Musings on heroes

Okay, so this whole James Bond posting craze had been in warm up to seeing Casino Royale at the ANU Film Group on Monday. First of all, Daniel Craig can act...the action scenes are pretty awesome...and overall, the film was entertaining...but it's definitely not Bond. A complete lack of any remotely humorous wit, the ridiculous prominence of Sony products (even in his provided inventory...when the hell did British Intelligence need sponsorship?) immediately preclude it from inclusion as such.

However, the fun of watching a professional killer be driven effectively mad by girls is cool and the film ends up something like a cross between the action and the girl-chasing-ness of Mission: Impossible: 3 and the character development and transformations of The Matador (which I suggest anyone watch).

I kept trying to remember that the film was meant to be a 'restart' for the franchise, but the fact is, in the last 40 years, the character of Bond has developed beyond the books and Eon did fine jobs effectively refining the character by introducing a new actor in the past. When they wanted to sell on the humour and charm, they swapped out for Roger Moore. When they wanted to bring back the gritty realism, they were able to rely on relatively strong scripts to launch Timothy Dalton. And then when they needed just a wee bit more charm, to take it back to the height of Connery, they found the equal-best Bond in Pierce Brosnan.

The only real reason that a restart was really needed was because they'd already ballsed up the last film by giving him an invisible car! (Seriously, if they had them they'd be using them a bit more often wouldn't they?) In the Cold War, the KGB's own 'Q's regularly watched the early Bond films beacuse they thought the gadgets were real...and the fact that most of them were working props meant that they were pretty close. Assuming that you write-off Moonraker (as you should George Lazenby) and the occasional cutting-lasers Q hid in everything, the rest was actual technology, just in well-controlled environments.

Anywho...in my attempts to calm myself I went looking for randomness and, thanks again to Chris, I found some suitable, mindless entertainment in the random comics at Fishing For Orphans, only to get even more distracted by With your Moneys Combined. Wanting initially to look at the names of the old Captain Planet characters (check out the wanky sound on the gif of the Heart ring at the top), I am led into another rant: What kind of a superhero is weakened by the very thing he has been specifically created to fight? For those who can't remember, Gaia, the spirit of the Earth created Captain Planet, apparently thousands of years ago, to help her fight pollution...but if he gets too close it's like kryptonite (don't even get me started on Superman). Secondly, for a guy created, presumably with the first fire, why does he have a hairdo limited to about 10 years of being cool? Why is he blue? Why does he have seemingly infinite powers yet never use them? Why, if he's against pollution, doesn't he use his powers to create clean technologies and kind of ease the path to a less-polluted world? And why the hell does he have to be powered by some stupid kid who looks like a pineapple? And why does said kid not use his 'heart' powers to get some action? Seriously, if the 5 of them were at a club, Kwame leans over to a girl and says some crappy line about the 'earth moving under her feet', she's kinda interested until Wheeler sets something on fire...as if Ma-ti can't just use his ring to persuade her (abstract) heart to dump those two with their cheap tricks and go with him because she thinks she's in love!

Okay...deep breath...count to 10...in Greek...

That reminds me. The fourth Indiana Jones movie is to be out for next year with shooting starting in June (link). Who reckons Ford can pull it off? Apparently the script is "...well worth the wait." However, George Lucas is still involved (despite his Star Wars Travesties...that's right, they get a capital) and has even described it as "...doing the Phantom Menace." thus proving his millions of dollars and ranch in the middle of nowhere do nothing to keep him in touch with audiences. He does want to use another supernatural motivator though...which I think is a good thing. And the film will follow a week after Prince Caspian is released so be prepared for much movie merriment in May 2008.

(A bit of surprising: the first 3 Indy flicks got 7 Oscars from 14 nominations between them...that's just begging for another rant about Starship Troopers, but that's for later).

Oh yeah, a bit old but worth posting: J.J. Abrams is officially attached to Star Trek XI with rumours of Matt Damon (who can't seem do one film wrong lately) as Kirk.

hmmm...I hereby attach a 'Most Links in a Post Award'...and the 'Longest Post (at the Very Least in a Long While) Medal'