Pacific Rim

I saw Pacific Rim a few weeks ago, and I loved it. Appreciation for the film has also been coming back to me in a weird sort of boomerang effect. I love it even more now than I did at first.

Pacific Rim tries to be a "blockbuster with heart", which a lot of the best geek media ends up being...a movie with a lot of wondrous visual things but also characters you want to care about and who go through some amount of internal change. It’s good at that. Not mind-blowing, but definitely draws you into the cast’s lives, without leaving you feeling dull and cheated afterwards.

(The two scientists were a little too goofy for my tastes, and I agree there should be more than two people in the research department: just give speaking roles to a few of them.)

This is a movie loaded with cliches, and not just the anime ones everyone keeps pointing out. But Pacific Rim feels, above all else, sincere, and sincerity goes a long way towards making a work appealing, whatever its measurable contents are. While rules are good, art also depends on making something that you want to make, and even the most undiscerning audience can sense when a work is being phony. Likewise, even the most brain-dead trash has someone’s genuine desire behind it (scary as that could sound).

I love monsters and I love giant robots, and Pacific Rim hit me in the “Oh my god I want a giant robot NOW!” spot without sacrificing a sense of tension or drama. The special effects just worked, having more of a sense of weight and depth than I expected, and than I usually get from CGI. Everything also looked pretty cool; love the bioluminescent kaiju and the different mecha shapes. I expected something a little more eerie and disturbing with Del Toro and even Wayne Barlowe involved, but wasn’t disappointed with what we did get instead.

I also enjoyed the little glimpses into how the world had adapted to kaiju presence: building up around the skeletons, trading in kaiju parts, marketing the hell out of everything. It seems like a million other types of stories could be told in this world, if only there was the chance to do something that didn’t only follow a blockbuster format.

I also love giant robot anime, but never would have called Pacific Rim a rip-off or a knockoff. It’s a tribute, obviously. I saw a lot of giant robot anime tropes there, but as with other works, it’s difficult to separate elements directly inspired by another culture from elements universal to storytelling from elements from the producers’ home culture. Just like with Avatar: The Last Airbender, I don’t think of Pacific Rim as purely anime-inspired, but just using anime as one of its influences.

Even so, as I watched it I lost myself at several moments, and could suddenly imagine that a live-action adaptation of anyone’s favourite mecha anime might actually have been cool. However, these likely never would have been made with the sincerity or respect of Pacific Rim, so that dream should quietly disappear.

As for the debate about how progressive the film was or was not, I found it decent. All of it, decent. I couldn’t find anything that really ruffled my feathers, though moments made me go, “Oh, of course.” Not horrible in this way by any means, but at the same time, one can't just go, "Oh, by the standards of a blockbuster movie it was progressive, and Del Toro and crew had to fight for every bit of diversity they did get, so you can't complain". Because that's a stupid way to talk about media and culture, shutting down a conversation before it starts.

So that’s it. A fun movie to see, and one that I’ll probably grab on DVD. I just picked up the novelization, but haven’t read it yet. It’s been a long, long time since I read a film novelization, but this proves I’m interested enough in the film to want to dig up the extra details.

The Hunger

I saw the 1983 movie “The Hunger” over the weekend, and I enjoyed it. The plot was simple and fell apart near the end, but the atmosphere made it good, and more importantly, it got me back in touch with the possibilities that vampires offered.

“The Hunger” is about an immortal vampire, Miriam Blaylock (Catherine Deneuve) that takes lovers, lets them live long, but eventually this stops, and the lovers rapidly whither into a mummy-like state and a coma of un-death, to then be stacked up in coffins in her basement.

Blaylock sees it happen to her lover, John (David Bowie), and becomes interested in Dr. Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon), the scientist John sought out when his degeneration began. She seduces and turns Roberts, but Roberts eventually kills her.

I’ve never been overly concerned with the romanticization of vampires. First, it’s ridiculous to impose a rigid standard on a stock movie monster that must by necessity exist in different forms to remain viable. Second, a lot of the criticisms of vampire romanticization stink of hating vampires for being feminized, which straints their credibility.

The problem is not when vampires are associated with beauty and decadence and sexual attraction, but when being a vampire is treated as wish fulfillment, something to legitimately desire without any nasty surprises. It’s “cool” to be a vampire: you’re a beautiful immortal with tiny pretty fangs, and end up elegant and stinking rich. Treating vampires this way removes a source of conflict from the story; now being the monster is something to be desired.

“The Hunger” reminded me that the image of the decadent vampire can be used to serve another purpose besides simple titillation: to heighten the “truth” of a vampire, by providing a contrast to it. That despite all their finery and drapery, they are predators without conscience, that must destroy others to live. Sometimes they are alien creatures (Blaylock is implied to be of a different species), other times they are humans who are, in essence, diseased.

Because we see the elegant Blaylock stack lovers in a crypt like kindling, and drool over a torn body, we understand that there’s actually nothing alluring about a vampire’s true self. When she claims, “I love you all!” we know she is lying.

Perhaps the elegance and beauty of vampires is the same as an anglerfish lure, or the worm-like tongue of a snapping turtle. It’s not meant to have an ultimate substance, any actual thing a viewer would want to be, but simply a way for the vampire to lure more prey.

This is a common view of vampires, but something about “The Hunger”, despite its thin plot, made that cliche “real” to me again, so much that I’m reconsidering whether I really want to write non-sentient vampires or not.

Where the film falls apart is that’s difficult to believe that just falling off a balcony would cause Marianne’s sudden degeneration and decay, though she should have died in some fashion.

And the studio ending, depicting Roberts as having survived and begun the sexual cycle all over again, made no sense and felt as tacked-on as it actually was. If there is a climax, you must follow through with it. Roberts wanted her own death, and should have been shown committing suicide.

Despite this, I did enjoy the film. It reminded me that vampires could be figures of horror, and “spoke” to me in a way that a piece of vampire media hasn’t in a long time. Maybe the film lacks substance, but it does have style.

Animation Appreciation: Princess Mononoke

I hate myself a little for declaring the darkest Hayao Miyazaki film to be my favourite one (like many, I credit the director as the brains behind a film, so Yoshifumi Kondo's Whipser of the Heart is not a Miyazaki movie to me, despite his extensive involvement), but damn, it's a great movie.

Princess Mononoke is the story of a changing era, one rooted in both reality and fantasy, and it is, like many fantasy stories, about the thinning of magic as technology marches on.

