There is a screenwriter. He or she is serving overpriced and under-portioned food to fat, wealthy, guffawing executives smoking cigars and their shrill trophy wives. He or she smiles and even flirts a little to make a better tip even though it feels dirty and dishonest. The screenwriter finally reaches home, exhausted and stinking from the day's toil, decides not join the other servers at the local bar, and not to collapse on the dirty mattress that serves as the studio apartment's only seating. No, the screenwriter sits down in front of an outdated laptop and writes the next chapter of an epic science fiction film that will never be made. It has love, betrayal, robots, the end of the world, and a candid look at the human condition. Few will ever even read it.
Apparently, we need to revisit Watchmen instead.
I suppose it was inevitable. The massive surge of film adaptations of comic classics had to crest with Watchmen. Despite the very obvious timing and pacing issues involved in said adaptation, despite the danger of fallout for despoiling a loved and respected and seminal work of art, it is too great a prize. I knew someone would take a stab at it.
And stab they did. You see, unlike Spider-Man or X-Men or one of the many other graphic titles which became films, Watchmen is a short, contained story. There is no allowance for narrative dysfunction resulting from the need to boil decades of serial down into two hours of film. Its makers are responsible for every omission, every unnecessary line, every stumble. Granted, there is more nuance in a single page of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's original comic than in the entire run of, say, The Punisher, but they knew what they were getting into. It's no excuse.
Much of the film is a straightforward, panel-by-panel interpretation of Watchmen the comic's central characters. However, many of the subplots were cut, leaving only a few glimpses of the characters involved as a wink-and-nudge to the fans in the audience. Given the fact that the climactic ending of the comic relied heavily on this material, it had to be changed to fit the far thinner movie version. I understand that the Marooned story is going to be released as a separate animated feature titled Tales of the Black Freighter. I suppose it's for the best as it wouldn't have worked as part of he full feature anyway. It ties in through another axed subplot with another set of characters. The source material is straining within the confines of its medium.
To be fair, the artistic work is very good. Although Nite Owl II and Ozymandius look a little latter-day Batman, the aesthetic is hardly out of character for either of them, and it's an honest modern interpretation of the comic heroes they represent. Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan, on the other hand, were designed quite well. I may relinquish some nerd cred when I say this, but it was very fulfilling to see the two of them on screen.
The sets and camera work deserve some praise as well. It's obvious that the original comic served as a storyboard whenever possible, and the artists who translated it to film did so with honesty and grace. Some of the segments were so beautifully rendered that it's a real shame they felt they were unable to stand on their own.
The film's hideous soundtrack booms in periodically during these scenes to remind you you're not actually having a good time watching Hollywood kidnap and murder another artistic masterpiece. It's a gaudy assortment of period pop music and a few other highly recognizable numbers (yes, I like Philip Glass as well, but can we give that song a rest, please?). It's boisterous and inconsistent. It does not heighten the emotional impact of the scenes in question, it distracts from each and every one of them. This is doubly embarrassing when you consider that most of the songs on the soundtrack are excellent. It is an insult, not just to the movie-goers they seem to think are easily distracted by shiny things, and not just to the musical artists being taken advantage of, but to the film's own art and direction by making the viewer cringe with disgust rather than be awed.
Awed by the visuals, at least. Thematically, the film utterly fails to fill the shoes of the original. Watchmen was obviously adapted by someone who read and enjoyed the comic, but assumed no one else got it. All those messy supporting characters and confusing subplots were trimmed. Where the comic was a diverse tapestry combining the stories and perspectives of many characters, the film is interested in only a few threads.
Even when it gets it right, the movie version doesn't even trust us to interpret what we see on our own. The dialogue is re-written in several places to dumb down and explain the emotions and motivations of the characters despite the fact that the imagery (usually taken directly from the comic) has already done so far more eloquently.
Take Dan Dreiberg's dream sequence, a scene I did not expect to see at all. In the comic, Moore and Gibbons trusted that their readers would understand what it meant. Apparently, the filmmakers felt this was too complex a metaphor for their audience and inserted some disjointed lines into the following scene to explain it.
