Live Long, Prosper, and Collect 200 Dollars

The problem with America: free enterprise. In theory it's great, but not when we're enterprising off other people's enterprise. We've lost our originality.

May I present Exhibit A? (It's really Exhibit 'u'.)

Floris Schonfeld, who speaks four languages including Klingon, will appease Trekkies across the world - no, universe! - with an opera. Surely fans of Star Trek and fans of opera overlap. It will be called 'u'. The punctuation represents merging worlds or something, surrounding a lowercase universe. Beam me up the scale, Scotty.

On to Exhibit B.

We've run out of New York Times bestsellers and Pulitzer-winning plays to adapt. Where do we turn next? Ridley Scott sees a surefire moneymaker: Monopoly. The board game. A film about the development of the Atlantic City boardwalk? That's about as exciting as landing on "Income Tax." Instead, it will be a futuristic movie like Blade Runner, with a dash of Corpse Bride thrown in. A true saga of American capitalism, greed, corruption, and space aliens: move aside, There Will Be Blood. I anticipate a tearjerker; bring your tissues for the Water Works.

Exhibit C. (These are all true stories.)

Battleship and Ouija will follow. I can't wait for cinemas next Christmas: shall I spend my $8.75 on Battleship Galactica, The Ouijas of Eastwick, or A Fistful of 200 Dollars? Better yet, let's hire Sarah Michelle Gellar for It Knows What You Did Last Summer. Maybe the Monopoly film could become a slacker comedy, a sequel to Dude, Where's My Car? I'd shell out for Free Parking.