How to Fix Bad Movies: The Expendables

Every time you pay to see a bad movie you embolden horrible people to make soulless explosions and kick puppies.  There may be salvation (with or without Terminators) in  that if we stop buying tickets to bad movies Hollywood will eventually stop making them, maybe, I hope.  But for now we’ll deal with awful movies of transforming robots trying desperately to make me hate everything around me.  I think the series has devolved into CGI robots flipping me off but I’m no longer sure through my rage soaked vision.  Sometimes I get so angry my eyesight gets a bit hazy like in video game when your character gets too much damage.  I think Michael Bay either hates people or is just doing this on a dare.  Either way fuck that guy.

And you the audience is to blame, well, partially.  The whole international audience thing isn’t helping.  But when studios take a chance on a project that’s a bit out of the ordinary, one the internet clamors for, we tend to just not go.  Scott Pilgrim which was a film that is as anti-transformers as you can get without being an indie film about deep feelings and stuff performed poorly.  The internet screams and rallies and demands geeky tradition but the denizens of the dark corners aren’t shelling out money for the tickets to the right films.

Also, for some reason, sequels starting becoming more popular than the original film in terms of ticket sales.  There used to be predicable model of diminishing returns for films.  It’s the reason that even with diminishing quality (see Pirates of the Caribbean and Austin Powers) franchises still grow in quantity of sales.

But if we can’t stop bad movies and we can’t stop awful sequels we can at least bitch about it on the internet and propose better versions.  Here is one of mine.  Man, I am so good at segues.

The Expendables
From all reports Expendables 3 was awful and I refuse to give it money.  Even the morbid curiosity of seeing ancient creaking behemoths spout pithy one liners while pretending to relive the glory days can’t bring me to the theater.

So how would I fix this?  First I’d kill some people, and not the way the second film did which is totally cheating.  For those that didn’t see “Expendable 2: The Next Paycheck” they introduced a new guy you were supposed to like with the sole intention of having the bad guy kill them to motivate Stallone to exact revenge.  I understand why he did it and I appreciate at least some of the effort but I just didn’t care about this guy.  We as an audience didn't have much affinity for the new guy and felt less when he died.  Cliffhangar has a much more impactful death in the first few minutes that I actually cared about.   You’d think Sly would remember that.

The Expendable films aren’t that great to begin with anyway.  The first one felt detached - Stallone let his crew risk their lives because he had a crush on a lady he hardly knew.  The second one was a bit more fun but already felt bloated with cast.  But the third one overcrowds things even more and we don't really give a shit.

So how do we make this cynical Millennial audience care (are Millennials cynical, I’m not sure anymore)?

We start with the crew on a mission and things go nicely.  They are imbued with the invincible nature of being action stars.  But then they have a close call but not too close as it’s still the first act.  Maybe they talk about disbanding or being more careful or losing a step.  Something just to tip off maybe they aren’t invincible.  They fly home smoking, drinking, and talking about chest hair or something manly.  Arriving at the office they find it to be a smoldering rubble pile.  There is a lone knife stuck in the ground (this knife is important).  We see Mickey Rourke’s hat blow by in the wind.  If it’s R (which it should be bloodless violence is just a cartoon and again removes us from any manner of reality) we see his bloody arm sticking out.  Bam, we have investment.  Now we have set that shit can go wrong.

One by one the crew is picked off either killed, captured, imprisoned, set up, or hospitalized.  Have a car chase.  Jet Li has a martial arts fight because the man is a fucking martial arts legend and having him shoot someone instead of kicking them to oblivion is just insulting.  Don't kill the whole crew of expendables (now the name actually makes sense) but kill at least two or more.  Make it feel like they are in real danger.  Stallone and Statham are forced to get help.  Keep them on the run.  They recruit some people but they aren’t happy about it.  The new guys try to impress them and we care that they are constantly being compared to the others.  No one can pop and lock like Terry Crews and exclaim “woo!” you fucking imposter.  Go to your room and think about what you’ve done.

So they “investigate” the bad guy and find a few things about him/her.  Remember this is an Expendables movie so investigating is either done via shooting or extremely quick, albeit manly, exposition.  They find out where this mystery villain will be and plan on crashing the party.  But it’s a trap.  Statham is captured, Stallone wounded, and we get the big reveal of the villain.  It’s the son of Eric Robert’s bad guy from first movie.  That knife buried in the building was like the one that killed his father.

We get a person with acting ability to deliver his bad guy speech about ruining Statham and crew.  He is going to bury his name, his friends, everything.  He wants him to suffer, death is too convenient.  So now they have to stage a rescue operation.  The new guys make up a plan while a weak Stallone advises as he convalesces.   The new guys storm the bad guy’s lair while one of them stays behind and monitors from afar.  Stallone calls the shots from his bedside.  The dude staying behind ends up being a traitor and Stallone in his weakened state has to fight him.  Generally when we have ridiculous mismatches there needs to be some malady afflicting the hero to make the fight seem less ridiculous.  An old knee injury, being shot, et cetera.  Otherwise its like Mohammed Ali versus your kindergarten teacher who took a few martial arts classes once.  The new guys are ambushed and they have to fight for their life.  The big bad guy finding out his mole is dead plans on going to find Stallone.  Statham, freshly rescued, and the newbies go to find him.  The race to the final confrontation.  We should have some convenient event make it so that only Statham gets to Stallone.  The new guys have to deal with the other bad guys or a pile of ninjas, like a whole undulating mass of them, or just a bunch of angry bad guys with gun.  Stallone should sacrifice himself for Statham.  Statham then has the final showdown, a knife fight.  The bad guy dies and life his father takes the knife and then is shot repeatedly by a dying Stallone.  They have a nice funeral for Stallone and Statham tosses in the hat with the expendables symbol on it.  Roll credits.

Or just have a shitty pg-13 nonsense that makes no sense and is seemingly designed to insult the audience.  Test groups would probably hate that Stallone is dead or insert him punching his fist through the coffin giving a thumbs up as he is lowered into the ground.  I can only hope there isn’t an Expendables 4: Old Men and Pointless Explosions.

Ben

Die Hard or The Problem with Action Movies

The idea that sequels and reboots are endemic only to this period in time is laughable. Hollywood was founded on stealing ideas and remakes. In that period it was mostly stealing from plays and books. If you look at the film Nosferatu, now considered to be a classic, it was simply a way of making Dracula when the estate said no. They simply changed a few bits and went ahead anyway.  Actually there was plenty of stealing, literally.  They actually placed signs in the background of the film as proof one company filmed it and not others so another company couldn’t just steal the reels.  Not a surprise when you find out that film had Edison as an early proponent.

Every once and a while there is a benchmark film that defines, or rather redefines, a genre. Die Hard is one of those movies. Interestingly enough Die Hard started its gestation as a sequel to Commando. This is not entirely uncommon. Quite often a script, an idea, or another intellectual property will be transformed entirely and laid over onto existing characters. The laughable sequel Die Hard 2 was based on the book “58 minutes”. A better example of an extreme makeover is Beverly Hills Cop. It was originally a vehicle for Stallone. The movie was changed heavily once Eddie Murphy, then contractual allowed to still be funny, was attached and a good deal of the film, notably the supercop speech, was improvised.  Watch that scene and you’ll notice John Ashtone (Taggart) is squeezing his nose and looking down trying not to laugh.  Judge Reinhold (Billy Rosewood)  was apparently pinching his inner thigh.

But Die Hard was so good it ended up setting back action films for decades because it became a formula. What was fresh then is now a bit played out. But subsequent copycat films have failed to follow its subtlety and expert hand. Die Hard, even though it was an action film, was actually a good piece of cinema that still stands up.

The first two shots of the movie speak volumes.  They set up important elements of the story with nuance. The first shot is a of plane landing (going from the right of the screen to the left). This usually indicates coming from the east and entering the west. The second shot is a close up of wedding ring. This sets up the most important element of the film. This is the first struggle introduced in the movie. The terrorists/thieves are introduced after the marriage problems of the McClane’s.  Shortly after the films shows McClane’s gun, the suspicion of the passenger who has sitting next to him, and the enormous stuffed bear (although Iron Man 3 wins at the ridiculously sized stuffed bear contest).  McClane explains he is a cop and this soothes the passenger’s suspicion.  This is the guy who indirectly causes McClane to have bloody feet later in the movie.  He explains to deal with stress you makes fists with your feet on the carpet.

Most stories have two plots. Generally there is the external struggle and the internal struggle. The better stories untie these two often disparate struggles and have them strengthen each other. We watch our protagonist along his or her path as they attempt to get past their hurdles. In Die Hard we are first introduced to the complication of John McClane’s marriage. The proud New York City cop has to deal with the success of his wife.  He wants her to give up her high paying business job and move back to the East coast to only be a mother to his children and a wife to him. To him their success is his success. He is trapped in the older mentality of the husband being the solitary provider and the decision maker. But this is a movie emblematic of it’s time. Women are entering the work place (Holly), Japanese businesses (Nakatomi Corporation) are buying up America and coked out yuppies (Ellis) run rampant.

Part of what sets Die Hard apart from other films is the realism of its characters. They aren’t simply one note stand ins. They have realistic relationships and reactions. It isn’t just bad guy #4 and #5.  There is sympathy for the normally unlikable characters; like Hans, Ellis and Karl.  It also had innovative, at the time especially, camera work.  The uses of the frame helped subtly tell internal feelings.  This is what film can do and books can’t.  Books can tell the inner thoughts of the characters while film is not only limited to facial expression unless it is under the direction of hacks (more explosions to cover up my laziness and incompetence!).

