@chris-lang
by Chris Lang
Green Lantern #156 – a review
July 26, 2014 in Uncategorized
I’ve covered comic books a lot in my columns, but I’ve never actually reviewed any specific issues, or devoted a column to reviewing a specific issue, until now. I intend to do a whole series on Spider-Man, tentatively titled ‘Spider Spotlight’, but I think for a test run I’ll review an old Green Lantern comic book from the early 1980’s.
Today I’ll be looking at Green Lantern #156. Originally published in 1982, this comic book consists of a 17-page lead story featuring Green Lantern Hal Jordan, and an eight page Green Lantern Corps story featuring Wylxa (the aging Green Lantern of Space Sector 6) and his apprentice Tahr.
And here we have two things we don’t see very often in today’s comic books (particularly at Marvel and DC). We have not one, but two ‘done in one’ stories. Nowadays, it’s hard to find a comic book from either of the Big Two superhero publishers that presents a story that’s told all within a single issue (aside from a few subplots here and there that, in the best cases, have payoff in later issues). These days, every story has to be told in no less than six issues, so they can sell more trade paperbacks. But back then, it wasn’t unusual for ‘main’ stories to only last one, two, or three issues. Six to eight part ‘sagas’ were the exception in 1980-1984, as opposed to the rule (which they are now).
Anyway, for this article, I’ll be primarily focusing on the lead story, “Judas World”. Written by Mike W. Barr (known for Camelot 3000 and Batman and the Outsiders), with artwork by Gil Kane, and edited by Len Wein, this story takes place during the ‘Hal Jordan in Space’ era of the series.
by Chris Lang
Fanfic Subgenres: The Song-Inspired Fanfic
April 8, 2013 in Blogs, Chris Lang's Commentaries
Fanfic Subgenres: The Song-Inspired Fic
Posted by Chris Lang on April 8, 2013 at 11:10 AM
Hello and welcome to Fanfic Subgenres, where I discuss subgenres of fan fiction, and how those genres also apply to works by professionals.
This time, I’ll discuss the ‘song inspired fic’. Song-inspired fics are fics inspired by songs. Often at times, they are fanfics involving the group that did the song, though sometimes they are fanfics featuring characters from television, movies, and so on that are appearing in a story whose events or themes are in line with the lyrics of the song.
So of course we get angsty troubled romance fics where, say, Buffy and Angel, Ranma and Akane of Ranma 1/2, or some anime couple are breaking up, with themes that match, say, ‘So Much For My Happy Ending’ by Avril Lavigne, or ‘Goodbye to You’ by Michelle Branch (of course, the latter song was actually used in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer). We get sad fics about death or loss inspired by teary sentimental songs like ‘I Will Remember You’ by Sarah McLaughlan or ‘Dust In the Wind’ by Kansas.
Or maybe we get actual fics expanding on the song itself. Maybe the song itself tells a story, and the writer is moved to expand on the story and the characters. Maybe they’re imagining more about what happened the Night the Lights Went Out In Georgia. Maybe they’re wondering just where the Purple People Eater came from (all Sheb Wooley told us about the creature’s background was his taste in food, and his interest in rock and roll). Maybe they’d like to know more of the backstory of Brandy (who, according to Looking Glass, is a fine girl) and the man she loves.
In any case, there are many kinds of song-inspired fics out there, and many overlap with other fanfic subgenres. Some are good, some are bad, and some are just baffling.
by Chris Lang
Han vs. Greedo revisited: Han Solo
March 28, 2013 in Blogs
Han vs. Greedo revisited: Han Solo
Originally Posted by Chris Lang on March 28, 2013 at 11:00 AM
Has it really been over a year since I posted my first blog entry on Manic Expression? My, how time flies.
Anyway, I’d like to revisit the subject of my first blog entry, the Star Wars Special Edition changes to the confrontration between Han Solo and Greedo the bounty hunter. If you’d like to read that entry again, feel free to read my discussion of why having Greedo shoot first just doesn’t work.
I stand by what I say in that entry. Greedo’s shooting first only makes him less of a believable adversary and more of an incompetent idiot who had no real chance of killing Han anyway.
In the original version, where Han shot first (in fact, it’s more accurate to say that Han was the only one to actually fire a shot, because Greedo was in no condition to shoot anything afterwards), we can believe that Han is in real danger from a ruthless (and possibly overzealous) bounty hunter who was likely to shoot him at any moment. Han’s keeping Greedo talking kept Greedo from shooting and killing him.
And then the Special Edition came along and told us that no, Dick Dastardly actually had a better chance of winning a Wacky Race (or catching that pigeon in his spinoff show) than Greedo had of shooting Han.
However, many people who discuss this scene don’t discuss it from the angle of what it does to Greedo’s character, but from the angle of what it does to the character of Han Solo. I think I should address that here.
