TMD's Creatively Named Blog

Essays, Not Rants 021: Shawarma

So the other day I was looking for lunch and ended up ordering shawarma at a falafel joint. As such there is a picture of me taking a Thor-sized bite out of it on Twitter. To those curious, it tastes more like a doner kebab than a gyro, just different toppings and stuff. And more Middle-Easty.

But why shawarma? I was hungry, but why'd I pick some middle-eastern delicacy over barbecue, burgers or brisket? It wasn't cheaper and I wasn't even sure if I liked it (but I like meat, pita bread, and food, so there's that).

If you stayed to the end of the credits of The Avengers — and by the end I mean the end after every last name has rolled past the screen — you'll have seen this wonderful little scene. It's the titular heroes sitting in a restaurant and eating shawarma. There's no dialogue; i's just them eating after the battle.

It's a quiet scene, and a bit of a joke too since there's no big epic stinger as was the case for the other Marvel movies.

But it's important, because it's about them. The shawarma scene shows that after saving New York City and the world, they need a break. Again, it's about them, taking time together at a point where there's nothing left to say.

I'm not going to lie: these sorts of scenes are my favorites. I love character relations in my media (see: Firefly, Community, Super 8...) as much as I love adventure.

So what are some other great examples of quiet character moments?

Avatar: The Last Airbender is rife with them. The episode 'The Runaway' focuses on the personality clash between Toph and Katara. We've got shenanigans aplenty in town and bits of excitement strewn all over. But the best part?

Toph and Sokka sit down and talk about Katara and how they all work together. It's just talking, but it accentuates who they are.

Better still is a moment during the finale. Team Avatar is getting ready for Aang to confront the Fire Lord and save the day. Everyone knows there's a massive epic battle coming up. One of the 'members' of Team Avatar, Zuko, spent most prior episodes as an antagonist. He's helping them now, but he feels like an outsider.
There's a group hug for reassurance before they set out, and Katara sees that Zuko chose to stand it out. Now, Katara was the one who distrusted him most, the one who just about hated him. But now she turns to him and tells him that “being part of the group also means being part of group hugs”. That's it, no big spiel about forgiveness or redemption, just acceptance.

Later on the finale Zuko is reunited with the uncle he betrayed. He feels undeserving of even speaking to him and quietly waits at his bedside for him to wake up. When Iroh wakes and sees his nephew, he doesn't even let Zuko get a word out before capturing him in an embrace. We've followed these characters for three seasons, we feel the same relief as the prodigal nephew and the same joy as the loving uncle.

Besides Avatar, I begun watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer this summer. The premiere episode for season two, 'When She Was Bad', has Buffy acting remorselessly towards everyone else, friend and foe alike. She alienates and manipulates one of her best friends and later viciously tortures a vampire for information. In the aftermath she's scared and feels terribly alone.
The next morning she goes to school, unsure of where she stands. The way she sees it she doesn't deserve to be forgiven or even treated with a shred of warmth by her friends.
But they've saved her a seat, they make plans for the day, joke about teachers and the events of the night before. The camera pulls away and their conversation fades out. Without outright saying it, we know they still love her and still accept her as one of them. It's simple, quiet, and wonderful.

Character moments are special, since that's our most basic way of relating to them. Like them, we have relationships, we have friends who see us at our best and worst and put up with us. We have that sense of familiarity when we see it happen on screen, whether it's an impromptu game of what might be basketball in Serenity's cargo hold or a group of superheroes sitting together silently.

In any case, I liked my shawarma.

Essays, Not Rants! 020: The Avengers > The Dark Knight Rises

You read that title right: The Avengers was better than The Dark Knight Rises.

Man. Always fun to stir up some controversy.

Why do I think this? So glad you asked.

But let me preface all this with something: I’ve loved Batman for as far back as I can remember. I loved The Dark Knight, heck, it was one of the first movies I added to my BluRay collection. I’m not some Batman hater championing The Avengers because it’s not Batman; I legitimately think The Avengers was better.

