Archive for February, 2014
On the Wave of the Recent CGI Announcements
Posted by kjohnson1585 in Animation, Childhood Revisited, Film, Television, Uncategorized, Writing on February 20, 2014
If you haven’t heard by now, Disney is developing a CGI/live-action film of their classic Disney Afternoon series Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers. This happens to be on the heels of the recent announcement of a CGI film version of the video game Sly Cooper. This announcement came a couple of months after the first surprise announcement of a upcoming CGI Ratchet & Clank film. (The latter two are being animated by the same studio.)
This is somewhat unexpected and unprecedented. Not because they’re adaptations of classic, well-known franchises, but because of the specific choices that were made here. In the case of Sony’s games, Ratchet and Clank and Sly Cooper seemed to be on their way out, the last bastion of an era of mascot-based games in a world of gritty, heavy shooters. The last two games were relatively well-reveiwed and probably made a decent amount of money, but it’s difficult to claim they did SO well as to spawn a movie. Yet, every film based on the big-hitter games – Uncharted, Halo, World of Warcraft – have all stalled and/or proven to be problematic. Both games have the potential to be interesting films (Ratchet and Clank moreso than Sly Cooper), but the idea always seemed lofty, the fandom’s unachievable wet dream. And yet, here we are.
Most likely, Sony saw Dreamworks’ heavy push into the animated franchise end of things, with its multiple films and TV shows and agreements with Netflix, and wanted a piece of that pie. If the films do well, most likely TV shows will follow (as for more games? Maybe, although that’s difficult to say right now). It helps that both films seem to be tied to those people who worked on the games, but films are a whole ‘nother ballgame with a less than stellar track record when it comes to video game adaptations. Still, I can’t help but hope – I have long wanted to see these iconic characters outside their gaming forms, reaching a broader audience. If this works out, perhaps more gaming companies (EA in particular – there isn’t a money-making scheme they WON’T try) will get back to creating mascot-based games, if the ultimate goal is to spawn a franchise across multiple media formats. Maybe, just maybe, those mascots will be pushed into next gen gaming mechanics, beyond idealized 3D platformers. Imagine playing a cute purple alien in a game with the sophistication of Deus Ex.
Disney’s take on a live-action Rescue Rangers somewhat fits along the same lines, but in many ways it’s wholly different. Disney is probably thinking more along the lines of Alvin and the Chipmunks and G-Force. This should give everyone pause. Rescue Rangers was quietly creative and clever, a fully realized miniature world that existed among the feet of humans. This live-action adaptations, which looks increasingly likely to avoid using anyone connected with the original show, may turn this group of flawed, complex rodents into comedic visual eye candy. (They also claim this will be an origin story – unless they basically do a CGI version of the “To The Rescue” five-parter, this probably will be terrible. They’ll also probably do that thing where the Rangers wear clothes but all the other talking animals don’t, which will be bullshit since the whole point is that the smaller animals DO where clothes. But I digress.)
The original Rangers were a tight-knit group of flawed critters – Dale was too scatterbrained, Chip was too stuck-up, Monty was conceited, Gadget was absent-minded, and Zipper was insecure. As silly as the show was, they were characters. They had desires and feelings and flaws, and the original writers put in the work to make the characters and world of the Rescue Rangers feel “real.” With the likelihood of the original creators not being involved, there’s a chance that the creatives chosen to take up this film will take the easy route – a simple story involving kids and some adult that needs to “believe” or some shit, with a cringe-worthy dance routine. (TO BE FAIR, the original show had cringe-worthy dance routines, too.) But there is potential with fresh crew, in particular if they’re fans of the old show. There’s a chance that they can be respectful of the original series while pushing it in an interesting direction. Gadget going overboard with internet-speak will be terrible; Gadget quickly getting the hang of the internet has potential.
