Reimagining the Green Lantern Corps

With the box-office success of Aquaman, long-gestating projects based on DC properties are sure to be getting a bit of a boost. One such project, a Green Lantern Corps movie, has been in the air but never solidified since the critical and box-office disaster of the 2011 movie starring Ryan Reynolds. However, what I would like to do here is not to propose a set of inane criteria by which Warner Bros. can "do the property right" or pine for a series of doubtless obscure and ultimately juvenile comic pages to come to "life" on the big screen, but instead to formulate a vision by which the formula and indeed the identity of the Green Lantern Corps might be subverted, perverted, and completely reimagined. I want to use the general concepts introduced in the comics as a springboard from which to delve into more interesting themes in greater depth than is offered by the typical superhero comic or blockbuster movie.

Feels Like Summer and Late Capitalism

On September 1, 2018, Ivan Dixon and Greg Sharp released the music video for Childish Gambino's (aka Donald Glover) recent track Feels Like Summer. A low-key animation, the video unites numerous figures in the hip-hop community into the stale and familiar setting of lower middle-class suburbia. It's the neighbourhood of Boyz n the Hood, one of elevated bungalows and screen doors, one that manages to always feel like nowhere no matter what happens there. The neighbourhood is in fact modeled after Atlanta rather than Los Angeles, but what's important is that it conveys the everywhere nowhere-ness of suburbia, rather than depicting an actual place. What I find compelling in the video is its relation to the larger cultural moment within the context of late capitalism.

What's Good About All the Stars Video?

Released on February 6, 2018 was the music video for Kendrick Lamar & SZA's All the Stars, directed by Dave Meyers & the little homies. Done as part of an album of music inspired by the film Black Panther, it could be seen as simply a piece of marketing trying to cloak itself in cultural relevance. However, the very existence of Black Panther is culturally relevant and in contrast to essentially all prior Marvel films it has something to achieve besides get people excited for the next film. And the video for All the Stars is absolutely something in its own right.

Thoughts On: Arrival

Much was made of Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Ted Chiang's The Story of Your Life. I thought it was OK, but I didn't really enjoy it as I hoped I would or as enthusiastic reviews had led me to believe I might. From a science-fiction aspect I found the movie interesting but unchallenging. Conversations with others after the film led me to believe that this may be mostly to do with an unusual familiarity on my part with some of the subjects the film deals with.

Hidden Lore in Avatar

James Cameron's Avatar is a bit of a forgotten pop-cultural relic. No doubt this will soon change with the eventual release of Avatar 2 and subsequent sequels. I say forgotten because outside of its impact at the box-office and on spearheading the 3D theatre experience, it is seldom discussed. In an age that has no shortage of big bombastic blockbuster spectacle franchises, this should not be unexpected. I don't think you can point to Avatar's lack of 'stickiness', for lack of a better term, in people's minds as a specific failing of the film in comparison to other franchises. Franchises like Star Wars became popular in a time where such films were an incredible rarity and more modern franchises like Harry Potter released films in quick succession after each other at regular intervals. And all of these 'sticky' franchises had countless merchandising: toys, cereals, lunchboxes, cartoon spin-offs, etc. that kept them present in the minds of the public. So Avatar's lack of 'stickiness' could easily be due to its self-imposed hibernation, rather than resulting from any lacking aspect of the film itself.

But because Avatar has been forgotten, there has been little digging into the lore of it that usually accompanies such large spectacle films (although admittedly such speculation tends to cluster around franchises after they have more than one film rather than around singular event-style films). Avatar was also saddled with a straightforward story that didn't give audiences much to chew on after the euphoria of the visual spectacle had worn off. This has caused many to ask what could possibly be worth exploring in the world of Avatar to warrant Avatars 2, 3, 4 and 5. However, as with any nascent imagined universe, there are countless possibilities still out there and avenues to be explored. In this space I want to pick up on a few interesting wrinkles hiding just under the surface of the world presented in Avatar that could make the world potentially worth revisiting.

Digital Puppetry: A Star Wars Story

Sat in the theatre watching Rogue One: A Star Wars Story for the first (and still only) time, I felt my stomach lurch as Grand Moff Tarkin appeared on-screen. Viewed only from behind his artificiality was immediately apparent to me - the waxy skin, stringy strands of hair and wholly unconvincing lighting had me worried. Still, seen from behind only at a distance I could argue that I was merely over-reacting, that it wasn't as noticeable as I perceived it to be, and, so long as he never turned around, I could avoid letting it interfere with my ability to appreciate the movie. But I was afraid he was going to turn around, trained as I was on cinema and the inability of filmmakers everywhere to show the slightest modicum of restraint in such things. Hence my stomach lurched. And then, Tarkin turned around.

