Captain Marvel Spoilers Ahoy!
I'm sure everyone remembers Bright (ha ha), but for those of you who have forgotten it was the Shadowrun-knockoff movie set in an alternate Earth where fantasy creatures like Orcs and Elves exist and live alongside humanity. The movie tried to make a point about race relations by making Orcs analogous to African-Americans. Orcs were at the bottom of the social hierarchy not due to the content of their characters, but the size of their cuspids.
Orcs are hated because in the war that ended the last age, they fought alongside the enemy of all the other races. They're physically different and have a genetic disposition towards physical prowess over mental acuity. Unfortunately, despite the best intentions of the filmmakers, they forget that analogies work both ways: by displaying Orcs as this world's African-Americans, they imply that the two groups share any traits that aren't explicitly differentiated.
This is problematic because 1) genetically, skin color (the only phenotypical expression definitively associated with race) is what we like to call polygenic. It is not controlled by a single allele on a single chromosome, but spread over several chromosomes. This means that skin color is randomly distributed on almost all genes: Anglos, traditionally white, are closer genetically to North Africans than they are to Swedes. 2) there is nothing in Black history to justify either the slave trade or the racist systems that have perpetuated since its abolishment.
While trying to help in a worthy cause, Ayer and Landis inadvertently give fuel to racists. In their response to this sort of media, they can say "Look, even Social Justice Warriors acknowledge that Black people are genetically different! We're saying the same thing!"
Wait a minute, why was there a warning for Captain Marvel at the top of this post?
The Skrull are obviously meant to represent refugees, either from the ongoing Syrian Civil War or from Central and South America. The movie makes several comments to this effect, and the end of the movie is Captain Marvel rescuing a ship filled with women and children who simply want to be left alone by the Kree, who require them to stay within the Empire and assimilate (a nod to real world comments by anti-immigrant activists.
Here's the problem, though: because Hollywood loves itself a twist villain, the Skrull have to look like bad guys for the first half of the movie. That means they have to pose a military threat (even if it turns out to be overblown), perform actions that seem menacing (and often don't make sense when you re-watch knowing they're good guys), and have lots of fighting age males around while they're the bad guys (so we don't feel as bad about the hero killing them).
The Skrull who take Captain Marvel hostage at the beginning of the movie are a military cell actively resisting the Kree empire. They have weapons, a ship, and tactical training: they even manage to defeat Kree Team Six. The message of the movie becomes "Look, these people are fighting for peace. If you give them a chance, we can get along."
Real refugees aren't freedom fighters. The vast majority are women and children (52% are under 18 and 27% are adult women, so about 79%), and they're fleeing violence, not participants in it. The ability to fight and survive can actually disqualify you for refugee status. Likewise, asylum seekers and refugees are not fighting the United States (the stand in for the Kree in this analogy) or even acting criminally: it is the United States government that is violating its own laws and ignoring treaties it has signed when it turns away refugees and asylum seekers.
I'm not one to say that art shouldn't try to cover difficult subjects (and Marvel movies aren't anathema to art, even if they are mostly product), but there are better and more impactful ways to discuss ideas about human rights, dignity, and the horrors of war than sloppy analogies. These analogies mean well, but when done sloppily and without nuance, they can actually be used as evidence against the very points we're trying to make.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Black Panther is Good
I feel the need both to start with this and to make it the title of this post, so hopefully no one misinterprets me. Black Panther is good. Great, even. But is it one of the best films of all time? Is it really comparable to films like Casablanca, La Grande Illusion, Alien, or Jaws? These movies are not perfect (though fans will make their case for each), but these are movies that have remained in the film canon for decades. Does Black Panther have that sort of staying power?
Although a lesser issue, I want to start with the CGI. I'm not one of those "practical is always superior" pedants (see Phantom Menace Yoda for why), but nothing ages a movie more than bad digital effects. The Lord of the Rings films stand out to me: the Battle of the Pelennor Fields is a bigger hindrance to Return of the King than a help, mostly because the goofy looking digital oliphaunts and cartoon Legolas. Black Panther will not age well: some its effects already looked dated in the theater (I'm looking at you, dancing waterfall crowd!). With how much time is dedicated to action scenes in this film, this may by itself be a ticking timebomb for the movie's lastability.
The CGI is not the beginning nor the end of the problems the two major action scenes (South Korea and the Wakandan Civil War-spoilers BTW) in this movie create. The South Korean chase scene really hurts what otherwise is a very consistent set of villains tonally: Klaue's been off the Wakandan radar for 30 years, but he's so much larger than life that he brings a small personal army to a clandestine deal (an army which he brings explicitly to deal with the Wakandans and yet he arms with weapons he knows are ineffective against Wakandan armor).
