What I Want From Movies -- Part 1

(picture from letterboxd, movie social media)

Princess Mononoke. Terminator 2. The Dark Crystal. Mad Max: Fury Road.

Why are the four movies on my profile my "favourites"? For starters, there are a few elements that I love in movies more than all the craft in the world (though 'course, it always helps that the craft is good too):

-- Grand stories with relatable themes
-- Larger-than-life characters and epic drama
-- Fascinating worlds and beautiful visual composition

Lucky for me, there are a lot of movies that can offer at least one of these. Occasionally, it is why I'd rather watch a gangster picture than an actual science-fiction or fantasy movie -- I'll nearly always choose epic scope and dramatic story over cheap thrills. 

Sometimes it's even why I'll admit that a movie isn't perfect and still enjoy the heck out of it: see 2012 or 9.

... okay, it's a little weird that both examples I picked weren't really titles so much as numbers.

Moving on.

The point is that the movies I've said are my "favourites" have all three bullet points and more. If I could choose the movies that I'd make, or pick the movies that other people make -- these four would be the gold standard. "Make more like this," I say.

Oh and, before I get stuck into each of these points for today's movie: let it not be forgotten that there's a fourth, subsidiary element that I love in movies and that's a good score. Princess Mononoke certainly has that one down. While I've liked movies with bad musical scores, they never reach the top of the heap¹.

Princess Mononoke is a classic little-w "western" in the sense that it has a drifter-type character coming to a new town/city/land and (intentionally or unintentionally) becoming wrapped up in the local conflict just as it builds to a head. This conflict is, in all-but-a-few examples, between an upstart group of greedy and/or technologically superior humans and the incumbent culture -- aliens, first peoples, elves, you name it. 

Over the course of the story, the wandering knight, or gunslinger, or samurai, or former Confederate captain, or martial arts master in question will pick a side, or none at all, and change the conflict for good (though not always for the side he joined in the first place). This also makes Princess Mononoke a spiritual predecessor to Avatar, but as we will see, I think it does a much better job of exploring the nature of conflict and human relationships.

Okay, so the movie probably already has your attention with its basic plot setup: after all, it's rare that one of these never builds to an epic showdown -- sometimes over land, sometimes over ideologies, often over both. This pretty much guarantees that the first two elements I mentioned at the top are covered. 

Our wandering hero this evening will be played by Ashitaka, the last prince of a persecuted Japanese people, the Emishi. He is cursed and must leave his home to find a cure before it kills him -- and just for fun, I'll point out that the soundtrack for the first leg of his journey is actually titled "The Journey to the West", in case you weren't already sure what genre this epic story was going to be. 

Other larger-than-life characters include the spirits of the forest (which, despite the English translation, you must understand are not "gods" as the anglosphere thinks of them); Jigo, a shrewd merchant with very few morals; and the leader of the local humans, Lady Eboshi, who is not the kind of antagonist you might think she would be in a western story (this time also meaning European stories as opposed to eastern ones). 

Above all, San, the titular "Princess Mononoke" (aka. Beast Princess) is the most important character in the story, having been raised among the wolves of the forest and practically forsaken humanity. Her relationship to Ashitaka is more tense and passionate than any Pocahontas wannabe and doesn't go the direction you're expecting, either.

Ashitaka is unusual in this mix as he does not automatically side with the humans of Irontown, who the spirits of the forest are so keen to get rid of. Rather, as he says, he wants to see "with eyes unclouded by hate", and come to a mutually beneficial cease of hostilities. 

As one might imagine, this is particularly difficult when (most) men and beasts have viewed each other as enemies since the beginning of time. The unfolding of this story I will leave unspoiled, but suffice it to say that Princess Mononoke treats all of these ideas with due gravitas and even manages to show the shades of grey that Avatar forgot about around the time that Stephen Lang was cast as the big bad military villain.

The last element I mentioned up top might be even more prominent than the first two in this movie: Princess Mononoke creates an absolutely gorgeous world through the use of traditional animation and computer-enhanced multiple planes. Even the touch of mid-90s CGI is used deftly, leaving no elements dated by today's standards. The forest is mysterious, full of power but also danger, and Irontown as a new settlement has the nostalgic feel from stories of settlers in far-flung reaches of the world. Both primary settings are treated with a combination of heightened reality and down-to-earth empathy, meaning as the audience we don't want to see either of them destroyed.

