It occurred to me that this Halloween will be the last of its kind. For the past several years there has been a constant question mark about what to do for Halloween. Should we dress up and go to a party? Should we stay home and hand out candy to hapless children brave enough to venture towards our house? Maybe instead we should just scamper off into the darkness and be devils. That's this year. Next year though we will have a built-in reason to celebrate holidays in a different way. Granted the tiny little person we bring with us won't be capable of saying 'Trick or Treat', but I'm hoping that her inevitable cuteness dressed as something easily recognizable and yet vaguely ironic will prompt people to dish out candy with abandon.
Halloween is one of the few American holidays that really attempts to twist reality a bit. It's meant to be fun and feel just a little bit dangerous. For a kid it's a bit like a scary movie coming to life. Dress up as something else and go out in the world and ask for sugar door to door. Who knows if you're going to make it back in one piece or more importantly, who knows how many boxes of raisins you're going to get stuck with. I thought my days of dressing up and asking for candy were behind me, but now there is a chance to make a comeback! As an adult if you dress up and go trick or treating it's very likely that you're going to get yourself arrested or at least not given a full share of candy because everyone knows you have the ability to just go out and buy the candy yourself. As an adult if you dress up and go trick or treating in a combined costume with your child then at the very least you'll be entitled to 25% of said candy earnings throughout the evening in question.
I think the part that will be most interesting to me is trying to see the world through the eyes of someone who doesn't have my level of experience. I don't pretend to understand all the various aspects of this world and probably know only enough to be dangerous. I'm not the smartest guy in the room, but I'm also not the dumbest. That said, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on some of the basics about what can exist and what can't. A child doesn't know that the goblin attempting to ensnare that hot girl in a bikini (what on Earth are they watching?) isn't real and is based on someone's imagination. The lines of reality and fiction are still being formed. What was a normal street in the morning is now something sinister in the evening because Halloween blurs the lines of reality ever so slightly. Someone changed the rules for one night. Never mind the fact that as parents we constantly try and warn our children about the dangers of strangers. Then on one night we say it's OK to not only interact with strangers, but to go house to house asking people we don't know for candy. It's the only holiday we celebrate where it's expected that you wander through your neighborhood relying on the good nature of your neighbors. The other major holidays are more focused on turning towards the people you already know and celebrating the season. For a child it's probably a strange paradigm that really speaks to the way we as a society has separated ourselves from each other. Or it's about the candy. Yeah it's probably about the candy.
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Thursday, August 27, 2015
On Fallen Heroes
When I was very little I loved Picture Pages. They were lots of fun with my crayons and my pencils. I also loved watching Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. I was known to eat a pudding pop or two in my time. Now that we know what we know about the man, it makes me wonder if a large portion of my childhood has been tainted. Sure his personal life never encroached on any of the things I saw while growing up, but now I know that for all of my life I was laughing and learning with a serial rapist. That kind of revelation makes one wonder if we're looking up to the wrong people. And even worse for me is that it makes me more cynical. Now when I see someone doing something wonderful or heroic there is a small scratch of a voice in the back of my mind that asks 'What horrible secret are they hiding?' It doesn't help that we can't go very long without some famous person or hero to many making it onto the news and letting us down. A man who overcame cancer and won the Tour de France several times becoming an inspiration for millions, showing that with hard work and determination you could kick cancer in the balls. Except that we find out it was hard work, determination, and literally swapping his blood out while aggressively attacking anyone who dared question if he ever cheated.
There were plenty of people who felt some strange bit of satisfaction when that story came to light. Finally that man who seemed super human in his physical ability was brought back down to our level. It seems as though there are people who secretly want heroes to fail so that they don't feel as small compared to them, but wouldn't wanting that make them both petty and small? I see the flip side though and wonder how it affects the people who look up to these heroes. Imagine having someone you look to for inspiration turn out to be something of a monster. Does that mean you weren't smart enough to see it? Were you a fool for ever having hope in someone else? Maybe it means we're looking up to the wrong people. Or maybe we're putting too much onto a single person because in the end, they are just people. It could be that the person started out wanting to do and be good, but eventually the pressure to constantly serve as a hero to the masses meant pushing to win at any cost, including ruining other people's lives. There was a specific story that had to be maintained. You know, for the greater good. And of course money.
It could be that the person in question wasn't always a terrifying monster. They began as anyone else, with a sense of right and wrong that was mostly in tact. Then as time went on they started to believe their own hype and listened to all those people saying how great they were and how there weren't limits for a person like them. The money and the fame warping all semblance of a moral compass. I mean was the Subway guy always into exploiting children or did that come because he had the money and means to do what he wanted because no one expected him to be anything other than a hero? Being given endless amount of praise for simply being you probably messes with anyone's morals because there isn't any context for what's not acceptable. Look at that small Asian nation, lead by a fat little man who is so delusional with power that he has decided to great his own time zone. That's the epitome of corrupted by power.
We have this constant need for things to be fair. It's a concept we learn at a very young age. Share your toys. Make sure everyone gets a turn. Don't take more than your fair share. When someone does something wrong there is supposed to be justice that keeps things fair. Strangely enough though we also want that same sense of fairness for people who seem to be 'better' than us or have more than us. Never mind the circumstances that got the rich or famous person to their place in the world. I want that too. How come they get to have it and I don't? Thoughts like that lead back to that secret want. That hope that one day we'll get to watch them fall. That they deserve to be knocked down because they had so much and we didn't. Is it part of our nature to feel this way? To want to make sure that everyone is humbled enough that no one feels like they're lesser than someone else?
Then again maybe we should stop treating athletes and celebrities as though they're heroes. Sure that guy is an incredible golfer, but being good at one thing shouldn't necessarily mean that we look to them as an inspiration for life. It could by why fictional heroes are so popular right now. We need someone to look up to. Someone who won't let us down because the story won't allow it. There is very little chance we're going to find out that Han Solo was actually a child molester or that Captain America was a white supremacist. How come it's not doctors or scientists or people pushing for social improvements in quality that are being hoisted up as heroes? Maybe the real heroes are the ones who are left alone to do the actual good work and not be corrupted by the very people who look up to them.
There were plenty of people who felt some strange bit of satisfaction when that story came to light. Finally that man who seemed super human in his physical ability was brought back down to our level. It seems as though there are people who secretly want heroes to fail so that they don't feel as small compared to them, but wouldn't wanting that make them both petty and small? I see the flip side though and wonder how it affects the people who look up to these heroes. Imagine having someone you look to for inspiration turn out to be something of a monster. Does that mean you weren't smart enough to see it? Were you a fool for ever having hope in someone else? Maybe it means we're looking up to the wrong people. Or maybe we're putting too much onto a single person because in the end, they are just people. It could be that the person started out wanting to do and be good, but eventually the pressure to constantly serve as a hero to the masses meant pushing to win at any cost, including ruining other people's lives. There was a specific story that had to be maintained. You know, for the greater good. And of course money.
It could be that the person in question wasn't always a terrifying monster. They began as anyone else, with a sense of right and wrong that was mostly in tact. Then as time went on they started to believe their own hype and listened to all those people saying how great they were and how there weren't limits for a person like them. The money and the fame warping all semblance of a moral compass. I mean was the Subway guy always into exploiting children or did that come because he had the money and means to do what he wanted because no one expected him to be anything other than a hero? Being given endless amount of praise for simply being you probably messes with anyone's morals because there isn't any context for what's not acceptable. Look at that small Asian nation, lead by a fat little man who is so delusional with power that he has decided to great his own time zone. That's the epitome of corrupted by power.
We have this constant need for things to be fair. It's a concept we learn at a very young age. Share your toys. Make sure everyone gets a turn. Don't take more than your fair share. When someone does something wrong there is supposed to be justice that keeps things fair. Strangely enough though we also want that same sense of fairness for people who seem to be 'better' than us or have more than us. Never mind the circumstances that got the rich or famous person to their place in the world. I want that too. How come they get to have it and I don't? Thoughts like that lead back to that secret want. That hope that one day we'll get to watch them fall. That they deserve to be knocked down because they had so much and we didn't. Is it part of our nature to feel this way? To want to make sure that everyone is humbled enough that no one feels like they're lesser than someone else?
Then again maybe we should stop treating athletes and celebrities as though they're heroes. Sure that guy is an incredible golfer, but being good at one thing shouldn't necessarily mean that we look to them as an inspiration for life. It could by why fictional heroes are so popular right now. We need someone to look up to. Someone who won't let us down because the story won't allow it. There is very little chance we're going to find out that Han Solo was actually a child molester or that Captain America was a white supremacist. How come it's not doctors or scientists or people pushing for social improvements in quality that are being hoisted up as heroes? Maybe the real heroes are the ones who are left alone to do the actual good work and not be corrupted by the very people who look up to them.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
On Superman
The thing I find most interesting about Superman isn't so much his fantastic powers, but more what he chooses to do with them. I suppose it's fairly common to fantasize about what you would do if you could have super powers. Now there are probably people out there who would immediately try to find a way to make these powers benefit themselves, because what's the point of being super if there isn't some kind of payoff? So maybe using these powers to get a lot of money or a lot of sex or even more power aren't out of the realm of possibility as far as top on the lists for most people. On the other hand there would be people like Superman, who would see these powers as a sort of responsibility to do more than just fly around and be rich. Everyone knows what Superman is all about. He's there to save the day when the day needs saving. Helicopter about to fall onto that field trip of little kids with puppies from the shelter. Superman will swoop in and protect them. Bank robbery where the goons have robotic weapons attached to their bodies and are about to take hostages. Superman will put a stop to it and make it look easy doing so. It's a comic book world so the stories have to be fantastical to keep our attention. Here's a question though. Is what Superman does every day really a good thing?
Sure saving those kids from becoming street pizza is hard to argue against. And bank robbers should probably be stopped, even if there is FDIC. Still what if the person he saved today was someone that wasn't supposed to be saved? Without getting too far along into the Final Destination scenarios, what if that person was supposed to die? Their time was up and while it would have been sad for those who knew them, it was part of the natural order of things. Instead you have this alien wearing a cape with a God complex coming into the situation like a red and blue monkey wrench and changing everything. Sure you could argue that if they were meant to die then they would have. Still someone or better yet, something, like Superman changes the rules for everyone and everything around him. He's an anomaly. On his own planet he's just like us. Fragile and susceptible to the world around him. On our planet thought he's a super man. He can barely be hurt. He defies the laws of physics. And if you believe some of the stories, he may in fact be immortal. A being like that stepping in to save someone from a runaway train is like us diverting the course of a river to save a few insects from getting washed away. A chain of events were set in motion and possibly had a purpose and was then interrupted by a huge X factor.
The other problem with Superman stepping in to save someone from a fatal situations is that once he's done it enough times people will start to expect it. At first people will continue to take every precaution that they normally would. Wearing a seat belt. Putting on a helmet. Not juggling that running chainsaw while riding a unicycle blind folded in busy traffic. When Superman comes along to save them from an accident it will be kismet. He was supposed to be there to save them from harm. Eventually though the expectation that Superman will be there to protect them will override other safety precautions. The construction worker doesn't bother to tie himself to the support beam because if he falls Superman will swoop in and save him from falling to his death. At this point Superman becomes like a parent who is there to catch their child before they fall. In this way people will never know any sense of danger. Sure they may be scared at the time, but in the back of their mind would they just assume that Superman is coming at any minute?
No matter how fast or strong or well-intentioned Superman is, he's still just one man. He can't be everywhere at every time. Even if he were running at 99% efficiency when it comes to saving people there would still be people falling (literally) through the cracks. So how would someone like that have time to have a relationship with someone or hold a day job as a journalist? I don't know much about journalism, but I do know that when they write things, they tend to have to do some kind of research beforehand. That takes time. Superman is going to allow that burning building to continue destroying lives while he gets the quote from the mayor about the upcoming budget talks? How would he even be able to take off the costume if there is something happening every minute of the day? Maybe he just focuses on Metropolis and only gets involved in the really big events that are worldwide? The guy can fly around the globe in minutes so for him knowing something terrible is happening across the country or the world would be like looking across the street and seeing your neighbors house on fire and thinking it's too far away for you to do anything about. Everyone he doesn't save would either be a conscious choice or a failing on his part. It could be he'd have to start doing triage in his head. If I save this commuter train from derailing then I save 250 people, but if I save them then the 45 miners caught in a cave in will die. Does it become a numbers game for him? And would he start having to make judgement calls on who he saves and why? Would it be women and children first and maybe people who are known to be assets to the human race? At this point isn't he essentially playing God?
At this point wouldn't he have so disrupted the natural order of things that everything would be contingent on where he was and what he was doing at any given moment? The things he would be changing are based entirely on what he chooses. Would mankind still be in charge of their own destiny with someone like him around? Granted Lex Luthor is a megalomaniac, but his point about Superman isn't wrong. Having a god-like alien around stops us from achieving our own fate, for good or bad. We are often defined by our failures, sometimes more than by our successes. Only after we've seen the error of our ways or have lost something do we really understand our potential to overcome. Constantly being protected is comforting like a security blanket, but in the end it starts to do more harm than good. I'm not saying that I wouldn't love to have a real life Superman around, if only for the sake of knowing that someone like that could exist, no I'm saying that we should be our own superman and work on being more than we currently are. Capes are optional.
Sure saving those kids from becoming street pizza is hard to argue against. And bank robbers should probably be stopped, even if there is FDIC. Still what if the person he saved today was someone that wasn't supposed to be saved? Without getting too far along into the Final Destination scenarios, what if that person was supposed to die? Their time was up and while it would have been sad for those who knew them, it was part of the natural order of things. Instead you have this alien wearing a cape with a God complex coming into the situation like a red and blue monkey wrench and changing everything. Sure you could argue that if they were meant to die then they would have. Still someone or better yet, something, like Superman changes the rules for everyone and everything around him. He's an anomaly. On his own planet he's just like us. Fragile and susceptible to the world around him. On our planet thought he's a super man. He can barely be hurt. He defies the laws of physics. And if you believe some of the stories, he may in fact be immortal. A being like that stepping in to save someone from a runaway train is like us diverting the course of a river to save a few insects from getting washed away. A chain of events were set in motion and possibly had a purpose and was then interrupted by a huge X factor.
The other problem with Superman stepping in to save someone from a fatal situations is that once he's done it enough times people will start to expect it. At first people will continue to take every precaution that they normally would. Wearing a seat belt. Putting on a helmet. Not juggling that running chainsaw while riding a unicycle blind folded in busy traffic. When Superman comes along to save them from an accident it will be kismet. He was supposed to be there to save them from harm. Eventually though the expectation that Superman will be there to protect them will override other safety precautions. The construction worker doesn't bother to tie himself to the support beam because if he falls Superman will swoop in and save him from falling to his death. At this point Superman becomes like a parent who is there to catch their child before they fall. In this way people will never know any sense of danger. Sure they may be scared at the time, but in the back of their mind would they just assume that Superman is coming at any minute?
No matter how fast or strong or well-intentioned Superman is, he's still just one man. He can't be everywhere at every time. Even if he were running at 99% efficiency when it comes to saving people there would still be people falling (literally) through the cracks. So how would someone like that have time to have a relationship with someone or hold a day job as a journalist? I don't know much about journalism, but I do know that when they write things, they tend to have to do some kind of research beforehand. That takes time. Superman is going to allow that burning building to continue destroying lives while he gets the quote from the mayor about the upcoming budget talks? How would he even be able to take off the costume if there is something happening every minute of the day? Maybe he just focuses on Metropolis and only gets involved in the really big events that are worldwide? The guy can fly around the globe in minutes so for him knowing something terrible is happening across the country or the world would be like looking across the street and seeing your neighbors house on fire and thinking it's too far away for you to do anything about. Everyone he doesn't save would either be a conscious choice or a failing on his part. It could be he'd have to start doing triage in his head. If I save this commuter train from derailing then I save 250 people, but if I save them then the 45 miners caught in a cave in will die. Does it become a numbers game for him? And would he start having to make judgement calls on who he saves and why? Would it be women and children first and maybe people who are known to be assets to the human race? At this point isn't he essentially playing God?
At this point wouldn't he have so disrupted the natural order of things that everything would be contingent on where he was and what he was doing at any given moment? The things he would be changing are based entirely on what he chooses. Would mankind still be in charge of their own destiny with someone like him around? Granted Lex Luthor is a megalomaniac, but his point about Superman isn't wrong. Having a god-like alien around stops us from achieving our own fate, for good or bad. We are often defined by our failures, sometimes more than by our successes. Only after we've seen the error of our ways or have lost something do we really understand our potential to overcome. Constantly being protected is comforting like a security blanket, but in the end it starts to do more harm than good. I'm not saying that I wouldn't love to have a real life Superman around, if only for the sake of knowing that someone like that could exist, no I'm saying that we should be our own superman and work on being more than we currently are. Capes are optional.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
On Pirates
Ok let's start with the most obvious thing first. Pirates of the Caribbean was not a documentary. Most of the "pirates" in that movie were pirates in name alone. In most cases the worst thing they did was steal something that was already stolen by someone else or make a mean face towards the hero. It was sort of like watching a movie about cannibals who never actually eat a person. Don't get me wrong, the movies and more importantly, the rides at Disney are a lot of fun. Still celebrating pirates is a lot like building a ride around a group of terrorists and killers, which is what they were. Disney could probably make anything fun looking though. I'm still waiting for them to make a love story about two adorable scorpions.
