Tomb Raider

     I found the rotten tomatoes page for this film amusing. It hung around nearly a perfect 50% for so long. Though I'd say the viewer's grade of 70% is more correct.

     Here's the deal: the film was good. Had some cool sequences, but the pacing was a bit off. The first act lasted longer than it needed to, spending time on action sequences that didn't truly connect to the plot. Also on scenes that weren't strictly necessary to move the plot along (her pawning a necklace to get money could've been replaced with her just finding her father's stash).
      In addition, there were some sequences that tried to build up tension, but instead just felt gamey. Which is to be expected, given that this film was based off the 2013 game Tomb Raider. But lifting scenes straight from the games doesn't work quite the same in a movie as in a game. There is a sequence where she is trying to a void going down a water fall, and keeps jumping from frying pan to frying pan, and even remarks with a lampshading "Seriously?!" in regards to the fact she doesn't get a breather. This sequence would be good in a game (and it was), but in a movie it does reach levels of ridiculousness.
      But, beyond the pacing, there was another problem in the feel of the movie... it took itself too seriously. Everything is super gritty, dirty, painful... and there is no levity to the proceedings. The film is basically The Mummy with Brandon Fraser, minus the comedy that made it an adventure film instead of an action film.
      Lara Croft and Tomb Raider are adventures, not straight action. On an adventure, there has to be fun, otherwise it is a boring adventure. I get that Lara is pretty serious here because it is life and death... but that's why the other characters should pick up the slack. I can't even remember the name of the main villain, and he was so bland I sometimes confused him with some of his lackies. If he's gone stir crazy from hunting on the island for 7 years, SHOW IT. He should be bombastic; he should be beyond excited to find and enter the tomb, laugh at inappropriate times, and generally be a fun and memorable villain.


     What might've hurt the movie was sticking closely to the game. Lara Croft is not so difficult to work with that you have to copy her acclaimed game to do well. She is literally a more mountain climby version of Indiana Jones, with a bow or two pistols instead of a whip.
      I think sequels are very likely to occur, and may even do better than this origin story, but they will have to look at the story from a different angle than a game. What works in a game won't necessarily work in a movie. A unique story for Tomb Raider wouldn't even be that hard, it's just a game of madlibs:

"Lara goes to a __(burial location)___ in _(region)_ that contains an ancient _(magical thing)_ that needs to be __(verb)__ to save the _(location)_"

     Add some fun people to talk to, some jokes, action sequences with tomb traps, a crazy villain, and you got the makings of a good Tomb Raider movie.

A Wrinkle in Time

     In Monster Hunter, the main weapon I use is a Lance.

What if he comes at you with a pointed stick?

     The lance has THE strongest defense in the game series, especially in the latest entry, World. With the right abilities and moves, you can defend against ANY attack. Behind your shield, you are invincible. However, you can't hunt monsters just by blocking. You have to fight back as well.

     That's the thing with the lance; while it has the best defense, to use it best, you are meant to be aggressive. Think of fights and conflict as a scale containing positive and negative actions. A positive action is when you act, you attack, or you do something that gives you free reign to attack. Negative actions are when you resist, or negate someone else's positive action.

      You want to have that scale leaning heavily in the positive, but with enough in the negative to not die.

       That metaphor is about positive characters; characters that take action, and take control over their situation. Negative characters just go along for the ride and have nothing to really contribute.

        For instance, take Phoebe of The Magic School Bus:

We never made intros this long at my old school...

     She is just along for the ride. She has no claim to any positive actions over her situation, or the situations she is led to. Meanwhile, Arnold, the resident complainer, has made multiple positive actions. Though he still lacks control over his situations, he has made actions that exert control over the direction that they go, such as forcing his cousin to abandon her space junk by removing his helmet (if you have understood the references so far, you already know that one, but if you don't know, Magic School Bus is a series by Scholastic books that got turned into a TV show in 1994...)

      The Magic School Bus is the perfect comparison for A Wrinkle in Time.

     The plot is basically this: Mrs. Frizzle takes her class of Meg, Charles Wallace, and Scott on a trip to Ireland with Tusks (I call it Tuskreland), and then has them huff cave fumes to go on a psychedelic trip to find Meg's father inside Ego's mind.

     That may sound reductive, but the film honestly could use some trimming. For starters, the third kid's name isn't Scott, it's Hobbes. No, it's actually Klein. Point is, it doesn't matter.

    Point blank, the only white male in the film doesn't need to be there, serves no narrative purpose, and ultimately takes no actions of his own, positive or negative. His presence adds nothing, and nothing will remind us of him.

     Then there's Meg... She is the central character, and she is Phoebe. She is dragged along kicking and screaming; never saying yes, only saying no. Her only actions are beaning a girl with a basket ball, and telling her brother "I love you Charles Wallace!"

      Don't mean to interrupt myself, but this has to be dealt with NOW. His name is beyond awkward, because they ALWAYS use his full name like that. Combined with his nature as a weird little smartalek makes it seem like he's more of a charge than a little brother. If you actually love someone, and are around them enough, you tend to only use that many syllables when referring to them by name when you're mad. Otherwise, you're more likely to call them one name, use initials, a nickname, a diminutive... He should be referred to as Charles, Wallace, Charlie, Wally, Waldo, or even CW. Always calling him Charles Wallace not only seems overly formal and weird, but also wastes space on the screenplay.

      Since we're on him, I should also mention how his weirdness is just plain distracting. He up and vanishes for no reason at one point, just to reappear with no explanation. Then he is hypnotized by IT (I'd clarify it is not the killer clown, but it might as well have been actually) with a multiplication times table. That isn't a joke, he is literally hypnotized by reciting his two times table. Then he becomes the embodiment of the main villain.
       I get the idea they were going for this, upping the stakes by having the villain take over the body of a friend. Unfortunately the friend was a 6 year old hippie in a sweater-vest with all the menace and presence of a jar of cucumbers. If they had instead taken the father as the face, that would've had some impact. Admittedly it would've just looked like Kirk went power mad, but still.

        Speaking of resemblances, can you identify this person:

      If you said Oprah, then you see the problem. Mrs. Frizzle's college professor here is actually called "Mrs. Which." But she will only be seen as Oprah. Not helped by the fact it is painfully obvious during a lot of CG shots that Oprah wasn't on set with them, and was likely filmed separate. At most, I could count one scene where she could have been on set with them. You never believe in Mrs. Which. It could've been played by anyone else and it would've worked better. If it was Morgan Freeman, he would have SOLD that part, despite being Morgan Freeman. The only reason it is Oprah is because of marketing. Her acting was passable at times, but any time she tried to sound inspiring or reassuring, she just sounded like she was on her talk show, and like even she didn't believe what she was saying.

     Literal Mrs.Frizzle is also in the movie, called "Mrs. Whatsit."

     ...

     Anyway, Meg does nothing positive really. The reason why this is important is because it makes her boring. If Rocky was just about talking about the upcoming fight, not doing anything about it, and then only guarding from Apollo's hits until Apollo tuckers himself out, you'd rightfully call it boring and think that the only thing Rocky has going for him is a bunch of endurance and possibly no brain. The reason I started with an explanation about the lance in Monster Hunter is because of the oft repeated phrase in the trailers, "be a warrior."
     The film does not seem to know what a warrior is. A warrior is someone willing to take action, be brave in the face of their own fears, and live their life in a way that would allow them to enter the gates of Valhalla. Die gloriously while fighting, that is what being a warrior is. While "fighting" can be interpreted in some wide ways, including fighting diseases or for peace, it does not include hiding and pleading. There is a distinct difference between pleading, and calling out. Meg didn't win the final battle, it was Waldo. She called out for Wally to fight IT, and he did. She didn't counter IT's logic, or attack IT to release CW, she just pleaded for Charlie to come to the fore.



     Finally, the biggest flaws with the movie... being weird for the sake of being weird isn't whimsical, it is just weird. Also you cannot glide by on whimsy. Avatar wasn't the success it was just because it was beautiful; despite what the internet may have you believe, it was also because it had a good story. Also, beautiful imagery is only beautiful if we can tell where we are in a scene. more than once I got lost on where people were standing on an open field because the camera completely threw out the 180 degree rule.
     Something I also noticed was a complete lack of any interesting animals or foliage. These were alien worlds, and we didn't even seen strange birds, just some color changing flowers out of Alice in Wonderland. Your whimsy was weak!



