Animated Is Smarter Than "Live" (CGI) Action

Having sat through Man of Steel and a host of other recent superhero movies, I can definitely come to one conclusion: the cartoon films starring these superheroes are much better than the live action versions. And the reason for this is, strangely, that the cartoons are aimed at smarter audiences.

I finally realized this as I looked around for something to use to slit my wrists during the two hour CGI fight-scene that finished Man of Steel: this movie was made for retards. And no, I’m not retracting that. This film was nothing more than a pointless CGI fight that lasted close to two hours combined with CGI disaster porn. That’s it. There’s no story. There are no characters. Even worse, if you felt the least bit tense during the fights, then you’re an idiot because both sides are invincible and cannot be hurt!! Seriously! Neither Superman nor Zod could get hurt, so what’s the point in fighting?

As an aside, this is what ruined The Matrix sequels. In the first, there was a very real danger that Neo might get killed before he solved the movie, thereby trapping humanity in the matrix forever. In the sequels, we learn that neither Neo, nor the agents, nor Smith can be killed. So all those twenty and thirty minute actions scenes are a total fraud.

Anyway, the problems with films like Man of Steel are these: (1) they substitute endless CGI fight scenes for plot or characters, and (2) they dumb the stories down to a level that everyone should be insulted, and as a consequence they create tension free, interest free films. By comparison, the cartoons are surprisingly smart. In fact, the two things the cartoons do right are the very things the live-action versions do wrong.

Consider the mindless plots. The live action films are generally a series of waaaaaay overly long fight scenes strung together with a few cliché moments wedged between. The cartoons are not. The cartoons are plot heavy. They involve a villain who has some scheme and sets that scheme into motion. The superhero must first discover what is going on and then must stop that scheme. In the process, the superhero typically discovers the involvement of someone they considered a friend, they encounter traps set for them by the villain, they are put into moral dilemmas, and they struggle just to get to the final battle.

Will there be fights along they way? Absolutely, and they last about a minute at the most before the villain escapes. As for the final fight scene, you’re talking about maybe a maximum of five minutes, depending on how many superheroes are involved, and even then you get a variety of action... it’s not just two morons beating on each other as the building around them collapse.

So what do the cartoons use as filler if they don’t pack themselves with horrifically long fight scenes? Well, they use things like plot, character, and morality. Yes, indeed. These characters, despite being animated, debate right and wrong. They talk about their beliefs. They engage in complex relationships with others around them.

What’s more, they don’t dumb any of this down. When they talk about human nature, they hit the issues head on. They talk about all the good and the bad, the rational, the irrational. They allow that people hold different views. They point out that not everyone can be won over. They also address realistic issues. None of this is true with the live-action films, which substitute mindless platitudes for issues and seek not to offend anyone: “People fear what they don’t understand.” Talk about a shallow and safe “thought.”

I find it amazing that a film aimed at children (in theory at least) would trust its audience so much more than a film at an adult audience (in theory at least). But there is a reason: the competition.

I think what’s really going on is that the cartoon makers know they need to compete with the comic books, which are often written at a fairly complex level. They know that fans won’t accept a copout like a long fight scene (especially one between two invincible forces), so they go in knowing they need to win their audience with their story-telling prowess. By comparison, the live-action guys are competing against other mindless blockbusters, which are the province of morons. These are people who don’t use their brains and can be wowed with “ideas” like “people fear what they don’t understand” and “how would people react if they knew a person like Superman really existed?!” All they want is the veneer of having used their brains (which is why “spot the pop reference” is such a popular ploy in these films), and then the big shiny. Cartoon readers apparently demand more.

Thoughts?

Oh, and the answer to the question that was brought up with agonizing regularity in Man of Steel (not that the film bothered to ever explore this issue) is that the same public that flocks to movies and documentaries about aliens, who tell pollsters they believe in life on other planets, and who have reacted to every other human discovery or invention calmly and with excitement is that they would be thrilled to learn of Superman’s existence.

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Film Friday: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

When you remake a movie, there will always be a certain amount of predictability. A remake of Planet of the Apes, for example, will not involve the humans winning or killer sharks. It will essentially follow the apocalyptic storyline. But that doesn’t excuse a film being so utterly predictable that only an idiot wouldn’t know what is about to happen in each scene.

