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Not cool, Google.

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The Auteur of Star Wars

I'd like to elaborate on a thread I posted on twitter.  Confined to a series of tweets, I mostly rambled about Star Wars boss Kathleen Kennedy.  But my main point is about film authorship, and how the entire concept is flawed.

Anyway: yes, Star Wars should hire a woman director.  I've read numerous hand-wringing DGA studies about how female directors (especially in movies) are afforded far fewer opportunities than males, and the responsibility to fix that is on the studios -- even the smaller studios, like Lucasfilm.  But Star Wars is also an outlier, because even if the movies have yet to hire a woman director, the franchise itself is being directed by a woman.  And she’s made it clear that the franchise is larger, more ambitious, and more important than any single component.

A little history: around 70 years ago, a bunch of French academics started lionizing the director as the "auteur" of a given movie.  (To give them credit, many of these academics were also filmmakers.)  Their goal was to celebrate the achievements of certain American directors, such as Howard Hawks, who weren't yet recognized as artists.  And, y'know, good for them -- Hawks deserved recognition.  But their conclusions were hardly conclusive.  Ever since then, academics have been debating the merits of film “authorship” and whether auteur status is possible in a medium where hundreds of individuals work on a single project.

Humans love asking, "Who is responsible for this?"  And a lot of art is a solitary accomplishment.  Books have authors, paintings have artists.  Usually just one.  But theatre?  Television?  Movies?  When a work of art involves writers, actors, producers, camera crews, lighting directors, set designers, etc. etc. etc., all operating in unison... can we really say that the director is the one true visionary?

A quick example: Stanley Kubrick, who’s widely hailed in film circles as a genius and a trailblazer and a master of cinema.  Kubrick was a quiet tyrant on his sets, demanding take after take until he had captured his exact vision on film.  And what was his vision?  Well, he pretty much stuck to adapting novels.  Dr. Strangelove, 2001, Clockwork Orange, Paths of Glory, Spartacus, Lolita, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut -- they were all based on books.  Can Stanley Kubrick be considered an auteur if he never made anything original?  

That's not fair, nor is it particularly nice to Kubrick (who was a genius, of course), but my point is that giving overwrought credit to directors is often done at the expense of their collaborators.

Way before Star Wars, before Kubrick, before French academics, the very first auteurs weren't even people, they were studios.  The studio logo was the first credit you saw on the big screen, and it announced what kind of movie you were about to see.  A Warner Bros. picture was not an MGM picture was not a Paramount picture was not a Columbia picture was not a Fox picture.  Regardless of the talent in front of or behind the camera, the studio was the name.  This policy of collecting and co-opting credit under one roof was weirdly honest, in its own corporate way.  The studio was the father, the mother, the holy ghost, the money, the production, the distribution and the exhibition.  It all started with and came back to the company.  More than anything, this is the model that Lucasfilm seems to be emulating, but with a cool twist: the franchise itself is now in charge.  Star Wars is the auteur of Star Wars.  Maintaining the integrity of the franchise is more important than any individual.

This is a big change from the George Lucas days, because Lucas was one of the few undeniable auteurs of American movies.  He not only wrote and directed and produced his movies -- after the first Star Wars he even began to finance them, all the while creating entirely new companies to advance his visions for special effects, sound mixing, and computer animation.  And make no mistake, his vision was dominant.  Nobody considers The Empire Strikes Back to be an Irvin Kershner joint.  ESB is, first and foremost, a Star Wars movie.

And as the recent hirings and firings at Lucasfilm have illustrated, a Star Wars movie is bigger than any individual director.  The director is an important member of the crew, and clearly has creative input, but s/he is still just that -- a creative collaborator.  Josh Trank, Miller & Lord, Ron Howard, Colin Trevorrow, J.J. Abrams -- all talented guys. But look at the ease with which they were swapped in and out.

The auteur of Star Wars is Star Wars.  Lucasfilm employs writers, directors, executives, artists, a story group, licensees, technicians, futurists, and everything in between, and they all serve the same master: the franchise.  Lucasfilm makes movies, novels, comics, games, cartoons, and every consumer product imaginable.  No single director is important enough to derail that train, and if they think they are, they're given the boot.

