Much like a child stuffing their face at Christmas dinner, this month was all about cramming in as many of the things I’ve been meaning to watch/read as I could before the New Year. This led to a concentrated effort in staggering my viewing options, racing through several books and averaging at least two movies per week.
I naturally had to watch The Fellowship of the Ring for its twentieth anniversary, The Matrix in preparation for Resurrections, and another Robin Hood movie to finish things off, an ongoing project that just sort of happened this year.
Along the way, two distinct themes emerged: science-fiction and Christmas – that is, a specific type of Christmas: the cosy, cluttered, roasted chestnuts and sugarplum visions type of Christmas, in which magical adventures take place in the ordinary world.
For that reason, I also ended up reading some picture books featuring my favourite illustrators; I won’t cover them in this log, but they tapped into this particular type of Christmas aesthetic: Jan Brett’s The Nutcracker, Ruth Sanderson’s The Nativity, and Jane Ray’s Grace and the Christmas Angel.
And of course, two seminal touchstones from my childhood: Walter Wick’s I Spy Christmas and Do You See What I See: Night Before Christmas (the former more than the latter, as they were published over ten years apart). Just disappearing into these incredible photographs was a trip down memory lane, and I was surprised to find that I remembered where most of the stuff was – or maybe not so surprising even the hours I spent poring over these pages. And I finally found the stick of gum!
So I managed to get through a lot of material these last four weeks, and if it hadn’t been for me deliberately taking a break from these types of projects, I also would have had to contend with The Witcher, The Book of Boba Fett, Spider Man: No Way Home and the Hawkeye limited series. Whew. There is just too much stuff out there right now, though I still plan to get to The Wheel of Time and the new season of Star Trek Discovery in January.
I hope all your Christmases went well, and are sufficiently braced for the New Year...
Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran
This was certainly an experience: a retelling of Snow White in which the Queen is the heroic protagonist and Snow White the villain. As in, she’s a literal vampire (though that word is never uttered). Most of what the Queen gets up to are attempts to stop the spread of her evil, whether it’s ordering her heart cut out or dressing up as a peddler to trick her into eating a poisoned apple.
In other words, this is quintessential Neil Gaiman material. The story is narrated in the Queen’s voice, from her first meeting with Snow’s father, to her rule in the princess’s absence, to her final downfall and death when Snow White returns to the kingdom to claim her throne. It’s a fascinating look at how just a few tweaks can change the entire meaning of the story – technically everything that happens here can be found in the original fairy tale, it’s just been turned on its head.
Gaiman doesn’t stint on the sex or violence (or the interplay between the two), and things get pretty graphic at times so read with caution. But the real drawcard is Colleen Doran’s Art Nouveau-style illustrations, which are ornate and beautiful and elegant. According to the back of the book, she was heavily inspired by Irish artist Harry Clarke, and you can see the similarities if you Google them both. The each have the quality of a stained-glass window.
Recommended, but definitely don’t let it get in the hands of any children.
Suki Alone by Faith Erin Hicks and Peter Wartman
The most recent tie-in graphic novels to Avatar: The Last Airbender have focused on the three female characters that helped make up Team Avatar: Katara, Toph and Suki (can we hope for a follow-up trilogy with Azula, Mai and Ty Lee at a later date?)
I read this one last (as it was published the most recently) but it’s the first chronologically – kind of, Katara’s is set in Book Two, though Suki’s stretches from her childhood to moments throughout all three seasons – and was the one I was most looking forward to.
This is firstly because it fills in some tantalizing gaps left in the show’s narrative, and secondly because while Katara and Toph starred in plenty of character-centric episodes, Suki was very much a last-minute Sixth Ranger to the gang, having been a sporadically appearing guest star up until that point. And I’ve always had a soft spot for supporting characters that eventually come through in a big way.
For those familiar with the show, this graphic novel kicks off with Azula taking Suki to the Boiling Rock, and from there divides into two distinct plotlines: her experiences in prison, trying to inspire the other prisoners and keep herself strong, and flashbacks to her past: joining the Kyoshi Warriors, deciding to leave the island, working as a security guard at the Serpent’s Pass.
To call it Suki Alone is one hell of a flex, as it’s an obvious homage to the episodes Zuko Alone and Korra Alone from the original show and its sequel series, which are largely regarded as the most outstanding episodes of each show. Those are some big shoes to fill, yet for my money, they pull it off.
There’s some clunky dialogue, with people spelling out thoughts and motivation, and part of me thinks the material here warranted a much longer story (the scene in the immediate aftermath of the Kyoshi Warriors versus Azula is not dramatized, which seems an oversight) but the continuity between the two plot-strands and the story’s relationship to the animated series is pretty tight. I loved that Suki was familiar with a plant that harvested on Kyoshi Island that she discovers on Boiling Rock, which lead to her cultivating a secret garden within the prison walls and providing her fellow inmates with nutrients to keep up their strength and morale (nicely adding context to the surprising physical strength of the prisoners during their riot).
There’s also some interesting insight into Avatar Kyoshi’s isolationist policies and the effect Aang had on Suki’s decision to lead her fellow warriors into the world to lend their assistance to the war effort, a sudden but inevitable betrayal from a false friend on Boiling Rock, and a visitation from Kyoshi in Suki’s darkest moment that nearly brought tears to my eyes. The actual tears appeared when I saw the book’s final page and the reader sees that her “I’m not alone” mantra, one that she maintains even while being kept in literal isolation, is true – someone who loves her is on his way.
So it’s a wonderful showcase for Suki, demonstrating her strength, faith, compassionate and determination. Some of her scenes pack a real punch: when she’s separated from her sisters at Boiling Rock, when she meets up with a friend who left Kyoshi Island before her, and when she naturally falls into a leadership role among the other prisoners...
Like I said, the continuity is good (the designs for the Boiling Rock warden and Oyaji the Kyoshi Island elder match up with what we saw on the show) and the colour palette is cleverly done, ranging from grey-blue (Kyoshi Island) to washed-out green (Earth Kingdom) to red (Boiling Rock). But mostly it’s good at delving into the particulars of Suki’s life and the difficulties she faces: the community and sisterhood she shared, the stark truth that not everyone was on board with her decision to leave the island, her faith in following the Avatar’s example, and the choices that lead her through the minor arc we see in the television show itself.
Man, I’d give anything for this one to be adapted for television.
Katara and the Pirate's Silver by Faith Erin Hicks and Peter Wartman
During an altercation between herself and Toph regarding teaching methods, Team Avatar is attacked and Katara falls from Appa’s back. She lands close to a suspiciously cordoned-off village and decides to investigate, eventually falling in with a group of pirates (not the ones from The Waterbending Scroll) led by a girl called Jiang, complete with shaved head, green eyes, and a point to make.
Katara tries to play it tough like Toph would do in this situation (to mixed effect) though it’s pretty obvious that there’s a twist coming on the true motives of these particular pirates. There’s also an interesting subplot with Aang, Sokka and Toph as they try to find Katara: the trio stumble across a Fire Nation soldier and hear some of the propaganda that such people have been indoctrinated with.
Aang is furious to hear that the Air Nomad genocide was justified because they were preparing to invade the rest of the world, but he can’t prove a negative and so no minds are changed that day. (The topic of revisionist history was briefly touched on in The Headband and I always felt it was a shame it wasn’t delved into further).
It’s a straightforward but decent story.
Toph’s Metalbending Academy by Faith Erin Hicks and Peter Wartman
Of the three girl-centric graphic novels in this miniseries, Toph’s is the only one that takes place after the events of the show, and in fact has several characters in important supporting roles that have only ever turned up in the graphic novel continuation of the series (namely her three most prominent students: Ho Tun, Penga and the Dark One).
As the story starts, we see Sokka and Suki coming to visit Toph at her Metalbending Academy, which is a huge success. Such a success in fact, that she’s grown bored with it. The distraction Sokka and Suki offer her is a chance to see a popular band in concert, and lo and behold – it’s the hippies from The Cave of the Two Lovers.
She sneaks out and follows her nose (or technically the vibrations under the earth that she can feel with her bare feet) and discovers an underground bending tournament, where lavabending makes its first chronological appearance (used to much greater effect in The Legend of Korra’s third season). Toph is delighted, but also horrified when the tournament abruptly breaks up after her presence is discovered. In the years since her involvement in ending the Hundred Year War, she’s largely considered to be... The Man!
The main thrust of these graphic novels has been in crafting connective tissue between Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, most centrally the founding of Republic City by Aang and Zuko. This is clearly designed to track Toph’s journey to joining law enforcement, a creative decision that I’d like to think Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko have since regretted. Even at the time, I can’t think of a fictional character least likely to become a cop than Toph.
The story itself seems rather uncomfortable with the concept, as aside from a passing comment that tries to frame her future career as being “a protector”, her chaotic, rule-breaking spirit clearly blanches at the thought of others thinking she’s opposed to illicit activities.
In many ways, it’s more the story of her three students, who are trying to prove themselves to her by joining in one of the bending tournaments (it’s just occurred to me that this might also be the origin story for pro-bending, in which benders create a sport that they can legally and safely play in front of spectators).
Possibly the weakest of the three releases, it’s still a fun diversion, and has a nice social commentary running under the surface of things (Toph’s school also doubles as a homeless shelter in which street kids can enjoy a warm bed and three-square meals a day). I mean, if you’re going to read the other two you have to throw this one in as well, but the most essential one is definitely Suki Alone, and in hindsight there’s an odd lack of thematic/narrative coherence between the three books – beyond the fact that they all star the most prominent female characters of the show.
The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman
This much can be said about Grossman’s Magicians trilogy: it’s imminently readable. I’ve read one per month for the last three months, and that’s largely because they were compulsive stories with compelling prose that a reader can just race through. While reading them, I was often surprised at how many pages were getting flipped over in a single sitting.
Given that the trilogy has been more of a parody/examination/dark homage to The Chronicles of Narnia, it makes sense that the central conflict of its final book would take its cue from the last Narnia book: The Last Battle, in which the world is destroyed and everyone goes to heaven, basically. Here, all the omens and portends point to the magical country of Fillory hurtling towards a similar fate, leaving our protagonists desperate to stave off the inevitable.
All except for Quentin Stillwater, who was exiled from Fillory at the end of the second book, and has no idea of what’s going on when he signs up for a magical heist to steal a briefcase from a heavily warded house. What’s in the case? Why does his employer want it? He has no idea, but as usual he’s adrift in the world and searching for a purpose in life.
He’s joined by a Brakebills undergraduate called Plum, and unsurprisingly, the events in Fillory gradually start to meld with Quentin’s concurrent chapters, until a prolonged sequence of events culminates in one of several surprise twists and Connected All Along moments. This has been the plot structure of every book, and once again Quentin realizes that it was never really about him – though in this case, it follows up on a character who was left in dire straits in the previous book.
(This isn’t really a complaint, as I’m technically just accusing these books of making interesting choices, but it left me wishing we could have followed the other character’s story, since that was clearly the one of most import. Grossman might subvert the idea that Quentin is the hero, but at the same time he never allows him to be anything less than the protagonist).
By the end he’s picking through his dangling threads and minor characters with a fine-toothed comb. I always appreciate writers that keep track of their concepts and subplots, and Grossman wraps everything up to almost complete satisfaction – while simultaneously letting The Adventure Continue. He delves back into the story of the Chadwins (the original visitors to Fillory), examines the true nature of the god-rams Ember and Umber (like many atheists who write fantasy, there are some interesting, contradictory, debate-worthy ideas at work here) and gives us a surprisingly touching scene of the original Brakebills students all together again.
The strength of this trilogy is (as mentioned) the ease with which you can tear through them, and the structuring of the plots. In the case of all three books, I knew that at some point the rug was going to be pulled out from under my feet, and all three times I was unable to discern the exact nature of the twist until it had happened.