 However, it refuses to settle on simple answers or simple portrayals. For me, Princess Mononoke was an early lesson in showing both sides of a conflict while still having a definite preference. Also in being less heavy-handed with the themes, allowing them to come out through the personalities of real characters, rather than mouthpieces.

And the ending is bittersweet.

Princess Mononoke is the story of Ashitaka, prince of the dwindling Emishi people. A boar-god (for this is the days when animals were kami, great and sapient gods of the forest), infected with hate, has given Ashitaka a tainted mark. Ashitaka's destiny is to leave home and find a cure before this mark grows, destroying his body and mind.

Ashitaka ends up in the midst of a war between Iron Town and the kami of the surrounding forest. On the side of the kami is San, the adopted human daughter of Moro, the wolf, while Lady Eboshi leads Iron Town, a metalworking fortress/camp and a place for the outcasts and the downtrodden. And there is the emperor, never seen, but his desire for the head of the Forest Spirit will change all of their lives.

It's clear Miyazaki sides with the world of nature, as Ashitaka falls in love with San and tries to protest Lady Eboshi's actions, while Eboshi, despite her compassion for human outcasts, aids in taking the Forest Spirit's head. By using a "neutral" character as a viewpoint, and giving Eboshi many positive traits (so much that Eboshi is my favourite character in the movie), the film is not ham-fisted.

Furthermore, while it's true that Iron Town is destroyed, the Forest Spirit gets its head back before it dies, and Eboshi is minus one arm, it isn't a whole victory. Eboshi promises to rebuild Iron Town, San and Ashitaka will stay apart, and we all know what Japan is like today.

It all suggests the battles have simply forestalled the inevitable. Industry will come, take over more of the forests, and the animals will become ordinary beasts. Lord Okoto, the other boar kami, has already said that it's happening, and he also dies in battle. While the characters have not worked for nothing, the story isn't as simple as the heroes triumphing over villains, or the reverse.

While I dislike rabid anime fans who believe the Japanese can teach Americans about complex storytelling, Princess Mononoke teaches some great lessons about writing. This is how you communicate themes gracefully. This is how you have sympathy for all of your characters and create a richer world by doing it. This is how you keep the audience guessing as to your ending.

Creating Ashitaka also helps. He isn't a completely neutral character, but he is a newcomer to the area and doesn't instantly choose sides, and so we can see both sides of the conflict through him. And thankfully, he doesn't become a cipher because of this role. Ashitaka is naive, but he has convictions and a strong will, so he isn't overshadowed.

It's also interesting that Ashitaka is male, and San and Eboshi are female. Usually it is the female character who is the stabilizing force between two warring males. Princess Mononoke reverses this role, and that in itself makes the film noteworthy. Women (including San's adoptive mother , the wolf Moro) are some of the most powerful and the most vicious beings in the script.

The story adds failure to this mix, as despite his moderate influence, Ashitaka cannot mediate. He tries to tell Eboshi about the thin ground she is treading on, but she does not listen. Ashitaka tries to "free" San, but ultimately cannot. She acknowledges her feelings for him, but will not leave the wolves.

Yet the film is not bleak. Ashitaka is cleared of his mark, and there are trees growing—there is even room to cheer for the hardy residents of Iron Town, who promise to rebuild. There is hope for the future, but the hope may involve adapting to change, accepting it, or you may end up nothing but dead meat.

Visually, Princess Mononoke is incredible. Gorgeous forest backgrounds, detailed costumes and animals, and huge, breathtaking vistas. Most of the CGI is also well-integrated, though there are a few hiccups. The Forest Spirit is a particular standout, a strange, eerie creature that operates in complete silence and embodies nature as a neutral and unpredictable force.

The dub is famous for being written by Neil Gaiman, and being the first of the many celebrity-voiced dubs produced by Disney (at this point, released through Miramax). I had this on English VHS for the longest time so the dub is burned into my brain, but in several places it sounds stiff and unnatural, despite the efforts of so many great people. It's not a bad dub, it's just not amazing.

But is this a beautiful film. Princess Mononoke simply deserves every ounce of praise it gets.

How Beauty and the Beast Tries Not to Creep You Out

Though I love Disney's Beauty and the Beast, I can't get on board with the backlash against the backlash, the disdain for any attempt to describe the film as representing Stockholm Syndrome or metaphorical domestic abuse. Usually this rebuttal is that the film is about the Beast becoming a good person, and Belle never puts up with his shit, so that those who criticize the film's morality simply aren't looking at its contents properly.

That's not really the issue, though. The fact is, there's no way to intellectually "prove" that Beauty and the Beast is or is not about this sort of thing. Relating the specifics of its story or the intention of the writers will not talk viewers out of their gut reactions. Nor should there be any need to try: viewers ought to be open when a work disturbs them. It doesn't mean they want the work censored, or think it's actually bad: it might just creep them out in ways not intended by the people who made it.

Asking myself the question, "Does the plot of Beauty and the Beast unintentionally make me uncomfortable?", well, I love the film a great deal, because it is well-crafted in terms of plot and animation, has actual character development, and it's likable with good songs. I love the character of Belle, and the design of the Beast, and when they start falling in love, it feels very natural and true to the characters rather than a generic love story. But...I can't help but wince a little when I think about the conditions of the movie.

I can't get over the idea that when they start falling in love, Belle is still technically his prisoner. Sure, she's happy, and the Beast isn't getting a free ride, either--he has to learn to become a better person, and sets her free when she needs to go. But Belle is only there because she was imprisoned. I believe in the central romance well enough, but I just can't forget that. At the start Belle was terrified: she was crying, despairing, and so on. I can't forget it.

Fiction is funny because sometimes you're okay with witnessing things that would disturb you in the real world, and sometimes you aren't. No one can predict how they will react, and no one knows how to create a work so the audience will completely forget about the real world and look at the fiction only in terms of its "objective" creation and not their own values or experiences. Many viewers forget entirely about the real-world suggestions found in Beauty and the Beast and enjoyed the story as-is, but no one needs to apologize for a piece of fiction making them uncomfortable.

The particular backlash towards criticism of Beauty and the Beast, however, may be founded on how hard the film tries to make its potentially unsettling aspects presentable for a modern, egalitarian audience. Given the way popular art is designed to evoke emotions, Beauty and the Beast should not be attacked for trying to do this, but it can be studied as an expert way to create a movie that gets viewers to feel what you want them to feel, and render a potentially disturbing situation palatable.