We'll back it up a bit. Piracy is a pretty simple concept, which is basically robbery and/or violence at sea by a private party not affiliated with any government. Notice the last part about the government. If you acted on your own then you were a pirate. If the government sponsored your violence then you were just a privateer. Granted this was normally allowed during wartime because some nations didn't have a navy, including our own fledgling nation at one point. In a lot of cases sailors became pirates out of necessity and not out of some strange love for adventure. It's very similar to modern times where if your choice is to work forty hours for minimum wage or join a crew of people who can make ten times that in a fraction of the time, one might consider taking the more direct route to earning money.
It's pretty much assumed that for as long as there have been boats in the water there have been pirates of some sort. I'm sure that shortly after the invention of the wheel someone got the brainwave to use it to aid them in stealing from someone else. Admiring pirates also isn't a new thing, although it's recently become more popular thanks to both the movies and internet. During his time, Bartholomew Roberts was considered a hero by some and when he died it signified the end of the Golden Age of Piracy. While he was one of the most successful pirates of that era, he was still considered an outlaw by various governments. Roberts primary focus was capturing ships and disrupting sea trade, which was a big deal back then. It would be kind of like highwaymen hijacking shipping trucks along the freeways. Essentially it would grind commerce to a halt. You mess with people's money and they get really mean really fast. That dashing buccaneer doesn't look so great once you realize that he's just stolen the shipment of supplies that were meant for you and your colony. People find comfort in the laws of a civilized society and when they're tossed out the window the results can be explosive.
Strangely enough though many pirate vessels of that time adopted a democratic form of rule on board. The captain and quartermaster were elected by the crew, and the crew were appointed by ship's officers. This created a set of checks and balances very similar to our own government. Based on rank each member of the crew would receive a share of the captured bounty. This is also how modern fishing boats tend to divide up the profit from a haul. The whole idea makes me wonder if maybe it's not a bad form of dispensing compensation. We like to think that pirates stole treasure and buried it on some hidden island, but more often than not that treasure was just food, alcohol, weapons, or clothing. Sure they stole money when they could, but not all the ships in the ocean had a treasure chest of jewels in their hold. So pirates took what they needed, which could also include the ship that they just attacked, simply because it was better than what they were currently using. For a bunch of guys who were operating outside the law, they tended to create order of their own.
There is also this idea that pirates were bloodthirsty. Some of the raiders were probably more murderous than others and nearly all pirates were dangerous, with the exception of those from Penzance. Even still pirates tended to kill few people aboard the ships they captured. If the crew surrendered there was a good chance no one would be killed, at least not during the taking of the ship. Again this wasn't because of some sense of honor, but more about practicality. If it became known that pirates took no prisoners, then those being attacked would fight to the last man because they knew if they didn't, they would be murdered anyway. The whole thing would make victory very difficult and possibly not worth the cost in lives. The same tends to hold true today, where less than 10% of pirate attacks result in murder. Not being killed by pirates doesn't make the whole experience any less dangerous, just like being present during a robbery today could go either way based on the situation. Most pirates were and are more concerned with making a profit from the attack. If they kidnap the crew for ransom and kill them regardless of payment, then no one will pay, instead they'll just hunt them down with the intent to kill.
We like to think of pirates as these adventurous and clever rogues who make their own destinies. While there may be some out there that fit that description, a pirate vessel is more likely filled with a bunch of people who have come to the conclusion that it's more beneficial to steal from others than try to find so-called legitimate work on the rivers and oceans. Just like bank robbers and car thieves it may seem somewhat glamorous to live like Robin Hood. The reality is that it only seems cool until you notice the fact that their chosen profession is actually more work and more dangerous than that 9-5 job you've got, where you're safe in your cubicle. Plus there probably haven't been as many reported cases of scurvy. I'm not saying pirates are lame. They're mostly overrated, as many things tend to be when they become really popular.
We'll back it up a bit. Piracy is a pretty simple concept, which is basically robbery and/or violence at sea by a private party not affiliated with any government. Notice the last part about the government. If you acted on your own then you were a pirate. If the government sponsored your violence then you were just a privateer. Granted this was normally allowed during wartime because some nations didn't have a navy, including our own fledgling nation at one point. In a lot of cases sailors became pirates out of necessity and not out of some strange love for adventure. It's very similar to modern times where if your choice is to work forty hours for minimum wage or join a crew of people who can make ten times that in a fraction of the time, one might consider taking the more direct route to earning money.
It's pretty much assumed that for as long as there have been boats in the water there have been pirates of some sort. I'm sure that shortly after the invention of the wheel someone got the brainwave to use it to aid them in stealing from someone else. Admiring pirates also isn't a new thing, although it's recently become more popular thanks to both the movies and internet. During his time, Bartholomew Roberts was considered a hero by some and when he died it signified the end of the Golden Age of Piracy. While he was one of the most successful pirates of that era, he was still considered an outlaw by various governments. Roberts primary focus was capturing ships and disrupting sea trade, which was a big deal back then. It would be kind of like highwaymen hijacking shipping trucks along the freeways. Essentially it would grind commerce to a halt. You mess with people's money and they get really mean really fast. That dashing buccaneer doesn't look so great once you realize that he's just stolen the shipment of supplies that were meant for you and your colony. People find comfort in the laws of a civilized society and when they're tossed out the window the results can be explosive.
Strangely enough though many pirate vessels of that time adopted a democratic form of rule on board. The captain and quartermaster were elected by the crew, and the crew were appointed by ship's officers. This created a set of checks and balances very similar to our own government. Based on rank each member of the crew would receive a share of the captured bounty. This is also how modern fishing boats tend to divide up the profit from a haul. The whole idea makes me wonder if maybe it's not a bad form of dispensing compensation. We like to think that pirates stole treasure and buried it on some hidden island, but more often than not that treasure was just food, alcohol, weapons, or clothing. Sure they stole money when they could, but not all the ships in the ocean had a treasure chest of jewels in their hold. So pirates took what they needed, which could also include the ship that they just attacked, simply because it was better than what they were currently using. For a bunch of guys who were operating outside the law, they tended to create order of their own.
There is also this idea that pirates were bloodthirsty. Some of the raiders were probably more murderous than others and nearly all pirates were dangerous, with the exception of those from Penzance. Even still pirates tended to kill few people aboard the ships they captured. If the crew surrendered there was a good chance no one would be killed, at least not during the taking of the ship. Again this wasn't because of some sense of honor, but more about practicality. If it became known that pirates took no prisoners, then those being attacked would fight to the last man because they knew if they didn't, they would be murdered anyway. The whole thing would make victory very difficult and possibly not worth the cost in lives. The same tends to hold true today, where less than 10% of pirate attacks result in murder. Not being killed by pirates doesn't make the whole experience any less dangerous, just like being present during a robbery today could go either way based on the situation. Most pirates were and are more concerned with making a profit from the attack. If they kidnap the crew for ransom and kill them regardless of payment, then no one will pay, instead they'll just hunt them down with the intent to kill.
We like to think of pirates as these adventurous and clever rogues who make their own destinies. While there may be some out there that fit that description, a pirate vessel is more likely filled with a bunch of people who have come to the conclusion that it's more beneficial to steal from others than try to find so-called legitimate work on the rivers and oceans. Just like bank robbers and car thieves it may seem somewhat glamorous to live like Robin Hood. The reality is that it only seems cool until you notice the fact that their chosen profession is actually more work and more dangerous than that 9-5 job you've got, where you're safe in your cubicle. Plus there probably haven't been as many reported cases of scurvy. I'm not saying pirates are lame. They're mostly overrated, as many things tend to be when they become really popular.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
On Villains
Villains are a tricky lot. A lot of times in writing the villain is around to just serve as an obstacle that the protagonist is meant to overcome. They are put in place to create conflict for dramatic tension. The story may have less of an impact if there wasn't someone working against the hero. In our every day lives we tend to not have villains. Sure it may feel like there are people who are actively working against us, but more often than not, it's just someone going about their life and their method happens to conflict with ours. So the conflict in our life comes from other sources, usually in the form of situations that are possibly beyond our control. While stories about those types of situations are compelling, adding a antagonistic human element to the mix can make things even more interesting. I've talked about how perception shapes what is constituted as evil. For the most part we believe what we're doing is right and if not right, at least acceptable to us for whatever reasons we come up with. We could easily become the villain in someone's story and not even know it.
Sherlock Holmes was written as a brilliant, but flawed detective that always figured out what or who was behind the mystery at hand. This type of character is very interesting to read at first, but like with many characters they begin to take on an almost superhuman ability to overcome everything put in front of them. If the hero always wins then it's hard to create tension because the audience knows the hero will win somehow. The same thing has been a problem for Superman in the comics. His abilities have made him god-like and if he can do anything then how do you create a situation that would seem even remotely threatening? With Sherlock Holmes it was decided to end his adventures by going up against essentially an evil version of himself. Professor Moriarty appears in The Final Problem and is revealed to be the mastermind behind several of the cases that Holmes had taken on. Up until that point each of the mysteries could be taken as independent of each other and having no real connection. With the creation of Moriarty it was shown that many of the problems Holmes solved were originally part of a larger issue constructed by Moriarty. Many people now consider Professor Moriarty to be the archenemy of Sherlock Holmes, even though he only appears in two stories and is briefly mentioned in a few others.
That leads to some of the problems that come with villains. The first is too much exposure. In the story Red Dragon there is a brief appearance by a character named Hannibal Lecter. He wasn't the focus of the story and was really used as a way to help the main character track down the real villain, The Tooth Fairy. Hannibal has always seemed to be just another spin on the Moriarty-type villain. Brilliant, but twisted in a way that makes them fascinating. Because Hannibal worked so well in the first novel, he was used in very much the same in the second one, which most people know, Silence of the Lambs. His role is almost exactly the same as it was in Red Dragon, except it's expanded a bit. Then it was taken too far. Harris wrote a third novel which focused entirely on Hannibal and sucked away all the mystery surrounding the character. In order to cash in before it was too late, even a prequel was made to further explain what made Hannibal into the man we knew him to be. It's a fine line with villains. You want them to be more than a one note act, but you can't go too far in the other direction and explain too much because the villain can lose his impact.
As I mentioned, we often don't have full on villains in our lives. Instead we just have people doing their thing. Now in war we have an enemy. We may know who our enemy is, but we may not really know who our enemy is. In World War II America knew that Germany was causing serious problems in Europe, but that was Europe's problem. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor the war came home. Japan, and Germany because they were allies, became our enemy. I'm guessing most soldiers didn't know a lot about the Japanese or German people and probably didn't want to know about them. There were no longer people. They were the enemy. The enemy becomes this almost faceless idea that must be fought against, not related to. It's only when soldiers on both sides came face to face with each other did they realize that the enemy is just another person. Knowing that may not change the outcome or desire to win, but it stops being an abstract at that point. With a villain the same thing is true. They start off as this idea. They are the negative counterpoint in the conflict, but only because we've been introduced to the hero as the hero. In theory the story could be told from a different vantage point in such a way that the hero is the antagonist. It's not easy to do because villains tend to do villainous things that many people couldn't relate to. Superman stands for truth, justice, and the American way (whatever that is). Lex Luthor stands pretty much for himself. His belief is that mankind will never achieve greatness with someone like Superman standing watch. Maybe he's right, but the part that he's not telling most people is that he himself wants to be the one that leads mankind into greatness.
There have been books and movies that follow something of an anti-hero through an adventure. This could be a reluctant hero or even a straight up villain himself. The tendency is to set them up against something worse. Riddick goes up against space monsters. Danny Ocean steals from the ruthless Benedict. So we end up rooting for them because given the situation, they are the hero and what they're up against is the villain. In most other circumstances you wouldn't want to run up against those types of "heroes". Predator hunts humans and takes their skulls as trophies. It seems a bit cruel because humans are clearly outmatched in nearly every way. Predators are larger, faster, stronger, and more technologically advanced than humans and it almost seems unsporting for them to be hunting people. If deer could make movies then humans would be the horrifying creature that not only kills, but skins its victims and mounts pieces of them as trophies.
Speaking of which, monsters are easy villains because you don't have to explain their motivations. The reason they do what they do is hidden behind the fact that they're monstrous. As I've mentioned, not all monsters need to be literal monsters. More often than not the monster is just a person. In the movie Se7en Somerset warned Mills that labeling John Doe as crazy was comfortable. John Doe was twisted, but he believed what he was doing was righteous. In his mind the victims were the villains of society and needed to be punished as a warning to everyone else like them. In the end though that's all the explanation we need from him. Anything more would have watered down the character. We understood that he is just a person who has taken extreme measures to create a world that he believes is correct. In the grand scheme of things his crimes were an isolated event that impacted only those in his immediate area.
That leads to the other problem with villains. In addition to being overexposed, they can often be given far too much credit. Moriarty is a prime example. He went from being a brilliant criminal mastermind to someone that was involved in nearly everything Holmes went up against. Villains suffer from the same problem that heroes do. While Superman has an array of powers that make it difficult to create situations where anyone can truly be worried about the outcome, villains too have to constantly increase their threat level to make sure they're still relevant. In the early Spider-Man comics there was a somewhat goofy character named the Green Goblin. At first he was just another throw away bad guy meant to be flashy and colorful. Then he started to be a mastermind leading several criminal gangs and became more of a threat. It was revealed that the Green Goblin was actually the father to Peter Parker's best friend Harry. This really created conflict because even if the hero won, he would still lose. Eventually the Green Goblin kidnapped and killed Peter's girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. This lead to a final fight between Spider-Man and Green Goblin that resulted in the Goblin being impaled by his own glider. That should have been it. A great villain had a lasting impact on Spider-Man from that point on. Twenty years later the Green Goblin not only returns from the dead, but reveals that he has been responsible for manipulating things from behind the scenes. The Green Goblin, and more directly, Norman Osborn became an arch-nemesis to Spider-Man in a way that no other character had done before. It wasn't enough to simply have him be an especially smart and threatening villain, it was decided that he would be responsible for so many of the problems plaguing Spider-Man. Sounds a bit like the Moriarty-Effect at work here.
Villains can be very interesting because they not only represent conflict personified, but can show the flip side of humanity. An effective villain doesn't have to be one that we identify with or even fully understand. They only need to have fully realized motivations for what they do in order to make them believable. By doing that the villain becomes a very real threat.
Sherlock Holmes was written as a brilliant, but flawed detective that always figured out what or who was behind the mystery at hand. This type of character is very interesting to read at first, but like with many characters they begin to take on an almost superhuman ability to overcome everything put in front of them. If the hero always wins then it's hard to create tension because the audience knows the hero will win somehow. The same thing has been a problem for Superman in the comics. His abilities have made him god-like and if he can do anything then how do you create a situation that would seem even remotely threatening? With Sherlock Holmes it was decided to end his adventures by going up against essentially an evil version of himself. Professor Moriarty appears in The Final Problem and is revealed to be the mastermind behind several of the cases that Holmes had taken on. Up until that point each of the mysteries could be taken as independent of each other and having no real connection. With the creation of Moriarty it was shown that many of the problems Holmes solved were originally part of a larger issue constructed by Moriarty. Many people now consider Professor Moriarty to be the archenemy of Sherlock Holmes, even though he only appears in two stories and is briefly mentioned in a few others.
That leads to some of the problems that come with villains. The first is too much exposure. In the story Red Dragon there is a brief appearance by a character named Hannibal Lecter. He wasn't the focus of the story and was really used as a way to help the main character track down the real villain, The Tooth Fairy. Hannibal has always seemed to be just another spin on the Moriarty-type villain. Brilliant, but twisted in a way that makes them fascinating. Because Hannibal worked so well in the first novel, he was used in very much the same in the second one, which most people know, Silence of the Lambs. His role is almost exactly the same as it was in Red Dragon, except it's expanded a bit. Then it was taken too far. Harris wrote a third novel which focused entirely on Hannibal and sucked away all the mystery surrounding the character. In order to cash in before it was too late, even a prequel was made to further explain what made Hannibal into the man we knew him to be. It's a fine line with villains. You want them to be more than a one note act, but you can't go too far in the other direction and explain too much because the villain can lose his impact.
As I mentioned, we often don't have full on villains in our lives. Instead we just have people doing their thing. Now in war we have an enemy. We may know who our enemy is, but we may not really know who our enemy is. In World War II America knew that Germany was causing serious problems in Europe, but that was Europe's problem. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor the war came home. Japan, and Germany because they were allies, became our enemy. I'm guessing most soldiers didn't know a lot about the Japanese or German people and probably didn't want to know about them. There were no longer people. They were the enemy. The enemy becomes this almost faceless idea that must be fought against, not related to. It's only when soldiers on both sides came face to face with each other did they realize that the enemy is just another person. Knowing that may not change the outcome or desire to win, but it stops being an abstract at that point. With a villain the same thing is true. They start off as this idea. They are the negative counterpoint in the conflict, but only because we've been introduced to the hero as the hero. In theory the story could be told from a different vantage point in such a way that the hero is the antagonist. It's not easy to do because villains tend to do villainous things that many people couldn't relate to. Superman stands for truth, justice, and the American way (whatever that is). Lex Luthor stands pretty much for himself. His belief is that mankind will never achieve greatness with someone like Superman standing watch. Maybe he's right, but the part that he's not telling most people is that he himself wants to be the one that leads mankind into greatness.
There have been books and movies that follow something of an anti-hero through an adventure. This could be a reluctant hero or even a straight up villain himself. The tendency is to set them up against something worse. Riddick goes up against space monsters. Danny Ocean steals from the ruthless Benedict. So we end up rooting for them because given the situation, they are the hero and what they're up against is the villain. In most other circumstances you wouldn't want to run up against those types of "heroes". Predator hunts humans and takes their skulls as trophies. It seems a bit cruel because humans are clearly outmatched in nearly every way. Predators are larger, faster, stronger, and more technologically advanced than humans and it almost seems unsporting for them to be hunting people. If deer could make movies then humans would be the horrifying creature that not only kills, but skins its victims and mounts pieces of them as trophies.
