Messages

https://youtu.be/qCfG0pakf9o

I watched Late Night With the Devil on Netflix. It's set in the Seventies about a late night talk show host who is struggling with the death of his wife and trying to boost ratings for his failing show that he interviews a girl possessed by a demon on live television. The period piece was done extremely well as were the old school-style special effects, and the pacing flows quickly. What makes the film effective is it's presented as a recording of the talk show and displays the episode unraveling into chaos, with the behind-the-scenes drama unfolding in black and white. Very well acted despite a largely unknown cast and great narration by Michael Ironside chronicling the TV host's rise to fame before the infamous episode.

It's better than a lot of horror movies nowadays. Highly recommended.

Great video analysing and paying tribute to Marshall Rogers for his work on Batman, and the impact that he and Englehart had on Batman comics.

https://youtu.be/y33Y7SMpFlc

Zack Snyder interviewed Frank Miller for Inverse.com, and they talked in depth about superheroes being a modern-day mythology. This interview is more about Miller looking back at his career and his work influenced comics as a more sophisticated medium, and DKR bore a chunk of the conversation.

Some of the highlights include Snyder and Miller on "deconstruction", rebuilding Batman and the differences between him and Superman:

Zack Snyder: I have this theory that in the modern world, we lost myth, and so we use comics and superheroes to kind of decode the problems of our times. That is to say, in the ancient world, if a volcano went off, you'd be like, "Oh, there's a god in that mountain and he's mad." Now, if a terrorist flies a plane into the World Trade Center, it's harder to make a myth out of it, but comics might allow that sort of thinking. I don't know how you feel about that.

Frank Miller: Well, I believe the birth of religion and mythology was basically a cave dweller not understanding lightning and having to anthropomorphize nature. Religion was the precursor to science.

Along the way where all these gods and heroes were created. The Greeks just couldn't stop puking them out. They had a legion of superheroes going on their own, and those really stayed in people's heads. And the superhero universes essentially are this wild amalgam of sort of recreated Greek, Nordic, and Hebrew mythologies.

Zack Snyder: Yeah, they've really endured. And so, is your feeling that to talk about mythology in comics is really kind of 101, because we're all still living in the shadow of those gods? So maybe that's what it is, if you deconstruct, you kind of peel away, and by peeling away you really get to the mythological part of it.

Frank Miller: That's the best way to put it. I've always found "deconstruct" to be a problematic term because people usually assume that when you deconstruct something, you're tearing it to pieces, and that's only half of what deconstruction really is because it's tearing its essence and then rebuilding it stronger than ever before. I mean, I wrote Batman cynically, in order to mock the character. I basically was just looking to get rid of all the sh*t and restore him to the kind of stature he had in my mind when I was seven years old.

Zack Snyder: The Dark Knight Returns is often credited with revolutionizing how Batman is perceived. But also my takeaway from Dark Knight Returns is exactly the same as you just stated it. Some people would say it's deconstruction, and I understand that you might say that, but for me it was restorative. I'm like: That's my Batman. The Batman I want to see is that Batman, not the bullsh*t Batman who's a joke. What were your key influences when creating a darker, older, more psychologically complex Batman?

Frank Miller: The notorious old TV show, the one with Adam West and Burt Ward. I mean, that was a goof. It was basically a snide take on stuff that I remember that I absolutely loved. I loved the comic book characters and the TV show was constantly telling you how stupid the comic book was.

Zack Snyder: Yeah. Because it was counterculture against authority and they sort of saw Batman as the man. And so I just felt like they were making the man out to be sort of an idiot.

Frank Miller: Yeah. So, without question, I was rejecting that damn show more than anything when I did Dark Knight Returns.

Zack Snyder: You were like, literally, this is the opposite. This guy is the opposite of what you think he is.

Frank Miller: Yeah, this guy is no joke.

Zack Snyder: One of the things you do in Dark Knight Returns with the voiceover, in the sort of very specific language that he uses in combat and how he analyzes the combat that he's in, you go like, "OK, this guy is 100% more complicated in his combat style even, than you you can imagine."