I went briefly over the ways the film does this in my initial review, but I'm going to talk about the attempts again. The makers of the Beauty and the Beast were apparently cagey enough to understand that some might find the idea of a man trying to woo his prisoner unpalatable in the 1990s. So, they do the following:

Firstly, Belle, the heroine, is an egalitarian dream. She is strong-willed, intelligent, and adventurous. Giving her this strength makes it seem as though she is on equal footing with the Beast, and therefore there is no problem in what they do together. 

A lot of us nerd girls also identified with her, and so we are even more willing to give her experiences the benefit of the doubt, lest we start seeing our empowerment fantasy as a simple victim instead. It ought to be a lot more complicated than that, since the Beast still has power over her, but I can see why Belle's characterization makes many people want to go with it.

As a particular example, Belle is technically in the castle of her own free will. She must stay, because she willingly gave herself in exchange for her father, whom the Beast had imprisoned. In the eyes of many viewers, Belle is less the victim because she acted for herself, and stays in the castle in part because she chooses to obey that obligation. Furthermore, she only starts to love the Beast when he realizes he must be nice to her and actually tries.

However, I don't forget that Beast had no reason to keep Belle there except the most mercenary one: here is a girl that could break my spell. The situation is treated as an awkward romance opportunity, completely ignoring the fact that Belle has no choice but to stay there. Perhaps in real medieval France, the Beast would also be obliged to keep her out of dishonouring the castle, but this being Disney, we can't assume historically-accurate values when not in evidence, and put the onus for Belle's freedom entirely on the Beast. Still, I can see why that part worked for most viewers, too.

Secondly, the film gives the Beast an even worse "beast" to play off. Enter Gaston, who actually and overtly does want to enslave Belle in marriage. Gaston is vain, callous, anti-intellectual and sexist. With him around, sticking his chauvinism right in your face, of course audiences are more likely to root for Belle and the Beast, because the disturbing stuff there is only subtextual and unintentional. Since Gaston is everything that a liberal-minded woman would hate, this also helps to explain why many progressive people would come to the defence of Beauty and the Beast while decrying similar works.

Thirdly, just gloss things over. When it comes to portraying the Beast, the film very speedily moves away from his initial threatening entrance to replace it with something more along the lines of grouchy and awkward. The scenes where the Beast appears bristling and cloaked in shadow are extremely brief, and his look also softens for the first time when he hears Belle's offer of exchange, which is very early in the film. The film is then ready to make the viewers sympathetic towards the Beast in earnest, to make them forget about that small period where he seemed truly monstrous.

After Belle is set in the castle, the Beast is portrayed as less a terrifying monster than a big, hairy man-child taking his first steps at an awkward courtship. He gives this impression that he is, if not yet likable, is somehow non-threatening. When he starts yelling at Belle's door to come down to dinner, no matter how loud Robby Benson is in that scene, one never gets the impression that he actually would break in and hurt Belle.

It makes some sense, since he was transformed basically for being a brat, but it's also a convenient way to defuse the audience's dislike of the scenario, by making them believe the Beast isn't that bad. It turns the narrative into "woman civilizes man-child" which has its own set of philosophical problems, but is also more benign than the "woman is successfully wooed by her monstrous jailer" angle.

Furthermore, by making the Beast's learning to be a nice person into the central character arc, viewers sympathize with him even more. Belle may be the initial viewpoint character, but it's Beast who goes through the most changes in the story; he is the protagonist, she is the love interest. Because we see him doing nice things for Belle without being prompted, starting with saving her from the wolves after he chased her from the castle for almost touching the enchanted rose, it is easier for the audience to forget that she is technically his prisoner. He loses his childish grumpiness and starts to try to love her in earnest, giving Belle gifts that cater to her interests and self, such as the castle's huge library. We love the Beast because he tries and succeeds to be good, and so it is harder and harder to think of him as a jailer. Just as with Belle's strength, the movie tries to redeem its scenario simply by moving away from the most black-and-white understanding of victimizer and victim. Most of us know intellectually that it's more complicated than this, but we are willing to go along.

Finally, Beast makes the decision to let Belle go when she sees her father lost in the woods: it might cost him his human form, but he loves her enough to do it. Very few, perhaps, could hold onto their objections after such an unselfish display. Introducing such a modern, progressive notion of love also further serves to soften viewers towards the situation the Beast created. After all, he really must see her as a person if he can let her go at this most crucial time, right? Of course, because it's held up as the ultimate proof of their love. Intellectually viewers know that if the Beast were a good person he never would have held her captive at all, but emotionally, one can be pulled in by an individual character's circumstances.

Another justification is not found in anything specific to Beauty and the Beast, but a general unspoken conceit in fiction: the most moral option may be one that would destroy the story as it was, and therefore the character must engage in suspect actions in order to further the plot. The plot proceeds because the Beast and his servants want to keep Belle there regardless of her desires, on the chance she may fall in love with him and break their curse.

Belle is not consulted and does not know their circumstances; if she did know about their plight, it would have killed the suspense of the romance if she agreed, or made it too dark if she disagreed. To some, this serves as justification for the actions of the Beast. If he didn't keep Belle captured, there would be no story, and so it is pointless to complain about his actions.

Yet it is not that easy for anyone to get rid of their instinctive reactions to a plot that hinges on this behaviour. No matter how hard Beauty and the Beast tries to frame a scenario where the actions of the title Beast are considered entirely justifiable, someone is going to be uncomfortable with it.

Like I said, it doesn't entirely work for me. It does because I enjoy the film, but it doesn't because I am still mildly uncomfortable with the main scenario. Still, whatever I do feel, the thorough and meticulous way the film tries to cast Beast and Belle in a palatable light while keeping true to the original prisoner motif is admirable in its craftsmanship. It makes for good product.

This does not mean viewers who feel disturbed by the film are "wrong" or just aren't taking into account the fact that the Beast needed to become a better person before Belle truly loved him. No, sometimes, whatever a story does, a viewer is disturbed by it.

In Defence of the OTHER Prince Adam

When I rediscovered my childhood love of Beauty and the Beast, it made intense a disagreement I had already had with a lot of its fans: the idea that the Beast should never have transformed back into his human self (officially called Prince Adam in supplemental material). At first, I disagreed on sheer abstract principle: I was so damn sick and tired of stories of human women being able to fall in love with strange male beings that I didn't want Beauty and the Beast to go any farther than it already had. Afterwards, I realized that to desire the Beast to remain untransformed goes against both what the film was actually building up towards, and what the character himself actually wanted. In other words, it's an arbitrary desire based on personal sentimentality rather than the actual contents of the film.

