The ‘Star Wars’ juggernaut is about to squeeze your wallet thinner than a light-saber beam
With the special showings to privileged people and backers just hours away and the general opening for everyone else days away of the new Stars Wars movie, The Hype Awakens Revenge of the Corporation The Monetization of Fandom The Force Awakens (hereinafter known as Star Wars 7 or SW7), a review of the protocols to ensure that the common consumers are given the fullest opportunity to spend as much as they can and beyond and will do so with the correct attitude. That is, with open wallets and shut mouths.
Corporations with no connections to the movie business whatsoever, as they have been doing all of 2015, will be doing promotions both serious and silly as per orders and guidance from the Walt Disney Company. As the time for the suckers common movie fans to be allowed to view the movie approaches, these efforts will increase this week until almost everything else has been pushed aside and all media outlets, personal blogs, online sites, TV commercials, podcasts, “factual” programs on the few remaining radio stations and “neutral” articles appearing in the few remaining newspapers will have some kind of mention of Star Wars as many times as possible. Intrusions of unwanted and unsanctioned “news” material‑ presidential campaigns, climate change, terrorism, interest rates, food poisonings at chain restaurants, police-citizen clashes, immigrants, natural disasters and such ‑ should be expected, but Disney representatives will be working closely with media CEOs and their minions to assure that not too much time is wasted on those issues and time better spent presenting articles and related material about the Star Wars 7 movie. Non-cooperating media venues will be cut off from future coverage ‑ including but not limited to press junkets, one-on-one interviews with Disney celebrities, access to “leaks” ‑ of Star Wars, Marvel Universe, Pixar, Muppets or any Disney-owned entertainment venues for a period not less than ten years (by which time, it is felt, such discordant organizations will have faded away).
(And sometimes, help just falls out of the heavens ‑ so to speak ‑ from the unlikeliest places. Last week, a NASA scientist discussed how to build a Death Star out of asteroids. Don’t you just love those “scientific” nerds?)
Beginning at the Thursday, Dec. 17 first screenings and continuing until the end of the year, special crowd control officers will be deployed to theaters across the country to ensure that no less than 90 percent of common customers buy tickets for Star Wars 7. Although some officials at the company and associated investors would rather see a higher mandatory percentage, it is felt that allowing some customers to see other movies opening/still playing (sort of like standing on a beach as a hurricane come ashore, as it were) will count as a public-relations gesture to show that the Disney company can be lenient. (Besides, a Disney film, Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur, is one of those movies still playing. Unfortunately, it needs the help as it is not performing to Disney standards. This is unacceptable and an internal review has already been launched.)
There have been rumblings among stockholders and other investors that the income from the already released Star Warts Wars 7 merchandise has not generated enough billions of dollars, that many were expecting trillions. The Disney company urges patience; after all, the movie, as of this date, hasn’t even been released yet. The mountains of cash are still to come, believe it.
The campaign since the announcement that SW7 will be a reality has worked well. Anticipation is at a fever pitch, and thanks must be given to the PR and marketing departments. The little tidbits that have been allowed to dribble out have caused massive reactions among what’s laughingly called “fanboys.” (It has been hysterical to watch). And in another brilliant move, film reviewers will not be given advance screenings so their judgmental articles about the film won’t be seen before the mass audience is snookered lured ordered allowed in. Who needs ’em? Yeah, fuck you, movie reviewer, and the Prius you rode in on.
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So I’m not a real fan of Star Wars (hey, really? gosh). You may see the above as a cynical take on studio motives, but I say there’s more than a few grains of truth in there. Ever since the original Star Wars in 1977 became a monster hit, the reaction by money people switched from “What the hell is this??” to “Cash cow, we gotta get our hooks into it.” Entertainment became a strictly a secondary consideration.
Now, George Lucas definitely set out to make something entertaining. The first Star Wars film ‑ A New Hope, as it later became known ‑ made such an impact because Lucas was in love with old science fiction (hereinafter called SF) movies, serials and old TV shows and he made the world in the movie look like something that could exist, solid and real, not something automatically cheesy and ridiculous. The story itself is as old as humanity, as has been mentioned ad nauseam. Being a “space” adventure adds nothing to this story: Light sabers are swords, Jedi masters are wizards, X-wings are horses, the Millennium Falcon is a pirate galley, the Emperor is an evil witch-king, the Death Star is a windmill, Princess Leia is a damsel in distress. (Yes, admittedly, a kick-ass damsel, but stop and ask — how many other women are there in the original trilogy?)
