Like Nothing You've Seen Before

Last night I saw part of a documentary about the making of Avatar, and one phrase just stuck in my craw. Cameron said a couple of times that he wanted to create something you've never seen before.

That's funny, because in my mind, if that was his goal, it didn't work. (As I sort of covered before.)

The plot, as has been mentioned in many places, is as old as the hills. White guy goes native. Seen it.

And don't get me started on the music.

Aliens. The movie, that is. It's influence is EVERYWHERE (as I mentioned before) in Avatar, from the colonial marines to the loader-like AT-AT things to Sigourney Weaver to the Paul Reiser-type corporate weasel guy to the design of the hardware.

The aliens. As in the life forms on Pandora. The devil dogs seemed not far from the "dog" that Christopher Lloyd's Klingon kept as a pet. The dragon-looking flying things were, well, dragon-looking. The blue people were, well, very much like people except with pointy ears and tails. Never seen pointy ears and tails before. Horses. Hammerhead dinosaurs, not anything like that Hammerhead guy from Star Wars or, I don't know, hammerhead sharks.

Landscape. Floating mountains. Like from an old Yes album cover. Trees. Waterfalls. Wow. How original. Oh but the forest floor lights up. And they have intelligent dandelion puffs. Wow.

Or am I just too jaded?

My Ramblings After Seeing Avatar

I fear I’ve lost my sense of wonder.

I kept being pulled out of Avatar. The 3D effect often offered problems, a sort of going-out-of-phase that would last for awhile, maybe the length of a reel, like there was an occasional projector issue. When this problem occurred, subtitles, for instance, would look double printed and therefore really hard to read. The 3D distracted me because of these problems. Maybe it was my glasses. Maybe it was my eyes. The  friend who came with me didn’t seem to have any problems.

Next, I kept getting pulled out of the experience because of the bits I saw and heard that seemed lifted out of other movies. The spaceship at the beginning featured rotating arm things just like the one on the Leonov in 2010 (a similarity I sort of liked because I was seeing it in the year 2010). Of course, it’s a sensible design for artificial gravity, but still, it distracted me for a minute. The design of the sleeper chambers like in Alien. The Exoskelton suit thingy which was a sort of cross between Ripley’s loader in Aliens and the mini AT-AT things from Return of the Jedi. The space marines in general.

Horner. Sigh. Almost immediately I heard THE MOTIF the danger motif, those triplets this time sounding VIRTUALLY IDENTICAL to moments in Star Trek II. Then there was the recurring use of a section that seemed lifted from Brainstorm. And the opening bars of the theme that eventually turned in to the lame song at the end sounded EXACTLY like the opening bars of that Titanic song. Oh, Horner, Horner, Horner.

The plot points seemed overly easy to follow and predict. The biology on this alien world seemed essentially terrestrial. Humanoids, really? Oh, but they only have four fingers, so that’s different. And they’re taller and have tails. Wow. And trees. Just like our trees. And dogs. And big dragon things like we’ve drawn for centuries. I guess I just expected it to be more, well, alien. And I still can’t even begin to consider the physics of floating mountains.

But, all that aside, I enjoyed it. I wish the 3D wasn’t so intrusive in its lack of consistency or me, but I appreciated the way the effect added depth to the proceedings (when it was working) without resorting to a lot of “throw the spear at the audience” moments. I enjoyed the feeling that this was a world that was very thought out, both the Marine’s world and Pandora. James Horner did his job and made music that worked in the film. And it was a nice, big experience, one that would be difficult to duplicate on a small screen.

But I feel like I mostly appreciated it intellectually without ever getting sucked in emotionally, and this is where I think I’ve lost my sense of wonder, my ability to suspend disbelief. I shouldn’t CARE about physics or astrobiology or lifts from previous movies or Horner’s being Horner. But my stupid brain wouldn’t let me just sit and get sucked in. As a kid, Star Wars completely enveloped me, sucked me in so I was unaware of anything but the movie while I was watching it. But these days I can’t seem to do it. I guess Star Trek, which I loved (and let’s not get started on stupid physics there) got a lot closer to completely sucking me in, and I was able to appreciate the “meta” qualities of it as nods to its own history as a franchise. But instead of reveling in  a new world and moviegoing experience, I was lifted out too many times. I REALLY wish the 3D had been flawless for me, I think that would have really helped. But I wish I could also turn off my big stupid brain and just appreciate the movie for just being itself.

