Like every other woman who went through school with frizzy hair and the label of “the smart girl,” I identify strongly with the character of Hermione Granger. I have no illusions about how clichéd this is. I know it’s about as original as every non-Republican professional woman with glasses believing herself to be the one real-life Liz Lemon (I had this moment about 10,000 times while reading Bossypants).

Cliché or not, Hermione is still often my touchstone in the Harry Potter books and films. Another aspect of this connection is that, at every point when I’ve read the books or watched the movies, I have always been older than Hermione. I think a lot of older Potter fans have a feeling of pride when we see how well the three actors have grown up. I feel the same way about Hermione’s character. Even though I see parts of myself in her, I also have a sense of big-sister pride at the fact that she is stronger and more courageous than I have ever been.

And man-oh-man, does Deathly Hallows Part 2 give me plenty to be proud of.

First of all, I believe that DH2 is fantastically successful as an adaptation and, more importantly, a film. I can’t say yet whether it’s the best of the series, but I think it may be. I also think it has a chance at being the only one of the movies whose success as a film exceeds the book’s success as a novel. It’s much, much too early to say, though.

But I want to talk about the two Hermione moments in the film that made me love my girl even more.

1. Hermione jumps on a dragon.

Pretty self-explanatory. The Gringotts scene may be the best action sequence in the whole series. It combines whimsical effects (the magical reproduction of Bellatrix’s treasure), plot-driven suspense (they have to get that horcrux), our three leads in danger, and a daring escape via dragon flight. I also loved the quick nod to Hermione’s compassion for enslaved magical creatures (mostly left out of the films) with the pained look she gives upon seeing the tortured dragon.

When escape seems impossible, Harry and Ron look to Hermione for a plan. She says she has one, but that it’s “crazy.”

She then proceeds to leap onto the back of a crazed, fire-breathing dragon.

There’s a concept that comes up over and over in many feminist analyses of pop culture: the idea of agency. In looking at agency in this context, scholars examine whether female characters actively participate in the world—that is, whether they initiate behaviors and actions that have tangible results. A lot of times, the underlying passivity of female characters is masked by their sassy personality, but when you examine their behavior, they actually only act in response to the actions of male characters. They don’t initiate.

But my Hermione says “I have an idea” and jumps onto a dragon to save herself, her friends, and—ultimately—the world. Beej will tell you that a huge, proud grin broke out on my face as I said (quietly, of course) “Good girl!”

2. “I’ll go with you.”

The internet is flooded with lists of tear-worthy moments in DH2, so I won’t list mine, but I will say that this line was the most poignant teary moment for me. Harry tells his two best friends that he is going into the woods to let Voldemort kill him, and Hermione’s immediate response is to offer a teary—but determined—“I’ll go with you.”

Now, this is different from all the other times that Hermione has insisted on coming along because, usually, Harry needs her smarts and her spells to help navigate the situation. But this time, there isn’t anything for Hermione to help with. There’s no hope for a daring last-minute escape, no chance of somehow defeating Voldemort. She knows that Harry’s death is necessary and that she’s not going to talk him out of it. So when she says, “I’ll go with you,” she’s just a young woman who is willing to die to keep her best friend from dying alone. Not to stop him from dying, mind you, but just to stand by his side as she always has.

I’m sure there are other moments in pop culture that portray such remarkable friendship, but they are certainly rare. It’s also remarkable that the same character who breaks traditional feminine roles by leaping onto a dragon also embodies the very best of that traditional role with her nurturing selflessness.

Of course, Hermione’s devotion to Harry brings up one question for some fans: Why does she end up with Ron instead? I always kind of went with the flow on the central romance, and I’m a little ambivalent about the message Rowling sends about love and relationships. On the one hand, it does annoy me a bit that she reinforces the “type of person you’d be best friends with” vs. “type of person you should fall in love with” dichotomy. Too often in pop culture, these are presented as opposing personality types when, I would think, they should at least be very closely related. Beej and I were friends for two years before we started dating.

On the other hand, I love that Rowling portrays a long-term, loving friendship between a young man and young woman. My oldest, most loyal friend is male, and we’ve each stood by the other during plenty of hard times (not so difficult as Harry and Hermione’s, but difficult nonetheless). Plus, Hermione and Ron are very dear friends, after all. It’s not as though she suddenly ends up with Draco, which would happen in plenty of romantic comedies with the “if you love that jerk enough, he’ll stop being a jerk” plot. (By the way, this romantic-pairings tangent was inspired by this lovely post that I ran across tonight).

Like everyone else who has followed the series for years, I feel a little sad that the main avenues for the stories are finished. What a tremendous gift it’s been, though, to see it through with these characters who have simultaneously been friends, reflections of ourselves, and heroes we can aspire to emulate. Hermione is far from the only unforgettable character of Harry Potter, but I sure am glad that she’s been around for me and that she’ll be waiting for the next generation of book-smart girls and boys who dream of saving the world.

Which moments in the Harry Potter series (novels or films) have stuck with you?

Thank you for reading Dragons Flights and Sacrifice: A Tribute to Hermione Granger, a post from Professor Beej.

1. Does what you’re looking at have a Superlaser?

While big enough to house their own civilizations, space stations the size of moons are really only there to be a platforms for world destroying super lasers. So if the thing in front of you has one, you’re looking at a space station. What you are looking for is a massive lens, known as the eye, with 8-12 tributary lasers, built around a synthetic focusing crystal. Anything shy of that and you aren’t looking at a full blown Death Star.

2. What’s in the trenches?

Yes, moons often have long deep trenches and so do death stars. The primary difference is that the Death Star’s trenches will form straight concentric circles parallel with the equator. Moon trenches will be more sporadic like Earth’s Grand Canyon and are usually naturally formed from erosion or plate tectonics. You can also look inside the trenches. A moon will just have rocky or icy formations, whereas a space station will have landing bays, drive thrusters, sensor arrays, tractor beam systems and of course, mind-blowingly undefended exhaust ports.

3. Has that “moon” always been there?

If you are in a familiar area of space when you encounter the astral body in question, and you could have sworn there wasn’t a moon there before, then you are probably looking at a space station. Moons orbit planets in regular patterns defined by their relative mass and inertial trajectory. Space stations like the Death Star have ion engines that convert reactor power into thrust and they can go as they please.