The question on my mind is – how is Disney going to approach this film in relation to the original series? That is, will Disney, at any point, acknowledge its relationship with the original show? Will they air (or at least put on their Youtube page) the original show? Obviously there’s a huge nostalgia angle that Disney is exploiting here, but the question is how far will they go with it. Alvin and the Chipmunks didn’t exactly inspire legions of people to see the originals, but then again, the cartoons and songs are already readily accessible if you know where to look. Disney is notorious for keeping a certain sect of its past output under lock and key. So, I’m not too sure they’d jump aboard tying the film to its Disney Afternoon ancestor. If they did, they’d have to also deal with the question of it’s other DA shows – Ducktales, TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck, and so on. How far would that go? I mean, their later output – Goof Troop, Bonkers, Mighty Ducks, Quack Pack – isn’t so hot (I purposely skipped the shows based on Disney films for obvious reasons).
The fact that these films are coming out is kind of a big deal, though. There’s been growing appeal among CGI creations, both ironic and unironic, and while many people roll their eyes at yet another batch of talking pixels, the technology, and the realistic approach to that technology (not to mention that sweet, sweet green) has a lot of people excited. Some of the best CGI creations in the last few years – Smeagol in Lord of the Rings, the Navi in Avatar, that big ol’ ape in Rise of the Planet of the Apes – only has audiences and executives alike eager for more. Hell, ninety percent of the talk over Marvel’s new Guardian of the Galaxy film was centered around their talking raccoon. The people who scoff at “how silly” such a character might be seem to be more in the minority as filmmakers finally take them seriously and not comic relief iconography. How can these people be taking seriously when they ridicule a talking animal with a gun while rooting for a god from a magical planet wielding a massive hammer? This argument is pretty much invalid.
What’s next is still up in the air, mostly dependent on how well these films do. While there are some reservations about these announcements, there’s definitely potential, which is hugely dependent on who’s involved and their dedication to the material being adapted. I’m reserving judgment of the films themselves until the release date, but I’m more curious about what talking creature comes next, and whether it’ll be sincere or cloying.
Tumblr Tuesday – 02/18/14
Posted by kjohnson1585 in Film, Television, Writing on February 18, 2014
A better-late-than-never Tumblr Tuesday! Only two posts today though.
— A TWIST IS NOT A LIE (with an added diss against Moffat):
http://totalmediabridge.tumblr.com/post/76640221274/on-the-disturbing-nature-of-love-potion-episodes
— And a BUNCH OF LINKS that Moffat should take the time to look at (my own diss):
http://totalmediabridge.tumblr.com/post/76976222557/ratchet-jean-alliaofrph-i-save-a-helpful
Gargoyles – “The Price/Revelations”
Posted by kjohnson1585 in Animation, Childhood Revisited, Television, Writing on February 17, 2014
HELL YES MATT BLUESTONE.
I am an unabashed fan of Matt Bluestone. I truly, honestly love him, with his ginger hair and his bright, baby blue eyes, spouting Illuminati nonsense and running around looking for connections and secrets and red herrings. I love that when he does indeed find answers, it only makes him crazier and more unhinged. I wouldn’t ship him with Elisa though – Elisa would try and calm him down, and the last thing we need right now is a relaxed Matt. Screw Gargoyles; Matt Bluestone needs his own spin-off. His partner could be Xanatos’ dad! Matt could be flying an alien spaceship into the sun, playing space chicken with some Martians to get them to divulge their world domination plans, while Xanatos’ dad is sipping martinis in the back of the spacecraft, complaining about the “ruckus and whatnot”.
I’m getting ahead of myself. “The Price” and “Revelations” are two fairly run-of-the-mill episodes. Nothing too exciting or surprising, nor terrible or upsetting. They don’t quite push things along (“Revelations” does, kinda, but it’s hard to tell if it’s significant), but they don’t really hurt the show in anyway (“Revelations” does have a part in the middle that feels way too forced). The hiatus has put a bit of distance between me and some of the events of the episodes, but then again, after the whole “City of Stone” saga, coming down from that high feels like a let down. Still, we learn about some characters in new and interesting ways, which is always nice.
