There have been some trends in movies this year, little things that I feel like analyzing- they may not give great insight into mankind, but they may forecast movies to come.
There's been a lot of aliens popping up in the movie landscape lately. Short list from the top of my head:
The Battle for Terra
District 9
Avatar
Aliens in the Attic
Monsters versus Aliens
Now, three of these five movies have some things in common- Aliens in the Attic and Monster vs. Aliens being the outliers.
In District 9 and Avatar, we have:
1. Humans being assholes
2. Aliens playing the part of oppressed minorities whose human rights are violated
3. Messages about War profiteering/environment
4. Evil corporate entities
Something is obviously skipping merrily through the cultural consciousness of America for all this to hit at the same time, and it's pretty obvious the anti-war, pro-environment, cultural tolerance messages (all things I generally support) are a direct product of the Bush era, manifesting roughly a year after his exit.
It's pretty interesting that "Aliens as Foreigners" angle has been hit so hard so quickly. In many ways, we can just skip the plot of these films to get more of the jist, the essential salts for the alchemical creation of these movies.
District 9- Blood Diamond + Bug Monsters
Avatar- Dances with Wolves + Blue Cat People
Battle for Terra... I have not seen, but I get the feeling it's more of the same.
Using this formula, we merely need to find the next film meant to highlight the oppression of a human culture, throw in some lasers and CGI aliens, and we may have a critically acclaimed piece of sci-fi on our hands...
Come to think of it, both Avatar and District 9 have a transformational element in them, of people becoming aliens as well... and Monsters vs. Aliens... huh. Maybe some vibe of how our only real differences are superficial in nature...
I suppose in some ways, this feeds right back into Star Wars characters being bad racial stereotypes, though so far the new wave of aliens have been far more tasteful in their depictions over all. The Navi of avatar seem to be a blend of various tribal peoples of earth in their culture, so they really don't come off as any other race per se, not to mention their image is largely positive. The Prawns of District 9 are so alien, being bug monster, they really don't come off as anything other than poor aliens.
Since I try to bring things back to gaming when I can, I figure there might be a few lessons somewhere in this mess as far as creating alien cultures. I think the best way to go is that if you can't make something new, rip off so many things nobody can tell where it came from anywhere (credited to this guy). While he may not be able to make a decent film himself, the technique is sound for gaming- the Navi of Avatar come off as tribal, but it's hard to pin down what tribe they come from.
The other lesson might be that aliens are great source material as representing something other than the obvious- they take up classic roles readily.
Aliens work well as Gods, Angels, Invaders, Devils, Natural Forces, or any other role you want to throw them in without having to give 1)Supernatural reasoning nor 2) Sensical reasoning. Aliens are different, their ways of approaching the world strange. If an alien wants to hunt you for fun, give you superpowers, or blow up the planet, don't question it- they're alien, and whatever they are doing must obviously be science and makes sense to them. This isn't an open invitation to hand waving aliens doing stupid crap, but it is reason enough to squeak by with some odd behavior and unknown motivations at times.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Superhero Squad or Why Marvel Getting Bought by Disney Matters Little
The Superhero Squad Show
So, here we have a goofied up, kiddified version of Marvel, with squidgy little versions of almost the entire Marvel Universe. It's the latest in the line of proof that whatever Disney might decide to do to the Marvel Universe to try an ruin it, Joe Quesada will likely beat them to the punch.
I suppose I'm being a little unfair- it's light hearted children's fair, and I'm all for letting kid's get into comics, right? Well... yes, I am, but I also don't think going quite this stupid is doing kids any favors.
In this show, a group that strongly resembles the Avengers fights Doctor Doom in an anime-esque quest to collect all of the MacGuffin fractals to give him awesome super powers to win. Doctor Doom has assembled a Lethal Legion (read: basically every bad guy in the Marvel Universe) to fight against the Squaddies. I'm all for big superhero battles of epic proportions, and oddly, this show sort of delivers- there are more Marvel characters in this show than any I've seen before it. That being said, there are a lot of simplifications made, essentially putting the rubber claws on Wolverine.