This occurs repeatedly throughout the film. Now, I don't exactly have a lot of faith in the movie going public myself, but if you're going to go through all the trouble of adapting Watchmen into a film, why in the world would you cater to the unwashed simpletons who either never read it or didn't get it? The fans will hate you and the uninitiated probably weren't going to enjoy themselves anyway. It's as if half of those involved were interested in an honest translation of our beloved comic and the other half thought it was just a little too cerebral and wanted to broaden the audience. The result is a mess. Watchmen the comic is a dense piece of art, there is no question. There are layers to it that a single reading cannot penetrate, but at least it trusts you enough to figure it out for yourself.
It is perhaps unfair for the Watchmen film to shoulder all the blame for this phenomenon. It's a systemic disease in all aspects of our artistic culture. We don't create anything anymore. We just take the old ideas, dress them up in new black costumes and send them out there to bring back more money. All the capital, talent and effort are devoted to simplifying and remaking the classics when we are responsible for creating the new classics.
The next time something you love is turned into a film, don't go. If you absolutely must see it, download one of those screener leaks. Every time you pay them not to do any creative work, you decrease the value of creative work as a whole and our screenwriter has to spend another night waiting tables instead of giving us the rocking space opera we deserve.
Downloadable Content
I've been playing a lot of Grand Theft Auto IV's expansion The Lost and Damned lately. I really enjoy it and I've been trying to put my finger on the reason for this. After I got my hands on it, Saint's Row 2 basically ended my time with Rockstar's newest sandbox. Where the former is light, colorful and self-aware, the latter takes itself a bit too seriously and comes off a little stifled. Not to mention Saint's Row is all about the good feeling you get when you destroy a school bus with a rocket launcher while diving out of a flaming car while GTA IV is more about about first world guilt.
Like the kind you get writing blog entries about video games.
It's not just the fact that I can better relate to the characters in The Lost and Damned compared to those in the main story, but also that I have the option to play one or the other. It is an excellent use of the online functionality of the current generation consoles. The city is already there on your game disc. They can conceivably tell lots of stories each with their own cast of characters. I had originally criticized the game for abandoning a lot of the humor and freedom that always characterized the series in favor of a strong narrative, but now I think it was the right decision.
Way back when I first read about the XBox Live Arcade and Nintendo's Virtual Console and the like, I was skeptical. I assumed Nintendo would use it to re-package all their old titles to gamers not smart enough to emulate them on their personal computers for free a decade ago. While it turns out I was right on the money about that, the function is used well with the XBox and PS3 (or so the internet tells me, I don't have that much first world guilt) by providing ports of hard-to-find older titles and original works by small developers. It is also nice to be able to download free demos of major releases before spending sixty dollars to discover whether or not the developer in question has been lying to you.
When I envisioned the market for downloadable content for games you already have, I wasn't skeptical at all. I didn't think it would be anything more than a money pit and an excuse for publishers to put off bug testing, balancing, and generally finishing the game and instead giving us the promise to do so if we give them four months and twenty dollars.
I admit I was only half right about that. I forgot that there are developers who can use these expanded functions for good and not for evil. The first Fallout 3 expansion was good, and I expect good things from the next two. Games like Halo 3 which are played mostly online can remain fresh for years by adding maps and removing glitches.
I will not, however, pay for the Fable 2 expansion. I think it needs to be made clear that the DLC function is not a mulligan for Peter Molyneux. If a game is flawed and the system can fix it for free, that is good use for it. If a game is excellent and I can pay a few bucks to keep the good times rolling, that is also acceptable. If you didn't bother to finish your game, but sold it at full price anyway and now you want me to pay you even more in case it doesn't still suck, you can go to hell.
The good thing about console gaming is that it's self-contained. No compatibility issues or minimum system requirements, just game + console = fun. The addition of online functionality hasn't changed the way most games are made so far, but it could. Lack of internet service or adequate funds may eventually result in you as a gamer receiving a half-formed product because they know you're not on the line for as much future payment as others.
It's a mighty decadent society that can produce something like the electronic gaming industry. Unsurprisingly, that same society is going through a bit of a rough patch right now. From an artistic standpoint, there are some really good things coming out of it, but the problem, as usual, is that between us and the artists are the moneymen. I suspect that as the economic environment gets worse, these services are going to find we have less patience for overpriced content and cleverly-portioned game currency we have to buy if we want the privilege of giving them our money. The gaming world needs to tighten its belt as well, because when it falls, it will be sudden and an entire artistic medium will go with it.
