Black Panther: An Addendum

This is inevitably going to be a three-part series, as the review will be up once I've seen it. 

One has to be very careful when picking one's words when talking about something like Black Panther. What was just another high concept super-hero movie in a universe already extraordinarily well-established has, thanks in large part to the cultural critics that have been chapping my ass for the past few years, quickly become an exceedingly commercialized rally point for a puzzling social movement.

Marvel, to its credit, has very little blame in this aside from introducing an already-beloved character in a giant movie and translating him very well to the screen, putting out the requisite toy line, and picking a strategic song for the trailer.

One must be very careful, for example, these days not to imply that "collectivist identitarian" is a flattering term for someone that someone else would rather prefer to call an "asshole Nazi," regardless if both terms apply.

Inside joke, dear readers. I apologize.

But can we talk about Black Panther for a moment?

You're right, we can't. We can't, for example, bring up the fact that Wakanda is a stupendously rich nation in the middle of some very poor nations. We can't bring up the fact that Wakanda is an xenophobic ethnostate with possibly the strictest immigration laws outside of Dr. Doom's Latveria or that, in the MCU, it had no outreach to poor countries despite its wealth until Civil War. We can't talk about how Wakanda zealously defends its borders, notoriously slaughtering intruders, or how T'Challa himself is the ruler of a Patriarchal society, having literally inherited his powers, tech, and position from his own father.

But I suppose if one side can twist things in its favour, the other can do so just as well.

Did they, though? Have we asked actual
Africans how they feel on this?

That'd just be awkward, though. Not that that first side isn't finally getting around to not-good-enough-isms.

In that spirit, I'd like to make it very clear that when I review Black Panther, I intend to hold it to its own merits: Did it tell a good story? Did it fit well in the greater MCU? Did it work well on its own as a movie as well as setting up story threads for future movies, as I expect to see it represented heavily in Infinity War? Does it tie up loose ends from previous movies?

What I'm not going to do is blame any shortcomings on "Trump's America." Seriously, it makes me ashamed that 3/4 of me comes from the same place as you, Ed Power.

When I go see Black Panther, I'm going to see what I hope to be another highly-entertaining entry in the MCU saga, one that I can appreciate as a fan and as someone who has been reading books  starring that character since I was a teenager. The last thing I want is for the movie to fail, because that's going to basically be Ghostbusters 2016: Round 2, and I've had just about enough of that.

I want it to succeed. I want it to be good.

Salem Wants To Watch A Movie: Black Panther

Look, you all know I'm an unrepentant MCU fanboy. I've seen them all multiple times, with even my least favourite hitting three re-watches. Yes, even Thor: The Dark World; I make apologies for that one all the time. Despite popular opinion, Iron Man 3 is not only one of my favourite MCU films, but it's also one of my favourite movies.

As we're staying on a theme, you might remember two weeks ago I explained why I hadn't yet seen The Last Jedi, mainly because of the controversy around it. There's a similar situation brewing with Black Panther. 

Look, SyFyWire, I'm not sure where you've been for the last hundred years or so, but science fiction frequently stars people that are not just white dudes, but women and people of other ethnicities. Hell, a lot of it is people of other species, be they fantasy races such as elves, dwarves, and orcs, or alien races such as Cardassian, Gou'ould, or Turian. Since the MCU movies started hitting theatres, our main concern hasn't been "Are we going to be able to identify with the white dude in the movie?" so much as "Is this movie going to respect the source material and give us something fun and compelling?"

And the MCU has yet to disappoint (okay, except for maybe The Dark World). Literally nobody looking forward to Black Panther is mad that there's not a white dude in the lead role. Quite the opposite; anyone familiar with the source material would probably be livid were they to re-cast T'Challa as a white man. You saw the reaction to Tilda Swinton's casting as the Ancient One, right?

I'm still hyped for Black Panther. It's another addition to the MCU canon, and it's looking pretty good so far. But some of us are concerned... not that we won't, again, be unable to identify with the lead role; I'm sure I can identify with the king of a xenophobic, isolationist African country that's technologically advanced and prosperous due to extra-terrestrial mineral resources and has a super suit and cadre of female bodyguards as much as the next person. I can  possibly identify with it as much as I can identify with a woman who grew up trained as a super-assassin by elements of the Russian military, or a brilliant scientist who put himself in harm's way and was rewarded by turning into an uncontrollable green rage monster, or a demi-god who had to learn a lesson in humility before daddy would give him his powers back.

No, I'm worried because a lot of people are playing up the minority element in this movie. Not to the same extent it was played up in Ghostbusters; Feige and Disney would never release something on the same level of quality that Sony somehow managed. But I guarantee you that a lot of people who wanted to watch it won't, because you've talked them into the idea that they don't want to see it.

The same thing nearly happened to me with The Last Jedi, and it's been happening for a while. Lord knows the progressive fandom has been doing its absolute level best to convince me that I'm not at all interested and in fact am outraged at Jodie Whittaker's casting as The Doctor, when I have no idea* if she'll be good or not.

* Aside from the fact there's never been a bad Doctor. Shut up, there hasn't. Colin Baker was fantastic.

In short, knock it off. Stop propping up strawmen to try and convince yourselves that your ideological enemies are mad that something cool is coming out. Stop pretending like it's never happened before. I feel like slapping the next person that forgot that Blade had two fantastic movies (and one questionable one) before the X-Men franchise even started picking up any real steam.

Hype it up. Share the love. Celebrate it if you feel you need to. But when you start celebrating how what you love is going to piss off some monolithic and imaginary ideal of the people you hate, you're doing fandom absolutely the wrong way. It's worse than the gatekeeping that you preach against. It's sub-cultural gentrification, and it's annoying as all hell.

