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Disney Buys Lucasfilm/Arts, Now Let’s All Calm Down

By
Adam Shaftoe
– November 2, 2012Posted in: Books, Movies, Television, The Daily Shaft, Video Games

On the off chance you’ve been living under a rock on some distant extra-solar planet without access to television or the internet, you may not have heard that Disney bought Lucasfilm. The house of mouse secured Lucas’ brainchild for 4.05 billion dollars. The price is quite a steal considering Disney paid 7.4 billion for Pixar and 4.2 billion for Marvel. Disney’s acquisition includes LucasArts, Industrial Light and Magic, and Lucas Sound, making  the deal seem all the more like a fire sale on George Lucas’ life. And as if all that wasn’t enough to get the internet buzzing, Disney paired announcing the sale with news of a new Star Wars film to release in 2015: Details remain unreleased.

Apropos of Obi-Wan, millions of voices cried out in terror…and nerd rage. Scenes with Jar-Jar as a speaking character and Leia reduced to “Disney princess” status raced through people’s minds as Randy Newman played some tedious up-tempo song in the background.

People pleaded with the internet gods, “Please, no more. Why can’t they leave it alone? Nothing good will come from this? They’re going to do more crap from the expanded universe.”

Life rarely mirrors rage comics, but this announcement ushered in one of those infrequent moments of similarity.

You seem upset...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that the dust has settled, and fury morphed to quiet discontent I feel it is my duty to say the following. Good people of the internet, I feel your frustration but it’s time to calm the hell down.

Yes, not many among us liked the new trilogy. There was too much green screen, questionable writing, and no real depth to any of the characters. Would that George Lucas’ story telling abilities matched his technical acumen, I too would lament his departure from the Star Wars universe.

However let us explore the idea that some of the best Star Wars stuff has little to do with George Lucas, other than via his role as the progenitor of a mythic cycle, and scant direct tie-in to the canonical movies. In fact, I would go so far as to say that since Return of the Jedi the popularity of Star Wars, as a contemporary mythology, is so far removed from film that even if the next trilogy proves as bad as the last, it wouldn’t really hurt the brand or the reason it is so beloved by its fans.

To illustrate this point I offer five first rate aspects of the expanded universe which would not have been possible if Lucasfilm/LucasArts had left Star Wars alone.

The Heir to the Empire Trilogy

Timothy Zahn published the first of these post-Jedi continuity novels in 1991. In doing so he rekindled interest in Star Wars after many years of creative drought. The first book, Heir to the Empire landed on the New York Times best seller list. It would later go on to be adapted into a graphic novel by Dark Horse Comics. In addition to giving Coruscant its name, Zahn also gave Star Wars one of its most enigmatic villains in the form of Grand Admiral Thrawn. Though Zahn’s novels may show their age, they did bring a new generation of fans into the zealous fold when they hungered for more in the aftermath of Return of the Jedi.

Tie Fighter

Published by LucasArts but developed by the now defunct Totally Games, Tie Fighter is a name spoken with awed reverence among gamers. Though not the first game to put players in the cockpit of a star fighter, Tie Fighter set multiple benchmarks for space combat simulation. In terms of sound, graphics, and mission complexity, it was leaps and bounds beyond its predecessor X-Wing. TF also managed to change the news cycle of the Star Wars universe. For the first time the rebels were cast not as heroes but violent insurgents bent on disrupting the life of innocent imperial citizens. In shifting perspectives, players saw a more pragmatic and practical side to the empire and less of an evil oppressor.

 

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2

The name might be a mouthful but Dark Forces 2 offered the first ever post-Jedi live action glimpse of life in the Star Wars universe. Like so many games of the late 90s, Dark Forces 2 bookended each level with a full motion video cut scene. As a precursor to Bioshock, a player’s decisions in-game dictated clear consequences for lead character Kyle Katarn, a former imperial officer turned smuggler turned Jedi. But more important than that, DF2 gave Star Wars fans what they really wanted: an opportunity to cut down storm troopers with a light saber in a first person shooter.