For some fans, it's just about being unable to empathize with a character that has a different body and voice type than the one they had spent the entire film experiencing. I can understand that--after all, I've been there. Some simply find the prince ugly on his own, which again I can see, though I very much don't share the opinion. Other times, however, dislike of the Beast's transformation is phrased in terms of spiritual enlightenment: the film ought to have taken its endorsement of love transcending appearance to the logical extreme, and have Belle live completely with the persona she had fallen in love with, because she had done it in spite of his monstrous visage.

Fantastical xenophilia is often used as a metaphor about accepting others for their differences, or transcending petty physical concerns for the higher realm. However, when it is always about a human female learning to love a male being of another species/form/attractiveness level, all the progressive implications are erased, and it seems more like a male fantasy, designed to coddle the egos of certain men, by telling them that women are too pure and good to care about looks. This is why I don't endorse Beauty and the Beast on those terms; what it is telling us on those terms is nothing shocking or new.

(This is also my response to anyone who complains that Quasimodo didn't end up with Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

However, this aspect of xenophilia/transcendence actually isn't the main focus of Beauty and the Beast. While in the prologue, the enchantress warned the prince not to be deceived by appearances, and certainly such messages can be derived from the titular romance, the main message is actually "Stop being a dick and you will get a beautiful girl to fall in love with you" not, "Learn to love yourself as a Beast".

Belle does learn to accept the Beast, but it doesn't really change her character. The true character development is instead in the Beast's nature, and does not involve his learning to accept his appearance as permanent. Instead, he learns not to be an overgrown brat, explicitly so that he can become human again. Although he learned to be a nice person while still a Beast, his monstrous state was originally a symbol of his nasty nature. To become human, therefore, symbolizes his success at overcoming this nature.

Not only is this transformation the main focus of the film, it is something the Beast actively desires. He keeps Belle around because he wants the curse to be broken, and freaks out when she almost touches the Rose, his timetable for when the transformation will become permanent. He also shows active distaste for his form, shredding his own portrait, locking away Belle's father after he thinks Maurice is staring at him, and referring to himself as a "monster". Finally, when he is at last returned to human form, he is overjoyed.

In short, everything in the film points towards the Beast wanting to become human again, and there is no reason given as to why he would not wish it so. In fact, if you listen to the audio commentary for the film, one of the intentions for the story was that the Beast was losing more of his human nature as time went on, to the point where he might have eventually lost his sapience.

Because of all this, it becomes petty to demand a film change everything it was building up to, and a main character change everything they wanted. There are many stories where characters have their goals altered or thwarted, but in the best cases it is built up by the plot and supported by the story's themes. To simply introduce failure in the end without reason or support is bad writing. As Beauty and the Beast exists now, there is nothing that suggests that the Beast would or should remain untransformed in the final reel, and to do so would make the film far too dark and too much of a waste.

Compare it with Shrek. When this movie tries to subvert the Beauty and the Beast story by Fiona turning permanently into an ogre instead of the human princess she expected, it's foreshadowed and endorsed by events in the story. Since Shrek is an allegedly egalitarian subversion of the Disneyfied fairy tales, the audience expects Fiona's, "This is not how a princess is supposed to look" line to be challenged. In addition, her anguish about her ogre form already seems more flimsy than the Beast's equivalent, in light of the fact that Shrek is an ogre, too, and she has already become attracted to him.

Furthermore, Fiona is marrying Farquaad, who is clearly wrong for her, just to break the curse, meaning that working to break the curse is not associated with positive character development as in Beauty and the Beast, but in unnecessary negativity. Learning to accept herself as an ogre coincides with general positive development, i.e. finally rejecting Farquaad and accepting Shrek as her lover, the man she was actually having a good time with. Thus, when Fiona remains an ogre, it is actually what the plot was leading towards. Beauty and the Beast did not create the same expectations.

Many people who protest the Beast's return to human form might instead be considering it from Belle's POV. Belle, like a good chunk of the audience, has fallen in love with the Beast as he is, and so must find it difficult to accept the change. And she briefly does, her face quirking as she looks at the new human form, only accepting him when she sees the same eyes that he has always had.

It might provide more fuel for the anti-prince fires: Belle having brief difficulty accepting his form for a second is transformed into a daydream that he remained a Beast. However, Disney's Beauty and the Beast is unusual in that while Belle is the viewpoint character in the beginning, the Beast is the character who develops the most, and who is considered the actual protagonist. Therefore, any of his desires trump Belle's when it comes to what form he has: because he is the protagonist, the Beast "deserves" to dictate what will happen with his body, and as we've already seen, he wants to become human. Or if you want, simple logic: who decides what their ideal body should be--the owner of the body, or the person who's fallen in love with it? The owner, of course. In addition, if it is about love transcending appearances, then Belle does should not care what he looks like either way, right?

Alternatively, male viewers might look on the Beast as a power fantasy and feel disappointed when it is taken away. But again, this is not what the character or the narrative wants, so the desires of viewers are moot.

Essentially, the Beast's returning to human form is the only way the story could have ended. To have it otherwise would be like Star Wars without the Death Star blowing up. The Beast is the protagonist, he wants to be human, already has a lesson to learn about emotional control, and so there is no reason for him to permanently remain a Beast once he has succeeded in his quest to not be one. Love beyond appearances already exists in Beauty and the Beast (for women, at least), and it must eventually stand aside for the plot development and the fulfillment of a character’s goals.

Not to mention it would seem pretty half-assed to have him stay a Beast, while the rest of the castle's servants transform back into humans and the castle to shed its semi-grotesque nature. If one wanted the Beast to remain a Beast, they would have to be watching a far different film than the one that actually exists.

An Extremely Belated Megamind Review

There's a lot I could hate about Megamind: unlike the other CGI Dreamworks films that I've enjoyed,  it doesn't stray as far from the studio's stereotypes: it has a pop culture references, a dance-party ending, and arched eyebrows all over the movie poster--yet I liked it. It's been called derivative of The Incredibles and Despicable Me, but it doesn't feel that way. There are certainly a lot of jokes that better superhero parodies have done before, and better, but Megamind appeals more as a comedic character study than as a straightforward superhero parody. Sure, it’s funny sometimes, but the actions of the four major characters are what really sell it.

