I love Star Wars. It was a huge part of my childhood and I've continued to be a fan of the franchise in all its forms. And when I say "Star Wars", I mean the whole series. Not just the original three but the prequel trilogy, as well.
It's at this point that people scoff and question my taste in movies. I really wish I understood why, because very rarely do they even come up with a reason as to why they don't like them. On that rare occasion that someone does, I can't help but roll my eyes at what they consider to make the prequels "bad". In the years that I've come across these people, there seems to be a consistent list of criticisms. Roughly around seven. Let me be frank when I say that these criticisms are crap and, more often than not, aren't particularly consistent or well-thought.
Here I will spend this entry deconstructing each of the top seven and explain why they're unfounded.
#1 "They're just a special effects show."
This is an absurd thing to say when you consider that the original trilogy was renowned for pushing the envelope of visual effects and setting the standards for what we appreciate on screen, Star Wars or not. It should also be noted that while the prequels were praised for their visuals, they were eclipsed by other films at the time. The Matrix beat out The Phantom Menace for Best Visual Effects at the Academy Awards.
I think the real criticism here is that George Lucas has chosen CGI to bring his visuals to the screen. Going back to the original films advancement of special effects, these were the best things available. Lucas used the best effects at the time and he used the best effects for the prequels. He was never pleased with the cantina aliens in 1977, thinking them fake and clumsy-looking. It's totally justified for him wanting to use technology that best represents what he wants on film.
#2 "The acting is terrible."
Before I start, I want you to see these first:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcbbnHHDpTg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X66jntR0MVE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwvnRneMHiY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wntX-a3jSY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSjP2GBTr9U (Around 3:33 to the end)
I'm sure I could find more, but I think I've made my point. There's a trend here. The Star Wars films are George Lucas's love letter to the science fiction and fantasy films and stories of his childhood. Stuff like Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, and John Carter of Mars. These shared an over-the-top, almost theatrical style of acting. The score by John Williams punctuates the action with its operatic orchestration.
I'm not about to defend Jake Lloyd or the "Star Destroyer Guy" (Hobbie Klivian is his in-universe name, FYI). That acting is clearly bad. But look at the films of Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen and you can see that they're both competent actors. Watch American Graffiti or THX-1138, both films of Lucas's, and you can note that the acting is not stilted and more naturalistic in its delivery.
You could argue that the performances of the original trilogy, for all their flamboyance, are much more understated. And I agree with that. But I also think that as a stylistic choice it makes sense for the acting of the prequels to be larger than life. The overall story is Faustian and a more theatrical approach seems appropriate.
#3 "They're too self-referential."
Too self-referential? Have you ever even seen Return of the Jedi? Let's see how many things it re-hashes from Star Wars:
Dramatic arrival with Darth Vader having a conversation that more-or-less introduces the driving force of the plot? Check.
The droids walking through the deserts of Tatooine? Check.
Room full of colorful aliens? Check.
Family talk with Obi-Wan? Check.
Death Star? Check.
Battle plan with computer image of Death Star? Check.
Lush, green planet?
Cute little aliens? Check.
Hero choosing not to fight Vader? Check.
I rest my case.
#4 "The writing is clunky."
This kind of goes back to what I said on the subject of acting. It's space opera. It needs to be melodramatic. If you've ever seen Romeo and Juliet, on-stage or not, you'll probably find the lines to be overly flowery and not particularly realistic. I'm not equating Lucas's writing ability with the Bard's, but things need to be taken in proper context.
#5 "Jar Jar Binks makes me crazy."
Congratulations. The character accomplished what he was written for. He does the exact same thing to the characters around him. He's supposed to be obnoxious. He's not Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation where the character should be likeable but instead makes you want to push him out an airlock. Jar Jar Binks is a character that appeals to children, as he's meant to. Star Wars is for kids, first and foremost. C-3PO is an obnoxious character, too, but he also serves a purpose.
And for crying out loud, he's only a major character in one film. Take a trip to Hoth and chill out.
#6 "Midi-chlorians are stupid."
I can see where people might find that this concept sort of undermines the mystique of the Force, but its presence is marginal. The Force is regarded as an "energy field", which sounds sort of scientific, so it's not without precedent. It should also be noted that George Lucas had the idea of midi-chlorians as far back as 1977, using it in his guidelines for authors hired to expand on his films.