There's also the problem of stakes: the chase takes up a significant portion of the films runtime, but there's never really any doubt of Black Panther's success. He basically just sits in plain view soaking a never ending stream of bullets, and even Klaue's sonic cannon has been seen to basically just knock him backwards while charging his "burst" power. There's not even a real risk of Klaue escaping, as Black Panther is able to just steal any car on the street and have his sister drive it for him. Klaue is driving an incredibly conspicuous black SUV, and we already know that T'Challa's ship can easily track vehicles. With no stakes, there's no tension, and the scene could have been a tenth the length.
The Wakandan Civil War scene is problematic for two reasons, and while neither is "I don't know how to end a drama, so let's just have a CGI fight with giant rhinos," that didn't help. The first is that so much of the tension is deliberately introduced. There is no reason for M'Baku not to help T'Challa. We've already established that M'Baku is real big on preserving tradition (that's one of his biggest reasons for challenging T'Challa) and on his tribe getting the respect it deserves (which he asserts on the day of challenge and with his line about T'Challa being the first king to visit his hall in centuries): as a character, those are his motivations. Both of those motivations should have him backing T'Challa: technically the duel is not over, as T'Challa is not dead nor did he yield, so he has the right to challenge Killmonger. Likewise, Killmonger has done nothing to recognize M'Baku's people, Queen Ramonda offered him the purple heart flower because she saw him as Wakanda's best hope, and T'Challa makes a good case that Killmonger will go to war with him before he tries to bring him peacefully into the fold. So why didn't M'Baku march with T'Challa? Basically so he could show up at the "all is lost" moment and "turn the tide."
The second reason is W'Kabi's loyalty to Killmonger. Withuot W'Kabi's backing, Killmonger would have had no choice but to submit to the ritual duel, as even the Dora Milaje turned against him at that point. W'Kabi's dissatisfaction with T'Challa is the reason for the Wakandan Civil War, and there's no reason for it. W'Kabi backs Killmonger because he did what T'Challa could not: deliver the man who killed his parents, Klaue. But here's the thing: T'Challa knows that Killmonger is the one who freed Klaue. If, during the throne room scene, while Killmonger was making his claim, T'Challa had just said, "By the way, W'Kabi, the reason Killmonger brought you Klaue instead of me is that he was working with Klaue, and in fact he freed him from my custody," at the very least W'Kabi probably would have been a little less in Killmonger's pocket.
So really the two action set piece both have reasons they shouldn't be in the movie, which in and of itself isn't a big deal. Where it becomes problematic is that it breaks the narrative flow of the movie. The final conflict of the film should have been another duel, not an action scene. That may seem like an oxymoron: aren't I saying that instead of a fight there should have been a smaller fight? Why would that matter?
The second reason is W'Kabi's loyalty to Killmonger. Withuot W'Kabi's backing, Killmonger would have had no choice but to submit to the ritual duel, as even the Dora Milaje turned against him at that point. W'Kabi's dissatisfaction with T'Challa is the reason for the Wakandan Civil War, and there's no reason for it. W'Kabi backs Killmonger because he did what T'Challa could not: deliver the man who killed his parents, Klaue. But here's the thing: T'Challa knows that Killmonger is the one who freed Klaue. If, during the throne room scene, while Killmonger was making his claim, T'Challa had just said, "By the way, W'Kabi, the reason Killmonger brought you Klaue instead of me is that he was working with Klaue, and in fact he freed him from my custody," at the very least W'Kabi probably would have been a little less in Killmonger's pocket.
So really the two action set piece both have reasons they shouldn't be in the movie, which in and of itself isn't a big deal. Where it becomes problematic is that it breaks the narrative flow of the movie. The final conflict of the film should have been another duel, not an action scene. That may seem like an oxymoron: aren't I saying that instead of a fight there should have been a smaller fight? Why would that matter?
The reason I don't call the duels action scenes is because their main point is to symbolically explore the characters. The South Korea scene and the Wakandan Civil War scene both, as I hope I've demonstrated, don't serve the plot in any significant way. Their purpose is to show you something cool. The duels, on the other hand, both teach you about characters and their motivations: each one represents T'Challa and where he's at in his personal struggle. In the first duel, he's afraid he's unworthy to be king, with his biggest fear being that he won't be able to live up to the history and traditions that go along with that (and specifically the legacy of his father). Low and behold, who is his opponent? M'Baku, a very traditional Wakandan straight out of the history books. M'Baku is the past, and T'Challa defeats him, demonstrating mastery.
At the time of the second duel, T'Challa is at conflict with himself. He's on track to being a good traditional king just like his father, but he's learned what that really means. T'Chanka's words, "It's hard for a good man to be a king," have been given their full context, but it's too much for T'Challa. Suddenly, there is a new challenger. His opponent? Killmonger, an embodiment of all the pain and suffering the traditional kings ignored, a wellspring of hatred and violence created by their strict isolationism. In response to this, T'Challa rejects his father and tries his hardest to be a good man, surrendering his advantage over Killmonger by asking him to yield, unwilling to accept the nature of his father's sins. Killmonger's response is to disable him and then discard him. T'Challa's outright rejection of his father's words leads to defeat.