     But, the film could be done better. I know it could, last October it got really good reviews. Of course, it went under the name IT and was written by Stephen King, but it was essentially the same plot. A group of kids fight off an extraterrestrial evil, and save their friend through the power of love. The main difference is in IT, the kids take positive actions, fighting off a bully, actively hunting the clown, trying to learn about the clown, and eventually bring it down.
    That is the crux of a Wrinkle in Time's problem. It doesn't throw the kinds of obstacles at its characters that they could take positive action against. They also don't set up love as being a possible barrier or counter to IT's evil
    The first round of fixes is to condense the characters; one weird star girl, Meg, and her brother Charlie. More screentime for each allows for more characterization, and increases their abilities to make positive actions. Second, change the obstacles to ones they can counter or combat. No tornadoes or sky squid ink... and don't make IT so easily countered by saying no. You know that one scene in Stepford? Yeah the trailers showed that scene in full. They don't attack the heroes or try to hypnotize them... they just decline some food and they go away. It should be a lot harder. The planet is essentially like the mirror world in Doctor Strange, it should FORCE the characters to fight, not just resist. The world should run off their fears, or entice their desires. Else, IT just seems like an idiot that deserves to be beaten and outsmarted by Mrs Frizzle and Oprah.
     Finally... don't have the villain physically attack Meg. Mentally attack her. make her pull a Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and tell It why it is wrong, and prove her mental fortitude. Or hell, have her use her knowledge of physics (she apparently has that, not well established, I imagine scenes were cut) to cause IT to be ripped apart by teleportation, or send IT into a star. At the end of the movie, it doesn't really seem like she stopped IT, just that it was shaken off.
     Basically, the characters need a way to create an actual impact on the plot, good or ill.



     So that's my writing type of the day! Make sure your characters can actually do things and not just be led by the nose like cattle!

Annihilation

     Online, there is a site called scp-wiki.net. It is basically a fictional set of tests and information files on cryptids and anomalies, all being kept in scientific facilities like Area 51 under the name Secure Contain Protect. The most popular of which is code named SCP 682, which is basically a tarrasque, an nigh-unkillable monster. Then there is SCP 173; a creepy fetid doll that moves like a Weeping Angel out of Doctor Who (it can only move when you can't see it, which includes when you blink), and kills anything in reach. SCP 096 will relentlessly hunt down anyone that has seen its face...
     But, then there are things like SCP-1990, a stuffed tiger that grants you a mediocre version of a wish. (Wishing for $20 gets you a jar of cool, liquid metal that is equal to $5 if turned into nickels)
     SCP is kind of a testament to humanity, our scientific process, and creativity. There are hundreds of entries on how they have tried to kill SCP 682 with other anomalous objects, like asking a coffee machine for something to kill it with... it is dark, but also kinda silly, and as we interact with things and understand them more, we become less and less afraid, and more bemused.


     SCP is what was going through my mind while watching Annihilation. Everything about it, from the suicidal task, to the weird but beautiful anomalies, the primary solution to weird shit being guns and SCIENCE!... It is probably as close as one will get to an SCP movie considering the copyright on that site would be a goddamn nightmare.
     Annihilation is a thriller with a bit of body horror and existentialism. Though, while existentialism is the right word for the genre of horror it presents, it is more nihilistic than existentialist (can't spell annihilation without "nihil").


    Basically the story is that a meteor crashed 3 years ago, and created this prismatic field. A government group was assigned to study, contain, and hopefully eradicate this anomaly when people that went into the field never came out.
     The body horror aspect comes in when they figure out that the field is affecting them, changing their DNA at a rapid pace in a way best described as cancer, and the changes make their minds go a bit Looney Toons.

    The film is very picturesque, with some amazing cinematography, and keeps up its atmosphere of disorientation and confusion alongside unexpected beauty very well. I wouldn't be surprised to see it in the Oscars next year for best cinematography or visual effects (well, kinda surprised given how the voting works, but not surprised).
    The story however... It's okay. The story is a vehicle for the film's visuals and thrills, but it is a bit clunky and not all that fun to ride in, but the visuals are so pretty you can kind of ignore the bumpy ride. It kind of wants you to ask questions like "how did it work?" so they didn't have to answer, but if you are like me, and are willing to just accept "pigs have no sleeves" as an answer when not given enough information, then you won't really be asking the nihilistic questions they want you to.
     I do mean nihilistic. The film has a running theme in the shimmery field of weird shit of asking the question "How do I know I'm me? Or that anyone is who they are?" which is the point of view of someone questioning their purpose in a world after determining nothing has an innate purpose. Or in shorter terms, nihilism. An existentialist confronted with the same questions would answer instead "Because I say I'm me, and they say they are." Questioning whether you are still you is a concern if you identify yourself by certain things, and not based on just being you.
     It's messy and a bit complicated, but basically I wasn't really impacted by the questions the film wanted you to ask because I was never really questioning the answer, and just asking the question again doesn't change the consideration of the answer. It asks if things have meaning because we say they do; my answer is yes, and it didn't really present any reason to change that answer... Not helped by the fact that a lot of the asking of those questions is caused by the field messing with people's heads.

     Also the characters weren't that fun or interesting. Natalie Portman had only one part where she actually emoted a bit, and then the rest of the time she was just in Amidala mode. All the other characters were one note, and the only character whose name I can remember, Anya, was the only one to eventually have two notes. I wasn't really watching to see Natalie save her husband so much as to see the mystery concluded. The real main character on screen was the visuals.


    In conclusion, the film has a lot of beautiful and creative visuals, but its story is just a vehicle for the visuals and thrills, with the plot structure of a slasher film. It can be fun, but I don't recall much that I enjoyed outside of the artistry.


     Honestly, I would've preferred the film took an SCP approach to the idea, watching a team of scientists examine it and try to figure out how to stop or contain it (given the solution found, I'm surprised none of them thought "Hey, why don't we bomb it?"). It would've been a more unique plot structure, and also allow for more room for character growth and interactions than just "I'm scared of the weird things going on here." There could be things like "what happens if we put a bunch of rats in heavily reinforced and well stocked cages, and put them in the field?" or "Maybe instead of always trying to get to the center, we try seeing what the inside is like first by telling the team to return?" Or, "what if we parachuted onto the beach?" "Is the field spherical or just a disk?" "Can we get a boat and get to the beach that way?" "If our goal is to stop what is at the beach, why are we sending small squads in instead of a platoon?"
     Don't make your audience ask questions about your mystery if you didn't think that hard about some logical answers to problems. I wasn't even thinking that hard, I was just riffing near the end there...
     So Fixer Sue Tip of the week! Think about how characters can take alternate paths to the same goal!

Keep the Change (2017)

     With regards to reviews, there are certain things readers need to keep in mind when looking at a review by someone. Reviewers tend to specialize in a couple fields, knowing the in's and out's of them, and what makes a good text in that field. If you are a careful review reader, you will learn the specialties of reviewers, and have a better understanding of the value of a reviewer's opinion on a subject.
     For instance, do not trust the opinion of Armond White on Rotten Tomatoes. He gives scores that will make his blog get clicked on, and that's it. He specializes in contrarianism.
     With regards to me... It should be fairly clear that I watch a lot of animated films, action films, et cetera. The only odd things out are that I like musical movies, and I don't accept animation quality as an excuse for poor writing. What may not be as clear is the things I don't like.

     I'm not a fan of personal dramas. War dramas and some historical events, sure, I like 'em, but I am a poor judge on their quality. But, stuff like romcoms, Oscar bait like The Phantom Thread, and other dramas that are more focused on personal relationships I am a particularly poor judge of because I do not like them. I can recognize their quality, I can recognize an audience for them, and agree that they are worth seeing... I just don't like them.

      With that in mind, I saw Keep the Change during the Greater Phoenix Jewish Film Festival. The guiding premise behind it is that the main characters and their actors are all on the spectrum to varying degrees.
       My opinion on the film's quality isn't the most useful info I can provide you. I was not its audience after all. I can, however, help promote the film a bit to help it find its true champions, and I know that they are out there.

      The film has a very accurate portrayal of people on the spectrum, and how they are trying to live a life they can enjoy. It is commendable to produce such a film, and I know a lot of people on tumblr would love to see it.
      I did not find it easy to watch. It requires a lot of patience for all the characters, and an understanding of the spectrum. If you weren't already interested by the prospect of characters and actors on the spectrum, you may not be the audience either. It gets kind of hard to watch at times... I even had to remove myself from the theatre at one point because I KNEW what was going to happen in my absence, and I did not want to see it.
     But, that is what I mean when I say I am not the audience for this movie. This movie was made to make a point, and like a teacher yelling at a noisy room when I was quietly reading, I knew it wasn't aimed at me.

     This film was made for people on the spectrum to see themselves in it, similar to the feelings around Black Panther. It was made to prove a point that it is possible to have actors on the spectrum without resorting to Forest Gump. It was made for the people that wanted to see the lives of people on the spectrum. It was made for people who love artistic indie movies.