My Highlander Theory

This came up in a post on someone else's wall, and I figured it belonged here on my blog alongside my equally-cool "Crowlander" post.

I have a theory that Highlander-style immortals are outcast angels. Allow me explain:

http://arazand.deviantart.com/art/Dreus76-Photo-manipulation-104799996

According to the Bible, when Lucifer rebelled a third of the Host came with him -- but 1/3 against 2/3 is not a winnable fight. However, in some tellings of the story (and I wish I could remember where I read this. It might be a Neil Gaiman thing, it sounds like something he'd say), 1/3 of the Host couldn't decide who to support, or were persuaded by Lucifer to stay neutral, and so stayed out of the fight. This made the rebellion an even match for the loyalists, and thus far more winnable.

Well, we know how that story goes: Lucifer lost, and he and his minions were cast into hell. But what about the third who did nothing?

According to my theory, they were punished for not choosing to stand with God, but since they didn't actively rebel against God, their punishment needed to be less than everlasting damnation. Since they did not choose a side -- and since the one of the biggest themes in the Bible is "Free will, even if you choose to do the wrong thing" -- this undecided third would be made to choose good or evil, Heaven or Hell. 

To this end, they were stripped of most of their angelic powers, cast out of Heaven and sent to Earth in mortal bodies (remember, all immortals are foundlings) with no memories of ever being angels. The various ages of immortals, and their appearance throughout the ages,  can be explained by "Time is different in Heaven so it took some of them a while to arrive and in fact are still arriving" and/or "God didn't want to dump a third of the Host onto Earth all at once, so He spread them out."

So now, those angels who once stood by and passively watched are now watched by others (ironically called "The Watchers"),  and are compelled by their natures to fight and kill until There Is Only One.

The Prize, of course, is the entire fate of the outcast third. After winning the Prize, the last living immortal is judged by his character, and thereby redeems or damns the entire lot of them. It is effectively an eons-long Trial By Combat. If a good immortal like Connor or Duncan wins, they are accepted back into heaven. If someone like the Kurgan wins, they're damned to hell for all eternity.

When you think about it, this explains so much about Highlander mythology.

• Why can't they fight on Holy Ground?  Because God said so. 
• Why do 99% of them use swords? Because angels have traditionally been depicted as using swords. 
• Why does the Quickening manifest as lightning and other celestial effects? Because sky = Heaven. 
• Heck, this even explains Dark Quickenings: the entire Game is "Choose good or evil", and a Quickening is the absorption of all the angelic souls into one big over-soul. If you kill a lot of bad immortals, you absorb sin-tainted souls and become tainted yourself. 

The best part about this theory is that if you play supernatural RPGs like In Nomine or Vampire, you have a way to add immortals to the game without breaking the flavor of the setting. 

I'll just leave this here, k?

Made by me.  Enjoy your weekend, and go see the movie; you won't be sorry.

Salem Watches a Movie: The Machine

Image courtesy IMDB

     The last time I reviewed a movie here, it didn't go so well. I had just watched World War Z, and was incredibly let down by a bloated, over-commercialized, uninspired waste of a good idea. I don't watch terribly many movies normally, and I think between then and now the only ones I've seen have been the Marvel films and Frozen. So I rolled the dice on an interesting premise and came out on top.

     The Machine a low-profile British film released in 2013, and can seen on most VOD services (Google Play, iTunes, etc) now. It has a few things going for it in my book, being a big fan of the theme of transhumanism. Cybernetic augmentation fascinates me. Cyberpunk is very much up my particular dimly-lit back alley. These themes are handled rather deftly, with a great deal of love and an almost palpable avoidance of the tired and all-too-common "dangers that science hath wrought" sentiment that plagues other works in the genre. This is definitely far more Deus Ex than The Terminator.

     And speaking of Terminators, the performance of the film's cybernetic protagonist, Caity Lotz, must be singled out here. We had a female Terminator way back when in Terminator 3, but Lotz's performance washes the bad taste of that entire film out of my mouth. Her character swings between naive and timid and cold efficiency from one scene to the next. Her facial expressions are nuanced and just inhuman enough that you buy into her as an artificial being inexperienced with emotion and awareness, and when the film's climax comes, you witness her earning her stripes as a bona-fide action star. And for everything she does for this film, the film pays her back. Her character is fleshed out with vulnerabilities, personality quirks, and - when the time comes - plenty of steel.

     Interestingly, this feels like a film that was made on a tight budget, but made efficiently. The sets are believable but not ambitious. The score evokes mid-90s John Carpenter-esque scifi films with unashamed synthesizer riffs that would be at home in such classics as Escape from New York and Terminator. The cast is chock full of slightly familiar faces from television (Hey it's Canary from Arrow! It's that guy from the Pirates show! It's the old government guy from Jekyll!) who mostly turn in excellent performances. A lot of smaller characters, like Suri the cyborg secretary and several patients in the facility don't *technically* have spoken lines, but the script finds a clever way around that, keeping them separate, but sympathetic.

     I feel it necessary to criticize just a few things. The pacing of the film is a little slow, making it seem longer than its 90 minute run-time. The male lead, Toby Stephens, seems to lack the ability to express a great deal of human emotion(at times, you'd think he was the titular Machine). Some lines stick out like a sore thumb, as if they should have been pruned in editing.

Bottom line: If you're aching for a good cyberpunk thriller or a transhumanist story that embraces the idea of mechanized evolution, you'll enjoy this.

This is not a remake, just a re-imagining of the original post I wrote on the topic.