At the time of the second duel, T'Challa is at conflict with himself. He's on track to being a good traditional king just like his father, but he's learned what that really means. T'Chanka's words, "It's hard for a good man to be a king," have been given their full context, but it's too much for T'Challa. Suddenly, there is a new challenger. His opponent? Killmonger, an embodiment of all the pain and suffering the traditional kings ignored, a wellspring of hatred and violence created by their strict isolationism. In response to this, T'Challa rejects his father and tries his hardest to be a good man, surrendering his advantage over Killmonger by asking him to yield, unwilling to accept the nature of his father's sins. Killmonger's response is to disable him and then discard him. T'Challa's outright rejection of his father's words leads to defeat.
So what's the conclusion to this arc? We don't really get one. T'Challa and Killmonger fight, but there's not a lot going on symbolically. T'Challa wins due to his ingenuity and skill, which is great, but there's no payoff to his character arc here since he's been ingenious and skilled the entire movie. A duel might have demonstrated T'Challa as master of both worlds, both the traditional as he kills Killmonger without the hesitation present in their first duel, but also demonstrating the new path for Wakanda by showing real remorse at Killmonger's fate and, instead of shutting down Killmonger's project, simply replacing the weapons and sending out the ships anyway. I should say this movie does have two scenes that demonstrate T'Challa's mastery of both worlds, but it's telling that they happen after the climax of the movie (T'Challa taking Killmonger to see the sunset and opening the outreach center in Oakland), not during it.
So again, is Black Panther bad? No. But does it have the staying power of great movies? I don't think so. Great movies stay relevant because of their consistent theming and the coherence: they become the ruler by which other movies are measured. Black Panther has some gaps in both. I hope it will lead to greater diversity and inclusion in the casting and writing of future films, and I think it will last, but I think in 40 or 50 years it'll be remembered as one of the good Marvel movies, but I don't think it'll stand on its own.
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Where My Game of Thrones Gone?
I have been somewhat vocal in my opinion that, despite liking Game of Thrones, there has been a problem with it maintaining a consistent quality (especially since overtaking George R.R. Martin's material). In particular, I found the end of season 7, though not the low point of the series (Dorne and the death of Meryn Trant stand out to me), to be disappointing. I haven't wanted to explain why on a different platform to avoid spoilers, but I guess that's the joy of this blog: no one reads it anyway, so why not spoil it here?
To understand why the end of season 7 was bad, let's look at a major theme of A Song of Ice and Fire: duty vs. emotion. The series begins with a man being executed for abandoning his duty and with Bran being taught an important lesson about how important doing one's duty is. In fact, there's a strong case that Ned Starks death is a parallel to this deserter: upon arriving home from the execution (in the book at least), Ned tells Catelyn that he needs to raise his banners and ride north, beyond The Wall, to deal with Mance Rayder and restore the peace. Instead, he abandons his duty out of love for Robert and Jon Arryn, and the armies of the North are squandered in the War of the Five Kings (a war started by Catelyn's love for her son and lost Robb's love for his new bride). Ned's neglect of duty may have doomed the world.
Then you look at the Night's Watch. Originally an army supported by all the Seven Kingdoms, a force of 10,000 knights from noble houses that could man The Wall, range effectively to the north, and provide for itself by working lands to the south, the Watch has been reduced to less than a tenth its size, and those who remain are mostly conscripted criminals. Only the North and a few houses in the Vale send any knights or nobles at all of their own will: every southron knight of the Watch was forced into service, mostly because they fought on the losing side of a war (for instance, Ser Alliser Thorne was a Targaryan loyalist). The Seven Kingdoms have neglected their duty to support the Night's Watch out of greed: why waste their best men and resources to fight snarks and grumpkins when they can be better used in the game of thrones?
So, to the final scene of season 7: whose fault is it that the Wall falls? It's not Jon Snow's: as Lord Commander he made unpopular decisions that put the duty of the Night's Watch over prejudice, and as King of the North he puts the Long Night ahead of all other priorities. It's not Daenarys: she flew north not because she loved Jon (in fact, she ends up abandoning him), but to save the mission in order to convince Cersei to join the real fight. It's not even Cersei's: she may be planning betrayal, but she hasn't pulled the trigger on that yet.
So whose fault is it? What grave mistake lead to the Wall falling, the the realms of men being vulnerable for the first time in millenia? What betrayal may have cost the world? It's no one's, really. Who could have predicted the Night King had magical dragon insta-kill spears? Who knew that creatures of fire could be resurrected by magic of the ice-infused Others? Nobody. Nobody knew that by riding north, Daenerys would inadvertently give the White Walkers the tool they needed to bring down the Wall (which, speaking of, does the Night King have pre-cognition? What was his plan before a dragon fell into his lap?).
