Category: Storytelling

the AMAZING Spiderman

7/9/2012

When I heard they were rebooting Spidey, my reaction was "What happened to
Toby Maguire?" And, "why do they have to keep telling the Origin Story again?"
Just write a new story already, there's only 50 years of comic books to draw
from. (Spidey first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15, August
1962). Oh, and TV shows, and newspaper comics, BBC radio, and fan films, and a
random bit from, yes, Turkey. Here's the lineup from Wikipedia: "Spider-Man has
been adapted to TV many times, as a short-lived live-action television series, a Japanese
tokusatsu series, and several animated cartoon series. There were also the "Spidey Super
Stories" segments on the PBS educational series The Electric Company, which featured a Spider-Man (played by Danny Seagren) who did not speak out loud but instead used only word
balloons."

I missed most of this. I grew up comics-impaired. My parents listened to the
radio for the "screamin' preachers" and the news. I read books, mostly
containing sagas about girls and horses. I did watch George Reeves' Superman,
(my cousins watched Batman, because they got that channel),Star Trek, read
faerie tales, and newspaper comics. That's where I think I first saw the
web-slinger. Or maybe it was on TV; but we only got one channel of NBC until I
was in high school, then we got that and a couple of channels of snow and
blizzard (if you stuck the tin foil on the antenna just right, you'd get
slightly lighter snow). As an adult, on the heels of movie releases, I caught up
on Batman, and X-Men and a few other random comics that caught my eye. Spidey is
kind of hard to miss, being Marvel's flagship character.

In 2002, Spidey hit the big screen, played by Toby Maguire. We loved it. We
loved part 2, and I mostly forget part 3, but I know I saw it.

Enter the Reboot.

WHAT?!?!?! Where the bleep is Toby Maguire?!?!?! And why are we retelling the
Origin Tale again? A friend once observed, of my own writing, that I had to keep
track of what was going on and not get on the Road to Inconsistencyville.

Oh, you mean like Marvel. Every time you turn around there's a new version of
the same superhero or team. A new origin story, a new reboot for this decade's
generation. There are so many storylines and versions of, say, Spiderman, that
there is no definitive story. He's become, actually, rather like King Arthur, or
the original Thor (of Norse Myth), an archetype of the collective unconcious, a
collection of tales with meaning for a very broad range of people in all times
and places. He is not at all like a character in a novel, or series of novels,
where all roads lead to Consistencyville.

Enter the Reboot.

A redhaired woman (only slightly older than Spidey himself, and somewhat
younger than Sally Field's Aunt May) walks into a theater... I opted for the
9:30 2D show, because I didn't want to wait, yawning, for an hour for the 3D
show. I work at night, so there are limited options for when to see films. I
sat, I waited... then a couple walked in pushing a baby stroller.

%*&^%*&^%!?!?!?!?! WHAT PART OF 9PM SHOWING OF SPIDERMAN DO YOU NOT
UNDERSTAND!?!?!? Really, this should be illegal. There should be baby-free zones
in theaters, either specific theaters, or specific times; like after 9, you need
to be old enough to understand that if you shriek, talk, burble or blather, I
will drop you off a cliff. If you have enough money to see a movie, you have
enough for a babysitter. Or you can shanghai a relative or friend, or trade
(cooking, laundry, shopping, driving, mowing) for sitting duties. I did not dish
out the Big Bucks to hear your kid's sound effects in my movie. And seriously,
on the kid's side of things; the kid may be sleeping now, the kid may not
actually watch the movie, but he/she will hear it, and that is way too scary for
anyone still in diapers. I walked out, smiled at the nice young men in charge in
the lobby and gave my ticket back, with the assurance I'd be back soon. I got as
far as the parking lot, and realized I'd be doing stuff like this blog the next
day, and doing battle with the privet hedge from hell, and scooping poop, and
Gawdknows what else, and i'd better just suck it up and go see the 10:30 3D. the
nice young men in the theater lobby were amused, I got a ticket, and sat
down...

Andrew Garfield (Spidey) turns out to be nearly 30, which puts him in that
interesting place spoofed so well by the Scream sendup Scary Movie, in which
30-somethings play teenagers. I would never have guessed, I thought he was,
like, 18. Oh well, once you reach a certain point, they all look alike; 18, 27,
34... all the same to me. He's a Jewish-American-Brit who... oh, and a Whovian
(appeared in several Dr. Who episodes)... was a gymnast and swimmer (hence the
chops to play the gymnastic web-slinger), and has already been nominated for a
Golden Globe and a Tony.

The Amazing Spiderman starts with awe-inspiring visuals and keeps going. You
sort of know when it's CG, but only because you know no stunt guy could do
that.

Or did he?

There's a lot of nifty Spidey-cam viewpoint as he's diving through the aerial
spaces of NY. There's stuff you can't do in the comics, because comics don't
move. There's stuff that works terrifically in 3D, without being really in your
face or obvious. There are background characters that are absolutely believable.
And I never realized till I read the credits that Martin Sheen and Sally Field
were Uncle Ben and Aunt May. They were that good.

This artist has seen just enough of the comics to be aware that each Marvel
character has a distinct visual style, a distinct way of moving, distinct poses
captured in comic panels. Spidey may be one of the most unique. Even the
web-impaired will note that the film captures these iconic moments as he swings
through the canyons of New York. And the end shot is the best comic book cover
ever, summing up the character on one terrific image. Andrew Garfield is nothing
like Garfield the cat... sort of the opposite actually; lean, lithe, wiry, a
gaunt gangly teenager Spidey in not-Spandex, a crouching spider chasing a hidden
mutant dragon through a fantasy framework of tunnels and skyscrapers and
bridges. In high school halls he's twitchy, quirky, unsure of himself. My first
thought about Andrew was "he's too pretty"... "he lacks the quirky, plain (but
appealing) quality of Toby Maguire". Then he started moving, talking, slouching,
hiding in his hoodie, shifting his feet trying to make words come out of his
mouth when confronted by The Girl.

