Re-Imagining Return of the Jedi

So, as I mentioned, my good pal, Todd, and I debated the Empire Strikes Back issue as it was raised in the blastr article the quoted Joss Whedon's opinion about the ending of that fine film. The case I made was featured in the previous post. Check it out if you haven't read it yet. Todd had good reasons for siding with Whedon on some points, while agreeing with me on others. (And he made sure to note he was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with Imperial Walkers on Hoth. He digs Empire, too. Don't you worry.)

But one of his points spun us off in a new direction. He said that he felt the character of Han Solo had changed for the worse. He used the phrase, "the unscoundreling of Solo." (I love that.) I think we all know that happened. In Star Wars he was a wiseass skeptic who always shot first and when he joined a cause, well, he was only in it for the money. Money, see, was what he needed to pay off a debt to Jabba the Hutt. He arced quickly at the end of Star Wars when he came back to help Luke survive the Death Star trench - he had picked a team - so in Empire he was solidly in league with the good guys. But he still came and went as he pleased. He was there on his terms,not theirs. The only thing keeping him around, really, was Leia. (Can you blame him?)

But as soon as he could get the Falcon running well enough, he was ready to go pay off his debt. Chances are he'd never find the rebels again. They're pretty secretive about their bases. But that plan gets derailed, Han sticks around and the second Star Wars movie has its romantic lead. That said, he's still a scoundrel. He's wry and clever and sexually assertive and nothing like the regal stiffs Leia's known all her life. On paper, he's still totally wrong for her and she really digs that. Then this happens...

...blah, blah, blah...what will happen to him...blah, blah, blah...

1983 finally arrived. We'd been fed some top-notch entertainment in the intervening years, like this...

And this...

And we were happy. But, at long last, it was time for this...

Soon we would know Han Solo's fate. It wouldn't be pretty. That's where Todd's "unscoundreling" comment led us. While Solo could still claim some scoundrel street cred in Empire, once he went to his carbon-y near-grave, he would never be the same.

[SIDE NOTE: I should say here that I put a lot of stock in first impressions when it comes to movies. I think they tell you pretty clearly what the thing you're seeing is going to turn out to be. In Raiders of the Lost Ark for example, the first thing we see is a mountain and Indiana Jones rising into frame as if scaling it. The message is clear: this is a movie about a man fearlessly doing the near-impossible. In contrast, the first thing we see in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a mountain...or wait, no...a...is that...? No...! My God, it is...!

It's a molehill. (Yeah, I know, that's actually a gopher. Stay with me...) KotCS, in its opening shot, the shot that sets the tone for the whole picture, turned a mountain into a molehill. And the rest of the jeopardy-free movie followed suit. But that's another conversation.]

In Return of the Jedi, our first impression of Han Solo is that he's, well, a decoration.

And as the movie goes on, he kinda stays that way. There's a reason for that. A genuine story reason. And I assert here and now that it was a flaw in the writing.

So let's rejoin Han at the moment of his rescue. When we first met Han Solo, way back in 1977, we were given his central conflict. He owed money to Jabba the Hutt, who put a price on his head so high that every bounty hunter in the galaxy would be after him.

(Going somewhere, Solo?) Everything he did was motivated by that problem. So, once the problem is eliminated, Han Solo's central conflict is resolved.

I mean. that's fine. We all wanted that to happen. And to have the Princess slay the Dragon is pretty satisfying in mythological terms, especially after said dragon turned her into a de facto sex slave. But, Todd and I agreed, killing off Jabba in the first act of the movie resolved Han's arc far too early to keep him interesting. From that point on, he would be decoration and not much more - just another pair of Rebel boots on the ground. Not only that, they would have him do it in the most buffoonish way possible. Gone was the rogue, the pirate, the lover, the scoundrel. In his place was this conceited ape that, to be honest, probably would never have been successful in wooing a princess.

For the rest of the movie he's just gone soft.

Exhibit A: When they fly away from Tatooine, he thanks Luke for the rescue. Do you remember what he says? Review - In Empire, in the medical bay after Han rescues Luke from the sub-zero Hoth night, he rightly states, "That's two you owe me, kid." In other words, the real Han Solo keeps score. Luke owes him two. Well, in Jedi, the new kinder, gentler Solo thanks Luke and says, "Now I owe you one." Um...maybe he still had hibernation sickness, because the Han I remember would have said, "Now you only owe me one." And that would have gotten an laugh. A laugh of recognition. "There's our old pal, Han!"

Exhibit B: We never again see Solo pilot the Falcon. I mean, this guy's an amazing pilot who outran the big Corellian ships, not the local bulk cruisers. He successfully navigated an asteroid field, which any protocol droid can tell you only gives you chances of approximately 3,720 to 1. In Jedi, the one ship he does fly is the stolen Imperial shuttle and his one big impressive maneuver is to, "Fly casual." Yippee.

Exhibit C: On the forest moon of Endor, Han wants to charge off and take out a Speeder Bike Pilot. They team tries to check his enthusiasm, to which he replies, "Hey...it's me!" As in, "I'm Han Solo, remember? I do crazy things and take foolish risks! Woo-hoo!" It's a goofball moment that calls attention to the fact that Han thinks he actually is a goofball. But the pre-carbonite Han doesn't think he's a goofball. He knows he's bad-ass. Wouldn't it have been cooler for him to say in all sincerity, "Hey. It's me." In other words, "I'm back to normal now. The hibernation sickness has passed. I can and will handle this. Now get out of my way."

Exhibit D: He steps on a branch. Eh. Okay, I guess it could happen. But it's entirely a by-product of the goofball moment that came before. If instead he were the old, cool Solo, he'd have done something far smarter that wouldn't have put him in danger of snapping a twig underfoot in the first place.

We could go on, of course. ("Could you tell Luke, is that who you could tell?") But exhibits A through D make the point. Without a price on his head, Solo has lost his edge. When you discuss Return of the Jedi in terms of that, it quickly becomes clear what you need to do. You need to re-imagine Return of the the Jedi with a stronger Solo subplot. So, here goes.