Star Wars and Adjusted Expectations

Herein I use Star Wars to refer to the entirety of the franchise (the films and ancillary media) rather than the original film from 1977.

When I first learned that Disney had acquired Star Wars from George Lucas I was incredibly excited. Finally the films could break new and unexpected ground free from the shackles of Lucas' very flawed vision. I imagined Star Wars brought to life through the lens of my own preferences, the ideas suggested to me by the early conceptual artworks from the original trilogy. I imagined a dark contemplative fantasy, perhaps exploring the question of why the dark side of the force was seemingly so much more powerful than the light side, hinting at an ultimately evil order at the seat of power. I imagined a minimalist musical score, perhaps haunting electronica, juxtaposed against technology so advanced and ancient that its purpose has been long forgotten. I let my mind run wild, and then I realized the ridiculousness of my thinking and reigned in my imagination. As I reflected on the Star Wars films, I recognized that I did not appreciate them so much on their own as I appreciated what they brought to life visually and what those visuals suggested to my own imagination. I didn't care for the narrative or even the characters, I wanted something closer to Dune perhaps, with some of the aesthetic and production values of Star Wars (or rather, the production values that a Star Wars film could afford). It occurred to me that if those at Disney felt as I did they would not have purchased Star Wars at all. If all one is interested in is the promise of Star Wars then one can go ahead and make their own take on the thing, keep it original and avoid all criticism of straying too far from the proven formula. To purchase Star Wars is to signal a keen interest in what Star Wars is and what it promises. What it is may be many things to many people, but to most certain things are common: a throwback pulp-serial adventure, a pastiche of genres, a classic good vs. evil story, wrapped in the latest filmmaking spectacle and technology. Realistically I had little interest in Star Wars as understood by most of the audience and therefore little reason to be excited by it. So I adjusted my expectations and came to expect little other than repetitions of what had been done with the property before.

Thoughts On: The Avengers

In the closing moments of The Avengers, Samuel L. Jackson, clothed in eye patch and black trench coat as the ridiculously named Nick Fury, stands in front of a panel of video screens with imposing faceless hand-wringing decision makers. One of them asks, "Was that the point of all this? A statement?", Fury corrects him, "A promise."

The council's question echoes the thoughts of the audience, who having endured the visual effects equivalent of blunt force trauma, is left wondering what the takeaway from this film is. The response "A promise" feels hollow, hackneyed even. Within the framework of the plot it implies that whenever the world is in peril, The Avengers will be there, to the audience it is a pact that sequels will follow, but the purpose of this film, or of its inevitable sequel is left unclear. Perhaps the question should have never been asked, because all I can think of as the appropriate response is, "We like money."

Alienssssss

Since its release in 1986 there have been no shortage of video games based on the film Aliens, although one could certainly make the case that there have been a shortage of good video games. Most of those games were released closer to the franchise's heyday, so that in recent years the selection has been a little barren. Still, the idea of another video game based on the Aliens property with Aliens: Colonial Marines finally nearing release isn't entirely welcome. Even if games based on Aliens haven't been the most successful, the film has managed to permeate video games nonetheless, to the point that making an Aliens game seems like a retread, as if someone set out to make Videogame: The Video Game. Right off the bat we are assured of a quasi-realistic military shooter draped in a sci-fi aesthetic so often recycled it's become part of the tapestry of generic. Zealous over-use of caution strips? Check. Obligatory turret sequences? Check. Vaguely insectoid enemies that die easy and rush in waves? Triple Check. Climactic showdown in mech suit? Par for the course. At this point it's hard to think of an element, be it weapons, vehicles, even one-liners, that was featured in Aliens that hasn't since been wholesale lifted and re-used in a video game, Aliens related or not.

References:

Aliens. (1986) Directed by James Cameron [Film]. Los Angeles, Calif.: 20th Century Fox.

Gearbox Software (2013). Aliens: Colonial Marines [Video game]. Sega. 

Thoughts On: The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises is a piss-poor movie. It wasn't unexpected. Few franchises have been able to shoulder the weight of a hugely successful predecessor and deliver a film that serves as both satisfying in its own right and as a worthwhile conclusion to a series of films. But it wasn't inevitable either. There exists a wealth of stories in both comic and animated form to draw upon when it comes to Batman and that the final chapter of Christopher Nolan's trilogy should end up so muddled in spite of this is a pity.