David 8 and Ash

I’m pretty sure on Tumblr, David 8 is the most popular character in Prometheus, and it’s not hard to see why. While I can be cynical and say that it’s because he’s played by the absolutely stunning Michael Fassbender (both in acting skill and in appearance), the fact is that David is the most interesting character in the film. There’s a lot we don’t know about him by the time the film ends, but while there’s room to speculate on his motives, he doesn’t show the lack of common sense or character inconsistency that the others do. Furthermore, he’s also the most developed character next to Shaw.

But what makes David even more interesting is when he’s compared to Ash from the original Alien. In general, I think that comparing Prometheus to Alien is a terrible idea; the two films really don’t have much in common besides the very basic premise (crew goes to planet, finds alien stuff, everything goes horribly wrong); the structure of the film and the themes are so radically different that expecting anything like Alien automatically breeds disappointment. While Prometheus still has serious problems, treating it as an Alien prequel makes it a complete failure. But it is interesting to look at David as the precursor to Ash. I read on Tumblr someone asking how Ash would be an improved version of David, and that got me thinking. On first glance, David seems like more of a success than Ash; he’s friendly  and congenial where Ash is distant and cold, he seems to be more capable of emotion than Ash (or at least has the capacity for empathy), and above all, he wants to be human (or at least accepted as such).

Think of how we meet David; even if you hadn’t seen any of the promotional material, you find out very early on that David is an android, and it’s very quickly established that he admires humans and tried to be like them. He models himself after Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, down to meticulously dyeing his hair, and although we’re told he cannot feel emotions (which in sci-fi is almost always a lie), he shows visible disappointment when Weyland says that he can never have a soul. We are meant to empathize with David from the very beginning: he just wants to be accepted alongside other humans.

[Actually, empathizing with David is kind of how I started thinking about all of this; I was having a discussion with a friend about how Tumblr tends to want to mother characters that they sympathize with, even when they are not really a “sweet baby ____”. (I’m looking at you, Loki fangirls!) I mean, I’m not completely free of that, but there is almost definitely a sector of the internet that sees David as some sort of “sweet baby robot Pinocchio prince”, despite the fact that he does some really creepy and amoral shit. I was joking that wouldn’t it be funny if Tumblr treated Ash like some sort of “sweet baby corporate robot”? My friend replied that it would never happen because Ian Holm isn’t all handsome and pretty like Fassbender, and while that is definitely true (though idk, there’s something to be said for men Of An Older Age with brownish-grey hair and blue eyes…) there’s definitely more incentive to like David.]

don't judge me man

All of this makes sense within the film as well; David’s original purpose was created to take care of humans and work well with others, so he would naturally try to make a pleasant impression on others. He’s got these big blue eyes that kill you every time he looks hurt, and his status as a surrogate son allows him to have a unique personality compared to other androids of his same model. We learn that he’s taking orders from Weyland, but we never find out what they are, and they seem to be flexible enough that David can devote time to fixating on Shaw.

Ash, on the other hand, is pretty much the polar opposite of David. [I should note now that I’ve only seen Alien once, and that was a while ago, so I may not remember every Ash detail.] We assume he’s human for the first half of Alien, though he separates himself from the rest of the crew. He’s much shiftier than David, but while David can fall into the uncanny valley of creepy smiles, Ash’s creepiness is much more plausible as human. We can see that something is off about him, but he just seems at worst like that guy you might be a tiny bit wary of when you’re the only two in the subway car at three in the morning.

This all makes sense if you consider what Ash was presumably made for; he’s a science officer. His primary duties have little to do with social interactions, so he doesn’t bother with them. He doesn’t even really seem to like humans all that much; he’ll pass as one, but he’s much more attracted to the alien, to the point where he emulates the facehugger by trying to shove a magazine down her throat. (Of course, there’s more to that scene than pure emulation, but the rapey overtones of that scene and the facehugger could be its own article.) Ash has no desire to be human; he just plays the part when it suits him, and completely drops the façade once Ripley finds out his orders. He’s purposefully more not-human that David, automatically distancing himself from the viewer’s sympathies.