My Two Cents (Thoughts on Star Trek as Originally Posted to Film Score Monthly)

So, rather surprisingly, I got out of the house and made it to a movie theater. On an opening weekend. It’s harder than you think with my two kids. They’re high energy, they’re fun and they like to do everything together as a family and by the end of a day it’s all I can do to drag myself into bed.

But I wanted to see Star Trek. I’d hoped to see it sooner rather than later, but it was proving tricky. I didn’t really want to go by myself (although I was ready to resort to that). My wife decided from the promos that the film was aimed at 18 year old boys and would be “too much” for her. The friend I have in town who’s closest to a Trek fan already had plans to go see it with his girlfriend. I figured I’d get to see it at some point with another friend – and, frankly, I had no idea of his history with or opinion of the Trek franchise. But then he called Friday evening. “You want to go see it tonight?”

The kids tucked into bed, I ate a bowl of ice cream to help guard against sleepiness and headed to the theater. I think I was expecting to see at least a few people dressed up in Starfleet uniforms of some vintage or other, but there was nary a comm badge in sight. And I left my Spock ears at home (in the package where they’ve always been, to be fair).

Like Mark Ford and Jeff Bond and, I’m sure, many others around here, I grew up on the reruns. I discovered the show circa 1970, around second grade, and it quickly became a staple. The first books I ever bought with my own money were some of the Blish novelizations and David Gerrold’s making of books, The World of Star Trek and The Trouble With Tribbles. I searched in vain for toys that bore any real resemblance to the actual series props. But in the hinterlands of Iowa, there were no conventions – at least none of which I was ever aware – and it remained only a beloved show and, later, a beloved series of films, but I never became a raving “We’re not Trekkies, We’re Trekkers!” kind of guy. I finally allowed myself to enjoy the Next Generation, but I only caught one or two episodes of Deep Space Nine (yes, the Tribbles episode was one) and gave up on Voyager after the pick up truck in space episode (although I did begin watching again when Seven of Nine showed up. Yeah, I know, so sue me.) It took me a couple of weeks to finally catch Insurrection and I almost didn’t bother to see Nemesis in a theater at all (but the hype about Jerry’s score finally sold me a ticket).

I tried not to find out much about this new installment. The whole idea seemed a little, well, lame. Why do they keep trying to do prequels? Who cares already? And as for JJ Abrams, I know nothing. Haven't seen lost or anything else he's done. I don't even really know what else he's done right off the top of my head.

So now that I’ve seen it, I thought I should blog some thoughts about it here. But with a coupla message board threads and blog posts already bursting forth with opinions, it seems sort of anticlimactic to add my tiny opinion to the fray. But I loved it. I had a great time. I don’t care that it killed old Trek continuity. I mean, come on, one of the first episodes of the original series called him James R. Kirk and the term Federation didn’t even show up until, I don’t know, late in the first season. So let’s not kid ourselves. It’s just a show. We should really just relax.

And, in it’s latest form, it’s a rousing good time. Sure, the fights and editing are a little Bourne-ish at times (cut so quickly it’s hard to follow what the hell’s going on) and the plot’s not going to withstand a whole lot of critical explication, but it hit the right buttons and never had me glancing at my watch. The character introductions were spot on, the little nods here and there to the big nerds (like seeing an Admiral Komack) were sprinkled in nicely and it was just a lot of fun,. I haven’t had this much fun seeing a movie since, well, I don’t really know. Granted, I don’t really get to see movies anymore, but still…

As to the score, well, since the days of Goldsmithian Hornerosity are long gone and never to return, I thought it worked well. I’m eager to hear it on cd. I was never a big fan of Courage’s theme apart from the justly iconic opening fanfare, but it really made me smile to hear it again in this new setting. Everything old is new again.

Now if I could only justify buying the amazingly awesome prop toys that are being made these days.

Short Order

From the vaults, a student project by Michael Crawford & I, starring the fabulous Andy Williams and the president of our college, Harry Smith. This is dubbed straight from the original VHS tape, warts and all. It's a leisurely paced thing, I'll say that, and the end credits seem nearly as long as the film itself. But it sure was fun to do. Too bad that Michael couldn't get any daytime train footage. We once reshot a couple of scenes, but Michael has that tape and it's on 3/4 inch tape, I believe, so it may never see the light of day. Enjoy -- if you dare!

Leatherheads Starring George Clooney and Me

So last year, George Clooney and crew came to town to shoot for a few days. I worked one day on the film and this afternoon Jennifer and I went down to the theater and saw the finished product.

Well, what do you know. I made it in. I'm pretty visible, to myself at least, walking on the sidelines at the end of one scene (it's the scene shown in the trailers involving a ref getting slugged).

Guess now I have to buy the dvd...