When we first see Holly she is among the crowd far below President Takagi (a not so subtle spatial reference to his power over those below).  Shotly after in her office (Holly Genero) we see pictures of her with the kids.  Then the audience finally sees a picture of John linking the two characters.  She turns the chair to obscure that picture further hinting at the trouble between them.  Then she puts the picture down so John is obscured.  This is important much later as Hans doesn’t see the face and the link.

Meanwhile John is in the limo and sitting upfront with Argyle.  The film is desperately trying to show how likable but out of touch he is.  The shows he is unused to limos, that he is comfortable with the working man, resistant to trappings of class, and grouchy (but in an endearing way).  When John gets to the building and walks through the lax but ever present and sophisticated security he notices Holly is listed under Gennero, her maiden name, and not McClane.

The inevitable argument between the two ensues and Holly walks out.  John shows he is upset with himself and not just the situation by banging his head on the door frame.  At this time he is making the mistakes of walking around bare footed.

The terrorists are introduced to the sound of music as they are calmly and methodically entering the Nakatomi building.  Fun note the truck they arrive in has ‘Pacific Courier’ on it. This translates to ‘Bringer of Peace’.  The guards are quickly disposed of and they have started to take control. At this point we have no idea why they are there.  Previous to this it was simply a melodrama about a cop stuck in the past and his wife who is dangerously close to leaving as he is forcing a choice between a successful career she chose and the life he chose for her.  Now it becomes, almost reluctantly an action movie.  The terrorists show some really personality here which is useful so they aren’t in people’s minds simply dude with a shotgun, gun with funny hair, the one who talks.  We know that there are two brothers;  the nerdier one (Tony), made obvious by his glasses and the fact he is hacking into the phone lines; and the burlier one (Karl) who delights in pushing around Tony.  He pulls out chainsaw while he is brother is work forcing him to sweat and work rapidly.  He risks an alarm and jeopardizing the plan to tease his brother.

McClane escapes into the stairwell once the fireworks start sadly still in bare feet.  He tried to stop the whole thing by pulling the fire alarm by the switchboard now operated by the terrorists stops this attempt.  Nerdy brother Tony confronts McClane but dies in the confrontation.  McClane shows his sense of humor and dressed him in a santa outfit.  Ho Ho Ho indeed.  This gives Karl an immediate need to kill McClane beyond simply he is a bad guy and John is a good guy.  Yay layers!  Like an ogre, or onion.  Or a parfait.  Everyone loves a parfait.  But let’s ignore the scene by scene breakdown.

Die Hard can be enjoyed as a dude simply shooting other dudes.  But it is so much more than that.  We have smart inventive characters.  Plot twists.  Yeah, they aren’t terrorists they’re just thieves, really good thieves.  Plus it had some rather snappy dialogue.

Supervisor: [as McClane tries to call up police] Attention, whoever you are, this channel is reserved for emergency calls only.

John McClane: No fucking shit, lady. Does it sound like I'm ordering a pizza?

While John is battling the bad guys Holly is trying to remain hidden and not be a pawn in the game.  Her boss Takagi, whom she tried to protect, already died violently.  There was a nice touch with Karl and Theo (the hacker) betting over the ending of the negotiation.  She now gets to see the infuriating side of her husband as a good thing.  His never-ending stubbornness and sense of humor are good in this situation.  It reaffirms to her that he is out there trying to save everyone.

Ginny: [Karl smashes a table of glasses in fury] God. That man looks *really* pissed.

Holly Gennero McClane: He's still alive.

Ginny: What?

Holly Gennero McClane: Only John can drive somebody that crazy.

Now it seems ridiculous that a beat cop could eventually bring down a group of well-prepared bad guys replete with Hans Gruber at the helm.  But the film treads lightly here.  Treating it as every second that he could, and should by all rights, be dead.  The first person he killed (Tony) died accidently when his neck was broken).  He fails in jumping in the elevator shaft and barely makes it to the vent to crawl through.  His feet were bloody due to having to run through broken glass.  He struggles on valiantly each time only barely surviving.  Jumping off the building with the fire hose attached he doesn’t cleanly make it inside.  The glass repels him.  His bloody feet leave red imprints.  He has to shoot the glass to get inside and even then he almost dies when the metal part attached to the hose falls dragging him with it.  At the end he is outgunned but he still prevails by his snarky comments and catching Gruber off guard.  He tells a joke and the all laugh.  Giving him long enough to shoot one of the henchmen and wound Gruber.  But we’ll jump back to that.

In these types of movies there is always the guy on the inside who sympathizes with the hero who gives him encouragement and moral support while he is fighting alone.  In this case we have Al the Twinkie enthusiast.  Surprisingly twinkies have played an important role in two of my favorite movies.

Dr. Peter Venkman: How's the grid holding up?

Dr. Egon Spengler: Not good.

Winston Zeddemore: Tell him about the Twinkie.

Dr. Peter Venkman: What about the Twinkie?

But I digress.  Al and “Roy” (McClanes cowboy persona) are linked by camera framing.  Whenever we see someone in the film talk to another character over phone or walkie talkie we see them in their respective side of the frame; one on the left and the other on the right.  Although they aren’t in the same space they are joined by this framing.  It’s done the same with Hans and McClane but this sets them up as adversaries and opposites.  The moments of levity in the film allow dark moments like Al’s explanation of never firing a gun. He admits to having killed a kid.  This informs much about the character.

While John is street smart Hans is book smart.  While Hans is tactical John is quick witted.  They both test each other.  One of the best sequences is when McClane finds Hans and Hans pretend to be an employee.  Looking at the list of names on the wall by the elevator McClane quizzes him.  Hans responds Bill, Clay and we see on the wall W. Clay confirming his deceit.

Back to Hans last moments.  He grabs onto Holly securing in his graps her watch.  The watch introduced earlier by the smug, and now dead, Ellis, is a symbol of her choice of work over marriage.  John relases the watch from her simultaneously defeated the bad guys and resolving, metaphorically, their marriage issues.  Or at least for the time being.

A film this good left a lasting impression.  The following four entries into the series all looked up their predecessor and all failed spectacularly.  The fourth and fifth movies turned the down on his luck cop into a superhero.  In the fifth entry the heroes simply leap through windows unaware of how they might land to escape.  The second movie had boring plot twists, boring bad guys, and removed any and all subtlety.  Also it added crappy effects and bad camera work.  The third film was probably the closest to the first but had a rather unenlightened ending.

But Die Hard can be seen in countless other movies from karate films like The Raid: Redemption (die hard with kicking, also killing a dude with a door which was way more awesome than it sounds) or Jean Claudes rather boring Sudden Death (replace the Nakatomi building with a Hockey arena and add mullets, splits and bad acting, sorry Powers Boothe).  It can also be seen in the surprisingly not awful Dredd reboot which was creatively named Dredd.

The problem often times with imitation is missing the point.  You copy the swagger the style but not the substance.  Other films just put up a super hero, a nigh invulnerable demi god who cannot possibly lose.  The pleasure is not in the conflict or its resolution as there is no real conflict just a minor inconvenience.  The audience know the hero will win there is no suspense, no tension.  The hero waltzes through danger with nary a scratch.  But in Die Hard John McClane is all scratches, gun shots, bloody feet, narrow escapes and heaps of luck.  Other action movies focus on building up an icon who is so indomitably badass that the pantheon of bad guys thrown his way as fodder seem comical.

Is it fair to say that Die Hard has really ruined action movies?  Not really, but every hack no uses that as blueprint.  After Fight Club came out we had all these other movies starting near the end or featuring twist endings revealing the protagonist not to be who they think they are.  But Hollywood will simply continue to recycle ideas until they are used up and shallow husks.  Until then Die Hard will be my Christmas tradition.  YKYMF!

Ben

The Writer's Journey

Every once and a while I see people take up the mantle of writer.  They proudly proclaim their intent to write a novel or blog or something along these lines and my first reaction is always the same.  Smugly I think, “what can they possibly write about that anyone would care for and how will they do this feat?” They can hardly speak without tripping on their own tongue, won’t presenting their words indelibly presented for all time simply shatter them when people inevitably speak ill of their choice.”  Then I tell myself not to be such an asshole.

I have this initial moment of schadenfreaude because I know what happens I know the path they’re taking before they do.  I’ve been writing off and on for fifteen years.  I have enough experience to know the stupid mistakes they’ll make.  Then I force myself to remember I know these mistakes because, well, I made them.  I remember writing without a plan, without an outline, naively thinking it’ll come together in the end.  It’ll be more fresh and exciting this way I would rationalize.  I’ll get bored if I know what happens.  Then I look back over the older work and wonder what was I thinking.  Where was the rhythm of the text?  Where was the pacing?  The tension, the depth, the mood?  But fucking up is part of the process.  You make mistakes and then eventually you stop making them.  It’s the same for anything else.  You can’t teach experience.

Writing is a bit more special than other hobbies, at least I think so.  It’s so private and insular you can hide behind certain veneers.  You can say, “It’s only for me. My writing doesn’t need to be judged.  I only write for myself.”  Yet you truly crave the acceptance and adulation of your peers.  Or you can hold onto something and never let eyes touch it.  It’s so fragile that it will crumble under the scrutiny.  You see this spark of an idea and you carefully bring it to full roar, taking time to feed it properly and nurture it along.  It is difficult to allow another person to see your work.  You know how it should be seen and interpreted and you know it’s good.  You feel it resonate deep within you.  But it isn’t ready yet, just a few more revisions.  It jars the ego to allow something that reflects some much of yourself to be inspected, to be  held up to others without your involvement.  Then there is the fervent need to express.  Bundled up ideas all swimming in your mind just waiting to be put to paper.  You know they are magical and wondrous.  They defy convention and surpass the stale media we navigate through.  Your writing is art, all the other nonsense we surround ourselves with is drek, unfit for consumption.  Only your words will save the literate from such mediocrity.  Then you land back to equilibrium.  Maybe if I simply stop taking myself so seriously and find that part of me that simply loves doing this and invest in that things will be good.