RETURN OF THE JEDI: RE-IMAGINED

I'm sure you remember how, back in 1980, Lando Calrissian inspected the carbon-frozen Han and surreptitiously turned a couple of dials on the side of the casing before announcing, "He's alive...and in perfect hibernation."

Yeah, see, I always wondered what that sneaky-secret dial-turning was all about. And it came up again with my college pal, James Kirby. Kirby said that Han Solo never should have arrived on Tatooine frozen. His theory was that Jedi should have/could have begun with the crawl, then a pan to space with the Slave I closing in on the desert planet. Fett's in the cockpit, counting his chickens, tasting the money he's about to collect. But back in the cargo hold, the carbon thaws, just as Lando hoped it would when he turned those dials. Han melts out of the stuff, sneaks up on Fett in the cockpit and a fistfight ensues. How cool is that idea? That's our Han Solo, right? I always loved Kirby's idea, so let's start with it. I mean. who wouldn't want to see Boba Fett fight in earnest?

Now, Boba Fett is armed to the teeth and, heck, that ship is his home turf, so it's not hard to imagine he'd win that fight and subdue Solo, delivering him to Jabba the Hutt. But right away we're on a stronger footing with Han. Luke and Leia would still organize their rescue. Most of it could play out the same way, but what if instead of bikini-clad Leia killing Jabba and Boba Fett falling limply into the maw of the almighty Sarlaac, our heroes all just managed to escape by the skin of their teeth? Jabba would be outraged, Fett would be in hock to the Hutt and the tension that's been driving Han Solo since the first time we met him in the Star Wars cantina scene would not only still be alive, it would be escalated.

(SIDE NOTE: Boba Fett did fall into the Sarlaac Pit. That's canon. Now they're talking about stand-alone, offshoot Star Wars movies and one of them could be about Fett. If I were making it, I'd start it in darkness, with heavy breathing. The sounds of the end of a battle come from above, screams and suffering from below. Then there would be a spark of light and we'd see that Boba Fett is in the Sarlaac's esophagus, straining to reach his flame thrower. He ignites it and the walls around him burn to a crisp. Cut to the surface. Jabba's sail barge explodes, our heroes fly away to safety. Then, in the aftermath, burning rubble littering the ground, a gray-gloved hand bursts out of the sand as Boba Fett claws his way to freedom. He looks at the mess around him, sees a sandstorm off in the distance heading his way, then turns and walks off to his waiting ship. But that's just me having fun. Nobody's really asking my opinion on this one.)

Back to Jedi. Han and the gang escape a very-much-still-living Jabba and Boba Fett. But they have a moment to unwind aboard the Falcon. Han, still being Han, would know Leia loves him and might be wrestling with whether he wants to give in to his feelings for her. It's complicated. She's not the easy conquests he's been used to. So maybe he plays it cool for a while, risking losing her. She's not going to put up with that for very long. They can't hang around in Tatooine's system, unless they want to end up in a shootout with the Boba Fett, so Han insists on a Rebels v. Empire update and a set of coordinates. Leia begrudgingly supplies the destination and they set a course for the gathering of Rebel ships near Sullust. As Leia storms off, Lando and Chewie give Han some smack for acting like a jerk to this really amazing woman. (Friends of me in my 20s may recognize this little turn, as I'm raiding it from my own life story. Indulge me. It's human and it would work here.)

Luke returns to Yoda and...you know, for the most part, his story plays out the way we've seen it. That's the strongest part of Jedi as far as I'm concerned. I'm really just focusing on Han's arc here...

On the Rebel command frigate, Leia corners Han. He's not acting like himself. Or rather, he's acting too much like himself-before-they-kissed. Did their moments mean nothing? This would give them an opportunity to banter the way they did in Empire. Getting nowhere, Leia leaves him with an ultimatum of sorts: own up to how he feels or move on, but don't keep stringing her along.

So, Luke meets up with the fleet in the war room and it's on. Just like in the existing, canonical version of the story, we learn of the shield generator on the forest moon, that the Emperor himself is on Death Star II and that, yeah-yeah, many Bothans died to bring us this information, blah, blah, blah...

Han, Luke, Leia, etc. pilot the shuttle Tydirium past security and land on the forest moon...Han wants to charge in and beat up the guards, but Leia stops him.

HAN: (with conviction) Hey. It's me. [See above.]

Speeder bikes...Separation...Meet the Ewoks...Become a part of the tribe (probably in a much more efficient way to make room for the more relevant character scenes I described above)...And, finally, they gear up for a ground assault on the shield generator. Luke surrenders to Vader and heads into his own personal battle.

Up in space, Lando pilots the Falcon into the trap. Han has to get that generator blown. And HERE, my friends, is where Han's arc should finally pay off. With the help of the Ewoks, they get themselves to the jaws of victory. THAT'S when Boba Fett and Jabba finally catch up to them. Now, wait...hear me out.

Imagine Boba Fett waging a one-on-one war with Solo in the freakin' forest. If things went the way we're re-imagining, we'd get to see Boba Fett use all those little attachments and gizmos on his armor in his ship, in the desert and in the freakin' forest. But this time Han is the one who wins. Why? Because Han Solo is a smart, ruthless badass. Han fights dirty because when a bounty hunter is in his face, he doesn't wait around to get shot at. Now, I still think one of the cool things about Jedi as it exists is that Leia kills Jabba. Again, as Todd put it, "The princess slays the dragon." So she could - and damn well should - still do that. So Han defeats Boba Fett with his last ounce of fight. He's victorious, but spent. Then Jabba gets drop on him, gives him a speech about how Han's the best, he's proven it, but, in the end, Jabba can't just let him walk away or else anyone who ever owed him a debt would feel they could do the same. Classic Al Capone stuff, right? So Jabba produces a weapon, (a tiny, but lethal one that will fit in his little lizard hand), and is ready to kill Han. And at the last possible second, Leia shows up and takes out Jabba. Only she's wearing forest combat gear in stead of a gold bikini. Gives her some dignity.

Imagine then, after all the dodging and denying and acting like a jerk to Leia, Han arcs. He arcs suddenly, and finally comes around. Imagine how different these lines would sound:

HAN: I love you.

