Star Trek vs. Transformers 2

So, J.J Abrams' Star Trek came out on DVD yesterday, so I thought it'd be a good time to revisit it, so you get this lazy re-up of a post from only a few months ago but I think it's worth revisiting to see how/why Star Trek is so good and also, how it really isn't a big blockbuster that Best Buy has all kinds of in-store ads for and stuff. Or rather, it's the good, rarefied kind of blockbuster, you know?...

Even before the absurd racism rushing through the movie (A jive-ass robot...with a gold tooth...really?), Transformers 2 was problematic. We can start with the simple snobby point that it's directed by Michael Bay, he of jingoistic characterization and imagery, or that it was based on a childhood cartoon that itself was pretty racist (something people keep forgetting) just now stretched to marketing-synergy extremes.

Still, simply by being so awesomely explosive and transparently, the party-dude of popular cinema, running down a checklist of audience-pleasing turns and self-justifying thematics, Bay is often sorta celebrated. Armond White's review summed up a near healthy contrarian take on Bay--his review begins "Why waste spleen on Michael Bay?".

As cool as it is when a notable part of the media jumps on some actually racist shit, it's as much because Bay's an easy target as it is actual social/cultural indignation. That Transformers 2 was vilified for its racial hard-headedness and Star Trek not celebrated for its pop-racial sophistication on this front, sorta negates any "searing" critiques of Bay's directorial choices. Had Abrams' Star Trek--written by Roberto Corci and Alex Kurtman (the same two guys behind Transformers 2) and the big, dumb, franchise blockbuster before Transformers 2 stomped onto the scene--not arrived just two months ago, White'd be right. But he's not.

The differences between the movies are clear and fun to list: Meghan Fox's bland beauty vs. Zoe Saldana's rarefied allure, Bay's leadfooted action cutting vs. Abrams' embrace of hand-held chaos and roving single takes, the tension of saying "I love you" between Spock and Uhura vs. Mikaela's cunty frustration with Sam for not uttering those words, the dopey slapstick of Transformers vs. the from the original series dead-pan weirdness. All of these show Star Trek to be both more artistically and socially sensitive than Transformers 2.

In part, this begins with the original show's conceit and the decision to comment or not comment on it. In fact, both directors are essentially "faithful" to the original properties. Bay decided to continue the selfish excess of the 80s (it makes sense as little kids, we loved Transformers, we were 5 yr. old selfish pricks) and Abrams kept-in all the goofball sincere multi-culti 60s stuff of the original Star Trek. When it's 2009 though, and you're doing this, recontextualizing an old time-capsule piece of popular culture, it becomes political. It just does.

There's a scene in Star Trek in which Kirk (at this point a stowaway on the ship, and a total jerk) and Sulu, along with a particularly gung-ho crew member, sky-dive (or something) onto the Romulan's ship. Waiting to leap down, this gung-ho third member is bouncing up and down, full of adrenaline and hubris--in short, he's a character from a Michael Bay movie--as Kirk and Sulu look at him strangely, maybe even sadly. Once they leap, he continues shouting extreme-sports platitudes, and eventually, misses the intended target and gets burned up in the Romulan ship's jets. This scene illustrates what would happen if a Michael Bay character got dropped into Abrams' more studied and realistic (for an action movie) world.

Abrams' perspective in this scene is of course, made more complicated by the character of Kirk, ostensibly the movie's main character and one defined by his daring and arrogance. That's to say, a lot of the time Kirk acts like a Michael Bay character himself and so, having a scene in which a complete arrogant goon vs. a kinda arrogant goon is destroyed by his arrogance is brilliant. It's all about the tiny little details.

Early in the film, we see a very Bay-like flashback to young Kirk stealing his step-dad's car and speeding across a golden, Mid-West vista (it's essentially awful, like, right out of a Bay movie) and it's followed up by a later scene in which a drunk Kirk hits-on Uhura and gets in a fight. What would happen in most movies is that this early awkward assholism would be rectified or shifted to something resembling sensitivity and Uhura, despite her initial disgust for Kirk, would grow to love him...or at least sleep with him.