There was no hamartia, no fatal flaw in the rulers of Westeros that allows you to point a finger and say "This person/these people! They abandoned their duty, they knowingly made a choice and the Wall fell because of it." The dead did not attack a portion of the Wall that was under-manned due to the neglect of the lords of Westeros, they hit it at a point reinforced by wildlings, the Brothers Without Banners, and presumably Northern soldiers and soldiers from the Vale, since they aren't currently engaged militarily with Cersei (who, by the way, is suddenly competent). No one has blown the Horn of Winter for short-term military gain. No one allowed a dark sorcerer promising power to be their confidant despite everyone's pleas to the contrary, leading to dark sorcery that compromised the Wall.
Nope. None of the long running themes or ideas of the show mattered: Daenerys just rode in her dragons, and it turns out that it's super easy for White Walkers to kill and resurrect dragons (despite fire being their greatest weakness and dragons literally being described as "fire made flesh"). A character actively trying to do their duty and save the world ends up being the catalyst for its destruction.
The show became famous for its spectacle, but I think the writers have forgotten that spectacle isn't what kept people watching. Ned Stark's death made sense. The Red Wedding made sense. Oberyn and Tywin's deaths made sense. They were the focus of elaborate paintings, paintings with richly detailed and expertly crafted backgrounds. The more recent spectacles seem more like a cheap comic book panel: an awesome dragon breathing fire with a solid red background behind it. I can get that lots of places other than Game of Thrones.
To understand why the end of season 7 was bad, let's look at a major theme of A Song of Ice and Fire: duty vs. emotion. The series begins with a man being executed for abandoning his duty and with Bran being taught an important lesson about how important doing one's duty is. In fact, there's a strong case that Ned Starks death is a parallel to this deserter: upon arriving home from the execution (in the book at least), Ned tells Catelyn that he needs to raise his banners and ride north, beyond The Wall, to deal with Mance Rayder and restore the peace. Instead, he abandons his duty out of love for Robert and Jon Arryn, and the armies of the North are squandered in the War of the Five Kings (a war started by Catelyn's love for her son and lost Robb's love for his new bride). Ned's neglect of duty may have doomed the world.
Then you look at the Night's Watch. Originally an army supported by all the Seven Kingdoms, a force of 10,000 knights from noble houses that could man The Wall, range effectively to the north, and provide for itself by working lands to the south, the Watch has been reduced to less than a tenth its size, and those who remain are mostly conscripted criminals. Only the North and a few houses in the Vale send any knights or nobles at all of their own will: every southron knight of the Watch was forced into service, mostly because they fought on the losing side of a war (for instance, Ser Alliser Thorne was a Targaryan loyalist). The Seven Kingdoms have neglected their duty to support the Night's Watch out of greed: why waste their best men and resources to fight snarks and grumpkins when they can be better used in the game of thrones?
So, to the final scene of season 7: whose fault is it that the Wall falls? It's not Jon Snow's: as Lord Commander he made unpopular decisions that put the duty of the Night's Watch over prejudice, and as King of the North he puts the Long Night ahead of all other priorities. It's not Daenarys: she flew north not because she loved Jon (in fact, she ends up abandoning him), but to save the mission in order to convince Cersei to join the real fight. It's not even Cersei's: she may be planning betrayal, but she hasn't pulled the trigger on that yet.
So whose fault is it? What grave mistake lead to the Wall falling, the the realms of men being vulnerable for the first time in millenia? What betrayal may have cost the world? It's no one's, really. Who could have predicted the Night King had magical dragon insta-kill spears? Who knew that creatures of fire could be resurrected by magic of the ice-infused Others? Nobody. Nobody knew that by riding north, Daenerys would inadvertently give the White Walkers the tool they needed to bring down the Wall (which, speaking of, does the Night King have pre-cognition? What was his plan before a dragon fell into his lap?).
There was no hamartia, no fatal flaw in the rulers of Westeros that allows you to point a finger and say "This person/these people! They abandoned their duty, they knowingly made a choice and the Wall fell because of it." The dead did not attack a portion of the Wall that was under-manned due to the neglect of the lords of Westeros, they hit it at a point reinforced by wildlings, the Brothers Without Banners, and presumably Northern soldiers and soldiers from the Vale, since they aren't currently engaged militarily with Cersei (who, by the way, is suddenly competent). No one has blown the Horn of Winter for short-term military gain. No one allowed a dark sorcerer promising power to be their confidant despite everyone's pleas to the contrary, leading to dark sorcery that compromised the Wall.
Nope. None of the long running themes or ideas of the show mattered: Daenerys just rode in her dragons, and it turns out that it's super easy for White Walkers to kill and resurrect dragons (despite fire being their greatest weakness and dragons literally being described as "fire made flesh"). A character actively trying to do their duty and save the world ends up being the catalyst for its destruction.