LEIA: I know.

Maybe Han steps in for a kiss and she blows him off.

LEIA: Now let's blow this thing and go home.

And the rest of the movie plays out as we remember (with the exception of the whole "You love him, don't you?" "I understand. When he come back, I won't get in the way." We'd come up with a better way to tell Han that Luke and Leia are siblings.)

So that's about it. Essentially the same movie, only better because Han Solo is Han Solo again. I'm sure there are a million great "Yes, ands..." that could make this idea even better, and I welcome positive discussion, of course. But it always amazes me what the musings of two grown-up geeks can conjure in very little time. I had fun. I hope you did, too. I'll sign off now with a vague plan in place to sit impatiently in my living room counting down the days (for exactly one year!) until The Force Awakens comes out.

May the Force Be With You... Always.

OO

The Empire Strikes Back & The Open-Ended Question

We think we solved the problem with Return of the Jedi!

Wait, go back. It started with this article, sent to me by my lifelong pal, Todd Stashwick, not about Jedi, but about The Empire Strikes Back. You can skim it and get the idea. But it's short enough that you might as well just read it.

http://www.blastr.com/2013-8-22/why-whedon-thinks-empire-strikes-back-was-betrayal-trust

So, here's the thing about it. Joss Whedon is wrong. Yes, I know, when it comes to matters of opinion on movies, nobody is wrong. I still believe that and I hope you do, too. But on this point, I'm saying Joss Whedon is wrong because a) nothing I say can really hurt Joss Whedon and b) it's a pretty decent launching pad for this blog post. Let's begin at the ending in question, shall we?

Beautiful, isn't it? Our friends from two whole movies, having taken it on the chin from the worst kind of galactic thugs, have just lost their other friend and are sending his pal and a guy they barely trust to get him back. But they're all still alive and able to fight another day. Just beautiful.

See, Mr. Whedon, who is right to feel however he feels - let me reiterate that position - says this movie committed "the cardinal sin" by leaving us with a cliffhanger. "I go to the movies expecting to have the whole experience," he explains. "If I want a movie that doesn't end, I'll go to a French movie. That's a betrayal of trust to me. A movie has to be complete within itself, it can't just build off the first one or play variations." While I don't knock him for holding that view, I can (and will) argue that he's off the mark in saying that The Empire Strikes Back fails to give audiences the complete experience. It delivers exactly what was promised: the Empire, striking back.

Let's review:

After their victory at the Battle of Yavin, the Rebels are hiding out on Hoth. (It is a dark time for them, we've just been told in the crawl.) Pissed off about losing their ultimate weapon, the Empire is hunting them down like dogs. They find them on the ice planet and try to shut them down.

Our heroes narrowly escape, but are separated from each other. Han, Leia, Chewbacca and C3PO get tossed around in an asteroid field, have no hyperdrive to get them anywhere really safe and finally find a place to duck and cover long enough to get the Falcon working again...Cloud City.

But, see, Boba Fett follows them there, alerts the hyperdrive-enabled Empire, who can show up early and set a trap. They will imprison and torture Han, Leia & company to force Luke out of wherever he's hiding. (This sucks extra hard for Han and Leia who were finally able to admit that they're falling in love.) Anyway, what the Empire doesn't know is that Luke is in training, getting stronger, learning to control of his abilities. The bait still works, but now Vader will be facing a more formidable adversary than he planned on facing. Nevertheless, Luke falls for the ruse 100%. By the time he gets to Cloud City, bad business has gone down.

Yes, old Han Solo's been frozen in carbonite (mmm...carbonite...bet it tastes like ice cream...metallic ice cream...). C3PO has been dismembered. Leia and Chewie are headed for Imperial detention cells. None of this is good for our guys, but all of it is for the baddies.

Luke confronts Vader, they fight. Lando pulls a switcheroo and gets Leia and Chewbacca freed from their prison march. There's still a chance to save Han, if they can get to Boba Fett's landing platform before he takes off. No dice, though. Fett is off with frozen Solo in his cargo hold. Meanwhile, Luke's still fighting Vader. And guess how THAT turns out?

Uh-oh...

Uh-oh...!

UH-OH!!!

The New Hope from the first flick, the one who went from anonymous farm boy to Rebel Commander and war hero, is so lost now that he resorts to this:

I'd say the Empire, as promised from the beginning, struck the heck back, wouldn't you? So, you see, that story arc - that central plot - is 100% complete by the end of the film.

Q: The Empire wants to strike back...will they succeed?

A: Darn right they succeeded.

What's left hanging are the subplots. Luke has new information, what's he going to do with it? Han is on his way to Jabba the Hutt, how can his friends (and his new lover) save him? Yoda even cryptically mentioned that Luke wasn't the last hope to vanquish the Empire, what's that about?!

You'll find out in 1983. And it seems like that's Whedon's main beef. Why didn't they resolve all the subplots? This position seems surprisingly unimaginative from someone with the astonishingly wonderful imagination of a Joss Whedon. See, when Star Wars hit theaters in 1977, the very first shot changed movies forever.

And I'm telling you, for those who weren't around yet to watch it happen in real time, the closing shot of Empire changed movies forever again. It was the closing shot of Empire that told us Lucas was playing a long game. It was that closing shot that caught us by surprise and said, "Oh, you thought we were finished? Guess what, kids, there's a whole new way of making movies. We're changing the model right before your very eyes." I loved that ending. I loved that they were doing that to movies. I found the whole thing thrilling beyond belief. I felt like I had a complete experience and then, I felt the joy of knowing I would spend the next three years ruminating, speculating, inventing, hoping and just plain wishing about what would happen next. I felt awash in the promise and possibilities. I can't be the only one who felt that way, can I? I mean, I knew I'd be seeing this installment at least a half a dozen times before then anyway. For kids of my generation, this shot...

...and the ones I posted throughout this blog, are what took Star Wars from the greatest sic-fi fantasy we'd ever seen to an obsession that would last for over 30 years. It said, "there's more. "There's always more. Just you wait."

