Fri, March 12, 2010 With all the 'Tron: Legacy' stuff that's been happening this week it seems only appropriate (though entirely coincidental) that the subject of this week's film dissection by your regular MovieMoan crew is the wonderful documentary 'The King of Kong'.
Enjoy:
Thu, March 11, 2010 
I really don't believe viral marketing has any impact on a film's box office performance. All it provides is some pointless fun for the hardcore fans ready to invest in it............and there is nothing wrong with that.
In fact if a studio really puts the effort in to these things, they will be rewarded with a collective wave of positivity from the fanbase who will be at least partially reassured that this property which they love so much is in the hands of people who 'get' it and care enough about its fans to create hype content specifically designed for them.
'The Dark Knight' has come to define exactly that sort of passionate viral marketing but if you ask me, Disney's upcoming 200 million megaton bag of eye candy 'Tron: Legacy' may have trumped it by year's end. It started at last year's Comic-Con with an exact replica of Flynn's (Jeff Bridges) Arcade which not only let fans play old school retro games but gave them the chance to see one of the film's new lightcycles in person. We've had specially created websites related to the disappearance of Flynn himself. And now, just to show up that delicious looking trailer we got this week, we get this courtesy of First Showing.net.
By heading over to Arcade Aid.com, you'll be presented with a wonderful picture puzzle containing the names of 56 classic videogames. If you can guess the names of all of them then you have a chance of winning...............your own ENCOM (company that made the games in the first film) badge.
I don't even think the most ardent fan of Tron (and I'm kinda at that level) cares about winning a friggin badge but I just dig games like this which really play into our nostalgia. You don't even have to officially play to win a prize. Just play it for fun like I did. I've guessed about 10 right so far, which is pretty pathetic but I've got all night.
Or at least I would if I weren't putting together the latest 'Moaning 'Bout A Movie' video for you. Stay tuned for that tommorrow folks.
End of line..............
Thu, March 11, 2010 
If you had told me a year ago that I'd be salivating to see Oliver "I've always been mad but now it's affecting my work" Stone's latest film 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps' then I'd probably giggle. I love the original film but this definitely ranks high on the list of sequels we never asked for. Then the trailers hit and I was very impressed, both by the film's (apparent) good dialogue and humour. I was gearing myself up from an awesome April at the movies with this, 'Clash of the Titans' and 'Kick Ass'.
I don't know if those particular films had anything do with this but 20th Century Fox has decided the season is way too crowded for their little movie and pushed the release date of the film back to September (otherwise known as 'the dead zone'). I found out about the news from my movie bible 'Empire' right here.
Knowing him as I do, my partner in crime Jamie Williams probably has theories that the film is no good, the studio knows it, and is moving the film far away from any competition. I'd like to think that is not the case but with Oliver Stone, anything is possible. I guess I'll let you know if it was worth the extra wait.
Fri, March 5, 2010 
Hey folks, we are finally moving on my next series of special content for the site. Just to recap for those of you not in the know, we added a feature to the moviemoan podcast for a few weeks entitled 'moaning 'bout a movie' where we engaged in (hopefully) intelligent discussion about lesser known, but thoroughly excellent films which deserve your attention.
We stopped after a little while as the podcasts are long enough without adding another 20 minutes to them. But we've had such fun doing it (it's probably the closest we feel to playing 'Siskel & Ebert') and, just like CSI, a show like ours should have a billion spin-offs so I'm trying the idea out in a new format.
By setting our discussion to video, you can get a much clearer picture of the films we discuss and are hopefully even more encouraged to seek them out. After the forces of evil at Fox prevented me from sharing our chat on 'One Hour Photo' last week, I've gone back to work and now present for your viewing pleasure a discussion of 'Shattered Glass' aka 'Anakin Can Act'. Enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVmXrn6_peE - part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J97IauObeSI - part 2
And please let us know if you enjoyed them so we know if its the right thing to keep making more.
Thu, February 25, 2010 
Hey folks, Phil here with a few tibits of information and a special treat for you.
Firstly, I know you've been waiting a long time for new episodes of our 'Movie Moan' podcast. We never stopped making them. We've just had trouble getting them on our new home of IESB but we are making progress on that. When we do, you'll be getting a whole ton of podcasts (and trust me, we've recorded some great stuff over the last few weeks) and a brand new logo which I can't wait for you to see. We appreciate your patience, we really do.
Secondly, I have decided to end my weekly series of articles 'memo to the executives' simply because I've run out of things to say. It was becoming quite a chore to think of new topics to write about and if you don't enjoy something, why do it?
Which brings me to the third item. Regular listeners of the show may remember we had a regular section for a little while called 'moaning 'bout a movie' where we spent a good portion of the podcast enjoying a roundtable discussion of a lesser known, but thoroughly excellent film. We covered 'The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters', 'Closer', 'Network', 'Shattered Glass' and 'One Hour Photo'. It occured to me that it might be fun to take those discussions and set them to video so the audience unfamiliar with the film can actually see, as well as hear, what we're talking about. While everyone else is trying to be the next 'nostalgia critic', we hope we can bring intelligent debate on good films to the web.
I'm hoping to bring you one show each week and will start next week. I did try and bring you our discussion of 'One Hour Photo' this week but Fox is having none of it I'm afraid.
Mon, February 22, 2010 Thinkmcflythink is proud to debut the brand new TV spot for 'Iron Man 2' specifically highlighting the character of Whiplash played by Mickey Rourke.
This new spot gives us the clearest indication yet of the approach the filmmakers have taken with the character and it's something to get really excited about.
Yes, I'm just kidding around. Hope you enjoyed it.
Fri, February 12, 2010
Even if you’ve never played the games, I’d be surprised if anyone reading this hadn’t at least vaguely heard of ‘Mass Effect’. But for those of you who have never picked up a copy, ‘Mass Effect’ is a science fiction epic combining the best elements of role playing and third person action topped off with the finest writing, graphics and voice acting the medium currently has to offer. While gamers eagerly awaited ‘Modern Warfare 2’ for the delights of shooting terrorists, fans of ‘Mass Effect’ have been salivating for the second game (just released this past month) to learn the next part of a truly gripping story. ‘Mass Effect’ is seen as a truly great piece of storytelling, not just for a videogame, but any medium be it television, book or film. If you think about it, the line between narrative in videogames and that of other mediums has become so blurred now because they have the ability to possess the epic scale and production value of movies (hiring film composers, writers and actors) while having the luxury of being able to tell a story as long as they want and craft a mythology deeper than anything a single film (or even trilogy) could achieve.