“The Price,” in particular, feels perfunctory. It doesn’t do much really but give a bit more insight into Xanatos and Hudson, although the biggest surprise involves Owen. Here, the gargoyles are attacked by Macbeth while on patrol, and we get a cool, if not particularly exciting fight scene. Macbeth is “killed” in the fight, but not before smashing a bag of pink powder over Hudson’s face. It seems innocent enough, but when the gargoyles awaken the next evening, they find that Hudson is still stuck in his stone slumber. Assuming it was the magic dust, Goliath and Lex head off to Macbeth’s mansion to find a cure while Brooklyn and Broadway stay behind to watch Hudson.
All of this is just a massive distraction, as the real Hudson is locked away in a laser cage, held captive by Xanatos and Owen. Once again, Xanatos has an ancient Macguffin, the Cauldron of Life, which grants mortality after boiling a piece of a gargoyle’s stone skin for twenty-four hours. You see, there was a bit of a misdirect – as the gargoyles were sleeping, Xanatos and his crew grabbed the real Hudson and replaced it with a fake stone model. The dust was just a red herring. I gotta be honest. This is a reach of a plan. For one thing, after the gargoyles awoke from their stone slumber and flew off, I’m sure there would be a lot of stone skin pieces lying around to choose from. Second, how could a sculptor know the exact pose Hudson would be in when changing to stone “weeks in advanced” to fool the other gargoyles? That’s a bit of a nit-pick, but that is also a fairly big flaw in the planning of this episode.
I won’t harp on it too much, though, as this gives Hudson and Xanatos the opportunity to shoot the shit. The Cauldron grants immortality, something that someone like Xanatos would want, of course. Hudson advises against it. After all, he’s seen so many things and lost so many clansmen, so he knows full well what immortality is – a curse. Xanatos doesn’t buy it. In a rare moment of vulnerability, he plays his card when he overreacts to Hudson’s claim that he fears death: by crying out he’s not scared of anything, Xanatos pretty much admits he’s scared of dying. At the same time, Xanatos accuses Hudson of being an old, useless waste of space, contributing nothing. We know that Hudson has his insecurities – we learned that back in “Long Way to Morning” – but he’s too prideful and loyal to give in to age, which is important. Xanatos completely underestimates Hudson in that regard, which is how the gargoyle escapes his fate.
I do like these kinds of conversations. You don’t really see it a lot in cartoons, adult or not. It comes off a bit clunky, but Ed Asner (Hudson) and Jonathan Frakes (Xanatos) sell it well. As I mentioned before, Gargoyles has always been about purpose, finding ways to move on and keep going, despite tragedy or riches. Xanatos’ has pretty much everything, yet his whole motivation is about wanting more. Hudson sees him as a rich fool who thrives on greed and power, which is true to an extent, but Xanatos’ real desire is to WANT that greed and power. Which is why he never really commits to going after the gargoyles, or simply taking out Elisa or Renard. The multiple threads in the air allows him to function off these characters for whatever end goal comes his way, and death would be the end of that high. So, yeah, he fears death, because it would completely take away his edge.
The weirdest and potentially most significant thing to take away from this episode is Owen. Much is made in the way of his service and dedication to Xanatos here, with Xanatos making some passive-aggressive digs at Owen’s loyalty, responsibility, and accountability. It’s sort of a strange development. Xanatos never really expressed any doubts about Owen before. In fact, the two seem to connect a bit during the “City of Stone” debacle. So to see Xanatos praise his fake Macbeth over Owen is rather surprising (and out-of-character if this doesn’t lead anywhere). In order to prove his worth (and he doesn’t really have to, which makes the moment even that much creepier), he dunks his hand into the Cauldron to test it, no questions asked, turning his arm into stone. You see, the Cauldron grants immortality by way of stone transformations, because sorcerers love misdirected wordplay in their magic spells.
Hudson makes it back to his clan after they thought he was dead, and they learn that Macbeth, who kept coming back and repeating the same lines over and over, was a series of robots. It’s a nice reunion to a rather straight-forward episode.
“Revelations” is just as mainstream, although since it stars MY MAIN MAN MATT, I have to give it extra points. Good ol’ Matt is still on his tear about the Illuminati, desperately wanting to break that entire group wide open. Here he gets close, but not after a whole lot of crazy and paranoia, which works so well for this kind of show. I wish Gargoyles had more unhinged, slightly-bonkers characters. Maybe if Malone escapes his hotel prison we’ll get a few episodes of that.