4. Is there life on that mystery object?

There is a big debate about how many people live on a Death Star. We assume it takes at least 1 million workers, clones, and aliens just to keep it operational, and this is the number reported by the rebel alliance after the battle of Yavin. The Empire says that there were closer to 800 million at the time, and that the rebels’ conservative estimate was just a way to minimize the atrocity of what they had done. There’s some debate as to whether or not moons like Jupiter’s Europa can harbor simple single-celled life, but either way, most moons are definitely not inhabitable by people. So if you see people, chances are they’re actually living on a space station.

5. Are there thermal exhaust ports you could shoot a proton torpedo down?

This is actually a trick question. If the answer is yes, then you are looking at a first generation Death Star, and you know exactly how to blow it out of orbit. If you don’t see thermal exhaust ports, you’re not out of the woods yet, though, as this fatal design flaw was fixed in the second Death Star. Moons may also vent thermal heat into space through holes in the crust–but those holes are called volcanoes.

6. Did you come out of hyperspace at a planet only to find an asteroid field that’s not supposed to be there?

If so, then I am sorry to say your home planet was blown up by a Death Star type space station and its giant Superlaser. You should probably get the hell out of there as fast as possible because the perpetrators could still be waiting in ambush.

7. What’s on the surface?

The surface of a moon has a lot of irregular geological formations, including: craters, Maria (sloidified lave formations), highlands (typically igneous rock), etc. The surface of a space station will usually resemble a bustling metropolis, with lots of buildings. Scattered among these buildings are literally thousands of laser and ion cannons, as well as anywhere between 600 and 1,000 tractor beam projectors.

8. Gravity or Tractor Beam?

If your space craft experiences a slight attraction caused simply by gravity then it is a moon. If you are inescapably drawn in by a shaft of blue light, then you are stuck in a tractor beam and about to see in person the harsh realities of space station life.

9. Are you in possession of stolen plans?

Space stations are incredibly complex, difficult to build and a monument to modern technology, knowhow and ingenuity. The Original Death Star took nearly 17 years to build, once the plans were in place. Moons are the result of immense astrological events; they take no planning and thus have no plans. If you or someone in your spaceship is in possession of stolen plans for the thing you are looking at, it is most definitely a space station.

10. What does the force tell you?

The easiest way to tell if “that’s a space station or a moon” is to always travel with a Jedi Knight. The first time the Death Star was discovered, Obi Wan saw right through the Imperial tricks proclaiming, “That’s no moon: It’s a space station.” Don’t have a resident Jedi Knight on board? Then you’d better revert back to steps 1 through 9 on the list and pray that you are looking at a moon, because going up against the Death Star without Jedi support is suicide!

Happy Birthday Star Wars!  May the Fourth be with you!

About the Author: When he’s not out skiing the Utah powder, Greg Buckskin is a writer and blogger for Comcast.USDirect.com – home to Comcast Cable Deals.

Thank you for reading [Guest Post]: "That’s no moon: It’s a space station!" 10 Ways to Tell the Difference, a post from Professor Beej.

It’s probably a personal quirk, but the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men is one of my favorite movies. I’m sure there are plenty of people who would share that opinion with me, but for the most part, it’s not the typical moviegoer’s cup of tea (or Coke, as it were). However, beyond the frighteningly precise violence that turns off the faint of heart, there’s a compelling story with vivid characters and an immaculate standard for subtlety and talent.

When I saw True Grit last weekend, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Having read the book and seen the original movie, I knew it couldn’t be a nonstop stream of austere brutality and elaborate violence. I hoped for the high production standards I’ve come to admire in the Coen brothers’ work, but True Grit is the epitome of the classic Western. I didn’t know what they could possibly do to it that would top John Wayne’s performance, provide a new perspective, improve the story, or make it better in any other way. And that’s why I’m not the Coen brothers.

An Overview of the Plot & Main Characters

If you’re unfamiliar with True Grit, the story is about a young girl named Mattie Ross whose father is shot by a backstabbing criminal called Tom Chaney. Her mother doesn’t have the initiative to try to catch the killer, so fourteen-year-old Mattie sets off to find someone who can help her apprehend Chaney and either kill him or bring him to justice. She chooses Marshall “Rooster” Cogburn, but they are joined by LaBoeuf, a ranger who wants Chaney caught and brought back to Texas for crimes committed there. The three of them are divided by different motivators, but they set out to find Chaney together. While trying to achieve their goal, they encounter more than they bargained for and must rely on each other to survive.

Remaking a Classic: The Big Decisions

It takes a lot of moxie to give a classic movie a makeover, but the Coen brothers took on the challenge with great success and aplomb. Based on my observations and a little comparison between the original movie and the Coen brothers remake, I identified a few major changes that give this modern version its own identity.

Starting with the movie trailers, they’re obviously different films – and yet they’re eerily similar, with characters dressing the same way and delivering the same lines. The original trailer is lighthearted and informs viewers that the movie is a “high adventure” Western and that it’s a great comedy, highlighting amusing scenes and type-casting the actors. Watching it, I got strong stereotypical vibes from each character, yet the trailer succeeded in drawing an audience. The Coen brothers’ trailer is a different animal, but it includes one of the scenes from the original trailer, which makes for an interesting comparison. The modern True Grit is – well, grittier – and it shows short clips from nearly every violent scene in the film. This trailer doesn’t advertise a heartwarming film, but it does promise to deliver on more action and violence, darker undertones, and impeccable casting.

At first glance, none of the characters seem all that different from the original cast. However, as the movie progresses, it becomes obvious that the Coen brothers had a specific agenda and a carefully hand-picked cast to help them bring it to life. Every actor is deliberately delivering the essence of the characters described by Charles Portis in his original rendering of True Grit as a short book.

For example, although Mattie still exhibits a healthy amount of naiveté in the modern version, she loses much of the childishness that makes the original True Grit movie more overtly comical. Mattie is humorous in the remake, but it’s easier to take her more seriously and to absorb the deeper messages conveyed through the story. She’s not as cute or immediately likeable as the original Mattie, but that only adds to her charm and effectiveness.

