The movie: Superman II, in either the Lester or the Donner cut. Both cuts are available on DVD, but as far as I can tell, only the Donner cut is available on Blu-Ray. On VHS, probably only the Lester cut is available. The following nit applies to both cuts.
What happened: There is an explosion in space which frees three Krypton criminals from the "phantom zone." The leader of the three, General Zod (Terence Stamp) realizes that as they get closer to Earth, their powers increase. The three of them go to East Houston, where they're confronted by the U. S. Army. All of the Army's weapons prove useless against them, and the news reporter realizes that the three newcomers are as strong as Superman. General Zod confronts the squadron's Commanding General (Don Fellows): "So you too are a general," Zod says, tearing off the four stars on the Army General's left shoulder. "Who is your leader?" Zod asks. The General says "I answer only to the President."
What the problem is: First of all, if the General only answers to the President, why is he standing at attention for Zod? Shouldn't a four-star general have more swagger than a small-town sheriff (such as the one Zod encounters earlier in the film)? Also, why did Lester choose the fruitiest possible line reading from Don Fellows? Donner's choice is not much better, as the angry line reading gives the subtext of "But I'm afraid of you."
Printed on the script, the line is the same. And it has another problem: the writers neglected to look at a real chain of command. There are two layers of civilian leadership between the President and a four-star general: the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of Defense. When the General says he answers only to the President, he's in fact dissing the two Secretaries. A Sergeant may pray to God directly, but he had better talk to a few officers before talking to the General. Likewise, the General should talk to the Secretary of the Army before going to the President. Also, at the time the film was made, there was still the theoretical possibility of a five-star General, which would be yet another layer of leadership between a four-star general and the President.
You might be saying "Well, maybe in the world the movie takes place in, generals really do answer directly to the President." Let's say the Army in the movie has ten four-star generals. There would also be at least two four-stars in the Marine Corps and maybe another ten from the Air Force, plus ten four-star admirals in the Navy. That would mean at more than thirty four-star officers for the President to supervise directly, not to mention the Directors of the CIA, NSA, FBI, INS, etc. The President would be a much busier man. So it makes much more sense for all the four-star officers to report to one of three Secretaries (Marine four-star generals answer to the Secretary of the Navy), and those three Secretaries answer to the Secretary of Defense. The President, instead of getting reports from thirty different subordinates, just gets a report from the Secretary of Defense.
Also, how does Zod know that four stars on the shoulder means "General"? There are so many trinkets and baubles on an Army uniform that an alien can be forgiven if he doesn't know which one signifies rank. I suppose that if we accept that Kal-el's diamond-enclosed "S" is a pre-existing symbol from Krypton, we should let this one go.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Cartoon Cavalcade of Loosely-Related Jokes
If there's still anyone out there who thinks Family Guy doesn't have stories, they need to see Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy: Uncensored. Basically it's an hour of unrelated jokes with seemingly no organization. Though perhaps "jokes" is putting it too kindly: there are far more misses than hits in this collection, if by "hit" we mean something that's both funny and disgusting and not just disgusting.
If my DVD player had some kind of chapter shuffle mode and I was deaf to the sound of the disc spinning in the drive, I would have been perfect unable to tell whether shuffle was on or off. There is a little bit of organization, to be fair: some of the "Sex With _____" segments are clustered together. But still, the whole thing feels like a bunch of scenes that were proposed as digressions for an episode of Family Guy but were all rejected. I can easily imagine Stewie saying "Ugh, that would be more painful than sex with Optimus Prime!" and a cut to the "Sex With Optimus Prime" clip from the Cavalcade. Or Stewie saying "I'd rather be stuck on a lifeboat with Matthew McConaughey!" and a cut to the "Stuck on a Life Raft With Matthew McConaughey" clip from the Cavalcade.
However, these would supposedly have been censored out even if they had survived the initial pitch. The McConaughey clip, for example, would only have been cut from a Family Guy episode for time; the censors seem to be perfectly fine with cartoon deadly force but seriously uptight about cartoon sex. Or what about the already-infamous "Fred Flintstone Takes a [expletive]"? Other than the title card, this too could have been put on TV: we see little besides the dividers for the bathroom stalls for the duration of the clip, and while the sound effects are disgusting (some in and of themselves, and some due to the context), they have all appeared on TV before. Considering the semiotics of this clip on an intellectual level, it could actually be funny. But it goes on for way too long, the static shot makes the clip feel much longer than it actually is.
