Names I'm Sick of Hearing in Fanboy Conversation

Fans are just woefully predictable.

I mean WOEFULLY predictable. Every decade, or so, some entertainer or creator rises in the esteem of fanboy circles, and is held up as CAN DO NO WRONG." Then, without fail,, within 5 or 6 years, they make a wrong move, and they become AN UTTER HACK.

Take Peter Jackson. Riding so high after the Lord of the Rings trilogy, then, after King Kong and The Lovely Bones, it became clear that he was just as human as anyone else. Even moreso in the realm of sentimentality and falling overly in love with his work. You can see it begin with the unending denouement of The Return of the King, and spillover into uncontrollable with his sloppy version of King Kong. A film that didn't need to be three hours long in the first place, and certainly didn't need an extended version (I, personally, find it hilarious that Universal have never bothered to release this version on Blu-Ray).

Jackson stood revealed as a filmmaker who just didn't know when to quit. Who didn't seem to understand, at all, the concept of brevity. That image was justified, and compounded, when the announcement that his upcoming adaptation of The Hobbit, originally planned as two films, would be three. The first is two hours and forty-five minutes long.

Still, The Hobbit is a slight book. A friend recently pointed out you can read the entire book in six hours, and Jackson is likely producing a nine hour adaptation. Why? Money is an obvious answer. I have no doubt that some of this decision lies with the studio, who smell three big moneymakers instead of two. Still, it's Jackson returning to the world of J.R.R. Tolkein, he should be able to wield some clout, if he felt this wasn't the best idea.

It's not like I'm finding many people to defend him on this. No one I speak to seems to think The Hobbit should be three films, some big fans of the book pointing out that the Rankin-Bass animated version of the tale from 1977 very nicely condensed the story to less than an hour and a half. I also feel like the excitement about the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was greater a year ago than now, with the release a little more than a month away. It was like the more people saw, the less exciting it seemed.

Now, of course I'm going to see it. I expect to enjoy it. I enjoyed all of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I will say right now, the only film of that series that is TRULY brilliant, for it's entirety, is The Fellowship of the Ring. The others have moments (the scenes of Theoden on the battlefield in Return of the King offset the pain in my ass as I...just...waited...for...it...to...end), but don't sustain the pacing or storytelling the way the first film did.

There was a time, in 1999, when George Lucas could do not wrong. When it was inconceivable that The Phantom Menace might not be the greatest movie of all time. That was a given, and no one doubted it.

After the film came out....

Now, I'm not so harsh on Episode I, or any of the prequels. I like them, but I get that many don't. I also have a very clear view on why people revile it so much; because they came to believe that a specific person, Lucas, was infallible. Then they felt "betrayed" because it turns out he was just human, like the rest of us. The fact that many felt it was a "betrayal," mind you, says more about fanboy mentality than the actual film.

Ditto for Jackson. King Kong is reviled in certain quarters, and worse, forgotten in others. We'll see how The Hobbit ultimately fairs. I wonder if Jackson isn't going to face his own "prequel moment" in the next few months. The elements in play are awfully, awfully similar.

Which is just prelude to my point...now we're in the Joss Whedon era. He was beloved for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (neither of which I can stand), rose into the realm of the "wronged genius" for the Firefly/Serenity (which I love with the burning passion of a thousand suns) misadventure, then proved himself a mainstream crowdpleaser with Marvel's The Avengers. Well and good, and great for a writer and creator I do admire.

However, we've reached the "overblown genius" period here. Marvel's The Avengers isn't "the greatest superhero movie ever made," I'm sorry, but it's not. "The greatest" of something, in my book, will transcend the genre in some way. I LOVE The Avengers, I saw it four times in theatres, bought the Blu-Ray on the first day, and I enjoy it every time I watch it.