Like the kind you get writing blog entries about video games.
It's not just the fact that I can better relate to the characters in The Lost and Damned compared to those in the main story, but also that I have the option to play one or the other. It is an excellent use of the online functionality of the current generation consoles. The city is already there on your game disc. They can conceivably tell lots of stories each with their own cast of characters. I had originally criticized the game for abandoning a lot of the humor and freedom that always characterized the series in favor of a strong narrative, but now I think it was the right decision.
Way back when I first read about the XBox Live Arcade and Nintendo's Virtual Console and the like, I was skeptical. I assumed Nintendo would use it to re-package all their old titles to gamers not smart enough to emulate them on their personal computers for free a decade ago. While it turns out I was right on the money about that, the function is used well with the XBox and PS3 (or so the internet tells me, I don't have that much first world guilt) by providing ports of hard-to-find older titles and original works by small developers. It is also nice to be able to download free demos of major releases before spending sixty dollars to discover whether or not the developer in question has been lying to you.
When I envisioned the market for downloadable content for games you already have, I wasn't skeptical at all. I didn't think it would be anything more than a money pit and an excuse for publishers to put off bug testing, balancing, and generally finishing the game and instead giving us the promise to do so if we give them four months and twenty dollars.
I admit I was only half right about that. I forgot that there are developers who can use these expanded functions for good and not for evil. The first Fallout 3 expansion was good, and I expect good things from the next two. Games like Halo 3 which are played mostly online can remain fresh for years by adding maps and removing glitches.
I will not, however, pay for the Fable 2 expansion. I think it needs to be made clear that the DLC function is not a mulligan for Peter Molyneux. If a game is flawed and the system can fix it for free, that is good use for it. If a game is excellent and I can pay a few bucks to keep the good times rolling, that is also acceptable. If you didn't bother to finish your game, but sold it at full price anyway and now you want me to pay you even more in case it doesn't still suck, you can go to hell.
The good thing about console gaming is that it's self-contained. No compatibility issues or minimum system requirements, just game + console = fun. The addition of online functionality hasn't changed the way most games are made so far, but it could. Lack of internet service or adequate funds may eventually result in you as a gamer receiving a half-formed product because they know you're not on the line for as much future payment as others.
It's a mighty decadent society that can produce something like the electronic gaming industry. Unsurprisingly, that same society is going through a bit of a rough patch right now. From an artistic standpoint, there are some really good things coming out of it, but the problem, as usual, is that between us and the artists are the moneymen. I suspect that as the economic environment gets worse, these services are going to find we have less patience for overpriced content and cleverly-portioned game currency we have to buy if we want the privilege of giving them our money. The gaming world needs to tighten its belt as well, because when it falls, it will be sudden and an entire artistic medium will go with it.
The Obama Presidency, Month One
I was in elementary school when Bill Clinton was first elected. I remember putting crayon to cardboard and producing a "Go Clinton!" campaign sign to hang in the hallway outside my classroom on election day. I remember my conservative, Republican parents were astonished when they saw it. The thing is, I had chosen Mr. Clinton at random. I don't remember being pushed one way or the other by my teachers or peers, but I don't remember receiving any information upon which to base my decision. It was just, "pick one, color something, I'm going out for a smoke."
I learned an important lesson that day, though. It doesn't really matter who the president is, but people take that shit seriously anyway.
Now, one month into the most anticipated presidency of my lifetime, both the country and the office are quite different than they were back when I doodled that sign. We were riding high back then. We were fresh off a brief, successful war (successful as long as you weren't a rebellious Iraqi, that is), the economy was on the verge of exploding (a lot of people who didn't deserve it at all were about to get very rich), and as it turns out, we had so little to worry about that it was of the utmost importance to determine what the president did and did not do with his penis.
Barack Obama was elected in the midst of two (or three, or a thousand, depends on how you look at it) endless wars, a financial meltdown nobody really understands (I like to say the invisible hand got a little fresh with the wrong dame), and is inheriting the office from an administration which covertly abused the powers they could not publicly expand and everyone just went along with it.
I think it's safe to say our new president has to live up to some pretty serious expectations.