Megamind (Will Ferrell) is one of those typical ineffectual, villains-in-name-only supervillains, but he actually has some character development. He goes through an existential crisis after killing his arch nemesis Metro Man (Brad Pitt)--not new, but done in an interesting way, because eventually Megamind decides that maybe he doesn’t have to be a villain after all. It’s not done sappily or rushed, and you end up believing it.

Even before that, he's a pretty entertaining character. I'm normally opposed to celebrity voices, and don't care for Will Ferrell, but he is just having so much fun in his role as Megamind that I forget all the cash-grabbing and mugging and just plain like the character. Despicable Me came out at around the same time, but Megamind is a completely different character from Gru: he is energetic, naïve, and dorky, perpetually imitating rock-star showmanship, and he never really fights against the possibility of changing his role.

Megamind walks around in black and spikes to the tune of power rock anthems, and looks wonderfully silly. It's the same songs you've heard a million times, but as I said, he's just so much fun. His playlist includes AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" and "Back in Black" (the former censored by a conveniently compromised radio), and Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle". The Dance Party Ending, which serves a symbolic purpose but still seems very forced, is set to Michael Jackson's "Bad". It's all very obvious choices, and it can be faulted for doing something easy. Yet it's not dated, since the songs are enduring. There is a lot of pop culture in Megamind, but nothing that will become dated, except for his "No You Can't" parody of Obama's "Yes We Can" posters.

So, Megamind's way of coping with his post-Metro Man malaise is to try to create a new hero so he can get himself back in the game. This ends up backfiring horribly when he accidentally infuses loser cameraman Hal Stewart (Jonah Hill) with superpowers. Megamind disguises himself as a midget parody of Marlon Brando’s Jor-El to mentor him into being a hero, but Stewart, as "Tighten" (because he can’t spell "Titan", despite being a nerdy sort), just decides to be a worse villain than Megamind ever was.

Megamind has to team up with Metro Man's platonic Lois Lane, Roxanne Richter (Tina Fey), whom he's actually been in love with all along. Oh, and Metro Man isn't dead, just faked his own death because he wanted to be a folk singer instead.

The proactive stance that Megamind takes makes him endearing, and after you watch it a few times, one might start to think that Megamind's villainy, ineffectual though it is, is a product of his circumstances (being raised in a jail after his pod crashed there, being picked on for being different), and that he might have always had the potential to be the hero. In fact, though the film is pretty clunky in spots, it seems to be about deciding one's own destiny. Megamind doesn't have to be a villain, and Metro Man doesn't have to be a hero.

Yes, yes, to be fair, Metro Man faking his own death, driving the city into mourning and letting Megamind run amok for his very brief period makes him look like a total asshole. But one of the funny things about fiction is that you can sometimes live with people's actions that would be horrible in real life. You get the feeling that despite this trickery, Metro Man isn't meant to be an asshole like, say, Captain Amazing from Mystery Men, and you want him to stay retired if he wants, because Megamind will be the superhero from now on. In fact, though I'm not terribly invested in making sure Superman-type characters aren't portrayed as huge jackasses, I somehow like that Megamind didn't go the route of making the "traditional" hero a jerk. Besides going into hiding, Metro Man seems to deserve every ounce of praise the public gives him.

In the same vein, I enjoyed that Hal, who looks like a CGI Seth Rogan character, first seemed like he would end up a "lovable loser" actually turned out to be a nasty little bugger once he gets the powers of a god. I read it as not being about power corrupting, but rather that Hal was that way all along, just that he was just powerless to act on it. Roxanne didn't have to learn to "give him a chance", as so many other films would have had her do, because Hal never had a chance. Granted, Megamind pretty much fills that role of "nerdy loser that the female lead learns to love", but it's not quite as blatant as it would be if Roxanne fell in love with Hal instead.

The relationship between Megamind and Roxanne is something that survives on sheer virtue of conceptual interest. The two characters don't have much romantic chemistry, even when Megamind is dating Roxanne while impersonating the human Bernard (Ben Stiller). The two characters are wonderful as co-collaborators against Tighten, but that is it. The idea of these two characters as a couple is still enough to sell the movie, but one can't feel the truth in their gut.

The problem is partly that Roxanne is just not that interesting a character. It seems like the writers and director think they're being subversive by having her act resigned and snarky in the presence of the superhero world, but it goes back to another trope: that the female character in a comedy may be the smartest, but she's also the dullest. And so it goes. She gets a couple good lines, but normally she's just kind of…she has a personality, she's active, a generic "strong normal woman" but she's still not terribly interesting. Which is a shame, because Tina Fey is awesome.

I was one of the many viewers who thought the staging of the scene where Megamind is contemplating who to give the new hero powers to meant he was thinking of choosing Roxanne. That might have made her a more engaging character, even though I really like the plot as-is, because of the way it subverted Hal as the "lovable loser".

It goes without saying that Megamind's sidekick Minion (David Cross) is adorable, an alien fish in a bubble atop the body of Ro-Man Extension X-J2, that infamous gorilla-in-a-diving-suit B-movie alien. Minion's choice of transportation is just one of the many suggestions that the makers of this move are enamoured with B-Movies and superhero culture. All three main characters have alliterative names, like many Marvel Comics heroes, and "Hal Stewart" is named for two different Green Lanterns. In this light, the many references to Superman (the character of Metro Man, the origins of both Megamind and Metro Man, Roxanne's role as a reporter, and Megamind as "Space Dad") are likely desired rather than obligatory. Megamind also represents the cliché of the frail-bodied, giant-brained alien "genius", though in this case the term "genius" is very relative, and his frailness isn't played up.

Overall, although some parts are painful, or not all that they could be, Megamind was surprisingly enjoyable. The main character is a lot of fun, the plot is an interesting take on several clichés, and the Dreamworks stereotypes aren't as grating.

The Muppets 2011

Okay, I take it back. Movies made by fans, for fans, can actually be good. A list:

Beauty and the Beast theatrical re-release in January 2012! Yes, please, oh magic cardboard theatre cutout.

SO many commercials and previews. SO many. I wasn't bitchy enough to time them, but they seemed to last forever. They even included one short promotional interview for the very movie we were watching.