Again, this is in contrast to the modern, American western where the colonists are always automatically seen as an unsightly blot on the landscape and the forest is depicted as blameless and nice.

Princess Mononoke is, additionally, an example of Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki in their prime, and one of the few cinematic fantasy/western films that is spoken of in the same breath as Star Wars. Everything about it is absorbing and strange, combining wondrous movie magic with thoughtful commentary on humanity's relationship with the natural environment. The only possible complaint I might have is that, from a perspective as a Christian, there is little-to-no discussion of the creator of this natural environment.

Hopefully this has given some insight into why I want more movies to be like the four I have picked to be my "favourites". Next time, we'll discuss what I think might be the greatest action movie of all time, Terminator 2: Judgement Day. What's that? I think Die Hard is trying to bash down my door, better go sort this out ...

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1 For instance, Once Upon a Time in China is an exciting and well-told movie from a certain point of view, but the music is far from the best that Chinese or Hong Kong films have offered.

Agents of SHIELD Season 1 -- By Memory

I wanted to catch a friend up on the events of "Agents of SHIELD", season 1, so I thought I'd make it available to all. Special thanks to Conor Bendle and Mik Bennett who checked that I provided appropriate information for season 2.

After the events of the third biggest movie ever made, Agents of Shield follows a not-very-crack team of not-very-superheroes. Almost every episode, the Agents have to investigate an object or villain, most so obscure that even comic fans have to look at Wikipedia to remember them.

Surprise! Agent Coulson is alive. Except not really. That is to say, he's not alive in the movies, but he's alive on TV. And from the word go, we're not sure if he's even that. How did he survive being stabbed in the heart? Is he a robot? A hologram? Some sort of clone duplicate? The answer won't be as exciting as you think.

So Agent Coulson isn't allowed to see his old friends the Avengers, because in the movies they all think he's dead and it would be too expensive to have them on the show. But he still wants to help defend the world from evil, so he builds a new team:

Melinda May – an emotionally closed martial arts master who definitely won't open up and become more friendly over the series. Fitz and Simmons – two young scientists who went through SHIELD's version of Hogwarts with top marks and are so close that most of the time people just refer to them as Fitzsimmons. Grant Ward – a super competent, decorated agent whose personality is even less interesting than his name. And as a late addition, the magical hacker who never knew her parents, Skye.

The first season has three major arcs: the first comprises mostly stand-alone episodes where the team meet a collection of colourful villains and encounter strange devices, all related in some way to the Avengers or other parts of the Marvel movie world. The second arc focuses on connecting the stand-alone events of the first few episodes together to reveal that a rogue group known as "Centipede" is trying to create their own brand of scary super-soldiers – the most prominent of these is Deathlok, who is doing what Centipede orders him to save his family. During this arc, Skye discovers that SHIELD potentially knows who her parents were and Coulson finds that he was resurrected through the use of big, bad, alien technology. When Skye pushes Coulson to help her find the classified documents about her family, Coulson – understandably, following his own revelations – tells her she might not want to know and refuses to help.

In the final arc, the Agents of Shield are caught off guard trying to return to the Hub (a major Shield base) by the reveal that the evil organisation Hydra has been within Shield all this time. The events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier occur at the same time. During the final arc, the agents ally themselves with the remaining loyal Shield agents only to see them killed off by Hydra and Centipede (who are also part of Hydra and led by Garrett, played by Lieutenant Hudson from Aliens). Ward himself turns against the team and joins Centipede, after having been a deep-cover villain all this time. This, incidentally, makes him a much more dynamic and layered character and is retroactively for the best.

Our agents make it "Game Over, Man!" for Garrett and Centipede, with a little help from Nick Fury, whose actor Samuel L. Jackson was a better sport than the other superhero movie leads and just wanted to be a part of the show. At the end, half of the original cast is in a bad place: Ward, with his mentor Barrett dead, is captured and will probably be both conflicted and crazy/evil next season. Fitz suffers a near-death experience and "might never be the same again", causing a lot of heart ache for Simmons. And finally, Coulson, though he has a revitalising new mission from Fury to basically restart SHIELD with nothing but his little team, is getting worse following the reveal of how he survived. The alien technology used to bring him back from the dead caused Coulson to start drawing strange patterns that look like circuit diagrams, maths equations, or some kind of map. To be continued!