      If you fit into the above, or know someone that does, the film is worth a shot. I don't know if it is on Netflix or an equivalent, though there is probably some way to watch if you google it. If there is a local showing (I'm seeing a lot of Greater ____ Jewish Film Festivals) you should probably see it there to give the crew some direct support.

Early Man

Image not very indicative of the plot

     Aardman is kind of the clown car of the Animated Film race. It isn't fast, it almost certainly will never win, but it is clear that winning was never its goal, it's just here to have fun. They definitely have memorable characters and products, but they feel a lot more subdued compared to Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, Bluesky, Illumination, and Sony.
     However, that is kind of in its favor. When contrasted with the likes of Sherlock Gnomes, which had a trailer before the film, Early Man looks a lot more sophisticated. They share the same target audience (children under 10), but Early man feels more like a PG Monty Python sketch than a modern kids movie.


     You know, we ought to make a distinction between kids films. Sherlock Gnomes is no where in the same ballpark as Zootopia, or even Kung fu Panda. It is more the same wheelhouse as Storks, or Boss Baby.
     I'm inclined to call them B-movies, as they definitely lack the ideas and follow-through of an A-rank film, but are passable for just some entertainment. Note, this isn't movies that have a B-movie concept, it is films that don't go whole-hog and try to make something amazing. For instance, while Early Man is a B-movie, The Croods is an A-movie because of how they played with their premises.

     This is NOT to say Early Man is bad, far from it. It is just saying that the only reason it may be Oscar nominated next year is because a slot needed to be filled (Boss Baby we are looking at you). It's plot is that the local community center is going to be torn down, and they need to win a football (soccer) game to keep it. Replace community center with hospitable land and set it in the "bronze age" and you got the film.
     That's what I mean with not aiming high. It wasn't looking for a more complex plot, Aardman just wanted a vehicle to tell jokes. You can't really criticize that, especially not when it kinda works. Several people in the audience were laughing pretty hard at some of the jokes (ridiculously hard at a couple throwaways).

     I enjoyed my time watching, but I fear I will forget the plot and characters fairly quickly. I also don't really feel the desire or need to see it again; I'll remember it later when I see it on Netflix, but then pass it over as there are better options available.
     Which is about how I can recommend it; if you've seen everything else, it is an acceptable movie to see. I definitely wouldn't see this before Black Panther (and you should go see Black Panther).


     When someone shows you a basic bird house, the box with a triangle roof, circular window, and basic dowel rod perch, but it is painted beautifully, how do you respond to the question, "How could it be better?"
     This is kind of the same position I was in when looking at Tarzan. I mean, sure it could be better, but doing "better" would require changing it fairly fundamentally, and it is already fine to great on its own.
     With the premise of "Cavemen playing football against Greeks," you can't really do better than what Aardman did. Any other attempts would be fundamentally different, and couldn't really be classified as the same movie.
      Aardman's sense of humor is what caries the film, and what makes it worth the time spent watching. What works in Early Man works because it was the British sense of humor


     I am looking forward to Aardman's next movie though, which is another Shaun the Sheep movie, subtitled "Farmageddon." I really liked the first movie, which was dialog free, and the sequel appears to be as well. It is a rarely seen style that they do well in.


     At the very least, I will say this: Early Man is more worthy of your time and money than Boss Baby and Sherlock Gnomes combined. 8.3/10.

Lego Ninjago

   Is every Lego movie going to be about daddy issues? The first Lego Movie was about a kid trying to connect with his dad who was taking things too seriously to the point of becoming foolish, Lego Batman was about how Batman can't connect with people or have a family because of his trauma (said hang ups prevented him from being a good adoptive father to Dick Grayson), and now Ninjago is about how Garmadon is an absentee father whose son is hated because he is the son of Garmadon, and how they reconnect.
   Two films is exploring an idea; three is a worrying pattern. I love the Lego Movie and Lego Batman, they explored their themes well. But with Ninjago, it is starting to become worrying, like the company thinks they HAVE to have family issues to do well. (Given that it is Warner Bros as the production company, it's not an unreasonable fear)


I enjoyed my time while watching Ninjago, but its flaws are rather painfully apparent.


   First of all, the main character, Lloyd, is rather plain... but not nearly as plain as his teammates. I can only remember the name of ONE of his teammates, and it is solely because him saying his name was a punchline to a joke, when Garmadon says he doesn't even know the names of the rest of his team. His teammates are just tools for the plot, with a single personality trait each that they exhibit purely for comedy. I remember their elemental powers and personality traits more than the characters themselves, and that is a HUGE screenwriting sin.
     If they were removed entirely from the film, the story would actually have been stronger. Since Lloyd is made out to be an outcast, if he truly had no friends, his hang-ups, mistakes, and family connections would've ended up a lot stronger by contrast. But, I imagine the creators were a bit stiffled by the Ninjago canon (Lego has a habit of making grand, epic stories for their characters. To the point where a LOT of my writing is influenced by their most epic series, Bionicle. There were actually 3 Bionicle movies as well, which were, well, not that good. Would love to see a redo on the series, but definitely NOT with the current Bionicle iteration, so it probably won't happen).


   Having the friends around also introduces other problems. Like, the fact the other 5 members have elemental powers. Standard fare, basically the Bionicle powers minus Stone, and replacing wind with lightning (which, depending on some physics, could theoretically be the same thing). Lloyd is stated to not have an elemental power, kind of. It is given as "green" which is eventually described as the connection between everything... but that is a really weak explanation. Some better options would be to instead have his power be darkness, for his connection to Garmadon... or, to go Captain Planet, Heart. By saying his elemental power is "green" and holding fast to that, the value of it in the story is cheapened. Not to mention that the elemental powers of his team are utterly useless outside the context of two set pieces (harhar), and ultimately do nothing to move the plot forward.
   This is made somewhat worse by the fact that, in the original Ninjago canon (I looked it up) his element is still "green power..." actually meaning literal energy. The Ninjago wikia states energy to be the strongest of all the elements (no shit, half the elements ARE energy). This could've been better handled by instead making his element be unstable, corruptive, and dangerous in the wrong hands... and therefore his father, Garmadon, actually helps him master the abiltiy Lloyds normal teacher (he isn't important. Like, really not. He spouts exposition that could've come from a more natural, less deus ex machinaey place) doesn't want to teach him. This could've given Lloyd some real conflict when his father later asks him to join him, as his father taught him control of his element, and was promising mastery of it.
   As is, in the film, Lloyd doesn't make any real choices. (Minus one, but that's in another section, and arguably isn't a choice.) He is given a lot of non-options, and just goes along. It never felt like the main character was leading the plot along, but the other way around. This kind of writing generates apathy for a character, but in a subtle way that kind of goes unnoticed.



   The film also kinda has a problem with being serious. It has moments that should be very serious, with no jokes, yet are squandered on meh material. Lloyd at one point loses his arm (a fact actually foreshadowed in the beginning... which made this a non-surprise actually). In a better written movie, it'd stay that way, regardless of his Lego nature... but here instead, it is the agony of watching them take a long time to just pop it back in.
   Why would it be better if he remained armless? Because just a couple minutes ago, Garmadon taught Lloyd how to throw. Permanently losing his arm after that would have been incredibly poignant, and could throw a huge bit of character development at the main characters. This could also be factored into the whole element of energy and corruption thing, where Garmadon could convince Lloyd that he could get his arm back with mastery of his powers.
   There is a phrase in gaming called "win more." It basically is about not being complacent, or using strategies that cement a victory. When you are winning, work to win more. This roughly translates into screenwriting along the lines of "pile even more shit on them." Make the character's choices HARD. An easy choice is friends vs idol, a hard choice is friends vs working legs. An even harder choice is friends, your mother, and a city that hates you, vs power, your father, and a working arm. (I know that sounds like Luke's decision, but his was kind of a non-decision since his father was a space nazi, vs Garmadon who is more like Bowser of Super Mario; a threat, but not deadly.)


