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xiphiasOng-Bak was a 2003 film that I'd intended to see in the theaters, but never got around to. It was on sale for pretty cheap, so I picked it up, and I'm glad I did.
I was thinking about what makes a good movie, or, really, a good story for me. For me, I need at least one protagonist who I respect -- someone who has something noble in him or her or itself. I need people to not be overtly stupid in ways that are TOO out of character for them. I need actions to have consequences -- if you're going to have a car chase through a city with cars flipping all over the place, I want the ramifications to be clear-- I don't want to see three buses blow up, and then be expected to be happy because the one minivan in which we can see the face of a little kid and a puppy DOESN'T fall off the cliff, although forty other cars just like it did . . .
That doesn't mean that I can't like a movie in which forty cars DO blow up, or in which cities are destroyed, or in which 95% of the population of the Earth is killed -- I just want those things to have effects on the characters and on the world. I want acknowledgment that people in the world who don't actually have names in the credits are still people. Hell, I've even been mollified by a little talking head on the news saying something like, "In the aftermath of the city-destroying battle, three people were treated for minor scrapes and bruises, and a small kitten needed its tail splinted. We'll be keeping you updated on the kitten's condition . . . " You know -- just SOMETHING so I don't have to imagine all the death and horror that the movie itself doesn't care about. And I don't have to wonder why the filmmakers don't care.
TRANSFORMERS has characters who I'd started out respecting, but everybody acted enough like an idiot that, by the end of the film, they'd lost that part. And everybody acted like an idiot. And lots of innocent people died, some for laughs. (Shia LeBeauf is running through the city, with the All Spark, which has the power to bring machines to life -- the problem being that, if this is done in an uncontrolled manner, they're just mindlessly hostile. He falls against a car. Cut to inside the car, where two Valley Girl types are. "Did that dork just dent my car?" And the steering wheel grows claws and reaches out to rip off her face. Now, THAT'S comedy, right?)
I'd have to time it, but I would bet that ONG-BAK has the same amount of violence and action as TRANSFORMERS. It also has two people who clearly die, and two people who might, all of which are dramatically appropriate. The bad guy's death is thematically appropriate, poetically just, and ironic. Now, of course, in REAL life, that much blunt trauma causes permanent damage or death, but, for a martial arts film in which the characters are NOT using lethal attacks, I'm willing to accept that it's all "stun damage" as we say in HERO system.
There are, I think, five guns in the movie. Three are taken away from goons with a surprise attack; one is just shown. Only one is fired. Guns are FAR more menacing in this movie -- the good guy has to back off at one point because a bad guy just shows one. No matter how superhuman he is, he's not bulletproof and he knows it.
The weapons used are knees, elbows, boards, tables, chairs, and, once, a big bowl of ground dried Thai hot peppers. (Yeah. You ever wonder how to make that "sand in the face" trick REALLY effective?)
And then, let's get to the huge, glaring main thing here.
I remember when CGI was awesome. 1986, for instance with "Luxo, Jr.". Yeah, seeing that baby lamp playing with that ball? That was cool. 'Cause we were sitting there going, "WOAH! Look at the RAY TRACING on that! See? They've got SURFACE REFLECTIONS! And SHADOWS!"
Yeah. THAT was cool.
But CGI hasn't been awesome since 1995. Sure, TOY STORY was awesome partially because it was CGI. But nobody went to see TOY STORY 2 because it was CGI -- you went for Buzz and Woody and the story. CGI, by that point, was just a tool.
Hollywood hasn't seemed to realize this. I'm pretty sure that Michael Bay still thinks that CGI is awesome.
It's not.
However, a person running at an obstacle that is higher than their head, and jumping, and twisting their body so that they get over the obstacle through sheer athletic ability?
Awesome.
It was awesome when the Minoans and Etruscans did it, it was awesome when it was a qualification for entry into the war-band of the Fianna in Celtic mythology, it was awesome when jongleurs in the Middle Ages did it, or warrior monks in ancient China, or acrobats in the nineteenth century United States. It's awesome when Jet Li, David Bell, Jackie Chan, or Tony Jaa does it.
It will continue to be awesome as long as unmodified human beings exist. If, at some point, the only way to HAVE an unmodified human being is to call up the template for one, build it, and download your personality matrix into it, if you do that, then exercise that body enough to be able to do this, and then do it -- it will STILL be awesome.
Real live people demonstrating real live athletic skill, showing their ability to push real live human bodies to do things that are within the bounds of physics, but only just -- that will ALWAYS be awesome.
And that's why ONG-BAK is a good movie, and TRANSFORMERS isn't.
I was thinking about what makes a good movie, or, really, a good story for me. For me, I need at least one protagonist who I respect -- someone who has something noble in him or her or itself. I need people to not be overtly stupid in ways that are TOO out of character for them. I need actions to have consequences -- if you're going to have a car chase through a city with cars flipping all over the place, I want the ramifications to be clear-- I don't want to see three buses blow up, and then be expected to be happy because the one minivan in which we can see the face of a little kid and a puppy DOESN'T fall off the cliff, although forty other cars just like it did . . .
That doesn't mean that I can't like a movie in which forty cars DO blow up, or in which cities are destroyed, or in which 95% of the population of the Earth is killed -- I just want those things to have effects on the characters and on the world. I want acknowledgment that people in the world who don't actually have names in the credits are still people. Hell, I've even been mollified by a little talking head on the news saying something like, "In the aftermath of the city-destroying battle, three people were treated for minor scrapes and bruises, and a small kitten needed its tail splinted. We'll be keeping you updated on the kitten's condition . . . " You know -- just SOMETHING so I don't have to imagine all the death and horror that the movie itself doesn't care about. And I don't have to wonder why the filmmakers don't care.
