Occam's Razor

Review: Avatar

Usually big budget special effects intensive movies leave me unimpressed. I am happy to say that was not the case with James Cameron’s hugely expensive movie Avatar, now playing everywhere. Moreover, for a change I can say that the public agrees with me, to the tune of more than a billion dollars in revenue so far worldwide and doubtless much more to come.

While certainly not a perfect movie, Avatar is an amazing wonder of state of the art special effects married with a world (Pandora) so biodiverse and culturally rich that it has the depth of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. To achieve it, James Cameron spent much of the last decade imagining Pandora and spending gobs of money to hire all sorts of artists, linguists, anthropologists and other scientists to render a wholly plausible alternative world. He then had to merge this all together with a good script and great talent to make it actually work on the screen. The result is a tour de force, an accomplishment that if it does not get Cameron Best Director at the Academy Awards will be a travesty.

Weta, the company that did the special effects for The Lord of the Rings movies, has had ten years to perfect computer-generated imagery. The ten years were well spent. Avatar is the first movie where I can honestly say the result is so richly realized that I can no longer tell CGI from live action. You will see none of the digital jerkiness you saw ten years ago when Gollum was rendered for The Lord of the Rings. If you can afford to spend a few hundreds of millions of dollars on CGI for a movie, you can render a world that exists only in a computer and still make it wholly plausible. What is amazing is that Cameron manages to pull off not just a technical triumph, but he also manages to integrate all the live action elements into a compelling and well-acted story.

You have to get to the end of the movie (or to have read the reviews) to name the flaws in this movie. To some the long battle sequences at the end of the movie will seem tedious. The real flaw (and certainly not a fatal one) is that the characters have little depth. This is because this is essentially the noble savage story, which has been retold many times. This is the white man landing in the New World and finding the natives offensive because they are not like them and don’t particularly want to play nice. Not to give too much away but at least in Avatar it quickly becomes clear that the humans (for the most part) are the savages, bent on destroying a rich, highly integrated world in the pursuit of some highly prized mineral. Pandora is really Gaia, the mythical world that is one giant living organism. (In reality, the Earth is also Gaia, it is just that most of us refuse to see it or believe it.)

So you get super muscled characters like Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) to whom the native extra-tall, blue-tinted and human-like creatures of the woods (the Na’vi) will always be brutes. Even if they are not, he does not care and has no problem destroying anyone who gets in his way. You also get Sigourney Weaver as Doctor Grace Augustine, a legendary expert on the Na’vi and Na’vi sympathizer. Naturally, she quickly butts heads with Colonel Quaritch. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is sent to Pandora to attempt to become trusted by the Na’vi and to be Quaritch’s mole. He does this by living in a simulator where he directs his avatar remotely. In this case, an avatar is a cloned Na’vi that Jake directs from his simulator. The simulator is really more of an interface and it is so good that he effectively becomes his clone. Jake learns all about the subtle ways of the Na’vi and their complex culture. He is soon befriended and coached by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana, a.k.a. Lieutenant Uhura from the recently released Star Trek movie). And you guessed it: Jake soon begins to bond with the Na’vi, falls in love with Neytiri and in time turns against his own race. He begins what looks like an impossible quest to save both the Na’vi and Pandora from his own species, which will stop at nothing to get at Pandora’s minerals.

It turns out that though the plot is shallow, it really doesn’t matter because the acting is good enough, the story engaging enough, the world is so richly detailed and the CGI is so amazing. It could have been a better movie with a wee bit more time and attention to the plot and characterization but in a project this massive, I guess something had to give.

I recently reviewed Up in the Air and said I expected Avatar to be not quite as good. Trying to compare the two is like comparing apples and oranges. Both are well acted and well directed. However, the movies each serve different kinds of audiences. Up in the Air is the more human of movies and is certainly better acted and has a more thoughtful and engaging story. Nevertheless, by leaps and bounds Avatar is the better-imagined movie and is so visually rich and dense that even with its minor flaws it turns out to be marginally better.

If you haven’t seen Avatar, you should. This is one of those movies where you really should pay extra to see it in 3D, as it actually adds something to the film. The characters may be largely stereotypes, but it fully engages you and should leave you feeling breathless.

Great job. Mr. Cameron. You may not win the gold for Avatar, but you definitely deserve the silver. Thanks for making one of the few extremely expensive movies where not only did I feel that I got my money’s worth, but where I should have left a hefty tip.

3.4 on my four-point scale.

January 4th, 2010 at 06:57pm Posted by Mark | The Arts | one comment

Review: Battlestar Galactica (Season One)

The original TV series Battlestar Galactica (1978-1980) was so bad that even someone desperately looking for science fiction on TV like myself could not watch it. It was dreadful! I may have made it through one episode, but one was enough. It was a little more than a painfully cheap Star Wars rip off. I found R2-D2 in Star Wars annoying, but it was positively adorable next to Muffet II, the annoying robotic dog in the original BSG. Lorne Greene played Commander Adama and he made William Shatner look good. The show was also too 70s. From Richard Hatch’s blow dried hair to its token African American Herb Jefferson, Jr., the show leeched the worst of what had come before it. Still, Americans were so desperate for science fiction on television that it somehow managed to hang on for three years before it was mercifully put out of its misery.