#7 "There's too much politics."
I've been hearing this one a lot as of late. Being something for kids, you'd think that this sort of stuff wouldn't be highlighted so much. I do feel that The Phantom Menace slows to a crawl once they're on Coruscant, but the politics are an important part to showing Palpatine's rise to power. It could've been handled better, perhaps, but I don't think taking it out entirely would've made for nearly as interesting a plot or even the Palpatine character.
So here we are at the end of our journey. The prequels aren't perfect but they're not any sort of travesty. They're solid films in their own right and should be given their due. They didn't ruin the films, they enhanced them. It added new layers and themes to appreciate and gave us another reason to have a marathon while quoting along with the films and pretending you have a lightsaber. Most importantly, it gave another generation of kids something to call their own. And really that's all that matters.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Friday, June 28, 2013
Where games are going or: I want another NES
I think the gaming industry is in for another market crash
in the vein of 1983's. I've lived through and enjoyed four of the (as of now)
eight generations of video games and I still have yet to find a system that I
play more than the NES. Each successive generation has boasted better
technology but increasingly shorter life spans. The NES was released in the US in
1985 and discontinued in 1995. In Japan it was in retail from 1983 and finally
discontinued in 2003. Yes, you read that right. So the system's shelf life was
10-20 years. I think it's a testament to how well-made the games were and are
even with the limitations in technology at the time.
Compare this with the Playstation 3, which has approximately
772 games in its library as of January 2013. It's the most expensive console of
its generation ($499 on its release in the US) and yet has the least amount of
games exclusive to its technology. Eight console exclusives, according to my
research. Does that make the PS3 a bad system? No, I don't think so. It's a
well-made console and I enjoy playing on it. But Sony is not even making use of
the great tech that they're gushing about having. They could be making so many
great games but what are they doing? What is Microsoft doing? They're giving us
consoles where we can play Blu-Ray discs and watch cable television. Wait,
these are GAMING consoles, right? For all the gimmick crap Nintendo has been
putting out with the Wii and Wii U, at least it's an attempt toward advancing
the gaming industry and not being tangential to it.
When the NES arrived on the US scene in 1985, nobody wanted
to sell video games anymore. The market had become oversaturated by system
after system with smaller and smaller libraries of games (mostly ports) that
were failing to the arcades and computer market. Nintendo of America made the
shrewd decision to market it as an "entertainment system", which convinced
toy stores and the like to carry the console and sell it. And by 1987 this paid
off. Now what did they do exactly?
For one, they recognized the potential of third party
support. But they also tightly regulated it. They could've easily relied on
these other companies to bring the money in. They had no real competition
either. Sega's Master System suffered from terrible advertising and a lack of
the aforementioned third party support (Nintendo keeping most of those in their
pocket contractually). They had the lion's share of the market but they knew
what they had in front of them. They saw the potential and actualized it. Many
times they PUSHED the limits of the console. This brings me to my next point.
A lot of Nintendo's critics tend to point toward a constant
reliance on their established franchises without really considering why. The
most obvious reason is name recognition. In the 90s, more children could
identify a picture of Mario than Mickey Mouse. Another reason... they're good
games. Can you think of an absolutely awful Zelda
game? (And no, the CD-i games don't count because it's not Nintendo) How about Metroid? Super Smash Bros.? Yeah, neither can I. So if they're great games
then it gives them a good name and the cycle perpetuates. They can try new and
innovative ideas for a game and still be able to sell and expose it if they put
Mario's face on it. It's good business sense. I doubt we would be talking about the merits
and game play of Doki Doki Panic if
it had never been localized into Super
Mario Bros. 2.
Maybe I’m jumping at shadows here. But I really like having
a system that is constantly being pushed to its limits and has an ambitious
company behind it that wants to re-invent and revitalize and believes in its
product. And what I am seeing right now
is an industry that’s hit a plateau with where it can take gaming and gives up
far too quickly and settles by supplementing with stuff we already have.
I’m going to play my NES now.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Why Continuity is Important
Those that talk to me about various franchises in fiction will more than likely be aware that I am very much an adherent toward maintaining a continuity and/or canon. It's part of being a nerd, I suppose... caring passionately about something that does not provide food, water, clothing, or shelter. In the words of outsiders and critics: useless knowledge.