So why even attempt to screw up ‘Mass Effect’ by making a series of films out of it? Studios are always snapping up the rights to make movies out of current, critically acclaimed games and usually nothing becomes of them. On those rare occasions where the movie does get made, the filmmakers try so hard to service the fans and follow the game’s storyline, I think, because they believe the excitement you have playing it will simply translate to the other medium. But it never does of course. Watching a film adaptation of a videogame holds the same thrills as watching someone else playing one (credit Ebert & Roeper in their review of ‘Doom’ for that canny observation) and not the exhilarating blast of blockbuster entertainment it should be. Also, by adapting a videogame, you are seemingly creating a film which only fans of the material will be excited about but at the same time are bound to be disappointed by because they already know the story backwards. Why should ‘Mass Effect’ be any different? Because this is one franchise which has that extra special trick up its sleeve; one which actually makes a film adaptation viable. But first, for those not in the know:
‘Mass Effect’ takes place in the year 2183. The galaxy and all its boundless variety of species and cultures have been able to achieve space travel and explore beyond the confines of their home planets due solely to a mysterious race known as the Protheans, who vanished without trace 50,000 years previously leaving nothing but their technology. Their most significant legacy being the ‘mass effect’ fields; devices which operate in space as, essentially, high tech slingshots allowing instantaneous travel between solar systems. In the case of the human race, a small Prothean ruin was found during an excavation on Mars. But once humanity leaves the confines of its own solar system it discovers, not a universe of uncharted world ripe for colonization, but a thriving galactic community of alien races who have managed to unite and thrive perfectly well without them.
In the coming decades, humanity is viewed with both ostracization and curiosity in equal measure by the other species and tries desperately to obtain a larger role in shaping the future of galactic events. Its chance comes when a human colony on a remote world called Eden Prime is attacked by a race of sentient machines called the Geth. Arriving just in time to save the day is Shepherd, a commander with the human Alliance Military with a reputation for survival in the most impossible of situations, and his being picked for this mission is more than just coincidence. Shepherd is being considered as a candidate for the Spectres, an elite special force charged with the task of maintaining peace and order in the galaxy and bestowed with the power and authority to go anywhere and do anything, and his performance on Eden Prime will be the test. Things go to hell when Shepherd’s evaluator Nihilus is murdered by a rogue Spectre called Saren. Not only is Saren commanding the Geth army but the attack on Eden Prime has been orchestrated solely to gain possession of a recently discovered Prothean beacon.
After saving what he can of the colony, Shepherd has larger problems to deal with. The Prothean beacon burns nightmarish images of death and destruction into his brain; either a projection of the past or a prediction of the future. As Shepherd and the Alliance follow what little clues they have to track down the rogue Spectre, it seems at least clear that Saren intends to turn that nightmare into a reality. With a vacancy to fill, Shepherd becomes the first human Spectre and, armed with the finest ship in the galaxy the Normandy, and the finest crew, begins a trek across the stars to save the universe from Armageddon and prove humanity’s worth.
By the way, I’ve just described the set up of the first game, never mind the trilogy, never mind the twists and never mind the tons of side quests and tons of characters that you meet. Like adapting any book with a huge story (see my piece on ‘Dune’), it won’t do to try and condense every plot point, every alien species and every set piece into the film. And it certainly won’t do to split the first game into two or three films by itself. It’s dramatically unsatisfying and expecting a hell of a lot from an audience to keep faith and pay to see all three (and that’s not even mentioning Mass Effect 2 which I’ll get to in a moment). Some moments from the game will not make it to screen, some characters will be removed and some entire species of alien will become little more than background wallpaper. In order to make the adaptation work, you have to pick a strong theme and then choose the story points from the game which support it.
The theme of ‘Mass Effect’ is quite simply about humanity learning its place in the universe once it realizes that it isn’t the most important thing in it. Personally, I’ve been used to so many science fiction stories set in the far future involving a galactic community where it’s the human race that discover and unite all the other alien species. The suggestion seems to be that the rest of the universe is populated by lawless, primitive and untamed species that will destroy each other unless the human race teaches them (by example, ha ha) to live in peace and harmony. It was refreshing to find a story where it’s the other way around. And before you start thinking that the other species blindly hate the human race for no reason other than it is dramatically convenient, then look again. While some species have been waiting patiently for decades to be accepted on the galactic council, the humans are accepted far more quickly, not because they are well liked, but because their resources are needed. Even if humanity is accepted fully, will it be because of their worth or because of the need? Regardless, Shepherd’s actions start to change the perspective of the human race by the other species and, by the end of the story, the character has become the ultimate symbolic representation of the best qualities and the potential of the human race.
Mass Effect isn’t just about theme but about character. Shepherd and the crew he recruits to take down Saren aren’t just a bunch of galactic do-gooders with no personality. In fact, in the film version I see each member of the crew as an extension of one part of Shepherd’s personality, adding depth to his character and justifying the presence of all the others:
Kaiden Alenko – a human lieutenant with the Alliance, implanted with biotics which give him unique combat skills (and occasional migraines). A straight shooter who always follows and never questions his superiors. Kaiden represents the order and discipline which have dictated Shepherd’s career.
Ashley Williams – a human Alliance soldier who is rescued from the Geth on Eden Prime and comes along for the rest of the ride. Thanks to certain actions of her father which threaten to forever tarnish the family name, and her inability to handle Eden Prime by herself, Williams is utterly focused and determined to prove her worth. Ashley represents the same focus, drive and passion in Shepherd.
Liara T’Soni – an Asari (an all female race each bestowed with a special unique talent – most of them involving eroticism in some way) scientist and daughter of one of the main villains. Having studied the Protheans for most of her life, she provides most of the exposition to our heroes about what Saren is really after. She also, if the player pursues it, provides a romance for Shepherd. Liara represents love, friendship and companionship; everything Shepherd fights for
Garrus Vakarian – a Turian (same race as Saren) security officer/detective desperate to break free of the rules, regulations and politics which he feels make his job as a peacekeeper impossible. As such, he is envious of Shepherd’s Spectre status which allows exactly that freedom. Garrus represents that blurred line Shepherd must walk given he is charged with preserving order in the galaxy but having the freedom to do it by any means necessary and the inherent temptations that come with that; temptations that lesser individuals would give in to.