The auteur of Star Wars is Star Wars, and Kathleen Kennedy understands that.  In addition to everything else involved in running a multi-billion dollar empire, she’s the ultimate gatekeeper, the one who makes the sure that the franchise takes precedence over all else.  No matter who's directing Episode IX, she's directing Star Wars.

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The Unmaking of Star Wars

A few things happened recently that may seem disconnected, but they illustrate an important philosophical difference between Disney and Lucasfilm.

First item: the “Making of Rogue One” book is canceled, plus we receive confirmation that the “Making of The Force Awakens” is also kaput.

Second: Jonathan Rinzler’s blog detailing his time at Lucasfilm – warts and all – is taken down.  Rinzler offers no explanation, but says it won’t be coming back.

Third: Whoopi Goldberg uses her newly-minted status as a Disney Legend to encourage Disney to re-release Song of the South.

Let's start with that last item: it’s not gonna happen, Whoopi.  Other folks have asked for Song of the South to be released, with the same “historical authenticity” argument, and it’s never worked.  Disney is all about suspension of disbelief, not re-examining the unpleasant past.  Hell, their preferred way of dealing with these issues is to blissfully pretend that they never existed.  Disney is not an academic company; they create immersive escapist fantasies where endings are happy and magic is real.  It’s what they’re best at, it’s what the audience wants, and it’s possibly what the world needs right now.

Lucasfilm also creates immersive experiences, but as a company, they’ve always been a little anti-magic.  For several decades, Lucasfilm was on the forefront of showing how movies were made, with elaborate behind-the-scenes books and documentaries about special effects, the art of storytelling, and virtually every other facet of filmmaking.  Jonathan Rinzler was a big part of this – during his fourteen years at LFL, his “Making of” books for Star Wars and Indiana Jones set a new standard for this kind of work.  They’re massive, impeccably researched, and often brutally honest.  If you haven’t read them, they’re great.

Rinzler’s now-defunct blog continued in this tradition, giving a truly insider’s view of working with George Lucas, working at Skywalker Ranch, and the creation of the most expensive independent movies ever made, a.k.a. the Star Wars Prequels.  Rinzler isn’t saying why he removed his blog, but if his terse statements about it are any indication, he’s not happy about it.  (I hope I’m wrong and he’s planning to eventually publish all this in a memoir.)

So did he get hit with a C&D on Disney/Lucasfilm letterhead?  I tend to doubt it, but who knows?  The blog was, after all, titled “The Rise and Fall of Star Wars.”  That said, it was hardly a salacious tell-all.  Rinzler was generally very positive about Lucas and Lucasfilm, and he often stressed that this was just his POV, and not the objective all-seeing and all-knowing Truth with a capital T.  Granted, it seemed like he was eventually going to explain why he left Lucasfilm, but that seemed like it was a while’s away.

Here’s what we do know: Lucasfilm has apparently gotten out of the “Making of” business, just as fans are clamoring for more and more behind-the-scenes scoops.  Why did they scrap Michael Arndt’s take on Episode VII?  How extensive were the Rogue One reshoots?  What led to Phil Lord and Chris Miller getting canned from the Han Solo movie?  We may never find out, at least from an official source.

And honestly, that’s not necessarily a bad thing – this new brand of corporate secrecy (very much in the J.J. Abrams mode) has proven to be incredibly effective when it comes to marketing the movies.  Unlike during the Prequel era, Lucasfilm now gives away very few plot points in advance, which lets the movies stand on their own once they’re released.  And they certainly don’t dwell on the struggles it took to bring something to the screen.  All that matters is the experience of the finished product.  The Lucasfilm philosophy of pulling back the curtain has taken a back seat to the Disney mantra of creating magic.  I get why they’re doing this, and it’s easy to see the gains, but it’s also a bit of a shame that we’re losing part of what made Lucasfilm so unique.

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It's a pretty good likeness but it didn't come with the one accessory everyone wants. Do you know how hard it was to make a miniature burlap sack myself?