Perfect. The post-bitten by genetically altered spider moment when he's
crashed on a subway seat and awakened by a joker who's balanced a cold bottle of
beer on his forehead... let's just say a drop of water wreaks havoc... through
which Peter keeps being wildly apologetic... while wreaking more havoc...
because he doesn't yet realize who he is.

Yes, we cover the ground of the robber, Uncle Ben's demise, and Peter
wrestling with his responsibilities. But it's done from a fresh viewpoint, and
while not brushed off, we don't dwell on a story point we already know. We also
have a nod to the wrestling scene in the first Spidey film, though this Spidey
doesn't take a detour through lucha libre land. There is a funny bit where
Spidey draws his inspiration for the mask from a lucha libre wrestling poster. I
wonder how many of them were inspired by Spiderman? Certainly the variety of
winter Olympics spandexes containing spiderweb designs were inspired by
Spidey.

Which leads us to the scene in the film where Peter Parker is perusing the
web (yes, the web) searching for costuming... "Spandex... spandex... it's all
spandex!" I guess teen boys aren't too keen on spandex. What he ultimately comes
up with is the latest in a long line of superhero costuming: a sort of highly
textured stretchy Not-Spandex that looks like it might actually survive an
encounter with the Villain From Hell, and still shows off those muscles. The
original point of the Spandex Superhero, as I heard it, was that drawing anatomy
is easier than drawing the endless array of wrinkles in clothing. It also shows
off your superheroe's superness. Hence everyone in comics looking like they are
dressed for snorkelling in the Bahamas. (The diveskin is a full suit of spandex
which is very useful for snorkellers and kayakers who do not want to keep
applying sunscreen to wet skin every five minutes. I do not look as cool as
Spidey in mine).

The films necessarily are different from the comics in their continuity... or
again, I say, what continuity? The films must speak to not only the comics-savy
but to the comics impaired who just want to see a great flick. (By the way, did
you know you couldn't use the word flick in comics? the L and the I are too
close together and might form another word.) A bit of diversion here is NYCP
Detective Captain George Stacy, involved in a fight with the Lizard of Doom in
this film, he actually dies in a fight with Doc Oc in the comics. And I kept
going, "where's Mary Jane?" Seems Gwen Stacy is an early Peter Parker
girlfriend. Seems the reason we don't hear more of her is because heroes can't
always save the day: In issue #121 (June 1973), the Green Goblin throws Gwen
Stacy from a tower of either theBrooklyn Bridge (as depicted in the art) or the
George Washington Bridge (as given in the text). She dies during Spider-Man's
rescue attempt; a note on the letters page of issue #125 states: "It saddens us
to say that the whiplash effect she underwent when Spidey's webbing stopped her
so suddenly was, in fact, what killed her." An interesting nod to reality,
after all those moments when Aunt May is hanging by her cane from a ledge
(Spiderman 2, the film), or Peter Parker falls from the top of a 20 story
building (same film)(it's OK, he bounced off several clotheslines and one car
roof).

In the history of the comic, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko get credit. It is also
noted that Spiderman owes his existence to an army of writers and artists. In
the end, he is quite different from a character in one writer's novel, or one
director's film. Because he is shaped by so many, he becomes an archetype, a
character we all recognize some part of in ourselves. Our most iconic heroes are
archetypes: Superman is the Golden Hero, the Skygod, the Cowboy in the White
Hat, the Knight on the White Horse... Batman is the Dark Hero, Bagheera the cat
who walks by himself, the one striding the fine line between light and shadow,
the Hero who is always one misstep away from becoming the Villain... Spiderman
is the Trickster Hero (there is actually an ancient trickster hero in Plains,
Southwestern and Western myth called Iktomi the Spiderman, his costuming,
though, runs to buckskins and racoon). The Trickster can be dark; see Batman's
nemesis Joker, or positive; in many Native American myths Raven is a Creator's
helper, see also: Zorro (the Fox) and Robin Hood (in Norse lands, the word for
raven sounds much like robin). Spidey wears a hoodie in this film... Spidey
Hood, Spidey in the hood, Spidey in da' Hood.

About that ancient Spiderman: from
http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/tales/inktomi/Ant.htm
Iktomi comes to us from the Plains, Southwestern and Western Native American
groups. Iktomi has sider-like characteristics and features. From Lakota legend,
Iktomi is "firstborn son of Inyan, the Rock, who was originally named Ksa. He
was born full grown from an egg and was the size of an ordinary human. He has a
big round body like a spider, with slender arms and legs, and powerful hands and
feet. He dresses in clothes made of bucksin and racoon." As a trickster, Iktomi
occupies the audiences of the Santee Dakota and other Dakots groups, and the
Arapaho know the Spider trickster as Nihansan. The Spider figure has many roles,
and even changes gender in tales throughout different cultures. The Navajo have
Spider Man and Spider Woman, Holy People who taught humans how to weave. They
also established the four warnings of death. The Spider appears as creator to
the Pima and Sia Pueblo Indians, and as a heplful elderly woman to the Pueblo.
The White Mountain Apache know Black Spider Woman, and the Spider Man of Taos is
a well-known and respected good medicine man. In Zitkala-Sa's tale, Iktomi meets
Coyote in her retelling of a Sioux legend. The Spider character also encounters
Coyote in another tale from the Plateau tribe known as the Coeur d'Alene. In
this tale "Spider Women are again beneficial beings; they live in the sky and
help Coyote's son drop back to earth in a box."

