Batman is a man dressed in a black rubber bat suit fighting crime and stuff. Worst premise since Nazi surfers must die? Even the presence of Christian Bale really adds little to the credibility of this irrational holy sack of nut milk. It might be 'kinda cool'. The budget is big and gadgets are clever but it really isn't, is it?
Just to make sure it was the rest of the world that was wrong and not me, I went on a cigar waving investigation into my own opinion forming smooth noodle maps. Here it is for you to not read.
My issues really don't lie with the film in question so I'll back off before Kadas and Scott form an alliance (leaving me in possible danger of complete character assassination). Dark Knight is clearly a decent movie. What really leaves me conflicted is omnipresent with the genre. The very nature of sci-fi/fantasy means you can explain ANYTHING away. This makes writers squat over their typewriters and piece together the smudges of crap in the redraft. This isn't necessarily strict to the sci-fi genre. Just watch Quantum of Solace to see a sick bag of unnecessary effects and coerced action sequences hurriedly explained away with pseudo science. It's a very thin line to tread.
Not to mention (well…here comes a mention) nearly every sci-fi story is a rip-off, even the good ones. It has become urban myth that the first Alien project was pitched with the concept 'Jaws in space' but it's absolutely true. Most sci-fi films today are guaranteed to make their money back whatever. Cue more lazy writing.
I think back to my childhood. A good Sci-Fi or Fantasy adventure is every kids dream come movie. Who can remember being absorbed into the fantastical spandex codpiece that is Jim Henson's Labyrinth for the first time? The uber-camp spectacle of Flash Gordon (1980), the weird robot romance of Short Circuit and the Tolkeinesque dwarf tossing Willow? These are the films that make a childhood.
The problem I found as I got older (on my journey towards the pinnacle of mid twenties overweight neurotic checkout boy I am today) was that a lot of these films had no basis in reality. I simply can't suspend my disbelief that easily anymore. Everything became a joke.
I found I could continue to deny the real world well into my teens with the help of some r18 lovelies. The dark nightmare that was Terminator, Alien, the (1st) Matrix. These films at least referenced our world as we know it. What next? A slew of mediocre at best comic book movies. The League of extraordinary gentlemen? Must try harder.
By the time Lord of the rings came out I'd pretty much had enough.
Here are a few reasons to hate Sci-Fi/Fantasy:
I'm not sure when it was decided that funny collar = future! But when genre conventions become clichés it's time to rethink. So why the hell are people still wearing Sci-Fi jackets?
The most hateable lead actors in the galaxy?
"Duuuude!" Keanu Reaves in The Matrix can surely only be outdone by the epic super douche that is Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker. Closely followed by the distracting smugness of Emile Hirsch in Speed Racer. That film needed rescuing instead it got the final nail in the coffin. Anyone remember Shyamalans cameo in The Village? That actually made me cough up what can only be described as faecal matter into my popcorn. I still ate it.And finally, the fans.
I get nostalgic and miss the good old days. I just want to be entertained sometimes damn you. Sci-Fi/Fantasy films make you excited and disappointed on levels at which only a naïve child should be excused. But isn't this part of the fun of movies?
I have recently started to reconciliate with Sci Fi. I spent the last 8 hours watching Joss Whedons Firefly and have been thouroughly entertained.
For anyone that wants a sci-fi that really is down to earth, watch the awesome Primer.
This is as gritty and real as the genre gets. It won't take you on the highs and lows of 'T2' or make you lose a dougan like 'Robocop', but it has such a feel as to really get you to rethink the whole genre.I feel guilty, I've been a snob. I've let a few bad apples spoil my fun.
Imagine me, stumbling in the desert, tattered and torn and on my last legs. Arms outstretched imploring the giant vagina-mouthed brain in a jar from Dune, "Please Sci fi/Fantasy, please have me back! I am sorry I generalised and mocked you, I was wrong. I just want to watch 300 and get psyched before paintball. Will you take me back?"
She holds me close, I wipe a tear from my cheek and close my eyes. I'm home.
So, When is The Watchmen coming out?
13 comments:
"I simply can't suspend my disbelief that easily anymore."
better stop watching ALL films then, because (as you well know, having taken 90 days off work to hoist a boomstick above fledgling actors) they're ALL fake.
geez, man, i actually feel sorry for you - never before have i met someone who works so closely with an industry he seems to despise so much...
"Please ALL FILM, please have me back! I am sorry I generalised and mocked you, I was wrong. I just want to watch 300 and get psyched before paintball. Will you take me back?"
"No".
so you DID read the watchmen (or at least watched the trailer)...
also, i don't think batman classifies as either sci-fi or fantasy, so where's the tie-in? the whole thing that made the dark knight (and batman begins) great is the realism, the trending AWAY from comic-book conventions. the characters are archetypes, not caricatures.
i agree with you on primer, though - wonderful film.
and man, be careful - first dissing the fountain, then the dark knight and speed racer? your character is not the only thing that's going to be assassinated.
Great post Tom and spot on. The issues you raise are valid and certainly worthy of further exploration. I think you're absolutely right about The Dark Knight. It is, at best, a competent comic book movie and not much else. It's head and shoulders better than most comic-inspired films, but that isn't saying much. It's a little like getting a great box of Kraft Dinner - you know, one without bugs where the orange powder mix dissolves nicely for once. It's still Kraft Dinner.