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Weird detail in the latest episode of Star Wars Rebels.

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A man dies and gets all the answers about his life.

Amazing and beautiful. The best six minutes you’ll have today. 

Watch it.

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My kid totally ratted me out to his teacher.

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Two little thoughts about Starkiller Base: Yes, it's derivative of the Death Star, but the movie acknowledges this -- and in doing so, reminds casual viewers about the Death Star. It's a clever way of setting the stage for next year's Rogue One.

But one way it's different from the Death Star (both of them, truth be told) is that it doesn't explode. Instead, it implodes at the end, forming a new sun from all that built-up energy that it stole from another sun. It's a pretty and subtle way of conveying that light has returned to the galaxy. TFA doesn't have too many stunning visuals, but that one is a beaut.

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There’s a magazine in the garbage, and now it looks like someone threw out Jennifer Aniston.

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Let’s go fly a kite.

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Love new Star Wars books?  Love Shark Week?  NOW YOU DON’T HAVE TO CHOOSE!!!

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The 5 Best (and 5 Worst) Yoda Figures Ever

I’m not much of a collector, but I own a lot of Yoda figures -- all of them, I believe, at least from the Hasbro/Kenner lines.  Some of them are great!  And some, less so.  Much, much less so.  I’ll alternate between the best and the worst.

Best #5: Mission Series (2014) 

This is a recent release with a throwback feel, but ya know what, it totally works.  Fun little legs, belt way up around his chest, everything seems like it’s to scale.  Kinda the opposite of...

Worst #5: Trilogy Collection (2004)

Hi, I’m Yoda, and I’m wearing my daddy’s clothes!  Seriously, why give him cloth robes if he’s going to be swimming in them?  Also, his face looks more like Salman Rushdie than Yoda.  Just look at him.  What a pretentious little shmuck.

Best #4: AOTC Deluxe (2002)

This guys doesn’t get a lot of love, probably because his legs don’t move... but I think his robe is actually really nifty.  Definitely one of the best body sculpts out there, especially for an action pose.  And his face is pretty badass.  Dude is determined.

Worst #4: Spinning Attack (2005)

Sweet Jesus, this is actually the figure’s default pose.  Between the hand at the crotch and the billowing cape, it’s like they took Yoda’s head and put him on Michael Jackson’s body.  Michael Jackson wearing a skirt.

Best #3: Yoda & Kybuck (2007)

His outfit is a bit bananas, but this is one of those rare cloth robes that actually fits him pretty well.  Plus, he gets to ride that kybuck, which is awesome, especially since his usual accessories are a cane and a pot.

Worst #3: The Clone Wars (2009)

And here’s the flipside of the cartoon-inspired Yodas... ugh.  Why is his robe bleached white?  Why does he look like someone just farted?  Is he smirking or scowling?  So many questions.  So many unnecessary questions.

Best #2: Floatin’ Yoda (2003)

There are a few Yoda “sitting” figures out there, but I always liked this guy the best.  His robe falls really nicely around his hoverchair, his face has the right sorta pensive expression, and he comes with a little Jedi initiate (not pictured) as a bonus accessory.  Only downside: they gave him an extra toe, though I acknowledge that there was still some debate on this issue back when he came out.

Worst #2: ROTS (2005) 

Another lemon from the Revenge of the Sith era.  He’s dark, he’s depressed, and he’s wearing a wrinkled bedsheet.  Proof that you don’t need a cloth robe to screw up his outfit.

Best #1: ESB Vintage (1981)

Sure, his robe looks a bit like a fur coat, but dammit at least it fits!  And classic Yoda was so freakin’ cute, you can’t help but love his cross-eyes little face.

Worst #1: Black Series (2014)

NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE CLOTH! If there is one lesson to be learned here, let it be that.  His robe is way too big, the backpack looks like a potato sack, and he appears to have a rubber noose around his neck.  No wonder he looks like he wants to cry.

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The question was “Where’s the best place to buy firewood in San Diego?”