Some say the change in the Special Edition was done because it made Han seem less heroic and more of a ‘killer’. Some say that Han is actually less of a scoundrel if Greedo shoots first, and that hurts his character in their eyes.
(As for George Lucas, I’ve noted before that he’s changed his story on why the change was made several times. At one point, he claimed it was to keep the Special Edition from being rated PG-13. At another point, he claimed that Greedo shooting first was his original intention. But that’s a digression).
To those who say that ‘Han is a cold-blooded killer in the original’, I must say that no, he is not. As I already said above and in my original blog entry, Han is still acting in self defense even if Greedo didn’t have the opportunity to actually fire. Greedo’s mistake in the original is that he talks too much and gives Han the opportunity to shoot. There’s no doubt in my mind at least that if Han hadn’t kept him talking, he wouldn’t have been able to surprise Greedo and shoot him. Greedo probably would have shot first … and killed Han.
Han was being smart in that situation. He waited for the right moment and shot a dangerous bounty hunter in self-defense. When it was clear talking Greedo out of it wasn’t going to work, Han had to act quickly to defend himself.
Now, with that out of the way, what does the Special Edition change about that scene in regards to Han? Well, I’d say in the Special Edition, not the original, he’s more of a cold-blooded killer, as since Greedo missed him from just three feet away, Greedo wasn’t a real threat anyway. Han might as well have just got up and walked away and left Greedo without shooting.
(Of course, this impression comes from the really unconvincing editing done in that scene. Seriously, the video producers of Channel Awesome put out better edits than that on a regular basis, and they don’t make the kind of money Industrial Light and Magic and other such professional effects producers make. Then again, Lucas was putting the editors of the Special Edition in the uncomfortable position of making two and two equal five).
Anyway, is Han less of a jerk and a scoundrel in one version because in one, he shot first, and the other, he didn’t?
To be honest, I don’t think so. Han is still a jerk, regardless of what happened in the confrontation with Greedo. He’s still mostly thinking of himself. He only assists Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi in hopes of making enough money to pay off Jabba the Hutt so that Jabba will stop sending bounty hunters after him.
And when C-3P0 discovers that Princess Leia is scheduled to be executed soon, and Luke wants to rescue her, Han doesn’t want to get involved. He says “Better her than me.” It’s only when Luke tells Han that she’s rich and powerful, and the reward for rescuing her could be more wealth than Han could imagine, that he agrees to help in the rescue.
He and Leia argue quite a bit over the course of the movie, though Han eventually starts to warm up to her. After they escape from the Death Star, Han tells Leia that he’s not in it for her revolution, he’s in it for the money. Leia wonders if money is all he cares about.
And of course, when it’s clear the Death Star is on its way to destroy the Rebel base, he decides to leave instead of staying around to get killed. However, he does have a moment where he shows some humanity here. He wishes Luke well in the battle, saying ‘May the Force be with you’ even though earlier he stated he didn’t really believe in the Force and thought the achievements Obi-Wan attributed to the Force were just a matter of luck.
And then, of course, he returns in the Death Star battle to be Luke Skywalker’s backup at the crucial moment and keep Darth Vader from unknowingly offing his own son. (Oops, did I spoil the next movie? Sorry. ).
So yes, Han is a jerk. But he ends up growing to like Luke and Leia, and helps them out even at risk to himself. He ends up being a hero even though he does not seem all that heroic at first.
And in my view, that’s true in both versions. One scene might be a bit different, but it does not really change Han’s character much, if at all. In both, Han Solo is a Jerk With a Heart of Gold. His redeeming moment is still a very powerful one, as it shows that he has a softer, less self-centered side to him after all.
Anyway, that’s my thoughts on the matter. Agree? Disagree? Feel free to leave your comments. Included below are some fun comments from when this was first posted.
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BigBlackHatMan
11:44 AM on March 28, 2013 I am totally with you. It was self-defense regardless of who shot first. Greedo just needed to shot rather than talk to someone he knew to be dangerous. Good work and congrats on the year.
Les
07:07 PM on March 28, 2013 Hi Chris Lang. Couldn’t agree with you more. It also makes Han’s decision to come back and save Luke in the Death Star Trench more of a heroic decision. I like the fact that Han Solo starts out as a self-centered scoundrel who’s smart enough to get the drop on a villain in the middle of a monologue, my friend. Peace.
Chris Lang
09:44 AM on March 29, 2013 Les says…
Hi Chris Lang. Couldn’t agree with you more. It also makes Han’s decision to come back and save Luke in the Death Star Trench more of a heroic decision. I like the fact that Han Solo starts out as a self-centered scoundrel who’s smart enough to get the drop on a villain in the middle of a monologue, my friend. Peace.
Well, I think Han fired because he realized it was soon getting to the ‘now or never’ phase. Greedo was gloating about how he’d been looking forward to it for a long time, so Han had to fire the shot at that point.