One of his first actions was to begin the process of fulfilling his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Brilliantly savvy. He gets to have his cake and eat it a la mode here. It's not like fixing social security, reforming campaign fund raising, or increasing transparency in government. It's a simple matter, comparatively. He pleases the peace-loving folks who put him into office in the first place, but he really only pisses off the fringe psychopaths who openly condone electrocuting the genitals of anyone without a Dale Earnhardt mesh cap. It's a positive politically, but it also may help to clean up America's reputation with the rest of the world.
The other advantage to such a move is that it will help to obscure the fact that President Obama is not likely to instigate or assist a serious investigation on the actions of the previous administration, much less put them on trial and lock their asses up like he should. I want to note that do not say this out of a sense of revenge. Sure, they should be punished for abuse of power, lying in order to build a case for war, politicizing the justice department, you get the idea. It's a long list and I am no legal scholar. The problem is that these actions have to be punished or we will see them happen again.
I know many of you have the utmost faith in the new president, and to be honest, I think he may be as honorable a politician as I have ever seen. He will, however, only be the president for eight years, maximum. What happens if he makes a bad penis-related decision and it's all over the news and he fails to win in four years? What if he's replaced by a shape-shifting alien? What if he's an evil android bent on enslaving all biological life?
"I am more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards," is what he said during a press conference earlier this month. I fear he may attempt to avoid this admittedly messy affair, even though it is crucial that someone holds his predecessor accountable. To be fair, congress would be doing much of the work here, but the whole ordeal would be carried out on the president's watch. Rush Limbaugh will get to blame the witch hunt on him (he'll probably make a few Joe McCarthy references completely without irony). The president will lose momentum. Too bad. He needs to do his job.
I think that, as a nation, we have this image of the president as the captain of a ship, there are obviously other people--senators, judges, ultimately the voters who elect these people--who make the ship work, but the president sets the course and brings everything together. This is not the president's true role in this analogy.
The president is the sponge used to swab the deck.
Avoiding for simplicity's sake the questions of when and how this came to be, it seems pretty clear that there are deep, systemic problems with our country, our culture, with the way of life of the vast majority of humanity, really. It has been this way for some time.
The problem is that most of us do not benefit from this system, and those few of us who do only do so in order that we may be of better service to those scant few on top who live so lavishly that they are practically no longer human at this point. The system is set up to keep them where they are and mollify the rest of us. It doesn't always work that way, though. The business of sailing this ship is a messy one. People get hurt, they lose everything, communities are bankrupted, industries fail and markets collapse sometimes when someone gets too greedy or too sloppy and we can see it plainly. We can see what the system really is and what it generates.
And then the president steps in. The president must, in some way or another, own these messes. He must absorb them because he works for the system. He is in power for only a short time and he takes responsibility for these problems because someone has to carry the blame. Otherwise we might blame the system itself.
President Obama is going to have to be pretty absorbent to do this job. We're in a bigger mess now than we have been in quite some time. The entire banking/credit institution upon which the grand inequity of our time is based is failing. The system demands that it be saved, and Barack Obama is going to have to sell that to us.
He'll do it, too. It will take unprecedented quantities of stopgaps, theatrics, and make-work, but he's charismatic enough to pull it off. What his predecessor could not contain with anger, fear, and xenophobia he will sop up with a fresh attitude, hope, and a can-do, pull-together spirit. He will not, however, betray the system.
I do actually think he's sincere. I do think he wants to help. It's this sincerity that will make him so good at his job. He's no more free of the zeitgeist than you or I, a president can't change anything. They belong to the system, the network of donors and owners who put them in office.
I hope I'm wrong. I hope he does identify the systemic problems we face and is willing to deconstruct things enough to get at them. At this rate, though, he's not going to have much time to do so before he has to begin his reelection campaign.
I learned an important lesson that day, though. It doesn't really matter who the president is, but people take that shit seriously anyway.
Now, one month into the most anticipated presidency of my lifetime, both the country and the office are quite different than they were back when I doodled that sign. We were riding high back then. We were fresh off a brief, successful war (successful as long as you weren't a rebellious Iraqi, that is), the economy was on the verge of exploding (a lot of people who didn't deserve it at all were about to get very rich), and as it turns out, we had so little to worry about that it was of the utmost importance to determine what the president did and did not do with his penis.