So for now I struggle like I always have but I’m older and smarter and I think things through a bit more.  Probably far too much.  I analyze too far.  I let ideas play out in my mind countless times, I cajole a slightly different energy or felling  from this piece.  I write, then  rewrite.  I stare at the cursor, ever blinking, taunting me to fill the blank space.

So I think back to those who wish to write I smile and say I hope they do well but I hope they don’t expect success overnight.  I hope they stick with it and they shrug off my initial lack of faith.  Sometimes I prefer being proven wrong.  But enough about them let’s talk about my journey and where I’m going.  This is my blog anyway, it’s only right.  Fuck them for stealing my spotlight.  I need some god damn ego stroking…  Anyway, I find it inappropriate to judge others without placing some of yourself out there as well.  It seems too easy and disingenuous.  If I need that nonsense I’ll turn on some politically charged television and see the talking heads try to outshout each other as if volume alone can convince another person their chosen stance is incorrect.

I write this blog because I like to do it.  There isn’t much more ulterior motive.  I had, at one point, envisioned creating much more content and trying to maintain a website with this and other items but I decided that my free time, the little of it I had, was more important.  I needed to be happy more than pursue this to the full extent.  Oftentimes I feel conflicted in this regard.  I have the itch come and go.  I feel the need to throw myself into a fit of writing, hunching over the keyboard, my fingers aching as they felt the resistance of the keys.  Fortunately my posture at least has improved.  My love of writing has not diminished but my need to create has waned slightly.  I will always write because it me brings me joy but I don’t feel I need this one great work in order to validate myself or my many hours writing.

Not long ago I had several small projects taking up room in my head.  This is not unusual for me as my mind tends to go divergent paths and takes turns and wind up at unexpected places.  Somewhere in my development this was nurtured.  Recently I had a screenplay I was flushing out, this blog, a web comic I wanted to start, and several other stories running through my mind.  I would navigate between them writing on the piece I felt I had the motivation or idea to pursue.  It was silly dividing my focus in so many directions.  And yet I still managed to focus more on coming up with premises and ideas than actually writing.  It’s so much easier to come up with the concept than to actually sit down and tough it out.  Also once the words are placed and story is done it’s out there ready for scrutiny.  It’s also over.  That intensity.  That frenetic energy that comes with the process fades.  Yes there is a level of satisfaction with the work being completed but then comes that feeling.  What’s next my mind asks daring me, tempting me.

For now I’ve settled on a simple path.  Continue writing my blog when I have something worth saying.  Not forcing myself to write twice a week or even once a week.  Simply write because that’s what I enjoy.  Then to focus on one piece besides this and pursue it.  Flush out the outline.  Then begin filling it in.  Find the rhythm and the pacing and improve the little bits that start to stick out.  Ask myself what is the core element and what are the themes that should continue to run through the work.  Then dive into the characters really feel like they are living breathing creatures who take action not simply because it will move plot along but because that’s what this person would do.  If you know the person you know what would happen when placed in the circumstance.

The story I’ve chosen and the one I plan on documenting is reasonably simple.  Most pieces that involve fantasy or science fiction or any otherworldly not immediately relatable setting have a window into the world.  This window is a character as out of place as we are.  We are meant to experience this world through them.  They are our substitute.  Look at Hellboy.  They had that boring federal agent character the introduce us to the universe those characters inhabited.  They dropped him in the second incarnation as he was no longer necessary, or interesting.  It’s always the new guy who gets shown around.  News flash, they are showing us around.

My take isn’t so far off.  I plan on displacing some people from our reality and placing them in another.  But they have no guides not person to walk them through.  They are as clueless as we would be.  They are reasonably normal people in a very abnormal circumstance. On top of this I want to play the four, there are four displaced people, against each other as they have very different experiences and reactions to this displacement.  Some enjoy their new home and some don’t.  But the thing that got me excited about the idea is the thought of getting back home and trying to explain their experiences.  How does a rational person who was thrown into another reality and then returned, how do they tell people what happened?  Do they simply tell them truth knowing they’ll be thought mentally ill.  I don’t really know the answer to this and it excites me as a writer.  And hey, I’m only writing for myself anyway, right?

Ben

The Dark Knight Falls

The more I’ve read and the more I’ve thought about the last Batman movie the more I’ve grown to question its merit.  I do think there were some amazing moments but I think it was mired in mediocrity for such a talented director and team.

There are numerous spoilers below.

Disconnect

The film often  felt disconnected from the other two movies of the trilogy and from the source material.  Since when does a story involving Batman take place predominantly during the day.  It just screws up the whole aesthetic.  The film has the words Dark Knight and the darkness in the movie is usually metaphorical.  It wasn’t just metaphorical it was dark.  Batman worked at night and used the night to his advantage.  In this universe (the film one) he was trained by the league of assassins.  Speaking of which if you were trained by an elite theater of ninjas one would think when you face down a great enemy you don’t start yelling like a cave man and throwing wild haymakers.  Nice martial arts training there.  Any decent martial artist who thinks being tense and muscling out a wild punch is superior to literally anything else is not such a good martial artist.  And you don’t use the same tactic twice when the first time resulting in a broken spine and severe head trauma.  Although the severe head trauma might explain a few things.  But fortunately the whole mask thing allows for a quick and easy way to win which the World’s Greatest Detective seemed to overlook the first time as an option.

It’s odd how a film so obviously predicated on the events of the who last ones can feel like it’s an odd man out.  For one thing the first two movies were about Bruce Wayne/Batman.  The cast of characters revolved around him.  The first movie, the origin piece introduced the main characters; Bruce, Alfred, Gordon, Fox, and Rachel.  It also introduced Ra’s and Dr. Crane (Scarecrow) as well as Falcone (the mob boss).  The second film burrowed a bit deeper into Gordon’s character and flushed out more the character of the mob bosses.  The mob has always played heavily in Batman’s universe.  It also introduced Harvey Dent and the Joker.  These two individuals were the turning point of the series.  This was the big choice.  The third film was the after effects of the choice made.  The second film was all  setups forcing choices (the Joker’s twisted intention was to force these kinds of games upon the supposedly incorruptible).  The third film introduced even more characters into an already crowded world: Selina, Blake (Robin), Bane, Miranda, Foley, and Daggett.  With such a cast it’s unsurprising that the last film was the also the longest.  There was an effort made to put all the characters on screen for more than a fraction of a moment but it made it feel like more of a collage than the story of one man our hero.  Sadly the best actors had the shortest part.  Morgan Freeman was barely on screen and the same for Michael Caine – and damn you Michael Caine for making people misty eyed every time you were in front of the camera with your whole relatable emotion strife.  I’m sure Anne Hathawy is a wonderful actress but it’s difficult to take a performance as serious when she’s in skin tight leather and performing acrobatics.  Not that this bother me mind you.

With this many people involved and so many plots swirling around it felt like Batman and friends the movie.  Honestly I felt that if we replaced the character and got rid of the whole Batman part it would had made much more sense.  Every part of the first two films as I sat in the theater I was thinking man Batman is awesome not this movie kicks ass.  Because that’s half the point of Batman.  He’s the guy we wish we could be except for the crippling paranoia, the lack of a normal life, the immense physiological scarring, and the constant pants shitting level of danger.  This film I thought hey this cool.  This whole motif and thematic relevance.

Villians or the legacy of the Joker problem

Part of the problem was the last film was just so good.  It had a few points that merit critiquing but it was so pitch perfect on many accounts that such trivial errors feel just so, trivial and of little consequence to the whole.  But this was not that movie.  Another reason is it’s hard to move on past the Joker.  He has cemented himself as the foil for Batman.  In the enormous and varied collection of rogues Batman has accrued no one can touch the Joker.  Joker is to Batman as Moriarty is Holmes.  A dark broken reflection.  The two circle each other eternally unable to truly defeat one another because of their own code and motivations.

Bane tested Batman but not on the same level.  Bane’s goal was vengeance.  Bane’s goal was to break the body and spirit of Batman.  He accomplished one of those things temporarily) and almost accomplished the other.  But Wayne rose from his trial.

The Joker didn’t try to test Batman physically.  He tried to corrupt him.  Batman is rigid in his code.  It is the one thing that keeps him total psychosis.  Once he crosses that boundary there is nothing holding him back.  His lust for justice would turn him into another Ra’s Al Ghul.

Another point why Bane is not as exciting or as memorable (besides his poor use in the god awful Batman and Robin movie which is a prime example of why technology from Men in Black should be used and how) is because he isn’t as true a reflection of Batman as the others.  Ra’s was Btman once he eschewed his holiest moral stance.  The joker was the exact inverse.  Where Batman stood for order the Joker stood for chaos.  They both did all that could be allowed to force their societal direction.

Internal Logic and the hypocrisy of character

Generally when you work from preexisting stories you try to be true to the source material.  This was, to an extent, accomplished.  This was not a warm fuzzy romp of a movie series.  It was gritty, it was dark and it was unflinching.  As such the series portrayed Batman/Wayne as paranoid, angry, bitter and vengeful .  However in the last film he was completely inconsistent in this regard.  Or rather the script had inconsistencies here there and everywhere and even the central character who was well defined still ended up betraying the set expectations.  This is generally a bad thing.  When a story creates an expectation or a rule it cannot be dismissed or altered lightly.  That’s like creating a zombie film, taking time to explain a head shot is the only way to kill zombies and then in a pivotal scene a headshot doesn’t work then the best friend dies.  Which is kind of bullshit.

