Propaganda

The intensity of The Smiths is unbelievable, as is Morrissey's songwriting and Johnny Marr's guitar licks, not forgetting the other two, whoever they were.  

Most of us reading this blog probably live in a world where we can pick and choose our beliefs, this is a wonderful thing even if it means we don't always get along, its perhaps a rare personal freedom we enjoy.

Perhaps one day we will come to a common consensus, perhaps to rally against some terrifying threat from beyond the stars like in a bad science fiction. In reality, the threat is pale, limp and unable to move swiftly outside their saucers when ensconced in our earthly gravity well.  It's impossible to get a random collection of humans to even agree on what's the best way to cook a steak, let alone anything more significant, many would despair that the steak was ever cleaved from the body which once frolicked in the pasture anyway.

Is this really a metaphor for something with more ology than you anticipated? - No, I don't mean Vulcanology. 

So, since there are so many of us believing so many things, we can easily end up believing things that others living in a different culture or even just down the street may find not only un-palletable but entirely un-believable.... Let alone those living in other star systems who find us all hilarious.

We can all be guilty of trying to propagate our own personal belief system to a wider audience, even if we don't realise we're doing it. We can wind up encoding it into creative works or subtly injecting it into conversation. Some of us just make stuff up for fun or sinister ends, and sometimes people end up truly believing things that someone no more godly, knowledgeable or smarter than them has simply invented.

Is After Earth subversive cult propaganda encoded within a summer blockbuster? Some believe it is, not everyone concurs, but after a couple of weeks of release and now available all over the world, nearly everyone seems to agree; After Earth, stinks.  Maybe M. Night Shyamalan, Jaden and Will Smith with this apparently quite terrible film, have come the closest something we can all agree on, whatever our other beliefs. Maybe that was the plan all along... To make films so big and so terrible that everyone will see them and can't help but hate them.  As a result, we will all be united in hatred, disgust and dislike.

Okay, its not great, but its a start.

You know what they say, you can't please all the people all the time, but you can probably make them all vomit through their noses if you try hard enough. 

Prometheus 33⅓: The Final Insult.

GET THIS BLURAY 1TS LIKE AWSOM

This is the third time I've posted about this production, and to be honest my opinion of it hasn't gone up since last time, in fact its probably dropped from my previous review.

Why continue talking about it if its so average?

Because to me and perhaps to you too, the issues with it are almost more interesting than the actual movie itself, and also I have no life, no life at all.  So open wide like a toothy, foof-faced squid thing that's been locked in a spaceship for hours with no one noticing until its required by the plot, and to quote Plinkett, lets dive right in shall we...

I'd hoped the home release would fix some of the obvious problems with this production. Apparently I was once again hoping for too much and it really hasn't fixed it at all, and much talk of late in the press about the studio execs, sinister like those of the Weyland-Yutani Corp itself, tampering with this officially mediocre movie and at least hinting that 'its basically all the studios fault'.

I'd group the errors under perhaps 3 headings; concept; story and editing. We could talk about the production design etc, which was mostly great, not enough Giger, particularly woefully short in the creature dept... But as Sir Ridley Scott pointed out in an interview for Alien, "it's all window dressing", meaning that doesn't necessarily make or break the movie, it to me is just disappointing but I can look past that if the fundamentals are right.  So lets concentrate on the important aspects.

It's very simple, we just want your money over and over and over again. It's what we call a trilogy. 

Concept: The initial concept according to the original scriptwriter as interviewed in empire was a proper Alien prequel, set on the same world as in Alien, with the same ship and everything. Clearly, based on Spaihts inteview, in order to facilitate the begining of a new-and-legally-distinguishable-from-Alien franchise, this had to be changed, on direct order from the higher-ups, above even the director and owner of the production company for the project - Scott Free Productions - Sir Ridley Scott.

So were higher-than-production-level decisions to blame for the problems in the following areas?

Story: Following the change in concept, Damon Lindelof is brought on board to help accomplish the script chages, I guess its what you'd call a shake and bake colo... I mean story.

While the studio allegedly initiated the changes, I really couldn't care less if its an Alien prequel or not and I and many others personally, largely blame Lindelof for many problems with the story, the stupid stuff that characters do, their poor decision making and lack of professionalism - just plain lack of common sense above everything else, that makes no sense. And other stuff that also makes no sense, which I detail with excruciating precision in my review, perhaps I'm being unfair but I can't help but draw comparisons between Prometheus' plot lines and those of Lost.  However without seeing what came before, its hard to determine exactly what idea came from where, and where problems really originated... In fairness the whole thing may have been completely broken from the start and Lindelof fixed it up as best he could, for all I know.