The Dark Knight Rises is called the end of the Dark Knight Legend. Which it certainly is. Unlike it’s predecessor(s), however, it doesn’t stand alone. Rises depends on The Dark Knight and Batman Begins for the plot to have impact. It still works without them, it just nowhere near as well and winds up feeling incomplete.
The Avengers has no such problem. Having seen the prior movies does help us understand the characters more, but the script is deft enough to sum up what’s relevant to their characters quickly. Even a hitherto unseen character like Hawkeye (besides a brief cameo in Thor) has development and character.
In addition, each of the main characters in The Avengers (The titular team and Loki) are given their own character arcs. The characters in this film feel complete and round, as opposed to the archetypes of Rises.

Another thing that’s comparable about these two movies is the presence of a woman that spends a lot of the time in a catsuit. The Avengers has Black Widow, Rises has Selina Kyle. Both are remarkably good protagonists, both use others perception of them as women as a tool, both have their own goals.
But it’s Black Widow, and not Selina Kyle, that sticks out as being better. Unlike Selina Kyle, Black Widow has a much fuller character and development. In Rises we know Kyle’s a master thief, and we know what she’s after. It’s implied in passing she perhaps fancies herself a modern day Robin Hood, but that’s it. We’re never told why nor are we given a personal reason for her actions. We can see what she does, but never does she come into her own person.
Black Widow is given a couple of key scenes where we meet the woman wearing the catsuit. We find out that she has red in her ledger that she needs to clear, and that’s her motivation for wanting to achieve her goal. Selina Kyle’s steals to get something that will clear her name of her previous thefts. As great as she is, she feels like just another archetype.

The other thing is The Avengers has you pour more investment into it. Yes, Gotham at risk is indeed a serious threat and we want to see Batman rise to the challenge. But in The Avengers we watch a group of people who are heroes in their own right learn to set aside their differences for the greater good. It’s a different conflict, but one was handled better than the other.
Furthermore, Batman and Iron Man are both called to make sacrifices. Batman’s feels like an eventuality, something that had to happen. Iron Man’s was a culmination of the development of Tony Stark’s character within the film. We have an investment in him and the people who care about him due to the events in the film thus far. Rises had a few moments, but focused too strongly on Batman as a symbol and not enough on the actual people around him.
In The Avengers we legitimately care about the characters and who they are. Not just the fate of New York/Gotham, but the fate of the very heart and soul of these characters. Sure, The Dark Knight Rises had it too, just The Avengers had it more.

Then there’s the heroism. No moment in The Dark Knight can compare to the shot of the assembled Avengers in New York City ready to save the day. None.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved The Dark Knight Rises. It’s a perfect ending to an excellent trilogy with regards to both plot and theme. And maybe comparing these two movies is like comparing apples to pipebombs. One’s an epic, the other’s an adventure. Both are very different and both succeed at what they set out to do.

At the end of the day though, The Avengers was just a better film.

Writer’s note: I realize there’s much more I could get into here (like how The Avengers had more heart and humor, etc), but I’m already past my self-imposed deadline and have to go to work soon. My apologies.

Essays, Not Rants! 019: Sacrifice

There’s this trope in fiction called the Heroic Sacrifice. The idea is that a character gives himself up so another can live or succeed. When done right it can be an incredibly powerful writing tool.

Doesn’t have to be sacrificing your own life, though. At the end of The Dark Knight, Batman has just saved Commissioner Gordon’s son and the fallen Harvey Dent has tumbled to his death. There is blood on Dent’s hands; the man who came close to saving Gotham has come crashing down and his stellar reputation will follow. So Batman tells Gordon to pin every one of Dent’s crimes on him. Batman will take responsibility for what Dent did so that the late District Attorney's work will not be undone. Gordon agrees reluctantly and Batman disappears into the night and we are left marveling at the self-sacrifice of the Dark Knight. Gotham has been saved, at the expense of Batman’s character.

Of course, the trope of sacrifice can be done wrong. In the terrible live-action adaption of Avatar: The Last Airbender, the interaction between two characters (Sokka and Princess Yue) is treated from the get-go as comic relief. It’s amusing to see them bumbling over themselves as their attraction grows. Then suddenly the plot necessitates a sacrifice and the only one who can do it is the Princess.
The relationship that we’ve only seen snippets of (and has thus far been used exclusively as comic relief) is suddenly thrust forward as drama. Before we get a chance to realize that it isn’t a joke, she’s dead and everyone forgets about her as the climax continues. It’s forgettable and fails to add any tension or poignancy. The general lousy script, acting, and direction probably doesn’t help any.

