Mishandling Clark Kent

Since the last issue was the end of the Beta Ray Bill story, we're taking a break from Thor this week to deal with one of my pet peeves with Superman, specifically live action adaptations.  Especially after the Reeve movies, they treat Clark Kent as Superman with glasses.  If that's the case, anyone who didn't see through it would be a complete idiot.  "Lois Lane, how dumb was she?"  I think Lois and Clark and Superman: The Animated Series were the worst offenders, at least that I can remember.

Here are some examples:

Lois and Clark - Someone finds out Clark's secret and Dean Cain doesn't do anything differently.  No voice shift, stance shift, nothing.


Same thing here.  The only difference is clothing, nothing else.


Now here are some examples of how the difference should be handled:

This one of the classic Fleischer cartoons shows Superman and Clark to be two different people, right down to the voice.


Of course the best example of this is the late, great Christopher Reeve.  The way he played the part, it would be extremely difficult for anyone to even consider that Superman and Clark Kent were the same person.  Different height, voice, mannerisms, everything.

Remembering Ray Harryhausen

For those of you that don't know, we lost a great one this week.  Ray Harryhausen had a profound effect on me as a kid, mainly through Clash of the Titans.  It was that movie, along with a few other factors, that led me to my fascination with the interactions of gods and humans, as well as my love of adventure stories.  I also loved Mighty Joe Young, Jason and the Argonauts, and many of his other great films, but it was Clash of the Titans that just hit the cord with me.  He will be missed.

3D Movies

Is this phase of 3D movies almost over?  In case no one has noticed, this fad comes around once every 30 years.  It first started back in the 1950’s (which is why one of the gang in Back to the Future is prominently wearing 3D glasses) and then died off.  It had a resurgence in the 1980’s (Anyone remember the garbage that was Jaws 3D?  I do, but only as Jaws 3 since I saw it on TV) before dying off again.  And it has recently come back, so much so that now George “I haven’t squeezed enough money out of you people” Lucas is releasing The Phantom Menace in 3D.

What is the fascination with this medium?  I can understand wanting to feeling like you are in the film, but 3D just isn’t the way to do it.  I have yet to see a movie that has been made better by being in 3D, and I have seen a lot that have been made worse because they were made for 3D.  You must understand, though, that I from the school where the pinnacle of the movie experience is being drawn in by the writing and visuals, not by some schmuck hitting a paddle ball out of the screen at me.*  Would Star Wars (the one where Han shot first) be more visually moving if it was a 3D movie, I don’t think so.  It would be neat, sure, but I don’t see movies for the “neat factor”.

I guess I’m just a tough nut to crack.  I would rather watch 12 Angry Men or The Lion in Winter than Avatar (nope, still haven’t seen it) and that’s for the writing.  Yes, I know that those two movies were originally stage plays, but that’s what makes them so good.  12 Angry Men, the movie, basically does nothing to add to the visuals, and that is as it should be.  It’s about a jury locked in a room deliberating the fate of the young man accused of murdering his father.  It shouldn’t have sweeping vistas or tons of sets.  The Lion in Winter, on the other hand, makes the most of the castle setting.  You get the arrival and departure scenes of the characters with beautiful backdrops, but the majority of the film takes place within the castle walls.  These scenes have an amazing depth with the minutia of castle life in the winter being on display, but not the focus of the scene.

Could either of these movies been made better by 3D?  Not a chance.  Let’s get the quality of writing back up in Hollywood (and stop the remakes, but that’s probably another post) and then worry about having someone reaching out of the screen to “dazzle” me.

As a side note, I should say that this probably could apply to 3D TV, but I have never seen a show on one of those TV’s so I really can’t comment on them.  In that case, though, they are making the TV’s sharper for 2D, so it’s at least constructive.

* Yeah, this actually happened in the Vincent Price House of Wax.  It was actually the reason I know it was originally in 3D, since it’s so obvious that they did it only for the “oooo, the ball’s coming at me” effect.  This added absolutely nothing to the film and the scene dragged because of it.