A weakness is that I never really cared about any of the characters. Many of them are deeply unlikeable but don’t compensate by being particularly interesting either, and – when I get to it – I’ll be intrigued at seeing how the television show will help me differentiate between them (honestly, I kept getting Janet and Julia mixed up, and Alice had no personality for me at all).
Likewise, it’s impossible to have any strong feelings about the impending doom of Fillory. Unlike Narnia, it’s never described in any loving detail; instead it’s saturated in a wry, almost sneering tone that befits its narrative purpose as a symbol of Quentin’s arrested development. This is the place where he can insert his own fantasy adventure, where he never has to grow up or face any responsibilities (even the name, reminiscent of ‘filigree’ and ‘filler’ speaks of its inherent triviality). To now ask us to mourn its ending is simply weird, as we’ve never before been given a reason to care.
These books will never be dear to my heart – they’re too cynical and borderline nihilistic for that – but their meta-commentary on fantasy-fiction and religious debate piqued my imagination and delivered on some truly great set pieces at times (this one has Plum move through a series of doorways through Brakebills that lead to hidden rooms and different time periods, and it’s breath-taking). I’ll return to them one day, with foreknowledge of how it all ends, and hopefully find them more rewarding next time.
The Clockwork Crow, The Velvet Fox and The Midnight Swan by Catherine Fisher
What delectable titles, and knowing they came from Catherine Fisher meant that they were sure to be (at the very least) solid stories. She has a great handle on prose, and captures that dark fairy tale quality I love so much; delving into the rules and traditions of the fey in a way that makes you feel like you’re reading a book much older than it actually is (“that’s how it is in the stories” is a constant refrain that protagonist Seren uses to navigate her way through the plots).
Like Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden, Seren is an orphan being sent to an isolated manor house to live with her distant relations – though in this case she’s off to Wales instead of Yorkshire. As she’s waiting at the train station, a nervy looking man hands her package and asks her to keep it safe for him. Inside are the dissembled pieces of a clockwork crow, which Seren looks over with fascination as the train leaves the station before she has a chance to return the package to its rightful owner.
Further mysteries abound once she reaches her new home. Though she was expecting her aunt, uncle and cousin, she finds only a house full of gloomy servants who make it obvious that they’re not happy about her presence there.
Obviously something tragic has happened, and over the course of the three books Seren gradually finds out what it is – with the help of the clockwork crow, which is actually a man under a spell. I trust it’s not too much of a spoiler to say that the fey are involved (though they’re referred to as the Family or the Tylwyth Teg), and what is it that the fey love to do most of all? Steal children.
Fisher writes in a strange, dreamlike way, with many questions deliberately left unanswered (if the crow has spent hundreds of years under a spell, how is his brother still alive?) and a seasonal ambiance in each book (winter, autumn, summer) that makes each one distinctive.
Seeing a fox as the central villain of the second book definitely brought to mind the horror of Reynard the Fox and what he wrought in the second Magicians book, but this is a children’s book thankfully. Still, it sent a shiver down my spine to read: “I know all about the fox. A being of immense power. He’s in all the stories,” and “I’m the Fox. I’m the Trickster and the Tease. I’m the Shadow and the Secret. I’m the one everyone forgets about until it’s too late.” It’s a reminder that this archetype is everywhere, and you wouldn’t want to mess with it.
A nice little trilogy, and unlike Wildwood below, it’s not too long-winded.
Wildwood by Colin Meloy
This was already in my TBR pile, but it jumped the queue when I heard about Laika Studios adapting the book in their trademark stop-motion animation. And the funny thing is, this isn’t a great book, but it will translate really well to that particular studio’s strengths.
Prue lives with her parents and baby brother in unassuming Portland. The story opens with her watching a murder of crows take off with little Mac and her frantic attempts to chase him down. Through forest and over bridge, she ends up in what’s known as Wildwood: a place she’s been warned never to go. Along for the ride is school acquaintance Curtis, who knows what an adventure looks like when he stumbles upon one.
Unfortunately, they’re almost immediately separated: Curtis falls in with a band of coyotes who take him to their mysterious, beautiful queen, while Prue makes friends with various talking animals and a troupe of wild bandits. The two sides are at bitter war with one another: so who is on the right side?
(Actually, it’s pretty obvious who is on the right side, there’s not much of a mystery there).
Wildwood is written with a fair amount of enthusiasm, but falls short in two areas: a fairly predictable plot (yet another younger sibling has been stolen by the fey for nefarious purposes) and prose that is waaaaaay too verbose. This book is fairly massive, and could have easily been halved had the author sharpened up the sentences a little. Everything that takes place, or which is described, could have been conveyed with far less words that are actually used.
And this isn’t me complaining about the length of a story. I love settling down with a massive doorstopper – but this one doesn’t really have the depth or interest to justify its massive page count (especially when read concurrently with Catherine Fisher’s trilogy, which demonstrates that brevity is the soul of wit). The film adaptation will undoubtedly do a lot of trimming, and it’ll be to the story’s advantage.
But it has a charm of its own, and a specific aesthetic that very much fit into the “folksy Christmas” vibe that I was trying to chase down this holiday season. It ends on a very bizarre note though, with Curtis decided to stay in the Wildwood, and both he and Prue letting his parents believe that he’s gone missing, believed dead. Um... what?? What kind of person does that??
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by J. R. R. Tolkien (translation)
Having watched David Lowery’s The Green Knight earlier in the year, I was curious to go back and read the original fourteenth century manuscript (or at least a translation of it) for the sake of comparison, being familiar with the beats of the story but not knowing any of the particulars. I knew that the most recent film had taken great liberties with the source material, deliberately presenting itself as a deconstruction of the courtliness and chivalry that the poem exalts, but other little details – such as the bandits, the giants and Saint Winifred – intrigued me. Did they have a place in the Middle English poem?
No. As of this writing, I remain unclear as to where Lowery adopted some of his material, and even that which he kept – the initial challenge presented to King Arthur’s court by the Green Knight, the agreement he comes to with a largely untested Sir Gawain, the subsequent journey the young knight makes a year hence to fulfil his part of the bargain, and the temptations he undergoes when staying at the house of one Sir Bertilak and his wife – have been drastically changed in meaning and tone.
Going back to the root of the story helps demonstrate what was lost and what was gained in the recent film, not to mention providing a “purer” version of the same tale – though truthfully, it in turn was probably inspired by much older stories of which only thematic and symbolic echoes remain. The name of the poem’s author has been lost to time, and there’s something solemn and strange about the fact that such an intrinsically powerful work can only ever be attributed to “anonymous”.
This particular edition includes the transcript of a lecture by W.P. Ker, who closely examines the characterization of Gawain and what sins – if any – he’s guilty of. As he points out, Gawain ends up being his own harshest critic, lambasting himself for cowardice and greed, despite being shoved into circumstances that were pretty difficult to successfully navigate, but which he manages with no small degree of wit, honesty and graciousness (really, the worst crime he can be accused of was hanging onto a magical sash in order to save his own life).
Bound by personal honour, by religious law, by the demands of courtesy, by the rules of the games he’s agreed to – all of these arbiters of morality create conflicting expectations within Gawaine, forcing him down an increasingly narrow path of acceptable behaviour. It’s not until the final stanzas that the truth is finally laid out: it was all a test of character, from the Green Knight’s initial challenge, to Lord Bertilak (who was the Green Knight in disguise) laying down the rules of the game: that he and Gawaine will exchange whatever “gifts” they received during the day, whether it be hunting trophies or illicit kisses, to Bertilak’s wife trying her darndest to seduce Gawaine under her husband’s nose.
All this in-depth discussion about Gawaine’s internal conflict naturally led me to wonder about the potential conflict within another character, one whose motivation goes completely unexplored. Just how complicit is Lady Bertilak in all this? She was clearly operating under her husband’s orders, but was she doing so willingly or against her better nature? Like Gawaine, there are opposing directives in her conduct: should she be dutifully obeying her husband, who tells her to seduce another man, or following the doctrines of Christianity, which forbids adultery?
If Gawaine had accepted her advancements, would she have been expected follow through on them? Was she aware that Morgan le Fay (her companion in the disguise of an elderly woman) was really behind it all? Or was she, like Gawaine, kept in the dark? Did she enjoy playing the seductress, having been given leave by her husband to be a bit naughty, or was she secretly mortified by the whole ordeal, knowing that if she succeeded, she was leading a good man to his doom?
Unsurprisingly, there’s no insight into any of this (or, to be fair, that of her husband, who could have also been grappling with his own moral conundrum). She’s a plot device in the story and nothing more. But it stings a little when Gawaine learns of her deception and cries (one suspects, more out of injured pride than moral clarity): “a gain ‘twould be vast to love [women] well and believe them not, if it lay in man’s power!” He puts a fair share of the blame on her conduct, though for all we know, she was just as helplessly caught up in the same traps as he was.
(On a brief final note, Reynard the Fox turns up here as well, and the fleeting mention of his name once again sent a chill down my spine).
Robin Hood (1922)
Behold, the famous character’s first theatrical feature (though Wikipedia tells me the first on-screen appearance of Robin Hood was in silent film directed by Percy Stow in 1908). I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this, as I’ve never had much of a chance to watch movies that are this old, but I enjoyed it (though more as a curiosity than a piece of entertainment).
There are no words, only music and sporadic placards that provide exposition and lines of dialogue – though for my money the score is overbearing and there’s too much flitting between the action and the placards, especially when it’s obvious what’s going on. But as ever, it’s fascinating to see how the beats of the old story are adapted for the screen.
Robin is the Earl of Huntington and Marian is Lady Fitzwalter, the former the winner of the jousting tournament held before King Richard heads off for the Crusades, and the latter crowned the Queen of Love and Beauty (forget Game of Thrones, this was a real thing back in the day). King Richard encourages Robin to accept the winner’s prize from the lady, though Robin tells him: “I am afeared of women.” Then he gets chased by hundreds of them and escapes by jumping in the moat.
But after saving Marian from Prince John’s dishonourable intentions (Guy of Gisborne expresses romantic interest in her, and John forces her to interact with him) love blooms between them. Unfortunately, Robin is called away with the rest of the nobles to accompany Richard to the Holy Land, leaving Prince John in charge of things while he’s away.
At over two hours long, the film spends a surprising amount of time in the Holy Land, in which Guy sends an assassin after King Richard, Robin receives a missive from Marian urging him to come home, and discord erupts between Richard and Robin once the latter asks permission to return to England (his thinking is that if Richard knew what John was up to, he would abandon the Crusade to help his people, and so instead asks the king to trust him and let him return without explanation. Richard assumes that he just wants to return to Marian, and so has him banished in disgrace. Oh Robin, you would have saved a lot of time and effort – and lives – if you’d just told Richard the truth).
So it’s not until the halfway mark that Robin is even back in England, living as an outlaw with the likes of Little John, Will Scarlett, Friar Tuck and Allan-a-Dale (they’re virtually interchangeable). However, he’s under the impression that Marian is dead, she having escaped from the castle and faked her own death before taking refuge in a nunnery.
It’s actually a relatively (keyword: relatively) decent portrayal of women: Marian gets the aforementioned opportunity to successfully fake her death, and she’s joined by an older woman – her handmaiden – who gets tortured on screen (yikes!) in John’s attempt to discover if Marian has been communicating with Robin. But she’s not held in contempt for having betrayed Marian under duress, and gets away safely with her.
Even better, when John storms into the women’s quarters in search of Marian, he’s meet with a roomful of women giving him the side-eye. It’s hilarious.
There’s also a nice moment in which Marian draws Robin’s profile on the side of the castle before he leaves for war, and while he’s gone there’s a scene in which she speaks to it – but we’re not made privy to what she’s actually saying. It’s actually surprisingly touching, and not putting up a dialogue placard is a way of granting her some degree of privacy that you could only ever achieve in a silent film.
Gisborne has a surprisingly big part, especially in comparison with the barely-seen Sheriff of Nottingham (this must have been what inspired Basil Rathbone’s similar role in 1938) and he once again covets Marian. King Richard spends most of the time throwing his head back and laughing uproariously, before getting the final shot of the film in which he’s banging on the door to Robin and Marian’s bedchamber on their wedding night, just as they’re trying to get busy. Um... okay?