     So there's a remake of The Tomorrow People on The CW network. I'm really not sure how I feel about this, either, as I've watched approximately half the episode and don't feel terribly compelled to watch it further. It just feels like a rushed, poorly-paced remake of Mutant X; pretty, pretty people with superpowers and a government organization hunting them in a world where everyone knows martial arts. Which was fine in the 90s. Everyone knew martial arts in the 90s, and every gang was made up of middle-aged white dudes with receding hairlines and chunky sunglasses. The new version even makes a point of apologizing for its own name, which is far more shameful than embracing the corny sci-fi that birthed it. It was nice to see TIM again, though, as the first remake didn't have him. Big Finish's audio did, though, and I highly recommend anything they make.

Which brings me to remakes. Tricky business, remakes. A lot of people get all up in arms over them. How dare you violate my childhood, what was wrong with the original, all that. What purpose do they serve? When is it necessary, appropriate, acceptable to make a remake of something?

I know I've mentioned the Resident Evil series a few times in my past blogs, and for good reason. It stands tall amongst horror and gaming aficionados, and has changed and grown a great deal over the years. The first game is a classic, no doubt. That said, it hasn't aged terribly well. If we're completely objective here, the graphics are primitive, it has clunky controls, and the dialogue and voice acting is abysmal. 6 years later, a remake was made, which not only introduced the new face of Jill Valentine (which has been a consistent feature since in the series) but also had gorgeous visuals, some gameplay tweaks, and a mostly rewritten script with new voice acting. It probably would have been a smash if it weren't only released on the GameCube, a moderately profitable system (which in Nintendo terms means it was a dismal failure).

The next one is probably going to earn me some funny looks. I can't stand the original Total Recall. I'm sorry, I just can't. I don't like Arnold Shcaalkwwzrenger as an actor, the tone of the film was inconsistent, and the entire visual design just screams 1980s despite it taking place in the 2080s. That said, it's looked highly upon by a lot of people. The remake, despite its consistent tone, its slick visual effects, and its actors who were actually acting, it just felt... unnecessary. Personally, I liked it, but it just didn't need to be made.

And then there's Star Trek.

Star Trek's been around for almost 50 years now. It's so old that we've lost several of the original cast. The franchise has done everything, been everywhere. There's just so much lore and history that it's impossible for anyone to enter in fresh without being completely intimidated. The various series and movies stand on their own merits (well, except Spock's Brain. And Insurrection. And all of Voyager), but in order to bring new fans into the fold or give the old fans something fresh, that reboot/remake/re-imagining/re-whatever you want to call it (riversong.png) might just have been necessary. Yeah, it's a bit shallow, but Star Trek: The Motion Picture isn't exactly a stellar (sorry) example of paced storytelling. The first one and Into Darkness have given the new films a chance to flex their muscle and show us what they can do. Now all we need is a quieter, more introspective piece, and the new series of films can easily justify their place.

So, in closing, I'd say sometimes a remake is needed. Seeing something through a fresh pair of eyes, making something more accessible, or simply using better technology and hindsight to make a superior product is a good thing. Sometimes, it's a terrible, terrible thing that shouldn't have been done. Michael Bay, please stop this Ninja Turtles reboot.

I'm still waiting on the remake of Robot Jox, too.

Salem Reviews A Movie, and has rather Strong Feels.

                                                                            I will remain calm.

                                          I will remain calm.

     Some people think the zombie fad is over. That it's been played out. That zombies, as a 'thing,' are over and done with. I am most fervently not one of these people. I'm looking forward to the return of The Walking Dead (and have a figure of Andrea on the shelf over my desk - Team Andrea!) and Left 4 Dead 2 is still one of my all-time favorite games. I am shamed to admit that I enjoyed the Resident Evil films, and have played RE6 twice since buying it in June. Something about the lonely desolation of a post-zombie-apocalypse world appeals to me, deranged loner that I am.

     I have a copy of The Zombie Survival Handbook. It's well-thumbed, and when I still smoked regular cigarettes, I'd pop outside, read a random article in it whilst smoking, and repeat every hour or so. I've probably read that book cover to cover three or four times. I don't read as often as I used to, so when I broke down and bought a copy of World War Z, that was kind of a big deal for me. I liked that Max Brooks decided to take a strictly documentary approach to the ZedApoc, and that he was using slow, classic zombies instead of rage-zombies. The Battle of Yonkers and the International Space Station bits really captured my imagination, and just the thought of recovery and rebuilding a world after something that catastrophic...

                                                      I will remain calm. Will I, fuck.

     I saw the trailer for World War Z and despaired. It looked like a generic zombie flick, and it had Brad Pitt  in it. I decided to pass. Recently, I got a chance to see the film. I was... less than impressed.

     Gone are the slow shamblers that, if you were smart, you could fight. In their place were rabid rage-beasts that went from human to physics defying tidal waves of flesh in 13 seconds. I had resolved to remain calm regarding this, but as I watched the movie, I just got more and more mad. Irrationaly mad. Angry. I wanted to grab this film by its crashed airplanes and punch it in its big stupid plot-convenience gob.

Salem is less than pleased with the outcome of this film.

     What we have at this point is, quite literally, a zombie movie. Not a movie about zombies, but a stupid fucking movie that IS a zombie. It lurches unsteadily from set piece to set piece, with lifeless characters and rotting cliches, stretching your suspension of disbelief to the snapping point at the half-hour mark and staggering away with its throat between its smelly, decaying teeth. I went, scene to scene, from being actively frustrated by this movie to sheer boredom.

