A dentist(?) in Michigan was pissed off about the cost of junk faxes he was receiving. He looked into filing a class action lawsuit. I got onboard with him early on and over the past 12 years or so I’ve received checks for 1-4 hundred bucks two or three times a year. He actually retired from dentistry to do this work full time.
Sadly, junk faxes (and faxes in general) are a rarity now. But back in the day, junk faxes were a big deal.
Perhaps I’m being a bit unfair - but in the trailer one of the alien characters sounded like Jack Nicholson; in the movie, not so much.
My memory could be off. But I distinctly remember one of the Martians having the voice of a Nicholson impersonator.
Maybe I’m misremembering and it was just funny lines of dialogue that were in the trailer and not in the movie - I wouldn’t rely on my memory of a movie I didn’t like.
It was pretty solidly mediocre.
Here’s a quote that helps put this lawsuit in context.
The US has less than 5% of the world population, but two thirds of its lawyers.
My friend at work thought NIcholson voiced the character. The character that mentioned his insurance sounded like him. That was quite a while ago.
I’m wrong then - it must just have been the lines of dialog that were in the trailer and not the movie.
I wonder if anyone was upset that Costner was not very animated in “The Big Chill”
Well either that, or I just misremembered somehow. And here’s me holding that grudge for 20-odd years, as well. 
Not his most lively role…
I had a friend who worked in a bookstore. A woman once tried to return a book because she didn’t like it.
I guess she didn’t think of suing the publisher for misleading cover copy.
The US is almost certainly over-lawyered. But perhaps GDP or volume of patents or some other measure might be more valid than simple per capita.
When WAG 80% of humanity is simply not part of the modern economy the relevance of lawyers to them or vice versa is darn near zero.
I recall an anecdote about a guy who graduated from law school and hung his shingle in a small town out in the sticks then proceeded to nearly starve. Aside from the occasional will or contract there just wasn’t anybody coming to him. Then a second lawyer arrived and opened an office. “That’s all I need,” he despaired, “The two of us dividing what little there is between us!”
Instead the two had more business than they could handle as people began suing each other.
“Why, ah bought this book on account of the cover art. And ah am dreadfully disappointed… in fact, they’ll be hearing from my lawyer! Did you know that Fabio is nowhere to be found in the book?”
"The book has a spaceship on the cover, but is it really going to be a story about space exploration and pioneering derring-do? Or is the story merely about racial prejudice and exploitation, with interplanetary or interstellar trappings?
That’s a valid observation. But I think the point of the quote is to highlight the counterproductive waste of human resources that could be put to better use than everybody and his dog suing each other. Some of it may be a natural consequence of a nation that abounds in treasure, but undoubtedly some of it arises from a litigious culture. Your McDonald’s coffee too hot? Sue the bastards! Or call 911 – both things have happened over fast-food trivialities, as well as shooting incidents over a shortage of chicken sandwiches. Those things are cultural, not a function of GDP or volume of patents.
Can anyone name any good productive thing that could possibly come out of this movie-trailer lawsuit?
Somebody, I’m sure, will be along with all the details. It wasn’t just ‘coffee was too hot’ it was ‘it was company policy to make the coffee scalding hot (literally) and they didn’t put the top on right and the woman was badly burned and left with permanent scars’.
Yeah, that one probably needs to be retired as the go-to example of an overly litigious society.
And needed to go to the ER and have expensive medical care including skin grafts.
The McDonald’s where this happened had recently been cited by either OSHA, or the Safety and Quality inspectors, for their coffee being “unsuitable for human consumption” due to its temperature.
I nominate the woman who sued a hospital because, after undergoing an MRI, she lost her psychic powers.