LaBoeuf is played by Matt Damon in the modern True Grit, which seems like an odd choice until the movie has progressed enough to show that he’s the perfect choice for the character. It’s not a role I would have typecast him for, but he breaks out of his stereotypical characters to play LaBoeuf masterfully. He even manages to retain vestiges of the typical Matt Damon role as he plays LaBoeuf, enhancing the slight “buffoon who takes himself too seriously” vibe that comes across in the book.

Once the plot progresses to the point where Chaney enters the action, it’s obvious that the character’s function is to help Mattie realize that a criminal can’t be counted on to be the unstoppable force described by others or built in one’s own mind. Chaney is a big disappointment, an unintelligent and sniveling creature who severely underestimates Mattie, Cogburn, and even LaBoeuf. The way Chaney is cast in the Coen brothers’ version highlights an important angle of the story that was more difficult to pick up in the original movie.

Peeling Off the Varnish

If you’ve read or seen True Grit, you know how ridiculous it is for me to say that the role of Cogburn is unvarnished in the Coen brothers’ version. “Rooster” is already a roughly hewn character, and that’s putting it mildly. Cogburn does as he pleases, would rather ask forgiveness than permission, and sees himself as a radically independent man, so it’s hard to strip any varnish off of that kind of character.

There’s also the issue of casting Jeff Bridges as Cogburn. When I first heard that he would be playing the character, all I could think of was “The Dude” from The Big Lebowski. I just couldn’t imagine Bridges playing this role, even though The Big Lebowski was a Coen brothers film. I foresaw “The Dude” rocking a cowboy hat and inviting everyone to go bowling after the next hanging in the town square – a total disaster. However, the brothers Coen managed to show me that their version of Cogburn was masterfully conceived and executed.

In the original movie, Cogburn is comically gruff, yet demonstrates obvious protective affection for the young girl who’s asking him for help. He openly discredits her and her request because of her young age, but he tells her that he’ll give her dinner. In the remake, there’s no such kindness being demonstrated by Cogburn – he’s merely a tough character who doesn’t yield to her first request. There’s a similar instance in the original film where Cogburn says of Mattie, “She reminds me of me.” This comes across much more subtly in the Coen brothers version, eliminating that line entirely and showing this important development to the audience rather than telling it aloud. Somehow, this has the effect of making the relationship between Cogburn and Mattie appear deeper and more meaningful in the modern version.

In general, the entire story loses its veneer and presents itself to the audience in a “take me as I am” attitude. This is deliberate, of course, but the movie makes no apologies for appearing to be a rougher version of the shiny original. By showing the human condition at its best and worst, without making excuses or altering reality, the Coen brothers bring the essence of True Grit to the surface. The characters disappoint, double-cross, and physically hurt each other with raw emotions and real violence, but this brings the spectacular old story to life in a more vibrant and convincing way. This is definitely a remake that’s worth seeing at least once.

Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education where she’s been researching both the highest paying jobs and the lowest paying jobs on the market. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

Thank you for reading Guest Post – The Modern True Grit: Another Coen Brothers Masterpiece, a post from Professor Beej.

For the first time in years, Inception presents theater-goers with a truly intelligent film that requires participation on their parts to enjoy.  Hearkening back to Memento, Christopher Nolan’s previous brain-buster, Inception rewards active viewers while confounding those who want nothing more than a two and a half hours of hollow special effects.

Retreading Solid Ground

Inception is, at its core, about the thin line that separates reality from fantasy.  While that is a common theme for a lot of literature, both textual and visual, Inception reminds me most strikingly of two previous movies: The Matrix and Vanilla Sky.

In neither case is the similarity a bad thing, either.  In as much as Avatar was this decade’s Lord of the Rings-esque jump forward in special effects, Inception once again makes viewers wonder just what makes the reality we perceive real at all.

The film’s idea of extraction (and its reciprocal inception, for which the movie is titled) is very much like Vanilla Sky’s lucid dreams, where the ability to distinguish between a preset, controlled fantasy and reality becomes next to impossible.  In a nod to the road The Matrix paved in unnecessary sequels, viewers are asked time and again whether or not what they are seeing is real, and if knowing the truth is necessary or even possible.

And while that may sound like you’ve seen what Inception brings to the table before, think again.  Even though we’re familiar with the tropes of the genre—existential sci-fi thriller is a genre now?—Inception packages them with a compelling cast and interesting heist-movie plot that succeeds at doing something new.

Even though Vanilla Sky makes a big deal about leaping off a building, when seeing it in Inception, its new and different.  Even though The Matrix blurs what we consider real by giving us two equally convincing worlds and making us choose which to exist in (blue pill/red pill), Inception embeds multiple worlds within themselves until there is no clear way to discern where one ends and another begins.

And that’s a good thing.

The film does not try to shove something unnecessary down audiences’ throats; Nolan and his cast evolve a proven genre into its next level.  Inception doesn’t try to be anything new and off-the-cuff.  It tries (and succeeds!) at being very good at something we already know we like.  The Matrix became a phenomenon for a reason, despite its numerous criticisms and admittedly surface-level examination of its themes; it laid the groundwork for people—the mainstream, even—to walk out of the theater and question the very foundations of what they understood to be real and true.

Instead of trying to bury its predecessors by ignoring their achievements, Inception respects them by building on what they did and expanding the genre’s breadth and scope.

Not All Roses, Though

Even though Inception will deservedly get a few Oscar nominations, the movie is not without fault.  While the few negative reviews I’ve read discuss the film being too esoteric, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.  What I do think are bad things, however, are a convoluted plot that offers no reiteration of ideas for understanding and characters who—though I care about them—left no lasting impression on me, not even enough to remember their names.

I cannot argue the plot is intelligent.  The movie is a very high-concept thriller where much explanation and exposition must be fed to the audience.  Nolan succeeds at this, with only a few scenes (Leo and Michael Cain’s first one together, for example) seeming a little too forced.  Because of the nature of this film’s particular high-concept plot, there is little room for reiteration.  If you miss information the first time, you will likely be given no explanation for it showing up again later on.

Inception runs just under two and a half hours, and I am a notorious movie theater soda drinker.  So I had to leave the theater for maybe a quarter of a scene, but my wife was still in there, fully able to explain anything I missed to me.  Or she should have been.  Unfortunately in the time it took me to run across the hall and get back to my seat, we both missed the importance of playing music to the dreamers.  The music plays a large part later on in the film, and though I partially get what it was doing, we both missed the explanation for it, and it was never offered again.