I’ve heard some people say that if the Star Wars movies had been made back in the 1940’s, Humphrey Bogart would have played Han Solo. I can see that. Han Solo does have a few things in common with characters Humphrey Bogart has played.
Les
11:42 PM on March 30, 2013
Chris Lang says…
Well, I think Han fired because he realized it was soon getting to the ‘now or never’ phase. Greedo was gloating about how he’d been looking forward to it for a long time, so Han had to fire the shot at that point.
I’ve heard some people say that if the Star Wars movies had been made back in the 1940’s, Humphrey Bogart would have played Han Solo. I can see that. Han Solo does have a few things in common with characters Humphrey Bogart has played.
I can see that.
Han Solo: “Maybe the problems of a smuggler and a princess don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy Galaxy far far away, but if you don’t get on that shuttle, you’ll regret it soon, and for the rest of your life. I ain’t good at being noble, sweetheart……
Leia: “I love you!”
Han Solo: “I Know….Here’s Looking at you, Kid!”
Han walks away with Chewbacca by his side.
“You know, Chewie, I think this is the start of a beautiful life debt!”
by Chris Lang
Fanfic Subgenres: Shipping in fan fiction
March 20, 2013 in Blogs, Chris Lang's Commentaries
Welcome to another installment of Fanfic Subgenres, where I discuss certain subgenres or elements of fan fiction, and then discuss professionally-produced works where those elements also apply.
In honor of Valentines’ Day, I’ll discuss ‘shipping’ in fan fiction.
In fanfic and fandom terms, ‘ship’ refers not to boats at sea or even spaceships, but to ‘relationships’. In particular, it refers to romantic relationships between characters in a franchise that certain groups within the fandom want to see happen.
by Chris Lang
WIJDW: Feature-length Dr. Seuss adaptations
February 8, 2013 in Blogs, Chris Lang's Commentaries
WIJDW: Dr. Seuss feature-length adaptations
February 8, 2013/0 Comments/in Basic: Movies & TV, Chris Langs Commentaries /by Chris Lang
Posted by Chris Lang on February 8, 2013 at 11:50 AM
Welcome to Why It Just Doesn’t Work (WIJDW) where I analyze scenes from movies, comic books, and other entertainments and explain why they are illogical, out of place, and/or just … don’t work.
This column is a bit different. Rather than focusing on just one movie in particular, I’m going to be focusing on the cinematic adaptations of Dr. Seuss’ classic books.
Dr. Seuss was one of the most brilliant writers of children’s literature ever, producing several works that are enjoyed on many levels by children and adults alike. His works are full of whimsy, imagination, and sometimes bizarre names for the people, places, and things. But amidst all the whimsy, Dr. Seuss also told some fascinating stories with good morals to them. ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ tells us that there’s more to Christmas than presents, feasts, decorations, and noisy parties. ‘The Sneeches’ exposes the absurdity of discrimination, and ‘The Lorax’ has a rather obvious environmental message.
With all this in mind, I suppose it’s not surprising that some of Dr. Seuss’ works have been adapted to the big screen. We’ve had a live-action version of ‘The Grinch’ featuring Jim Carrey, and a live-action version of ‘The Cat In The Hat’ featuring Mike Myers. And in 2012, we had a full-length CG animated ‘The Lorax’. These adaptations have received mixed reviews at best. And as of this writing, I don’t remember anyone having anything good to say about the Mike Myers ‘The Cat in the Hat’ movie.
‘The Cat in the Hat’ film, in particular, had everything that was wrong with ‘The Grinch’ movie: Not only was there a lot of expansion that detracted from the original story, but there was also an abundance of crude or vulgar humor that seemed only there so that the filmmakers could Avoid The Dreaded “G” Rating. In fact, Dr. Seuss’ widow hated ‘The Cat In The Hat’ movie so much that the Theodore Geissel (Dr. Seuss) Estate would no longer authorize any more live-action adaptations.
This has not, however, prevented further feature-length animated adaptations, such as the 2012 ‘Lorax’ film and another version of ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas’ (also titled ‘The Grinch’) by Illumination in 2018.
However, the one problem all of the above-mentioned Dr. Seuss adaptations share is that they are trying to tell stories that can be told in thirty minutes. The original books are not very long at all. They’re thirty pages or less.
Back in the 60’s and early 70’s, animated adaptations of several of Dr. Seuss’ books were made, and unless I’m mistaken, none of them went over 25 to 30 minutes. Even then, some expansion and addition had to be added to fill in the time.
Probably the best-known of these adaptations is the Chuck Jones-directed animated special of ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’. Narrated by Boris Karloff, the special is very faithful to the original story, which is not surprising since Dr. Seuss himself collaborated with Chuck Jones in the making of it.