The show became famous for its spectacle, but I think the writers have forgotten that spectacle isn't what kept people watching. Ned Stark's death made sense. The Red Wedding made sense. Oberyn and Tywin's deaths made sense. They were the focus of elaborate paintings, paintings with richly detailed and expertly crafted backgrounds. The more recent spectacles seem more like a cheap comic book panel: an awesome dragon breathing fire with a solid red background behind it. I can get that lots of places other than Game of Thrones.
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Tokyo Drift: The First Fast and Furious Movie with a Plot
I am currently on day 3 of Furious Week: I've never seen a Fast and Furious movie, so I'm watching the first seven, one a day, from Sunday to Saturday. Now, when I first announced Furious Week, a lot of people told me to skip to Tokyo Drift or watch Tokyo Drift then hop to 5. The consensus is Tokyo Drift isn't a higher quality movie than The Fast and the Furious or even 2 Fast 2 Furious (by consensus the low point of the franchise), but it's more entertaining somehow. Now that I've finished it, it's obvious to see why.
In The Fast and The Furious, the story is told wrong. People seem to pick up on this intuitively: in the Wikipedia plot summary the fact that Brian is an undercover cop is explained right away. In the actual movie you don't find out until after the first race, which makes the race pointless as far as the plot is concerned. What's at stake? A dude we just met and know nothing about might lose a car. We have no idea how much, or even if, that matters.
This problem extends to all the racing in the film: was it a big deal that mechanic kid lost his dad's Jetta to Tran? They tell us that, but I don't think it came up earlier, so why should we care? Why did anything that happened at Race Wars (which is probably the worst name for a racing event ever) matter? The racing was a flashy distraction from the real plot, a paint by numbers undercover cop story with an interesting antagonist (Dominic) and a boring protagonist (Brian).
In The Fast and The Furious, the story is told wrong. People seem to pick up on this intuitively: in the Wikipedia plot summary the fact that Brian is an undercover cop is explained right away. In the actual movie you don't find out until after the first race, which makes the race pointless as far as the plot is concerned. What's at stake? A dude we just met and know nothing about might lose a car. We have no idea how much, or even if, that matters.
This problem extends to all the racing in the film: was it a big deal that mechanic kid lost his dad's Jetta to Tran? They tell us that, but I don't think it came up earlier, so why should we care? Why did anything that happened at Race Wars (which is probably the worst name for a racing event ever) matter? The racing was a flashy distraction from the real plot, a paint by numbers undercover cop story with an interesting antagonist (Dominic) and a boring protagonist (Brian).
2 Fast 2 Furious is even worse. The racing matters even less: there literally is no reason for the first race (it's not like Brian is forced to race and him sticking his head out gets him caught, and him being picked up by the police could have happened before the race with as much impact to the rest of the plot as after). The race to the impound lot matters a little for the sake of the plot, but it doesn't tell us anything about Brian and Roman other than they drive well (something we already know), and the race to get those two cars doesn't matter because Roman and Brian have already beat those guys before. Remove the racing, which is pointless, and we've got a hackneyed drug movie that brings us OBVIOUS BAD GUY for boring Brian to bounce off of (but hey, they make up for it with some comic relief black guy!).
So we have two racing movies with pointless races. Now, let's look at the big 3 races in Tokyo Drift. Race one has small stakes: Movie Jock has smashed in Sean's window with a rock. We don't like Movie Jock, we want Sean to beat him.* So, small stakes, but it engages us enough to watch the race, in which we learn a lot about Sean. Sean doesn't care about how much damage he sustains, as long as he sticks it in Movie Jock's face that he won. He even plays just as dirty as Movie Jock, cheating by going off the course and ramming Movie Jock back when Movie Jock rams him. Sean wins, then runs away from the larger consequences of the race.
Race 2, Sean races DK. We care because we know Sean is a good racer, but he's drift racing for the very first time in a very expensive car owned by an associate of the Yakuza. We're curious to see if Brian will do well, and every collision matters because we know the consequences: he's going to owe a lot of money to a criminal. We also see that Brian's recklessness isn't going to work in drift racing like it did racing back home. His world is thrown out of balance because the one thing that gave him worth, winning races by being reckless, won't work. Additionally, both Han and his father make it very clear that, for once in his life, Sean can't run away. For the first time, he has to face the consequences of his recklessness.
Now, the final race between Sean and DK. Sean has changed as a person before our eyes**: he used to run away away from his problems, now he's racing to stay and fix them. We want Sean to win because if he doesn't, everything he's worked for will be undone. Then the race itself is symbolically rich. Sean is driving in an American car, from his father, with a Japanese engine, from his mentor. When Takashi loses his temper and starts trying to drive Sean off the road, Sean doesn't engage with him like he did with Movie Jock, he stays cool and focuses on the race. Sean doesn't just beat Takashi, he beats his old self.