   Finally, there is the culmination of everything... the lack of seriousness, blandness, and the lack of choice... Meowthra, a giant cat summoned by the ultimate weapon (a laser pointer). Now, Lloyd was told his sensei had this weapon, and he wanted to get rid of Garmadon for good, so he wanted to use it, but his sensei refused. First problem: his sensei should've said what the weapon did. Imagine if the ultimate weapon was instead just a nuke that Lloyd activated. Ultimately it would've actually been the sensei's fault.
   Why is it the sensei's fault? Because he is so useless, Garmadon managed to build a pretty much invincible mechsuit, and take over the city. The ninjago had nothing that could destroy the mech, so of course Lloyd would go get the ultimate weapon. They were backed into a corner, and Lloyd made a logical choice based on his available knowledge. If his sensei had said what the weapon did, they would've rightfully crossed that off the list of choices for dealing with the mech.
   This was the non-choice choice I referred to earlier. Normally, this kind of bad decision is made when a protagonist is being brash, and using the untested weapon turns things against the heroes... but things were already against the heroes, no known options were available, so the only thing left was the unknown. Not to mention Lloyd tried using the weapon merely as a threat to make Garmadon back down, only using it when pushed.
   So, Lloyd did everything logically, and right. It's treated as a mistake because that's the trope, but the trope was played on the wrong board. The film treats it like he let his emotions get the better of him, but there was no better.
   What's worse is that Meowthra is superflous, as is the ultimate weapon. The team could've just been brought to their lowest point by Garmadon's mech alone, and then be told to go out and seek the ultimate weapon to defeat him without their mechs. Meowthra doesn't add anything to the story, and its presence actively hurts it.


   To sum up... The plot isn't exactly bad, but the elements going into it don't click.
   My best suggestion for making the film better: forgo the canon entirely, and economize. Lloyd is the only ninja in Ninjago; he has no friends because everyone blames him for Garmadon's attacks, but love the green ninja for stopping them (same as the movie, except the no friends part). Garmadon returns with his own mech to counter the ninja's, and destroys Lloyd's mech. This forces Lloyd to go on a journey to find the ultimate weapon to free the city of Garmadon.
From there, the movie follows like it did... plus energy, and minus an arm, and what little his friends did.

   When told to make the stakes high in a story, impersonal stakes do nothing. The stakes must be personal for them to impact the plot and tension. Screenwriting is all about this, economizing, and flow. If characters are being functionally useless, they ought to be tossed. If an action can be removed without affecting the plot with any significance, then it is needless padding. If I can't even remember the names of central characters, then they are not that central. I can name all 9 members of the Fellowship of the Ring, because they were all central to the plot... and I've only seen that movie once, and none of the others (except the hobbit trilogy, but that is unrelated; but it has the same problem; can't name all the dwarves, not that important).


   If the film absolutely HAD to have the other ninjas, then they should have been treated like the power rangers: of equal importance to the story, and therefore given equal depth. I had to look up what the hell was up with the ice ninja, because the film just tried to pass off him being a robot as just a joke/quirk. The regular series has him as a part of an entire species of androids, but there are no other characters like him in the film, so it is left as a bizarre and pointless quirk. He's a fricken robot in highschool! There was an awesome TV series about the life of a teenage robot, so an entire series can be built around trying to fit in such a situation, and could've been used by the film to endear us to the ice ninja as an awkward social outcast. If you want to have 6 protagonist characters, you gotta devote time to them. The film doesn't give me enough to work with to tell how the others could be expanded, thus I default to recommending their removal, but if they are absolutely necessary, make them necessary.


All in all... the weakest Lego theatrical release. Hopefully the true sequel to The Lego Movie is a LOT better, or else the franchise might be headed downhill after such a high point.

Cars 3

     One of the main problems of the Cars films (not all of them, just the pretty big one) was that their plots were the same as a couple of 90's films. Now, I don't mean the same like "Avatar and Pocahontas are totally the same! Remember that scene where Pocahontas summoned the animals of the forest to beat the shan out of the conquistadors?!" I mean the same like the first Cars film has the plot of Doc Hollywood, and Cars 2 is The Man Who Knew Too Little. Different characters and climaxes, but no originality to the plot.
     Cars 3 averts that.

     The closest relative plot I can come up with for Cars 3, is Herbie: Fully Loaded, but even that is incorrect. This is legitimately an original (or, as original as a movie plot can be) story from Pixar. And it is a racing film that is ACTUALLY about racing. The characters also shine better as the film goes after a self vs self, and self vs nature approach. There is an antagonist or two, but they serve more as the drive forward for the characters, and more represent nature as a force than as obstacles in the characters's paths.
     I can honestly say I enjoyed this film, certainly a lot more than the first one. (I never saw the second, because I like life.) Going in to the movie, I was admittedly worried that the plot was going to be "Lightning is a dick; he learns not to be a dick. He succeeds because he is not a dick anymore." But thankfully that wasn't rehashed, and thus Lightning was actually a very sympathetic character throughout. Newly introduced character Cruz was a lot more enjoyable in the second half, whereas in the first she seemed like the load (Trope meaning a character that is useless and must be lugged around). It does provide a nice contrast to how she ends up, but she was really starting to get annoying, until the film suddenly decided to make her sympathetic.
     That is pretty much the flaw of the films: a character is annoying for way too long. The first film had the green mustached racer that won in the end and was a bigger dick than Lightning... and he's back in this film playing a racing sportscaster. I cannot recall his name for the life of me, so I'll just call him Rush; because racing puns, and he reminds me of Rush Limbaugh. Rush wasn't at all funny, yet kept coming back because the plot needed to dump on the lead. Kinda the same with Mater; there was thankfully very little of him in the film, but very little does not mean zero unfortunately.
     If Cars had less annoying characters, it might be higher up in the tomato score. But, since it does, the best of the trilogy actually about matches the original's score.

     Good rules of thumb for a story: if we are genuinely made to hate a character's personality, either limit the exposure to it, or have karma catch up with them. The exception being main villains, but you better have a satisfying payout, or else it'll be anti-climactic.


     I'd honestly say Cars 3 is a solid 7/10. It's a good average, animated film. The animated short before it, Lou, was very cute, and kind of Looney Tunes. Unless there are other contenders, it'll likely win Best Animated Short next Oscars.



     Speaking of other contenders actually... There is going to be another Frozen animated short. This time in front of Pixar's next film, The Book of Lif- Coco. I meant Coco, not the Guillermo Del Toro film with nearly the same plot but a better visual style and character motivations.
     This one seems... a bit desperate. The preview for the Frozen short seems to have the ENTIRETY of the plot in it. The actual short likely is only a couple minutes longer. And based just on the preview I already hate it; and I LOVE the original Frozen. it's about Arendell at Christmas, and how *GASP* they have no family traditions for Christmas! So Sven (reindeer) and Olaf go out to find some family traditions!
     It is the kind of saccharine crap that people associate with bad Christmas shorts. and Disney wanted to ADVERTISE IT. To get people to go see Coco! It really doesn't look good for Coco, as this move seems uncharacteristically desperate.
     Also, way to go Pixar, an original plot here, and then you use the same plot from a film released 3 years ago. Even if an animated film does take 3 years from conception to completion, that's still enough time to realize yer gonna need a rewrite. Hell, Zootopia did just that, and got done a year after the rewrite, and is now one of my top 10 animated films. (By the by, The Book of Life is also in the top 10, partly due to its visual style.)


     But, if there is one thing to look forward to... I just discovered that The Incredibles 2 comes out next year! Directed by Brad Bird again! Hype train, woo woo!

The Lego Batman Movie

     The past couple weeks, I've been non-ironically calling The Lego Batman the best Batman movie I've ever seen, and semi-ironically calling Zach Galifianakis one of the best Jokers (either just ahead or behind Cesar Romero; though both behind Mark Hamill honestly). Though it is only recently that I figured out why I really like this batman, while I dislike the others:

      I hate the modern Batman. I hate how people love the Joker as some "manifestation of Chaos" and revel in his murderous crime sprees. I hate how Batman is touted as being capable of being capable of beating EVERYONE in the DC universe, even and especially Superman, and has the emotional range of an "emo" teen. I hate how Harley Quinn is considered nothing but eye-candy. Finally, I hate how Batman started the trend of Super Hero films form DC being ridiculously dark (literally. It is hard to see in these films) and brooding.
     The Lego Batman plays to EVERYTHING I see the character as. A manchild with an over-inflated ego, fighting a clown that is obsessed with him to the point of it being a relationship, and actually made me sympathize with these people. It didn't shy away from the silly nature but embraced it, and found joy in the embrace. The film sought to make us root for Batman, not because we wanted him to beat the badguy, but for him to find happiness and grow as a person. It points out the problems behind Batman, and builds the film around them. I find it amazing how, this being a Lego film, the film had the freedom to make these decisions, and portray Batman in a way that is actually fun to watch.