Though most of these clips go on for way too long, there's still something missing: A story! The clips that I've mentioned in this blog post, couldn't they be integrated into a Brian/Stewie "Road to" episode? And what happens in a Brian/Stewie "Road to" episode? Brian and Stewie go somewhere, and then they come home. They usually learn something from the journey. That's a story.
If my DVD player had some kind of chapter shuffle mode and I was deaf to the sound of the disc spinning in the drive, I would have been perfect unable to tell whether shuffle was on or off. There is a little bit of organization, to be fair: some of the "Sex With _____" segments are clustered together. But still, the whole thing feels like a bunch of scenes that were proposed as digressions for an episode of Family Guy but were all rejected. I can easily imagine Stewie saying "Ugh, that would be more painful than sex with Optimus Prime!" and a cut to the "Sex With Optimus Prime" clip from the Cavalcade. Or Stewie saying "I'd rather be stuck on a lifeboat with Matthew McConaughey!" and a cut to the "Stuck on a Life Raft With Matthew McConaughey" clip from the Cavalcade.
However, these would supposedly have been censored out even if they had survived the initial pitch. The McConaughey clip, for example, would only have been cut from a Family Guy episode for time; the censors seem to be perfectly fine with cartoon deadly force but seriously uptight about cartoon sex. Or what about the already-infamous "Fred Flintstone Takes a [expletive]"? Other than the title card, this too could have been put on TV: we see little besides the dividers for the bathroom stalls for the duration of the clip, and while the sound effects are disgusting (some in and of themselves, and some due to the context), they have all appeared on TV before. Considering the semiotics of this clip on an intellectual level, it could actually be funny. But it goes on for way too long, the static shot makes the clip feel much longer than it actually is.
Though most of these clips go on for way too long, there's still something missing: A story! The clips that I've mentioned in this blog post, couldn't they be integrated into a Brian/Stewie "Road to" episode? And what happens in a Brian/Stewie "Road to" episode? Brian and Stewie go somewhere, and then they come home. They usually learn something from the journey. That's a story.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Still not impressed by Orci & Kurtzman
So I was reading in Creative Screenwriting magazine how Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are patting themselves on the back for making the new Star Trek film both depend on almost everything that has happened to Spock's character from the original series through Star Trek: The Next Generation but at the same time not be restricted by having to respect previously established continuity.
I'm still not impressed. All that effort to create a story that is not particularly memorable. Once audiences leave the theater, if they're not too worn out by the non-stop noise, they'll reflect upon what they've just seen and realize that there's no depth to the story, no philosophical meat whatsoever. The villain, Nero, is such cardboard, that he doesn't live up to the hype Eric Bana has tried to create with talk show appearances. For some reason Orci & Kurtzman seem to think that Star Trek requires clear-cut villains. Well, I do know the reason: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. But Eric Bana can't begin to compare to Ricardo Montalban. And in any case, they are wrongly giving short shrift to the best Star Trek movie so far, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Sure you can say the villains are the whale hunters, but you can also say that the villains are 20th Century humans. Food for thought is what the best Star Trek is. Constant explosions and cliffhangers I can get from any run-of-the-mill thriller.
And really, is established Star Trek canon really that restrictive? In fact, Orci and Kurtzman use some of it in their screenplay, like the tidbit about the Kobayashi Maru mentioned in Wrath of Khan. Let's say each of the original series episodes spans two weeks. That would barely account for two years of the original 5-year mission, and there's plenty of time between Kirk graduating from Starfleet Academy and getting command of the Enterprise. In fact, it was rather silly to put Kirk in the captain's chair so quickly.
But most of all, at the risk of Leonard Nimoy calling me a d---head, I really disliked the Nokia product placement in the film. Are Kirk's guardians going to get a Nokia bill in the mail? I don't care how many Romulans from the future you send, Nokia phones should be museum pieces by Kirk's time. This is what you chucked Star Trek canon by the wayside for? Nokia product placements? Really!!??
I'm still not impressed. All that effort to create a story that is not particularly memorable. Once audiences leave the theater, if they're not too worn out by the non-stop noise, they'll reflect upon what they've just seen and realize that there's no depth to the story, no philosophical meat whatsoever. The villain, Nero, is such cardboard, that he doesn't live up to the hype Eric Bana has tried to create with talk show appearances. For some reason Orci & Kurtzman seem to think that Star Trek requires clear-cut villains. Well, I do know the reason: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. But Eric Bana can't begin to compare to Ricardo Montalban. And in any case, they are wrongly giving short shrift to the best Star Trek movie so far, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Sure you can say the villains are the whale hunters, but you can also say that the villains are 20th Century humans. Food for thought is what the best Star Trek is. Constant explosions and cliffhangers I can get from any run-of-the-mill thriller.