Speaking of which, monsters are easy villains because you don't have to explain their motivations. The reason they do what they do is hidden behind the fact that they're monstrous. As I've mentioned, not all monsters need to be literal monsters. More often than not the monster is just a person. In the movie Se7en Somerset warned Mills that labeling John Doe as crazy was comfortable. John Doe was twisted, but he believed what he was doing was righteous. In his mind the victims were the villains of society and needed to be punished as a warning to everyone else like them. In the end though that's all the explanation we need from him. Anything more would have watered down the character. We understood that he is just a person who has taken extreme measures to create a world that he believes is correct. In the grand scheme of things his crimes were an isolated event that impacted only those in his immediate area.
That leads to the other problem with villains. In addition to being overexposed, they can often be given far too much credit. Moriarty is a prime example. He went from being a brilliant criminal mastermind to someone that was involved in nearly everything Holmes went up against. Villains suffer from the same problem that heroes do. While Superman has an array of powers that make it difficult to create situations where anyone can truly be worried about the outcome, villains too have to constantly increase their threat level to make sure they're still relevant. In the early Spider-Man comics there was a somewhat goofy character named the Green Goblin. At first he was just another throw away bad guy meant to be flashy and colorful. Then he started to be a mastermind leading several criminal gangs and became more of a threat. It was revealed that the Green Goblin was actually the father to Peter Parker's best friend Harry. This really created conflict because even if the hero won, he would still lose. Eventually the Green Goblin kidnapped and killed Peter's girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. This lead to a final fight between Spider-Man and Green Goblin that resulted in the Goblin being impaled by his own glider. That should have been it. A great villain had a lasting impact on Spider-Man from that point on. Twenty years later the Green Goblin not only returns from the dead, but reveals that he has been responsible for manipulating things from behind the scenes. The Green Goblin, and more directly, Norman Osborn became an arch-nemesis to Spider-Man in a way that no other character had done before. It wasn't enough to simply have him be an especially smart and threatening villain, it was decided that he would be responsible for so many of the problems plaguing Spider-Man. Sounds a bit like the Moriarty-Effect at work here.
Villains can be very interesting because they not only represent conflict personified, but can show the flip side of humanity. An effective villain doesn't have to be one that we identify with or even fully understand. They only need to have fully realized motivations for what they do in order to make them believable. By doing that the villain becomes a very real threat.
Monday, October 18, 2010
On Ancient Evil
I really enjoy the concept of the supernatural. The idea that there are things out there that are just beyond our comprehension is somewhat appealing to me. In a way it gives me a bit of comfort to know that there is more to life than just what we're presented. Maybe those in charge don't have all the answers. Maybe science, which is quickly becoming the new religion, can't explain everything out there. There is mystery left in the universe and maybe there always will be. There is a flip side to that comfort though. In the vast ocean of space and time there must be things out there in the darkness that we would consider to be evil. In thirteen billion years there must have been things that have come before us. Things that we couldn't comprehend. The motivations of these things would seem evil to us. However, if you think about it, our actions would seem evil to an ant when we destroy their homes and lives for our own benefit or just because we can.
Before we get into that there is question regarding people. There are really two schools of thought on the nature of humanity. The first is that people are basically good, who want to do good, but occasionally do bad things. The other is that people are essentially bad, who do whatever benefits them most or what they feel they can get away with without consequence, but occasionally do good things. Maybe it's possible that everyone is one or the other, but there is most likely an overlap between the two. There is an ever-present argument about nature vs nurture. Some believe that people are simply products of their environments. Others feels that most behavior is innate and that we're born with certain predilections for evil. Of course with anything there are exceptions that prove the rule and exceptions to every exception. Not everyone who experiences sexual abuse perpetuates the cycle of violence so it's not always easy to identify where the root of evil comes from. I do believe that give a person enough horrific experiences they're going to adapt to those situations to a point where that's all they know. Their response to those experiences can be equally horrifying, but for that person it's all they can think to do in order to survive. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Then maybe evil is also.
The idea of evil can be somewhat subjective even though people often have a pretty black and white notion of how things are supposed to be classified. Killing a baby; probably evil. Torturing a puppy; most likely done with evil intent. Genocide; unquestionably evil? Taken out of context just about anything can be misconstrued. The people performing genocide may not think what they're doing is evil. In their mind they may believe they're purifying the world. Several religious groups have attempted it and at the time they were doing what they thought was right, even if their methods were brutal. The Serbians and Albanians have been in a centuries old conflict with each other. I'm guessing both sides see the other as the evil one. Both sides have done horrific things to each other, some as revenge for past aggressions. If given the opportunity to permanently remove the other side, it's very likely they would take it, regardless of the cost. In that situation is any one side in the right or is the whole thing just blanketed in evil? If someone killed a family member of yours would it be considered evil to burn down their house in retaliation? What if you found out that your family member had stolen from them in the first place? There is a saying that violence begets violence and in that evil must predicate more evil.
If you're like me, then you like to eat meat. I eat meat because it's delicious and more or less good for you. We were given canine teeth for a reason and it wasn't for just tearing into a piece of broccoli. When I eat a steak I don't feel that I'm doing anything wrong. For me it's a necessary part of my diet so that I can survive. Could I get mostly the same nutrients from somewhere else? Maybe, but I don't want to. A strict Hindu may see my actions as evil because I'm consuming a sacred animal for my own benefit. Even a vegan could look at my diet and say that I'm evil for putting my life above another living creature when we both deserve to live on this planet without harm. Now while I don't agree with either assessment of my choice of food, I do understand how it could appear to someone else. It goes back to the point that evil may be tied directly to perception and might not be an absolute. Is evil simply a concept used to classify actions based on how we specifically feel about them?
Going back to the beginning though, one has to wonder about the things that are out in the world, things that we don't fully understand, which could be seen as being evil. Many religions have some figurative concept of evil such as the Devil, which could be just a representation of human sin or opposition to God. In many cases there is this idea that there is malevolent being working to spread evil for the sake of evil. Maybe both theories are partially correct. As I mentioned, evil may only be question of perception of the act. If you were brought into a world that only knew evil then would it be possible for you to see something that is good as being the opposite of your sense of right and wrong?
There are plenty of entertaining stories out there about people fighting evil. It's pretty common in movies, television shows, and books for characters to face off against some great evil. The demon hunters have been fighting monsters for four seasons, eventually the battle has been ratcheted up to a point where fighting a rogue yeti just isn't going to hold the audience's attention any longer. So they're put up against something larger, such as Lucifer himself. Of course the stars of the show are going to somehow win. It doesn't matter that Satan has been around since before creation, these two plucky anti-heroes will manage to beat him back to hell. Since it's a piece of fiction we accept it, depending on how well it's written. If you think about it though it borders on the unbelievable though. Something that was ancient before the Earth was even formed would have millenniums of experience that we couldn't even grasp. How is someone with roughly twenty five years of life going to sort out how to outfox something like that?
If there are things like that in the world then they've probably been here long before we arrived and will be here well after we've shut off the lights. There is some good news though. If evil exists then good also exists out there. Both could just be ideas we use to describe its impact on the world around it. Or they could exist as something more and something we will always wonder about. That can't be a bad thing.
Before we get into that there is question regarding people. There are really two schools of thought on the nature of humanity. The first is that people are basically good, who want to do good, but occasionally do bad things. The other is that people are essentially bad, who do whatever benefits them most or what they feel they can get away with without consequence, but occasionally do good things. Maybe it's possible that everyone is one or the other, but there is most likely an overlap between the two. There is an ever-present argument about nature vs nurture. Some believe that people are simply products of their environments. Others feels that most behavior is innate and that we're born with certain predilections for evil. Of course with anything there are exceptions that prove the rule and exceptions to every exception. Not everyone who experiences sexual abuse perpetuates the cycle of violence so it's not always easy to identify where the root of evil comes from. I do believe that give a person enough horrific experiences they're going to adapt to those situations to a point where that's all they know. Their response to those experiences can be equally horrifying, but for that person it's all they can think to do in order to survive. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Then maybe evil is also.
The idea of evil can be somewhat subjective even though people often have a pretty black and white notion of how things are supposed to be classified. Killing a baby; probably evil. Torturing a puppy; most likely done with evil intent. Genocide; unquestionably evil? Taken out of context just about anything can be misconstrued. The people performing genocide may not think what they're doing is evil. In their mind they may believe they're purifying the world. Several religious groups have attempted it and at the time they were doing what they thought was right, even if their methods were brutal. The Serbians and Albanians have been in a centuries old conflict with each other. I'm guessing both sides see the other as the evil one. Both sides have done horrific things to each other, some as revenge for past aggressions. If given the opportunity to permanently remove the other side, it's very likely they would take it, regardless of the cost. In that situation is any one side in the right or is the whole thing just blanketed in evil? If someone killed a family member of yours would it be considered evil to burn down their house in retaliation? What if you found out that your family member had stolen from them in the first place? There is a saying that violence begets violence and in that evil must predicate more evil.
If you're like me, then you like to eat meat. I eat meat because it's delicious and more or less good for you. We were given canine teeth for a reason and it wasn't for just tearing into a piece of broccoli. When I eat a steak I don't feel that I'm doing anything wrong. For me it's a necessary part of my diet so that I can survive. Could I get mostly the same nutrients from somewhere else? Maybe, but I don't want to. A strict Hindu may see my actions as evil because I'm consuming a sacred animal for my own benefit. Even a vegan could look at my diet and say that I'm evil for putting my life above another living creature when we both deserve to live on this planet without harm. Now while I don't agree with either assessment of my choice of food, I do understand how it could appear to someone else. It goes back to the point that evil may be tied directly to perception and might not be an absolute. Is evil simply a concept used to classify actions based on how we specifically feel about them?
Going back to the beginning though, one has to wonder about the things that are out in the world, things that we don't fully understand, which could be seen as being evil. Many religions have some figurative concept of evil such as the Devil, which could be just a representation of human sin or opposition to God. In many cases there is this idea that there is malevolent being working to spread evil for the sake of evil. Maybe both theories are partially correct. As I mentioned, evil may only be question of perception of the act. If you were brought into a world that only knew evil then would it be possible for you to see something that is good as being the opposite of your sense of right and wrong?
There are plenty of entertaining stories out there about people fighting evil. It's pretty common in movies, television shows, and books for characters to face off against some great evil. The demon hunters have been fighting monsters for four seasons, eventually the battle has been ratcheted up to a point where fighting a rogue yeti just isn't going to hold the audience's attention any longer. So they're put up against something larger, such as Lucifer himself. Of course the stars of the show are going to somehow win. It doesn't matter that Satan has been around since before creation, these two plucky anti-heroes will manage to beat him back to hell. Since it's a piece of fiction we accept it, depending on how well it's written. If you think about it though it borders on the unbelievable though. Something that was ancient before the Earth was even formed would have millenniums of experience that we couldn't even grasp. How is someone with roughly twenty five years of life going to sort out how to outfox something like that?
If there are things like that in the world then they've probably been here long before we arrived and will be here well after we've shut off the lights. There is some good news though. If evil exists then good also exists out there. Both could just be ideas we use to describe its impact on the world around it. Or they could exist as something more and something we will always wonder about. That can't be a bad thing.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
On Ghosts
When I was growing up I had the typical fascination with all things supernatural. The world was new to me and there was so much that was unexplained. Because of this I was willing to read about all kinds of various possible answers to the seemingly unexplainable events that happen in our weird little world. I had this Time-Life book on Ghosts, which described all sorts of ghost stories and their origins. It was presented in such a way that my child brain believed it to be factual. This was a Time-Life book after all. Looking back on those kinds of books it helps me realize how those stories lasted so long before the modern age. Today if you want to find out about something you type it into your search bar and in most cases there will be a Wikipedia entry on the subject. Also in most cases people treat this as the authority on the subject because at the bottom of the page is a nice list of references. Not to get into the validity of Wiki pages, but really it's much harder for myths and legends to perpetuate themselves when you have the internet and television shows dedicated to "finding the truth". Then again it's really hard to know that what you're seeing is based on reality. My dad used to say "Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see." Now you pretty much have to question more than half of what you see because it's becoming easier to fake reality. Back when these stories were being told there wasn't any way to counter or verify their validity.
I've talked about death before and how if ghosts do exist, given the number of people who have lived and died on this planet, then this place must be swarming with ghosts. Unless there is some kind of requirement to become a ghost. Maybe ghosts are those who didn't pass the entrance exam to the afterlife. The real question though is: Why are they here? Granted most of the universe is so complex that to our eyes it's an endless stream of chaos. Some believe there is purpose to things and in that regard everything happens for a reason. I'm not sure who's right, if either of those ideas are close to what's really going on. Regardless, one would have to figure that if ghosts exist then there has to be a reason for it.
I guess you could go back to where those ghost stories originated. Were these stories based on real events or just manifestations due to our lack of understanding of the world around us? As I mentioned with conspiracies, people are natural storytellers and may exaggerate what they believe they saw because at the time it seems real to them. In some cases the story overshadows reality and takes on a life of its own. Is it possible that some sailor saw something off the starboard side that he couldn't explain? Yes, it's very likely considering the ocean is essentially an alien world with species living under the water that we don't even know about. So some strange fish in a storm suddenly becomes a mermaid. Today we like to explain things away with science because it's very comfortable to have a rational explanation to something that was probably very scary to people a hundred years ago. Even a supernatural phenomenon like the doppelganger has recently been explained, at least possibly explained. Using electromagnetic stimulation to a specific part of the brain, the test subject felt the presence of something that appeared to be a man. Granted the scientists who were running experiment didn't understand how or why this feeling of another presence was happening, they only knew that it was happening. So it's possible that those people who saw what they considered to be their double were experiencing increased electromagnetic activity within their brain.
Then again, it's possible that the experiment tapped into a larger issue. As you may know I'm a believer in the possibility that there are additional realities besides just the one we can perceive. What if applying electromagnetic stimulation to our brain opened up our ability to see that other part of reality that's normally closed off to us. Along those lines it could be that ghosts are whispers from the next reality over. What we call demons or spirits might just be "aliens" from another dimension. There was a fairly horrible movie called Event Horizon, which if you haven't seen it (count yourself lucky), is about a spaceship with an experimental engine that disappeared and has suddenly returned. It is revealed that when the engine turned on it opened up a gateway into space-time and jumped into another dimension that was chaos. In the movie this dimension was essentially our idea of hell. The movie was a mess of ideas, but I liked the one that hell is just on the other side of our reality and it's so alien to us that to even see it would drive a person mad.
We are all just energy and when we die that energy has to go somewhere. There are a lot of ideas on if there is a thing as a soul, but let's say for a moment that our soul is the consolidation of our energy. Upon death that energy has to transfer itself somewhere. Some believe that the soul simply moves to another Earthly body in the form of reincarnation. Another idea is that based on balance of positive and negative aspects of your life you are drawn to specific afterlife locations in the form of heaven or hell. The idea of a ghost is that the energy didn't make a complete journey to its final destination and is instead stuck in a sort of limbo. In that sense the ghost is just residual energy left with no place to go. Since we're not currently built to see the energies that surround us, for the most part we don't even know that there is anything else out there. That is until that energy gathers enough strength to impact our physical world.
There have been lots of theories on ghosts and supposedly unfinished business. Think about all the things you've ever done in your life. How much of your life was unfinished in some way? Maybe you're the kind of person that completes everything you start, but if you're like most people then a large part of your life is made up of false starts and unfinished business. Very rarely does life give us any kind of closure. It's unfortunate too because in a lot of cases we as people need closure in order to move on. You know what happens though when you don't have closure? Nothing. Even without closure you eventually move on. That is if you're a capable adult. Otherwise you let it haunt you to the point that it's crippling. So the idea that ghosts are people who died before they finished what they were "supposed" to complete would mean that nearly all of us are going to making a return trip here after we die. I say that because I don't know a single person who doesn't have some kind of regret. The amount of regret that causes a person to stick around as some kind of half-entity must be almost unimaginable.
It's a scary idea to think that ghosts could exist because we just have no idea exactly what they are or the circumstances that are needed to become one. Even more disconcerting is that just beyond our field of vision there is a whole array of supernatural entities floating right in front of us. It reminds me of the saying "I'm not afraid of the dark. I'm afraid of what's in the dark." We're living the dark, but we don't know it.
I've talked about death before and how if ghosts do exist, given the number of people who have lived and died on this planet, then this place must be swarming with ghosts. Unless there is some kind of requirement to become a ghost. Maybe ghosts are those who didn't pass the entrance exam to the afterlife. The real question though is: Why are they here? Granted most of the universe is so complex that to our eyes it's an endless stream of chaos. Some believe there is purpose to things and in that regard everything happens for a reason. I'm not sure who's right, if either of those ideas are close to what's really going on. Regardless, one would have to figure that if ghosts exist then there has to be a reason for it.