Archetype.

From Wiki's page on Spidey: A 1965 Esquire poll of college campuses
found that college students ranked Spider-Man and fellow Marvel hero the Hulk
alongside Bob Dylan and Che Guevara as their favorite revolutionary icons. One
interviewee selected Spider-Man because he was "beset by woes, money problems,
and the question of existence. In short, he is one of us."

This Spidey has the eternal Spiderman issues we can relate to. This film
gives us a fresh view of those issues, a different angle on the problems that
Toby Maguire so elegantly evoked. Andrew Garfield is a younger, geekier, even
more gymnastic, awkward, incredibly graceful Spidey. I can't wait for more.

Near the end, there is a moment in a classroom when a teacher says there is
only one plot in fiction: "who am I?" This film explores that... amazingly.　

Oh... and then there's SpiderDan. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Goodwin) On November 21,
1980, Dan Goodwin witnessed the MGMGrand fire in Paradise, Nevada United States,
including the inability of the Clark County Fire Department and the supporting
fire departments to rescue scores of hotel guests trapped inside. His ideas
for rescue rejected by the fire depts, he donned a Spidey suit and scaled some
buildings, just to prove a point. You can learn more by googling Dan Goodwin, or
checking this: http://www.skyscraperdefense.com/building_climbs.html

　

　

　

　

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the Hunger Games

3/23/2012

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I grew up on the likes of Star Trek; which, despite rampaging Klingons and Salt Vampires and the guy in the red shirt getting eatern by the alien slime monster, showed us a pretty hopeful future; touch screens and slidey doors and tricorders and fliptop communicators that would beam us all up to Big Adventure.

So I'm not much for dystopian apocalyptic futures. I like worlds you want to go live in, worlds I can explore, worlds I can run around in. Worlds with galloping horses and rising moons and trees and Elves who talk to them. Maybe that's a bit escapist. J.R.R. Tolkien said something about that, that of course you'd want to escape your dreary mundane grind. But fantasy and SF are not escapist; you step out from under the trees of your own forest (into the world of the story) so you can see your forest more clearly. Good SF/fantasy is a Hero Journey (go ahead, read some Joseph Campbell, George Lucas did) in which the Hero crosses a threshold into another world, journeys there, overcomes obstacles (with the aid of magic, tech, helpful wizards, talking animals, Obi-Wan and Gandalf, etc.) and returns to his/her world with a boon for the home village; a Grail found, a One Ring or Death Star destroyed.

The Hunger Games fulfills the Hero Journey model, down to the Hero(ine) being a rather ordinary person, no Warrior trained from birth, no "you're the last of the Jedi", no "you're a wizard, Harry", no "you know that ring you got from the little gnarly guy in the cave? You know all those Black Riders out there lurking in the shrubbery? Well..."

I first heard about The Hunger Games in a program on YA fiction at Balticon 2011. It sounded interesting. It gives us a girl who does far more than obsess over pale glittery boys with weird teeth and no frontal lobes. Katniss is a Hero in the finest sense of the word, an ordinary girl from a coal mining district (which echoes Appalachia, pre-WWII... in fact, it IS Appalachia, post apocalypse) who offers herself in place of her very young sister for The Games. Teens put their names in a lottery; the more you enter, the more supplies you get for your starving family... and the higher your odds of being chosen for The Games.

The Hunger Games are a penance, a (ironically, Rue, one of the characters, is a synonym for pennance as well as an herb) for an uprising against the Capital. A teen boy and teen girl are chosen from each district, each year. They fight in an unsettling cross between a reality show and Roman gladiatorial combat... only one emerges the victor...and alive.

The Capital is rich, everyone else is poor. The Capital is decadent, baroque, over the top. It's as if Elton John's designers had taken a tour through the Baroque period, the hot pink section of a toy store, and collided in a black hole with Andy Warhol and the dark side of Tim Burton. Brilliant creativity from the film's designers; it gives just the right cringing vomitive aura to the hideously artifical world of the villains. The "luxurious" apartments that our Heroine is escorted into are a sterile museum of artifice. When she picks up a remote and cues a holographic wall it shows her, first busy city streets, then a desert, then her own forest; the only "real" thing there is an illusion.

The poverty stricken coal mining district at least has the forest at its back, where Katniss practices her woodcraft and archery skills (her name is related to the Latin word sagittate, meaning shaped like an arrowhead). Some of her opponents are trained warriors (kids from rich districts who are trained from birth for the Games). She is not. She is a more classic hero, the Luke Skywalker, the Frodo Baggins, the one who takes on the Journey even though "I do not know the way" (Frodo, the LOTR films). Like all classic White Hat Heroes, she doesn't strike first (even though the point of the Game is to kill off everybody else). She runs. She hides. She uses woodcraft. She waits. She shows compassion. She sacrifices. She kills when cornered, and then, reluctantly. Actress Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss) is ... well... just wonderful, "providing a much higher level of acting than is normally requird in action films" (Clint O'Connor; the Plain Dealer). I belive her, I relate to her, and so do, apparently many others, teens or older. And it was nice to see Josh Hutcherson (Journey to the Center of the Earth) all (mostly) grown up.