Lindelof of course proved his creativity with hit series Lost, which however was also a series that many (brave, brave souls who stuck with it until the very end) felt was ultimately unsatisfying, meandering and made up as it went along. I personally found its plots had complicated and interesting beginnings  but always leading to mediocre, rushed and uninspired difficult endings, endings that make no sense, which is the last hour of Prometheus to a tee.

These problems are largely compounded by the final factor:

Editing: I'm not talking about timing or anything minor, but like something really important happens in a particular scene, but after that the really important thing is never mentioned even once, I have a hard time believing that such experienced movie makers would mistakenly forget about that thread to move onto the next part as quickly as possible. Interesting beginnings leading to mediocre endings... Sounds like a line from the movie itself, how about non-existent endings, even?

It felt like the complete movie was not shown at the theatres, that to perhaps cut the movie down to 2 hours some really vital things were cut out.  Not the first time this has happened, but then consider the incredibly slow start: Was there nothing that could be cut from the introductory hour to make the meat of it make more sense.  I mean you can call it an artistic decision, but it's clearly at the expense of telling the actual story.  The story, the concept of Prometheus the movie is not really terribly complicated, yes we get it as our long time friend Erich Von Daniken would point out: IT IS NOT A NEW IDEA.  Why labour that point and leave so much else unanswered?   Alien had a long intro, but since the actual plot was straightforward and not a million different threads to begin, explore and resolve it could afford to do this.

Why, for example, did a scene that Lindelof wrote to explain the android infecting the idiot with the black goo get left on the editing computers hard drive? Eh? But I dunno, perhaps that would have still seemed like a dick move even with it explained - As I mentioned in my review, what kind of moron would run an uncontrolled experiment like that, which would be far more likely to endanger the ship, the crew and in effect Weyland, than provide him with eternal or extended life.  So Lindelof explains why something didn't make sense.  Unfortunately here even with the explanation I guess it still doesn't make sense.  Lindelof provides plenty of sorry excuses in this article right here.

So did someone forget they were meant to be telling a story here? Not likely given the calibre of people and money involved. Would I be too cynical to suggest that perhaps this was done precisely to put the scenes in later in the home release? or make them available to watch at least on the blu ray.  Ya know, the scenes that might make certain things actually make sense so it can be marketed as the thing that fixes this broken film.  Is this something that Sir Ridley, known for resisting studio demands or allowing his work to be watered down would even allow?

Am I unfair in suggesting there might have been certain money over art choices made there?  There was a time before directors cuts, where the theatrical release was the best thing that a creative team could condense into two hours or less. Over the last few decades since Alien started messing up cinema bathrooms, home releases are more important, its also more important to obviously milk those sales for as much as possible, movies have always been shrewdly marketed.

Extra value, extra scenes and / or run-time are expected, demanded in the home formats, and thats fair enough but perhaps this time it was ultimately at the expense of the original release, which may have been deliberately crippled, to add the value back in later.

If true, it's the movie equivalent of the reprehensible practice by games publishers of holding back video game content just to make it a downloadable add-on later... Where people are deliberately sold an inferior product that they will have to spend more money on later, to get the product as intended. But why do this, people aren't stupid, I won't be the only person asking this question, Erich probably has a few too, but he's locked away safely for the time being until The History Channel commissions a new series of the excellent and not stupid at all guff-fest that is, Ancient Aliens.

So there may be suit / money / marketing related issues with the editing, I can't say for sure, I am of course only asking questions.... But the other answer to these problems is that a director, whos work I've mostly enjoyed and who has made at least two really wonderful Science Fiction epics had made some awful mistakes with his latest work... I mean it's easy to pick a lone gunman and pin everything on him.

There are other problems with the movie too, but I bet no one at the studio strenuously insisted that the characters can only run in one direction at the end. I mean, I wasn't there, I don't know what happened but there are problems that are probably harder to pin on 'the suits' than others... From the Empire interview, its easy to get the impression that the problems were all due to decisions made from somewhere above the production staff, and I doubt that's entirely true, blame has to lie to an extent with everyone involved, its never just one person, so whether its Damon Lindelof, or Ridley Scott or faceless execs that cop the blame depending on who you talk to, perhaps there were problems at every level, which is the only way you can explain all the issues with the final product.

Its biggest problem, is that unlike its predecessors/sequels and, due to its many failings in many areas it fails to represent any sort of believable reality; often possessing all the cohesion of a free-forming dream more than a well thought out movie.  The hype over the home release being the saviour for many a confused movie-goer is just a distraction from the fact that the movie is basically broken and messed with too much at its core for any amount of extra scenes, extended run-time or alternative endings to fix. It was never going to live up to the hype, we expected loose edges, but at least the basics should have made sense.  Is this the final insult to an audience who expected so much?