I guess you could go back to where those ghost stories originated. Were these stories based on real events or just manifestations due to our lack of understanding of the world around us? As I mentioned with conspiracies, people are natural storytellers and may exaggerate what they believe they saw because at the time it seems real to them. In some cases the story overshadows reality and takes on a life of its own. Is it possible that some sailor saw something off the starboard side that he couldn't explain? Yes, it's very likely considering the ocean is essentially an alien world with species living under the water that we don't even know about. So some strange fish in a storm suddenly becomes a mermaid. Today we like to explain things away with science because it's very comfortable to have a rational explanation to something that was probably very scary to people a hundred years ago. Even a supernatural phenomenon like the doppelganger has recently been explained, at least possibly explained. Using electromagnetic stimulation to a specific part of the brain, the test subject felt the presence of something that appeared to be a man. Granted the scientists who were running experiment didn't understand how or why this feeling of another presence was happening, they only knew that it was happening. So it's possible that those people who saw what they considered to be their double were experiencing increased electromagnetic activity within their brain.
Then again, it's possible that the experiment tapped into a larger issue. As you may know I'm a believer in the possibility that there are additional realities besides just the one we can perceive. What if applying electromagnetic stimulation to our brain opened up our ability to see that other part of reality that's normally closed off to us. Along those lines it could be that ghosts are whispers from the next reality over. What we call demons or spirits might just be "aliens" from another dimension. There was a fairly horrible movie called Event Horizon, which if you haven't seen it (count yourself lucky), is about a spaceship with an experimental engine that disappeared and has suddenly returned. It is revealed that when the engine turned on it opened up a gateway into space-time and jumped into another dimension that was chaos. In the movie this dimension was essentially our idea of hell. The movie was a mess of ideas, but I liked the one that hell is just on the other side of our reality and it's so alien to us that to even see it would drive a person mad.
We are all just energy and when we die that energy has to go somewhere. There are a lot of ideas on if there is a thing as a soul, but let's say for a moment that our soul is the consolidation of our energy. Upon death that energy has to transfer itself somewhere. Some believe that the soul simply moves to another Earthly body in the form of reincarnation. Another idea is that based on balance of positive and negative aspects of your life you are drawn to specific afterlife locations in the form of heaven or hell. The idea of a ghost is that the energy didn't make a complete journey to its final destination and is instead stuck in a sort of limbo. In that sense the ghost is just residual energy left with no place to go. Since we're not currently built to see the energies that surround us, for the most part we don't even know that there is anything else out there. That is until that energy gathers enough strength to impact our physical world.
There have been lots of theories on ghosts and supposedly unfinished business. Think about all the things you've ever done in your life. How much of your life was unfinished in some way? Maybe you're the kind of person that completes everything you start, but if you're like most people then a large part of your life is made up of false starts and unfinished business. Very rarely does life give us any kind of closure. It's unfortunate too because in a lot of cases we as people need closure in order to move on. You know what happens though when you don't have closure? Nothing. Even without closure you eventually move on. That is if you're a capable adult. Otherwise you let it haunt you to the point that it's crippling. So the idea that ghosts are people who died before they finished what they were "supposed" to complete would mean that nearly all of us are going to making a return trip here after we die. I say that because I don't know a single person who doesn't have some kind of regret. The amount of regret that causes a person to stick around as some kind of half-entity must be almost unimaginable.
It's a scary idea to think that ghosts could exist because we just have no idea exactly what they are or the circumstances that are needed to become one. Even more disconcerting is that just beyond our field of vision there is a whole array of supernatural entities floating right in front of us. It reminds me of the saying "I'm not afraid of the dark. I'm afraid of what's in the dark." We're living the dark, but we don't know it.
Friday, September 3, 2010
On The Maker
This isn't to go into the various iterations of God, but rather the idea that there is something out there that created us, or at the very least influenced life. When I was young I believed in the Christian version of God because that's how I was raised. Then as I got older and more cynical I stopped believing in anything. Everything felt like chaos and there was no reason why anything happened, good or bad. The idea of God felt like a fairy tale told to children to keep them from having sex or doing anything worthwhile because it scared the old people. While I was in college I entertained the idea that aliens planted us here as a sort of experiment. It seemed as likely as some mythical man in the clouds who essentially created man out of nothing and woman from pieces left over. Lately I've been starting to wonder if there isn't something that could be beyond our understanding. Something that operates on a level that makes us seem insignificant, which if you think about how large the universe is, really isn't that hard. Most people have heard about the near mathematical certainty that life exists elsewhere in the universe. Just the sheer number of planets that are out there indicates that something somewhere is also alive and possibly asking the same questions we are.
I can imagine thousands of years ago there were events that couldn't be explained. It's human nature to question things and try to understand the world around us. So with the lack of definitive answers, ancient man came up with his own about how things were made. At the time it was impossible for them to grasp the idea that Earth and everything on it was just a speck in an endless ocean of space. Certain things must have seemed like magic. Magic is really just science we don't yet understand. Look at all the things today that we pass off as impossible or label as paranormal. In a thousand years we may have a better understanding of our reality. I'm sure there will always be questions or things that defy explanation. I think that's really the nature of things. So the concept of God was created to help explain the unexplainable. Who knows maybe there is something to those beliefs and something is out there. I just don't know that anyone has ever gotten it completely right, if they were even close in the first place.
If there is something all powerful out there then it's probably so incomprehensible to us that our brains may turn into jelly trying to understand what it is. Plus maybe it's not all powerful, but to us it might as well be. I've talked about our perception of time being a major limitation for us. Imagine if being omnipotent was really just able to see time in both directions. For us that would be god-like. Add to that an understanding of how reality could be shaped by those experiencing it and you'd have something so much more evolved than us we'd look like sea monkeys to it. We as a species like to believe we're so advanced and compared to everything else on this planet we may be. In the grand scheme of things we're pretty young and might as well be a teenager telling our parents how the world really works when we have no idea what's out there. For all we know there could have been whole civilizations that have risen and fallen a billion years before we crawled out of the mud. If that's the case were they "made" by the same thing that created us? Is that what God does, goes around randomly making new life and letting it do its own thing?
I'm not saying it's impossible for something to have created us, but imagine the power something like would have to have. Do you honestly believe that something like that would care about what we do on our little planet? Its motivations are beyond alien. It would be like us giving a crap about some microbes on an ant hill in Africa. What happens to them has very little impact on our daily lives. In fact most of the time we're not even fully aware that they're out there until something points it out to us. Plus there is the possibility that The Maker didn't really make us at all. Maybe instead it just gave us a little nudge and that was enough for us. If you think about it, what's more likely, that an ancient being created us as a fully formed human and didn't imbue us with more than a rudimentary understanding of the world around us. Or that through a subtle manipulation of events and circumstances it was able to ensure that life was able to spark on this planet, which by most standards should have been just another molten rock spinning in space. From there it was up to life to find a way to survive and even thrive. Ok both sound completely unlikely, but here we are so something happened. Maybe it was all just chance and the perfect confluence of events allowed life to exist.
Getting deeper into it all, what if there is more than one all powerful deity-like thing out there? There is the assumption that it's just one thing behind the curtain pulling the strings. What's to say that there couldn't be more, some of which are operating on different levels. Or even stranger, what if it's not a thing at all, but rather a series of things that operate in conjunction with each other to create a larger being? It could be that within this cloud there are several layers to it. Much like our own bodies there are so many pieces that operate independently of each other, but at the same time need each other to continue on. Those individual portions could be influencing reality in their own way, without the larger portion being aware.
Books and movies always try to bring the idea of God down to something we'd understand. God takes on a human form. God gets involved with the day to day of a single person. God loves skeeball. Whatever it is, it's basically anthropomorphizing something that defies our understanding. In reality it would probably be like us trying to talk to a starfish.
So who knows if there is something out there that moved reality in a certain way that it would be considered our maker. It could be that all this is just something that happened by chance on some random Tuesday a hundred billion years ago. It's the question that will keep us wondering about ourselves and where we come from and maybe it's a question without answers because we may never fully understand it.
I can imagine thousands of years ago there were events that couldn't be explained. It's human nature to question things and try to understand the world around us. So with the lack of definitive answers, ancient man came up with his own about how things were made. At the time it was impossible for them to grasp the idea that Earth and everything on it was just a speck in an endless ocean of space. Certain things must have seemed like magic. Magic is really just science we don't yet understand. Look at all the things today that we pass off as impossible or label as paranormal. In a thousand years we may have a better understanding of our reality. I'm sure there will always be questions or things that defy explanation. I think that's really the nature of things. So the concept of God was created to help explain the unexplainable. Who knows maybe there is something to those beliefs and something is out there. I just don't know that anyone has ever gotten it completely right, if they were even close in the first place.
If there is something all powerful out there then it's probably so incomprehensible to us that our brains may turn into jelly trying to understand what it is. Plus maybe it's not all powerful, but to us it might as well be. I've talked about our perception of time being a major limitation for us. Imagine if being omnipotent was really just able to see time in both directions. For us that would be god-like. Add to that an understanding of how reality could be shaped by those experiencing it and you'd have something so much more evolved than us we'd look like sea monkeys to it. We as a species like to believe we're so advanced and compared to everything else on this planet we may be. In the grand scheme of things we're pretty young and might as well be a teenager telling our parents how the world really works when we have no idea what's out there. For all we know there could have been whole civilizations that have risen and fallen a billion years before we crawled out of the mud. If that's the case were they "made" by the same thing that created us? Is that what God does, goes around randomly making new life and letting it do its own thing?
I'm not saying it's impossible for something to have created us, but imagine the power something like would have to have. Do you honestly believe that something like that would care about what we do on our little planet? Its motivations are beyond alien. It would be like us giving a crap about some microbes on an ant hill in Africa. What happens to them has very little impact on our daily lives. In fact most of the time we're not even fully aware that they're out there until something points it out to us. Plus there is the possibility that The Maker didn't really make us at all. Maybe instead it just gave us a little nudge and that was enough for us. If you think about it, what's more likely, that an ancient being created us as a fully formed human and didn't imbue us with more than a rudimentary understanding of the world around us. Or that through a subtle manipulation of events and circumstances it was able to ensure that life was able to spark on this planet, which by most standards should have been just another molten rock spinning in space. From there it was up to life to find a way to survive and even thrive. Ok both sound completely unlikely, but here we are so something happened. Maybe it was all just chance and the perfect confluence of events allowed life to exist.
Getting deeper into it all, what if there is more than one all powerful deity-like thing out there? There is the assumption that it's just one thing behind the curtain pulling the strings. What's to say that there couldn't be more, some of which are operating on different levels. Or even stranger, what if it's not a thing at all, but rather a series of things that operate in conjunction with each other to create a larger being? It could be that within this cloud there are several layers to it. Much like our own bodies there are so many pieces that operate independently of each other, but at the same time need each other to continue on. Those individual portions could be influencing reality in their own way, without the larger portion being aware.
Books and movies always try to bring the idea of God down to something we'd understand. God takes on a human form. God gets involved with the day to day of a single person. God loves skeeball. Whatever it is, it's basically anthropomorphizing something that defies our understanding. In reality it would probably be like us trying to talk to a starfish.
So who knows if there is something out there that moved reality in a certain way that it would be considered our maker. It could be that all this is just something that happened by chance on some random Tuesday a hundred billion years ago. It's the question that will keep us wondering about ourselves and where we come from and maybe it's a question without answers because we may never fully understand it.
Friday, August 27, 2010
On Manipulation
Did you ever notice that the whole world is trying very hard to manipulate you? Or the fact that you are trying to manipulate it right back. Everything we do or say is colored by manipulation. It's how we attempt to control the uncontrollable. We are constantly being bombarded by images, phrases, and ideas that have the sole purpose of getting us to do what someone else wants. It's not always a bad thing either because sometimes we experience great things that we wouldn't have come up with on our own. It took someone else nudging us into it. Sometimes it takes someone dragging us kicking and screaming before we realize that it was a good thing. At the same time though there are so many things out there that are trying to get you to change your mind about something or realize a need that you didn't know you had. Turn on the television or radio for more than ten minutes and you'll know what I mean. I was going to call this On Truth, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that truth itself is very subjective. So what may seem like truth to one may not be true for someone else.
We can start with the obvious ones. I mentioned television and radio. They are both means to entertain, however, the cost of that entertainment is that you have to subjected to a nearly constant stream of pitches about various products that someone wants you to buy. Try watching a commercial. Really watching it for more than just face value. Lately when I do watch a commercial, which is rarely, I find myself wondering how they sorted out the exact message they wanted to get across. I recently saw a Jeep commercial which had old footage of America. The commercial went on to talk about how we're a nation of builders. We love to build great things. It's in our history and if we're not building things then we're not doing great. I think it's a very effective commercial because it's perfect for a recession. It shows that once things were wonderful, even if they really weren't. It shows that America and more importantly Americans, need to build in order to feel purpose. This new Jeep is supposedly built in America and not off in some other country. To me that says "Buy this car because doing so means Americans will have more jobs. More jobs means more money for the economy. More money means that by buying this car you will be helping stop the recession." Now I'm not going to buy a Jeep, but I can appreciate how they manipulated the message in such a way that people will only hear what they've been told. A commercials whole point is to plant a message inside the consumer within thirty seconds. After that it's up to the salesmen to do the final bit of convincing to close the deal. I could write a whole thing just on car salesmen, but I don't have that kind of time right now.
Our entertainment is also a source of manipulation. Comedians tend to exaggerate for effect and twist specific situations in a way to point out the humor in them. Recently someone wrote an article on James Cameron's Avatar and how the aliens were cleverly designed for maximum empathy. From their over-sized eyes to their skin color, it was all done to manipulate the audience in a specific way. Having seen the movie, I found it to be very effective because at first you do see them as alien, but by the end of the movie you're rooting for them. The story itself is also very manipulative and has been called yet another story about white guilt. While I enjoyed the movie for the fancy cartoon that it was, I was fully aware of the heavy handed message they were beating into me. Strange how the movie's message is that industrialized nations are corrupt and often tend to take what they want from those whom they feel are beneath them and yet the millionaire director thought it was ok to charge $12 a movie ticket, resulting in a box office take over a billion dollars. Plus they're re-releasing it with an additional bit of footage so they can grab some more of that money because apparently making a billion dollars from a cartoon just isn't enough anymore. It's easy to blame the filmmaker or movie studio for this, but as the consumer we allow ourselves to be manipulated because in some ways we enjoy it. Movies attempt to tell a story or visualize an idea, which is fine, but in order to do that they must manipulate certain things to get the reaction they want. A scene is setup to pull at your heartstrings or feel enraged at the injustice of the system. Several takes and millions of dollars have refined this message into the most concise and effective medium (usually).
The government is constantly trying maintain a message based on what they feel is in their best interest. Sure sometimes it's because of safety or a need for secrecy, but I would have to imagine there are several times where it's simply easier to hand out information like a parent would to a child. The less you say, the fewer questions. At least that's the theory. As I've mentioned before, the lack of information can lead people to formulate their own ideas, regardless of if it's true or not. They're simply going on what information they have. Even with that there have probably been situations where the government has manipulated things just enough to let us create our own wild speculation, which is far from the truth, and exactly where they want us looking. The media is responsible for the same type of manipulation. They are required to make sure that their news segments and stories generate a certain amount of ratings and there are tried and true things that will almost guarantee a ratings spike. People say they're tired of scandals, sexual or otherwise, but news sources which lead with those stories usually see a spike in their ratings. So obviously we don't mind being manipulated into watching certain things because it's been sensationalized. Still that kind of manipulation is nothing compared to what we do to each other on a daily basis.
I talked about lies before, which are really overt manipulations of the truth to suit our own needs. Still there are times when we may not necessarily lie about something, but we shape the truth to be more in line with our perception of what happened. For instance you're relaying an argument to a third party and you may not give all the details to the other person. We tend to do this because we want this other person to see our side, or more importantly, be on our side, even if we weren't in the right. We twist the facts in so many situations. Unfortunately we may also manipulate the truth so much that we end up believing our version over what really happened. I suppose that's really the basis of perception.
On the other side though not all manipulation is negative. It's sometimes necessary. We do this all the time, sometimes without even knowing it. It's something we learned at an early age. Even I choose my words very carefully because I'm trying to make a point. I may not always be successful, but at the time I picked what I thought was the most effective word or phrase. I doubt we have the ability to stop manipulating the world around us. It's in our nature to want to shape the world to how we want it to be, even if we're ever only partially successful.
We can start with the obvious ones. I mentioned television and radio. They are both means to entertain, however, the cost of that entertainment is that you have to subjected to a nearly constant stream of pitches about various products that someone wants you to buy. Try watching a commercial. Really watching it for more than just face value. Lately when I do watch a commercial, which is rarely, I find myself wondering how they sorted out the exact message they wanted to get across. I recently saw a Jeep commercial which had old footage of America. The commercial went on to talk about how we're a nation of builders. We love to build great things. It's in our history and if we're not building things then we're not doing great. I think it's a very effective commercial because it's perfect for a recession. It shows that once things were wonderful, even if they really weren't. It shows that America and more importantly Americans, need to build in order to feel purpose. This new Jeep is supposedly built in America and not off in some other country. To me that says "Buy this car because doing so means Americans will have more jobs. More jobs means more money for the economy. More money means that by buying this car you will be helping stop the recession." Now I'm not going to buy a Jeep, but I can appreciate how they manipulated the message in such a way that people will only hear what they've been told. A commercials whole point is to plant a message inside the consumer within thirty seconds. After that it's up to the salesmen to do the final bit of convincing to close the deal. I could write a whole thing just on car salesmen, but I don't have that kind of time right now.
