 Neal Romanek writes for and about The Pictures - movies, tv, comics, games, web content, and even cave paintings. |
January 5th, 2010
Saw James Cameron’s “Avatar” (2009) yesterday afternoon in 3D at the Shepherd’s Bush VUE Cinemas in London. Went with my Dad who has seen more movies than I am ever likely to see, including the 3D masterpiece, “Bwana Devil” (1952).
One of my first thoughts was: Now I know what the Act III of “Return Of The Jedi” (1983) should have looked like.
“Avatar” isn’t Jim Cameron’s best movie. That honour still goes to “Aliens” (1986), as beautifully plotted an action movie as there has ever been. A respectable horror movie too, but it is primarily an action movie. Still, I really found “Avatar” exquisitely beautiful in its design and execution.
Already I’m getting flack from Film World Colleagues, who found the movie to be ham-fisted. Where I saw delightful design choices, they saw lipstick on a pig.
The fact that there is nothing new in its premise – that “Avatar” is “Dances With Wolves” (1990) / “Little Big Man” (1970) / “Lawrence Of Arabia” ?? (1962) / “Fill In The Blank” In Space – seems a weak criticism of the movie, though it’s been trotted out a lot over the past couple weeks.
 Vietnam vet Wes Studi (far left) played the leader of a Pawnee raiding party in "Dances With Wolves" before playing Eytukan in "Avatar" Cameron has deliberately kept the story simple, obvious even, to provide a solid framework on which he can hang all his beautiful decoration. To get clever with both design and story at the same time could invite Unmanageability – the bane of Cameron’s existence. Cameron has always kept his plots and characters very simple, virtually mechanical in their efficiency. When he has tried to reach for more complex and subtle (relatively) themes and plotting, the movies have suffered. And, recalling the tales told about the production of Cameron’s two “wettest” movies, “The Abyss” and “Titanic”, his crews have suffered too. For Cameron, “Keep it simple” is a mantra that leads to success.
The story structure in “Avatar” is really quite adroit – solid and simple. As any good writer will tell you, “solid and simple” is actually hard to pull off, because false notes – and there are some in “Avatar” – stick out like signalling antennae on an alien lifeform.
The movie has a skeleton of very simple, rock-solid sequences – like its cousin “Dances With Wolves”. “Dances”, one of the longest movies to ever win a Best Picture Academy Award, flies by for most people because it is constructed of straightforward, firmly constructed sequences. Knowing where the story is going – having “seen it before” – carries the audience along. We are always anticipating the next beat. We know what is supposed to happen next, more or less, but we don’t know exactly how it will be presented. And that is the way expert storytellers do it – just ask Hitchcock.
Oh, and Cameron stole the entire “Avatar” idea from me. I wrote, in high school, a story of a race of simple blue-skinned aliens who lived on a jungle world. A human male is drawn into defending them from a highly technological man-machine who wants to take the blue-skinned guys’ precious, sacred mineral.
Naturally, I plan to sue.
Of course, I ripped off – and still do – all the other sci-fi writers I knew and loved. “Avatar” is a conservatively plotted, “classic sci-fi” story, in the vein of one of the Heinlein or Asimov books. It absorbs all the flavours and styles that those great 20th century sci-fi authors – and their hundreds of imitators – spun and then sings it back in Cameron’s voice. Just as I did in my own voice via my high school “Avatar” precursor.
We are in an age of illustration in movies – and we have Peter Jackson to thank/blame for it. The goal in so many big studio movie adaptations is not to bring new insight to a story or a franchise, but to illustrate an existing property faithfully. Peter Jackson’s stunning success rested on giving audiences exactly the “Lord Of The Rings” that they had imagined – plus a bit more. A lot of people – well, myself anyway – watched the “Lord Of The Rings” movies thinking, “Wow. If I had a bit more imagination, then that is exactly how I would have imagined it.” In other movies, the source material has been so sacred that barely a word or beat is changed in the film adaptation – “300″ and “Sin City”. I think “Avatar” follows in this tradition, illustrating a sci-fi story already existing in the back of our collective imaginations. Dragon riders, floating mountains, glowing forests with trees the size of skyscrapers – we all know bits and pieces of these from books and wall calendars and dreams. It’s as if Cameron has supplied the movie to a story we had known about all along.