There is a lot of reference to things Latin and Roman in the names; well worth researching. It adds layers of meaning to a story already awash in it.

The cinematography left a girl in my row reaching for the dramamine. There's a lot of handheld shaky camera (as if someone was running through the woods chasing the characters with a cell phone). There's the woo-woo-woozy camera effect when Katniss gets stung by hallucinagenic wasps. There's the PG-13 rating which doesn't let a gory story reach the level of say, 300; the shaky camera covers up much of the gore... and much of the martial arts. (whattheheck IS going on there?!?!?). In a book, even a YA, you can write anything (just not TOO graphic), and the reader will make their own movie in their head according to their experience. A nine year old told me she had no trouble reading Inkheart, but was going to wait till a bit older to see the film. A film puts the images right out there in front of you on a huge screen in surround sound, so the "let's hide stuff" camerawork gives you the sense of chaos, danger, panic...without the gore. Just bring the ginger root and dramamine.

As for me, I may have to check out the books.

Here's a brief description of the plot (wiki):
In an interview with Collins, it was noted that the books tackle issues like severe poverty, starvation, oppression, and the effects of war among others. The book deals with the struggle for self-preservation that the people of Panem face in their districts and the Hunger Games in which they must participate. The starvation and need for resources that the citizens encounter both in and outside of the arena create an atmosphere of helplessness that the main characters try to overcome in their fight for survival. Katniss's proficiency with the bow and arrow stems from her need to hunt in order to provide food for her family—this necessity results in the development of skills that are useful to her in the Games, and represents her rejection of the Capitol's rules in the face of life-threatening situations. The choices the characters make and the strategies they use are often morally complex. The tributes build a personality they want the audience to see throughout the Games. Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA) names the major themes of The Hunger Games as "government control, big brother, and personal independence". The Capitol makes watching the games required viewing. The theme of power and downfall, similar to that of Shakepseare's Julius Caesar, was pointed out by Scholastic

And here's a review:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120320/REVIEWS/120319986

“The Hunger Games” is an effective entertainment, and Jennifer Lawrence is
strong and convincing in the central role. But the film leapfrogs obvious
questions in its path, and avoids the opportunities sci-fi provides for social
criticism; compare its world with the dystopias in “Gattaca” or “The Truman
Show.” Director Gary Ross and his writers (including the series'
author, Suzanne Collins) obviously think their audience wants to see lots of
hunting-and-survival scenes, and has no interest in people talking about how a
cruel class system is using them. Well, maybe they're right. But I found the
movie too long and deliberate as it negotiated the outskirts of its moral
issues." (Ebert)

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Dark of the Moon (on the sixth of June, and a Kenworth haulin' Autobot butt...)

7/14/2011

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Why would a kayakin' sleddogin' birdwatchin' scubadivin' nature-lovin' horsewoman in her 50s care about a movie full of stuff blowing up and giant butt kicking robots???

Well, keep your vampire weddings, I'd rather go back and see more stuff explode. And the Transformers song (from the 1984 TV cartoon) keeps running through my head. (Two red Transformers inhabit my bookshelf to this day). I remember the cartoon, I was 29 when it appeared; a 29 year old woman training horses, doing living history, camping in mosquito infested salt marshes, backpacking, and randomly knocking guys upside the head with rattan broadswords. I loved Saturday morning cartoons, and this CARtoon was one of my favorites. Why? It was obviously designed for 12 year old boys with a technology fetish.

Or was it?

The thing I liked about it was the characters, the eternal Battle Between Good and Evil. And now, looking at it from the perspective of an artist/writer with a fascination for myth and legend, I see it's mythic roots.

The first thing that comes to mind is an archetype I can't quite put a name to. I saw it in the Jungle Books (Kipling's version) which I read as a kid. I wanted to be the kid in the jungle with a bear, a wolfpack, a black leopard and a thirty foot python for buddies (take THAT mean girls!). Or Bud whose best buddy was a dolphin named Flipper. Or the boys who had Big Black Wild Horses for buddies (Joey and Fury, Alex and the Black Stallion, Zorro and Tornado). I caught a glimpse of it again with Arnold's Terminator ("Cool! My own terminator!") in Terminator 2. Sam (boy) and Bumblebee (Autobot) are the same pair.

The next thing is the archetype of the Shapeshifter. Every culture has stories of shapeshifters. Animals who become people, people who become animals, and beings who are both, or somewhere in between. Some Native American Coyote tales seem to star a humanoid who is called Coyote, or maybe it's a coyote who can talk, or is it a being that looks like Wile E.? Shapeshifters trick humans into better behavior, help put the stars in the sky, awaken the first humans, teach, lead...

...transform.

Early humans had only to look around them to see shapeshifting at work: the egg that becomes the nymph that becomes the dragonfly; the tadpole that becomes the frog; the nut that becomes the tree. Old tales tell of barnacles that become geese, horsehairs in the water trough that become worms (admittedly, their grasp of natural history was a little vague).

Easy to transform those legends, adapt them (shapeshifters are adaptable) to our technological world.