     The last few minutes of the film, and only the last few minutes of the film are worthy of the name "World War Z," as it sets up a post-ZedApoc world that, paradoxically, looks like it could be a more interesting sequel than the original film was. Being somewhat of a fan of the zombie genre, I know this probably affects me more than it should. I know a lot of people probably liked this movie. I can't explain quite why I'm so angry at it, though. All I know is that I now want a Resident Evil movie marathon to clean my palette of this.. spoiled meat.

Brief thoughts after seeing The Hobbit

I wouldn't have thought that Ian Holm looked like Martin Freeman, but it works.

Thorin looks totally like a Klingon, minus the forehead ridge.

In general, I like the diversity of the dwarves. Some are Scottish and some are Irish and some are German and at least one (Dwalin) looks like a berserker from Warhammer FRPG.

Is it just me, or does Kili look a LOT like Merry when he smiles?  I know one is Aidan Turner and the other is Dominic Monaghan, but they both have that impish devil-may-care grin thing going.

Also, the Great Goblin really REALLY looked like Tim Mitchell in the face. I was surprised to discover it wasn't him doing the voice.

I like how the movie took most of the songs and made them less goofy. Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold  is positively haunting now. I dig the all-male sound -- it sounds like monks chanting, only much cooler.




Anyone else think the Troll scene was overwrought and lasted far too long? Also, the stone giant scene was completely unnecessary.

I like the inclusion of Azog the Defiler. I imagine he's going to show up again leading the Orc army at the end of the last movie (whoops, spoilers for a 60 year-old book!). I approve of the way Jackson and del Toro are making an effort to lay the groundwork for Lord of the Rings and make this an actual prequel and not just "this story came first, because Bilbo and Gollum and magic ring."

I understand that Benedict Cumberbatch has been cast as the voice of Smaug in the next movie. Fans of BBC's Sherlock will understand just how special this will make the Bilbo-Smaug interaction.

WNW: The Avengers '78

The Avengers together for the first time in this 1978 made for TV movie.. They face off with their greatest foe yet... KISS, under the power of Loki, played by Paul Lynde.

May I just add that 1) the casting of Paul Lynde is BRILLIANT, and 2) I totally dig that Claremont Grip that Gene Simmons is using.

WNW: Two Film Trailers

This one is awesome:




This one is hilarious:



Sadly, neither of them are real.

Exit Humanity

Regular readers of this blog know that I adore the zombie genre. This is partly because zombies are a metaphor for an uber-disaster, with their various iterations serving as plug-in variables (What if they're fast? What if they're smart? What if we're already infected?), and partly because I like placing myself in the shoes of the protagonists and thinking about what I'd do differently.

Because let's face it, if it's terminators or vampires or werewolves or aliens, you're pretty much screwed. But with zombies being more of a force of nature rather than an opponent, there is a good chance of survival so long as you're smart and aware and genre-savvy and don't get sloppy. (On a long enough timeline, everyone gets sloppy, through fatigue if nothing else.) Modern technology and materials also go a long way towards increasing the odds in humanity's favor.

However, all that goes out the window in the upcoming film, Exit Humanity:



Zombies during the Civil War? Oh hell yes.  This is where things get really interesting, because the screw factor jumps by like an order of magnitude. Sure, you're out on the frontier, so there's less population density and you aren't likely to be outright mobbed by the walking dead. But... oh, and here's the but...

• No automatic firearms -- everything is single action, and at most you have six shots.
• Reloading can be a real bitch, because depending on date and location, you might be using muzzle-loaders. Good luck with THAT in a pinch. 
• Flimsy construction materials -- mostly wood and wattle & daub, and everything is a fire hazard. 
• No electricity, so lots of open flame (see above).
• No cars, just horses -- which are liable to get spooked and run off, and will be eaten if captured.
• Medical technology is really primitive. No one's figured out germ theory or knows about the importance of antiseptics, and amputation is common once injured wounds become gangrenous. 

So take all of that, and combine it with the fact that this movie just looks incredible, and I am SO THERE. I don't see this ending well for 99% of the characters, and I will love every gory minute of it.

Crowlander

Aha, you have fallen for my cunning ploy! Now I shall tell you why I think The Crow is a Highlander movie in disguise.

First things first: it has nothing to do with Eric Draven. He's a revenant, a ghost given flesh in order to extract revenge. No, the real reason for "Crowlander" is Top Dollar. Sure, he's a charismatic psychopath who rules a criminal empire, but I maintain he's also an immortal.

Exhibit 1: A Closet Full of Swords
Knives? Sure, he's a villain. One sword? Why not, he's filthy rich, he can be eccentric. But an entire armory of swords? Easily accessible? That he's clearly practiced with?

There's also the fact that this man, who clearly must have enemies both in the police and organized crime, doesn't carry a sidearm. In fact, he has to borrow one from his bodyguard.

Okay, yes, by itself this isn't convincing. Moving on...

Exhibit 2: Intelligent Anti-Immortal Tactics
All right, so in the previous example Top Dollar hears from a trusted lieutenant and a groveling flunky that there's a guy out there who gets shot/jumps out of windows/etc and keeps on trucking in his quest for vengeance, and this doesn't faze him in the least. He doesn't question the apparent insanity of it all. He just goes "Hmm, that's interesting."

So when he arranges things to have Draven's last person on the "to-kill" list in the room with him, he also arranges to be surrounded by dozens of armed goons. This is good strategy, because as we've learned from the Highlander films and TV show, immortals can be killed conventionally -- they just don't stay dead. So obviously his plan is for his goons to shoot Draven, whereupon Top Dollar can take his rival's head easily.

Except that he's surprised when Draven shows up, because he doesn't get that characteristic "buzz" immortals get when they meet each other. So he thinks that, maybe, this guy is just a loon hopped up on drugs.