The main lapse in character here is Batman’s paranoia.  Wayne practically bankrupts his company to fend off the possibility of a nuclear disaster.  Once this had been made clear it has to be set in motion that that nuclear disaster will play out to an extent.  So on paranoia he hid the instrument of hope because of fear of the possibility of death.  But yet he constantly sets into motion events where Selina is allowed to betray him.  He gives her everything with no sign of hesitation.  He is unafraid of her possible betrayal.

Another lapse is he is not over Rachel, yet he, without much provocation whatsoever, sleeps with Miranda.  Or his calm acceptance of Blake’s knowledge of his secret identity.  He spends so much time protecting the secret identity for him to so lightly allow another person to know seems odd.  He hid the truth from Rachel even when he knew it would benefit himself.

And if he was so intent on protecting that identity how come right around the time Batman retired Bruce Wayne fell out of the public eye to become a recluse.  Then shortly after Batman comes out from hiding so does playboy Bruce Wayne with no repercussions or possible implications.  World’s greatest detective, huh?

Okay how about the whole Batman is a symbol idea?  Bruce out of rage created Batman to circumvent the law but to uphold order by foiling crime.  In the first movie he become a symbol.  IN the second movie he looks to another white knight but Dent falls.  In the third he looks to Blake as the person who could pick up the mantle in his absence.  But this negates an important part for the second movie.  The copycats near the beginning of the film.  They dress like Batman and fight crime in their own vigilante manner.  Yet Batman disavows them.  But Blake is okay.  In the comic books Bruce know he can never not be Batman and he understands deep down how he can’t stop and his only out is death.  It’s a beautiful moment of sorrow and true understanding of self.  The man is half-deranged.

Was the movie awful?  Not really but it fell flat a lot of the time.  The aesthetic felt off, the characters seemed wish-washy and I was as emotionally invested as the other times.  The only part of the movie that I really thought was awesome was the scene where Selina is negotiating with Daggett’s man and she executes as her various fail safe’s which all were necessary to stay alive.

Ben

The Problem with Disney

I loved Disney movies growing up, they seemed so safe and family friendly. The good guys always won and the bad guys were always punished.  There was the just the right amount of singing and not too much mushy stuff for a young boy to suffer through.  Being a bit older though the subtext and the message of the animated films often horrify me.  A lot of movies have an unsettling thread running through the story  unintentionally so I could be overstating.

So what are some of these not so nice themes that seem to pop up in Disney you ask?  You don’t have to say it out loud just thinking in your own head will suffice.

How about racism?  Yeah, I played the race card, deal with it.  Disney created a movie so racist they refuse to even dignify its existence.  The song “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” lives on but The Song of South most certainly does not.  If you’re ask yourself what the hell is Song of the South that isn’t abnormal.  It’s the live action film with three Br’er Rabbit shorts placed inside that Disney refuses to rerelease.  You can see Br’er Rabbit on Splash Mountain and few other places but his movie isn’t seeing the light of day.  They don’t use the term Disney vault lightly.  That shit it never coming back out.

Well, they obviously learned a lesson after that fiasco.  Disney would never again impugn African American culture by abusing stereotypes right?  Unless of course you count the crows from Dumbo, the African American satyrs from Fantasia (which have been excised from the original cut so good luck finding them), King Louie from the Jungle Book and most recently Sebastian from The Little Mermaid.  Sebastian at least wasn’t the kind of racism that make you squirm in your seat.  It’s just the kind of racism that you can explain away to friends by saying, “Oh yeah, Uncle John is alright as long as you  don’t talk about Asians.  But he’s really a nice guy, I swear.”

Any other stereotypes Disney perpetrated on our young, eager to assimilate any message, minds?  I’m glad you asked.  Remember the native American’s in Peter Pan.  Watch that shit.  I’m not even going to explain why it’s fucked up.  You don’t need me for that.  Or hey, how about the twin cats Si and Am from Lady and the Tramp (voiced by Peggy Lee who I’m pretty sure was not Asian, just a hunch)?  I wonder if they might be racist caricatures?  Yes, the answer is yes, put your good damn hands down.

Tying along with racism is well racism again but kinda of different.  Before we thought about stereotypes now I’m talking about color palettes.  Totally different right?  Your silence is good enough for me,

What am I talking about with color palettes?  Quick what did Hercules look like?  If you said blond with blue eyes and a fair complexion congratulations you relate closer to Disney than Kevin Sorbo.  Sorry Kev… well, not really.  Now think about the are the movie is set in.  The answer is Greece.   You can stop thinking.  I should probably give a space or something to let you have time before you eager eye can gobble up the information but fuck the extra work to do that.  Suck that Enter button.

So Hercules is pale as all hell when he shouldn’t be and Hades is dark grey.  There are quite a few other problems with this movie but I’ll get into that later.  Yeah light person is good and dark person is bad thanks for making things easy for me.

Or instead of color palette just switch in the term ethnic looking.  Fast forward any Disney movie to a random spot.  I’ll wait.

Ok, now look at the person on the screen.  Are they female?  Skip ahead.  Yes, there is a reason for this, and  no, I will not tell you why yet.  Okay is the dude super ‘ethnicy’ or something?  Yes?  Congratulations, you found the villain.

It so true that if you argue I will reach through the internet and slap your stupid face Kyle.  What about Aladdin?  The two main characters don’t look at all like white people who just happen to be living in Arabia.  And Jafar isn’t super Arabian looking at all or anything.  In Princess and the Frog, Disney’s latest traditional animated movie, the bad guy may have been just a wee bit darker than the African American leads.  Just a touch.  Or a shit ton one or the other.  Oh, and the country bumpkin lightning bug thing was super classy.  Like Transformers 2 classy.  Burn.

So there was a few not so great moments in relation to ethnicity that may or may not be getting any better.  But at least we are treating women like things right?  Right…

Yeah, so Disney totally thinks women are things.  These supposed love stories are not affirming.  Yeah, that whole thing with a Prince kissing a cold, cadaver-like lady is not at all creepy.  You know what happens in real life for kissing a sleeping women?  Bad things involving the police and losing the privilege to vote afterwards.

Outside of somnophilia there is still plenty of not so good sex and gender issues.  Like the message of young girls changing everything about themselves to please a guy they hardly know.  That’s healthy and couldn’t possibly have any repercussion on the psyche of young girls.  Maybe if I explain the situation it won’t seem so fucked up.  Alright, so you’re a pretty girl and you validate yourself through your looks and you beautiful singing voice (one of those things is better than the other, you figure it out).  You see some dude and decide hey, he’s awesome I wish I could ditch my worry free lifestyle ot be with this stranger.  He’ll totally love me even though I know nothing about him.  Swoon.  Hey this whole changing myself to be near him was a great idea.  It’s too bad I can’t FUCKING TALK.  That’s okay.  I’ll give up one of only two things I care about to be with this guy I don’t know at all.  And risk everything in the process.  Good idea right?  Swoon!  Fuck this is bad something went terribly wrong with this whole deceit thing.  Deceit is the best way to get someone to love me right?

That is part of the plot of The Little Mermaid.  Ariel, a teenager, gives up her voice to be a human.  Yeah, I know there are other factors involved like being an idiot teenager and getting away from Dad but to change everything about yourself for guy you fantasized about without meeting?  Fantasies are just that.  Of course it’s Disney so everything turns out just fine but that further ratifies the shitty message.  Don’t change yourself for others change yourself for you.  And for the love of god don’t negotiate with half squid half women.  Also shut up and listen to your father you’re like what fourteen?  That’s way too young to be obsessing about a life with some guy.  Kissing sure but… teenagers… stupid decisions… sigh.

So to round it out let’s throw in some Stockholm syndrome.  Goody.  So this Beast guy kidnaps you.  Then he imprisons you and yells a lot.  But he has this gentle side right?  No you fucking moron he kidnapped you and forced you to stay with him.  So what if Gaston can eat a shit ton of eggs he shouldn’t be the bad guy.  But Disney still swaps out the interesting part.  The fun thing about Beauty and the Beast is that Beast isn’t supposed to change.  You should love him besides his looks.  Him changing back invalidates that message.  So an important message if you get kidnapped and the dishes start signing jump out the fucking window, shit will not end well for you.  Belle is the exception.

So women do stupid stuff for love.  This isn’t unusual we all do stupid things for love especially if we’re young.  But at least when a woman proves herself to be equal to man or even better she can take over the role he filled right?  Not in the Lion King.  What am I tlkaing about?  How about the fact that Nala kicks Simba’s ass not once but twice.  And does so with the same exact move both time separated by several years.  Way to learn from your defeat Simba.  Why is this important.  Well if Simba was physically weaker than Nala why didn’t she kick Scar’s ass.  Why did they need Simba to help.  You can argue well they need a male for breeding purposes.  Well maybe not Scar so much for the job.  He was kinda typified as gay.  In Hamlet, the story Lion King follows (along with stealing from some Anime or other), the uncle kills the father and Hamlet is visited by the ghost of his father and he takes revenge blah, blah, blah… Mufasa, Mufasa, Mufasa.

So the straight male lion needs to grab power from the gays and the minorities because the woman are too weak and stupid to do it on their own.  Yeah, the hyena’s just might be typified as minorities.  Super nice that the grand kingdom worked awesome as long as the straight male ran things.  Then went to shit when Jeremy Irons and Whoopi Goldberg moved in.  Not the first time Whoopi Goldberg has ruined everything… cough Jumping Jack flash… cough … Eddie… Cough sputter choke… Theodore Rex.  Sorry about that.

There are some funky exceptions like you know James Earl Jones being all African American or Timon and Pumba being best buddies and rasing a son of their own.  I totally respect their lifestyle choices by the way, parenting skills maybe not so much.  Maybe a little less show tunes and little more maybe you should worry about one or two things now please don’t eat us.

Disney at times is racially and gender insensitive but at least they respect the material they remake and try to keep it historically accurate.

