I just finished reading* the final book of the massive Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I have a lot of thoughts about it, so I decided to work through some of them here on the blog for everyone to see. I will do my best to keep things spoiler-free.
*Well, listening to. Three cheers for audio books!
Way back in 1997, someone gave me the first two books in the series as a high school graduation present. I had never heard of these books but after reading The Lord of the Rings as well as Terry Brooks' Heritage of Shannara series, I was eager to dive into another fantasy realm. And when I checked the local library and saw that the series was already seven books long, I was excited to be able to read so much and pretty sure that the series was almost done. After all, how much longer than seven books can a series get? Apparently seven books and sixteen years longer.
I devoured the first seven books and it wasn't long after that that the eighth book came out. But there was no end in sight and it was two more years before book nine was published. When I finally read it, I kept coming across major supporting characters who I had completely forgotten, and there was still no telling how many more books the series would last. It was then that I decided that I would not read another book of The Wheel of Time until the series was complete, and then I would go back to the beginning and read it from start to finish.
Over the years I began to lose interest, remembering more of the bad than the good. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to read those thousands and thousands of pages, especially since I could just go to Wikipedia and read a synopsis on how it all ended. It was looking more and more likely that my relationship with these books was over and done with.
But then I became a fan of the Writing Excuses podcast, which led me to read several of Brandon Sanderson's books. I'm not sure when it was that it finally clicked with me that it was Sanderson who had been chosen to finish the Wheel of Time series after Jordan's death in 2007, but his involvement in the final three books gave me a new interest in the series. And then I realized that the library had all fourteen novels available as audio books. So late last summer, I began my trek through all fourteen books* and I was quickly reminded of why I liked the books so much when I was younger and why I stopped reading.
*There is a prequel novel that I have not read. As of right now, I have no plans to read it.
Robert Jordan is amazing at world-building. Each different country our heroes visit is unique. The countries each have their own cultures, governments, way of speaking, style of clothing, and even worldviews. The smaller countries live in fear of or have uneasy alliances with the larger ones. Then there are the groups of people that are not tied to geography. You have the pacifist, nomadic Tinkers, the militant, almost religious order of the Children of the Light, and the women who can use magic (called channeling) known as the Aes Sedai. Each culture views the Aes Sedai differently. Some give them high honor, others a wary respect, while others try to pretend they don't exist. One nation believes they are dangerous creatures who need to be tamed while the Children of the Light see them as witches who must be eradicated. Each new culture Jordan introduces brings a new facet to his world and added complexity.
The world is populated with fascinating characters, and Jordan is good at giving each of them a unique voice. And each character's view on a given situation is perfectly natural, even when it is at odds with the others in the room. We'll get a chapter from Mat's point of view, and it's perfectly reasonable when he looks at Egwene and thinks she's getting too full of herself. And we empathize with Mat when he thinks someone should take her down a peg or two for her own good. But then we get the chapter from Egwene's point of view, and everything she's doing becomes perfectly reasonable and Mat is just a wool-headed idiot. And so we empathize with Egwene when she thinks someone needs to knock some sense into Mat. Jordan even manages to get us to empathize with the villains as we root for them to be taken down.
The magic system really works and Jordan does a good job keeping to the rules and making things believable within the world he set up.And the idea that channeling is safe for women but will lead to insanity in men is an interesting change of pace.
And the story is huge, growing bigger and bigger with each book. There are emotional highs and lows as the best and worst of humanity are on display. And the climax is gigantic. The final battle takes up most of the final book and does not disappoint. The Wheel of Time has replaced The Lord of the Rings as the standard by which all other epic fantasy will be measured.
Unfortunately, it is also the poster child for epic fantasy bloat. While the first three books focus almost exclusively on the four main characters of Rand, Mat, Perrin, and Egwene, book four starts the trend of focusing more and more on supporting characters. By book six, there are so many different point of view characters that it's impossible to keep them straight without close attention to detail. Sure, most of these are not even a full chapter in length, but all too often they left me wondering, "How important is this person? Should I recognize her? Do I need to remember him for later?"* And at times it feels like Jordan is getting so wrapped up in his subplots that he doesn't have time for some of the main characters. This leads to whole books where one of the big four is barely there or even absent altogether. By book eight it feels as if the big four are reduced to supporting characters.
*One of the downsides I've noticed from listening to audio books as opposed to reading with my eyes is that I find it more difficult to keep track of characters. When I read, I not only have the sound of the character's name in my head, but I also get the visual reinforcement of the combination of letters on the page that make up the character's name. It's also much easier to flip back a couple chapters to see if character X is the person they were talking to back at the inn or the person who tried to sell them apples.
While Jordan is good at world building and characterization, I find him wanting when it comes to story structure. I am a firm believer that each book in a series must have a beginning, middle, and end. This does not mean that every book must stand on its own. It should, however, present a problem in the early chapters to our heroes, and by the end of the book the heroes either succeed in completing their task or fail decisively so that they have to try something else in the next book.* It starts out well enough, but as the series progresses, definitive endings become more and more rare. Sub-plots are given a handful of chapters then are abandoned until the next book where they are picked up again as if it was still the same book. One book serves only to set up the next book. Another book is little more than people from all around the world reacting to the events at the end of the previous book. I found it maddening to reach the end of a 200,000-300,000 word book only to realize that nothing was accomplished and I'll have to wait for the next book to see any kind of forward momentum. This led to many of the middle books having little to no identity in and of themselves.** I wonder if Jordan would have been better served to follow the Terry Brooks model in The Heritage of Shannara. In that series, Brooks has three main characters, but instead of cutting back and forth between the characters throughout the series, book one focuses on Par (and Coll), book two on Walker Boh, and book three on Wren. It's not until the fourth and final book that Brooks starts liberally bouncing back and forth between his main characters. Two plot-lines I think really would have benefited from this treatment are the search for the Bowl of Winds and the Perrin-Faile-Shaido plot-line.
*Here's what I'm talking about, looking at the six-book structure of The Lord of the Rings.
Book I - Frodo inherits the Ring. After learning of its power and the danger he is in, he takes it to Elrond in Rivendell.
Book II - The Council of Elrond determine the Ring must be destroyed. Frodo, along with the Fellowship, takes the Ring south. The Fellowship is broken and Frodo sets out with only Sam as his companion.
Book III - The remnants of the Fellowship join with the people of Rohan and the Ents to defeat Saruman and his army.
Book IV - Frodo and Sam take Gollum as their guide. He takes them to the borders of Mordor, but betrays them. Frodo is stung and Sam takes the Ring. Frodo lives!
Book V - The remaining members of the Fellowship rally forces to defend Minas Tirith. They are successful. They make a desperate assault on Mordor to try to buy as much time as possible for Frodo.
Book VI - Sam rescues Frodo and they journey into Mordor. The Ring is destroyed. Peace is restored in Gondor and the Shire. Everyone says goodbye.
**It also doesn't help that the book titles don't often have much to say about what is in their respective books. "The Shadow Rising" sounds great as a title, but it's not terribly indicative of what's actually in the pages of the book. And "The Shadow Rising" would be just as appropriate a title for just about any of the other books.
From what I've read about his process, Robert Jordan was very much a discovery writer. This means he did very little planning ahead but let the story develop as he wrote it. This method of writing is perfectly acceptable, but it can be very dangerous for a long series like The Wheel of Time. The author can get sidetracked going down narrative rabbit trails. While it broadens the scope of the story, it can also just as easily cause the story to lose focus. Too often I felt like a sub-plot wasn't adding anything to the larger narrative, nor did it seem like it was going anywhere.
While there are many great characters in the books, at times I felt that there were too many strong characters. Everyone was squabbling for supremacy. While I understand the very human nature to ask, "What do I get out of it?" and try to end up with the biggest piece of pie, I got frustrated with so many of the characters refusing to work together, especially with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.
I may have more thoughts later, but it's getting late and this post is already long enough. There are no beginnings or endings with the Wheel of Time, but this is an ending.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Monday, December 16, 2013
Musings on Christmas Songs
With the Christmas season upon us, it is impossible to go
anywhere without being inundated with Christmas songs. I have also noticed that different places
will play a different selection of Christmas songs which got me thinking that
most Christmas songs can be placed into one of four basic categories.
1 – Jesus Songs
These are the songs about Jesus and His birth. This includes the classic Christmas carols
like “Away in a Manger” or “Angels We Have Heard on High” as well as some of
the more recent Christmas songs like “Mary, Did You Know?” or “Welcome to Our
World.” This category also includes
religious Christmas songs that don’t mention Jesus directly, such as “Ding Dong
Merrily on High.”
2 – Santa Claus Songs
These are songs about Santa Claus. This includes songs that are directly about
Santa like “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” or “Hooray for Santy Claus” as well
as the songs more tangentially related to Santa Clause like “Rudolph the Red
Nosed Reindeer.” This category also
includes songs that are about Christmas-y characters like “Frosty the Snowman”
or the songs from How the Grinch Stole Christmas. They may have nothing to do with Santa, but
they are very similar in tone to the ones specifically about Santa. When in doubt, if the song is aimed at kids,
it belongs in this category.
[Edit: December 17
This category also includes songs that deal with magical occurrences during the Christmas season.]
3 – Christmas Season Songs
These are songs about celebrating the Christmas
season. This includes songs like “White
Christmas,” “Silver Bells,” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Common themes of these songs include giving
gifts, spending time with loved ones, and wishing good will to our fellow
man. This is also a bit of a catch-all
category in that if the Christmas song in question doesn’t really fit with the
other three then it goes in here.
4 – Winter Songs
These are songs that are considered Christmas songs but
really have nothing to do with Christmas but are instead about the weather around
Christmastime as experienced in the states north of the Mason-Dixon line. This includes songs like “Jingle Bells” and “Walking
in a Winter Wonderland.” I go back and
forth as to whether these songs really form a category all their own or if they
are really a very large subset of the Christmas Season songs.
There are some songs that could be considered hybrids of
two categories. “The Christmas Shoes”
mentions Jesus specifically, and is written from a Christian perspective, so
that would put it in with the Jesus Songs, but the story of the song is about
buying presents and showing goodwill to your fellow man, which puts it squarely
in with the Christmas Season Songs. “I
Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” is a fun one because the category it belongs in
depends on whose perspective we’re using.