And finally: our relationship with technology. I hate it, I loathe it, I detest it. OK, not entirely, I need the computer, the digital camera, the car, the van, the pickup truck, the microwave. I just don't understand them (despite occasionally catching the hilarious and helpful "Car Talk" on NPR); they are as alien as autobots, and less friendly. I can relate to the (hysterically funny) scene in Dark of the Moon where Sam's cheesy car breaks down and he pounds on it in frustration. You can have a conversation, an argument even, with Bumblebee, but not with a cheapo hatchback. Lots of films, from Matrix to Terminator to Star Trek, have dealt with our relationship with our technology, and whether we are using it wisely, or whether it is out of control. Humans, as storytellers, tend to anthropomorphize; animals (talking animal fairy tales, bedtime tales, and cartoons), trees (see Tolkien and CS Lewis, and JK Rowling, whose trees didn't talk so much as whomp), forces of Nature (all those Greek, Norse, Celtic etc. Gods and Goddesses), psychological archetypes (more Gods and Goddesses). Surrounded by technology, with most of us clueless as to how it actually is made or how it works, we anthropomorphize it.

...and its two sides, dark and light; Decepticons and Autobots arise from the collective unconcious, playing out our deepest fears and triumphs on the big screen. Superficially, it's a 3D CG cartoon, a boomfest of big cannons, bigger explosions, buildings crashing like the Titanic (while our doughty heroes scramble, unscathed, through oceans of shattered glass). If you look a little deeper, you catch references to our deepest cultural scars: 9/11. Falling towers, paper fluttering down like snow, evil lurking under the sane surface of the mundane world, leaping out and catching us by the throat when we least expect it. I lost count of how many times someone said "Let's roll!" But that's what faerie tales do; they address our fears, failings, obstacles, triumphs. They point the way, they give us hope.

That said, Transformers is a bit more than just two hours of explosions, of awesome effects, incredible mind-boggling animation, Shia LeBeouf's cute self (or the sleek runway model, running from danger in ridiculous high heels, for you guys), muscular military guys, daring stunts, stuff crashing and burning, giant robots crashing into each other, cars crashing into each other and giant robots, stuff blowing up.... there is actually character development. While many of the characters are pretty loosely sketched (Hot Girl, Beefy Warriors), many are archetypal. Optimus Prime is the iconic Hero King (even to his long-legged, broad torsoed build). Wang is the iconic Geek Science Guy (with some seriously hilarious quirks). There's a young warrior who is the first to volunteer for the "kamikaze" mission, he manages to make us care for the few moments he's onscreen.

And finally, there's just A Boy and His Car. Sam and Bee are the core of it, the buddy team we all want to be part of. The Boy who nobody takes seriously until he proves (again) his great worth as a hero. The Man who finds himself helpless against huge odss...and finds a way. The bumbling autobot who is somehow more human than many flesh and blood actors.

Wish my car would do that....

Well told story is well told story...the rest is just shiny paint and a flame job.

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Blue Moon

12/27/2009

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About thirty lightyears ago, I heard about a new film with starships and aliens and wicked cool new effects. There was no internet, only the SF mags and word of mouth and the odd movie trailer and TV ad. I heard about it after it had already exploded onscreen with a Death Star sized bigbang. SF/fantasy fan that I am, I went. I went out of the theater going, "hmmmm, that was cool." I thought about it for a few days. Went back with more friends.

I went back something like 25 times. Star Wars was one of those nifty turning points that introduced me to a whole new world: friends of like mind, SF cons, fantasy illustration, real world adventures that sprang out of all that.

That is the point of well told stories. They connect us. They inspire us. They teach us. They say something about our past. Our future. Our choices.

I like James Cameron films. Terminator 2 and Titanic are on my ten best list (although I think that may include several dozen by now). He understands Joseph Campbell's concept of The Hero Journey (see my earlier blog or look it up on Wikipedia). He talks about the relationship between humans and technology; the use and abuse of it. The dangers we face if we blow it. Our relationship with each other and Nature. He's a Leo, born two days after me and one year earlier. He's definitely from the same planet.

And now here's our planet.

I heard about Avatar much the way I heard about Star Wars; after everybody else knew about it. Yeah, I have internet access now. I even check my email once a week or so. I blog or twiddle the website when I can. This week I was running sleddogs, hacking my way through Suckway (unlike my Disney princess namesake, I hate food service), eating fattening PA Dutch food with relatives over Christmas, wrangling my friend's young, enthusiastic Malenois, ducks, free range chickens, horses, goats and other critters while Mona and Joe escaped to the great white north. I watched the great white north melt into mud before Mona could break a sled dog trail around her farm. I hashed out the rest of my Christmas presents ( I don't Mall anymore, mall, that's a verb, a four letter verb).

"I should probably see this." I said. "After all, it's James Cameron, how bad could it be."

I bought a black leather jacket at a yard sale and learned to play the Terminator theme on a Native American flute. I bought the action figures (uh, it's for my nephew). I asked Bob Ballard (the guy who found the Titanic) a more or less intelligent question at a program at the Baltimore Aquarium. I leapt off of several perfectly good floatin' boats in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean (well, we were out of sight of land) to look at the sunken boats. One of my dive buddies did that 'soaring on the bow/king of the world' move on the bow of one of those sunken boats. I went to the Titanic exhibit at the local museum, stood with my nose inches from things that had lain two and a half miles down in 375 atmospheres of pressure (that's how geeky this gets).

Yep, I'm a fan.

I considered that fact that this could be one more of those grand heartless fx extravaganzas. Blow lots of stuff up and nobody will notice there isn't a plot or character development.

Ok, I'll go watch stuff blow up for three hours, at least once.

The James Horner soundtrack hooked me from the beginning. After looking him up on Wikipedia (easier than going through my CD collection or my own memory banks) I realized he's scored a bunch of my favorite films. I love "Echoes" on National Public Radio; that sort of soundtracky, epic stuff with spacey electronics and indigenous instruments and voices. This soundtrack captures that quality; epic, emotion, eerie, otherworldy. Horner's a Leo too, born on the same day and two years earlier.