      What I just said is probably "BLASPHEMY!!!!111!!!!1121!!" to a certain group of people. But then again they were probably screaming that when I didn't include Heath Ledger in the awesome Jokers (it's because he just played a crazy gangster with a gimmick like Jared Leto, and had nothing to do with being a deranged clown). It's blasphemy to say Batman isn't the most awesome thing since awesome, or that he is allowed to be anything but brooding or raging, or has any kind of color in his life other than gray, black, and blue. That fact is why I hate hearing about him so much. People ask why Superman isn't just a boring hero with no problems other than kryptonite, but I feel that way about Batman due to his memetic badass properties.
     Of course, it is also two-pronged. Batman could beat anyone... Except he won't. He will fail. He will always fail. It is as impossible for Batman to succeed as it was for Gilligan to build a boat. If Batman ever actually, truly wins, and stops the Joker, then his character is done. Sure, he has other villains... which he will also forever fail against. If he ever managed to win, he'd be done. My apathy to Batman is that, regardless of the outcome of any individual comic, or series, or film, Batman will never win. Even if Joker appears to die, he will just pop up again later. Arkham Asylum is a revolving door that could only let criminals break free at a faster rate if they didn't even bother to have a door. Batman is a boring failure hero to me. He can never truly win, so why even bother cheering for him?


     The Lego Batman answered all my concerns about the character. Though the end brings a status quo, Batman does actually win and move forward. It makes fun of his memetic badass properties, the problems with being a childish loner... The Lego Batman Movie is the best Batman movie I've ever seen because it didn't just say "you love this because it is Batman" but gave me a reason to care what happened in it. It didn't induce apathy through darkness... it embraced everything about the Batman, and was so much better for it.

Hoodwinked

      Now, you may initially think, based off that DVD cover there, that this film was a direct to DVD film sold primarily at Target to confused grannies... But, Hoodwinked was actually released in theatres, and is utterly amazing.


      Is it "The Funniest Movie Since Shrek!"? No, not really. Unless you count Shrek 2, which came out a year before Hoodwinked, then it skates by only on the fact it's competition for that title is Chicken Little. Don't get me wrong, the film is funny and enjoyable, but that is not why I call it incredible.
     The film is incredible because it was made for less than eight million dollars.


     The film is basically Little Red Riding Hood meets Rashomon. Each person involved in the Granny's House Incident has their own side to the story... and they grow sillier with each new person. The plot is also a mystery, trying to find out who the "goodie bandit" is, stealing all the forest's recipes. As such, saying any more about the plot is spoilers; the only reason I care as such is that I want people to see this movie, and thus don't want to ruin the experience.
      The plot isn't especially good, but it is far from bad. There are times it feels like the story was two guys going "wouldn't it be funny if x?" but there is some genuinely clever stuff in this film that still makes it a fun ride.


      But like I said; this film isn't truly incredible for its plot, but for how it was made. The directors had a limited budget, had to train pretty much all their employees how to do animation, had 10 animation problems in every scene... Yet the film got made, and did spectacularly well.
      For its less than 8 million budget, it made 110 million globally (BoxOfficeMojo). In the opening weekend the film earned 12 million, which entirely paid for the costs (some of the box office revenue goes to the theatre, but on the opening weekend a larger portion goes to the production company). The film was a massive success, and well deserved.


      This film, though it is not perfect by any means, is in my top 10 films. Because it serves as an inspiration to me: you do not need super powerful particle effects, realistic fur or skin, or just perfect animation in general. What you need is a style, and a good story.
      Hoodwinked's animation is not smooth at all. Smooth animation calls for a lot of time spent meticulously moving bones and pieces, time spent rendering that smooth animation, and a ton of key frames. Time was something they didn't have a lot of, so they couldn't do as many key frames as smooth animation requires. So, instead they went with snappy. It could've been jerky, but they instead made everyone move quickly into their poses. This works well with the film's comedic timing, and gives the characters a unique expressive feel.
      One flaw common in cheap animation is to use a kind of world lighting; no cast shadows, shade, or color other than "mid-day sunny." Hoodwinked averts the problem by having mood lighting, using some of their render power to give shadows to the scenes and characters to make them feel more alive and visually appealing. They didn't go overboard with the lighting, or go full hog by adding stuff like bounce lighting, secondary lighting, et cetera... Just enough to make the scene look good.
     I mentioned before that the team had 10 problems in every scene. Due to their budget, they stated they had to pick 3 big ones to solve, then move on. This is actually something useful to know as an indie producer: you are going to have problems, fix the ones you reasonably can, and move on; don't get stuck trying to get it perfect.



     If I were an animation professor, I would be assigning Hoodwinked as my textbook; have students study the scenes, and piece together how they did what they did, and how they can do the same.
     Hoodwinked is by no means perfect, and that is precisely why it is so amazing.

Awareness Rooms

Steam Link

     You know what's the new entertainment business? Escape rooms! Put a group of people, usually strangers, in a small room together, and let them solve a series of puzzles to escape. Kind of like those rooms you see in mystery thrillers.
      It's a new fad in the real world, but in the video game world, it is a standard. Ever since The Legend of Zelda on the NES, using puzzles to navigate and escape a dungeon are fairly common.

      Awareness Rooms is a small indie game that tries to mix up the formula a bit, with a unique gimmick: You start out in a very basic room. But, as you examine items, you grow to understand them and your environment better, and slowly add detail to everything.
      Sounds interesting, right? Like you have to solve a puzzle with half the solution? Well... it is only partly that.

      One thing you don't want in a game is an unusual leap of logic. One puzzle involves a bookcase; the top layer has a partly filled shelf, and the bottom has a full shelf. You find a clue that shows you a bookshelf, with two arrows, one on each shelf layer. Naturally, one would assume that means the books on the shelf need to be moved according to the arrows. However, you cannot interact with the books.
      The solution to this puzzle involves a jewelry box with two buttons marked "S" and "L". You are supposed to turn the books into a code based on their length, and the arrows were what direction to write the code in. There are too many degrees of separation to find that train of logic normally, especially since all previous and all following puzzles only have one degree of separation between the clue and the solution.
     But, another unfortunate problem is that the game is just plain tedious. The concept sounds cool, but in practice it is just running around examining and touching everything until the game says you can actually interact with them. Not to mention the controls are finnicky, though I am more willing to forgive an indie game for its control scheme.

     The game is also really short... I beat it in an hour and 8 minutes. No guide, no assistance. Puzzle games shouldn't have this problem of being too short, by the simple fact that more puzzles and more puzzle rooms can easily be added. Even an indie game producer is capable of more. In total, there were 4 puzzle rooms in the game, with the last one being the easiest in a bizarre twist. This game should've had double that number at minimum, and introduce new mechanics within the room awareness idea, like changing objects causing the room awareness to go down... Or make fully aware of the room be dangerous to the player, so they have to figure out how to solve the room's puzzle with less knowledge, and to not interact wildly.

    This game needed expanding upon to make it truly fun.

Spore

     Developed by the now closed Maxis Software, Spore is a life simulation game created by the famed game director of the sims and sim city, Will Wright. The idea behind the game was that you would create your own creature, and evolve it from a single celled organism to a galactic civilization.

     The game was hyped to hell and back as a huge development in gaming technology, and for the gameplay itself. When it was released... it got less than stellar reviews. Part of it was due to Electronic Arts putting an extremely harsh DRM on the game that made it so you could only install it 5 times. (EA still hasn't learned from this, has technically gotten worse about it, but we've just kinda come to accept it.) But the biggest blow is the gameplay itself. The game is very shallow in all but the last section of the game's story mode, and in the actual creature creator.

     The thing is though, the math and coding behind the biggest part of the game is still very solid. If someone were to take that part of it, and make a sequel with it and enhance the modes, it could be a really fantastic game.

     What I'm referring mainly to, is the spore creature creator.

     The Spore Creature Creator is incredibly powerful. It is very easy to understand and control, and gives an extreme amount of variability and control to the player, whose only limit is their imagination, and the available parts.

     The animations of the game were designed to be able to account for all different kinds and configurations of creatures; no arms or legs, 4 legs, 6 legs, a dozen arms, three legs... Granted there is a crap ton of model clipping, but all things considered that's a minor issue. Hell it is kind of expected when you have a dozen legs flopping around.

     The Spore Creature Creator is a nearly timeless piece of mechanics. New games with character customization will come, but no one will reach the Spore level of customization without basically copying it. The only way it could be more timeless is with a larger library of parts to use. Different mouths, eyes, ears, hands, feet, et cetera.
     People are still playing Spore just for the creature creator, using it to create artistic beasts and other creatures. All the work done on the creature creator was well worth it, and is a mechanic that SHOULD be built upon.



     The main game itself though... the best part is the creating, and the game feels somewhat more like an obstacle at times.

     The game has 5 modes to go through: Cell, Creature, Tribal, Civilization, and Space.
     The cell stage is the second best of the modes; primarily because it is short, but also because its mechanics are simple but sound. You play as a cell, where your goal is to eat as much as possible, and to not be killed by other cells. You also collect parts in order to evolve your cell, giving it different abilities, like new forms of propulsion or attacks like poison or lightning. This stage is very short though... only about 10-15 minutes. At the end of it, you evolve a brain and legs, and venture onto shore.