Now, is Tokyo Drift a cinematic masterpiece? Good heavens no. What I've described up above isn't masterful storytelling, it's the first step of good storytelling. To make a food analogy, 2 Fast 2 Furious is a fountain drink: empty calories that could never be mistaken for a meal. The Fast and the Furious is fries and a drink: it almost looks like a meal, but it's missing the meat. Tokyo Drift is a #1 with all the fixin's: it's a full meal. You wouldn't eat it for special occasions, and it's not an example of craftsmanship like a crown roast, but it wouldn't be disappointing if you were hungry and just looking for something simple to eat.
So we have two racing movies with pointless races. Now, let's look at the big 3 races in Tokyo Drift. Race one has small stakes: Movie Jock has smashed in Sean's window with a rock. We don't like Movie Jock, we want Sean to beat him.* So, small stakes, but it engages us enough to watch the race, in which we learn a lot about Sean. Sean doesn't care about how much damage he sustains, as long as he sticks it in Movie Jock's face that he won. He even plays just as dirty as Movie Jock, cheating by going off the course and ramming Movie Jock back when Movie Jock rams him. Sean wins, then runs away from the larger consequences of the race.
Race 2, Sean races DK. We care because we know Sean is a good racer, but he's drift racing for the very first time in a very expensive car owned by an associate of the Yakuza. We're curious to see if Brian will do well, and every collision matters because we know the consequences: he's going to owe a lot of money to a criminal. We also see that Brian's recklessness isn't going to work in drift racing like it did racing back home. His world is thrown out of balance because the one thing that gave him worth, winning races by being reckless, won't work. Additionally, both Han and his father make it very clear that, for once in his life, Sean can't run away. For the first time, he has to face the consequences of his recklessness.
Now, the final race between Sean and DK. Sean has changed as a person before our eyes**: he used to run away away from his problems, now he's racing to stay and fix them. We want Sean to win because if he doesn't, everything he's worked for will be undone. Then the race itself is symbolically rich. Sean is driving in an American car, from his father, with a Japanese engine, from his mentor. When Takashi loses his temper and starts trying to drive Sean off the road, Sean doesn't engage with him like he did with Movie Jock, he stays cool and focuses on the race. Sean doesn't just beat Takashi, he beats his old self.
Now, is Tokyo Drift a cinematic masterpiece? Good heavens no. What I've described up above isn't masterful storytelling, it's the first step of good storytelling. To make a food analogy, 2 Fast 2 Furious is a fountain drink: empty calories that could never be mistaken for a meal. The Fast and the Furious is fries and a drink: it almost looks like a meal, but it's missing the meat. Tokyo Drift is a #1 with all the fixin's: it's a full meal. You wouldn't eat it for special occasions, and it's not an example of craftsmanship like a crown roast, but it wouldn't be disappointing if you were hungry and just looking for something simple to eat.
*For those of you crying foul on me since Brian fought with Dominic in The Fast and the Furious, no, Brian fought with Vince and Dominic broke it up; the first race should have been between Brian and Vince.
**Compare the intro scene, where he lets the bullies spray paint that kid, to the rooftop scene where he protects Twinkie.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
My Problem with Amazing Spider-Man 2
Alright, so I know that a lot of people really like this movie, and I'm not saying it has no redeeming qualities. I'm not sad I saw it, nor am I angry at the writers/director/studio. It was a big dumb popcorn movie (at two and a half hours one could say a gargantuan dumb popcorn movie) and I know that that's all I should have expected.
But here's my deal: this movie has three plots, none of which depend, build, or draw on each other. They barely even interact. With the exception of a single scene, Electro could disappear entirely from this movie and you wouldn't have to change anything else. Even the scene he is in it doesn't matter that he's Electro: he could literally be replaced with an extra with no lines.
That's the difference, I think, between a complicated movie and a convoluted movie. Complicated movies have lots of different plots and characters woven together to make a solid whole. Convoluted movies have lot's of different plots and characters thrown together with no larger purpose than "let's put a lot of guys in here."
Why is Harry Osborn in this movie? So he can become an unintentionally hilarious Green Goblin. Why is there a clock tower right next to a power substation? So they can have a big cartoony fight in it. Why do Harry Osborn and Peter Parker renew their friendship? So that that friendship can dissolve.
In fact, it seems like the only reason Peter Parker makes any friends or talks to anybody is so he be all mopey when he unintentionally ruins their lives. There's no sense of real people or a lived-in world; it's just a set full of people for Spider-Man to interact with so the movie can keep going. It's hard for me to care about what's going on when I know the writers are going to paint by number.
But here's my deal: this movie has three plots, none of which depend, build, or draw on each other. They barely even interact. With the exception of a single scene, Electro could disappear entirely from this movie and you wouldn't have to change anything else. Even the scene he is in it doesn't matter that he's Electro: he could literally be replaced with an extra with no lines.
That's the difference, I think, between a complicated movie and a convoluted movie. Complicated movies have lots of different plots and characters woven together to make a solid whole. Convoluted movies have lot's of different plots and characters thrown together with no larger purpose than "let's put a lot of guys in here."