Our entertainment is also a source of manipulation. Comedians tend to exaggerate for effect and twist specific situations in a way to point out the humor in them. Recently someone wrote an article on James Cameron's Avatar and how the aliens were cleverly designed for maximum empathy. From their over-sized eyes to their skin color, it was all done to manipulate the audience in a specific way. Having seen the movie, I found it to be very effective because at first you do see them as alien, but by the end of the movie you're rooting for them. The story itself is also very manipulative and has been called yet another story about white guilt. While I enjoyed the movie for the fancy cartoon that it was, I was fully aware of the heavy handed message they were beating into me. Strange how the movie's message is that industrialized nations are corrupt and often tend to take what they want from those whom they feel are beneath them and yet the millionaire director thought it was ok to charge $12 a movie ticket, resulting in a box office take over a billion dollars. Plus they're re-releasing it with an additional bit of footage so they can grab some more of that money because apparently making a billion dollars from a cartoon just isn't enough anymore. It's easy to blame the filmmaker or movie studio for this, but as the consumer we allow ourselves to be manipulated because in some ways we enjoy it. Movies attempt to tell a story or visualize an idea, which is fine, but in order to do that they must manipulate certain things to get the reaction they want. A scene is setup to pull at your heartstrings or feel enraged at the injustice of the system. Several takes and millions of dollars have refined this message into the most concise and effective medium (usually).
The government is constantly trying maintain a message based on what they feel is in their best interest. Sure sometimes it's because of safety or a need for secrecy, but I would have to imagine there are several times where it's simply easier to hand out information like a parent would to a child. The less you say, the fewer questions. At least that's the theory. As I've mentioned before, the lack of information can lead people to formulate their own ideas, regardless of if it's true or not. They're simply going on what information they have. Even with that there have probably been situations where the government has manipulated things just enough to let us create our own wild speculation, which is far from the truth, and exactly where they want us looking. The media is responsible for the same type of manipulation. They are required to make sure that their news segments and stories generate a certain amount of ratings and there are tried and true things that will almost guarantee a ratings spike. People say they're tired of scandals, sexual or otherwise, but news sources which lead with those stories usually see a spike in their ratings. So obviously we don't mind being manipulated into watching certain things because it's been sensationalized. Still that kind of manipulation is nothing compared to what we do to each other on a daily basis.
I talked about lies before, which are really overt manipulations of the truth to suit our own needs. Still there are times when we may not necessarily lie about something, but we shape the truth to be more in line with our perception of what happened. For instance you're relaying an argument to a third party and you may not give all the details to the other person. We tend to do this because we want this other person to see our side, or more importantly, be on our side, even if we weren't in the right. We twist the facts in so many situations. Unfortunately we may also manipulate the truth so much that we end up believing our version over what really happened. I suppose that's really the basis of perception.
On the other side though not all manipulation is negative. It's sometimes necessary. We do this all the time, sometimes without even knowing it. It's something we learned at an early age. Even I choose my words very carefully because I'm trying to make a point. I may not always be successful, but at the time I picked what I thought was the most effective word or phrase. I doubt we have the ability to stop manipulating the world around us. It's in our nature to want to shape the world to how we want it to be, even if we're ever only partially successful.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
On Wasted Opportunities
It's become almost expected that a video game based on a movie is going to be horrible. Still people rush out to buy G.I. Joe: The Video Game because they want to be able to play as their favorite character from the movie. Well not that movie because it was like watching puppies get murdered for an hour and a half. It's been said that in certain situations just before you die there is this level of calm that passes over you. You're ready to die. At 22 minutes into that movie I felt that and it scared me a little because I didn't want to be ready to die. This movie and everything associated with it (even the collector cups) is a perfect example of a wasted opportunity.
Before I talk about the movie itself, video games based on movies are a strange thing these days. It's become this weird circle of loathing. It's expected that the game will be bad, often times the game is bad, people buy the game anyway, and then complain about video games based on movies being bad. I wonder if the developers accept this and that allows for the quality to stay in the toilet. It's very much like the example I used in Stolen Opportunities. There must be some level of success because there's no end to bad video game/movie tie-ins.
G.I. Joe has been around (at least in its most recognizable form) since the early 80s. It allowed boys to play with dolls by calling them action figures and making them smaller than Barbie. He came with tiny accessories and weapons. Each one had a different job or specialty. Wait, how is this not a doll? Anyway. For years there had been talk of a live action movie showing how Joe would protect America's freedom from the faceless bad guys known as Cobra. The problem of course was that war isn't exactly kid friendly, especially when America has been in an armed conflict every decade since WWII.
Finally after it was shown that various "kid" properties like X-Men, Spider-Man, and Transformers could be insanely successful, they started working on the live action movie everyone (and by everyone I mean those who owned the toys and could name every character to this day) was expecting. Fast forwarding past all the signs and portents that indicated something about this movie wasn't quite right, the film is released. Shockingly the thing was a disaster and millions of fanboys, who had been waiting their entire lives for a real movie, wept.
The really sad part isn't just that the movie was bad. It's that if they had taken it a little more seriously and thought about establishing something that could last, the movie might have been ok. There are no illusions about a movie called G.I. Joe being remembered like Citizen Kane, but it could have been something remembered fondly and possibly opened the door to a new generation of fans. Instead they made it into some half-ass cartoony spectacle that even children don't want to watch. So now G.I. Joe will go quietly back into the realm of nostalgia.
It's not just franchises that waste their chances. Individual actors do it too. Not being an actor I have no idea what it must be like to be struggling to stay in the spotlight before your 15 minutes is up. Look at some of the Academy Award winners who have just squandered their potential by making terrible movies. Tommy Lee Jones won in 1994 and by the next year he was playing Two-Face in Batman Forever. After that he went on to play various roles in several forgettable movies. In 1996 Cuba Gooding Jr won and since then he's starred in movies like Chill Factor, Rat Race, and Snow Dogs.
Now I get that having the statue doesn't mean you get to just pick and choose, but I have to imagine it has some pull. When Meryl Streep won her award for Sophie's Choice, there's no doubt she was offered ridiculous roles for female buddy movies or the chance to star with a talking donkey. The difference was that she didn't take them. Instead of wasting that limited amount of time she continued to make quality movies. Well until she made She-Devil, but that was a one-time mistake in judgement.
There are several young actors out there who showed promise at possibly being very good, but instead they wander off to do something else. Ashton Kutcher is one I think of. He was good on his television show. He made a couple movies that showed he could act. Instead of going with this he went with the safe play, made some movies where the plot and characters were interchangeable with each other and is now selling cameras. Maybe this is actually genius, for right now. He's probably making a ton of movie just lounging around for minimal work. The question is, as an actor what is he going to do in 5 or 10 years? The shelf life for young actors is always so short, so it seems like a mistake to be wasting it on showing us practical jokes.
I get that in the entertainment business it's probably better to take the money and run than try to make a serious living at it. It's possible that most people get into it not really caring if they make a quality product. They just want the movie associated with it so they can be famous for a little while. That just makes us, the audience, that much more quick to dismiss someone when they come along. Eventually our attention span will be calculated in nanoseconds.
Before I talk about the movie itself, video games based on movies are a strange thing these days. It's become this weird circle of loathing. It's expected that the game will be bad, often times the game is bad, people buy the game anyway, and then complain about video games based on movies being bad. I wonder if the developers accept this and that allows for the quality to stay in the toilet. It's very much like the example I used in Stolen Opportunities. There must be some level of success because there's no end to bad video game/movie tie-ins.
G.I. Joe has been around (at least in its most recognizable form) since the early 80s. It allowed boys to play with dolls by calling them action figures and making them smaller than Barbie. He came with tiny accessories and weapons. Each one had a different job or specialty. Wait, how is this not a doll? Anyway. For years there had been talk of a live action movie showing how Joe would protect America's freedom from the faceless bad guys known as Cobra. The problem of course was that war isn't exactly kid friendly, especially when America has been in an armed conflict every decade since WWII.
Finally after it was shown that various "kid" properties like X-Men, Spider-Man, and Transformers could be insanely successful, they started working on the live action movie everyone (and by everyone I mean those who owned the toys and could name every character to this day) was expecting. Fast forwarding past all the signs and portents that indicated something about this movie wasn't quite right, the film is released. Shockingly the thing was a disaster and millions of fanboys, who had been waiting their entire lives for a real movie, wept.
The really sad part isn't just that the movie was bad. It's that if they had taken it a little more seriously and thought about establishing something that could last, the movie might have been ok. There are no illusions about a movie called G.I. Joe being remembered like Citizen Kane, but it could have been something remembered fondly and possibly opened the door to a new generation of fans. Instead they made it into some half-ass cartoony spectacle that even children don't want to watch. So now G.I. Joe will go quietly back into the realm of nostalgia.
It's not just franchises that waste their chances. Individual actors do it too. Not being an actor I have no idea what it must be like to be struggling to stay in the spotlight before your 15 minutes is up. Look at some of the Academy Award winners who have just squandered their potential by making terrible movies. Tommy Lee Jones won in 1994 and by the next year he was playing Two-Face in Batman Forever. After that he went on to play various roles in several forgettable movies. In 1996 Cuba Gooding Jr won and since then he's starred in movies like Chill Factor, Rat Race, and Snow Dogs.
Now I get that having the statue doesn't mean you get to just pick and choose, but I have to imagine it has some pull. When Meryl Streep won her award for Sophie's Choice, there's no doubt she was offered ridiculous roles for female buddy movies or the chance to star with a talking donkey. The difference was that she didn't take them. Instead of wasting that limited amount of time she continued to make quality movies. Well until she made She-Devil, but that was a one-time mistake in judgement.
There are several young actors out there who showed promise at possibly being very good, but instead they wander off to do something else. Ashton Kutcher is one I think of. He was good on his television show. He made a couple movies that showed he could act. Instead of going with this he went with the safe play, made some movies where the plot and characters were interchangeable with each other and is now selling cameras. Maybe this is actually genius, for right now. He's probably making a ton of movie just lounging around for minimal work. The question is, as an actor what is he going to do in 5 or 10 years? The shelf life for young actors is always so short, so it seems like a mistake to be wasting it on showing us practical jokes.
I get that in the entertainment business it's probably better to take the money and run than try to make a serious living at it. It's possible that most people get into it not really caring if they make a quality product. They just want the movie associated with it so they can be famous for a little while. That just makes us, the audience, that much more quick to dismiss someone when they come along. Eventually our attention span will be calculated in nanoseconds.
Monday, October 19, 2009
On Stolen Opportunities
In college I had a business teacher who owned a used car dealership. He told us that too often car salesmen go for the quick sale at the expense of the customer. This wasn't something he wanted at his dealership because once the sale was made that person would never come back. Instead he would treat the customer fair and rather than just buying one car, they would come back over the years buying several. I don't know if those days are gone. Loyalty like that may be some nostalgic idea that no longer works in today's world.
Looking at the movie industry it's apparent that most times there isn't any concern with longevity, but rather just the immediate profit. If the first movie is successful then a sequel is drafted with one of two possible motives: A) Continue the story in a logical and progressive way that builds on what was already established while managing to bring something new to the screen. Or B) Profit off the success of the first movie and possibly create a hook for additional sequels. Now both can be true, but very few tend to pull that off. There's a certain robots from outer space movie from this past summer that comes to mind. The first movie was entertaining, as much as one could expect from something based on a toy line from the 80s. The second movie, however, felt like a street crime. You're not even sure what's happening at first, but next thing you know your money is gone and you're going to spend hours trying to recover from the incident. In the movie's defense, it's made a lot of money. It's made much more money than a movie of that quality should. Rotten Tomatoes has it listed at 19% and yet it managed to make over $400 million. How is it that only 1 out of 5 people liked the movie, but it was one of the highest grossing movies of 2009?
The point isn't to bash this movie in particular. Rather it's about what this movie and movies like it represent. If you were to ask the critics if this movie was a success they would say no. It failed on several levels and will ultimately forgotten among the other mindless action pictures. Now if you asked the studio or director if it was a success, they would say of course. It more than made back the cost to make it. Enough so that they're already working on another movie. This movie has entered into a slightly strange netherworld of success. On one hand it's considered to be a terrible movie in terms of storytelling. On the other it's a financial success. So which is it really?
Let's try an example. You're working for a software company and just completed a large project. The whole thing has taken a lot of time, effort, and money to finish. The software ships and millions of units are sold, but 80% of the people who buy it can't stand what it does for them. They can't return the software once it's been opened so they're left with feeling unsatisfied. Is your software successful? Maybe in the immediate present it is because you've got the money in hand. The problem is the next time you go to release something whether or not if anyone is going to bother. Your last outing felt like being gang raped by rabid monkeys so why would anyone shell out money again?
I recently read an article that talked about the disaster that was Batman & Robin. It went on to say that despite being a terrible movie, it was one of the most important comic book movies ever made. It was so bad that it actually caused lasting change throughout the entire genre. There is a demotivational poster called Mistakes that says "It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others." That is what Batman & Robin has become. It's a cautionary tale to other filmmakers. The movie was both a critical and financial flop. What would have happened if it had made a ton of money? People may have hated it, but someone was paying to see it. Would the lesson still have been learned?
I think the sequel can be more important than the original depending on the motive behind it. In movies it can establish a franchise. In music it can show that a band's success wasn't just a one time thing. It's when the second one is done solely to capitalize on the success of the first that things start to fall apart. I could make up some numbers about the number of fans lost after the second movie, but it's hard to know. People can be strangely forgiving about their entertainment.
Looking at the movie industry it's apparent that most times there isn't any concern with longevity, but rather just the immediate profit. If the first movie is successful then a sequel is drafted with one of two possible motives: A) Continue the story in a logical and progressive way that builds on what was already established while managing to bring something new to the screen. Or B) Profit off the success of the first movie and possibly create a hook for additional sequels. Now both can be true, but very few tend to pull that off. There's a certain robots from outer space movie from this past summer that comes to mind. The first movie was entertaining, as much as one could expect from something based on a toy line from the 80s. The second movie, however, felt like a street crime. You're not even sure what's happening at first, but next thing you know your money is gone and you're going to spend hours trying to recover from the incident. In the movie's defense, it's made a lot of money. It's made much more money than a movie of that quality should. Rotten Tomatoes has it listed at 19% and yet it managed to make over $400 million. How is it that only 1 out of 5 people liked the movie, but it was one of the highest grossing movies of 2009?
The point isn't to bash this movie in particular. Rather it's about what this movie and movies like it represent. If you were to ask the critics if this movie was a success they would say no. It failed on several levels and will ultimately forgotten among the other mindless action pictures. Now if you asked the studio or director if it was a success, they would say of course. It more than made back the cost to make it. Enough so that they're already working on another movie. This movie has entered into a slightly strange netherworld of success. On one hand it's considered to be a terrible movie in terms of storytelling. On the other it's a financial success. So which is it really?
Let's try an example. You're working for a software company and just completed a large project. The whole thing has taken a lot of time, effort, and money to finish. The software ships and millions of units are sold, but 80% of the people who buy it can't stand what it does for them. They can't return the software once it's been opened so they're left with feeling unsatisfied. Is your software successful? Maybe in the immediate present it is because you've got the money in hand. The problem is the next time you go to release something whether or not if anyone is going to bother. Your last outing felt like being gang raped by rabid monkeys so why would anyone shell out money again?
I recently read an article that talked about the disaster that was Batman & Robin. It went on to say that despite being a terrible movie, it was one of the most important comic book movies ever made. It was so bad that it actually caused lasting change throughout the entire genre. There is a demotivational poster called Mistakes that says "It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others." That is what Batman & Robin has become. It's a cautionary tale to other filmmakers. The movie was both a critical and financial flop. What would have happened if it had made a ton of money? People may have hated it, but someone was paying to see it. Would the lesson still have been learned?
I think the sequel can be more important than the original depending on the motive behind it. In movies it can establish a franchise. In music it can show that a band's success wasn't just a one time thing. It's when the second one is done solely to capitalize on the success of the first that things start to fall apart. I could make up some numbers about the number of fans lost after the second movie, but it's hard to know. People can be strangely forgiving about their entertainment.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
On Drag Me To Hell
I originally wrote this review for a friend back when the movie first came out. Apparently I'm one of five people who went to see this movie in the theater. With it being released on DVD hopefully people will find it among the rubble that is new releases.
I should start off this review with the fact that I'm a pretty big fan of Sam Raimi. Anyone who allows Gene Hackman to shoot and kill Leonardo DiCaprio is a genius in my book. Given that, I haven't been all that happy with his Spider-Man movies. Raimi does better when he's given more freedom and that just don't seem to be the case with his Marvel movies. So it was nice to hear he was coming back to horror, even if it's only in between Spider-Man sequels.
You really have to go into this movie knowing it's going to be classic Raimi. If you are expecting a straight up horror movie or something grounded in reality, then you'll probably be thrown off for about twenty minutes or so until you can get into the right frame of mind. It's a little disarming when you get your first sight gag because you may be unsure just how serious the movie is supposed to be. The movie does have a few issues where it's not quite sure what it wants to be. Still if you can't find humor in the idea of a highly agitated demon-filled goat at a seance, then this movie might not be for you.
For the most part the black humor worked for me. There were only a few exceptions where either the joke was telegraphed too far in advance or it felt setup. Having spent a considerable amount of time around anvils as a kid, I've never seen an anvil suspended higher than eye level. So it was hard for me to buy into the fact that the main character would have one just hanging around for no apparent reason other than to be a prop.
Speaking of the characters, Alison Lohman's character felt pretty real to me. Not overly good or bad, but more like a regular person. She was somewhat self-centered and made some bad choices that led to her getting cursed in the first place. What she did wasn't even that bad, although you can really judge a person by how they treat people they don't have to be nice to. On the other hand the gypsy wasn't some frail old lady who needed some help though. She was a vindictive witch, who apparently curses anyone for even the slightest wrong doing. Her reaction to theft or being denied something is extreme. It was the equivalent of burning down someone's house because of name calling.