In a movie that is based so entirely on a fully engaged, thinking audience, not working a few more lines of reiteration for new concepts seems a little sloppy.

And then there are the characters. At its heart, Inception is about the melding of rational thought and emotion.  And it worked.  The plot was captivating and thought-inciting, and the characters very nearly made me cry at a couple of points.  But I still can’t remember their names.  Sure, I remember Leo was Cobb, his wife was Moll (Mal?), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt was Arthur, but aside from that, the rest of the Inception cast is nameless.

For a movie that is so based in character attachment, I find that funny.  I should remember the ensemble’s names because I cared about what happened to them.  I didn’t want to see them shot or maimed or lost in limbo forever.  I still don’t.  And I won’t when I see it again on DVD.  But for the life of me I can’t remember their names without pulling out my iPhone and checking the IMDB app.

In the end, these are minor grips.  I got the film’s full effect, with or without knowing their names or understanding why classical music must be played through headphones.  It just feels strange that for a movie with such high production standards, there could be such sloppy nitpicks.

Go See It Now.

If you haven’t already seen Inception, I urge you to.  Catch a matinee, if you have to.  Just see it.

And if you were trying to decide between IMAX or a normal theater, definitely pick the smaller screen.  Why?  Because even though the movie is visually spectacular, the narrative is even more so.  Being distracted by buildings and cities rolling in on themselves can only dilute a story this intricate.  Much of the movie will be lost if viewers pay more attention to zero-gravity fight scenes than they do the subconscious prison that Cobb has built for his memories.

So take an evening, clear your head, and then go check out Inception.  It’s not as heavy and serious as The Dark Knight, but it’s just as powerful in its own manner.  It’s not often when a movie makes me think this hard about it days after watching it, and for that, I give Inception my highest recommendation.

Thank you for reading Christopher Nolan’s “Inception”: This Decade’s Existential Benchmark, a post from Professor Beej.

Today’s post is brought to you by Clint Alley, a digital archivist, history teacher, genealogist, catfish enthusiast, and author of the maternally-acclaimed blog Clint Thoughts.

When I was seven, my Aunt Pam gave a copy of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves to my brother and me for Christmas.  From that moment on, I have been hooked on the legend of Robin Hood.  The story of Robin Hood embodies every boy’s dream life: living wild in the woods, hiding out in tree houses, drinking from creeks, fighting bad guys, and always proving to be the best shot around.

Despite what the critics say (and how disturbingly midwestern Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood sounded), Prince of Thieves has always been and remains one of my favorite movies.  That movie did a lot to pique my interest in history at a young age, and I daresay it may have even fostered my preoccupation with guerrilla warfare.  Two decades and two history degrees later, I found myself drawn to see Hollywood’s newest version of the ancient tale.  Here’s what I thought.

Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe’s latest collaboration, Robin Hood, is a tale told in true Scott fashion.  The scenery and costumes are breathtaking, displaying the meticulous attention to detail that has come to define Scott’s historical films.  The weapons and armor, homes and churches, even the methods of farming used in the film appear to be true-to-form for early-thirteenth-century England.  But, like Gladiator andKingdom of Heaven, Scott still does not seem interested in accurately portraying what the of the ancient people in his films really would have thought.

What Made Me Merry

I liked that the backdrop for the film was, from beginning to end, very rugged.  Even in scenes showing how the nobility of the time lived, things are still grimy and dirty; people are grimy and dirty are always surrounded by animals, floors are covered with reeds, baths are taken only on special occasions, and everything revolves around the planting and harvesting of crops.  Before I saw the film, I read that the writer’s strike had allowed the set of the movie to spend about a year growing into the natural surroundings, giving it that overgrown appearance that lends itself very nicely to portrayals of people living off the land.  Those months were worth the wait as far as scenery goes.

Likewise, the presence of music–very catchy, earthy, foot-stomping music–permeated the film.  As a fitting homage to the medieval minstrels who spread the first tales of Robin Hood, song and dance are never more than a few scenes away throughout the movie.  And far from the sophisticated, operatic, high-brow poetry that usually passes as the songs of minstrels in other medieval films, the music of the minstrels inRobin Hood is rowdy, robust, and folksy.  It is more akin to modern country or bluegrass music than the stuffy classical music of other Hollywood minstrels, as well it should; it only makes sense that the music of the common people would have lent itself more easily to dancing and partying than to quiet reflection and thoughts of gallantry, as is so often seen in Robin Hood movies.

Another thing I liked about Robin Hood was its realistic portrayal of historical figures.  In most retellings of the legend of Robin Hood, King Richard is shown as a fair and jolly monarch, a man whose every move was dictated by chivalry and piety; a good-looking, tall man with a kingly bearing and an irresistible good humor.  While most historians agree that Richard was, indeed, a tall, muscular man who exuded power, he was by no means the very picture of chivalry or fair-play.  The character of Richard in Robin Hood (played by Danny Huston, also known as Colonel William Stryker of X Men Origins: Wolverine fame), is a rough bear of a man who loves to fight and who evokes as much fear from his army as he does respect.  And he is by no means a champion of righteousness.  In addition to the audience learning of Richard’s historical massacre of women and children in the Holy Land, at one point Richard claims to admire Robin’s honesty, but still punishes him for saying defamatory things about the Third Crusade.

Following the conventional Robin Hood storyline, King John (played by Oscar Isaac, who is also remembered for his role as Joseph in 2006′sNativity Story) is portrayed as childish, dishonest, foolish, and generally unequipped to lead.  History will show that John was, indeed, dishonest and that he made some very costly poor decisions.  But one part of history that many Robin Hood aficionados will often overlook in their zeal to make John the quintessential villain is the state of the kingdom he inherited, a point addressed very subtly in the film.  Much ado is always made about John’s excessive taxation and cruel enforcement of the law.  But it was  Richard who had taxed his English possessions to the brink to fund ten years of constant war, leaving his realm in a state of financial distress many years before John took the throne.  When Richard willed his kingdom to John at his death in 1199, he was leaving behind a region already in turmoil.  One of John’s biggest mistakes was to continue taxing his overburdened subjects to pay for his less-popular and ill-fated adventures both at home and abroad.  This crucial link to Richard’s burdens on his kingdom is mentioned at least once in the film when a nobleman refuses to pay John’s taxes based on the fact that he has already given everything he could to Richard.