Tali’Zorah nar Rayya – a Quarian, the race who created the Geth for manual labor and were then exiled from their homeworld after the machines revolted. Now her people exist as a flotilla of ships in search of either a new home or reclaiming their old one. Tali, like all Quarians at some stage, has embarked on her ‘pilgrimage’; a quest to find something of great value which will improve the quality of life for the entire species. Tali represents the little fish in a big pond trying to make a difference.
Urdnot Wrex – a Krogan; the nearest ‘Mass Effect’ comes to a substitute for Klingons. They are not ruled by codes of honor but are a race bred for war, conquest, and expansion it seems. Thanks to excessive breeding which threatens to overwhelm the galaxy, the other species conspire to manufacture a selective virus known as the Genophage which all but stops further Krogan being born and drives their race to near extinction. Wrex represents the warrior brought up in a field of combat and tragedy and how you almost lose your soul because of it.
The main reason though that Mass Effect can work as a film series, is not its potent themes or strong characters. Even having those, if the fans know every beat of the story before it happens because the film is so slavishly loyal to the game then they are bound to leave disappointed. We may say (and I’m sure I’ve been guilty of this in the past) that these adaptations should stay as true to the source material as possible but what we really mean is that we want to be taken on a cinematic ride containing the look, style and feel of the game we love but featuring the unexpected thrills and twists we get from films we know nothing about before seeing them. The main reason Mass Effect can work is because, by the very nature of the type of game it is, the story is not set in stone.
Mass Effect’s strongest selling point amongst countless other RPG and sci-fi games is the ability for the player to take control of the story. As Commander Shepherd you have to make countless decisions during the course of the game. Some are simple choices (get paid by a lowly criminal to do a slightly underhanded deed or turn them in to the authorities). Some have real weight to them because they play very much on the character relationships you have built with your team by that point. In the penultimate set piece of the first game, Shepherd and his team land on a planet housing Saren’s base of operations. As it turns out, Saren is working on a cure for the Genophage which has been systematically exterminating Wrex’s race, the Krogan. The choice for the player to destroy the base (and the cure) is non-negotiable but you must choose how to deal with the understandably distraught Wrex. Several possible conclusions follow Shepherd’s tense stand-off against the Krogan warrior. You can use your charm to diffuse the situation and get Wrex to agree with your position. You can kill Wrex in cold blood, without hesitation because he clearly cannot be trusted. Or you can buy time while Wrex aims for you only for him to be shot in the back by one of your more loyal crew members.
If the film’s writing develops enough time to explain Wrex’s situation (not to mention just spends enough time with him as a character) then the confrontation in the movie will contain all the tension of its source material as even the gamers in the audience will not know how the scene is going to end. It isn’t even as though one particular ending is clearly the most dramatically satisfying. If Wrex allows Shepherd to bomb the base and destroy the cure then it allows his character to show the greatest demonstration of strength and trust imaginable; an alien willing to sacrifice the survival of his entire race to help the human who has earned his respect. If Shepherd kills Wrex without hesitation then it adds that touch of gray to his character and brings up the question of how far our hero is willing to go to save the galaxy, how driven he is, and how he may save humanity but lose that very thing in the process. And if Wrex is shot in the back before he can make his choice, the audience is left to speculate whether he would have pulled that trigger.
So because of this multiple choice story, the filmmakers themselves have the luxury of choosing from multiple outcomes and providing their own unique version of the story for the movie. The audience, including even the most ardent fans of the game, will not know how things will turn out. It is important to especially emphasize this point as Mass Effect is a story about real characters in real jeopardy facing impossible odds to save the galaxy. You rip the engine right out of it if you already know who will live and who will die. With a game like this to adapt, there is no set answer and everything is up in the air. As the player even has the option to completely customize the look of Commander Shepherd, the filmmakers don’t even have to worry about conforming to fan expectations of casting an actor who physically looks exactly like the character, because there is no set look. For the purposes of this article, I have been referring to Shepherd as male but can be played in the game as a female. It makes no difference to the story, nor should it. One of the great twists the second game throws at the player is the ability to import the character they created in the first game, and then completely rebuild it from the ground up into something different. Which brings me nicely to the recently released (and totally kick ass) second game and how it could make a great movie itself.
Most of us fans have probably just finished their first playthrough of ‘Mass Effect 2’ by now and as I watched the even more powerful and emotional story unfold, the theme of a potential film adaptation crystallized in my mind even stronger. In the second game, Saren and his Geth army have been defeated, their end game being to bring about the return of a race of hyper advanced machines called the Reapers. Though Saren is gone, the Reapers are still out there and waiting for the right time to strike. As Shepherd and crew patrol the galaxy waiting for the next sign of trouble, trouble finds them, not in the form of the Reapers but a new enemy called the ‘Collectors’ who attack and harvest other races for unknown but certainly unpleasant purposes. In a devastating assault, the Normandy is destroyed and Shepherd is sucked into the vacuum of space, dead to everyone who knows him. But Shepherd’s body is recovered, not by his own people but by a group of pro-human interest terrorist radicals called ‘Cerberus’ (who you would have had a lot of fun shooting in the first game). In Shepherd’s absence, entire human colonies have been taken by the Collectors and, with humanity’s (and only humanity’s) best interests in mind, Cerberus believes the commander has the best shot at stopping them. Now fully backed by an organization he can’t fully trust and returning to a world that has forgotten him, Shepherd must recruit the best members of every species in the galaxy, earn their trust and lead them into the lair of the Collectors for a seemingly un-winnable mission.