If we’re going by the perspective of the child singing the song, it’s a
Santa Claus song since it’s about Mommy kissing the real Santa Claus and for
some reason Daddy is nowhere to be found.
If, however, we look at it from the perspective of what’s really going
on, it belongs in the Christmas Season category since it’s about a Christmas
party where Daddy has dressed up as Santa Claus and is using the mistletoe as
an excuse to snog Mommy (or vice versa).
Is there an important category that I’ve overlooked? Are you wondering in which group a particular
Christmas song belongs? Comment away.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Musings on Characters: The Little Mermaid
I am currently in the middle of a two weekend run of The Little Mermaid Jr., a shortened version of the Broadway musical based on the Disney movie (loosely adapted from the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale). The songs are loads of fun but I have come to realize that the Disney version of the story is filled with characters who are either lousy people or lousy at their jobs.
Spoilers for the five people out there who haven't seen the movie or are unfamiliar with the story.
Ariel is the worst Disney princess ever. She is selfish, irresponsible, and has no regard for authority. The second scene in both the movie and the show features a concert in which Ariel will make her big singing debut. And yet, when the time comes for her big entrance, she is nowhere to be found. She is too busy looking for human stuff to bother with trivial things like concerts (or rehearsals). And it's not as if she made the choice not to go - she simply forgot. This shows wanton disregard for Sebastian as her director, her sisters as her fellow performers, and all the merfolk who came to the concert hoping to hear her sing. When she makes the selfish decision to become human, she does it without thinking about her family who just might worry about where she is when she suddenly disappears. When King Triton makes rules about not venturing to the surface, he is doing so with good reason. In the first minute of the movie three dolphins and a seagull are almost run over by a ship manned by sailors who are hauling a net full of fish onto the deck. These are dangers Triton is trying to keep his people safe from, but every time he tries to enforce these rules on Ariel, she busts out with the "You're so unfair!" language. And apparently the only qualification for being the love of her life is to be really handsome.
In the musical, Prince Eric's father is dead, and yet he is continually avoiding taking up the crown, much to the chagrin of his valet, Grimsby (who may be the only truly respectable person in the entire cast of characters). Instead, Eric spends his time roaming the seas, actively thwarting Grimsby's attempts to provide the kingdom with a king, a queen, and a subsequent heir.
As bad as Ariel's decision is to trade her voice to become human, it is King Triton who makes the worst decision in the story. He surrenders his power to the witch Ursula in order to save his daughter. This is the WRONG decision. As king, his first responsibility is to his kingdom and his subjects. Delivering them into the hands of a power hungry woman who wants to dominate everything in the ocean is not in their best interests. And it's not as if Ariel is his only child and heir; he has six other daughters, all of whom are older than Ariel, and therefore presumably higher up in the line of succession.
Triton is lucky Ursula was even worse than he was as ruler of the seas. Sure she's really good when it comes to manipulating and conniving, but when she finally gets all the power she wants, her reign of terror lasts about five minutes before she loses control of her powers and is undone.
Sebastian is a terrible director. Not only does he persist in crafting a concert around a singer who consistently misses rehearsal, but he is so incompetent that he starts the concert without knowing whether or not his star is even in the building. Ariel's sisters are just as bad. Could even one of them take the time to remind Ariel of when the concert is and then check in with her right before it all starts?
Even Chef Louis is a failure if he can't catch one simple hermit crab that is running around loose in his kitchen.
The more I think about the Disney version of the story, the more I prefer the original ending. The Little Mermaid makes the bad decision to give up her voice to get legs to try and woo her prince. But he ends up choosing someone else. The Little Mermaid is doomed to die when the sun sets. But her sisters show up at the last moment to give her an out: if she kills the prince, letting his blood spill on her feet, she will turn back into a mermaid. But this time she makes the right decision and spares the prince and as a result dies. It's tragic, especially since she dies directly as a result of making a good choice, but it shows that choices have consequences, while the Disney version has Ariel getting everything she wanted even though she consistently makes the wrong choice.
Spoilers for the five people out there who haven't seen the movie or are unfamiliar with the story.
Ariel is the worst Disney princess ever. She is selfish, irresponsible, and has no regard for authority. The second scene in both the movie and the show features a concert in which Ariel will make her big singing debut. And yet, when the time comes for her big entrance, she is nowhere to be found. She is too busy looking for human stuff to bother with trivial things like concerts (or rehearsals). And it's not as if she made the choice not to go - she simply forgot. This shows wanton disregard for Sebastian as her director, her sisters as her fellow performers, and all the merfolk who came to the concert hoping to hear her sing. When she makes the selfish decision to become human, she does it without thinking about her family who just might worry about where she is when she suddenly disappears. When King Triton makes rules about not venturing to the surface, he is doing so with good reason. In the first minute of the movie three dolphins and a seagull are almost run over by a ship manned by sailors who are hauling a net full of fish onto the deck. These are dangers Triton is trying to keep his people safe from, but every time he tries to enforce these rules on Ariel, she busts out with the "You're so unfair!" language. And apparently the only qualification for being the love of her life is to be really handsome.
In the musical, Prince Eric's father is dead, and yet he is continually avoiding taking up the crown, much to the chagrin of his valet, Grimsby (who may be the only truly respectable person in the entire cast of characters). Instead, Eric spends his time roaming the seas, actively thwarting Grimsby's attempts to provide the kingdom with a king, a queen, and a subsequent heir.
As bad as Ariel's decision is to trade her voice to become human, it is King Triton who makes the worst decision in the story. He surrenders his power to the witch Ursula in order to save his daughter. This is the WRONG decision. As king, his first responsibility is to his kingdom and his subjects. Delivering them into the hands of a power hungry woman who wants to dominate everything in the ocean is not in their best interests. And it's not as if Ariel is his only child and heir; he has six other daughters, all of whom are older than Ariel, and therefore presumably higher up in the line of succession.
Triton is lucky Ursula was even worse than he was as ruler of the seas. Sure she's really good when it comes to manipulating and conniving, but when she finally gets all the power she wants, her reign of terror lasts about five minutes before she loses control of her powers and is undone.
Sebastian is a terrible director. Not only does he persist in crafting a concert around a singer who consistently misses rehearsal, but he is so incompetent that he starts the concert without knowing whether or not his star is even in the building. Ariel's sisters are just as bad. Could even one of them take the time to remind Ariel of when the concert is and then check in with her right before it all starts?
Even Chef Louis is a failure if he can't catch one simple hermit crab that is running around loose in his kitchen.
The more I think about the Disney version of the story, the more I prefer the original ending. The Little Mermaid makes the bad decision to give up her voice to get legs to try and woo her prince. But he ends up choosing someone else. The Little Mermaid is doomed to die when the sun sets. But her sisters show up at the last moment to give her an out: if she kills the prince, letting his blood spill on her feet, she will turn back into a mermaid. But this time she makes the right decision and spares the prince and as a result dies. It's tragic, especially since she dies directly as a result of making a good choice, but it shows that choices have consequences, while the Disney version has Ariel getting everything she wanted even though she consistently makes the wrong choice.
Monday, December 17, 2012
My Thoughts on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
I went to a midnight showing of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and thoughts about the film have been rolling around in my head ever since. I don't think I can call this a review of the film (though I did really like it and encourage everyone to go see it). Instead it will be more musing on the process of adapting a work that has been much on my mind over the past several months. There will be plenty of spoilers for both the movie and the book.
I was pleasantly surprised at how much of the text actually made it into the movie. Peter Jackson gives us most of the "Good morning" scene from the first chapter of the book. The movie trolls are very similar to those in the book. We get the "Chip the glasses" song. Half the riddles made it into the movie and all were unaltered from Tolkien's prose. Bilbo loses his waistcoat buttons (though in a slightly different way). The goblins call Orcrist and Glamdring "Biter" and "Beater." And we even got Bilbo saying, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." All of these gave me a thrill of happiness when I saw them. (Though I was disappointed but not surprised that both the talking purse and the "Tra-la-la-lally" song did not make it into the movie.)
Of course the problem with Peter Jackson putting so much of the book into the film is that it makes for a really long running time. There were many times that I felt I was watching the extended edition of the movie instead of the theatrical edit, especially in the first act. Jackson opens with a fun scene of old Bilbo reminiscing about his past as he prepares for his eleventy-first birthday party. While it was a fun treat seeing Ian Holm and Elijah Wood again, the scene went on far too long and added nothing to the narrative other than saying, "This is a prequel, not a sequel." Then the Unexpected Party happens, and it also goes on longer than it needs to. It never stopped being entertaining for me, but it could have covered the same narrative purpose and had the same emotional impact at half the length. In the extended edition of Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo finally heads out on his journey about an hour into the film. I wasn't paying attention to the running time, but it felt like at least 45 minutes until Bilbo finally leaves Bag End. With so much narrative ground left to cover, I felt it was a misuse of the limited running time to give so much of it to the opening scenes that could have all been told more efficiently. The longer edits should have been saved for the extended edition.
In many ways, the pacing felt more like Jackson's King Kong than the Lord of the Rings films. In Lord of the Rings, there was so much story he had to tell that he was forced to be as efficient as possible. So even though the movies were all really long, they never felt long because of the fast pace. On the flip side, there was much less story to tell in King Kong, so he was able to fill it with all the extended action scenes he wanted. While it never got dull and only the dinosaur stampede scene seemed gratuitous or overlong, the movie had a bloated feel that could have been alleviated by tightening up the scenes by shaving a minute here, two minutes there, to reduce the whole running time by half an hour. The Hobbit could have used more fat trimming.
