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Second First Impressions of The Ark
August 06, 2024
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The Ark is back, and better than ever!

Season one ended on a big cliffhanger and no promise of a series renewal, but thankfully it survived against all odds, just like our crew. This isn’t going to be a summary of the first two episodes, so much as some general impressions. I know many people were turned off by the first season’s chintzy special effects, weak acting, and formulaic writing. I’ve seen at least one person complain that it’s not a sci-fi show, but a soap opera, which couldn’t be more misguided. But we’ll get into that.

So how is season two looking so far? 

Very, very good.

I have to wonder how many of the people who walked away during the first season went ahead and hate-watched all of the new Star Wars shows. The Ark may offend your highbrow or hard science-fiction sensibilities, but it will never subvert your expectations in a cruel way or preach a false, woke message. True,there are gay characters and girl-bosses, but I never get the sense that these characters are there to push an agenda so much as to cast a wide net. Dean Devlin and company don’t have fans to spare. They’re trying to build something.

All Disney knows how to do anymore is tear down.

What’s good: Right off the bat the stakes are high and not everyone from the first season survives. I said that Captain Garnet is something of a girl-boss, but the writers take care to make her a feminine character, not just a woman playing a part written for a man. When she pulls everyone together in the midst of a crisis to confess that she’s never known what it’s like to have a family until she met them, it feels right. She’s the captain of this damaged ship with its crew of misfits, and she navigates it like a single-mom who knows she’s in over her head. 

Star Trek was always about the bonds of friendship, and no one calls it a soap opera.

Also good, the formula seems to be gone. The writing in the first season was too predictable. There was a mystery that would arc over a few episodes, a problem to solve from the last episode, and the introduction of a new problem. Maybe the writers needed that structure while figuring out the characters and seeing what the show would become. Now it seems that the training wheels have come off and they’re able to freestyle in a way that feels more organic. The balance of drama and humor is also refreshing.

If you can’t find satisfaction in a good joke from a dire situation, when should you?

I also appreciate that The Ark continues to explore contemporary issues in ways that aren’t too on-the-nose. In the first season a major theme was the dangers of hero worship. This season seems to be tackling the problem of parents who mutilate their children for their own satisfaction and the consequences of that. A continuing theme is that of redemption. The Ark has never been afraid of allowing good characters to do terrible things, suffer the consequences, and ask for forgiveness. But can an evil person who's done unforgivable things change and find acceptance? We’ll find out.

Even the not so good is tempered with positives. 

Hearing a male character say, “My husband,” will never not be distracting and feel like pandering. It is what it is. They’re coming dangerously close to making Felix a one note character because of it. Most of what we actually see are heterosexual romances blooming, and it’s refreshing to have to have a show that doesn’t shy away from that. Also irritating are the budget special effects. Thankfully, the show knows its limits and doesn’t use them very often. But perhaps the most distracting change is that Ryan Adams, who plays Angus, looks to have gained 15 much needed pounds (the kid wasn’t just gawky, but gaunt!) between seasons. They’re covering it up well by keeping him in a hospital bed and not giving us a good look at him, but we can tell. 

And that’s it for the negatives!

Overall, new episodes of The Ark are still one of the highlights of my week. If you miss wholesome, optimistic, inoffensive sci-fi, you’re not going to find anything better on TV right now. 

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Leo and Britt come face to face with a prehistoric god a new cult on Saturn. Can they save the children doomed to sacrifice and escape?

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Leo and Brittany have arrived on Saturn, but not in the way they'd hoped. Captured by a pagan cult, they don't have time to stop the unthinkable from happening. But they'll try anyway.

Content warning: language and sexual situations.

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Star Wars is dead and the more apathy you show the faster it will be allowed to rest in peace.

Instead of griping about what Disney has done, why don't you listen to my space adventure story? He Who Rides on the Clouds is supernatural noir that spans space and time. When children on Mars go missing, Alexis Leonard and his ex-wife Brittany go looking. Their search leads them to a pagan temple and an ancient religion.

If you'd like to buy the story and read ahead, it's available in the Fall 2020 issue of Cirsova, available here: https://amzn.to/3yRRywY

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Girl-Power Isn't the Problem: Stop Treating Movies Like TV Pilots

Last weekend I was able to sneak off the theater for a screening of From the World of John Wick: Ballerina. Did I feel silly, telling the high school girl at the ticket counter, “One for Ballerina, and a small drink”? Well, not in the moment. 

I probably drank a liter of cherry vanilla Coke Zero, and that didn’t feel so great.

Plenty of box office analysts and Hollywood types are wracking their brains, trying to figure out why movies like Furiosa and Ballerina aren’t drawing huge crowds. Mad Max and John Wick are popular franchises, but apparently telling the stories of the women in those worlds isn’t working. Even if the movies are pretty good.

I’ve seen both, and they’re pretty good.

Some are arguing that no one will go near a movie that looks like it’s feminist girl-bossing. Others counter that movies like Alien and Kill Bill are female-led action films that were successful. Now, I’m not going to say that Ballerina is on par with those modern day classics. But I will say that, as a man watching the movie, it didn’t offend me. The movie never challenged me to confront any internalized misogyny. The small girl doesn’t take down John Wick in hand-to-hand combat.

Honestly, if you like franchise, whether you’re male or female, you should watch Ballerina.