(Do note: in the cartoon series the sacrifice had punch and weight and genuinely felt sad)

A far stronger example comes from the TV series Lost. Sawyer is never presented as a particularly ‘good’ character. As far as he’s concerned, he’s not someone worth liking and no one could possibly hate him more than he does.
The plot continues and Sawyer faces his demons and grows into a protector of the other castaways. As Season Four draws to a close a handful of the castaways are given the chance to get off the island. Sawyer is among them.
But the helicopter is too heavy; they need to lighten the load. So someone has to jump from the copter. Though Sawyer isn’t killed from his sacrifice, it serves as the climax to his arc. He’s gone from the selfish murderer when he arrived on the island to someone who would give up his spot for another. It’s a story of redemption and sacrifice.

Sometimes everything comes together to form a simply beautiful sequence. J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek opens with the USS Kelvin being viciously attacked by an unknown enemy. George Kirk has only been captain for a few minutes and orders the evacuation of the entire crew; including his wife and about-to-be-born child. To buy time for the lifeboats he resorts to ramming his ship headlong into the enemy. Autopilot’s gone and only he is left to pilot it in.
The gravity of the moment is accentuated not only by Michael Giacchino’s beautiful score (see Up for further reference) but by the heartbreaking conversation he has with his wife. Within a few minutes we’re caught up in this valiant act that not only sets up the plot but gives his son a standing to aspire to. It’s a universal notion: the idea of giving up one’s own life for a loved one, one that draws us in and makes us feel.

The midnight release of The Dark Knight Rises was marred by the Aurora Shooting. Yet even in the most horrible circumstances, light can shine out. Three men, three unrelated individuals, had one instinct when the shooter opened fire: get their girlfriends out of harm’s way. Jon Blunk, Matt McQuinn, and Alex Teves all died to save the ones they loved. There was no fanfare, no triumphant score as they fell to the ground. Just sacrificial love. Though the press will follow the shooter until he receives his judgement and beyond, it’s these stories, the actions of Blunk, McQuinn, and Teves that should be remembered. Because of what they did three young women still have life. Because of them we’re reminded that though some of us may be absolute monsters some of us are still good.

I’ve written of heroes on this blog before. I’ve said that one of the reasons heroes inspire us is because we hope that we can be like them. We read and watch our fiction about brave heroes who will die to save the day. Then we see before us real people who willingly gave their lives. All of a sudden the notion of the heroic sacrifice ceases to be a trope in fiction and it becomes real.

And heroes ARE real. And Jon Blunk, Matt McQuinn, and Alex Teves ARE heroes.

Essays, Not Rants 018: Legend’s End


This weekend the conclusion to Christopher Nolan’s epic Dark Knight Trilogy was released. His was a new Batman, one that took place within the confines of our world rather than some dark/campy alternate. Nolan sought to not only retell the Batman story, but to elevate it from just a story to a legend. In telling the story of how man became myth, Nolan took each aspect of Bruce Wayne’s journey and centered a movie around it: overcoming fear, resisting evil, and ultimately embodying the legend.

“To conquer fear, you must become fear,” Bruce Wayne is told by R’as al Ghul in Batman Begins. It was Wayne’s childhood fear of bats that led to his parents’ death, and it’s this fear that he uses to wage his war on crime. The atmosphere in Begins is drenched in fear, whether it be Gotham’s citizens’ fear of the mob bosses who run the city or the villain of the film: Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow, whose weapon is fear itself. Crane (and the League of Shadows) want to destroy Gotham by amplifying the population’s fears until they tear themselves apart. It is his mastery of fear that allows Batman to defeat Crane and R’as al Ghul. Wayne triumphs over his personal demons to become the Batman. Now what?

The Joker appears inexplicably in The Dark Knight. He has no name and no origin; he simply is the Joker, an agent of chaos. He is the antithesis of Batman: where the Dark Knight stands for order and justice, the Clown Prince of Crime is the embodiment of anarchy and lawlessness. Batman’s struggle against crime is paralleled by Harvey Dent. They are the supposed saviors of Gotham: one through law and legislation and the other through vigilantism. Both are forced to the breaking point by the Joker and both make a choice. Harvey Dent chooses objective chance and Wayne remains an idealist. Batman withstands his temptation and remains incorruptible, going so far as to take the fall for the crime of the ruined Harvey Dent as his own. The Dark Knight was Batman’s test of character; the answer to the question of whether he would die a hero or live long enough to become a villain is a simple no. After it all he is still a hero; the hero Gotham needs.