But the question is still unanswered: How is Ash an improvement over David? The improvement is Ash actually sticks to his purpose and nothing else. David is, by robot standards, unpredictable; he certainly wasn’t told to be the dream equivalent of a peeping tom, and while he may have been told to bring back the alien goo and infect someone with it, he clearly chooses Holloway out of malice (and probably jealousy). Ash fulfills two main purposes: pose as the science/medical officer for the crew, and bring the alien back at all costs, and everything he does is directly related to those orders. Some people speculate that Ash attacking Ripley is actually a malfunction, but it follows the second order; Ripley was definitely going to warn the rest of the crew, and he had to prevent that. What’s the easiest way to keep her from talking? Kill her. This isn’t to say that Ash is completely logical; once again, his choice of weapon proves that. But his desires still match up with his orders, whereas David’s were completely unrelated.

Prometheus: Sometimes my first impression is wrong

It has come to my attention that Prometheus is not a well-written movie. Like, at all. And not because it didn’t answer the questions about the Alien universe that everyone was expecting, but…the film just didn’t make that much sense; the characters either completely lost any of their common sense, or they didn’t have any in the first place. I actually didn’t mind that we don’t find out what the “Engineers” wanted or why they made humanity or why they decided to kill it off; I can deal with the idea that we weren’t meant to know (or that it doesn’t matter). I didn’t even mind most of the scientist stupidity (“Let’s take off our helmets in this unknown environment!”) And to be honest, I kind of like that the reason for the cave paintings was left unanswered. Film Crit Hulk’s article on Damon Lindelof calls this the “ ‘I want the answers!’ ‘You can’t have the answers!’” dynamic (and by the way, you all should be reading his work because it’s amazing), but personally, I felt that wasn’t important. The reasons aren’t important, but everyone’s reaction is. The main theme isn’t about the actual creation of humans, but the search for it.

The problem is that the results of the search and character reactions don’t mean anything because the characters are so inconsistent and flat. Holloway falls into a drunken depression within hours of learning that he’s right, but he can’t personally talk to an alien. He’s had this theory about intelligent life for what we assume to be years, and he’s sad because he can’t personally have a conversation with them? Sad enough to down a bottle of vodka? Really? Milburn is scared shitless by a bunch of dead alien bodies, but when he sees a live vagina monster, he’s not scared in the slightest? Janek doesn’t give a fuck about the mission, and yet he somehow figures out that the xenomorph primordial soup was a biological weapon meant to kill us? Jackson the security guy sees a twisted body that was originally in the Temple of Doom and his first reaction is “Hey, look at this” ? (Protip: if you’re ever in a scary situation and see something unusual, don’t get closer to examine it! “Hey look at this” is almost guaranteed to get you killed!) Shaw has the ability to go home, away from the alien crazy, and instead decides to go after the aliens who could kill her in a second along with the robot that’s been creeping on her for the entire movie? What?

Speaking of David, I loved him (as I do most robot characters), and he’s possibly the only nuanced character; I only wish we got more time with him. The Weyland family dynamic is really something that was shoehorned in (“Kings die someday, DAD”), and David’s devotion to his father combined with his fixation on Shaw hands down makes him the most interesting character on the ship. He’s supposed to be support for the crew, but it’s made clear very early on that he has his own agenda, and while his agenda is vague, it’s not baffling. David is driven by his desire to gain acceptance as a true son by his father, his fascination with Elizabeth, and his curiosity about alien life. The last point may be related to the first; Weyland has spent over a trillion dollars and possibly sacrificed an entire crew just to have a chance to meet the creators of the human race, and so David’s fascination may be an extension of his desire to please his father. However, it also may relate to Ash’s admiration of the alien in the original Alien; David has spent his entire life trying to be accepted as a human son, so perhaps he is curious about the first non-human creature he’s ever encountered. Poisoning Holloway may have been an experiment to see what this life form was capable of, but it is unclear whether this was part of Weyland’s plan or David’s interpretation of it. Whichever it was, the fact that Holloway is Shaw’s boyfriend was definitely a factor, and David definitely has a vastly different version of morality than anybody else on the ship.