The idea of making Azog a major villain almost works for me. In the books he plays a pivotal role in the Battle of Azanulbizar, and his son, Bolg, is the leader of the goblins in the Battle of Five Armies. Conflating the two characters is something I don't have a problem with. What I didn't like was him tracking them across Middle Earth. It involves creating scenes that are nowhere to be found in the book, nor do they fit in alongside what is in the book. (And the shot of him being held back by his minions in the Battle of Azanulbizar was so out of keeping of my vision of goblins that it completely threw me out of the movie.) He is serving a similar role to that of Lurtz in Fellowship of the Ring. Lurtz was not in the book, but was added to give more drama to the climax of Fellowship. (And his death is one of the most satisfying decapitations I've seen.) But Lurtz was inserted more organically. There was already a group of orcs trying the find the fellowship and a showdown between Aragorn and an orc captain made a lot of sense. But the showdown between Thorin and Azog was a forced attempt at turning a scene that ends in a deus ex machina (or eucatastrophe if you prefer) into a more satisfying climax. If Thorin had defeated Azog I might have felt different, but as it stands, I felt like there wasn't much of an ending to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
I think the biggest flaw of the film is its structure. In my previous post I said I would end the first film with the battle with the spiders. The reason I chose that as my climax is because it is the first time that Bilbo really takes charge and becomes both a leader and an action hero. Also, it's the first point in the story that I felt was worthy of being the climax to a movie as being rescued by someone else doesn't make for a compelling climax. After seeing the ending of the movie, I am more convinced that I was right. They tried valiantly to make their climax work but too much of it just seemed forced. And my big worry is that making Bilbo be more proactive here will give his battle with the spiders less of an impact. And Thorin's "I didn't like you but now I do" speech was cheesy and too close to his powerful deathbed scene. I'm afraid when that scene comes in the third movie it will have less of an impact because of the climax of this movie.
But the structure issues go beyond the misplaced climax. There was an awful lot of setup in this movie, so much so that it felt less like a contained movie and more like part one of three. The second scene in the film is a flashback to the destruction of Erebor by Smaug, which delays even longer our introduction to Martin Freeman as young Bilbo. That could have been moved to later in the movie, doing what the animated film did and putting the flashback footage on top of the dwarves singing their song. That could have been really powerful, would have given us more of that awesome song, and could have kept the beginning tighter and less information-logged. And while it was cool that they incorporated the flashback to the Battle of Azanulbizar, it came so late in the film that I found myself wishing that they had moved it to another film. After all, the three Lord of the Rings films all start with some kind of flashback, and I think the Battle of Azanulbizar could have made a wonderful opening flashback. Fellowship of the Ring is my favorite of the Lord of the Rings movies largely because it has a tighter, more streamlined narrative. I have a feeling An Unexpected Journey is going to be my least favorite of the Hobbit movies because it is too concerned with the movies that will come later.
A few random thoughts:
When Bilbo had trouble pulling the dagger soon to be known as Sting from the head of the warg, was I the only person to think, "Who so pulleth out this sword of this skull is righwise born king of Middle Earth"?
Why are all the goblins CG?
The chin bag on the Great Goblin is disgusting.
When they showed Thror succumbing to dragon sickness, I half expected him to start turning into a dragon (and becoming Smaug) much like Eustace in Voyage of the Dawn Treader or Fafnir in Norse mythology. (And possibly the dragon in Beowulf.)
Bilbo and a goblin fall down a crevasse. The goblin suffers serious injury. Bilbo is largely unharmed. The dwarves are also unharmed by their large tumble (and getting squashed by the Great Goblin's body). Mythbusters would like to have a word with you, Peter Jackson.
While the inclusion of the stone giants was cool, the sequence was overblown and added nothing to the narrative. It is as useless and contrived a scene as the "Nobody tosses a dwarf" sequence in Fellowship.
I was hoping Glorfindel would make a cameo in Rivendell. Oh well. There's still hope he'll show up in the later movies.
I've spent much of this post bagging on the movie, but I really liked it and there were lots of things they did really well. I think my favorite scene was the Riddles in the Dark scene. It is the longest scene in the movie and yet I didn't want it to end. Smeagol has never been cuter and Gollum never as nasty. However, Bilbo's mercy scene would have been more powerful had not Gandalf practically told Bilbo, "Don't kill Gollum when you meet him," way back at the beginning of the film. I also liked that they were able to keep things light, unafraid to occasionally go silly with the dwarves. After all, Tolkien does that all through the book. The dwarves' song is amazing and I liked that it wove a spell on Bilbo similar to how it happens in the book. The scene of Radagast spying out Dol Guldur was well done and provided a nice contrast for the character, showing him in a more competent and less silly light. Martin Freeman was excellent as Bilbo. I was already a fan before this movie, and when I heard he had been cast as Bilbo I thought it was a fabulous choice, but I liked him even more than I was expecting. I also liked how they played with the Took/Baggins dichotomy. This is a big theme in the book, but I was unsure if it would get any lip service in the film since it's largely an internal conflict. I'm glad they're doing something with it. And while I have serious problems with the end of the film, I really liked the moment when Bilbo pledges to help the dwarves get their home back. I am very pleased they only showed glimpses of Smaug, saving the big reveal for later. (I'm hoping we don't get a full look at him until Bilbo has his conversation with Smaug.) Smaug being covered up by the treasure was a nice visual touch. And of course it is a visually sumptuous film.
That's just about everything I have to say right now. I'm sure I'll have more to say once I see it a few more times, and my opinions are likely to change after more viewings allow me to better divorce the movie from the book, judging it on its own merits.
I was pleasantly surprised at how much of the text actually made it into the movie. Peter Jackson gives us most of the "Good morning" scene from the first chapter of the book. The movie trolls are very similar to those in the book. We get the "Chip the glasses" song. Half the riddles made it into the movie and all were unaltered from Tolkien's prose. Bilbo loses his waistcoat buttons (though in a slightly different way). The goblins call Orcrist and Glamdring "Biter" and "Beater." And we even got Bilbo saying, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." All of these gave me a thrill of happiness when I saw them. (Though I was disappointed but not surprised that both the talking purse and the "Tra-la-la-lally" song did not make it into the movie.)
Of course the problem with Peter Jackson putting so much of the book into the film is that it makes for a really long running time. There were many times that I felt I was watching the extended edition of the movie instead of the theatrical edit, especially in the first act. Jackson opens with a fun scene of old Bilbo reminiscing about his past as he prepares for his eleventy-first birthday party. While it was a fun treat seeing Ian Holm and Elijah Wood again, the scene went on far too long and added nothing to the narrative other than saying, "This is a prequel, not a sequel." Then the Unexpected Party happens, and it also goes on longer than it needs to. It never stopped being entertaining for me, but it could have covered the same narrative purpose and had the same emotional impact at half the length. In the extended edition of Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo finally heads out on his journey about an hour into the film. I wasn't paying attention to the running time, but it felt like at least 45 minutes until Bilbo finally leaves Bag End. With so much narrative ground left to cover, I felt it was a misuse of the limited running time to give so much of it to the opening scenes that could have all been told more efficiently. The longer edits should have been saved for the extended edition.
In many ways, the pacing felt more like Jackson's King Kong than the Lord of the Rings films. In Lord of the Rings, there was so much story he had to tell that he was forced to be as efficient as possible. So even though the movies were all really long, they never felt long because of the fast pace. On the flip side, there was much less story to tell in King Kong, so he was able to fill it with all the extended action scenes he wanted. While it never got dull and only the dinosaur stampede scene seemed gratuitous or overlong, the movie had a bloated feel that could have been alleviated by tightening up the scenes by shaving a minute here, two minutes there, to reduce the whole running time by half an hour. The Hobbit could have used more fat trimming.
The idea of making Azog a major villain almost works for me. In the books he plays a pivotal role in the Battle of Azanulbizar, and his son, Bolg, is the leader of the goblins in the Battle of Five Armies. Conflating the two characters is something I don't have a problem with. What I didn't like was him tracking them across Middle Earth. It involves creating scenes that are nowhere to be found in the book, nor do they fit in alongside what is in the book. (And the shot of him being held back by his minions in the Battle of Azanulbizar was so out of keeping of my vision of goblins that it completely threw me out of the movie.) He is serving a similar role to that of Lurtz in Fellowship of the Ring. Lurtz was not in the book, but was added to give more drama to the climax of Fellowship. (And his death is one of the most satisfying decapitations I've seen.) But Lurtz was inserted more organically. There was already a group of orcs trying the find the fellowship and a showdown between Aragorn and an orc captain made a lot of sense. But the showdown between Thorin and Azog was a forced attempt at turning a scene that ends in a deus ex machina (or eucatastrophe if you prefer) into a more satisfying climax. If Thorin had defeated Azog I might have felt different, but as it stands, I felt like there wasn't much of an ending to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
I think the biggest flaw of the film is its structure. In my previous post I said I would end the first film with the battle with the spiders. The reason I chose that as my climax is because it is the first time that Bilbo really takes charge and becomes both a leader and an action hero. Also, it's the first point in the story that I felt was worthy of being the climax to a movie as being rescued by someone else doesn't make for a compelling climax. After seeing the ending of the movie, I am more convinced that I was right. They tried valiantly to make their climax work but too much of it just seemed forced. And my big worry is that making Bilbo be more proactive here will give his battle with the spiders less of an impact. And Thorin's "I didn't like you but now I do" speech was cheesy and too close to his powerful deathbed scene. I'm afraid when that scene comes in the third movie it will have less of an impact because of the climax of this movie.
But the structure issues go beyond the misplaced climax. There was an awful lot of setup in this movie, so much so that it felt less like a contained movie and more like part one of three. The second scene in the film is a flashback to the destruction of Erebor by Smaug, which delays even longer our introduction to Martin Freeman as young Bilbo. That could have been moved to later in the movie, doing what the animated film did and putting the flashback footage on top of the dwarves singing their song. That could have been really powerful, would have given us more of that awesome song, and could have kept the beginning tighter and less information-logged. And while it was cool that they incorporated the flashback to the Battle of Azanulbizar, it came so late in the film that I found myself wishing that they had moved it to another film. After all, the three Lord of the Rings films all start with some kind of flashback, and I think the Battle of Azanulbizar could have made a wonderful opening flashback. Fellowship of the Ring is my favorite of the Lord of the Rings movies largely because it has a tighter, more streamlined narrative. I have a feeling An Unexpected Journey is going to be my least favorite of the Hobbit movies because it is too concerned with the movies that will come later.
A few random thoughts:
When Bilbo had trouble pulling the dagger soon to be known as Sting from the head of the warg, was I the only person to think, "Who so pulleth out this sword of this skull is righwise born king of Middle Earth"?
Why are all the goblins CG?
The chin bag on the Great Goblin is disgusting.
When they showed Thror succumbing to dragon sickness, I half expected him to start turning into a dragon (and becoming Smaug) much like Eustace in Voyage of the Dawn Treader or Fafnir in Norse mythology. (And possibly the dragon in Beowulf.)