 

 

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Because the only thing better than Dungeons and Dragons is a Star Wars RPG governed by D20 rules. KOTOR, and its sequel KOTOR 2, wound back the clock on the decadent, and possibly illiterate, civilization that is the Star Wars universe. Set thousands of years before the Battle of Yavin, KOTOR set the galaxy on fire with a war between the Republic and the Sith empire. As with any good RPG, decisions on the part of the player created multiple paths to stopping the Sith lord Darth Malak. Although far removed from the source material, KOTOR was widely praised by critics and earned multiple awards including the first ever BAFTA Games Award for best X-Box game of the year.

The Clone Wars

Perhaps the most controversial of the expanded universe settings, The Clone Wars follows the exploits of Anakin Skywalker and company during the “fade to black” conflict that occurs during Episode 2 and 3. While the story telling can fall flat with respect to certain characters whose fates are known, the series is at its best when chronicling the war stories of the clone troopers. Indeed, if this series proves anything, it’s that even the worst executed ideas (Star Wars Ep. 2) can lead to better things when fresh eyes get to work within a well established mythology.

So while Disney may own LucasArts/Films, it doesn’t necessarily follow that Star Wars is going to get neutered like so many scruffy looking Nerf Herders. Disney owns Marvel, yet Tony Stark is still an egomaniacal booze swilling playboy. The Hulk still has anger problems, even if they are a little inconsistent. Wall-E, for all its cutesy-poo robot stuff, was a story about unabashed capitalism gone wrong, wrapped in a criticism of the inherent sloth built into a western lifestyles, all told through the lens of ecological catastrophe.

Indeed, if the new trilogy, as well as these examples, prove anything, it’s that Star Wars can often be at its best when it is far removed from the man who created it.

So relax already. Everything is going to be fine.

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Television Review: First Impressions of Tron Uprising

By
Adam Shaftoe
– May 16, 2012Posted in: TV Reviews

He fights for the users

Summary Judgement: Landing somewhere between V for Vendetta and Batman Begins, this is what Tron Legacy should have been.

Starring the voices of: Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Lance Henriksen, and Bruce Boxleitner

*Some minor spoilers ahead but  nothing that you wouldn’t have figured out from a trailer*

My wait for the first episode of Tron Legacy brought about feelings of excitement and anxiety. Behind the excitement was a number of trailers that looked and sounded sensational while also offering a glimmer of hope for intelligent story telling. Anxiety because, well, Tron Legacy looked and sounded great, but pretty much plateaued there. And over everything hung the looming shadow of The Mouse, the trademark that promises family friendly drivel entertainment at every turn.

In a mere thirty minute premiere, series writers Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz, who also wrote the screenplay for Tron Legacy as well as created the now hit series Once Upon a Time, struck upon something that adds a depth to the Grid that has never before been seen.

Cubism is the new death

The series is situated after Clu’s initial rebellion against Flynn, but before the events of Tron Legacy. Within Argon City, a place at the very edge of the Grid, a maintenance program named Beck (Elijah Wood) witnesses his home annexed by Clu’s army. Shortly after the successful occupation begins and ends, General Tesler (Lance Henriksen) converts the city’s communal and non-lethal game grid into a plaza commemorating Clu (now voiced by Fred Tatasciore who does a phenomenal imitation of an evil Jeff Bridges). Beck’s friend Bhodi protests Tesler’s occupation and is immediately derezzed for his troubles. The capricious murder stirs Beck to action. Hoping that he will inspire others to resist, Beck assumes the mantle of Tron. His first act is to decapitate a statue of Clu before destroying the plaza that housed it. Fleeing from security programs, Beck is chased into the wastelands by Paige (Emmanuelle Chriqui – whose voice you may recognize from the contemporary Thundercats series) Tesler’s right hand program.

Alone in the wilderness, Beck discovers another program, a program long since thought dead, Tron. And Tron is looking for a successor.

So, let’s start with the big question, how does the series get around the Rinzler issue? Quite well, actually. Legacy left us to assume that Tron was converted into Rinzler immediately following his defeat. That assumption is false. Clu left Tron for dead after beating him down. The defeated, but still living, security program then went into self-imposed exile. It’s not so much a retcon as a subtle manipulation of existing canon. Before you complain, consider that this action keeps Tron as a central figure within the series; whereas both Tron and Tron Legacy could have just as easily been called Flynn and Flynn Legacy. After thirty years, it’s about time Tron actually gets explored as a character.