But perhaps my favourite element was the use of messenger pigeons, which clearly inspired the episode “Lardner’s Ring” in the 2006 show in which the gang come across a similarly-trained bird and use it to send a missive to King Richard. Finally, I have context! They even copy the scene in which the pigeon is attacked in the sky by a hawk (though there, it was just a decoy bird).
The Matrix (1999)
That was some good shit. I had actually forgotten how good this was. As of this writing, I’ve not yet seen The Matrix Resurrections, and I’m not going to rewatch Reloaded or Revolutions (mostly because I don’t have time, but also because I didn’t like them much) but I’m glad I revisited the film that started it all.
And amidst all the stylized carnage and mind-bending concepts are some genuinely heavy emotional and/or human beats. Just little ones, but they pack a punch. The cop who gasps: “that’s impossible!” when the Agent takes an impossible leap over the rooftops. A terrified Trinity telling herself to “get up” while she’s being chased. The crew leaping over the tables in their excitement to watch Neo and Morpheus fight. Switch’s devastating final words: “not like this” (did she want to go down fighting, or is she horrified that she’s dying at the hands of a traitor? We’ll never know). Even Agent Smith, when he reveals that he hates being inside the Matrix and is driven by his desperate desire to escape the smell of it.
In terms of the story, what’s fascinating is how much they hold back on. With so many blockbuster franchises (including this one, which as I recall, ends up retconning a lot of what’s established here, particularly in regards to the nature of The One) events get so bogged down in clumsy world-building and endless exposition that you lose all track of the story. Here, we get what we need to know, and nothing else.
We never visit Zion. We never learn how the war between humanity and machines started (Morpheus flat-out says they don’t know). We get only the rudimentary details of the One’s backstory (he was the first to realize they were in a Matrix, he taught the others to escape, he died, the Oracle prophesied his return – that’s it). The Oracle is largely enigmatic, and there’s no indication of who or what she truly is. Neo is already familiar with the name Morpheus and the concept of the Matrix (in the vaguest possible terms), thereby saving us a lot of needless explanations as to who/what they are and why they’re important.
It’s all so restrained that it’s rather breath-taking. The art of leaving things ambiguous is an art that’s becoming increasingly rare, especially with franchises like Star Wars and Harry Potter going overboard in their attempts to explain absolutely everything (and sure, I can understand the desire to “fill in the gaps” – it’s fun and there’s a demand for it, but the edges of the story, where things are amorphous and insubstantial, is where the reader’s imagination goes to play).
The film also includes beautiful follow-throughs on carefully seeded plot-points. For example, at one point Neo asks Trinity what the Oracle told her, and she demurs with the barest wisp of a smile. Later, Neo claims he’s not the One, and Trinity refutes this with an odd level of confidence that seems more than just kneejerk denial. Towards the climax, she returns to the subject of the Oracle and tries to tell him what she was told, only to get interrupted.
And finally, we get the secret: the Oracle told Trinity would know the identity of the One because she would fall in love with him. All those micro-expressions on her face, all those strange reactions to his presence – even the comment from the Oracle, who says: “no one can tell you you’re in love, you just know it”, which was spoken to Neo in a seemingly completely unrelated context, but in hindsight has added resonance. It’s obvious who and what the Oracle was thinking about in that moment.
And was it a self-fulfilling prophesy, like the Oracle telling Neo not to worry about the vase before he immediately turns and breaks it? Was Trinity predisposed to fall in love with Neo because Morpheus believed he was the one? To what extent was her love a factor in Neo being the One – was it just used to identify him, or if she had fallen in love with someone else, would that person have been (or become) the One? It’s thrillingly unknowable.
Speaking of Trinity, The Matrix is culturally significant in that it inspired the term Trinity Syndrome, which in the broadest terms describes a female character who is talented, intelligent, driven and capable, but which the narrative puts into the role of sidekick to the decidedly less impressive male protagonist. To put a bit more detail around this, she’ll usually be introduced as kickass and powerful, only to never again be as cool as she was in her opening scene, instead surrendering narrative import to the male character she’s sent to recruit (and nine times out of ten, becoming his love interest).
As with the term Mary Sue, it’s an easy one to misuse, and female characters can fall into this role to varying degrees of headache-inducing frustration. The likes of Hermione Granger, Gamora, Padme Amidala, The Lego Movie’s Wyldstyle, The Hobbit’s Tauriel, Aquaman’s Mera and Atlanna, How To Train Your Dragon’s Astrid and Valka, and Kung Fu Panda’s Tigress have all been described as suffering from Trinity Syndrome, though obviously not all of them check every single box. But when it comes down to it, these are women who could have easily carried the story themselves, were it not for the fact they were pre-emptively written to not do that. Because male protagonist.
It’s a tough nut to crack, because quite often avoiding this phenomenon requires a complete rewriting of the actual plot.
In this case, yes, Trinity goes from headlining a riveting one-woman chase scene against three Agents to essentially being Neo’s guide, sidekick and love interest, with her most valuable contribution to the plot being her ability to identify him as the saviour of the world. By falling in love with him. On the one hand, it’s a little exasperating that this is what’s required of the film’s only significant female character (it’s possibly the most passive narrative purpose I’ve ever heard of in my life. You would never see this affixed to a male character). On the other, there’s a corny sort of sweetness to this angle, it’s a revelation that’s seeded incredibly well throughout the film (see above) and it leans into the humanism that the machines naturally lack.
But I’m not actually here to debate the pitfalls of Trinity Syndrome, and in Trinity’s case I’m not really that fussed. What interests me is that in the two decades since the release of this film, Lana Wachowski has almost certainly become aware of this term, and so I wonder how much that’s going to play into Resurrections. There are some interesting lines of dialogue in the trailer that makes me wonder if Trinity is going to end up the true protagonist of this instalment. (Hey, they righted the boat in The Lego Movie sequel with Wyldstyle, why not the original Trinity Syndrome figure?)
Umm, what else? Hugo Weaving’s Agent Smith is surely one of the great pop-culture villains of our time, but I think Cypher is underrated for his similar antagonistic role. There are plenty of red flags in his dialogue leading up to his Face Heel Turn, but also moments of what seem like genuine camaraderie with his shipmates, which makes it all the more devastating when he murders half of them.
I wish they had strung out his motivation and plans a little longer, as we learn he’s bad immediately after his friendly one-on-one scene with Neo, but hey, it’s a big movie and there’s a lot going on. The scary thing about him is that you can understand where he’s coming from (to go from the relative comfort of the Matrix to the “real world” where you have to eat gunk, go cold, and risk your life on a daily basis? I totally get why he would want to go back) and he provides an interesting ethical question – if he willingly gave up his self-awareness, could he ever be held accountable for his crimes?
Basically: great movie, a sci-fi classic, and I’m getting increasingly intrigued by what the fourth film might have to offer. Surely they’ll lean more heavily into the transgender metaphor this time around.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
It would seem that the twentieth anniversary of The Fellowship of the Ring is being marked by little more than a rap by Steven Colbert and some of the cast members, and a Tumblr post that points out to everyone’s horror that Viggo Mortensen is now the same age as Ian McKellan was back when this was being filmed.
I marked the occasion by going to my friend’s house and watching this on his big screen television, and pretty much just bathed in the nostalgic radiation. This movie pretty much defined that Christmas and New Year – as it did practically everyone who lived in New Zealand. We were collectively so proud that a Hollywood film was being made here, and because of the expansive involvement of the production, we could all join in the “six degrees of separation” game. Everyone knew someone that contributed.
I’m happy to say that all these years later: it still holds up. For my money, this is the best of the three movies in the trilogy: it flows the best, the emotional beats are at their strongest, and it doesn’t get overwhelmed by a reliance on CGI. As satisfying as the next two films are, they never quite match the narrative elegance and visceral thrill of Fellowship. (Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that we were all so excited about this one. It was new and untested and nobody had sky-high expectations).
It’s only after twenty years of behind-the-scenes anecdotes that we realize just how close this came to being a catastrophe, from the initial casting of Stuart Townsend as Aragorn, to the vile Harvey Weinstein putting pressure on Peter Jackson to tell the story in a single movie and kill off half the hobbits. Talent, passion and dedication is what makes the finished product is as good as it is – but as with most creative endeavours, no small amount of luck played its part as well.
The casting is perfect: Elijah Wood, Sean Austin, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett... they embody the characters on the page to almost eerie perfection. Even the more controversial decisions proved to be the correct ones: Liv Tyler as Arwen was a bit of a wildcard, but she pulled off that ageless quality with more gravitas than anyone thought possible, and it’s hilarious to look back and realize that Orlando Bloom was a complete unknown, literally fresh out of acting school.
Also impressive is how much raw exposition they manage to convey without anything getting too overly complicated or dull. There was a lot to get through here, but from Galadriel’s sonorous narration laying out the bare bones of the Ring’s history to the Council of Elrond being fraught with tension and characterization (not bad for a scene that involves a bunch of people just sitting in a circle and arguing with each other), the plot is as smooth as silk and quick as a stream.
Some scenes capture the spirit of the book so clearly that it sends chills down my spine (“may it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out”), while others actually improve on Tolkien’s original text. The scene of Frodo offering Aragorn the Ring and Aragorn subsequently resisting its pull was absolutely crucial to his arc: a contrast to Boromir’s weakness, a starting point to his realization that he is stronger than his ancestor, and a necessary emotional beat between him and Frodo (his line: “I would have gone with you to the end” is paraphrased from the text, in which Aragorn tells his companions: “I would have gone with him to the end”, and it works much better in the film). It was also a sound decision to forestall the reforging of Narsil till the final movie.
But the real MVP of the first film is Sean Bean as Boromir. I was reading the book for the first time both before and after seeing the film, and I recall being stunned at how much more three-dimensional and complex Boromir was on the screen. From his protectiveness towards Merry and Pippin, his open longing for Gondor, his gradual succumbing to the Ring’s power and moment of vicious weakness, and finally to his redemptive, poetically prolonged death, his one-movie arc plays out beautifully.
And then all the little details: the bugs that flee from the presence of the evil Ringwraiths as the hobbits conceal themselves, the way the words “they are coming...” trail off on the page of the book that Gandalf reads in Moria, the way Aragorn discreetly removes his hand from the hilt of his sword when Boromir takes a bit too long in returning the Ring to Frodo’s hand. The Ringwraiths are genuinely terrifying (more here than they are later, once they’ve upgraded from horses to CGI fell beasts) and Howard Shore’s score is a thing of perpetual and immortal beauty.
Some of the visual effects aren’t quite as seamless as they were back in 2001, and there’s the unfortunate shadow that The Hobbit trilogy casts over this trilogy’s greater continuity (much like the prequel and sequel trilogies do for Star Wars) but all things considered, this is about as close to being perfect, as itself and as an adaptation, that you could wish for.
Coming back to it after a long hiatus was like going home. Certain scenes and passages are filled with so much more meaning and weight for me as an adult than when I was a teenager, namely Gandalf’s: “so do all who see such [bad] times. But that it not for us to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” It’s one of those movies that you’re simply grateful exists.
Avatar (2009)
We were chatting about this movie (and its always-coming, never-here sequels) at work, and since this was sci-fi month, I had the perfect excuse to revisit it. The most oft-mentioned talking point of this film is obviously that up until very recently it was the highest grossing movie of all time, and yet made no lasting impact on pop-culture whatsoever. Would anyone know who you were talking about if you name-dropped Jake Sully? Or mentioned the Na’vi? It’s complete lack of a cultural footprint is astounding.
As it happens, I’ve seen this movie twice before: once at the movies with the 3-D glasses (that’s another thing – for a while after its release, everything was converted into 3-D, before people realized they just didn’t care) and then the extended version on DVD.