But talking about David, Weyland, and Vickers reveals the biggest problem with Prometheus; most of the meaning derived from it is completely subjective. A lot of the things I just said were how I interpreted it, and there are a ton of different interpretations, some of which are based on prior drafts or deleted scenes from the film. Supposedly there’s going to be a director’s cut, which seems like a bit of a cop out to me. The film should make concrete sense on its own; any theory that is based on deleted scenes is automatically invalid because those scenes weren’t in the finished product. Personally, I think that David’s actions can be explained, but it’s never truly clear, and while it’s a much more interesting mystery than why the Engineers try to kill off humanity, it’s still an important element of the film that’s kind of left dangling. I can say that David’s lack of morals is an example of the non-humanity that he struggles with for the entire film, but I don’t really know if I’m not intended to be sure of that or if Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof don’t know either, or just don’t care. I think comparing Prometheus to Alien is pretty unfair (they’re only tangentially related at best, and Alien is tightly focused whereas Prometheus is intentionally sprawling), but Ash is given a clear and direct purpose: bring the alien back to earth at all costs, and in retrospect, everything he does comes back to that directive. David has much more of a developed personality than Ash underneath his congenial demeanor, with his own wants, but that makes his motives much more unclear.

And that’s really the thing about Prometheus; I liked it at first, but what I was interested in (besides the amazing cinematography) was more the seeds of ideas instead of something truly concrete. I still wouldn’t say it’s a bad movie by any means, but it’s definitely more vague than it should be.

The Mansion scene in Shutter Island

I recently posted my entire final paper for my film theory class, spurred by rewatching Shutter Island. I enjoy the movie overall, but I just feel like there’s still more I want to write about it. Every time I try and watch it, I get stuck watching one scene on repeat. Apparently I’m not the only one who’s captivated by it; there are two videos on youtube of it labeled “Shutter Island best scene.” It’s only the fourth or so scene in the film, where Teddy and Chuck are invited to Dr. Crawley’s mansion. It’s a beautiful scene on its own; the music and imagery come together amazingly, but it’s the acting that ties everything together, particularly on repeat viewings. The scene can be viewed here; it’s early enough that it’s not a spoiler, though I will be spoiling the film when I talk about it. This post also has no proper ending because I do what I want.

Camera, mind, and belief: apparatus and ideology as used in the films of Martin Scorsese

I was rewatching Shutter Island and thinking about writing a post about the great nuances, both in the construction of the film and the performances. Then I realized that I pretty much already did, in my final paper for my film theory class in my senior year of college. I don't usually feel comfortable posting my academic work online (how can I compare to people who actually know what they're doing?), but a friend convinced me to do so. So here's a 12-ish page paper on Scorsese, subjective reality, and the ideal American male.

Iron Man 2 - A lot of individually good stuff that doesn't fit well together

Iron Man 2 is a messy movie with a lot of individually good scenes, which makes a lot more sense once you learn that it's really two films mashed together: the second Iron Man story that Jon Favreau wanted to tell, where Tony Stark begins to spiral out of control as the world reacts to Iron Man, and the Avengers set up that Marvel wanted. While I'm not blaming the issues of this film entirely on the Avengers setups, they certainly don't help.

It's not as if the Avengers are incompetently shoehorned in; Nick Fury is really only in one scene, Black Widow has a plausible enough role, and they do play an important part in the plot. But it's still an unnecessary complication; something which could have been written more organically into the plot. And really, though I understand that of course Black Widow's supposed to be terse and somewhat cold, since she's a spy and only has to mildly tolerate Tony, the character just comes across as very flat, almost as if she's just there for set up and a cool lady in a catsuit fight scene.

I have to admit, when I first heard that the film wasn't up to the first one's level, I thought it would have to do with the double villains, but I'm convinced that's one part they got right. So many other comic book films fall into the trap of having two or three villains and not doing any of them true justice (I'm looking at you, Spider-man 3!), but Ivan Vanko and Justin Hammer not only both work as villains, they work well together. Sam Rockwell is amusingly awkward, pathetic, and despicable as weapons company rival Justin Hammer, and even ignoring my huge soft spots for anti-villains and Mickey Rourke, he's great as the Russian scientist out for revenge on Tony Stark. They play amazingly off each other as some sort of bizarre team-up/odd couple without devolving completely into comedy villains; I think they have some of the best chemistry in the film. I can only hope that more movies with multiple villains take a look at their dynamic, because there was obviously a lot of thought and care put into it.

The main reason Iron Man 2 doesn't live up to the original is that the components don't all fit together and are occasionally held together with cliches.

Okay, that was two things, but to be fair, the cliche thing is more of an opinion/pet peeve of mine than an actual concrete complaint. Let's focus on what we know. There are at least four components to the story.

