dev_chieftain (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dev_chieftain) wrote2012-01-12 08:37 am
dev_chieftain) wrote2012-01-12 08:37 am
So we watched Batman: Year One
The tricky thing about Batman: Year One is that it's good, and I like it, but it's not really about Batman. I write stories like this too, stories focusing on a character that I'm maybe less attached to so that I won't be focusing too much on that character. And in the process, maybe sometimes you realize how interesting this otherwise-side-character is, because you're focusing the story on them. Since Batman: Year One is really about Jim Gordon, it's hard to say if it's only titled what it is because it wouldn't sell otherwise.
The straight-to-DVD movie they recently made of it is pretty good. The animation is superb, with the continued exception of vehicles being CGI while everything else looks hand-drawn. Seriously, guys, the vehicle CGI looks like shit. Please stop it. It is ridiculously jarring and always obvious.
Good things about it: Art style closely matches the original, I felt. Particularly noticed the almost chillingly expressionless media-persons, which felt accurate to the original comic. The fight choreography looked great, and it was fast-paced enough to be fun to watch.
Bad things about it: Vocal casting was definitely hit or miss for me. I'm sorry, Ben McKenzie, but you came across sounding a little more like a bored, but obsessive serial killer than Batman, to me. Likewise, I just don't care for Eliza Dushku; of course, I also don't care for this portrayal of Catwoman, so I guess it doesn't matter. She looked hot, she was muscular, and that was nice and all, but boy, was she petty. And apparently an ex-prostitute. Gee, thanks, Frank Miller. Still, this is nothing new.
I like Jim Gordon, so I like the story more or less. I'd never been able to read the comic all the way through because the affair with detective Essen made me annoyed, so I'm glad to have watched this, since the way that was resolved makes me interested in picking up the comic again. I do think that this is a problem I might not have if I'd read this before anything else. Then it wouldn't be symptomatic of a tiresome movement to "humanize" characters by making them awful people; it'd be the first, and I could be impressed by the idea that Jim Gordon is still a good person, even though he bullies his bullies, and cheats on his wife.
Danny finally showed me the preview for Jackson's Hobbit movie that'll be coming out sometime in the relatively near future. I have to say, I was a lot more interested in the project when Guillermo del Toro was going to be the one directing it. I basically didn't really care for the LoTR movies because they were so goddamned serious and dark. They can more or less be blamed for how frequently modern fantasy movies consist of grim, enormous battles scenes with the color bleached out. Considering that the Hobbit is so kid-friendly, by comparison, I had high hopes for a decent film. I like the Rankin/Bass film, though it has its problems (like cutting out Bjorn). I don't really want to see this story turned into a serious, dreary Epic Adventure about how serious and strong-willed Bilbo is. There's a quirky voice to The Hobbit and things like the song about teasing Bilbo over his extremely Hobbity nature are integral, in my mind, to accurately capturing the spirit of the dwarves and the playful selfishness of the story. Lord of the Rings IS a plodding tale of duty and destiny. The Hobbit is a relatively cheerful adventure pursued for the sake of fighting a dragon and getting very rich, and is hardly serious at all by comparison.
To be fair, Lord of the Rings actually does have cheerful moments in it- but you'd never know if you watched the movies, because they cut all of those things out! You know how annoying it is to discuss this with anyone, ever? "Tom Bombadil was cheerful but also serious! Why does he get cut?" "Oh, Tom Bombadil isn't important".
He isn't? But apparently the mind-numbing council of Elrond is?
It's just as important to have levity as sobriety in a story, and I feel like Tolkien did a decent job of remembering to do that. Maybe Tom Bombadil isn't integral to the metaplot, but the encounter with him teaches the hobbits some kind of important lessons that otherwise don't manifest-- first, that there is no easy solution to getting rid of the ring (Frodo wants to have Tom Bombadil take care of it, but because he doesn't care about it, he would forget about it and eventually it would fall into the hands of evil again), and second, that there is no place that is safe, a lesson that is put to use when they meet Strider and decide NOT to sleep in their beds, thus saving their lives. Sure, in the grand scheme of things? Those events are not important. But without the connecting passages that explain WHY someone thinks the way they do, it's pretty damn hard to understand a character's reasoning.
Ultimately, I don't know if I'll be dragged along to see the Hobbit or not. I might be up for it, but the preview so far only makes me wary and suspicious of the final product. I guess it can't possibly be worse than the screwy 50's attempt at making a Hobbit cartoon, where they added the princess and renamed Smaug 'Slag'.
Edit: I also received my second-to-last package of doujinshi, finally. This means I only have one left, and it's even the one I most recently ordered! So that is cool.