In short, from a purely cinematic experience perspective, neither Furiosa nor Ballerina would be any better or worse with a male lead. Maybe that’s a hot take. But that’s mine, for whatever it’s worth. Well, okay, I wouldn’t watch a movie called Ballerina if it stared a dude. Nevertheless, I think you get my point. Petite women warriors aside, the plots and action are exactly as expected.

So what’s the deal?

Well, what no one seems to have noticed is that Ripley and The Bride weren’t replacing anyone. As we were watching their movies for the first time, we weren’t thinking about other characters for whom we already had a preference. Movies are more like TV than TV right now, and replacement characters have always been a hard sell, regardless of gender. We all remember Sam and Diane. Who still talks about Sam and Rebecca (even though Kirstie Alley won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for the part)? I had to look up her name. 

No, they aren’t technically replacing them. It’s a spin-off, set in the same world.

Spin-offs tend to succeed when the characters are already well established (eg: Frasier). Furiosa and Ballerina are more like backdoor pilots, where new characters are dropped in for a single episode to sell us on the idea of a new show. This technique is very hit and miss on TV, and I can’t think of a single example of this working in a movie franchise. Film and television are very different mediums, and should be treated as such.

Still, if it doesn’t work on TV, it’s probably not gonna work at the movies. Not where new characters and spin-offs are concerned. 

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Going Back to 1995

Maybe I’m just getting old, but it doesn’t feel like we had the thriving and distinct pop culture of past generations. Has there been a look or stye, or feeling, that defines this moment? Everything seems to have stagnated for the last twenty years. And it’s not as if I don’t pay attention. 

It’s making me nostalgic. 

Consequently, for the rest of the year, I’m prioritizing movies from 1995, the year I was twelve. At that time, my family didn’t really go to the theater, and when we did rent VHS tapes, more often than it is was older Disney movies or entirely forgettable Christian titles. Now that I’ve grown tired of trying to keep up with new releases, not there’s much worth watching anyway, it feels like a good time to catch up on those 30 year old movies that have become ingrained in what’s left of our pop culture.

So over on Criticless, I made a list.

Some of these are movies I’ve seen before, but not in a long time. Others will be first time watches for me. There’s really no rhyme or reason to what I put on my list. It’s just movies that either interest me, or are currently in my collection, sadly unwatched. As things become available on streaming, I may add to the list. And if I don’t get to everything before the end of the year, no big deal.

Hopefully, they aren’t going anywhere. 

I’ll be posting some reviews and analysis as I go, so be sure to follow me here. 

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Ironheart and Superman: A Failure to Launch

Yesterday two trailers were released for upcoming superhero projects. First, we had Marvel's Ironheart, which Disney has been sitting on for years at this point. Apparently it follows Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), a young black woman at MIT who is (was?) intended to take over for Tony Stark as Ironwhathaveyou. If you haven't seen the trailer yet, take a look.

I stopped paying too much attention to the MCU a long time ago, but apparently Riri was introduced in Wakanda Forever, and her fans have been clamoring for a standalone show ever since (/sarcasm). Watching the trailer, I can't help but notice how many times we're told she's smart and capable. Any suggestion that she can't do something is shot down immediately. We're supposed to believe that The System is against is her because she's poor, I guess, and doesn't have Tony Stark's advantages.

Remember Tony Stark? Sure, he was rich. But he was also a self-absorbed man-child who found himself in a cave in Afghanistan who had to engineer his own escape with scrap parts. Tony Stark, who had to learn about self-sacrifice and the consequences of his actions. Robert Downey Jr. make us like the guy, with his easy charm, even though we wanted to see him grow up. There was room for a character arc. No offence to Dominique, but she doesn't have the charm, and her character clearly has nowhere to go.

A few hours later, Warner Bros./DC released the trailer for James Gunn's Superman, the latest reboot of the iconic superhero. We've been waiting for a good Superman for a long time. Something to reunite the fans, the casually interested, and possibly the entire country. And to be honest, I don't think this is gonna do it. Take a look.

Before I go any further, I want to spin my theory on the interview scene, which is a little different from what I'm hearing from most anyone else. Notice how David Corenswet pitches his voice really high when he says, "Sure!" At this point in the movie, I don't think Lois (Rachel Brasnahan) knows that Clark is Superman, and thinks he's just playacting. But when Clark drops his voice, he's showing his cards a little bit. Then, when he completely loses his cool, he's just acting how Lois thinks Superman would respond. In context (the scene is reportedly ten minutes long!), it might be interesting. Out of context, in a trailer, it's a stupid decision.

Throughout the entire trailer we see Superman smacked around, knocked out, screaming out in self-defense, and made fun of for having a dog. There are some super-heroics, to be sure, but they're mitigated by the overwhelming amount of thrashing he takes. Unlike Riri, I guess he's got some room for growth. But it doesn't inspire me to see the movie. Some are defending this approach, suggesting that someone with such a clear cut understanding of right and wrong would be frustrated and confused by our complex, political climate. And I agree. But his moral compass and grace towards an unfair world should have been set before leaving Smallville and going out into the world.

So on the one hand, we've got a flawless female character. And on the other, we've got an immature Superman. Neither character is attractive, warts and all. Neither character is relatable or inspiring in the ways the filmmakers intended, as presented. Maybe the show and movie will be good. But someone else will have to let me know. Because right now, I'm not inspired to see either one.

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