Bilbo and a goblin fall down a crevasse. The goblin suffers serious injury. Bilbo is largely unharmed. The dwarves are also unharmed by their large tumble (and getting squashed by the Great Goblin's body). Mythbusters would like to have a word with you, Peter Jackson.
While the inclusion of the stone giants was cool, the sequence was overblown and added nothing to the narrative. It is as useless and contrived a scene as the "Nobody tosses a dwarf" sequence in Fellowship.
I was hoping Glorfindel would make a cameo in Rivendell. Oh well. There's still hope he'll show up in the later movies.
I've spent much of this post bagging on the movie, but I really liked it and there were lots of things they did really well. I think my favorite scene was the Riddles in the Dark scene. It is the longest scene in the movie and yet I didn't want it to end. Smeagol has never been cuter and Gollum never as nasty. However, Bilbo's mercy scene would have been more powerful had not Gandalf practically told Bilbo, "Don't kill Gollum when you meet him," way back at the beginning of the film. I also liked that they were able to keep things light, unafraid to occasionally go silly with the dwarves. After all, Tolkien does that all through the book. The dwarves' song is amazing and I liked that it wove a spell on Bilbo similar to how it happens in the book. The scene of Radagast spying out Dol Guldur was well done and provided a nice contrast for the character, showing him in a more competent and less silly light. Martin Freeman was excellent as Bilbo. I was already a fan before this movie, and when I heard he had been cast as Bilbo I thought it was a fabulous choice, but I liked him even more than I was expecting. I also liked how they played with the Took/Baggins dichotomy. This is a big theme in the book, but I was unsure if it would get any lip service in the film since it's largely an internal conflict. I'm glad they're doing something with it. And while I have serious problems with the end of the film, I really liked the moment when Bilbo pledges to help the dwarves get their home back. I am very pleased they only showed glimpses of Smaug, saving the big reveal for later. (I'm hoping we don't get a full look at him until Bilbo has his conversation with Smaug.) Smaug being covered up by the treasure was a nice visual touch. And of course it is a visually sumptuous film.
That's just about everything I have to say right now. I'm sure I'll have more to say once I see it a few more times, and my opinions are likely to change after more viewings allow me to better divorce the movie from the book, judging it on its own merits.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Musings on Tolkien: The Hobbit Trilogy and How I Would Do It
Peter Jackson announced that what was originally going to be two Hobbit movies would be expanded into a full-fledged trilogy because he had so much footage. As of this writing, I haven't heard anything about how he plans to organize the material and structure his three movies. But looking at all the material he wants to or might include in his movies, this is how I would structure the three films.
The first movie focuses largely on Bilbo. He is in all but one or two scenes. Movie one also lays the groundwork for the White Council storyline. The climax is the fight with the spiders in Mirkwood and ends with Bilbo and the dwarves getting captured by the elves.
The bulk of the second movie covers the White Council storyline. Gandalf and company expel the Necromancer from Mirkwood. This is the big climax of the second film. Meanwhile, Bilbo breaks the dwarves out of prison and they escape down the river in barrels. There might have to be some contrived set pieces added to this sequence to flesh it out. Plenty of time is spent in Lake-town, convincing the residents of Lake-town to help our band of adventurers. This gives plenty of opportunity to introduce Bard the Bowman as a major character and offers ample screentime to Stephen Fry as the Master of Lake-town. It ends with Bilbo and the dwarves heading off the the Lonely Mountain.
The third movie focuses on two major set pieces: Bilbo's conversation with Smaug and the Battle of Five Armies. This allows for plenty of screentime to be devoted to the politics that lead up to the battle and Thorin's case of dragon fever. The movie opens with a flashback to the battle of Azanulbizar. The movie ends with Bilbo saying, "Thank goodness."
Possible titles for the three movies: The Fellowship of the Burglar, The Two Fortresses, and The Return of the King Under the Mountain.
The big problem I see with this structure is that movie two has very little of Bilbo. However, the book states that Gandalf is "finishing up" his business with the Necromancer as Bilbo and the dwarves are floating down the river in and on barrels, so the chronology works pretty well.
Of course, if I was in charge, there wouldn't even be three movies. I would try to do the whole thing in one movie, sticking to the material in the book and ignoring the material in the Appendices and other works. Hopefully I could get the run time down to about two hours and get a PG rating. After all, it's a children's book, which means it should be a children's movie.
The first movie focuses largely on Bilbo. He is in all but one or two scenes. Movie one also lays the groundwork for the White Council storyline. The climax is the fight with the spiders in Mirkwood and ends with Bilbo and the dwarves getting captured by the elves.
The bulk of the second movie covers the White Council storyline. Gandalf and company expel the Necromancer from Mirkwood. This is the big climax of the second film. Meanwhile, Bilbo breaks the dwarves out of prison and they escape down the river in barrels. There might have to be some contrived set pieces added to this sequence to flesh it out. Plenty of time is spent in Lake-town, convincing the residents of Lake-town to help our band of adventurers. This gives plenty of opportunity to introduce Bard the Bowman as a major character and offers ample screentime to Stephen Fry as the Master of Lake-town. It ends with Bilbo and the dwarves heading off the the Lonely Mountain.
The third movie focuses on two major set pieces: Bilbo's conversation with Smaug and the Battle of Five Armies. This allows for plenty of screentime to be devoted to the politics that lead up to the battle and Thorin's case of dragon fever. The movie opens with a flashback to the battle of Azanulbizar. The movie ends with Bilbo saying, "Thank goodness."
Possible titles for the three movies: The Fellowship of the Burglar, The Two Fortresses, and The Return of the King Under the Mountain.
The big problem I see with this structure is that movie two has very little of Bilbo. However, the book states that Gandalf is "finishing up" his business with the Necromancer as Bilbo and the dwarves are floating down the river in and on barrels, so the chronology works pretty well.
Of course, if I was in charge, there wouldn't even be three movies. I would try to do the whole thing in one movie, sticking to the material in the book and ignoring the material in the Appendices and other works. Hopefully I could get the run time down to about two hours and get a PG rating. After all, it's a children's book, which means it should be a children's movie.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Musings on Tolkien: The Hobbit Movie and How I Would Do It
Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies are excellent, and it seemed like only a matter of time before he directed a movie version of The Hobbit. However, there are some problems with the source material that make it difficult to just jump right into The Hobbit with the same vim and verve as the Lord of the Rings movies. For one, the books are very different. The Hobbit is a children's book; a faerie story with a light-hearted tone, plenty of humor, and songs that help carry the plot. (You could even argue that The Hobbit is a musical in book form.) The Lord of the Rings by contrast, is a much more serious and darker book with a more adult audience in mind and is considered the first modern fantasy novel. By going back and doing The Hobbit second as a prequel, the difference in tone and content between the books causes a serious problem. If Peter Jackson goes with the epic qualities of his Lord of the Rings movies, it can come across as a betrayal of the source material. However, if he treats The Hobbit like the children's book it is, he'll end up with a movie that is out of step with the ones he's already made. And that doesn't even take into account how Tolkien's concept of the One Ring changed: in The Hobbit it's just Bilbo's magic ring while in The Lord of the Rings it's the most powerful instrument of evil in Middle Earth. These are problems that Peter Jackson is going to have to work out and I'm sure he'll do a fine job. But this is how I would tackle the problem.
INT. BAG END - NIGHT
Sam Gamgee settles down in his armchair to smoke his evening pipe. His children crowd around him.
ELANOR: Daddy! Tell us a story!
SAM: Would you like to hear the story about how Mister Frodo and I journeyed to Mordor to destroy the Ring?
ROSE: You always tell us that one!
GOLDILOCKS: Tell us a different story!
SAM: Well, have I ever told you the story of how Old Mister Bilbo went on an adventure and found the Ring?
HAMFAST: No you haven't.
DAISY: Tell us that one, Daddy!
Sam picks up a large red book and opens it to the first pages.
SAM: (reading) In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit...
FADE TO:
EXT. BAG END - MORNING
Bilbo Baggins sits on the front porch of Bag End, blowing smoke rings.
This opening scene serves multiple purposes. It ties The Hobbit in with The Lord of the Rings, establishing this as a prequel. But since it is framed as Sam telling the story to his kids, it allows for The Hobbit to be more of a children's movie. The book takes a very pro-Bilbo stance, treating the Thorin and Company as a bumbling band of misfits. If Sam were narrating the movie, it would only make sense for him to build up Bilbo as one of the most famousest of hobbits and the only one with any real amount of common sense. The narrator of The Hobbit has several good lines and making Sam the narrator would help get those lines into the movie. And it could also provide a means to address some of the inconsistencies between the books as the children could interrupt Sam's story on several occasions, much like Fred Savage does in The Princess Bride. Sam could then provide an explanation for the differences, he could essentially say, "Shut up. I'm telling a story," or he could even say, "That's how Mister Bilbo wrote it and so that's how I'm telling it," which would be a sly way of shoving the blame back on Tolkien. And I think Tolkien would approve of this approach because he was obsessed with framing narratives. Of course I would have to restrain myself from inserting a scene right after the "Tra-la-la-lally" song in which one of the kids asks, "Is this a singing book?"
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Top 5 First Lines
It's been a while since I've done a top 5 list, so I decided to dust it off and give it another go. These are my five favorite opening lines from the books and short stories that I've read. I've probably forgotten something brilliant from Dr. Seuss or another semi-forgotten children's author, but these are the five that came most readily to mind. In chronological order:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
The Bible
Marley was dead: to begin with.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
William Shakespeare, later known as the Beard of Avon, was born in 1564, on April 21, 22, or 23, and all his life kept people guessing.
Twisted Tales from Shakespeare by Richard Armour
Feel free to psychoanalyze me in the comments section for what my choices say about my deepest fears or other nonsense.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
The Bible
Marley was dead: to begin with.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
William Shakespeare, later known as the Beard of Avon, was born in 1564, on April 21, 22, or 23, and all his life kept people guessing.
Twisted Tales from Shakespeare by Richard Armour
Feel free to psychoanalyze me in the comments section for what my choices say about my deepest fears or other nonsense.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Musings on Tolkien: Mingling
Most of the time in Tolkien's works, the Free Peoples of Middle Earth keep to themselves. Elves hang out with Elves, Men with Men, and Dwarves ignoring as much of the rest of the world as possible. But every so often there are instances of different people groups mingling with each other, and this is always a Good Thing.