Mini Review: Out From Boneville

Having already said a lot about this book, this will not be an in-depth book review; however, I think it behoves me in the course of writing about the Bone series that I offer some broader thoughts on this, the first volume.

First thing's first:
The story and art of Out from Boneville really held up under examination -- my comment at the start invoking The Lord of the Rings may have appeared overblown (and it is true that in a holistic sense, you cannot directly compare anything to Tolkien's work) but from an entertainment value perspective I find such an invocation as meaningful here as it would be for Star Wars, Avatar: TLA or any other well-loved fantasy adventure. After Out from Boneville tees you up in the same way that Book 1 of the Fellowship of the Ring does, you cannot help but want to continue to see the journey through.

Generosity and anticipation
You know, I just love the way that Phoney has this pronounced jaw that lets him frown easily, while Fone Bone practically has no chin. It's a little thing that could go unnoticed, but I wanted to point it out as a demonstration of the artistic decisions in Bone. There are so many of these little things, some of which I've already pointed out in the recaps and some I will probably address in later reviews. All in all, it fosters the gratitude of the audience when reading a well-crafted adventure story -- the writer/artist Jeff Smith is so gosh darned generous.

Along the same lines. the hints as to what will come next and the plot threads left hanging at the end of the book are more than enough to bring someone back for volume 2. If you look at the actual plot of Out from Boneville, it is not that complex (at least, from the perspective of Fone, our "mainest" main character). Around 10 major plot points and a summary that could fit into a medium-sized paragraph. The actual plot density is not important -- it's more important that we are introduced to the Valley, the characters and an intriguing mystery. This is more than enough to make the audience anticipate the adventure to come.

All of this and the six previous recaps has been in pursuit of the best and well crafted techniques and features of Out from Boneville. I could probably write as much again about these if I wanted to; there is that much to talk about. In the end, though, I'd rather continue into The Great Cow Race.

Until the next review, enjoy your comics!

Out from Boneville Ch6: Phoney's Inferno

PREVIOUSLY ...

Phoney isn't the only flaming motif in this chapter as Fone Bone and Thorn return to find her farm on fire.

Synopsis
So it turns out that Gran'ma is all right -- and happy that Thorn and Fone are safe. She addresses the Red Dragon, showing us that they know each other, and that something in their past means Gran'ma wasn't entirely happy to see him.

There's also a lot of history on Fone Bone's side as we finally hear about the horrific events that caused Phoney to be ran out of Boneville (ooh, almost a title drop). Here we see use of the techniques described back in Chapter 3, allowing lots of expositional dialogue to be covered without it standing out or becoming boring, because the characters are just as interested as we are in what is being told (and because Gran'ma and Fone are working with their hands it is believable that they have time to talk).

Meanwhile, Phoney and Smiley plan their Cow Race con as they work off their tabs at the Barrelhaven Tavern. The hooded figure from Chapter 4 appears before Phoney, in case you had forgotten that our villains wanted "the one with the star".

Eventually we meet one of the other Barrelhaven secondary characters, young Jon, and discover that Gran'ma has history with Lucius. But most importantly, Smiley and Fone see each other for the first time in months -- they call out Phoney (who is assaulted by Fone for wandering off, no less) and finally the three cousins are reunited.

But the hooded figure from Phoney's vision is just outside the tavern, watching and waiting ...

Pros
Chapter 6 showcases a return to more storytelling-heavy scenes after the mostly action packed Chapter 5 -- giving us a lot of cool/funny backstory and cathartic release. But the story makes it clear that the Bone cousin's troubles are far from over, while the human characters' storylines remain, growing in importance, in the background. All of this makes for a satisfying end of Volume 1, without dampening the excitement to see where the story goes.