Everything about Mulan pisses me off.  The Chinese emperor would never touch anybody.  Also you don’t enter the palace with your stuff intact.  Also there’s the whole deal with the Japanese geisha makeup on a women on Chinese descent in a movie about… China.  Or the whole chronology being all screwy depending on what the story demanded.  “Huns sure, fireworks sure, great wall, yeah throw that shit in there.  What period is set in?  The period of shut your mouth and give me your money.” – some fictional guy at Disney voiced by my head.  I just Googled “Mulan inaccuracies” and came up with several useful sites.

Convenient links:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080227234644AAYlSkn

http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?/topic/1232-hua-mulan/

Or then again there is Pocahontas.  Albeit the historical inaccuracy totally turns down the creep factor from Ariel’s misadventure by Having Pocahontas not be a teenager.  This may be the only time a article  about racism which involve Mel Gibson without saying he’s an asshole and why.  Yeah, creep factor just went back up to eleven.

There is also Hercules again.  Everything is wrong here.  Nothing about the myths were shown correctly.  I’m strangely okay with Paul Schaffer as Hermes for some reason though.  In the Greco Roman myths Hercules was a dick.  He committed the worst kinds of crimes possible and was punished with the twelve trials.  Also Hades wasn’t a bad guy.  He was just lonely.  Most of the other gods were far worse.  Hades was just a dude that lost a game of dice with two brother Zeus and Poseiden and got stuck with the shit job.  How did Hades deal with shitty lot.  He ran the fuck out of the afterlife and mostly stayed out of mortal affairs.  He didn’t do any swan rape stuff that resulted in horrible tragedies and a decade of war like a certain thunder god.  Rip Torn screen tested that voice over.  It totally worked.

So now we have racism (twice!), historical inaccuracy, horrid love stories that teach the wrong lesson, and stomping all over the idea of anything that isn’t the traditionally nuclear family with the male firmly as head of household.  You might ask, “Hey, what about The Sword in the Stone”.   Then I would say thanks helpful segue creation.

It is correct that Sword in Stone didn’t really have those issue but it it did have a hero who’s only  real accomplishment was being ‘the chosen one’.  That is not so fantastic.  It’s what I like to call “The useless protagonist”.  Harsh.

A lot of children’s stories have the problem of the protagonist just kind of being there.  The only skill they display is being special.  That’s not say as important as bravery of intelligence or a myriad of ways traditional heroes prove themselves.  But kids movies have a protagonists that the audience demographic csan relate to.  Themselves.  They want to be special (who doesn’t) but they lack to ability to be awesome somehow so the protagonists’ only skill is one any youngling can have.  Being special.  Two examples are  The Sword in the Stone and Snow White.  The issue here with the main character not really doing anything and relegating all the action or conflict resolution to other characters is there is no arc.  A good story should have this character arc.  Character should meaningful growth.  When there is no growth or the character does not overcome a flaw often times the story ends, intentionally, with tragedy.  This is a common device in noir films where the lead is normally damaged good to begin with and can’t overcome the tragic flaw.  Most often this flaw surfaces with drinking.

But these characters still end up with a happy ending after no character progression.  We as an audience feel cheated somewhat as the protagonist is almost as much of viewer as we are.  Who are we to relate to in order to feel satisfaction at the resolution?

But there are always exceptions.  There is one that is so good I’m almost surprised Disney made it.  I call it The Lilo and Stitch exception.  I really liked Lilo and Stitch.  On the surface it’s a movie about a girl, an alien and their misadventures.  The movie is really about being a in a broken family that is trying desperately to stay strong.  Lilo ends up teaching a genetic experiment about the importance of ‘ohana’ then ends up realizing herself how important her family is and how her actions haven’t been helping.  Oddly reminiscent of a character arc.  They treated Lilo like a real little girl: full of insecurities, idiosyncrasies (like feeding her favorite fish a sandwich) and correct childish mentality that at first inhibits her character growth.  Both Lilo and Stitch have the same growth over the film.  They made Lilo’s sister struggle but not be a martyr or a salve driving harpy.  It all too often happens that the older female is either treated only as the dotting matriarch or the evil stepmother.  Here we have normal characters going through normal relatable troubles we can see ourselves in.  Just in this case with some aliens thrown in as well to keep it fun.  Plus that dude from “Kids in the Hall”.

Here’s to hoping they make more Lilo and less Ariel.  But please, no more direct to video crap, okay?

Ben

Full Reset

In narrative there needs to be conflict. In a good narrative there needs to conflict that is not easily surmountable.  Hopefully, if we are lucky, there is both internal and external conflict.  There is an appropriate rush as reader, or viewer, when there is an escalation of tension over  a period of time before it is let off.

The problem, however, comes with the fact with so much media and storytelling out there is far too little attention paid to appropriate levels of tension and too much attention to resetting the story to normal.  One of the greatest enemies of such crappy writing is, not surprisingly, children’s television.  Many action cartoon shows have a reasonable simple premise.  There is a group of good guys and a group of bad guys.  At the end of the episode the bad guys slink away defeated.  The bad guys don’t learn their lesson, they don’t adapt to their failure, and everything resets just the way it was.  G.I Joe saves the world and no one gets hit by lasers unless they’re a robot.  Hundreds of damn laser shots by trained military elite and no one gets hit.  How can COBRA be a credible threat if they never win.  If they never injure anyone or blow up home base or capture or kill anyone important.  It’s designed to keep simple attention spans.  Bad jokes, simply violence where no one actually gets hurt and million toys being sold.  But no realistic tension.  No one is afraid Lady Jane will be hurt.  I’d lump Transformers in there but the animated cartoon movie actually pulled the trigger and released us from the thrall of lack of change.  I used to root for the bad guys and get upset and their stupidity.  The bad guys were always more interesting almost more fun than the boring good guys.

You could say that children’s television is always poorly created and not much is placed into their writing and creation.  This is undeniably false.  There are too many coincidence of choice for thse shows not to have some manner of thought involved.  Looking at say Looney Tunes, or even Tom and Jerry, we always see the protagonist as the animal of prey while the antagonist is the predator.  The prey, usually smaller or without weapons (read child) is against the dominant individual who is punished for the adherence to the normal social role.  Tom was just a house cat doing what any normal house should and he was punished for doing so.  Elmer was hunter and, as Looney Tunes pointed out, he would so rigidly abide by the law he wouldn’t shoot an animal, even one making fun of him, outside the correct season.  He was an idiot who couldn’t understand that season’s don’t change five times in one day but there is some cartoon logic to be allowed.  We had children related to the smaller smart-alecky screwball who flippantly gave authority the middle finger.  What child doesn’t find saying no to authority invigorating or fun?  This had to be intentional.  You can look at the classical combinations to see the pattern; Tom and Jerry; Elmer and Bugs; Wile E Coyote and the Road Runner; Sylvester and Tweety; Chip and Dale versus Donald Duck;  and more.  Pepe le pew, however, is outside this conversation for this point as he is oddly not a character that defied society but was simply confused and probably a date rapist.  No means no, you perverted skunk.

But what angers me the most is the expectation of tensions this build up towards an eventual release when the whole thing is derailed and all the tensioned is eased off leaving no satisfaction.  A good examples of proper tension in Die Hard.  Die Hard also ruined the action hero it defined.  So many movies tried to be just like it but failed miserably it hurts me to think about all the bad films perpetrated on audiences.  What made Die Hard great, other than being the best Christmas movie of all time, is there was a reasonably normal protagonist placed in a bad situation where he probably shouldn’t be able to make it through.  We felt nervous when he had to run through the broken glass.  We felt scared when the weight of the fire hose was pulling him out the window to certain death.  We felt terror as he led around Hans Gruber’s great impersonation of a scared businessmen.  There was a moment of deceit on the directors part when the character had more knowledge than the audience.  McClane knew the gun wasn’t loaded but we didn’t.  The villain wasn’t an idiot either.  He was more than likely significantly smarter and more prepared than McClane.  The kicker is McClane won out the day, not because of being smart, or stronger, but by his wits.  He made them laugh, then he shot them.  Yippe ki yay.

I bring up tension and this need to reset because it sucks.  We don’t need this safety this return to normal.  It isn’t good storytelling.  There should be danger.  There should be questions.  The hero doesn’t have to win.  People need to die.  Even if they are the character you like.  X-Men: First Class brought me to this train of thought.  The reason being that it so clearly outshined the rest of X-Men movies.  Besides the coherent plot it presented real villains who had the potential to win.  There, at all points of the film, were moments when no one felt safe of above sacrifice.  Characters died.  It made the previous movies feel safe and lackluster.  Also the Cuban Missile crisis was a culturally significant moment of great tension.  Even reading about that period of time makes the hair on the back of your neck stand.  Two modern nations were seconds from annihilating each other.  That is tension, that is good narrative.  Bad politics, and indescribably abhorrent, but great storytelling.

Ben

The Problem with Zombies

Lately zombies have been the answer to every medium; inserting themselves as the antagonists in books like Max Brook’s World War Z, or television shows like The Walking Dead, or comic books like…  The Walking Dead, or films like any of George Romero’s films (and remakes), or video games like Resident Evil 1-6, Dead Rising 1 and 2, Dead Island, Dead Space 1 and2.  That list is just the beginning of the overuse heaped upon the shambling undead.  Zombies are now an overused, over thought trope.  We have brought the extreme attitude (fuck you the 90’s, sincerely everyone )to zombies with pieces like 28 days Later where we super charged the slow moving and stumbling corpses into speedy versions of hungry hungry hippos just with, you know, people instead of marbles.  But besides getting a does of Tony Horton the main concept hasn’t changed much.  The back story has changed here and there with genetic modification, voodoo, evil spirits, ancient civilizations, various scientific issues, and other possibilities but honestly zombies don’t need back story I’d actually prefer it if we as an audience never knew the cause.  The unknown has and always will be the staple of good horror.  It’s why the first Night of Living Dead worked when it did.  It was a new enough concept at the time.