UP NEXT...RE-IMAGINING RETURN OF THE "JEDI"

THE BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN CHALLENGE

So the big shocker out of SDCC was that visionary director short-attention-span pot-banger Zack Snyder's MAN OF STEEL sequel will feature a Superman/Batman showdown.  People got all excited and I get why.  The clash of those particular titans was nothing short of DY-NO-MITE in Frank Miller's The Dark Night Returns.  So, when Harry Lennix was brought out to read the dialogue from that epic graphic novel, that's exactly what it evoked.

Say hello to my little friend.

Now, let's be sure to temper that with the follow-up statement that it will be "inspired by" the events in that book, not an actual telling of those events.  This makes sense given that we're dealing with a much younger Superman and, presumably, a somewhat chronologically-matched Bats.  This also however, presents the problem I wish to discuss today.

Who do you root for?  In TDKR(-eturns, not -ises), you rooted for Batman. Hands down. It was his story, and even though he had clearly gone off the deep end, Miller had done a bang-up job of transforming Kal El into a phony government shill AND it was exciting to see Bruce Wayne team up with Oliver Queen to fight dirty against outwit the superfella.

But now it's a Superman story, and only the second in this iteration.  We've only just met this version of the man in blue.  He's young, he's likable, nobody owns him.  So, what, he's just supposed to take it the hard way when this screw-loose vigilante in bat suit starts hurling Kryptonite batarangs his way?  And for that matter, why would the Bat go after him in the first place?  They better answer that pretty darn well before the fists start flying.  (And I'm sure they will.  Maybe it's because this last Son of Krypton lets cities get destroyed.  Who knows?  Think maybe young Bruce's parents were killed in one of those falling skyscrapers?  I mean, a boatload of people were, so why not them?)

Or maybe Superman will go all cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs this time (like, maybe, Mola Ram makes him drink the blood of Kali Ma from a skull or something - I don't know, it's a placeholder...) and they'll call in the caped crusader to reel him back in. [Possible sample dialogue - BATMAN (growls): It was the black sleep of Kali!]

But you see the challenge.  Right now, it's Superman's good will to lose.  We just got to know him.  In theory we kind of like him (well, some people do, anyway).  BUT...In one two-and-a-half-hour movie, they need to get us up to speed on how Clark is doing in his new life at the Daily Planet, show how he uses his super skillz to save the city on a day-to-day basis, introduce the new Batman, give us a villain worth   his or her weight in evil-doing, then come up with a DAMN GOOD REASON why this new Batman and this new Superman would come to blows?  That means at least a two scenes where things seem okay, one or two more where things start to turn, and one big betrayal of some kind that makes the conflict simply unavoidable. (Problem #2: Which city to destroy in the confrontation this time?)

That's a lot of water to carry in one movie.  And I'm predicting right now that it won't be anywhere near as powerful and resonant as it was in TDKR (you know which one I mean).  It can't be.  That battle was borne of decades of these two growing sick of each other and their differing philosophies.  This disagreement will have all of twenty minutes tops to percolate.  Now, some fans might think that's okay, as long as the fight achieves total physical/audio-visual/CGI kickass-osity.  But I say they're wrong.  This one needs to mean something.  It's not some villain of the week, we're talking about here.  It's the two most important characters in the DC universe.

So...yeah...  Let's not all get too excited just yet.  I mean, who knows?  Maybe they'll do some Superfly Level 10 Story Math-nastics and blow our collective mind.  But somehow...I doubt it.

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

OO

ATTENTION STUDIOS! (This is for your own good...)

ATTENTION STUDIOS: The audience doesn't give a crap if you make money.  They don't care if your movie was number one or number ten in its opening weekend, or even if it missed the top ten by two cents.  The audience only cares if it's good.

Now, you may have figured out a pretty good hustle, banking on the opening weekend crowd to make back most of your budget before people realize your movie's just not worth it. It worked really well for a good long time.  But then TV got good.  Real good.  And video games went from two-minute, three-life diversions to became deep, fully-interactive, rich and immersive stories.  Now your little hustle isn't producing like it used to.  So, what do you do? MORE! LOUDER! FASTER! SHOCK AND AWE, SHOCK AND AWE, SHOCK AND AWE!  (Oh and you gotta see it in 3-DEEEEEEE!)

Please listen to me, Studios, because this is for your own good.  People love their stories. They'll turn anything into a story.  They'll translate sporting events into stories. They steal their stories, they love them so much.  They write their own versions, they love them so much.  They tell them around tables and in restaurants and bars, and on playgrounds and in school, and even n their minds while they sleep because they love them so much.

But explosions are not stories. Explosions are brief moments of of empty, albiet spectacular, activity.  Robots are not stories.  Robots are tools used to do work humans don't want to do.  A cool shot or special effect is not in itself a story.

So, in reminding you how to do your jobs, let me ask and try to answer three questions:

1) What is a story?
2) What is entertainment?
3) What is good?

Question #1 may be the easiest to answer.  A story is a series of linear events that change a person forever. Sounds simple enough, right?

Question #2 is pretty easy, too.  Entertainment is an emotionally satisfying experience.  If people step out of their lives for whatever reason - need for escape, a desire to laugh or cry, or simply to pass the time - they want that time to have been spent well.  They may not always use these words, but this is always what they're after.

Question #3 is the bitch. It's easy to tell a story and with a little effort, you might get an audience to say, "It was okay. Decent rental."  But you need more than that, especially with what it costs to make a movie these days.  You need that same guy to come back again and again, to bring his friends and sing to the world about how great this story is.  When that guy sits down in a theater he's making a deal with you: "I'm giving you my time. There's only so much time to give. Make my sacrifice worth it.  Show me that you thought this through, that you've looked at something real that we all experience and came up with a way of looking at it that actually helps me get through it.  Show me who I am in this crazy world and how I can come out of it on top." That's your task no matter what kind of movie you're making...and it's a tall order. So difficult is that to achieve, in fact, that you often look like like you'd rather not even try.

"But, you don't understand. Movies cost so much to make and people aren't going to theaters anymore.   We gotta give them something bigger than they can get at home or, to be honest, we'll never make our money back."

Nobody cares.

