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Ta-metru_defender

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  2. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 235: Do Spoilers Spoil?
     
    Darth Vader has Luke Skywalker on the ropes, cornered, defenseless, and missing a hand. But rather than killing the Rebel, Vader offers for Luke to join him. Luke refuses. Undeterred, Vader throws doubt on those Luke trusts and utters one of the most famous lines in cinema:
     
    “No, I am your father.”
     
    It’s shattering, throwing everything Luke knows into disarray. But Luke doesn’t join Vader, choosing instead to cast himself into the abyss below.
     
    Also, that scene’s a big honking spoiler. It upends everything we, as viewers, have been told thus far, paints Obi Wan as a liar, and Yoda one by omission. It also profoundly effects Luke and colors his motivations throughout all of the next movie. Big twist, big development, so, y’know, spoiler.
     
    But do we call Han getting frozen in carbonite a spoiler too? I mean, he’s basically becoming mostly dead and that plot point necessitates the first act of Jedi and is partially responsible for the downbeat Emprie ends on. So why isn’t that the big spoiler? It’s not as catchy as the Vader quote, no, but isn’t it at least as big?
     
    Which makes me wonder, why do we call spoilers spoilers? Now, I’m not talking about people who go around trying to find everything out about a movie before it happens. I mean more the idea that finding something out ruins a story for good.
     
    ‘cuz I knew a lot of of the big spoilers for Game of Thrones going in. I knew Ned died. I found out about Robb’s death by accident. A friend of mine unintentionally spoiled another couple deaths. But it didn’t make any of the moments any less dramatic. Or even less shocking, since the impact still hits in a big way. Because you’re not really watching Game of Thrones to see who dies, but rather for the how of it. “Ned dies” is uninteresting, but “Ned dies as a show of force by new king Joffrey to prove himself” has kick. The why and how of it is more interesting that the what. If you know Robb’s gonna die, you keep wondering what it is that’s gonna do him in at the end. And when it really comes, that’s the whammy.
     
    Nothing really beats the impact of, say, Han’s death in The Force Awakens when you first see it not knowing it’s coming. But watching it again let’s you appreciate the finesse of it all the more. When you’re less concerned about having to pay attention to every what of the story, you look more for the bits of set up and pay off. But don’t just take my word for it, it’s an actual fact. It doesn’t ruin the story, so to speak. Instead it changes the approach of the narrative.
     
    But for turns like that, even if we know that Vader is Luke's father and Ned dies, the characters don't. It's a beautiful dose of dramatic irony that heightens the tension in its own way because you wanna see how they'll react to it. How is Obi Wan gonna react to Qui Gon's death? One of the reasons "I am your father" is such a magnificent twist is because of the effect it has on Luke as a character. Watching his response – throwing himself into the pits of Cloud City – is a thrill born out of character. The story still has a hold even if you know what's coming.
     
    See, that's the thing: a good story doesn't revolve around That Twist. Empire still works knowing that Vader is Luke's father. You lack the shock, but it's no less compelling; you still want to see how we get to that point. A good story shouldn't rely on one plot point being the big twist. The Prestige still works when you know what's coming because the process of reaching that reveal is so well done. Watching characters make the choices that takes them to the ending you know has an allure itself.
     
    All this said, I don't like being spoiled. I swore off the internet after the Lost finale aired so it wouldn't be spoiled before I could watch it. But watching the series again, it is no less powerful because the catharsis works just as well. Fiction – good fiction – isn't consumed to find things out; it's to feel. If a spoiler really ruins the story completely, than it probably wasn't that good a story in the first place.
     
    If this feels inconclusive, it’s because I’m still thinking about it all. Did knowing that Charlie died in Lost affect how I watched the show? Did knowing Kreia was the villain affect the choices I made while playing Knights of The Old Republic II? There’re more rants here for other days.
     
    That said. Don't tell me how Rogue One ends.
  3. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 159: Sorry Nate, There’s No Princess In This Castle
     
    Let’s talk about damsels, because the idea of the damsel in distress goes way back and ‘cuz damseling female characters (especially in video games) kinda has to stop.
     
    So what is a damsel in distress? Anita Sarkeesian succinctly describes it as
    This has been a staple of video games since very early on. In Super Mario Bros, Mario quests to save Princess Peach. This wasn’t necessarily bad, but it becomes a problem when the save-the-girl trope becomes systemic. It becomes old when I’m still saving Peach again nearly three decades later.
     
    But let’s not focus on what games are doing wrong, since that’s plain depressing. Uncharted, in each of its three games, utilizes the damsel-in-distress trope, but in different ways each time. Given developer Naughty Dog’s near-legendary know-how of storytelling, it should come as no surprise that they know how to use and subvert this trope with great mastery.
     
    The first game, Drake’s Fortune, seems to play the trope mostly straight. Reporter-of-sorts Elena, protagonist Nathan Drake’s sidekick/tagalong, gets captured early on in the story. The first chunk of the main story has Nate trekking to a castle to free Elena — only to get himself captured. It’s then Elena who busts him out, nicely turning the male-hero-rescues-imprisoned-female dynamic on its head. Elena does get captured again towards the end, and Nate sets out after her (and the treasure). It makes enough sense in context — and Elena is far from a helpless hostage, she fights her captors and effectively sets up the final confrontation of Nate and the villain. She’s damsel’d, yes, but she’s hardly helpless most of the time.
     
    Elena shows up about halfway through Among Thieves, the second game; this time she meets Nate gun in hand, on her own (investigative) hunt for warlord Zoran Lazaravic. Not only does she not need saving: she’s now a fighter in her own right. This game doesn’t damsel her, and even getting caught in an explosion towards the end doesn’t make her the villain’s helpless captive.
     
    But Among Thieves introduces a new character in Chloe, an old flame from Nate’s past who constantly flips sides between good and bad. Nate, feeling like he’s dragged her into this mess, is eager to rescue her from Zoran’s camp. To do so, he fights his way along a train traveling through Nepal (that he got on with Elena’s help, which is also worth noting). But when he finds Chloe it turns out she doesn’t want to be saved: this ‘damsel’ has her own agenda. Nate — and by extension the player — may see Chloe as a damsel, but she’s hardly in distress. Here Naughty Dog subverts the players’ expectations that the damsel awaits the heroes with open arms. Instead, Chloe saves Nate’s butt when they reunite and then calls him out on his stupid heroics. Nate’s princess isn’t in another castle: Nate’s princess plain doesn’t exist.
     
     
    So come the third game, Drake’s Deception, it’s almost expected that no female character gets damsel’d. And they don’t, at no point is Nate trying to save a captured woman. Instead, his best friend and father-figure Sully is captured. A good chunk of the second act has Nate trying to rescue Sully. Having an older man as the damsel rather than the typical attractive young-woman is a fun twist in and of itself. But Naughty Dog doesn’t let it end there. Nate’s unrelenting quest to rescue Sully gives us a glimpse into his own psyche. Sully being captured doesn’t just serve as an arbitrary goal for Nate; instead his capture forces Nate to confront his own inner demons, demons that only a smack on the head from a father-figure can cure him of. Dameseling a male character not only avoids unfortunate implications, but also lets us a see a more vulnerable Nate.
     
    We need more video games like the Uncharted games. Heck, we need more stories like this. It’s wonderful to see women in an action-adventure genre who aren’t reduced to set dressing. Characters who, like Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark, can hold their own and are fantastic in their own right. What Uncharted does is show that stories with strong plotting and motivation can be written without resorting to creating damsels in distress. It’s time to stop being lazy and to work on storytelling.
     
    Postscript: Gameplay-wise, Chloe and Elena are useful allies in firefights, never becoming a burden. Furthermore, these games fantastic to play and not just for the narrative, they’re solid all around. Also Drake’s Deception is an example of what I was talking about last week, where we have a mixed cast but also bits of intimacy between Nate and Sully. See? It’s doable.
  4. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 197: Just So We’re Clear, Rey Is The Best
     
    Rey, of The Force Awakens, is one of those characters I really like. Not just one those who I think’s really cool (Captain Marvel, Han Solo, Aragorn), but the ones who, for me, go beyond that (Iron Man, Nathan Drake): Rey’s one of those characters who I don’t just really like, but the sort I wanna be.
     