Why is Harry Osborn in this movie? So he can become an unintentionally hilarious Green Goblin. Why is there a clock tower right next to a power substation? So they can have a big cartoony fight in it. Why do Harry Osborn and Peter Parker renew their friendship? So that that friendship can dissolve.
In fact, it seems like the only reason Peter Parker makes any friends or talks to anybody is so he be all mopey when he unintentionally ruins their lives. There's no sense of real people or a lived-in world; it's just a set full of people for Spider-Man to interact with so the movie can keep going. It's hard for me to care about what's going on when I know the writers are going to paint by number.
Also, when I have to see this goofy a-hole.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Glory to Arstotzka! Next. Papers, Please.
So I just discovered a fun little title on Steam called Papers, Please. In it you are an inspections officer at the border of an oppressive socialist state. Your job is to check the papers of those trying to enter the glorious country of Arstotzka by passing from West Grestin to East Gresting (SUBTLETY!). This may sound boring, but the real fun comes from the scripted events when criminals, spies, assassins, and celebrities with improper documentation try to sneak past. We've all seen this moment in movies: as recently as Argo we have a scene where the heroes have almost escaped Iran, but their fate rests in the hands of some bureaucrat with a rubber stamp. Papers, Please does an interesting thing by giving you that stamp.
But you don't just have the stamp: at the end of the day you must go back to your tiny apartment and decide if you will spend your meager savings on food or heating (you have no choice about paying rent). You feel genuinely stressed out when a family member gets sick and you must decide whether to starve or freeze to purchase medicine. The beauty of the game is that you get paid based on the number of people you process, not on how many get in or get turned away, and you get fined for making mistakes. So maybe to eat tonight, you have to let the husband in and turn away his wife, who has lost her entry form. Maybe to afford heat, you have to arrest someone you would otherwise simply turn away because the guards are bribing you. Maybe to buy medicine, you have to turn away freedom fighters. Freedom fighters you start to hate, actually, when their terrorist attacks force your checkpoint to close early, meaning you lose the five or ten dollars you could have squeezed out in the last hour of the day.
And this is why I love Papers, Please: it's one of the first games with moral choices that actually are moral. The game doesn't pull the bullcrap so many moral choice systems do, where if you make the right choice you still get the reward (or an even bigger reward). If you save the old man, somehow he has just as much money as the mob boss who hired you to rough him up; if you spare the villain's life, he thanks you and gives you a powerful item. Not in Papers, Please. If you make the right choice, sometimes the only reward you get is the good feeling. Deciding to keep the married couple together got me a citation and nothing more. Letting freedom fighters through on my first playthrough got me noticed by the Ministry of Information and eventually led to my arrest. If you want to do the right thing, you do it only because it is the right thing, and you do it at your own risk.
The game is beautifully atmospheric, and it puts you in a different mindset. I love that I was able to help the revolution with one button press while detaining innocent people for bribe money with the next. It's a fun thought experiment tied to a surprisingly engaging puzzle game, and I would recommend highly recommend it. As long as you're willing to have the Arstotzka National Anthem stuck in your head all day.
But you don't just have the stamp: at the end of the day you must go back to your tiny apartment and decide if you will spend your meager savings on food or heating (you have no choice about paying rent). You feel genuinely stressed out when a family member gets sick and you must decide whether to starve or freeze to purchase medicine. The beauty of the game is that you get paid based on the number of people you process, not on how many get in or get turned away, and you get fined for making mistakes. So maybe to eat tonight, you have to let the husband in and turn away his wife, who has lost her entry form. Maybe to afford heat, you have to arrest someone you would otherwise simply turn away because the guards are bribing you. Maybe to buy medicine, you have to turn away freedom fighters. Freedom fighters you start to hate, actually, when their terrorist attacks force your checkpoint to close early, meaning you lose the five or ten dollars you could have squeezed out in the last hour of the day.
And this is why I love Papers, Please: it's one of the first games with moral choices that actually are moral. The game doesn't pull the bullcrap so many moral choice systems do, where if you make the right choice you still get the reward (or an even bigger reward). If you save the old man, somehow he has just as much money as the mob boss who hired you to rough him up; if you spare the villain's life, he thanks you and gives you a powerful item. Not in Papers, Please. If you make the right choice, sometimes the only reward you get is the good feeling. Deciding to keep the married couple together got me a citation and nothing more. Letting freedom fighters through on my first playthrough got me noticed by the Ministry of Information and eventually led to my arrest. If you want to do the right thing, you do it only because it is the right thing, and you do it at your own risk.
The game is beautifully atmospheric, and it puts you in a different mindset. I love that I was able to help the revolution with one button press while detaining innocent people for bribe money with the next. It's a fun thought experiment tied to a surprisingly engaging puzzle game, and I would recommend highly recommend it. As long as you're willing to have the Arstotzka National Anthem stuck in your head all day.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Gravity Didn't Pull Me In
Puns!