The packaging was part of the appeal, the characters were another. The hero, Luke, is as bland as heroes in these stories tend to come, but, again, as usual in such stories, he’s surrounded by characters who are much more interesting. The plot? Callow youth reluctantly goes on journey that ends with the collapse of the social order and he’s hailed a hero for causing that.
(In this discussion of the Star Wars films, I do not include the prequels or whatever they’re called. They made such a mess of what the original trilogy had established that I just pretend they don’t exist.)
So, what can we expect from the third trilogy? More of the same. This isn’t an independent film exploring the vagaries of human emotions . This is an action franchise. The plot , as based on what’s been discussed all over the web and seen in the trailers, is about some kind of resistance fighting some kind of empire-leftovers. Dogfights ‘twixt A-wings and TIE fighters are in the mix. (In the trailers, some of these take place in the atmosphere of a planet, so they look at least a little realistic. These kinds of dogfights cannot happen the same way in space, but I have a hunch that’s going to be ignored just as it was in the originals.) Looks like there’s going to be a scene in a cantina, maybe even the same one as in the first movie. (SW7 supposedly takes place 30 years after Return of the Jedi, so if the cantina is still in business, that’s a remarkable accomplishment. Those wretched examples of scum and villainy sure are loyal.)
And there are new things, too. Can’t afford to piss off the merchandisers. There’s a droid call BB-8, a rollicking, rolling machine whose purpose I can’t fathom. And is that a love interest for R2-D2, all pink and cute? (Will there be a love scene ‘twixt the two? Better hope not.) And what about C3PO? Is he just his irritating self, no love interest for him? And while the X-wings and TIE fighters are leftovers from the originals, they’ve been “updated,” so of course that means a whole new toy line. Don’t want to be caught with 30-year-old versions, do we? And, of course, all sorts of other machines, weapons, space ships, characters too numerous to mention. So fanboys, get them wallets open. Time’s a-wastin’!
What SW7 won’t have is Darth Vader (unless they go the comic-book superhero route and say “He’s not really dead, he just looked it.”) Vader is one of the greatest villains to menace the heroes on-screen. Even my jaded self remembers the thrill when he first stepped through the smoke to the thomp-thomp of John Williams’ music. Man, I had high hopes for him. I didn’t want him to be human, I wanted him to be a physical manifestation of the evil Emperor’s hate, coalesced into this humanoid form that cannot exist outside of the mechanical suit. A truly evil being, with no remorse and no humanity whatsoever. Alas, he was just someone’s dad who once gave in to lust and thus allowed himself to be turned to the dark side. (See, teen-agers? Stop that fooling around before it’s too late.) So with Vader dead (we think), we need a new villain. The trailers have showed us some guy in a dark mask vowing to continue Vader’s work. See? More of the same. Vader-light will give the heroes hell until he’s taken down by those same heroes. Luke Skywalker might be that hero, but since we haven’t seen Luke in the trailers we don’t know what he’s been up to these last 30 years.
One of the things I’m hoping for in this new trilogy is a career boost for John Boyega. (His character is Finn, an odd name for the SW universe. Could be worse, though, he could’ve been Capt. Phasma (Capt. Phasma? Sounds like someone out of those cheesy ’50s TV SF shows). Boyega was terrific in Attack the Block (2011) as the guy who first causes alien monsters to invade his neighborhood, then takes the lead in getting them out, even to sacrificing his own freedom. That character had an edge, an uncompromising sense of right. Those rough edges probably have been sanded off for SW7, but I hope he stashes the money from these movies in the bank and then chooses some challenging parts in future movies. Luck, Mr. Boyega.
What Should Happen in SW7 but is Highly Unlikely: The rebels, after successfully bringing down the Empire, have split into factions and the years spent years fighting among themselves have finally resulted in a government that in order to solidify its position, turns into something worse than the Empire ever was. (The Empire grew out of trade disagreements; this government rose out of ideological conflict.) In order to try to regain the ideals and hopes ( a new new hope, in other words) of the original rebellion, a new rebellion flares with Princess General Leia in command. A new generation of young rebels answers the call, including at least one new force-sensitive warrior, who has to face a new almost-Sith lord, Luke Skywalker He is such an emotional wreck that the new Emperor-wannabe has twisted Luke’s mind into believing what he’s doing is righteous and correct. Instead of destroying Luke, she (yes, please, let the new Jedi warrior be a woman) helps him see where it all went wrong and after a painful self-examination and purge of the dark side, turns around and tries to save the new rebellion and redeem himself.