I could analyze the film for hours; it's a place you can get lost in. "Haven't got lost in the woods?" the badaxx Colonel says to Our Hero. Of course I have, I know those woods.

This is the archetypal Garden. This is the place we all remember (well, some of us do). This is the place Richard Louv talked about in "Last Child in the Woods". In his book he shows how this generation has become plugged into their 'avatars'; Game Boys and cell phones and computers. How they've lost the ability to run soundlessly through the forest, to read the trail, to bond with other living things, to just sit and look and feel and experience. Louv tells us the cure for ADD and a thousand other modern afflictions is to just go outside and play.

He's right. When the SAD felt like a space marine's backpack, I hitched up two dogs and slogged through a foot of snow on half a trail in a sunlit wood. I felt like I might keel over a few times. The dogs hadn't run more than in the dogyard all fall. I had sleazed off the rider and the stationary bike for weeks.

It was good! Ooooraahh!

The plot was described by someone as "trite". No, not trite, not stereotypal, archetypal. The Hero Journey. Sure, I knew how certain scenes, certain situations had to play out. I knew how I'd write them. Same way I know that stuff in a good Disney flick. I know the pattern, I've been over this trail before. But every time you go over the trail, it's different. Different animals have walked there, leaving different signs. Different weather, different seasons, different things blooming, fading, dying, rebirthing.

This is a rebirth of the Hero Journey.

Tolkien gave the old archetypes back their power. Rescued the Elves and Dwarves and Wizards and dark things from the nursery and made them tall and strong; a Force of Nature to be reckoned with. Lucas sent them to the far far away edges of the universe, and showed us that those tales are, well, universal. J.K. Rowling showed kids that they too had power, and must learn how to wield it.

Cameron has shown us the place we come from and that there is still time to change our course. Change our relationship with Nature, with technology, with other living things. Much of the film has already happened in real life: we know that, not from our history books, which always tell the tale from the viewpoint of the winners, but from listening to Native American, African, Australian Aboriginal, Polynesian and other indigenous authors/storytellers/bards/artists/teachers. (The excellent Wes Studi, a Native American actor, is the voice of Neytiri's father). The concept of communicating with animals (on levels beyond verbal) is not new to anyone who's ever worked with them. The concept of trees communicating chemically or electrically is not new to science. The idea of a world organism, the Earth as one big biosphere is not new either. What is new is putting it all into an action-packed, thrilling adventure that twelve year olds will absorb.

And maybe they'll go home and think about it.

Maybe they'll pick up a bow, because Neytiri made it look so cool. Maybe they'll try riding an earth horse. Or flight. Or diving into the clear waters that are still left. Or saving the rest.

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The Twilight Groan

12/27/2009

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200910.25 letter to Mike Argento, York Daily Record

Argento is a brilliant, hysterically funny columnist with a wit sharper than a Na'Vi arrowhead. He can write serious stuff too, but mostly he sends up the Morons of our culture (no shortage of those in York County). This was my (not entirely tongue-in-cheek) plee to him to save our tweens from the vampires.

The rise of the New Moon sparked a deep, insistent urge to lurk at my computer, biting deep into the bloody depths of the Thesaurus, and Spell Check. Then I considered that you only write articles of Deep Social Meaning, sending up the Idiots of Society.

Wait; this has Deep Social Meaning. We must save our young girls from the ravages of...

...a meaningless life obsessing over boys with bad hair and weird eyes.

I noted your excellent send-up of 2021, or 2012... or 2010, no wait, that was Real Science Fiction, written by a Real Science Fiction writer; Arthur C. Clarke.

We need, in this benighted age, Mikey the Vampire Slayer. Or, perhaps, Van-argento.

J.K. Rowling gave us a complex, unique world of Wizards and Good and Evil. She addressed the Deep Questions of The Meaning of Life. She gave us three Heroes on a Hero Journey that made sense and resonated with our own lives (note that one of them is an intelligent girl, with a career, and a Life, and a Purpose, and cool guy friends, and... a cool guy). Rowling gave us Quidditch, and Time Turners and an owl delivery service and a large drooly dog, and a larger droolier gamekeeper, and the wonderful vision of turning a horrible relative into a hot air balloon.

J.R.R.Tolkien and C.S.Lewis gave us entire planets to run around on. Middle Earth and Narnia with their Elves and Orcs and Centaurs and Talking Animals had plenty of room for each of us to pick up our longbows and broadswords and learn to slay the evils in our mundane lives. To ride into the sunset, to wax poetic over the song of gulls in the dark, to talk to trees, to ride without saddle or rein, to have seven meals a day, to sail with the Corsairs of Umbar, to ...

Oh, yes, I digress...

George Lucas and Gene Rodenberry eschewed the use of initials and went with their full names, which may be why they gave us the whole universe to play in. Go ahead, snicker at the kid whomping womp rats on his game boy, or the girl with the pointy ears at the sci-fi convention doing the Vulcan salute, but when your computer breaks down, or your rover is stranded on Neptune; who 'ya' gonna' call?

In the wake of these greats, yea, in the Twilight of their existence, comes a saga of a girl and a vampire. And some other vampires who are not as nice. Although the main one isn't very nice either, at first. I tried very hard to finish the first book, but after two hundred pages of a very boring teenager obsessing over a badaxx boy I had to donate the book to the Library for the Literary Impaired, and go find a copy of Treasure Island, which, despite its political incorrectness, is a romping good yarn, and contains a young hero who acts impulsively but with good heart and wins out in the end. I also plowed through several thousand pages of the Inkheart Trilogy, which contains a heroine who has better things to do with her life than obsess over boys with bad hair and weird teeth.