What I found the most fascinating about this story was the thematic potential not found in the game but which could be easily be put on screen to make a cracking second chapter. When Shepherd’s body is retrieved by Cerberus, the objective of their efforts is to bring him back to life just as he was, in both body and soul. The theory goes that if the reanimated Shepherd is anything less than the hero and leader people remember, the mission to defeat the Collectors, and in turn the Reapers will fail. Because Mass Effect 2 is a game and not Philip K Dick novel, you don’t get to ponder the implications of this. Once Shepherd realizes that he has been reconstructed, brought back from the dead and is essentially an experiment, maybe it causes a crisis of confidence in himself. All great leaders have to believe they can pull off what they are trying to achieve and Shepherd is no exception. But what if Shepherd’s genetic material (looks, skills, personality) has been chosen and coded into him by someone else, and is no longer his own? All the good he has done, all the people who he inspires and everything he fights for doesn’t count for shit if he is simply a puppet in a pre-programmed body and mind, acting out a script for Cerberus who need that body as a symbol of everything good about the human race. Is Shepherd really his own man capable of choosing his own destiny?
The struggle for individuality is the driving theme of ‘Mass Effect 2’ as such and it is present not just in Shepherd but elsewhere as well. The Collectors are eventually revealed to be the highly mutated Protheans who weren’t exterminated by the Reapers but forced to become their puppets and removed of their own individuality. Miranda Lawson, the Cerberus scientist who brings Shepherd back to life has herself been genetically engineered to be the perfect woman and faces the exact same dilemma as her experiment. The Geth actually join Shepherd’s team this time around in the form of Legion, a physical being with its own voice but merely part of a hive mind, incapable of independent thought. It seems quite deliberately symbolic (and quite touching to boot) in the climatic fight against the Collectors that an entire race of beings and their will to fight back is represented by one physical body. The same can be said of the representatives of the other races Shepherd recruits for the mission. In Mass Effect 2, the stakes are much higher than humanity proving their worth. It is a story of every species taking a stand.
Hopefully you Mass Effect virgins out there can see the clear potential of this franchise on the big screen. I haven’t even mentioned how the game creators, clearly influenced by the defining science fiction films of the 1980’s, have taken the best elements from each one. Mass Effect contains the operatic scale of the Star Wars trilogy, the intimate family of characters we remember from the Star Trek movies, the weaponry and technology of Aliens, and the futuristic cityscapes of Blade Runner. It represents the very best of commercial science fiction and maybe it would be better suited for a television series. Certainly the production value of American television drama is nothing to stick your nose up at today. I suppose I want Mass Effect on the big screen because I love movies and I want good movies to be made. And since I can’t convince some people that the first Mortal Kombat is actually a perfectly fine film, the quest for a good videogame movie goes on. If you make Mass Effect the movie, I think the search would be over.
Fri, February 5, 2010
Looks like the new kids on the block are putting me to shame with their awesome posts on the site but I'm still here folks and it's time for your regular Friday instalment of 'memo to the executives'.
To most of the people who read our site, the word 'remake' usually brings the immediate reaction of violent stomach cramp. If we're talking about a remake of a popular Japanese film then add a bout of dysentery to that. It's not an instinctive snobbish attitude as the results speak for themselves. It's a genre (if it can be called such) that just doesn't have a good track record.
But there is one particular film, which was rumoured to be getting the American remake treatment, which actually sounded enticing. A film whose story and premise is both distinctly Japanese but strong enough that it could easily be reconfigured into something more palatable for a Western audience. A film which appears nothing more a typical slice of teenage slasher sadism on the surface but deals with such a potent and relatable subject matter that it stays with the viewer long after the film has ended.
For those of you not familiar with it, 'Battle Royale' tells the story of a Japan of the not too distant future which has fallen into economic and social collapse. Employment is at an all-time low and in relation to that, juvenile violence and delinquency is at an all-time high. After all, why should the youth conform to the educational system if there is no point in working hard and no prospect of a future they can aspire to? In order to quell the problem, the government puts a new system of control in places and established 'The BR Act' where by every year one class of school children is taken against their will to an isolated island location which, for the following three days, will be their battleground as they are charged with the task of killing each other. They are given a random weapon, a map, and an explosive collar fitted to their necks which will explode after the three day time limit if the game has no winner. The only way to win is to survive. The only way to survive is to ensure that everyone else is dead. The only prize is survival and the knowledge to take home of what a government is compelled to do to ensure control.
The story specifically focuses on a group of teenagers referred to only as 'class B', a typical band of truants who made life hell for their teacher Kitano (played by the legendary Beat Takeshi). Compiling the shock of being kidnapped and chosen for the next 'Battle Royale', the class find that Kitano is the man in charge of the game and takes great pleasure from watching them destroy themselves (and even gets in on the action in two cases). Providing a centre to all the mayhem as battle commences are two students who forge a deep bond and find the will to survive and protect each other, determined to escape before they will be forced to make the choice of killing the other to survive. There are only about 40 other students in the way of making that happen so it shouldn't be too hard.
Huge fan as I am, I've never seen the film as particularly dense. It isn't the kind of movie which throws allegory and subtext at you in every scene, or pretentiously pretends to be anything more than what it is; an extremely well made 'what if' comic book fantasy set in a dystopian fascist future not too far apart from our own world. It focuses on a premise and situation which every school kid on the planet could imagine themselves in. But it also, rather than just focusing on one or two protagonists and allowing the rest of the class to be hollow sacrificial lambs, cuts away to many other kids on the island and through wonderful writing creates plenty of engaging characters. What makes this all the more impressive is that most of these characters only get one scene in the film. In the space of a few minutes, the audience gets a complete character portrait allowing for a certain amount of emotional attachment before their inevitable grisly death.
That is what separates the film, and hopefully any remake, from standard slasher exploitation fare. That is what has made 'Battle Royale' a classic in the ten years since its release and that is the heart of the piece, for me. In those character/death sequences, we get to see almost every possible aspect of teen angst/school life represented. We have the cheating girlfriend being hunted by the jealous ex. We have the nerdy kid with glasses, always desperate to be better than everyone, immediately embracing the goal of the game. The happy couples who are faced with the prospect of killing one another commit suicide. The tech genius friends band together to try and hack the military network. The flower power brigade tries to rally for a ceasefire (and get gunned down for their trouble). The girl clique of the class ends up in a typical argument groups like that would have but with poison and machine guns thrown in. And in the most powerful segment, a girl played by Chiaki Kuriyama (you may remember her as the evil Gogo Yubari from 'Kill Bill: Volume One') finally gets her revenge on a cowardly stalker-esque boy who made up stories about sleeping with her. He finally gets penetration, but not the way he was hoping.