    So what is it about Rey’s that captured my imagination (and everyone else’s)? What makes her so special?
     
    Obviously, spoilers for Force Awakens follow.
     
    The role Rey plays in the story is not new, by no means. She follows the hero’s journey; one we saw done with Luke Skywalker in ’77, Harry Potter, and of course Emmet in The Lego Movie. It’s the monomyth, a nobody is actually quite special and is essential for saving the day. Finn’s arc within Force Awakens has a few of the same mythic beats, but it’s Rey’s that most closely follows it. And it’s not just men who get to be the heroes, we had Katniss and The Hunger Games a couple years ago, also a story about a young woman that embarks on her own hero’s journey. What is it then that sets Rey apart?
     
    First off, it’s the obvious one: it’s Star Wars. This is arguably the biggest film franchise in the world, so the scale Rey’s featured in is massive. There’s six movies of continuity already in play, an issue that new characters like Harry or Katniss didn't have to deal with when their books came out. There was a lot riding on this movie and, by extension Rey herself, but it also gives her a huge platform. That’s an opportunity few stories get.
     
    Now, this is also a franchise famous for seldom having more than one woman, and in this one Rey the protagonist (and also not the only female character with lines — it might just barely squeak by on the Bechdel test, and yes, Rey is the only new female lead, but at least there are a few more women who speak in this one). Also, Rey gets to be a Jedi. Or at least one in training. Or at least a Jedi-to-be. It’s the seventh installment and we have, for the first time, a named female character turning on a lightsaber. That’s a big fricking deal.
     
    Putting the Star Wars branding aside, is Rey still all that different? In The Hunger Games series, Katniss had her go at the hero’s journey and the resistance narrative too. Except, she is. Rey’s adventure isn’t gendered. While Katniss’ intertwined with her gender (see: dresses, pregnancy, men-wanting-to-protect/control-her, etc), Rey very much has an everyman story. No, there’s nothing wrong with a feminine story — look at Agent Carter! — but it’s such a great change to see that everyman a woman. Rey’s gender is never mentioned. Sure, Finn does keep grabbing her hand in the beginning, but it takes all of five minutes for her to get him to stop — and establish her own independence in the same beat. But that’s not all: Rey’s not underestimated because of her gender. She’s frequently described as “the scavenger” (not “that girl”) and summarily dismissed as such. She’s just Rey the scavenger. It’s refreshing to see this, and even better that it’s something as mainstream (and awesome) as Star Wars
     
    There are a bunch of other reasons I like Rey: snarky, excitable (ie: her and Finn celebrating their escape from Jakku), courageous, and occasionally downright gleeful. She’s a wonderful, winning character and I couldn’t be happier to have her as the new Star Wars protagonist. Then, of course, we come back to the whole Star Wars-ness of it. Deep beneath the spaceships, Force, and lightsabers is the narrative about being more than you thought you were; it’s the wish fulfillment of getting to go on a great adventure. And for Rey — and, personally, one of the many reasons I love her — this also means a search for belonging.
     
    tl;dr: Rey’s awesome, go watch The Force Awakens (again)
  5. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 361: Showing, Not Telling
     
    There’s this saying in writing that you should show, not tell; that is instead of telling the audience about how John is smart, write a scene where we get to see that John is smart. That way the audience can see how smart John is and think to themselves "Wow, John is smart." Idea is because the audience drew their own conclusion (rather than being told such) it’ll resonate more.
     
    A similar rule of thumb applies to video games, except instead of just seeing something it’s better to be able to play it. Watching a character fight a boss is one thing, getting to actually fight that boss is fantastic. Over the years, there have been different attempts by different game designers to figure out how to let players play scenes. Half Life never took control away from the player, allowing them to look around outside the tram car as they made their way into Black Mesa (or muck around in a room as a scientist provided story information). A clunkier solution was the use of quick time events, interactive cutscenes where you’d essentially press a button for your character not to die and the scene to continue. At its worst, these QTEs interrupted the flow of the game/cutscene: throwing in reflex-based minigames when you least expect it, forcing you to do over these scenes again and again.
     
    The rationale behind QTEs – letting the player remain involved in scenes that don’t quite work with the controls – is a good one. Kingdom Hearts II had a really neat solution: Reaction Commands. During some fights with some enemies, a prompt would appear where if you hit triangle you would trigger a special move. If you were fighting a Samurai Nobody, you could trigger a stand-off where Sora and his opponent face off in a samurai movie style duel. Other Reaction Commands have him using an enemy’s abilities against the other bad guys or allowing for some really cool moves in boss fights. It adds depth to combat and, importantly and let’s the player be the one who pulls off that anime-esque move.
     
    It’s been a while since that game came out, though, and in the meantime others have been figuring out how to let the player take a more active role. Uncharted 2 let the player still be in control during big set pieces, like maneuvering through a collapsing building, fighting bad guys, and then jumping through the breaking window into the building next door. It’s a fairly typical trope for an action movie, but what makes it so cool in Uncharted 2 is that you are the one who does it. It’s not a cutscene or even a qte, you’re in complete control of Drake as he scrambles around. The bar was raised and many games followed suit, finding ways to keep the player in control during big moments, further immersing the player into the game.
     
    All this brings me (once more) to Kingdom Hearts III where a lot of the action is not just unplayable but actually takes place off screen.
     
    I’m gonna be talking about the ending here too, so there are spoilers beyond this point!
     
     
     
     
    I have my issues with Kingdom Hearts III, particularly how its pacing feels so darn weird. That so much of the plot happens off screen, including a vital part of the epilogue, leaves the player (me) feeling really unfulfilled. Point is, show, don’t tell; and if you’re making a video game, let us play the important bits.
  6. Ta-metru_defender
    So I'm mixed. Dad's Singaporean Chinese, Mom's Norwegian America, I put Sino-Nordic on forms.
     
    Growing up, there weren't many stories about what that's like (getting teased/bullied for being white/foreign in Singapore, then being teased/bullied for being Asian/foreign in the US) and the weird navigation of identity that comes with it that I'm only now really starting to explore.
     
    Now, I'm curious, what stories are out there that deal with this? I'm interested in compiling a list (a cursory google search only turned up movies about interracial relationships (so, my parents or my girlfriend and I), but not not biracial.
     
    Off the top of my head, only Balto comes to mind, what with the half-wolf/half-dog thing (seriously, as a kid, this was the only friggin' story I saw that touch on being mixed – and I loved it). There's also Star Trek with Spock, whom my mom once offhandedly mentioned bore similarities to me in that regard, but I didn't encounter Trek until I was an adult.
     
    Any leads?
     
    For the record, Big Hero 6 doesn't count, 'cuz despite featuring a mixed protagonist, it's not about it; which is by no means a knock against it, just not what I'm looking for.
  10. Ta-metru_defender

    Stepping Away

    By Ta-metru_defender,

    Essays, Not Rants! 286: Stepping Away
     
    Ed Skrein – the dude who played Ajax in Deadpool — made headlines recently. Not for taking a role but rather for stepping down from one. See, he was tapped to be in the reboot adaption of Heckboy. But the character he was slated to play, Major Ben Daimio, is Japanese-American in the comics, and Ed Skrein is decidedly, er, white. Upon finding out that his casting would be whitewashing, Skrein stepped down from the role in order to not be part of that machine that decides to make people-of-color white.
     
    And good on him! This is a guy who’s not a Big Actor and had the opportunity for a Big Role, but turned it down after getting hired because, well, whitewashing. So seriously, cheers to him.
     
    'cuz whitewashing’s an issue. The movie 21 took a team of mostly Asian mathematicians and made them mostly white. Aloha famously cast Emma Stone as a part-Asian character with the last name Ng (as a part-Asian, I can attest that Emma Stone neither looks nor fits the part). Then there’s the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie which takes the wonderfully Inuit and Chinese inspired cast/cultures of the cartoon and makes the main characters white.
     
    I can go on.
     
    And what the heck, I will!
     
    Dragonball Evolution made Goku white. Extraordinary Measures stars Harrison Ford as Dr. Robert Stonehill, a character whose achievements are based on that of Dr. Yuan-Tsong Chen. Scarlett Johansson plays Major in the American adaption of the decidedly Japanese Ghost In The Shell.
     