In 2003, the SciFi Channel agreed to air an expensive “reimagining” of the show by producer and writer Richard D. Moore. To the extent that I was aware of it, I tuned it out. The bad vibes emitted from the original Battlestar Galactica convinced me the show had to have a jinx on it. I would likely still be unaware that I was wrong had various family members and friends not prodded me to watch this incarnation. A few months back I gave in and bought the first season on DVD. My wife and I have slowly been making our way through it, sometimes resting a few weeks before trying another episode.

Our rests between episodes is to some extent understandable because the BSG universe is an ultra dreary place. In case you are not familiar with the show, Galactica is the warship for a rag tag fleet of interstellar spaceships containing the last remnants of the human race. Unlike the Jews, who had Yahweh in the desert to send them manna from heaven, these humans get nothing but silence from the Gods of Kobol that many of them worship. (Why am I thinking it’s the Gods of COBOL? Do they really worship Grace Hopper?) Rest assured they get nothing but grief from the Cylons, a model of robots that humans created to serve them that got all uppity. The Cylons have evolved to the point that they are virtually indistinguishable from humans. One thing is abundantly clear: they want to exterminate the human race right down to our last strand of human DNA. Whenever they find any humans, they send out a vast horde of Cylon raiders to destroy them. Cylons are like roaches in that they seem to be everywhere but often hidden yet never invited in. That they are so hard to tell apart from human beings makes the humans very paranoid, unable to tell friend from foe.

The series starts with a terrific pilot, which is a full-blown movie in its own right. No question about it, it is slick! It is hard to think of it as a pilot because from the first frame it feels like the actors have been playing their parts for years. You can feel the close quarters and almost the smell their perspiration. Lorne Greene died in 1987, so he was unable to reprise his role as Commander Adama, which is just as well. In this incarnation, you get the craggy faced and raspy voice actor Edward James Olmos instead. Thankfully, Olmos is a 1000% better actor than Greene. I won’t mention all the ancillary characters as it is better to explore them for yourself. Most of the names have been retained from the original series but in some cases, some surprising changes were made.

Starbuck for example had a sex change operation and is played with impertinent eloquence by Katee Sackhoff. Boomer, instead of being African American is female and Oriental as well as potentially a Cylon, although she is not certain of it. Captain Apollo (Lee) got a much-needed haircut but still seems a bit too handsome, yet is convincingly played by Jamie Bamber. The best part: the only annoying robots are the Cylons, and most of the Cylons, while being villainous, are at least interestingly evil characters.

The principle Cylon in residence is the foxy and evil Six (Tricia Helfer), who appears only to ship physician research scientist Dr. Gaius Baltar (James Callis). She exists to taunt him, to tease his high-strung libido and to make him loathe himself by doing things to his species he should not do. They are quite a toxic pair; clearly, she is the dominant, and he is pussy whipped. If you have to loathe a character, Dr. Baltar is easy to loathe, since he is so easily manipulated by Six and not nearly as much fun as Dr. Smith was in Lost in Space. In fact, I was hoping the writers would do us a favor and kill him off. No such luck.

Richard Moore likes to tease his audience as mercilessly as Cylons do humans. If you like intrigue, you will love this incarnation of Battlestar Galactica, because it piles on the layers of mystery so deep it frequently feels suffocating. How is a lowly TV viewer supposed to parse through all the subterfuge? Clearly, those Cylons are way smarter than us humans, so maybe we deserve extinction. Somehow, a diminished set of humans seems to hang on from episode to episode against overwhelming odds thanks to an overextended set of pilots and the smart, fearless leadership of Commander Adama.

While the acting, special effects and writing are typically first rate, there are some oddities about this reimagining. Perhaps because the SciFi Channel wanted to pinch a few extra pennies, it has a very early 21st century feel to it. Obviously, it is cheaper to shoot exterior shots if you can go with today’s architecture, so we get cities on planets like Caprica that look suspiciously like Vancouver. Clothing too looks present day. Civilians like President Laura Roslin prefer to dress like Hillary Clinton. Some aspects are even more antiquated. Galactica is showing its age. Much information spits out of printers. No communicators for this crew. POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) will do just fine. Anyhow, it’s apparently much more secure to be low tech when dealing with those ultra shrewd Cylons.

Nor is it clear how the citizens of this ragtag fleet get their supplies. There seem to be no lack of consumables like printer paper, booze and cigarettes. They sure aren’t making pit stops on Earth, which is lost and half mythical anyhow, and their home world of Caprica is full of Cylon-induced radiation that destroyed all human life (well, almost all).