You could say some of it leans heavily on cliché but it works in a film like this where we're really watching archetypes fighting to the death rather than specific characters. If you give a remake the same treatment, but with American teenagers, every one who sees the film will find a particular character or situation to relate to; something out of their past. It works exactly the same for the rest of us who have left our school days behind many years ago. It's just fun spooling ideas of the different kinds of characters who could be dropped in this situation and how they would react to it or maybe even the people we remember from our own life at school. For the purposes of the remake imagine:
* The teacher's pet, always determined to be better than everyone else, always thinking they ARE better than everyone else but now thrown into a situation where being in the teacher's good books isn't going to be enough to survive. In fact, they'd probably be the first to get hunted down and lynched.
* The quiet nerd who goes it alone, methodically trying to figure out the best way to win making him one of the most feared opponents on the island.
* The psycho who uses their body to lure in prey of the opposite sex.
* The most popular girl in school and the groupies who surround her, even in the game but now all have their backs up wondering if she will play them off against each other and eliminate them.
* The anarchist usually holed up in their bedroom coming up with wild plots to bring down the government and now actually in the position of fighting back against them.
*Not to mention the teacher in charge of the 'Battle Royale'. One thing that should be followed to the letter from the original is the genuine and understated performance of Beat Takeshi's Kitano. It's all the more frightening when a seemingly sane minded person is putting his students in this situation because he genuinely feels it is the best way to deal with the youth, as opposed to a camp, eye bulging loon.
If the viewer wasn't thinking it before, once they have found someone in the film to connect with, they immediately begin thinking about what they would do in that extreme situation. When all is said and done, it boils down to the question of whether you want to survive and what you are prepared to do for it versus rolling over and dying because of something you are not prepared to do. I doubt there is a single kid growing up and being prepared for the world they will face after leaving the safety of education that hasn't been told about the dog eat dog order of things and how we all need to be aggressive and a little ruthless to get ahead. 'Battle Royale' speaks directly about the consequences of such a philosophy when teenagers are placed in the ultimate symbolic representation of the dog eat dog world. It is quite literally, 'kill or be killed'. And it is quite deliberate that the cast of the film are clearly in their last year or so of high school and on the precipice of making those choices which set the course of the rest of their lives.
In the original film, one of the more contentious plot points was that 'The BR Act' was not some secret government project but a widely know piece of legislation backed up during each year's game by enthusiastic media coverage. The whole point of the film I suppose is to paint the picture of a future Japan where the youth are so feared that the rest of the population would have no moral issue in passing such a law to keep them in line. But just for the sake of taking the core idea and presenting it differently, I would like to see the remake treat 'The BR Act' as a secret government initiative. It just seems to make more sense in an American version of the story that the only members of the public would know about Battle Royale would be the kids who are kidnapped to be a part of it, with the rest of the country (including the kids parents) being given some convenient excuse as to their disappearance, although news and rumours travel in underground circles as to what really happens to them; an idea which sounds so ridiculous it is dismissed by most people outright. This is not to say there should be any change in the dystopian situation of the country. The idea of a country (especially America) being on the verge of economic collapse has more resonance today than the original film did back in 2000. But having the 'Battle Royale' program be a covert operation slim lines the story and answers a lot of questions the audience would otherwise be asking themselves if everyone in the country were immediately accepting of the idea of kidnapping school children and forcing them to kill each other. It adds some mystery and intrigue to the first act of the film as we discover what is going on through the kids’ eyes and solves the little problem of the necessary exposition required to explain the rules of the game.
Such a change in plotting necessitates a change in ending as well. The original film climaxes with the two protagonists escaping the secret island, being branded as fugitive criminals by the government and going on the run. Rather than defiance against a fascist regime, in the remake it would be interesting to see the exact opposite; the survivor embracing and conforming to it. Let us say that the main protagonist starts the film as something of a wastrel. They are completely disillusioned by the future they in, a country which is in such trouble that there is no chance, let alone guarantee, of a good career no matter how hard you work at school. Initially, as the Battle Royale begins, it seems like the final straw and they contemplate suicide right then and there. Then a close bond begins to form with one of the other students, with whom they battle the elements together, leading the audiences who have seen the original to assume the remake will end in exactly the same way. Eventually, all the other students are dead and it comes down to the two of them. Rather than just patiently waiting for the end of the game to run its course, the teacher pulls the final sleight of hand. The prize for the sole survivor will be more than their life back, but an actual career in the government; a cushy government job if you will. All of a sudden, all those fears of returning to the country they know with all its problems and uncertainty flood back. They realize they were only fighting because they thought they were going to die and wanted to at least make it difficult for the others. With that no longer being the case, our protagonist, almost instinctively and without hesitation, kills their best friend to take the prize. The morals of friendship and loyalty are thrown out of the window in favour of the rules of dog eat dog.
Alternatively, cruel on the audience as it may be, perhaps the film should end on the dilemma of the characters in their final moments of the game, both of them with a weapon in their hand, both of them weighing the two options presented. Since this is the culmination of the film's message, maybe it is best not to present the answer but cut to black and leave the audience to ponder what they would do in that situation. Then again, maybe it is dramatically unsatisfying. Either way, the audience has something to take home and think about. A remake that lingers long in the memory; you don't see too many of those.
You may actually remember rumours from a few years back when New Line Cinema (R.I.P.) acquired the rights to produce the 'Battle Royale' remake. Apart from the absurd rumour that it may be aiming for a PG-13 rating, it practically vanished without trace, long in fact before New Line itself suffered the same fate. I really do hope that someone else picks up the rights and gives this property a go. We roll our eyes at the remakes which get made because there seems little point in shooting them. They appear to be nothing more than shot for shot recreations (that 'Nightmare On Elm Street' remake, despite potential, looks like it has fallen into that very trap). With 'Battle Royale' you at least start with a bloody good story which can be reconfigured into something else and still honour the original's spirit and tone. Though the idea could be moved to a Western setting, the film is so distinctly Japanese that an American remake cannot help but be different. And if it sucks, it's just another notch on the blackboard....
....and you can stick an explosive collar on me for my baseless enthusiasm.
Thu, January 28, 2010 I don’t want James Cameron to make Avatar 2. See you next week.
