Showing posts with label editorial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label editorial. Show all posts
The Colony Problem - The Handmaid’s Tale
Let me preface this by saying that Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a great show. Its first season is a downright masterpiece at times and its second season, so far at least, is very good and is mostly living up to expectations. It does have problems though. The second season doesn’t seem to have a coherent theme, at least yet, and I don’t think we get enough of certain characters. Those are minor issues though and are mostly left up to personal preference anyways. There is one problem, though, that I have not heard a single person bring up. I think that it kind of cripples the show in a few ways. That problem is with the Colonies.
The second episode of the second season, titled “Unwomen” is a speed bump for the rest of the season. The majority of the episode takes a break from the story of June, formerly known as Offred, and changes perspective to June’s friend, Emily. After the events of the last season, Emily and many of her other fellow handmaids are taken to the often rumored Colonies where they are forced to work in abhorrent conditions. The imagery and direction of these scenes are great and really puts the audience in the shoes of these people but the introduction of the Colonies as a plot device does a disservice to the overarching narrative of June.
The episode itself is fine but I find the mere introduction of the Colonies as a tangible place as off-putting -- to say the least. During the first season, the Colonies were threats yelled in handmaids’ faces by their aunts and feint nightmares of the handmaids themselves, and really never spoken aloud. Only one thing was known for sure -- it was torture. This allowed the viewer’s mind to wonder in horror about what the colonies could be. If given the space to do so, the mind can come up with the worst possible scenarios or make up excuses about what it doesn’t want itself to believe. Me? I thought they were fake. Maybe I’m just an optimist, but given the context clues, I surmised that the colonies were a threat, and that’s it. A 1984-style piece of propaganda. That is a minority opinion but the fact that I could have thought that in the first place shows the power of mystery in these dramas.

Image result for handmaid's tale

The colonies should have stayed a mystery. With them being a tangible reality that we see, it loses that dread that the viewer has whenever they are mentioned, even offhandedly. The colonies just lost all the mystery that made them interesting. Sure, it can be argued that this part of Gilead was shown to draw a strong parallel between the newfound country and the work camps of Nazi Germany or Stalin’s Russia, as it is obviously trying to do. I think that weakens the world-building of show, though. It’s not allowing for its own cruel and unusual identity to be shown, which I think is a shame. Instead, it’s borrowing from history, which can be powerful in its own right, but it has to sacrifice some of the uniqueness that it once had. The time should have instead be allotted to showing the power structure, the politics, or the individual lives of everyday people as its own world-building device instead spending that time on the colonies.
In both cases of split episodes with time given to this new Colony storyline, June’s story is exceptionally stronger than the anything else that the episode has to offer. This is especially true after the most recent episode dealing with the Colonies, titled “Seeds”. This episode is much better because of the theme of weddings, and feels more full and “worth it” as a result, but June’s story is still drastically more interesting. This problem, though, has allowed me to realize the real, main issue that I have with second season of the show. Basically, it can’t choose a perspective in which to tell the story.
In storytelling there is this idea of an audience surrogate which is basically the character in which the audience experiences the story. Any questions or confusion about the world or situation will be answered, if possible, through this character. From the start of the show, June was this character. She’s the literal narrator, after all. For a little while during the first season, any problems I had about the world-building -- mainly that I don’t know a whole lot about this world anyway -- I didn’t mind because there was this sense that the audience only knew as much information as June, our audience surrogate, knew.
But then we got an episode from Luke’s perspective. And, yeah, this episode is pretty solid and tells the audience more information about the state of the world than any of June’s backstory segments did. But is that a good thing? Isn’t the mystery in and of itself interesting? And should we need to be spoon fed this information through a secondary character? I don’t think so. I think that, with this specific story, the questions are a million times more interesting than the answers. I and a thousand other viewers could have easily surmised that The Colonies took inspiration from our own history and, given screen-time, would reflect that. But we didn’t just think that. During the first season it was anyone’s guess as to what the colonies actually were. And now that we know, it’s a little disappointing. Yes, it’s a dirty, decrepit, and disease-ridden place where the workers… dig… for something, but I don’t have any connection to these characters like I do June. Not only that, but the show can’t even decide on what the colonies’ main purpose is. If the show is going to show us these people at the colonies and what they are going through, I need some more context. I need the why. Right now it just feels… confused.
How could this have been done better? First of all, we should not see the colonies at all. In fact, I think we can rework the second season of the show, at least thus far, to keep that sense of mystery about certain subjects without infuriating the audience with lack of basic information. The key to this is Luke. All of the time going into the colonies in the current version of the story should instead be going to him finding out as much information that he can about Gilead -- how it works, its exact social structure, et cetera. Why is he doing this? I don’t know. Perhaps he starts engaging in the underground transport of handmaids and others trying to escape or maybe he even wants to contribute to the war effort this way. The reason doesn’t matter. But this would provide the audience with a secondary drip-feed of information while keeping it engaging because it gives Luke a goal, which is something his character is severely lacking at the moment.
I don’t think this should be the main bulk of the show, though. It should simply replace any and all time going towards the colony storyline which is interesting itself but has little to do with anything else that is happening. It should somehow relate back to the main character’s struggles but it just does not, at least yet. And that is the problem. The general lack of focus that these segments of the show has. Why should I care about Emily. Sure, her backstory is tragic in many ways and she is an engaging character. But there is no sense of stakes in her storyline. She is basically a main character at this point and the show hasn’t gone to lengths establishing that she could die, so I already know that it is going to turn out fine for her. This isn’t Game of Thrones, after all.

