In my last post, I discussed how just sticking popular/classic motifs into a movie/novel/television show isn't enough. There has to be a vision to back them up.
Die Hard with a Vengeance is a good example of this.
Don't get me wrong: Die Hard with a Vengeance is a fun flick. But I happen to consider Die Hard (the original) the best action movie ever made. So--even though I was warned that the sequels weren't quite as good--my expectations for Die Hard with a Vengeance were still far higher than my expectations normally are for an action film.
It wasn't a complete disappointment. The relationship between McClane and his fellow police officers is good. The relationship between McClane and Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson) is good. Samuel L. Jackson is good (if a little underused--let the guy chew the scenery more!).
Jeremy Irons is boring.
And therein lies the problem. Instead of following the natural flow of the story, the writers forced the classic pay-off/twist from Die Hard (yes, I will be giving it away).
The classic twist in Die Hard is that Alan Rickman's character is a bank robber posing as a terrorist. This is interesting because Alan Rickman is interesting. It is also interesting because of the relationship/dialog between the panicked, hyper McClane and the urbane, single-minded Hans.
The twist of urbane, terrorist-acting, bank robber is clever. So that's EXACTLY what the writers did in Die Hard with a Vengeance: psychopath is actually a bank robber. Only the result isn't interesting since Irons' psychopath persona is FAR more interesting than his bank robber persona.
For example, at the beginning of the movie, Simon (Irons) stutters when McClane yells at him on the phone. The police psychologist explains that this is because Simon doesn't expect to be challenged. The psychologist isn't being obnoxious or overly academic in his explanation. In fact, he commends McClane for pushing the guy's limits. It's a great set-up.
But at the end of the movie, Simon fake stutters to show that the WHOLE psychopathic persona was actually an act--ha ha--just like his brother Hans and his fake terrorist act--ha ha.
But that isn't interesting! It would have been far more interesting and far more effective if Simon had been a psychopath who thought he was a bank robber (like dear brother Hans) who turned out to be a psychopath. The stutter scene could have been paid off by a verbal confrontation, with stuttering, between McClane and Simon at the end of the movie (NOT by an exploding helicopter).
In fact, up to the 1/2-way mark, I think the writers were going in this direction. For example, the writers go out of their way to have Simon Gruber NOT say "Simon says" when the game changes (at the water fountain)--that is, after Simon has actually completed the robbery. McClane and Zeus are so wrapped up in the chase, they don't notice. I was SURE they would remember later, but the issue was completely dropped.
The movie is full of things that are dropped/not paid off. I'm as horrified by the idea of a bomb in a school as the next person, but, really, it should have been a real bomb. And the only other director who has underused Samuel L. Jackson more is Lucas. Let the guy scream at someone! Please! But at the end of the movie, he has taken over the role of cool, laid-back Powell from the first film.
And this is my point. Apparently, Die Hard 2 was a failure, so the writers say, "Let's use the same twists, characters, and motifs from the first movie" which is a great idea EXCEPT it needed to be done in a way that made sense, not just stuck into the film.
Having said all this, Die Hard with a Vengeance is NOT as bad as Spider-man 3. It still retains the joie de vivre of the first film. However, before I check out Live Free or Die Hard, I'm going to wait awhile. And I certainly won't watch Die Hard beforehand!
Friday, January 28, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
House This House That
I watched three of the House shows (1900 House, 1940s House and Manor House) and part of the fourth (Colonial House). Here are my thoughts:
The best is Manor House—by a long chalk. In fact, Manor House, narrated by Derek Jacobi, is so good it almost belongs in its own category. Of the remaining three, 1940s House is the next best. But Manor House puts them all to shame. (I didn't watch Frontier House and will address why in a later paragraph).
Manor House was superb for several reasons:
1. All the people involved were intelligent from the houseboy up to the lord of the manor. Unlike the sweet but woefully clueless family of 1900 House, the members of Manor House had some idea of what they were getting into. A number of the servants had grandparents who had worked in service (the butler's grandfather had been a butler) and all of the servants were hard workers and had little sympathy for those who weren't.
2. Both the butler and Sir John wanted to make the experience authentic. They wanted to feel what it would have been really like. I personally thought that Sir John was a pompous git (an intelligent pompous git), and I sniggered a bit at his "concern" for his servants (whom he barely knew and certainly didn't understand), but the end result was quite believable. I think there were probably manor house owners who got involved in the day-to-day workings of their households. But I imagine that there were those owners, like Sir John, who thought they knew what was going on but didn't really have a clue about the lives of their servants and who could never have brought themselves to destroy the system, not matter how much concern they felt.