Gondolin was the greatest of the cities of the Elves. One of the marks of its greatness was that in was inhabited by both Noldor and Sindar. And when Hurin and Huor, and later Tuor, came to Gondolin, they were treated as valuable members of the community, even though they were Men. At the Gates of Moria, Gandalf wistfully recalls a happier time when the Elves of Hollin were in close friendship with the Dwarves of Moria. At the beginning of the Hobbit it tells of a time when the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain and the Men of Dale lived in close friendship before Smaug laid waste to the countryside. And by the end of the book, that friendship has been reformed with the added close allies of the Elves of Mirkwood.
All the great love stories of Middle Earth are romances between the races: Thingol and Melian, Beren and Luthien, Tuor and Idril, Aragorn and Arwen. And one of the great relationships of The Lord of the Rings is the friendship between Gimli and Legolas.
But the best example of mingling is embodied in the Silmarils. The Trees of Valinor were among the greatest of the works of the Ainur, and Yavanna's masterpiece. But they were at their most beautiful when the golden light of Laurelin and the silver light of Telpirion mingled. Feanor, the greatest craftsman of the Elves, captured the mingled light of the trees in his Silmarils, the greatest work of craftsmanship by the Elves. After Beren recovers one of the Silmarils and delivers it to Thingol, Thingol takes the Silmaril and has it set inside the Nauglamir, the Necklace of the Dwarves, the greatest work of Dwarven craftsmanship. So we have the greatest of the works of the Ainur encased in the greatest of the works of the Elves, encased in the greatest of the works of the Dwarves. And it is possibly even more beautiful when worn by Luthien, the daughter of an Elf and an Ainu, married to a Man. And when that exact Silmaril is delivered to Valinor which sets off a chain reaction that ends with the final destruction of Morgoth, it is delivered by Earendil, the son of Tuor and Idril, and his wife Elwing, the granddaughter of Beren and Luthien.
Gondolin was the greatest of the cities of the Elves. One of the marks of its greatness was that in was inhabited by both Noldor and Sindar. And when Hurin and Huor, and later Tuor, came to Gondolin, they were treated as valuable members of the community, even though they were Men. At the Gates of Moria, Gandalf wistfully recalls a happier time when the Elves of Hollin were in close friendship with the Dwarves of Moria. At the beginning of the Hobbit it tells of a time when the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain and the Men of Dale lived in close friendship before Smaug laid waste to the countryside. And by the end of the book, that friendship has been reformed with the added close allies of the Elves of Mirkwood.
All the great love stories of Middle Earth are romances between the races: Thingol and Melian, Beren and Luthien, Tuor and Idril, Aragorn and Arwen. And one of the great relationships of The Lord of the Rings is the friendship between Gimli and Legolas.
But the best example of mingling is embodied in the Silmarils. The Trees of Valinor were among the greatest of the works of the Ainur, and Yavanna's masterpiece. But they were at their most beautiful when the golden light of Laurelin and the silver light of Telpirion mingled. Feanor, the greatest craftsman of the Elves, captured the mingled light of the trees in his Silmarils, the greatest work of craftsmanship by the Elves. After Beren recovers one of the Silmarils and delivers it to Thingol, Thingol takes the Silmaril and has it set inside the Nauglamir, the Necklace of the Dwarves, the greatest work of Dwarven craftsmanship. So we have the greatest of the works of the Ainur encased in the greatest of the works of the Elves, encased in the greatest of the works of the Dwarves. And it is possibly even more beautiful when worn by Luthien, the daughter of an Elf and an Ainu, married to a Man. And when that exact Silmaril is delivered to Valinor which sets off a chain reaction that ends with the final destruction of Morgoth, it is delivered by Earendil, the son of Tuor and Idril, and his wife Elwing, the granddaughter of Beren and Luthien.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Batman Full Circle
Four years ago I promised the world that I would give them my idea for a trilogy of movies to follow up Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. I gave synopses for the first two movies but never got around to writing the third one. With The Dark Knight Rises opening soon, I figured that time was running out for me to finish this. I have intentionally avoided all news and spoilers about The Dark Knight Rises as much as possible and these ideas are basically the same ones I intended to write but never did way back in the weeks before The Dark Knight came out.
Bruce has no friends. All his time and energy is consumed with his life as Batman. An atmosphere of fear covers Gotham. And there is always more crime to fight. Like a break-in at Arkham Asylum that releases several prisoners, including the Joker. While investigating, Batman finds clues that the League of Shadows might have been involved.
Later, Bruce is introduced to a woman named Talia. He takes a liking to her and they start a relationship. But unbeknownst to Bruce, Talia has re-formed the League of Shadows and has taken up the title of Ra's al Ghul. She is the daughter of Liam Neeson's character from Batman Begins, and her mission is to finish the task her father started: the destruction of Gotham. While her father wanted to use Bruce as the main instrument in Gotham's destruction, Talia has chosen the Joker. Unfortunately for her, the Joker quickly gets out from under her influence and starts doing his own thing once again. He starts running amok, distributing his personal brand of mayhem: enough to keep Batman busy and frustrated, but not enough to bring Gotham to its knees. Meanwhile, Talia's feelings for Bruce are growing. They were initially feigned in order for her to spy on him and distract Batman, but she is now growing fond of Bruce and starting to question whether her father was really right about him.
Among the victims of the latest Joker attack are a family of acrobats. Young Dick Grayson is the only member to survive. He has no other family and is all alone. Alfred learns of this and invites Grayson to stay at Wayne Manor for a time. Alfred hopes that Bruce will be able to help Grayson get through the loss of his parents since Bruce also lost his parents. Alfred also hopes that it will help nudge Bruce into an act of humanity. But all Grayson cares about is exacting revenge on the Joker. Bruce sees a lot of his old self in Gryason and realizes that Batman can't offer him any healing, only revenge.
Eventually, Grayson figures out that Bruce is Batman and demands that Bruce let him help take down the Joker. Bruce relents, mostly because he really needs another person for his take-down plan, but not before exacting a promise from Grayson that they are doing it for justice, not revenge. Working together they capture the Joker and send him off to Arkham once again. During the take-down, Grayson gets the perfect chance to kill the Joker but doesn't because of his promise.
Talia realizes that there is enough goodness in Gotham to make it worth saving. Her relationship with Bruce has blossomed into a full-blown romance. (Are there wedding bells in their future?) Bruce begrudgingly lets Grayson stay on as his partner. Grayson takes the name of Robin. Batman was supposed to be a symbol of hope to the downtrodden, but instead he became a symbol of fear to everyone. But just as the first robin of the year is a sign that winter is over and spring has begun, Robin is a symbol of hope and new beginnings.
Batman Begins was in part the story of Bruce and his fathers. Even though Thomas Wayne was his biological father, Alfred and Ra's al Ghul (and to a lesser extent Falcone and Fox) were all father figures for Bruce. At the end of this movie, Bruce is now the father figure. At the beginning of the movie Bruce has no family. By the end he has a son and a potential wife. And by the end Bruce has regained himself. Batman is once again a part of Bruce instead of the other way around.
So there you go. I hope it was worth the wait.
Bruce has no friends. All his time and energy is consumed with his life as Batman. An atmosphere of fear covers Gotham. And there is always more crime to fight. Like a break-in at Arkham Asylum that releases several prisoners, including the Joker. While investigating, Batman finds clues that the League of Shadows might have been involved.
Later, Bruce is introduced to a woman named Talia. He takes a liking to her and they start a relationship. But unbeknownst to Bruce, Talia has re-formed the League of Shadows and has taken up the title of Ra's al Ghul. She is the daughter of Liam Neeson's character from Batman Begins, and her mission is to finish the task her father started: the destruction of Gotham. While her father wanted to use Bruce as the main instrument in Gotham's destruction, Talia has chosen the Joker. Unfortunately for her, the Joker quickly gets out from under her influence and starts doing his own thing once again. He starts running amok, distributing his personal brand of mayhem: enough to keep Batman busy and frustrated, but not enough to bring Gotham to its knees. Meanwhile, Talia's feelings for Bruce are growing. They were initially feigned in order for her to spy on him and distract Batman, but she is now growing fond of Bruce and starting to question whether her father was really right about him.
Among the victims of the latest Joker attack are a family of acrobats. Young Dick Grayson is the only member to survive. He has no other family and is all alone. Alfred learns of this and invites Grayson to stay at Wayne Manor for a time. Alfred hopes that Bruce will be able to help Grayson get through the loss of his parents since Bruce also lost his parents. Alfred also hopes that it will help nudge Bruce into an act of humanity. But all Grayson cares about is exacting revenge on the Joker. Bruce sees a lot of his old self in Gryason and realizes that Batman can't offer him any healing, only revenge.
Eventually, Grayson figures out that Bruce is Batman and demands that Bruce let him help take down the Joker. Bruce relents, mostly because he really needs another person for his take-down plan, but not before exacting a promise from Grayson that they are doing it for justice, not revenge. Working together they capture the Joker and send him off to Arkham once again. During the take-down, Grayson gets the perfect chance to kill the Joker but doesn't because of his promise.
Talia realizes that there is enough goodness in Gotham to make it worth saving. Her relationship with Bruce has blossomed into a full-blown romance. (Are there wedding bells in their future?) Bruce begrudgingly lets Grayson stay on as his partner. Grayson takes the name of Robin. Batman was supposed to be a symbol of hope to the downtrodden, but instead he became a symbol of fear to everyone. But just as the first robin of the year is a sign that winter is over and spring has begun, Robin is a symbol of hope and new beginnings.
Batman Begins was in part the story of Bruce and his fathers. Even though Thomas Wayne was his biological father, Alfred and Ra's al Ghul (and to a lesser extent Falcone and Fox) were all father figures for Bruce. At the end of this movie, Bruce is now the father figure. At the beginning of the movie Bruce has no family. By the end he has a son and a potential wife. And by the end Bruce has regained himself. Batman is once again a part of Bruce instead of the other way around.