Not so much in Star Trek, as Kirk never gets "the girl". A scene in which he's shown making-out with a girl at Starfleet Academy is presented as fairly loathsome, sad, even robotic. Even more crazy is that it's Spock who "gets the girl". This shift is not only a "clever" re-up of an old series, but a mindful shift in sensibilities. Abrams' Star Trek rejects Kirk the jerk in favor of Spock's hyper-sincerity. When the movie ends with the famous "Space...the final frontier" and it's spoken by the aged voice of Leonard Nimoy--we're not working with clever revisionism but an ethical improvement on the past.

To base the movie around poetry-reading, In Search Of...-hosting Nimoy vs. the chintzy, hair-pieced, ego-tripping Shatner (the movie's Kirk, when he's at his worst, most selfish, acts Shatner-like) is fascinating. Cynics might chalk this up to some kind of "wussification" of American culture or something, but they'd be missing the nuanced evolution of Kirk's character--both a core decency he clearly gleaned from his father (who we meet before we meet Kirk) mixed with a fuck-it-all sense of confusion a very specific kind of American radical individual feels.

Even at his worst, Kirk's never the gung-ho asshole incinerated by a Romulan ship, but it's through experiences on the Enterprise and the interaction with the ethnically diverse crew that he (and all of them) come together. This is where Star Trek's wizened and realistic understanding of patriotism usurps Michael Bay's U.S of A. belligerence.

Where characters and images in Bay's movie act as short-hands to re-instill played-out, long-internalized values, Star Trek seeks to remind Americans of the importance of plurality and understanding--the rejection of black and white for grey. The Enterprise begins as a sort of "Team of Rivals" and they slowly come to realize their similarities. The merger of Spock and Kirk is, when it finally becomes civil, simply pragmatic, but from that pragmatism it spins into something lasting, true, and worthwhile. Differences are more than accepted, more than celebrated, they're seen as vital.

In this sense, Star Trek indeed, functions like a product of filmmaking or television from the progressive 60s or 70s--what Pragmatic philosopher Richard Rorty called, "platoon movies" (100). Platoon movies, Rorty explained, were a byproduct of the pre-60s (pre-P.C) left and "showed Americans of various ethnic backgrounds fighting and dying side by side" (100). About the only other successful "platoon movies", that's to say, not movies simply playing on this trope of an ethnically diverse crew working it all out, but really internalizing it, that I can think of in recent years would be Wes Anderson's movies--especially The Life Aquatic.

The movie itself is pragmatic, both giving viewers what's necessary (a ton of action, Saldana in her underwear, bad jokes, old-show reference irony, ethnic jokes) and flipping the script in weird ways, as to never topple over from the unfortunate stupidity necessary for a big-budget movie. Notice the way it glosses over the alien races or nearly pushes all characters not Spock or Kirk to the side, all the while maintaining their humanity...not in a quest to maximize whiteness on the screen, but to treat diversity as a foregone conclusion of life. Abrams is not interested in "other"-ness, even the villains though darkened and evil-ized, get a decent enough reason for their actions beyond simple "evil"--precisely the kind of primitive value system that is literally Bay's meal ticket.

Just as Michael Bay's Transformers 2 begins its second week of hyper-visibility, JJ Abrams' Star Trek makes its way to your city's "dollar" theatre. The decision to see Star Trek maybe again, maybe a third time, over Transformers 2, is not only financially savvy and aesthetically wise, it's ethically prudent too.

-Rorty, Richard. "Achieving Our Country". First Harvard University Press, 1999.

X-Men Cartoon Over Homework Any Day

Previously, the X-Men animated series episodes were released only in single disc packages with one or two episodes stuck together just to get hype for the next Marvel movie. Fortunately, Marvel has finally decided to release the X-Men cartoon series, originally airing afternoons on Fox, in two DVD volumes, on April 28th.

It's taken far too long for this to come out, I can still remember walking home from school and watching this show, and becoming completely obsessed with the X-Men. For a while, the Fox afternoon was just too good; this series and Spider-Man both played a huge part in my pre-teen imagination.

Being in elementary and middle school, this cartoon was a little more mature than the others and put my mind at rest, bringing me back into comics and giving me an artistic outlet, creating my own mutants and drawing the characters I related to.