And really, is established Star Trek canon really that restrictive? In fact, Orci and Kurtzman use some of it in their screenplay, like the tidbit about the Kobayashi Maru mentioned in Wrath of Khan. Let's say each of the original series episodes spans two weeks. That would barely account for two years of the original 5-year mission, and there's plenty of time between Kirk graduating from Starfleet Academy and getting command of the Enterprise. In fact, it was rather silly to put Kirk in the captain's chair so quickly.
But most of all, at the risk of Leonard Nimoy calling me a d---head, I really disliked the Nokia product placement in the film. Are Kirk's guardians going to get a Nokia bill in the mail? I don't care how many Romulans from the future you send, Nokia phones should be museum pieces by Kirk's time. This is what you chucked Star Trek canon by the wayside for? Nokia product placements? Really!!??
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Uniform inspection hit for JAG
The show: JAG
The episode: "Measure of Men," first aired October 9, 2001, now available on Disc 1 of the Season 7 set.
What happened: A Marine dies during an amphibious landing exercise, and the Captain Huddleston (CO of the USS Guadalcanal, played by Sam Hennings) blames Major Lasley (Jim Fitzpatrick). Lt. Colonel MacKenzie and Gunny Galindez question the Marines. After talking it over with Galindez, Mac goes see the captain to recommend an Article 32 hearing. Huddleston instead decides to hold a special court martial aboard the ship and asks Mac to prosecute. Mac goes to inform Lasley, when Harm makes a surprising entrance.
The uniform inspection hit: Normally JAG can't be faulted for the military uniform costumes its actors wear. The show's military consultants make sure the uniforms are worn correctly. And when an uniform is worn incorrectly, there generally is an explanation in the plot (e.g., the careless Hollywood actor in the "Field of Gold" episode, Mac in the next episode, "Guilt," in which she gives a Marine emblem off her cover to a little girl). But in this episode, for no good reason, Mac goes see the captain without wearing her Lt. Colonel rank insignia on her uniform.
For most of this episode, the Marines wear their camouflage uniforms (the old ones, prior to the introduction of the "digital" uniforms). Back then, Marine officers were not authorized to use black cloth rank insignia on their camouflage uniforms, like the Army, but instead had to wear the kind of shiny insignia that would benefit an enemy sniper. So Marine officers would just take their insignia off in combat situations. Going to talk to a fellow officer would hardly qualify as a combat situation, trusting that the enlisted men would not confuse them for Privates. Look at the previous scene, the one Mac's talking to Galindez: she's wearing her rank insignia. Look at the next scene, the one she's talking to Lasley: she's also wearing her insignia. So she took off the silver oak leaf to talk to the captain, then put it back on to talk to Lasley?
Of course these scenes were most likely not shot in chronological order. But I'm not quite sure the unusual setup of the scene in question here is enough to justify the military consultants failing to see the lack of silver on Catherine Bell's collar.
The episode: "Measure of Men," first aired October 9, 2001, now available on Disc 1 of the Season 7 set.
What happened: A Marine dies during an amphibious landing exercise, and the Captain Huddleston (CO of the USS Guadalcanal, played by Sam Hennings) blames Major Lasley (Jim Fitzpatrick). Lt. Colonel MacKenzie and Gunny Galindez question the Marines. After talking it over with Galindez, Mac goes see the captain to recommend an Article 32 hearing. Huddleston instead decides to hold a special court martial aboard the ship and asks Mac to prosecute. Mac goes to inform Lasley, when Harm makes a surprising entrance.
The uniform inspection hit: Normally JAG can't be faulted for the military uniform costumes its actors wear. The show's military consultants make sure the uniforms are worn correctly. And when an uniform is worn incorrectly, there generally is an explanation in the plot (e.g., the careless Hollywood actor in the "Field of Gold" episode, Mac in the next episode, "Guilt," in which she gives a Marine emblem off her cover to a little girl). But in this episode, for no good reason, Mac goes see the captain without wearing her Lt. Colonel rank insignia on her uniform.
For most of this episode, the Marines wear their camouflage uniforms (the old ones, prior to the introduction of the "digital" uniforms). Back then, Marine officers were not authorized to use black cloth rank insignia on their camouflage uniforms, like the Army, but instead had to wear the kind of shiny insignia that would benefit an enemy sniper. So Marine officers would just take their insignia off in combat situations. Going to talk to a fellow officer would hardly qualify as a combat situation, trusting that the enlisted men would not confuse them for Privates. Look at the previous scene, the one Mac's talking to Galindez: she's wearing her rank insignia. Look at the next scene, the one she's talking to Lasley: she's also wearing her insignia. So she took off the silver oak leaf to talk to the captain, then put it back on to talk to Lasley?