Christopher Nolan's Bat-films, as an example, decimate it as cinema. The Avengers, hell all the Marvel films, are artfully constructed commerce. Nolan's Batman trilogy is highly commercial art. Honestly, Joe Johnston's Captain America: The First Avenger comes closer to transcending the genre than The Avengers. You'd also have to put Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie in that basket.

I say again...that doesn't mean The Avengers is bad, nor am I trying to ramp up some sort of "Nolan is better than Whedon" thing. They are two very different kinds of films, with very different goals. I am not suggesting that The Avengers is a failure, at all, just that it's not the end-all, be-all that some would have you believe. This is also not Whedon's problem. He's doing the job Marvel paid him for, crafting exceptional entertainment, and having a great time doing it. I think he's great, but he's also not the god of creatives that some have positioned him as. He's not the guy that can do anything, and will make anything perfect by being involved with it.

No. One. Is.

Let me say that again: No. One. Is.

So, my teeth grind every, single time, I hear this "they need to bring in Whedon to write/direct _____" thing. The latest, of course, being the final trilogy of the Star Wars saga, announced with Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm. As if Joss sprinkled magic dust out of his anus that, if we all just BELIEVE enough, will make everything brilliant.

It's right up there with this insane idea that Firefly/Serenity will come back, no matter how much the principals have told us it's not, somehow. (Let's be clear, "I'd love to do it again," doesn't mean, "I'd upend all my other professional commitments to do it again," or "I am working actively to try to get money for it.") If it did come back, I'd definitely watch it, probably enjoy it, but you just know a (undoubtedly loudmouthed) portion of the audience would be pissed that it "ruined" what came before. Some people already feel that way about the Serenity film.

So, frankly, what makes my teeth grind in relation to this deification of Mr. Whedon. Because I know that. within a decade, the worm will turn, he'll make something that people won't like, or feel let down by, and then I'll be inundated by overly-emphatic fanboys bitching about how he "raped their childhood," or something equally offensive and stupid. My money for the moment it happens would probably be on the Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog sequel, if it ever actually gets made. If it doesn't, I'll consider Joss more of a genius for dodging the bullet.

I can hear the Whedonites right now, "Joss would NEVER let that happen." Right. Keep telling yourself that, binky. Everybody slips, and everybody, eventually, loses their mainline to the zeitgeist. Your insistence on his infallibility is what's going to make it happen.

Ultimately, what bothers me the most is that not one of these guys deserves this. Not Whedon, not Jackson, and not Lucas. Each of them have given us, literally, hours of  entertainment and imagination. They've fed our souls and minds. When they fall so hard, it's almost never because what they've created is as horrible as the the insane outrage, outrage over the fact that they "let you down" by not living up to your over-inflated expectations of them, that is heaped upon them.

The simple answer is to stop acting like one guy is the panacea that is going to make all of your fanboy dreams come true. Start being willing to experience new things and new ideas, rather than just wanting more and more of the same things that made you giddy as a ten year old. We resent anything that changes, because we're so damn scared to do it ourselves. We spend so much time trying to retard our own growth, and stay children, we start to resent those who actually do change over the years. For the better? For the worse? Not for me to judge, except with my ticket dollars, and none of us have stopped ponying those up.

The other name....Nathan Fillion. Love him, think he's a wonderful actor and a charming presence. Sick to death of hearing fanboys trumpeting his name for every, single character that might, ever be made into a film. Sure, I'd like to see him get out of the increasingly woeful Castle, watching the producers flog his fanbase with cheap "easter eggs," and silly references to better shows. That said, he doesn't "have" to play Ant-Man, Indiana Jones, Han Solo, Green Lantern, Nathan Drake, or any of the other myriad claims I've seen made in the fan press. I LOVE the guy's work, if he did end up playing one of those characters, it'd be cool, but putting it on the internet isn't going to make it happen. It's time to stop acting like it will.

Now, if Whedon wanted to adapt the Brian Daley Han Solo books, with Fillion....Hmmmm.