Don't mind my arm, it's just a flesh wound

I’m also quite impressed with how the writers are managing the issue of violence within the Grid. Despite being a House of Mouse creation, the world of Tron has always been a dangerous place. Programs who aren’t appropriated as soldiers often end up as gladiators, fighting to the death for the amusement of the masses. A given program’s free will is often limited by strong external forces. Hell, the MCP could easily be seen as the inspiration for Star Trek’s Borg. The Grid is not the sort of place that lends itself to a “nobody dies” philosophy. Yet programs of all varieties are derezzed within the series premiere. Note the verb, derezzed. Nobody is killed, per se, but they still die. When guts and gore are represented on the Grid as cubist art, it’s pretty easy to get away with things that no other animated feature could imagine. The difference may be arbitrary, but it’s enough to make the stakes feel real without becoming excessively gruesome or reducing the action to GI Joe’s level of last second bail outs.

Still, the real appeal of the writing is its ability to establish legitimacy in the story’s central conflict while avoiding a head-on collision with the various horrors that come with totalitarian rule. Consider Beck’s first act of rebellion against Clu’s occupying force: in donning Tron’s garb and destroying a propaganda symbol, he hopes to incite violent change within his society. By any modern definition it’s an act of terrorism. Yet the word is never so much as whispered. Instead, Beck’s branded a renegade program. Once again, the devil’s in the details, but that’s what makes it so clever. Even little things like Tesler loading “volunteers” for the Games into “light-trains” speaks to a 20th century historical context. No twelve year old will ever see this decision as a reference to the holocaust, but any adult with half a brain will catch on to the symbolism.

Overall, Tron Uprising has set itself up to be the true legacy to a movie that genre fans fell in love with thirty years ago. Various remixes and additions to Daft Punk’s already amazing Tron Legacy soundtrack combine with a unique visual aesthetic to bring the grid to life. With Tron training Beck, much as an aged and broken Bruce Wayne took Terry McGinnis under his wing, Uprising looks like a smart, emotionally charged, and poignant addition to the franchise.

Tron Uprising makes its official premiere on June 7, 2012 on Disney XD.


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The Daily Shaft: Really Confusing Details About Captain America 2

By
Adam Shaftoe
– April 5, 2012Posted in: Movies, The Daily Shaft

Does anybody else remember when the buzz about Hollywood was that the Avengers was going to be a capstone in Marvel Studios’ five-year superhero plan? Perhaps I’m unclear on the definition of “capstone”, but I thought it meant that Marvel was going to be moving on to make movies about some of its lesser known characters. News out of today’s Variety seems to suggest the exact opposite is true with respect to Marvel’s long-term planning.

Disney and Marvel Studios are going to release a sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger on April 4, 2014. Yes, the date is that specific. And yes, I did say that Marvel is working with Disney on this movie. In a completely unrelated story, Disney’s box office turd John Carter has grossed a total 66.9 million dollars since release on March 9th. In other unrelated news, 21 Jump Street has grossed 97 million dollars since March 16th.

The yet unnamed Cap sequel will continue the story established in this summer’s Avengers. This seems a little problematic to me. Here’s why:

Iron Man 3 is set to drop on May 3, 2013. Thor 2’s release date is on November 15, 2013. Are these two movies not going to deal with the aftermath of Loki and his Kree Skrull Radamians Borg boogie-woogie aliens that aren’t really aliens because extraterrestrials don’t test well with the focus groups? Or is it going to end up like the second season of Lost where the same story is told from three different perspectives?

Knowing that Marvel had a plan for their seemingly divergent super hero movies kept me coming back for more. Nick Fury/Tony Stark’s epilogues were, dare I say it, an innovative sort of marketing trick that had the benefit of hinting at a larger narrative. Perhaps the Avengers is going to be both capstone and headwaters for Marvel’s next five year plan. As it stands now, things just seem confusing.

The Avengers opens worldwide on May 4th 2012.


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The Daily Shaft: The John Carter Meta Review

By
Adam Shaftoe
– March 14, 2012Posted in: Movies, The Daily Shaft

The first thing I did when I finished writing my review of John Carter was to see what everybody else was saying. My expectation was that this adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars would end up universally panned. I don’t want to rehash my review, but I didn’t see where viewers could find something to latch on to within this movie. It did, however, become very clear that I had grossly underestimated the Woola factor. Beyond the appeal of Martian dog-lizards, a fair amount of praise has emerged for John Carter. Because of that, I thought it would be fun to offer the grad school summary – that is the first and last paragraph – of the first five reviews that I read.