So watching it again all these years later, I came to the conclusion that... it’s pretty much exactly what I experienced over a decade ago. The visuals are stunning, the scope is epic, the depth and detail that went into creating Pandora impressive... and yet there are no surprises here – no character moment or plot development that really pops. As was said at the time, it’s essentially Fern Gully meets Dances with Wolves with aliens, and only a child would find any narrative beats of this wholly unpredictable.
I do find it strange though, that the characters are so flat and bland. James Cameron is usually much better at this: he gave us Jack and Rose, Sarah Connor and the Terminator, Lindsey Brigman and Ellen Ripley (okay, so you probably don’t know who Brigman is, and he didn’t technically invest Ripley, but you get my point).
But Jake Sully has got to be one of the most boring protagonists of a blockbuster movie ever, and the setup for his involvement in the plot is almost laughable. The kindest interpretation is that he had to be an Average Joe so that the other characters could explain crucial bits of exposition to him (and by proxy, to the audience as well) and yet you can’t help but feel his circumstances have been delicately calibrated in order to assure underachieving shlubs in the audience that they too are Actually Special.
You see, the main character was meant to be Jake’s twin brother (who doesn’t even get the dignity of a name), a linguist and scientist and all-around genius who ends up dead, thereby opening up a place for Jake on the mission to faraway Pandora. You remember how the story goes: in their occupation of Pandora, humans have created specially designed “avatars” that look and sound like the Na’vi population that can channel the consciousness of matching humans that are plugged into a control pod.
With the death of his brother, Jake is tapped on the shoulder to take his place, considering the creation of any avatar represents a considerable investment of time and money. Jake hasn’t done a damn thing to deserve this once-in-a-lifetime experience, but of course once he gets to Pandora there’s almost immediately a sign from the natural world to suggest he’s a Chosen One, leading him to an exclusive entry into the native culture, which culminates in him proving he’s just as good at mastering their ways as they are.
It’s a staggeringly straight example of a quintessential white saviour playing out the ultimate wish-fulfilment fantasy. He hooks up with the princess, he tames a massive flying-creature (only a handful of Na’vi throughout their history have been able to do this), his dying rival eventually gives his blessing for him to lead the people, and even the planet’s goddess answers his prayers for assistance (apparently she needed to hear it from an outsider, as opposed to her own people??)
It’s infuriating, and a shame that such glorious visuals are wasted on such a trite, tired story.
That said, the plot itself – no matter how pedestrian – unfolds with perfect elegance. Putting aside the fact that the MacGuffin is called “unobtainium” (which was surely a placeholder name that they forgot to replace with something more feasible, and whose uses never actually get explained) you can’t say that things don’t progress at exactly the right pace and with all the logical beats, from the massive tank rolling into the compound with Na’vi arrows in its tires, to Jake opening his eyes in his avatar body, having permanently left his human one behind.
And yet... there are no emotional stakes. Even Jake walking for the first time with his avatar legs or Neytiri seeing Jake in his human body don’t pack the punch you’d assume. Again, I’m struck by the paradox: that such an expensive and universally-watched film is just so... average.
It was an interesting rewatch, and I had forgotten a. how big the Na’vi are (I remembered them as being human sized, but they’re enormous) and b. that Neytiri is the one who eventually kills Quaritch, while Jake helplessly struggles for oxygen in his human form.
That said, I have trouble grasping what the Avatar sequels will be about. I know it’s been confirmed that Jake and Neytiri will have had children by this point, but... where can the story go from here? Either a new influx of humans bent on colonization will arrive, or they’ll have to create conflict between the different tribes of the Na’vi. And there are going to be five of these movies? Is James Cameron sure that there’s an audience for this?
Spectre (2015)
Daniel Craig’s Bond films seem doomed to alternation: a good one is followed by a mediocre one. As Casino Royale (great) was followed by Quantum of Solace (iffy), so too is Skyfall (compelling) followed by Spectre (emotionally empty).
I’ll admit at this point that I haven’t got the faintest idea what the relevance of either Spectre or the villainous Blofeld have in James Bond lore. I’m going to assume they’re the equivalent of Sherlock’s Moriarty in Ian Fleming’s original Bond novels – if I’m wrong feel free to correct me, but please understand that I don’t really care. From what I gather, they’re his long-time nemeses but their first appearances here were delayed due to some copyright issues.
Spectre is the film in which the long-term story plans for this particular iteration of Bond came into focus. In the direct aftermath of M’s death, funerals are held, MI6 reform and regroup under the leadership of Ralph Fiennes’s new M, and Bond takes on a final missive from his former boss via a posthumous message: to find and kill a man called Marco Sciarra.
After the fantastic opening sequence at the Day of the Dead carnival in Mexico City with an out-of-control helicopter, I decided that the tone of this film would be decided if Bond went back to have sex with the woman he ditched in order to focus on his mission. Yeah, they already made this point with Solange in Casino Royale, but I was pleased that said woman wasn’t seen again. (It would have been corny beyond all belief had he gone back for a shag after demolishing what felt like at least three buildings).
That said, this is probably the most James Bond-y of all the Daniel Craig offerings, with the plot more-or-less following the franchise’s formula: a huge action set piece to kick things off, a reprimand in M’s office after he’s deemed to have gone too far this time, a meeting with Q in which he retrieves that movie’s gadgets, some mild flirting with Moneypenny, a meaningless tryst with the first Bond girl, and then a more developed relationship with the second one, who inevitably becomes a distressed damsel at some point.
Whereas prior films have mercilessly deconstructed, this one is content with subverting. Bond is shown an Aston Martin in Q’s workshop, but is told it’s not for him. He requests his trademark martini at a bar, only to be told they don’t serve alcohol. Monica Bellucci is the franchise’s oldest Bond Girl at fifty-one and doesn’t end up dead, while Moneypenny has her own boyfriend and clearly a life outside the requests Bond makes of her.
Where the film falls flat is in its utter failure to produce a decent villain or a compelling love interest, especially in the wake of the franchise’s best offerings on both fronts: Raoul Silva and Vesper Lynd.
The opening credits feature images of the past, including all the prior villains, Judi Dench’s M, and Vesper’s death by drowning. This choice is deliberate, as Spectre purports to be the film that draws all the prior Craig films into an interconnected story – TV Tropes calls it Arc Welding. As such, we learn that the secret society of Quantum of Solace was actually an offshoot to the even secreter society of Spectre, and that mastermind Blofeld was pulling the strings of all the villains targeting Bond up till that point (including Silva, which seems questionable).
Mr White is back, and Bond must form an uneasy understanding with him in order to complete his mission, which turns out to involve White’s daughter Doctor Madeline Swann, who has lived in the shadow of her father’s criminal activities her whole life. Along the way, the trajectory of Bond’s arc starts to move towards something that resembles a redemptive light: this film would have us believe that if Vesper’s betrayal turned him into a blunt instrument of death, then his relationship with Madeline will return his soul to him.
Unfortunately, it’s not remotely convincing. Hindsight is twenty/twenty, but the character would have packed more of a punch had she been the first woman Bond has shown romantic/sexual interest in since Vesper (was sleeping with Strawberry, Severine or Lucia really that necessary?) Not helping is that the two have virtually no chemistry, and that the film asks us to expect either one is in love with the other by the final credits is just absurd.
She just doesn’t make enough of an impact to be the next big love in Bond’s life, and that she’s a psychologist is perhaps a bit too on the nose. Is the joke that she can supply Bond with free therapy? After an obligatory declaration that she’s not going to sleep with him, she ends up doing it anyway, and though I’d like to appreciate the fact she’s intrinsic in helping Bond escape the big climax, the moment itself is so absurd (the bad guys forget to take off Bond’s watch, and then let Madeline get close enough to him that he can advise her on how to use its smoke-bomb capacities) that it renders the whole thing moot.
I did at least appreciate that Bond consistently referred to her as Doctor Swann.
The whole thing is matched in bathos by its villain, the shadowy Blofeld, who shares a history with Bond that means absolutely nothing. After the death of his parents, James apparently went to live with Blofeld’s family, and his “brother” resented him forever afterwards, referring to him as the cuckoo. Since this is the first we’ve heard of any of this, and there aren’t any flashbacks that could perhaps ground the reality of this backstory, it doesn’t work as a dramatic reveal.
Even their attempts to place Blofeld as the puppet master that’s been pulling the strings of absolutely everything to happen in these movies thus far falls flat (I can understand why critics and audiences – and possibly even Daniel Craig himself – were fed up with the idea that absolutely everything in movie blockbusters not only needed to be connected, but part of a greater whole).
Why do we believe Bond loved Vesper while Madeline is an impossible sell? What made Silva so terrifying and effective while Blofeld is a non-starter? There was some alchemy at work in those prior films that can’t be pinpointed, and certainly aren’t replicated here.
Botticelli, Florence and the Medici (2020)
I grabbed this from the library on a total whim, having watched the three seasons of Medici earlier in the year and being unable to resist a brand-new DVD (the covers are so glossy and smooth!) Despite the title, it’s not hugely informative when it comes to the subjects of Florence and the Medici, pretty much establishing the importance of the city as a centre of the arts and Lorenzo Medici as Botticelli’s greatest patron, and then moving on. (The Pazzi Conspiracy barely warrants half-a-minute of discussion).
If there’s a central theme, it’s the way in which Botticelli harnessed “soft power” in his artwork. The various interviewees converse at length at the way the wealthy upper-class would commission artists to paint themselves into various works, thereby impressing their importance and power onto rivals and plebs alike. It led to some fairly staggering visual contradictions, such as the Adoration of the Magi being depicted in a lowly, dilapidated stable to convey the humble roots of Christianity, while at the same time filling the crowd with the likenesses of Cosimo, Piero, Giovanni, Giuliano and Lorenzo di Medici, with the express purpose of exalting their power and wealth.
They also make some amusing comparisons with modern-day concepts, such as Botticelli’s repetitive use of the Medici insignia on the dress of Pallas in Pallas and the Centaur compared to old-timey branding. As we move through Botticelli’s lifetime, from Lorenzo’s patronage to Savonarola’s puritanical campaign, we see the ways in which he adapted his style in order to keep working (not that it did him much good in the end – he died poor and anonymous).
There’s some interesting stuff here, particularly insight into the paintings themselves, but it’s definitely a primer on the material rather than a deep dive.
No Time To Die (2021)
So we come to it, the final Daniel-Craig-as-Bond film, though certainly not the final Bond film ever. Or at least I suppose – there hasn’t been any news about what’s planned next for the franchise, and the conclusion of this one certainly throws up a lot of questions.
SPOILERS
As we saw with Spectre, this is very much a film that ties itself in with its predecessors: Madeline Swann returns along with Spectre, to the extent that the entire opening sequence dramatizes the death of her mother at the hands of a Spectre agent (Safin, played by Rami Malek) when she was just a child. As a character, she’s much more interesting than she was in Spectre, from her interest in helping James get closure on Vesper, to her relationship with both Safin and her daughter Matilde.
Storywise, it’s all a bit of a mess, though there are some fascinating ideas strewn throughout, from a biological weapon that targets specific people, to James believing that his history with Vesper is repeating itself with Madeline, to M being implicated in the bad guy’s evil plan, to James learning that he has a daughter.
There’s a lot going on, and though none of it is actively bad, it’s just a heck of a lot to get through: Felix returns (and quickly dies), the entirety of Spectre is wiped out, James goes to meet Blofeld in prison, a throwaway comment establishes Q as gay, and there are two whole other undercooked Bond Girls running around, not to mention Safin’s ultimate plan and the eventual death of James Bond himself.
Yeah, Bond dies. For real. That’s certainly one way to end Craig’s run, and I’m not entirely sure if it landed for me. First of all, they had already set up the idea that Safin’s biological weapon would effectively prevent Bond from ever physically interacting with his own child, which would have required him to nobly separate himself from his family: a fittingly tragic outcome for a man right on the verge of recapturing his humanity. Second of all, what difference does it make if he dies in the final minutes of the actor’s last movie? It can’t affect the plot in any meaningful way, since the story is over and there’s nowhere they can go with it. When we see Bond again, he’ll be played by a completely different actor that will obviously have to exist in an entirely different continuity.
