OT: Ironman 2 Trailer out now...

[www.apple.com]

Hell yeah!



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F$#k YEAH!!

* drool *

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I'm in but why does every superhero movie have to give us 20 different villains? I'm happy with just one good one who kicks extra ass.

Noah

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Unfortunately, that's been a bad trend for years now. A film gets successful by doing things right, and then money people (and sometimes the director) start thinking like morons: "Oh, the more bad guys the merrier...the more stars the merrier!"

The results?

Spider-Man 3
Batman Returns
Batman Forever
Batman and Robin
The Matrix Reloaded
The Matrix Revolutions
Star Wars Episode I-III
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Men in Black II
Speed 2
Infernal Affairs 2
Babe 2: Pig in the City
Jackie Brown
X-Men I-III (actually, this one didn't start out right, either)


www.derekmok.com

Quote

I'm in but why does every superhero movie have to give us 20 different villains? I'm happy with just one good one who kicks extra ass.

BOOOOR-iiiiiing

The more the merrier!! Obviously not a comic book collector when you were a kid. I had them all...Marvel, that is...I loved Iron Man / The Fantastic Four / Thor / Sub Mariner / Silver Surfer (my username on the Grafix Forums) every comic had a different villain...and when they teamed up for intergalactic war it was glorious (GEEK ALERT)!!

GOOD GUY (HERO)= Protagonist
BAD GUY (VILLAIN) = Antagonist
MORE VILLAINS = MORE CONFLICT

Movie Making 101: CONFLICT ROCKS!!!

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

grafixjoe Wrote:

>
> GOOD GUY (HERO)= Protagonist
> BAD GUY (VILLAIN) = Antagonist
> MORE VILLAINS = MORE CONFLICT
>
> Movie Making 101: CONFLICT ROCKS!!!

Righty-right. Go check out Batman and Robin to see how that whole trend can work out...

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It's not a trend when it's BAD DIRECTING CHOICES. C'mon man...there are variables. You are generalizing way too hard. We'll agree to disagree. If Ridley Scott directed Batman & Robin, it would have gotten Oscar nods.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

That's a great trailer, Ben. It's funny how the fundamentals of what makes a great trailer don't change.

I'd say it's more script than directing choices- which is why I'm a little sad to see Iron Man 2 load up on the baddies. And I'd debate you that Ridley Scott would have made a markedly better Batman and Robin film from the same script. It's like editing- garbage in/garbage out.

BTW- Michael Keaton was offered $35 million to appear in Batman Forever but turned it down because he thought the script was too silly and too many villains (also no Tim Burton)... But anyways the point is, yes I'll be there for Iron Man 2, so no worries Joe.

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Trust me...I am not worried.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Because money people don't write scripts themselves and haven't seen the foibles of that kind of logic, we continue to get silly rationales such as "More villains = More conflict", "More action, less talk", etc.

Film is about action, but dramatic action. Not necessarily blow-it-up action or lots-of-effects action (though these two types of action can also be dramatic -- such as in Aliens, Die Hard, Total Recall, many parts of The Dark Knight).

And more villains doesn't equal more conflict, because more villains means you dilute the focus so that none of the villains works particularly well. Those of us who have seen Batman Forever probably remember Jim Carrey's Riddler because he was memorable, but does anybody remember what Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) did or said in that movie?

You don't want just one villain, but you want one main villain that determines the A-plot agenda. As compelling as Harvey Dent was in The Dark Knight, once he was deformed, his plot ceased tying into the A plot in The Dark Knight, resulting in a messy final act where the focus is badly diluted. The Joker ending was great, but then the movie had to segue into yet another ending, an ending which has emotional depth but is structurally unsound.

To me, it would have been much better if Two-Face, in his self-destructive streak, teamed up with The Joker and was part of that whole final showdown. Then you resolve Two-Face first (the fallen white knight, corrupted by The Joker's cruelty) -- for example, if he were the one running the whole "fake hostages" scenario. So when Batman is forced to take him out, Harvey's death becomes yet another stake in the final confrontation with The Joker -- the man who had not only destroyed Gotham, but Gotham's hope.

Multiple villains with one main villain is a classic structure: Die Hard with Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), adding "satellite" villains like Karl, Deputy Chief Robinson and the dumb FBI agents in, but none of the others gets the depth and screen time of Hans. Lethal Weapon had the General, but it was Joshua (Gary Busey) who was the main figurehead. And The Godfather didn't attempt to give screen time or even recognizable faces to all the other Five Families leaders -- only Barzini and Sollozzo. They didn't even make Philip Tattaglia all that recognizable, and he's irrelevant. The true antagonist of The Godfather is the Godfather himself, the one whose presence and agenda comes up against Michael's character and changes his life needs.