I’m bagging on this show a lot so I do need to repeat myself: this does not make The Handmaid’s Tale a bad show. At this point in time not much could considering that this season is a continuation of one of the greatest television experiences I have ever watched. It’s kind of hard to mess up the follow up to that. I just think that it could be a little better and there’s nothing wrong with that, right? The season is also not over so I might end up eating my words. Regardless, I still think my criticisms are at least valid.
Saturday, June 16, 2018
What ever happened to health bars in shooters? This seems like a very trivial question. The easy answer or at least the answer that most would agree on could be that, as games achieved the hardware to be more realistic, the games themselves followed suit with not only better graphics but with user interfaces. UI.



In most contemporary games, the UI shows information about the user as well as the world around them. In a modern shooter, say Halo 5, it can show ammo, a mini-map, items, and the player's shield. In modern games, mostly shooters, getting at

tacked is something that it shown very clearly on-screen with a red partial-circle in the direction of the bullets flying toward you in Halo, a similar red partial-circle with blood on the entire outside of your view in the newer Call of Duty games, and an arrow with blood smatterings in Uncharted 4. What do all of these have in common? They happen, then you forget about them.

It's very strange to me that games that are striving for realism, especially Call of Duty, are still using this particularly unrealistic trait of the human body. Taking five bullets to the chest isn't going to just slow you down and distract you for a few seconds; it is going to kill you. After the player has taken that initial hit, they are just going to forget about it an move on. In my ideal realistic game, that needs to stick with a person. A health bar would be a perfect place to implement that actual feeling of being shot without, obviously, having the actual feeling.

By this I mean that a health bar is there staring back at you as you trek through your space adventure, treasure hunt, or military simulation experience. When you get shot, a health bar reminds you of that and sticks with you. Say a man gets shot in the leg on the battlefield. By the standards of logic, that man probably won't be using that leg and thus has a higher chance of gaining another injury in the future. A developer can see a health bar in the same way. If a shot to the player takes off a certain amount of health, that player is more likely to die earlier because of it. That will stick with a player and can be a constant reminder of the vulnerability of themselves within the game world.