(Yes, the continuity between Bond films has always been tenuous thanks to their standalone quality, but Judi Dench made the leap from Pierce Brosnan’s tenure to Craig’s – will the same happen with Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw? It doesn’t seem likely, as they’ll be playing against a miraculously resurrected Bond).
Ultimately it feels like they killed him off just because they could. But to try and pass it off as a power move, the one thing that nobody has ever done before, doesn’t work because it will all be undone by the next Bond film (unless they never make another one, which is doubtful). A part of me wishes they had done the other thing no Bond film has ever done, and let him go be a father.
Aside from Léa Seydoux’s Madeline (who is a much better character here, even as she’s technically given less to do) the film also features Ana de Armas’s Paloma (delightful, but essentially only in one scene) and Lashana Lynch’s Nomi, who I desperately wanted to like more than I did. As with Madeline, she really isn’t given much to do, and she keeps needling James about her status as the new 007 even though he clearly doesn’t give a shit. It’s weird.
Still, all four women make it alive to the end credits, and Bond only sleeps with one of them. That’s definitely a new record.
It’s a satisfying enough send-off for this particular portion of the long-running franchise, and it’s hilarious to look back and remember there was a full-blown #BondNotBlonde internet campaign in protest to Daniel Craig’s casting back when it was announced. Truly, his “I don’t give a fuck” attitude across the various press junkets has been an inspiration.
***
So that was all five of the most recent James Bond films, which certainly did their best to create a sustained storyline (for good or ill) that stretched across the last fifteen years. I feel there were some obvious missed choices, such as an entire film about Bond tracking down Vesper’s boyfriend and discovering the truth behind her betrayal, or a suspenseful but low-stakes story in which he has to save one of the agents compromised by Silva’s theft of MI6’s hard drive.
It’s been fun spotting all the familiar faces throughout the films, a couple of whom were on the brink of stardom themselves at the time of their appearance: Christine Cole, Oona Chaplin, Tobias Mendes, Rory Kinnear, Albert Finney, Helen McCrory, Andrew Scott, Dave Baustista... you know how much I love this game.
If anything, the underlining theme of Craig’s duration as Bond was deconstruction. This was inevitable (perhaps even accidental) when it came to its goals of establishing a more serious tone, removing some of the goofier elements from the franchise (lest we forget, the Bond film directly prior to Casino Royale involved an invisible car) and writing Bond as an actual character instead of a ludicrous self-insert fantasy for a male audience.
Craig’s Bond isn’t a man you would want to fantasize about being. He’s psychologically damaged, brutally cold-blooded and (at times) emotionally disengaged to a horrific degree, to the point where you wonder if he’s suffering from disassociation. He’s also a Bond who is stripped naked and tortured, who doesn’t make a fuss when his life is saved by various Bond Girls, one that seems surprisingly chill with a male villain coming onto him, and a man that eventually cries and begs for the life of his child. Can you imagine any other iteration of the character doing anything like this?
But as ever, my real interest lay in the portrayal of the Bond Girls, especially post-#TimesUp. The very concept is iconic, and yet so many of them are little more than attractive playthings; impermanent objects for Bond to conquer before the end credits, to be forgotten again by the time the next film rolled around. Craig’s tenure gave us women who didn’t sleep with him, women that he genuinely fell in love with, women that he respected as platonic colleagues, women who were over the age of fifty, women that had goals and missions of their own. It wasn’t perfect (light a candle for Strawberry and Severine) but it was a stark reminder that things have changed, and will continue to do so.
On that note, in years to come, I’d like to see more Bond Girls with no romantic or sexual interest in Bond, more that are older than forty, more that contribute to the plot in unique and interesting ways. I’d love a gay Bond Girl (at least, one that Bond doesn’t “fix”) or two that pass the Bechdel Test (I’m not sure if this simple metric has ever been passed). I’d love a Bond Girl who simply isn’t attractive – given the franchise’s terrible track record with villains who have disfiguring facial injuries, wouldn’t it be fascinating to have a Bond Girl (renowned for their beauty) who has burn scars or some other mutilation?
A Bond Girl who is a mentor, or a protégé, or a sister. Villainous Bond Girls have been done before, but are always a lot of fun. Or heck, let’s get really crazy and give a Bond Girl her own movie. The possibilities are endless.
Dune (2021)
I have an odd relationship with Dune. I’ve read Frank Herbert’s novel twice, and both times was half-intrigued, half put-off by the prose, which is immediate and non-descriptive and makes you feel as if you’re reading a massive epic through the limits of a tiny keyhole. The text doesn’t slow down to explain any of the various concepts, which has the advantage of making you feel you’ve been flung into a totally alien world, and the drawback of leaving you frequently not knowing what the hell is going on.
There have been plenty of attempts to translate the book to the big screen, from Alejandro Jodorowsky’s never-made project in the 1970s, to David Lynch’s bizarre 1984 adaptation (cut to shreds by executive meddling in the editing room) to SyFy’s 2000 miniseries, which was undoubtedly the most successful of the three, though hobbled by a low budget, insanely stupid costumes, and actors who couldn’t get a handle on the tone.
Expectations were high for Denis Villeneuve’s take on the material, and most agree that splitting the story into two parts was a good idea (notwithstanding the nervous post-release wait to find out if there even would be a part two). But to move it away from its own legacy and examine it through the wider lens of the genre it’s a part of, this happens to be the third blockbuster sci-fi film I watched this month that deals with a universe-saving Chosen One who just happens to be a white guy (okay, I know Keanu Reeves is technically mixed race, but you get my drift).
It is perhaps speculative fiction’s favourite trope, and no doubt the reason why a. it’s largely considered a male-dominated genre, and b. certain fans of it lose their shit whenever a character that doesn’t resemble them and only them isn’t the protagonist.
But whereas Neo and Jake Sully (and Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter) are straight examples of a white dude Chosen One, Paul Atreides is a deconstruction – or at least he becomes one in later books, of which there are many of varying quality. Chosen Ones are usually called upon to save the world and defeat the villain, but in Paul’s case it’s more of a no-win scenario in which he must sacrifice his humanity, start a holy war, walk a preordained destiny and change the course of history (not necessarily for the better) whether he wants to or not.
But that’s in later books. Here it’s easy to miss some of the narrative seeds that Frank Herbert is sowing, in a story that involves centuries-long breeding programmes, fabricated prophecies, religious doctrine, warring households, political intrigue and messianic figureheads.
In light of this, Villeneuve’s most impressive achievement is the smooth integration of so much exposition into the run-time. Though it’s easy to miss some of it the first time around, everything we need to know is mentioned at some point, whether through conversation, recordings, ritual, or the film’s visual language (thankfully, no clumsy voiceovers like in Lynch’s version, save for Zendaya’s internal monologue to kick things off).
There’s been a lot of on-line discussion recently about the benefits of watching films in a theatre as opposed to your living room, and many in favour of the former have cited the spectacle as a good enough reason to risk Covid-19 (and irritating audience members, including those that can’t turn off their phones or stop talking for a couple of hours). Dune was surely designed to be shown on a large screen in surround sound, but I can’t say I felt too deprived just watching it at my friend’s house, as its aesthetic didn’t really appeal to me. The palette is grim, the Brutalist style is unpleasant, and even the desert vistas aren’t particularly awe-inspiring.
It’s impressive in scale, but there’s no colour or beauty anywhere, something that reflects the underlying problem with the film: no emotional centre. Despite the loyalty between Paul and the likes of Gurney and Duncan, and the added scenes of familial support between the trio of Atreides family members, there’s no real connection between viewer and characters, nothing to really root for. The film is almost entirely humourless, and each scene that passes feels like a (well-acted and well-staged) re-enactment of the book as opposed to something that’s organically unfolding as its own story.
As such, the watershed moment of the film (and the segment of the book that leads into its second half) involving the betrayal and overthrow of the Atreides household, left me completely nonchalant. I wanted to be in a cold sweat as the family’s retainers are picked off one by one, to be on the edge of my seat as Jessica and Paul make their escape, to feel the weight of grief when Leto meets his end – but there’s nothing. We just don’t know enough about any of these characters to feel their loss, and Yueh’s betrayal is such an afterthought that it’s impossible to care.
Honestly, my favourite moment was just after Paul and Jessica have overpowered their kidnappers with the Voice, and the latter snaps: “your pitch was too forced!” It was a great mum moment – that even in the heat of mortal danger she still finds room to criticize, and was one of the few times a character felt like a real person.
Speaking of the women, Zendaya as Chani barely clocks in five minutes of screentime (understandable, as much of her material is in the second half of the book, and Villeneuve is on-record as saying he wants to expand her character further) and Sharon Duncan-Brewster’s gender-flipped Liet-Kynes works much better than I expected. It’s still not a huge role, but she makes it count.
Most of my excitement was geared towards seeing Rebecca Ferguson as Jessica, which was pitch-perfect casting in my opinion. Unfortunately, everyone seems to have missed the point of this character. Not only do they leave out some of her most important scenes (exercising soft power when she orders that water will be distributed from the palace for free in a bid to win hearts and minds) but Ferguson plays her as openly twitchy and distressed, completely at odds with her supposed background and training.
Like I said, my favourite moment was when she chides Paul on his use of the Voice in the middle of a life-or-death scenario – it’s only here that she really channels the ice-cold Jessica of the book, though in this context you could read it as her trying to hide the fact she’s terrified by focusing on petty details. I hope they get a better handle on her for part two.
My fairly blasé response to the project might well change when we get the second part and are able to watch the entirety of the story as a singular whole. Heck, it might get even better if Villeneuve is allowed to continue with Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, just to delve into the nitty-gritty deconstruction of the White Saviour trope the initial book is built on.
Till then, it’s interesting to note the similarities to other fantasy/sci-fic juggernauts, who have clearly been deeply inspired by Frank Herbert’s repertoire. Game of Thrones has noble feudal-based households, including one whose patriarch is offered a job he doesn’t really want which leads to his death and the separation of his family in a foreign hornet’s nest, while the borrowings by Star Wars are countless: a desert-wide planet, a corrupt galactic empire, a brother/sisterhood of mystics that can control the will of others, a substance called “spice” that has obvious drug analogies... the list goes on.
Regardless of how I feel about the book itself, it’s a testament to the imaginative force of Frank Herbert’s vision that we see so much of Dune in other stories, and it makes me all the more curious for part two.
Encanto (2021)
Disney’s latest offering is good – great even. It’s beautiful, heartfelt, imaginative, and provides a portrait of Columbia that’s not about drug cartels or civil war. But perhaps because it’s so different from other Disney films that I’m still trying to parse through it.
In trying to escape from violence, and losing their young family patriarch in the process, the Madrigal family are gifted with a miracle: a candle that forever burns, a valley that shields them from the outside world, and a sentient house that gifts all its inhabitants with preternatural abilities such as shapeshifting, controlling the weather, making flowers, super-strength, healing power and so on. That is, it gifts almost all its inhabitants with a gift – on the day Mirabel was meant to receive her special abilities and a specially-designed room of her own, she was left empty-handed.
The resemblances to prior Disney films are superficial (beautiful animation, a winsome heroine, big musical numbers) as Encanto’s differences run much deeper than the absence of the usual fairy tale format you’d expect from Disney’s output. For starters, there isn’t any battle between the forces of good and evil: this is first and foremost a story of self-discovery and family ties. There is no villain to speak of, which might well be a Disney first.
More pertinently, there is no quest narrative – almost everything happens in the same location, which amounts to a single, albeit magical, household.
Journeys make for easy metaphors, that’s why they’re in so many Disney films: they represent the main character’s growth from immature child to self-realized adult. This is a problem in Encanto, as despite her desolation at not fitting in with her family, Mirabel has far more emotional maturity than the rest of them put together (the worst she can be accused of is thinly-concealed resentment toward her older sister, the Golden Child).