“Revelations” is aggressively the most comic-book-like of the series so far, beginning with a sequence of a captive Goliath crushing his way through a series of deadly funhouse traps inside a horrific hotel. Matt Bluestone and Mace Malone watch Goliath struggle from surveillance cameras, which then triggers Matt to recollect the events on how they even got in this situation. I’m almost convinced this WAS a comic book that they decided to make into an episode, with Matt’s running commentary equivalent to captions. While I’m normally not into narration and in media res formats, I think it works for Matt because he’s so nutso, but also because his craziness is combating a sense of guilt and betrayal. His recollection of events is his way of determining if he wants to save Goliath or let him be killed so he can delve deeper into the halls of the Illuminati.
Matt is being pulled at all sides. He pushes his former FBI partner to give him info on the whereabouts of Mace, while Elisa constant disappearing into the attics of the police station confuses him. Elisa starts to act flirty towards Matt to throw him off, but even though she’s faking it, flirty Elisa does not work for me. It doesn’t seem like something she’d do, falsely or not. Good thing it happens briefly, although the episode implies a romantic pairing between the two. I hope that doesn’t happen. I REALLY hope that doesn’t happen.
“Pulling the wool over your eyes” is the core of this episode, with Matt being the guy struggling to see. Even though everyone around him is trying to throw him off the trail, he bullies and forces his way to find answers. There’s a nice moment in the episode where he mentions to Elisa that his crazy pursuits give him purpose (there’s that theme again!) and makes him stand out. And even though it causes people to distrust him and ignore his claims, it keeps Matt driven, and that’s all that really matters.
Matt tracks down Mace Malone, who indeed offers Matt access to the Illuminati if he can bring in a gargoyle. The scene that follows, in which a psycho Matt speeds along a cliff to force Elisa to divulge information on the gargoyles, is great and quintessential Matt, but it’s also really, really forced. Elisa was driving. It was her car. Matt asks to drive and Elisa, rightly, tells him no. But then she pulls over and lets him drive anyway? I was really thrown off by this. I’m aware the Youtube episodes are edited, so did I miss something? Why would she tell him piss off, only to give in into his pointless request? Elisa seem wildly out of character here, and for a chunk of the episode as well.
It works though, and soon Elisa shows him the gargoyles. They quickly become friends, kinda, which allows Matt to lure Goliath to Mace and the hotel-of-death, with a million rooms of deathtraps and other psychological torture devices. I mean, this is as comic book as you can get – the only good thing that came out of DC’s New 52 was The Court of Owls, who basically did the same thing to Batman. We return to the present as we watch Goliath struggle through the rooms, up until he reveals a hotel key he snatched off Matt. The episode kinda glosses over this – apparently if you have a hotel key you can shut off all the traps – by specifically not showing Goliath actually use the key and work his way safely through the hotel. It’s silly, in that comic book kind of way, but I buy it because if you’re going to do silly, you got to do it by way of Matt Motherfucking Bluestone.
In the end Matt Motherfucking Bluestone saves Goliath by attacking Mace before the latter pumps the beast full of lead. He rather keep his new beastly ally instead of expose the Illuminati, at least for now. Mace Malone now is slowly losing his mind in the hotel, trapped inside its walls without his key. Matt and Elisa bond some more over the gargoyles, and their partnership is restored – and hopefully kept that way. Not all is lost on the crazy front though, as Matt’s former FBI partner outs himself as an Illuminati member assigned to throw Matt off the secret society’s scent. Both he and Elisa tried to push Matt in the wrong direction, but you can’t fool crazy for long, especially “yelling nonsense at the sky after damn near committing a murder-suicide” crazy. I love you, Matt. May the Illuminati completely and utterly regret bringing your brand of insanity into its fold.
Oh, and apparently Xanatos is a low-level member of the Illuminati. Nice one, Gargoyles crew.
“The Price” B/”Revelations” B