I think your point about Sci-Fi/Fantasy film making is accurate. The modern film industry often seems incapable of translating the essence of science fiction to the screen. I'm tempted to supersize that statement and suggest that that might be the case regardless of genre, but let's stick to the matter at hand. One would think that the movies would be an almost perfect medium for fantasy fiction but it seems the visuals often trump the screenplays. The CGI has become the medium itself - rather than a tool to tell stories. I think you've hit the nail on the head when you suggest that the suspension of disbelief necessary to immerse yourself in most Sci-Fi/Fantasy stories simply becomes too great an effort. The beauty of Primer was its very sexy low-tech veneer. The story had to be soundly structured because there wasn't any cash to flash the audience with. The worst culprit I can think of is George Lucas whose mega-franchise, Star Wars, became (particularly in the second trilogy of prequels) little more than set pieces connected by a threadbare connect-the-dots plot. And they made billions.
Something happened over the last few decades of film making. In order to entice the Braindead Generation into the theatre, the marquee had to have something on it they recognized. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stalker, Silent Running, Alien, Slaughterhouse Five, Forbidden Planet and The Day the Earth Stood Still have been replaced with Spiderman, Batman, The Punisher, LOTR and a host of remakes, prequels and sequels. Often these reworked screenplays end up stripped of the original social context and played instead for maximum CGI firepower. The one that instantly springs to mind is this year's Will Smith remake of the Richard Matheson cautionary tale, I Am Legend. If you watch the original $1.99 Vincent Price version from 1960 (The Last Man on Earth) the differences are monumental. The same can be said of Burton's excruciating Planet of the Apes remake and dozens of others.
Beyond Primer, they still make the odd great Sci-Fi film. I would argue that Code 46, Gattaca, Children of Men, Firefly and most surprisingly, BSG (a series' that almost singlehandedly put the “Opera” back in Space Opera) all qualify a great Sci-Fi. I would also add Heroes and Lost to the fold. As for the endless Marvel movie adaptations, there's a reason we all stop reading comics when we turn twelve. We move beyond their scope. It's too bad Hollywood won't.
I... i still read comics
Yes Kris... My point exactly.
I think we're forgetting that every generation has had it's fair share of main stream shite. Also many of the most revered films of generations past are adaptations themselves i.e. Bladerunner, 2001: a space odyssey, Slaughterhouse Five etc.
However, this generation is guilty of the sequel, the prequel, the tie-in film craze on a more rapid attention deficit level. We're seeing a film that falls into one of those categories being released at a rate of once a month. I think this may be due to the fact that unlike any generation before this (and by generation what are we talking like.. since the mid 90's? i am) our venues for entertainment have grown.
Without the internet (and remember kiddos about 13 years back none of us we're surfing) we wouldn't have The Matrix at all, bombadil. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the internet is what has spurred this thirst for the sequel and the redux and the remake. ... wait, this is totally fodder for it's own post.
anyways all I'm saying is, taking the view that people of today lack imagination or they are "brain dead" is a lazy and callow way of looking at things.
It's like siting around listening to old records saying things like "oh Hendrix, they don't riff like that anymore. Today's generation is all about the screaming and the yelling. They should mellow out man"
Every older generation hates the newer, but to fully believe that the state of today is worse, and less unimaginative than any that came before it is childish.
Also, villianizing a special effect seems silly. I just saw synecdoche new york last night and it had a profound effect on me. It was a film that relied on CGI to create it's ambiance and it worked incredibly well. It was the stuff of dreams, it was a film that couldn't have been made as well if it came out of any other generation but today's.
now, about sci/fi-fantasy. some titles from today's generation you may have overlooked.
-cloverfield (which you loved Tom BOMBadil)
-The American Astronaut
-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (you may wanna debate that, but if you say primer is in then Eternal Sunshine is in also)
-Dark City
-THE FOUNTAIN
-Galaxy Quest
-The Mummy (to not admit that the mummy wasn't fun is to admit you don't have a beating heart, that your body actually runs on snobbishness and the smell of your own farts)
-Donnie Darko
-A Scanner Darkly
-Children of Men
-Pan's Labyrinth..
and god the list goes on and on
I think i'm the only one i know who thinks films are getting better.
The Dark Knight i think is more than mac and cheese, that shit is chicken parmigiana in a box. but like good parmigiana.
It turned the comic book movie on it's ear. much like Joker says "we (audiences) deserve a better class of criminal" and the dark knight gave us that. It pushed the envelope of what can be done within the confines of "comic adaptation" and should be celebrated. -much like Chino Locos, out here in the east end, has pushed the boundaries of what a burrito can be and should also be celebrated.
kk, that last paragraph encapsulates why i love you so much and why we are best friends, and why i'll never, ever leave you....EVER...
i think both scott and kris should write separate complete posts as spinoffs of this one - there is much food for thought here, and your ideas shouldn't be relegated to the comments scrapheap.
1) I AM lazy and callow
2) I hate everyone, not just your generation Kris.
3) I've got no problem with CGI unless it IS the film. Used well, it can intensely improve the experience
4) I hate plaid.
5) The Dark Knight is a comic book movie. That's not a bad thing but let's keep some perspective here. It is a well done genre film not a masterpiece. Watch L'Avventura or Touch of Evil.
6) Your list is an excellent one but doesn't go on and on. It stops a couple of titles after you did. Can you name 10 more?
7) I hate people with 3 wheeled baby carriages and red scarfs
8) I never said your generation lacked imagination - but that's a good point. I should have.
9) An ass kicking post will follow proving all of this beyond doubt.
10) I was just trying to be nice to Bigus Dickus and I get sideswiped by Kadas WHILE HE'S ON THE CLOCK!
The Dark Knight < the fountain... nuff' said
I AM THE CLOCK
You know those devices they install on cars that make the driver blow into a tube to test for alcohol before the car will start?
I think something similar should be mounted on Dropkick's computer.
hahaha this is too good. i wish i was smart enought to come up with a witty retort. can you guys pause for a second? i'm going to get popcorn...
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