For the most part, it’s them that have to learn to see and value Mirabel (and black sheep Uncle Bruno) while she grapples with her staggering levels of inadequacy, concealed behind a cheery outer disposition.
So what does Mirabel get instead of a physical journey to track her passage into adulthood? A mystery to solve – namely, why the magic that sustains the Madrigal family, that which granted her mother, aunt and cousins their abilities, is suddenly on the wane. The candle is shrinking, and cracks are appearing in the walls. Soon after, things like Luisa’s strength and Camilo’s shapeshifting begin to malfunction.
But... why exactly? We never really find out. Heck, why was Mirabel denied a gift in the first place? How exactly does this “miracle” work? Does the house decide who gets what? If so, why doesn’t Mirabel (who often communicates directly with the casita) try to ask it for a solution to the problem? The flashback to her as a child being denied a door is heart-breaking and cruel, and it’s strange that we don’t fully get to understand why it happened.
Because we’re given no understanding as to how any of this world-building works, the story feels oddly piecemeal, and because there’s no clear central metaphor, it’s difficult to know what the film is trying to say. Monsters have their purpose; they’re usually a stand-in for something else, but since this story has no villain, no answers can be gleaned there either.
In the end, Mirabel learns that her family’s gifts are perhaps more trouble than they’re worth – though to be more specific, the real problem is people are just putting too much pressure on themselves... or at least Luisa and Isabela are. The likes of Camilo and Antonio clearly love their abilities, there’s no obvious downside to Julieta’s healing abilities, and even though Dolores’s enhanced hearing must have had some drawbacks, nothing is ever said on the matter.
Toward the end of their story the entire family has lost their abilities, and Mirabel tells them (in song): “it’s time you learned/you’re more than just your gifts.” But after the casita is rebuilt, the house promptly returns their powers to them. Which is a total case of wanting to have your cake and eat it too. I can credit the story with knowing that giving Mirabel a gift would be a cop-out and detrimental to her story (*side-eyes The Lego Movie and Emmet becoming a master-builder*) but everyone else being permanently brought down to normal would have been a good development too, with Mirabel’s big heart being the thing that can heal them all. (Or else, she could have had a gift all along, one that was too subtle to be noticed – her compassion, her desire to help people, etc).
Basically, all that would have solved this problem was an honest conversation, which doesn’t exactly make for a cathartic, climactic finale.
(A video essay by Lindsay Ellis made an interesting point: that the most recent Disney villains are less effective because of the shift away from good-versus-evil narratives and into stories that favour character development and achieving healthy mindsets/relationships/identities – basically moving stories from external to internal conflict. Encanto takes the final step and has no villain whatsoever, and is therefore all about gaining understanding of oneself).
If I sound overly critical, that’s a shame, because I genuinely enjoyed this story (more than Raya and the Last Dragon, for example). Technically stuff like Zootopia and Wreck-It Ralph had much tighter scripts, and yet neither of them drew me to tears. Encanto is buoyed totally by its emotional resonance, of which it has galleons.
The opening few scenes capture Mirabel’s agony to perfection, and I was totally sold on her rapport with youngest cousin Antonio, who is nervous about getting his gift that night. It’s a beautiful scene, for as obvious as it is that he loves his cousin, it’s just as clear that his nerves are born from Mirabel’s past failure. It’s not spoken out loud, but he knows it, she knows it, the family knows it, and there’s a ripple of apprehension when he wants her to walk beside him in the ceremony, just in case she inadvertently sabotages the proceedings again. Seriously, my heart was breaking, and her subsequent I Want Song is perhaps the most raw and powerful since Belle clasped her hands to her chest and belted out: “I want adventure in the great wide somewheeeeeere!”
In fact, all of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s songs are total bangers, some of the lyrics cut straight to the soul (Lusia sings: “I’m pretty sure I’m worthless/If I can’t be of service”...oof) and the flexibility of animation means that the visuals and actors can keep up with every song’s frenetic energy. Speaking of, the animation is stunning, from the vivid colours to the micro-expressions on everyone’s faces to the strands of curly hair and embroidery – it’s a true feast for the eyes.
In short, I definitely recommend. I can deeply appreciate something that tries to be different and doesn’t quite get there than just another re-tread of the formula. Encanto is a tapestry of beautiful threads that doesn’t quite come together in a coherent pattern, but manages to be something special anyway.
John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together (1979)
I’ll admit, I had no idea who John Denver was when I watched this. I still don’t. Why did he get to spend Christmas with the Muppets that year and not, say, Elton John or David Bowie? A Wikipedia search didn’t yield any answers, though I did learn that it was the soundtrack to this special, as opposed to the special itself, that was the real point of its existence.
I wanted to throw a Muppet Christmas special into this year’s holiday viewing because it vibed with the “folksy Christmas” atmosphere I was going for, and what’s more folksy and homey than the Muppets? Unlike other Christmas specials there’s no semblance of a story here; it’s just a variety of songs and skits with a holiday theme: the Muppets sing the Twelve Days of Christmas, Miss Piggy tries to seduce John Denver (yes, really) in order to secure a bigger part, a group of life-sized tin soldiers do some synchronized marching, and there’s a retelling of the Nativity with puppets towards the end (strangely life-like puppets as opposed to the more cartoonish Muppets).
It’s all... fine. I wasn’t sure how secular it was going to be (especially when the lyrics to Joy to the World drop “the lord is come” line) though the concluding Nativity scene brought an end to that question – I actually wish it had gone on for longer, as the puppets they used were interesting, and unlike anything that’s been seen in a Muppet show before.
Unfortunately, it means we also get some condescending nonsense, such as a monologue that involves the lines: “some folks [...] had never heard the story of the Son of God. Did that mean they’d never know of peace on Earth or the brotherhood of man; know how to love, know how to give?” (Um, I think plenty of non-Christians are well aware of how to do those things, John).
I can imagine kids getting a bit bored with the talky stuff – heck, the ending song pans out to show a studio audience of children, who do indeed look bored to tears. Wherever they are, they’re all grown up now!
John Denver seemed like a nice enough guy, and is clearly having some fun with the material (awkwardness is kept to a relative minimum, even if it’s not entirely absent), though it’s telling that the whole thing is presented as a John Denver special that the Muppets are guest-starring on, as opposed to John Denver guest-starring on the Muppets.
Either way, they don’t really make variety shows like this anymore. It reminded me a little of the telethons that New Zealanders were obsessed with back when I was a kid.
The Snowman (1982)
My Christmas present to my best friend was to take her three (out of four) kids off her for the day, and they had a fun time just pottering around my place, playing with my old Lego sets and Sylvanian families. But they also watched a bit of television: Shrek the Halls, some Shaun the Sheep shorts, the Toy Story specials... then I took my chance and played The Snowman.
My sister and I had this on VCR when we were kids, and it was a Christmas staple at our house (though we had the one with the David Bowie introduction, which is missing from my current download). I was interested in seeing how a new generation of children would respond to it and though they weren’t in rapturous awe or anything like that, they still seemed pretty captivated.
For a completely dialogue-free short with animation meant to resemble Raymond Brigg’s distinctive coloured-pencil illustrations, The Snowman packs a punch. A little boy awakens on Christmas Eve to find that snow has fallen in the night. He builds a snowman and immediately becomes obsessed with it in that hyper-fixated way that kids have. Getting up in the middle of the night just so he can look at it, he discovers to his astonishment that the snowman has come to life.
The boy shows his new friend around the house, and amusement is wrought from the snowman’s curiosity about normal, everyday objects. Then he repays the favour, by grasping the boy’s hand and taking to the air – turns out that magical snowmen can fly, and the two of them float through the wintry night to the haunting strains of Walking in the Air until they reach the main event of any Christmas special: Santa Claus himself.
What exactly is the power of this twenty-minute short? Because it’s safe to say that it’s a beloved classic at this stage, watched by millions of children over the years, even though there’s an inherent strangeness to it that defies description. I think its success lies in capturing a dreamlike quality that imprints itself on one’s brain. From the normal-but-special act of making a snowman (every kid has done this, but we only get to do it once a year), to giving a living snowman a tour through your house, to the more overtly magical elements: the flying, the dancing snowmen, the visitation from Father Christmas, it follows a natural progression of escalation in how wonderful it gets.
And then of course, that unforgettable ending. The boy gets up the following day, races downstairs and outside... only to discover that the snowman has melted and is no more. It’s almost unthinkable that a children’s Christmas story could end on such a sombre note, but would it have been as memorable without it? For many children, this was our first fictional experience not of tragedy, but of bittersweetness: that some things are not only impermanent but fleeting, and that all you have afterwards is the memories. The price of such a magical, wonderful experience is that it’s over so quickly.
So what did my friend’s kids think of it? Remarks included: “it looks a bit old” and “I suppose not all stories have a happy ending,” but it held their attention and I like to think it percolated in their brains for... maybe a couple of hours afterwards.
The Angel and the Soldier Boy (1989)
Another classic from my childhood, one that’s indelibly linked to The Snowman in my memories. Like its predecessor, it’s an incredibly simple animated story with not a word of dialogue, in which inanimate objects come to life for a night of adventure.
That said, there are some key differences: the child character isn’t involved (in fact, she sleeps throughout most of the story), there’s a definite villain (or two) at work, and it ends on a much more upbeat note.
I had totally misremembered it as being a Christmas story, though in fact it’s the little girl’s birthday that provides the setting for the story. Along with a book on pirates and a piggy bank, the unnamed child also receives two small dolls: an angel and a soldier boy. She goes to sleep with them on her pillow, and the latter comes to life when he realizes that pirates have stepped from the pages of her book and stolen the silver coin from the girl’s piggy bank.
Unfortunately, he’s quickly captured by the armed pirates, leaving it up to the angel girl to track him down and rescue him.
It captures that feeling you had as a child, in which the boundaries of what could and couldn’t happen were entirely mutable. The toys and illustrations not only come to life and traverse the seemingly-massive world of an ordinary household (in which they’re menaced by cats and get onboard a mantlepiece ship) but can step through paintings and into other dimensions much like the Pevensies in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
As with The Snowman, the story provides no justification for anything that happens; this is just the magic hour in which strange and wonderful things occur. It’s refreshing actually, and like I said, taps into that specific realm of childhood imagination in which anything is possible, for no reason whatsoever. Two soft toys come to life and rescue a soldier doll from picture-book pirates with a wind-up helicopter at the bottom of a stairwell? Damn, I love that.
Supergirl: Season 5 (2019 – 2020)
Going into season five, the writers had two large millstones around their necks: firstly the pandemic, which brought a halt to production, and then Melissa Benoist’s pregnancy, which limits her screentime in the second half of the season.
Watching through the entire thing, it’s obvious that there were some hiccups along the way, with several underdeveloped storylines and a slew of new villains that aren’t even remotely interesting, but it all manages to hang together surprisingly well given the circumstances (even if it inevitably feels truncated).
The underlying villain of season five is Leviathan, an organization teased at the end of season four, which is run by seemingly-immortal beings that do what all secret underground conspiracies do: control the history of mankind by sporadically causing natural disasters. Also in the mix is Lex Luthor (fresh off the events of the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover) who has naturally risen straight to the top in the alternate dimension that emerged in the wake of Oliver Queen’s sacrifice, and eager to exploit Leviathan’s goals for his own ends.
Honestly, the creative decision to combine the entirety of the multiverse into one singular timeline is a concept so confusing to me in its implications and consequences that I can’t bring myself to think about it too much. It happened, it changed fundamental aspects of this particular continuity (for example, Lillian Luthor is back without much explanation), and now everyone is carrying on with their lives. Just go with it.