Oh ok, I’ll give it a go. It may surprise you to hear that someone who loved the film doesn’t want the sequel made, let alone a trilogy. My reasoning is very simple. There are far more years behind Cameron than in front. At the rate it takes the man to make a film (having only directed seven if you don’t count ‘Piranha 2’), we’re only going to get a few more and I’d rather be taken to a completely different world than go back to Pandora. It seemed very clear to me that Avatar was a self contained story with a very definitive ending. The main character had come full circle, the humans had been kicked off the planet and every square inch of Pandora’s geography seemed to have been covered. We may get the chance to see a few new species of Pandoran wildlife but that is hardly the soundest groundwork to build a film around.
From an audience perspective, the special effects of the film may have stunned them the world but that initial magic will not cross over into the second. A sequel which is just more of the same with 20% new forests and waterfalls weighed up against the colossal expectation and hype which will come about from a film of Avatar’s success may just be enough to kill this supposed trilogy off before it gets to deliver on part three. And lets not forget we have future 3D/motion capture/80/90% CG created event films in 'Tron: Legacy' and 'John Carter of Mars' hoping to capture the same magic, awe and box office of ‘Avatar’ not to mention the projects we don't know about yet that studios have probably greenlit this past month in a vain attempt to cash in.
So, as opposed to most of my articles, I don’t need to rant about certain specific issues of production which need improving. In this case, it is allabout the story. A truly great story, better and deeper in every way than its predecessor is what will set Avatar 2 apart from its inevitable imitators. Rather than having an admittedly simplistic cowboys vs. Indians/white hats vs. black hats/purely good vs. purely evil story, tell one where such concepts are more a matter of perspective than anything else. A story where the audience is not forced to side with one particular group of characters but struggles to figure out who is right and who is wrong.
We need to start by recapping where the end of the first film left us. Though we never got to see it, we are at least told that Earth has been devastated by lord knows what; pollution, global warming, deforestation, nuclear winter? Whatever the case, it sure ain’t pretty over there and now the majority of the humans who came over to Pandora to suck it dry have been forced back to “their dying world”. Only a few humans have been chosen to stay behind on Pandora. Will they revert to the more primal lifestyle of the Na’vi or will they be unable to separate themselves from technology that has dominated their lives to date? Will Jake Sully, having forsaken his human body and transferred mind and soul into his avatar permanently, be feeling any psychological repercussions of such a completely unique experience in human evolution? With their clad leader Eytukan and his successor Tsu’Tey both dead, will a simple grunt like Sully be able to handle the responsibility of leading the Na’vi tribe? Most pressingly of all, will the humans come back to Pandora for seconds?
If Cameron wants to continue the not too subtly disguised parallels with the Iraq war then this story has the Na’vi as a substitute for the USA. They feel threatened by an enemy whose intentions they don’t understand and feel the need to take pre-emptive action, and create a climate of fear to justify it. Sully knows that, with there being no Na’vi advocates among those returning to Earth, it is likely the story of the Pandoran occupation will be spun by the company into a horrific tale of how a group of noble humans tried to find a way to save their race and encountered a race of malicious creatures determined to exterminate them. Based on that, who knows what the military forces on Earth will decide to do. And on Pandora, the Na’vi clan leaders are pondering the exact same thing as the human race; in order to protect their people, is it necessary to strike at the enemy before they have a chance to plan another attack. What is going to make this potent is that these issues will be debated on the Na’vi side exclusively. This accomplishes two things. First, we finally get to see more depth to the Na’vi characters. Rather than being portrayed as a group of pure souls, completely content with their lives, we get to see that they are capable of the same aggression and fear that drives human beings into conflict and war. The Na'vi have only learned such concepts because of what the humans did to them in the first film. Secondly, it allows the audience to feel that same fear, and ignorance, if we don’t keep cutting back to the humans on Earth and therefore don’t know what their plans are.
Of course, the Na’vi are not scientific and military minded in their fear. They are a deeply spiritual people and so the comparables to be drawn are to the wars of our own history spawned from religion and faith and marching blindly into conflict because "God wills it". We are told in the first film, after Sully prays to Eywa, the Na’vi deity, that she does not take sides in conflict but merely protects the balance of nature. However, on the edge of defeat in the final battle against the military forces, Eywa answered Sully’s call and rallied all of Pandora’s wildlife to turn the tide. Clearly, she does take sides. In fact Eywa’s intervention at that critical moment is the excuse which will be used by all those on Pandora pushing for war as the perfect excuse for it.
And chief among them is Moat, Neytiri’s mother and spiritual leader of the Na'vi.
It’s always interesting in sequels if you are able to take characters, whom you already have knowledge of, even an attachment to, in a completely unexpected direction. I still remember the disappointment I felt with the Matrix sequels when they dropped the ball on that. In the second film, it looked as though they were taking Lawrence Fishburne’s character down a dark path, making him out to be a dangerous and unpredictable fanatic rather than the brilliant and inspiring leader we initially thought him to be. Instead of taking that character arc to its natural conclusion, the filmmakers wimped out and neutered him in the third movie. The character of Morpheus was perfect to turn into a villain (well flawed loony, callhim what you will) because of the clout he had with the population of Zion who practically saw him as the city’s voice and the voice of their faith. If he told them to head out on a suicide march to the machine city, they would have done it.
Moat is in that same position in Avatar’s universe. As the film says, she interprets the will of Eywa. What if the events of the first film have actually scarred her emotionally to the point where she actually is incapable of understanding that will? After all, she had to deal with the death of her husband and the destruction of Hometree at the same time. She is still the high mother of the people and is stillexpected to fulfill that role so she feels the need to put on the pretense of still speaking for the Na’vi God. So when Moat says to her people that they need to take the fight to the humans before they have a chance to invade Pandora again, its all based on her own fears not only of what could happen in the future but out of duty and responsibility, and of failure. In times of uncertainty, the Na’vi are alllooking to her for the right decision. She doesn’t suddenly turn into a villain. She just ends up on the wrong path, a path of no return and her actions drive a wedge right inbetween not only the humans left on Pandora and the Na’vi, but also Sully and Neytiri.
The humans, such as Norm and Max, have the opportunity to be far more fully realized characters in the sequel (instead of just filler) because of the position they are in. We never get to find out exactly how they feel about abandoning Earth to its fate to stay on Pandora. What is interesting to note is that the humans who were forced off-planet have clearly left in their wake, at least a partial amount of the technology and the facilities that they built on Pandora; labs, guns and even space craft. Unable to detach themselves from technology, and cursed with that affliction which curses all movie scientists, their knowledge and wisdom exceeds their grasp. Norm and Max believe that if they are able to integrate their way of life with the Na'vi, given time, they can be the first to establish a human colony on Pandora and create a world that both races can share; maybe even save the population of Earth. As it turns out, all they are doing is giving the Na'vi the tools they need to exterminate the entire human race.
