Thoughts on movies, comic books, life, and other nonsense, by someone who should know better
There was no way I was going to miss this movie – for two reasons, actually. The first being that my daughter usually beats me to the punch on new releases and I needed to see this one before she did just cuz. The second being Alex Garland. Now, I haven’t seen most of Garland’s work, but I liked Dredd a lot, despite it mostly being a RoboCop movie in disguise, and I flat out loved Ex Machina., which was, if memory serves, my favourite movie of 2015.
When we saw Star Wars: The Last Jedi on December 28 of this year, that day was notable for three reasons – my brother’s birthday, my wedding anniversary, and 40 years to the day I went to see the first movie in the franchise. 40 years – that’s almost half a century. Amazing. This was back in the day when the UK would get a movie literally months after it’s initial US release. Over the Christmas period, and a little after, it was almost a competition to see how many times you could see it more than your friends. I don’t recall if I beat anyone, but I went to see that movie 13 times in maybe a three week period, staying in the cinema to watch it two or three times in a row. That won’t be happening with the latest in the franchise.
I’ll begin by getting it out of the way first: I hated Prometheus. In terms of the franchise that was unleashed upon the world in 1979, it’s one of the weakest of the six core movies (I’m choosing to ignore the two crossover Alien v Predator movies) for a couple of reasons. Though in saying that, I give it props for the same reason I do 1986’s Aliens, namely the attempt to try to do something different with the concept. If you’re going to add another film to a franchise, you should at least do something unique. Let’s face it, the actual concept of Alien is not sophisticated: human beings find a desolate planet in deep space, get infected with an alien parasite which becomes something they have to destroy … or they’ll be destroyed by it. It suffers from the same self-limiting curse that comes with success: how do you make it just different enough without alienating the people that filled the studio coffers first time around?
Confession time: I’m an agnostic skeptic. A perennial fence sitting, no-side choosing unbeliever. It pertains to science as well as religion. I’m squarely on the side of empirical data. If you can’t show me something that exists, all your anecdotal, mathematical models, and theories of the mechanics of the universe isn’t going to sway me. But I’m conflicted because I LOVE all that stuff. I love quantum physics, I love the supernatural, and I can because I’m no “expert” in either of them- meaning, I can enjoy the concepts and mentally consign them to the sci-fi and horror realms I enjoy without having to invest any “faith”. Einstein’s God Model, a low budget sci fi feature written and directed by Philip T. Johnson, attempts to tell a story combining theoretical physics and the afterlife – how could I not be drawn to it?
D’you remember last year when Matt (Jason Bourne)Damon had to defend himself from accusations of what is referred to as “cultural appropriation” after doing a press junket for his movie The Great Wall? The accuser here was TV actress Constance Wu, who clearly only knew two things about the movie: that it was set in ancient China and starred white actor Matt Damon. Of course, it had to be racist casting, right? Trouble was, Wu had not read the screenplay and likely had not looked at the trades before jumping to her conclusions. The Chinese influence behind the camera on this movie is significant, and Damon was hired specifically because of worldwide name recognition. With a budget of $135 million on the line, it made sense to put someone like Damon in the lead role in order to guarantee a healthy global return.
AT THE FOOTHILLS OF MADNESS 