    In light of all of that, seeing an actor walk away from a project because he’s a white guy playing an Asian guy is absolutely remarkable. Maybe I have half-a-horse in this race, but there’s a noticeable precedent for making Asian characters (and real people) white in adaptions. Sure, I’ll give something like Doctor Strange a pass for playing around with a stereotype, but there’s a point when it is just recasting a character of color because Scarlett Johansson will get more folks to theaters than Ming-Na Wen.
     
    It's in this context that Ed Skrein’s choice to step down from Heckboy so remarkable. Or at least unusual. Not too long afterwards, it was announced that Daniel Dae Kim, known for Lost and, more recently, not continuing his role in Hawaiian Five-O because the studio did not want to pay him as much as his white co-stars, would be playing Major Ben Daimio in Heckboy. Which, wow, an Asian actor playing an Asian character (albeit a Korean actor playing a character who’s Japanese)? That sounds like a regular fairytale happy ending.
     
    Now, Ed Skrein should never have been cast in the first place. Duh. But the fact of the matter is that this happens far too regularly. It's not that there aren't enough Asian actors to go around, or even (actors of color), it's that there aren't that many roles in these big-budget movies for them. And even if there is one, there's still the chance it'll go to some white dude instead.
     
    Diversity and representation isn't just about creating roles and characters, it's also about making space. It's partially why I find Star Wars’ new stable of characters so wonderful; they're consciously making room in their movies and video games for women and people of color. Making the protagonist of Battlefront II a brown woman also means making the choice to not have a white guy in the lead. Something’s gotta give. It's not always just an easy decision.
     
    So here, at the end of it, there's a part of me that wants to be hopeful. We got to watch whitewashing happen and then be undone. Maybe this means we’ll see more room for Asians and other actors of color in these big films. And then maybe after that we can split hairs about a Korean-American actor playing a Japanese-American character.
    But baby steps!
  11. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 189: This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, JEB!
     
    I don’t really talk about politics on this blog…ever. Well, aside from, y’know, the historical or entries on diversity or women in fiction. But every now and then something shows up that’s nonpartisan enough but still related enough to what I usually write about for a good discussion.
     
    An interview with Jeb Bush (Or JEB) has been making the rounds lately, wherein he’s asked who his favorite superhero is. This alone is worth noting because we’re at the point in where a presidential candidate can be asked about superheroes. Yes, this is a part of nerd culture becoming mainstream, but it’s also a reflection of superheroes forming a new mythology. They can be discussed as a cultural touchstone no matter who you are. Point is to say that the fact that he was even asked this question is remarkable in and of itself. Superheroes have become a new pantheron, to some extent; though decidedly fictional, they are a sort of example of humanity in all its forms (which, y’know, is all the more the reason to have a more diverse lineup, but I digress). There’s probably a whole other paper in that idea, but not here.
     
    Anyway, after mentioning that watching Marvel movies makes him wish that he owned the company — which I’m not even gonna touch here — he decides that Batman may be his favorite, albeit a dark choice. But he’s aware of Supergirl being a thing, courtesy of the new advertising blitz, and thinks she’s hot.
     
    Okay. He could have answered the question one of a dozen very neutral, safe ways; but he chooses to bring Supergirl up… because she’s hot? Dude, no. It’s fun that this is the sort of question we can ask a presidential candidate, but at the same time, but why does one of the more serious presidential candidates think it’s okay to talk about her looks as a defining factor? Even if a question like this takes center stage, a female hero still gets the short end of the stick. Yes, she got mentioned — that’s great! But she gets mentioned only to be reduced down to a pretty face. He could have mentioned that she could fly — that’s in the marketing too! — but nope, she’s hot and that’s key.
     
    “But Josh,” you say, “you’re making way too big a deal out of this, it’s just one guy’s opinion!” Well, straw man, remember what I said earlier about superheroes being a new mythology? It goes with it then, that the perception of them is a reflection of culture as a whole. And Jeb’s comments reflect a culture that still judges a woman by her appearance rather than her abilities.
     
    Which is really frustrating, because there’s a steady cultural shift away from female superheroes defining characteristic being their looks and related attributes. Carol Danvers got a new outfit and is firmly regarded as Earth’s Mightiest Avenger. I can’t speak for the show (having not seen it), but it looks like Supergirl is doing something similar, for starters by giving her a costume that’s more practical than titillating. Going beyond the world of comics, Fury Road mad us like Furiosa because she was baddonkey and capable, not because she was ‘hot.’ Furiosa, more so than Carol Danvers or Supergirl, has been recognized for this in a big way.
     
    In the movie/TV world characters are idealized, and this means prettified, but while handsome male characters can still be interesting, the pretty women are often there just to be pretty. While kick butt grungy women are awesome, to really even out the gender imbalance we need to allow for attractive women to be interesting and valued for qualities beyond their looks. Because it’s not fair when a male character needs no justification, but a female one does — and it’s her looks.
     
    In any case, we, as a culture, from presidential candidates on down, have gotta stop defining women — in fiction or not — by how attractive the are. In the meantime, we should at least talk a lot more about how hot the new Batman is. But especially the new Aquaman.
  12. Ta-metru_defender

    Kid Stuff

    By Ta-metru_defender,

    Essays, Not Rants! 214: Kid Stuff
     
    You ever go back and check out a story you liked as a kid? Sometimes this means realizing how insufferable some cartoons were, but other times you end up rereading Prisoner of Azkaban and realize that holy ###### that’s a special book.
     
    Which brings up an important thing about children’s stories. Namely, what is a story for kids? Is Star Wars a children’s story? It was one of my favorite stories as a kid and that seems like a decent barometer for what counts as a kid’s movie. My favorite kid’s show now is Phineas and Ferb, but in many ways that show’s more about playing with the idea of story than telling stories themselves. So let’s find a better example.
     
    Batman.
     
    More specifically, Justice League. I did watch The Animated Series too, but I remember Justice League better. Regardless, both shows are very much Saturday morning cartoons, superheroes fighting bad guys, cool stuff happening. Straightforward enough, you get the idea.
     
    Some friends of mine and I recently revisited Justice League, owing to some severe disappointment with a certain recent movie with Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. Now, I remember this show being awesome, but a lot of things you think are awesome as a kid doesn’t always hold up when you’re an adult (see: [example]).
     
    But Justice League holds up.
     
    Yes, the superhero action is certainly still a big (and cool) draw, but, thematically, it’s still interesting to watch as an adult. Take the Justice League Unlimited episode “Epilogue,” which serves as a, fittingly, epilogue to the Batman Beyond series. Anyway, the episode centers around Terry McGuinnes (new Batman) finding out the truth about his relation to Bruce Wayne (original Batman), namely that by some form of Future Science, Terry is genetically Bruce’s son. What follows is a fascinating question of identity: Is Terry a good Batman because of his genes? Or is there something more? It’s a big nature-versus-nurture question that’s wrapped up in an identity crisis for Terry.
     
    What’s so cool about this is that the episode (and by extension, the show) doesn’t talk down to its audience. It’s easy for a kid’s story to treat its audience as if they’re idiots, but Justice League is willing to treat its audience with respect. Which also means willing to go dark; not only does Terry find out he’s the subject of some genetic manipulation, but there was also a plan to kill his parents. By people who weren’t the bad guys, for the record. Not sugarcoating gives a younger audience the feeling of being involved in something grownup, especially since the show doesn’t make light of it either.
     
    I don’t think stories have to be dark to be good (see that severely disappointing movie I mentioned earlier); but I don’t think that kids’ stories should shy away from it. ‘cuz there’s a message inherent to stories like these that no matter how lousy things get, good ends up winning. The climax of “Epilogue” is that it was Batman’s compassion that made him such a good hero, and that’s what Bruce sees in Terry. After some really intense revelations, Terry recommits to the greater good. It’s a hefty story, but one that rings true nonetheless.
     
    There’s a wonderful CS Lewis quote about how a children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children really isn’t any good at all. Looking back on the stuff I liked as a kid and the stuff I like now, yeah, that’s true. I liked being frightened, I liked stories making references to some of the harder books I’d read in school, I liked it when stories treated me as a competent audience. Stories like these; think Justice League and Harry Potter, are the sort of ones that stick with ya. And that you can enjoy as a grownup, which, hey, what’s being an adult if not being able to watch superhero cartoons at 1am on a Sunday night with a glass of wine and bowl of ice cream?
  13. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 242: Wise Old Masters
     
    I have a very clear memory of being ten or eleven and watching Cartoon Network. I didn’t have cable growing up, so this was at a hotel or someone else’s place. I’d left Singapore and was in that whole growing-up-on-a-ship phase of my life.
     