Adrienne Kress’s Hard Core Nerdity Review begins with,

“I’ve been puzzling over how to review Disney’s latest epic John Carter since I saw the screening for it last week.  I even went to source other reviews of the film to see if they could help me solidify my argument.  But it just made me more confused.  Nothing I read really captured my initial impression of the film, which hasn’t changed much in thinking about it. And my impression is . . . hmm.”

And ends with,

“…after all the unpacking of my complicated thoughts about this film, I do think people should see this film.  It’s different (which, I realize, is an odd thing to say considering the books inspired most of what we would consider classic contemporary science fiction).  It’s fun.  And now that all the exposition is out of the way, I think a sequel would really be very strong. And Taylor Kitsch looks really good in a skirt.”

Dana Stevens at Slate.com fired this as her opening salvo,

“…The result is a strange, at times misshapen, but somehow lovable thing: a movie that keeps trying to be smaller and simpler than its $250 million special-effects budget will permit. Buried within this bloated, CGI-crammed, unnecessarily 3D-ified monster is a bare-bones space western, the movie that last year’s Cowboys and Aliens should have been. And though that smaller movie within the movie isn’t allowed to surface often enough, what we do see of it is sufficiently winning that we keep waiting around, looking forward to its next appearance.”

Here is her final volley.

“I only wish John Carter had had the courage of its convictions, and not tried to be all things to all demographics. At heart, this is a niche movie for lovers of literary science fiction; it’s clear that Stanton’s intention was to create a rich, internally coherent fantasy universe, the way Peter Jackson did in the Lord of The Rings films or George Lucas did in the first Star Wars trilogy. The film should also have kept the working title that it shyly reveals only before the final credits: John Carter of Mars. It’s that unexpected juxtaposition—the ordinary guy who finds his inner hero when he wakes up on the wrong planet—that lends this overlong but sweet-spirited movie its charm.”

The CBC’s Eli Glasner comments on the fleeting nature of the story in his introduction…

“A massive movie based on a treasured pulp fiction classic, John Carter is a prime example of today’s super-sized cinema. It’s a richly articulated fantasy you’ll forget the moment you reach for your car keys.”

…wrapping up on a similar note.

“For the rest of us, who see the pop culture pastiche for what it is, John Carter is simply another amusement park ride. Leave your expectations (and critical faculties) at home and just watch the pretty colours whiz by.”

Ann Hornaday at the Washington Post was not quite so kind in her assessment.

“John Carter is being hyped as the first blockbuster of the year, but it’s really the first big flop. Budgeted at a reported $250 million, this dreary slog of a mess (or is that mess of a slog?) seems to exist primarily to remind viewers of older, better movies. Audiences ancient enough to remember Ray Harryhausen will pine for the days of that animator’s great 1950s stop-motion epics. Anyone who came of age with “Star Wars” will inwardly sigh and forgive Jar Jar Binks. Heck, compared with “John Carter,” even “Cowboys and Aliens” looks good.”

The scathing review ends with some praise for the actors.

“If you look carefully, you can detect some real acting going on in “John Carter” – that’s Ciaran Hinds, dressed in a ridiculous toga, as the embattled leader of the Barsoomian city of Helium. And that’s Mark Strong in the film’s most potent role of a shape-shifting baddie named Matai Shang. But even Strong’s best efforts can’t save “John Carter” from collapsing in on itself like a dead star. With any luck, the sequel this movie so strenuously sets us up for will meet the same fate before it gets to the screen.”

Fifth on my list is a man who inspires and enrages me in equal measures, big poppa himself, Roger Ebert.

NB: Since it would be necessary to showcase Ebert’s first three paragraphs to elucidate his first actual point, I’m using the relevant portion of his second paragraph to save everybody a bit of time. That said, his full review is brilliant and worth reading.

“When superior technology is at hand, it seems absurd for heroes to limit themselves to swords. When airships the size of a city block can float above a battle, why handicap yourself with cavalry charges involving lumbering alien rhinos? When it is possible to teleport yourself from Earth to Mars, why are you considered extraordinary because you can jump really high?”

Ebert ends on a more consolatory note.

