James Cameron: Pop Culture's Green Eyed Monster

Ah, James Cameron. The legendary director known for spectacles like Aliens, Titanic and the Terminator. He's also done many a documentary, and of course everyone's favorite tech demo movie Avatar. In more ways than one he's contributed to the film industry like no other director has.

Nowadays, however, he's known for talking smack in the industry. He talks about how 'Wonder Woman' wasn't anything new, and how people will soon get tired of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and want new stories. He whines about how what was accomplished in Wonder Woman was also done back in the sixties, and how Marvel movies are glorified two-hour fight scenes. He even goes as far as to say that Wonder Woman objectified women rather than being a feminist triumph. This coming from the director who got Kate Winslet nude for his fabricated Waterworld In Real Life film, and has had female protagonists in his films before. Hypocrite much? (Still better than George Lucas and Star Wars, though. Barely.)

Those remarks, like George Lucas before him, demonstrate how big of an ego James really has. It's especially seen on his attack on the Avengers, which comes after 'Black Panther' sunk his Titanic in the box office records. This is also coming from the man who wants to make four more Avatar films and trying to revive the Terminator again; the former being another short lived revival for 3D movies, and the latter after coming from two trash films. He even compares his Avatar films to another Godfather story, that the Avatar films are the next family drama. As ambitious that is, there's only one true Godfather film.

Speaking of ambition, James Cameron promised us an entire universe dedicated to Avatar. What do we have, now? A theme park at a Disney resort, and a mediocre-at-best video game. That's it. Sure, Avatar is the #1 movie of all time, but where's the success? No fanfics, no cosplay, nothing. Whatever you were planning before, Marvel and Disney beat you to the punch. Now you're trying to get back at them with your Twitter rants and being the center of all the attention. No congratulations, no 'keep up the good work', not even being grateful for Disney and Marvel making the idea of shared universes popular and possible.

James Cameron also demonstrates the possibilities when someone more successful comes down the road. Either you're considering the new kid on the block a worthy opponent, or you're jealous and fearful of this new competition. James Cameron demonstrates the latter. He complains about a Marvel movie because it came and took a precious record from him. All that hard work and troubled production that he went through in the nineties was now for naught. He knows this, and he doesn't like that one bit.

Because of all of this, I don't want James Cameron to be successful in his eleventy seven Avatar films and his second Terminator revival. In fact, I want him to fail in his latest films because of how unworthy he is of success. Anyone with no respect for any form of competition whatsoever is not deserving of goodwill. James Cameron has arrogance that would make even the Star Wars fan base blush. The fact that he has been this disregarding of his colleagues displeases me greatly. Not even George Lucas is this bad, and his ego was bigger than Atlas on top of being a control freak.

One more thing: poor sportsmanship has its consequences. Jimmy boy, you want to talk the way you do? You better back it up.

The Star Wars Prequels, or, Justified Reasons For the Hate

After the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, there had been a trend of people hating on the prequel Star Wars films. The prequels were controversial to begin with, but it wasn't until the advent of TFA had there been an influx of bashing on the Star Wars prequels. The big question is, do the prequels deserve all the bashing?

I'm going to be blunt here: the prequels are getting bashed rightfully so because of factors that work against it. First, the films suffer from an abuse of CGI (computer generated imagery). While CGI in film is nothing new, it is a general rule of thumb not to abuse it or else the effect diminishes. In the case of Star Wars, the CGI abuse in prequels is egregious because it shows how lazy George Lucas and his team were in the production of the prequel films. Back in the day, movies were literally built from the ground
up because special effects were not commonplace. As a matter of fact, Industrial Light and Magic was formed because Star Wars had some moments that required these effects. That said, the original trilogies were crafted by hand from model kits; custom costumes and make up. I'm also not engaging in hyperbole when I say model makers left things as is if they didn't want to modify a model in a certain way, or that they had to get toys and models off the shelf or even buy them just to make certain scenes work. For bonus points, props were even reused for certain characters as a means of saving money, and if they couldn't make certain props work they winged it anyways. Guess what, though? It worked. CGI, on the other hand, showed that George Lucas and ILM wanted to take the easier way out and make everything that couldn't be modeled or make-up'd into CGI, and in some cases it looked really bad. Not like the originals which had effects crafted by hand.