Sir John and Lady Oliff-Cooper, you understand, liked being lord and lady of the manor. I actually admired them for that. They were articulate about the problems they saw ("We hardly communicate," Lady O said. "Eventually, my husband would take a mistress and my children would be scarred for life. My son has to make an appointment to see me." And her son, Jon T, said, "Her brain has gone to mush," meaning that his Dr. Mom only talked about clothes), but they were also quite honest about how much they were loving it. They wept the day they had to leave.
The servants didn't. On the other hand, allowing that the servants had a tough life (and I'm very grateful my ancestors were the burgeoning middle class and preferred being poor in different kinds of ways), I found the servants' lifestyle ultimately more emotionally satisfying than the uppercrust lifestyle. I wouldn't opt for it under any conditions, but the servants had, at least, family-like relationships. They didn't all get along all the time, but they were close. Even the crazy French chef, whom none of them liked at the beginning, was considered part of the group—the crazy relative you keep locked up 364 days out of the year: nuts but ours. One of the housemaids said on the last day, "I don't know how I'm going to adjust to not having people around all the time." In any case, the servants' lifestyle was preferable to the life of Lady O's single sister; thank goodness for modern civilization in regards to women.
Of the servants, I agree with my sister Ann that it was Edgar, the butler, who made the biggest difference. He was a regular CEO (without the fat pay check); he decided what Sir John and Lady O heard about matters downstairs; he disciplined the servants (he started out tough and ended up more relaxed, but he was still fairly strict); he had a great deal of investment in making the experience real, in making the manor a true Edwardian household. He, too, was able to articulate the experience. In one of the most heart-rending statements of the show, he noted that the system worked but was based on a lack of communication. Not deception per se but a lack of honesty. Any such system is doomed to fail, Edgar said, and the Edwardian world was indeed "swept away."
This desire for authenticity is notably lacking from all but 1940s House (where the imposed conditions create a de facto sense of authenticity). In all the other House shows, the people in the show are 21st century folks plunged into strange settings where they have to wear unusual clothes and make things without power tools: Survivor without the bathing suits. This is one reason I never watched Frontier House. Watch people starve? Yawn. Watch people bicker? Yawn. Watch people self-implode? Yawn. Yawn. Yawn. You can watch that on Big Brother. Why drag in the historic setting?
Colonial House reached a truly horrible standard here. In one of the few episodes I watched, one of the Freemen decided to go "exploring"—so he left the village and the 1,000 acres on which Colonial House was set and backpacked into civilization where he sat at a bar and got a free beer.
His excuse for breaking the rules: "That's what they would have done. They wanted to explore."
I was reading a book about Jamestown while I watched, and I started laughing. John Smith--who was tougher than this pauncy, self-absorbed, angsty "I just want to explore" idiot could ever hope to be--never went on "exploratory" journeys without several men and lots of guns.
And then the narrator said exactly what I was thinking without all the "pauncy, self-absorbed" stuff.
Personally, I would have kicked the guy off the show and told the rest that he'd been eaten by a bear. Or killed by a Native American. Or gotten lost and starved to death. (No one's going to rush up to you in the wilderness with a pint, moron.)
He wasn't even punished, as far as I can tell, although he had the grace at least to be ashamed that he'd gone walk-about for three days while everyone else was working.
Thing is, the entire Colonial House show was like this. The religious issue really bugged me, not because there weren't many people who disliked Puritanism at that time, but because the issue wouldn't have been "my freedom of expression" but rather "what I believe instead." Ann Hutchinson, who got excommunicated by the Puritans, got excommunicated because she had a differing interpretation of scripture, not because she wanted to stay home on Sunday and watch TV. Even atheism was a theology of sorts, a position one took in regards the universe. I'm sure there were some cheerful agnostics and a lot of people who didn't much care but went along with the status quo, but IF you started making waves, it was usually because you had some kind of alternate belief system. If you were more into tolerance, you didn't sit around and whine about the lack of tolerance, you moved into Quaker territory, and if it turned out you really weren't all that much into tolerance, you promptly moved out again. After her excommunication, Ann Hutchinson moved to Rhode Island; they kicked her out because she kept trying to get people to do things her way. So she moved to New York and got killed by Natives. There was none of this "live and let live" stuff going on.
The point is, the volunteers of Colonial House were trying to live their 21st century lifestyles rather than trying to accommodate their views to a 17th century lifetstyle. Instead of trying to realize, for themselves or for the audience, the reality of the experience, they focused instead on "getting in touch with ourselves" and "getting something out of being Puritans"—yech. A substandard English Literature class is what it turned into.
3. One of the things that helped cross the line from 21st century people having an experience to 21st people capturing the reality of the period was the reality of the work.