But this blog entry is not about defending nerdism. What it is about is how the most recent reaction to continuity within fiction seems to be largely negative and against it. I recently read an article that tries to make a case for keeping loose continuity within the various film franchises.
Please read this article before continuing.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/10/26/hero-worship-the-007-approach-to-continuity
Joey Esposito's comment "that continuity is rarely anything more than a distraction from good storytelling" is quite a load of bollocks, as far as I'm concerned. But first things first.
Contrary to what many might perceive at first glance, the Bond films have a fairly strong continuity within themselves. References to his dead wife, an on-and-off girlfriend, villains, etc. The changing of an actor or maintaing the age of a character who has been around since 1953 is hardly a strong case for discarded continuity. It's no different than hiring a different artist to draw a character or modifying subtitles to a foreign film to allow for relevance to the foreign viewer's culture. It keeps the ball rolling.
That aside, I'll begin making my case for the importance of continuity.
Reason No. 1... It keeps you caring about the characters
If you are reading or watching a succession of material around a character, it won't mean much if the character dies in one story and then comes back without explanation or reference. With no point of reference to build from, you can't grow to appreciate the character and the character can't really grow, either.
Reason No. 2... It allows for thematic cohesion
This might not necessarily mean much to everyone, but it appeals to my sensibilities.
I will give you the Terminator franchise as an example. The first film in the series presents time travel as a means to change the future. That is, the future is not set in stone and can be changed. At the end of the film there is a little twist that presents the possibility that maybe the future can't be changed.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day continues on the "No Fate" theme by having the heroes destroy the means to create the villains and prevent a nuclear war from ever happening, yet still maintains an ending of ambiguous nature.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines more or less throws the "No Fate" theme out the window. While the date of the nuclear war has changed, the heroes are unable to stop the machines from taking over. Story-wise, the future has changed. Where theme is concerned, the change is drastic and clashes with the ideas presented in its predecessors.
The Alien series is the same way. The first two films have a theme of survival; that when you're in a hopeless situation you can find the strength within yourself and persevere over the dominant life-form, i.e. the alien. Alien 3 arrives and the producers say, "Screw this! Let's kill off all the interesting characters, replace them with bland characters, and try to justify it creatively all in the name of art!" It's made even worse by the fact that Alien Resurrection brings Ellen Ripley back as a clone. So even Alien 3 gets the shaft! Oh well. It's the worst the series, anyway.
Reason No. 3... Internal logic
I'm going to reference Alien 3 one more time. In the film's opening we see an alien egg in the cryo-chamber of the starship. The problem is that the alien queen from the previous film neither 1. stowed away with her egg sac and 2. never had time to go to where the cryo tubes are. It's like the producers didn't even care.
Another great example and an extremely blatant one is in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Early on in the film we see Superman rescue a group of cosmonauts from death. Fast forward to the final conflict between Superman and Nuclear Man. The villain takes a woman that he's sweet on up into space with him. Oh, and she's not wearing a spacesuit.
Now there could have been some special power that Nuclear Man has that enables him to take her into a vacuum. Even a throwaway line that references such a power would've worked, but we're left scratching our heads at what we just saw.
Reason No. 4... Aesthetic consistency
The Batman film series from 1989-1997 suffered from this considerably and it was one of many reasons that the franchise went into hibernation for eight years.
Tim Burton, along with production designer Anton Furst, established a very distinctive aesthetic in Batman '89. Gotham City is a combination of art deco and expressionism, with a little touch of Syd Mead's "retrofitting" design on Blade Runner.
This style more-or-less continued on in Batman Returns. Bo Welch took over as production designer and made his own stylistic changes. The expressionist ideas from its predecessor took full precedence. Nevertheless, it never draws attention to itself unless you're going out of your way to look for it.
Then things took a turn for the worst. Joel Schumacher took over as director of the last two films and sealed the fate of a franchise that showed a promising future. From the colorful lights and neon face-painted street thugs to the over-the-top costumes, gadgets, and vehicles that screamed, "I'm a toy, buy me NOW!", it quickly became apparent that the mighty had fallen.
Fortunately, Warner wised up and kept a focused vision for the series when Christopher Nolan relaunched the franchise in 2005 with Batman Begins.
