Views... re'ed
Dec. 29th, 2010 01:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficTron: Legacy
You know, I like to think I'm open to criticism, but when I get a comment on my recent Sam/Quorra fics saying they're out of character, I'll be honest with you... my first thought is "What character?" That's kinda my review in a nutshell. (And c'mon people, I'm writing her too naive? Jules Verne, guys.)
It's not that the movie is the worst thing ever, I think that's just nerd culture doing its thing, combining unrealistic expectations with an admittedly mediocre product. I would rather watch Michael Sheen hump his cane for two hours than one minute of Skids and Mudflap from Transformers 2, or anyone in The Last Airbender. In fact, the movie actually has plenty of legitimately good ideas. The "Kevin Flynn's son and his daddy issues" is so predictable it hurts, but the idea of giving him this Cain and Abel relationship with CLU is a good one. But the execution... it just sucks, and the rollicking adventure we could have just never manages to pull itself out of this mire of ineptness.
Just for instance, take Sam's arrival in Tron City. He shows up at a digital recreation of Flynn's Arcade (for some reason, the portal into Tron City is right in downtown, but the portal out is miles away in this huge ornate cathedral type place). Given later revelations, you'd think someone would be waiting for him there. There isn't, he's just coincidentally picked up by the bad guys, who think he's a program. They take him to fight in gladiatorial combat, to the death, natch. Now, why is there gladiatorial combat? We know that CLU is basically Kevin Flynn's idealism run amok, trying to create the perfect system... so why would that involve people fighting to the death? Does Flynn's perfect world feature fun and games, and has CLU twisted that into gladiatorial combat? Is he running them as a screw-you to Flynn? Is it bread and circuses? If so, why? He already apparently has complete control over the place. There's no explanation, so you gotta think he's just doing it because he's an evil overlord.
For another cheap plug, when I wrote my first Tron fic, it was originally going to be a PWP, but as I wrote it, I decided that Sam would have to be pretty caddish to take advantage of Quorra the way I'd characterized her. I'm pretty sure that's more thought than went into Tron: Legacy. There's just so much you could do with the world besides "okay, we need to get light discs and light cycles in there... throw in a scene of gladiatorial combat. Two scenes!"
Like the religious connotations. CLU has this Richard Dawkins reaction to the users, rebelling against Kevin Flynn, something like a Communist country suppressing religion. What if instead of a cliched resistance, there's an underground of Flynn worshippers? Sam could go to them for help instead of another lame take on the Star Wars cantina. They could even say he's a false prophet, things could get dangerous that way. Or what if there's a cult still dedicated to the MCP, like how Hitler tried to bring back pagan worship in WW2? Or what if CLU still claims to be following Flynn's will, but really he has him locked up in the back? That could be an okay metaphor for fundamentalism. I'm not asking for The Matrix Reloaded here, just The Matrix.
In fact, why is Sam Flynn even necessary? Why can't the heroes just be Kevin Flynn and Quorra, reacting to CLU's coup? Their backstories and characterization are a lot more interesting than any of Sam's baggage. Especially since the story can't really think of anything to do with Sam, who's the damn protagonist. At one point, he meets CLU and you'd think, given the later revelations about how they relate to each other, there'd be all this business boiling under the surface. But CLU just says "you suck" and puts him back into gladiatorial combat like he's just Joe Schmuck off the street.
Irredeemable
Sometimes, I just don't know what to make of a story. This is pretty much one of the cases. The premise is that Superman... sorry, the Plutonian... is Earth's greatest hero, but he snaps and becomes Earth's greatest villain (the first issue is pretty much just him killing Batman and Batman's family, including his infant son. COMICS AREN'T JUST FOR KIDS ANYMORE). So maybe that appeals to you, finding out what could've caused Superman... really, do I have to call him the Plutonian, he's Superman?... to crack. And the answer is, what didn't?
I'm serious. It's like writer Mark Waid made a list of everything that could drive a hero to villainy and just had it all happen to the Plutonian. It gets comical after a while, trying to figure out whether each new Freudian excuse happened before he accidentally gave his brother brain damage or after he had the world's worst break-up. Then it gets to the point where you wonder why he even became a superhero when his life sucked so much.
What makes it worse is that the Plutonian isn't that dramatically compelling a character. Okay, so he can and does commit any atrocity imaginable, down to keeping a sex slave, but he also just wants things to go back to the way they were... so which is it? Has he completely flipped his lid or is he just lashing out after being pushed too far? If he truly sees mankind as a bunch of jag-offs who deserve to be murdered however he sees fit, why on Earth would he want to go back to protecting them? It gets to the point where he's more reminiscent of Superboy Prime than Superman, which is never the mark of a good character.