In 1900 House and Colonial House, there was no real reason why the volunteers had to keep working. There was no real debt they had to pay off to the company. Nobody was really going to starve (or get eaten by a bear). The 1900 House women could stop wearing corsets if they wanted. They were no real neighbors they needed to impress. The Colonial House folks could have unrealistic, New Age-type Sunday services if they wanted. There was no reality being forced upon them and therefore, no real reason to go through with the fiction.
In Manor House, however, there was an imposed reality. Unlike 1900 House, where it was simply unbelievable that the mother wouldn't have had any friends amongst her neighbors or anything to do except go bicycling, the servants in Manor House (and Lady O's sister as well as the tutor) truly were trapped. The servants eventually resorted to bargaining with Edgar for their time off, and they only got it because (1) they were able to prove that servants of their time period would have gotten it and (2) because Sir John interceded (letting them all have the same half-day off much to Edgar's consternation).
Secondly, real life duties existed in the manor. Sir John and Lady O had REAL dinner parties. They had the REAL British Poet Laureate to stay. They had a gala ball. They had a hunting party. All the guests were real, not paid actors or whatever. These were real events. And the real (and completely insane) French chef had to prepare real dinners (by the way, the insane French chef was also committed to the idea of authenticity and got truly brassed off at Sir John for wanting more modern dishes—he considered it cheating, which it was, and that Sir John wanted the best of both the 19th and 21st centuries. He got so ticked off, in fact, that he deliberately roasted and served Sir John a pig's head. The servants applauded—downstairs—Sir John had no idea how much he was loathed.)
The servants had to work. And work hard. And both Edgar and Sir John insisted that they do the work as it truly would have been done. There was one rather chilling moment where a group of visitors were asking Sir John if his servants were happy, and he said, "Oh, yes, I think my servants are satisfied. A smiling housemaid is a happy housemaid," and in the background you saw the three footmen delivering dishes under Edgar's authority. And they didn't say a word. They didn't acknowledge what they'd heard. They didn't smile or smirk. When the (seated) tutor started going on about how rough he had things, they didn't respond, although later, Edgar criticized the tutor for "embarrassing Sir John and Lady O" and the footmen made the angry point that they were the ones doing all the work.
But nobody said a word. It was amazing. They kept within their roles, despite serious provocation. They acted real. And by doing that, the audience gained a sense of reality. I understood, as I never had with 1900 House, why the working poor were so attracted to socialism. When things are that bad, an ideology that promises to even things out looks pretty good. Granted socialism wouldn't have helped anyone. It took two World Wars to destroy the caste system in England and remnants of it still exist.
Now, it isn't possible to have a truly authentic experience, but there's historical accuracy, and then, well, there's Survivor with funny clothes. If I were in charge of say, Renaissance Town, I would do what they did in Manor House and give everyone rule books. There would be flexibility, but the volunteers would be expected to keep within certain bounds. Or I would do as they did in 1940s House and impose conditions that force the volunteers into more historically accurate behavior. If you did the Plague Years, you could keep hauling people off ("Bring out your dead. Bring out your dead.") without warning. This is much more disturbing than forcing people to build things with axes. I mean, come on, there are people who build things with axes in the real world. The only reason it becomes TV and "entertaining" is because the people doing it don't have a clue. And I just don't find it enjoyable to watch people not having a clue. Give me smart people with a clue and a desire for historical accuracy—that I can get behind.
The best is Manor House—by a long chalk. In fact, Manor House, narrated by Derek Jacobi, is so good it almost belongs in its own category. Of the remaining three, 1940s House is the next best. But Manor House puts them all to shame. (I didn't watch Frontier House and will address why in a later paragraph).
Manor House was superb for several reasons:
1. All the people involved were intelligent from the houseboy up to the lord of the manor. Unlike the sweet but woefully clueless family of 1900 House, the members of Manor House had some idea of what they were getting into. A number of the servants had grandparents who had worked in service (the butler's grandfather had been a butler) and all of the servants were hard workers and had little sympathy for those who weren't.
2. Both the butler and Sir John wanted to make the experience authentic. They wanted to feel what it would have been really like. I personally thought that Sir John was a pompous git (an intelligent pompous git), and I sniggered a bit at his "concern" for his servants (whom he barely knew and certainly didn't understand), but the end result was quite believable. I think there were probably manor house owners who got involved in the day-to-day workings of their households. But I imagine that there were those owners, like Sir John, who thought they knew what was going on but didn't really have a clue about the lives of their servants and who could never have brought themselves to destroy the system, not matter how much concern they felt.