So, The Muppets is nominally a self-insert fan fiction, with a character named Walter, a puppet in a family of otherwise normal humans (it's best not to think too hard about that) who feels less alone when he discovers The Muppet Show. Walter becomes a total fanboy, never losing his enthusiasm even when he sets foot in the cobwebbed, decrepit mess that is the current Muppet Studios. When Walter overhears that human corporate overlord Tex Richman wants to destroy the theatre to drill for oil, he convinces Kermit to get the gang back together, and raise the money for buying the theatre back via a telethon, confronting the Muppets' supposed cultural irrelevance along the way.

Fortunately, except for the very early parts of the movie, the story becomes more about Kermit and the rest of the Muppets than about Walter. If a modern film about an older property has to display some self-awareness about various things, at least this time it's done pretty well.

Walter is obviously a stand-in for director Jason Segel, who also plays Walter's human brother and accomplice Gary. Segel is a huge Muppets fan and probably the reason why this movie feels so on-the-ball most of the time. Fans that make their professional way can get blinded by their own emotions instead of having distance from the material, and this film has been accused of just that, but I didn't find it too bad.

However, I cringed when they introduced Mary's character, Amy Adams playing Gary's long-suffering girlfriend who is worn out by the co-dependent relationship between the two brothers, and just wants Gary to propose. I expected her to be the standard fun-killing shrew that has concerns about boring old real life, while the male characters get on with the plot. She turned out to be nowhere near as bad as she could have been, because she actually does get invested in helping the Muppets and the role of the couple shrinks as the movie goes on, but Mary still was stuck in that role for a notable chunk of the time. Sure, anyone would get irritated at being a third wheel in their own relationship, but this has been done with female characters so many times that I'm sick of it.

Because the return of Miss Piggy was so climactic, they had to make her the only one who had a well-paying job, I suppose, but it seemed like she might be giving up the Vogue job for Kermit in the long run.

Both characters get the musical number "Me Time", where they sing about being happy to be alone, when they obviously aren't. Argh.

Tex Richman isn't very funny. I know he's supposed to be a parody, or maybe a parody of a parody, but he's just isn't a funny character--didn't make me laugh once. According to the extended soundtrack, he has a childhood grudge against the Muppets as well as an inability to laugh, which would have made him more interesting, at least.

I loved that after getting the major Muppets back together, somehow they just keep accumulating other Muppets in every new scene.

I hope the writers were being ironic with the line about Muppets not being enough for today's "cynical times". Because, wow, the Muppets could be pretty subversive, and subversion is bred partially from cynicism.

The film had a couple of nods to modern humour, with Camilla and the other Muppet chickens clucking to the tune of Ce Lo's "Fuck You", Tex Richman rapping, and a Barbershop Quartet version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", with the non-child friendly parts handled by Beaker. Richman's rap was probably the worst, the Ce Lo bit was shocking but hidden well enough, and the Nirvana one was so bizarre it was pretty good.

Uncle Deadly is still my favourite Muppet, above the more fleshed-out ones: face of a monster, voice of a ham, soul of a thespian: don't mess with him. I loved it when he turned on Richman and knocked him off the tower. (Were Uncle Deadly's feet and tail based off of the Palisades figure from a few years back? Also, does anyone else feel like re-interpreting the "Steppin' Out" figure variant as his business-suited self from this movie?)

All of the sound-alikes in this film are good. I probably was in that sweet spot of being aware enough of the Muppets to enjoy the movie steeped in Muppet fandom, but not enough that I was all that picky about characterization or the new voices.

I had not heard "The Rainbow Connection" in years, but during the scene I was just riveted. Wow. Actually, it characterized the whole movie experience for me: it made me feel a nostalgia I never thought I had, so that I left the theatre smiling. Also with "Mahna, Mahna" stuck in my head. Like that.

Night Terrors

I'm not the hugest Muppet fan. I enjoy re-watching segments of The Muppet Show where they busted out something notably bizarre (even by Muppet standards), and I love The Dark Crystal and what Henson's Creature Shop has done for the world of puppetry...but it's not a big thing with me.

However, I both enjoy and find disturbing the blue creature known as Uncle Deadly, who is kind of a cult classic among cult classics, for his few appearances in The Muppet Show. Something about his eyes, I think, awakens a weird childlike terror in me, even if I normally love lizards and dragons and things like that--but at the same time, Uncle Deadly has an awesome and distinct character design, so I like him, too. In that way, he falls somewhere between Skeksis and G'Mork from The Neverending Story, in that the Skeksis are also disturbing-but-lovable, but somehow not quite as unsettling, and that while I love werewolves, G'Mork scared the stuffing out of me with no disclaimers)

I just found out a few minutes ago that Uncle Deadly actually has a role in the new Muppets film, instead of, as I expected, being a background cameo as in the earlier Muppet movies. His voice is also different, which bugs me a little, both in principle and in actual quality, but I can't complain because the original performer, Jerry Nelson, is over 70 years old, and has mostly retired for health reasons.

I'm on the fence about seeing the new Muppet movie. I have to try to be open-minded, but I still have that knee-jerk fear of trying to revive old properties for a new time period. I'll see if the other nerds like it, and maybe I'll go to celebrate my liberation from schools.

Macross Frontier: The False Songstress

So, I walked myself backwards and decided to watch the first Macross Frontier film, a move I was not expecting to want to make. As I said, it was only the second film's promise of surreal concert visuals which got me up off the couch and willing to give Macross Frontier another shot.

However, I enjoyed the second film enough to try the first one. The real proof of this enjoyment is that it's been over a week since I saw Wings of Goodbye and I can still remember it, still think about it. This probably means it's become a non-SDFM Macross that I've truly enjoyed, moreso than Zero, which I enjoyed, but did not feel like talking about.

The False Songstress is not as engaging as Wings of Goodbye, but nonetheless feels like something that's going to stick with me, if just as a companion piece to get the "full" story embodied by these two movies. Like the second film, it managed, in some way not quite definable, to tone down the aspects that put me off the first series, and make them seem organic. Ranka isn't so cloying, Sheryl's artistic passion is more memorable, Klan Klang's role is so reduced you almost forget that crazy lolicon crap, etc.

Klang is a little worse here because she takes just one childish action: stealing the fishcake from Michel's ramen and running away with it. But, you know, I'll take that over the much longer version of Klang's story, with its failed attempts to wring angst from her position.