I actually liked Justin Long's character. He was put in the very grounded role, which I'm guessing was supposed to be the skeptic. Still it was nice having the supporting character not spend the entire movie questioning everything or do the routine act of disbelief. Well there was disbelief, but there was also a sense of trust and respect. He even says at one point in the movie, if she believes it then it doesn't matter what he believes.
Overall this movie isn't going to change the genre. It was a welcome change from the seemingly endless parade of horror remakes where brutality is mistaken for originality. This had gross out moments and geniune scares that were in just the right amount. I think if Raimi had shifted more in either the comedy or horror direction this movie might have come off as too silly for its own good. It's the balance of the two aspects that really makes it work.
I should start off this review with the fact that I'm a pretty big fan of Sam Raimi. Anyone who allows Gene Hackman to shoot and kill Leonardo DiCaprio is a genius in my book. Given that, I haven't been all that happy with his Spider-Man movies. Raimi does better when he's given more freedom and that just don't seem to be the case with his Marvel movies. So it was nice to hear he was coming back to horror, even if it's only in between Spider-Man sequels.
You really have to go into this movie knowing it's going to be classic Raimi. If you are expecting a straight up horror movie or something grounded in reality, then you'll probably be thrown off for about twenty minutes or so until you can get into the right frame of mind. It's a little disarming when you get your first sight gag because you may be unsure just how serious the movie is supposed to be. The movie does have a few issues where it's not quite sure what it wants to be. Still if you can't find humor in the idea of a highly agitated demon-filled goat at a seance, then this movie might not be for you.
For the most part the black humor worked for me. There were only a few exceptions where either the joke was telegraphed too far in advance or it felt setup. Having spent a considerable amount of time around anvils as a kid, I've never seen an anvil suspended higher than eye level. So it was hard for me to buy into the fact that the main character would have one just hanging around for no apparent reason other than to be a prop.
Speaking of the characters, Alison Lohman's character felt pretty real to me. Not overly good or bad, but more like a regular person. She was somewhat self-centered and made some bad choices that led to her getting cursed in the first place. What she did wasn't even that bad, although you can really judge a person by how they treat people they don't have to be nice to. On the other hand the gypsy wasn't some frail old lady who needed some help though. She was a vindictive witch, who apparently curses anyone for even the slightest wrong doing. Her reaction to theft or being denied something is extreme. It was the equivalent of burning down someone's house because of name calling.
I actually liked Justin Long's character. He was put in the very grounded role, which I'm guessing was supposed to be the skeptic. Still it was nice having the supporting character not spend the entire movie questioning everything or do the routine act of disbelief. Well there was disbelief, but there was also a sense of trust and respect. He even says at one point in the movie, if she believes it then it doesn't matter what he believes.
Overall this movie isn't going to change the genre. It was a welcome change from the seemingly endless parade of horror remakes where brutality is mistaken for originality. This had gross out moments and geniune scares that were in just the right amount. I think if Raimi had shifted more in either the comedy or horror direction this movie might have come off as too silly for its own good. It's the balance of the two aspects that really makes it work.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
On Oil
A long time ago I saw this movie with William H Macy called The Water Engine. Based on David Mamet's 1977 play, it's the story of an inventor who has created a carburetor that runs on water. When he tries to patent the engine things start to go wrong. Even though it was set in the 1930s, there was still this push to make sure that oil was the primary fuel source. Eventually the inventor is killed and the engine itself is lost thanks to the oil companies. It was an interesting story about how a naive inventor thought he could just create something that would change the world. He didn't realize that some people don't want the world to change.
The next time I saw something about the water engine was in the short-lived X-Files spin off, The Lone Gunmen. They were searching for the mythical water-powered car. And the end of the episode the person they thought was helping them was working to make sure the water engine never was given to the public. Her motives for doing this weren't as monetarily based as the oil companies in the movie. Instead she was keeping the water engine a secret because imagine a world where cars run on water. It seems like a great idea in theory. Our primary source of fuel is based on something from a few hundred million years ago and when we run out, there isn't any more. With about 70% of the Earth covered in water it would seem like an almost endless source of fuel. So what would our oceans, lakes, and rivers be like if we were trying to feed our cars and machinery? It's predicted by 2020 there will be over a billion motor vehicles on the planet. Imagine if they all ran on a cheap fuel that ran clean? There could be double that in half the time. Maybe an engine that runs on water isn't such a great thing after all.
In 1999 Honda released its first hybrid car called the Insight. Its fuel efficiency was rated as high as 70 mpg on the highway. Ten years later and the highest numbers come from the Prius and Civic. The Prius at 48 mpg actually gets better mileage in the city than the Civic's 45 mpg highway. Most other hybrid cars can barely top out at 40 mpg. It's 2009. How is it that we're supposed to be excited that a hybrid can barely get 40 mpg? The automobile has been around for 140 years and the absolute best we can look forward to is 48 mpg. Something about that just seems wrong. Shouldn't the numbers be higher already?
I'm not an oil baron (if they even still have those anymore) so I can't really understand what it's like to have everything I own based on the profit of oil. Still oil production in America is over a 150 years old. There is potentially a lot of oil left to squeeze out of the Earth. Those who are making billions today will most likely continue to make billions tomorrow. The part I can't figure out though is why it seems like both the automotive manufacturers and oil companies (I guess energy companies might be more accurate) are dragging their feet when it comes to new technology. Given the resources of someone like Exxon, shouldn't they be leading the charge when it comes to new technology? And not just in oil refinement, but modern energy. Imagine if Shell Oil created some new kind of fuel cell that reduced our need for oil? Notice I didn't say ended our need. Reduced. Anyone who thinks that oil usage is going to go away anytime soon is deluding themselves. And maybe that's where the feet dragging comes from. Oil companies fearing that if they revolutionize fuel efficiency they'll essentially be killing their profits. I suppose it's the safe play to just keep doing what worked for the last century rather than innovate. Problem with that is eventually the need for oil will go away, either because we just don't have enough or because some other fuel comes along. When that happens those who cling to the old ideas are going to get crushed in the switch.
It's interesting that Mamet wrote his play not too long after the Emergency Highway Conservation Act was passed. This is what gave us the speed limit of 55 mph. The speed limit acting as a band-aid to the oil crisis of 1973 where OPEC essentially decided to stop sending us oil. Combined with the stock market crash there was a sort of panic that things were crumbling. In an attempt to make sure the oil on hand could last as long as possible gas rationing was implemented. Even with this there were lines and stations without fuel. This was in the early 70s. If people were panicking then what's it going to be like tomorrow? There's less oil now than 30 years ago.
There's this thing called Hubbert peak theory that predicted United States oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. After that it would be harder to produce petroleum and there would always be less of it. There was criticism of this theory because it tended to be too simplistic and thanks to the strict gas rationing Hubbert's original numbers were off. The general idea holds true, even if the date isn't exact. The guy wrote his original paper back in 1956. Even then he understood what was coming. As predicted we reached our peak and ever since have been on the decline.
Fifty years ago it was predicted that oil production would begin to fall. Thanks to his handy little bell curve graph it looked like the very end of oil wouldn't be for another 200 years. Apparently that is reason enough to not move very fast on coming up with some alternatives. If you're an oil executive you know that with 200 years to spare even your great great grandchildren can be rich off oil.
The problem is just because there's a drop of oil left in the ground, doesn't mean it's going to be easy to get to. If everyone else is running off the same information then they have to know before too long it'll be worth fighting over. We're fighting over oil interests now and according to the charts we still have a couple centuries before things go completely dry. What's it going to be like when we're on the downward slide of that bell curve and the peak is a distant memory to anyone still alive? I guess we can look forward to the Texaco Army in a stand off with the British Petroleum Militia.
The next time I saw something about the water engine was in the short-lived X-Files spin off, The Lone Gunmen. They were searching for the mythical water-powered car. And the end of the episode the person they thought was helping them was working to make sure the water engine never was given to the public. Her motives for doing this weren't as monetarily based as the oil companies in the movie. Instead she was keeping the water engine a secret because imagine a world where cars run on water. It seems like a great idea in theory. Our primary source of fuel is based on something from a few hundred million years ago and when we run out, there isn't any more. With about 70% of the Earth covered in water it would seem like an almost endless source of fuel. So what would our oceans, lakes, and rivers be like if we were trying to feed our cars and machinery? It's predicted by 2020 there will be over a billion motor vehicles on the planet. Imagine if they all ran on a cheap fuel that ran clean? There could be double that in half the time. Maybe an engine that runs on water isn't such a great thing after all.
In 1999 Honda released its first hybrid car called the Insight. Its fuel efficiency was rated as high as 70 mpg on the highway. Ten years later and the highest numbers come from the Prius and Civic. The Prius at 48 mpg actually gets better mileage in the city than the Civic's 45 mpg highway. Most other hybrid cars can barely top out at 40 mpg. It's 2009. How is it that we're supposed to be excited that a hybrid can barely get 40 mpg? The automobile has been around for 140 years and the absolute best we can look forward to is 48 mpg. Something about that just seems wrong. Shouldn't the numbers be higher already?
I'm not an oil baron (if they even still have those anymore) so I can't really understand what it's like to have everything I own based on the profit of oil. Still oil production in America is over a 150 years old. There is potentially a lot of oil left to squeeze out of the Earth. Those who are making billions today will most likely continue to make billions tomorrow. The part I can't figure out though is why it seems like both the automotive manufacturers and oil companies (I guess energy companies might be more accurate) are dragging their feet when it comes to new technology. Given the resources of someone like Exxon, shouldn't they be leading the charge when it comes to new technology? And not just in oil refinement, but modern energy. Imagine if Shell Oil created some new kind of fuel cell that reduced our need for oil? Notice I didn't say ended our need. Reduced. Anyone who thinks that oil usage is going to go away anytime soon is deluding themselves. And maybe that's where the feet dragging comes from. Oil companies fearing that if they revolutionize fuel efficiency they'll essentially be killing their profits. I suppose it's the safe play to just keep doing what worked for the last century rather than innovate. Problem with that is eventually the need for oil will go away, either because we just don't have enough or because some other fuel comes along. When that happens those who cling to the old ideas are going to get crushed in the switch.
It's interesting that Mamet wrote his play not too long after the Emergency Highway Conservation Act was passed. This is what gave us the speed limit of 55 mph. The speed limit acting as a band-aid to the oil crisis of 1973 where OPEC essentially decided to stop sending us oil. Combined with the stock market crash there was a sort of panic that things were crumbling. In an attempt to make sure the oil on hand could last as long as possible gas rationing was implemented. Even with this there were lines and stations without fuel. This was in the early 70s. If people were panicking then what's it going to be like tomorrow? There's less oil now than 30 years ago.
There's this thing called Hubbert peak theory that predicted United States oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. After that it would be harder to produce petroleum and there would always be less of it. There was criticism of this theory because it tended to be too simplistic and thanks to the strict gas rationing Hubbert's original numbers were off. The general idea holds true, even if the date isn't exact. The guy wrote his original paper back in 1956. Even then he understood what was coming. As predicted we reached our peak and ever since have been on the decline.
Fifty years ago it was predicted that oil production would begin to fall. Thanks to his handy little bell curve graph it looked like the very end of oil wouldn't be for another 200 years. Apparently that is reason enough to not move very fast on coming up with some alternatives. If you're an oil executive you know that with 200 years to spare even your great great grandchildren can be rich off oil.
The problem is just because there's a drop of oil left in the ground, doesn't mean it's going to be easy to get to. If everyone else is running off the same information then they have to know before too long it'll be worth fighting over. We're fighting over oil interests now and according to the charts we still have a couple centuries before things go completely dry. What's it going to be like when we're on the downward slide of that bell curve and the peak is a distant memory to anyone still alive? I guess we can look forward to the Texaco Army in a stand off with the British Petroleum Militia.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
On Believing the Hype
We've all seen it. There is a movie that you're not quite sure about or maybe one that you're convinced is a train wreck. Then the second weekend commercials come out. They try to convince you to come in and see it by showing you all the highlights. This is when they usually hit you with the one or two word rave "reviews". Rolling Stone says it's "hilarious". Chicago Sun Times finds it to be "thought provoking". Random blog person found it to be "charming". And as usual, Clive Barker says it's the scariest movie he's seen in the last five minutes.
I'm not saying these are outright lies, but they're taking a review and truncating it to a single word. Even if the review is only two words long, it's still a 50% cut in content. I know for a 30 second TV spot you can't really do much more than flash a single word every five seconds and tickle the movie-goer's G-spot and hope it's enough to draw them to the theater. This tactic just allows for a lot of abuse and manipulation. Just to prove my point I'm going to hype some movies using excerpts from real reviews. One of these is actually from a positive review of a movie. Let's see what happens.
Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever
TV Guide calls it "Genuine"
"You'll be pleased" says The Boston Globe
"Perfect" - LA Times
Master of Disguise
"Phenomenal" - View London
Battlefield Earth
Variety says it's "Inspired" and "Destined for greatness"
Good Luck Chuck
"Hilarious" - Empire Magazine
Catwoman
The Bangor Daily News says it's "Genuinely clever"
Speed 2: Cruise Control
The Washington Post finds it to be "Entertaining" with "Hair-raising excitement"
All but one of those movies got single digit reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning less than 10% of the people who saw the movie found it to be anywhere close to entertaining.
The poor bastards who have to market terrible movies have a tough time. It's their job to make you believe that 100 million dollar suckathon (not the good kind) is worth your money. In most cases just trust your instincts. If it looks bad then skip it and read a damn book for a change. If you can't decide just let me know and I'll tell you if you're an idiot for thinking about seeing shit.
I'm not saying these are outright lies, but they're taking a review and truncating it to a single word. Even if the review is only two words long, it's still a 50% cut in content. I know for a 30 second TV spot you can't really do much more than flash a single word every five seconds and tickle the movie-goer's G-spot and hope it's enough to draw them to the theater. This tactic just allows for a lot of abuse and manipulation. Just to prove my point I'm going to hype some movies using excerpts from real reviews. One of these is actually from a positive review of a movie. Let's see what happens.
Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever
TV Guide calls it "Genuine"
"You'll be pleased" says The Boston Globe
"Perfect" - LA Times
Master of Disguise
"Phenomenal" - View London
Battlefield Earth
Variety says it's "Inspired" and "Destined for greatness"
Good Luck Chuck
"Hilarious" - Empire Magazine
Catwoman
The Bangor Daily News says it's "Genuinely clever"
Speed 2: Cruise Control
The Washington Post finds it to be "Entertaining" with "Hair-raising excitement"
All but one of those movies got single digit reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning less than 10% of the people who saw the movie found it to be anywhere close to entertaining.
The poor bastards who have to market terrible movies have a tough time. It's their job to make you believe that 100 million dollar suckathon (not the good kind) is worth your money. In most cases just trust your instincts. If it looks bad then skip it and read a damn book for a change. If you can't decide just let me know and I'll tell you if you're an idiot for thinking about seeing shit.
Monday, October 5, 2009
On Cash Cows and Dead Horses
I understand in the various forms of entertainment the true goal is to make money. Quality sometimes takes a backseat to the sheer quantity. Actually sometimes I don't even think quality is in the same car. Just look at Transformers 2. Bigger explosions. Megan Fox gets more screen time to look all hot and slutty. Oh and there are about five times as many robots bouncing around on screen. Those things don't make up for the fact that there's almost no coherent story. All that matters is that there was more! Despite the fact that the movie was generally considered to be an ocular rape, they've already started working on the third movie. I can't really blame them though. It's made over 400 million dollars. Obviously someone was watching it. So there will be a Transformers 3 and depending on how that does, probably another one. They are going to ride that franchise as long as they can squeeze out another nickle. Which means it'll be ridden straight into the ground at full speed. Think Batman & Robin.
I get the desire to make money and that things move quickly out of the collective consciousness so one has to always be a step or two ahead. What I don't get is there seems to be no foresight as to what's going to happen when the hot property of today becomes so over saturated it's nearly radioactive.
Let's start with something simple like zombies. Now I like zombies as much as the next person and believe that it touches on some of our basic fear of people. Zombies aren't a new idea. You could say it started with Frankenstein. While the monster isn't exactly a zombie like we think of today, the general concept was there. Even the original story I Am Legend built on what we know about zombies. George Romero said that Richard Matheson's story was a major influence to his own Night of the Living Dead. His movie came out in 1968 and pretty much set the standard for zombies. Shoot them in the head! The 70s and 80s saw plenty of zombie movies, but things tapered off and by the 90s it was just another obscure sub genre.
During the 90s our horror was driven by monsters and unstoppable serial killers. Then came 9/11 and we had something new to be afraid of. People who looked like normal people, but were actually out to hurt us. You couldn't tell who was just a normal person and who was secretly plotting your death. Suddenly the zombie genre was back. It fed on our fear of other people. Next thing you know there was an endless parade of zombie movies coming out. And it didn't stop there either. It was spreading. Even Stephen King took a crack at zombies with his book Cell. Zombies were showing up in Pride and Prejudice, in comic books, in survival guides, and even in a forensics guide of the living dead. Ironically zombies are everywhere.
Since I'm on the subject of horror, I can't ignore the Saw franchise. What started out as a mildly clever twist to horror has essentially become just another tired series in the torture porn genre. I saw a preview for Saw VI that said "If it's Halloween. It must be Saw." That's their promotion, that every year, regardless of quality, we're going to get another entry of traps and torture. The first movie was a different brand of horror compared to the other movies coming out at the time. The second movie built on that to some degree. After that it just became this convoluted mess of industrial strength devices designed to tear people apart while we watched. Go to Rotten Tomatoes and check out how the ratings plunged into almost single digits. It's nearly a 10% drop between movies and the first one was only ranked at 46%. It doesn't stop them from churning out another one. So by the time we get around to Saw X it'll just be 97 minutes of people getting their faces ripped off by bear traps.