In Rises, the age of Batman ended with the legacy of Harvey Dent. The Dark Knight disappeared into the shadows, and Wayne retired from the public life. Enter Bane, a man who wants to undo the newfound order and destroy Gotham in not only city but spirit too. He intends to break Gotham and its icons: Batman, Harvey Dent, and the police. As Gotham begins to crumble it falls to Batman to rise from the ashes and rally people around him. His insignia becomes the symbol for the resistance and the unquenchable hope that one day the Batman will prevail and topple Bane and restore Gotham to its glory. But in order for this to happen, Wayne must once again conquer his fear and never give up if he is to finally become more than just a man in a suit, So the Dark Knight finally rises to a legend, a symbol of justice and hope that cannot be killed.

Gotham is the fantasy setting for this legend. It’s not Spider-Man’s Manhattan. In Dark Knight the city seems to be Chicago, in Rises it looks like New York. Where it is is unimportant as Gotham is no one city: it’s every city. It’s a myth that could happen anywhere, just as Batman could be anyone: a cop putting a jacket on a scared kid’s shoulders or the man who throws a detonator overboard. As the Dark Knight Trilogy comes to an end, no longer does it matter who is behind Batman’s cowl, what matters is who he is: the ultimate fearless paragon.

These are our legends, and this is how they end.

Essays, Not Rants! 017: Worlds Need Rules

I like writing. No, not just my weekly essay (which is certainly not a rant), but fiction. Sometimes I write stuff grounded firmly in this world, but I really enjoy building worlds of fantasy or science fiction. I’ve got a science fiction side project I like to fiddle with here and there and I run a fantasy RPG with some friends. For both of these I’ve made intricate worlds with some semblance of a history and culture. But just as important as the setting of a story is the exact nature of the world. Any ‘magical’ force, be it mystical or scientific, needs rules to go with it.

Mass Effect is set several centuries in the future, after humanity has made contact with not only the technology of an ancient race that came before but with the various alien species that populate the world today. How does this work? The titular mass effect fields that can increase or decrease the mass of a volume of space time. This technology allows usual science fiction tropes like shields, faster-than-light travel, and artificial gravity; or provides mundane justifications like how buildings can be so tall or preventing spaceships from being hit by space debris.
What makes this so wonderful isn’t just the encyclopedia’s worth of pseudo-science, it’s that everything within the universe adheres to this rules. Because of this we can’t have, say, a ship the size of the Normandy obliterating a planet. No matter how much you’d want to chalk it up to a mass effect field, the rules of the universe prevent it. The writers have their rules to limit the extent of their technology in the world. So long as they don’t supersede these rules, the universe works.

Harry Potter is about magic. Simple. You say a spell (or do it silently if you’re good enough) and magic happens. Feeling lazy? Accio remote!* Someone’s making you really mad? Avada Kadavra. Of course, that means you really do mean it and have created a very permanent solution to what was probably a very minor problem, you overreacting overreactor. But want to make yourself immortal, or make someone love you? No can do. That’s the rules of the universe.
Prior to writing the books, J.K. Rowling spent years detailing exactly how magic would work in her world. She had to set limits and rules on just how it worked. Something couldn’t come from nothing, for example. The world still has to function, magic or not.

*Yes, I know wizards don’t use remotes. Relax.

The ‘physics’ of bending are established fairly early in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Like how benders need the element to control it (except for firebenders who channel their own chi into fire). That’s the main rule and anything that the characters do follows that paradigm. Were Katara to suddenly conjure up a burst of water in a desert our suspension of disbelief would be broken. Not because she can control water, but because the show broke their own rules.

We like to get lost in other worlds. But we need these worlds to be believable. This doesn’t mean whatever phlebotinum or plot device you have must be ‘realistic’ or particularly grounded in reality, it means that if you say something is a certain way, than that is the way it must be. We, the audience, will willing suspend our disbelief so long as the fantastical element remains internally consistent. Call it Aristotle’s Law Of Identity or Magic A is magic A, it’s the foundation of a believable world.

And if we can’t believe it then we won’t be invested.