And what of Han and Chewbacca? I have no clue. The trailers show them back on the Millennium Falcon, but why? That ship was a wreck in the original trilogy, 30 years later it should be scrap. And if it had been kept up, perhaps the current owners aren’t too happy about giving it up to these old dudes with vainglorious boasts about the old days and their part in the Empire’s demise. Perhaps Han went rogue again, abandoning Leia and any children, and he and Chewie went back to their old smuggling ways and Han is now the new Jabba. Redemption is required all around.
Well, as you can see, my ideas have nothing to do with the actual SW universe. The fans must be placated, they must like the new Star Wars, otherwise they might not shell out as much of their money as they’re supposed to. Yeah, that’s cynical, but I will allow that the movie might have a few nice surprises for me. I also have no doubt it will be an entertaining, wild romp in the SW universe and just might well bring a totally new take to the story.
However ‑ keep this in mind, padawan. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (awakens? I thought the force was a big part of the New Hope-Strikes Back-Return pantheon; where’s it been the last 30 years? wouldn’t a better title be The Force Re-awakens?) was directed by J.J. Abrams. The same J.J. Abrams who destroyed the Star Trek franchise.
Just sayin’.
May the legacy of Nimoy and Spock live long and prosper
So the man who spent his life trying to deal with another man who didn’t even exist is gone. That fictional man threatened to engulf and overwhelm the human original, and perhaps it did once or twice.
But the original finally came to terms with the other, and both became admired and loved.
Leonard Nimoy was an actor, playing various parts for TV movies, theater. He was good at his craft, he making himself a solid career.
And then came Mr. Spock. He originated somewhere in the minds of Gene Roddenberry and his writing staff who were putting together a TV series based on the idea of “Wagon Train in space.” The central idea was a starship filled with human beings and perhaps a couple of friendly aliens exploring the galaxy, seeing what’s out there, finding new things, going where no man one has gone before. And doing it boldly, even if it meant bending rules of grammar.
So who was this “Spock” guy anyway, and why did women, including my mother, take to him so readily? Half-human, half-alien, utterly in control of his emotions, always looking for the logical answers to everything, imperturbable yet a master of a musical instrument, a bit mysterious. Almost cold, sometimes, always ready to reject your argument with a twitch of an eyebrow.
He may be alien, but those character traits are ones we humans would like to have. Able to set aside emotional baggage, be able to see things without prejudice, utterly competent at what task he takes on, stoic in the face of danger, strong without being over-intimidating , quiet and reserved. It took Vulcans a long time to achieve balance of emotion, of intellect and control, so it gave us hope that human could at least in move in that direction and achieve at least a little of that.
It didn’t always work, of course. Spock had a partial excuse in his partial human origins, but even full-blooded Vulcans sometimes slipped. What logic is there in marrying a human female? None, yet Sarek still fell in love with Amanda and produced a son that seemed at war with himself sometimes. That son carried this battle with him always, it helped define him, and it made for some great story-telling. Spock sometimes showed us more about being human than many of the human characters in drama.
And Nimoy inhabited the role. Despite the kind-of cheesy make-up (TV-show budgets being what they were) with the slanted eyebrows, pointy ears and a greenish pallor, Spock became as real as any fictional character ever has, allowing us to project our desires, our admiration, our hopes onto him. And while Nimoy has many other accomplishments, when you talk SF, Spock is now as central as ray guns, robots or alien invasions.
With his death, there’s been talk about honoring him and Spock with an announcement of another iteration of Star Trek. That might not be a good idea. The optimism of the ’60s has faded and now everything has gone dark (as seen in the re-boot movies). The mission of the Enterprise crew was to explore, find new things, not constantly get into battle with them. It didn’t always work; the Romulans and the Klingons didn’t like having humans around, but while conflict flared up occasionally, it didn’t become the sole reason for the series. Sometimes the Klingons and Romulans even helped solve the puzzle and prevent disaster. That’s not gonna happen in any new series. It’ll be constant conflict with some alien species or another, battle after battle, war upon war, because that’s the way we view the universe now.