One specific episode I should highlight. We're told Plutonian is in a relationship with a reporter, who is also in a love triangle with his Clark Kent alter-ego. So he tells her the truth, and she flips out and reveals his identity to her co-workers, who immediately try to broadcast his identity over the airwaves. Now, do I even need to get into this, or can you see the problems here?
First off, we're given no indication that Lois Lane... c'mon, she is... is enough of a psycho to do this (although it is believable that Plutonian is screwed up enough to build a relationship with someone like that). But otherwise, she appears completely rational, and in-story she's a big-time reporter... someone you'd think would be better than this. But okay, heat of the moment, people have done worse things.
That doesn't excuse the rest of the Daily Planet. They see Lois saying Clark Kent is Superman and see Clark wearing a Superman suit under his clothes... and that's it? They're just going to publish that? They don't want to spend even one minute fact-checking, or thinking out the consequences of revealing a beloved superhero's secret identity? What if they're wrong? Now Clark Kent is suddenly the target of anyone who's pissed off at Superman. And if they're right? Well, since Clark is invincible, they'd have to strike at the people he cares about, like his friends and... yeah.
It's just ludicrous, and it's all in service of a scene that I can't even get the make on. Is it supposed to be funny? Satiric? Dramatic? It's too ludicrous to be taken seriously, but there isn't really a joke. "Ha ha, the concept of Superman is unworkable in the real world"? Yeah, kinda figured that out when his secret identity was a pair of glasses.
(Another "subversion" of Superman canon is that the story's Lex Luthor equivalent is trying to kill the Plutonian because he's gay for him. That's not even trying. And it means that the only gay character thus far is a psychotic villain.)
And that takes us to the other big weird problem with book. You'd think it would just be a miniseries, revealing why the Plutonian went bad, but no, it's a continuing series, focusing on the attempts of the Justice League to stop the Plutonian. What's weird is... this League has no real character. They're just a bunch of expies of the JLA, which would be fine if they were just background to the story of the Plutonian going rogue, but apparently we're actually meant to care about these people who have no personalities outside of "Not Hawkman." There's this whole soap opera which has no impact whatsoever because we're never introduced to any of these characters. It's just "Marcy is cheating on Jeff! John-boy died!"
And while I'm not advocating tokenism, it's a bit weird that in recreating the Justice League, wherein Waid could make them as diverse as he wanted, there are two female characters and no equivalent of Wonder Woman. There's an Asian woman, who is shoved into the background most of the time, and a Black Canary expy who is mostly prominent because she cheated on her husband with the Plutonian. Also, the black character is literally just a parody of Black Lightning, a la Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law. He spends all his time complaining about being a black man with electrical powers because of the comparison to Black Lightning. How does that even make sense? Do DC comics exist in the Irredeemable universe? Then wouldn't the Plutonian and Not!Hawkman (you can tell I did my research here, can't you?) be dodging the same accusations? Because Superman is a much bigger pop culture fixture than Black Lightning. I've got to imagine most of the general public's reaction to a black superhero with lightning powers would be "A black superhero with lightning powers!" not "Hey, he's just like Black Lightning?"
And coming around to the last criticism, which is admittedly more of circumstances surrounding the comic than the comic itself, a big part of the Plutonian's turn is that he's had enough of humanity being ungracious of his help. Okay, there are points to be made there, I'm sure if superheroes were real, a lot of people would end up taking them for granted, man's inhumanity to man, all that jazz. There's even some good sociopolitical connotations -- you could have the Plutonian represent Obama, Bush, America, whatever, there are a lot of ways you could go with "unappreciated hero goes berserk." Hell, the Fox News/Daily Bugle parallels alone could be a lot of fun.
Which is why it's a bit weird that Waid chooses to go with "comic book writer vs. comic book audience." I mean it, it's a pretty inescapable subtext. At one point, the Plutonian rants that he's "shown them wonders," and the big breaking point for the Plutonian comes about because a scientist keeps making aggravating blog posts about the Plutonian until his not-Kryptonianness agrees to let him experiment on some advanced alien technology, leading to disaster. (So, by extension, is the lesson here that Promoted Fanboys lead to disaster, Mark Waid?) And while it may be satisfying to write a superhero going apeshit on a world of comic book fans, that kinda belies the obvious point that while it may be ungracious to not appreciate people who are saving your lives, it's par for the course to not appreciate people who are being paid to do their job writing comics.