    Anyway.
     
    Johnny Bravo was on, and for some reason or other the titular character had to learn some martial art or another. So he goes to a dojo, meets the guy, and asks him to teach him “the secrets of the East.”
     
    This took me aback. That was their takeaway? Not, y’know, the whole modern metropolis thing or the food or anything; the old Asian guy teaching some martial art or another was their view of ‘The East’? Also, the heck is up with calling it ‘the East’?
     
    I suppose it’s kind of special to be able to pinpoint your first conscious encounter with systemic racism (special in the way that it’s special you remember what class you failed in High School), but it is certainly something amusing to be aware of. Because, wouldn’t you know it, that is one of the prevailing images of East Asians in popular culture: the wise old master ready to teach you some oriental martial art.
     
    And I suppose that’s one reason why I wasn’t bothered by Tilda Swinton being cast as The Ancient One in Doctor Strange. It’s not just because it adds another woman to male-heavy cast in a male-heavy franchise, but it’s because it moves away from a particular stereotype.
    Now, would it have been great to have an Asian actor cast as The Ancient One? Sure. But I’m sick of Asians having to be in fir into a few prescribed roles (wise old master, funny foreigner, engineer/doctor/smart person). There are these places where stories tend to default to having an Asian character, not unlike how the default everyman is a white dude. The wise old master is so ingrained into the popular consciousness that one of the funnest turns in Batman Begins is that Ken Watanabe isn’t Ra’s al Ghul, but is actually Liam Neeson (uh, eleven year-old spoiler, I guess).
     
    The problem at hand is only letting people be a certain thing. If the only time/only way we let an Asian character be of importance is by making them a wise old master/funny foreigner/smart person, it perpetuates the idea that that’s all they/we are. It’s the same thing as the whole all-Asians-are-martial-artists thing where that is the only thing worth knowing about Asian countries. It’s why I celebrate Crazy Ex-Girlfriend for making an Asian character idiot bro. There is definitely a discussion to be had here about people and roles, but, again, I’m plenty happy with Tilda Swinton in the role, especially because she does such a great job at it. And hey, how often do we get to see women be the wise old masters?
     
    I’m not so sure I’d call it white-washing either. I’m not terribly familiar with Doctor Strange’s backstory in the comics, but there’s little about The Ancient One that seems Asian outside of the, y’know, old master on a mountain top. His race (or gender, for that matter) isn’t too tied to the material: this isn’t kung-fu or karate (s)he’s teaching, it’s magic. Not Chinese magic; magic magic. I understand the problematic nature of taking a character who’s a minority in the source material and making them white in the adaptation, but there’s also the excision of a particularly frustrating stereotype from a narrative at play here. It’s not a simple one-or-the-other predicament, it’s a nuanced, messy situation. One that requires dialogue, not dogma.
     
    Besides, Doctor Strange does decent in diversity elsewhere, with Benedict Wong’s Wong being a particularly enjoyable one-note supporting character (and the source of some of the best gags). Plus, the other sorcerer-students and doctors in the background are noticeably diverse, and the movie is one of few to feature a villain with henchwomen. It doesn’t mean it’s enough, but a cast photo that looks like this is a step in the right direction.
     
    Now, there is room for discussion here and for me to be wrong – there always is. I suppose I’m just happy to see a wise old master that, well, isn’t an Asian guy with a long beard.
  14. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays Not Rants! 066: With Regards to Capes
     
    In Man Of Steel Superman has lost his usual red underwear. Well, more he never has it in the first place in this adaption. It's no wonder why, no one, not even Batman, wears their underwear outside anymore.
     
    That said, Superman still has his cape, something that's seemingly as much an artifact as the underwear thing. Yes, Thor and Loki both have capes, but they're demigods. Batman's cape is explained away as serving not only the effect he creates but a utilitarian purpose as well. Hardly anyone wears capes these days. In The Incredibles, the first superhero deconstruction you saw if you’re my age, Edna Mode goes to great lengths to explain the impracticality of capes in a morbidly comedic sequence.
     
    So why does Superman still have his bright red cape? It's doesn't make much sense (see Edna Mode's list for reasons), yet it's part of his costume and and he doesn't rip it off. More importantly, why did the filmmakers choose to keep the cape? It's iconic, sure, but nothing is sacred in adaptions. Here's the deal: capes are heroic. There's the image of the kid with the towel tied round his neck pretending to be a superhero. That's Superman. He's the Boy Scout, the Kansas-bred all-American hero.
     
    And his cape is an integral part of that. Look at the use of capes in the film. General Zod, when we first see him, is wearing a cape. It doesn't take long, however, for him to shrug it off and, of course, become the villain he is. When we first see Superman in his outfit we first see his red boots and red cape. When Superman meets the military, we once again focus on his cape. His cape is what sets him apart. Zod doesn't have a cape, nor do any of his followers; but Jor-El, Superman's father, does. It's a beautiful visual cue, one that speaks to the basis of our pop culture mythology: the person wearing the cape is a good guy, a hero.
     
    Such is Superman: he's the archetypical superhero. The cape-wearing, evil-fighting man in tights. Contrast him to Joel, from The Last of Us (because that game is amazing and bears referencing). Joel is not a hero, he's not even a good guy. Joel is a desperate man who's more than willing to do horrible things. Joel is a survivor, he acts solely to survive and protect his own interests. Superman, conversely, simply is good and will protect anyone.
     
    So where do we get a narrative? Joel's comes from challenging his interests and upsetting his status quo to see how he reacts. The narrative/arc is clear from the onset, though Naughty Dog makes several bold choices with where to take it. Superman has no obvious arc. He's invincible and infallible; any impending doom or moral dilemma lacks tension because we know Superman can't be hurt and will always do right. After all, he's wearing a cape. So where does the narrative tension come from? How does Man of Steel craft a story that doesn't undermine his character but still delivers an engaging story?
     
    The movie addresses the question of the cape. The story's primary tension comes not from Superman vs. Zod, but rather within Superman himself. Clark Kent must become Superman... Or must he? The Clark Kent we meet is a Clark Kent divided. He has these powers, but should he use them? How should he use them? There lies the conflict; the tension is the question of should Clark Kent wear the cape or hide in anonymity. Granted, we already know the answer, but it's a far more interesting arc than "will he survive?". Once that question is answered, however, a new one arises: to what lengths will Superman go in pursuit of what the cape means? How far will Superman go to protect someone?
     
    Zack Snyder has described Man of Steel as the least ironic movie he's made. It might be the most honest recent superhero movie besides Captain America, there's no attempt to give Superman the dark and gritty treatment so common in our era of antiheroes. Where The Last of Us gives us an antihero who rings closer to a villain, Man of Steel presents a hero with no doubt of his goodness. So Superman wears a cape.
  15. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 180: Can Art Be Fun?
     
    I’m still reading a bunch and my current book, Extra Lives, is essentially critical theory on video games as literature. This divide between what makes something ‘art’ is something I’m kinda big on, so it’s a fascinating read. There’s one thing that Tom Bissell says which struck me: that because video games must be, by nature, fun, they’re seen as being less artistic or literary than other mediums.
     
    Which, well, kinda has a point. When was the last time you went to an art museum and had fun? And not the sorta fun you get from the unintentional humor of some paintings, but actual ‘fun’ (which is really hard to describe, has few cross-lingual analogues, and was explored heavily by Huizinga, but bear with me). Chances are slim that unless you’ve seen a particular statue of a man punching a horse in Vienna, you haven’t, and even that monument to equine assault was probably intended as serious. See, ‘high’ art is meant to inspire ponderings, not for you to have plebeian fun. You stand there, think, say a couple ‘mmhmm’s for good measure, and move on to the next one.
     