Battlestar Galactica is space opera, of course, so it is best not to trouble yourself with these details. Have a beer yourself and enjoy the show (if you can use that word with a show that is such an unrelenting downer) for what it is. After a terrific start, the show does sag a bit in the middle of the season. A couple episodes in the first season, like “Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down” are frankly below subprime. Naturally, like all shows hoping to be renewed, it ends on one of these impossible cliffhangers. This being BSG though it will have more dimensions, layers, shock and perturbations than a Matrix movie.

Anyhow, I’m hooked, so I better go buy Season Two. If you haven’t seen the series, based on its first season it may be depressing stuff, but it is really well done depressing stuff, so go buy it and enjoy.

February 16th, 2009 at 09:03pm Posted by Mark | The Arts | one comment

Review: Transformers (2007)

I was too young for transformers (the toys, that is), but my nephew wasn’t. He was one of many prepubescent boys enamored with these toys that with some twists, pulls and yanks could turn from an ordinary item into a fearsome and funky looking alien robot.

My assumption was that a movie about these transformers might be entertaining to this narrowly targeted set of boys, but would put the rest of us to sleep. It turns out that the movie Transformers that was released last year has transformed my vision of how entertaining such an absurd premise for a movie could be. The result is not exactly high art but a movie that is surprisingly entertaining and well done. In short, any age group except possibly those under age eight can guiltlessly enjoy a fun movie like this.

Granted, I was expecting to snooze through this movie and was even carefully rearranging the pillows on our couch so I could pretend to be watching it through half open eyes. Instead, I found this movie felt like a mixture of many fun movies, including Independence Day, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Back to the Future. Usually when a movie feels like elements of other movies, the result is an unfulfilling mishmash. That is not the case here. While not quite as much fun as any of these films, it is nearly as much fun as any of them. This is one movie that had you paid $10 a ticket to see it in the theater, you might have actually felt you got your money’s worth.

For those of you who missed the Transformers experience, there are good Transformers (the Autobots) and bad Transformers (the Decepticons) and in this movie at least they have chosen Earth as a nice place to wreak havoc. They decide, what the heck, why not screw with the American military in the deserts around Kuwait, quickly kill virtually all the humans there and destroy their base too? The Decepticons are good at hiding themselves as ordinary things like radios but can quickly morph themselves into fearsome war machines. One can understand why our military would be baffled and quickly rule out an alien robot attack, so why are they going after North Korea instead? Do the robots have slanted eyes?

Most of the movie though actually revolves around a teen named Sam Witwicky, who is of course quite a bit geeky and not exactly a hit with the girls. Between wacking off in secret and lusting after the really hot Mikaela (played by Megan Fox), Sam (played by Shia LaBeouf, who recently showed up as Indiana Jones’ illegitimate son) soon has his hands full. It all starts when Sam’s father buys him a beat up Camaro as his first car. The car though just happens to be a transformer, and he is one of the good but spunky kind. It turns out that Sam’s grandfather was part of some convoluted arctic expedition that first discovered the evil Megatron, who fortunately was conveniently immobilized deep in the Arctic ice cap. His grandfather’s spectacles are of great interest to the Autobots and the Decepticons because they point to the “All Spark”, a funky looking cube that can either bring an end to the robot war (if the Autobots get it) or give the Decepticons the power they need to win the war.

Yeah, well, I don’t make this stuff up, I just report it. It sounded hopelessly hokey to me too. Poor horny Sam is in for many adventures, but fortunately, throughout the movie he gets to hang out with the very curvy Mikaela, who turns out to be something of a bad girl. He is kept too busy chasing his car, engaging in theatrics with Transformers and helping our military to use his right hand that much or even put the moves on Mikaela.

Strangely, most of the characters in this movie rise above mere stereotypes. Sam has fun self-deprecating sense of humor. His parents are largely clueless, even when giant Transformers are trying to hide in their back yard. The movie falls apart though in trying to give the Transformers personality. Try as they might, they still come across as inflamed bit buckets with attitudes encased in metal, but without a cheat sheet, it is hard to tell the good Transformers from the bad ones. One thing is for sure: if you have Transformers in your neighborhood, they are likely to make a mess of things. Do not invite them in as they excel in lowering property values.

For boys of a certain age, and I am guessing that age is around fourteen, this is probably a perfect movie. For the rest of us the movie is fun entertainment but nothing too special, although it is hard not to be amazed by the CGI or the number of expensive props that were destroyed in making this movie. For a movie that is nearly two and a half hours long, it moves at such a brisk pace, you probably will not feel the need to nod off. No question about it, Shia LaBeouf is a talented young actor and he is in his element in this movie.

If you have to see a movie about robots, this is the one to see and is much more fun and engaging than, say, I Robot, which I recently reviewed. Still, while it manages to appeal to most of us outside its targeted age group, only teenage boys or young men who never quite grew up will care much about the Autobots and the Decepticons or who will eventually triumph in world domination. (Hint: it is not the bad guys.)

Transformers goes to prove that with a good enough script, directing and special effects you can take a silly plot and make it a lot of fun. Most movies like this would quickly flop on their bellies. This one does not exactly soar into the stratosphere but does quickly take flight and provides an entertaining view.