Con
This chapter is fine, I've no big complaints. The only nitpick I could find was at the start. The Red Dragon warns Thorn about rushing out into the open, advice she ignores, and there are no consequences. While it was certainly in-character for the Red Dragon, it lacks an impact on the story and probably could have been cut (there is an alternative interpretation, but it seems rather subtle for a kid's story: that the Red Dragon -- knowing Gran'ma's fighting skills from experience -- didn't want Thorn to find her before he could leave and suffer her stink-eye).

This week's lesson -- pay off and revisiting mystery
Chapter 6 does not reveal important information about the Valley in the way Chapters 3 or 4 did, but there is a lot of pay off from the summary of the events leading up to the Bone cousins stuck in the desert. By using this mini-story as the reward for reaching the final chapter in Out from Boneville, we feel like a certain circle has been closed. This is also a good justification for reuniting the cousins so soon in the story. These circles give the book a feeling of completeness without finality, because the main characters are still in the middle of something huge and dangerous. This is incredibly important for the first part of an epic adventure! More so than in any other volumes in the whole series, these circles foster confidence in Jeff Smith's writing. As the audience, we're happy with his ability to connect motifs and develop themes in a six-chapter story -- so it follows that we're now on board for the remaining fifty-or-so chapters.

The other half of this week's lesson harkens back to the mystery first established with Chapter 1. Why has the Red Dragon been a constant fixture of the comic, and why is he disliked/disbelieved? What does the hooded figure want Phoney's soul for? And why does Thorn feel like the real hero of this story, having crossed a physical and metaphorical threshold by leaving home after a traumatic upset of her normality? Fuel for the engine that drives us into the rest of the adventure.

Without these questions, Out from Boneville wouldn't feel so much like the first step in a bigger story. Mastering this week's lesson means teasing a bigger story with unanswered questions while simultaneously creating circles that strengthen connection with the characters. You can identify these two techniques in pretty much any example of popular fantasy. Star Wars, Avatar: TLA, The Wheel of Time, The Hunger Games, The Lord of the Rings -- and remember, The Fellowship of the Ring isn't strictly the "first part" of LOTR. That would be Book 1, up until the hobbits reach Rivendell.

Out from Boneville Ch5: Barrelhaven

PREVIOUSLY ...
Phoney Bone has wandered off, and the rat creatures attack the farm in the dead of night!

Synopsis
Chapter 5 begins with the rat creatures crowded around the farmhouse -- but Gran'ma Ben has a plan:
Run. 

More specifically, she tells Fone and Thorn to run while she fights off the rats. We also learn that she fought in the "Big War", at this point, presumably, the same one that Thorn has been flashing back to as a child. The two young 'uns run into the woods but there are too many rats, so much that Thorn is even worried for Gran'ma, so they try to go back and are soon surrounded.

Meanwhile, Phoney comes to Barrelhaven, a place we've already heard about but not seen. He reunites with Smiley, who is working off his bar tab for the tavern's owner Lucius, just in time to become likewise indebted to the apparently very angry man (thankfully, this is played for laughs).

Back in the forest, the Red Dragon does an Aslan and rescues Thorn and Fone Bone ... but when they return to the farm, the homestead is burning.

Locations
The new location for this chapter is the Barrelhaven Tavern, run by another major supporting character, Lucius Down. Let me just get this out of the way: Barrelhaven Tavern is utterly this series' "Prancing Pony". I especially like the looks the little Bone gets as he marches up to the bar. The other patrons already met Smiley, so just like Lucius their response is more like, "really, another one?". I had never thought of the parallel between Bones and Hobbits so much before but there you go.

For the rest of the issue, location is key for the action but otherwise not visually striking in the way say, the first time Fone looks out over the Valley in Chapter 1. The biggest sight along those lines would be at the end of the chapter. The reason why the last two issues gave us ample time to know the farm was exactly this: for Thorn's heroic journey this is her first major threshold and it is marked with the same "burning home" motif as Star Wars and countless Japanese RPGs.

Characters
Fone Bone
I thought that our meek, though plucky, hero's greatest moment came when Thorn "accidentally" uses him as a cosh to take out one of the pursuing rat creatures. Other than his ecstatic (and slightly premature) celebration for the dragon saving them from the rats, Fone is mostly just along for the ride in this chapter. And that's fine, because we spend a good long chunk of the issue with his cousins instead.