Essays, Not Rants! 016: Thrilling Heroics

Every boy has his favorite superhero. Doesn’t matter if they’ve never read a comic; pop cultural osmosis will take care of that. Growing up, my favorites were Batman and Iron Man. My brother was a Spider-Man fan. I’ve got a buddy who loved Green Lantern and another who liked Robin. But why is it that we love heroes (super or not)? Whether they’re named Tony Stark, Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins, Buffy Summers, or Atticus Finch, we have our heroes. But why? Why do we love having heroes in fiction?

Barring the rare invincible abnormality like Superman (in which case you’d need emotional tension to… that’s another essay for another day), heroes have a risk of death. Sure, we’re  sure (well, kinda sure if it’s written by Joss Whedon) they’ll survive, but there’s that potential. Towards the end of Mass Effect 3, Commander Shepard’s armor has been destroyed and half-melted, but still our hero presses on, blood dripping from his wounds, in a final desperate attempt to save the galaxy. This is Shepard: the living legend who defended the Citadel from Sovereign, halted a Collector invasion, and united the races of the galaxy for the first time in millennia of history. He’s been augmented with cybernetics and carries enough firepower to take on a small army. Yet even he bleeds. Great, a lot of heroes get the snot beaten our of them. So what?

It proves they’re human! We love the everyman, the hero we can relate to. When creating Uncharted, Naughty Dog chose to stray from the trend of super-soldiers and overconfident protagonists and give us a fairly ordinary man dressed in a simple shirt and jeans: Nathan Drake. He’s a wisecracking smart aleck who spends as much time stumbling and falling as he does fighting bad guys. Drake’s snarky and funny, amusing us as he fumbles (sorry, improvises) his way through his adventures. It doesn’t take much to see that his bravado and bluster is just him trying to build himself up: an a attempt to steel himself for the perils that await. But he feels fear, he feels desperation. When Drake sees his friends get hurt his courage falters and we see the man within, we see ourselves. We like him because we’re like him. Drake isn’t that much different from us: he’s who we hope we’d be if we were in his spot, albeit wittier.

Similarly, Peter Parker, more so than most other superheroes, is terribly ordinary. He’s a teenager in high school striving for good grades and trying to win the heart of his girl. And he’s got spider-like powers. Nonetheless, he’s every one of us back in high school. Marc Webb captured this so well in The Amazing Spider-Man by introducing us to Peter the boy first. We get to know him before his powers, with his powers, and then when he finally calls himself Spider-Man. We’re not following the story of Spider-Man the superhero, we’re following story of this kid named Peter Parker. Even when he’s ‘officially’ a superhero, he’s still not invulnerable. Multiple times Peter shows up after a night of crime fighting battered, bruised, and bloodied. He’s just a teenage boy trying to do what’s right.

That’s the crux of our heroes. We want to know they’re vulnerable, we like them human (or at least mostly), but we want to see them do what’s right. We want our heroes to get beaten up and choose to go on because we hope that were we in their spot we would have the strength to continue. As an audience, we’re normal, powerless in our situations. None of us would stand a chance against the Reapers, Zoran Lazerevic, or the Lizard. But then, neither would Shepard, Drake, or Spider-Man were it not for their circumstances. Maybe, and just maybe, that could be us.
Our heroes aren’t perfect and invincible. Underneath the Iron Man armor is a middle-aged man on the brink of death. Green Lantern is just a guy with a fancy ring. Captain America was an earnest runt given a once-in-a-lifetime chance. The only difference between us and our heroes are our positions.


“I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I’m afraid of,” said Joss Whedon once. In these heroes, super or not, we find our strength. We see our weaknesses and fallings mirrored, but more than that we see them overcome it for the sake of good. The exhausted Sam carries Frodo up the side of Mount Doom. Atticus Finch risks his standing in the community to do what’s right. Luke Skywalker refuses to strike down Darth Vader.

No matter how hurt or broken our heroes are, they choose to do the right thing, to carry on and fight again.

And we hope that we can too.

Essays, Not Rants! 015: Abed, I Know What We're Gonna Do Today!