And then he is totally gobsmacked when it turns out his opponent is immortal after all.

Also: a katana shows up in this fight scene. Because when I think of "Immortal Scottish warriors," I think of ancient samurai swords. 

Exhibit 3: Running to Holy Ground
Because that's what you do when you're immortal and you don't want to fight another one. Why else would this incredibly rich, incredibly dangerous man hide in an old abandoned cathedral?

Also, kindly note how neither his bodyguard nor his sister are all freaked out by this. "He has power you can take," she says, and T.D. replies with "I like him already." Even as he's running for his life, Top Dollar is planning how best to take Draven's Quickening.

Exhibit 4: Swordfighting in a Lightning Storm
Some of you may be asking, "What about the proscription against fighting on holy ground?"  Well, first, that prohibition is only between immortals.  So when T.D. has his assassin take a shot at Draven's totem bird, that's allowable. And when that results in Draven losing his powers, Top Dollar now knows for certain that he isn't fighting another immortal... and therefore the rules don't apply.

If you're a fan of the series, you know that electricity is a metaphor for the Quickening, so it's no surprise that the final battle of the movie takes place where there is lots and lots of it about. Oh, and look, Top Dollar uses another katana.

Conclusion: Top Dollar is an Immortal
The only question this begs is, "What happened to him afterwards, since his head wasn't taken?" To my mind, there are two possibilities.

One possibility is that his hired goons in the police department -- come on, if you're an immortal crimelord you're going to have some cops in your pocket -- pulled him out of the morgue and falsified the burial data. After this he probably spent the rest of his life hiding from ghost-men before another immortal (probably Duncan) took his head.

Another is that the supernatural vengeance of Draven ("Thirty hours of pain. All at once! All for you!") was able to short-circuit immortal healing, leaving Top Dollar permanently brain-dead, if not dead-dead.

Either way: he was totally an immortal in that movie.

Teaser

One of these days y'all should ask me why I think The Crow is actually set in the Highlander universe.

Hello, DC Comics...

Look at your Superman, then back to Thor. Now back to Superman. Now back to Thor. Sadly, Superman isn't Thor, but if you took a lesson from Marvel and gave him interesting villains, he could do as well as Thor.

Look down. Back up. Where are you? You're at a hugely successful movie premiere with the man your Superman could be if you'd only give him good writers.

What's in your hand? Back at Thor, he has it. It's a movie with drama and pathos. Look again. The movie is now worth its weight in gold!

Anything is possible when your Superman is actually super and not an emo boy fighting a real estate plot.

I'm beating a dead horse.

(Link) View more Old Spice Sound Clips and Bruce Campbell Sound Clips

Grid Revelations

To everyone who is complaining about Tron: Legacy either having a poor plot, or poor science, or whatever, I have one thing to say to you:

Shut up. You don't understand the film.

Your problem, and it's quite an understandable one, is that since you were in a movie that was about computer programs, you assumed it would be science fiction and therefore have a sci-fi plot that made sci-fi sense. What you are forgetting, however, is that sci-fi has a long and illustrious history of subversion. It is one of the few genres which allows the writer to use satire or allegory to comment upon a host of other issues, such as politics or culture or the environment (Avatar, anyone?), and if handled deftly you will hardly notice it's there. On the other hand, sometimes it's done so clumsily that it's as apparent as the "Racism is senseless and bad, mmkay?" message embedded in the original series Star Trek episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield."

This is the opposite of subtle.

So let's look at the original Tron movie for a moment under this light. What we have here is a fun little tale about computers at a time when computers were poorly understood but slowly becoming more prevalent in the world. Most people -- the target audience for the movie, basically -- didn't know how computers actually worked, and there was this sort of magical fascination with them*. Of course, these people didn't really think that programs were miniature people living inside a computer, but it makes for a fine allegory: We press the buttons, and the magical elves software inside our computers do our bidding. So this gives us a wonderful opportunity to revisit the "stranger in a strange land" trope, performed with a sort of Neo-Swiftian whimsy that would be perfectly at home inside Gulliver's Travels.

*William Gibson would, two years after this movie, write his seminal Neuromancer on a manual (not electric) typewriter. As the story goes, he bought his first computer with the royalties earned from that novel, and when he opened its case for the first time he was disappointed to see it was made of silicon chips and copper wires. Apparently he had expected some kind of fantastic crystalline structure.

That was in 1982. It's now almost thirty years later, and people know a lot more about computers because they're ubiquitous within the western world. We may not have flying cars in the future, but we have pocket computers that can access a planet-wide communication grid that allows us to talk to each other all the time. In another 10 years an entire generation which has never NOT been wired to the Internet will enter the workforce. Computers have lost their mysticism and whimsy, their "gee-whiz" factor replaced with the casual acceptance of a tool you use daily. (See previous generations for similar reactions regarding: television, radio, the automobile, and electricity.)

So when the writers decide to update Tron, they have two options. They can get really technical because they know their audience is computer savvy, and try to use computer science to explain and justify things. However, under close scrutiny this idea falls to the ground and shatters, because if you try to explain one thing then you have to explain them all, and the audience starts to wonder things like "Wait... if they're programs, why are they eating? In fact, WHAT are they eating? Is that a pig? How can they have a roast pig on the grid? In fact, not only did I not see any infrastructure that could support a pig farm, digital or otherwise, but up until this point (and never again) do we see even a hint of any life form that doesn't look humanoid. WHAT THE HELL, MOVIE?"

What does one drink with digital pork, anyway? 110V AC or 120V DC?