3.1 on my 4.0 scale.

November 28th, 2008 at 03:50pm Posted by Mark | The Arts | no comments

Review: I Robot (2004)

Isaac Asimov may have died in 1992, but his writing has immortalized him. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited over five hundred books. I was fortunate enough to meet Isaac Asimov, who showed up as a surprise guest at a science fiction convention in the mid 1980s in Arlington, Virginia. (He was notoriously fearful of flying, and only attended conventions he could get to by car or rail.) He remains the author of some of my favorite and most influential books, including the delightful Foundation Trilogy, a series that more than fifty years later still feels fresh and timeless.

Unquestionably, Asimov provided the frame for which most modern science fiction evolved. It should be heartening then to know that one of his most famous books, I, Robot, actually a collection of nine stories loosely organized around Dr. Susan Calvin, a robopsychologist for U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., made it to the big screen in 2004.

Sadly, this big screen adaptation is barely recognizable. We have Dr. Susan Calvin, still a robopsychologist, and we have the three laws of robotics clearly spelled out by Asimov in his stories and not too much else. For this reason the credits say it was adapted from Asimov’s stories. Moreover, of course it was modernized for the 21st century. The year is 2035 and the place is Chicago, which is home to the U.S. Robots, Inc. U.S. Robots is the premier robot manufacturer for the planet. There is nearly one robot for every five humans. Thus far, robots have proven to be wholly benign. They do much of society’s scut work.

Will Smith plays Homicide Detective Del Spooner, who is called to U.S. Robots to investigate what appears to be the homicide of Dr. Alfred Lanning, its creator and the inventor of the three rules of robots, the most important of which is that a robot is never allowed to harm a human being. It is soon clear that Detective Spooner has this thing against robots as well as most things new, even to the point of driving a motorcycle without automation controls and wearing a pair of 2004 canvas sneakers (product placement!) Nonetheless, he has more than a casual connection with the late Dr. Lanning because as we learn his left arm is a robotic arm, surgically applied some years back by none other than Dr. Lanning himself.

Dr. Lanning seems to have jumped to his death from his office at U.S. Robots, but Detective Spooner soon ascertains he could not have done so unaided, and begins to suspect that a rouge robot killed him. That is supposed to be impossible but it is the only plausible explanation he can come up with. The suggestion does not sit well with Lawrence Robertson, the CEO of U.S. Robots, who is in the midst of rolling out a new higher class of robot to the world.

That is as much of the plot as I need give away. Ably assisted by the CGI wizards at Weta Studios in New Zealand, Director Alex Proyas creates a convincing vision of Chicago in 2035, a city transformed by automation and the omnipresent robot. The city still has a gritty feel to it but thanks to many robots as well as V.I.K.I., the master computer of U.S. Robots, humans are freed from tedious jobs like collecting trash and tending bars. These robots look much modernized from the metallic things that were illustrated in the pulp magazines back in the 1940s.

Will Smith is both one of the executive producers and stars in this movie. Women may appreciate the many scenes of him with his shirt off. With all his rippling muscles, I figure he must spend his hours off the set doing nothing but lifting weights and taking steroids. While Smith is an excellent actor, as I noted in movies like this one, I do not feel he was the best choice for this particular role. Nor is Bridget Moynahan as Dr. Susan Calvin. Still, both are good actors and willing to give their best to their parts, which results in dutiful performances but little in the way of stellar acting.

You would expect a robot movie to be cerebral, but Director Proyas instead gives audience more of what they are likely craving: action sequences with lots of special effects. This helps to make up for the minimal suspense in the movie. It is soon clear that there are at least some rogue robots out there and it is only a question of figuring out why they are acting in this manner and who is responsible.

There a few plot holes and gaffes. It is unclear why the older class robots are stored in old shipping containers along Lake Michigan instead of being disassembled and recycled. Perhaps it made for some neat climactic ending scenes. I also noted one scene in which Spooner twists an officer’s arm with his non-robotic right arm. Overall, though if you like lots of special effects and action, there is little to disappoint in this movie other than its rather shallow plot.

The movie gets an A for the special effects and stunts, but a mere B for the acting, and a C for the plot that leaves little in the way of hard cognitive thinking. So overall the movie disappoints, which is why I give it just 2.8 on my 4.0 scale. It is worth watching if you have nothing more compelling to watch, but not worth going out of your way to see.

September 1st, 2008 at 11:43am Posted by Mark | The Arts | no comments

Second Viewing: Galaxy Quest

Over the Thanksgiving 4-day weekend, because I was bored, I started sifting through our various DVDs and videotapes. I was looking for something new or, failing that, something I had not seen in a while. The few things I had not seen did not look worth my time (such as all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of my wife’s passions). There was however, our aging video tape collection. Among its contents was the very last videotape we purchased: Galaxy Quest (1999).

I had seen the movie in the theater of course, and found it funny and often hilarious. At the time it did not make too much of a lasting impression on me. So I was very surprised, upon second viewing, that I found it far funnier than I remembered. Maybe it was because of the mood I was in that night. I finished the film convinced that in many ways it was the funniest movie of the 1990s.