I also liked that Robin Hood and his men are hardened combat veterans, and very skilled in the ways of guerrilla warfare, as they no doubt would have been in real life at the time.  They carry out forest ambushes with ease and conduct themselves just as naturally on the battlefield as they do in the tavern, as a generation of men who share the common bond of a decade at war would have done.  And, fitting this theme of a violent, unstable world, I appreciate that Robin Hood explained what it really meant to be declared an outlaw.  Being declared an outlaw in Robin Hood’s day was one of the harshest sentences a criminal could receive.  Outlawed persons legally lost his or her status as a human being, and could be killed on sight by anyone.  It was a punishment meant to dehumanize criminals, stripping them of every legal protection and making them akin to wolves or other predators.  Surprisingly, this form of punishment continued to live on in many British possessions until well into the 20th century.  (Ned Kelly, the famous Australian bandit, was declared an outlaw after this fashion).  Small details like this gave the film an air of realism.

And the aerial view of London from the east was further proof that the aesthetics of the movie were very well-researched.  The Tower is painted white, with operational river gates, and St. Paul’s Cathedral can be seen in all of its Gothic glory in the background.

What Vexed Me

However, not every aspect of the film makes quite as much sense as its scenery and music.  Many complex historical issues are boiled down to very basic, sometimes anachronistic, elements.  Real events are taken out of sequence.  Twenty-first century ideas escape from thirteenth-century lips.  Nationalism sits side-by-side with loyalty to the king in a time when nations were the king, and men identified themselves by whom they served rather than by where they were born.

As we saw in the previously-mentioned Scott films, Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, the main characters of Robin Hood claim to fight for the equality of all men, a belief system that Robin Hood’s deceased father has encoded into an unnamed charter which many viewers will assume is the Magna Carta, although further research led me to the conclusion that the charter is actually an earlier, more obscure document known as the Forest Charter.

Robin espouses ideas of personal liberty and constitutional freedom that are very familiar to a twenty-first century audience, but which, by all rights, did not exist in England in the early 1200s.  Indeed, one of the most difficult parts of the entire film to swallow is the fact that Scott’s Robin Hood becomes an outlaw more for his political philosophy than for robbing from the rich to give to the poor.

Similarly, while Cate Blanchett delivers a fine performance as a very headstrong, independent Maid Marian, (and would we expect any less from a Cate Blanchett character?) I was disappointed that Scott fell for the temptation to turn Marian into the medieval housewife-turned-warrior figure that I  suspected she would be from the previews.  I found nothing wrong with Marian being portrayed as headstrong or independent.  Her character was refreshingly self-reliant, as a woman in her situation (with a husband away at war for a decade, a blind father-in-law to care for, and a manor-farm to operate) would have had to be.  She is constantly working, she  stands up to corrupt church officials and she maims would-be rapists in fine fashion.  The audience rightly cheers her on as she does what needs to be done to keep things running in her dangerous, uncertain world. But I felt that the tough-woman persona was taken too far when Marian came riding to the battlefield in one scene wearing full armor, ready to do combat with the enemies of the king.  Here’s why:

Anyone–man or woman– who had never experienced the years of training required for fighting from horseback in full armor as Marian is shown doing, could expect to be very ineffective on a thirteenth-century battlefield–just as effective as an average American would be behind the controls of a Stealth Bomber today.  Since most of the weapons of war at that time relied on great physical force to bash, crush, gouge, and impale, incredible strength–the result of years of intense training–was required of knights and their fighting men.  Most historians agree that the warriors of that time were probably built like professional athletes.  Although she was, indeed, a no-nonsense, no-holds-barred medieval woman, without the necessary training and preparation for war, Marian would not have had what it took to simply gallop onto the battlefield and expect to survive among hundreds of trained enemy fighting men.

The most blatantly wrong of all the film’s inaccuracies, however, was the scene showing the public cremation of a nobleman on a funeral pyre.  In the early thirteenth century it would have been unthinkable to set fire to a Christian body in a public ceremony.  The church at that time taught that to destroy the body of a person on earth was to make it impossible for that person to rise again at Christ’s return.  This is why the worst criminals were often dismembered at execution (à la Braveheart).  Except in cases of extreme epidemic (as would happen decades later during the Black Death), to the people of Robin Hood’s time, the act of destroying a corpse was reserved as a means of condemning a person in the next life as well as in this one, and for an individual to request that his body be burned after death would have been a great blasphemy; the same as denying belief in the Resurrection.   Indeed, it was 1963 before the Catholic church allowed cremation, and many conservative Catholics still look down on the procedure today as unholy or unnatural.

Aside from these errors (many of which I have come to expect when Hollywood does history), my biggest disappointment in the film was the absence of Robin as an outlaw.  I didn’t know until the end of the film that Robin Hood was made as a prequel to the legend.  There are a few brief moments at the end when Robin is shown as we expect to find him; living in the forest, making merry with his men while hiding from the law.  But other than those few moments, Robin lives very much in the open, sometimes posing as a nobleman, sometimes as an archer returning from King Richard’s wars, sometimes as a Magna Carta-wielding champion of individual liberty.

Toeing the Timeline

Regardless of these major flaws in the film’s historicity, I recognize that Scott’s aim was to entertain a modern audience, not make a documentary about the history of nationalism and constitutional law for nit-picky historians.

Overall, I was impressed with the film’s pace.  Robin Hood managed to fit a lot of activity into a small amount of time.  At no point did the story quagmire or become burdensome.  However Robin Hood sacrificed a great deal of historical accuracy to attain that swiftness of story.  In the course of a few weeks during the film, Richard the Lionheart dies, his brother John becomes king, a subversive courtier stirs the barons into rebellion against John, John placates the barons with promises to seal a Magna Carta-like document, the barons unite to confront a French invasion, and John reneges on his pledge to seal the charter based on his belief that God has put him in power.