However, to fill time, there are a number of sections added. The Grinch’s speech describing the noisy Christmas parties of the Whos goes into far greater detail than the original version, naming the various toys and musical instruments and party items and showing how the resulting noise drives the Grinch mad. The sled ride into town is also longer, with some added slapstick. And of course, we have a lengthy montage of the Grinch stealing from the Whos’ houses, accompanied by the most popular The Villain Sucks Song ever, ‘You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch’.
Moving on, we have the animated adaptation of ‘The Lorax’. Again, we have a thirty-minute adaptation that’s faithful to the original, but with some expansion. In ‘The Lorax’, a number of songs are added to fill the time without detracting from the original’s story or morals. The Barbaloots (the playful ape-like beings) have two songs: First, there’s the joyful ‘Under the Trees’ while they play their games under the Truffula trees, and second is the dirgelike ‘Barbaloot Suits’ as they prepare to leave what is now a barren wasteland.
We also get ‘A Fish Out of Water On Hot Dry Land’ where the fish evacuate their polluted waters and head off in search of cleaner water (and this isn’t a stretch — there are some species of fish that can do this). And then the Onceler (the big businessman behind the Thneeds business that devastates the Truffula tree forest) gets a song ‘Once in A While I Sit Down With Myself’ where he has an internal dialogue without the audience ever seeing his face. There’s also some montages of the rise and eventual fall of the Onceler’s business.
The original animated adaptation of ‘The Cat in the Hat’ probably has the most expanded material, but that’s mostly because ‘The Cat In The Hat’ isn’t as strong on story as ‘Grinch’ and ‘Lorax’. The story is just ‘an unusual character visits a bored boy and girl, makes a mess of the house, cleans up after himself, and leaves’. So of course there’s plenty of new material here.
There’s the search for the Cat’s missing family gredunza (just what a gredunza is isn’t explained until the end, when it’s revealed that it’s the vehicle the Cat uses to clean up everything and leave the premises with). There are also a number of songs added, most notably ‘A Cat of Many Countries (A Cat of Many Hats)’ where the Cat goes into what he and his hat are called in other languages, and ‘To Find the Missing Something Find Out Where It’s Not’ (connected to the search for the gredunza).
All these additions work, for the most part, because they’re true to the world and characters of the story, and they don’t distract too much from either. And because all of those adaptations are only thirty minutes.
However, when you try to adapt material like ‘Grinch’, ‘Lorax’, and ‘The Cat in the Hat’ to feature-length (90 minutes or more), you run into a problem. There’s just not enough material to make a full-length movie, so inevitably one has to add a LOT of things that were not in the source material.
So of course it’s not surprising that the Jim Carrey ‘Grinch’ movie, the Mike Myers ‘Cat in the Hat’ movie, and the 2012 ‘Lorax’ movie added many characters, subplots, and backstories that were nowhere to be found in the originals. The problem is, all these things end up distracting and detracting from the original stories. We get new antagonists that didn’t exist in the originals, backstories that might go against Dr. Seuss’ original intentions (especially in ‘The Grinch’), and some rather bizarre characterizations that clash with Dr. Seuss’s original version. (Making the Whos materialistic in the Jim Carrey version and having to also learn the lesson just isn’t as powerful as the original version and the Chuck Jones adaptation where the Grinch is the only one who doesn’t understand what Christmas is about and ends up having his heart ‘grow three sizes that day’ when he figures it out).
The thirty-minute adaptations stayed true to the original stories because not only were the additions true to the original stories and characters, but they also did not have to add too much. When going for 90 minutes, one ends up having to add so much that what’s added almost inevitably distracts from the original story, and ends up almost telling a different story altogether.
So for me, anyway, that is why doing feature-length adaptations of Dr. Seuss’ classics just doesn’t work.
As always, feel free to leave your comments below.
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mraspiringactor
01:15 PM on February 08, 2013 Pretty much agreed on this!
Just out of curiosity, what did you think of Horton considering you never mentioned it in the article?
Ratin8tor
05:37 PM on February 08, 2013 I can say one good thing about The Cat in the Hat movie: It’s a really good movie…
… IF it was about an original IP. Had it not been named after the book, I think the movie would have been a whole lot better in the long run, since it’s not spoiling a classic.
But I still find the movie genuinally funny. I liked it’s oddball sense of humour and surrealist worldview. And I think it does work well as a movie, just not an adaption.
But a looooot of Suess’ stuff had political messages lost today. I mean Horton was all about America looking after Japan after the war. But that cultural example is lost on today’s audience.
Chris Lang
01:18 PM on February 08, 2013
mraspiringactor says…
Pretty much agreed on this!
Just out of curiosity, what did you think of Horton considering you never mentioned it in the article?