Meanwhile, Neytiri’s need to be loyal to her mother (being that she will be the next in line to the position of spiritual mother) puts her in direct conflict with Sully who, though having become one of the Na’vi, has not entirely lost his humanity. This lone hero is once again facing impossible odds to do the right thing. He is determined to find a peaceful resolution to this conflict. What becomes interesting about it is that Sully has almost become a deity to the Na'vi in his own way. He is a human re-incarnated in a Na'vi body and he did the unfathomable in conquering the Leonopteryx (that is big ass winged thing to you and me) in, admittedly, one of the dumbest plot devices in the first film. It never looks up eh?
So with Moat speaking for Eywa advocating war with humanity and Sully opposing it, we have a conflict of God against God, and all of the Na'vi tribes must choose which side they are on. It is a choice which will tear them apart forever. That is, if they come back to Pandora at all. With the knowledge now in hand to pilot the ships left behind on Pandora, the Na'vi clans, both for and opposing war, prepare to fly to Earth and begin the conflict that will, visually, take the audience into completely new territory. Some of the most impressive sequences in Avatar where those small glimpses where human actors and practical environments where seamlessly integrated with computer generated Na'vi. Just imagine a whole film of that, on whatever future Earth James Cameron has in his head, with twenty times the action of the first movie. Start booking those IMAX tickets now folks.
But, as I said at the beginning of this piece, I’d rather James Cameron made ‘Battle Angel’ instead. The only compromise would seem to be if Cameron wrote and produced Avatar 2 and handed the directing duties to someone else. Somehow, however, I can’t see ‘Avatar 2: a Kathryn Bigelow/Steven Soderbergh film’ on the poster. Cameron created this sandbox and he’s not about to let anyone else play in it. We’ll see how it turns out.
…actually he should skip doing ‘Battle Angel’ and pick up the rights to ‘Robotech’. James Cameron is the only director on the planet whom a studio would trust with the amount of money it will take to make that into a film. And if he made Robotech he could cast a pop singer as Linn Minmei (the fictional pop singer in the story). Then him and James Horner would have an excuse to put terrible songs in their films.
Hmmmm, sounds like I’ve got another article to write. See you next time.
Fri, January 22, 2010
It’s been pretty interesting reflecting over some of the articles I’ve written in the series recently given that these dead or dying franchises have suddenly sprung to life again and chosen a completely different course of action than the one I pitched.
Case in point; Spider-man.
My initial piece on Spidey desperately tried to pitch a fourth instalment that could pick up the pieces from the third film and get the series back on track. It was hard enough to come up with something as a bit of fun. It’s saying something that Sony couldn’t make it work either, and they’re getting paid. Now Spidey is in worse shape than ever before in my opinion. The studio is faced with the daunting prospect of starting from scratch, hiring an entirely new crew, getting a script that works, and yet they are still determined to make the same release date they would by aiming for if they were making part 4 with Sam Raimi. And worst of all, Jamie Williams is making me re-write this article because of all these changes. Damn you Spider-man reboot, I hate you already.
I will gladly admit that a slightly sadistic part of me wanted Spider-man 4 to be a car wreck. I’ve been consistently fascinated with the way the series has mimicked the exact pattern of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies. I wanted ‘Spider-man IV: The Quest for Peace’, just for a laugh. This is how emotionally un-invested I am in this franchise right now. But let us deal with the cards we’ve been dealt and try to salvage the situation.
The first thing we have to deal with is tone. I know with all the rumours flying around right now of Taylor Lautner being cast as Peter Parker that fans may be having nightmarish visions of a reboot that might as well be called ‘High Spidey Musical’; that Sony are so desperate to focus their efforts on attracting a younger audience that any chance of seeing a more mature vision of the character on-screen is fading away before their eyes. I cannot speak for the studio and have no idea what their vision is. I will say that with a character as iconic and well known as Spider-man, it seems completely unnecessary to aim for any one particular demographic. Kids will always be excited about a new Spider-man movie coming out. Teenagers will see it because it’s a comic book blockbuster and they pretty much know what they’re getting. The rest of us will see it if its good.
So don’t change the style of the piece purely as a marketing aid. Do it because it makes sense for the film you are making; because you are rebooting Spider-man, not remaking it. Although certainly not the best comic book movie made to date, I can hardly think of one which better captured the spirit of a particular era of a character’s run than the first Spider-man film, so infused with the colour and zippy energy of those Stan Lee/Steve Ditko strips of the 60’s. Which is why hiring Raimi to direct it was the smartest move the studio could have made. Which is why hiring a similarly unique filmmaker with their own love for the character (and hiring them now while they have enough lead time to shape the film into something they really want to make) is the smartest move they can make now. Oh, excuse me the phone is ringing. I’ll be right back.
What’s that Jamie? Marc Webb eh? Very clever……….oh, well good for them.
Ok Sony, you‘ve certainly got moving on this, I‘ll give you that. But there is still time to thank Mr Webb for his time, show him the door and hire David Fincher. If you were following the development of the hunt for a director of the first film, you will surely remember Fincher’s name was brought up more than once and he was clearly a front runner for the job (almost certainly higher up on Sony’s list of preferred choices than Raimi was). Fincher was quoted as saying that he turned the job down as he wasn’t interested in doing the origin story, but rather wanted to make a Spider-man movie with the character already established. Whatever his vision would have been, I doubt the words colourful and zippy would have come to mind. But he is, not only a highly competent and proficient filmmaker, but also understands how to make commercial cinema. Hiring Fincher to make a comic book movie would not be the same as hiring Ang Lee and the moment Sony hires him, the fan community not only breathes a little easier but actually starts to take genuine interest in seeing the film. He is the perfect choice for the job…………well, short of Frank Darabont but then I think he should direct everything. I’m sure Webb is extremely competent himself. I’m just not as excited by what he brings to the table. It does feel like Sony has hired a ‘shooter’ rather than a ‘director’; someone who is quite willing to do what the studio wants in exchange for directing a high profile job which will catapult them into the mainstream. Maybe it’s the for the best in this case, maybe it isn’t. Either way, best of luck to you Mr Webb.
