I've always had a thing for heroines. When I was growing up, male heroes were everywhere: He-Man, Action Man, Transformers, Star Wars, Superman. Every franchise was built around its male heroes.
As a result, the heroes of every franchise bored the piss out of me. They were great for what they were, and made for some awesome toys and occasionally aspirational figures, but I found them all narratively tedious.
I was instead fascinated by the female equivalents / members of the male-dominated teams: She-Ra, Arcee, Supergirl, Cheetara. And that was all before I was old enough to see them as anything other than arse-kicking heroes.
Nor was this strictly down to their rarity: female-led stories have always had something more to them. While Hercules was about some noble buff dude punch bad-guys and throwing them around like unconvincing rag-dolls, Xena was about a violent warrior maiden looking to atone, and taking on a sidekick who represented those she was desperate to view her in a different light.
I have never been so eager to read a comic as when I first discovered X-23. And they all do pretty much the same thing, but just look at how a-typical Van Helsing or the Beaumont boys are compared to the complexity of Buffy.
And this love of the heroine can be traced right back to Princess Leia. A supposed damsel-in-distress, the first thing she does when being 'rescued' is insult one of her assumed captors, take the piss out of her "heroes'" poor excuse for a plan, then save them all herself, while proving a better shot than the experienced smuggler, the child of prophecy, and an entire battalion of empirical troopers.
Think about that: the Empire tortures her to discover the location of the rebels' base, and she resists; they threaten her entire planet, and she sends them to the wrong location; she sees her entire planet - including her mother and father - blown to smithereens, and the moment a pair of blundering wannbes get her out of her cell, she assumes command, questions one's ability to look after himself, and casually refers to a 7ft roaring beast with a high-powered crossbow as a 'walking carpet'.
One of her heroes sees his mentor - an old hermit he was casually acquainted with - sacrifice himself, and despite all Leia's been through, *she's* the one comforting *him*! When she should have been: "Bitch, I've just lost my family, my people and my entire fucking planet! Grow a pair and go shoot some Tie Fighters!"
She outwits the Empire's highest ranks, and without pausing for a much-deserved nap after all she's already been through, she takes command of the rebellion and helps lead them to a decisive victory.
AND THAT'S JUST IN THE FIRST FILM!
By the time of episode VII, her son's turned to the dark side, her husband's pissed off to look for his ship, her brother - the JEDI MASTER - has disappeared because it's all too much to handle, and she's COMMANDING A NEW REBELLION AGAINST AN ORDER ARISEN FROM THE FALLEN EMPIRE, LED BY HER OWN HOMICIDAL OFFSPRING!
And only someone like Carrie Fisher could have brought that to life. Only someone with that vivacity, that self-assurance, that strength and certainty of character.
Though to define her by that character is to undermine who she really was: an author; an activist; a paragon for equality. She was the go-to script-doctor for many of Hollywood's big-name screenwriters. She was an avatar for facing and owning one's emotional demons and sexual identity, and for not being defined by any of it.
Carrie Fisher was a true great of Hollywood and beyond, and a sad loss to us all.
Showing posts with label GI Joe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GI Joe. Show all posts
Tuesday, 27 December 2016
Saturday, 5 November 2016
Bay's Nostalgia Films Suck: Why I Care
Transformers is silly.
Not just the Bay films, or the shoddy attempts at more animated series, but the entire franchise is silly. Christ, the animated movie was (and by some (including myself) still is) adored, but even that featured this!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was even worse! Setting aside the fact their primary antagonist was a nasal hentai off-cut riding around in an '80's sex doll, with a pig, a rhino and Uncle Phil as his sidekicks, there were the musical specials, the live-action TV show, the second and third live-action movies...look, just watch this:
(or, for something far more in-depth, this)
The swaths of silliness that permeate these franchise and others - be it He-Man, GI Joe or the myriad comic-book franchises with adaptations old and recent - are often brought up in defence of some of the adaptations that spawn from them:
"You think Devastator's scrotum's bad, you should see the episode of the cartoon with the golden pond!"
"What do you mean the new Shredder's stupid? Don't you remember Super-Shredder?"
"How can you think Duke in a super-suit's daft when the toys included a heavily-armed windsurfer?"
The argument being that, if we could put up with the weirdness of the source material and still love it, why is it such a big issue that they completely changed the Turtle's origins?
For me, the problem is one of potential. The Transformers lore is rich and epic, and packed with some awesome characters, yet when given the go-ahead and budget to finally bring it all to life on the big-screen, we got a relatively small-scale, earth-bound shoot-out, focusing on a handful of tedious humans, and relegating the towering, warring robots to the background. Where the cartoon gave us a transforming city, an underwater battle with robotic piranhas and a planet-devouring monster, Bay gave us Skids and Mudflap.
As for the Turtles, while the 2nd and 3rd live-action movies were pants, the first did a great job of not only bringing the characters to life, but of creating an atmosphere that settled nicely between the cartoon and the early comics. The only real issue with it (aside from a spot of slow pacing) was technological restrictions: impressive as the costumes were at the time, they haven't aged well, and in retrospect, encumbered the ninja action.
To revisit the property with the benefit of today's technology could have resulted in something fun, fast-paced, and visually unique and spectacular. Instead we got some generic rip-off of Amazing Spiderman (of all things), focusing on a handful of tedious humans, and relegating the weird-but-badass ninjas to the background.
The reception of these films is also a problem. Bays Transformers films are crap, but because explosion-porn makes money, we're stuck with his take on the franchise for the foreseeable future.
