The biggest challenges facing JJ Abrams with Ep9 are the same as he’s faced for the entire Sequel Trilogy, to whit: (1) satisfying fans of the Original Trilogy, and (2) creating the next generation of fans with the new cast/direction. By ‘fan’ I don’t mean someone who just goes and watches each movie dutifully once (like say a typical ‘fan’ of the Mission Impossible franchise might), but someone who watches all the movies multiple times, gets their friends and kids and parents to watch it, and buys into all the merchandise for years or even decades: toys, Halloween costumes, books, comics, TV spin-offs, games, theme park tickets, etc. Ideally Disney/Kennedy/Abrams would want to fulfill both (1) AND (2), but if it comes down to it, they could give up some of (1) if they get more of (2) in return. The worse case scenario would be if they whiffed on both …
Tag Archives: Star Wars
The Last Jedi (2017): flawed but worthy addition, and the best of the new lot
I gave it a week to percolate, so here’s my take on Ep8 THE LAST JEDI (2017): if you like Star Wars, or tentpole blockbusters, then go see it, if you haven’t already! It’s better than Ep7 THE FORCE AWAKENS (2015) – primarily because director Rian Johnson takes the creative risks which JJ Abram’s didn’t/couldn’t in what boiled down to his mega-budgeted fanfic remake of Ep4 A NEW HOPE (1977). But marked blemishes keep Ep8 from surpassing Ep4 or Ep5 THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) – mostly since the narration and characters still have to fit the defective straitjacket established by Kathleen Kennedy/Abrams in Ep7. Read the rest of this entry »
Harry Potter and the Deathy Hallows Part 2 (2011, dir. David Yates): among the superior HP films, themselves better than the books, but that’s a low bar
The fanboys (and girls) will likely be satisfied, and those others of us who trudged through the rest of the movies will find it a more entertaining and quicker-paced conclusion (certainly compared with the insufferably slow Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), and the interminably boring Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (2010)). Things come to an end, but because I didn’t much care about the characters, it really wasn’t very dramatic or triumphant or even sad. Truth be told, I did feel a twinge of regret that the vast resources of money and filmic talent could not have been put toward adapting more worthy material!
Storytelling and digital games: the road goes ever on and on
There’s been some controversy this year (stoked by that venerable film critic, Roger Ebert) about whether computer games are really “art”. I
’m not going to weigh in on this directly, but tangentially – through the lens of storytelling. Can digital games tell stories which are as compelling and interesting as an epic poem, a novel, or a good movie (let’s call them “passive literature”)? The answer is: yes, they are already, not quite at the level of timeless classic literature just yet. There’s a long way to go, but we could get there in our lifetimes.
I wanted to explore this by reviewing a genre of computer game – the CRPG (computer or console role-playing game). Typically these are single-player games, where the player takes on the role of a defined protagonist in a quest. These are the closest types of games to novels or movies, except that the player can and does make decisions during the game (they don’t just passively sit and watch, or read and turn the page), and often these games run into 40-80+ hours (vs. say a 2-3 hour movie). If we consider the genre as a whole, let’s compare their storytelling elements to the traditional components of a novel’s or movie’s story: plot, structure, characters, theme, setting, style and tone. Then we’ll conclude with some thoughts on how game designers can continue to improve the story and experience of their games.
Space Battleship Yamato (2010, dir. Takashi Yamazaki): fun, streamlined, Japanese take on the reimagined Battlestar Galactica
Fun, live action anime adaptation that screams streamlined, Japanese version of Battlestar Galactica (Ronald Moore’s reimagined series, that is): immersive space action and desperate, human drama – even romance – set against an apocalyptic backdrop. The original cartoon series (released in US and Australia as “Star Blazers”) predates both the original BSG and Star Wars, but many of the familiar military SF tropes clearly have been cross-pollinated and honed back and forth across the Pacific over the decades.
WetWareGames 