Again, I Get Annoyed With the "Fan Press" (TDKR SPOILERS)

FIRST OFF - NO LIE - SPOILERS FOR The Dark Knight Rises.

DO NOT READ THIS BLOG IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE!!!

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!  

Ok, there's this 2-part article over at newsarama.com about where the final moments of The Dark Knight Rises leave us, in terms of the long-term Batman franchise. Yet another example of fanboy supposition and speculation disguised as a legitimate "news" story, because it's on a comic-book news site. Now, let me make this clear...I have no problem with fanboy supposition and speculation. What I have a problem with is that it's presented as a editorial piece by a knowledgeable expert, and it's really just a guy blabbing about what he thinks Warner Brothers should/will do with the Batman Franchise.

What's offensive to me is this: The reason Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight Trilogy" is likely the best live-action interpretation of the Batman we will ever see, not to mention great works of art, is precisely because Nolan approached the entire arc without worrying about how to nurture a continuing franchise. He aimed, at least from The Dark Knight, to END the Batman story he was telling, about the Batman he created for his films.

(This last point is a HUGE reason why Harry Knowles review of the film over on Ain't It Cool News is so utterly stupid. Nolan's Batman has been talking about "when the time comes that I can hang up this cowl" from the first film...incessantly. To act like him actually having done just that as The Dark Knight Rises opens is being willfully ignorant of the themes that Nolan has been laying out...Honestly, I feel like is has more to do with some slight from Warner Brothers, than anything else. Probably because Hollywood has caught up with the fact that AICN isn't the hot-bed of web activity it once was. You're far to easily read, Harry.)

THIS Batman story, Nolan's Batman story, perhaps THE definitive Batman story, is over. Bruce Wayne has left the cowl behind and found love, peace and happiness, and, Like Kevin Smith, I found this deeply moving. There were tears because, here, finally, our hero who had given so much, who had sacrificed for his city and his fellow citizens, who carried the weight for us all, was given the opportunity to have that weight lifted. From the age of 10, Bruce Wayne was carrying more than any person should be asked to, and here, finally, in the end, God, fate, Allah, whoever, let him put that down.

THAT was the most moving thing in the movie, to me. His virtue was rewarded. Yes, Nolan leaves us with the image of John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) entering the Batcave, and the idea that the mantle of the Bat will be carried forward. Even pointing out minutes earlier that his birth name was Robin John Blake (nice touch), but here's the real thing that pisses me off....

WHY THE FUCK ISN'T THAT GOOD ENOUGH?!?!?!

Nolan leaves us with a lyrical, satisfying ending that ties in deeply to the character, and the concept of heroism, on thematic and story levels. It's complete. It's powerful. It's moving. And the first goddamn thing the assembled fanboy brigade can do is start whining about "where do we go from here?" Not in a "wow, I love the questions Nolan left me with" way, but in a "where's my next movie" way.

Nolan has always talked about "the many interpretations of Batman," he understands that every creator puts his mark on the character in ways that the next creator may or may not make use of. This is Nolan's take on a complete Batman epic, unencumbered with bullshit like continuity and shared universes. What we, as fans should take from this is really damn simple....

Continuity, more often than not, hinders storytelling, rather than adding to it.

Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns was NEVER Supposed to tie into the "regular" DC Comics universe. It was Miller's attempt to tell an iconic story about the end of a hero's life, without having to be tied to 10 other books, or what the character was doing in Justice League of America. THAT'S why the story is great. You can say the same about Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's The Killing Joke. The reason these stories are great and live on is because there are no rules, period.

It's only after the fact, when these two stories because so popular, and the fans started clamoring about "how they fit" into the comics they were reading on a monthly basis, that things got fucked up. With various elements from these stories, that weren't supposed to fit in perfectly, being forced into the "regular" books. What DC should've had the balls to do, and I hope Warner Brothers learned the lesson, is say, "they don't. We're looking for someone with a visionary new story to tell about this character, period." I think John Blake taking up the mantle of the Batman, and being the first of a continuing line of defenders of Gotham is fun to turn around in your head, but I don't need, or want, to see a movie about it.