“Does John Carter get the job done for the weekend action audience? Yes, I suppose it does. The massive city on legs that stomps across the landscape is well-done. The Tharks are ingenious, although I’m not sure why they need tusks. Lynn Collins makes a terrific heroine. And I enjoyed the story outside the story, about how Burroughs wrote a journal about what he saw and appears briefly as character. He may even turn up in sequels. After all, he wrote some.”

There we have it, five very different reviews of John Carter. Feel free to continue the discussion in the comments with your thoughts on the movie.


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Movie Review: John Carter

By
Adam Shaftoe
– March 9, 2012Posted in: Movie Reviews

Summary Judgement: A convoluted pastiche of poorly aged source material that yields an utterly forgettable plot despite the best efforts of the actors.

Directed by: Andrew Stanton

Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, and Willem Dafoe

John Carter is probably the first time I’ve hoped that a screen adaptation would depart from its source material. Edgar Rice Burrough’s Mars series is, at best, a quaint reminder of how much the novel, as a literary form, has evolved since the current generation’s great grand fathers fell in love with a swashbuckling Virginia-man teleported to the red planet. On some levels, John Carter rises above its more colonial and paternalistic roots. The problem is that it does so in the most bat-shit crazy way a person could imagine.

The plot is simple yet, for any viewer not initiated into Burrough’s mythology, likely Byzantine in its complexity. I shall attempt to distill it down to component parts. Contrary to what we think, Mars, called Barsoom by the natives, is not dead; it is however, dying. Upon the surface of this world there live a number of sentient races. For the sake of this movie they come in three flavours: Red, Green, and White. Nothing says 19th century colonial attitudes like reducing people down to the colour of their skin.

Red Martians are technologically advanced city dwelling humanoids with a dark tan and some red tattoos. Green Martians are ten feet tall, have four arms, and live as nomads within the ruins of Mars’ ancient cities. White Martians, also called Therns, are pasty white, bald, and shape shifters.

At this point, I suspect anybody who has read A Princess of Mars is throwing out the bullshit flag on the grounds that the Therns don’t show up until the second novel and are not shape shifters. Quite right. This movie takes elements of Princess of Mars and Gods of Mars and glues them together without any warrant for how well they fit. Now back to the movie plot.

The central conflict within the story focuses on the warring Red Martian city-states of Helium and Zodanga – which for some reason is a mobile city that is somehow destroying the planet. The details never really get explained. Things were going well for the Helumites until the Therns gave Zodanga a technological edge in the form of a McGuffin called “The 9th Ray”, which is your basic kill-all death ray. Said ray is never really explained, despite having an origin in the book. I can only imagine how confusing the movie’s “physics” will prove for neophytes to the story.

Zodanga’s Jeddak (Martian for King) Sab Than (Dominic West), at the demands of the Therns, who come off as nothing but tired clichés of “power behind the throne” bad guys, offers Helium a truce. If Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium, (Ciaran Hinds) agrees to marry his daughter, Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) to Sab Than, the latter will spare Helium from destruction. Enter John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) to save the day, that is after he A – plays through the tropes of being the damaged hero who finds something new for which he should fight and B – acts his way through a god-awful twenty minute Martian remix of Dances with Wolves. The months that Carter spent learning the customs, traditions, and language of the Green Martians in the book is literally reduced to a sip of magic know-all potion.

At this point I’d like to remind you, my good reader, that this is me trying to foist a bit of order on this story. The movie itself is not nearly as considerate. Like its protagonist, John Carter makes mighty leaps from one plot point to the next, never really connecting things together in a meaningful way. Everything in the story depends on iconography (Helium=blue banners=good / Zodanga=red banners=bad) and menacing looks from Therns to fill in the background. Again, as I know the books I could grumble about the script’s complete hack and slash job. Put in broader strokes, though, I don’t know how an outsider could approach this movie and see anything other than a shallow depiction of, and do pardon the phrase, Cowboys and Indians…on Mars. Even so armed with my foreknowledge, by the time I realized it was the third act, and thus time to start caring, the big dramatic battle was over. John Carter had saved the day, slain the bad guys, and won the girl.

NB: There’s no premarital sex on Mars. You marry a girl after knowing her for a week. Or maybe that’s just how they roll in Virginia.