There are lots of scenes directly ported from the TV series here, and I couldn't tell which of them had actually been re-animated. None of the concert scenes were as striking as those of the second, and I was a bit uncomfortable with the virgin/whore roles that Sheryl played in one of her songs, though the robots were pretty cool, as was the ending where she is one person with elements of both characters. Ranka in her bikini at the construction site was also a little suspect, too.

While characters usually need conflict, I didn't really buy that Alto wanted to stop being an onnagata because he was losing his identity in his female roles. It makes it seem like piloting was not an individual desire for flight, but just for a fear of not having that most thin and capricious of concepts, "manliness". Come on, Alto…you're better than that. The conflict that rose from doing something different than his family was far more effective. It also wasn't very fleshed-out in the TV series, either, so I guess I don't miss much of Alto's story arc either.

(And Alto still don't look all that girly when not dressed up, either…I think the teasing's more about the roles he played, rather than his looks off the court)

Yay, the Folmo mall scene is still there! (Don't care that it's called "Folrmo" or somesuch thing…Exsedol fans get screwed enough without losing this). I like the way that Michel told Ranka to "come on, prove yourself, instead of moping," which is almost anti-moé in its sentiment, although I think Michel did the same thing in the TV series. Mr. Kridanik is still hilarious, though the animation when he sticks his face in Ranka's and starts chattering at her is a little bit disturbing.

(I still wonder whether that oni-looking Zentradi who also works for Mr. Kridanik has a name or not. He shows up several times here.)

I'm pretty much spinning my wheels with the commentary here, but I did like it. Most of the time I don't think a TV series can be improved by trimming it down to its barest of bones, but in this case, Macross Frontier was so one-ear-and-out-the-other for me, that I find myself going after the film version with a new vigour. I don't really miss anything that was lost, and that's only out of what I can actually remember of the TV series.

It doesn't change how I feel about the rest of Macross (and I still wince whenever someone says "Deculture!"), but it's nice to have something to enjoy. I think I'm even getting ready to declare myself a fan of Sheryl Nome.

Macross Frontier: The Wings of Goodbye

Okay. Okay, okay. Before I go on and say what I feel about Zentradi characters created after SDFM, and thus depress myself, I have to point out that I enjoyed Macross Frontier: The Wings of Goodbye, which puts it next to Macross Zero as the only non-SDFM Macross I enjoyed, though never for lack of wishing there were more.

Wings of Goodbye was pretty to look at, and toned down many the things which put me off Macross Frontier. Furthermore, without any deep emotional investment in the original series, I wasn't bothered by seeing it stripped down to its bare bones, then sometimes choppily recapped through admittedly fantastic animation.

I was open to Macross Frontier, eager after the very pretty and very exciting first episode. Yet, it started to feel so…slick and so calculated, with this choking saccharine quality. So much didn't feel organic, but simply manufactured for a certain appeal. Yet there were story aspects that I thought I could have liked, under other circumstances, and The Wings of Goodbye made me remember some of those things.

Sheryl Nome, is one of those characters who leaves me wondering why I don't like her. She was pretty fanservicey, but again, it felt toned-down enough to be natural and tolerable. But more than that, I realized she was a very passionate character. Not obnoxious like Nekki Basara, just…she knows what she wants, is playful, smart, and focused, but it's not as a loudmouth Canon Stu/Sue. Cool, in short. She's not just here because a Macross casts "needs" an idol...it's a fundamental part of who she is. She's writing song lyrics on the prison wall with her own blood---now that's hardcore!

Her previous concert sequences are also impressively, wonderfully surreal. It starts with a wedding where Sheryl is both the bride and groom, and turns into Sheryl as a nurse, surrounded by giant test tubes, flasks, and…vines? And more holographic Sheryls grown in these huge test tubes. There's even a Pink Floyd moment where both bride-Sheryl and groom-Sheryl's heads turn into flowers and twine together. Between the weirdness, the flowers, and the cross-dressing, I was seeing some Utena here, and that can only be a good thing. I was never expecting an anime concert sequence to be this imaginative and exciting.

Alto Saotome, another character I thought could be a jackpot, is less bland than I remember him being in Macross Frontier proper. Sadly it's missing much of his conflict over transitioning from a Kabuki onnagata (performer playing female roles) to a pilot, which was a very Macross concept: a character moving beyond their pre-ordained role to get what they want.

He's about as passionate in Sheryl in his desires, which is part of the reason why, though I wasn't tremendously invested in the story, I was in favour of AltoxSheryl. (Though having them meet as children was pretty cheesy)

AltoxRAnka was merely the typical romantic pairing where the man only falls in love with the woman because of her fairy-like qualities, rather than anything they actually have in common. Sheryl asking Alto to stop flying thus seems entirely contradictory, when their mutual passions could be a source of their strength, and when she would balk at being asked to give up her own dreams. The story needs conflict, but….it doesn't work for me. It's also a callback to the original Macross.

Ranka was one of the things I disliked about Macross Frontier. I believe everything bad about moé despite never seeing a moé series, and so Ranka has always been pretty stomach-turning. Yet here, though Ranka was still pretty cutesy, she seemed…organic. Her sugary sweetness was brought to tolerable levels, and felt "natural" to the character rather than just going overboard to reach a demographic. Also, I liked her fairy tale-inspired concert sequence, especially the design of "dapper" Ranka with her pastel waistcoat and top hat. The concert's English catchphrase "Open Ranka!" still sounds like creepy innuendo, but it can't spoil the whole thing.

Naturally being a film adaptation, the roles of the secondary characters are truncated, some to the extent that they would seem pointless to a viewer who didn't know about the TV series (and even so...). Once again, this trimming actually works for me, because I see less of Michel and Klan Klang, and Michel doesn't die.

Not that I had any particularly strong feelings for Michel, but at least no one's trying to make a poignant character out of creepy fanservice character Klan Klang. In fact, we see so little of Klang here, that at least in this second film, her transformation to a childlike version of herself when micloned seems like a more neutral quirk, rather than a source of lolicon. Even seeing her in a bikini, one can imagine she's just short rather than childlike. I don't know what exactly makes the difference here, but it does...somehow.

I did miss Richard Birler, but he's just a C-lister for me, and nothing to get too upset over. Elmo Kridanik would be harder to get rid of, and I'm glad that he's there for a few scenes. I really thought they we going to kill Luca off, but I guess not. No big deal.