Or they could go the other way and say, "You know, the original Tron was a fun little allegory that didn't take its premise too seriously. Let's just do that again and not worry about this technical stuff. We can just think of a different allegory to explore this time."  And this is what the writers did, thankfully.

So, I hear you ask, if Tron: Legacy wasn't strictly a sci-fi movie, but used sci-fi trappings to tell a story using allegory, what then was that allegory?

An excellent question. Hearken, and I shall explain.

Once upon a time, there was a powerful being that created a universe. And at first, that universe was good. But later, imperfection was discovered. That powerful being, who we might as well call God, decided to fix those problems. At first, God tried to fix them himself, but he couldn't without wiping everything out. So he created helpers -- let's call them angels -- to make them orderly. However, the first among these angels (Lucifer, naturally) took his mission a little too literally and started a war against the Creator.

Now if you've been paying attention, you've probably figured out by now that God is Flynn, Clu is Lucifer, and the Grid is the universe. All of this happened "prior" to Legacy, so let's call this the Old Testament. This would make Tron: Legacy the New Testament, if you will.

Next, the Son (Sam) appears, in service to the Father, wanting to defeat Lucifer (Clu) using different tactics (love, action, and resistance) than the ones God (Flynn) had been using previously (ineffability, distance, mysticism). This course actually works, even though the Son is betrayed by someone he thought he could trust (Gem, performing the role of Judas.)

In a handy twist on the trope, Sam is saved by Quorra, who represents all that is best in Humanity: she is simultaneously both Mary, Mother of God and Mary Magdalene, making her The Virgin Who Loves The Son. (She talks about wanting to see the sun, and later, upon Sam's bike, she turns her face to it and basks in its warmth and glory. Hello, symbolism calling.)

I just really like this picture.

In a similar subversion of the trope, at the very end, instead of the Son dying for Humanity, it is the Father dying for the Son and Humanity, because he wants them to be safe and happy, and with his death he wipes away all sin and evil.

Or put another way: "For Flynn so loved his son, that he gave his only begotten world .."

(Oh, and for the sake of completeness: Rinzler, aka evil Tron and Clu's best fighter, would probably be the Archangel Michael. The analogy is very weak here, but it brings up an excellent (if short-lived) notion of faith and redemption.)

Therefore:  It isn't a movie about programs inside a computer. It's an allegory for how we have become so dependent upon technology that we (perhaps unconsciously) worship it as a savior, but perhaps we need to be saved from it instead. If you want to read it as such, it could be a call to stop playing games (as that was all the inhabitants of the Grid wanted, and remember they are supposed to be us in this analogy) and get on with living real lives in the real world instead of the virtual.  Or you could say that we (represented by Quorra) just need a deeper relationship with the divine (Jesus/Sam).

That's the problem with movies. You can argue themes and real messages all day long, and unless the writers come out and say "This was a movie about X" there's no real right answer. However, I can with a great deal of confidence that Tron: Legacy used biblical allegory to tell its story, and then covered the serial numbers with glossy black paint and glowing neon.

Now you understand the film. Whether or not you agree with it is your business, but again, using biblical allegories in science fiction movies has a long and illustrious history.

Yo Schmoe

Frankly, I was shocked that it took this long to make a G.I. Joe movie. I figured that in the wake of 9/11, a movie about an elite counterterrorist unit would have gotten the greenlight within 3 months and be out in time for summer 2002. Sadly, the movie which is out now was not worth the seven year wait.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that G.I.Joe: The Rise of Cobra is, as my buddy Tom Foss pointed out, a "flaming piece of crap-gilded crap." I knew it was going to be awful the moment I saw that Snake-Eyes had Schumacher-esque foam rubber lips molded onto his mask, and my beliefs were confirmed with each additional trailer I saw. I said I would never see this movie, but I was dragged along anyway, and even with a free ticket I still feel I paid too high a price.

No, I'm not going to review the movie. Tom did an excellent job of that above, and it's currently hovering at the 40% mark at Rotten Tomatoes. The last time I checked, the profits had dropped by 18% between Friday and Saturday, so it seems pretty likely that word of mouth is spreading about its awfulness. Instead, I'm going to quote myself from earlier posts, because they are relevant:

• "This is the Hollywood machine, people; its entire purpose in life is to take a giant stinking shit on beloved memories in an attempt to wring cash from your pockets." -- 7/05/07
  
• "There is a practice in Hollywood whereby films that are expected to do poorly -- usually cheap horror films and teen comedies -- are not sent to film critics to review. This is done so that the films can at least reap the benefits of opening weekend receipts before poor critical review and word of mouth can do any damage." -- 6/10/08
• "Neener." -- 5/05/09

At first pass, you'd think that the concept of G.I. Joe is too simple to screw up: a team of uber-elite soldiers uses bleeding-edge weapons to fight a terrorist threat. It's Men in Black, only without the aliens. How hard could it be to get right?

Then you think of the 80s cartoon with the red laser vs. blue laser battles, and you realize that when studios pander to the lowest common denominator, you get utter crap.

(Yes, I realize the G.I. Joe cartoon was meant for kids and therefore mass bloodshed was inappropriate. So was Gargoyles, but it was excellent, and it was produced by Disney of all things. "Appropriate for children" does not have to equal "stupid." It's just usually easier to produce that way.)

So this movie is basically a live-action cartoon. The stupid mid-80s cartoon where enlisted personnel could fly F-14s, everyone had lasers and parachutes, and basic science was ignored in the name of cool. I mean, ice floats on top of water, right? Rise of Cobra gets this fact wrong.

So if you have a hankering to watch some G.I. Joe without having your brains ooze out your ears (or scream in poisonous outrage at the screen, as I did) then I have two recommendations for you, depending on if you were a fan of the comic book or the cartoon.