    But that’s art, like art art; what about, say, books? The divide is even more stark there. No one’s gonna argue against Ulysses as a literary masterpiece, but at the same time it’s hard to describe it as being truly ‘fun.’ Enjoyable, maybe, but much of that pleasure probably stems from a mixture of latent masochism and the sunk cost fallacy. That and, y’know, trying to sound intelligent. But besides Ulysses (which I legitimately love), there are other Great Works by, say, Hemingway or Melville that you’d be hard pressed to describe as being legitimately enjoyable in and of themselves, especially when compared to ‘lesser’ genres like science fiction and fantasy. Point is, the Great Works can’t bother with the frivolities of fun-ness.
     
    You even see this in comics, arguably already a ‘lesser’ form. Watchmen is heralded as one of the best comics ever and is all doom and gloom. Compare it to Sex Criminals, which is much brighter, much funnier, and much cruder, but takes its story no less seriously. Though Criminals is held in some esteem (TIME named it comic of 2013), it’s seen as being nowhere near as literary or iconic as Watchmen, perhaps due to its adult subject matter and relative newness, but probably also because it’s so goofy. Never mind that it deals with depression, intimacy, and a host of other things, it’s too silly and too fun to be considered serious art.
     
    Which brings me to games. If a game’s not fun, you’re not gonna play it; plain and simple. Games have to be enjoyable on some level to maintain player involvement. Thus gaming becomes a very visceral experience, whether it’s your curiosity that’s been piqued by Gone Home, the sheer beauty of Journey, or the exhilaration that comes from fighting Covenant in Halo. It’s experiential on a level that no other medium is, and thus has to make the audience want to experience it for the sake of the experience (as opposed to, say, the story or visuals).
     
    And here is where video games run up against the brick wall of literary merit. Games are, like Sex Criminals, seen as being simply too fun to be real literature. No matter how serious they are, by virtue of being leisurely they can’t be art. The Last of Us is a gripping story about fatherhood, loss, survival, and so much more that the player is forced to experience rather than just observe. Even when it’s at its darkest and bleakest, it remains ‘fun’ to play in the sense that the game works. No, the violence of the game mayn’t be enjoyable per se, but it holds your attention and makes you want to keep going. But because The Last of Us is ultimately a piece of software that’s developed and patched rather than born out of pure artistry like, say, a book; it’s relegated to being mere diversion. And because of that, it can’t really be art.
     
    Which is a bummer. Because I think art should be enjoyable on at least some level. That much of what makes comics, well, comics is that it’s illustrated shouldn’t be a detractor, just as in order for a video game to work it has to be on some level fun. Writing off games because of that would be like lambasting books because you’ve gotta turn the page, or disliking Aaron Sorkin’s work because you insist on watching it with the sound off. Let’s get off our high horses and be willing to afford fun mediums their due; games can have all the mindless glee of Michael Bay (Army of Two: Devil’s Cartel) and the melancholic tenderness of The Fault in Our Stars (The Last of Us: Left’Behind*).
     
    ‘cuz hey, let’s enjoy it.
     
     
    *Writer’s note: The Last of Us: Left Behind is arguably superior to The Fault In Our Stars, but I’m having trouble thinking of a good comparison. Blue Is The Warmest Color is remotely somewhat thematically related, but nowhere near as poignant as Left Behind; recent romantic films like About Time may be as tender and sweet, but they lack the beautiful tragedy of The Last of Us’ DLC. Perhaps Left Behind is remarkable on its own, not just as an extension of a game or as a story, but for being a piece of literature that is, frankly, incomparable.
     
    But that’s a rant essay for another week.
  16. Ta-metru_defender

    #AsianCowboy

    By Ta-metru_defender,

    Essays, Not Rants! 234: #AsianCowboy
     
    I was vaguely aware of the casting for the new Magnificent Seven when it was first announced, but more so for the fact that it reminded me that I really needed to watch The Seven Samurai (which I still haven’t…)
     
    Anyway, since then trailers for the new Magnificent Seven have been released and there’s been a little bit of buzz around it and reviews have been coming out. What’s most caught my attention — and what makes me really wanna see it — is actor Byung-hun Lee as one of the seven. Now, this is a Western. Set in the mythical Wild West. Y’know, Americana incarnate. But there’s an Asian cowboy.
     
    Now, of course, this excites me. Like basically everyone I grew up aware of the mythos of the Wild West, with cowboys and train robberies and all that stuff. So it’s exciting to see someone who looks kinda like me (he’s Korean, I’m half-Chinese, I’ll take it) being apart of it is really cool.
    And I’m a sucker for multinational teams so seeing the seven cowboys include Denzel Washington, a Mexican, and a Native American is really cool. That and it makes total sense.
     
    Let’s set aside for a moment the fact that in ‘reality’ cowboys and cattle hands weren’t as white as we’d expect. It’s easy to take the Western as being historical (it’s like a period piece, but with guns and horses!), and historical pieces tend to be very white because not being white in places when/where most historical dramas take place isn’t always a good thing.
     
    But this is fiction.
     
    I think it’s easy to enter into the idea of something being ‘unrealistic’ and it ruining the story. If we’re willing to believe that Tom Cruise is the last samurai, why can’t we believe there was a ragtag multinational team of cowboys? The same rule of “why not?” that applies to science fiction or contemporary stories can also apply to stories that take place before. Sure it was surprising in Season One of Agent Carter to see a black man the owner of a club in 1940s America, but we bought it and the story didn’t suffer for it. Having Zoe Saldana as Anamaria in the first Pirates of The Caribbean worked. Sure, she didn’t get to do too much but she still was a fun character who should’ve shown up in the sequels. These are worlds of cowboys, spies, and pirates; why not throw in some diversity?
     
    Granted, it gets trickier with more serious, more properly historical stories. It’s hard to tell a factual story about the American Revolution with a diverse cast. But, then again, that’s what Hamilton did, so, y’know, there’s that.
     
    Really, it all comes down to telling different stories, and telling more. By including people usually underrepresented in these narratives, The Magnificent Seven is offering a space at the table to more people. Like how The Force Awakens and Rogue One change the criteria for who gets to be a hero in Star Wars, so does this, in however a small way, for westerns.
     
    So, yeah, at the end of the day I’m gonna go see The Magnificent Seven. Because there’s an Asian cowboy.
  17. Ta-metru_defender
    So Monday and Tuesday night I took part in a study wherein I was put in an MRI and sometimes given mild shocks while watching a screen.
     
    For money.
     
    Woo science! I have no clue what they were studying and may have dozed off once or twice (staying up till 4 writing an essay on Ulysses will do that to ya), but hey! Science! And money! Not the first time I've done this. Well, the MRI is new (least for sciencing), but the shocks and studies aren't.
    Hey, gotta pay for them Legos somehow. And booze. And groceries. Y'know.
     
    tl;dr, Josh let people electrocute him so he could buy Legos.
     
    Wait.
     
    That didn't come out right.
  18. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 217: The Elusiveness of Fun
     
    What is fun?
     
    No, not what’s fun to do, what does “fun” mean? Johan Huizinga, a Dutch guy that wrote a lot about play and what play means, said in his Homo Ludens that “this last-named element, the fun of playing, resists all analysis, all logical interpretation.” He goes on to lament that there’s, to his knowledge, no direct translation in a Western language that really captures what “fun” is (and if you check Wiktionary, you’ll find the translations lacking in words that really capture what fun means).
     
    So “fun” is weird, and writing it so many times has made me start to question whether that’s how you spell it. But yeah, fun is a thing, and it’s part of what makes play, well, play. If you’re not having fun, you’re not really playing, are you?
     
    Fun’s essential to games, then. I don’t play Settlers of Catan or the Game Of Thrones Board Game just because I feel like manipulating and betraying my friends/family/girlfriend, I play it because manipulating and betraying my friends/family/girlfriend are fun (sorry, friends/family/girlfriend). Some people don’t find those games fun, and for them it’s less playing and more of a slog.
     
    Like I said, “fun” is weird.
     
    Video Games, particularly those with a narrative, find themselves in an odd place when it comes to fun. Because video games have to, by nature, be fun on some level. Even something like The Last of Us, which isn’t always particularly enjoyable due to its serious nature, retains a measure of “fun” to it wherein it is, well, pleasing to play. But other games can get by with a weaker narrative simply because they’re fun. There’s nothing innovative or narratively fascinating about a plumber rescuing a princess, but Super Mario Bros is no less compelling for it.
     