Of course these scenes were most likely not shot in chronological order. But I'm not quite sure the unusual setup of the scene in question here is enough to justify the military consultants failing to see the lack of silver on Catherine Bell's collar.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
You couldn't move your camera, NBC News?
I hate to nitpick the news, but I just had to say something about the way NBC News covered President Obama's announcement of Sonia Sotomayor as his pick to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court. This is the sort of thing Phil Farrand would call a "production problem": For most of the time Obama talked about Sotomayor, with her standing to his left (our right), NBC allowed this stand with a square at the top to block our view of the lady. True, it was a semi-opaque square rather than a fully opaque square, but would it have been that hard to move your camera so there wasn't that distracting square over her face? Well, maybe it was, for after all, there must've been every major news organization in that room. CBS News had a boring two-shot with Obama and Sotomayor head on, but at least her face wasn't covered by some distracting square. What NBC News could've done is zoom in on Obama a little bit for his remarks. There was a lot of range between the shot with Biden, Obama and Sotomayor and the close-up of Sotomayor when she took the podium. Was it really that important for NBC to have a partially obstructed view of Sotomayor? Didn't they know in advance that she's say a few words?
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Unverified Griffin Family History
The show: Family Guy
The episode: "Peter's Progress," first aired on FOX this past Sunday.
What happened: Cleveland introduces his cousin Claude, who claims to be a psychic. Claude tells Peter Griffin that his ancestor Griffin Peterson is the true founder of the Quahog colony, way back in either 1670 or 1760, contradicting the myth of chatty Miles Musket and the Clam (which Quagmire cites). Claude tells the story of how Griffin Peterson fell in love with Lady Redbush (who looks a lot like Lois) and asked her to marry him. Lady Redbush said yes, but King Stewart III (who looks like Stewie) decided he wanted Redbush for himself and sent Peterson off to the British colonies in America. His shipmates include versions of Joe Swanson and Quagmire. They land in what would become Rhode Island.
Why it makes no sense: Since when are psychics historians? Watch an episode of Medium: Allison Dubois tells fairly recent history, such as someone having been killed a couple of years ago, and not pre-Revolutionary War history. A psychic is supposed to read what is in someone's mind, and apparently this whole story of Griffin Peterson and the true founding of Quahog was news to Peter. If Claude really was reading Peter's mind, shouldn't she have come up with a story much like the one Peter told in "Untitled Griffin Family History"?
I'm perfectly OK with the Miles Musket story (from "Fifteen Minutes of Shame") being either a complete fabrication of Adam West's, or a commonly accepted myth (like Benjamin Franklin flying a kite in a thunderstorm). But it's not OK to rewrite Peter's genealogy because there is so much material already, a lot of it a lot more reliable than some random new character. This latest rewrite of Quahog history can't be taken seriously because it makes no sense and it can't be taken humorously because it's not funny. I watched the whole episode and laughed only once, at Brian announcing new shows on FOX, and even that must've been me being generous.
In fact, the Griffin history given in "Untitled Griffin Family History" is a thousand times better: it can be taken seriously, because it builds on previously established continuity, namely the story of Nate Griffin, the slave owned by the Pewterschmidts and given credence by historical records Peter found at the library and which were convincing enough for Carter Pewterschmidt to pay Peter reparations (in the episode "Peter; and it can be taken humorously because it actually was funny (at least to me).
In conclusion, this was a boring episode with little laughs and no usable continuity.
The episode: "Peter's Progress," first aired on FOX this past Sunday.
What happened: Cleveland introduces his cousin Claude, who claims to be a psychic. Claude tells Peter Griffin that his ancestor Griffin Peterson is the true founder of the Quahog colony, way back in either 1670 or 1760, contradicting the myth of chatty Miles Musket and the Clam (which Quagmire cites). Claude tells the story of how Griffin Peterson fell in love with Lady Redbush (who looks a lot like Lois) and asked her to marry him. Lady Redbush said yes, but King Stewart III (who looks like Stewie) decided he wanted Redbush for himself and sent Peterson off to the British colonies in America. His shipmates include versions of Joe Swanson and Quagmire. They land in what would become Rhode Island.
Why it makes no sense: Since when are psychics historians? Watch an episode of Medium: Allison Dubois tells fairly recent history, such as someone having been killed a couple of years ago, and not pre-Revolutionary War history. A psychic is supposed to read what is in someone's mind, and apparently this whole story of Griffin Peterson and the true founding of Quahog was news to Peter. If Claude really was reading Peter's mind, shouldn't she have come up with a story much like the one Peter told in "Untitled Griffin Family History"?