Sir John and Lady Oliff-Cooper, you understand, liked being lord and lady of the manor. I actually admired them for that. They were articulate about the problems they saw ("We hardly communicate," Lady O said. "Eventually, my husband would take a mistress and my children would be scarred for life. My son has to make an appointment to see me." And her son, Jon T, said, "Her brain has gone to mush," meaning that his Dr. Mom only talked about clothes), but they were also quite honest about how much they were loving it. They wept the day they had to leave.
The servants didn't. On the other hand, allowing that the servants had a tough life (and I'm very grateful my ancestors were the burgeoning middle class and preferred being poor in different kinds of ways), I found the servants' lifestyle ultimately more emotionally satisfying than the uppercrust lifestyle. I wouldn't opt for it under any conditions, but the servants had, at least, family-like relationships. They didn't all get along all the time, but they were close. Even the crazy French chef, whom none of them liked at the beginning, was considered part of the group—the crazy relative you keep locked up 364 days out of the year: nuts but ours. One of the housemaids said on the last day, "I don't know how I'm going to adjust to not having people around all the time." In any case, the servants' lifestyle was preferable to the life of Lady O's single sister; thank goodness for modern civilization in regards to women.
Of the servants, I agree with my sister Ann that it was Edgar, the butler, who made the biggest difference. He was a regular CEO (without the fat pay check); he decided what Sir John and Lady O heard about matters downstairs; he disciplined the servants (he started out tough and ended up more relaxed, but he was still fairly strict); he had a great deal of investment in making the experience real, in making the manor a true Edwardian household. He, too, was able to articulate the experience. In one of the most heart-rending statements of the show, he noted that the system worked but was based on a lack of communication. Not deception per se but a lack of honesty. Any such system is doomed to fail, Edgar said, and the Edwardian world was indeed "swept away."
This desire for authenticity is notably lacking from all but 1940s House (where the imposed conditions create a de facto sense of authenticity). In all the other House shows, the people in the show are 21st century folks plunged into strange settings where they have to wear unusual clothes and make things without power tools: Survivor without the bathing suits. This is one reason I never watched Frontier House. Watch people starve? Yawn. Watch people bicker? Yawn. Watch people self-implode? Yawn. Yawn. Yawn. You can watch that on Big Brother. Why drag in the historic setting?
Colonial House reached a truly horrible standard here. In one of the few episodes I watched, one of the Freemen decided to go "exploring"—so he left the village and the 1,000 acres on which Colonial House was set and backpacked into civilization where he sat at a bar and got a free beer.
His excuse for breaking the rules: "That's what they would have done. They wanted to explore."
I was reading a book about Jamestown while I watched, and I started laughing. John Smith--who was tougher than this pauncy, self-absorbed, angsty "I just want to explore" idiot could ever hope to be--never went on "exploratory" journeys without several men and lots of guns.
And then the narrator said exactly what I was thinking without all the "pauncy, self-absorbed" stuff.
Personally, I would have kicked the guy off the show and told the rest that he'd been eaten by a bear. Or killed by a Native American. Or gotten lost and starved to death. (No one's going to rush up to you in the wilderness with a pint, moron.)
He wasn't even punished, as far as I can tell, although he had the grace at least to be ashamed that he'd gone walk-about for three days while everyone else was working.
Thing is, the entire Colonial House show was like this. The religious issue really bugged me, not because there weren't many people who disliked Puritanism at that time, but because the issue wouldn't have been "my freedom of expression" but rather "what I believe instead." Ann Hutchinson, who got excommunicated by the Puritans, got excommunicated because she had a differing interpretation of scripture, not because she wanted to stay home on Sunday and watch TV. Even atheism was a theology of sorts, a position one took in regards the universe. I'm sure there were some cheerful agnostics and a lot of people who didn't much care but went along with the status quo, but IF you started making waves, it was usually because you had some kind of alternate belief system. If you were more into tolerance, you didn't sit around and whine about the lack of tolerance, you moved into Quaker territory, and if it turned out you really weren't all that much into tolerance, you promptly moved out again. After her excommunication, Ann Hutchinson moved to Rhode Island; they kicked her out because she kept trying to get people to do things her way. So she moved to New York and got killed by Natives. There was none of this "live and let live" stuff going on.
The point is, the volunteers of Colonial House were trying to live their 21st century lifestyles rather than trying to accommodate their views to a 17th century lifetstyle. Instead of trying to realize, for themselves or for the audience, the reality of the experience, they focused instead on "getting in touch with ourselves" and "getting something out of being Puritans"—yech. A substandard English Literature class is what it turned into.
3. One of the things that helped cross the line from 21st century people having an experience to 21st people capturing the reality of the period was the reality of the work.