A more fitting tribute to the legacies of both Nimoy and Spock would be to continue to learn, to understand, to deal with the universe and the future. That means continuing to send robotic spacecraft to explore the Solar System, it means continuing to develop launch capability whether public or private, it means continuing plans to send humans to the other planets as the beginning of the exploration of the galaxy, where perhaps a real Spock-like alien awaits our arrival.
And it also means continuing to try and understand and deal with problems at home, from global warming to vaccines to our origins to overpopulation to epidemics. Spock indeed would be very, very disappointed if we failed in this. Enough to make him turn away and wash his hands of us forever, perhaps.
No, a better way would be something like this:
You’re heading to Mars to begin your new job at the Mars Biological and Life Sciences Institute at Goddard City. It’s been a long trip out from Earth, so you’ll need to acclimate from ship-gravity and time. You’ll stop at Spock City on Nimoy Station, a hollowed-out asteroid moved to Mars orbit. A short stay and you’re ready for your Mars adventure.
A small step, but still bold, eh?
I wanted a big, galactic adventure but all I got was this orb plot
The biggest movie of the year, the one filled with wit, adventure and interplanetary travel, the one that pulled in the biggest box office (though summer 2014 box office numbers supposedly aren’t that great) and probably will kick-start a bevy of movies with these characters mixing with characters from other parts of the Marvel universe, left me cold.
I don’t have much interest in a lot of the superhero movies mostly because I have no interest in the comic books they are based on. Many stories in the comics have gone just totally batty and the characters hard to identify with. They occupy worlds unto themselves, where laws of nature — a.k.a. physics — are ignored while the human drama becomes little more than soap operas. This was a condition of superheroes from the get-go; Superman has never made sense but he’s a hero to us because he’s a fulfillment of our hopes and dreams. He’s taken a dark turn lately, so we’ll have to see if he remains at the pinnacle of human possibilities or he becomes just another overpowered costumed avatar grubbing around the shadowy corners of our dark natures.
I wasn’t planning to see the Captain America films at all, but the response to them, including by friends whose judgment of superheroes and superhero movies I trust, intrigued me so I watched the first on DVD and saw the second in the theater. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the better of the two, partly because of the struggle the captain has to make to adjust from the years of the so-called “good war” years to the America of the nervous, divided and cynical society of the 21st century, a century when we were supposed to be exploring planets and getting ready to go to the starts. The other big reason it appealed to me was Cap’s decision to take down the giant surveillance apparatus being put together by S.H.I.E.L.D. (Oh, Nick Fury, you have changed so much from your Howling Commando days.) This explores, though only minutely, the idea that superpowered humans, or those who control superpowered humans, will try to take over control of everyone and every thing in the world. It’s a natural outgrowth — look at mundane human society — those with the physical power to conquer and rule generally tend to do so.
(Time out for blatant self-promotion: This is the theme explored in my book, The Tyranny of Heroes, which has a Superman-like character, a Wonder Woman-like character, and a Captain America-like character as a triumvirate in charge of a league of superheroes who have taken over the world and rule with an iron hand [literally in one case]. Links to the e-book sales sites can be found elsewhere on this page.)
Where the movies faltered was in bringing the comics version of global evil, HYDRA (although it was a hoot watching Robert Redford mutter “Hail HYDRA” as his character was dying). I suppose the plot-driving Object of Desire — you know, the tesseract, orb, power crystal, ring, sword, whateverthehell — comes from the comics, too, but I tend to also ascribe it to lack of imagination among the movie writers. That damned Object of Desire stuff is spilling over to many of the Marvel movies, including the one this post is supposed to be about, Guardians of the Galaxy. (Not to be confused, as a couple of theaters did, with Rise of the Guardians, a “family” film about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy and Jack Frost joining forces to keep the bad guy from destroying children’s dreams — hey, am I seeing a pattern here?)
The whole movie is centered on the Object of Desire, who has it, who loses it, who controls it, what they want it for, who it bites in the big climatic scene. And in the end, it makes no difference whatsoever. Yeah, the Evil Guy wanted it to take over a world or something, and in the end died for it, but the object itself, after all that destruction, is not changed. And it is placed where it can be — and will be, you bet — stolen by another Evil Guy and here we go ’round the merry-go-round again.