My favorite show this past season aired on Thursdays at 8pm on NBC. This was, of course, Community. It also happens to be one of my favorite shows of all time (up there with Firefly, Lost, and Chuck). It’s smart, excellently written, and consistently hilarious.
I’m not sure when my favorite cartoon airs. I know it’s on Disney Channel, but I just watch it on Netflix. Phineas and Ferb, my favorite cartoon, is smart, excellently written, and consistently hilarious.
They’re very different shows: one’s about a group of community college students and the escapades they get up to, the other’s about a pair of step-brothers and their attempts to make the most of the 104 days of summer vacation. The two, however, do share a comedic style that’s right up my alley. Both are meta, post-modern, fourth-wall taunting, and trope playing shows that have far more in common than not.

The foundation for a series such as these is a setting in which just about anything can transpire. For Phineas and Ferb it’s the brothers’ ability to create literally anything in their backyard; for Community it’s the unpredictably goofy campus of Greendale Community College. Both worlds are slightly (okay, very in the case of Phineas and Ferb) fantastical but grounded in some semblance of reality. Both shows have done westerns, science fiction, alternate realities, and musicals. Since they’ve established that reality is malleable in their worlds they’re free to play around with it as much as they want. Of course, their little winks and nods to the audience helps us play along.

Beyond their bouts of fantasy, both shows are very self-aware of not only the tropes they play with, but their own tendency to play with these tropes. Phineas and Ferb knows it has a wealth of catchphrases and so aired an episode set in prehistoric times with the entire episode’s dialogue simple grunts. Yet, due to the nature of the show, anyone who’s seen a few episodes knows exactly what each character means and where the plot is going. Community not only gleefully pointed out that the episode ‘Cooperative Calligraphy’ was a bottle episode but expressed disdain at the very idea of bottle episodes. Within their bottle episode. The result is one of the most cleverly written episodes of the series.
They know what they’re doing, and they know that you too know what they’re doing. So they take you in stride, welcome you to the fold, and have fun.

But all the shenanigans in the world mean nothing if you can’t connect. To that, both shows have a core cast who you quickly grow to love. The Study Group from Community may be involved in hijinks aplenty, but the characters and their interactions are treated with gravitas and respect. Sure, their world may not be real, but the people at the core are. Phineas and Ferb has the titular brothers and Isabella, Buford, Baljeet, and Candace stick together for all the adventures. No matter how absurd their worlds may get, the characters and their relationships are very real. It’s both shows wonderful artificial families that give us a frame and reference for the adventures.

Phineas and Ferb and Community are very different tv shows. One’s aimed primarily (well, more halfway intended) at kids and the other at adults/teens. Yet both shows share a very similar sort of humor and sense of family. It’s no guarantee that liking one show means you’ll like the other, but it’s certainly a very strong possibility. Again: it’s that post-modern sense of humor and slick writing with the artificial family at its core that unites the shows.

This is quality television.

Essays, Not Rants! 014: Why Science Fiction

Science Fiction is a setting (not a genre) that frequently gets written off and ignored because it’s deemed inept to deal with more serious topics. But science fiction has leave to deal with heavy subjects in a way ‘regular’ fiction only wishes it could. Science fiction - good science fiction - has and will always be about people.

The world will change, but people will always stay the same. People will always want to control, people will always want more, people will always want love, people will always yearn for adventure, and people will always want to find home. It doesn’t matter if it’s the 17th, 21st, or 26th century: people don’t change. The best science fiction examines humanity - consciously or not - in ways that other fiction can not.

Ender’s Game can easily be looked at as just another story about mankind repelling alien invaders. We’ve got the buggers/formics poised to destroy humanity and the only hope lies in the kid named Ender Wiggen. But it goes beyond that: it looks at the idea of empathy (and the lack of it) as a tool and a weapon. It is Ender’s immense capacity for empathy that makes him an excellent leader and brilliant tactician, but it’s his ability to withhold it that makes him a brutal opponent. His empathy endears Bean, Alai, Petra and others to him, his brutality puts a very permanent end to his victimization. It’s this ability of his that allows him to understand his utterly alien enemy and defeat them, but ultimately come to love them. Because he understood them he could love them with all his innocence.
Ordinary fiction would spend too much time trying to explain how and justifying why child soldiers were being trained the way the International Fleet trains Ender and friends. The concept of an enemy so completely unknown, so plain inhuman would feel terribly contrived in conventional fiction. In Ender’s Game we go with it because it’s the setting. We get the innocence of a child and truly alien enemy. Why? Science fiction.