In 1900 House and Colonial House, there was no real reason why the volunteers had to keep working. There was no real debt they had to pay off to the company. Nobody was really going to starve (or get eaten by a bear). The 1900 House women could stop wearing corsets if they wanted. They were no real neighbors they needed to impress. The Colonial House folks could have unrealistic, New Age-type Sunday services if they wanted. There was no reality being forced upon them and therefore, no real reason to go through with the fiction.
In Manor House, however, there was an imposed reality. Unlike 1900 House, where it was simply unbelievable that the mother wouldn't have had any friends amongst her neighbors or anything to do except go bicycling, the servants in Manor House (and Lady O's sister as well as the tutor) truly were trapped. The servants eventually resorted to bargaining with Edgar for their time off, and they only got it because (1) they were able to prove that servants of their time period would have gotten it and (2) because Sir John interceded (letting them all have the same half-day off much to Edgar's consternation).
Secondly, real life duties existed in the manor. Sir John and Lady O had REAL dinner parties. They had the REAL British Poet Laureate to stay. They had a gala ball. They had a hunting party. All the guests were real, not paid actors or whatever. These were real events. And the real (and completely insane) French chef had to prepare real dinners (by the way, the insane French chef was also committed to the idea of authenticity and got truly brassed off at Sir John for wanting more modern dishes—he considered it cheating, which it was, and that Sir John wanted the best of both the 19th and 21st centuries. He got so ticked off, in fact, that he deliberately roasted and served Sir John a pig's head. The servants applauded—downstairs—Sir John had no idea how much he was loathed.)
The servants had to work. And work hard. And both Edgar and Sir John insisted that they do the work as it truly would have been done. There was one rather chilling moment where a group of visitors were asking Sir John if his servants were happy, and he said, "Oh, yes, I think my servants are satisfied. A smiling housemaid is a happy housemaid," and in the background you saw the three footmen delivering dishes under Edgar's authority. And they didn't say a word. They didn't acknowledge what they'd heard. They didn't smile or smirk. When the (seated) tutor started going on about how rough he had things, they didn't respond, although later, Edgar criticized the tutor for "embarrassing Sir John and Lady O" and the footmen made the angry point that they were the ones doing all the work.
But nobody said a word. It was amazing. They kept within their roles, despite serious provocation. They acted real. And by doing that, the audience gained a sense of reality. I understood, as I never had with 1900 House, why the working poor were so attracted to socialism. When things are that bad, an ideology that promises to even things out looks pretty good. Granted socialism wouldn't have helped anyone. It took two World Wars to destroy the caste system in England and remnants of it still exist.
Now, it isn't possible to have a truly authentic experience, but there's historical accuracy, and then, well, there's Survivor with funny clothes. If I were in charge of say, Renaissance Town, I would do what they did in Manor House and give everyone rule books. There would be flexibility, but the volunteers would be expected to keep within certain bounds. Or I would do as they did in 1940s House and impose conditions that force the volunteers into more historically accurate behavior. If you did the Plague Years, you could keep hauling people off ("Bring out your dead. Bring out your dead.") without warning. This is much more disturbing than forcing people to build things with axes. I mean, come on, there are people who build things with axes in the real world. The only reason it becomes TV and "entertaining" is because the people doing it don't have a clue. And I just don't find it enjoyable to watch people not having a clue. Give me smart people with a clue and a desire for historical accuracy—that I can get behind.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Don't Give the Audience What It Wants
In Plinkett's latest Star Wars' review (which is amusing though not as complete as the others), Plinkett, like always, makes a very cogent point.
Here is the cogent point in my own words:
However, if all you do is stick together the most common motifs/plot-lines/characters, 9 times out of 10, the product will be a dud--or, at least, remarkably lacking in staying power.
Plinkett does a fantastic, and thorough, job proving that, unfortunately, this sticking-togethering is how Lucas approached the prequels. He took iconic images from IV, V, and VI (the movies that I, person-who-saw-IV-when-she-was-5, insist on calling I, II, and III) and simply expanded and rehashed those images in the prequels even when the rehash made no sense.
So, for example, instead of the robe Obi-Wan was wearing in IV simply being the kind of robe people wear on desert planets, suddenly it became the robe ALL Jedi wear.
And instead of the training tools on Han Solo's ship simply being what was at hand, suddenly those tools became the way ALL Jedi are trained.
The result is unimaginative. And irrational.
It also highlights a very important principle. Classic motifs are good. Classic motifs backed by an actual vision are BETTER.
In a large, but not unmerited, segue, C.S. Lewis' Narnia series has been criticized for basically being a collection of every single fairytale/folktale/mythological image/motif C.S. Lewis encountered in the course of his extremely well-read life.