I'm perfectly OK with the Miles Musket story (from "Fifteen Minutes of Shame") being either a complete fabrication of Adam West's, or a commonly accepted myth (like Benjamin Franklin flying a kite in a thunderstorm). But it's not OK to rewrite Peter's genealogy because there is so much material already, a lot of it a lot more reliable than some random new character. This latest rewrite of Quahog history can't be taken seriously because it makes no sense and it can't be taken humorously because it's not funny. I watched the whole episode and laughed only once, at Brian announcing new shows on FOX, and even that must've been me being generous.
In fact, the Griffin history given in "Untitled Griffin Family History" is a thousand times better: it can be taken seriously, because it builds on previously established continuity, namely the story of Nate Griffin, the slave owned by the Pewterschmidts and given credence by historical records Peter found at the library and which were convincing enough for Carter Pewterschmidt to pay Peter reparations (in the episode "Peter; and it can be taken humorously because it actually was funny (at least to me).
In conclusion, this was a boring episode with little laughs and no usable continuity.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Pregnant in the 23rd Century
The new Star Trek film begins with the USS Kelvin losing a showdown with a massive Romulan ship from the future, and George Kirk, Sr. having to go down with the ship while his pregnant wife escapes in Shuttle 37. I think Bill has gotten most of the nits (see his May 15 post) and this is the only one I could find which he didn't already catch:
Why does Winona Kirk give birth sitting up on a bed? One would think that by the 23rd Century doctors and women would have realized that the 20th Century hospital childbirth method is woefully inadequate in many ways. I realize that they were under rather exigent circumstances, what with the ship about to blow up and the shuttle being at risk for the same fate, but one would think the medical staff would try to assist in the childbirth in a way that is closer to ideal circumstances. When you want something to come out of your body, which way do you point the aperture? Down.
And if the medical staff has to tell Winona to push, doesn't that mean that the baby can wait at least a few minutes, say, until the shuttle is at a safe distance from the warring ships? There doesn't seem to be a good medical reason to hurry the baby out. In fact, it may very well be just a script contrivance to get the baby boy out in time for George to hear him in the last few minutes of his life. And why did they wait until the kid was born to discuss what to name him? So that the screenwriters could put on screen the "official Star Trek moment" of how James Tiberius Kirk got his name, and fit it into the frenetic pace of the movie. (And did Winona keep her maiden name at all? Or does tradition win out over feminism in the future?)
Their discussion makes it sound as if they had never discussed it before. In the 17th Century it may have made sense not to name children until they were actually born, because of the high rate of stillbirths. In the 20th Century, at least in the developed world, babies stood a much better chance of being born, in spite of all the unnatural interventions of doctors (painkillers for the woman, slapping the newborn, and so on). By the 23rd Century I would hope that good prenatal care and diagnosis would be available to all women, whether she's some unknown woman or the wife of a starship captain (or a starship captain herself).
Why does Winona Kirk give birth sitting up on a bed? One would think that by the 23rd Century doctors and women would have realized that the 20th Century hospital childbirth method is woefully inadequate in many ways. I realize that they were under rather exigent circumstances, what with the ship about to blow up and the shuttle being at risk for the same fate, but one would think the medical staff would try to assist in the childbirth in a way that is closer to ideal circumstances. When you want something to come out of your body, which way do you point the aperture? Down.
And if the medical staff has to tell Winona to push, doesn't that mean that the baby can wait at least a few minutes, say, until the shuttle is at a safe distance from the warring ships? There doesn't seem to be a good medical reason to hurry the baby out. In fact, it may very well be just a script contrivance to get the baby boy out in time for George to hear him in the last few minutes of his life. And why did they wait until the kid was born to discuss what to name him? So that the screenwriters could put on screen the "official Star Trek moment" of how James Tiberius Kirk got his name, and fit it into the frenetic pace of the movie. (And did Winona keep her maiden name at all? Or does tradition win out over feminism in the future?)
Their discussion makes it sound as if they had never discussed it before. In the 17th Century it may have made sense not to name children until they were actually born, because of the high rate of stillbirths. In the 20th Century, at least in the developed world, babies stood a much better chance of being born, in spite of all the unnatural interventions of doctors (painkillers for the woman, slapping the newborn, and so on). By the 23rd Century I would hope that good prenatal care and diagnosis would be available to all women, whether she's some unknown woman or the wife of a starship captain (or a starship captain herself).
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