There’s much more to say about “Avatar”. For one, its political stance is fascinating to me. It’s a major studio movie by a major studio director that takes an aggressively anti-neocon POV. Very unusual.
But I’d like to hear your comments, then we can get into some discussion.
August 26th, 2009
You can’t have too many Star Wars lists. You just can’t.
Everyone has their favorite Star Wars dialog bits they love to hate. Here are some of mine:
- “Mesa cause one, two-y little bitty axadentes, huh?”, etc. – Jar Jar Binks, TPM
- “I will come back and free you, Mom. I promise.” – Anakin Skywalker, TPM
- “Now this is podracing!” – Anakin Skywalker, TPM
- “Mmm. Lost a planet, Master Obi-Wan has. How embarrassing. How embarrassing.” – Yoda, AOTC
- “Noooooooo!” – Anakin Skywalker, ROTS
- “Two fighters against a stardestroyer?” – Hobbie, TESB
- “Aiiiyyeeeeeee.” – Boba Fett, ROTJ
- “Many Bothons died to give us this information.” – Mon Mothma, ROTJ
- “I know. Somehow, I’ve always known!” – Princess Leia, ROTJ
- “He wasn’t. I can feel it.” – Princess Leia, ROTJ
August 3rd, 2009
 I’ve been interviewed at the very fine, H.P. Lovecraft-inspired horror site, “Innsmouth Free Press” (www.innsmouthfreepress.com).
In the piece, I go on about writing & sci-fi & The Cyclopedia Of Worlds & the new novel.
Read it now.
April 28th, 2009
TARZAN, MON AMI
(from his faithful friend Paul d’Arnot, Capt.)
How lordly indeed you are, my friend,
In the new suit from La Confection des Élysées.
How you honour them
By condescending to wear it.
When I was in the jungle
With you, at your mercy,
I was afraid of you.
Now here in La Ville-Lumière,
Where no man like you has walked for 10,000 years, now you are afraid.
You showed yourself to me, naked in your jungle – the only fearless man in all the world.
And now I see you, hackles up,
Moving from stillness to stillness like an unquiet animal.
When the marquise shakes your hand and says “Honored. Honored,”
You smell the blood on his
Breath, and you chill and wonder why no one else does. Are they all in league?
When the girl in service curtsies, says “Bonjour, monsieur,”
You hear her heart breaking, and you wonder why no one else does.
Return to the jungle my friend, out of this dangerous place.
Return to the tranquil jungle, under your mother’s canopy,
Where the names of things come easily to your mouth, where things are called what they are.
Every word of French I taught you – like ashes in my mouth.
I said “God made you a gentleman at heart, my friend”!
Dieu!
I feared you so.
I hoped to make you into something more like me. How could I know that I was making you More dangerous with every word? Injecting you slowly with urbane distemper,
Pasteurizing you with good intentions.
When tantor became l’éléphant,
Numa, le lion,
Hista, le serpent – per Académie! -
I turned the sweet opera of your world
into the jeers of packs of lunatics, the whoops and hoots of cannibals.
That you would save my life and mother me back to health and I in repayment, would set the dogs on you.
Forgive me, Tarzan.
There was a moment, mon ami, when you were almost saved.
Do you remember? Did you know?
I put on my helmet, ready to go,
Picked up my revolver from that wide table stump, the one I’d made my toilet table.
And – perhaps in fever still? – abruptly threw it into the brush.
I didn’t know why then.
But I know now. After that month with you, I felt so naked, vulnerable, like a baby cleaving to his rattle. I had to throw it away or lose all courage forever.
But you retrieved it for me.
You dived after it.
You put it back in my hand.
“Tu, tu, tu, tu, tu!” you chirped like a jungle bird, pressing the revolver on me.
And I accepted it.
I shouldn’t have accepted it, should I?