But is the problem with zombies the lack of creativity of the overuse?  Or is it because everyone and their brother uses the archetype that there isn’t enough quality control?  But content is only consumed if there is a an audience for it.  And oddly enough the audience mindlessly craves and consumes.  There is an obsession with the faithful, an over analysis and delight in the possibility of a true occurance.  People have devoted time to building zombie survival teams.  And not just like a few minutes of fancy.  Whole discussions and serious periods of thought.  Well… maybe not serious concerning the subject matter.  But taken far too seriously.  Discussing the ins and outs of rules and keys to survival.  Because obviously in the zombie apocalypse with fires raging, family members dying and/or infected, society fallen, energy failing, food sources scarce, a foe that doesn’t sleep or stop, some idiot who’s watched a couple of movies won’t crack under pressure.  They will obviously triumph and with their equally brave cohorts triumph and restore society.  These heroes chose teams of people based on some merits of awesomeness and violence.  Not really on true merits like perhaps having a doctor, or a scientist, or probably most helpful a farmer.  Everyone forgets about starvation.  It does mildly concern me how people truly get excited over the thought of a zombie apocalypse happening and all the fun they might have.  It’s like they see the collapse of modern society as okay and these murderous truly scary and gruesome foes as nothing but way to vent violent fantasy.  But perhaps I am looking too deeply here.

So what would happen in a zombie outbreak.  If we assume that zombies are slowly rotting bodies the zombie outbreak would just kill itself.  The human body isn’t really meant to work once you’re dead just don’t tell Mary Shelly; she wanted humanity to be the bad guys anyway.  Regular humans being the really bad guys is a common theme in many survival horror plots, especially those by Stephen King.  Watch The Mist.  Or better yet don’t.  It doesn’t *spoiler* end so happily. *end spoiler*

Zombies just dying off and falling apart would be logical but this is a reanimated body come back to kill mindlessly.   It’s hard to interject too much logic here.  So assuming the body won’t degrade to much either due to magic or some other explanation humanity will not do so well.  If there was an outbreak and it didn’t fizzle out we’d pretty much be fucked as a species.  Don’t take my word for it.  Trust the power of math.

http://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/rsmith43/Zombies.pdf

Yeah, someone actually spent the time to figure out the math behind the spread of the infection and humanity’s chance for survival.  Also remember a handful of people surviving does not guarantee humanity survival in fact it guarantees the very opposite.  Having only a few hundred people essentially means a stagnant gene pool and well that is not so good for humanity.

The one good thing about the rules and codification of zombies (rule as evidenced by Zombieland) is that it gives a stable and well defined set of guidelines for the world of the story.  The problem with a lot of terrible writing is we, as audience are completely unaware of the rule in the world presented to us.  If we feel like things are constantly being revealed to us and we’re like “the fuck is that?  The fuck is this?  I don’t get it?” that generally means the author is bad person.  Take that dreadful dragon series that turned into a single movie “Eragon”.  You know why I can believe it was written by a teenager?  Because it sucked.  If you shoot someone in the head they should generally die.  You can’t casually introduce new rules, like only a direct shot to the heart kills a warlock (or whatever the fuck the bad guy was), especially to a person who lives in that world.  That’s why so many stories have that fish out of water who gets introduced to the weird stuff to help us the audience understand so the other characters, the ones who know what’s going on, have a good reason to explain things and give exposition.  It’s why there is always that new recruit or student or what have you.  Otherwise if one character was lecturing another about why Cyclops has to eat a sheep every week to live and the other character would logically say “Yeah, I know that fucktard; I feed him.  Why are telling me that?  Am I some sort of audience member new to this story… oh, right.”

These well defined rules are part of the reason why everyone is an expert on zombies, a made up creature that exists only in fiction.  There are so many armchair zombie survival experts it boggles the mind.  Hell, I’m complaining about this and I know far too much about zombies.

But hey zombies are really just an expression of mindless consumerism (mindless eating machines that crowd together), a reaction against communism (they never attack each other and ‘convert’ those they fight – this is especially prevent in movies with pod people in place of zombies), and a reaction against single minded acceptance of the norm.  You look at these stories and it usually a small group against a horde of the same.   It’s also often an allegory for racism and warning about cultural hegemony (that means a disparate group can be controlled by a single entity of subgroup).  But heck sometimes it’s really more about gratuitous violence and we tend to accept a greater level of violence those circumstances.

But either way you look at you should totally have me on your zombie survival team.

Ben

http://www.cracked.com/article_18683_7-scientific-reasons-zombie-outbreak-would-fail-quickly_p7.html

http://www.cracked.com/article_15643_5-scientific-reasons-zombie-apocalypse-could-actually-happen_p2.html?wa_user1=3&wa_user2=Tech&wa_user3=article&wa_user4=recommended

Avenging Comic Book Movies

Hollywood started as simple theft from plays, novels and short stories.  Copyright laws have changed considerably giving some protection to authors.  Nosferatu, a classic, was made because the Stoker family wouldn’t give the rights for the film.  So they just changed the name and made it anyway.  Copyright laws are also the happy birthday song is evil.  I say this because if you into the song on television you have to pay.  Not so much as say the Rolling Stones but you have to pay for the song you hear at the very least once every year of your life.  It’s also the reason chain restaurants make up their own goofy as shit version with off kilter clapping that makes you want to punch them all as they crowd lackluster around your melting ice cream and sparkly candle trying desperately not to think about their failures as human beings.  You might think this harsh condemnation but I’ve worked in the food industry, it’s not harsh enough; all those people are broken and many I consider friends.

Lately we’ve had a very strong comic book presence in film.  I am in no way opposed to this.  The last two Batman films have been amazing after the clusterfuck that was the Clooney Batman.  I’ll never forget and I’ll never forgive you George.  In my dreams Clooney is beaten senseless by Michael Keaton and Christian Bale.  He is left almost lifeless and bereft of will.  He whispers his apologies and pledges to donate half his fortune to funding a camp for younglings to train them as real life batmen.  But ignore such fantasy.  Except for the camp of future batmen because that’s fucking awesome and someone should do that.  Not one of those too eccentric rich guys because we don’t want car loads of impressionable young men alone with those people.

This leads me to The Avengers the epoch of Marvel’s movie series.  Ignoring the X-Men (film rights owned by Fox) and their five films as well as Spiderman (film rights owned by Sony) and his three, but son to be four, films we are left with:

1. Iron Man
2. Iron Man 2
3. The Hulk (Edward Norton vehicle not the Eric Bana/Ang Lee disaster)
4. Captain America
5. Thor
6. The Avengers

That’s a couple of movies.  There are sequel plans for Iron Man, Cap, Thor and the Avengers group as a whole.  Hank Pym and Wasp wait anxiously off frame hoping to be remembered or even mentioned.  Outside of the Batman revamp this is about as good a series of unfucked with comic books as we are likely to get.  Superman  is always going to be bad in film.  He’s just boring.  Sorry.  He’s invulnerable for crying out loud.  They killed him off in the nineties because the nineties hates everything especially placing things like an ‘e’ in front of XTREME.

Dear 90’s,

Fuck you.

Sincerely,

The letter E 

And that ended in disappointment.  Banner sales for a flagging series for a short period of time but crap nonetheless.  No one wants to see invulnerable.  It’s like playing with the kid who chooses like seventeen superpowers or all powers combined or his only weakness if getting stronger or some bullshit like that.  Fuck you Kyle and you’re immature bullshit.  I’m never playing with you again.

But what about the X-Men you say, or Spiderman?  Well the first two x-Men were fine.  Sadly they set up a promise Hollywood wasn’t ready to deliver on.  Those of you familiar with the dark phoenix knows the third x-men was probably the worst possible rehashing of crappy storylines.  It should have been more like the X-men were Japanese scientist and the Phoenix was Godzilla.  They get crushed.  Until they figure something out at the end or Jean’s humanity someone wins over in the end so they can kill her.  Not fall on the crutch of Sir Ian McKellan being awesome and able to save a shitty film.  Then there was the Wolverine movie.  I give them points from trying to build plot.  But that gets tossed out the door by convoluted plotlines, poor character decisions, as  well as their handling of two fan favorites Gambit and Deadpool.  The plot had the makings of being moderately acceptable.  But they achieved the feat of being complicated but completely stupid.  Poor character decisions come from a character making a necessary decision for the plot to progress but not correct in terms of the character we’ve seen developed.  If I create class bully as a character without signs of remorse he cannot simple turn over a new leaf once embarrassed once by the protagonist.  No after being embarrassed he tries to kick the shit out of him even harder. Why?  Because that’s how bullies fucking act.  It’s their nature.  Why did Gambit suck?  We spent three films waiting for him and he barely does anything.  Plus, worst of all, he’s kind of boring.  The man kicks boring in the face.  Why did deadpool suck?  Because they cast the right person for it and then ruined the fucking character, took away his ability to speak at one point and gave him fucking laser eyes.   He was only fun for a minutes and then basically of screen pasr the first ten minutes. Fuck you movie studios.  Why must you shit on the things I love?  On that note, special shout out to George ‘I hate my fans’ Lucas.  Evidence that it is never a good idea for one and only one creative input to have total reign with no censure or confines placed on them.  For Spiderman see emo Toby Maguire and the ruining of Venom.  Much smaller and staid fuck you that studio.

