flick Creature from the Black Lagoon (original post is here). It read like this:

"A legend in the history of B-movie fare. How many female scientists travel the Amazon bedecked in bikini-wear calculated to charm an anaconda off a branch?"

Ugh. It makes me shudder having to write it out again. BUT, as I'm perusing through the movies in my queue yet again, via my Playstation 3, the other day, I notice something strange. Lo and behold, the description for CFTBL had been changed. To something that actually makes sense - and that actually tells you something about the movie. It now reads:

"A group of scientists embarks on a perilous hunt for marine fossils deep in the amazon, where they encounter a strange and lonely amphibious creature."

Ah, that's so much better. This description, however, is only on the Netflix menu for internet ready devices, like my PS3. The original horrendous description is still on the Netflix website. You're close, Netflix, so close! I believe that one person can make a difference, so if someone working there reads this, please take those terrible sentences off of the internet forever and make all the grammar bitches of the world happy once again.


6 comments:

  1. Sometimes there are some crazy descriptions on Comcast's On-Demand service for films, some of them being wicked funny. Check out this website that has a bunch of screen grabs that contain some pretty crazy descriptions! http://wtfcomcast.tumblr.com/

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  2. It pains me to know that these people are in a postion of power. *shudders* :D

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  3. @Matt: BAHAHA! Those were hilarious, Matt! Much worse than the Netflix descriptions, to be sure - but way funny.

    @Jenny: Wonders will never cease, eh?

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  4. What gets me sometimes is how hilariously uninspired their short descriptions are--the ones that are supposed to inspire you to actually click onto the movie's page to read the longer description. My favorite was for "Death Machine":

    "It's 2023, and Hayden Cale is the new CEO of weapons manufacturer Chaank Industries."

    That's seriously all that showed up on my Xbox to describe the movie. Now, the full description is quite a bit better, but I still found it hilarious that I'm being asked to be interested in a movie after reading an extremely basic description of one character. O_O

    (It looks like, from looking at the PC version of Netflix, this short description may have finally been fixed...)

    Or, of course, there are the ones that are total lies, like the description for Narcosys:

    "The world is ruled by the heartless IT Corporation, which controls citizens through manufactured drugs and a destructive virus that's spread through the streets. Can a gang of cyber-punks stop the mammoth institution bent on domination?"

    Yeah, no. That movie is not about rebels facing off against a heartless corporation. It's about a bunch of morally bankrupt drug-using murderous thieves who happen to live in the same world as a heartless corporation but do more slaughtering of innocent civilians and other thieves than any kind of rebelling.

    It's also terrible and not in any way recommended.

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  5. Oh, man -- you want a funny Netflix user review....
    There was one about the Resident Evil CG movie that BLEW MY FRIGGIN' MIND. It was so stupid that it defied all logical explanation. These idiots complained that the movie they'd rented was a cartoon, and about zombies. Well, what the heck did they EXPECT???

    If Netflix wasn't experiencing "technical difficulties" right now, I would post it here for you. In fact, I'll be back soon, to do just that.

    Awesome, totally, called for, post right here.

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