Everyone dreams. Everyone wants to escape. Inception gives us a world where we can escape into our dreams. Yes, there are practical uses for this (typically of the espionage and thieving variety), but what would we really do with this technology? Would we would run from the world and its problems into our dreams, into dreams where everything is how and as we want? Christopher Nolan examines the concept of being able to escape in this fashion and the questions of reality that ensue. If our dreams are better than life would we not chose to stay in that world? What would reality mean then? What would we do?
In Inception we see people running from reality and trying to create their own. It’s what we do in our daydreams and it’s what we do when we go to the movies. But in the world of this movie it’s something they can do on a whim. Some people hide in them, some people will use them, and some simply remain unaware. It’s on the humanity within the story that science fiction thrives. We see people act and can’t help but to wonder whether we, like Cobb’s wife, would just want to live in our imaginary world.

Finally; Serenity. The idea presented in Joss Whedon’s film is the question of control. Of course, we’ve heard stories about totalitarian governments clamping down on freedom and forcing them to behave. But it’s in this setting that the Alliance has not only the will but the ability to truly control their population. If free will and the capacity to make choice is taken out of the human equation what then remains?
Science fiction allows us to explore the idea in a world where it’s possible. Because we’ve agreed to believe that the technology exists we can see the implications. Serenity asks what would people would do if they found a world without choice. Five hundred years in the future we will still aim to misbehave: especially if misbehaving is the right thing to do.   Set against a backdrop of spaceships and planets is the story of an artificial family just trying to live their lives and find some semblance of home.

So why science fiction? The setting lets us create worlds where the impossible is just a part of life. This impossible factor lets us ask what people would then do. District 9 asked the question of aliens and segregation, Alien created a unique horror film, Jurassic Park demonstrated the fallacies of playing god. Sure, the setting can be seen as just a vehicle for a parable, but it’s a world where imagination runs wild.
Good science fiction is about the people in the world. It’s a simple concept: the world will change but people will stay the same.
Plus, science fiction is just such darn fun.

Essays, Not Rants!  013: The Prequels Aren’t So Bad

One of the most controversial series of films released within the past twenty years is the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy. In all seriousness, the Star Wars prequels do get a lot of flak for not living up to the precedence of the Holy Trilogy. But I'm here to say they're not the travesty of film that a lot of us make them out to be.

By no means am I saying they're flawless. I grew up with Star Wars and can't recall a time in my life where I didn't know the story of the classic three. I saw The Phantom Menace for my eighth birthday and loved it for all the reasons an eight year old would love The Phantom Menace (that is: Qui Gon Jinn). I thought Attack of the Clones was, well, whatever, and Revenge of the Sith was fantastic. Then I didn't watch any of the prequels for almost six years.

So I watched them again a few months ago and, well, they're not that bad.

Oh, they're definitely not amazing. They lack the sweeping narrative and engaging characters of the originals. Where the originals were character driven adventures, the new ones are more poorly-written political dramas. We lose that sense of grand adventure in favor of stories weighed down with unnecessary intrigue. While the Classic Trilogy had Luke, Han, and Leia getting out of all sorts of scraps, in the new ones we watch the heroes navigate pointless discussions in the Senate and other assorted politicking.

But there are things the prequels did do right - they’re very pretty. We’re afforded a deeper peek into the world: more ships, more planets, more buildings, more people. There’s this tangible life to the world. The podrace in The Phantom Menace would never have been possible when the original movies came out. The new movies took the technology afforded to them and built a world. A world without particularly engaging characters, but a world nonetheless.

Building on that, the action and fight choreography stands unrivaled by few other movies. From Qui Gon’s encounter with Darth Maul on Tatooine in The Phantom Menace to the final duel on Mustafar in Revenge of the Sith, every fight is a joy to behold. This is sword fighting like we always wanted just never knew we did. Fast paced and intense we watch them fight for, um, because they have to? But that’s beside the point; the fights are great and even though we’re not sure why we’re invested in them we’re still drawn to them. They’re flashy, but somehow they still strike an emotional chord with us.

And that’s because of the music. John Williams’ score for the prequels stands as one of the best of his particularly illustrious career. Duel of the Fates gives the climatic duel in Menace the appropriate grandeur and gravitas. Likewise, Across the Stars actually makes you almost care about the horribly written romance between Anakin and Padme. An echoed refrain of the theme that plays back during Revenge instantly tugs at your heartstrings. More so than in the original movies, the score in the prequels pull you into the movies and makes you feel what the writing and acting does not. It’s easy to look back on them and realize how they aren’t that good, but while you’re watching them the music and the visuals are simply captivating.