    Capturing that fun is where things get interesting. The Division recreated a swath of Midtown Manhattan but does so little with it that there’s little fun to be found in exploring a virtual New York. Clunky controls that inhibit immersion (why can’t I jump off this parapet to a surface a foot below me?) get in the way of any interest in the game’s vague story. Destiny, on the other hand, is stupidly fun on the micro level. Sure, that game’s story’s also lackluster, but developed Bungie has figured out a shoot-melee-jump cycle that’s so darn enjoyable. Because Destiny is more fun on a beat-by-beat basis, it’s more compelling than The Division.
     
    But here’s the weird part about fun: it’s kinda arbitrary. I know people who find Destiny’s shoot-melee-jump cycle tiresome and I’m sure there are people out there who really like The Division for its core gameplay. We joke about people “hating fun” but then again, isn’t “fun” a matter of opinion?
     
    So now we return to that first question: “what is fun?” Amusement, sure, but if games like Spec Ops: The Line and The Last of Us can be fun on some level then we’re looking at a very different sort of amusement. Engaging? It works, sure, but Fruitvale Station was engaging as all get out and not at all fun. Enjoyable comes close, but runs in to the same issue as amusement. Huizinga didn’t really define fun alone so much as in relation to play, and he has some very clear (and useful) descriptions as what play is.
     
    Think about when you (or I, if you read this blog a bunch) refer to a movie as “fun.” What’s that mean? Civil War had an incredibly tragic climax, but it’s still fun, right? Least I thought so, since some people find Marvel movies to be droll.
     
    Way I see it, fun is something really hard to to capture, that really lacks a solid meaning. Play is fun, I suppose, and fun is play.
     
    No, that’s not much of a final statement, but it’s late and that’s all I’ve got right now.
     
    Plus, I wanna go back to swinging on ropes in Uncharted 4 because that is a lotta fun.
  19. Ta-metru_defender
    I'm not sure why there's this vague sense of anger/disappointment I get emanating from the internet (besides the fact that it's, yanno, the internet).
     
     
     
     
    I understand that some things remain consistent no matter your choices, and to that, well, it's certainly different. But it's an ending and, well, I guess it ended the way it had/ought to.
     
    And now, a rant on why the ending made sense
     
    Control is a big theme of the third game. The Illusive Man trying to gain control, Reapers trying to gain control, Humanity trying to gain control of their fate.
     
    And, of course, you controlling Shepard
     
    But...
     
  20. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 116: Feels Like It
     
    Ever played Star Wars? No, not Force Unlesahed or Rogue Squadron, we’re talking the Star Wars game, the original 1983 arcade game from Atari. It’s not the most complex game out there. In lieu of sprites the game uses crude vector graphics to give you an outline of TIE Fighters (that shoot fireballs), laser turrets, and the classic trench run. Using the yoke you fly through space, attack TIE Fighters and dodge obstacles. Like the Millennium Falcon, the game may not look like much but it’s got it where it counts. Star Wars the game feels like Star Wars the movie. You get to fly a freaking X-Wing, zipping around the Death Star and firing lasers. It controls smooth and, yes, you can also fire a proton torpedo into the exhaust port.
     
    This ‘feel,’ that an adaption must capture the spirit of whatever it’s adapting, is terribly important. A movie-from-a-book has to provoke the feeling of the book, as does a sequel. The Hunger Games needs to carry over the books’ feeling of desperate insurrection, Star Wars Episode VII has to have that sense of wonder and high adventure the Holy Trilogy had.
     
    It’s equally important in video games, which adapt reality (or semi-reality, or fantasy, or abstract ideas) into an interactive medium. While developing Super Mario 64, Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to make sure that just controlling Mario was fun, regardless of the environment. Game feel, as this is called, is crucial to gaming. Pac-Man has to respond to quick changes in the joystick and the car you’re driving should move like one too. If it doesn’t, it breaks the connection between the player and the game. That’s game feel which, important as it is, isn’t quite what I’m talking about.
     
    When you’re playing a game, particularly one adapting an established work, gameplay has to reflect that work. Like I said before, flying that X-Wing in the arcade feels like how you’d imagine flying an X-Wing would. If a game about flying an X-Wing wouldn’t let you fire proton torpedoes or make those wonderful sound effects, it wouldn’t be as good.
     
    A game that does this really well is Spider-Man that came out for the PS1 in 2000. Sure, it’s not the most graphically advanced (or even feature rich) game by today’s standards, but it feels like Spider-Man. You can swing around levels, stick to the ceiling and climb along the walls. Spidey doles out wisecracks and quips along the way as you beat up thugs and villains like Mysterio and Rhino. For all intents and purposes, you are Spider-Man. And thus the game is an absolute joy to play. Newer Spider-Man games, for all their open world New Yorks, longer playtimes, and additional features, can get bogged down in trying to find a special gimmick when, really, being Spider-Man is the biggest feature the game needs, so long as it feels like a Spider-Man game through gameplay and story.
     
    The game LEGO Marvel Super Heroes is another great example of a game that gets it right. There’s an open world New York City to explore between missions that, well, isn’t exactly accurate (the Empire State Building is not that close to the Brooklyn Bridge!), but hey, it seems like it well enough. More importantly, the super heroes feel like the super heroes.
     
    Let’s start with Iron Man. In the Mark VI, Tony can fly around (and double tapping X speeds him up with a spiffy sonic boom effect). Fighting mooks has him firing repulsors or punching aided by his repulsors. Alternately he can fire a charged blast from his chest or aim at a bunch of targets and he’ll fire rockets (y’know, like in
    ). This wonderful. Playing as Iron Man feels like Iron Man. Just flying around New York and destroying street lamps with your rockets is a pleasure. 
    The team behind LEGO Marvel Superheroes show that they love the source material throughout the game. Fighting as Black Widow can trigger finishing moves ripped straight from the films. Playable characters include all of the Sinister Six, Ms Marvel, Deadpool, and even Howard the Duck. The game is interactive fanservice, and it is wonderful. Playing the game evokes the same sense that the movies, comics, or even the culture around the Marvel property does.
     
    Games like this are great because they capture the escapism that makes the concept so great. The Arkham series lets you beat up thugs and supervillains with the smooth, restrained brutality you’d expect from Batman. Halo allows you to be an unstoppable supersoldier. Burnout Paradise gives you the thrill of racing through a city. Basically, what I’m saying is if a game’s gonna let you fly an X-Wing or be a superhero, it had darn well better let you.
     
    Further Reading: Henry Jenkins’ article on Narrative Architecture, particularly the section Evocative Spaces beginning on page 5. I may not completely agree with him, but he makes valid points that had a bearing of influence on this essay.
  21. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 268: The Problem With Narrative Sidequests
     
    One of the most striking features of the planet Elaaden is a huge derelict Remnant ship. Sticking out broken over the desert planet, the ship could hold answers for the mystery of the old killer robots that populate Mass Effect: Andromeda. The latest game in the Mass Effect video game series has a strong focus one exploration, namely that titular distant galaxy. There’s so much to see, so much to find out.
     
    But I still haven’t gone to the ship, despite having done basically every other sideqeust available on the planet. This isn’t so much a case of saving the best for last, as much as it is putting off what I expect will be a fun-if-pointless mission.
     
    Because the Remnant Derelict is not a Priority Mission (that is, a story mission), it’s highly unlikely that any Major Plot Twisting Details will happen. If there is some massive revelation about the Remnant waiting in the wings, whatever’s aboard that ship will either tease it or corroborate it, depending on when I play it in relation to that story mission.
     
    Andromeda is an open world RPG. There are Priority Missions I play one after another, these make up the main plot. I complete Mission A, then I can do Mission B, and so on until the game ends. Meanwhile, there are these sidequests, things I can do around the galaxy be it earning my squad’s loyalty or blowing up a Kett tower. Those sidequests can be done in any order and at any point after you’ve unlocked them (usually by completing another sidequest, or progressing to a certain point along the Priority Mission chain). This means that I could have explored that Remnant Derelict when I first found it a couple Priority Missions ago, or I could wait and only explore it after I’ve finished the main story – and the central plot played out. Thus, the mission has to accommodate either timeline. This in turn limits the developments that the sidequest can have, nothing can happen here that would affect a Priority Mission in a big way.
     