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I first got the inspiration of writing this after seeing footage of Naughty Dog's “Uncharted 4”. I mentioned earlier that this game uses the same hit-then-forget system that so many other games with familiar shooting mechanics follow but this game seems like a special case for me. Though I have yet to play an Uncharted game (hope to get to that series soon), I do know that this franchise is about high-flying adventure and really wants to give the player a

sense of power not by tedious trips of the stuff, but by a having Nathan Drake being at a low-point, like dangling off a cliff side or escaping a sinking shit, and then rising above to conquer. Sure Nathan gets more tattered and torn the more he adventures, but there doesn't seem to be anything specifically gauging that level of stress. I am speaking entirely in hypotheticals of course because of my nonexistent relationship with the franchise but it's still something that I, at least, think about.


http://goo.gl/s618Wt

The standard shooting mechanic that we have now is fine but after seeing the same thing game after game it gets, frankly, boring. Maybe going back to the health bar mechanics of the early 2000's like in Halo: Combat Evolved or even older classics like Wolfenstein might be a fresh breath of air. I think that, recently, we have gone back to these to give our games a little more urgency. The new DOOM came out recently and has done just that. Sure its health bar/health pack system is ripped directly from it's first title, but I think the success of the game might have an effect of this mechanic coming back into the more mainstream titles like COD or Halo.

Am I basically just rambling now about something that isn't too important in the grand scheme of things? Yes, but I think that this particular ramble has some merit in a debate that I see no one having. Probably because it doesn't need to be had. I just find it humorous that gamers that strive for realism will defend the no-health-bar system of COD as being realistic when it is in fact the least realistic thing about the franchise. I'm no game designer, but realism is a component in the progressing gaming culture that will always lust for the next big jump. But I don't think that we should count something as trivial as a health bar out just yet.
Friday, May 27, 2016
I recently saw the movie adaptation to one of my favorite classic books of all time, The Great Gatsby. Though the themes were still intact and the overall story was true to its source material, it took out important plot elements and added in others. At first I was upset at these changes. I had the feeling of "how dare they ruin this story that I love." But after thinking about it more rationally I came to realize that most of these changes were for the better because of the story-telling medium that this classic was now in.

One aspect of storytelling that viewers have to take into account is that not everything that a book can accomplish can be done the same way as in a movie. In a work of literature the author can paint pictures of grand objects or settings with paragraphs describing the life that takes place there, the effect that it has on other settings, or even the history. In a movie, however, this can't be done so elegantly. Monologues are boring to an average viewer of a two to three hour flick so long paragraphs have to be transformed into sweeping shots from above or maybe just a steady shot with a few editing tricks to make the atmosphere special to the movie-goer. In a way, a movie can portrait a setting even more deeply than a book can because of the many types of editing, directing, or sound techniques that the creator of the film can use. Harry Potter is great example of this. Though I've never read the book, I can tell that the atmosphere presented in Hogwarts is taken into great consideration because of the wonderfully orchestrated soundtrack that compliments it. Because of John Williams' score of the movie it just feels magical.

Replacing or changing story elements in the transition from literature to film is what really annoys a lot of people. In the case of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald I believe the changes, though not necessary, do bring the film to be less contrived than it might have been if it followed the book to a tee. For instance, in the film version of The Great Gatsby by Baz Luhrmann the main character Nick Carraway is an aspiring author first and a bondsman second. It may not seem like it but this small detail gives the writers of the movie credence to do much more with minor plot would-be annoyances like exposition. Because the story is told from the perspective of Nick Carraway in the future writing about Gatsby's life he can give the audience as much exposition as he likes without it feeling too forced. Adding plot threads isn't something that just happens from book to film but also in the reverse. In the book version of The Force Awakens Alan Dean Foster, who also wrote for the original trilogy book adaptations, goes into more detail about Supreme Leader Snoke's past. This includes the fact that he had apprentices before Kylo Ren, saw the Empire rise and fall, and even knew that Darth Vader was Luke's father. Because a book can be explained with words, the writer was able to add in so much more and even make the story make more sense in certain aspects.