      Originally, there was an underwater stage planned, where you played as a fish. It was scrapped when they couldn't figure out a good way to have it be controlled (honestly just having it be WASD for movement and right mouse button for direction would've done perfect). some people like to argue that if the stage was in the game it would've been better, but given the rest of the game I doubt that'd be the case.

     The Creature stage is where all of the creature's evolution takes place. It is now a land mammal, and the goal is to befriend or cause the extinction of a lot of different species. You get parts for doing this, as well as scavenging around. This is the third best stage; you play with the creature creator here, but the creature stage is mostly an obstacle to making your awesome creature. The fighting and befriending mechanics become repetitive, and start a common thread for the modes: you win if you just have more people. The easiest way to befriend races is to not let them call friends for a dance off while you have your posse. Fighting is just spamming your 4 attacks when possible... no strategy, just go nuts. The game in no way encourages build diversity either; just get the maximum level of the skills as soon as possible to end the stage and soon as possible. and unfortunately those skills are tied to parts in the creature creator. So, either you lose how you want your creature to look, or you go in with a deoptimized build that is just more annoying than fun.

     The tribal stage follows the creature, and it is the second worst stage. Also you no longer get to change your creature, just add some clothes to it. In the stage, you must kill or befriend several other tribes. The mechanics change here though, and for the worse. The game switches to a real time strategy mode, though strategy is in the hardest of quotation marks. You control 6-12 villagers. Befriending works the same as in the previous stage, but is even easier and is just tedious. Destroying the villages isn't fun because you have worse than no control over the fight. You do not have finesse when controlling the tribe; unless you want to pause the game to issue individual orders, your best bet is to tell them to attack something, and then let them auto attack until the village is dead and you can burn down the hut. There is no point to destroying weapon shacks or stealing food, you win just by going in with bigger numbers and more button mashing.

    Civilization is the worst stage in the game. It is still a real time strategy, but now mixed with city management (just put buildings in optimal positions then never touch it again). You have to conquer the world to move on to the next stage. You get three unit types: land, water, and air vehicles. The best thing about the stage is the ability to design these units yourself. The worst thing is that the stats just don't matter. Just give it a body, something that makes it go, and a gun, and it will have the exact same effectiveness as any other unit. You want to win fights? Just have the unit be slow, you'll win easily with more health or firepower. Or, just build up a large amount of units and steamroll everyone. The stage usually ends with just a horde of planes demolishing the last city. Unless you are playing the economic game, in which case it is incredibly slow and uninteractive. Civilization is the worst stage in the game, beating out the tribal stage by being so boring and shallow.

     But, following the worst stage comes the best stage, Space. There is so much to do in space: trade with other empires, establish colonies, terraform planets, conquer other empires that won't stop asking for tribute, visit the galactic core... (and there is actually something there, those of you coming hot off the heels of No Man's Sky; and what is there is awesome and worth the difficult trip.) There is even a gigantic hostile alien force called the Grox to fight... or, attempt to befriend them and cause the ENTIRE GALAXY to go to war with you. The playstyles in this mode are extremely varied as well, but encourage trying other forms as well. You could be an extremely peaceful race... but when the zealots come asking for tribute for the 50th time, you're going to want to make it stop permanently. As a warfaring race you'll also want to make friends, who will also go to war alongside you.
     Space mode got even better with the release of Galactic Adventures. In it, your captain can beam down to planets to go on adventures created by others. These adventures can vary in quality, but the gameplay change was very good, and brought new and interesting mechanics, that did actually introduce some strategy to the game's fighting and character building.



     Unfortunately, Spore is now a mostly abandoned game, outside those still making use of the powerful creature creator. Spore had sequels, but not any that expanded on what the core of the game was. Darkspore was an action rpg that improved the fighting gameplay a lot, at the expense of only being able to slightly modify premade creatures.

     Spore's problems stemmed from an idea: progressing from a single cell to a space-fairing race. If everything was thought through well enough, that wouldn't have been something a player could do in an afternoon, but something that took a lot more time.
     The game mechanics are shallow and simple because the game wants you to hurry up and get to space, where the meat really is. The game would've been better if the yadda yadda yadda'd the tribal and civilization stages... but improving by omitting isn't good design.
     Despite being significantly more fun than No Man's Sky, it and Spore share the same problem: they both have the mindset that whatever comes next is more fun than what you're doing now (or it should be). What it should have been is a mindset of "what you are doing right now is fun; what comes next can wait until you are done having fun here."
      Each stage in Spore should have been expanded to the point where they are a game all on their own.

      As a Cell, getting to the top level should mean you can go on land... or stick around and advance some more as a cell, meeting other life that is becoming more powerful in their niches, as you refine yours.
      In the creature stage, there should be more options than just gaining intelligence... like, increasing the size of the pack to become a clan, and then a horde, more along the lines of the Xenomorphs or the bugs from Starship Troopers. Become the apex not just through intelligence, but through other means as well.
      The tribal stage (and civilization stage) shouldn't have been RTS's. These pull you away from your intimate connection with the species, and just make you a god controlling string puppets that hate their strings. Instead, they should've been direct control over the chieftan/mayor, and become gamepaly based around the same mechanics introduced in creature, but built upon. Like, evolving the hunter/gatherer gameplay of the tribal stage, creating farms and agriculture as the tribe progresses in size naturally towards civilization. In civilization, political maneuvering as the mayor should take center stage... when you aren't on the front lines of war. If you are a religious country you should create the religion you espouse, and have to deal with splinter groups and the like as you try to unify the world under your religious roof.
      Or, if you went a different route in the creature stage, choosing to become the apex monster, then you work to unite all the clans under your rule, to eventually reach the stars under the power of evolution.


      Each of the stages were developed in a way that made them more like minigames, separate from each other. They should've been developed as a part of the same system, just with more pieces added on as life evolves.


      I said at the beginning that Spore has an extremely strong mechanical foundation that a sequel that expanded on the original would be really good. And I fully stand by that. The hardest part of the game was completed; the creature creator is brilliant, and is what truly sold the game. If they were to take that, and put it in a game with improved gameplay mechanics, the game would be amazing.

One Piece Film Gold

     One Piece film 13 is on a limited release in the US from January 10th to the 17th. I managed to go see it last night, and had fun seeing it.


     A couple quick notes for the review: I am a big One Piece fan, but I'm not a massive fan. If I was I would watch subbed instead of dubbed and be completely up to date on the story. As it stands I have only seen up to the last episode before the two year time skip; I know about what happens after, so less is lost on me than if I didn't, but those who are watching dub only and are avoiding spoilers, this movie has a ton until you reach the end of the "dressrosa" arc.
      Second, this film is definitely not an introductory point to the world of One Piece. If you came into the film with no knowledge, there is some decent fun, but everything would be flying over your head and you'd be asking quite often "Who is that? Why does that matter? What are they talking about? Does that burn scar mean something?" The film assumes you are a One Piece fan. Which by no means means it is bad, just that there is a bit of a height bar of, "You must understand this much about One Piece to have fun."
      Third, this is the only One Piece film I've seen. Funimation doesn't have Strong World available to stream, so I haven't seen it. I also haven't seen the filler episodes related to the movie, but that's more an aversion to filler in general. (This film being the sole exception.)


      Point blank: I had a lot of fun watching this movie. The fights were kinda eh, but the atmosphere and tension were spectacular. The comedy was on point of course, full of One Piece's usual brand of humor mixed with drama.
     One Piece carries a lot of themes in its stories; the ones on display in this film are power, money, freedom, greed, and slavery. They work quite well with the motivations of the villain, and he works quite well as one. Though I feel like if this was actually 6-7 episodes of One Piece, he should've gotten one, or part of one, episode devoted to his past so we can see why he's so nuckign futs. But, that's partly to blame on Japan's love of extra reading material before their movies. The other main villains were neat, but the fights were, again, weak.

     Normally One Piece has a whole episode devoted to defeating a named villain. That might seem really slow to non viewers, but it actually works well... when you can watch the next episode after it ends without waiting a week. This pacing allows the villain's powers to be shown and developed, giving a proper push and pull to the fights. Here, it's more brief malicing, then finding the key to beating them and just knocking them out in one shot. The proper build up for the villains was there, but the payoff was a bit rushed.

     Also, several important figures to the story are present... but they are completely pointless. Brief cameos and nothing more.



But, as I said, I had fun seeing this film. It was like watching a marathon of 6 fun One Piece episodes. I recommend fans of the show see if any theatre near them is playing it; or see if Funimation added it to the streaming service if you are reading this from the future.