The key tension of the season lies between Kara and Lena Luthor – unbeknownst to Kara, Lena is now aware of her secret identity as Supergirl and is completely furious about it. This is somewhat understandable: honesty and trust are things that Lena holds as sacrosanct, having enjoyed neither of them in her upbringing or relationships with her adopted family. That she feels horrifically betrayed is natural, that she would embrace her Luthor side as something of a Then Let Me Be Evil surrender was something fans had foreseen right from her introductory scene.
Bu that she decides to work with Lex and plot revenge against Kara is somewhat less forgivable. The former is a stupid idea, and the latter is clearly outside the perimeters of decent behaviour, especially when Kara is finally given a chance to stand up for herself, defend her decision, and point out that the reason for her reticence was to try and keep Lena safe. (And also, generally speaking, people are under no obligation to share personal secrets that they’re not comfortable divulging).
Still, I can respect that the writers committed to the schism between these two characters, especially since it’s been a bomb waiting to go off for the last three seasons.
Other subplots and characters are woven in and out of this central conflict, to various levels of success. An old school chum of Lena, Andrea Rojas, steps in as the new CEO of Catco, just as Lex takes over the DEO, essentially becoming Alex’s boss, with each new appointment causing ripples among the existing cast. J’onn discovers that his memories have been altered and he’s actually had a younger brother called Malefic this whole time, who is back to cause trouble (call a kid Malefic, and what do you expect?)
Finally sick of being underused, Mehcad Brooks bows out as James Olsen, and is more-or-less replaced by his sister Kelly, Alex’s new girlfriend, who is also given a significant role in the storyline involving Leviathan attempting world domination through the use of virtual reality contacts.
Nia Nal is sadly all but ignored, save for a Very Special Episode about trans-rights (it’s well-meaning, but like most episodes of this nature, extremely Anvilicious) while Brainy finds himself roped against his will into Lex’s machinations, destroying his relationship with Nia in the process. Mxyzptlk (now played by a different actor, who better captures this character’s fey qualities) guest-stars for the one hundredth episode, which also sees cameo appearances from previous cast members: Chris Wood, Odette Annable, and Sam Witwer (Mon-El, Samantha Arias and Ben Lockwood respectively).
Another episode also sees Anjali Jay return in a brief capacity (I squealed when I saw her name in the opening credits) and Sean Austin features as well, appearing in a small but fairly pivotal role. Always nice to see him. More significantly, Jeremy Jordan as Winn comes back from the future for a three-part arc, as does Sharon Leal as M’gann and Helen Slater as Eliza Danvers (haven’t seen them in a while!)
Speaking of Eliza Danvers, the show finally addresses the long-dormant storyline involving her husband (and Alex’s father) Jeremiah, who went missing back in season two and was barely spoken of again, largely due to Dean Cain’s odiousness as a far-right Trump supporter (sigh, I had such a crush on his Clark Kent when I was a kid).
A part of me wishes they had just held their noses and brought him back to achieve a degree of satisfying closure, though in hindsight, what they end up doing is fairly interesting. At first it seems that he unceremoniously died of heart failure in Peru, which seemed a bizarre way of finally writing him out, though the following Alex-centric episode does a good job of exploring the fact that sometimes you don’t get to have meaningful closure with a loved one that disappointed you. Sometimes things just end.
Later though, it turns out that his death was all part of a much greater scheme concocted by Lex, which throws his ending into a much more significant light. For what it’s worth, I think Jon Cryer once again steals the show as Lex Luthor, and he remains my favourite iteration of that character. Yes, there were some complaints that he dominated the season, and I can understand that a little goes a long way with him. But he plays with such panache, with such brutality and pragmaticism, with a cockroach’s instincts for survival and an underlying bitterness at his own self-aware inability to be satisfied, that you can’t help but want to see what he does next (plus he’s not handsome enough to inspire the usual woobification that you usually get with powerful white male characters – no offense Jon!)
Like I said, the plot more-or-less hangs together surprisingly well given the production’s unforeseen circumstances, buoyed by the return appearances of a plethora of previous characters and some neat ideas (the use of virtual reality was a lot of fun and provided some cool visuals).
Kara even gets a new love interest called William, who fandom predictably hated (my contrarian nature kicked in at this point, and I ended up rooting for them. For better or worse, the writers have been consistent on the subject of Kara/Lena not happening, so why shouldn’t she have a bland-but-cute squeeze on the side?) In all, you get the sense that they’re putting things in place for the show’s last hurrah: the sixth and final season. It already came to an end earlier this year, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to catch up in the near future.
Masters of the Universe: Revelation (2021)
Hoo boy. The fandom drama behind this one threatens to rival the events of the show itself.
When this project was first announced with Kevin Smith at the helm, it was inevitably compared to Noelle Stevenson’s reboot of She-Ra (which as I’m sure you know, was originally a spin-off of the original He-Man cartoon, deliberately aimed at a young female demographic).
Quickly establishing that the two would have nothing to do with each other, but that his project would instead be a direct continuation of the 1980s cartoon, Smith issued the usual stock phrases that are always utilized with these sorts of projects: that it was for the fans, that it would be loyal to the source material, that it was a throwback to the eighties, and so on.
I can easily imagine Smith doing this promotion in complete good faith, indulging in some light-hearted trolling in order to get the attention of fans and conceal some of the plot developments that he had in store.
Unfortunately, he failed to take into account the sheer toxicity of modern-day fandom. As it turned out, Masters of the Universe was built on an immediate subversion of expectations: the titular He-Man is almost instantly killed off, and the role of protagonist shifts to Teela, grappling with the simultaneous truth and loss of her best friend, the upending of her world as she knows it, and the looming threat of various dark forces in a kingdom that no longer has a protector. It was a perfectly viable creative decision, especially given the static status-quo formula of the original cartoon, written with what is obviously careful consideration and an eye on the larger scope of an unfolding story.
Cue the meltdown.
Putting aside the sheer hilarity of forty-year-old men insisting they’d been “betrayed” over a children’s cartoon from the eighties whose sole purpose was to sell action-figures, this somehow topped the similar furores over Star Wars and Ghostbusters and Mad Max: Fury Road, because... well, it’s He-Man for God’s sake. THIS He-Man:
A part of me feels like Kevin Smith should have just kept mum and let the story speak for itself. Another part feels annoyed on his behalf that some light-hearted fun over the promotion of what was (by all accounts) his passion project resulted in such idiotic backlash. According to the fanboys, Teela was a bitch (she wasn’t), Adam was a wuss (wrong again) and they had all been the victims of false advertising (truly the worst fate that can befall a person in these troubled times).
But what of the show itself? It’s pretty good for my money. Admittedly, I have extremely vague memories of watching the cartoon as a child: I wasn’t born when it first aired, and so was only able to sporadically catch re-runs. I do however recall being slightly annoyed at the perpetual stringing-out of Teela’s characterization – not only was she never allowed to discover that Adam and He-Man were one and the same, but (more importantly) she was kept in the dark concerning the fact she was the biological daughter of the Sorceress of Grey Skull.
It’s easy to see why dealing with these revelations (hey, that’s the name of the show!) became the emotional entry-point to this sequel series. On learning that her friend was keeping a secret from her, and then losing him to death in quick succession, Teela leaves her home and remaining family and strikes out on her own. Teaming up with a young warrior called Andra, she makes a living doing what she can for the people of Eternia, and trying not to look too closely at the fact she’s given up all hope.
But gradually her former allies return to her, and a path opens up that she must trod. Prince Adam (and He-Man) might not be totally lost to either her or Eternia, and as the ten-episode season unfolds, plenty of interesting ideas and concepts are explored, from the ramifications of keeping secrets, to the indifferent nature of the universe, to the true purpose of a hero. On that note, my favourite moment would have to be He-Man once again facing off against Skeletor, who rapturously starts declaiming about the unending cycle of their eternal conflict, and being told (with an emphasizing punch): “it’s not about us!”
I had some issues: as with Palpatine and Voldemort, I absolutely did not need to know that Skeletor fucks, and the fact that Evil-Lyn wipes out the Eternia’s version of heaven, presumably consigning all its inhabitants to oblivion, is not something that’s brought up or held against her in any way. But the animation is fantastic (I enjoyed the pastel aesthetic of She-Ra, but prefer the more realistic designs here) and many of the more clownish characters in the original cartoon (Cringer and Orko) have much more interesting and dignified roles to play here.
Many of the in-jokes and Easter eggs were lost on me (most of the bizarre supporting characters were clearly part of the original toy-line) and the inevitable sequel hook felt pointlessly tacked-on, but on the whole I found this to be a pleasant surprise – all the more so given its deeply inauspicious roots as a creative endeavour.
Lost in Space: Season 3 (2021)
We’re probably lucky to have gotten a third and final season of Lost in Space at all, especially given the treading-water quality to season two, and the largely indifferent fandom response to the show overall. It clearly cost a fortune to produce, with visuals that would have looked just as good in a big-screen feature, and a stellar cast that elevated what was already pretty solid material. It had intelligence, it had heart, it had Toby Stephens and Molly Parker...
And yet, no one seemed particularly excited about it.
It’s been a whopping two years since the release of the previous season, and I have to admit I found it difficult to recall exactly what happened. At one point a villainous character (re)appears, and I had absolutely no memory of who he was, why he was a villain, or what he did that landed him in prison. I did remember JJ Feild as a guest star, but was surprised to discover that he apparently died last season. At some point, a rewatch of the series in its entirety is clearly in order.
I did recall that the second season ended with a family separation: not just of the Robinson clan, but all the families of the 24th colonist group. An attack from the robots forced eldest daughter Judy to take command of ninety-seven children and escape with them through a rift in space, leaving the adults to hope and pray they make it to Alpha Centauri safely.
They do not. Picking up a year later, it transpires that the kids got knocked off course and have made a settlement for themselves on nearby planet that’s regularly bombarded by meteors – their only hope of rescue lies in the fact that Judy’s biological father (believed dead) and his crew is sleeping in cryo-pods that were transported from their ship to the planet’s surface.
The adults meanwhile are desperately trying to keep their own ship afloat and find their children’s whereabouts without alerting their presence to the marauding robots.
At first I was worried that characterization had regressed: John and Maureen seemed on the outs again, and the usually-upbeat Penny was handling the situation by deciding to be as unhelpful as possible. Will is still needlessly keeping secrets, Penny’s teenage love triangle is utterly superfluous, and I would have liked more exploration into the emotional and mental toll that leadership takes on Judy.
Don doesn’t get a lot to do, and anyone who shipped him with Judy will be sorely disappointed since they barely interact (there was some ship tease in the first season, but I imagine the massive age-gap between the two actors/characters gave the writers cold feet). But Maureen is once again (rightfully) wearing the pants in the family, Will and the robot have a beautiful story-arc together, and Doctor Smith gets her long-awaited redemption.
They also remember to revisit some particularly important dynamics, such as Maureen/Judy (“this is how it all began – just you and me”), Maureen/Smith (“when you get out of here, look me up”) and Will/Smith (“you’re not so bad”). And we can all be grateful that Judy’s two dads handle their odd situation with grace, and that the writers forego any pointless love triangles with Maureen.
So perhaps the truncated season ends up working in the show’s favour. They have two less episodes than previous seasons (eight in total) and so make every minute count, even if it means rushing through some of their plot-points and character development. Yet since season two was a protracted affair in which nothing much seemed to happen, I’d say it’s for the best.
Lost in Space deserves credit for knowing that the end was nigh, and wrapping things up accordingly. There are no cliff-hangers or lingering plot threads, instead everyone gets a Big Damn Heroes moment and a place in the final “where are they now?” montage. Furthermore, they commit to a genuine ending: everyone unites and gets to Alpha Centauri safely, in defiance of my fear that they would all end up on yet another unforeseen detour into uncharted space.
It’s a good show that for whatever reason flew completely under everyone’s radar. Would recommend, especially for its family dynamics, three-dimensional women, and ability to write its characters as (mostly) intelligent people solving problems in (mostly) intelligent ways.