In reality, these events unfolded over the course of about two decades.  And while the timing of Robin Hood was off in both sequence and closeness of events, I was pleased that Scott took the time to include accurate details such as John’s belief in his divine right to rule, the Barons rebelling, and John’s durressed promise to seal the Magna Carta.  I was also pleased that the film stayed consistent in its seasonal backdrop; King Richard died in the springtime, and all throughout the film’s beginning, it is springtime, from the plowing and planting to the budding trees.

Although I would not recommend it as a source of good history, when the time comes, I will probably own Robin Hood.  It is a very entertaining film, and it shows a different side of the legendary outlaw.  But, without Robin living the outlaw life, the story is just not finished.

Sequel, please?

About the author: Clint Alley watches Jeopardy! with a Rainman-like compulsiveness. One night, while huddled beneath a Gopherwood tree on a cliffside during a hail storm, the ghost of Theodore Roosevelt came to him and told him that he must educate the children of Tennessee, an encounter which led him to earn a bachelor’s degree in history with a minor in journalism and a master’s degree in secondary education in the field of history from the University of North Alabama.  He works with Beej’s wife Jennifer, who owes him a chicken biscuit.

Thank you for reading Movie Review: Robin Hood – A Bull’s Eye or a Near Miss? [Guest Post], a post from Professor Beej.

Then he backed out saying that he wouldn’t be able to do the series justice with as much as he had on his plate, so he preferred to pass on the project until the studio could find someone who could.  That’s entirely understandable; I respect that decision.

It turns out, the studio is now in discussions with Ron Howard for the role.

And I would prefer to never have a Dark Tower movie than have Opie at the helm.

Creative Differences

I disagree almost completely with the creative team being put in charge of the product.

Now, Ron Howard has made some good movies: A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, and Willow come to mind.  But for all those, there have been literary stinkers, too, like Angels and Demons and The DaVinci Code.

Now, Howard isn’t the only one to blame for those fiascos.  The screenwriter gets the blame for that, and lo and behold, Akiva Goldsman gets the nod for The Dark Tower script despite proving through his Dan Brown scripts that he has no idea how to effectively adapt a complex plot for the silver screen.

A Trilogy? What?

Yes, you read that right. A trilogy. For seven books.

It will be impossible for them to fit all seven books into anything but a severely abridged, incomprehensible movie trilogy, which (astonishingly) the team seems to have realized.  Because they are then going to continue the franchise as an ongoing television series to be transitioned into after the movies. Here’s praying for a premium network like HBO to pick it up.  If this goes network, we can forget right now about ever seeing it through to the end.

Moving to TV presents its own set of challenges: pacing the narrative, finding an audience, and getting ratings enough to even finish the run.  Will the same actors then move to the small screen?  The production crew?

And what about the story?  Will Howard and Goldsman squeeze that severely abridged story into 3 movies and then opt for after-hours storytelling in the TV show? Or will this be the second-half of the narrative, just being told in a different medium?

We just don’t know right now.  And as a huge fan of the literature, that frightens me. Normally, I love to see my favorite works adapted into movies, TV, and games.  But this time, I don’t see how the transition is going to do anything but doom the franchise into visual media hell.

Time will tell, though.  Maybe Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman will surprise me. I hope they do. What are your thoughts on this announcement?

Thank you for reading Ron Howard to Direct “The Dark Tower” Movie Trilogy? Bleh., a post from Professor Beej.

I’ll wait while you squee in joyful anticipation.

In all seriousness, though, how cool is that?  And not just in a fanboy way, either.  In a rocking, who-could-make-the-best movie kind of way, this is great news.

Provided, as my wife puts it, that he doesn’t get canned the way he did from the Wonder Woman movie.  I wasn’t privy to that bit of geekdom, but from the way she described the situation, the studio wanted some hot chick in star-spangled panties and Whedon handed them a story.  Enter: creative differences.

So our household is tentatively holding our breaths and not getting our hopes up.  But still, how cool is that?

As I’ve said before, my academic specialty has slowly worked its way into being Joss Whedon.  And I’m not even fully initiated: I haven’t seen Angel, read the Buffy Season 8 comics, seen Buffy Season 7, nor read his comics like Sugarshock, Fray, or The Astonishing X-Men.

To be fair, I tried to get into The Astonishing X-Men years ago and couldn’t do it.  I was a bit younger then, and when I dug in, I expected typical X-Men melodrama and instead got trademark Whedon wit and verbage.  I need to pull out my old back issues and give them a good, close reading.  I have no doubt that my tastes will be more tuned to it.

Joss Whedon is, if nothing else, atypical.  So I can see what turned me off of Astonishing so many years ago turning off the mainstream comicbookmoviegoers, too.  But I don’t think it will.

Why?  Because as the comicbookmovie genre has grown, the A-list titles have all been intelligent.  And if there is one thing that Joss Whedon does, it’s make intelligent moving pictures.

Why did people hate X-Men 3?  Because the characters didn’t act like themselves and the plot didn’t make sense.  Not because there wasn’t enough/too much eye candy.  Spider-man 3? The black suit was handled poorly and the 3 villains eye candy didn’t actually congeal into anything resembling a plot.  Kick-Ass?  I’ll never know because I refuse to see a movie that is so blatantly harmful (and irresponsible according to Ebert) to kids and the way they view violence.  Kick-Ass is to comicbookmovies what Twilight is to horror fiction.

But that’s another story altogether.

Whedon can work with an ensemble better than most writer/directors.  He’s proven that again and again in his shows.  In fact, the ensembles are what generally shine in lieu of the main characters, which makes me happy that we might not have to deal with Chris Evans being Captain America as much as we would under another director (did I mention I think that’s a dumb casting choice? Because it is.). The focus should be on the team dynamic, not how the team supports the “leader,” which is typically how Whedon ensembles function.

What made Iron Man work was character interaction and development, not over-the-top action.  He’ll likely have a ridiculous budget (something he’s not used to), but I think he’ll use it wisely.  I have no doubt that we won’t get the jumble of CGI and stupidity that they passed off as action in Transformers 2. Whedon is used to working on shoe-string budgets, which will make the movie even more spectacular—he understands how to eek every last ounce of quality from each penny spent.

I think Whedon can take comicbookmovies to a whole new level in The Avengers, provided the studio stays out of his way.