Postface
The proof is in the pudding, folks. I think it goes without saying that the film medium absolutely needs to keep strong continuity if they expect anyone to enjoy and, subsequently, pay for more to see.
That Esposito guy is an idiot.
But this blog entry is not about defending nerdism. What it is about is how the most recent reaction to continuity within fiction seems to be largely negative and against it. I recently read an article that tries to make a case for keeping loose continuity within the various film franchises.
Please read this article before continuing.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/10/26/hero-worship-the-007-approach-to-continuity
Joey Esposito's comment "that continuity is rarely anything more than a distraction from good storytelling" is quite a load of bollocks, as far as I'm concerned. But first things first.
Contrary to what many might perceive at first glance, the Bond films have a fairly strong continuity within themselves. References to his dead wife, an on-and-off girlfriend, villains, etc. The changing of an actor or maintaing the age of a character who has been around since 1953 is hardly a strong case for discarded continuity. It's no different than hiring a different artist to draw a character or modifying subtitles to a foreign film to allow for relevance to the foreign viewer's culture. It keeps the ball rolling.
That aside, I'll begin making my case for the importance of continuity.
Reason No. 1... It keeps you caring about the characters
If you are reading or watching a succession of material around a character, it won't mean much if the character dies in one story and then comes back without explanation or reference. With no point of reference to build from, you can't grow to appreciate the character and the character can't really grow, either.
Reason No. 2... It allows for thematic cohesion
This might not necessarily mean much to everyone, but it appeals to my sensibilities.
I will give you the Terminator franchise as an example. The first film in the series presents time travel as a means to change the future. That is, the future is not set in stone and can be changed. At the end of the film there is a little twist that presents the possibility that maybe the future can't be changed.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day continues on the "No Fate" theme by having the heroes destroy the means to create the villains and prevent a nuclear war from ever happening, yet still maintains an ending of ambiguous nature.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines more or less throws the "No Fate" theme out the window. While the date of the nuclear war has changed, the heroes are unable to stop the machines from taking over. Story-wise, the future has changed. Where theme is concerned, the change is drastic and clashes with the ideas presented in its predecessors.
The Alien series is the same way. The first two films have a theme of survival; that when you're in a hopeless situation you can find the strength within yourself and persevere over the dominant life-form, i.e. the alien. Alien 3 arrives and the producers say, "Screw this! Let's kill off all the interesting characters, replace them with bland characters, and try to justify it creatively all in the name of art!" It's made even worse by the fact that Alien Resurrection brings Ellen Ripley back as a clone. So even Alien 3 gets the shaft! Oh well. It's the worst the series, anyway.
Reason No. 3... Internal logic
I'm going to reference Alien 3 one more time. In the film's opening we see an alien egg in the cryo-chamber of the starship. The problem is that the alien queen from the previous film neither 1. stowed away with her egg sac and 2. never had time to go to where the cryo tubes are. It's like the producers didn't even care.
Another great example and an extremely blatant one is in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Early on in the film we see Superman rescue a group of cosmonauts from death. Fast forward to the final conflict between Superman and Nuclear Man. The villain takes a woman that he's sweet on up into space with him. Oh, and she's not wearing a spacesuit.
Now there could have been some special power that Nuclear Man has that enables him to take her into a vacuum. Even a throwaway line that references such a power would've worked, but we're left scratching our heads at what we just saw.
Reason No. 4... Aesthetic consistency
The Batman film series from 1989-1997 suffered from this considerably and it was one of many reasons that the franchise went into hibernation for eight years.
Tim Burton, along with production designer Anton Furst, established a very distinctive aesthetic in Batman '89. Gotham City is a combination of art deco and expressionism, with a little touch of Syd Mead's "retrofitting" design on Blade Runner.
This style more-or-less continued on in Batman Returns. Bo Welch took over as production designer and made his own stylistic changes. The expressionist ideas from its predecessor took full precedence. Nevertheless, it never draws attention to itself unless you're going out of your way to look for it.
Then things took a turn for the worst. Joel Schumacher took over as director of the last two films and sealed the fate of a franchise that showed a promising future. From the colorful lights and neon face-painted street thugs to the over-the-top costumes, gadgets, and vehicles that screamed, "I'm a toy, buy me NOW!", it quickly became apparent that the mighty had fallen.
Fortunately, Warner wised up and kept a focused vision for the series when Christopher Nolan relaunched the franchise in 2005 with Batman Begins.