So there you go. I hope it was worth the wait.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Musings on Baseball: The Pitcher Win
Many of the serious baseball analysts I read and listen to deride the pitcher win stat, saying that it says very little about how well a pitcher actually pitched, especially since starters rarely pitch more than six innings. There are so many other people playing the game and so many other variables that go into winning a game that giving one player credit for the win is just ridiculous. I am in complete agreement with this assessment. When I hear people on the radio or television saying, "So-and-so is going for his fifth consecutive win," or "Such-and-such is still looking for his first win of the season," I find myself screaming at the voices who can't hear me, "That doesn't mean anything!" However, I think the pitcher win is here to stay.
Let's look at three statements:
(1) Pitcher X has a win in 7 of his last 10 outings.
(2) Pitcher X has a quality start in 7 of his last 10 outings.
(3) Pitcher X has a Game Score of 70 or higher in 7 of his last 10 outings.
What do these three statements actually tell us about how well Pitcher X actually pitched?
In order to get a win, a pitcher must be the pitcher of record after the fifth inning. To be the pitcher of record a pitcher must be the pitcher who was pitching when his team gained the lead for good. So, if a team took the lead in the first inning and never surrendered it, the pitcher who pitched the fifth inning would get the win. If a team took the lead in the eighth inning and never surrendered it, the pitcher who pitched the eighth inning would get the win. (It's a little more nuanced and complex than that, but that's the gist of it.) So for a starter to get a win, he has to pitch at least five innings, have a lineup behind him that scores more runs than his gives up, and have the relievers that come after him not give up the lead.
With so many variables in play, the pitcher win can be a pretty fickle stat. Sometimes, the pitcher who pitches the worst in a game is the one who gets the win. This happened on the first day of the season this year. Justin Verlander pitched eight shutout innings for the Detroit Tigers. Jose Valverde came in to pitch the ninth inning with a 2-0 lead. He proceeded to give up two runs in the top of the ninth. The Tigers scored a run in the bottom of the ninth to win the game, but because Valverde was now the pitcher of record, he was the pitcher awarded with the win. But who was more deserving of the win, the pitcher who gave up 0 runs in 8 innings or the one who gave up 2 runs in 1 inning?
Also, lack of run support can lead to a pitcher not getting any wins. In 2007, San Francisco Giants pitcher Matt Cain was one of the best pitchers in the National League. He was among the league leaders in several pitching stats. Except wins. Because of the Giants' anemic bats, Matt Cain got a measly 7 wins in 2007. In 2008 he was just as good, and even tied for the league lead in games started. He got a whopping 8 wins. Meanwhile, in 2007, Jamie Moyer of the Philadelphia Phillies pitched almost exactly the same number of innings as Matt Cain, yet gave up more hits and more runs than Cain while striking out fewer batters. His win total? 14.
So statement 1 says that Pitcher X pitched at least 5 innings in those 7 games and got good run support.
In order to get a quality start, a pitcher must pitch at least 6 innings and give up fewer than 3 earned runs. (For those of you not in the know, an earned run is a run that has been determined to be the fault of the pitcher. Unearned runs are runs that are not the fault of the pitcher, usually scoring as a direct result of an error on the part of one of the fielders. The idea being that a pitcher should not be penalized for the failures of his defense.) If a starter pitches a quality start, he puts his team in a good position to win the game. In April of this month, teams whose pitchers got a quality start had a combined .648 winning percentage. That comes to 105 wins in a 162 game season. To put that into perspective, the Philadelphia Phillies last year had the most wins in baseball with 102.
The big advantage of the quality start is that it completely removes run support from the equation. And it's hard to be dissatisfied with your pitcher's performance if he gets a quality start. However, the quality start is still imperfect. It ignores unearned runs. Also, if a pitcher does the bare minimum requirements for a quality start, his stats end up being pretty pedestrian. Also, a pitcher who pitches 9 innings but gives up 4 runs does not get credit for a quality start, even though that's an overall better performance than a six inning three run start.
In 2007, Matt Cain had 22 quality starts, tied for sixth in the league. (Jamie Moyer had 18.) He had a quality start 69% of the time. In 2008 he had 21 quality starts. While they don't tell the whole story, his quality start totals are a much better indicator of his performance than his win totals.
So statement 2 says that Pitcher X pitched at least 6 innings in those 7 games and gave up no more than 3 earned runs in each one. (Or, pitched like Matt Cain in 2007.)
Game Score is a statistic that was developed by baseball statistician Bill James. It awards points for innings pitched and strikeouts, and subtracts points for walks, hits, and runs allowed. Most quality starts get game scores in the upper 50s and 60s, with an average around 64. A game in which a pitcher pitched 7 innings with 1 run, 4 hits, 1 walk, and 6 strikeouts would get a Game Score of 70. That is a really nice outing, one that fantasy baseball players covet. Roughly one quarter of all quality starts have a score of 70 or better.
Last year, Justin Verlander led the majors with a 65.9 average Game Score. The first game of the season where he was brilliant but did not get the win, he scored an 84. In 2007, Matt Cain had an average Game Score of 54.7, good for ninth in the league. This year to date, Cliff Lee is the highest ranked pitcher in average Game Score with exactly 10 starts. In those 10 starts he has 0 wins, 7 quality starts, and 3 games in which he got a Game Score of 70 or better.
So statement 3 says that Pitcher X pitched like an ace 7 out of the last 10 games. And unless the other 3 games were really ugly, over his last 10 games, Pitcher X has been one of the best pitchers in baseball.
If I was to rank the three statements as to how much they actually tell us about Pitcher X's performance over his last 10 starts, I would rank them 3, 2, 1. But if I was to rank them how they sound to a casual fan, the rankings would reverse. Because I am guessing that only the hardcore stat-heads are even aware of or interested in Game Score and a score of 70 doesn't mean much without any context. Quality start sounds better but unspectacular.
But when I say that Pitcher X won 7 of his last 10 starts, it sounds amazing. It says that Pitcher X is a dominating force. It says that when Pitcher X starts, his team has at worst a .700 winning percentage. It says Pitcher X will carry his team to victory because Pitcher X is a Winner! And after all, isn't it all about winning?
Which is why the pitcher win is here to stay. No amount of number crunching will ever sound better than, "Pitcher X got a win!"
Let's look at three statements:
(1) Pitcher X has a win in 7 of his last 10 outings.
(2) Pitcher X has a quality start in 7 of his last 10 outings.
(3) Pitcher X has a Game Score of 70 or higher in 7 of his last 10 outings.
What do these three statements actually tell us about how well Pitcher X actually pitched?
In order to get a win, a pitcher must be the pitcher of record after the fifth inning. To be the pitcher of record a pitcher must be the pitcher who was pitching when his team gained the lead for good. So, if a team took the lead in the first inning and never surrendered it, the pitcher who pitched the fifth inning would get the win. If a team took the lead in the eighth inning and never surrendered it, the pitcher who pitched the eighth inning would get the win. (It's a little more nuanced and complex than that, but that's the gist of it.) So for a starter to get a win, he has to pitch at least five innings, have a lineup behind him that scores more runs than his gives up, and have the relievers that come after him not give up the lead.
With so many variables in play, the pitcher win can be a pretty fickle stat. Sometimes, the pitcher who pitches the worst in a game is the one who gets the win. This happened on the first day of the season this year. Justin Verlander pitched eight shutout innings for the Detroit Tigers. Jose Valverde came in to pitch the ninth inning with a 2-0 lead. He proceeded to give up two runs in the top of the ninth. The Tigers scored a run in the bottom of the ninth to win the game, but because Valverde was now the pitcher of record, he was the pitcher awarded with the win. But who was more deserving of the win, the pitcher who gave up 0 runs in 8 innings or the one who gave up 2 runs in 1 inning?
Also, lack of run support can lead to a pitcher not getting any wins. In 2007, San Francisco Giants pitcher Matt Cain was one of the best pitchers in the National League. He was among the league leaders in several pitching stats. Except wins. Because of the Giants' anemic bats, Matt Cain got a measly 7 wins in 2007. In 2008 he was just as good, and even tied for the league lead in games started. He got a whopping 8 wins. Meanwhile, in 2007, Jamie Moyer of the Philadelphia Phillies pitched almost exactly the same number of innings as Matt Cain, yet gave up more hits and more runs than Cain while striking out fewer batters. His win total? 14.
So statement 1 says that Pitcher X pitched at least 5 innings in those 7 games and got good run support.
In order to get a quality start, a pitcher must pitch at least 6 innings and give up fewer than 3 earned runs. (For those of you not in the know, an earned run is a run that has been determined to be the fault of the pitcher. Unearned runs are runs that are not the fault of the pitcher, usually scoring as a direct result of an error on the part of one of the fielders. The idea being that a pitcher should not be penalized for the failures of his defense.) If a starter pitches a quality start, he puts his team in a good position to win the game. In April of this month, teams whose pitchers got a quality start had a combined .648 winning percentage. That comes to 105 wins in a 162 game season. To put that into perspective, the Philadelphia Phillies last year had the most wins in baseball with 102.
The big advantage of the quality start is that it completely removes run support from the equation. And it's hard to be dissatisfied with your pitcher's performance if he gets a quality start. However, the quality start is still imperfect. It ignores unearned runs. Also, if a pitcher does the bare minimum requirements for a quality start, his stats end up being pretty pedestrian. Also, a pitcher who pitches 9 innings but gives up 4 runs does not get credit for a quality start, even though that's an overall better performance than a six inning three run start.
In 2007, Matt Cain had 22 quality starts, tied for sixth in the league. (Jamie Moyer had 18.) He had a quality start 69% of the time. In 2008 he had 21 quality starts. While they don't tell the whole story, his quality start totals are a much better indicator of his performance than his win totals.
So statement 2 says that Pitcher X pitched at least 6 innings in those 7 games and gave up no more than 3 earned runs in each one. (Or, pitched like Matt Cain in 2007.)
Game Score is a statistic that was developed by baseball statistician Bill James. It awards points for innings pitched and strikeouts, and subtracts points for walks, hits, and runs allowed. Most quality starts get game scores in the upper 50s and 60s, with an average around 64. A game in which a pitcher pitched 7 innings with 1 run, 4 hits, 1 walk, and 6 strikeouts would get a Game Score of 70. That is a really nice outing, one that fantasy baseball players covet. Roughly one quarter of all quality starts have a score of 70 or better.