I ought to have thrown it again, farther still, and turned my back on you.
Should have run away down to the river and never seen you again,
Emerged from the jungle a better, braver man.
I waited for you to run away,
While hoping you’d stay
To lead me home.
Hoping – again, yes – that you’d do my work for me. Poor slave.
By nightfall, you had brought me to the Solomougou Post
Where the men smelled like bloody earth
And more vermin creeped than in the deepest jungle.
I held your arm.
Together we found a man who would take us down river next day.
All night you perched in a tree – do you remember? -
Watching the coolies, after hours, stagger and sing below.
On the river the pilot asked many many questions about the strange white man out of the jungle -
Not about me, one more European out of his depth – about you.
I answered them. I answered all his questions!
What a villain!
The gall I had to answer his questions about you!
Maybe I was fevered still. Not in my right mind. Not in my right mind.
Forgive me, Tarzan, my White Skin. Forgive me.
C’est une drôle d’idée – that you should be “White Skin”.
Among my shallow, colorless people, you are deep and black as your rivers, deep and black as your night,
Deep, black as the great expanse that cradled and suckled the world before the mind of Le Dieu blasted away all that was peaceful, wiped away all that made sense and was sweet and perfect.
I have a black top hat and a black coat. And in Belgium the winters are white and wide and cold.
The Africans, in those hell-squalors we saw along the river,
I swear I saw them shed tears at the sight of you.
I swear I heard them sing:
“Oh there goes an African. Africa has made that man. And only Africa made him. He was not deprived of his lordly heritage, no. No. He was rescued and exalted. Exalted by the land. Saved by Africa. Taught by Africa to be strong and wise and to hear all the knowledge pouring in like cataracts from within, from without. Oh, Africa, that unites spirit and mind. Oh, Africa, that unites heaven and hell. And, look, they are taking him away! And they are taking him away!”
Mon Dieu, my white ape.
I have returned you to the hands of your captors.
I have delivered you back into the clutches of the slavers.
Forgive me, Tarzan.
Forgive me, Tarzan.
—
April 10th, 2009
Having just launched my horror site, “All The Hells”, how I could I not listen to an audio drama called “After Hell”?
“After Hell” a supernatural drama, a mix of police procedural and “28 Days Later”-style Armageddon story. It’s enthusiastically presented and – the key to any good audio drama – uses an intelligent sound design to create spaces, describe scenes, illustrate scenes in detail.
I was sent one of the new CD copies from SciFind Ltd., UK based aggregator of all things scientifically fictional. I was sold on the concept, sight unseen – or sound unheard. I love audio drama – as anyone who has heard my delightfully self-indulgent (yes, delightfully!) “Wretched Goo Of The Imagination” podcasts will tell you. One of my first forays into media production was the recording of a thrilling audio space adventure with my older brother. It was entitled “Face To Face With The Planet Scanodon!” and recorded in the living room of our Ohio apartment on glorious reel-to-reel tape. I wonder if my parents still have that tape in storage somewhere.
And I have not grown up – have not “changed my principles”, let’s say – that sounds better – one iota since then. Here is the planet Scanodon at The Cyclopedia Of Worlds:
The quality of writing and production design may have improved since I was seven years old, but the subject matter…remarkably the same.
Writer-director Joe Medina at Ollin Productions has put together something he should be proud of with “After Hell”. I think Orson Welles would agree with me, if he were animated and rotting next to me in some kind of horrific horror story way, that audio drama – radio drama, we used to call it – is it’s own, self-contained media form. Audio drama, like music, engages the mind and imagination directly – and can – in partnership with our brains – describe atmospheres, textures, spaces, and all manner of impossible absurdities (see again, The Wretched Goo Of The Imagination) with ease. I love it. And will do more of it myself some day, when I finish these several dozen other projects. Well done, to Ollin Productions and the entire “After Hell” crew. Keep up the good work. We want more. We need more.
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A human being's ability to understand a foreign language is always greater than his ability to speak it.
- Walter Murch, "In The Blink Of An Eye"
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