Doctor Who: Season 13 (2021)
This is the third and final season of Doctor Who featuring Jodi Whittaker in the title role (not counting three upcoming specials) which leaves me with mixed feelings. I thought she put on a great performance, but was let down by mediocre scripts. Turns out that showrunner Chris Chibnall is leaving too, but then – I thought this season was a significant step-up from previous offerings, even if it doesn’t stick the landing.
We get a tightly interconnected six-part storyline in which the Doctor, Companion and a handful of supporting characters get swept up in different parts of an overarching story about a phenomenon called the Flux, which is systematically wiping out entire planets. It’s like nothing we’ve seen on Doctor Who in recent years (I can’t speak for the old series) but I’m always up for an experiment even if it doesn’t work.
I’m happy-ish to say that the show doesn’t ignore the plot-point dropped in the final episode of last season, in which the Doctor learns she’s the Timeless Child: not a Gallifreyan as she’d always believed, but a foundling discovered at the base of a wormhole and taken in by a woman called Tecteun, who extracted from her the key to regeneration among the Time Lords.
Unsurprisingly, this massive reveal was not warmly received by fandom, but I gotta say that I’m glad this didn’t scare Chibnall off. Granted, we still don’t know how it’s going to all pan out, and part of me thinks there’s nothing wrong with a show that simply depicts the adventures of a rogue Time Lord, but I’m I can respect that they’re sticking to their guns and building on it (let’s face it, RTD will probably ignore it, just as Chibnall immediately erased the setup Moffatt gave him, which was the triumphant return of Gallifrey).
The limited amount of episodes means that every moment counts – there’s no filler here, and a lot is packed in: Sontarians, Cybermen, Weeping Angels, Oods (or at least one) and locales as varied as the Crimean War (guest-starring Mary Seacole), UNIT headquarters (Kate Stewart returns!), and the outmost reaches of the galaxy.
The threat of an apocalypse – brought on by the aforementioned Flux – holds more weight when stretched across several episodes. We know the Doctor is eventually going to save the day, but getting a chance to prolong the suspense and see the human (or sentient) cost of the crisis does wonders in upping the stakes.
We get ourselves a new Companion – another middle-aged white guy to replace Graham – but he comes across as a bit redundant and isn’t a particularly great actor either (not terrible, just not hugely necessary). I was hoping the absence of Graham and Ryan would finally give Yaz a chance to step into the spotlight, but she’s still having to share screentime with less interesting sidekicks. That said, I did love Professor Eustacius Jericho (played by Pirates of the Caribbean star Kevin McCally) who gets caught up in the adventure and does pretty well for himself.
I also loved the inclusion of Karvanista, a member of the dog-like Lupari, and the entire concept behind him: turns out that his entire race share a “species bond” with humanity, and when an emergency like the Flux occurs, they’re obliged to come to the rescue of their individual humans. Basically, man’s best friend agrees to save the people of the world, and phrases such as “I have a dog in this fight” and “fetch your dog” are given appropriate twists. It’s actually quite charming.
I also enjoyed seeing two actresses from shows I watched earlier in the year: Annabel Scholey from Medici and Thaddea Graham from The Irregulars, here playing a woman caught up in the schemes of the Weeping Angels, and a survivor of the Daleks desperately searching for the man she loves, respectively. They’re definitely two highlights of the season, though I dearly wish they’d done something a bit cleverer with Claire (Scholey) who ends up being a repository for a runaway Weeping Angel.
The problem is, she first appears to the Doctor and knows exactly who she is, suggesting a time paradox in which one has met the other out of sequence (remember Canton in season six?) You’d think that when they meet again, in a seemingly-haunted village in Devon, the roles would be reversed: the Doctor knows who Claire is, but Claire is baffled. And yet, because both have travelled back in time, it’s the second meeting for both of them. So... how did Claire seem so familiar with the Doctor in the first episode?
Whatever else you think of him, Moffatt would have found a way to make this devastatingly clever.
But Thaddea Graham is completely charming, and her eventual reunion with her love (Jacob Anderson from Game of Thrones) is a well-deserved moment. In short, Chibnall assembles a really strong supporting cast for this season, and I found myself invested in pretty much all of them.
When the time comes to pull together all of these subplots and dazzle the audience with a revelation that makes everything clear... the climax doesn’t really land. But taken as a whole, it was an enjoyable experience, with plenty of good (the SFX and makeup is the best it’s ever been) to go with the bad (they don’t quite grasp how quickly the Angels are meant to move, and here a turn of the head is less fatal than a blink of the eyes). As with Encanto, I prefer something that takes a swing and misses (for the most part) than watching a tried-and-true formula play out for the umpteenth time.
Robin Robin (2021)
This was delightful, and a perfect Christmas Eve treat that I had planned out weeks in advance. Made by Aardman Studios, it inspired a lot of the other Christmas-viewing/reading choices I made this month, as the stop-motion animation crafted from felt miniatures was exactly the homey old-school hand-made vibe I was reaching for this Christmas.
A tiny egg tumbles from a branch and lands outside a mouse hole, only to be promptly adopted by the mouse family living therein. Robin is raised by a single father amongst mouse siblings, and – as we saw with Mirabel in Encanto – is desperate to be one of them. She’s made little mouse ears for herself by tufting up the feathers on her head and the sight of it damn-near broke my heart.
Mice survive by being small and sneaky, and Robin is about as ungainly as you’d expect a young bird to be. Any raid on the nearby human (or “who-man”) homes is almost immediately sabotaged by Robin’s inability to move an inch without tripping over herself, and after a particularly catastrophic attempt to steal food, Robin runs off by herself.
Encounters with a Magpie and a Cat help Robin get a better understanding of who she is and how she can better fit into her family, but the real joy of the story is the quirky little human touches that ring so impossibly true. Like, you know how kids sometimes fixate on an idea that defies all logic, but steadfastly commit to their version of the world despite all evidence to the contrary? I’m reminded of my mother’s friend’s youngest, who was so desperate to believe he was Māori that he would cite his brother’s fairer skin as “evidence” of their differing bloodlines.
In this case, the youngest mouse brother loves “kittens” and so cannot fathom that the cat in this story wants to literally eat them. As the triumphant family hug occurs, he asks: “is the cat part of the family?” “No,” says his father patiently, “the cat tried to eat us.” Pause. “Because she loves us?” It’s hilarious, but also so painfully true to that specific type of denial that children are so good at.
Basically, this was lovely, and it clocks in at under thirty minutes, so what’s stopping you?
Beebo Saves Christmas (2021)
Beebo first showed up when a toy of it was thrown back in time and worshipped as a god by Vikings, and later that season the Legends ended up combining themselves into a Voltron-like behemoth of the character to fight a giant demon. (Yeah, this show can get weird). Why there isn’t more merchandizing of it in the real world is a bit of a mystery.
The concept behind this Christmas special is to present a Beebo-based story that could exist in the Arrowverse; something that the likes of Zoe or Mia would have sat down to watch as children. There’s no fourth-wall breaking, no meta-text: just a straightforward story about a little creature called Beebo (one of many: think the Carebears crossed with the Whos) trying to get a better grasp on the meaning of Christmas and saving Santa from what is essentially a corporate takeover at the North Pole.
The tiniest scrap of continuity between this and the Arrowverse is that Victor Garber provides the narration, but it’s not Garber as Martin Stein – it’s just his disembodied narrative voice. Basically, you could show this to someone who has no grasp or awareness of Legends of Tomorrow at all, and they would have a Christmas special that exists completely on its own terms.
Sorry not sorry, but this sort of thing just fascinates me. Sort of like the mass confusion around the upcoming Buzz Lightyear film, which purports to be a defictionalization of the toy that existed in Andy’s world, but which many people seem to think is about a real person – that is, a fictional person who was a real astronaut within the Toy Story universe. I love that this is something people are genuinely struggling to understand.
Within the confines of itself, Beebo Saves Christmas is a pretty amusing lark. The animation is fine, most of the jokes land, and they even manage a half-way decent moral by the end credits (it’s not that Beebo is right about holiday traditions and everyone else is wrong, but that people are allowed to celebrate Christmas in whichever way they best suited for them). I was more chuffed by the commitment to making this nonsense exist in the first place (as was said here, it’s essentially a half-hour commercial for a toy that doesn’t actually exist) than the story itself, but you could still plonk a kid in front of this and have them be reasonably entertained for its duration.
Annie Live! (2021)
The last of the Christmas special I watched this year, and the latest of the Live! productions that have been cranking themselves out for a few years now (by my reckoning I’ve seen Peter Pan, Grease and The Wiz Live! though they’ve also done The Grinch, The Sound of Music, The Little Mermaid and several others) to various degrees of success.
The idea behind them is that they’re musicals staged on television... live. Obviously this brings an immediacy and spontaneity to the proceedings (at least if you do, in fact, watch them live) though it also makes them vulnerable to glitches: sound problems, bad camera angles, performers standing on each other’s lines... if any of this happens (and it does) they cannot be edited away in post. What you see is what happened “on the night” as it were.
But apparently they’re successful enough to keep getting made, and this year some sensible choices were made with Annie. The orphans are played by a posse of theatre kids that give it their all, punctuating the likes of “It’s a Hard Knock Life” and “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile” with backflips and butterfly kicks. They steal the show completely, particularly the little girl played Molly who bears an uncanny resemblance to her counterpart in the 1982 film.
Celina Smith as Annie can belt out show tunes like nobody’s business, and as Mr Warbucks and Miss Hannigan, Harry Connick Jr. and Taraji P. Henson understand the assignment (even if they under and overperform a little, respectively). But I had no idea who played Grace Farell until looking it up afterward and finding out she was Nicole Scherzinger, former lead singer of The Pussycat Dolls. Damn, I never would have placed her in a million years (and she does great!)
For my money, the understated MVPs (aside from the orphans) are Tituss Burgess and Megan Hilty as Rooster and Lily – I loved their rendition of “Easy Street”, and if anyone ever decides to film the Anastasia musical live then Hilty absolutely HAS to play Sophie.
As it happens, the eighties Annie movie starring Aileen Quinn was a staple part of my childhood – or at least the second half was. The first half of my VCR recording featured The Great Muppet Caper, and subsequent viewings of Annie kicked in with Bert Healy's radio show. It’s a weird way to watch a film, but I have to say I sorely missed Annie climbing up the side of a raised bridge to escape a murderous Rooster before being saved by an Indian man in a turban dangling from a helicopter – though admittedly, that would be difficult to replicate on the stage.
When something exists that deeply in your childhood formative years, you can’t help but get a little emotional at fresh renditions of the material – and yeah, tears were shed when the entire cast belted out “Tomorrow” as they took their curtain calls. Performing live involves no small degree of pressure, but you could tell by their faces that they knew they’d nailed it.
I think Flux is definitely stronger than Jodie's first two seasons (I think the scene where Dan first meets Karvanista is legitimately one of the best-written scenes Chibnall has ever done), because spectacle and big setpieces are one of the things this era does well and this format lends itself to it (the Doctor turning into a Weeping Angel is a truly memorable piece of imagery), but dialogue and exposition is still a real weak point, so a lot of the explaining what was actually going on was a real slog to get through. It's pretty laughable that we *never* see Yaz and Dan even learn about Jericho's death, let alone react to it!
ReplyDeletebut dialogue and exposition is still a real weak point, so a lot of the explaining what was actually going on was a real slog to get through.
DeleteOh yes, there was a line from Thaddea Graham's character in which she refers to "your as-yet unborn child" which made me physically wince. Who talks like that?? Just have the girl touch her stomach; we would have got it!
Interested to see what you made of the New Year special, because the premise seemed to help hide a lot (well... some) of the flaws that usually afflict Chibnall's writing, and I couldn't help but wonder that maybe the 2021 series would have been better served as... something totally different.
DeleteOh: And I can't remember *where* I read this now, but I did read a fairly coherent theory about No Time to Die that the nanobots were originally meant to be a virus, and things got changed during post-production because of Covid, which may be why that plot strand makes so little sense in the finished film.