On the flip-side, the last Turtles film bombed, and so we're due a reboot. On the surface, that should be great news, but for all the problems with the films, they did at least get the Turtles right (love-or-hate visual design notwithstanding), but current Hollywood reasoning dictates that if a film doesn't do well, it's because everything about it was wrong, and the only way to save it is "gritty realism".
Just look at Superman Returns: a half-arsed attempt at recapturing the magic of the first two Christopher Reeves films it might have been, but for all its problems, Brandon Routh was an inspired casting choice, not only looking the part, but also able to give two distinct and convincing performances as both Clark Kent and Superman.
Contrast that with the dour, miserable, misguided Zack Snyder films, and poor Henry Cavil who is mostly unconvincing as either.
Okay, the gritty reboot thing worked for Batman following the horror of Joel Schumacher, but the reason it worked for Batman is because it's freakin' Batman! A gritty reboot of Superman makes about as much sense as one for the Fantastic Four.
But I digress: the point of all this is, yes we still have the cartoons to watch; yes they had their silliness and spawned some utterly baffling off-shoots; yes there was a moment in our naive youth when it was just about acceptable to randomly have Vanilla Ice rapping about ninjas, but they had the opportunity to do something great! To finally bring these memories from our childhood to life in such a way that was new and spectacular, while still paying homage to the best of what they were, eschewing all of the unnecessary baggage that had built up over the years.
And instead we got Bumble Bee pissing on a Fed, Devastator balls, a mech-suited Shredder, a crappy rip-off of a crappy reboot, Skids, Mudflap, Shia le Boufant, Megan Fox, Marky Mark and the Wooden Bunch, and Michael fucking Bay.
Not just the Bay films, or the shoddy attempts at more animated series, but the entire franchise is silly. Christ, the animated movie was (and by some (including myself) still is) adored, but even that featured this!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was even worse! Setting aside the fact their primary antagonist was a nasal hentai off-cut riding around in an '80's sex doll, with a pig, a rhino and Uncle Phil as his sidekicks, there were the musical specials, the live-action TV show, the second and third live-action movies...look, just watch this:
(or, for something far more in-depth, this)
The swaths of silliness that permeate these franchise and others - be it He-Man, GI Joe or the myriad comic-book franchises with adaptations old and recent - are often brought up in defence of some of the adaptations that spawn from them:
"You think Devastator's scrotum's bad, you should see the episode of the cartoon with the golden pond!"
"What do you mean the new Shredder's stupid? Don't you remember Super-Shredder?"
"How can you think Duke in a super-suit's daft when the toys included a heavily-armed windsurfer?"
The argument being that, if we could put up with the weirdness of the source material and still love it, why is it such a big issue that they completely changed the Turtle's origins?
For me, the problem is one of potential. The Transformers lore is rich and epic, and packed with some awesome characters, yet when given the go-ahead and budget to finally bring it all to life on the big-screen, we got a relatively small-scale, earth-bound shoot-out, focusing on a handful of tedious humans, and relegating the towering, warring robots to the background. Where the cartoon gave us a transforming city, an underwater battle with robotic piranhas and a planet-devouring monster, Bay gave us Skids and Mudflap.
As for the Turtles, while the 2nd and 3rd live-action movies were pants, the first did a great job of not only bringing the characters to life, but of creating an atmosphere that settled nicely between the cartoon and the early comics. The only real issue with it (aside from a spot of slow pacing) was technological restrictions: impressive as the costumes were at the time, they haven't aged well, and in retrospect, encumbered the ninja action.
To revisit the property with the benefit of today's technology could have resulted in something fun, fast-paced, and visually unique and spectacular. Instead we got some generic rip-off of Amazing Spiderman (of all things), focusing on a handful of tedious humans, and relegating the weird-but-badass ninjas to the background.
The reception of these films is also a problem. Bays Transformers films are crap, but because explosion-porn makes money, we're stuck with his take on the franchise for the foreseeable future.
On the flip-side, the last Turtles film bombed, and so we're due a reboot. On the surface, that should be great news, but for all the problems with the films, they did at least get the Turtles right (love-or-hate visual design notwithstanding), but current Hollywood reasoning dictates that if a film doesn't do well, it's because everything about it was wrong, and the only way to save it is "gritty realism".
Just look at Superman Returns: a half-arsed attempt at recapturing the magic of the first two Christopher Reeves films it might have been, but for all its problems, Brandon Routh was an inspired casting choice, not only looking the part, but also able to give two distinct and convincing performances as both Clark Kent and Superman.
Contrast that with the dour, miserable, misguided Zack Snyder films, and poor Henry Cavil who is mostly unconvincing as either.
Okay, the gritty reboot thing worked for Batman following the horror of Joel Schumacher, but the reason it worked for Batman is because it's freakin' Batman! A gritty reboot of Superman makes about as much sense as one for the Fantastic Four.
But I digress: the point of all this is, yes we still have the cartoons to watch; yes they had their silliness and spawned some utterly baffling off-shoots; yes there was a moment in our naive youth when it was just about acceptable to randomly have Vanilla Ice rapping about ninjas, but they had the opportunity to do something great! To finally bring these memories from our childhood to life in such a way that was new and spectacular, while still paying homage to the best of what they were, eschewing all of the unnecessary baggage that had built up over the years.
And instead we got Bumble Bee pissing on a Fed, Devastator balls, a mech-suited Shredder, a crappy rip-off of a crappy reboot, Skids, Mudflap, Shia le Boufant, Megan Fox, Marky Mark and the Wooden Bunch, and Michael fucking Bay.
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