Granted there were many comedies during the 1990s and I had seen only a small fraction of them. Granted also that I grew up something of a Trekker. (I have written about Star Trek before in my blog.) During the early years of our marriage, while my wife and I attended mostly run of the mill science fiction conventions, we also made it to a few genuine Star Trek conventions. (We wisely avoided the Star Trek media conventions. They are designed to pull in Trekkies and separate them from their great gobs of cash, all in order to increase Paramount’s bottom line. We stayed with the Star Trek conventions organized solely by fans.)

Having been steeped in the fandom community for a few years, I knew what being a fan was all about. Devoted fans of any movie or television series have certain characteristics. They are, how shall we say, nice, but a bit peculiar. After a while, you can spot them a mile away. They have a certain odd mannerisms, a certain deep-rooted introversion and a certain obsessive/compulsive streak about their hobby, to the point where they can wrap their entire life around their hobby. Fen is a private term used inside the fan community to identify one of us from the unenlightened. Raising our daughter pulled us away from the fen universe, but some part of me remains there in spirit.

Galaxy Quest is a movie that was made as homage to the fen community. If you are not a fan of some of the many science fiction and fantasy series out there, it is still wholly enjoyable and often hilarious. However, if you are or have been immersed in the fen community, it should occupy a special place on your movie shelf.

The movie is, of course, a not too subtle parody of the whole Star Trek universe. It covers the lives of washed up actors of a mediocre and fictional TV space opera series more than a decade after the show was canceled. The NSEA Protector is this show’s version of the USS Enterprise. Just as the real life actors of the original Star Trek series were typecast when the show ended, so too is the cast of Galaxy Quest. In fact, they are relegated to attending Galaxy Quest conventions and opening discount stores in order to pay their bills. Only Jason Nesmith, who plays the ship’s captain, Commander/Captain Taggert (Tim Allen), seems to relish his aftermarket career. For the rest of these washed up actors, each performance before fans are like chewing marbles. In particular, Sir Alex Dane, who plays the part of the alien Dr. Lazarus (Alan Rickman), is practically homicidal. He is reduced to signing autographs and spouting inane things like “By Grabthar’s hammer, by the suns of Warvan, you shall be avenged!” to earn some bucks. He is an angry and bitter man. Spiritually he is near death.

Tim Allen channels William Shatner perfectly. He adroitly emulates Shatner’s pomposity, hammy behavior and recklessness. Signourney Weaver plays Lieutenant Tawny Madison, the ship’s communications officer. She is a white version of Lieutenant Uhura (with a mixture of Yeoman Rand from the first show and arguably, Deanna Troi from the second series), but with bigger breasts exposed for their maximum cleavage. Like Lieutenant Uhura, she does little more than repeat whatever the computer tells her. Tech Sergeant Chen (Tony Shalhoub) is a variant of Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, but without the thick Scottish accent. Lieutenant Laredo (Tommy Webber) is a mixture of Wesley Crusher and Gary Coleman. Perhaps Sam Rockwell plays the funniest part. He plays “Crewman Number Six”, parodying one of the anonymous “red shirts” who were invariably the first to die in the original Star Trek series.

You probably know the plot. The actors find themselves aboard a real life version of the NSEA Protector created by an oppressed alien race that somehow caught their broadcasts. While they are smart enough to create a working version of their ship, they are also incredibly naïve. They cannot distinguish fact from fiction. So they think the actors are not acting at all. In fact, they cannot conceive of the idea of the whole series being fictional. They recruit the actors to help them save their dying species from the dreaded predator, Sarris and his loathsome alien race. It is a silly premise, of course, but one that provides an ideal tableau for high humor parodying the entire Star Trek and its fan universe.

The show’s writer (David Howard) clearly is a Star Trek fan. He writes with eerie authenticity on the whole fan culture and documents its obsessive nebbish denizens. For while fen wish they could be these valiant explorers, they must inhabit a comfortable 21st century instead. So they spend their free hours on bizarre quests like creating detailed schematics of their mythical spacecraft. What we witness is true to the post Star Trek experience. There is a mutual dependency: the fans need the actors to be their caricature, while the actors need the fans to give meaning to professional lives that otherwise ended when the series was canceled. The movie is homage to the whole fen culture, as well as an imaginative idea perfectly played out.

Consequently, the film can delight on many different levels. That is what makes it for me something of a landmark comedy. If you have not inhabited the fen universe, it is just another funny and often hilarious movie. However, if you have attended a Star Trek convention or two, if you have found yourself obsessively combing the Barnes and Noble for the latest Star Trek novel, or if you have found yourself obsessively posting on Star Trek message boards arguing about continuity errors or the recipe for Plomeek Soup, then this movie is for you.

Galaxy Quest is in many ways a classic comedy like the movie Airplane! (1980). Unfortunately, fewer of us can relate to Galaxy Quest than we can to broad parodies like Airplane! That it transcends into a higher level of comedy is only apparent to us fen. Fortunately, there are millions of Trekkers out there, so the movie paid for itself and then some. It is also a precious gift to the fen community.