Said Evil Guy — looking an awful lot like someone who took his style clues from north and south Native Americans, Egyptians and the Na’vi of Pandora — wants to use the orb-thing to destroy a planet (don’t they all?). A large part of the film is our heroes trying to keep it from him, but they fail. All the Evil Guy has to do is touch the thing to the planet’s surface and zap! no more cities and people and stuff. So, he jumps into a small one-person shuttle, using the craft’s small radar profile to weave his way through planetary defenses, lands on an isolated spot, raises the orb, says “Sayonara, suckers!” and slams the thing into the ground, completing his mission (comic-book science allowing him to survive his own evil).
No! He does not do that! He aims his gigantic spaceship directly at the main city, sparking evacuations of said city (we are told everyone got out; do I see fallout from Man of Steel here?) while scrambling the defenses. I have to admit, the visuals are amazing, particularly when the one-person defensive ships link into a huge net and encapsulate the enemy spacecraft. This whole sequence, except for a few plot lapses, is pretty exciting. But, alas, it shares a fate with other exciting, amazing sequences in other movies, that being a worthy thing trapped in bad film.
Meanwhile the subplots — our main characters hate each other at first, are captured, bicker, join forces, are beaten and lose the Object of Desire, bicker, are disheartened, listen to a speech that inspires them, gird their loins, bicker, go out and beat the tar out of the bad guy, recovering Object of Desire — are playing out the way they’ve played out in the various Captain America, Thor, Avengers and many more superhero movies to come. A lot to come — Guardians suggests moviemakers are going to scrape the entire Marvel pantheon for future films (Howard the Duck?!). The result being the creation of another walled universe called Marvel the way a walled universe of Marvel comics exists. Members only, thank you.
Rocket Raccoon is problematic for me, too. Every time I heard the name, my brain kept digging up the old Beatles song Rocky Raccoon from the white album. Well, what do you know? Wikipedia says the writers of the comic-book version based the name on that song back in 1975. The 2014 Rocket Raccoon (Rocky Raccoon checked into his room/Only to find Gideon’s bible … Gideon checked out and he left it no doubt/To help with good Rocky’s revival … oh, uh, sorry) bothers me because I just don’t believe those words are coming his mouth. The body is too small, the lungs are too small, the vocal chords are too small. His voice should be pitched higher. Well, comic-book science, right? I suppose they’ll explain it by referring to the biological manipulation that created him. But still … it’d be nice if someone made the effort.
I have no trouble with Groot. Odd, you’d think, ’cause here’s more comic-book science in making a plant-man. His sacrifice at the end saves everyone, but in true comic-book tradition, he comes back. And man, does he have the moves.
The other characters? Meh. The hero is a “loveable rogue” — ha ha, like we haven’t seen that before. His fixation on his mother’s mix tape is supposed to be endearing, but it’s irritating, especially when he puts it above the mission and his friends. Look, if he was that smart — probably is, but comic-book plotting, right? — why didn’t he copy the music, then keep the tape in a safe place? It’s not like there wasn’t any technology around him. Plus, after 20 years, he’s lucky that tape wasn’t at least stretched, making his music sound a little more … alien. And, of course, the non-human aliens have the technology to play 20th-century cassette tapes, and, of course, they’re grooving to American rock-and-roll music. That’s like hacking an alien computer with an Apple MacBook.
And I am sick to death of giant space ships falling on cities. It’s as if writers and producers got together at a secret retreat a few of years ago and said “OK, Star Trek, Guardians of the Galaxy, you’ll drop big honkin’ starships on hapless cities. Captain America, you can use those flying carrier things, they’re big enough. Avengers, we’ll count the big invading bugs as space ships for now, but you gotta do better next time. That thing the purple-faced guy is riding would be great. Look, think about it, OK? I mean, come on guys, this is the Next Cool Thing.”
And these misfits have the gall to call themselves “guardians of the galaxy.” The Milky Way Galaxy is hundreds of thousands of light years across and could contain 400 billion stars and probably billions of planets. You’re going to patrol all of that? Right. And who knows what’s on the other side? You could run into really powerful beings with super-dooper-holy-mackerel technology, stuff that’ll make your orb look like an LED Christmas light. With just a flick of a mighty wrist, they could just sweep away the entire Marvel and DC universes (no matter what studio) and say “OK, we’re starting all over and we’re going to do this with logic.”
I’d pay to see that.
The summer the buildings fell, the cities crumbled and civilization turned to dust
In the last four weeks, I watched as city after city was destroyed, buildings collapsing like Lego blocks at a day-care center. Nations collapsed, infrastructure wiped out, millions of people killed, millions more injured, probably billions more left starving and homeless.