Barack Obama was elected in the midst of two (or three, or a thousand, depends on how you look at it) endless wars, a financial meltdown nobody really understands (I like to say the invisible hand got a little fresh with the wrong dame), and is inheriting the office from an administration which covertly abused the powers they could not publicly expand and everyone just went along with it.
I think it's safe to say our new president has to live up to some pretty serious expectations.
One of his first actions was to begin the process of fulfilling his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Brilliantly savvy. He gets to have his cake and eat it a la mode here. It's not like fixing social security, reforming campaign fund raising, or increasing transparency in government. It's a simple matter, comparatively. He pleases the peace-loving folks who put him into office in the first place, but he really only pisses off the fringe psychopaths who openly condone electrocuting the genitals of anyone without a Dale Earnhardt mesh cap. It's a positive politically, but it also may help to clean up America's reputation with the rest of the world.
The other advantage to such a move is that it will help to obscure the fact that President Obama is not likely to instigate or assist a serious investigation on the actions of the previous administration, much less put them on trial and lock their asses up like he should. I want to note that do not say this out of a sense of revenge. Sure, they should be punished for abuse of power, lying in order to build a case for war, politicizing the justice department, you get the idea. It's a long list and I am no legal scholar. The problem is that these actions have to be punished or we will see them happen again.
I know many of you have the utmost faith in the new president, and to be honest, I think he may be as honorable a politician as I have ever seen. He will, however, only be the president for eight years, maximum. What happens if he makes a bad penis-related decision and it's all over the news and he fails to win in four years? What if he's replaced by a shape-shifting alien? What if he's an evil android bent on enslaving all biological life?
"I am more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards," is what he said during a press conference earlier this month. I fear he may attempt to avoid this admittedly messy affair, even though it is crucial that someone holds his predecessor accountable. To be fair, congress would be doing much of the work here, but the whole ordeal would be carried out on the president's watch. Rush Limbaugh will get to blame the witch hunt on him (he'll probably make a few Joe McCarthy references completely without irony). The president will lose momentum. Too bad. He needs to do his job.
I think that, as a nation, we have this image of the president as the captain of a ship, there are obviously other people--senators, judges, ultimately the voters who elect these people--who make the ship work, but the president sets the course and brings everything together. This is not the president's true role in this analogy.
The president is the sponge used to swab the deck.
Avoiding for simplicity's sake the questions of when and how this came to be, it seems pretty clear that there are deep, systemic problems with our country, our culture, with the way of life of the vast majority of humanity, really. It has been this way for some time.
The problem is that most of us do not benefit from this system, and those few of us who do only do so in order that we may be of better service to those scant few on top who live so lavishly that they are practically no longer human at this point. The system is set up to keep them where they are and mollify the rest of us. It doesn't always work that way, though. The business of sailing this ship is a messy one. People get hurt, they lose everything, communities are bankrupted, industries fail and markets collapse sometimes when someone gets too greedy or too sloppy and we can see it plainly. We can see what the system really is and what it generates.
And then the president steps in. The president must, in some way or another, own these messes. He must absorb them because he works for the system. He is in power for only a short time and he takes responsibility for these problems because someone has to carry the blame. Otherwise we might blame the system itself.
President Obama is going to have to be pretty absorbent to do this job. We're in a bigger mess now than we have been in quite some time. The entire banking/credit institution upon which the grand inequity of our time is based is failing. The system demands that it be saved, and Barack Obama is going to have to sell that to us.
He'll do it, too. It will take unprecedented quantities of stopgaps, theatrics, and make-work, but he's charismatic enough to pull it off. What his predecessor could not contain with anger, fear, and xenophobia he will sop up with a fresh attitude, hope, and a can-do, pull-together spirit. He will not, however, betray the system.
I do actually think he's sincere. I do think he wants to help. It's this sincerity that will make him so good at his job. He's no more free of the zeitgeist than you or I, a president can't change anything. They belong to the system, the network of donors and owners who put them in office.
I hope I'm wrong. I hope he does identify the systemic problems we face and is willing to deconstruct things enough to get at them. At this rate, though, he's not going to have much time to do so before he has to begin his reelection campaign.
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