I will not rate the movie. I will say it would be difficult not to enjoy it. However, if you have ever been a serious fan of any science fiction series or fantasy show, it will be hilarious, feel intimate, and leave you deeply satisfied.

December 1st, 2006 at 08:04pm Posted by Mark | The Arts | no comments

The Delight of Joss Whedon’s Firefly

Last October I posted a review of Joss Whedon’s movie Serenity. I found the movie to be wonderful. It was exactly what I wanted to see in the voluminous space operas out there, but never quite found. It was not long after the movie that my wife and I decided we had to go back and see the original thirteen episodes of the Firefly TV series, upon which the movie was based. We ordered the Firefly DVD set as a Christmas present for ourselves. We have now watched all but the last episode. We know we will have to watch the last episode eventually, but right now, it pains us to know there is only one left to discover. Like being in denial over a lover’s death, right now we cannot go there. It hurts too much.

Firefly had a sporadic but brief life on the Fox Television network. I was amazed it developed a cult following at all, since many episodes were shown out of sequence and were frequently preempted by Fox. After the show was unwisely canceled, episodes were rebroadcast on the SciFi cable TV channel. Having given up television, I was blissfully ignorant about the Firefly series.

With only thirteen episodes (including a two-hour pilot), you would wonder why I would even bother to invest myself in this universe. Barring a miracle, new episodes of TV show will not be filmed. (Brownshirts, i.e. Firefly fans, though have not given up hope.) Even another Firefly movie looks dicey. While the movie attracted most of the Firefly fans out there, it did not get much box office attention. Reviews like this one were generally very enthusiastic. The timing of the movie’s release might partially explain its lackluster box office numbers. September is not prime time at the box office, and movie receipts in general have been declining. The reason that many like us went through the trouble of buying the Firefly DVDs is that though the episodes were few, each one was a sparkling diamond. If TV could be this innovative and interesting, the networks would never worry about their bottom line. For in Newton Minow’s vast wasteland of television and cable TV, Firefly demonstrated the full potential of the medium when the right ingredients are present.

The Firefly universe postulates a Wild West solar system. Most of the solar system is controlled by The Alliance, a totalitarian-lite form of government not unlike what George W. Bush seems to want the United States to become. The outer planets and moons are full of largely untamed but terraformed worlds suitable for human habitation. Each of these worlds look uniformly look like the Old West and are often populated by associated ruffians and misfits. The technology is a mixture of high and low tech. On these outer planets and moons, 20th Century pistols and rifles integrate well with various second and third-rate space transport vessels like the Firefly class ship named Serenity that is captained by Mal Reyolds (Nathan Fillion).

Mal is no heroic starship captain bringing a utopian vision to the uninformed masses. Mal is more like an officer in the Confederate Army five years after the Civil War. He is a conflicted soul, still licking many painful wounds from helping lead a valiant but doomed war against domination by The Alliance. He is trying to remake his life by earning a marginal living carrying dubious cargo from the various planets and moons that make up this solar system using a spaceship that is the equivalent of a ten-year-old Chevy Suburban with 200,000 miles on it. In short, Mal has issues. It would be easy to typecast him as another Hans Solo, but Mal has many more dimensions than Hans.

The same is true with the entire cast. Creator Joss Whedon has placed inside one spaceship a small collection of complex and often troubled characters. He lets them develop and play off against each other in his rough and tumble solar system where humankind is technically more advanced but is still mired in our modern hatreds and prejudices. Also on board is Zoe Washburne (Gina Torres), a no nonsense woman who fought with Mal against The Alliance, and who acts as the ship’s second in command. In addition, there is Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin), a gunslinger of his day who can barely operate in the civilized world. Keeping the ship running is Kaylee Frye (Jewel Staite), the ship’s engineer. Kaylee is a sweet and wholly inoffensive young woman who never attended engineering school but nonetheless has amazing skills keeping the aging ship from moving toward total dysfunction. At the con is “Wash” Washburne (Alan Tudyk) who is married to Zoe and quite jealous of her long-term relationship with Mal. So much for the ship’s official crew.

Also on board are a number of paying and non-paying passengers picked up along the way. These include Inara Serra (Morena Baccarin), a “licensed companion”. She is the equivalent of a very high-class interstellar call girl. She keeps her shuttle docked in one of Firefly’s bays and takes opportunities at various ports of call to attend to the intimate needs of selected high-class clientele. The ship even has its own preacher, Shepherd Book (Ron Glass), and a brother and sister team: the brilliant physician Simon Tam (Sean Maher) and his crazy but even more talented sister River (Summer Glau). As in the movie, he helped her sister escape from the clutches of The Alliance and they live their lives as fugitives aboard Serenity.