I can't think of anything else to say much about the secondary cast. Mishima was as graspingly evil as before, so that I cheered when  his head was blown off, not being of the school of thought that it's wasteful to actually dislike characters so obviously designed to be disliked. It also struck me how much his hairstyle looks like it could belong to a Yu-Gi-Oh! character.

I was surprised that the film attempted to humanize Grace. It worked a bit better, mostly because it toned down that silly "cybernetics are evil" theme. I was surprised how much gore went into her destruction, and how creepy the "tank" holding her co-conspirators was, kind of techo-Lovecraft.

I must also add that Ai-Kun is still the cutest thing on six retractable legs, especially because he never moults. While it's still questionable that giant space bugs would start life as tiny marketing-friendly monsters, I can't deny the result is effective.


I did love the image of Macross Quarter in battroid mode "surfing" its way to the ground. While there are certain times when Macross takes its absurd aspects too far, this scene went down easy, because the franchise is, at best, a mixture of the absurd and poignant in the smoothest fashion.

Because I did not grow to like Alto enough, I wasn't bugged by the unexpected ending where he disappeared. The same with Sheryl in the hospital, though her fate was even less ambiguous. I, at least, feel safe in believing that both characters are likely to return at the end, because otherwise it would be too bleak.

Among the other plot points I don't miss are the high school angles, and the panty-chase, which I'm told have also disappeared from the first film. Joy of joys, instead of "Fastest Delivery" we have the prison scene, where Ranka stages a concert with some other characters who are dressed as Fire Bomber, in order to provide cover for Sheryl's rescue. It's that kind of blatant callback to earlier series that usually make me wince but here it was…unnecessary, but tolerable. It's not Fire Bomber that I had a problem with, after all, but Nekki-friggin-Basara, the frontman.

A purple-and-blue coloured Zentradi appears for a minute, watching Ranka from the prison crowd, and he's obviously meant to be Temujin, a one-shot antagonist from the original series who was an apparent clone of Kamjin Kravshera (Khyron) and acted almost exactly like the original character. Here, as just a random prisoner enjoying a concert who happens to look a bit like an older character, he's palatable.

In fact, I liked the whole removal of the "Fastest Delivery" episode. More on that before this, and after this, but I don't want to clog up this particular review. Suffice it to say, it's now not about Zentradi being disposable victims/comic relief in a way that makes no sense, but just mixed-race prisoners enjoying a concert, and that's good.

(Klan asking the Zentradi in the crowd to "stir up [their] blood" is probably only something a young whippersnapper like her could say--it'd be easy to think of modern Zentradi as having some special fighting quality when you've only seen them fight voluntarily and perhaps then with true passion. Silly girl.)

Although I only picked up this movie for the promise of cracked-out concert scenes (and boy, did it deliver!) I ended up enjoying it on a larger level as well. It still feels rather clunky, not fully surrendering itself to the pacing and stylistic conventions of a film, but I've enjoyed it more than I have anything Macross in a long time.

I think…I will try to watch the first one, too.

It Cannot Be Sweetened

The Nostalgia Chick reviews The Lion King

Now, normally I love The Nostalgia Chick, and the rest of this website. But c'mon…it's not that she inadvertently disagrees with part of my critique of The Lion King, namely the hyena-based bits of that whole "the natural order cannot be changed" thing, but that she does it in that particular way. It's the theory that the legitimacy of complaints about a film's unsettling subtext is measured by whether or not said subtext actually drives people to commit similar actions.

Naturally, that would make The Lion King SOL, since of course nobody was driven to support racial segregation because of its positively-portrayed analogue in The Lion King, or to dislike hyenas even more than they already would. But discussing the progressive values of films, or their lack thereof, isn't about literal goals or literal expressions…it's a discussion for its own sake. If it serves any political purpose, it's about calling attention to tropes which reflect rather than create the attitudes of society, and these tropes often don't reflect things literally.

Hence why I agree that pointing to the hyena's VAs as evidence of the "racial segregation" subtext is pretty flawed, because Simba's parents are portrayed by black actors, too, and Jim Cummings was white. Instead, the hyena plot is part of the film's larger theme that there is a natural order that should not be changed, and the hyenas living where they did, and apparently being unable to better themselves, is part of that natural order--it's the unspoken dark side of the "Circle of Life". These kinds of themes aren't expressed maliciously, or intended to refer to anything in the real world: this is all about subconscious, nigh-universal themes that are, sadly, expressed in stories all over the world. Nobody at Disney wanted to use this as racial propaganda.

However, I was in a different way uncomfortable for what's basically an argument from popularity. Hyenas aren't as liked by the public, so nobody would go to see a movie called "The Hyena King" (or wouldn't it really be a "Queen"?). …and? So? It serves as a justification if you're asking why a film that wanted to make tons of money went with "majestic" animal protagonists, but this argument seems to be more about storytelling--that if an animal stereotype exists, there's no complaint to be made against using it.

Even if this logic is restricted only to animal stereotypes, it's still trying to justify a formula solely by its longevity, and often these issues are just a matter of presentation. After all, look at Ratatouille. It took mammals that were as much maligned as hyenas and made something that was a mainstream success out of it. This fits with the video's notion that Pixar is more risky, but the issue isn't discussed in terms of the stuido's willingness to take risks, but just that no one would be interested in a film about hyenas. Come on, what if the hyenas looked like this? Or if you want to just go to Disney, think about Gaston from Beauty and the Beast--he was an intended subversion, and it didn't hurt the film at all.

Also, also, also, my interpretation was that Scar's reign was meant to have caused the drought somehow. Over-hunting by the hyenas (it would fit the rest of the movie so well if their desire for food was from greed rather than starvation) or whatever you want to say, it's meant to be symbolic. This isn't just the dry season, this is Fisher King territory.

Timon and Pumbaa are still annoying.

The Kimba thing isn't just about rhyming protagonist names and lions on cliffs. It's the fact that many of the TLK characters have Kimba counterparts in terms of species/role/appearance, and that Disney is keeping its lips zipped about the idea. Still quite a shame.

Dammit, Scar, you used to be so cool, slithering around and snarking on the pomp and circumstance of the kingdom, but you turned out to be a moron.

I've gone over and over on it in my head, and I still can't accept that the later plot hinges on the entire cast doing absolutely nothing until Simba grows up.

Finally, I did see the film in 3-D, too, out of nostalgic value. But I had watched it just prior to making my blog post, and of course nothing changed between that viewing and the theatrical one. My heart soared at the beginning, but my rational mind soon set in. Things have changed with me.