Which given his track record with studios pushing him around (*cough Fox, Firefly, Dollhouse cough cough*), I don’t know if that will happen.  I certainly hope that the Avengers studio is a bit more non-frat boy oriented than the Wonder Woman one was.  If it is, then we’re in good shape.

And, if nothing else, the academic side of me is chomping at the bit.  Whedon proved with Dr. Horrible that his knowledge of the comics industry allows him to bend convention to his whim and come out with a top-quality story.  While I don’t think he’ll be allowed to so overtly subvert (oxymoron?) the Avengers canon as he did with archetypes in Dr. Horrible, I do see a lot of room for him to put his trademark spin on certain integral elements based solely on the things he learned while working on Dr. Horrible/Astonishing X-Men. If he does even a fraction of what I think he will, The Avengers will be a catalyst for future Slayage papers on Whedonized superhero universes.

Until then, I’ll continue to squee about the possibility of a Whedonite Avengers with my colleagues and my wife and hope that the star-spangled panties were merely a setback.

Thank you for reading Joss Whedon, Avenger?, a post from Professor Beej.

Avatar’

I was not interested and had pretty much written Avatar off my list.

But my wife and I went to see it anyway because despite all that, we had heard rave reviews. (Roger Ebert said that it was like seeing Star Wars in 1977.)  Rave reviews which we both wholeheartedly agree with now.

To begin with, the plot in Avatar is serviceable but compelling.  The story is, indeed, Dances with Wolves in space, but I prefer Sam Worthington to Kevin Costner and space aliens to Native Americans.  There are very few deep or hidden meanings in the narrative and even less symbolism, but the corporation/military vs. nature/noble savages conflict is engrossing.  I’m no tree hugger in any sense of the word, but I was moved to hate the military industrial complex by the end of the film.

The acting is spot on, too.  From the too-gruff army guys to the stereotypically native Na’vi elders, I believed everyone in their role.

Zoe Saldana really stole the show, though, and was completely recognizable even with her CGI makeover.  When she hissed ferally at threats, there was no campiness; it was the character.  I really liked her in Star Trek, too, and I hope this means she will get future top billing in hit movies.  It took a few minutes for my wife and I to realize who she was, but once we did, we could see her mannerisms through the CGI costuming.

Equal to her was Sam Worthington, the sole reason that Terminator: Salvation was remotely watchable.  He’s not a mindless action chump like Arnold was for Cameron so many years ago; he’s going places as an action star, though I think he was  bit more believable as a roughneck with a heart of gold when he had the scruffy beard.  He lost something when he shaved.  It was odd.

All that aside, there is the special effects, which is the real reason to go see Avatar.  I am not one to generally be sold entirely on presentation, but when the presentation is this polished, I have to sing its praises.  My wife said she didn’t think another Lord of the Rings-quality jump in special effects was possible until she saw this movie.  WETA has done it again, and I look forward to seeing what impersonators are spawned by this style.

Like I said, I went in hesitant.  I thought the mixture of CGI and live-action was going to be hokey.  I hated the previews, and when I mentioned to my mother that I had gone to see the film, she remarked how badly I had ranted about its undeserved hype for special effects.

But immediately, I saw that it was seamless.  I never questioned it because it was so perfectly integrated.  The actors might as well have been wearing costumes and make-up for how perfectly the CGI worked in the environments of the film.  Their eyes and ears perked up, and even the faces were anthropomorphic enough (but more on that later) to garner emotional attachment but alien enough to remain exotic and new.  Sometimes I even had a hard time determining what was CGI and what was live-action. The movie was simply stunning and made for 3D.  If you watch this movie without 3D glasses (and I’m not entirely sold on the 3D gimmick yet), you’re doing yourself and this film a disservice.

I honestly wonder what it will look like at home without an HDTV.  I can’t imagine how it will translate.

What LOTR did for CGI a decade ago, Avatar just did again.  It was also the first 3D movie I’ve seen (outside of maybe UP) that didn’t make me want to take my glasses off occasionally to give my eyes a rest; my head never hurt, nor did the bridge of my nose incessantly tingle (my own personal way of testing the quality of a 3D movie).  Their ~300-400 million dollar budget was money well spent.

Probably the best thing about the movie was that the action scenes weren’t mindless.  Sure, some were flaunting that they could do it, but for the most part, they advanced the narrative and characterization.  Sure, sometimes the film flaunted that it was pretty with a flight scene or a chase with some explosions, but the outcome of that scene always hinged on storytelling.

The flight sequences were astounding, and make me hope that one day a Dragonriders of Pern film will be done right.  The movie has all the trappings one would need for an effective Pern film, so this is my call to action.  You hear me, McCaffrey?

So my call on Avatar is that it’s worth every penny.  My wife and I are even thinking of rescheduling our birthday outing we have planned for ourselves to be able to see the IMAX version before it leaves theaters.  While the plot has been done before, it may have never been done as well.  Sure, it could be considered Dances with Wolves in space or Ferngully 3D, but it was fun.  And that’s what big budget Hollywood eye candy movies are supposed to be about.

And at 2 hours 30 minutes long, I never once felt the time pass.  It was over before I really expected it to be.  There were lulls in the action, sure, but it never dragged.  At least for me.

My only problem with the movie is a problem that I have with most science fiction: anthropocentricism.  The aliens are all anthropomorphic and close enough to humans to have their DNA spliced to even create the Avatars.  In the wide expanses of the universe, I cannot help but find it difficult to willingly suspend my disbelief enough to get past that egotism that we are close to some genetic standard for life.  At least James Cameron did take a small step in trying to right this: the atmosphere was at least toxic for humans on Pandora; it wasn’t just Earth with new minerals.

Until this weekend, I was certain that Star Trek was the best movie I saw this year.  It revitalized one of my favorite franchises and was bombastic, compelling, and just plain pretty.  But Avatar one-upped it in every single category except the revitalization of a favorite franchise.  I don’t want to label either movie as “better,” but picking a single movie this year as my favorite just got exponentially harder.

Thank you for reading Review: James Cameron’s Avatar, a post from Professor Beej.

It’s this time of the year, which means Halloween fans are clamoring for the latest horror sensation. It’s not hard to pinpoint which film is receiving the throne this year. If you haven’t heard of Paranormal Activity, it’s because you don’t use the internet or watch television, or talk to many teensters. Still, does it deserve all the hype?