1.  Tony Stark is spinning out of control and doesn't know how to express it
2.  Iron Man has had enough of an effect on world politics that the government wants take control of it 
3.  Iron Man has become a symbol of power that is, in a way, separate from Tony Stark the man 
4.  So uhhh, there's this franchise we're planning on starting...

We already spoke about #4, but it's not hard to see that it doesn't quite fit with the other three. The closest it would get to is #2, but the film keeps those wildly separate; there's "The Government', who wants the Iron Man tech, and SHIELD, who the audience already knows is collecting superheroes, but is presented textually as something more clandestine and mysterious. In a way, it's odd, because it assumes that the Senate at least has no idea about SHIELD, or else they'd be concerned with the Avengers business just as much. Fury and Black Widow exist in a bureaucratic vacuum, which is strange in a story so concerned with government intervention.

#2 and #3 easily go hand in hand, but the problem is that while #3 is well expressed throughout the film, through both the Senate hearing and Ivan Vanko's role in the story, #2 isn't really touched upon besides the Senate hearing scene early in the film. We hear that Iron Man has solved conflicts around the world, and Tony certainly has decided that he has "privatized world peace", but there's not enough showing us the actual impact that Iron Man has had, and that's extremely important. In fact, all the plots really require us to understand how important Iron Man is; Ivan Vanko wants to destroy Iron Man's reputation, the government wants to claim that reputation, Justin Hammer wants to trump it, and Tony's having trouble keeping it all together. The individual threads work by themselves (particularly, once again, the villains), but that clarification would have really helped the film feel more cohesive.This also causes the Senate scene to come off as completely hollow; the memorable parts are all either obvious set up (Hey, here's Rhodey! And here's Tony's new rival!) or opportunities for Tony to fire off some smug bon mots. And, I mean, Tony being a smartass is part of why we love him, but, with the exception of him exposing Hammer's Iron Man attempts, it's actually a bit tiring. And while there's nothing inherently wrong about a scene being used for setup, it's frustrating when it's so obvious.

#1 is character development, which is always important, but I'm ambivalent on how it's handled. Tony deals with some very serious issues in a believable way, but sometimes these scenes are juxtaposed with others that just don't work together. The best example I have is the party scene leading to the Tony/Rhodey fight; the party scene is awkward and second-hand embarrassing, which is actually pretty brave in an action movie, but then the tone completely changes as we're taken from Tony's rock bottom moment of shame into a full-on supersuit fight complete with appropriate soundtrack. The fight leads to a few necessary plot points (all I'll say is that it's the precursor to the creation of War Machine), but it seems almost immature compared to the scene directly before it. This component of the film is also where Nick Fury and Black Widow intervene, which I think interrupts some of the emotional impact of what's going on with Tony.

But honestly, my problem with this area is that this is where the cliches lie. There are some really wonderful scenes between Tony and Pepper, but we also get a few frustratingly predictable bickering/misunderstanding scenes. Of course Tony can't truly tell Pepper, or anybody, what's wrong. Of course he's pushing people away. It might not be a huge deal for most people, but it's something we see all the time, and it just seems a bit lazy to me.

A lot of the time, people blame bad reception of a sequel on the hype that preceded it, saying that fans were just expecting too much or are unpleasable. In Iron Man 2's case though, I think it's completely justified. The first movie worked on so many levels, and while Iron Man 2 isn't awful, it's such a step down from the first one that it's legitimately disappointing. There's so much in the film that's good, but together it just doesn't work very well, and that's a very valid complaint. Viewers know that everyone involved is capable of doing better, and that's why people say Iron Man 2 sucked. It had so many tools to be just as good as the first movie, and...it just isn't.

I'M NOT DEAD

And neither is this blog, I swear! It's just that I haven't really watched many new movies lately; money is tight, I have no Netflix, and to be honest, I'm also pretty preoccupied with trying to find a steady job. Fortunately, I have a few things coming up that should be good fodder for posts; this weekend I'm watching all four of the Marvel movies leading up to The Avengers, and the IFC Center has started up free member screenings again. (I seriously doubt I will be seeing Avengers though, even though I really like the idea of Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner.)

The Descendants

I don't get it.