The X-Men is probably the most continuity-heavy comic in the history of comics, every character, location and action seems to be important to something that will happen in the future, and because of that you become seriously involved. You care more about the characters you like and put yourself in their shoes. I loved some characters so much, and hated others, here's where I was at as a child, and now:

CYCLOPS

THEN: Cyclops is everything not cool about a super hero. He's like Superman without the humanity, just a fucking cop who harasses you for skating in an empty parking lot. My neighbor loved him when we were young and would always talk about how great his powers were, which at the time I just saw as laser beams, and would shit on my favorite X-Man, Nightcrawler. Cyclops is just your friend's dad who won't let you play behind the shed.

NOW: Cyclops has become a man who demands respect, breaking away from Professor X's rule, and is doing what needs to be done to protect the few remaining mutants. I realize his "laser beams" aren't lasers but pure force that has to be held back, but when dude lets loose it's actually pretty scary. He's still an asshole but now I know it's for the better of the X-Men and not just because he's a prick.

JEAN GREY

THEN: I never understood why everyone wanted to bang her so badly, or why Professor X even had her around. I get she could move stuff with her mind or whatever but she didn't feel essential to the team, not her specific personality. A friend once said to me "There are two kinds of people, ones who bring something to the table and ones who don't" and I've gotta apply this to Marvel Girl here, why do you matter outside of causing problem?

NOW: She's dead and Cyclops is with Emma Frost, which makes a lot more sense. Emma is strong and over all more interesting, and I don't mean because of her revealing outfits. Jean caused nothing but trouble, she's like the damsel in distress but she was causing the distress! Good riddance, unless, you know, she's Cable's baby in some fucked up way.

GAMBIT

THEN: Gambit was so cool. He wore a trench coat, threw these playing cards and stood leaning against walls. Everything as a little boy you think is cool, except instead of sunglasses his eyes were just dark! That transcends coolness.

NOW: What were we thinking? He's everything lame about a character. All he needs now is a motorcycle or to team up with Starman or Constantine. He's just what kids in the 90's thought were cool. The worst thing looking back are his powers, the man has the ability to use kinetic energy to charge anything to cause it to blow up and he decides on playing cards? SERIOUSLY?

ROUGE

THEN: Her ability to steal powers from any other mutant made her one of my favorites. I was even willing to be her when we'd play X-Men, taking on the ridicule until I would suck up all their powers and win. I had a little boy crush on her too which just makes that weirder...

NOW: Rouge is the X-Man that all dudes my age continue to have crushes on, even though she hasn't been in the comics for a long while. Her powers still remain some of the most interesting, but most under-utilized. Marvel sometimes won't put the time needed into building a character, and so we're left with heroes like Rogue, who we'll see for two months until they run out of ideas. She, like most of the X-Men, just doesn't have enough life outside of the X-Men to make them interesting.

STORM

THEN: Storm's powers seemed stupid to me, but I think that may been been because weather is something we see every day, its just wasn't "sci fi" enough.

NOW: Storm is one of the, if not only, strong black characters in comics that doesn't rely on race to tell her stories. I know now that her powers are incredibly diverse, dude can't even fly but manages it by using winds! She's not as involved in the X-Men anymore but has moved onto the Fantastic Four books with her husband Black Panther, and is currently in the running for actually being the next Black Panther. She's one of the few characters from the X-Books to really evolve since I was a child.

BEAST

THEN: I have always been into monster characters so Beast always appealed to me. The obvious difference between him and other smart dudes just made him more popular with me and my friends, his blue fur and sudden bits of rage were frightening after being so used to his calm demeanor. They have never given Beast a proper toy, step it up Marvel!

NOW: Secondary mutations have made Beast into a blue, humanoid lion, very few pieces of him remain man. His character has managed to develop alongside the rest of the X-Men, taking a sidecar to action and acting almost exclusively as a behind the scenes character.

WOLVERINE

THEN: I hate Wolverine, from his stupid one liners to his cowboy hats. He was everyone's favorite and each and everytime we'd be on the playground, at least five kids were yelling "SNICKT" and slashing through everything. I always just wanted Magneto to rip him apart and get it over with.