"But don't you want us to keep making movies?"

Not like this.

"But this is what people pay for!"

They're starving for better but they'll take anything.

"But Man  of Steel made $400 million!"

Nobody cares but you.

"People want spectacle.  They vote with their dollars."

Not when it's empty spectacle.  Then they'll steal off the internet.

"Okay, Smartguy, so you tell me what they want!"

All right, then...

It's not the war, it's the farm boy who thinks he's missing it and the princess who falls for the scoundrel.

It's not the Nazis with the supernatural weapon, it's the archeologist who needs to stop them making it up as he goes.

It's not the shark, it's the three unlikely friends teaming up to hunt it down.

It's not the extraterrestrial, it's the kid who befriends him.

It's not the UFOs, it's the family man who's affected by their contact.

It's not the building with the terrorists, it's the cop who can't believe he has to stop them if he ever wants to patch things up with his wife.

It's not the Mafia, it's the hopes of one father for his favorite son.

All of these movies were blockbusters.  All of them broke the hundred million mark in a time when tickets cost a fraction of what they do now.  All of them are watched again and again and again in homes.  What do they all have in common?  Oh, come on, that's an easy one.  Fine, I'll tell you.  They all have, at their centers, identifiable characters with real human emotions.  The spectacle is secondary to the truth.  This is what we all want when we settle down in our chairs, alone in the dark, to lose ourselves in a movie.  We want to see someone on the screen that is us.  We want to see someone going through a problem like ours and we want to see them prevail.  Now, whether that takes place in outer space or net to the kitchen sink doesn't matter one bit.  What matters is that we can see ourselves in them. What matters is that we can identify. You give them that and you'll make your money.  Trust me.

Do you get it now?  Somehow, I don't think you do.

- OO

THE WORST OSCARS EVER!

Tonight is Oscar night - my Superbowl Sunday.  I make no apologies for the Oscars, as has become the fashion of late, because, to be frank, there is no need to.  The Academy Awards are a great Hollywood tradition, a celebration of the art and craft of movies.

Yet, every year, people complain.  They don't like them movies that were nominated or the show was too long or there were too many musical numbers or there were not enough musical numbers or the speeches were dull or the speeches got played off or the host was lame... (For my money, the funniest complaint in recent history was, "No stars showed up."  Ah, but they did, in droves.  They were just young stars.  Stars an older audience didn't recognize.  That one said a lot about the one doing complaining.)  Suffice to say, every year it's "the worst Oscars ever."

Though, that's a patently silly (and grandiose) statement - it's becoming as much a tradition as the Oscars themselves.  It makes me wonder what people think the Oscars should be.  You get conflicting answers when you ask people that, most of them mere lists of what they shouldn't be.  But that's not the question.  What should they be?

To answer that, it's important to first state in no uncertain terms what the Oscare actually are - a benefit party that helps to fund the great work the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does to advance the art, science, innovation, resotration and preservation of film.

1. They should be a lavish and unapologetic celebration of movies, let's us relive some of the moments we loved. Because movies matter to our cultural identity.
2. They should be hosted by a gracious lover of movies who doesn't see him or herself as sitting at the kids' table.  He or she should be a friend of the movies, too, and as such, have the right to poke a little fun at his or her old buddy without being insulting.
3. They should feel like a relaxing, fun party, where all your friends, dress up, get together and have a good time.
4. They should be a chance for artists to show real gratitude for the honor they've been given.  (I think we all agree the worst speeches usually involve lists of agents' and managers' names, whereas the best ones are given by Daniel Day Lewis.)
5. They should be about movies, nothing else.

I think if the Oscars hit these five points, they will work...every time.

But they need the audience to meet them half way.  We can't approach them with cynicism year after year.  We need to let them be okay.  But there are forces that want to keep that form happening.

Ever since the fashion industry intruded on the awards, there's been a steady rise in snark levels.  This isn't intrinsic to movie fandom.  It's poor behavior learned from outsider fashionistas.  "Who are you wearing," is irrelevant to cinema.  I agree with enjoying the fashions on display, but a three-hour red carpet fashion show isn't a celebration of movies.  It's not as if filmmakers show up to the fashion awards and complain about the designers' taste in movies.  That would be silly.  Especially if it got a three-hour televised special right before the awards began.

Anyway, I hope the show is good.  I hope host Seth McFarlane handles himself with grace and remembers that his "Family Guy" voices have nothing to do with movies.  And hope, when tomorrow comes, that people can resist the tired old critique, "That was the worst Oscars ever."

- OO

NOTHING LASTS FOREVER (Part 4 - The Five Major Mistakes of Die Hard 5)

I'm a little aghast right now.  I just got back from seeing this travesty...

There were about 20 people in the theater.  One of them left around 20 minutes in and never came back.  That being said, this was one matinee.  By all accounts DH5 will top the weekend box office. And the good people at Fox will think they did everything right because money.  (Sigh...)

Okay, to be completist, I need to write about this one, but it's just been released and I detest spoilers.  So I'm going to be vague about the plot.  I suspect, however, if you go see it, you'll be amazed at how little more there is to tell.  A few key words and phrases, a reveal here and there, but not much more.  Here's goes.

Some high-level Russian politician goes to see an aging prisoner who is set to testify in a major court case.  The politician says something like, "You give me the file and I'll give you back your life."  And the prisoner tells him he doesn't really care about his life.  The politician says he'll never let him testify, and none of this makes any sense yet. You just kind of go along thinking, "They'll tell us at some point."  Then a young guy goes into a Russian nightclub, commits an obvious and publicly visible crime that he's arrested for.  We know from the trailers that he's Jack McClane.

In New York, John McClane (who's still an excellent shot after all these years on the force) gets the news that his son has been arrested in Russia.  John looks weary, crestfallen. Maybe this is heartbreak for his son, who we're told grew up a troubled problem child, always getting in his own way.  His generic cop buddy from the NYPD gives him the whole scoop on Jack's arrest and when his hearing will be.  John plans to take his vacation time to go to Russia to try and help Jack out.  Generic NYPD guy warns John that they do things differently in Russia.  John's response? "Yeah, me too."  (Really? You've been to Russia and you know you do things differently there?  Okay, whatever.)