Trolls

     Hoo boy, no other film more perfectly named for what I'm about to do than this... I am going to use my Bachelors in Film and Media Studies to deconstruct Trolls.


     Before I begin going full Tumblr, here's my honest opinion of the film:

     It is good. The music is very pop, but it is fun. The art style of world is also a joy, with a felt-like texture to it. The film gets worse after the midpoint, when they are with the bergins and playing the old matchmaker shtick. Also some plot details are contrived, and end up creating one or two plot holes... Kids won't care, they will enjoy it regardless. Adults may get more enjoyment out of the soundtrack. I give it a solid 7/10; colorful and bouncy, with a somewhat annoying plot.


     And with that, I am going to have fun playing that which I hate: a socjus warrior that wants to die on a dumb hill.

Commence Media Studying!

     Trolls is an ableist film. Its entire message is that "there is happiness inside of everyone," even inside the gray Branch, and the Bergins that are said to feel nothing...

     Trolls is ableist against people with depression, who literally cannot be happy.

     Let's break it down:

     In the beginning, we are told the Trolls are always happy, singing, dancing, hugging, and loving. We are then informed that the Bergins, represented in the film as ugly, gnarled toothed and warted beasts, are never happy. Then one day, a Bergin ate a troll, and was able to feel true happiness. When the Trolls manage to escape the Bergins, the prince of their kingdom is told that without them, he will never be truly happy.

     Several years later, the film shows us the Trolls being blissful, carefree, and happy to contrast with the sad Bergins. The film introduces Branch, a blue-gray troll who does not like to be around people, and lives in a survival bunker. The other Trolls try to make Branch just like them through nothing but hugs, singing, and oppressive positivity.

     The film makes those who aren't as happy as the Trolls into an "other" that is unlikable and rude. It is hard not to see Dreamwork's intention to paint people with depression as crazed, ugly individuals that, if they seek to undo their state, resort to unnatural means that only give a facsimile of true happiness.

     This is further emphasized when the audience is introduced to Bridget, a scullery maid Bergin, who is made to be like the Trolls by having her introduced by singing an Adelle song. She is only made sympathetic because she is like the Trolls, and sees the folly in eating the trolls for false happiness.

     It is through Bridget that the film insists that those that were previously stated to never be able to feel happy, could in fact be happy, they just never tried hard enough. How many times have people with depression heard "have you just tried being happy?" or "Why don't you sing a song? That's worked for me!" In the end, the Bergins are made to be as happy as the Trolls just by singing and dancing.

     I should hope that it is obvious I don't believe a word that I just wrote up there. I don't believe Dreamworks was being ableist, or that they think depressed people are ugly... and I of course don't believe medication for depression just gives a facsimile of happiness. My point here, is that there are many hills in the world. There are some legitimate causes to fight for, and hills worth dying on. "Trolls is ableist against depressed people" is not one of those hills.

     All that discussion and rhetoric above was a big part of my Film and Media Studies degree. In one of my classes, Masculinity in Film, we discussed masculinity in the Titanic. Now, you could have a legitimate discussion on that, talking about what it means to be a true man... our discussion was that Jack was better at sex because he worked with his hands. I learned from all of my various classes how to turn molehills into mountains using reductive reasoning and "high class" language. When you use language like "ableist" when talking about a condition, and "other" when talking about people, your discussion is elevated to a higher level of discourse. (Yes, that previous sentence did the exact same damn thing.) Higher levels of discourse elevate a topic into a higher level of importance... and you turn a mole hill into a mountain.

      I hold a great dislike for people that do what I did above, because such discourse can damage causes. If people suddenly started shouting at DreamWorks because of this, nothing positive would result from it. They may apologize, but that apology would not heal any real wounds, because they didn't inflict any to begin with, But those that fought for their mole hill would be content they got "justice" and nothing actually improved.

     If you must die on a hill, die on one that is actually helpful. If you want to help people with depression, fight with congress to get them to increase funding for research into cures for depression. Maybe someone out there has the solution, but they can't get the funding to put it into action. That would be a worthy hill.

     Fight for a worthy cause; mountains made out of mole hills are still just molehills. Dying on one will not truly help your cause, only selfishly help yourself believe you helped, and did your best, when in reality you did nothing.

     Trolls was a good film; I might've taken a couple more passes at the script, but otherwise it was a solid kids film. It's gonna make a lot of money on merchandising...

Suicide Squad

     Is it a stretch to say that Suicide Squad was DC's answer to the success of Guardians of the Galaxy? All the key points are there: a bunch of villains or anti-heroes teaming up to defeat something powerful, while being quirky and funny.

     In the latter aspects, they did succeed. There are points in the film that are genuinely humorous, and the characters are quirky and interesting. There were bits to like about each character; some more than others, but there was still something to like.

     The characters aren't the film's problem though (at least, not the biggest problems, but that will be covered later). The biggest problem is the plot, followed by how the film plays that plot out. Then, there are tonal problems, and problems they made for themselves in the future as a result of this film's now cemented canon.


     This list of the film's problems will serve as the table of contents for the problems of the film, and subsequently possible fixes. Note that some fixes might bleed into others, but if you wish to only hear my thoughts on certain aspects, this should allow you to do so:

1. The Plot
2. Willingness to Kill: Tone issues and future problems
3. The Joker and Harley
4. Misc Canon Issues

1. The Plot

     The plot is as follows: Amanda Waller, an operative for the pentagon, makes a list of villains that have been caught, and that she can manipulate into doing the government's dirty work, and ground pounding against metahumans. As a part of this team, she finds a woman that has been possessed by a powerful and ancient creature named Enchantress. after her attempt to control her fails, she begins wrecking the city. This team Waller collected is thus called in to deal with it.

     Sounds straight forward right? Unfortunately, the film doesn't really have the right set of priorities when it comes to this.

     Picture this: Cthulhu is threatening New York City. A team of badasses are called in... to extract the secretary of state from a nearby building. It's... a problem that has to be solved, yeah, but it really seems like treating the symptom and not the disease. That's the plot of Suicide Squad. the team is introduced, we are told how awesome they are... they are taken out of prison, implanted with bombs to make them behave, and told they will be extracting someone from the city. That person turns out to be Amanda Waller, who was stationed in the city.

     The antagonist of the film is supposed to be the Enchantress, but she doesn't feel actually threatening until the last 5 minutes of the climax, because she does practically nothing for the majority. She turns some people into asphalt zombies to malice the suicide squad with, but ultimately little else.

     In the absence of this antagonist's presence, the audience is left to seek the film's other antagonistic presence... which ultimately ends up being Amanda Waller, and her ground commander, Captain Flag (yes that is in fact his last name, and army rank. He was invented in 1959, 18 years after Captain America). These guys become the villains because our sympathies lie with members of the suicide squad, and they are in opposition to them. But, they suck as villains too, because they are supposed to be the good guys, and are subsequently not threatening. All that is left as a strong antagonist is the Joker... but he is definitely not the villain for reasons I'll discuss later.

     The characters are good, my favorite being Diablo, followed by Deadshot. But characterization doesn't help much when the goal is unclear, the villain isn't a big enough presence to threaten them... and when they aren't actually focusing on the villains they set up.

     To refer back to Guardians of the Galaxy, Ronan the Accuser is introduced fairly early on. He makes it clear he wants to destroy a planet because he is a raging racist. He becomes a threat by immediately interfering with the affairs of the heroes. He maintains a presence through how two characters view and oppose him, with the MacGuffin of the story being a key to making Ronan even more of a threat. So, even when Ronan isn't the direct target of the plot, he is a presence that moves the plot in a certain direction. The antagonist of Suicide Squad, the Enchantress, creates the inciting incident to get the plot rolling, but ultimately is in the background and not a true presence until the climax.

     So, what's the solution to this problem?

     It mostly involves editing, and conservation. The film front-loads a lot of backstory for characters; we are told who Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Diablo, Killer Croc, and Captain Boomerang are, their abilities, and how they got caught. However, this front loading is actually unnecessary. In Guardians of the Galaxy, the backstories, and the details of them, are doled out as needed. Peter Quill has the focus, so we see his backstory in full (minus a myth arc). Rocket and Groot are mercenaries and bounty hunters, which is all you need to know to start with them. Drax's motivation IS his backstory, with Ronan killing his family, he wants revenge. Everything important about a character should be told quickly. We don't need to know right away that Batman caught Deadshot while he was shopping with his daughter (which really, REALLY is out of character, but more on that later).