I do hope that Webb doesn’t feel the same affinity for the 60’s comic books that Raimi does. It is time for a Spider-man picture which embraces the darker comics of the 80’s and 90’s. Even if Raimi’s 60’s inspired trilogy had ended with a bang, I would be suggesting the same thing. The look of the picture would be set primarily by the design of the Spider-man costume. It’s wonderful design in the first three films was very much the physical embodiment of the character as drawn by John Romita Snr; bold, meaty, heroic and colourful. The studio should not be afraid to go the opposite route in a new film. On the contrary, presenting a totally different looking Spider-man eliminates any confusion outright for the audience that this is indeed a complete do-over. I don’t know how practical it would be to put the character as drawn by Todd McFarlane on the screen but that is the direction I think they should be aiming for. Dare to put a Spider-man on the screen that actually looks darker, weirder and slightly unappealing. Y’know, like an actual spider.
In retelling Spider-man part one, you are faced with the same problem Warner Bros has rebooting Superman. Peter Parker’s transformation into your friendly neighbourhood Spider-man following the death of his Uncle Ben and the responsibility he feels for that are as well known (and un-screwed with in comic continuity) as Kal-El’s journey to Earth from the exploding planet of Krypton. Further more, Raimi told that origin as perfectly as Richard Donner did for Superman. So although the Spider-man reboot will probably follow the same approach as the recent ‘The Incredible Hulk’ to a certain degree (skipping the actual creation of the character and getting straight to the action), the filmmakers can’t change the origin like in that film because there is nothing to change it to. At the same time, I don’t think anybody wants to sit through Uncle Ben’s mugging and death again. Start the story several months after Ben’s death with Peter Parker firmly aware of his powers, if not his responsibility. The access point for the audience to Parker and those powers would be the kids around him. As far as they are concerned, Parker is a recluse who has isolated himself because of his uncle’s death and yet rumours persist of his bizarre talents. Maybe, in a twist on the traditional origin story, Peter creates the Spider-man character for fame and fortune after the death of Uncle Ben, in order to support himself and his widowed Aunt May and to escape from the pain and grief he feels in the adoration of the public. But it certainly isn’t to selflessly fight crime initially. If Peter needs the death of someone close to him to be able to fully accept the mantle of Spider-man then don’t make it Uncle Ben; make it Gwen Stacy.
The one problem I had with Raimi’s storytelling approach to the first and second films was replacing Gwen with Mary Jane, all apparently because of his dislike of the character. Well that would be fair enough except for the fact that the actual character of Mary Jane as played by Kirsten Dunst reminded me more of Gwen Stacy; and then of course they just brought in the character anyway and wasted her. Looking back on the series, it just seemed a pointless change. The reboot has a chance to rectify that. Keep Mary Jane out of the series, at least for the first film. If the filmmakers want to introduce her then they can afford to be playful about it. Introduce her exactly as she was in her first appearances in the comics; partially obscured so we couldn’t see her face and all building up to the iconic reveal. It will get the films the exact same kind of attention and curiosity that ‘Sherlock Holmes’ is receiving at the moment thanks to the hidden cameo appearance of Professor Moriarty.
In my Spider-man 4 article I mentioned that the special effects needed a drastic overhaul. For all the kinetic and elaborate sequences of Spidey swinging through New York, it’s all for nothing if it is a CGI cartoon. I was sort of awestruck to see, after all the great effects work accomplished in the second film (where Spidey’s action scenes were rendered well enough to be credible), the CGI of the third took two steps backwards and became cartoony again. Sony are probably looking at ‘Avatar’ now and saying that creating a photorealistic Spider-man is quite doable. But I would really hope that they realise that stuntmen pulling off practical stunts (physically swinging on blue screen and integrating them with live action plates of the city for example), even if they have to scale down the size of the action, provides a far greater rush and sense of satisfaction for the audience.
And as far as the villain is concerned, regardless that we are no longer discussing a sequel to the third film, a still feel very strongly that we need to see something different than the usual costumed loons. We cannot have a repeat of the Green Goblin storyline. Doctor Octopus, recast for this film as an out and out evil guy would be great but seem old hat to the audience from a visual perspective. And so many of the other villains in Spidey’s rogues gallery just don’t seem strong enough to carry a film (I’m looking at you Vulture). If the story is going to be about, for example, power and temptation then you need a villain that is the embodiment of those things. As I mentioned in my previous piece, give us a villain in the mould of ‘The Kingpin’ (who cannot be used as Fox still have the rights to both him and Daredevil - though they won’t bloody do anything with them); a ruthless and evil man with no personal connection to Peter Parker, no way to psychologically justify his behaviour or redeem him at the end of the film, but with real power and muscle behind him. A man whose command over both organised crime and sway with legitimate government and law enforcement makes the odds against Spidey seem insurmountable. And if you cast Hammerhead in the role, then you have someone with an interesting physical attribute rather than just a common hood who wouldn’t be out of place on the live action Spider-man TV show from the 70’s. I loved the small, personal and intimate scale of the Raimi’s first Spider-man and how, for all the mayhem, the final battle between Spidey and the Goblin was a clash between a surrogate father and son. But there is also something to be said for an earnest high school dork who, because of the gift he has been given, has the balls to take on the biggest crime syndicate in the city all by himself. What Peter Parker is really fighting for are the ideals his uncle stood for and to create a city where such a tragedy can hopefully never occur again.
In conclusion, the real investment I have in a Spider-man reboot is the hope that this time, having learned from their mistakes, the studio will be able to devote the proper time necessary to tell the symbiote/Venom saga properly, obviously once the first film has successfully launched the ship. I don’t know if you feel the same way I do but with Spider-man, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Superman and, in all likelihood, X-Men, what a bizarre indictment of these comic book properties it is to see so many of them being rebooted barely a few years after their previous cinematic outing. What is that magic quality that allowed movie series like Bond, Star Trek and Rocky to just crank out a long series of films consistently? Why does it allude the studios making comic book movies which are more suited for that kind of multiple film treatment than any others? If they could just get it right all the time, I could have Fridays off and not have to write these ramblings.
Oh well, NEXT............