TRANSFORMERS has characters who I'd started out respecting, but everybody acted enough like an idiot that, by the end of the film, they'd lost that part. And everybody acted like an idiot. And lots of innocent people died, some for laughs. (Shia LeBeauf is running through the city, with the All Spark, which has the power to bring machines to life -- the problem being that, if this is done in an uncontrolled manner, they're just mindlessly hostile. He falls against a car. Cut to inside the car, where two Valley Girl types are. "Did that dork just dent my car?" And the steering wheel grows claws and reaches out to rip off her face. Now, THAT'S comedy, right?)
I'd have to time it, but I would bet that ONG-BAK has the same amount of violence and action as TRANSFORMERS. It also has two people who clearly die, and two people who might, all of which are dramatically appropriate. The bad guy's death is thematically appropriate, poetically just, and ironic. Now, of course, in REAL life, that much blunt trauma causes permanent damage or death, but, for a martial arts film in which the characters are NOT using lethal attacks, I'm willing to accept that it's all "stun damage" as we say in HERO system.
There are, I think, five guns in the movie. Three are taken away from goons with a surprise attack; one is just shown. Only one is fired. Guns are FAR more menacing in this movie -- the good guy has to back off at one point because a bad guy just shows one. No matter how superhuman he is, he's not bulletproof and he knows it.
The weapons used are knees, elbows, boards, tables, chairs, and, once, a big bowl of ground dried Thai hot peppers. (Yeah. You ever wonder how to make that "sand in the face" trick REALLY effective?)
And then, let's get to the huge, glaring main thing here.
I remember when CGI was awesome. 1986, for instance with "Luxo, Jr.". Yeah, seeing that baby lamp playing with that ball? That was cool. 'Cause we were sitting there going, "WOAH! Look at the RAY TRACING on that! See? They've got SURFACE REFLECTIONS! And SHADOWS!"
Yeah. THAT was cool.
But CGI hasn't been awesome since 1995. Sure, TOY STORY was awesome partially because it was CGI. But nobody went to see TOY STORY 2 because it was CGI -- you went for Buzz and Woody and the story. CGI, by that point, was just a tool.
Hollywood hasn't seemed to realize this. I'm pretty sure that Michael Bay still thinks that CGI is awesome.
It's not.
However, a person running at an obstacle that is higher than their head, and jumping, and twisting their body so that they get over the obstacle through sheer athletic ability?
Awesome.
It was awesome when the Minoans and Etruscans did it, it was awesome when it was a qualification for entry into the war-band of the Fianna in Celtic mythology, it was awesome when jongleurs in the Middle Ages did it, or warrior monks in ancient China, or acrobats in the nineteenth century United States. It's awesome when Jet Li, David Bell, Jackie Chan, or Tony Jaa does it.
It will continue to be awesome as long as unmodified human beings exist. If, at some point, the only way to HAVE an unmodified human being is to call up the template for one, build it, and download your personality matrix into it, if you do that, then exercise that body enough to be able to do this, and then do it -- it will STILL be awesome.
Real live people demonstrating real live athletic skill, showing their ability to push real live human bodies to do things that are within the bounds of physics, but only just -- that will ALWAYS be awesome.
And that's why ONG-BAK is a good movie, and TRANSFORMERS isn't.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-13 05:48 pm (UTC)I need actions to have consequences -- if you're going to have a car chase through a city with cars flipping all over the place, I want the ramifications to be clear-- I don't want to see three buses blow up, and then be expected to be happy because the one minivan in which we can see the face of a little kid and a puppy DOESN'T fall off the cliff, although forty other cars just like it did.
Me too, and I think about that when I write, and when I watch.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-14 05:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-14 09:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-14 01:00 pm (UTC)But, if you're using wire-fu to do things that are "OUTSIDE the bounds for physics, but only just," yeah. What's the point? Scale back the stunts just a little. You're working with actors and stuntpeople who ARE impressive athletes -- we're going to be impressed.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-14 01:49 pm (UTC)... see, technology makes a lot of difference in what the human body can do. To take a sport I'm familar with, Women's gymnastics, specifically bars (young female body whipping around two parrell wooden poles at different heights). How springy those bars are makes a *lot* of difference in what you can do; in what is just within the bounds of physics, and what is outside it; in what is impressive athletics, and what isn't.
The thing is, you can't tell by looking how springy the bars are... if you're very good, and very familiar with the equipment, you might be able to tell from how the equipment reacts when it' used; but most people aren't that good (I'm not, and I'm one step ahead of most people in that I at least know there is something to look for).
The same thing happens with the floor excercise; when I was first taking gymnastics, this was a bare floor with matting and a carpet over it. In the early to mid eighties (about when I got out of gymnastics) they started putting springs underneath it. Now-a-days the springs are... well... amazingly powerful.
People started doing some *really* fantastic tumbling tricks at that time. And I was completely unimpressed because, well, it wasn't because they were cooler athletes. It was because someone put springs under their feet (or, in the case of the bars, on their hips).
And that's pretty much how I feel about movie athletics... movies are fake... of course they use technology to enhance the athleticism of the actors... and of course they hide it, because it looks cooler that way. So anything that I see is, well, not actually as cool as it looks.
To me, a martial arts fight is just as fake as a fight using CGI...
Kiralee
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-19 12:54 am (UTC)