All these characters appear in the movie, but in the TV show, we get to watch their characters develop and morph over time as this Wild West solar system throws everything it can at them. There is not a bad episode in the whole series. As the series progresses the relationships between characters and the characters themselves morph. What we viewers get is a fascinating set of characters and dynamics made more interesting by the complex situations they get into. The choice of actors is inspired, and it is clear that the cast had developed real synergy.

The lovely result is a series that in just thirteen episodes is so packed with character development and plot that it still feel like several seasons worth. Joss must have had some inkling that, like a real firefly, his dream show’s life on network TV would be brief. Consequently, every episode is a rich smorgasbord for the viewer.

Just as the Old West was raw, the show can be very raw too. Between the graphic violence, adult themes and sex it borders on being R-rated TV. This is at least PG-13 TV. It is not suitable for young children at all, and I would have hesitated to let my daughter see it age 13. This realism though just adds to its plausibility.

Fans like myself who discovered the series years after it was shown may have to resign ourselves that there will simply be no more morsels of this universe to savor. Nevertheless, I do know that this DVD set will get many viewing from me in the years ahead. Just like there are only ten novels in the Hornblower series, yet I feel I have to reread them all every few years, so I will periodically go back and marvel at the unabashed excellence in thirteen episodes of Firefly now permanently in my DVD collection.

January 22nd, 2006 at 12:16pm Posted by Mark | The Arts | no comments

Serenity: space opera done right

This is probably anathema to the legions of Star Wars fans out there, but wasn’t there something missing from the movies? If you are of a certain age, it is hard to see the Star Wars movies (at least the first three movies) with an uncritical eye. Undeniably they were exciting movies with lavish special effects, memorable characters, cute (or annoying, depending on your perspective) robots and a satisfying conclusion. (Good won over evil, or at least was staged to make a comeback.)

I pose a similar question to the legions of Star Trek fans out there too. Certain “generations” of the show were better than others. Which ones were better depends on your perspective. However, there was something missing from all of the series. You accepted some of the absurd premises and the reused plots. Again, it was a neat (and hopeful) premise but it did not quite feel right. Attempts to turn the shows into movies were hit and miss. When they succeeded, they did so largely because we were already comfortable with the characters, which we had seen on many TV episodes.

Space operas have similar plot lines that require suspending disbelief. First, somehow humans have traversed the galaxy with amazing space ships, and have found an escape clause from the Einstein’s two theories of relativity. There is generally an us vs. them premise. There are often aliens. Artificial earth-like gravity is a given. Even in the middle of great space battles the gravity fields never seems to fluctuate. The vast enormities of space that actually exist between stars and planets collapse. Everything seems within shooting range and is at best a couple days away at Warp Nine. When phasers, photon torpedoes or their equivalent hit the spacecraft, sparks fly from instrument panels. Generally, the spacecraft pulls through and the good guys win. The formula has not changed too much since Buck Rogers.

We have all seen plenty of space operas in both the movies and on television. Indeed the SciFi Channel seems to have become largely the space opera channel. Success spanned a plethora of imitations, most of them mediocre. Some, like the Alien movies, seem part space opera and part genuine science fiction.

You will not be surprised to learn then that I noticed well, defects, in both the Star Trek and Star Wars movies, along with many of the shows that imitated them. Therefore, when a movie comes along that has the best of a space opera without the deficiencies then I sit up and take notice. Good news: Serenity is such a movie.

Serenity is a movie version of the Firefly TV show, which had about a dozen episodes before the SciFi Channel Fox Network unwisely canceled it in 2002. As I have largely given up television I never saw these shows. I clearly was missing something. (Since they are on DVD, I am now likely to own them.) The show is directed by Joss Whedon, the clever man who gave us seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a few of its spinoffs. Clearly, Whedon had an axe to grind with the SciFi Channel Fox for canceling his show. He sold Universal Studios on financing a full-length version of the Firefly universe. Back too is the original cast of the TV show.

Whedon is clearly a cut above the usual television director. The success of Buffy and its consistently fine directing, writing and acting proves the man has oodles of talent. (Whedon wrote and directed most of the Buffy TV shows.) Serenity will remove any doubts that exist that he can also direct for the big screen.

Fortunately, as my experience attests, you do not need to have seen the TV show to follow the movie. It moves briskly and is full of eye candy. Serenity is the name of a space ship piloted by “Mal” Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and his crew of a half dozen or so. Serenity exists in another solar system. Most of the planets have been terraformed to make them habitable for humans. “The Alliance” consists of a number of planets that have formed some sort of government that appears utopian but chokes off creativity and individual expression. Supposedly, a war with rebel planets in the outer rings has been long won by The Alliance. Nevertheless, there are a few lawless outer planets out there where rebels can still be found. Mal and his crew pilot a rather ragged Millennium Falcon-like spacecraft. They spend most of their time doing unlawful things to survive, avoiding man-eating Reavers (berserk human cannibals) and agents from The Alliance. In the movie, The Alliance is especially anxious to bring Serenity down. Why? Because Serenity has onboard a young woman named River (Summer Glau), who can see the future, and who is desperately wanted by The Alliance.