But as many critics, including Lisa Miller of The Magician's Book, have pointed out, it isn't the images and motifs that delight us, it is what Lewis did with them. He wasn't pretending to create new stuff; he was taking what he knew and rearranging it into a new pattern. He had a vision.
Frankly, I don't much much trust authors who claim to be doing NEW stuff.
But I also didn't trust Disney when it tried to sell the Pirates 2 as a "cultural phenomenon" before it even came out.
Simply sticking a bunch of a used iconic images into a movie does not a cultural phenomenon make.
Every writer has to have a vision. Without the vision, the writing sags. And should the writer give up that vision to satisfy the audience's supposed desire for an iconic image, the audience will feel the vision dribbling away.
This is one reason why writing to satisfy fans doesn't always work. The fans LOVE a couple of minor characters, so the writer(s) make those characters a bigger part of the drama, and, hmm, what do you know, the show is less satisfying.
On the other hand, refusing to give the audience what the audience wants out of sheer "BUT I HAVE TO BE DIFFERENT" perversity isn't too smart either.
The solution is writers who give the audience what the audience wants without losing their vision. This, of course, isn't easy, but I see two solutions:
1. Writers can give the audience what the audience wants without losing their vision when they like what the audience likes.
If you want to write romance novels, it helps if you like romance novels.
2. Writers can give the audience what the audience wants without losing their vision when the writers and the audience agree on what the writers are trying to do.
To clarify this second point, not all novels/stories/movies/shows have to focus on the latest popular topic: vampires, for example. People vary; interests vary. There's a lot of audiences out there to satisfy. I would argue that people want much of the same thing within their separate genres, but that's still a lot of room for individual creative vision-making.
Hey, there's even room for those people who think that reading stream-of-consciousness profundities about Life in Middle-Class America is NEW and DIFFERENT! (Shhh, don't tell them they are being pandered to.) The point is, the writers and audience agree that that is what is going on.
In other words, the rules are agreed to--even when the rules are Monty-Python randomness.
To illustrate: I recently came across a fairly ridiculous comment on Amazon.com about Dexter, Season 4 in which the commenter--in response to another comment--wrote, "Well, of course, you didn't want to see that character die because you just want mainstream, stupid television." As I, and several people, pointed out, having the character die was a pretty cliche, mainstream, stupid thing to do.(The commenter is the type of viewer who insists, "If you dislike anything about my show, you must be an evil, bad person who is trying to ruin entertainment everywhere.")
The commenter missed the fact that the Dexter writers didn't create a new idea; they simply rehashed a well-worn motif. And the motif broke one of the fundamental rules of the show. The fundamental rule of Dexter isn't "Nobody can die." The fundamental rule is "This show is about an extraordinary and dangerous person living an ordinary and supposedly non-dangerous life."
The writers blurred the lines.
This isn't clever. It's just lazy. It's what writers do when they don't know what to do next. The statement, "Well, we thought it was time to shake up the audience" is code for "We didn't know how to get the characters out of this situation."
It actually is harder to color inside the lines.
But ultimately more satisfying.
As long as the lines fulfill a vision.
Here is the cogent point in my own words:
Just because Darth Vadar became an iconic image of Star Wars doesn't mean the prequels needed to be about him. Just because Darth Vadar is important to us doesn't mean he was important to that universe.For those of us who admire popular motifs/iconic images, I think this is a noteworthy conundrum. Yes, it helps when you are writing a novel/short story/movie/show to use motifs and plot-lines and characters that people actually enjoy and recognize.
However, if all you do is stick together the most common motifs/plot-lines/characters, 9 times out of 10, the product will be a dud--or, at least, remarkably lacking in staying power.
Plinkett does a fantastic, and thorough, job proving that, unfortunately, this sticking-togethering is how Lucas approached the prequels. He took iconic images from IV, V, and VI (the movies that I, person-who-saw-IV-when-she-was-5, insist on calling I, II, and III) and simply expanded and rehashed those images in the prequels even when the rehash made no sense.
So, for example, instead of the robe Obi-Wan was wearing in IV simply being the kind of robe people wear on desert planets, suddenly it became the robe ALL Jedi wear.
And instead of the training tools on Han Solo's ship simply being what was at hand, suddenly those tools became the way ALL Jedi are trained.
The result is unimaginative. And irrational.
It also highlights a very important principle. Classic motifs are good. Classic motifs backed by an actual vision are BETTER.
In a large, but not unmerited, segue, C.S. Lewis' Narnia series has been criticized for basically being a collection of every single fairytale/folktale/mythological image/motif C.S. Lewis encountered in the course of his extremely well-read life.
But as many critics, including Lisa Miller of The Magician's Book, have pointed out, it isn't the images and motifs that delight us, it is what Lewis did with them. He wasn't pretending to create new stuff; he was taking what he knew and rearranging it into a new pattern. He had a vision.