Another pet peeve of the prequels everyone dogs on is the portrayal of some of the alien races, such as the Neimoidians; the Gungans and to a degree, the Toydarians. In my case, sterotyping is one thing but caricatures is another. This goes double if that character is named Jar Jar Binks or Watto. It's just offensive and, in some cases, unfunny that these characters are negative takes on types of people. It makes people wonder what Lucasfilm was thinking with the creation of these characters and species. Though what's more offensive, at least to me, is in the case of Jar Jar Binks he's just flat out annoying and nobody really likes this character.

Something else that's talked about in the anti-prequel bandwagon is the neutering of Darth Vader, that is, giving him a form of backstory. We learned that Anakin Skywalker is basically Darth Vader before he became evil, but during his trials and training as a Jedi he becomes increasingly whiny and angsty over time. This is not something that makes people think of Darth Vader. This is a little kid getting upset because he's not getting what he wants. How do you screw up such an iconic cinema character like that? It's embarrassing to think that this angsty child was the Dark Lord of the Sith.

Speaking of neutering of characters, Padme is also a victim of this decay of character effect. For reference, she goes from leading a small team of soldiers in rescuing her home planet of Naboo to being just there and being an overly emotional woman in Revenge of the Sith. Sure she was pregnant with Luke and Leia, but she could have easily gone down with a fight rather than die 'emotionally' (though one argument states that Palpatine used the force to drain her life energy and transfer it to Anakin/Vader to make him more obedient). Rubbing salt into this wound, in footage that would eventually be removed from the final film, Padme not only tries to deal with Palpatine's power, but she more or less acts as the catalyst for the Rebel Alliance in the original Star Wars trilogy. I'm surprised critics and haters of the prequels gloss over this detail.

Now then, when these debates rage on oftentimes people gloss over critical details that would help their argument better. In my case, it's the general feel of the prequels, the message that George Lucas was trying to deliver, and the competence of the characters shaping the plots. I want to get the first out of the way since this is something that bothers me more than the CGI abuse, and the neutering and portrayal of characters as well. The thing about the original Star Wars trilogy was that it was the classic coming of age story; good and evil battling it out to control the universe and decide the fate of everything; small ragtag misfits fighting an empire; and so on and so forth. It was everything a space opera should be and then some. The prequel films, on the other hand, are more like boring political thrillers and feels more like Manchurian Candidate in space. Nobody wants to see debates or use of perplexing dialogue that requires Master's degrees just to know what they are. That's not what Star Wars is about, never has, never will be.

The message part of the prequel Star Wars films is also something people neglect to look over. The general message of the prequel films is that democracy is important and worth defending, but story does little to agree with the message. Characters complain that the Republic is slow and inefficient at making decisions, and Palpatine's plans go accordingly because the Republic allows for it (and on top of that Palpatine was democratically elected, so there's no defense like corruption and such). It doesn't help that George Lucas tried to hop on the post-9/11 band wagon and craft Revenge of the Sith as such, never mind that the rise of the Galactic Empire is akin to that of Caesar Augustus and Nazi Germany, and while Lucas has stated that Palpatine was based off of a U.S. President, it was Richard Nixon and not George Bush. Palpatine says in ROTS "I AM the Senate", similar to Nixon saying "I am the President, therefore I am not breaking the law." which actually makes more sense.