Especially if the comics kinda suck.
You know, I like to think I'm open to criticism, but when I get a comment on my recent Sam/Quorra fics saying they're out of character, I'll be honest with you... my first thought is "What character?" That's kinda my review in a nutshell. (And c'mon people, I'm writing her too naive? Jules Verne, guys.)
It's not that the movie is the worst thing ever, I think that's just nerd culture doing its thing, combining unrealistic expectations with an admittedly mediocre product. I would rather watch Michael Sheen hump his cane for two hours than one minute of Skids and Mudflap from Transformers 2, or anyone in The Last Airbender. In fact, the movie actually has plenty of legitimately good ideas. The "Kevin Flynn's son and his daddy issues" is so predictable it hurts, but the idea of giving him this Cain and Abel relationship with CLU is a good one. But the execution... it just sucks, and the rollicking adventure we could have just never manages to pull itself out of this mire of ineptness.
Just for instance, take Sam's arrival in Tron City. He shows up at a digital recreation of Flynn's Arcade (for some reason, the portal into Tron City is right in downtown, but the portal out is miles away in this huge ornate cathedral type place). Given later revelations, you'd think someone would be waiting for him there. There isn't, he's just coincidentally picked up by the bad guys, who think he's a program. They take him to fight in gladiatorial combat, to the death, natch. Now, why is there gladiatorial combat? We know that CLU is basically Kevin Flynn's idealism run amok, trying to create the perfect system... so why would that involve people fighting to the death? Does Flynn's perfect world feature fun and games, and has CLU twisted that into gladiatorial combat? Is he running them as a screw-you to Flynn? Is it bread and circuses? If so, why? He already apparently has complete control over the place. There's no explanation, so you gotta think he's just doing it because he's an evil overlord.
For another cheap plug, when I wrote my first Tron fic, it was originally going to be a PWP, but as I wrote it, I decided that Sam would have to be pretty caddish to take advantage of Quorra the way I'd characterized her. I'm pretty sure that's more thought than went into Tron: Legacy. There's just so much you could do with the world besides "okay, we need to get light discs and light cycles in there... throw in a scene of gladiatorial combat. Two scenes!"
Like the religious connotations. CLU has this Richard Dawkins reaction to the users, rebelling against Kevin Flynn, something like a Communist country suppressing religion. What if instead of a cliched resistance, there's an underground of Flynn worshippers? Sam could go to them for help instead of another lame take on the Star Wars cantina. They could even say he's a false prophet, things could get dangerous that way. Or what if there's a cult still dedicated to the MCP, like how Hitler tried to bring back pagan worship in WW2? Or what if CLU still claims to be following Flynn's will, but really he has him locked up in the back? That could be an okay metaphor for fundamentalism. I'm not asking for The Matrix Reloaded here, just The Matrix.
In fact, why is Sam Flynn even necessary? Why can't the heroes just be Kevin Flynn and Quorra, reacting to CLU's coup? Their backstories and characterization are a lot more interesting than any of Sam's baggage. Especially since the story can't really think of anything to do with Sam, who's the damn protagonist. At one point, he meets CLU and you'd think, given the later revelations about how they relate to each other, there'd be all this business boiling under the surface. But CLU just says "you suck" and puts him back into gladiatorial combat like he's just Joe Schmuck off the street.
Irredeemable
Sometimes, I just don't know what to make of a story. This is pretty much one of the cases. The premise is that Superman... sorry, the Plutonian... is Earth's greatest hero, but he snaps and becomes Earth's greatest villain (the first issue is pretty much just him killing Batman and Batman's family, including his infant son. COMICS AREN'T JUST FOR KIDS ANYMORE). So maybe that appeals to you, finding out what could've caused Superman... really, do I have to call him the Plutonian, he's Superman?... to crack. And the answer is, what didn't?
I'm serious. It's like writer Mark Waid made a list of everything that could drive a hero to villainy and just had it all happen to the Plutonian. It gets comical after a while, trying to figure out whether each new Freudian excuse happened before he accidentally gave his brother brain damage or after he had the world's worst break-up. Then it gets to the point where you wonder why he even became a superhero when his life sucked so much.
What makes it worse is that the Plutonian isn't that dramatically compelling a character. Okay, so he can and does commit any atrocity imaginable, down to keeping a sex slave, but he also just wants things to go back to the way they were... so which is it? Has he completely flipped his lid or is he just lashing out after being pushed too far? If he truly sees mankind as a bunch of jag-offs who deserve to be murdered however he sees fit, why on Earth would he want to go back to protecting them? It gets to the point where he's more reminiscent of Superboy Prime than Superman, which is never the mark of a good character.