** spoiler alert **

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a reboot of Planet of the Apes, only it follows elements of the storyline from the awful Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. In Rise, a young scientist, whose name escapes me, invents a virus which he thinks will cure Alzheimer’s. He tests this on monkeys and discovers that it makes them intelligent. He tells his boss, whose name also escapes me, who is a typical biotech CEO. He wants the project stopped when it looks like it will help people and then wants it rushed ahead when it might hurt people, all without proper testing and all while mumbling something incoherent about “profit.” Pretty standard really. The scientist gets a girlfriend at some point, whose name escapes me (in fairness, I watched the film all of 20 minutes ago, so it’s been a long time to remember these kinds of details).

Scientist-boy’s ape becomes really smart and attacks Dr. Rodney McKay from Stargate Atlantis, who seems kind of grumpy now that Stargate Atlantis has been cancelled. So the ape goes to ape prison where he gets sodomized. That’s pretty much the last thing I remember before the CGI kicks in. Suffice it to say that the ape uses magic to get more of the virus and then he and his 50 buddies overcome the entire police department of San Francisco without taking a casualty, killing all the right people in the process.

In a word, this film sucked. I know it made a bunch of money, but people who paid to see this were idiots. This is a film with no redeeming qualities. The characters are too one dimensional to be called cardboard. The special effects are cartoony, despite what people say. The characters’ actions are ridiculous. But the real killer here is predictability. I cannot recall a more predictable movie than this. . . scene by scene by scene.

From the very beginning, this film is exactly what you expect. There are no surprises in the order of events. You know he will test the vaccine, it will fail. He will take it home and try it in a moment of desperation on his sick father. It will appear to work, but then things will go wrong. You can set your watch by it. There are no surprises in terms of characters. The scientist will have a sick father who needs the vaccine. The corporate CEO will order the virus used before it is safe. The cruel kids will abuse the apes. Etc. The characters respond in each scene exactly as you would expect. In fact, this is where things really go wrong. To give you a sense, consider the scene where scientist-boy gets the girlfriend. He walks into the veterinarian’s office with his ape. She’s cute. She’s also the only XX Chromosome person in the film. You know the moment you see her what will happen. The ape will do something “cute,” which will cause scientist-boy to “shyly” ask the hot chick out. She will agree and I will slam my forehead. And that is exactly what happens and the order in which it happens. This is the problem throughout this film, there isn’t a single scene that you can’t outline from start to finish before it happens. THIS IS DULL!

And this isn’t to downplay the other problems. The actions of the CEO make no sense. Scientist-boy’s life and job make no sense – he has one of those jobs where he has free access to a truly high tech lab but no apparent responsibilities except when the dialog calls for a moment of tension with the CEO. The cops make no sense. Does anyone really think the well-armed police, including their SWAT team, can’t gun down fifty apes? These couldn’t. They shot their bullets at anything except the apes and then decided to switch to clubs. . . against 500 pound gorillas. . . for no apparent reason.

The special effects were another problem, and I think this problem actually highlights the flaw with all the thinking in this film: every effect was perfectly symmetrical. Anything the lead ape did, all the other apes did simultaneously. When the lead ape jumps out of an office building, shattering the window, another ape immediately follows with another window. Then another. And as the camera moves down the length of the building, window after window is shattered by identical looking apes making the identical jumps. . . one at a time, each in a separate window. When one ape climbs up a cable on the Golden Gate Bridge, identical apes follow immediately on all the other cables. And in the end, when the head ape is shown climbing to the top of a tree and standing on a branch near the top, steadying himself by holding the branch above as he looks longingly over San Francisco in the distance (for whatever reason), the camera pans back and with each passing tree we see another ape in the identical pose, in the identical kind of tree, on the identical branch, looking longingly at San Francisco. This is paint by numbers. This is creativity faked by people who are not creative. And that is what happens throughout this entire film. This is a film made by people with no eye or ear for storytelling who assumed they could assemble this film based purely on a formula.

This movie has no heart and it has no brain and I will not be at all surprised if it ultimately has no legs.

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