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instagram comment ftw

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The People’s Champion

2011 was hit with an unusual wave of nostalgia.  Instead of trying to replicate a certain type of film, the year's crop of movies often evoked a certain type of filmmaking.  The Artist, with its behind-the-scenes drama detailing the dawn of sound, eulogized a purely visual form of cinema.  Martin Scorsese’s Hugo also mined the silent era, showcasing the hands-on ingenuity of early special effects as well as the fragile, tangible allure of celluloid itself.  Film stock again shows up in Super 8, where it was lovingly anachronized alongside bloody squibs and practical monster makeup.  Even Kermit the Frog had an existential crisis, wondering in The Muppets whether his felt-and-fingers sensibility had any place in the modern world.

It was, all in all, a celebration of the low-tech -- and perhaps, a condemnation of the current practices.  One of the unforeseen casualties of digital cinema has been special effects.  Put simply, there's nothing special about them anymore.  Nobody watches a movie nowadays and asks How did they do that?  They all know the answer: pixels, mousepads, and desktops.  In the span of just two decades (starting, by most estimations, with Jurassic Park), we've moved from Movie Magic to Computer Wizardry to plain old Digital Effects.  This is not to disparage the programmers and animators who create such photorealistic impossibilities -- indeed, more man hours are put into today's visual effects than ever before.  But in an era when everything is possible, nothing is remarkable.

There is an unlikely savior, though.  Motion capture remains one of cinema's most maligned and misunderstood technologies, largely because it's being pulled in two directions.  The first is the style developed by Robert Zemeckis and apotheosized by his mentor, Steven Spielberg, with The Adventures of Tintin (2011).  Zemeckis and Spielberg use motion capture to record digital versions of their actors, who are then transported into a fully-realized three-dimensional environment.  The goal is less about retaining the performance than it is about erasing the camera.  The camera in Tintin, for example, swerves and swoops under cars, over cities, through windows, floors, walls, and eyeglasses.  This technique even bridges large expanses of time; in one series of inventive flashbacks, Tintin shuttles back and forth between different centuries and conflicting landscapes, merging them together in a series of long, unbroken shots.  The lack of cuts, especially in action sequences, is one of motion capture's distinguishing features.  In particular, the chase scenes in Tintin all resemble the opening shot in Touch of Evil, except at 90mph:

This move from two-dimension celluloid to the three-dimension plane is arguably the most important innovation of the digital age.  But the style employed by such films -- an uncomfortable mix of computer animation and the transposed performances of real actors -- has been steadily rejected by filmgoers.  Though Tintin became a middling success (mostly in Europe, where the character has a built-in fan base), Zemeckis' latest mocap production, the underrated (or perhaps merely unseen) Mars Needs Moms, was 2011's biggest financial flop.  However, this lack of acceptance has not been a problem for motion capture's other application: as a special effect.  When combined with traditional live-action footage, motion capture is usually embraced by audiences and, to a lesser degree, even actors.  And according to one 2011 film, motion capture may be the one thing that can save modern special effects from their own flawless mundanity. Real Steel (directed by Shawn Levy) opened to little fanfare at the end of the summer.  Reviews called it formulaic, xenophobic, and loaded with product placement -- all true.  But it also had more to say about motion capture than any of Robert Zemeckis' previous experiments.  (Zemeckis was credited as a producer, naturally.)  The plot is an old one: in the not-so-distant future, boxing has been taken over by colossal, souped-up robots who demolish each other in the ring.  These heartless heavyweights are controlled by joysticks, control panels, audio commands, and various other computer interfaces.  But one low-tech automaton, found buried in a junkyard and reassembled by a plucky little boy, has a different set of programming.  Named Atom (but pronounced "Adam"), this junkyard 'bot comes with a "shadow function" which allows it to perfectly mimic the motions of its sparring partner.  Atom was built, the movie explains, to participate in practice bouts against larger, more advanced robots.  When the boy discovers that Atom can also mimic human movements, he convinces his father, a washed up prizefighter played by Hugh Jackman, to train the robot.  Soon, by flawlessly imitating Jackman's signature moves, Atom rises through the ranks of the professional Rock 'Em Sock 'Em league.