I didn’t mention Horton because believe it or not, I’m not all that familiar with the original Dr. Seuss story, and haven’t seen enough of it or the adaptations to comment on it. The stories I DID mention, however, are ones I’m very familiar with.
mraspiringactor
01:54 PM on February 08, 2013
Chris Lang says…
I didn’t mention Horton because believe it or not, I’m not all that familiar with the original Dr. Seuss story, and haven’t seen enough of it or the adaptations to comment on it. The stories I DID mention, however, are ones I’m very familiar with.
Oh OK.
Reply
BigBlackHatMan
01:22 PM on February 08, 2013 It runs into the problem of turning any poetry, which is what I consider Seuss, into a film. You lose the whimsy and charm of it in my cases. Good work
Infamous Jak
12:40 PM on February 08, 2013 Yeah, I just did a blog on this, and came to the same conclusion, the reason they don’t work is that there is no way to turn a 20 page kids book into a 90 minute film without it feeling padded and streched out. Good work on this article.
Reply
Moviefan12
12:04 PM on February 08, 2013 I completely agree with you that Seuss films do not work. One thing I’ve noticed with most of them is lack the spirit & charm of Seuss.
Anakin
01:43 PM on February 08, 2013
Chris Lang says…
I didn’t mention Horton because believe it or not, I’m not all that familiar with the original Dr. Seuss story, and haven’t seen enough of it or the adaptations to comment on it. The stories I DID mention, however, are ones I’m very familiar with.
It’s funny, because Horton Hears a Who-the book, cartoon and the full-length CGI adaptation have a definite story that has characters, story arcs and room to flesh out environments and the characters, themselves. In other words, it’s the only CGI adaptation that justified itself for being a full-length feature. There are some parts to it that weren’t needed, or just plain silly fluff filler, but most of it was well done. Give this story a shot, my friend. You might just be surprised. Peace.
Reply
by Chris Lang
WIJDW: An explanation
May 20, 2012 in Blogs, Chris Lang's Commentaries
Okay, so I’ve made a series of blogs titled WIJDW, which is short for Why It Just Doesn’t Work. I think I should explain further just why I write these columns.
To start, I’d like to explain the concept of ‘suspension of disbelief’. The term was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817. Willing suspension of disbelief means at least temporarily accepting a few elements in fiction that are, at least, very unlikely in real life.
However, this does NOT mean that an audience should just shut their brains off and accept everything they see. A story still has to be grounded in reality and human nature. Even a fantasy story has to have limits and obey its own internal logic, or else it will degenerate into nonsense. If one goes too far with their fantastic or ridiculous elements, an audience is likely to go “Oh, come on now!”.
by Chris Lang
Fanfic Subgenres: Fix Fics
May 17, 2012 in Chris Lang's Commentaries, Uncategorized
Welcome to the second of my series of articles I call ‘Fanfic Subgenres’. Here, I discuss certain subgenres of fanfiction, and how certain professionally-produced media can sometimes fall into the same categories.
While my first installment dealt with crossover and ‘fusion’ fics, this one will discuss the ‘fix fic’. What is a fix fic, you may ask?
A ‘fix fic’ is when a fanfiction author takes a certain part of a series (be it a TV series, comic books, a series of movies, or other stuff) that didn’t sit well with them, and then proceeds to rewrite or undo it. In some examples, they go to incredible lengths to retcon, undo, and/or explain away certain parts they did not like. Read the rest of this entry →
by Chris Lang
Fanfic subgenres: Crossover fics and fusion fics
March 21, 2012 in Blogs, Chris Lang's Commentaries
After seeing Episode 170 of Fanfic Critic, ‘In A Galaxy Far Far Away’, I thought I’d post this column discussing two types of fan fiction (and other types of fiction) that are often confused, but are definately different from each other. And I’ll give some examples of where they occur outside of fan fiction.
First off, there’s the crossover fic. This is where characters from one fictional world’s universe meet characters from another fictional world’s universe. For example, Buffy the Vampire Slayer teaming up with Blade, Batman teaming up with Spider-Man, or Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner meeting up with Tom and Jerry. Often at times, there’s an explanation for how these characters meet up. For example, the starship Enterprise might enter a wormhole and wind up in the Star Wars galaxy.
Then there’s the fusion fic (also called ‘mashup’ by some). A fusion fic is set in a world where elements of two fictional universes are merged together so that characters, concepts, and settings are just blended together into one. For example, there are fics out there where Ranma Saotome of Ranma 1/2 is from Tatooine and his rival Tatewaki Kuno and his sister Kodachi are Imperial commanders, or where Buffy is a starship captain in Starfleet and her friends are the senior officers.
by Chris Lang
WIJDW: Superman III and its attempt at superhero comedy
March 9, 2012 in Blogs, Chris Lang's Commentaries
WIJDW: Superman III and its attempts at comedy
March 9, 2012/3 Comments/in Basic: Movies & TV, BLOGS, Chris Langs Commentaries /by Chris Lang
Hello and welcome to another installment of WIJDW (Why It Just Doesn’t Work). Here, I take a look at scenes from movies and other media and explain why they are illogical, nonsensical, and/or just … don’t work.