So is the book always better than the movie? Well, no. A movie's audience has to recognize the fact that a movie can do things that a book can't and vice-versa. A movie can be directed a certain way, be edited, or given a score while a book has to be completely explained with words. A movie, better or not, is simply different.
Friday, April 08, 2016
This past week I started watching Netflix's Fuller House, a sequel to ABC's 90's sitcom of similar title, Full House. I got through the first three episodes with relative ease but I kept asking myself one question: is this even funny? The answer should be yes as Fuller House is a comedy and was made for the purpose to be one. It does have a couple really clever jokes that made me laugh at loud. Only a couple, though, as the majority of the jokes fell flat for me. This got me thinking if sitcoms are even relevant anymore.

The process of inserting laugh tracks to fill in silence in order to make the joke seem funny is, in my opinion, obsolete. Laugh tracks also, in many ways, take away from the sensation of getting the joke myself. In many instances I end up laughing not because the the characters are enjoyable or the joke was funny, but because I was pressured into laughing by the show. This doesn't make a show like Fuller House bad, however. It does have a lot of neat ideas that are being introduced, though a little too slow for my liking. For example, I really enjoy the relationship that DJ has with her sister Stephanie and their friend Kimmy Gibbler. The dynamic is just really fun and interesting, at least for me considering I have absolutely no nostalgia for the original ABC show. I remember certain scenes from it and sometimes episodes, but I was never really a fan because I was born after it concluded and therefore never got around to watching it. I understand that back then a laugh track was just a thing that studios did in order to make their shows more appealing but I like to believe that now we have grown to be smarter and don't need the show to tell us if a scene was enjoyable or not.

Compare the comedy from Fuller House to that of Modern Family. I know that the latter's comedy is much more mature but I think it is a fair argument. Modern Family's comedy can make me laugh hysterically with no laugh track needed. The former's comedy is much more simple and even immature at times and the laugh track just reminds me of how often the comedy doesn't land. I ask myself "Why are these people laughing at this" only to remember that the sound isn't of people laughing at the joke, but just in general. Though the definition of sitcom doesn't include the inclusion of laugh tracks, it is almost necessary for a show to be a 'true sitcom.' But why? Are we as a people that desperate for confirmation of whether a joke landed or are we just too ignorant to realize when it didn't. I don't think so.

There is a reason that Full House was so popular in the nineties. It was because that kind of comedy was attractive to the audience and the masses had just come out of an industry dominated by live studio audiences. These newer shows had to capitalize on that market while also providing new ideas. As a culture we have grown out of that and shows like Modern Family is a great example of this. This is why Fuller House just seems extremely dated. I've only seen the first three episodes but so far I feel like I'm watching the early nineties version. Maybe that's what the creators wanted in order to get the audience's nostalgia? This doesn't make the show bad, just lacking. laugh tracks to fill in silence in order to make the joke seem funny is, in my opinion, obsolete. Laugh tracks also, in many ways, take away from the sensation of getting the joke myself. In many instances I end up laughing not because the the characters are enjoyable or the joke was funny, but because I was pressured into laughing by the show. This doesn't make a show like
Friday, March 04, 2016
SPOILERS FOR Avatar: The Last Airbender, Avatar: The Legend of Korra, Adventure Time, Steven Universe, and Gravity Falls

I’ve noticed a very good trend that has been sweeping the world of American 2D animation. Characters now are just more varied than five or even ten years ago. When you take a step back this shouldn’t come as a surprise. The kids who watched the cartoons of the nineties, which were taking their own leaps in technology and inclusiveness, are now old enough to get into the animation field themselves and make a difference based on the world that they have lived in. That world, our world, is more accepting of the LGBT community, other religions, races, and of a diverse community. The first show that I can remember that became diverse was Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender. The setting of this show is a fictional universe based on the culture of various Asian countries, mostly China. Though my five-year-old self didn’t realize it, I was learning about a culture that I had never encountered up to that point in my life. It has story arcs, characters, and locations taken straight out of ancient Chinese and Japanese lore. Compare this to Xiaolin Showdown which aired around the same time. This show can only be described as well… racist. The Chinese characters speak broken English, have yellow skin, and slanted eyes. It might have been funny to older parents watching with their kids in the early 2000’s but now it is just appalling. Avatar, however, treats their characters of differing races with respect. For example, the Northern and Southern water tribes are based on the Natives of colder climates such as Alaska. Even their cultures take inspiration from both those Natives and of the Chinese lore surrounding the entire series. The Earth kingdom is reminiscent of ancient China while the Fire Nation is taken straight out of Japan. The Air Nomads are even based on Buddhist Monks. A much younger me didn’t realize it that a show that I love so much to this day was teaching me of cultures all around the world.