Frankly, I don't much much trust authors who claim to be doing NEW stuff.
But I also didn't trust Disney when it tried to sell the Pirates 2 as a "cultural phenomenon" before it even came out.
Simply sticking a bunch of a used iconic images into a movie does not a cultural phenomenon make.
Every writer has to have a vision. Without the vision, the writing sags. And should the writer give up that vision to satisfy the audience's supposed desire for an iconic image, the audience will feel the vision dribbling away.
This is one reason why writing to satisfy fans doesn't always work. The fans LOVE a couple of minor characters, so the writer(s) make those characters a bigger part of the drama, and, hmm, what do you know, the show is less satisfying.
On the other hand, refusing to give the audience what the audience wants out of sheer "BUT I HAVE TO BE DIFFERENT" perversity isn't too smart either.
The solution is writers who give the audience what the audience wants without losing their vision. This, of course, isn't easy, but I see two solutions:
1. Writers can give the audience what the audience wants without losing their vision when they like what the audience likes.
If you want to write romance novels, it helps if you like romance novels.
2. Writers can give the audience what the audience wants without losing their vision when the writers and the audience agree on what the writers are trying to do.
To clarify this second point, not all novels/stories/movies/shows have to focus on the latest popular topic: vampires, for example. People vary; interests vary. There's a lot of audiences out there to satisfy. I would argue that people want much of the same thing within their separate genres, but that's still a lot of room for individual creative vision-making.
Hey, there's even room for those people who think that reading stream-of-consciousness profundities about Life in Middle-Class America is NEW and DIFFERENT! (Shhh, don't tell them they are being pandered to.) The point is, the writers and audience agree that that is what is going on.
In other words, the rules are agreed to--even when the rules are Monty-Python randomness.
To illustrate: I recently came across a fairly ridiculous comment on Amazon.com about Dexter, Season 4 in which the commenter--in response to another comment--wrote, "Well, of course, you didn't want to see that character die because you just want mainstream, stupid television." As I, and several people, pointed out, having the character die was a pretty cliche, mainstream, stupid thing to do.(The commenter is the type of viewer who insists, "If you dislike anything about my show, you must be an evil, bad person who is trying to ruin entertainment everywhere.")
The commenter missed the fact that the Dexter writers didn't create a new idea; they simply rehashed a well-worn motif. And the motif broke one of the fundamental rules of the show. The fundamental rule of Dexter isn't "Nobody can die." The fundamental rule is "This show is about an extraordinary and dangerous person living an ordinary and supposedly non-dangerous life."
The writers blurred the lines.
This isn't clever. It's just lazy. It's what writers do when they don't know what to do next. The statement, "Well, we thought it was time to shake up the audience" is code for "We didn't know how to get the characters out of this situation."
It actually is harder to color inside the lines.
But ultimately more satisfying.
As long as the lines fulfill a vision.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Latest Narnia Film: Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Voyage of the Dawn Treader is possibly my favorite of the Narnia books.
At least, it is the one I've reread the most often.
Consequently, I was rather nervous about seeing the movie. This is a book that screams MINISERIES! Trying to turn a mini-series into a feature film is fraught with problems.
With Dawn Treader, the best solution, of course, is to make Eustace's story the main story--rather as Edmund's story became the main story in LW&W. However, the Chronicles is an ongoing franchise. Getting rid of Susan and Peter was risky enough (and kudos to the writers for bringing them back for cameo parts). Forcing the audience's attention away from characters they've already invested in--Edmund, Lucy, and Caspian--is asking too much. Like with Prince Caspian (which I quite enjoyed), the story script has to be jiggled to move the invested-in-characters to the front of the action. With Dawn Treader, this involves a lot of jiggling.
So I went with a great deal of trepidation.
To some extent, my trepidation was merited. The film is not as strongly crafted as the BBC series (although the overall look of the film is much better). On the other hand, watching the film is a lesson in script-writing. How do you intertwine a set of disparate adventures keeping the same characters in the forefront while adding in the much more interesting arc of a totally new character?
Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010) is the result, and it isn't half-bad. The context/ambiance for every island has been almost entirely stripped away, including some of my favorite scenes and lines; the visits to the islands have been re-ordered; and the quest that now propels the action forward is pretty weak. However, the story does move in one direction, Eustace's story isn't completely sacrificed (and even made me cry at one point), and some truly stunning images/problems from the book have been preserved. The addition of two unnecessary characters is confusing but understandable.