This time, I’ll be taking a look at Superman III, the third installment of the 80s Superman movie franchise. While the first two installments are widely regarded as classics and among the best superhero movies ever made, the third and fourth installments are … well, not thought of as highly. The fourth film had terrible special effects, a number of ridiculous moments, and a poorly-thought out plot. And the third … attempted to be both a comedy movie and a continuation of the franchise. And that just doesn’t work.
Okay, for starters, while the first two Superman films had their moments of comic relief, they were more or less ‘straight’ superhero films. They played the danger seriously, the character relationships seriously, and the world they lived in seriously. Superman, his antagonists, and Kryptonian artifacts were the fantastic elements in what was otherwise a representation of the everyday world. Therefore, we had little trouble suspending disbelief. We could, as the tagline for the first film said, believe that a man can fly.
However, Superman III throws the internal logic of the first two films out the window in favor of slapstick and over-the-top ridiculous sight gags. The opening sequence, in which a bunch of slapstick is juxtaposed with a serious scene of Superman saving a person from drowning, sets the tone for a very uneven movie.
As the film goes on, we see the world Superman inhabits become less realistic and more like something you’d see in a ridiculous comedy movie. For example, we see Gus Gorman (played by Richard Pryor, who gets more screentime than Christopher Reeve’s Superman) meeting the film’s main villain Ross Webster (Robert Vaughn) at a rooftop ski resort. I repeat this … a rooftop ski resort. On the roof of a tall building in Metropolis.
I ask you, does this sound like ANYTHING anyone would do in the real world? Someone who had enough money to build such a thing would presumably be smart enough to know how dangerous such a thing would be, and would know better than to waste time and money doing so. In fact, anyone seriously suggesting such a thing would need to have their head examined. (If they succeeded in getting such a thing constructed, they would probably be the only one who used it …. and they’d end up being featured in the Darwin Awards after they suffer the consequences for their stupidity).
Sure enough, Gus Gorman ends up skiing over the edge of the rooftop. But does he get saved by Superman (you know, the guy whose name is in the title, and who people paid to see when this was in the theatres)? No. Instead he lands on a slanted glass roof, skiis off of that, and lands safely on the street unharmed. Instead of being killed by the fall when he landed on the roof (regardless of whether the glass held or not, a fall from that many stories still would have killed him), he is saved because the filmmakers sacrificed realism in favor of slapstick.
Then there’s the sequence that occurs after Gus Gorman attempts to hack into a weather satellite (that probably makes more sense in context than what I’m about to describe). Because he had to get drunk in the process of making a security guard drunk before he could do this, he makes a number of errors that result in Metropolis’ computer technology being messed up. This results in more ridiculous slapstick.
And it results in what is probably the most nonsensical scene in the movie. To start with, as a result of the computer problems, traffic signals are constantly switching between red and green, and ‘walk’ and ‘don’t walk’. This results in a bunch of confused motorists and pedestrians … and something that’s just so weird I don’t know if my description can do it justice, even with the help of a picture.
Okay, so what happens is that the walk/don’t walk signs keep flashing back and forth until finally both are lit simultaneously. In case the pic doesn’t show up and you don’t see the caption I wrote for it (because a series of still pics really doesn’t do this moment justice), what happens is that the green ‘walk’ man at the bottom suddenly pulls itself upward into the ‘top’ light and picks a fight with the red ‘don’t walk’ figure at the top.
Excuse me? Have we wandered into a different movie all of a sudden? In WHAT world do walk/don’t walk signs do this sort of thing? As far as I know, no one has ever created walk/don’t walk signs with animated pictures (instead, they’re merely still pictures that are lit by lights). No amount of computer hacking could make a ‘walk’ man leave its position, pull itself into the ‘top’ light, and fight the ‘don’t walk’ man.
And no, they do not have artificial intelligence or any sort of life, either. At least not in the real world.
All the scenes I just described, I feel, are part of the reason why Superman III fails. Like Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin over a decade later, Superman III attempts to insert nonsensical comedy moments into a series that previously maintained a certain amount of realism. In doing so, both Superman III and Batman and Robin violate the internal logic of the universe they’re supposed to be set in, and therefore the comedy … just doesn’t work.
To be fair, Superman III DOES have some good moments. We have Clark returning to Smallville to meet with the grown-up Lana Lang, and we have the ‘badly made artificial Kryptonite turns Superman into a jerk’ angle that culminates in the ‘Superman vs. Clark in the junkyard’ fight.