This show is still hailed to be one of Nickelodeon’s best shows they’ve ever aired.
In 2012 Avatar: The Legend of Korra aired. Being the sequel to Avatar gave the fans what they have wanted for a long time: more of this great world that they had come to love. Something was different this time. The scenic Chinese-inspired landscapes were replaced with bustling city streets reminiscent of New York City. Some fans were upset, some were indifferent. I saw this as something amazing. In Avatar: The Last Airbender, all of the cultures were separated by oceans or walls. In The Legend of Korra, however, all of those cultures merged into the melting pot of New York, named Republic City in the show. Because of this, the plot became much more political and adult that opened a lot of people’s eyes. It didn’t explore its new diversity too much until the very last episode. The last five minutes of the series finale, Korra, our main character, and Asami, our main character’s best friend, are hinted at to being gay. Because Nick has very strict guidelines as to what their shows can show, whether the two characters were in fact in a relationship was really up to interpretation, at least until about a month after the release of the finale. The two creators of the show went to Tumblr and confessed that Korra and Asami were in fact in a relationship. I could be wrong, but from what I’ve heard this is the first American animated show made for kids to have a lesbian relationship. And then came Adventure Time.

Adventure Time is an entirely different beast of a show. Though it has an overarching plot, the focus is on its episodic based comedy. And it is hilarious. The show does know when to get serious. The two female characters of Marceline and Princess Bubblegum have been hinted many times in the past of having a past relationship; mostly through song. After years of fan speculation, at a Q&A panel for the show, the voice actor of Princess Bubblegum finally stated that her character and Marceline had once dated. Again, this is a kid’s show. Cartoon Network continued to show its diversity in the fairly new We Bare Bears. The show is simple enough. A group of bear brothers go out and do human things because they can. It’s a comedy so I didn’t expect much of it. There is one passive character, however, that did peak my interest. This character, to put it bluntly, is Muslim. In our Islamaphobic country this caught me entirely by surprise. She isn’t even main character. Rather, she is just in the background in some scenes and nobody pays mind to her. Not in a ‘I’m scared so I’m not going to talk to her’ sense but more of a ‘she’s a human being so I should respect her as such’ kind of a way. This, at least to me living on the boarder of the North and the South, is awesome! A show that doesn’t care what their characters’ race, religion, or sexuality is. Again, this is a kid’s show. Finally, Steven Universe. Don’t mind that this show is great and kids and adults can enjoy just fine. The diversity in this is off the charts. In this show, all the super-powered aliens known as gems are women. Not just this, but they also have relationships with other gems. Therefore, not only does this show support an almost entirely female cast, but all of those women are also gay… kind of. The show does say that because the gems can shapeshift, they can choose whatever form they want. That doesn’t matter. The creator, Rebecca Sugar, is trying to say ‘who cares that the characters are women; have, what we would see as, gay relationships; and are of varying races’. The important thing is that they are people first. The latest of this great trend is in Disney’s Gravity Falls where two male police officers have been hinted at in the past to be in a relationship. At the series finale, however, it was more or less confirmed by the show itself and later confirmed by the show’s creator, Alex Hirsch, and Disney.

I love that I live in a time where not only the shows made for adult audiences are getting a treatment of diversity. Shows like Avatar, The Legend of Korra, Steven Universe, We Bare Bears, Gravity Falls, and Adventure Time are all shows made for kids that are respectfully diverse to all kinds of people. These shows are teaching kids to be more open to those who aren't necessarily the majority. That is awesome.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
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