    Consider, if you will, a hypothetical game based on Firefly and Serenity. Midway through the movie, we find out that the Reavers, a savage group of spacefaring barbarians, were in fact accidentally created by the Alliance (spoiler). In the hypothetical game, you wouldn't find this out in a sidequest, it'd be a paradigm-shifting story quest that would affect the crew through any major plot developments. Thus if there was a sidequest where you could explore an old Reaver ship or an Alliance Databank, this twist wouldn't be there. Anything you found would be cool, but self-contained.
     
    This is the hurdle that open games have to deal with. Something more linear, like Uncharted or Halo, progress in one direction like a movie, scene 1 into scene 2; there's no scene 1.5. Every level/chapter/scene will affect the plot in someway. Giving the player a choice means the game's writers and programmers have to have planned whichever path the player takes.
     
    In Kingdom Hearts the player can visit a variety of worlds in whatever order they want. They'll pal around with Aladdin, Alice, and Ariel, then have to go to a specific world where More Story happens. This isn't too pressing most of the time, but as the plot picks up, visiting Halloween Town or Monstro’s belly feels like a filler episode in the larger narrative of Sora and Mickey's adventure. They can't impact the plot too much because the player may have another world to complete before the next Big Story Moment.
     
    There are game critics, Ian Bogost and Johnathan Blow among them, who argue that games and stories don't mesh well. And in some ways they do have a point. Either you have a linear game (like Uncharted) where the player is given no narrative agency (and so is a glorified interactive movie) or you have the case of Andromeda or Kingdom Hearts where the extent of then player's agency affects the distribution of the game's narrative. Either the narrative ignores you or you strain against it. Digital gaming can't seem to catch up with good old tabletop rpg's, where the game master is making stories on the fly in response to their players' decisions.
     
    But video games are still a young genre. The amount of player agency in Andromeda would have been unheard of twenty years ago. It's a bummer that it can't anticipate and account for everything, but who's to say games won't in the future? Exploring a virtual world in Andromeda is a great experience, even if it exposes some of the issues with open world games. Yes, the narrative failings are frustrating, but it's a step forward towards what games could be. Risks propel the medium forward; who knows where we'll be in twenty years.
     
     
    Of course, I could be totally wrong and that derelict ship may have a load of secrets about the Remnant and it turns out Andromeda has untold variations of its Priority Missions prepared in its code with each one voiced and animated ready to go. But the point stands; for all the issues with open ended video games, the potential remains. And that's exciting. Bring on the AI game masters!
  22. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 295: Diversity in Middle-earth
     
    The Lord of The Rings is at once both one of my favorite books and one of my favorite film trilogies. And I don't really feel the need to write another sentence justifying that.
     
    In any case, I reacted with some consternation upon finding out the Amazon was, having attained the rights to Tolkien’s world, developing a new series set in Middle-earth. On the one hand, we get to return to that world. On the other, it's hard to top Peter Jackson’s interpretation of that world – how else could Minas Tirith look if not like that?
     
    But then, revisiting Middle-earth means a chance to do some things differently. Like maybe making the world look a little more inclusive.
     
    The Lord of The Rings is very white. That's not so much a judgement as it is a fact. It doesn't make it any worse as a work, it's just how it is. So if we're telling new stories, let's ask why not and mix things up and cast some people of color as these characters.
     
    Now, my own knee jerk response is “hey, let's make all the elves Asian!” because that way you'll be forced to have an Asian actor on screen anytime an elvish character is in play (and also we’ll get Elrond, half-Asian). But equating fictional races with real life ones becomes real hairy real quick. It runs the risk of feeling like stereotyping and, in the case of my own “make all elves Asian” orientalism and exoticism. Because if they don't look like the normal, clearly they must be other, so let's make them not-human. That line of thinking falls back on to the white-as-default mindset, where if you need a normal Everyman you make him a white guy. And let's not do that.
     
    Because if we're diversifying Middle-earth, let's let everyone be everyone. Let's have black elves and surly Asian dwarves, let's have Latino hobbits and an Indian shieldmaiden of Rohan.
     
    Because why not.
     
    The Lord of The Rings, and a lot of high fantasy with it, falls into the trap of looking a lot like Western Europe in the Middle Ages. Which, I suppose, is fair, given that Rings is the forerunner of modern fantasy and that in writing it Tolkien wanted to give England its own myths to rival those of Greece. So of course it's gonna portray a very (white) England-inspired place. But that’s done, and it doesn't excuse modern fantasy works (and the upcoming Amazon show would indeed count as a modern fantasy work) from being very white and European.
     
    Cuz there's nothing in The Lord of The Rings’ mythology that precludes a more diverse cast. Sure, you'd have to ignore Tolkien’s descriptions of characters as fair and golden-haired, but that's not a loss. Heck, even adding more women makes sense; we've already got characters like Lúthien and Galadriel who've kicked butt in their time. Eowyn’s given the title shieldmaiden so she’s probably not the first. There’s no reason not to.
     
    This is a fantasy world with magic rings and enchanted swords (and, y'know, elves and dwarves and stuff), there is literally no good reason why everyone has to be white. The only reason a black elf or Asian dwarf sounds so odd is because it's outside what we've internalized as normal for the genre. We're simply used to seeing these archetypes as white. And that's s gotta change.
     
    And where better for that change to happen than in the world of The Lord of The Rings? This is the book that elevated fantasy from children’s books to something taken seriously. It's what inspired the world of Dungeons & Dragons, it's the basis for just about every modern work of high fantasy. This is a chance to shift the framework, to redefine how fantasy usually looks.
     
    I love The Lord of The Rings (and The Hobbit and The Silmarillion). Why can't I, someone who's reread the books countless times, quoted the movies in the opening to his thesis, and dominated Lord of The Rings bar trivia, get to see people in those stories who look more like me?
  23. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 003: Why Science Fiction Is Not A Genre
     
     
    Walk into any book store and you’ll find them sorted into categories. You’ve got your Fiction, Children’s, Military History, Home and Garden, Romance, Young Adult, the odd shelf titled ‘Young Adult Paranormal Romance’, and, of course, Science Fiction and Fantasy. It’s fairly obvious where books go, works of Fiction goes in fiction, kids’ books go in Children’s, non-fiction goes with its topic, and so on.
     
    Now, a work of fiction, whether it’s set in 1950’s New York City, medieval England, or present day Rio De Janeiro, is classified as Fiction. But add a spaceship or another planet and it’s suddenly Science Fiction. Doesn’t matter if it’s a Space Opera or a gritty post-apocalyptic war, they all go on the same shelf. Wanna add an elf to your modern day crime drama? Same problem. Fantasy is fantasy, no matter the subject matter.
     
    Why’s this the case? Dracula features a vampire and yet it’s put in Fiction. Animal Farm has talking animals that run a farm and it’s in Fiction. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a weird dystopian novel with tropes straight out of science-fiction but it gets classified along with ‘proper literature’.
     
    I realize my examples up there are all works that have been accepted as classics due to literary significance. So what about The Lord of The Rings? It’s got immense literary significance (reinvented the conventions associated with fantasy) and a truly epic plot with universal themes transcending its own story. So it gets put on the Fantasy shelf, and rightly so, because its setting is the archetypical fantasy world. Yet it’ll never be formally classified as ‘proper literature’.
     
    The same idea extends to film. Super 8 is a movie about a bunch of kids making a movie. Throughout the plot they solidify their relationships with parents and each other; it’s about growing up. There’s also an alien in there, but it’s a plot device, not the point. But there’s an alien so it’s science fiction. Monsters has aliens too but it’s more like Lost in Translation than War of the Worlds. Once again, the titular monsters are a plot device, they exist to move the protagonists’ and the plot along. They’re not antagonists or even characters in the least. You could replace them with another trope and the plot would still work just as fine.
    But because it’s an alien, it’s science fiction and thus not eligible for any ‘real’ awards. Super 8 and Monsters weren’t even considered for an Oscar because they’re science fiction and, ergo, not art.
     
    My point is: the use of certain tropes doesn’t disqualify a work from being art. District 9 deconstructed much of what was accepted of a typical alien inversion. It was different and asked question normally never asked. Ender’s Game took the idea of the young hero and took it apart, adding the grief and trauma one would expect from such an event. They got their accolades from the science fiction community but beyond that, not much at all. Timothy’s Zahn’s work in the Star Wars Expanded Universe justified the movies and codified the universe. But because it could be written off as glorified Star Wars fan-fiction, no one outside the Star Wars fandom cares.
     
