On Thursday night, some girlfriends and I gathered to go see a chick flick at the local dine and view movie theater. We saw Stardust . I suppose it's a sort of AdSense SmartSense advertising but every single solitary trailer was for a Chronicles of Narnia knockoff: young, idealistic person is "key" to some major adventure that involves passing from "regular life" into something supernatural, usually to save the world (or some world). It's well-known in marketing that generics often do as well as if not better than originals. So when a formula for success is revealed, quickly rush to market with your version. It's trickier than that---sometimes you need to tinker with quality, dumb it down, make it cheaper, enliven it, take a fresh twist, etc. to better appeal to the masses---but that's the gist of it. This affects any area of the market with a product or idea, but it is especially grueling in the creative world where instead of quality product drivi...