The story culminates, as these things always do, with Atom fighting for the championship against a mechanical monster named Zeus.  Zeus operates with a state-of-the-art, lightning-fast processor that instantly adapts its fighting style to conquer any opponent.  Atom's training is no match for Zeus' superior programming, so Jackman turns on its shadow function.  "Watch me!" he screams at Atom, though he might as well be talking directly to the audience.  Jackman begins to shadowbox on the side of the ring, and Atom imitates his every jab and uppercut.  This flummoxes Zeus, whose handlers (hiding behind joysticks and looming holographic displays) become increasingly frustrated with their robot's dwindling battery life and, compared to human reflexes, slow response time.  The fight ends in a stalemate, and Zeus wins via decision -- but by then Atom has won over the crowd, who enthusiastically proclaim it "The People's Champion."  The title is well-deserved.  The image of Atom boxing in the foreground, with Jackman moving in perfect symmetry in the background, is the best metaphor for motion capture Hollywood has ever produced.

Real Steel posits that motion capture can put the human hand back into the digital realm.  We may no longer wonder how special effects are accomplished, but we can at least rest assured that there was a person behind the pixels.  Low-brow Hollywood entertainment seems to understand this intuitively; witness the surprise success of the recent Planet of the Apes prequels, or the continued popularity of the Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise.  There is a base, perhaps primal pleasure in seeing a monkey use a toilet, or watching pudgy rodents replicate Beyonce's dance moves.  These apes and chipmunks, like Atom the robot boxer, highlight the humanity in inhuman objects.  (This is distinctly unlike the characters of Tintin or Mars Needs Moms, where the motion capture is then adorned with animation, effectively masking its real-life stars.)  Indeed, Real Steel toys with the idea that Atom is sentient, only to dismiss it entirely.  In a quick moment during the middle of the film, Jackman polishes Atom in a locker room when he is suddenly called away to negotiate with Zeus' owner.  Behind Jackman is a mirror, and as he moves offscreen, Atom is left staring at its own reflection.  The moment lasts just long enough for us to ask: can Atom shadow itself?  Will it move of its own volition?  We want to see Atom react, but as the scene ends, he remains motionless, a mass of gears and circuits, unmoved by its own reflection, waiting to be brought to life.

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"I'm looking for a refrigerator that holds a very specific amount of pies." "Very good, sir."

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Enjoying Cinderella

The movie gives its best line to a lizard.  This is important.

The scene, which I might be paraphrasing a tad, occurs right after Cinderella arrives at the ball. Staring up at the castle, and the enormous staircase she’ll climb to get there, she’s hit by a brief bout of nerves. “I’m only a girl,” she says, “I’m not really a princess.”  Her reptilian footman is sympathetic.  “I’m only a lizard,” he responds, “I’m not a really footman.  Enjoy it while it lasts.”

And she does. Cinderella has a grand ol’ time at the ball because she goes in knowing it’ll end.  Once midnight hits, she’s outta there.  So once she’s home, even though she’s back to basically being Cate Blanchett’s slave, she’s happy – happy because she had one really fun night out, and she has the memory to hang onto.

Cinderella has been criticized for turning its heroine into a traditional Disney doormat, kind and obedient and waiting to be rescued.  But what sets her apart, what’s new about this Cinderella, is her willingness to live in the moment, her understanding that nothing lasts but the memories.  It’s not just a function of being docile – the movie shows how she learned this lesson the hard way, having lost both of her parents.  So instead of pining for a happily ever after, Cinderella survives all the crap in her life by keeping her eye on the temporary, hoping for just a few moments of happiness to create new memories.  (And maybe a new collectible every now and then to help her remember.)

In this way, the new Cinderella (both the character and the movie) perfectly encapsulates everything that Disney is about: fluffy, clever, undeniably gorgeous escapism.  Whether it’s two hours in a movie theater or two days at Disney World, we all go for the same reason: the promise of beauty, humor, excitement, cleanliness, and a little bit of manufactured magic.  Cinderella didn’t try to escape her attic prison because she didn’t need to – she already had, once upon a time, and that was enough.  She knew, as the lizard guy said, to enjoy it while it lasts.