    When it comes down to it, science fiction is a setting not a genre. Genres are romances and comedies, tragedies and dramas. A setting is a spaceship or downtown Chicago. The only real difference between science fiction and ‘regular’ fiction is setting. You have humorous science fiction (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), character focused drama (Firefly), and sweeping adventures of pure romance (Star Wars, natch). There are post-apocalyptic adventures and galactic tragedies. To lump all of them together under one category due to similar setting would be like categorizing a Jeffery Archer book, The Great Gatsby, and The Bourne Identity under the same genre because they’re all set in the 20th Century. A story having binary suns should not detract from its merit as a work of fiction. If it still engages and it still carries its themes then it’s literature all the same, right?
     
    In any case, I still like science fiction. I like space. I like adventure.
    And I’m willing to accept the stigma of being a science fiction fan if it means I get spaceships.
     
    Writer’s Note: Granted, science fiction and fantasy have more than their share of shoddiness which unfortunately stereotypes the ‘genre’ as a whole. But within all that there are some brilliant gems. And shine they do.
  24. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 215: Order, and Narrative Thereof
     
    I’m one of those people who will respect you less if you pick an album to play, and then play it on shuffle. See, there’s a deliberate rhyme and reason for the order of songs on an album.
     
    U2’s War needs “Surrender” to be its penultimate song. After an album about war, violence, and fighting for hope, we have a song about giving up which leads into “40,” an adaption of the Bible’s Psalm 40. It’s crucial that the album ends there, in that space of a different sort of surrender. Furthermore, its refrain “I will sing a new song” works in tandem with the first track, “Sunday Bloody Sunday”’s “How long must we sing this song?” Listening to War in any other order robs you of the experience. Look at how “New Year’s Day,” a song about being apart from a lover, works as a sort of reprieve in between “Seconds” (about nuclear threat) and “Like A Song…” (in some ways, about military proliferation). With “New Year’s Day” where it is it takes on another level of longing; musically it’s far more understated then the fast paced songs around it and the song itself becomes a desire for an escape from the world. Sure, you can listen to the songs alone, but putting the album on shuffle’s just stupid. There’s an intentionality to how it’s set up.
     
    Hang on, an intentional order that echoes and mirrors what came before creating and complicating a general emotion? This sounds like a narrative. And you bet it is. No, it’s not a beginning-middle-end story, but there is still and arc (still on War, each side of the record ends on a quiet song, “Drowning Man” and “40,” giving it something of a two act structure). All this to say, a narrative can be built out of order. If you’ve ever agonized over a mixtape or a playlist, you know that the tracklist matters as much as the individual songs.
     
    So now let’s talk about Star Wars.
     
    The saga is a bit of an oddity, with episodes 4, 5, and 6 coming out before 1, 2, and 3 (only to be followed by 7). This, of course, has led to a variety of different ways to introduce someone to the movies. Do you screen them within the chronology of the films (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)? Or in the order they were released (4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3)? Do you ignore the prequels entirely (4, 5, 6) or try out the Machete Order (4, 5, 2, 3, 6)? No matter what you do, these are still the same movies. But the order you watch them in shifts the narrative.
     
    Say you watch them episodically. You get a very straightforward story about Jedi and trade disputes, forbidden romances and arbitrary falls to the Dark Side, a time skip and a plucky Rebellion against an evil Empire. The narrative shift really starts to show when you compare it to the order the movies were released. Episodically, there are fun beats like seeing an adult Boba Fett and meeting Yoda again in Empire. Luke’s arc is a mirror of Vader’s, and Jedi sees him in the position to make a similar choice due to the foreshadowing provided by Sith. Watched in the order they were released, however, shifts Anakin’s arc to be a mirror of Luke’s, where he fails where his son succeeded. The mirror, episodically, makes Luke’s success more heroic and, release-wise, makes Anakin’s fall more tragic.
     
    Machete Order, where The Phantom Menace is dropped and Clones and Sith are watched in between Empire and Jedi, somewhat gets the cake and eats it too. By putting the prequels after Empire, we get a two-movie long flashback sequence that expounds on the twist that Vader is Luke’s father, explaining not only Anakin’s rise and fall, but also more on Obi Wan, Yoda, and the Emperor. It shifts the overall narrative, giving a great deal more focus on the stakes of Luke’s choice between the Light and the Dark. It also gives Luke’s line “I am a Jedi, like my father before me” much more impact, given that it emphasizes Anakin as a Jedi rather than Anakin as evil. Still the same Star Wars movies, just different emphases.
     
    The order something’s presented in can do a lot for it. It gives U2’s War an additional layer of subtext and shades the overall arc of Star Wars. Think about that the next time you hit shuffle on that new album you got.
  25. Ta-metru_defender

    That Teaser

    By Ta-metru_defender,

    Essays, Not Rants! 141: That Teaser

    I saw The Phantom Menace for my eighth birthday. It wasn’t the first Star Wars film I saw, nor was it the first I saw in theaters (I have the vague recollection of seeing A New Hope when it was rereleased in Singapore). But it was a new Star Wars movie and I loved it unaware of its flaws.
     
    A teaser for the new new Star Wars dropped yesterday and I am so freaking excited.
     
    First off, it’s a new Star Wars, which, has had me pumped for quite some time. But seeing actual footage from The Force Awakens pushes me over the edge like no amount of leaked concept art ever will.
     
    The teaser trailer is less than a minute and a half long and composed of only eleven shots which, combined with the large amounts of blank space isn’t that much. But it’s a terribly important eleven shots.
     
    We don’t see Luke, Han, or Leia in the teaser, characters we’re anxious to see again. We don’t even see some of the somewhat more well-known actors, like Adam Driver or Gwendolyn Christie. Rather we see Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, and newcomer Daisy Ridley. Are these three the three new main characters? Rumors point to yes, with Daisy Ridley playing the movie’s protagonist. If it’s true, then, awesome, we’re getting a black main character in a Star Wars movie and a woman protagonist. Yay representation!
     
    Then there’s the desert in the first shot. An actual, real, not-CGI desert in which we see John Boyega in actual, real, not-CGI Stormtrooper armor. That many of the eleven shots take place in practical locations is no coincidence: Abrams and crew are reminding us that they’re going back to how the Holy Trilogy was made; they’re using real locations and real props. This is a movie that’ll have great effects, not just great CGI. Like that new droid, which I want to say is a practical effect, but, honestly, I can’t be sure.
     
    Much of the teaser brings the cool. The really cool, the moments of awe that Star Wars is known for. We’ve got X-Wings, done new and looking awesome, but X-Wings nonetheless, skimming over water. There are X-Wings skimming over water. It’s a beautiful, beautiful shot (spaceships in atmosphere make me very happy), but it’s also showing off what they can do now with modern technology. Something this beautiful wouldn’t have been doable before and The Force Awakens is bringing it in. That they’re X-Wings and that Oscar Issac is shot just like Luke or Wedge once again elicits memories of the older movies. It feels like Star Wars.
     
    We also get a shot of who’s presumably the villain of the piece staggering through the snow and igniting a lightsaber that I like more than I probably should. I really like the medieval-esque image it conjures up and, with it, we know there’s gonna be a bad guy in this and that bad guy’s going to have a lightsaber. The teaser ends with the Star Wars fanfare and the Millennium Falcon flying over a desert and dodging TIE Fighters. There’s literally nothing I can add to that sentence to make it sound cooler. It’s Star Wars, man, and it’s back.
     
    The teaser says little in the way of story (beyond the narration that the Force has awakened, light side and dark and all that), but rather tells us a lot about the new movie. We’re getting a diverse group of new characters, we’re getting practical effects, and we’re getting a movie that feels more like Star Wars than the prequels.
     
    It’s easy to be cynical as an adult. The world isn’t what it cracked up to be, justice doesn’t always happen, good isn’t always as clear as you’d want it to be. But then a new Star Wars trailer rolls around and I feel like I’ve eight years ago and I can’t wait to return to a galaxy far far away.
     
    Twelve months, nineteen days, and counting.
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