The straight-to-DVD movie they recently made of it is pretty good. The animation is superb, with the continued exception of vehicles being CGI while everything else looks hand-drawn. Seriously, guys, the vehicle CGI looks like shit. Please stop it. It is ridiculously jarring and always obvious.
Good things about it: Art style closely matches the original, I felt. Particularly noticed the almost chillingly expressionless media-persons, which felt accurate to the original comic. The fight choreography looked great, and it was fast-paced enough to be fun to watch.
Bad things about it: Vocal casting was definitely hit or miss for me. I'm sorry, Ben McKenzie, but you came across sounding a little more like a bored, but obsessive serial killer than Batman, to me. Likewise, I just don't care for Eliza Dushku; of course, I also don't care for this portrayal of Catwoman, so I guess it doesn't matter. She looked hot, she was muscular, and that was nice and all, but boy, was she petty. And apparently an ex-prostitute. Gee, thanks, Frank Miller. Still, this is nothing new.
I like Jim Gordon, so I like the story more or less. I'd never been able to read the comic all the way through because the affair with detective Essen made me annoyed, so I'm glad to have watched this, since the way that was resolved makes me interested in picking up the comic again. I do think that this is a problem I might not have if I'd read this before anything else. Then it wouldn't be symptomatic of a tiresome movement to "humanize" characters by making them awful people; it'd be the first, and I could be impressed by the idea that Jim Gordon is still a good person, even though he bullies his bullies, and cheats on his wife.
Danny finally showed me the preview for Jackson's Hobbit movie that'll be coming out sometime in the relatively near future. I have to say, I was a lot more interested in the project when Guillermo del Toro was going to be the one directing it. I basically didn't really care for the LoTR movies because they were so goddamned serious and dark. They can more or less be blamed for how frequently modern fantasy movies consist of grim, enormous battles scenes with the color bleached out. Considering that the Hobbit is so kid-friendly, by comparison, I had high hopes for a decent film. I like the Rankin/Bass film, though it has its problems (like cutting out Bjorn). I don't really want to see this story turned into a serious, dreary Epic Adventure about how serious and strong-willed Bilbo is. There's a quirky voice to The Hobbit and things like the song about teasing Bilbo over his extremely Hobbity nature are integral, in my mind, to accurately capturing the spirit of the dwarves and the playful selfishness of the story. Lord of the Rings IS a plodding tale of duty and destiny. The Hobbit is a relatively cheerful adventure pursued for the sake of fighting a dragon and getting very rich, and is hardly serious at all by comparison.
To be fair, Lord of the Rings actually does have cheerful moments in it- but you'd never know if you watched the movies, because they cut all of those things out! You know how annoying it is to discuss this with anyone, ever? "Tom Bombadil was cheerful but also serious! Why does he get cut?" "Oh, Tom Bombadil isn't important".
He isn't? But apparently the mind-numbing council of Elrond is?
It's just as important to have levity as sobriety in a story, and I feel like Tolkien did a decent job of remembering to do that. Maybe Tom Bombadil isn't integral to the metaplot, but the encounter with him teaches the hobbits some kind of important lessons that otherwise don't manifest-- first, that there is no easy solution to getting rid of the ring (Frodo wants to have Tom Bombadil take care of it, but because he doesn't care about it, he would forget about it and eventually it would fall into the hands of evil again), and second, that there is no place that is safe, a lesson that is put to use when they meet Strider and decide NOT to sleep in their beds, thus saving their lives. Sure, in the grand scheme of things? Those events are not important. But without the connecting passages that explain WHY someone thinks the way they do, it's pretty damn hard to understand a character's reasoning.
Ultimately, I don't know if I'll be dragged along to see the Hobbit or not. I might be up for it, but the preview so far only makes me wary and suspicious of the final product. I guess it can't possibly be worse than the screwy 50's attempt at making a Hobbit cartoon, where they added the princess and renamed Smaug 'Slag'.
Edit: I also received my second-to-last package of doujinshi, finally. This means I only have one left, and it's even the one I most recently ordered! So that is cool.
no subject
Apparently, the writers who did Catwoman: Year One some years later didn't like the Frank Miller-Prostitution angle either, haha:
"Catwoman: Year One (Catwoman Annual #2, 1995) posited that Selina Kyle had not actually been a prostitute, but, rather, a thief posing as one in order to commit crimes."
no subject
I often have this feeling when I see what is essentially fanfic. It's the same problem we have with retcons. To try to justify the events, people bring in more side characters (or maybe not even to justify it-- maybe just to catch the attention of people who don't give a shit about the main characters with a crappy cameo), but it just muddies things as you go 'why the hell was she there, doing that?' or worse, sometimes 'how could so-and-so have even been there?!'