So John gets a ride to the airport from Lucy.  (Always nice to see her.)  Here's what she looks like driving him to the airport.

"Dad, try not to make and even bigger mess of this."

She gives him an Idiots' Guide to Russia and tells him she loves him.  (Because she does ever since they made up in the last movie.)  Next thing you know John is on a plane, studying the files Generic NYPD guy gave him.  These files are all in Russian.  Then before you know it, he's on the ground, stuck in Garden Ring traffic.  His cabbie is a jovial fellow who takes pity on him for being so uncomfortable in Russia and let's him get out and walk without paying.  He walks to the courthouse, arriving just in time to see Jack get loaded off a prison truck and hustled into court right behind the aging prisoner we saw at the opening of this thing.  A bunch of noisy stuff happens and soon Jack is out of shackles and escorting the Russian prisoner to a disguised panel van so he can  escort him to a safe house somewhere in Moscow.  But in walks John, looking a little bit like this.

"You're only making it worse."

In fact, for the next 20 minutes or so, this is how he looks.  Confused.  This is because, HE HAS NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON!  He still thinks Jack is in trouble for being some kind of troubled youth.  He doesn't wonder why Jack is barking orders in Russian at this older prisoner.  Jack keep telling he shouldn't be here, he's not wanted here, he's in the way.  John honestly thinks he's being a good dad by chasing his son and trying to keep him from getting in more trouble than he's already in.

Meanwhile this nice, young woman...

"Zzzzzzziiiippp."

...had ordered some gunmen to kill Jack but make sure they take back the older prisoner alive.  So the gunmen chase Jack and prisoner in the biggest dump truck looking thing you've ever seen, and John, wanting to catch up to his son and talk some sense into him, steals the biggest flatbed truck you've ever seen.  These three monster trucks have a high speed chase-shootout-demolition derby on the streets and highways of Moscow, nary a cop in sight, I might add.  John tumbles the flatbed and has to steal some other guy's car - by punching him the face and saying, "I don't understand a word you're saying." Finally, John pulls a maneuver that lets Jack get away, but it costs he rolls his second car and Jack decides he has to go back for him.  They manage to get away and head for the safe house.  (The guy who left, never saw the end of this sequence, by the way.  It was just too much of a noisy, blurry, shaky cam experience for him, I guess.  And I guess some people just like to know what the heck is going on in a car chase. That wasn't really an option here most of the time.)

Okay, so they wrecked the city and Jack's mad that John is there, but at least they made it to the safe house.  End of Act 1.  John finally figures out that Jack is in the CIA.  They want the Russian alone because he has a file full of evidence that will help them with whatever job they've been working on.  John's relieved and here comes the only reference to Holly since the end of DH3... "Your mom, will be relieved.  She and I thought it was drugs."  Okay, this is key because it tells us that 1) Holly is still alive in the world of Die Hard and 2) she and John occasionally talk about the kids.  But then the safe house stops being safe and they have to flee.

On the street, Jack tells John (whom he doesn't want there) to babysit the most important prisoner in all of Russia while he goes to check if the coast is clear.  This allows the most important prisoner in all of Russia to have a father-to-father talk with John about how it's never too late to make things right with your kids.  He has a daughter, so he knows.  (Any guesses who the daughter is? If you guessed the only important female character in all of Russia, you, too could run a studio.)

NOTE: Service elevators don't play "Girl From Ipanema."
Only cliche movie elevators do.

Look I don't want to relive the whole wafer-thin plot.  Suffice to say, it doesn't feel like Die Hard.  Not once.  Not ever.  In Die Hard, if an assault helicopter destroys a downtown hotel, someone gets the President on the horn.  In Die Hard noisy spectacles not only end up on the news, they represent a golden opportunity for the men and women who report the news.  In Die Hard people everywhere get involved in one way or another.  For example, that Russian cabbie?  I guarantee we would have seen him again, were this a Die Hard movie. But here, it's all done wrong (except maybe McClane's costume - they got that right, at least), but not only is it all done wrong, it's all done wrong in the washed-out monochromatic blue and amber hues of some of today's top shelf TV commercials.  This is some of the worst camera work and color timing Hollywood has to offer.

So, to move on to the title of this post, here are the five things wrong with Die Hard 5.

1) The credit "A John Moore Film" - This is the first of his movies I've ever seen, so I'm not going to go down the road of critiquing his body of work.  My beef with this is that it I got the sense that it actually was a John Moore film.  When you take the reins of the latest installment of a franchise, you don't get the luxury of "putting your stamp on it."  Your job is to step out of the way so much that you become invisible, like a runway model whose job is to make you see the clothes, and let the essential truth of the franchise be your North Star.  If you have Die Hard or Star Wars or Star Trek or any such name in the title of your film, it's not YOUR film.  It's a film you got to direct.  It's a ship you are must steer straight.  It's not yours to plot a new course.  Nobody cares about seeing "Your Die Hard," John Moore.  We want to see Die Hard, plain, simple and clean.  (To be fair, though, for all I know John Moore fought tooth and nail to make it more Die Hard and less him.  I guess we'll never know.)

2) John McClane isn't in it - From the moment we see him, John is quiet, sullen, morose, weary.  He looks old, barely awake.  Never do we see what made Bruce Willis everybody's favorite action guy for a good decade or more - his natural sense of humor.  He was more John McClane in Moonrise Kingdom than he was here.

3) Holly - Don't reference her if it's going to be empty.  There's a moment at the end for, in any and all true life circumstances, Holly would have been present.  Her absence was as glaring as the freeze frame  (!) before the final fade out.  Ironically, it makes her the absentee parent.

4) Isolation - Nothing had any effect on the actual world around it.  By that, I mean the mega-destrcutive car chase in Act 1, the destruction of the downtown hotel, the eventual climatic battle in a remote location - all of it is done in complete isolation, far from all the civilians and authorities that would want to get in the way.  It makes the entire exercise achingly generic.