This one might not be as apparent to the non-geeks out there, but Wolverine needs to go sit down with some juice and crackers and take a break. The guy is everywhere in comics. He is on several super teams and he appears in no less than three titles a month. He got to be in three X-Men movies and his own stand-alone movie. Plus he's got another one on the way, this time with more origins! I don't get it either. He's not that interesting of a character. His big claim to fame is his ability to heal from just about any injury. So I'm supposed to be impressed with the fact that if you shoot him in the face he'll just heal from it? You want to impress me, don't get shot in the face. The ability to heal from a gunshot just means he's not smart enough to avoid the damage in the first place. So really this super popular character is just a short, hairy man with unbreakable bones and some knives in his hands. You take away the knives and unbreakable bones and I've just described porn legend Ron Jeremy, who is also nicknamed after a small furry animal.
Oh and movies based on comic books. Not every comic book ever published needs to be optioned for a movie. Studios have realized there is a lot of potential to make serious money by turning comics into movies. Doesn't matter if they're any good, but they'll be sure to tap that well until it's bone dry. They're working on Spider-Man 4 now, but the original plan was to ramp up 4, 5, & 6. Now I like Spider-Man. Unlike the previously mentioned hedgehog, he has the ability to avoid bullets. Even still there is just too much of a good thing. Preplanning three movies, which will take at least six years to realize, seems like overkill. I guess the idea is that there should be a rush to make these comic movies before audiences grow tired of the genre, but they don't realize in doing so they're only speeding the process along.
There is a Lego Star Wars movie. This is a movie based on a video game based on a toy based on another movie. We've gone full circle. The only way to grind that further into the ground would be to make a Lego Star Wars: The Movie: The Video Game. The very idea of it creates this sharp spike of pain behind my left eye.
Let's talk about Twilight real quick. Oh you didn't think I could talk about dead horses without bringing up this series. Vampires are another one of my favorite sub genres. Sure we had Buffy and Blade and various books in the late 90s, but that's nothing compared to the blitz we're seeing now. Thanks to some cheesy writing about sparkly, brooding teen baseball players we're overrun with a bunch of emo vampires. Some of which are vampire in name alone. You take away the blood sucking part and what you've really got is a bunch of lazy teenagers. By the way, they don't sparkle! They burst into flame when exposed to direct sunlight. Kind of the whole point of a vampire is that they've given up the ability to walk in daylight so they can be young and live forever. Being your own nightlight is not a drawback. Now there vampires in everything. Go to your local Barnes & Noble and see how long it takes you to find the Twilight...I mean teen section. Majority of the books on display have some reference to a vampire.
The thing is a lot of these trends are being pushed because the audience for them is fickle. The Twilight books are marketed towards teenage girls. Movies based on comics are geared towards young boys and middle aged men who don't know the touch of a woman. Teenage girls grow up. Young boys turn into young idiots who can't sit still for more than five minutes unless there is a naked woman present. The point is interests change quickly so a lot of this stuff is being crammed down our throats before we have time to digest the last trend. It's like a kid eating candy until they're sick. The entire time they're eating candy it's fantastic. Then suddenly it's not. They don't sense that feeling when one more candy is going to cause them to throw up. The last one tasted good so the next one should be just as good. The problem is that people won't remember how good the candy tasted, only that in the end they got sick from it. They keep beating this horse and eventually people will hate the things they loved.
I get the desire to make money and that things move quickly out of the collective consciousness so one has to always be a step or two ahead. What I don't get is there seems to be no foresight as to what's going to happen when the hot property of today becomes so over saturated it's nearly radioactive.
Let's start with something simple like zombies. Now I like zombies as much as the next person and believe that it touches on some of our basic fear of people. Zombies aren't a new idea. You could say it started with Frankenstein. While the monster isn't exactly a zombie like we think of today, the general concept was there. Even the original story I Am Legend built on what we know about zombies. George Romero said that Richard Matheson's story was a major influence to his own Night of the Living Dead. His movie came out in 1968 and pretty much set the standard for zombies. Shoot them in the head! The 70s and 80s saw plenty of zombie movies, but things tapered off and by the 90s it was just another obscure sub genre.
During the 90s our horror was driven by monsters and unstoppable serial killers. Then came 9/11 and we had something new to be afraid of. People who looked like normal people, but were actually out to hurt us. You couldn't tell who was just a normal person and who was secretly plotting your death. Suddenly the zombie genre was back. It fed on our fear of other people. Next thing you know there was an endless parade of zombie movies coming out. And it didn't stop there either. It was spreading. Even Stephen King took a crack at zombies with his book Cell. Zombies were showing up in Pride and Prejudice, in comic books, in survival guides, and even in a forensics guide of the living dead. Ironically zombies are everywhere.
Since I'm on the subject of horror, I can't ignore the Saw franchise. What started out as a mildly clever twist to horror has essentially become just another tired series in the torture porn genre. I saw a preview for Saw VI that said "If it's Halloween. It must be Saw." That's their promotion, that every year, regardless of quality, we're going to get another entry of traps and torture. The first movie was a different brand of horror compared to the other movies coming out at the time. The second movie built on that to some degree. After that it just became this convoluted mess of industrial strength devices designed to tear people apart while we watched. Go to Rotten Tomatoes and check out how the ratings plunged into almost single digits. It's nearly a 10% drop between movies and the first one was only ranked at 46%. It doesn't stop them from churning out another one. So by the time we get around to Saw X it'll just be 97 minutes of people getting their faces ripped off by bear traps.
This one might not be as apparent to the non-geeks out there, but Wolverine needs to go sit down with some juice and crackers and take a break. The guy is everywhere in comics. He is on several super teams and he appears in no less than three titles a month. He got to be in three X-Men movies and his own stand-alone movie. Plus he's got another one on the way, this time with more origins! I don't get it either. He's not that interesting of a character. His big claim to fame is his ability to heal from just about any injury. So I'm supposed to be impressed with the fact that if you shoot him in the face he'll just heal from it? You want to impress me, don't get shot in the face. The ability to heal from a gunshot just means he's not smart enough to avoid the damage in the first place. So really this super popular character is just a short, hairy man with unbreakable bones and some knives in his hands. You take away the knives and unbreakable bones and I've just described porn legend Ron Jeremy, who is also nicknamed after a small furry animal.
Oh and movies based on comic books. Not every comic book ever published needs to be optioned for a movie. Studios have realized there is a lot of potential to make serious money by turning comics into movies. Doesn't matter if they're any good, but they'll be sure to tap that well until it's bone dry. They're working on Spider-Man 4 now, but the original plan was to ramp up 4, 5, & 6. Now I like Spider-Man. Unlike the previously mentioned hedgehog, he has the ability to avoid bullets. Even still there is just too much of a good thing. Preplanning three movies, which will take at least six years to realize, seems like overkill. I guess the idea is that there should be a rush to make these comic movies before audiences grow tired of the genre, but they don't realize in doing so they're only speeding the process along.
There is a Lego Star Wars movie. This is a movie based on a video game based on a toy based on another movie. We've gone full circle. The only way to grind that further into the ground would be to make a Lego Star Wars: The Movie: The Video Game. The very idea of it creates this sharp spike of pain behind my left eye.
Let's talk about Twilight real quick. Oh you didn't think I could talk about dead horses without bringing up this series. Vampires are another one of my favorite sub genres. Sure we had Buffy and Blade and various books in the late 90s, but that's nothing compared to the blitz we're seeing now. Thanks to some cheesy writing about sparkly, brooding teen baseball players we're overrun with a bunch of emo vampires. Some of which are vampire in name alone. You take away the blood sucking part and what you've really got is a bunch of lazy teenagers. By the way, they don't sparkle! They burst into flame when exposed to direct sunlight. Kind of the whole point of a vampire is that they've given up the ability to walk in daylight so they can be young and live forever. Being your own nightlight is not a drawback. Now there vampires in everything. Go to your local Barnes & Noble and see how long it takes you to find the Twilight...I mean teen section. Majority of the books on display have some reference to a vampire.
The thing is a lot of these trends are being pushed because the audience for them is fickle. The Twilight books are marketed towards teenage girls. Movies based on comics are geared towards young boys and middle aged men who don't know the touch of a woman. Teenage girls grow up. Young boys turn into young idiots who can't sit still for more than five minutes unless there is a naked woman present. The point is interests change quickly so a lot of this stuff is being crammed down our throats before we have time to digest the last trend. It's like a kid eating candy until they're sick. The entire time they're eating candy it's fantastic. Then suddenly it's not. They don't sense that feeling when one more candy is going to cause them to throw up. The last one tasted good so the next one should be just as good. The problem is that people won't remember how good the candy tasted, only that in the end they got sick from it. They keep beating this horse and eventually people will hate the things they loved.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
On the TV Formula
Television is one of my closest friends. I wish I could say the friendship has been smooth sailing from the start, but there have been a lot of times where TV has really let me down. Still when I'm lonely it's always there to shower me with technicolor love. That said there are some things I wish TV would just stop doing over and over. Sure sometimes these tricks are effective. Most of the time they're tired and predictable. I know most of television's strength comes from a well used formula. Most of the time that formula is comforting and safe. Then there are the times when it becomes just another cliche. Much like that one episode of Three's Company where there is a misunderstanding. These are some of the things that TV needs to stop overusing.
The main character of the show is suddenly visited by an old friend. They could have saved their life at some point or been a mentor. Even though the show has been on for five seasons and they've never mentioned this friend before, this visitor is (or at least was) very important to the main character. During the first act the main character and friend talk about old times, just to establish that this guest star was influential. Maybe it's was an old war buddy who saved your life by dragging you through the jungle to avoid Vietcong or maybe it's a teacher who taught you everything and you see yourself to be a younger version of them. Right at the beginning of the second act there is something that causes a bit of doubt by everyone else that maybe this friend isn't 100% good. This could be something like they had an affair with a recently murdered Chinese official or their company isn't doing everything by the book. Whatever the situation the main character doesn't want to believe that their dear friend/mentor/old flame/life saver person could do something so wrong. Inevitably the old friend did in fact do whatever they're suspected of. They have their reasons that they try to convey to the main character. There are some tears and sentimental music playing in the background as the main character struggles with the sense of betrayal or thought that everything they thought was good in the world was an illusion. Then the visiting character is never heard from again.
If the visiting character was so important how about a little bit of establishment prior to the single episode where they show up, say hi, murder the witness, and then explain their actions to the main character. Instead of telling us that this visitor is so important, why not show us. And not just with old photoshop pictures of the main character looking slightly younger and happy with the friend. I've known a lot of people in my life. Some more important than others. If someone reappeared from my past for a 43 minute period to reveal that they did something amoral it wouldn't make much of an impact on my life. Now if one of my closest friends, who I see on a regular basis, suddenly told me that they are Russian spy that would be a bit more shocking. Mostly because I don't think I know anyone with that kind of dedication to a lie (other than myself). It's gotten to the point now when I see a somewhat well-known TV actor appear as a blast from the past I'm just waiting to see what the disappointment is going to be, not if it's coming.
Let's say you're a mathematical genius or have firmly established over the course of four seasons and a two hour season premiere that you're good at whatever you do. Why is it when you come up with some "crazy" theory about something everyone around you suddenly doubts the words coming out of your mouth? Never mind the fact that just last week you were able to diagnose the skin discoloration as a rare form of some Amazonian disease just by noticing the patient had a fever. This week you say something that isn't painfully obvious to everyone else and it's as if you're in the pilot episode all over again. I know it's supposed to make for good drama and everything, but these are supposed to be real characters. How can seemingly smart FBI agents or medical doctors instantly revert back to being so dumb? Now sometimes the super genius star of the show couldn't be more wrong about something and that's where the supporting cast (or ensemble cast for those with inferiority complexes) steps in to help guide things to the right conclusion. I'm really tired of things like "you're just overreacting", "there is no proof to your theory", and "I think you may be in the throes of a psychological break". Can we get a little benefit of the doubt in these situations? Half the episode is spent discussing how the main character has flipped the script, then it's realized that maybe they were onto something, only to use the final ten minutes as a way to catch everyone else up to what was initially proposed. Let's find a new way to create tension that isn't predictable.
This next one is a little more tricky. Having watched a lot of non-serial television I've started recognizing faces. The guy on an episode of West Wing also shows up on CSI. It's not like Susan Sarandon or anything. It's just another television character actor. They just happen to have a pretty good agent who's getting their face out there. So what happens now is when I see these various faces pieces of the plot are being telegraphed ahead of time. When the guy who played the viscous murderer on Numbers is now on an episode of Castle as a quiet unassuming victim it's easy to know something is up. You know the character is going to have more than one scene, even though the detectives are pursuing other leads.
Speaking of leads, most murder investigations take weeks or longer. Same thing with medical diagnostics and evidence gathering. The process is most likely mind-numbingly boring to watch. So of course with only an hour to use certain things have to be sped up a bit. We're show two to three possible leads. The first one usually goes nowhere even though all the preliminary evidence points directly to Option A. This causes the team to rethink their case and move onto the second lead. There is a little deviation at this point. Either the second lead is nothing and it moves onto the third (or fourth or fifth) option or it swings back around to Option A again, but with a twist. The wife wasn't the victim, she was the murderer! More evidence gathering or witty banter between characters and the options are narrowed down to the correct one. Case solved. No one wants to watch a show where after all the theories are tried or computer simulations run there's no definitive answer to the problem. There's a reason why homicide detectives and doctors have backlogs. Not everything get solved right away. So let's not make it too easy every time.
The last one usually tries to be the most subtle of them all. The quirky main character has some personal situation going on. Meanwhile there's a new weekly case. Everything has been tried and it seems like there's no solution. Then while talking about the personal situation something is said that triggers a thought that leads to the solution. The writer is talking to his daughter about boy troubles, the little girl in the wheelchair thinks her dog is actually a bear, or the computer simulation that's been running on the supercomputer for the last three days spits out the exact answer. That's when you realize the whole point of the personal situation was just to tie up the episode's problem. I want to see something where the thing said in this week's episode has no bearing on the immediate problem, but is actually legitimate character building for the sake of making the character more real.
Sometimes they throw a twist at you, but for the most part television doesn't try too hard to be complex. It's very much like fast food. It's quick and easy and not exactly quality food, but it gets the job done. Still I keep watching and enjoying it. I just wish they would change it up a little bit.
The main character of the show is suddenly visited by an old friend. They could have saved their life at some point or been a mentor. Even though the show has been on for five seasons and they've never mentioned this friend before, this visitor is (or at least was) very important to the main character. During the first act the main character and friend talk about old times, just to establish that this guest star was influential. Maybe it's was an old war buddy who saved your life by dragging you through the jungle to avoid Vietcong or maybe it's a teacher who taught you everything and you see yourself to be a younger version of them. Right at the beginning of the second act there is something that causes a bit of doubt by everyone else that maybe this friend isn't 100% good. This could be something like they had an affair with a recently murdered Chinese official or their company isn't doing everything by the book. Whatever the situation the main character doesn't want to believe that their dear friend/mentor/old flame/life saver person could do something so wrong. Inevitably the old friend did in fact do whatever they're suspected of. They have their reasons that they try to convey to the main character. There are some tears and sentimental music playing in the background as the main character struggles with the sense of betrayal or thought that everything they thought was good in the world was an illusion. Then the visiting character is never heard from again.
If the visiting character was so important how about a little bit of establishment prior to the single episode where they show up, say hi, murder the witness, and then explain their actions to the main character. Instead of telling us that this visitor is so important, why not show us. And not just with old photoshop pictures of the main character looking slightly younger and happy with the friend. I've known a lot of people in my life. Some more important than others. If someone reappeared from my past for a 43 minute period to reveal that they did something amoral it wouldn't make much of an impact on my life. Now if one of my closest friends, who I see on a regular basis, suddenly told me that they are Russian spy that would be a bit more shocking. Mostly because I don't think I know anyone with that kind of dedication to a lie (other than myself). It's gotten to the point now when I see a somewhat well-known TV actor appear as a blast from the past I'm just waiting to see what the disappointment is going to be, not if it's coming.
Let's say you're a mathematical genius or have firmly established over the course of four seasons and a two hour season premiere that you're good at whatever you do. Why is it when you come up with some "crazy" theory about something everyone around you suddenly doubts the words coming out of your mouth? Never mind the fact that just last week you were able to diagnose the skin discoloration as a rare form of some Amazonian disease just by noticing the patient had a fever. This week you say something that isn't painfully obvious to everyone else and it's as if you're in the pilot episode all over again. I know it's supposed to make for good drama and everything, but these are supposed to be real characters. How can seemingly smart FBI agents or medical doctors instantly revert back to being so dumb? Now sometimes the super genius star of the show couldn't be more wrong about something and that's where the supporting cast (or ensemble cast for those with inferiority complexes) steps in to help guide things to the right conclusion. I'm really tired of things like "you're just overreacting", "there is no proof to your theory", and "I think you may be in the throes of a psychological break". Can we get a little benefit of the doubt in these situations? Half the episode is spent discussing how the main character has flipped the script, then it's realized that maybe they were onto something, only to use the final ten minutes as a way to catch everyone else up to what was initially proposed. Let's find a new way to create tension that isn't predictable.