The film accepts as a matter of fact the now disproven science that drove Burroughs novel vis-a-vis Mars’ thin atmosphere and lessened mass accounting for John Carter’s physical strength and ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Fair enough as the story falls apart without turning John Carter into Superman. Of course, I didn’t think it necessary for the story to stop and take a moment to comment on its own implausibility. There’s a scene when Matai Shang (Mark Strong), King of the Therns, captures John Carter. The Thern not only reveals that his kind have been to Earth on many occasions, but that they should have been able to account for Carter’s physiological abilities. Duh! Really? You’d think the Earth’s mighty gravity crushing their puny Martian bones once they set foot upon the planet would have been the first clue. It’s hard to believe that Andrew Stanton, a man who has earned Oscar glory for his writing and directing, would let that bit of dim-witted dialogue slide. Suspension of disbelief is one thing; when a movie points out that I’m using it, that’s a very different matter. Such actions presume stupidity on behalf of me and the rest of the audience. For shame sir, for shame.

The acting is the only thing that offers an ounce of redemption for this movie. Bryan Cranston has a bit role as a Union Colonel that attempts to draft Carter into the Arizona Territory Cavalry. Lynn Collins is okay as Dejah Thoris. She plays a very much retconed character as compared to what is found in the novels. Yet despite being a skilled fighter and the Regent of Helium’s scientific academy, Dejah still evokes her plot fodder origins in announcing her need for John Carter to save her people and by default herself from a political marriage. I only really wrote her off as a character when the Princess of Helium expresses her wants in the form of a temper tantrum followed by an emotional breakdown in the desert. Source material or no, I don’t buy a warrior-scientist-princess having a tantrum.

As for Taylor Kitsch as John Carter, he had the hardest job of all. To my modern eyes, John Carter is a bit of a despicable character. First and foremost he’s a proud Virginian and ex-confederate officer. Nobody born north of the Mason-Dixon line within the last fifty years is going to connect with that. Although the film iteration of Carter is a man who, at first, refuses to fight, he does so not because of the horrors of war. Rather his reticence stems from the death of his wife and child while he was fighting for the Confederacy. Sorry, Disney, but that doesn’t remove him far enough from Southern roots and ideology for me to get in line behind this guy. Combine that with the fact that Carter, in the novels, has the personality of a Turnip, and there’s not a lot for an actor to work with. So Kitsch tries hard. But when the story has all the inherent accessibility a chess match as recorded in Farsi, there’s only so much a fellow can do.

All that said, I want to know who is going to go see this movie? Hard core fans of the books will likely be put off by the huge inaccuracies in translation between novels and screenplay. Neophytes will spend two hours scratching their heads wondering what exactly is going on. Being that it’s a Disney movie there’s not enough violence, explosions, or cleavage shots to really hold the “action” movie junkies either. Nor do I see watching this movie in 3D as a particularly strong selling point. If we take away all those groups, who is left?

For my time, John Carter is little more than a way to burn two hours and $20. Despite its best efforts to be the first blockbuster of 2012, the movie is only slightly more interesting than taking a nap. The plot is disjointed; the writing is dreadful, and the acting suffers because of the writing. Know that only insomniacs and the morbidly curious should pay premium money to see this in theatres.


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The Daily Shaft – Thoughts on the John Carter Trailer

By
Adam Shaftoe
– December 1, 2011Posted in: Lit Reviews, Movie Reviews, The Daily Shaft

What’s this Daily Shaft thing, Adam?

Glad you asked.  It is going to be a mostly daily replacement for my Geek News posts.

Why are you ditching the Geek News? It’s awesome.

In short, NaNoWriMo reminded me I love daily writing.  It also illustrated the fact that writing 2-3 reviews a week in addition to 2000 words of prose per day is a bit tough.  Penning a high quality review takes time, more time than it does to write on a particular issue of genre media.  I also found myself waiting for a set number of things to write about in a Geek News post as to make it worthwhile.  Stories would grow stale while I waited for another epic thing to come on the radar.  So maybe everything in the Daily Shaft won’t be epic, it will at least be interesting.

You’re still doing the reviews, right?

Yes.  But unless people start paying me to write this website for a living, it’s not feasible for me to write as many reviews as I would like to on a weekly basis.  Also, I don’t like the look of my website when I only post once or twice a week.

So is this just going to be filler?