“Probably” because we don’t know for sure; the human toll isn’t mentioned much. Not a big concern, evidently.
The damage is horrendous, spectacular, awesome; damage that just boggles the mind. Is there anything left? Well, the planet itself is sitting there just waiting to be smushed like an overripe plum. That will happen soon, no doubt about it.
I’m not fooling anybody, right? Y’all know I’m talking about movies. Particularly the four “tentpole” movies this summer. They all have one thing in common: utter destruction. The people who made these are gleefully destroying cities — mostly American, but a few foreign metropolises (metropili?) tossed in, too for good measure. Is there a message here? Are they saying that American, Western, civilization is doomed, and we’d better be prepared for the apocalypse that will either rain from the skies, roar out of the oceans or start with the bite of an infected neighbor?
Or are these guys just having fun?
Guys, yeah; the four directors — J.J. Abrams, Star Trek: Into Darkness; Zack Snyder, Man Of Steel; Guillermo del Toro, Pacific Rim; Marc Forster, World War Z — are all guys, and so are the screenwriters. Little boys playing with their toys, toys that cost millions to use. Where before the destruction of Tokyo once could have been done by dressing a guy in a rubber suit and having him stomp around on a cheap model of the city, now the work is done on computers (with an occasional miniature or large model thrown in). But the cost is on the scale of the virtual destruction: horrendous and spectacular. Meaning we consumers better march in droves down the box office and show our support for these magic-makers. (Heh, good luck with that, Lone Ranger.)
You wouldn’t think — at least I wouldn’t; maybe I’m just a drudge — to see this kind of thing in Star Trek. As one character in Start Trek: Into Darkness points out, the Enterprise was built for exploration, not war. Same with the Star Trek franchise. Alas, everything is dark, nowdays: Batman, Superman, Sherlock Holmes, Alice in once-but-no-more Wonderland. Now that the ST series has turned into action movies of mostly bad-guy-seeks-revenge-against-James Kirk and/or Mr. Spock (even at the cost of his own planet), exploration has been pushed to the back burner. So, where to go for a nasty villain? Why Khan, of course. (And no, Bandersnatch Cumberbund Benedict Cumberbatch isn’t Khan. Only the Shakespeare & Melville-quoting Ricardo Montalban has the proper [if over the top] gravitas.) And what does the remade Khan in the remade Star Trek do? Drop a starship on San Francisco. The apocalypse from an avenging angel.
Let’s pause for a moment among the carnage to ponder a few questions STID poses for us. How could a renegade admiral build a giant super-starship off Saturn (or Jupiter, I forget which) without anyone noticing either A, a giant starship hangar hanging around the solar system; or B, the drain on Starfleet resources in building said super-starship? How could Mr. Scott could approach said giant super-starship-construction complex in a shuttle without being detected? And how he was able to integrate into the crew without being unmasked? And most important, where the hell did Bones McCoy get that tribble?
Ahem, sorry. The producers, director and writers don’t want us to concern ourselves over such tribbles–uh, quibbles, instead just look in awe at that epic Vulcan-to-uberman fight on top of a speeding shuttle (or whatever it was) between the re-booted Spock and the ersatz Khan. Cool, huh? (No.)
Kirk does suggest, at the end of the movie, that the Enterprise will be going ahead with its 5-year mission to explore strange new things, etc., etc. Better get going, boys, ’cause I have a feeling your mission will be side-tracked by another crazy person ready to take out whole planets — maybe even a solar system or two — gunning for Kirk or Spock or Kirk and Spock.
I suppose someone will eventually ask who’d win a man-to-man fight: Khan or Superman. The answer has no meaning, of course, but corporations are building whole franchises on such ponderings. Take Superman, for example. Here, yet again, is another rewrite of his myth. (Boy, did Siegel and Shuster hit a nerve or what?). Only this time he’s more conflicted, darker, not so goody-goody anymore. Yes, that’s what we need in this world, a darker, moodier, conflicted superman.
Man of Steel (notice the clever way they never mention the name “Superman,” knowing we’ll all be fooled) spends a lot of time on Krypton, Kal-El’s birth planet. It’s an ugly world, with genetically engineered people doing only what they’re programmed to do. Kal-El is different, of course; the movie starts with his mom, Lara Lor-Van, Mrs. Jor-El giving birth to him the natural way. And that’s pretty much it for her. Thanks, Mom, for the birth scene, and a little bit of sad mom-love as Dad prepares to send the tyke off to Earth, now go die in a fireball. Dad, of course, will pop up now and then in virtual form to give his son advice.