One specific episode I should highlight. We're told Plutonian is in a relationship with a reporter, who is also in a love triangle with his Clark Kent alter-ego. So he tells her the truth, and she flips out and reveals his identity to her co-workers, who immediately try to broadcast his identity over the airwaves. Now, do I even need to get into this, or can you see the problems here?
First off, we're given no indication that Lois Lane... c'mon, she is... is enough of a psycho to do this (although it is believable that Plutonian is screwed up enough to build a relationship with someone like that). But otherwise, she appears completely rational, and in-story she's a big-time reporter... someone you'd think would be better than this. But okay, heat of the moment, people have done worse things.
That doesn't excuse the rest of the Daily Planet. They see Lois saying Clark Kent is Superman and see Clark wearing a Superman suit under his clothes... and that's it? They're just going to publish that? They don't want to spend even one minute fact-checking, or thinking out the consequences of revealing a beloved superhero's secret identity? What if they're wrong? Now Clark Kent is suddenly the target of anyone who's pissed off at Superman. And if they're right? Well, since Clark is invincible, they'd have to strike at the people he cares about, like his friends and... yeah.
It's just ludicrous, and it's all in service of a scene that I can't even get the make on. Is it supposed to be funny? Satiric? Dramatic? It's too ludicrous to be taken seriously, but there isn't really a joke. "Ha ha, the concept of Superman is unworkable in the real world"? Yeah, kinda figured that out when his secret identity was a pair of glasses.
(Another "subversion" of Superman canon is that the story's Lex Luthor equivalent is trying to kill the Plutonian because he's gay for him. That's not even trying. And it means that the only gay character thus far is a psychotic villain.)
And that takes us to the other big weird problem with book. You'd think it would just be a miniseries, revealing why the Plutonian went bad, but no, it's a continuing series, focusing on the attempts of the Justice League to stop the Plutonian. What's weird is... this League has no real character. They're just a bunch of expies of the JLA, which would be fine if they were just background to the story of the Plutonian going rogue, but apparently we're actually meant to care about these people who have no personalities outside of "Not Hawkman." There's this whole soap opera which has no impact whatsoever because we're never introduced to any of these characters. It's just "Marcy is cheating on Jeff! John-boy died!"
And while I'm not advocating tokenism, it's a bit weird that in recreating the Justice League, wherein Waid could make them as diverse as he wanted, there are two female characters and no equivalent of Wonder Woman. There's an Asian woman, who is shoved into the background most of the time, and a Black Canary expy who is mostly prominent because she cheated on her husband with the Plutonian. Also, the black character is literally just a parody of Black Lightning, a la Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law. He spends all his time complaining about being a black man with electrical powers because of the comparison to Black Lightning. How does that even make sense? Do DC comics exist in the Irredeemable universe? Then wouldn't the Plutonian and Not!Hawkman (you can tell I did my research here, can't you?) be dodging the same accusations? Because Superman is a much bigger pop culture fixture than Black Lightning. I've got to imagine most of the general public's reaction to a black superhero with lightning powers would be "A black superhero with lightning powers!" not "Hey, he's just like Black Lightning?"
And coming around to the last criticism, which is admittedly more of circumstances surrounding the comic than the comic itself, a big part of the Plutonian's turn is that he's had enough of humanity being ungracious of his help. Okay, there are points to be made there, I'm sure if superheroes were real, a lot of people would end up taking them for granted, man's inhumanity to man, all that jazz. There's even some good sociopolitical connotations -- you could have the Plutonian represent Obama, Bush, America, whatever, there are a lot of ways you could go with "unappreciated hero goes berserk." Hell, the Fox News/Daily Bugle parallels alone could be a lot of fun.
Which is why it's a bit weird that Waid chooses to go with "comic book writer vs. comic book audience." I mean it, it's a pretty inescapable subtext. At one point, the Plutonian rants that he's "shown them wonders," and the big breaking point for the Plutonian comes about because a scientist keeps making aggravating blog posts about the Plutonian until his not-Kryptonianness agrees to let him experiment on some advanced alien technology, leading to disaster. (So, by extension, is the lesson here that Promoted Fanboys lead to disaster, Mark Waid?) And while it may be satisfying to write a superhero going apeshit on a world of comic book fans, that kinda belies the obvious point that while it may be ungracious to not appreciate people who are saving your lives, it's par for the course to not appreciate people who are being paid to do their job writing comics.
Especially if the comics kinda suck.