1. It takes place in Superhero City. The city is walled off to keep the Lethal Legion out (ignore the whole flight thing).
2. The characters are all basically school children-esque.
3. Four fingers.
4. Dumbing down in general.
So, children of this generation will first see Marvel superheroes as daft, squishy, four fingered mutants who go around throwing temper tantrums, get sent back to school, and generally act like mild looney tunes. Bad guys are more Naughty guys that only really work in cartoons (the Ring Master dresses up like a lunch lady and waltzes into the X-Mansion. The Danger Room doubles as a cafeteria. Collossus is a dumb jock, Jean is a cheerleader. Only one character notices the yellow swirling eyes associated with hypnosis and Professor X has his mind controlled...).
Quelling my inner geek, this show does have a few things I like.
1. Dr. Doom is the main bad guy.
2. There are about as many marvel characters in this show as there are in JLU.
3. Each episode is inspired by a classic comic, apparently.
These few things don't really excuse the show, but they to me are signs they could have made a better show.
Youngerizing Heroes and the Slope They Slipped Off:
This trend is understandable, in some ways. X-Men was originally mutant teens at a school and X-Men: Evolution brought it back to those roots. Same thing for Ultimate Spiderman. But then we start to go further...
Iron Man armored adventures I think was the first step into hell. Here we have a young Tony Stark (okay), in a futuristic city (wait), and his father dies early (huh?) and the Mandarin is a teenage son of a crime lord with some rings (my mind!) and he fights against the evil designs of Hammer Industries trying to steal his fathers... no. Sorry, this is just TOO different in my mind. Pepper Potts is a perky teen, Rhodey is his teen buddy... this isn't Iron Man's roots, it's Iron Man skewed and re-imagined entirely.
Basically, in the Quesada era of Marvel, we know one fundamental truth: Nothing is Sacred. Not characters, origins, continuity, sense, NOTHING. If it makes a buck, it will happen. The line stops at Spiderman condoms... I'm pretty sure.
Disney, the big red M is in your court. Do your worst.
So, here we have a goofied up, kiddified version of Marvel, with squidgy little versions of almost the entire Marvel Universe. It's the latest in the line of proof that whatever Disney might decide to do to the Marvel Universe to try an ruin it, Joe Quesada will likely beat them to the punch.
I suppose I'm being a little unfair- it's light hearted children's fair, and I'm all for letting kid's get into comics, right? Well... yes, I am, but I also don't think going quite this stupid is doing kids any favors.
In this show, a group that strongly resembles the Avengers fights Doctor Doom in an anime-esque quest to collect all of the MacGuffin fractals to give him awesome super powers to win. Doctor Doom has assembled a Lethal Legion (read: basically every bad guy in the Marvel Universe) to fight against the Squaddies. I'm all for big superhero battles of epic proportions, and oddly, this show sort of delivers- there are more Marvel characters in this show than any I've seen before it. That being said, there are a lot of simplifications made, essentially putting the rubber claws on Wolverine.
1. It takes place in Superhero City. The city is walled off to keep the Lethal Legion out (ignore the whole flight thing).
2. The characters are all basically school children-esque.
3. Four fingers.
4. Dumbing down in general.
So, children of this generation will first see Marvel superheroes as daft, squishy, four fingered mutants who go around throwing temper tantrums, get sent back to school, and generally act like mild looney tunes. Bad guys are more Naughty guys that only really work in cartoons (the Ring Master dresses up like a lunch lady and waltzes into the X-Mansion. The Danger Room doubles as a cafeteria. Collossus is a dumb jock, Jean is a cheerleader. Only one character notices the yellow swirling eyes associated with hypnosis and Professor X has his mind controlled...).
Quelling my inner geek, this show does have a few things I like.
1. Dr. Doom is the main bad guy.
2. There are about as many marvel characters in this show as there are in JLU.
3. Each episode is inspired by a classic comic, apparently.
These few things don't really excuse the show, but they to me are signs they could have made a better show.
