This is strangely right up our alley.

We thought we’d check out the EW interview with both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg because getting those two in a room together with press for five minutes is sort of like trying to take a hamburger away from the table shared by David Hasselhoff and Kristie Alley.

If you got that joke, try to suppress the laugh, it’s that low-ball humor that has Lucas and Spielberg doubting our intentions.

Check it:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Of course, there are downsides to the burgeoning Internet age — and one of those downsides is, when a popular movie is coming up, people sort of peck it to death before it even opens. There’s been a huge amount written on the Internet about the development of Crystal Skull, including lots of spoilers on chat boards — though most of it is clearly labeled. Is it getting harder to protect the development process?
STEVEN SPIELBERG: It really is important to be able to point out that the Internet is still filled with more speculation than facts. The Internet isn’t really about facts. It’s about people’s wishful thinking, based on a scintilla of evidence that allows their imaginations to springboard. And that’s fine.
GEORGE LUCAS: Y’know, Steven will say, ”Oh, everything’s out on the Internet [in terms of Crystal Skull details] — what this is and what that is.” And to that I say, ”Steven, it doesn’t make any difference!” Look — Jaws was a novel before it was a movie, and anybody could see how it ended. Didn’t matter.
SPIELBERG: But there’s lots and lots of people who don’t want to find out what happens. They want that to happen on the 22nd of May. They want to find out in a dark theater. They don’t wanna find out by reading a blog…. A movie is experiential. A movie happens in a way that has always been cathartic, the personal, human catharsis of an audience in holy communion with an experience up on the screen. That’s why I’m in the middle of this magic, and I always will be.

Do you think the sanctuary of the dark theater is being eroded?
LUCAS: No! Look, it’s like sports —
SPIELBERG: Yes. I think it is being eroded, by too much information and too much misinformation, especially.
LUCAS: But look, it’s like sports. This isn’t new. When March Madness gets started with the NCAA [basketball tournament], there are thousands of blogs out there. Rampant speculation. If you follow it enough, you go crazy. [With Crystal Skull], you don’t know what’s actually gonna happen till you walk into that theater. I don’t care if you know the whole story, I don’t care if you’ve seen clips. I don’t care how much you’ve seen or heard or read. The experience itself is very different, once you walk in that theater.
SPIELBERG: Well, here’s my debate on that. I’ve always been stingy about the scenes I show in a teaser or a trailer. Because my experience has been — and my kids’ experience has been, ’cause they talk out loud in theaters, like everybody else does today — that if a scene they remember from the trailer hasn’t come on the screen yet, and they’re three quarters of the way through the movie, they start talking. ”Oh — I know what’s gonna happen! Because there was that one little scene they haven’t shown yet in the movie I’m experiencing, and it’s coming up!” And it ruins everything.

A conflict of interest has arisen, because we don’t see ourselves as some sort of great ruiners of cinema. We’re actually pro-cinema and anti-bullshit. That doesn’t mean that Indy IV is either, yet, though we do know boatloads about it.

We don’t agree that the sanctuary of the theater has been violated by internet rumors, and it’s not just because we have a job that requires us to gossip and rumor-monger. It’s actually because we’re filmmakers, or at least aspire to be during our few free hours per week.

The internet, like all things, is a resource. No one is making you get on the internet everyday (well, no one is making you read this site). As a matter of fact, film rumor sites, script reviews and first look pictures are usually what people do during their free time on the internet. There is no argument that we are forcing anything on you, that’s important.

More important is amazing level of access industry reporting gives the layman (laywoman). In the 90s, when Dave purchased his first DVD player, he would watch all the DVDs he bought once for the film and once for the extra features and director’s commentary.

Before we knew he was one of the biggest jackasses in the industry, we were fans of M Night Shyamalan’s Sixth Sense commentary, because the man kept talking about symbolism and narrative cinematography but always kept it interesting. It was a view into the process, a look Dave usually didn’t have access to while he was living in Denver (not the most bustling film industry in Denver).

Now, sites like The Bad and Ugly, Coming Soon, Superhero Hype!, /Film and other sites both on and off the Crave Network (did you hear that? It was an extra nickel going into our bank accounts), give you semi-professionals that – above all – are passionate about film.

We love it. We attend local film festivals, we support our fellow film school alumni and undergrads by viewing their stuff, we occasionally shoot our own stuff: we’re not going to do anything to harm the cinematic experience.

If “the sanctuary of the dark theater” is being eroded, it is the growing technology curve in the 21st century age marketing and quick-sells, torrents and bad buzz. Not us. We saw 21 knowing it was going to be bad and we loved it for being bad. The next day, we saw an NYU Grad film called Fashion Kills! that we loved so much we caught the next screening.

Please don’t accuse us of hurting the American cinematic experience. We’re protecting the American cinematic experience by drawing attention to the elitism, under-the-table deals and hypocrisy. If you don’t agree (don’t tell anyone we said this): Sign off! Go see a movie! Go paint a self-portrait! Learn how to play guitar! Do something!

All we know how to do is enjoy the circus when we can’t enjoy the product.

And, frankly, having our integrity questioned by a guy who thought a CG Jabba would be a great edition to A New Hope and another guy who replaced the guns in ET with radios seems vaguely ridiculous.

End rant.