Clark Kent (as he is known on Earth) does get to explore a bit more into what it would be like to grow up knowing he’s practically a god. He tries to fit in, but he looks like a nerd, so he’s treated like one (of course; he wouldn’t be heroic if he were, say, the quarterback on the football team). Don’t give in to your anger, (huh ‑ I swear I’ve heard that somewhere else), says adoptive Dad even as young Clark puts a dent into an iron fence post. Turning bullies into red mush would not be polite, you see.
As a young man Clark goes out in the world to find himself. The film switches to an episode of The Deadliest Catch as he’s confronted with a choice of exposing himself (with flames, no less) or letting men die on a collapsing oil rig. Everywhere he goes he’s faced with the same sort of dilemma and word starts getting around. An enterprising reporter named — oh, come on; who do you think? — starts tracking him down, threatening to expose him even more. The theme of taking odd jobs between his farm days and his super days was explored in It’s Superman! by Tom De Haven (2005). De Haven’s wandering Man of Steel does a stint as a Hollywood stunt man, which makes so much freaking sense you wonder why they left it out of this movie. Well, because then they’d have to pay De Haven royalties, wouldn’t they? He doesn’t get any credits in this movie, but I believe his mark is there.
General Zod, the bad guy here, is the apocalypse personified. He and his prison-busting Kryptonite cohorts plan to remake the Earth into a new Krypton. That it means the death of every human is no matter. Humans are soft, weak creatures. Time to replace them with strong, disciplined beings a step up on the evolutionary chain. Despite the best efforts of the American military, only Superman can stop them. If he’d just get over his angst and stand up like a man.
A big stickler in any Superman movie is his costume. It’s easy to portray it in comics; a few brush strokes can cover up the weird parts. Man of Steel gives him one that looks like the rubber mats you put on the floor; it must’ve been hot as heck for the actor. (And he wears his undershorts inside for the first time in Superman history.) But the movie also makes a point about the downside of capes when Zod grabs it, spins Superman around and around before letting go and sending the Man of Steel smashing through several buildings.
Now let’s talk about this smashing buildings stuff. By the end of Man of Steel, I was exhausted just watching the destruction of the city and watching building after building fall. Even the Daily Planet building is destroyed. In all this carnage, you have to ask, what happened to all the people? The buildings are empty as the combatants tear through them, the falling buildings land on streets devoid of bodies and no one inside is screaming as the structure comes apart around them. Only one person is trapped in rubble, but she’s part of the cast, so she’s rescued. If 9/11/01 taught us anything, it’s that collapsing buildings cause a lot of casualties. At the end of the movie, the Daily Planet staff is back in its newsroom as if nothing had happened. Amazing how these cities get rebuilt so fast.
OK, OK, it’s a comic-book movie. But sometimes when you ignore reality, when you ignore all of the consequences of what you have happen even in your fictional story, it all becomes just background noise. Not worth watching, not worth reading.
(Addendum, July 23: Buzzfeed.com had someone calculate the casualties and property damage. The result, as I expected, is horrendous.)
Coastal cities around the world are being ravaged by monsters from the sea. By now, we’re pretty sure the seas aren’t teeming with giant lizards or dinosaurs, radioactive or not, so where can they be coming from? Why, a portal in the bottom of the ocean. This means they’re aliens despite the attempt to put a home-grown spin on them. They come stomping out of the ocean like they did in the old Japanese monster flicks. And, as we all know, the standard military response just isn’t enough. Something else is needed. Something better, bigger, more powerful, more awesome. What can save us?
Giant robots. Yeah, that’s the trick.
That’s Pacific Rim in a nutshell. Oh, there are the stories of the pilots of the giant walking war machines, and stories about the people who design and maintain the robots (which in this case should be called “waldoes,” right, Robert Heinlein?), stories about the scientists trying to figure out what is going on, stories about idiot politicians who decide that giant walls are enough to hold back the horde. (“Hello? China here. Bad idea. Is anyone listening?”) But the main thing is the robot-versus-monster fights. Epic fights. Yes, cities are destroyed, but with such style, such panache. I mean, come on, when a giant robot picks up a cargo ship and uses it as a club, you’ve just got to sit back and let it roll over you.