If you liked the cartoon, then you will enjoy G.I. Joe: Resolute. It's basically the cartoon you remember, only with an intelligent plot, better art, decent voice acting, and action scenes that are probably closer to how you envisioned them as a kid. There are still a few funky artifacts left over -- Duke is still a sergeant yet commands officers, tandem-seat helicopters are piloted from the front seat, etc -- but at least it doesn't make Baby Jesus cry.



You can watch the entire series here.

If you were a fan of the comic book series (which was written by Larry Hama, a Vietnam veteran who tried to make the series as military-accurate as possible) then I suggest you go watch reruns of The Unit.

No, really. They have code names (Betty Blue, Snake Doctor); they are an elite unit which technically doesn't exist (303rd Logistical Studies Group); they often use cutting-edge technology; they fight terrorists. It really is a "real life" version of the G.I Joe team. Sadly, it's been cancelled, but it lives on in syndication.

Now you know... and we all know what knowing is.

How to Improve "Watchmen"

First, let it be said that I genuinely liked the movie. I'm not a rabid fangirl that howls for blood when something is changed in adaptation from page to screen -- in fact, I think the movie ending made far more sense than the book -- but I sincerely wanted it to eat The Dark Knight's lunch and instead all we got was an okay-to-good superhero movie with some political overtones.

But what's done is done, and we can't change things like getting a better actress to play Silk Spectre. However, I feel the movie can be improved by cutting out certain things. I may be late to this party, but I've given it some thought, and I think all of these could be easily done before the movie goes to DVD.


1) Reduce the length of the fight in the Comedian's apartment.
Ok, look, the comic book takes all of seven panels to kill the Comedian -- ten if you count watching him fall to his death. I realize that this the opening of the movie and you want to hook the audience, and I like a good fight sequence as much as anyone, but MY GOD it dragged on. After a while it just became senseless brutality in the name of "coolness".

Look at how the trailer below depicts the murder. That's actually about what the comic shows. Its run time is about 20 seconds. Now I recognize that's far too short for a key scene in the movie, but erring on the side of brevity is always good for a movie that 2.5 hours long.



2) Tone down/delete the "relevant" music
There was exactly ONE piece of music (set, as opposed to background) that I liked, and it was "All Along the Watchtower" because its tone and volume seemed to mesh perfectly with the scene. Everything else didn't:

• "Sound of Silence" during the Comedian's funeral? Too damn loud, ironically enough, and it distracted from the solemnity of the scene. An instrumental piece would have worked much better here.
• Likewise the "Ride of the Valkyries" bit. I'm sorry, I adore Wagner, but ever since Apocalypse Now that piece has become associated with Vietnam in an ironic, post-modern sense and it only undercuts the seriousness of the scene.
• The obligatory "OMG WE'RE IN THE 80s LETS PLAY 80s MUSIC TO SHOW WE'RE IN THE 80s". OK, I will admit that "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was clever, even if horribly forced, but "99 Luftbaloons"? Really?
  
• And then there's that rendition of "Hallelujah"... I guess I'll just declare myself a heretic now by saying I hate, Hate, HATE Leonard Cohen's version of it. Speaking of which...

3) For the love of God, cut the sex scene
I am not a prude. Anyone who has talked to me knows I like sex. I like looking at it, and I like talking about it. But this scene.... it goes on for too long and (worst) is not sexy. Malin Ackerman getting pistoned, whee. A porn actress would have actually worked better here, because they at least sound like they're getting off on the rote mechanics of the act. This sequence took five very
slender panels in the comic to depict, and the movie would do well to emulate that. And where the hell was Holiday's "You're My Thrill" in all of this?


4) Cut Nite-Owl's "NOOOOOOO!"
Because it wasn't cool when Vader did it, either. I'd prefer his presence in the doorway be completely excised, but if that's too hard to do, just removing the vocal track and having him slump silently to his knees will work.


5) This space intentionally left blank because I know I left something out. Also, Law of Fives.



There you go. Just some cutting, and you've raised "Watchmen" from a B-minus to a B-plus, at the very least.

Now the time is here (for Iron Man)

For those of you who did not follow my instructions here, or who would like to see a higher-quality and slightly longer trailer for Iron Man, are encouraged to go here.

Troy Hickman: Let My People Go (But Not To This Movie)

Sweet sassy molassey, I've lost the will to live.

As a few of you may know if you've read my posts elsewhere, I've maintained that Terror Toons is without a doubt the WORST movie of all time. Well, I'll stick to my guns with that contention, but I think I may have found First Runner Up.

But let me start at the beginning. A few weeks ago, my son Gabriel and I went to our local Blockbuster to exchange some movies (we belong to one of the "all you can rent for $20 a month" plans, and you're able to take the DVDs you receive in the mail into the store for immediate replacements, making it twice as good a deal).

So there we are, wandering through the racks when Gabriel, who has a real gift for camp, picks up a DVD box and says "Hey, how about this?"

There before me was something called The Watermelon Heist, with a cover depicting a lot of smiling black folks, including TV favorite John Amos, and Last Comic Standing's Corey Holcomb. It looked like a particularly goofy grade D comedy, and we had a good laugh over the cheesiness of it all.



"OK, we'll get it next time," I said to Gabriel, CLEARLY joking.

But genetics are a powerful force, and my kid has apparently inherited both my sense of humor and my penchant for tossing a monkey wrench into the ointment. So when we stopped into Blockbuster yesterday, I found myself once again face-to-face with The Watermelon Heist.

"You said we could get it this time, Dad."

Sometimes I think the part of me I most abhor is my near-obsession with keeping my word. Before I knew it, we were driving home, with John Amos' grinning face staring up at me.

