Sherlock Holmes

Of late I've begun converting my old Echoes documents into LaTeX, like I've been writing Identity. It's pretty cool, to see how the style of writing has evolved over really just the last year and change. I feel like a much better writer now than when I began Echoes, and in part, that validates my efforts in writing it, even if, at times, I wonder why I wrote something for such a small audience to enjoy, but I believe it was worth doing.

But anyway, I saw Sherlock Holmes on Monday.

Initially, I have to share some of the critique of the film with other critics: this Sherlock Holmes seems more like the melding of the classic character with the modern action film. It feels modern, down to the confrontation on the bridge, with pieces coming apart and Holmes and Blackwood in mortal danger. But though this adaptation feels contemporary in that way, it also feels faithful to the character of Holmes, to the characters in total. Plunged into this sort of affair, you never feel for a moment that what Holmes is doing is out of place or unusual (for who he is). Holmes would attack the apparent supernatural with logic, and no doubt, how he sees through Blackwood's charade is momentous.

That said, some of my criticisms must still stand. The character of Irene Adler feels very much tacked on to the film; I dare say there's no chemistry between McAdams and Downey, Jr., but that may be because McAdams tried to do a lot with a role that didn't make a lot of sense. Another thing that struck me was that, while I kept up with the film, the whole of the mystery really didn't keep me enthralled. We know who did it. How he's done it is of almost no consequence, and who he's going to kill next isn't even a question until the last act of the film. For that reason, while entertaining and better than most films, I feel like there's still something a little off about Sherlock Holmes.

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Avatar

I've been meaning to do this for the last two days, having been waylaid by Christmas festivities and several attempts at installing Windows 7 on the laptop. So, while I see that "Expanding Windows files" is 87% complete, let's write a blog post, eh?

I've made some good progress on the second act of chapter two; I think this chapter's going to pan out after all. But let's talk about Avatar.

Avatar reminds me how film and writing are different. In writing, you might be able to get away with the same sort of plot, but you'd have to rely on different techniques and skills. Avatar, in my opinion, totally blows people away visually, and thus, it can get away with a plot that's entertaining but somewhat predictable. If you disagree, was there ever any doubt that Jake would come to join the natives and band against his human brethren? No, there wasn't really; he didn't, we'd have a much different story (and indeed, this could've been a shocking swerve, so to speak). When what characters do is predictable, what they come to believe, how their viewpoints change and evolve, must be compelling, and I don't think Avatar did that. We see what Jake does, mostly out of necessity, yet I have to think a human being would have more qualms about defying his people, and while Jake chooses a side and we see that, it still doesn't ring true to me. I feel like we're watching an image, a reflection, when there could be something much deeper going on.

But, as I said, Avatar is stunning, and I would take no credit away here. The technology is impressive. The presentation is absolutely amazing. To see a Na'vi towering over humans and seemingly interacting with them, to see Zoe Saldana interact with Worthington in such meaningful ways through an artificial interface is all the more telling. Let there be no doubt: Avatar is a novel feat of technology, technology that lets the director's imagination better translate to film. And despite my criticisms above, I think the film did have some of those components I spoke of, just in more subtle ways. Jake does say he doesn't know what is dream or real anymore. You can see his legs atrophy as he neglects his human body in favor of the avatar he uses. Perhaps what I was looking for really is there, and the filmmakers wisely show it without hammering on it. Or, perhaps, they tell the viewer that this is happening without really examining Jake's dissatisfaction with his human body or humanity, only glossing over it. It's hard to say. I do think it's fair to state that Avatar's main point isn't that dissonance or any other serious examination of the human mind (interesting though that would be). Rather, the theme comes out in the Tree of Souls, in the vast network that connects all life on Pandora. Perhaps this is seen as a metaphor for environmentalism, but I think it's valid: what we get from the Earth must eventually be paid back, whether through our bodies as they decay or something else. Eventually, the Earth will run out of whatever we take from it, even if what we take is enough to last a thousand or a million years. It's only through this network that Jake can live in his avatar forever after; it's only but for those connections that the animals come out to save the na'vi from humanity.