5) Scale - This is a very small flick.  Die Hard was an event.  They treated it like an event even before they knew what a crowd-pleasing hit it would be.  That sense of importance, the feeling that his is one of Fox's flagship titles.  But this film feels like a B-movie at best, dumped in February on as many small screens as possible.  Nobody seems to care what an opportunity this was.  Instead, they churned out a product that will not be long remembered.

This begs the question that got me blogging about this in the first place. Can Die Hard be rescued?  I do believe it can, if done carefully.  It's not enough to drop in an Ode to Joy ringtone or snippets of Michael Kamen's original score here and there.  You need a writer who remembers what made it great and a director who wants to honor what came before and a studio exec who understands what all this means.  My fear is that nobody in the position to make that happen really thinks it's necessary.

Okay, I'm done with this thing.  It's bringing out too much negativity in me.  Next time I'll start with something I'm genuinely excited about.

- OO

NOTHING LASTS FOREVER (Part 3 - Nothing Lasts Forever)

Twelve years passed since Die Hard With a Vengeance.  Then, in June of 2007, we were given DH4, with the somewhat cumbersome (and oddly New Hampshire state motto-ish) title Live Free or Die Hard.

Its not your father's Die Hard...or yours either, come to think of it.

The titel alone was the first bog indicator that something had changed.  It implied history, the freedom of this great nation threatened by tyranny.  (Deep-throated trailer voice: "And only one man can stop it." Yippie-ki-yay.)  This would be a big story, with the security of the entire country at stake.  Let me repeat, THE ENTIRE COUNTRY.  Not a building in Los Angeles, or an airport in DC, or the subways and city blocks of Manhattan.  No, this time, it was that which makes America America that was being threatened.  This time, the danger would cross state lines.

So, how do you finagle a story line to justify a NYC Police Detective getting wrapped up in what is essentially a federal cyber-terror manhunt?  Well, you make him a babysitter.  See, when some anonymous hackers (see what I did there?) knock out the power at the FBI's Cyber-Security Division, the G-men look to the usual suspects only to find most of them have been murdered. The ones that are still alive need to be taken into protective custody stat!  

Justin Long plays one of these top-rated hackers.  A stammering, but charming young fellow named Matt Farrell. (We buy him as a hacker, by the way, because he played a computer on TV...)

"Hi, I'm a PC." "And I'm a Mac."

So, he knows about these things.

Naturally, when a single hacker needs to be taken into protective custody and transported from New York to DC, you get the guy who stopped terrorist attacks in both of those cities.  (I feel like if they could have figured out a way for him to swing by Avenue of the Stars between Olympic and Santa Monica on the way, they would have.)  You get, Detective John McClane.  Naturally.

So, on his way, McClane gets dressed down for being a lousy absentee father and husband by none other than his now college-age daughter, Lucy, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead in an inspired casting choice... 

"McClane residence. Lucy McClane speaking."

...before she storms off to let him think about what a loser he's been to her and her brother and her mom all her life.  (I guess she only saw DH3...)  In any case, it's good she stormed off when she did because a second more of arguing would have kept McClane from reaching Matt Farrell's apartment and saving his life in nick of time.  At this point in the theater, I was squirming in my chair, wrestling with mixed feelings.  I was excited to get more Die Hard and I was still assuming that once the setup business was all in order, we'd start seeing some.  I sat through the Lucy/John confrontation, preparing myself to accept the truth that the studio and I simply disagreed on the direction of John and Holly's marriage and since they had all the money, and in the battle of who McClane was in 1 & 2 vs. who he was in 3, they decided to go with 3 and that was just how it was going to be from here on out.  I decided to give it some time and see if maybe they could make it still feel like a Die Hard movie.  And to be honest, the next thing that happened didn't disappoint.  McClane got to Farrell just as the bullets started to fly and in short order he was throwing Justin Long around the room, telling him what to do to stay alive.  I bought this.  McClane knows how to avoid a bullet or two.  He's a man of quick thinking action.  All Matt Farrell knows is his keyboard.  It was fun to see John McClane coaching this kid on survival in the middle of an intense gunfight.

Crazy things happen for the next several minutes.  You remember this exchange from the trailer, don't you?   

"You killed a helicopter...with a car?"

"I was out of bullets."

Sigh...

Okay.  It's gonna be that kind of movie.  Now, look, I'm not opposed to a big crazy over-the-top action movie AT ALL.  I love 'em.  But when that movie also had Die Hard in the title, I guess I just hope for a little something extra.  Again, DH1 came out and people were blown away because it was a big action blockbuster that also had great characters. There were peaks and valleys, ebbs and flows of emotion that made you invest in, nay really care about, these people.  Let me state that again with the appropriate emphasis.  They made you care about THESE people:

Let's take a walk back in time for s moment.

At this point in 1988, I knew McClane was nervous about being in a strange city, his wife was back to using her maiden name (ouch), he was hoping to show her he'd evolved enough to win her back, a rich coke-head (Hart Bochner)... 

"Sprechen sie talk?"

...was trying to put the moves on her, she was eclipsing him in every way and there was nothing he could do about it.  This was looking like it was going to be be the worst Christmas of his life.  THEN hostages take over the building and the one person he cares most about becomes a hostage.  And here he is on the run with not even the shoes on his feet.

At this point in 1990, I knew McClane had transferred to LA, despite misgivings, but because it was the good thing to do for his marriage and family (take note, grown-up Lucy).  He had gone ahead to visit the in-laws in DC with their two kids and Holly was coming on a later flight because, well, work is work.  He borrows his in-laws car to pick her up at Dulles and it gets towed.  Great.  As he waits for the flight to land, he spots some suspicious behavior, goes to report it, and is summarily dismissed by the local PD.  

"You'd be surprised what I make in a month."

Because nobody messes around at an airport, ever, let alone when your wife is n the air headed that way, he investigates himself.  Not the smartest idea, but he's always been a bit of a cowboy, hasn't he?  THEN, terrorists hijack the control tower, crash a jumbo jet and issue their demands in order to be kept from crashing more jumbo jets.  The one person he cares about most is a hostage again, only this time, IN THE AIR, with fuel running out.  At least he has his shoes on this time.