But they never quite measure up to the original movies.

The prequels failed because of, yes, poor writing and lousy characterization, but also because they just didn’t feel like Star Wars. The Holy Trilogy was an adventure. The new ones, less so. Rather than following characters we’re following the plot as it develops. We’re not watching Luke become a Jedi, we’re watching a trade dispute lead to war. It’d be okay in another movie, but it feels too impersonal and distant to be Star Wars. That is the movies’ falling.

When I think of Star Wars I think of the Empire and the Rebellion, Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon, and Luke and Vader. Despite being the ‘intended’ age when the prequels came out, The Empire Strikes Back and the rest of the Holy Trilogy are my favorites. But, like I’m trying to say, the prequels aren’t that bad.

Writer’s Note: I know there are literally hundreds of other arguments about the prequels’ failings. I’m not gonna get into them because we’ve heard them before. I’m making an attempt at a defense (which kinda gets bogged down because, well, yeah).

Essays, Not Rants! 012: Unawarded Merit

I love The Avengers. I’ve seen it five times (no regrets) and it’s probably my favorite movie in the last few years. If you follow this blog you’ve heard over and over again why I love it (great script, excellent direction, etc). The Avengers is a movie that shows how good not only a superhero movie can be, but a summer blockbuster. Yet for all that it won’t get an Oscar or any serious recognition.

Okay, so it may get an Oscar for Sound Editing or Visual Effects or one of those technical ones that these sorts of movies (y’know, Star Wars or The Dark Knight) tend to win. But to get Best Picture (Or Best Adapted Screenplay - which it most definitely deserves), well, it’s not happening.

For some reason, groups like the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences find that popcorn fare isn’t good enough to be bestowed with a title like Best Picture, they need their movies to be ‘better’. No, not better quality like how Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings is far better than Ralph Bakshi’s; better in the sense that Loki thinks that he’s better than humans (I swear I’ll get The Avengers out of my system eventually).

In other words, it’s got to be ‘art’.

But how do we define ‘art’? Why was The Return Of The King awarded Best Picture but The Dark Knight Rises passed over? Both were excellent adaptions of previous work, proving that their sources could be turned into legitimate movies of excellent quality. Where is the line of art drawn?

Could be scope. The Return of the King is about good triumphing over evil on the grandest level possible. But The Hurt Locker is comparatively tiny and still won Best Picture. Historical significance would make sense then (The Return of the King was adapted from the third best selling novel of all time). The Hurt Locker is about a controversial war and The King’s Speech about a king, um, giving a speech during a war. The Artist is a silent film and The Titanic about the titular ship.

The other route would be to go for something relevant or something that tugs at heart strings. Over recent years, the trend for award-winning movies has become borderline formulaic that videos have popped up on the Internet lampooning them. It’s not hard to know what sort of movies will win. Art has given way to predictability, quality to relevance.

So maybe it’s time to look beyond the Oscars and Golden Globes. Amazing stories can be found in movies ignored (500 Days of Summer) and mediums completely written off by the majority of mainstream media (The videogame Uncharted 3). Quality can be found in blockbuster summer movies (The Avengers).  Art doesn’t have to be pretentious.

Ultimately, an award is just an honorific paired with a shiny trophy and a measure of press. Years down the line the movies that stay in our consciousnesses aren’t always the award winners. Movies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Breakfast Club have become iconic over the years though neither were anywhere near award winning. The Hurt Locker is already fading into obscurity whereas Avatar is still remembered.

Cult classics: that’s the name of these movies. They may not win the most glamorous awards but they remain favorites years and years down the line. I know they’re not always snubbed: sometimes The Return Of The King does take home Best Picture and ten other Oscars. But maybe cult classic-hood is the true measure of a film’s success. Crowdsourcing is the big thing these days, anyway.

It’s easy to say we’ll just disregard award ceremonies and strive to live life without them. I write all this but I can guarantee that come award season I’ll wait with bated breath to find out to the winners. But, even though a movie like Life of Pi will probably take home Best Picture, I’ll still know The Avengers was better.