And this latter angle results in a few comedy bits that actually work. Such as Superman straightening the Leaning Tower of Pisa only to make it lean again after he returns to normal (much to the dismay of the souvenir vendor — that bit makes me smile just thinking of it). Bits like those work not just because they’re funny, but because they involve Superman and they do not violate the internal logic of the Superman film universe. The same, however, cannot be said for most of the slapstick and all the gags involving computers.
And it especially cannot be said for the traffic sign gag, which just comes out of nowhere, has little or no bearing on the plot, is WAY over the top in terms of ridiculousness even in the context of this film, and isn’t mentioned again afterwards. The traffic sign gag is, of course …
A BIG LIPPED ALLIGATOR MOMENT!
And I think I’ll get to analyzing the scene that inspired Lindsay Ellis to come up with the term ‘Big Lipped Alligator Moment’ in a later WIJDW column. But for now, I’ll just wrap up today’s column.
Agree? Disagree? Have any insights or further observations? Feel free to leave your comments.
In the previous iteration of Manic Expression, this post received the following replies.
3 replies
tlota
tlota says:
June 13, 2018 at 12:20 pm
Next month I’m reviewing this one, so thanks for the refresher course about how bad the comedy in this is! Pray for me!
chris-lang
chris-lang says:
August 3, 2018 at 12:16 am
You did pretty good with that one, going through most of the movie and talking about the rest of it (most of the stuff I didn’t get to since my emphasis was just on a few scenes).
chris-lang
chris-lang says:
August 12, 2017 at 6:27 am
Ah, this is one of my earlier blog posts, and I pretty much stand by what I said in it. (Testing to see if the replies work). While there are definitely worse superhero movies out there, and worse Superman movies out there (coughbatmanvsupermancough), this film still is certainly far from the best in the Superman franchise. It’s like two different movies colliding into an uneven mess of a film.
by Chris Lang
WIJDW: The Infamous Bat Credit Card
February 20, 2012 in Blogs, Chris Lang's Commentaries
WIJDW: The Infamous Bat Credit Card
February 20, 2012/0 Comments/in Basic: Movies & TV, BLOGS, Chris Langs Commentaries /by Chris Lang
Hello and welcome to another installment of a series I like to call Why It Just Doesn’t Work (or WIJDW for short). Here, I take a look at scenes from movies, television, comic books, and other forms of entertainment, and explain why I feel they are illogical, nonsensical, and/or just … don’t work.
Again, I’m going to discuss the 90’s Batman movies. This time, I’m going to talk about something familiar to many longtime fans of the Nostalgia Critic. I’m going to talk about … a Bat Credit Card.
A BAT CREDIT CARD?!? NO… NO….. DOES NOT COMPUTE!
(At this point, I pause to allow all the Nostalgia Critic fans in the audience time to re-enact the Nostalgia Critic’s breakdown from his review of Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin. And for those who haven’t seen that review yet, I highly recommend you do so. It’s one of the NC’s funniest).
At conventions Doug Walker (who plays the Nostalgia Critic) is often asked to re-enact that breakdown, and there have been a few callbacks to it in later episodes. But what is it about the Bat Credit Card that inspired the NC’s classic comedic breakdown?
To start, I’ll have to discuss the movie itself and how the film came to be in the first place. Batman Returns, the second of the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton films, was not quite as well-received as the first film. There were many who felt it was ‘too dark’ (which is ironic since over a decade later, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight became a HUGE hit and it’s probably the darkest Batman movie to date. Perhaps people just weren’t ready for it back in 1992).
Among those who felt it was too dark for mainstream audiences were Warner Bros. studio executives. They wanted a film that was lighter in tone, so they removed Tim Burton as director of the third film, and replaced him with Joel Schumacher. Although Michael Keaton refused to be a part of the third film and was replaced in the title role by Val Kilmer, Batman Forever was presumably set in the same universe as the first two films. And so was the film that followed, Batman and Robin.
Batman Forever had a more colorful, brighter, feel to it. It introduced Chris O’Donnell as Robin, and the darkness of his parents being killed managed to keep things from going TOO far into Adam West territory. While it’s not as good as the first film, it’s nowhere near as bad as the fourth film. Unfortunately, it did pave the way for what we would see in the fourth film, with the introduction of campy, goofier elements and the infamous ‘Bat-nipple’ costumes.
In the fourth film, titled Batman and Robin, George Clooney took over the title role while Chris O’Donnell returned as Robin. This film, like the previous installments, featured multiple antagonists with Arnold Schwartznegger as Mr. Freeze and Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy. The film was an unmitigated disaster — all the worst points of Batman Forever (the campiness, the cheesy dialogue) were cranked up to eleven. There were a number of plot holes and implausibilities. Were I to discuss them all, I’d be here all day. But I’ll just discuss the scene that inspired one of the Nostalgia Critic’s best-known freakouts.