Ugh Ahm.... Th' Lugh: "Dredd" - The Preview

I'm not Dredd-ing this September as much as I am December 21st, but what did the Mayans know anyway?

Borag Thungg, Earthlets! It's Summer 1995, and a slightly smaller, way less hairy version of your beloved reporter, after a day of endangering innocent beach-goers lives with a surfboard is attending a cinema in Newquay to see a movie based on one of the UK's most enduring cult comic characters - Hammerstein, the noble leader of the ABC Warriors.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRN-X74VVK4&feature=fvst for a shakey, digitised from VHS episode of Film '95 which details some of the production, thx Bazza!

Also featured in the movie was Sylvester Stallone, performing a passable impression of another 2000AD character; Judge Joseph Dredd, infact it proved to be more about him than anyone else and was even named after that character, but who could forget that scrotnig ABC robot?

Now a full 17 years later, perhaps to the day, my 2000AD subscription lapsed more than a decade ago, but despite this crushing blow to the publishers, I'm surprised to see the franchise is still running strong.

So much so that with Hollywood's constant plumbing of comic book material they have once again looked across the rad-soaked wasteland of what used to be Middle America, past Mega City One which occupies what used be New York and a big chunk of the surrounding Eastern Seaboard. Before setting off over the Black Atlantic ocean (wait, was that Judge Dredd, or Syndicate on the Amiga?) and landing firmly in Brit-Cit One. There, out of hundreds of great characters they've once again predictably chosen to base a film on the most widely known and marketable character, Judge Dredd.... Just call him Dredd... Ain't got time for the "Judge" part these days.

And so I'm watching this exact trailer as magically interlinked above^, thinking wow, this is zarjaz, even though it has no ABC's, no Judges of Death and the whole thing kinda reminds me of Robocop 2 somehow but at least there's no Rob Shneider cracking jokes. (aww c'mon Fergie wasn't that irritating was he? Remember the servo-droid? hehehe, the popcorn? hehehe, the fireball up my ass? hehehe - Rob)  

But still... I could nitpick a bit: Given all the other vehicles are just normal vehicles - as opposed to the sumptuously designed futuristic vehicles littering the streets of the Big Meg in Danny cannon's '95 production - the futuristic Judge bikes here look over designed. I might go as far as to say maybe even a little uncool and silly because they're really looking out of the usual scifi context of slickly designed flying cars and so on.  Specifically  the over-designed kinda old fashioned looking curving bodyshell and the red trim really remind me of something... Can't remember what for the life of me however... Infact the latest, tragedy laden Batman series seems to do ridiculous vehicles much more plausibly. 

Nananananana-na, Judge-man, Judge-man, Adam-Wesssssssst.

Though in fairness, I haven't seen a "Lawmaster" design yet that didn't look overwhelmingly silly and impractical. Silly and impractical works far better in a comic strip than in a movie, and pleasingly really everything about the design of this movie is the grittiest and most realistic seen yet out of, erm, this and the other one.

A typical Vehicle of 1995's Judge Dredd... Dredd 2012 takes a more "relaxed" approach to the production design

Its impressively different to the '95 version, which tended to look a lot like the comics - a lot of campy gold bling on the uniform for example, but the ridiculous looking Lawmaster at least looked in place. So in terms of production design, the more toned down everything is, the better it all fits that environment (and the less it costs, too), of course if its too toned down it loses identity, there's a certain lack of personality in the costume design.

Whatever the design, you could still question the practicality of having basically your entire front line police force out on motorcycles and thats something that has been with Dredd from the early days of Pat Mills and Carlos Ezquerra.

Silly, yes.  Impractical, yes. More terrifying without the helmet than with? Yes. 

I guess in-keeping with the toned down nature of the production, out of all the infamous, elaborate and imaginative foes Judge Dredd has battled over the years our bad guy is a fairly normal looking woman, but she's got a scar so you know she's maybe been in a car accident or something and is on an NHS waiting list for reconstructive surgery, maybe they could have given her a beard and a German / British accent?

Nuke or perhaps another serving of that primordial soup from Prometheus again... Either way Kane finds it delicious.  BTW Did I ever tell you about the Klingon proverb that says that primordial soup is best served slightly chilled?
Enjoy responsibly, it's moreish.

Don't drink primordial soup and drive, folks... Our villain after shooting up some heroin(e) - some clever word play there...  

The upshot of all this is as I have accurately deduced from the trailer is a terrible traffic problem on the corner of Abbot and Costello, and the Judges are dispatched to deposit some tickets on the offending vehicles. After attempting to return a stray cat to an old lady they become trapped by oddly tattooed and heavily armed drug people, who aren't impressed with the concept of Prohibition and are addicted to a substance that perceptually slows time, so their crappy lives seem to take even longer to live out, a trip to the benefits office could take a whole perceptual week for instance, AFAIK, this is the only thing that it does, no actual dizzying high or even a mild giddiness.  