Last year, Justin Verlander led the majors with a 65.9 average Game Score. The first game of the season where he was brilliant but did not get the win, he scored an 84. In 2007, Matt Cain had an average Game Score of 54.7, good for ninth in the league. This year to date, Cliff Lee is the highest ranked pitcher in average Game Score with exactly 10 starts. In those 10 starts he has 0 wins, 7 quality starts, and 3 games in which he got a Game Score of 70 or better.
So statement 3 says that Pitcher X pitched like an ace 7 out of the last 10 games. And unless the other 3 games were really ugly, over his last 10 games, Pitcher X has been one of the best pitchers in baseball.
If I was to rank the three statements as to how much they actually tell us about Pitcher X's performance over his last 10 starts, I would rank them 3, 2, 1. But if I was to rank them how they sound to a casual fan, the rankings would reverse. Because I am guessing that only the hardcore stat-heads are even aware of or interested in Game Score and a score of 70 doesn't mean much without any context. Quality start sounds better but unspectacular.
But when I say that Pitcher X won 7 of his last 10 starts, it sounds amazing. It says that Pitcher X is a dominating force. It says that when Pitcher X starts, his team has at worst a .700 winning percentage. It says Pitcher X will carry his team to victory because Pitcher X is a Winner! And after all, isn't it all about winning?
Which is why the pitcher win is here to stay. No amount of number crunching will ever sound better than, "Pitcher X got a win!"
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Musings on Tolkien: The Golden Child and the Silver Child
After listening to hours and hours of lectures by the Tolkien Professor, reading plenty of Tolkien, and even auditing a couple classes on Tolkien, I have had Tolkien on the brain for over a year now. One result of that is that I have come to several observations concerning themes in his work that I have not seen discussed anywhere else. And now I get to foist them on you, my critical readers. This is the first in what will hopefully be a series (I make no promises as to how long or short the series will be) looking at the things I've been thinking about on Tolkien and his works. A couple procedural notes: I will be writing these assuming my readers have read or are at least familiar with The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. Therefore I won't explain who anyone is, nor will I post spoiler alerts. If you're looking for a bit of a refresher on anything I'm talking about, the Encyclopedia of Arda is a great resource.
The whole idea for the golden child and the silver child got its start several years ago when I was looking at this painting with the Platypus. The title of the painting is "Faramir at Osgiliath," and it was immediately clear to us that Faramir was the guy at the right of the painting decked out in silver. But my eye was also drawn to the guy in the center of the painting who is wearing a golden helmet and brandishing a spear. He is given a place of prominence in the picture. Could that be Boromir?* As I discussed this with the Platypus, he thought it was an interesting idea because Boromir was the golden child and Faramir was the silver child.
*The more I look at the picture, the more I'm convinced that he is not Boromir. For one, if it was Boromir, the painting would be titled "Boromir and Faramir at Osgiliath." For another, the more I look, the less prominent his position in the painting becomes.
One of the themes that the Tolkien Professor likes to talk about is that those who are the greatest almost always fall. Melkor was the greatest of the Ainur, but he turned to evil. Feanor was the greatest of the Elves, yet he fell too. But in all these cases I noticed that there was always a younger brother who was nearly as great who took the place of the golden child who fell and became great in his own right. This silver child did the things that the golden child should have done and earned the love of the people they commanded (and the reader as well). There were three examples of this that immediately came to mind plus two more that followed not far behind.
The first example, the one that pretty much provides the archetype for the golden child and the silver child, is Melkor and Manwe. Melkor is the greatest of the Ainur, yet he deems his will more highly than Iluvatar's and wishes to dominate the wills of others. Manwe is the second-greatest of the Ainur and is described as "the brother of Melkor in the mind of Iluvatar." But instead of pursuing his own agenda, Manwe chose to do Iluvatar's will, doing his part in creating a world that is good to live in. As the ruling Ainu, Manwe ends up the king of the world while Melkor is chained and thrown into the Void.
Next we get Feanor and Fingolfin. Feanor is the greatest of all the Elves. His work as a craftsman could not be rivaled. His crowning achievement is the creation of the silmarils, three gems that are the most beautiful things any Elf has made before or since. But he became too proud; too full of himself. As a result it was Feanor who instigated the first killing of Elf by Elf, and who swore (and made his sons swear as well) the Oath of Feanor, which caused all kinds of strife among the Elves, even long after his death. And when he died, Tolkien says, "Thus ended the mightiest of the Noldor, of whose deeds came both their greatest renown and their most grievous woe." On the other hand, Fingolfin, the younger half-brother of Feanor, was beloved by his people. When strife broke out between Feanor and Fingolfin, it was Fingolfin who was the better man and did what he could to make peace (even though Feanor was the instigator). It was Fingolfin who led his people across the Helcaraxe after Feanor had abandoned them. And when Fingolfin dies in single combat with Morgoth (a fight he might have been able to actually win had Morgoth not been ten times as large as Fingolfin) the Elves cannot even sing songs about it because their sorrow is too great. And the love of Fingolfin extends to the readers. There are debates as to who is the most awesomest of the Elves: Fingolfin or Finrod. No one even bothers mentioning Feanor in these debates.
Then there is the pair of Boromir and Faramir. Boromir is a mighty warrior. As the oldest son of the Steward of Gondor, Boromir is next in line to be the leader of the most powerful nation of Men in Middle Earth (provided the Heir of Isildur doesn't bother showing up). In fact it's not entirely inconceivable that Boromir would have himself crowned King of Gondor at his father's death. And then Boromir falls under the prey of the One Ring and tries to take it from Bilbo. Faramir, on the other hand, welcomes the Return of the King. He is a valiant warrior in his own right, but would much rather live in peace. And he says of the Ring, "Not if I found it on the highway would I take it." Boromir is able to find redemption by defending Merry and Pippin, but it is Faramir who gets to marry the princess and live happily ever after. And readers adore Faramir. If I did a poll of favorite characters from The Lord of the Rings, Faramir would come in no lower than second on the list. In fact, the biggest criticism I hear about Peter Jackson's version of The Two Towers is, "They ruined Faramir!"
After these first three pairings immediately jumped out at me, I went in search of other examples. The next one I found was Saruman and Gandalf. Saruman is the head of the White Council and the most learned of the wizards. But he desired too much power and set himself up as a second dark lord in a tower. Meanwhile, Gandalf spends his time travelling all over Middle Earth, doing what he can to empower people to fight the Enemy. And when Gandalf dies, he is sent back as Gandalf the White, taking on the mantle that Saruman rejected.
Then I started looking at Turin. He bears all the marks of a golden child gone sour. He is the most beautiful of all the Men, very charismatic, and a powerful warrior. But everything he does goes horribly wrong. Maybe it's because he's been cursed by Morgoth, or maybe it's due to his own pig-headedness and impulsive nature. But he accidentally kills Saeros and Beleg, unwittingly marries his sister, is directly responsible for the downfall of Nargothrond, and generally leaves chaos and destruction in his wake. But if Turin is the golden child, who is the silver child? Turin had no brothers and his sisters don't fit the bill of a silver child. But he did have a cousin: Tuor. Tuor does many of the things that Turin was supposed to do. While Turin was directly responsible for the destruction of Nargothrond, Tuor is instrumental in saving a remnant of people from the fall of Gondolin. While Turin failed to marry Finduilas, the daughter of the Elven king (and the text implies that things would have been better for all involved if he had), Tuor marries Idril, the daughter of a different Elven king. And through this union Earendil is born who is vitally instrumental in the final defeat of Morgoth.
So here are my five examples of the golden child and the silver child. Does anyone have any other examples?
Friday, March 9, 2012
Top and Bottom of 2011 - #1
Best
The Big Heat (1953)
This is one of the first “obsessed cop does whatever it takes to bring down the bad guys” films and also one of the best. Glenn Ford stars as Dave Bannion, a cop on a mission to take down a local drug lord. Along the way he encounters damaged dames, truly evil thugs (especially the one played by Lee Marvin) and corruption that goes all the way up to the police commissioner. I especially liked the scenes of Bannion interacting with his wife; they are so warm and amusing they paint a wonderful portrait of marital bliss in the midst of an otherwise very dark movie.
Worst
Troll 2 (1990)
Every once in a while a movie comes along that is famous for being so bad. This movie is so inept that someone made a whole documentary about how bad it is. First of all, there is not a single troll to be seen in this movie. Instead we get a town full of goblins. The goblins look like cheap Halloween costumes and apparently their favorite food is half human half plant. The acting is bad across the board, especially Deborah Reed as the goblin queen, who chews so much scenery that it’s a wonder there were any sets left by the end of the movie. All the characters are idiots, none of them even approaching likability. And then there is the script, full of clunky dialog and loads of “as you know, Bob” exposition. But the absolute best part of the movie comes during a car trip. Mom tries to cheer up her son by getting him to sing. “Sing that song I like so much.” Taking a page from Manos: The Hands of Fate, I mockingly started singing “Row, row, row your boat.” And then the kid started singing. “Row, row, row your boat...”
Coming up next: I'm not sure. I've been mulling over some posts about themes in Tolkien's writing, so those might be next. I've also got a couple long-abandoned projects that I could dust off and finish. And of course there's the 25+ movies I've already watched this year (that I still haven't written blurbs for). So there's bound to be more stuff coming down the pipeline, though I'm not going to commit to anything specific just yet.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Top and Bottom of 2011 - #2
Best
Ip Man (2008)
This is a fictionalized account of Ip Man, a martial arts master who trained Bruce Lee (and many others). The first half is a whole lot of fun featuring plenty of martial arts hijinks in a largely pre-industrial Chinese town. Then the Japanese invasion of WWII happens, and the film takes a decidedly serious turn. Ip Man and his fellow countrymen struggle to get enough food to feed themselves while still maintaining their honor in occupied territory. Ip Man is fascinating to watch, both in moments of quiet dignity and when he is laying down some martial arts smack-down.