Scripting is major, but directing has a great deal to do with it as well. Directing is writing in real-time images.


www.derekmok.com

B & R sucked and it had NOTHING TO DO with the amount of villains in it.

It was ridiculously gaudy with bad acting on all levels. Carrey's Joker was a cartoon...it was Jim Carrey in a clown suit. Could be his worst movie. It wasn't slick or scary. Tommy Lee's 2-Face was lame. I could go on & on...but ultimately it was the Director that made the decisions...set design...edit decisions...acting direction...etc. It stunk because of the Director in my opinion. The Director couldn't pull the performance out of the Actors. He may have been getting pressure from the Studio to make certain choices, so let's not be so esoteric.

I don't think "More villains = More Conflict" is a "silly rationale". I love movies like X-Men Last Stand where it's the Bad Guys teaming up to try to destroy the Good Guys and it's a major display of their powers. I LOVE THAT SH!T. That's MY opinion though and I don't think people's opinions are silly...just opinionated

Some people like Butter on their popcorn. I don't. I like Kettle corn...and I don't think that's silly

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Quote

As compelling as Harvey Dent was in The Dark Knight, once he was deformed, his plot ceased tying into the A plot in The Dark Knight, resulting in a messy final act where the focus is badly diluted. The Joker ending was great, but then the movie had to segue into yet another ending, an ending which has emotional depth but is structurally unsound.

Derek, Though I agree in principle to your point about diluting focus with too many villains, I completely disagree with your assessment of the Dark Knight. The A plot was always Joker v Batman. The B plot was always Dent v Wayne. Harvey's character arc was always meant to be a parable for how Bruce Wayne might have turned out. That's why I feel they purposefully neglected to show an origin for the Joker; to keep from pulling focus from the parallels in character between Bruce and Harvey.

Just because Dent was Two-Face in the comics, doesn't mean he was ever meant to truly be a villain in the film. His motivations were clear throughout, and to have him join the Joker in the 3rd act to wreck havoc would have been to take a carefully drawn character and flatten it for the sake of a single climactic action sequence.

Now, I didn't really have a problem with how they wrapped up the Dark Knight, but if I were to make any changes, I would have pushed the Dent revenge plot to the next film. Have him stew in his rage and plot to take out all those he saw as responsible for Rachel's death in as cruel a fashion as possible.

Andy

> I don't think "More villains = More Conflict" is a "silly rationale".

It's silly because it's the wrong diagnosis. People see the good guys in a bad spot and they think it's because of number of villains. But no -- it's because of the stakes. One villain who is supra-genius and capable of making you feel unsafe no matter where in the story you are -- such as Heath Ledger's Joker -- is far better than an army of faceless goons, like in John Woo's Hard-Boiled. That's why directors who are now obsessed with how many tin soldiers they can CG into a scene still fail to achieve true menace and danger. Numbers are impressive visually, but if those numbers don't do anything, then they're just numbers -- just see the Drones and Clones in Star Wars Episodes I-III.

A fellow editor on my last show, also a film buff and screenwriter, made an excellent point about The Matrix Reloaded: It was great to pit an army of Agent Smiths against Neo, but the fact that Neo could just fly away at the end made us go, "Why the *&^% didn't he just do that in the first place?" Neo's ability to revive Trinity in 20 seconds flat with no effort, no frustration, also made her death completely moot dramatically. The Wachowskis failed to make us feel those scenes. One thousand Agent Smiths in The Matrix Reloaded couldn't equal one good, powerful, well developed Agent Smith in the original Matrix, where there were fewer agents, but they were powerful and truly worthy opponents. Let's not forget that in the original Matrix, the Wachowskis made Agent Smith far more formidable as a villain by giving him good human motivation -- he hates it in the Matrix and wants to get out (in the Orpheus interrogation scene). When villains have human needs and feelings the viewer can relate to, that's when you have a truly great villain. All the greatest villains have something that makes part of the viewer root for them. "A little bit of angel in the devil" is how my old screenwriting professor had aptly put it.

> I love movies like X-Men Last Stand where it's the Bad Guys teaming up to try to destroy the
> Good Guys

You liked X-Men: The Last Stand? They botched the story on that one.