So, I had problems with Gravity. Maybe I'm just super-anal retentive about how stuff works in zero-g, and maybe I'm just too cynical to enjoy the saccharine tones of triumph as Sandra Bullock quotes George Clooney at the end (Seriously, can we be done with that trope? We get it, the person has changed to become more like their mentor. Do you have to have them quote the person directly, movies?), but the movie just didn't sell me. It seems like the movie took the easy way out: instead of trying to be something new and great, it took the old and easy path.
Picking on the inaccurate portrayal of space seems picky, and it is a bit. But I dislike the inaccuracies for a different reason than you may think. The problem, at least for me, is that they seemed to try for realism most of the time, but they broke the rules when it was convenient for the writers. There is a critical scene between Bullock and Clooney that would make anyone who understands relative motion balk, but allows us to have one of the most important moments in the movie. In real life radio communication is one-way, but ignoring that lets us have a poignant scene where Bullock has an interesting conversation with a stranger. The inconsistency in realism makes the above scenes, and others throughout the film, feel really contrived.
Sometimes even the scenes that could happen are marred by symbolism so obvious it makes you want to say "I get it" to the screen. Sandra Bullock curling up like a little fetus seems like film-school level symbolism. When she did the aforementioned Clooney quoting, I groaned audibly in the theater. There's a moment where she and Clooney talk a bit about her not giving up, and his speech is so over the top he feels like the coach in a 90s sports movie.
And how did Bullock get into space? She's sick in zero-g (for, like, the first ten minutes of the movie, then it is never mentioned again), she apparently crashed every time she performed a simulated landing (and NASA was still cool with sending her up without correcting that), and she seems entirely unfamiliar with everything around her (I guess she just missed all the briefings). Good thing she's got a competent man to save her. Side note, giving your female character a doctorate does not make her any stronger when she has to be repeatedly saved, physically and emotionally, by a man.
Alright, now it just feels like I'm attacking it, and I don't want to do that. It was an okay movie. It was well put together (though a few of the continuous shots just didn't work and really broke my suspension of disbelief) and was a beauty to see. It made some interesting decisions and told a compelling story, but it did it in a really paint-by-numbers, spoon-feeding sort of way. It didn't want me to have to think very hard. But I wanted to think hard. If I was thinking a bit harder, I would have had less time to nit-pick the space stuff.
Seriously, though, that teardrop floating through space was dumb. Plus, that's not how tears work in space.
So, I had problems with Gravity. Maybe I'm just super-anal retentive about how stuff works in zero-g, and maybe I'm just too cynical to enjoy the saccharine tones of triumph as Sandra Bullock quotes George Clooney at the end (Seriously, can we be done with that trope? We get it, the person has changed to become more like their mentor. Do you have to have them quote the person directly, movies?), but the movie just didn't sell me. It seems like the movie took the easy way out: instead of trying to be something new and great, it took the old and easy path.
Picking on the inaccurate portrayal of space seems picky, and it is a bit. But I dislike the inaccuracies for a different reason than you may think. The problem, at least for me, is that they seemed to try for realism most of the time, but they broke the rules when it was convenient for the writers. There is a critical scene between Bullock and Clooney that would make anyone who understands relative motion balk, but allows us to have one of the most important moments in the movie. In real life radio communication is one-way, but ignoring that lets us have a poignant scene where Bullock has an interesting conversation with a stranger. The inconsistency in realism makes the above scenes, and others throughout the film, feel really contrived.
Sometimes even the scenes that could happen are marred by symbolism so obvious it makes you want to say "I get it" to the screen. Sandra Bullock curling up like a little fetus seems like film-school level symbolism. When she did the aforementioned Clooney quoting, I groaned audibly in the theater. There's a moment where she and Clooney talk a bit about her not giving up, and his speech is so over the top he feels like the coach in a 90s sports movie.
And how did Bullock get into space? She's sick in zero-g (for, like, the first ten minutes of the movie, then it is never mentioned again), she apparently crashed every time she performed a simulated landing (and NASA was still cool with sending her up without correcting that), and she seems entirely unfamiliar with everything around her (I guess she just missed all the briefings). Good thing she's got a competent man to save her. Side note, giving your female character a doctorate does not make her any stronger when she has to be repeatedly saved, physically and emotionally, by a man.
Alright, now it just feels like I'm attacking it, and I don't want to do that. It was an okay movie. It was well put together (though a few of the continuous shots just didn't work and really broke my suspension of disbelief) and was a beauty to see. It made some interesting decisions and told a compelling story, but it did it in a really paint-by-numbers, spoon-feeding sort of way. It didn't want me to have to think very hard. But I wanted to think hard. If I was thinking a bit harder, I would have had less time to nit-pick the space stuff.
Seriously, though, that teardrop floating through space was dumb. Plus, that's not how tears work in space.
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