This next one is a little more tricky. Having watched a lot of non-serial television I've started recognizing faces. The guy on an episode of West Wing also shows up on CSI. It's not like Susan Sarandon or anything. It's just another television character actor. They just happen to have a pretty good agent who's getting their face out there. So what happens now is when I see these various faces pieces of the plot are being telegraphed ahead of time. When the guy who played the viscous murderer on Numbers is now on an episode of Castle as a quiet unassuming victim it's easy to know something is up. You know the character is going to have more than one scene, even though the detectives are pursuing other leads.
Speaking of leads, most murder investigations take weeks or longer. Same thing with medical diagnostics and evidence gathering. The process is most likely mind-numbingly boring to watch. So of course with only an hour to use certain things have to be sped up a bit. We're show two to three possible leads. The first one usually goes nowhere even though all the preliminary evidence points directly to Option A. This causes the team to rethink their case and move onto the second lead. There is a little deviation at this point. Either the second lead is nothing and it moves onto the third (or fourth or fifth) option or it swings back around to Option A again, but with a twist. The wife wasn't the victim, she was the murderer! More evidence gathering or witty banter between characters and the options are narrowed down to the correct one. Case solved. No one wants to watch a show where after all the theories are tried or computer simulations run there's no definitive answer to the problem. There's a reason why homicide detectives and doctors have backlogs. Not everything get solved right away. So let's not make it too easy every time.
The last one usually tries to be the most subtle of them all. The quirky main character has some personal situation going on. Meanwhile there's a new weekly case. Everything has been tried and it seems like there's no solution. Then while talking about the personal situation something is said that triggers a thought that leads to the solution. The writer is talking to his daughter about boy troubles, the little girl in the wheelchair thinks her dog is actually a bear, or the computer simulation that's been running on the supercomputer for the last three days spits out the exact answer. That's when you realize the whole point of the personal situation was just to tie up the episode's problem. I want to see something where the thing said in this week's episode has no bearing on the immediate problem, but is actually legitimate character building for the sake of making the character more real.
Sometimes they throw a twist at you, but for the most part television doesn't try too hard to be complex. It's very much like fast food. It's quick and easy and not exactly quality food, but it gets the job done. Still I keep watching and enjoying it. I just wish they would change it up a little bit.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
On Comic Worlds
I love comics and believe there is a lot of potential for stories to be told in them. All too often though in the mainstream titles there is a limitation to what can be done. You can't have too many lasting changes otherwise you might alienate certain readers. Part of it is that you don't want to upset the fan boys, who are the ones paying cover price for comics and not just buying them in trades. I can understand not wanting to disregard your core audience, but in attempting to placate them means the ability to have progression is lost. Well at least seriously hindered. Add to that there is always that desire to draw in new readers. Many of the characters are iconic. There is a standard for each title that has to be maintained so that your typical person off the street won't be overwhelmed. Spider-Man is always the misunderstood hero. Batman is always fighting crime because of a sense of loss from his murdered parents. The X-Men are a band of renegade heroes that society doesn't understand and even hates.
There have even been several resets within comics to make sure things don't get too far ahead of themselves. Spider-Man got married over 20 years ago. He revealed his identity to the world. He had left his job at The Daily Bugle and became a teacher. Thanks to "magic" all that's been erased. He's back to living with the seemingly ageless and perpetually sick Aunt May. No one knows his identity and his marriage never existed. Not divorced. Just gone. It was felt that readers wouldn't be able to identify with a married Spider-Man. The guy dresses in blue and red spandex. Anyone who could identify with him is in need of serious help. Plus most serious comic readers aren't teenagers anymore. They're middle aged men. Some of whom have wives of their own. The mutant population was in the millions. They lived on islands and even had an entire district in New York City that was like Chinatown, but with mutants. It got to be that mutants weren't really special anymore. So again with "magic" all the mutants were gone (except of course for all the main characters and popular ones that brings in money). Mutants are again this weird little subset of species with their backs against the wall. The biggest resets are death itself. It's been joked about that no one stays dead in the comic world. The only real exceptions seem to be Uncle Ben and Thomas & Martha Wayne. They only stay dead to drive the main character to keep doing what they're doing. Hal Jordan dies saving the universe. He is replaced as Green Lantern by Kyle Rayner. Ten years later Hal Jordan is returned to life and restored as the primary Green Lantern. Nearly every character has been "killed" only to come back. Some take longer than others. Captain America's World War II sidekick, Bucky Barnes, was dead for nearly 40 years before coming back. Jason Todd, the second Robin, stayed dead for half that time. How someone cheats or beats death varies in its believability and quality, but the end result is the same: return things back to how they were.
It makes me wonder what these various comic worlds would look like if there was actual progression within them. Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four has always been called one of the smartest men in the world. In several comics he’s making quick comments about some random invention that’s for lack of a better word, fantastic. (Side note: The Thing has been essentially trapped in his rocky form for the better part of 40 years. Reed should have been able to come up with a cure by now. Ben being stuck as The Thing supposedly makes for a more interesting character, but it’s been 40 years. I think it’s safe to say that well has been tapped dry. In a world of make believe it comes off as unbelievable.) Their costumes aren’t even costumes. They’re unstable molecules which conform to the wearer’s body and don’t get destroyed when Human Torch bursts into flames. It also makes it easier for the artist so they don't have to draw fabric, but that’s really beside the point. He’s created super computers to help with his experiments. He has a flying car that can fly across the US in a short amount of time. Imagine if a good-natured scientist, who is already insanely rich was coming up with these breakthroughs every day. Would we still be using computers or driving in cars that burned gasoline or flying like cattle in a plane that takes hours to get you two states over? Hank Pym named subatomic particles after himself. These Pym Particles allow for size-alteration. Think of the medical advances that could be done by shrinking something. Cancer cells could be reduced to nothing. Imagine the applications of making something giant sized. Food grown at regular size could be expanded in size as needed. World hunger would be a memory. Tony Stark invented a suit of armor that essentially allows the wearer to fly, have super strength, and even go into space. The world of prosthetics would be drastically different. Stark even provided Misty Knight with a cybernetic hand to replace the one she lost. There are normally offhand comments about its expense, but with any technology the first is always the most expensive. So Cancer is gone. World hunger is gone. Reliance on fossil fuels is gone. If you’re hurt, you can be rebuilt to a point where you’re actually better than before. With those types of inventions why is the world still basically the same? Sure it’s possible that various governments or evil organizations could stop the spread of these advances. People sure do like their status quo (kind of the whole point of what I’m writing). Still at some point there would have to be some sign of advancement with just the sheer number of inventions being done.
Speaking of evil organizations, you’d think they too would have progressed beyond just a bunch of henchmen grouped together listening to a leader rant about how he’s going to take over the world. Think about what happens if you ever took over the world. Can you imagine the amount of administration that would go into something like that? It’s not like these things just take care of themselves and unless you want to be the ruler of a dead planet there is a lot of general upkeep to deal with. In a recent reboot of G.I. Joe Cobra Commander was revealed to be someone who thought of himself as a patriot. He was using terrorist actions to take back his country from what he thought was a corrupt government. In his mind he was essentially leading a revolution in the same way the colonists broke from the English. This felt more believable than just some former used car salesman who managed to convince everyone that he was going to rule the world. Of course eventually the comic turned back into the typical story of how Cobra comes up with some insane and outlandish plan and the Joes foil it again. It could have been an interesting twist on who was really the bad guy.
While we’re on the subject of bad guys, there are several instances where you’re forced to suspend disbelief. Considering these are worlds where people can teleport through force of will or manipulate the weather with a thought, it’s saying a lot that something is hard to believe. Lex Luthor was a criminal mastermind responsible for numerous deaths. He was sent to prison on more than one occasion for various crimes. Despite this he was somehow elected President. Granted given his past he was still not the worst President ever elected, but come on. How does that happen? Anyway he eventually wanders off the reservation in attempt to kill Superman and is removed from office. Once again he’s known as a criminal, an ex-President criminal at that. Still given time he’s cleared of all charges and attempts to return to being what most people know him as, just another businessman. As of right now he’s in full bad guy mode, but I’m sure given enough time he’ll somehow be restored back to evil billionaire bent on destroying Superman. He's one of the most well known people in Metropolis and it's expected that people will just forget all the horrible things he's done in the past. I'm a relative nobody and I still have a gym hounding me for membership dues from ten years ago. They never forget.
Another example of disbelief is one of Batman’s most known villains, (although the same can really be said about most villains) The Joker. He’s been around from the very beginning and is the complete antithesis of Batman, which I suppose is what makes him so popular not just among readers, but with writers as well. He’s killed countless people in countless ways, including the previously mentioned Robin (although since Jason Todd eventually got better from being dead, I guess it would only be considered attempted murder). Every time he’s caught by Batman and sent to Arkham Asylum, where given enough issues in between, he escapes to do it all over again. There comes a point where rationality has to supersede morality. Batman has a major no-killing rule even though he’s a vigilante and has no problem breaking bones, removing teeth, and causing serious psychological trauma to criminals. So of course the worst Joker ever has to worry about is getting beat up and tossed into a padded cell. This man will continue to spread pain and death as long as he’s alive so why is he allowed to live? No wonder Gotham City is always depicted as a festering cesspool. The criminals know that sure they may get hurt once and awhile, but just wait a bit and you’ll be able to keep doing what you’ve been doing. There is a Punisher series under the MAX label, which has taken Frank Castle out of the regular Marvel Universe and kept him in a seemingly self-contained world. It actually frees him up to do what he’s supposed to. He doesn’t go around beating up thugs, leaving them tied up for the cops to pick up. Instead he ends the threat by ending them. Now his character is very much on the extreme side of things, but I have to believe there could be a more reasonable middle ground. Cops are issued weapons and are expected to kill if needed. That doesn’t mean they’re killing every single criminal they come across. If you have a mass murderer who has killed before and is in the process of killing again, you don’t wring your hands about how crossing some invisible line is going to make you as bad as them. It’s such a lame argument and really just used as an excuse to make sure that the popular characters never are eliminated.
So with all that said, I’d love to see what these various comic worlds would look like if a writer actually attempted to expand on what things would really be like. What would the world be like with amazing technology that advances society into tomorrow? The world would have real consequences because death is a permanent state, not some place where you rest for a bit so you can become popular again. The villains have true motivations beyond just they’re evil, it’s what they do. They should be people, not sharks. The world should keep spinning and things shouldn’t always be the same.
There have even been several resets within comics to make sure things don't get too far ahead of themselves. Spider-Man got married over 20 years ago. He revealed his identity to the world. He had left his job at The Daily Bugle and became a teacher. Thanks to "magic" all that's been erased. He's back to living with the seemingly ageless and perpetually sick Aunt May. No one knows his identity and his marriage never existed. Not divorced. Just gone. It was felt that readers wouldn't be able to identify with a married Spider-Man. The guy dresses in blue and red spandex. Anyone who could identify with him is in need of serious help. Plus most serious comic readers aren't teenagers anymore. They're middle aged men. Some of whom have wives of their own. The mutant population was in the millions. They lived on islands and even had an entire district in New York City that was like Chinatown, but with mutants. It got to be that mutants weren't really special anymore. So again with "magic" all the mutants were gone (except of course for all the main characters and popular ones that brings in money). Mutants are again this weird little subset of species with their backs against the wall. The biggest resets are death itself. It's been joked about that no one stays dead in the comic world. The only real exceptions seem to be Uncle Ben and Thomas & Martha Wayne. They only stay dead to drive the main character to keep doing what they're doing. Hal Jordan dies saving the universe. He is replaced as Green Lantern by Kyle Rayner. Ten years later Hal Jordan is returned to life and restored as the primary Green Lantern. Nearly every character has been "killed" only to come back. Some take longer than others. Captain America's World War II sidekick, Bucky Barnes, was dead for nearly 40 years before coming back. Jason Todd, the second Robin, stayed dead for half that time. How someone cheats or beats death varies in its believability and quality, but the end result is the same: return things back to how they were.
It makes me wonder what these various comic worlds would look like if there was actual progression within them. Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four has always been called one of the smartest men in the world. In several comics he’s making quick comments about some random invention that’s for lack of a better word, fantastic. (Side note: The Thing has been essentially trapped in his rocky form for the better part of 40 years. Reed should have been able to come up with a cure by now. Ben being stuck as The Thing supposedly makes for a more interesting character, but it’s been 40 years. I think it’s safe to say that well has been tapped dry. In a world of make believe it comes off as unbelievable.) Their costumes aren’t even costumes. They’re unstable molecules which conform to the wearer’s body and don’t get destroyed when Human Torch bursts into flames. It also makes it easier for the artist so they don't have to draw fabric, but that’s really beside the point. He’s created super computers to help with his experiments. He has a flying car that can fly across the US in a short amount of time. Imagine if a good-natured scientist, who is already insanely rich was coming up with these breakthroughs every day. Would we still be using computers or driving in cars that burned gasoline or flying like cattle in a plane that takes hours to get you two states over? Hank Pym named subatomic particles after himself. These Pym Particles allow for size-alteration. Think of the medical advances that could be done by shrinking something. Cancer cells could be reduced to nothing. Imagine the applications of making something giant sized. Food grown at regular size could be expanded in size as needed. World hunger would be a memory. Tony Stark invented a suit of armor that essentially allows the wearer to fly, have super strength, and even go into space. The world of prosthetics would be drastically different. Stark even provided Misty Knight with a cybernetic hand to replace the one she lost. There are normally offhand comments about its expense, but with any technology the first is always the most expensive. So Cancer is gone. World hunger is gone. Reliance on fossil fuels is gone. If you’re hurt, you can be rebuilt to a point where you’re actually better than before. With those types of inventions why is the world still basically the same? Sure it’s possible that various governments or evil organizations could stop the spread of these advances. People sure do like their status quo (kind of the whole point of what I’m writing). Still at some point there would have to be some sign of advancement with just the sheer number of inventions being done.
Speaking of evil organizations, you’d think they too would have progressed beyond just a bunch of henchmen grouped together listening to a leader rant about how he’s going to take over the world. Think about what happens if you ever took over the world. Can you imagine the amount of administration that would go into something like that? It’s not like these things just take care of themselves and unless you want to be the ruler of a dead planet there is a lot of general upkeep to deal with. In a recent reboot of G.I. Joe Cobra Commander was revealed to be someone who thought of himself as a patriot. He was using terrorist actions to take back his country from what he thought was a corrupt government. In his mind he was essentially leading a revolution in the same way the colonists broke from the English. This felt more believable than just some former used car salesman who managed to convince everyone that he was going to rule the world. Of course eventually the comic turned back into the typical story of how Cobra comes up with some insane and outlandish plan and the Joes foil it again. It could have been an interesting twist on who was really the bad guy.
While we’re on the subject of bad guys, there are several instances where you’re forced to suspend disbelief. Considering these are worlds where people can teleport through force of will or manipulate the weather with a thought, it’s saying a lot that something is hard to believe. Lex Luthor was a criminal mastermind responsible for numerous deaths. He was sent to prison on more than one occasion for various crimes. Despite this he was somehow elected President. Granted given his past he was still not the worst President ever elected, but come on. How does that happen? Anyway he eventually wanders off the reservation in attempt to kill Superman and is removed from office. Once again he’s known as a criminal, an ex-President criminal at that. Still given time he’s cleared of all charges and attempts to return to being what most people know him as, just another businessman. As of right now he’s in full bad guy mode, but I’m sure given enough time he’ll somehow be restored back to evil billionaire bent on destroying Superman. He's one of the most well known people in Metropolis and it's expected that people will just forget all the horrible things he's done in the past. I'm a relative nobody and I still have a gym hounding me for membership dues from ten years ago. They never forget.
Another example of disbelief is one of Batman’s most known villains, (although the same can really be said about most villains) The Joker. He’s been around from the very beginning and is the complete antithesis of Batman, which I suppose is what makes him so popular not just among readers, but with writers as well. He’s killed countless people in countless ways, including the previously mentioned Robin (although since Jason Todd eventually got better from being dead, I guess it would only be considered attempted murder). Every time he’s caught by Batman and sent to Arkham Asylum, where given enough issues in between, he escapes to do it all over again. There comes a point where rationality has to supersede morality. Batman has a major no-killing rule even though he’s a vigilante and has no problem breaking bones, removing teeth, and causing serious psychological trauma to criminals. So of course the worst Joker ever has to worry about is getting beat up and tossed into a padded cell. This man will continue to spread pain and death as long as he’s alive so why is he allowed to live? No wonder Gotham City is always depicted as a festering cesspool. The criminals know that sure they may get hurt once and awhile, but just wait a bit and you’ll be able to keep doing what you’ve been doing. There is a Punisher series under the MAX label, which has taken Frank Castle out of the regular Marvel Universe and kept him in a seemingly self-contained world. It actually frees him up to do what he’s supposed to. He doesn’t go around beating up thugs, leaving them tied up for the cops to pick up. Instead he ends the threat by ending them. Now his character is very much on the extreme side of things, but I have to believe there could be a more reasonable middle ground. Cops are issued weapons and are expected to kill if needed. That doesn’t mean they’re killing every single criminal they come across. If you have a mass murderer who has killed before and is in the process of killing again, you don’t wring your hands about how crossing some invisible line is going to make you as bad as them. It’s such a lame argument and really just used as an excuse to make sure that the popular characters never are eliminated.
So with all that said, I’d love to see what these various comic worlds would look like if a writer actually attempted to expand on what things would really be like. What would the world be like with amazing technology that advances society into tomorrow? The world would have real consequences because death is a permanent state, not some place where you rest for a bit so you can become popular again. The villains have true motivations beyond just they’re evil, it’s what they do. They should be people, not sharks. The world should keep spinning and things shouldn’t always be the same.
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