I previously said I couldn't write about this, but now I'm going to try. My main point though, is that I don't get it. I don't get why this film is particularly impressive. Oh sure, it's got George Clooney acting and beautiful shots of Hawaii and a tragic premise that causes everyone to reflect...but none of that adds up to anything substantial or meaningful. There are definitely some great scenes, but I'm not sure what The Descendants is going for. It's not quite a character study; we get just not far enough into Clooney's character, Matt's head for that. It's not quite a family drama; the well-tread (if not played out) "Father doesn't know how to raise daughters" issue is peripheral after the revelation about Matt's wife's infidelity. It's not quite about dealing with imminent death, because there's this weird subplot about whether to sell a large amount of the family land that clashes with Matt's first statement about Hawaii being far from a paradise. I suppose all of these together are supposed to have some emotions or statements about life in general, but nothing really meshes together well enough.

Take Matt's daughters. The younger one, Scottie, is used as a symbol, both of Matt's inability to understand his kids, and this scary new world of technology and vice that our preteens are exposed to these days. We see her in her first scenes in trouble both at school (for showing pictures of her comatose mother) and with other kids (for cyberbullying), and after that, her only actions of note are to have a "friend" who is nothing more than a representation of every fear about Girls These Days.

The older daughter, Alex, gets much more of a spotlight, and frankly, I sort of wish the film was about her. She's the Wild One Sent Off To A Boarding School, but Shailene Woodley manages to put real depth in this character, who has extremely complicated feelings regarding her mother and her possible death. She ends up bringing in her possible-boyfriend Sid, who is kind of a breath of fresh air, but who also inexplicably sticks around for the entire film despite having no good reason to do so. Sid is usually pretty dim but grows more profound as is required by the film. It's frustrating, because he and Alex have interesting points of view (at least, when Sid isn't being a complete moron), but it's stifled in favor of Matt's man angst. He complains about not knowing what to do with his daughters, but he doesn't really do a whole lot to connect with them; Alex is the one who kicks off the hunt for her mother's boyfriend that eventually brings them together, and Matt doesn't even tell Scottie that her mother is going to die until near the end of the film. Why? Because oh, he doesn't know how. Why trying to figure that out is less important than finding your wife's lover, I don't know.

This is a bit of a tangent, but isn't the "oh god, daughters!" thing a bit outplayed? I know we're told that Matt is a workaholic, but are you really telling me that he's this out of touch with his kids? Why is it that single dads always have this "woe is me, how do I deal with daughters?" thing about them, like girls are so mysterious that they never even bother to attempt to understand them until the mother goes on a trip or leaves them or dies or something? And of course the daughters are always Out of Control or dangerously close to it, what with the internets and the sexting and god how do they know these things it wasn't like this when I was young! shit. Are dads really this terrified of their daughters?

But, back to the film. I won't spoil much of the search for Matt's wife's lover, mostly because it's the best part of the film. Instead, I'll bring up the completely left-field subplot of whether to sell the family land. The family wants to, he has to make the decision, you probably know what happens. It's supposed to be another burden for Matt, but there's not that much reason for it besides the opportunity for some revenge and some reminiscing about beautiful times on beautiful land in paradise Hawaii (it's okay to say it's paradise now for some reason, even though before Matt insists it's not). This subplot is where the film gets its name, but it just doesn't gel with the other plots of the film.

It sounds like I'm just focusing on parts I hated, but to be honest, I was bored for the first hour and a half of the film. It meanders around without having a clear center to wander around. I hate saying that a film is boring; I really should have the attention span to watch something slow and meaningful. But there's nothing interesting about the meager scraps of meaning we get from The Descendants, so the best benefit of the doubt I can give it is that I just Didn't Get It.

And really, I don't. I have no idea why it's getting so much praise, critically and awards-wise. If this were about Shailene Woodley's character, I would understand, but it's not, and yet the film and George Clooney are getting so much attention and love. There's a very weird feeling you get when you're an attempted film buff and this sort of thing happens. Sometimes you don't like a film but can see why others might, you get the 'this person just Doesn't Get It' feeling when hearing others reactions to films, and sometimes it seems like either you're an idiot or everyone else saw a different film that you did. I'm reasonably sure that everyone who raved about The Descendants saw the same film I did (hell, I watched a SAG screener [LEGALLY, I might add], so I know they at least saw the same film), so what's going on here? What am I missing? What made this movie more interesting than a cat playing with a hanging string to everyone else?