At this point in 1995, shaky start.  Holly' not really in the picture.  John's kind of given up.  Harder to root for a guy who's given up on the person he cares about most.  But bombs are going off on New York City.  It has to stop.  The police are at their wits' end.  THEN the bomber demands that McClane be brought in.  Nobody wants him there, but they want bombs going off in Manhattan less, so they comply.  They do what the bomber wants and put him on a street corner in Harlem in his boxers and a sandwich board that declares a bomber-prescribed hate for African Americans using the worst worst there is for them.  Local man of conscience, Zeus Carver, steps in to keep him from getting killed and soon they're tied together in a series of puzzles orchestrated by the big crazy bad guy.  Not exactly 1988 or 1990 is it?  What keeps Zeus invested?  Conscience alone?  Maybe.  But now we're getting into questions of why and how and what...and we're thinking, we're doing math.  Summer vacation is over.

So here we are back in 2007, and hackers we don't know - who themselves attacked a government security division - are getting murdered by someone.  McClane (and presumably a handful of other cops in other regions of the country - what are their stories?) is sent to take one of them into protective custody.  But first, his daughter is mad at him.  Not in danger or anything, just mad.  McClane and the hacker get shot at, they flee, reach the FBI in DC and on the way to being moved to a safer environment, they get ambushed and kill a helicopter with a car.  THEN the cyber-terrorists start shutting down computer systems and networks all over the country and they have to drive to West Virginia to stop them from blowing up a power station and then...and then... and then...  I'm sorry, who am I supposed to be caring about right now?  (Too...much...math...must...remember...it's...summer...)

Over the next hour they go to Maryland, trade words with Kevin Smith, figure out that the bad guy, Thomas Gabriel, (a pre-Justified Timothy Olyphant) used to work as a hacker for the government and was drummed out because they didn't believe we were vulnerable to a cyber-attack and now he wants to steal the social security information of everyone in America or something... Eventually, he kidnaps Lucy - because...we...need to make it personal for John?  Finally?  Somehow?  And we get the first and only scene in the entire movie that feels like Die Hard.  Gabriel puts her on the phone with John to prove she's alive.  She looks around the room, taking a head count, then blurts out, "There's six of them..." and goes on to list some vital information she knows he'll use to find them and kill them.  I loved her in that moment.  She's daddy's little girl all right.

Blah, blah, blah...they track her down, McClane kills Maggie Q by dropping an SUV on her in an elevator shaft - as one might expect - and it comes down to a showdown designed to echo the one at the end of DH1.  And this is where McClane finally says Yippie-Ki-Yay Mother--  Ah, but in the theatrical version, the second half of his word is covered by the sound of a gun.  DH4, it seems, is rated PG-13.  It is he first Die Hard movie not to get an R rating.  It's the first one that wasn't made by adults for adults.  Rather it was made by adults for 13-year-olds.  And this goes a long way to explaining why it's devoid of the kinds of complex themes that made the original films so compelling.  Kids just don't want to hear a bunch of grown-ups dealing with grown-up things, right?  I mean, we all know that.  Right?

You would think.  But, a friend of mine recently showed his 14 year old son the original Die Hard and the response was not what you would expect.  The boy said, "The beginning was slow, but the rest was really great."  My friend wisely told his son that it's because the beginning was slow that the rest was really great.  The kid got it.  It made perfect sense to him that he was invested in the characters and their outcomes because he was given time to get to know them first as people.

I mean, as an action movie all by itself, DH4 is still better than your average straight-to-cable whatnot.  But as a Die Hard movie, it's a big, fat, missed opportunity.  The secret to Die Hard is that the spectacular action set-pieces were incidental to the more important and far more satisfying personal stuff.  

Who could forget the moment when Sgt. Al Powell beat his own personal demons?

Who can forget this guy...

...realizing something was seriously wrong and punching out this guy...?

Or this working relationship?

Or him...

...being so mad about this...

...that he wants a one-on-one fight to the death with McClane.  Then there's this charming fellow...

"You let me in or I call INS..."

Everyone who played a role in this movie is memorable.  None of them, besides John and Holly, were more memorable than this guy, of course...

"Nice suit. John Phillips, London. I have two myself. Rumor has it Arafat buys his there."

...but that's as it should be.  (I wanted to do a whole paragraph on Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber, but to be honest, a paragraph just isn't enough. And anyway, heroes and villains are interconnected. So for him to be this good, John and Holly had to be as well.  And they were.  And he was.)

So, what's the point of all this?  The point is that when Die Hard was made, in 1988, there was a minimum basic requirement that movies had to meet to be considered movies at all.  They were required to have a cast of distinct and identifiable characters with genuine concerns.  Those characters had to be stressed into moments where they faced who hey were when nobody was looking and came to terms with themselves.  The had to change because the story they were living demanded it of them and they became better people because of it.  They had to want what everyone wants - to love and be loved.  All of this is baseline.  The job of the movie maker was to do all that, every time, in a fun way that was new to the eyes and the ears.  The job was to make movies you didn't just watch, they were movies you felt and would go on feeling for decades to come. Die Hard not only met that standard, it exceeded it, dwarfed it.

Today, the standard has changed.  Movies are still fun and all, but it's very rare that one will stay with you.  Every time a movie comes out with Die Hard in the title, there's a part of me that hopes it plays by the old rules, just for a little while.  But alas, as the title of the book that started all of this will tell you, Nothing Lasts Forever.

- OO

P.S. - I'm going to see A Good Day to Die Hard. (I expect I'll have a thing or two to say about it, so keep an eye out for Part 4 of this little exploration.)  Now, I don't know if it will be a fun time at the movies yet or not.  I hope it will, as I always do.  But I'm not encouraged by the one criticism I've heard so far that really matters - that John McClane isn't really John McClane anymore.  A Die Hard movie is supposed to be better than the average action flick because John McClane is better than the average action flick hero.  Take him out of the equation and the best you can hope for is an average action flick.  And there's no shortage of those.  There's an exchange in the trailer that may say it all, though.  "Need a hug?" "We're not really a hugging family."  Oh no...?

I beg to differ.