RIP - Nicol Williamson

I found out this afternoon that actor Nicol Williamson, who played Merlin in 1981's Excalibur, died this past December at the age of 75.  I consider his performance in that movie as one of the most entertaining takes on the Grand Druid of Arthurian Legend, but also one of the reasons that I became interested in learning more about King Arthur.  He will be missed.

Subtlety

I have recently reaffirmed why Walt Simonson is my favorite comic book writer.  I was lucky enough to have been given Volumes 1 & 2 of his collected run on Thor in the 80’s.  (I already had volumes 3, 4 & 5.)  In Volume 2 is an issue where Thor is battling Surtur (or Surtr if you wish) on the shatter Rainbow Bridge and he saves Heimdall, guardian or said bridge, from falling into space.  Laying his wounded fellow god down, Thor says “You will be as safe here as in the arms of your mothers.”  Some people would think that is a typo, but not those versed in Norse Lore, where it is stated that Heimdall has 9 mothers, all of them sisters.  (Don’t try and wrap your head around that, its religion and thus does not necessarily conform to logic at all time.)  This is a throw-away line in the issue where the focus is stopping the fire giant from getting into Asgard, but it is there and there isn’t a 50 page explanation of it.  It’s a subtle tip of the hat to those that know the lore or, for people like me, an impetus to pick up a book and learn more about the subject.

In another issue, contained in the same volume, a god in mortal guise visits the office of one Doctor Donald Blake.  For those of you not in the know, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created Dr. Blake as Thor’s mortal alter-ego in the 60’s and one of the first things that Simonson did was to get rid of him.  Obviously there would be repercussions from a doctor suddenly disappearing, so it gets wrapped up by a scene where members of the office staff are lamenting not seeing their boss in months and how all the patients have been referred to other physicians.  Enter Fandral, one of the Warriors Three, who informs the staff that Dr. Blake has been called upon by the government and will not be returning.  He gives them a bag of gold as severance pay and each also gets a token to remember the good doctor by.  It is with this token that Simonson again shows his knowledge of the lore and his subtle way on injecting very relevant items.  The staff each gets a golden necklace with a hammer amulet on it.  The same hammer amulet, I might add, that the worshipers, both ancient and modern, of the Norse Gods wear, much like a Christian cross or a Star of David.  Again, it is not explained or gone into at all; it’s shown and left for the reader to figure out.

It is this kind of writing that seems to be lacking in entertainment today.  Most things, be they movies, books, TV shows, what have you, seem to want to beat you over the head with an idea rather than trust that audience has more than two brain cells.  I was involved in an argument along these lines when we made our first Star Trek Fan Episode.  (Don’t give me that look.  You knew I was a geek when you started reading this blog.)  We were talking about the Engineer’s Log Entry voiceover that ran at the end of the episode.  This VO referred to something that wasn’t explicitly shown on screen and there were some individuals that didn’t think we should have that.  My argument was, and still it, that the audience doesn’t need to be shown every little thing in a show.  Implied scenes are fine, as long as there isn’t something that needs exposition.  You don’t need to see Jack, Janet and Chrissie* get changed and drive to the beach to make the connection between a scene where they are talking about going to the beach and them actually being there.  George Clooney made the same point when asked why he left ER.  He said that in the 1^st season you could see a guy wheeled by with a knife sticking out of his skull and that would be the end of it.  By the time he left, that would have been an entire story arc.

I, for one, would like to see a return to treating the audience like they have intelligence.  Of course, we live in the era of Survivor, Wipe Out & whatever pap TLC is running currently, so I doubt that this will happen.  Heck, even the “historic” drama, like The Tudors, are so rife with chronological errors in the name of making it more attractive that they are practically unwatchable.  Now there are shows out there are “get it”, such as NCIS, Big Bang Theory and Doctor Who, but they are the diamonds in the rough, IMHO.  Then again, I also watch World’s Dumbest every week, so I know that there is a need to turn your brain off every now and again, but it shouldn’t be the majority of entertainment.  Now that I’m done being very un-subtle about being subtle, I’m off to read some more of Mr. Simonson’s inspired works.

* Believe it or not (in my best Jack Palance voice) that was actually the first show reference to come to mind when I was writing this.  Scary, isn’t it?