 Plus, I don't think Joseph Gordon-Levitt would be interested without Nolan. I know, speaking as an actor, I wouldn't.

Why? Because that was Nolan's story, and Nolan's made quite clear that he is done with Batman and superheroes. (I would advise all of you to quit thinking that Nolan is hands-on with Man of Steel. His own comments make it pretty clear that he was just there to jump-start production as a favor to David Goyer and Warner Brothers) I don't want to see Darren Aronofsky trying to work inside Nolan's version of Gotham City, I want to see what Aronofsky would build from the ground up. I want to see how David Fincher would tell Batman stories, or Joe Carnahan.

And, yes, those three guys, Aronofsky, Fincher or Carnahan, are my dream directors to carry on the franchise. Not the continuity, but the franchise. They encapsulate audacious film-making with deep understanding of the crime genre. What Nolan understood that, say, Tim Burton didn't, is that "superhero" doesn't have to be a genre. Nolan made epic crime films, that happen to have a superhero in the middle of them.

Now, I'll put on my speculative hat....

My best guess is that we won't see Batman in a movie theatre until Warner Brothers gets a Justice League movie off the ground. It will be an all-new Batman, unconnected to any previous film version, and compatible with a unified DC Comics film universe. This isn't the Superman situation, with a lawsuit forcing Warners into having the Man of Steel on screen, or possibly losing the rights. The sad thing is, that's almost guaranteed to generate a much less distinctive and singular interpretation of the character. It will pale next to Nolan's version. Best case scenario, in my mind, is somebody reads a ton of Grant Morrison's JLA run, and casts Batman as the know-it-all/smartest-guy-in-the-room that was so much fun in those stories.

Frankly, I'm asking the fanbase to just stop. Stop trying to do to these films what you've done to the comics, with the incessant need to know how everything fits together. You've reduced the big two (Marvel and DC) comic companies to shoving out books as pacifiers between the big crossovers that "really matter," but never amount to anything. Every single one of those events promise "sweeping change," and it usually amounts to somebody getting a new costume.

Enough.

Nolan gave you sweeping change. Nolan gave you an ending, a deeply compelling, emotional end to the adventures of HIS Batman. Accept it as the gift it is, and demand that the next version be as well thought out and lovingly crafted.

A*V*A*T*A*R

So, the teaser trailer for Jim Cameron's latest opus, his first since Titanic, just hit.

Find it: HERE

So, I've watched it twice.

I'm convinced of one thing here, this will be the biggest fanboy letdown since The Phantom Menace. I mean, since late last year, the fanboy call has gone out "F*cking your eyeballs in December, 2009." The general vibe is, basically, how can Jim "badass" Cameron make a movie in IMAX digital 3-D that is anything less than mind-blowing?

Once again, the fanboy community gets hung up on the visual.

That's where Cameron will fall down. He's asking us to accept CGI creations as, essentially, our main characters. The same fanboys that are chafing their neither regions in anticipation of this film are also the ones bitching and moaning about the over-use of CGI in every other film that comes out. The fanboy assumption, once again, is that somehow they will be able to ignore that these are CG creations.

They never do, they never will.

Now, me, personally? I'm jazzed. I think it's a little amusing to use all this tech to essentially re-make Dances With Wolves set on another planet. I'm confident in Cameron's ability to make me care about his story, even if I'm keenly aware that the images aren't "real." Hell, Pixar makes me weep with almost every film, and that's not even attempting to be "realistic."

The problem with fanboy anticipation is that they're obsessed with being dazzled, visually. Me, I want a fun story. While they're staring at the tech, trying desperately to be f*cked in the eyeballs, I'll be trying to get involved with the characters. Boys and girls, please re-think how you're looking at this movie...

Because the trailer...looks, tech-wise, like any number of other movies you've seen.

But the story...may be amazing.