As the Critic puts it in his review, the same Batman who used to hide in the shadows and steal photos taken of him is now making public appearances at ‘a sexist auction where men bid on good-looking women to take out on a date.’ Poison Ivy shows up and uses her hypnotic perfume (it might make sense in context, unlike what I’m about to describe) to put Batman and Robin under her spell.
Batman and Robin start bidding on her, and it’s here where Batman whips out … the Bat Credit Card. “Never leave the cave without it.” he quips.
This, of course, drives the Nostalgia Critic nuts in the review. But why? I can’t speak for Doug Walker, but I have to agree that the Bat Credit Card is just complete and total nonsense.
First off, how would Batman get such a thing? In order to get a credit card, you need to provide personal details. How would he be able to do that without revealing his secret identity? Secondly, WHY would he have, or even want, a special custom credit card?
Thirdly, take a good look at the Bat Credit Card. There’s the cute little line that it’s good till ‘forever’, an obvious nod to the title of the previous film. And then there’s the ‘Goth Card’ logo. That is pretty much the clincher. The filmmakers have deliberately violated sense and internal logic just for the sake of a silly sight gag.
This wouldn’t be so bad in a Mel Brooks movie or a Zucker/Abrams movie or a Muppet film or a Looney Tunes film. Those films are silly comedies that we aren’t supposed to take seriously anyway. But Batman and Robin is supposed to be the fourth in a series of movies that began with Tim Burton’s fairly dark 1989 Batman and continued with the much darker Batman Returns. We are supposed to consider these films to be superhero dramas with the occasional bits of comic relief.
Trying to make a later installment of a fairly straight superhero series into a comedy didn’t work with Superman III, and it doesn’t work here either. This film owes a lot more to the silly, campy 60’s Batman TV show featuring Adam West than it does to the prior films in the series, and this approach … just doesn’t work.
It MIGHT have worked had Joel Schumacher rebooted the Batman franchise, and done a previous film with a Joker who was closer to Cesar Romero’s portrayal than Jack Nicholson’s. But instead, we got a Batman and Robin that TRIED to be a sequel to the Burton films, but went against the prior films’ characterizations and internal logic. In the end, Batman and Robin was a colossal failure, George Clooney even publically apologized for it, and we didn’t get another Batman film until Christopher Nolan rebooted the Batman franchise several years later.
I could go on, but all in all, I think I’ve explained why the Bat Credit Card doesn’t work, and why Batman and Robin as a whole doesn’t work when you put it in the context of the previous movies.
(2018 edit: Oh, yes. I’m aware that Linkara gave his explanation as to why it makes sense, but I’m not sure I buy into it. So my point still stands).
Agree? Disagree? Have any further insights? Feel free to leave your comments.
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by Chris Lang
WIJDW: Catwoman, Max Shreck, and Batman’s unmasking
February 20, 2012 in Blogs, Chris Lang's Commentaries
(This was originally posted in early 2012).
Hello and welcome to the second installment of a series I like to call: Why It Just Doesn’t Work (or WIJDW for short). In this series of blogs, I take a look at certain scenes from movies, television, comic books, or other media and give my take on why they don’t make sense or just … don’t work.
This time, I’ll be talking about Batman Returns. More specifically, I’ll be talking about the climax of Batman Returns, in which Catwoman has her final confrontation with Max Shreck.
by Chris Lang
Green Lantern #156 – a review
April 14, 2014 in Blogs, Chris Lang's Commentaries
I’ve covered comic books a lot in my columns, but I’ve never actually reviewed any specific issues, or devoted a column to reviewing a specific issue, until now. I intend to do a whole series on Spider-Man, tentatively titled ‘Spider Spotlight’, but I think for a test run I’ll review an old Green Lantern comic book from the early 1980’s.
Today I’ll be looking at Green Lantern #156. Originally published in 1982, this comic book consists of a 17-page lead story featuring Green Lantern Hal Jordan, and an eight page Green Lantern Corps story featuring Wylxa (the aging Green Lantern of Space Sector 6) and his apprentice Tahr.
And here we have two things we don’t see very often in today’s comic books (particularly at Marvel and DC). We have not one, but two ‘done in one’ stories. Nowadays, it’s hard to find a comic book from either of the Big Two superhero publishers that presents a story that’s told all within a single issue (aside from a few subplots here and there that, in the best cases, have payoff in later issues). These days, every story has to be told in no less than six issues, so they can sell more trade paperbacks. But back then, it wasn’t unusual for ‘main’ stories to only last one, two, or three issues. Six to eight part ‘sagas’ were the exception in 1980-1984, as opposed to the rule (which they are now).
Anyway, for this article, I’ll be primarily focusing on the lead story, “Judas World”. Written by Mike W. Barr (known for Camelot 3000 and Batman and the Outsiders), with artwork by Gil Kane, and edited by Len Wein, this story takes place during the ‘Hal Jordan in Space’ era of the series.
Read the rest of this entry →
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