Quick note on the Hulk’s tumultuous film past.  Ang Lee’s movie was awful because they made the decision of removing, by choice, emotion from the lead character.  We as an audience want to relate to someone.  We’ve related to killers, assholes, vagabonds and weirdos but it’s hard to relate to someone who barely shows emotion.  Yes, I understand the point  But even as the Hulk he seemed quite.  He needs to snarl and snap.  Be violent.  The character needs to struggle to contain.  Not be so copped up he is unable to smile or frown.  There is tension to be had here.  The Edward Norton movie wasn’t that bad.  Certainly nothing special but not a crime against film or comic books.  I’m sad there was issues between him and the film studio but I do think Mark Ruffalo was better in the role.

The Avengers had a strong cast of relatable complicated characters with back stories, flaws and personality quirks.  It had snappy dialogue, and not just from the always witty Robert Downey Jr., and good pacing.  So much depends on things like pacing, development of tensions and correct easing of tension.  Too many movies deflate tension too quickly or too soon or don’t develop tension at the right moments.  Building proper tension is akin to boiling water.  You can’t do it in seconds.  You can create some jumps with cheap tactics like loud dramatic sounds cues from out of nowhere(usually called ‘the bus’ from a horror films use of a loud bus noise to cause the audience to jump).

There were one or two not so fantastic parts.  (spoilers).  As per usual the Hulk’s condition is complicated.  His grappling with his inner beast is centric to his story and his reason for being.  He is our reflection of our unexpressed rage personified.  We all wish sometimes to be able to blindly let loose pent up emotion.  But Banner must deal with keeping it in check for fear or constant eruption and endangerment of others.  In various points on the comic he is control to varying amounts.  The ‘heroes’ sent him off planet at one point as he was too dangerous to stay on earth.  The original reason for the Avengers to unite was to defeat the Hulk.  In the movie Banner is only partially in control.  He goes into Hulk rage twice.  Once with no control almost smashing up Black Widow.  Then the second time revealing that he was always angry simple changes at will and seems able to have some manner of control over himself but attacking the bad guy only (save for a ‘personal’ moment with Thor).  At what point was there a difference.  Yes it was necessary to have the Hulk be good guy at the end but how is there logic for the change?

Another problem is why did Loki piss off each Avenger individually.  Without doing so SHIELD would be unable to repell his assault.  But by angering each member of the team he effectively united them against him.  His psychological win in the second act only served to create a wedge for a short time.  One might argue that Loki wanted to win by going through these men and women instead of simply just subterfuge alone.  But who knows, he was adopted anyway (end spoilers)

But hopefully with its enormous box office wins Hollywood will pay attention to the kind of geek friendly movies they should be making.  You can make a smart action explosion special effect extravaganza.  The good films that should have been made instead of the crappy bastardized version Hollywood hacks churn out due to boring test groups may very well be avenged.

Ben

Romantic Comedies Suck

Romantic comedies are awful.  Romance films without the genre blend are even worse.  I’m not bashing romance or the idea of romance; in fact I think romantic comedies do immense harm to idea of proper romance.  The problem with romantic comedies is that they end.  Now this is, in general, is a very stupid argument against a piece of fiction.  Stories without endings are mostly viewed as... not so good.  We crave some manner of closure.  Especially when we are invested in the story.  Just recently Bioware announced they are adding free DLC to the third installment of Mass Effect due to player outrage over the ending not having enough closure.  These people have been playing the interactive story for years and they were furious.  I could hear the collective dark denizens of the internet seething with impotent rage.  But with romantic comedies the ending comes when the boy wins the girl.  Being a narrative piece there is generally some obstacle to the two being together.  Otherwise it’s a pretty fast fucking movie.  “Hey you wanna go out?”  “Sure.” “Ok.”  Mandatory sex scene.  Roll credits…  actually I think I just described porn… moving along.  Normally the girl shuns the boy and he woes her back or gains her affection somehow.  It is usually set up as the man being the conqueror and the woman finally relenting/submitting.  There are cases of the woman being the aggressor but it isn’t nearly as common.  But with the normal arc of the story the hero overcomes the reason he was rejected in the first place.  It isn’t necessarily solved it's just overcome.  Looking down the line into the future we see nothing but pain and misery for the new couple.  They won’t make it.  It will end horribly and one or both of them will be unhappy.  Depressing shit.  But it’s the fucking movies fault.  To create dramatic tension they put two characters together who should not be together but through some inexorable circumstances they are drawn together.  They get over their bullshit for a short time and then it’s over.  But the underlying reason for their differences will inevitably pry them apart.

A good chunk of the romantic comedies treat dating as a competitive sport.  Then there are others where they force one partner to change.  Like a lot.  And major life changes against your will to satisfy your partner never breeds contempt.  Sarcasm!

Ever see a movie with a slacker who is happy being lazy, half unemployed and wasting his life.  But the only way he can win at life and get the girl is to miraculously get a good job near the end of the film and turn his life around.  Firstly, it presumes it is easy to get a new job after years of laziness.  Like this guy is some savant and his years of not so much experience will be ignored on the resume.  “I see you have five years in agriculture Mr. Johnston, what was that exactly?”  “Weed, mostly a lot of weed.  So I guess that counts as sales, right?”  Long pause. “We’ll call you.”  Awkward handshake and delayed exit.  End scene.  Remember that movie Big Daddy with Adam Sandler?  He goes from irresponsible and criminal behavior to being a god damn lawyer.  Oh yeah, that twenty seconds of exposition about law school really keeps the logic train on its tracks.  Hint, not so much.

Romantic comedies tend to have this air of 'impossible is possible' bullshit about them.  Which I guess makes sense in the genre.  It’s romantic to think that out of the million people you one and only found you.  But the star crossed lover nonsense leads to thoughts of predestination and that seems like no fun whatsoever.

So it’s silly and full of plot holes and maybe might create a few bad relationships but where is the real harm?  I’ll tell you if you stop being so damn pushy and wait a minute.

I saw a commercial for a new romantic comedy and normally I simply ignore it and file away in the part of my brain that I hate and need to punish.  Now, falling in love with a picture is not normal and not romantic.  The problem is film audiences don’t know that.  Just looking at the commercial for The Lucky One a solider falls in love with a photograph then meets the person behind the photograph and woes her.  The problem with this should be obvious.  So one of our soldiers overseas discovers a photograph while in the war zone and then falls in love with the women in the picture.  Then a courtship follows.  Well actually we didn’t see a courtship we just see this fucking stranger show up and a lot of making out and showering together.  The problem normally with things like this is he didn’t fall in love with that woman in the war zone.  He fell in love with the idea of the woman.  He fell in love with the photo.  And that is not the same.  That is not a healthy start to a relationship.

If you are curious why that’s true watch Vertigo.  James Stewart falls in love with a woman but not really.  He falls in love with her look, her image.  The person he fell in love with dies to his knowledge.  She didn’t but he is made to believe so.  He then sees the woman again but all wrong or at least all wrong for that image he craved.  She isn’t done up with makeup, fancy hair, the right dress or jewelry.  As they begin the courtship anew he forces her to change to that image and because the poor woman actually is in love with him she relents and lets it happen.  The person who she isn’t and only pretended to be is who is in love with.  It is so full with fetish to be a new level of scary.  It is not love but image worship.  She is a an object to him at this point.  The movie did not have a happy ending; shocking, I know.

It’s what this genre misrepresents is what upsets me.  They place so much emphasis on pursuit, and beauty and not so much on the important things.  Like, you know, being compatible.  Plus the tension is generally that of the 'will they, won’t they' variety.  We know the answer, it’s yes.  Yes, they will before the movie is over.  Unless it’s poor Forrest Gump and then it’s a hollow victory because Jenny is a bitch.  The woman does nothing but hurt the poor guy and take advantage of him then make him rear her bastard son.  The man talks to strangers about candy, leave him the fuck alone you heartless wench!  But she didn’t.  Fuck you Jenny.

Ben

Good Guys and Bad Guys

I was reading a post regarding the moral and ethical implications of the actions in the book and film The Watchmen.  As per usual for the internet it broke down into a measuring contest with people competing on who has been studying Psych 102 and can quote a textbook regarding Kant and other great philosophical minds.  But the idea behind the internet hissy fit was actually interesting.  And I’m being a bit rough on the post, as far as the normal internet discourse goes it was rather tame and I didn’t see all that much doucheyness.

But that debate got me thinking about good guys and bad guys as well as the character that live in the moral grey zone.  If you watch old western films there tends to be a heavy reliance on archetypes and reasonably simple moralities.  Guy in a black hat is not such a nice person.  The guy in white hat is pretty awesome.  The snake oil salesman who nobody listens to or takes seriously but is mostly harmless as the comic relief.  The female lead.  Here we usually tend to have one of three categories for a woman in older film.  The mother figure, the virginal good girl, and the loose woman.  For women in these films and many older films there were only these three roles.  Women were categorized by sex.  And their worth was weighed on their category.  Generally the character starts of as the virginal good girl and then goes one of two ways.  Be married and submit to the male or be a floozy and have sex and not submit to the male.  So essentially its societies way or keeping women in the kitchen by shaming them.  Yay, progressive Hollywood.  Women in film usually exist as the prize.  They are simply awarded to the hero.  And I’m not talking about romantic comedies I’m talking about most films.  The point of the female lead is to be given to the male lead at the end as a reward for overcoming his obstacles.  Cracked wrote a whole article about it.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19785_5-ways-modern-men-are-trained-to-hate-women.html

But as film grew in maturity the moral complexities and the roles which characters could play expanded.  There was room for people to slip into the grey realms where choice and morality grew murky.  There was finer brush strokes instead of the very broad character arcs like; stay good; stay bad; be redeemed; and be damned.  We have seen moral complexity in other mediums for centuries regardless of its place or appropriateness in adhering to the cultural morays of the time of creation.  It is a natural progression of any medium with storytelling.  It happens in comics, film and video games.  All mediums generally looked down upon but are slowly gaining in acceptance as art.  Not too long ago Roger Ebert relented in his criticism of video games as art.  He didn’t buckle and state that video games are a real art form but he quit his firm position due to realizing he had his face firmly in his own ass.  It’s not a terminal condition but it does lend to people calling you and asshole.  Anyway… moral complexities have come to the new mediums.  In video games however there have been issues with it.  Part of the problem when creating moral choice in an interactive environment is that the character in a game is acting as your avatar.  It is this that forms a strong bound from gamer to character.  Obviously decent story helps but Super Mario Bros has very little discernible plot and we still formed a tight bound with the scrappy little plumber.  I think the plot goes like this.  Plumber in a pet store trips on shrooms and almost drowns in toilet pipe.  Flails around screaming about being lit on fire and smashes the glass to the turtle cases.  Calmed down by the blond girl working the cash register but letting him play with pocket change.