Frank Miller: I look at Batman as the self-made superhero. Bruce Wayne made himself Batman by studying, training, and exploring. Extraordinary feats come easily to Superman. He can fly and then the rest. I mean, just in terms of Superman, it's like you think you can do it. He can fly for god's sake. Whereas Batman needs a goddamn car. I enjoy an effort.

Zack Snyder: The one thing I really loved about the way you did Superman also was, he's sort of a tool of the U.S. government, but the Superman also in your version is self-aware. He knows what he's doing. Because everyone's like, "Oh, he's like a big boy scout." Well, it's like, no, he understands the political complexity of the whole thing, and he's just done the math and goes, "Look, this is the only way we are able to exist is if we do it this way."

Frank Miller: Superman is an apologia worrywart and he's concerned with keeping the world from blowing itself up. Batman's this Dionysian character who's out for blood, and they're perfect opposites in that Batman is the reckless ego and Superman is the fearful superego.

Zack Snyder: That's cool. I really love it, because I love that Superman is in charge of keeping this... In a lot of ways, the children are tearing the preschool down, they're setting it on fire, and they're out of their minds, and he's really just trying to wrangle us so we don't kill ourselves and Batman's just like, "No, that's what it is to be alive," you know? That's cool.

Frank Miller: Batman is the happier character.

Zack Snyder: 100%. Yeah! 100%.

Another exchange involves Snyder and Miller talking about canon and their criticism over absolute rules for characters only stifle creativity. In this instance, Miller explains his thought process behind Batman using guns in DKR.

Zack Snyder: That's cool. Look, you know how I feel about the work. It's incredible. So, the heroes in your stories are often morally ambiguous or even sometimes antiheroes. How do you view the evolution of the hero in modern storytelling, and why do you gravitate toward these more complex heroes?

Frank Miller: I regard defining the hero as being the center and purpose of my work, and in order to find something you have to test it, prod it, attend it, and find new ways to portray it. And I find sometimes having a hero do wrong or take a wrong course is the best way to ultimately define what a hero is, especially with my Daredevil and my portrait of Superman. It's again the deconstruction thing where you can get to a character's essence by having them wander far astray. With Daredevil: Born Again, he essentially has a nervous breakdown. He loses control of his violence and his darker tendencies and essentially has to lose everything before he can turn into a better character.

Zack Snyder: Yeah, that's cool. For me, if someone says in a hero's canon, he's not allowed to do blank, I immediately want him to do that thing because I feel like if a character can't withstand breaking his own canon, then he's not really worth anything, you know?

Frank Miller: Right. And then what defines him? I mean, at first, Zack, I approached this kind of thing almost like just a rebellious adolescent. I was told Batman could never fire a gun. I was told by the editor with absolute conviction. So, I came up with an excuse for him to fire a rifle, even though it was just a grappling hook into the side of a building, but it was just to get that picture of him holding it. I don't like these absolute dicta.

Zack Snyder: Well, it's cool because if you can create a scenario where Batman has to shoot a gun and someone says, "Well, Batman can't shoot a gun." And you're like, "Well, what should he do in this scenario then?" And then if someone says, "Well, don't put him in that scenario." I'm like, "Well, that's a weak character." You can't have a character where we're modifying this scenario because he can't exist in it. That's not realistic. Now we're just creating scenarios that his morality can work inside of, rather than the other way around.

Frank Miller: Absolutely right, Zack. That's not creative.

Zack Snyder: And I think that's what Dark Knight did for me, it was like, "Oh wait, Batman can actually live in my world," which I think was cool.

Frank Miller: Batman can't shoot somebody dead, he cannot murder, but that's a completely different issue than using essentially a tool.

https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/frank-miller-zack-snyder-interview

It's a great interview. I agree with both men when it comes to the argument that certain characters should never be written in a scenario at all. Looking for a deus ex machina or copping out just to uphold absolute ideas is cheap storytelling. Whether the execution has been pulled off, however, is another story.

