So a friend recently convinced me to watch the new Daredevil series. It should be stated that I've largely avoided the comic/TV bullshit. I dig the new Constantine but I didn't really go for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D or Arrow or any of that kind of thing. I just don't have any faith in the people who make TV happen and I fucking love comic books, so I tend to ignore TV adaptations. Daredevil is the reason I lack that faith. Not because its bad, but because its made by Netflix.
They don't have to worry about the same standards and practices fuckery that TV producers do. People on Daredevil speak like real people because believe it or not profanity plays an enormous role in human communication. I love this. We've discussed profanity here before, and it holds a dear place in both mine and Brian's lexicon. So a show about people in fucked up situations that allows them to discuss them in those terms is always more enjoyable than you'd expect.
The other big thing about Daredevil for me is the violence. It ought to come as no surprise that I appreciate me some physical aggression, and the clarity and relative honesty of the violence in this show is beautiful. Sure we've still got a guy in a kinda silly outfit throwing down with Russian mobsters and not getting shot repeatedly and dropped in a hole, but that doesn't actually reduce the brutality of the combat.
Now this might sound like an ad spot for this one show, but its not. I like some things about Daredevil. Some of it is ridiculous, of course it is, its a comic book adaptation. But the things I like about it stem from a lack of censorship. They don't have to sugar coat things to placate shitty people. I'm a geek; I love stories, the exploration of ideas, and the building of narrative worlds. When Constantine leaves out the details of what happened in Newcastle we lose a big part of that story and the motivations of the characters. I really don't have an issue with adapting comics or books to the screen but when we have to hobble them to make them suitable to irresponsible parents and ego-maniacal busybodies we've failed to respect what makes a story great.
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Monday, April 27, 2015
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
I Am Not Mad At J.J. Abrams, Just Disappointed.
I love Sci-Fi. This should come as no surprise to readers of my past posts. Sci-Fi TV shows in particular are on of my favorite things to watch. This is why I kind of hate and love J.J. Abrams. Both Lost and Fringe had amazing potential, but shit the bed around 2/3 of the way through. I know that he isn't the only person behind these shows, but he makes a nice surrogate for the show as a whole since his name is on the title cards as a creator.
Lost had some great ideas. It set up an intriguing mystery that made the characters and the viewers question the reality of the show. Existentialism is a very interesting subject and making a show that introduced the concept as a main theme is great. Whats not great is what happened around halfway through the series. Laziness.
It started setting up mysteries and never solving them. Fuck, they ended the series by copying a fan theory about what they show was all about. I am big on fans being included in the creation of something, but that is going a little to far. It was later revealed that the show was essentially ad-libed, they made all of it up as they went along. The creators came out and said that they had no intention of building a mythology in the first couple seasons. Most fans of the show assumed that they were, myself included, because the show was set up like a mystery, which tend to be a coherent thing, not shit made up on the spot. You can't have an immersive, engaging show without building some kind of mythology, its fucking irresponsible.
Fringe had a different problem at the start. I love sci-fi serials. The X-Files, The Twilight Zone, and Star Trek and the like are some of my favorite style of program. There is sometimes an overarching story line sure, but it plays second fiddle to a monster-of-the-week structure which each explores a new idea or concept with each episode. Fringe was great because the character that is supposed to be the scientific genius is a mad scientist who isn't a bad guy, something that rarely happens. The series explores a bunch of ideas and does so in an interesting way.
Unfortunately, it ended up in kind of a mess. Characters went evil for no reason, possibly because universe jumping made it so that there was no coherent character arcs. This same universe jumping was also used as a cheap way to retcon series mythology. I feel like I need to point out that alternate reality is a great thing to explore, but the base reality needs to remain fucking consistent, otherwise the whole thing starts to come off as a masturbation session for the writers. You can cram ideas into a story all day, but if there isn't some underlying method to the madness everything falls apart.
Both series have a common problem that I would like to make my own theory about. J. J. Abrams has a ton of cool ideas but he is impatient and/or lazy. He wanted to make a bunch of cool sci-fi ideas into a coherent show so he jammed as many ideas as he could into his scripts but after a while got bored with the execution and just ended both in ways that just kind of fell flat. I think that Abrams loves the idea behind a sci-fi mystery serial, a show that builds a massive story/world and seeks to explore it, but doesn't want to put in the effort to make the mythology mean something.
To be fair, it might not have been laziness. Maybe Abrams doesn't want to create a more structured series because he doesn't know what he might have to change later due to network interference. Or maybe he wants fans to have a say in the show. In any case, these series both started out as amazing works, but ended in way that at least felt lazy and disappointing. I feel like I can't explain how unfortunate it is to see something with a ton of potential just fall flat. I just felt like I needed to say this in hopes that any creative type people who read it will strive to do better when it comes to ending a show, or even just in building a mythology. Both your creation and your fans deserve it.
Lost had some great ideas. It set up an intriguing mystery that made the characters and the viewers question the reality of the show. Existentialism is a very interesting subject and making a show that introduced the concept as a main theme is great. Whats not great is what happened around halfway through the series. Laziness.
It started setting up mysteries and never solving them. Fuck, they ended the series by copying a fan theory about what they show was all about. I am big on fans being included in the creation of something, but that is going a little to far. It was later revealed that the show was essentially ad-libed, they made all of it up as they went along. The creators came out and said that they had no intention of building a mythology in the first couple seasons. Most fans of the show assumed that they were, myself included, because the show was set up like a mystery, which tend to be a coherent thing, not shit made up on the spot. You can't have an immersive, engaging show without building some kind of mythology, its fucking irresponsible.
Fringe had a different problem at the start. I love sci-fi serials. The X-Files, The Twilight Zone, and Star Trek and the like are some of my favorite style of program. There is sometimes an overarching story line sure, but it plays second fiddle to a monster-of-the-week structure which each explores a new idea or concept with each episode. Fringe was great because the character that is supposed to be the scientific genius is a mad scientist who isn't a bad guy, something that rarely happens. The series explores a bunch of ideas and does so in an interesting way.
Unfortunately, it ended up in kind of a mess. Characters went evil for no reason, possibly because universe jumping made it so that there was no coherent character arcs. This same universe jumping was also used as a cheap way to retcon series mythology. I feel like I need to point out that alternate reality is a great thing to explore, but the base reality needs to remain fucking consistent, otherwise the whole thing starts to come off as a masturbation session for the writers. You can cram ideas into a story all day, but if there isn't some underlying method to the madness everything falls apart.
Both series have a common problem that I would like to make my own theory about. J. J. Abrams has a ton of cool ideas but he is impatient and/or lazy. He wanted to make a bunch of cool sci-fi ideas into a coherent show so he jammed as many ideas as he could into his scripts but after a while got bored with the execution and just ended both in ways that just kind of fell flat. I think that Abrams loves the idea behind a sci-fi mystery serial, a show that builds a massive story/world and seeks to explore it, but doesn't want to put in the effort to make the mythology mean something.
To be fair, it might not have been laziness. Maybe Abrams doesn't want to create a more structured series because he doesn't know what he might have to change later due to network interference. Or maybe he wants fans to have a say in the show. In any case, these series both started out as amazing works, but ended in way that at least felt lazy and disappointing. I feel like I can't explain how unfortunate it is to see something with a ton of potential just fall flat. I just felt like I needed to say this in hopes that any creative type people who read it will strive to do better when it comes to ending a show, or even just in building a mythology. Both your creation and your fans deserve it.
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