Hell no.  It would be easy for me to just repost stuff from other websites.  As you’ll see with today’s post, I shall endeavour to maintain a critical perspective in everything that goes into a the Daily Shaft.

Won’t I miss stuff if you are posting every day?

Perhaps.  But if you want to make sure never to miss anything you can sign up for email alerts in the “Subscribe for Updates” box, just to your right.

Okay, I’m in.  What are you talking about today?

Today I’m talking about the upcoming John Carter movie, here’s the trailer.

 

It’s safe to say that I’m not very enthusiastic about Disney’s production of John Carter.  Part of this concern stems from the fact that I object to bad movies.  Of equal importance is my concern that the production is going to be damaging to the overall legitimacy of genre stories, but more on that in a moment.

The crux of the issue is that I don’t think Burroughs’ novels have aged particularly well.  Having recently read Princess of Mars (1917), Gods of Mars (1918) and now as I slog through Warlord of Mars (1919) I must declare John Carter to be one of the most two dimensional characters that English literature has ever seen.  Every problem that he confronts is solved with either brute force or a convenient Deus ex Machina.  More tedious is the fact that every female character is so ineffective as to be reduced to window dressing. Dejah Thoris, princess of the twin city of Helium, is only good for getting kidnapped as a means of moving the plot. Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang is an evil bitch not because she is an evil bitch but because John Carter refused her romantic advances. Everything she does is always punctuated with, “If only you would love me, John Carter.” To which John Carter responds with, “No, I love Dejah Thoris. Now let me expound on my virtues as an honourable Virginia gentleman.”  Even Thuvia, whose skill with Martian wildlife saves John Carter, spends most of Gods and Warlord as a captive of Holy Issus Goddess of blah blah blah or Matai Shang Hekkador of the Holy Therns et cetera et cetera.

I’m not even going to touch the fact that everything involving the Tharks in Princess of Mars reads like something out of a nineteenth century captivity novel, let alone the fact that John Carter refers to the Green Martians as noble savages on a number of occasions.  It’s enough to see a former Confederate army officer offering begrudging respect to a nomadic society which he then manipulates into fighting a war on behalf of the civilized and technologically advanced city of Helium. Yeah, that will go down well.

I know people are going to say “that the story is a product of its time.” Okay, fine. For the sake of this argument I’ll concede that Burroughs is a product of a retrograde point in gender and race relations within North American history.  Let’s move on to my next point.

Consider Disney’s recent big budget special effects movie, Tron Legacy. This sequel, thirty years in the making, is a very pretty movie that is almost bereft of substance. That said the original Tron, regardless of the writers’ intentions, had a philosophical subtext or at least enough structure such that I could foist one upon it.  The $64,000 question: what is going to happen when Disney takes the world of John Carter, a world that by contemporary standards would be dismissed as overtly chauvinistic, and gives it the Tron Legacy treatment?

If Disney stays loyal to the novels then we’re going to end up with a blase action movie where the hero solves every problem with his sword and martian rifle. Every female character will stand around with their mouths gaping in incredulity in the finest tradition of Megan Fox in Transformers.  And the big one, likely within two days of its release every activist and scholar of indigenous culture will, and perhaps justifiably so, begin a new campaign of “Science Fiction as colonizing force.”

From the trailer, it looks like the screenplay is taking bits and pieces from Princess and Gods and fabricating them into a new story.  Why else would we see John Carter paddling down a river were it not the mystic River Iss?  Perhaps the movie will turn out to be an in-your-face anti-religous screed.  In that case, I’ll offer three to one odds that the Therns turn into space Muslims.

For now, I honestly don’t know what would be uglier: a faithful reproduction of Princess of Mars, or one that reflects the West’s current attitudes on life, the universe and everything.  In either case, it won’t be pretty, except for the special effects and half naked people; they will be very pretty.


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Movie Review: Up

By
Adam Shaftoe
– October 30, 2010Posted in: Movie Reviews, Watched with girlfriend

Summary Judgement:  I hate animated cutesy-poo “fun for the whole family” movies.  But I didn’t hate this one.  In fact, Up delightfully contrasts escapist fantasy with images of the real world, in all its sadness.