The result is a taut, superbly directed, excellently acted and very engaging space opera. If it has faults, they are the ones you would expect of any space opera. For example, you have to suspend disbelief that the outer planets have a sun that is so darn bright. You also have to wonder why Serenity has to maneuver through a huge fleet of Reaver ships to reach another planet, instead of just going around them. Heck, anyone who knows much about celestial mechanics has to wonder why all these planets seem to stay in the same position relative to each other. So of course, you suspend disbelief. This is after all a space opera, and not something that purists would call genuine science fiction.

Anyhow, once you have thrown off this mental baggage and accepted its surreal aspects then gosh, what a terrific and engaging story! Like with most space operas some of the characters seem a tad on the shallow side, and Mal clearly is channeling Hans Solo. Nevertheless, they are not cardboard characters. Scratch them a little and you find depth missing from most space opera characters.

The result is a space opera classic. It has a lot of competition out there. However, from my perspective it is the sort of movie Star Wars should have been but was not. This movie deserves sequels. I hope it catches on with cinemagoers so we can have many more sequels. You can do your part by suspending your own disbelief and going to see the movie. If you are a space opera buff, this is probably the one for which you have long been waiting.

3.4 on my 4.0 scale.

October 1st, 2005 at 06:53pm Posted by Mark | The Arts | one comment

Star Trek: It’s Dead Jim. Let it Lie

I didn’t think it would happen to me. But I’m finally Trekked out.

Star Trek was so 20th Century anyhow. It’s a new millennium. Let’s evolve. Let’s acknowledge that Star Trek was one fairly cool TV show and surely a powerful meme for a lot of us. But its time is over. It’s time for Trekkies to get a different life and move on.

Admittedly I’ve been on the downward slope for a long time. I usually wasn’t allowed to watch the original TV show it, and caught most episodes on reruns. Much of it was, and still is, excruciatingly bad, but for its time it seemed brilliant. (Compared to “Land of the Giants”, “Time Tunnel”, “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” and “Lost in Space”, the competition, it was positively brilliant.) Now the sets look cheap. William Shatner is a horrible actor and painful to watch play James T. Kirk. Occasionally a really good director could make him convincing. Nicholas Meyer, who directed Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan managed to do it. But usually Shatner reverted to form. After a while it was increasingly painful to watch the wreckage.

Star Trek: The Next Generation was a vast improvement, but even it stumbled in its first year and suffered from some continuity problems. (It got better when Riker got a beard.) STTNG revived my interest in the show. As a liberal Democrat I was very much a Jean Luc Picard fan, and to this day I am astonished by the quality of Patrick Stewart’s acting. I know there are a lot of Captain Kirk bigots out there, but Jean Luc was the captain that Kirk was not. Kirk was hot tempered and emotional and survived on tricks. Jean Luc was compassionate and thoughtful and you felt the presence of his command.

The movies were off and on. The even ones tended to be good, the odd ones sucked. STTNG movies have suffered from a similar fate.

I knew I was in trouble when the Star Trek: Nemesis came out and I couldn’t be bothered to see it. My loss I guess. I’ve heard it was pretty good. But as happened to the original cast, STTNG cast is old now too. Even my heartthrob Marina Sirtis is suffering from a sagging face and breasts.

The one thing that might bring me back is a movie with the Borg in it. Star Trek: The Borg Encounter is in production right now and should be out this year. The Borg were absolutely the creepiest villains ever created. I loved all the shows and the movies with the Borg in it. Even Sauron (from “Lord of the Rings”) cannot seriously compete with the Borg for the dubious title of most awful enemy of all time. Klingons and Romulans don’t even raise my eyebrow anymore.

I didn’t like it when STTNG ended but it had seven years and it was about time. I was seeing the same plots over and over again. It went out well.

I tried to watch Star Trek: Deep Space Nine but couldn’t get into anything other than the Ferrengi. It was too shoot ‘em up for me, but the Ferrengi were hoots:Republicans and Libertarians of the 23rd century run amok! They were the perfect way to laugh at the Reaganism and neo-conservatism of the time.

I was disgusted with Star Trek: Voyager. I thought it was cool to have a female Captain but that was about it. Blasting them across the galaxy was just a gimmick. But it didn’t take long before it became more plot repetition. We’d seen these plots before. Actually we had seen them many times. The words were spoken by new characters, but nothing had really changed.

I watched a couple episodes of Enterprise but other than the Vulcan’s curves and one cute dog there was not much there to spur me to watch more. I got out of the habit. Going back in time didn’t seem to make it any more interesting.

Its time is up. Thank you to Gene Roddenberry and the rest of the crew for a nice ride. I enjoyed the couple of conventions I attended. It was nice to meet Majel Roddenberry one time, and lots of cool Trekkies. I’ve enjoyed some of the better fan fiction. When you were good you were really, really good. Sometimes you were really bad. You also had a lot of mediocrity. But it’s dead Jim. It’s time to put Star Trek into its historical package and evolve.

August 15th, 2003 at 11:53am Posted by Mark | The Arts | 9 comments