I don't think this film aspired for such high meaning, but it does contain a smattering of it. Enough to gel with the sheer power of its visuals, at least. I wonder, though, how critics will receive this film in 10 or 20 or 50 years, when the technology they have far surpasses what we have today. I suppose we'll have to wait until then.

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Identity 02 Act 1 drafted

Well, for the moment I seem to have found a rhythm, having finished the first act in rather satisfactory fashion. I'm hoping I can have the chapter done by mid January (or even better, before the end of winter break, but that's probably optimistic given I have 3 more acts to finish).

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Progress, Dreams, and 2012

I don't have much progress to report regarding Identity; I've been rather bogged down in the first act of chapter two among other real life issues (finals, etc.).  I do think I'm getting somewhere now, but as always, we'll see.

An interesting dream I had last night, though, may provide an idea for a story (original) at some point.  The idea was a commune of foreign nationals in China, collaborating to get information out of the PRC.  They're led by a man, an idealist, a visionary, and this attracts the main character, a woman, who's taken by his charisma to enter the scheme.  These rogue reporters meet in an apartment and have a complex technological setup to get around blocks, but increased government scrutiny leads to a raid on the building, one that the reporters cannot resist, and when they make a scheme for escape, the leader betrays them all--it turns out he's an agent of the Chinese government, trained to infiltrate and impersonate, and everything he's done here has been a lie.  Our main character escapes, however, and...

Well, maybe there's more to it.  Dreams are incomplete, after all.  I have visions of the main character returning to the building to try to get information, but we must remember, a dream doesn't craft things the way a writer needs to have it crafted.  A dream gives ammunition, the creative imagery a writer needs to bring life to the events we write, but a dream by itself won't necessarily be on point or message.  You have to have a purpose, I believe; it keeps the story focused.

Anyway, the other day, I saw 2012.

I won't bother with the long summary of the film (it's almost 3 hours after all), but even in an epic disaster film, we should look at the contrivances a writer uses and ask if they're needed and just to maintain suspense, if they're natural and a consequence of previous characterization or internal logic, or if they simply push the story forward illogically.

I'll give the filmmakers some points: anybody could be planning a trip to Yellowstone National Park, a region of known geological phenomena, and it'd be natural for a conspiracy theorist who believes the world is melting to go there, to want to witness it first-hand. That Jackson works for someone who has the fortune to buy a ticket on an ark isn't that far-fetched, either. As usual, contrivances are more forgivable, even expected, at the beginning of a story. We don't have any characterization to contradict them. Internal logic hasn't been established yet.

It's the midgame of the story that begins to unravel. We know the earth's crust will begin to float atop hotter liquid mantle, that it can shift by any rotation. This has the curious effect that Wisconsin houses the magnetic south pole. It also shifts landmasses such that our heroes' jet can reach spitting distance of the arks instead of ditching in water and being totally screwed. Convenient. Jackson's employer just so happens to get stuck in Vegas, where Jackson has to land too. Again, convenient (and also seeming to serve no purpose except give both groups a second pilot. The president chooses to stay behind to satisfy some noble drive when his leadership will then be missed on the Ark (as the vice-president conveniently dies too), leaving command of the Ark to a royal prick that leads to a final confrontation. The scientist who discovered the catastrophe is (admittedly, deliberately) left behind, but he dies in a tsunami that nobody saw coming, that moves up the time to impact by over an hour. For that matter, anybody wonder why the cell phones still work?

I enjoyed this movie (yes, I enjoy most of the movies I see, regardless of the criticism I post here). Yes, these oddities detract. What detracted more, though, what made this a simple piece of entertainment and not a work of art was the lack of pertinent theme. We're supposed to believe that the point of this movie is to be human and show compassion, even if it risks annihilation, but this viewpoint is only in passing juxtaposed against its opposite, the desire to save any section of humanity no matter the cost. That motive is embodied in pretty much only one man, a man portrayed to be a prick and totally unsympathetic. There is no depravity here, no signs of true desperation, no struggle not just for the survival of the human race but the continuation of its soul. That's why, as entertaining I find this movie, it's not wholly satisfying. I know that's probably not what the intent was, either, but still, I feel like the moral conflict, while set up, just didn't matter for most of the story.

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