There is a plot here. It’s the apocalypse, after all, and we need to keep that in mind. The monsters had come before, you see, but the atmosphere was not to their liking. So they waited as we humans pumped carbon dioxide and all sorts of other nasty things into the atmosphere. Now they’ve come to stay. Western culture to blame, right, so we’ll just stomp it into powder. But the nations of Earth cannot stand idly by and watch the destruction (though in real life several would like to see the United States get its ass kicked), so they band together to fight the invaders. A bit of fantasy there, eh? We can’t even agree to band together to cut carbon emissions.
But, just to be a stuck-in-the-mud, how many people are killed by these battles? We see people taking shelter (not always the safest place), but even so, it has to be at least in the thousands in each battle, but like STID and Man of Steel before it, the figures are just glossed over. Also, filmmakers still under-estimate both the power of nuclear-weapons blasts and the after-effects. Nice visuals, but remember how Indiana Jones survived a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator? That’s the level of physics we’re at here.
Pacific Rim does get one thing right: if there is profit in monster bones, parts or poop, someone will cash in. Greed — there’s your unifying force of humanity.
I don’t like zombies, movies about zombies, TV shows about zombies, comic books about zombies. I do not like zombies period. So I thought I could go without seeing World War Z because it is a zombie movie. However, a colleague urged me to see it, so I said, “all right,” girded my loins and went. I can’t say the surprise was pleasant — not for this movie — but more, say, intriguing.
Oddly, this film is the most human of the four. (But make no mistake — it is the most brutal of the bunch.) The central character doesn’t have super-powers, nor does he have access to super-powered technology. Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is a normal man with normal powers (despite the odd haircut). He’s just a guy trying to save his family.
The film does suffer from what I call the Only One Man Syndrome: only one man in the entire world can see the solution to the problem, only one man in the entire world can save humanity despite medical, scientific and research teams all over the world trying desperately to find the solution. Nope, all the scientific teamwork in the world is no match for this one man’s intellect.
That aside, the movie starts off innocently enough, a family headed to their respective destinations only to get stuck in traffic. Things slowly fall apart as the virus spreads and Lane finds himself in a desperate situation trying to save his family from people going berserk. Unlike the standard zombie film, though, the victims don’t just shamble around muttering “Brains, brains,” they hurl themselves at the uninfected, bite them, and move on. Lane times it and discovers it takes about 12 seconds for the infection to take over the human body. He works for the U.N. (the U.N. was in Pacific Rim, too; are Hollywood movie-makers trying to tell us something?), and his expertise is needed to lead a team in the search for a cure. He starts out with an expert in viruses and a squad of SEALS, but quickly he’s the only one left (see? the Only One Man Syndrome at work). He does save an Israeli soldier from the plague so she joins him.
A rogue CIA agent (are there any other kind?) tells him the Israeli saw it coming and quickly built walls to seal the plague-carriers out. Walls again. In Pacific Rim, they were ineffective from the get go; in WWZ, they’re more effective … for a while. They have as much success at keeping the zombie plague out as did the high walls around castles in Medieval Europe had in keeping the Black Plague out. Well, who in Israel could foresee zombies piling up their own bodies until they top the walls? There’s another message from your movie-makers: Walls might make good neighbors but are porous to weapons of the apocalypse.
Zombies don’t make physical sense, but they sure are popular. They can be seen as undead beings just wanting to eat like everyone else, or they can play the role of metaphor. What scares you the most? What’s happening in the world that makes you so damn sure the real apocalypse is coming? Pick your plague: zombies = plague-infected people, zombies = gay people, zombies = atheists, zombies = fundamentalists, zombies = immigrants; zombies = liberals, zombies = conservatives, zombies = teen-agers, zombies = adults, zombies = poor people, zombies = old people, zombies = people of color, zombies = white people … the list goes on and on. So when we see zombies stack themselves against a wall and go over the top to infect the “pure” people within, that’s the apocalypse. And it’s what makes them so popular.
So, there’s your message of the four films: be prepared for the apocalypse. It’s a popular subject these days; it seems everyone’s convinced it’s around the corner. More apocalyptic films are in the pipeline, several have come and gone already. So is Hollywood telling us Western civilization is doomed? The amount of destruction in the films seems to say yes. On the other hand, maybe it’s just some people having fun pretending to destroy everything.
But I’ll tell you, it sure gets wearisome.
Terry England 