Youngerizing Heroes and the Slope They Slipped Off:
This trend is understandable, in some ways. X-Men was originally mutant teens at a school and X-Men: Evolution brought it back to those roots. Same thing for Ultimate Spiderman. But then we start to go further...
Iron Man armored adventures I think was the first step into hell. Here we have a young Tony Stark (okay), in a futuristic city (wait), and his father dies early (huh?) and the Mandarin is a teenage son of a crime lord with some rings (my mind!) and he fights against the evil designs of Hammer Industries trying to steal his fathers... no. Sorry, this is just TOO different in my mind. Pepper Potts is a perky teen, Rhodey is his teen buddy... this isn't Iron Man's roots, it's Iron Man skewed and re-imagined entirely.
Basically, in the Quesada era of Marvel, we know one fundamental truth: Nothing is Sacred. Not characters, origins, continuity, sense, NOTHING. If it makes a buck, it will happen. The line stops at Spiderman condoms... I'm pretty sure.
Disney, the big red M is in your court. Do your worst.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Bionic Commando vs. Dragon Age
Not my usual, but it feels like one of those things worth mentioning, if only because I don't know if I'll see much on it elsewhere.
The New Bionic Commando game is a classic mismatch of great gameplay and a lame, lame story. The gameplay is the proper mixture of challenge and intuitiveness- getting new moves does not add needless complication, or just make the game harder. The advanced techniques add to a growing repertoire of combat options that only serve to make an already solid combat system grow even more so. More enemy types are introduced, slowly, a good deal of the environment can be climbed or used as a weapon, and they manage to recapture much of the fun of the 2-D platforming experience in 3-D.
The plot in many ways follows the opposite course, having a hackneyed plot you can see coming from a mile away. The twists are assumed almost from the beginning of the game, from the first cinema. We see Nathan 'Rad' Spencer jailed- fair enough, public fear of bionics sends them underground, puts them in jail, etc. We see Super Joe, an obviously evil old military man, unlike his heroic former identity from Captain Commando, sending Nathan off to fight the baddies that have blown up the city and conveniently set up the radiation clouds that keep this game from being an open environment- which is fine, for the most part.
I'd call the following spoilers, but it's not like it's spoiling much of anything. Nathan finds out the baddies are not new baddies, but the same old baddies, led by Groder. Only late in we find out Super Joe is evil and, gasp! was using you to claim the MacGuffin for his own nefarious ends. The cliche Dead Wife is also, gasp, murdered by Super Joe, but for perhaps the stupidest reason ever- her... well... somehow she was turned into his bionic arm. Which would be really, really creepy, if it wasn't so stupid. I mean... how? Fleshy person to cyber arm. That makes no kind of sense at all. There is a girl with cybernetic legs and super speed... while the game progresses in a way where you think you'd fight her, or she'd do something important, she instead shows up a few times, then dies horribly- she made ZERO impact on the plot. None.
The game is such a stinker that GRIN, the parent company is dead. So, no chance of redemption. Which goes to show... plot matters.
Now Dragon Age: Origins is out, and I can't help but feel this game is truly the reversed situation. The game itself is, to be blunt, awful. It doesn't play in such a way that makes me feel that all classes or paths are truly viable- pick the mage's tower too early, with a week class, and it will be a long ugly trudge through it. The combat often feels random, many enemies having 'finisher' style moves that will kill a character, without fail, unless the AI messes up and forgets to do you in. Rogue's seem virtually worthless as their inferior combat skills make them a detriment to many parties. Mages show such flexibility as to be almost invaluable. Warriors play pretty much like better rogues, as they are basically a big sack of armor, hitpoints, and damage. The combats are HARD, but not in a way that I would call challenging- they're tedious affairs, victory more dependent upon enemy mistakes then player skill.
The plot of Dragon Age is absolutely amazing though. Ferelden is a fully realized world, characters all seem to have a place in it, with deep backgrounds and sensible relations to events around them. Each of the race, gender, class combos have their own little twists and options, putting much of the story squarely in the players hands to determine, with so much detail, there's even lore scraps you can pick up.