Well, the simplest answer is that I enjoyed the film but not necessarily the marketing tactic. Very rarely do we view a film without preconceived notions or a certain amount of spoiler tidbits. While I had heard of “Paranormal Activity” back in 2007 when it was initially released, I had no way of actually seeing it. So, when 2009 hit, I was excited to see the film, especially given my enjoyment of The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, Quarantine and the general handy-cam style.

If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen a several high points of the film as well. Hollywood has the tendency to reveal the endings of horror films in their trailers, so you’ve been warned. I remember watching the trailer for Quarantine and thinking, the film is going to end when the lady gets dragged into the darkness. Bingo. My point is, the less you know about the film, the better.

The movie revolves around a couple who sets up a camera inside their house after some minor and possibly paranormal disturbances. The film shows 21 days of their recorded footage, with every day grows progressively worse in terms of the paranormal. Believe it or not, the story is actually quite smart. It answers the majority of the “why the hell don’t they…” questions casually and sets up an appropriate amount of boundaries story-wise so viewers don’t laugh at the characters the entire time over their stupidity. So, for those who watch horror movies because they find them funny, my personal opinion is that this one deals with the expected reaction better than most.

The style of the film also helps matters by being incredibly mundane and organic. The first half of the film has very little action and is in fact quite boring. I’ve seen a few films employ this tactic (Audition, The Descent), and usually they’re incredibly effective. It’s a combination of the utter slowness of the film and the suspense that make the second half a success.

By suspense, I mean a lot of it. There’s a lot of waiting and anticipation, and when the scares actually comes, they’re creepy enough to make the story grow. With a shoestring budget like this, usually the cheapness leaks through. Fortunately, director Oren Peli avoids most of the pitfalls and even has a few pretty nifty special effects.

In the end, I’d say Paranormal Activity is a success, but it depends on what you like more, the jumps or the suspense. This film is very good at setting up suspense, but there are only about two or three truly jarring moments. If you’re tired of the conventions Hollywood horror films have unanimously sunk into, Paranormal Activity is a unique and refreshing take on the genre. Plus, if you like success stories and film that are NOT remakes, this one is that and then some for Oren Peli and his well-spent ten grand.

Thank you for reading Paranormal Activity, a post from Professor Beej.

Now on its sixth installment, the Saw franchise pretty much paved the way for what most now consider the staples of mainstream horror.  Gone are the cheesy effects and over-the-top arterial spray; in their place stand moral ambiguity, gritty and realistic visuals, and a villain who may or may not be a “bad guy.”

Since the franchise has lasted for so long, there are many who claim it’s time to let it go and stop making Saw movies, that any series that runs six installments or more has run its course.  I’m not so sure I agree.

Admittedly, the first half of the Saw series was much stronger than the second, but I have a feeling—based entirely on how other series I love fared after hitting the sixth marker—that Saw VI just might surprise us.

After all, it wasn’t until Friday the 13th: Part 6 that the world was given undead, zombie Jason Voorhees.  Final Fantasy VI just might be some of the finest storytelling ever told in a videogame, and  Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince killed Albus Dumbledore and settled in to be the most interesting, darkest book in the series (even if the film was more of a romantic comedy).  Even the 6th and final Star Wars movie was better than the previous two installments, though I have a hard time actually calling it good.

If we look at the Saw series from its inception, there are lots of positive aspects (even in the 4th and 5th movies) that the sixth installment can build on to bring the franchise back to its initial quality.

• Saw was new.  It was different.  It was smart.  Saw brought a level of moral ambiguity to mainstream horror and placed the viewers directly and viscerally in with the Everyman protagonist.  And in the end, the film pulled the rug right out from under us by killing the characters in which we were emotionally invested and letting the bad guy win.  That was enough for me.  I did not care about the gore or the traps; I loved that Saw let the bad guy win.  And not just in a skin-of-his-teeth win, either.  He outplayed everyone, and we walked out satisfied.
• Saw II took the traps and gore people loved and stopped them being about introduction and worldbuilding and made them integral to the narrative and success of the characters.  By trapping all of the ensemble protagonists in a house filled with the booby traps, they now served more of a purpose than they did during the flashbacks in the original.  On top of that, it had Donnie Wahlberg (who doesn’t love The New Kids on the Block?) and a pit of hypodermic needles—the first trap to ever make me truly cringe.
• Saw III put a new spin on the moral ambiguity of the series.  Instead of watching an ensemble traipse through a house avoiding traps entirely motivated by a sense of self-preservation, audiences get to see a supposedly sympathetic character railed through a labyrinth of death traps where he is responsible for other people’s fates rather than his own.  While he knows there will be some personal consequences to his actions, the immediate effects impact others, framing him in a way so that the audience can be swayed as to whether or not he is worth emotionally investing in.
• Saw IV introduced audiences to the framed narrative that would permeate the remainder of the franchise.  It was our first glimpse that the world Jigsaw and his traps inhabited was truly complex.  Parallel narrative threads took the emphasis that had been placed on gimmicks like photorealistic gore and traps and made the audience realize there really was a story being told and that we should care what it was.  While some criticism came from viewers who claimed the actual story was not far advanced by the film, the depth added to the narrative made further sequels possible.
• Saw V was probably the weakest of the franchise.  It tried to take the trap mechanics introduced in Saws II-IV (moral ambiguity, ensemble teamwork, and self-preservation) and meld them together in a way that was more or less uncaptivating.  On top of that, the narrative and effects felt like more of a rehash than a new installment thanks to the overly heavy use of flashback sequences.  It was not a bad movie, but it was significantly weaker than any of the previous Saw films, offering little innovation in a series that had previously thrived on it.

And so with Saw VI being released this week, a lot can go wrong.  Or right.  I do what I can to avoid pre-release numbers, reviews, and spoilers, so I’m walking in with a clean slate.  I don’t want to be influenced by anything other than what I bring with me based on the rest of the franchise.  And honestly, that means that Saw VI could easily fall in with the fantastic first half of the series or the lackluster second half.

Thank you for reading Saw VI – Sixth Time’s a Charm?, a post from Professor Beej.