Worst
Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)
How is it that a movie can be as inept as this one is in every single aspect possible? The acting is flat, the dialog is clunky at best, the sound is worse than most student films, and the effects are less convincing than the grasshoppers-on-a-postcard shots from Beginning of the End. The story is the illegitimate child of The Birds and An Inconvenient Truth as birds attack a small town for no reason while the main characters spew environmental propaganda. And for some reason, all the birds explode when they run into things. I have a hard time coming up with the worst scene in the movie. It could be the one where our heroes defend themselves from hovering CG birds by randomly waving around coat hangers. It could be the one where the protagonist extolls the benefits of solar panels (or as he calls them, “sorpaos”). It might be the scene where our heroes walk out of a screening of An Inconvenient Truth and one of them says, “That was a really good movie. I’m going to buy a hybrid now.” But my vote probably has to go to all the scenes devoted to either parking or cautiously pulling into traffic. No other film I have seen has devoted so much time to these two activities that are marginally more entertaining than watching paint dry.
Coming up next: The best of the best and the worst of the worst.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Top and Bottom of 2011 - #3
Best
Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
This is a fascinating look at the world of street art and the artists who make it. It starts with a montage of street artists plying their craft - some clever, some vulgar, and some outright vandalism - all while a song plays in the background declaring that “Tonight the streets are ours.” Then we are introduced to Thierry Guetta a clothing shop owner/documentarian/aspiring street artist. He’s quirky, full of life, and enjoys almost unlimited access to some of the biggest names in street art. But when he starts doing his own street art it’s derivative and repetitive (and most if not all of the actual artwork is done by other people). Is he a true artist, or merely a flamboyant hack? What results is a wonderfully entertaining look at several interesting people and the work that they do, even when their art is completely illegal.
Worst
The Adventures of Hercules (1985)
THIS is the Hercules movie that has him turn into a cartoon as the climax. In the sequel to 1983's Hercules, Lou Ferrigno once again stars as the Herc, this time tracking down the seven thunderbolts of Zeus which have been scattered across Greece. The plot is no better than that of a video game; Hercules defeats a monster to reclaim the thunderbolt then instantly travels to the next place where he faces off against the next monster. There are visual effects all over the movie, but they all look terrible, especially the scene in which Hercules battles a glowing ball of light and when he faces off against a gorgon in a blatant (and terrible) ripoff of Clash of the Titans. The dialog is laugh out loud atrocious, and for reasons known only to the filmmakers, every time Herc lands a punch, the screen flashes red. But the absolute cinematic pinnacle of the movie is the climax. Hercules and Minos battle each other in the stars as bad rotoscoped images of themselves, occasionally transforming into various animals to make everything more thrilling. Then, once Minos has been defeated, Herc gets huge and stops the moon from colliding with the earth. I was wrong earlier; THIS is the worst Hercules movie ever made.
Coming up next: Defending yourself against a horde of invaders.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Top and Bottom of 2011 - #4
Best
Wait Until Dark (1967)
Audrey Hepburn is amazing as a blind woman who unknowingly gets caught up with a group of drug dealers. There is plenty of thrills and suspense throughout the movie, and the way Hepburn’s character finally deals with her antagonists is wonderful.
Worst
Hercules (1983)
I remember seeing the ending of a Hercules movie some time ago that featured as its climax Hercules going into space and turning into bad animation to defeat the bad guy. It was really bad and I was interested in seeing the whole thing. I hoped this would be it, but sadly it wasn't. Fortunately, it was as bad as I remembered the other one being. Lou Ferrigno stars as the worst Hercules I've ever seen. From the neck down he actually looks like Hercules should look, but his face is too soft to be convincing as a hardened warrior. Add to that wooden acting and only one facial expression of dull bemusement and Ferrigno brings the world of beefy action stars to a new low. Herc fights ridiculous, laser-shooting mechanical monsters, travels from one place to another for no apparent reason, duels King Minos with a light saber, and gets huge. The screenplay has no narrative cohesion with things happening merely due to the screenwriter's whim. This is the worst Hercules movie I've seen. (And it has a sequel!)
Coming up next: A movie where a man is turned into an artist and one in which a man is turned into art.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Top and Bottom of 2011 - #5
Best
The Muppets (2011)
I’m a big fan of the Muppets, especially their work on The Muppet Show. One of the things that I noticed with their movies starting with Muppet Christmas Carol is that the humor wasn’t quite as sharp. It was as if the Muppets had been tamed. I was hopeful when the screenwriters claimed they were trying to recapture the feel of The Muppet Show and the first couple movies, but they were the same screenwriters who did very adult comedies. Would they be able to reign in their baser instincts and deliver a movie fit for the whole family? Fortunately, they did. The movie does an excellent job of keeping the feel of the television show. The jokes are funny, the songs are fun (with “Life’s a Happy Song” being an especially catchy standout), and there are some wonderful celebrity cameos. It was like spending time with old friends again, and I had a smile on my face through the whole movie.
Worst
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
This is an ugly, depressing story about unpleasant, unhappy people who wallow in an unclean world (until the bathhouse/brothel gets up and running, making the uncleanliness more metaphorical). I didn't like anyone in the film, and the background music was both out of place and annoying.
Coming up next: A movie carried on the shoulders of its actress and a bad movie made worse by its actor.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Top and Bottom of 2011 - #6
Best
Gran Torino (2008)
Humor can come from a lot of places. It happens when people say funny things (like Groucho and Chico Marx), it happens when people do funny things (like Harpo Marx), and it happens when funny things happen to someone (like Bringing Up Baby). Humor also can happen on a more subtler level when you get folks just being folks (like most of Garrison Keilor’s Lake Wobegon stories). There is plenty of this final kind of humor in Gran Torino. Not to say that it’s a comedy since the movie deals with some serious subject matter as Walt (played by Clint Eastwood) tries to keep his next-door neighbors from getting caught up in a destructive gang world. But I was surprised at how much I laughed as set-in-his-ways Walt was continually nudged out of his comfort zone. I loved watching the characters interact with each other, especially the scenes of Walt teaching his neighbor how to be a man. (There is a disappointing dearth of scenes like this in movies today, though that’s a rant for another day.) And I loved the ending. Too often a movie like this may end up with an ending that is either too contrived to be believable or too convenient to be satisfactory, but this ending feels so right I can’t come up with a better one. Every once in a while a movie comes along that completely surprises me with how much I like it; this is one of those.
Worst
Samurai Cop (1989)
This is a gloriously bad movie. The action scenes fail at being thrilling or believable, the cinematography is shoddy, the dialog is awful (with lines like, “I will bring you his head and I will place it on your piano.”), and it even features Robert Z'Dar and his incredibly huge face. Samurai Cop's sidekick can't decide if he's the stoic silent type, or the wise-cracking black guy, and he manages to pick wrong in every single reaction shot. But the best part about Samurai Cop is the Samurai Cop's hair. The actor sports gloriously long 80s locks, but halfway through filming he cut his hair, so wears cinema's worst wig for half the movie. The great thing is that it switches back and forth between real hair and wig throughout the movie, even in the middle of some scenes.
Coming up next: A movie with enough joy for two movies (which is a good thing since the other one doesn't have any).
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Top and Bottom of 2011 - #7
Best
The Social Network (2010)
This is a slick movie that is full of energy. The opening scene between Mark Zuckerberg and his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend is immediately arresting with dialog so quick it would make Howard Hawks proud. The conversation continually goes on tangents then loops back around in a way that reminded me of reading a comment thread on facebook. Jesse Eisenberg is electric in the role of Mark Zuckerberg, graduating from “poor man’s Michael Cera” status to becoming a force to be reckoned with. The Social Network is engaging all the way through, with fascinating characters, memorable performances, and a taut script, all held together masterfully by director David Fincher.
Worst
Gymkata (1985)
Who comes up with these ideas? An American gymnast is enlisted by the US government to compete in a dangerous competition so they can build a Star Wars satellite station. He is able to come out victorious by combining his skills in gymnastics with martial arts. The movie is full of cliched or implausible moments, the absolute best scene being the one in which he fights off a village full of crazy people by using a stone pommel horse that just happens to be in the middle of the village square.
Coming up next: Two unexpectedly funny movies (though not for the same reasons).
Friday, February 17, 2012
Top and Bottom of 2011 - #8
Best
Tangled (2010)
This is a really fun movie. The animation is gorgeous and features several wonderful moments of pure character animation (with the animators constantly coming up with new and inventive uses for Rapunzel's hair), the songs are all pleasant (though none of them are particularly memorable), and Rapunzel spends most of the movie barefoot. Really, what's not to like?
Worst
King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)
This movie is terrible. King Kong looks like a man in a bad monkey suit and his face makes him look incredibly stupid. The fight scenes are uninspiring, the models look like models, and the whole idea of electricity making King Kong stronger is just laughable.
Coming up next: A movie that has no business being as good as it is, and a movie that had no business even getting made.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Top and Bottom of 2011 - #9
Best
Contagion (2011)
This is the kind of movie that Roland Emmerich keeps making, but done right. A mysterious illness spreads over the world at an alarming rate, killing millions. The film tells the story of a wide variety of people and how they respond to living in the worldwide epidemic. The bulk of the screen time is devoted to the doctors and scientists who work trying to isolate the disease and develop a vaccine. Each is a hero in his or her own way. But we also get Matt Damon as the husband of the first person to die of the disease as he tries to keep together what’s left of his family and stay alive. We also get Jude Law as a conspiracy theorist/blogger who tries to profit from the epidemic. There’s Marion Cotillard as a World Health Organization agent who is kidnaped and held for ransom so that a village will be the first to get the vaccine. Director Steven Soderbergh deftly weaves all these story threads together to tell a story of how the world might cope if faced with a similar crisis in real life. Each storyline is compelling in its own way and is believable every step of the way. Which makes the movie all the more chilling as I left the theater wondering if this could actually happen.
Worst
Reds (1981)
This movie can’t decide what kind of a movie it is. It starts with a series of real life people talking about journalist and communist John Reed and his girlfriend/lover/not wife Louise Bryant. Then we get Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton running around as Reed and Bryant, doing the things that the talking heads were just talking about. Then we get more talking heads. Then another dose of Beatty and Keaton. Just pick one: documentary or biopic. And at over three hours, the movie is interminably long. The filmmakers really needed to remove the talking heads (or even better, the Beatty and Keaton melodrama) to give the movie a more taut running time. Of course then I started to wonder what was the purpose of even having this movie at all. I disagreed with almost everything Reed said, and the relationship stuff was an unending cycle of fighting, moping, and making up.
Coming up next: Two movies about overgrown things.
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