Today, before I knew it, we were putting the DVD into the player.

An hour ago, before I knew it, I had spent 89 minutes of my life watching The Watermelon Heist.

And dying a little bit inside.

I...I really don't know what to say about this movie. I'm not even sure I can call it a movie. It's more like something Josef Mengele might have used to test human endurance. It's like something out of Lovecraft, except that if it were, at least it might be mercifully unspeakable.

But how can I truly convey how gut-wrenchingly awful this THING is? How can I get across that it makes a Stygian septic tank look like an Al Jaffe pile of doggy doo?

Do I tell you about the...er...for lack of a better word...plot? That it's about half a dozen black hillbilly types who have spent their lives on welfare, can't pay their property taxes, and therefore have to steal watermelons from farmer John Amos to win a "best watermelon" contest and collect $25000?

Do I tell you that, while the movie is mainly filmed, about 10% of it is made up of quick shots taken ON VIDEO? Do I tell you that the closest thing to a laugh you'll get here is when Amos is watching Chris Rock on TV for about two minutes, so they just insert the stand-up footage directly into the movie (and I'm guessing it's not with Rock's permission)?

Do I tell you about the "characters"? Included are Holcomb as Nicodemus "Nicker" Brown, his semi-retarded, constantly humping and masturbating brother Horny, his brother Numbers (thus named because he...uh...loves to count things), their Bryant Gumbel-sounding brother Whitey, and their sisters, the head-bobbing, talk-to-the-hand twins Mercedes and Caprice.

Do I tell you how the film seemed to have been written and directed by the Grand Wizard of the Novi Michigan chapter of the Ku Klux Klan? Do I tell you about the main characters dressing in chicken costumes to make a buck when the welfare checks just aren't cutting it? Do I tell you about "Horny" professing his love for "blond white women" and his attempts to hump his own female relatives? Do I tell you about how practically every other black character in the film is a Kool-Aid swilling, menthol-cigarette smoking, collared green-eating pimp?

Ya know, I would be remiss if I didn't point out two things about the film's "big name," John Amos: (1) He played the adult Kunte Kinte in Roots. (2) He left his role on Good Times in part because he (and his co-star Esther Rolle) believed that Jimmy Walker's "J.J." character was insulting to blacks (which in itself was ironic; while Walker was possibly the only thing funny about that truly awful sitcom, the influence of Rolle and Amos gave us such war atrocities as the episode about racially-biased testing in schools, a bit of excrement that may well be one of the most offensive and singularly mind-numbed episodes in all of 1970s television).



Given that, you'd think he'd be at least a LITTLE hesitant of taking part in a movie that makes David Duke look like Desmond Tutu. But not only does he dive into the dung heap headfirst, but also brings his entire family along for the trip (the film is directed by his son K.C., and supposedly "inspired by a true story" told to him by his father, John Amos Sr.).

Shame on you, John Amos. Shame on anyone who had anything to do with this drizzingly shitburger. And not because it demeans blacks, but because it demeans us all. I would suggest some appropriate punishment for your crimes, but truth be told the only torture sufficient would be to make you watch Terror Toons, and I'm afraid that would just give you ideas.

The Watermelon Heist is the only movie to ever cause my son to turn to me and say, sincerely, "I'm sorry I picked this one, Dad. I really am."

On the plus side, we feel closer than we ever have, much like the guys who braved mustard gas together in the trenches of Ypres.

If you find yourself staring at the DVD box of this film on your video store's shelves, folks, just remember that sometimes the abyss stares back at you.

An open letter to everyone bitching about Transformers

Dear choads who are bitching about the Transformers movie,

Would it have killed you to put a "Spoilers" tag on your posts? Apparently so, because after reading just TWO blogs, the movie has been totally ruined for me. I know who dies (and thus, who lives) and I know pretty much the entire structure of the third act. And I didn't sit there and read the whole entry, either; I stopped reading the moment I found out something I didn't want to know.

Now I can't watch the movie, because I'll be unable to shut my brain up. I don't know how it is for you assholes, but when I go to a movie and I know someone is gonna die, there's a continuous loop of dialog that runs through my head: "Is this where he dies? Is this where he dies? Is this where he dies?" And I cannot shut it up until that person actually dies.

If you think I'm going to sit through a third act where, its surprises being lost to me, I am constantly analyzing each scene to see if it fits what I know is going to happen... you can go fuck yourselves.

So yeah. I can't watch it now. Are you proud of yourselves, shitheads? You've completely ruined the experience for me. I have to wait until I've forgotten what was spoiled (which, knowing my capacity for useless factoids, will be about a decade) and of course the movie will be out of theaters by then. How would you have liked it if, right before you watched The Empire Strikes Back, someone had told you that [SPOILERS] Vader was Luke's father ?[/SPOILERS]
Wouldn't that have completely and utterly ruined the whole movie for you? Wouldn't it have completely destroyed the mystery and tension of the "Force Cave" sequence on Dagobah?

God, you're all such whiny fucking little fanboys, aren't you? The movie isn't a perfect wankfest of your childhood memories. DUH! This is the Hollywood machine, people; its entire purpose in life is to take a giant stinking shit on beloved memories in an attempt to wring cash from your pockets. Hell, even the original Transformers movie was a betrayal, in that [SPOILERS] they killed almost the entire first generation of Autobots in, what, the first 15 minutes? [/SPOILERS]
What ever made you think that this was going to anything else? Was the name "Michael Bay" not a giant FUCKING clue that the movie just might not be faithful to the source material?

I hate you all. Please fuck off and die.

Kisses,
Erin Palette