Directed by: Pete Docter and Bob Peterson

Written by: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson and Thomas McCarthy

Starring the voices of: Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai, Bob Peterson and John Ratzenberger

For a film that includes children in its target audience, Up explores some surprisingly powerful themes.  During its relatively short runtime, the movie deals with, or at least mentions, gentrification, the loss of loved ones, divorce, emotional neglect, the nanny state, animal cruelty and fallen heroes.  These grim themes are balanced with an enduring motif of friendship, camaraderie, a genuinely funny archetype of the cantankerous old bastard and, of course, sentient dogs.  However, the film is more than just an emotional balancing act on the road to a happy ending.  Indeed, Up resists the temptation to sermonize on the ills of modern life.  Instead, the movie reflects the reality that bad things tend to punctuate the lives of good people.

The movie’s principle characters are an odd couple: Carl, a septuagenarian widower (Ed Asner) and Russell, an overweight pre-teen of divorced parents (Jordan Nagai).  Both of these characters ooze pathos.  The opening montage charts Carl’s relationship with his deceased wife, Ellie.  Carl and Ellie share a dream to visit the South American locale of Paradise Falls.  The financial exigencies of real life, however, constantly seem to get in the way of the couple’s travel plans.  This montage also offers a rather daring moment of honesty when we see Carl and Ellie in a 1960’s prenatal clinic.  Despite financial problems and their inability to have a child, Carl and Ellie live a happy life together.  Pixar scores major points for eschewing the hetero-normative assumption procreation is requisite to a happy marriage.  The montage, which culminates in Ellie’s death, leaves Carl cranky, paranoid and a creature of routine.  With Ed Asner’s voice giving life to a character that so brilliantly embodies the situation of elderly male widowers, my grandfather counted among that group, that I couldn’t help but empathize with the old coot.  That emotional connection let me suspend disbelief when it came to the concept of floating one’s house to South America via helium balloons.

Then there’s Russell.  Russell is equal parts overly keen and overly fed.  As a Wilderness Scout, he wants nothing more than to earn his ‘helping the elderly’ badge.  While this will allow him to graduate to ‘Senior Scout’ it will also necessitate his absentee father pinning the final badge on his uniform.  This desire for paternal approval is at the core of Russell’s character, matched only by his devotion to duty as a Wilderness Scout.  My fear as I watched the movie was that Russell’s need for approbation would be awkwardly forced on to Carl.  Again, the writers and directors surprised me.  The creative team refrained from going there too early in the film, instead leaving that moment of paternal bonding for the very end.  For most of the movie, Carl and Russell are just two people, both very lonely due to the recent losses in their lives.  Some might call that trite.  I call it honest since it presents fictionalized children as something other than vapid testaments to the innocence of days past without getting into that nonsense about empowering children, barf.

Up might not address all world’s problems, but it should be commended for the fact that it acknowledges some of the West’s glaring imperfections.  One such scene shows how Russell’s girth prevents him from climbing a hose to Carl’s floating house.  Certainly, the lad’s lack of physical prowess is fine comedic fodder.  However, it also gives parents an opportunity to critically evaluate their own little doughy video game warriors.  Then again, my estimate is that the lousy parents who don’t consider such things vastly outnumber the good parents.  The message will likely end up preaching to the choir or wasted on the folk who let Bill Gates and Steve Jobs do the bulk of their parenting.

I will say that I could have done without the sentient dogs; they were cute for the sake of funny, so I guess that is okay.  If robots, generic henchmen, or even robot henchmen replaced the dogs, the movie would not lose much.  Perhaps something had to give to keep a PG rating on the film.  Though, who needs a voice box collar to know what a dog is thinking?  I know what my cat is thinking.  It goes like this, “No matter where you go in the house, I’m going to get there first and be just slightly in your way but too cute for you to do anything about it.  It’s going to keep going down like that until you stop feeding me that dehydrated crap and serve me up the same kind of steak that you eat.  Alternatively, you could have the vet make me not a eunuch.  Occasionally, I will vomit just to watch you clean it up.”

That last paragraph perfectly illustrates my point about the talking dogs.  It might be a little funny, but it’s not really necessary.

Overall, Up is a decent piece of reasonably original story telling.  That in of itself should merit a viewing.  If you need more, the movie offers shiny CGI – with a 3D option for those into that sort of thing – a soundtrack inspired by classical music, not Randy Newman or Miley Ray Montana, and some poignant but still funny characters.   It might not be Wall-E, but Up is certainly worth watching.

Overall score: +2.75

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