The last issue that even the most staunch of prequel haters forget is how the plot of the prequel films are driven by the fact that characters make headachingly and embarrasingly stupid decisions. In short, they're idiot plots. For instance, going back to Revenge of the Sith the events of that film conspire because characters make stupid decisions, bonus points going towards the Jedi council. In two insances do the Jedi craft their own downfall in this film alone; once, where Mace Windu says to Anakin 'You've gained my trust' regarding learning that Senator Palpatine is a Sith Lord, and twice where upon trying to capture Palpatine they didn't have a backup plan. For the former, that's a slap in the face as Mace more or less said to Anakin 'I never trusted you until now' considering it was a thirteen year gap between Anakin being a Padawan and a Jedi. The latter is when the Jedi didn't bother to activate Order 65, which is one out of whopping 150 orders given to Clone Troopers. For those not in the know, Order 65 is to arrest the chancellor or, if he cannot be contained, kill him. The Jedi didn't bother to activate this order beforehand? I mean yes, the clones would
have been super murdered because Palpatine has a lightsaber and can shoot lightning from his hands, but at least it would have proved the Jedi had an IQ higher than cockroaches. The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones have moments where characters both heroic and villainous make unbelievably poor decisions, but the ones in ROTS are the most painful to witness. Sure the original trilogy and, to a degree The Force Awakens, has characters making bad decisions at times, but at least they were tolerable and didn't make you rage in disgust at how stupid the characters were.

In conclusion, the bashing of the prequel films is more than justified when the information above is taken into account. On paper, all of this sounds like going with the flow of a crowd but, with the correct information and research, the criticisms take shape and justify themselves. It's an example of how the director tries to craft things in his image and take over the role of every critical part of making a film and failing at it. While successful financially, the quality of the films don't reflect this, and the prequel films just serve as an example of quantity over quality.

The Martian: A bold movie going back to where man has gone before

Warning: Spoilers ahead, though you're going to ignore this warning because curiosity

Fall movies are not as monumental or spectacular as summer movies, but they compensate for emphasis on storytelling and character. Most of these fall movies are deeper compared to other seasonal films, and they often have the goal of attracting academy awards. Some are worthy of these awards, others are genuine stinkers.

The Martian, directed by Ridley Scott, is in line with the former. Based off of the Andy Weir novel of the same name, The Martian is the tale of an astronaut trying to survive on Mars after failing to evacuate during a storm. It features Matt Damon, having seen experience in a space oriented film in Interstellar, as well as Jeff Daniels; Sean Bean; Kristen Wiig; and Jessica Chastain.

The movie is about astronaut Mark Watney as he is stranded on Mars after a failed attempt at escaping during a storm. Using his knowledge of botany, he finds a way to grow food and survive longer until help arrives. The help in question comes from NASA, but back at NASA there's internal strife between members over how to maintain NASA's image. China eventually enters the fray, but they also debate on whether to help NASA with saving Watney. All the while Watney endures the perils of surviving on another planet and scavenges for supplies and equipment to hold out. Eventually, both NASA and China's Space Program work together to help bring Watney home alive and in one piece.

The movie stands out at how accurate it is with presenting what colonizing Mars would be like if a single person had to survive on the planet. It also portrays the politics of space program missions with deep intensity, as Jeff Daniels' character makes decisions based on maintaining NASA's image. It's also unique in that the film has a high degree of realism; there are no hostile aliens, rogue robots or androids, backstabbing or crazed humans, or anything of the sort. It's just an astronaut trying to get home.

The only issue is that some of the characters are not fully used in the film. While the story is about an astronaut trying to get home, the politics of the space programs also constitute importance. It's also the result of characters coming together to solve a problem that result in the conflict's resolution. The music score, while fitting, could have also used extra kick.

At the end of the day, it's the first good Ridley Scott film for the first time in years. It also marks a return to his science fiction roots, though calling this work science fiction is a bit of a stretch. This genre is better labeled as speculative fiction, about what could happen if a mission goes wrong and someone is forced to survived on another planet. That said, it's a sign of a director getting his groove back and showing that he can make good films once again. The Martian is also one of the finer films
to be released in a glut of sequel stagnation and mediocre adaptations. That is something that cannot be said for other films.