Postface
The proof is in the pudding, folks. I think it goes without saying that the film medium absolutely needs to keep strong continuity if they expect anyone to enjoy and, subsequently, pay for more to see.
That Esposito guy is an idiot.
-L. Travis Hoffman
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
What Happened to Film Scores?
John Williams. Jerry Goldsmith. Danny Elfman. John Barry. James Horner. What do these guys all have in common? They're film composers. But not only are they film composers, they're great film composers.
This blog entry isn't going to be about gushing on these guys but rather asking a question that has been on my mind for the last ten years: "What happened to film scores?" I mean, seriously, when exactly did the art hit a plateau and then sharply decline? Danny Elfman hasn't made a great score since the 90s with Sleepy Hollow, John Williams' output has declined in his older age, and James Horner... who knows where that guy is? With John Berry and Jerry Goldsmith dead, the three remaining guys are the greats that we have to rely on to deliver us great film music. Elfman's more recent work has reduced itself to being a generic caricature of himself. John Williams still manages to deliver solid material, but as I mentioned earlier, he's getting up there and not taking as many jobs.
The newer (or new-ish) guys don't seem to show much promise. I've yet to encounter anyone who says that their favorite film composer is Elliot Goldenthal or Hans Zimmer. You know why? Because they really aren't that great. Hans Zimmer's work on the Dark Knight Trilogy doesn't hold a match, much less a candle, to Danny Elfman's work on Batman and Batman Returns. The only people that I can think of that are potentially great film composers are Howard Shore and Michael Giacchino , but that still remains to be seen. It's depressing to think that there aren't any iconic, defining film scores and that we have to put our hopes into Hans Zimmer, the Nickleback of film composition, to fill this void! Ugh... it's agonizing when I think about it.
So where does that leave us? We can't really influence Hollywood to stop hiring an established composer in favor of someone that has a fresh perspective but might be lacking in credentials. And we have no shortage of high-concept summer blockbusters to excuse the absence of grandiose and memorable music from being given to us. I watched a video of footage from Batman Begins put to Danny Elfman's score from Batman from 1989. And it's amazing. I'd pay for a copy of that film with Elfman's score in place of what's originally there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVzXwZuWFaU
Do you notice a difference? There's a presence in the film instead of just being background noise to fill any moments where there would just be dead silence. And that, my friends, is what we need in today's cinema.
This blog entry isn't going to be about gushing on these guys but rather asking a question that has been on my mind for the last ten years: "What happened to film scores?" I mean, seriously, when exactly did the art hit a plateau and then sharply decline? Danny Elfman hasn't made a great score since the 90s with Sleepy Hollow, John Williams' output has declined in his older age, and James Horner... who knows where that guy is? With John Berry and Jerry Goldsmith dead, the three remaining guys are the greats that we have to rely on to deliver us great film music. Elfman's more recent work has reduced itself to being a generic caricature of himself. John Williams still manages to deliver solid material, but as I mentioned earlier, he's getting up there and not taking as many jobs.
The newer (or new-ish) guys don't seem to show much promise. I've yet to encounter anyone who says that their favorite film composer is Elliot Goldenthal or Hans Zimmer. You know why? Because they really aren't that great. Hans Zimmer's work on the Dark Knight Trilogy doesn't hold a match, much less a candle, to Danny Elfman's work on Batman and Batman Returns. The only people that I can think of that are potentially great film composers are Howard Shore and Michael Giacchino , but that still remains to be seen. It's depressing to think that there aren't any iconic, defining film scores and that we have to put our hopes into Hans Zimmer, the Nickleback of film composition, to fill this void! Ugh... it's agonizing when I think about it.
So where does that leave us? We can't really influence Hollywood to stop hiring an established composer in favor of someone that has a fresh perspective but might be lacking in credentials. And we have no shortage of high-concept summer blockbusters to excuse the absence of grandiose and memorable music from being given to us. I watched a video of footage from Batman Begins put to Danny Elfman's score from Batman from 1989. And it's amazing. I'd pay for a copy of that film with Elfman's score in place of what's originally there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVzXwZuWFaU
Do you notice a difference? There's a presence in the film instead of just being background noise to fill any moments where there would just be dead silence. And that, my friends, is what we need in today's cinema.
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