I'm still not crazy about the idea of Superman as a government agent, but then again I can still acknowledge he's in a no-win situation - if he overthrows the government, he's abusing his power. I don't necessarily agree with the criticism of the Sixties TV show Batman as an idiot, but like it or not DKR and its impact was a response against the public perception of Batman at the time.

With comments like these, you appreciate how Christopher Reeve knew Superman, as a concept, was much deeper than the general consensus gives him credit for. Anyone who views Superman as nothing more than happy-go-lucky is not only doing a disservice to the character, they're doing a disservice to Reeve's portrayal if that's all they see him.

I've been listening to small portions of the Star Trek Movie Memories audiobook read by William Shatner, and I listened to Harve Bennett's recollection of Gene Roddenberry giving strong pushback against the premise for The Wrath of Khan. Roddenberry was even suspected of leaking Spock's death to fanzines which initially sparked outrage among the Star Trek faithful.

I learned Bennett watched the original show and picked Space Seed as his favourite episode, and thought it laid the groundwork for a cinematic follow-up, but addressed Roddenberry's opposition to the film by claiming Star Trek isn't a military show and is against violence. Bennett politely rebuked Roddenberry's claims, as Star Trek always had had a chain of command involving admirals, captains, commanders, lieutenants and so on, and the original show had tons of violence in lots of episodes i.e. Space Seed ended with Kirk fighting Khan. Bennett speculated Roddenberry said these contradictory statements because he may have had experienced some new enlightened philosophy that fueled his inspiration for the plot in TMP, which Bennett commended for having.

Roddenberry deserves recognition for creating Star Trek, but he's not infallible. The problem is Star Trek's success on TV is hard to replicate to general moviegoing audiences, and perhaps the existential plotline of TMP not being well-received at the time made him bitter. Even one of the writers who worked on both TOS and TNG - David Jerrold - called him a great revisionist when speaking to Shatner during the Chaos on the Bridge documentary. I understand Roddenberry's frustration, and I understand he felt offended when he lost creative control in the early Eighties, but he would've been better off criticising the premise without making statements that clashed with details in the original show.

Not that this character was ever in the mix back in those days, but I reckon Biehn would've been a better fit to play Deadshot. He had this grit and intensity that would've better off with that sort of character than Batman.

Connie Nielsen has expressed her bewilderment and disappointment there won't be another Wonder Woman sequel starring Gal Gadot.

I think it's crazy. I mean, frankly, I don't understand it.

Wonder Woman made $800 million just in the movie theaters, and it has an enormous and passionate, passionate fan base. These are spectacular films, and there's just no reason I can understand whatsoever for not investing in that.

If I were a business person, I would say that's money on the table. It's right there. Plus every time we've done it, [it was] with budgets that were way smaller than any of the other DC budgets.

It's a pity. I really hope that they change their minds, and that they realize this is crazy.

This is a billion dollars that is lying on the table. Not claiming those fans and making them happy is something I just don't really understand at all.

https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/movies/connie-nielsen-thinks-crazy-wonder-100000420.htm

It's definitely not the first time that those hacks at Warners have left money on the table.

A lot of apologists blame WW84 for killing the franchise, but they're just being willfully ignorant because bombing at the box office hasn't stopped TSS and Blue Beetle from getting away with having spin-offs in the works. Rather than seeing Gunn being the upward-failing narcissist that he is, we're led to believe Peacemaker made more money than Wonder Woman. Yeah, right.

If WBD/DC continues to burn more money by making flop after flop due to pride and stupidity then it's nobody's fault but their own. The question is, are people going to be gullible and swallow up this DCU hype or see it for what it is as the shoddy attempt at a soft reboot that's fueled by nepotism?

A couple of weeks ago, Jay Oliva took the opportunity to celebrate Batman Day by posting this storyboard drawing of Batman fighting Deathstroke.