I think you should do an interview with the vampire's girlfriend: it would go something like this...

“So, Bella, how was school today?”

Her eyes glaze over. Hoarsely she whispers. “Edward.”

“Ah. What are you studying?”

Her eyes have now developed a strange shape, like those anime or manga characters: little hearts. They seem to be twitching in a weird rhythm. “Eeeeedwaaard.”

“Um, went by the animal rescue earlier this week, I think you should have a dog. What kind would you like?”

“Edward.”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“Edddddddward.” The eyeball hearts are definitely thumping like manic bunnies. Bunnies, bunnies, ohgawd, what do bunnies do best?

“You realize this is kind of gross, I mean, he's dead and everything...”

She's stopped talking, only the weird little thumpy hearts are visible. You knock her upside the head, duct tape her to a chair and make her watch all three...extended DVD... Lord of the Rings films. At least Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortenson aren't dead. Then you drag her kicking and screaming to the library.

Save us Argento-wan, you're our only hope.

The rest of us will sling our longbows over our backs, our swords, lightsabers and phasers at our hips, mount our steeds of Rohan (or centaurs, or landspeeders, if you're horse-impaired) and sally forth to rescue True Fantasy and Science Fiction from the clutches of the Pseudo-vampiric hordes. Some of us will probably settle down with a good Anne Rice book, or a Sookie Stackhouse novel. We might, (gasp) even turn on the TV and catch a drop or two of True Blood, or a rerun of Buffy.

Live Long and Prosper...

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the Hero Journey According to Campbell and Obi-Wan

8/12/2009

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a long time ago, in a sketchbook far, far away...

some friends and I visited the Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian, in Washington D.C. for an exhibit of props, costumes and other goodies from the Star Wars films. (We had already been to the one they devoted to Star Trek). In the displays, the museum outlined George Lucas' interpretation of the Hero Journey through the three first films. Lucas had studied the works of Joseph Campbell, a guy who studied myth, legend and faerie tale and made it comprehensible to the rest of us. Then Lucas brought it to the masses with Luke and Han and the rest. Here are my notes from the exhibit, with an eye to writing my own tales. Perhaps they'll be useful for yours...

1999.01.16
Remember Space 1999? It was SF then, now it's ancient history.

George Lucas based his mythic tale on the concepts of Joseph Campbell , who studied the worlds mythologies and folk tales. Mythologizing mythology; taking an overview of all the world's spiritual ideas. PBS did The Power of Myth as a series, I own Hero With A Thousand Faces (the Hero Journey Cycle), Primitive Mythology and Myths to Live By, all by Campbell. I cant find Hero, I am in the middle of writing several Hero Journey tales. I did find my Star Wars notes.

Forthwith, here they are:(with some nods to other Hero Journeys I have loved)

Star Wars is driven by character, story. You don't have to explain what everything is. We figure out hyperdrive and lightsabers without the scientific treatise.

The Hero is obscure, ordinary; a farm boy, a Hobbit, a Gelfling, a girl from Kansas, a fat panda working in a noodle shop, a beat-up trash compactor robot named WALL-E.

The Mentor is Jedi, wizard, wiz, wise man. Gandalf, Obi-Wan.

The call to adventure:

Begins with The Herald: usually small, unassuming. Talking frogs. Gollum with a ring. Droid with a message. The guy pasting the sign on he wall about choosing the Dragon Warrior (Kung-Fu Panda). Starship landing (Wall-E). Ok, that one wasn't small and unassuming. In Pan's Labyrinth, the messenger is a bug-fairy. The Hand of Fate oftens plays a role here: the apparent Bad Thing drives the tale forward, involves the Hero, becomes part of the Journey.

The threshold:

Mos Eisley spaceport. Rivendell. Train stations (Narnia: Prince Caspian & Harry Potter). The Stairway to Heaven in Kung-fu Panda: the Place of Enlightenment is at the top. Note that he falls down that stairway a lot.

The Hero must leave familiar life behind and begin journey from childhood to adulthood, and to a life transformation. The threshold contains dangers, but also helpers. In SW, Han and Chewie are Dark Hero? Trickster? Beast Prince (Chewie) Animal Companion (the power of the Hero's instinctive nature). The ship has an animal name as well. Maybe it should have been the Millenium Raven. Or Chasseur. Han is a privateer (complete with wicked swift agile Baltimore Clipper); out for his own gain at first, but always fighting the tyrannical empire.

I do a lot of Elves, shapeshifters and folk with animal totems. They are plugged into their instinctive natures, one with Nature.

A dive is a Hero Journey. You cross the Threshold of the Surface into an alien world where all the rules are changed. A journey by ship is similar: the Dock is the threshold. You leave this last attachment to land and set out into the Unknown.

Into the labyrinth:

Difficult journey into the Unknown. Death Star. The Old Forest. Moria. Heroes don armour to rescue princess. Pan's Labrynth has a very literal labyrinth.

The dark road of trials:

Midway through the hero journey comes the long and perilous path of trials and ordeals bringing important moments of illumination and understanding. The decent into darkness. Moria again. One of Lewis' entire tales (the Silver Chair) is a Journey in the Dark. Monsters to be slain. Obstacles to be passed.

