What the Avengers Did Right (part 1)

Real quick - I'm hoping to crank out something writing-related here every Wednesday and maybe something a little extra on Fridays.

The Avengers, leading up to the theatrical release, became a very big deal in my house among the male populace. My son and I sat down and watched every film that leads to this film, so that we could be ready for opening night.

It is odd, when looked upon from afar, that so many explicitly heterosexual men get extremely amped up about dudes in tights, especially given the bigoted & religious attitudes in the United States.

However, not all superhero films are created equal, and I seem to disagree sharply with the general populace about what makes a great superhero film.

I really enjoyed Ang Lee's 'Hulk,' but thought the second one, 'The Incredible Hulk,' was a rather generic exercise in 'going through the motions.' In Ang Lee's film, Bruce Banner has an incredibly complicated set of relationships with his father, his girlfriend, and himself. We see him work through these and confront issues, and we really take the time to let Bruce sort out what it all means. It's a thoughful and moody film that harnessed the visual medium wonderfully.

The second film was a series of tentpole action scenes with some dialogue in between. The Bruce Banner in this film has none of the complexities of the man in the first film. In this continuity, he inflicted everything on himself, which makes him a very different man. The biggest problem with the film, though, is that Bruce doesn't really have an arc. He's the same guy at the end of the film that he was at the beginning. We don't see any kind of struggle, we don't feel anything visceral about this character.

My feeling is that in a superhero film, the most interesting hero is one that needs to be heroic to overcome his circumstances. This is what separates him/her from 'us.'. They need to be able to do something that is impossible for any of us, and that ability is something that needs to be earned. They can earn it through the struggle to achieve it, or they can earn it by struggling to control it.

Look at Tony Stark in the first 'Iron Man.' His arc is fantastic. He starts out as a wealthy, entitled jerk-off that symbolizes everything that's wrong with the 1% in this country, but when faced with an extraordinary problem, finds that he feels compelled to fight for what's right. His transformation is a riveting and inspiring tale, and that carries all the way through to the completely shitty-ending final battle.

As a note, if you have your hero 'win' by accident, it just sucks. Nothing annoys me more that not having the hero earn the win. That 'right place, right time' shit is okay in real life, because it's what we're stuck with, but let us see our hero kick some ass, please.

And, Captain America sucked. Just flat-out. Yeah, there's an arc there, but it's not a compelling one. Maybe Steve Rogers isn't a sympathetic character? I don't know. I just never bought into or cared about his character, and his arc wasn't one that I found believable or compelling. His relationship with the super-hot gal from 'Pillars of the Earth' was kinda interesting, I guess.

What happens in that case is that I come away from the film feeling like not much happened in the two hours I spent watching it. Yeah, I know several plot points happened, but the character still feels flat and unrelatable, and my time and money just got wasted.

Congrats, Joe Johnston, you just made the first bad film with Hugo Weaving in it. Hugo Weaving is money, man. How do you fuck that up?

Pistol-whipping the Captain America film is a blog entry unto itself. While the film did, unequivocally, shit the bed, this is not the time or the place. That will come some other time.

Ultimately, I felt that film fell into the same trap as the second Hulk flick, in that it was a series of tentpole action scenes that were briefly interrupted by dialogue. It was boring.

At the same time, these films just make a shitload of bank, and you can't argue with return on investment.

Nothing, however, prepared me for what would happen when the studio allowed the greatest creative mind in Hollywood to write and direct 'The Avengers'.

What was your favorite of the films leading up to 'The Avengers?' How would you rank them? How'd you feel about each of them?

I'll continue this with part 2 on Friday.

-Blaine
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Post-Colonoscopy Word Dump

soundtrack - new-ish Asteroids Galaxy Tour - 'Out of Frequency' record

I had a colonoscopy yesterday. Just making sure there was no cancer in my butt. There wasn't. At one time, we had reason to think that there may be a chance there was some cancer up in there, but after several steps, we assured that there is not.

I will say that the whole thing was a very interesting and memorable experience. I'm not sure how much to say, since I often sound holier-than-thou when it comes to dealing with potential crises. I guess I'm just kinda 'zen' about things that are non-work-related. I dunno. I was a little nervous about the colonoscopy aspect of it, since I don't have a great love for the current state of the medical industrial complex, plus I'd never been 'put under' before, and wasn't wild about surrendering so much control to someone. Blah blah blah.

Enough about that.

So, I've decided I'd like to do some blogging again, but I want to refine my process before I really jump back in. What I've found is that my old approach, which is the blunt, imprecise imposition of my views upon the unwilling horde was neither practical nor terribly rewarding. While I'm quite certain as to the veracity and solidity of my opinions, there is the perception that even though they're mine, they're still just 'opinions,' and little more. While I find that I have little appreciation for this attitude, it has given me cause to reexamine why I would want to even continue blogging.

I've often found that blogging is akin to a masturbatory session that ends very badly, but nets little more than a shrug from its unfortunate witnesses. All three or less of them. And two of them are automated searches from eastern Europe.

So why even post here anymore? Well, I haven't in months. I wanted to shift my attention to my more literary pursuits (the Endless Wars sequel), plus work got real busy, and oh yeah, Star Wars: The Old Republic came out.

The main thing, though, is the time commitment. I'm not someone who just throws any old shit up here (despite how it may read). I really put effort into it, and I labor over what I present to you. Both of you.

So, yeah, what I need is a refined process and demonstrable return on investment. Frankly, the opportunity cost is not to be underestimated. I work a very demanding, stressful job, and my off-hours are precious to me.

Yeah, the easy answer is, 'shut up and move on with your life,' but there's a lot of aspects to blogging that I enjoy. Some great discussions have come out of my posts. Blogging is a worthwhile writing exercise. There's also the potential monetization aspect to consider.

I'm thinking about trying out a refined version of something I tried a few years ago. Post every day M-F, but have a variety of topics, each of which is assigned to a particular weekday. So, like sports would be Mondays, technology would be Tuesdays, gaming would be Wednesdays, and so on. I'd probably also have a different blog assigned to each one. The entries would be shorter than I usually squeeze out, since I probably suffer from some of the 'too long, didn't read' thing that plagues us nowadays.

We'll see. I may build it all out this weekend.

What do you think?

Blaine

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For both of you that care, I'm doing some posting over at Untitled Gaming regarding the games of 2011. I'd love it if you went over there and checked it out!

Enjoy, and don't forget to comment over there!

Blaine