Dark Phoenix should have been the true villain. Instead, they used Magneto again -- a tired villain who wore out his welcome in the first two X-Men movies. If they had built up that complex relationship -- where Dark Phoenix was the X-Men's friend, they didn't want to fight her, and some part of her loves them as well -- then the ending when Wolverine keeps taking the hits to get close to her would have had so much more impact. Instead, they threw Magneto in there so that Dark Phoenix didn't do anything to drive the story for a good half hour. Ruined the story, ruined the legendary Dark Phoenix plot, ruined the Cyclops/Jean Grey relationship which should have been what would make the Wolverine/Jean Grey relationship work. Read the original comic -- you'll see the tragedy, sacrifice, anguish and emotional turmoil of that story brought to fruition.

For a successful multi-villain story, try Season 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They set up a nearly unbeatable foe, The Judge, but then Angel turns evil and now he's the formidable one. The stakes are raised, and the narrative focus becomes how Angel would torment Buffy psychologically, not how they'd fight The Judge. And so they discover a way to destroy The Judge, because it no longer matters -- Angel is now the central villain.


www.derekmok.com

By the way, Jim Carrey wasn't in Batman and Robin, and he didn't play the Joker.

> I completely disagree with your assessment of the Dark Knight. The A plot was always Joker v
> Batman. The B plot was always Dent v Wayne.

My point exactly. And by resolving the A plot first, they weakened the ending by then going to yet another showdown. A plot should always be the true ending; anything after that should be denouement. And unfortunately, the Dent subplot took away from the impact of the A plot Joker defeat.

Many, many people have said that they felt The Dark Knight got messy and lost focus in the final act, and this was why. You can't give too many endings to the audience; they will feel cheated. You cannot beat the exhiliration of beating an absolutely diabolical, delicious villain like Ledger's Joker. Even if we love Harvey Dent and he has a compelling story. You have to orchestrate it so that the elements play together and form a coherent climax, rather than fighting for the viewer's narrative focus.

> That's why I feel they purposefully neglected to show an origin for the Joker

I agree with the assessment but not the cause you name. The reason they don't need to show how the Joker came to be is that it's back story, not story. The Joker in Tim Burton's Batman had a history with Batman (killing his parents), so his genesis is relevant A story and not back story, because it shows that Batman crossed some lines and was responsible for creating him. Batman's darkness (vengeance, not justice) resulted in the Joker.

In The Dark Knight, Joker's back story is irrelevant because he's a personification. He is madness and chaos, he's like Iago in Othello. The less we know about him, the better he works, because he's scary in his diabolic purity. This is why Christopher Nolan had him tell a different story to every person about how he'd gotten the scars -- which tells us that he's lying, and his back story remains utterly opaque. The whole of The Dark Knight is about how the Joker brings out the worst in everybody.

> I would have pushed the Dent revenge plot to the next film

That would have worked too. And that would be the denouement the film needed (eg. say if Harvey showed up and shot at Gordon, shielded by Batman, and then Harvey disappears into the night leaving Gordon and Batman appalled and saddened and what he'd become). Instead of whacking out another ending, which took away from the Joker ending and annoyed the viewer.


www.derekmok.com

Boy, is this a Christmas time I need a break bring on the egg nog type of thread.

Keep it light and breezy my geek friends.

Michael Horton
-------------------

See? It wasn't memorable anyway. Easy D...it IS the Holidays

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

By the way...the Ironman 2 Trailer kicks butt, Ben!!



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I'm wondering what you guys think about Cheadle as Rhodes? Not seeing the film but just in the re-casting.

I like continuity and wasn't too thrilled about The Dark Knight having Maggie Gyllenhaal cast instead of Katie Holmes.

I know re-casting is sometimes necessary, but for me I'm kinda torn. I love Don Cheadle and Terrance Howard both respectively, but I had a hard time buying Terrance as Tony Starks friend because he didn't look age appropriate to me, but for consistency sake I would have preferred Terrance.

Just me?

> Easy D...it IS the Holidays

Bah! Humbug!
I love Don Cheadle, but he doesn't have Terrence Howard's physical presence, so I wonder how he'll fare as a military man.

But Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury...that will be one bad mother*&^%er if the script is written right. Tyranny of Evil Men!


www.derekmok.com

Samuel Jackson??? No way. THIS is who should be playing Nick Fury:



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.