Now--about the White Witch. I actually don't have a problem with her showing up over and over and over again. For one thing, well, geez, if Tilda Swinton will keep saying, "Yes," you'd better use her. Second, these first three films have been, to an enormous extent, Edmund's. Yeah, they have. Go back and watch them all, starting with LW&W. The first movie's problem revolves around Edmund; the second movie's problem revolves around Peter and Caspian with Edmund playing the pivotal role of "guy who sets everyone straight at the end"; in this third film, the problem is shared by Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace with Edmund taking point. Edmund's bête noir is the White Witch. Hence, it makes perfect sense for her to show up over and over and over again.
Will she show up in the next movie? She should. At this point, they might as well keep her until The Last Battle. (Will they do The Last Battle? The BBC chickened out. I wouldn't blame the current producers if they did as well. On the other hand, why kill the franchise preciptiously?)
Of course, The Silver Chair doesn't appear to be in production yet. I hope this is simply a sign that the company is taking a breather. The Silver Chair is a made-for-order feature film/quest story. And they should bring back Will Poulter as Scrubb. He does a great job in Dawn Treader. Hopefully, our beloved Pevensies will make cameo appearances, but Scrubb plus Jill should be able to carry the film. Oh, and the White Witch, of course. (On the other hand, the choice for Puddleglum could make or break the film.)
To sum up, since the beginning of this franchise I've known that there was no way the producers/writers could make me completely happy. Pleasantly enough, unlike Spiderman 3, Law & Order:SVU, and Dexter Season 4, the third film hadn't killed the dream. I may not agree with all the producers/writers' choices, but I still feel like they care. I say, "Take the money and make another, better film!"
At least, it is the one I've reread the most often.
Consequently, I was rather nervous about seeing the movie. This is a book that screams MINISERIES! Trying to turn a mini-series into a feature film is fraught with problems.
With Dawn Treader, the best solution, of course, is to make Eustace's story the main story--rather as Edmund's story became the main story in LW&W. However, the Chronicles is an ongoing franchise. Getting rid of Susan and Peter was risky enough (and kudos to the writers for bringing them back for cameo parts). Forcing the audience's attention away from characters they've already invested in--Edmund, Lucy, and Caspian--is asking too much. Like with Prince Caspian (which I quite enjoyed), the story script has to be jiggled to move the invested-in-characters to the front of the action. With Dawn Treader, this involves a lot of jiggling.
So I went with a great deal of trepidation.
To some extent, my trepidation was merited. The film is not as strongly crafted as the BBC series (although the overall look of the film is much better). On the other hand, watching the film is a lesson in script-writing. How do you intertwine a set of disparate adventures keeping the same characters in the forefront while adding in the much more interesting arc of a totally new character?
Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010) is the result, and it isn't half-bad. The context/ambiance for every island has been almost entirely stripped away, including some of my favorite scenes and lines; the visits to the islands have been re-ordered; and the quest that now propels the action forward is pretty weak. However, the story does move in one direction, Eustace's story isn't completely sacrificed (and even made me cry at one point), and some truly stunning images/problems from the book have been preserved. The addition of two unnecessary characters is confusing but understandable.
Now--about the White Witch. I actually don't have a problem with her showing up over and over and over again. For one thing, well, geez, if Tilda Swinton will keep saying, "Yes," you'd better use her. Second, these first three films have been, to an enormous extent, Edmund's. Yeah, they have. Go back and watch them all, starting with LW&W. The first movie's problem revolves around Edmund; the second movie's problem revolves around Peter and Caspian with Edmund playing the pivotal role of "guy who sets everyone straight at the end"; in this third film, the problem is shared by Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace with Edmund taking point. Edmund's bête noir is the White Witch. Hence, it makes perfect sense for her to show up over and over and over again.
Will she show up in the next movie? She should. At this point, they might as well keep her until The Last Battle. (Will they do The Last Battle? The BBC chickened out. I wouldn't blame the current producers if they did as well. On the other hand, why kill the franchise preciptiously?)
Of course, The Silver Chair doesn't appear to be in production yet. I hope this is simply a sign that the company is taking a breather. The Silver Chair is a made-for-order feature film/quest story. And they should bring back Will Poulter as Scrubb. He does a great job in Dawn Treader. Hopefully, our beloved Pevensies will make cameo appearances, but Scrubb plus Jill should be able to carry the film. Oh, and the White Witch, of course. (On the other hand, the choice for Puddleglum could make or break the film.)
To sum up, since the beginning of this franchise I've known that there was no way the producers/writers could make me completely happy. Pleasantly enough, unlike Spiderman 3, Law & Order:SVU, and Dexter Season 4, the third film hadn't killed the dream. I may not agree with all the producers/writers' choices, but I still feel like they care. I say, "Take the money and make another, better film!"