Into the belly of the beast:

The Millenium Falcon flies into the asteroid cave which turns out to be the maw of a huge beast. Jonah and the whale. Pinochio and the same whale. Leviathan. Is there an equivalent in Middle Earth? In Pan's Labyrinth, there is the beast-frog under the tree, who spits out the key (rather grossly). Vader undergoes transformation in egg-like chamber. You are eaten, you are spat out again, transformed.

The sacred grove:

Enclosure where the Hero is changed. Trees infused with creative energy. Forests symbolize mystery and transformation (the forest world of Dagobah). Forests are also the unconcious mind; secrets, dark emotions to confront (Luke's battle with the Vader-image under the tree). Water is also the Unconcious Mind. The Dive Beneath, to the scary dark place.

Sacrifices:

Opening of mind and heart to spiritual knowledge requires sacrifice from Hero. Cloud City: Han and Luke both reaffirm the meaning and importance of their lives by willingness to sacrifice themselves for the greater cause.

Hero deeds:

The princess rescue, the Death Star attack, lightsaber battles, firefights. The blowing up of the Death Star in film one is the beginning of the next stage: the Road of Trials.

The path to atonement:

Hero Journey sometimes includes a Fatherquest. After trials, the Hero finds the Father and becomes At-One with him. A spiritual symbol of oneness with God. Luke is following in his father's footsteps: pilot, Jedi...

...but Luke is ready to sacrifice himself rather than follow his father's path to evil. Luke falls (from the underside of Cloud City), is rescued (by sister: one with the same father), acknowledges Vader as Father, they move toward reconciliation, Vader moves toward his own transformation.

The hero's return:

End of the Road of Trials. Hero returns across the threshold to his society with the means to benefit it. In SW, each character has undergone their own Hero Journey. In LOTR, the Hobbits return to the Shire and cleanse and heal it. Aragorn takes on the Kingship. Legolas and Gimli rebuild Gondor. WALL-E and EVE bring people back to Earth and spark renewal. Po the Panda defeats the Villain as no one else can, and restores order to his world.

The shadow rises:

The forces of evil can also undergo change and rebirth, recoup power, gain new strength. Tolkien actually had a thought to write something after LOTR, in which this happens. If you start at the beginning of his world, the Silmarillion, and read through, you see the dark rising again and again: Morgoth the Vala is replaced by Sauron the Maia (a lesser evil), whose understudy was a wizard: Saruman. Presumeably by the time you get to the Age of Men, the Evil would have degenerated to mere human tyrants and dictators; reality.

The hero twins:

Luke and Leia are yin-yang, two sides of the same person, in a way. Anima and animé, or animus, or whatever. One of my favorite images in tales, is this Hero Twin thing: often two guys, opposites: Starsky and Hutch, Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon, Red and Blue in Hellboy, and last but definitely not least: Legolas and Gimli. By their contrast, they show us a complete picture. And they're usually very funny.

The enchanted forest:

The inhabitants can be helpful, dangerous, or both. The Hero must know the right magic to invoke the protective powers. Luke wins the help of the Ewoks (these faerie folk are small, have primitve tech, and a lush environment compared to the cold hard tech of the Empire). The Fellowship enters Lothlorien, but not easily and with great welcome. Boromir shows the attitude of the mainstream culture: fear of the now unknown powers of the Elves, and distance from them.

The heart of darkness;

The Fortress of Evil. Destroying it. Tolkien has several, in varying stages of evil power: Moria, Cirith Ungol, Mordor, the Cracks of Doom. Mount Doom self-destructs at the end. Dark Crystal has one of the more unique Dark Tower images: the castle which peels off its layer of darkness as the skeksis are reunited with the uru and become, again, whole urskeks. The castle casts off its dark skin and glows once more with light.

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

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Sealskin/Soulskin

7/23/2009

2 Comments

In Native North America it is said that orca and wolf are the same spirit wearing different shapes for land and sea...

In any place where there are seals, there are legends of the Seal Folk who take off their skins to walk on land in human form...

Storyteller/psychologist Clarrissa Pinkola Estes Ph.D.., in "Women Who Run With the Wolves" talks about the problem of losing your "sealskin/soulskin", and how faerie and folk tales teach us the answers...

Orca looms large in the myths of the Northwest Coast, and there are stories of the whale folk who take off their fins to walk on land in human form. The fin becomes a boat...

Orca: also known as: mak-eh-nuk, keet, skana, swordwhale (zvaardwalvis), agliuk, niss'onkhgessyak, pictwhale, epaulard, kosatka drava, vaghund (hunting together like dogs), akan, grampus, svinka, innuatu, sadshi, repun kamui (master of the open sea)...and in Australia & New Zealand, just orcs.

In the tales of J.R.R. Tolkien, the Elves, in the end, sail west to the Blessed Realm, leaving humans to their world of Middle Earth. In my tales, and illustrations, they are still here, disguised perhaps, but very much involved in teaching, making connections between humans and the rest of the Natural World. Bringing us back our sealskins, soulskins, our lost fins.

I've been drawing animals and the natural world, and telling stories, since I could hold a crayon. I am a voracious reader (especially fantasy, and non-fiction: nature, biology, history), but draw from experience. I live with several cats, a small team of sled dogs, and a lot of books. When I'm not training horses or dogs, you might find me in a mosquito infested salt marsh, in my sea kayak, Makenuk's Fin.

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the AMAZING Spiderman

the Hunger Games

Dark of the Moon (on the sixth of June, and a Kenworth haulin' Autobot butt...)

Blue Moon

The Twilight Groan

the Hero Journey According to Campbell and Obi-Wan

Sealskin/Soulskin

about: Teanna

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