If you want to slow down time, I'll tell you how, go and get a regular day job and you'll see time slow right down to a crawl, esp on a Friday afternoon, works great.

Essentially the movie seems to be set in a single building for the most part, with Dredd and 'a Rookie' attempting to escape a Drug Lord-ette's (lordette, really?) heavily armed manor full of people from Delta City looking for more irresistible Nuke after Robocop destroyed the lot in the sequel to Paul Verhoeven's excellent movie. As with John McTeirnan's also outstanding Die Hard, the restrictive environment of a single structure could be a good thing to keep the action and the script tight.

So while the story deals with everyday inner city problems like, double parking or stray felines, there's also a sub plot about illegal drug use. But will that have any relation to actual real world urban decay, will the story be as realistically realised as the visuals? Or In a Frank Drebin inspired approach to law enforcement, are the clouds of combusted soup material gushing from a plebeians mouth merely an indicator of whom one should shoot? Classic comic book Dredd with his somewhat cavalier approach to law enforcement would certainly approve.

 

"Ma'm put the gun down, we've found your cat."

"I inhaled, deeply and frequently, that was the point." - B Obama.

One of the best things about Judge Dredd (based on several hundred 'progs' of 2000AD collected during my youth) is that everything is so over the top that the Judges cause as much havoc as the bad guys, you're often left wondering who's worse. Will there be any depth, any blurring of the lines of good and evil, shades of grey, or really will everything just be a series of things that happen in conceptual black and white to get from one explosive, gory set peice to another? Dredd himself in the comics is really an anti-hero, as an over the top authoritarian he's scarier than the bad guys. 

For a citizen of Mega City One, just being in the wrong place at the wrong time can lead to a lengthy time in the slammer with no chance of parole, at worst, on the spot execution. Its harsh frontier law with rules dictated by fascist bureaucrats (the council of the judges) and executed (literally) by their subordinates.  In a resource starved and overpopulated world, its apparently the only way that works but its never been something that anyone was intended to approve of or applaud so I hope the Judges are not overly glorified in this production, again they aren't clear cut good guys as such, having been brainwashed from an early age to defend the fascist state. 

Anyway, I'm kinda running out of things to say, and other Sci-fi things to reference... Oh apart from the thing that will TOTALLY RUIN THE MOVIE FOR EVERYONE!*

Because the first time I watched the trailer I had no audio, it was late so I couldn't use the whopping great Jamo speakers I annoy my neighbours with during the day, headphones destroyed in a terrible accident with an office chair and my replacement cans hadn't turned up yet.

So, boring details of my audio setup aside, I assumed certain things; as Karl Urban's lips moved I kinda heard Stallones mangled version of what Dredd might sound like pouring out of his mouth, which if anything was appropriately naturally deep, as that actor has a naturally dark timbre. Today I saw it again, but with audio and something wasn't right, quickly pinning it down to Mr Urban's vocals, I honestly laughed out loud as Karl immaculately annunciated Dredd's catchphrase; "I am the law." - A phrase utterly mangled by his predecessor.

Because although to his credit as an actor he can actually pronounce words, Karl Urban doesn't have any natural depth to his voice, he sounds incredibly strained and unnatural.

It reminds me of a weedy looking comedian pretending to be a superhero - think Simon Pegg trying to sound hard, it just doesn't work as anything other than comedy. Urban also perhaps somehow just looks too small, maybe its the diminished shoulder pads. Even though Stallone is a relatively tiny man, barely 3 foot 4 inches in height, thanks to smoking a healthy three packs of flavor country's finest a day for the entire 80's he has the voice of a much larger person and an orange crate or two deal with height issue. While Urban's take on the character is far more serious in tone due to the scripting, I think I might struggle to take his character seriously if the voice isn't right -like you might struggle to take a real law man seriously if his voice sounded all fake and ****.

Apparently Christian Bale's version of Batman has also received similar critique, so if it didn't bother you there it might not here - though it makes more sense with the dual character of Batman. 

Honestly, I haven't seen anything Batman related since 1989, well, at least nothing after that whole Joel Schumacher effort, so it was amusing to find a video on Youtube of Simon Pegg discussing the exact thing I was just talking about.

All is not lost however, maybe they will overdub him with James Earl Jones... Or maybe the whole thing will be so great that no one will care, or will I giggle through the entire thing and have an inadvertently great time anyway? - Like watching a terrible horror movie thats hysterical, like Prometheus. 

Splundig Vur Thrigg!

-Steve the Mighty.

*or not.