NOW: I love Wolverine, from his great one liners to his flannel shirts. I buy into it completely, picking up every one-shot, excited to see which artist they've gotten for the character next. He's the new Conan, in a way, he's done so much his adventures are all legendary, and because of his powers and past, we have no idea how old he is or how many places he's actually been. Instead of sitting complacent on a character they didn't need to expand, they've done everything they can to make him relevant, it's why the X-Men are still interesting to people, they never settle down.

Running as fast as they can, Iron Man lives again!

Remember that great super hero movie Iron Man? It comes out on DVD today and got me thinking back to the time I saw it in the theaters. There was this bizarre incident where the power went out 30min from the end of the movie. One member of the audience volunteered to go tell the theater officials of the mishap but then shouted back in, “the whole theater is blacked out!” After watching a movie featuring a lot of terrorism other members of the audience began to get a little freaked out. It’s kind of a perfect example of how the first hour and forty-five minutes of Iron Man have you sucked into a completely believable world.

The movie itself was really good, and from the very first scene it captures your attention. It’s the scene that you’ve watched in all the trailers where Tony is having fun in his Humvee and then it’s attacked by terrorists. When I first saw it in the trailers it convinced me to go see this movie. It’s a good blend of over the top character and reality that is perfect for a comic movie. What you don’t see in the trailer is the continuation of the scene. Tony’s army protectors get out of the Humvee as Tony is completely terrified trying to take hold of the situation. He spouts out lines that you’d hear in the movies, “What’s our situation?” and “How many we got?” The soldiers ignore him as Tony and the audience is plunged into the middle of the chaos of war. There’s no objective only shooting at the enemy. A hand held camera and close-ups of the soldiers help the feel of reality also. Tony watches each solider die not in the glory of battle but quick and real. Stark is taken prisoner and there is a shot of Tony captured by the terrorists that is reminiscent of the beheading videos. Then the ‘IRON MAN’ title screen followed by extended flashback of Tony being the celebrity playboy that we saw in the first couple of minutes. The movie continues to balance out moments of real terror with comedy and actual character development all the way through.

Tony’s character is the most interesting part of the movie. He pretends to be this celebrity jerk, but at his heart he’s part kid and part nerd. The exact combination that appeals to most comics’ fans. It’s also subtle which is important. The next morning after he gets this Vanity Fair reporter in bed he retreats into his basement to work on a hotrod engine and lets his secretary, Pepper Potts, deal with showing her out. He’s at least somewhat concerned for her because he asks how she took it and by working on something mechanical tries to take his mind off of it. It’s important to see how these parts of his personality are there all along because after he’s captured and comes back we see them emerge. When he comes back he’s not completely changed just slightly. One of the weirdest things about the Spiderman movie is how he changes so dramatically after his Uncle dies. Yeah, it’s a major life-altering event but the change in the movie feels way more contrived. He’s shown as a complete shut-in and then as soon as he gets super powers he gets adventurous. Stark is already crazy when the movie starts so when he is testing out experimental technology in his basement and fighting terrorists it’s believable. When he comes back the only thing that changes are his priorities not his personality.

It’s kind of impossible to ignore the political themes in the movie. The terrorists, even though their boss wants to rule Asia, and the soldiers all bring up thoughts of the war in Iraq. Tony’s attitude of: go in blow everyone up from the air and it will be just fine, has a similar feeling to the Bush administration’s going into the war. Then things go horribly wrong. Tony finds out that his company has been double-dealing to the enemy. It’s vaguely similar to the war profiteering Halliburton was accused of. Even the dorky guy from the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Division sounds like a Bush style government official with a needlessly long name and way behind in information. Iron Man has a hopeful vision of the future with a focus on armoring individual solider and corporate responsibility. By the end even the dorky guy is now a S.H.E.I.LD. liaison and in control of Tony’s situation. That’s why the end when Jeff Bridges goes nuts and becomes Iron Monger sucks so much. It doesn’t make any sense with all the other stuff going on in the movie. It makes thematic sense, but why not just let the terrorist guy pilot it and have Jeff stick around for Iron Man 2? It doesn’t take away from the movies message about corporate greed. If he stuck around to the second one it would be more effective because it would be show how hard it is to get rid of Obidiah Stane type guys.