Bionic Commando is considered an utter stinker of a game, while Dragon Age is considered 'amazing'. Which leads to a few thoughts:
1) Gameplay is starting to matter less than visuals and story
2) Bioware can ride its success hard, even glazing over their bad games with positivity carry over from old
3) If you're plot seems unconvincing to a 6th grader, you might want to rethink a few things.
Usually, I do tabletop stuff, but I think this points out some parallel: good rules alone cannot sell a game, and a beloved setting can sometimes glaze over awful rules.
Only you can prevent Wife arm.
The New Bionic Commando game is a classic mismatch of great gameplay and a lame, lame story. The gameplay is the proper mixture of challenge and intuitiveness- getting new moves does not add needless complication, or just make the game harder. The advanced techniques add to a growing repertoire of combat options that only serve to make an already solid combat system grow even more so. More enemy types are introduced, slowly, a good deal of the environment can be climbed or used as a weapon, and they manage to recapture much of the fun of the 2-D platforming experience in 3-D.
The plot in many ways follows the opposite course, having a hackneyed plot you can see coming from a mile away. The twists are assumed almost from the beginning of the game, from the first cinema. We see Nathan 'Rad' Spencer jailed- fair enough, public fear of bionics sends them underground, puts them in jail, etc. We see Super Joe, an obviously evil old military man, unlike his heroic former identity from Captain Commando, sending Nathan off to fight the baddies that have blown up the city and conveniently set up the radiation clouds that keep this game from being an open environment- which is fine, for the most part.
I'd call the following spoilers, but it's not like it's spoiling much of anything. Nathan finds out the baddies are not new baddies, but the same old baddies, led by Groder. Only late in we find out Super Joe is evil and, gasp! was using you to claim the MacGuffin for his own nefarious ends. The cliche Dead Wife is also, gasp, murdered by Super Joe, but for perhaps the stupidest reason ever- her... well... somehow she was turned into his bionic arm. Which would be really, really creepy, if it wasn't so stupid. I mean... how? Fleshy person to cyber arm. That makes no kind of sense at all. There is a girl with cybernetic legs and super speed... while the game progresses in a way where you think you'd fight her, or she'd do something important, she instead shows up a few times, then dies horribly- she made ZERO impact on the plot. None.
The game is such a stinker that GRIN, the parent company is dead. So, no chance of redemption. Which goes to show... plot matters.
Now Dragon Age: Origins is out, and I can't help but feel this game is truly the reversed situation. The game itself is, to be blunt, awful. It doesn't play in such a way that makes me feel that all classes or paths are truly viable- pick the mage's tower too early, with a week class, and it will be a long ugly trudge through it. The combat often feels random, many enemies having 'finisher' style moves that will kill a character, without fail, unless the AI messes up and forgets to do you in. Rogue's seem virtually worthless as their inferior combat skills make them a detriment to many parties. Mages show such flexibility as to be almost invaluable. Warriors play pretty much like better rogues, as they are basically a big sack of armor, hitpoints, and damage. The combats are HARD, but not in a way that I would call challenging- they're tedious affairs, victory more dependent upon enemy mistakes then player skill.
The plot of Dragon Age is absolutely amazing though. Ferelden is a fully realized world, characters all seem to have a place in it, with deep backgrounds and sensible relations to events around them. Each of the race, gender, class combos have their own little twists and options, putting much of the story squarely in the players hands to determine, with so much detail, there's even lore scraps you can pick up.
Bionic Commando is considered an utter stinker of a game, while Dragon Age is considered 'amazing'. Which leads to a few thoughts:
1) Gameplay is starting to matter less than visuals and story
2) Bioware can ride its success hard, even glazing over their bad games with positivity carry over from old
3) If you're plot seems unconvincing to a 6th grader, you might want to rethink a few things.
Usually, I do tabletop stuff, but I think this points out some parallel: good rules alone cannot sell a game, and a beloved setting can sometimes glaze over awful rules.
Only you can prevent Wife arm.
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