But right now it seems to be the latest cliché to give two available paths for your character to take.  Good guy or bad guy.  The problem with video game built around this limiting premise of a stat system based off these choices.  Act like a good guy all the time and your persuasion goes up allowing you coerce people.  Act like a flaming shit stain all the time and get better at intimidating people into doing what you want.  But what happens if you tow the line?  You choice to be a “jerk” sometimes and a nice guy other times.  No reward, no stat boost, nothing.  And I put jerk in those quotes due to a flawed system in qualifying good and bad.  A lot of the time the game doesn’t categorize the whole being a shithead or being a nice guy well.  It isn’t necessarily bad to yell at a character trying to kill someone instead of calmly stating, “hey, stop you might wound this guy and feel bad later.  Douche”  I added the douche part.  But gamers want to get levels, increase stats and up their gamer score.  So they act one way totally and commit.  So its enforcing a moral standpoint not because they feel that’s how they should act morally but how they should act to get more cool shit like a laser sword unlocked at level fifteen.  But video games, even with their growing sophistication, is still an infant form.  And it still has to overcome the image of being a past time for kids.

Back to comic books.  The morality of comic book character is often changed wily-nilly.  This is from the changing industry guidelines and change in the writers for a comic series.  The guys who writes for Batman now is not the same guy who wrote a year ago.  Their ideas on where the character goes differ.  Writers have their story arc and they pass a torch.  This isn’t always bad as the creator often doesn’t see the potential of their creation and needs a fresh mind to pull them from obscurity and bring complexity, character depth and intrigue.  The X-Men were boring with Stan the man.  It took some other writers to bring in the good stuff.  Sadly The X-men were neutered by the films.  If you have read about what the third film should have been about you might want try to make the collective soul of Hollywood manifest into a tangible substance so it could punch it in its spirit dick.  I’m kind of proud of that last sentence.

But superheroes and comic books are rife with moral quandaries.  And oftentimes we find the superheroes questionable.  And it’s often frightening because they aren’t meant to be.  It’s more of a call on the morality of those pushing the graphic novels out.  I always found Superman boring because at his core he is invulnerable and incorruptible.  Where is there tension?  We always know he will win.  Then there was the famous series where he died, sort of, and that rekindled the character for a while until they blew that too.  I always preferred Batman.  Mostly because he’s the goddman Batman and fuck you that’s why.  He is a tragically flawed but amazing character.  He has vulnerability, he has character flaws and he has a set of rules that govern his actions which make sense.  But he wasn’t always consistent.  There was a time when they totally changed how they dealt with violence in comic books.  As he wasn’t fighting aliens or magic beasts just mobsters they had to change the formula.  So they launched Batman into space for a period of time.  Not the brightest days for Batman fans.  Space Batman still give very little fucks and will straight up punch you for say a fashion faux pas.  “White after labor day?!  Wham!”  Or not…

But The Watchmen is not normal comic book with the inconsistencies placed on it by a long run and shifts in culture.  The Watchmen is above normal.  The story is engaging and the characters are thoroughly thought out and engaging.  They take the universe of comic book vigilantes and populate it with the psychology or real people.  As would probably happen most people behind the mask are unhinged one way or another.

The great thing about The Watchmen is that it lives in a world that feels close to our own.  A possibility where the only difference is there were masked vigilantes and there were shifts in normalcy due to do this.  The only series that treats their world in a similar manner is the X-men.  And the X-men was really, when it was good, just a big commentary on racism.  They ignored the sticky trouble of picking out ethnicities by instead using supercharged humans and the hatred generated by that otherness.  They delved into self loathing, divisiveness, intolerance and whole slew of other human rights issues.  But they cloaked in safe quasi-science.

In narrative fiction when the world expressed is different enough that we can’t immediately relate to the issues of the world itself there are often two tricks the author uses.  One trick which pulls you out of the world and the story is an enormous amount of exposition.  The more common tactic is person who experiences the world as you are.  With The Matrix we had Neo.  He was our gateway to the world.  We learned as he learned.  With Star Wars (the ones that still exist in my mind and don’t fill me with anger and bitterness) we had Luke a simple farm boy who barely knew anything.  With Hellboy we had that obnoxious new guy.  In the second film we had enough back story and knowledge that character was no longer needed.  Heck The Never Ending story, and The Princess Bride both had two little kids reading the story.

For The Watchmen we had Night Owl (#2) as our point of contact and moral compass.  Spoilers ahead. 

Night Owl is a morally cautious and unsure hero.  He acted like a normal man who chose a very odd life.  He is appalled at the behaviors of his fellow super heroes for different reasons and forgives certain behaviors and acts.  He is our not always correct guide for right and wrong.  With him we see the extremes of the others, he is the foil.  While he has no distinct moral convictions he is saddled with sexual frustrations, an obvious impotence theme linking his actions as vigilante to worth as a man and translating that to sexual worth (the fight scene with Black Widow #2 and himself can be seen a very odd courtship).

Each character is so convinced in their rightness and their actions.  Rorschach, Ozymandius and the Comedian have no ounce of backing up in them.  They live by the convictions and code, whether it is right or wrong.

Dr. Manhattan is outside this realm of humanity as he has transcended morality and ethics.  He is amoral (not to be confused with immoral).  He is an odd and tragic character.  He sees all possibilities, future and past all concurrently.  So his actions in his eyes are already predetermined.  He has seen them.  He’s simply around for the ride as a spectator watching his own life.  He is passive in decision making as he mostly retreats from confrontation (like teleporting to Mars) or sends it away (as he did to Rorschach).  In the comic book version of Vietnam Dr. Manhattan walks around simply willing the ‘enemy’ to death.  He simply accommodates those around him and really has no drive or motive.

Then there is Rorschach.  Dogged to the extreme.  Ruthless, and efficient.  Completely committed (in both definitions) and unwavering.  His closest comparison is the Punisher but frighteningly enough he goes even further.  So fractured by what he has perceived and so broken he hides behind his shifting mask of obscurity and takes vengeance.  Vengeance for his lost innocence.  Vengeance for being turned into a man with no boundaries.  He has one motive and one drive.  Truth and punishment.  He jauntily walks past Batman’s firmest rule (never kill or let another die by inaction).

The Comedian is a sick and twisted man who exists for himself.  He is quick to judge all around him and quick to admit his own flaws.  He kills the mother of his child in Vietnam and is more upset that Manhattan let it happen.  He is actually upset while the blood is still fresh on his hand that Manhattan with all his power chooses not to act.  He is childlike in his actions in that he never outgrew the phase of immediate gratification.  Rape is acceptable to him because simply, he wants t have sex.  And again when caught he is unapologetic and turns it against his captor with witticism and deep barbs.

Lastly there is Ozymandius, genius and playboy.  I actually prefer the way the plan played out in the comic book versus the one in the movie.  The switch is very relevant.  Yes it is understandable and easier to palate but it takes away from the reasoning.  IN the comic an alien was presented as the one thing humanity would rally against instead of Manhattan.  The reasoning being humanity needs a boogeyman, it needs a common enemy to unite under.  Dr. Manhattan, while he is otherworldly and is something inhuman, he is very much attached to the U.S.  All that rage would funnel that way.  It would aim at the government and it would aim at the science that create him.  There would be collateral damage.  Ozymandius wouldn’t mind this collateral damage as he sacrificed so many lives already but it would be messier and less clean that he would want.  There also were far more explosions in the film so that the attacks seem to affect all of the world.  I think this is partially a reaction to 9/11 as so many things are nowadays and we will find echoes of this National tragedy for decades in our narratives.  Such disasters live within the culture of its people and filter into popular media.  Look at the original Godzilla movie.  The entire thing was about the evil of the nuclear bomb and the extreme danger of science.  The scientist in that movie decided he would unleash his deadly invention but only if he died as well so it could never fall into the wrong hands.

Ozymandius is not crazy but he is morally bankrupt.  He sees his solution as elegant and he feels, as a superior being, he has the right to make that choice.  He is a very seductive form of evil.  But, as we know, truth will win.  Rorschach alone stands opposed to the decision but the others, acknowledging their failure, see no correct option but to allow the plan to follow through.  Night Owl takes his frustrations out with violence which Ozymandius accepts willingly as his form of penance, he seems oddly happy that he is struck and justified I his share of punishment.  You almost hate him more because he says that feels he should be hurt but not enough to die like the other pawns.  Rorschach, knowing he cannot stop the plan but also knowing he cannot allow himself to stand idly, chooses to commit suicide through murder (he lets Manhattan kill him).

Comic books have grown in sophistication due to the niche market they themselves in.  Fewer people buy and the higher price they command demands greater artistry.  Most of the people I know who read are intelligent adults (usually the specific demographic is the socially awkward male) and they need more than boobies and explosions to keep them shelling out every month.  I can only hope that the film craze of comic books produces more The Dark Knight and The Watchmen and less The Fantastic Four.  Jessica Alba’s cleavage can only save so much.

Ben