     All we need to know about Deadshot, is that he's good with a gun, he kills for money, and he has a daughter he loves. Diablo catches himself and his surroundings on fire, and he turned himself in willingly. Harley Quinn was turned insane by the Joker. These are the important bits, the stuff the audience needs to know about the characters, and can be given to the audience in a quick and organic manner without a big flashback sequence. Everything else, like why Diablo turned himself in, can be explained later, at the right moment.

     Second, make the antagonist of the story actually be the antagonist. Don't futz about for an hour with an extraction mission, because even if that went without a hitch, there would STILL be the villain to deal with. If you need to fill running time, have the team deal with having to get to the antagonist, using the team's unique skills to do so, figure out a plan for how to go about defeating the antagonist, and then do it.

     You know, like the suicide mission in Mass Effect 2

Actually, just the suicide mission in general should've been the guide for the film.

     The plot is the film's biggest problem. If they had a different, more comprehensible plot, the film probably would've been very good.

     Also... nix the zombie army crap. The asphalt zombies just made me think Will Smith was in I Am Legend mode. They provided some action scenes yeah, but they did nothing for the villain's presence, left the audience in confusion until they were finally explained, and even when they were they were not threatening. (That's true of a lot of things in this movie actually.)

2. Willingness to Kill: Tonal issues and Future Problems

     Remember how I said Diablo was my favorite character in the film? He has a lot of parallels to Groot. He is the most powerful member of the team, but also the most peaceful. Of the people in the suicide squad, he's probably the only one that, with a little convincing, could like the idea. Like Groot, however, he pulls a heroic sacrifice to save his teammates... but unlike Groot, he isn't coming back.

     When I say "willingness to kill," I am not talking about the characters, that obviously comes with the territory. I am talking about the writers. When a named character is killed, possible stories with them are gone. Killing a character is NOT something to be taken lightly. Even if it seems powerful to have a heroic sacrifice, there must be MORE in favor of their death than their life for it to be worth going through with.

     With Diablo dead, no further stories can be told with or about him. What's worse is that possible answers to problems in writing future movies cannot be accessed. So, if a writer ever has a problem where a fire guy would solve the issue... they don't have Diablo. Because they killed him.

     This is a problem for the DC universe, which Marvel found a solution for. DC recently killed Superman in their Batman VS Superman movie. Of course Superman is alive again, rendering death completely meaningless and pointless, but it sets a tone for their cinematic universe. The writers are willing to kill characters off without thinking of the consequences.

     Now, characters can die. In fact, some characters should die. Death is a powerful tool in story telling... but you have to use it right. Death is very permanent, and should have a lasting and powerful effect. A character dying should affect those around them heavily.
     The two famous deaths, Uncle Ben, and Thomas and Martha Wayne, are deaths that define characters. Uncle Ben's death made Peter become a hero, because others may be hurt if he does nothing again. Batman fights because he believes no 8 year old boy should ever lose their parents to a gunman ever again (coming back to this later...). Even Groot's sacrifice in Guardians profoundly affects the story and the sequel, where Groot is still regenerating and is still small.

     Point blank, the death of a character should open more doors than it closes. If more stories can be told as a result of a character's death than a character's life, then their death ultimately aids the story.

     DC's Cinematic Universe is willing to kill characters when stories could still be told with and about them. This is not a sign of "maturity" but of lack of foresight and forethought. What if they want to make a sequel to suicide squad? They'd have two weapons experts, a boomerang guy, a strong man, a crazy girl, and a samurai girl. All physical fighters, which limits the scope of enemies they could fight. If they just replace Diablo, then they have to introduce them, and give their backstory and motivations, which goes right back to the first kettle of fish.

     DC really needs to stop killing characters; even Marvel left the door open for Red Skull to return one day.

3. The Joker and Harley

     So, Jared Leto, the actor who played the Joker in Suicide Squad has been complaining about how much footage of the Joker was cut from the final film... Honestly I'm surprised he's still in there at all.

     I'm not exaggerating when I say that NONE of the joker's scenes are essential. They add nothing, they change nothing, they aren't involved with the main plotline at all... The Joker is entirely pointless in the film. Which is criminal.

     The Joker shouldn't even be a side villain in anything but an ensemble villain cast. He is a main antagonist, the ring leader and primary threat. Having him as a supporting character is the first problem with his character. He is a main character only. He's center stage, or not on the stage at all.

     But, maybe it is better this Joker isn't actually important... because he's a terrible Joker. Not in reference to Jared Leto's performance, he did fairly well with what he was given, but the design and characterization... they were all wrong.

     The Jared Leto Joker is not threatening. There isn't any tension when he's on screen, because he just isn't scary. He's weird, but not scary. Part of the lack of tension comes from the fact he is a straight ally of Harley, who is a partially sympathetic protagonist. In the comics and TV show where Harley made her first appearance, it was clear the Joker had no respect for Harley. He didn't care for her, he just saw her as a devoted lackey that was easily twisted around his pinky finger. He could throw her out of a building and she'd blame herself for it.

     Yeah, that is what their relationship is supposed to be: blatantly abusive, both mentally and physically. Harley's just too far gone to see it most of the time. But, DC tried this and it was rejected because focus groups didn't like Harley eventually sticking up for herself and breaking off from the Joker, so they went with the straight romance that parts of the general audience likes on the surface... Again, showing lack of foresight when people think on their relationship more and realize how goddamn awful it is after the fact.

     Then there is the design... goddamn the design...

Note the tattoo that says "Damaged" and the grills on his teeth.

     There is only one answer to such a design:

     The Joker's design isn't threatening, or insane, or creepy... it is just straight "edgy."

     This is Reaper from the most recent Blizzard game, Overwatch:

     He has DUAL WIELD SHOTGUNS named HELLFIRE, he has a SKULL mask (actually a barn owl), wears ALL BLACK, and a HOODIE, and he has POUCHES. and he EATS THE SOULS of his enemies while talking all about how he is DEATH and PAIN.

     An edgy design was cool in the 90's. Now it is laughable. It's even noted in-game how not scary Reaper is. Jared Leto Joker is trying too hard to be edgy, that he just appears silly (and not in the good Joker way).



     How do you fix this? Well, honestly just go back to the original canon material, for both Joker and Harley.

     Make Joker the insane clown whose main weapon is a gas that makes people laugh so much they die:

Also wearing a nice suit helps.

     And though I won't go into it that much, Harley's outfit should've been more like this:

     Which is ironically more practical, conservative, and empowering than her film design:

     The film took every chance it got to show off Margot Robbie's ass. Haven't heard any feminist complaints about this crap... Could we PLEASE get some uproar so DC at LEAST gets the message to have Will Smith give some fan service as well? It feels really sexist and off balance to only have male-centric spank material. (Shirtless Joker doesn't count, his existence already gets the wrong side of humanity turned on. On BOTH sides of the technicolor rainbow.)

4. Misc Canon Issues

     Why the flying duck does Batman attack Deadshot when he's with his kid? Does he WANT to create more villains? Does he want her to get hit in the crossfire? His entire motivation for becoming batman goes against what he was doing in that scene. He doesn't want any child to go through what he did; he should've caught Deadshot when she WASN'T around! If she wasn't there, she'd be sad her father was caught, but she wouldn't have the image burned into her head of her daddy aiming a gun at her, telling her to move so he can shoot the Batman. Can't even blame Deadshot for that, that situation is entirely on Batman.


     Also, related to the killing problem above... Slipknot. The most forgettable character in the movie. No backstory, we're just told he can climb anything. He tries to escape and gets his blown off as a result. That's it for Slipknot! Had to waste him showing the audience what we already explained what would happen if they tried to run away like two scenes ago! He was entirely pointless, and just made it so they can never use him again in the future. Wasn't important enough to mention in the main section though, so he's here. The sacrificial lamb to show that the film was "for seriouz yo"


     Finally... The Jared Leto Joker would've made a better Lex Luthor than Jessie Eisenberg's. Jessie pretty much just played the Joker, because apparently that's the only villain DC understands. His joker personality would've fit better in Suicide Squad than in BatmanVSuperman, and Jared Leto's gangster nature would've fit better with Lex Luthor. Not a good fit, but a better one. A great fit would've been making him act like a cold, logical billionaire instead of a crazy man... Just a strange thing I noted when I realized Leto was more tame than Eisenberg.

Conclusion

     Suicide Squad has the right kind of central characters and dialogue, but the wrong plot. Cut the Joker, refocus the plot, make the antagonist a threat.
     This film very well could've been good, and in fact a decent answer to Guardians of the Galaxy, so it is unfortunate that these problems exist.



     Additionally, Wonder Woman looks good; maybe being set during World War 1 will help with the plotting issues DC seems to have. We already know her love interest dies, but at least we don't know if it's from old age or "dramatically" in Wondy's arms; I REALLY hope for the former. Also Chris Pine, so it has that going for it.