Phoney and Smiley
Ah Smiley, you happy-go-lucky, probably lung-cancer-having, fun-loving sneak. It's good to have you back in the story, and before the next book too. Together, the abrasive Phoney and the (slightly) more appealing Smiley hatch a plan to rig the Cow Race, giving us a glimpse at what might happen in the next story. As for this story, it began with the Bone cousins separated: so if anything was an indicator that we're about to shift the plot from "gotta get home" to something grander, it would be that all three of them have reasons to stay in the Valley longer than they had anticipated.

Whilst Phoney is certainly anxious to return to Boneville (perplexingly, as his cousins remind him, given how the other citizens ran them out of town to begin with), he also wants to earn a little on the side -- through unjust means, as he is constantly wont to do. Fone is pursuing Thorn, at least in his mind, and is currently running terrified through the woods, and even Smiley couldn't have left earlier if he wanted to thanks to his misunderstanding over beer credit with Lucius (though again, knowing Smiley at this point we suspect he doesn't mind at all, being quite used to having no worth to his name, whether money or barter).

As for Lucius, well I'm happy to say his character is no bit-part. But that would be talking spoilers ...

Pros and cons
Not much to complain about at all in this chapter: the one con below aside, the series is going strong and getting more and more interesting as book 1 comes to a close. One thing that re-reading this series has had me thinking (also by starting Amulet, another Scholastic comic) is how flexible the pace of an adventure comic can be: until Chapters 4 and 5, there had been so much character introduction, world building and mystery in each chapter that they seemed to have entire mini-arcs of their own.

In Chapter 5, though, the audience realises that this story is so much bigger than a few twenty-page adventures, because here is not a stand-alone adventure but a single bridging sequence (with interlude) between a killer cliffhanger in Chapter 4 and a big change for all the characters in Chapter 6 -- especially for Thorn and Gran'ma, but not forgetting that the Bone cousins' reunion is being set up sooner rather than later.

This flexibility can be contrasted with analogous cartoons on television like say, Avatar: TLA, whose adventures always have to have some sort of resolution at 11 or 22 minutes, and basically need at least one fight scene or it doesn't feel like a real "episode". True, there are exceptions everywhere, but in general one can see that cartoons are more structurally formulaic than comic books with similar story content.

The one con I felt in Chapter 5 is the lack of pay-off to the presence of Phoney during the first Kingdok scene in the previous chapter. I highlighted the suspenseful atmosphere of those few pages in the recap and was looking forward to seeing a reaction that I clearly thought I remembered, though now I realise it never took place. To be fair, the choice to omit an immediate response to Phoney's fear is an effective choice. Like the glazing over of the two-month gap between chapters 1 and 2, or like countless heroic fantasy stories that (while having a larger ensemble cast) still have to focus on the central hero, there are some creative reactions and conversations between side characters that just take up space in the story and we readers ultimately do better without.

Taking the example of this chapter, what we actually did get between Phoney and Smiley is far more entertaining than the dramatic and comedic consequences I was envisioning.

This week's lesson
I tossed up between two main take-aways for this issue -- the other being the lesson under the "Con" heading about picking your battles when it comes to what scenes we get between secondary characters.

In the end, I chose one that may seem more mundane but it is very important to remember, no matter what medium you are working in: that is, for adventure serials of all kinds you have to be able to take a breather.

Chapter 5 has three main scenes, two of which fit into the same action sequence. If the entire issue were that one action sequence, it would risk being either too stressful or too tedious for the length of the chapter -- and what's more, for the epic fantasy fans, it also risks taking on a lightweight appearance as it would be mostly wordless, sandwiched between two much more story-heavy chapters.

Instead, we break at the most effective cliffhanger when all hope seems lost for Fone and Thorn. The story changes gears completely as Phoney enters Barrelhaven, and the comedy and character development here lets the tension build silently in the background before the story returns to the forest.

This technique of cutting away from one action thread to a different kind of thread is used so often that it requires almost no more exploration; except to say that if you limit your perspective to a single character in a work, you are relinquishing this helpful tool, and will have to rely upon other means of breaking up the action -- for example, chapter breaks (see Harry Potter).

Now all is said and done, all aboard the hype train because the next chapter ends Out from Boneville; in other words, it's the end of the beginning with even grander adventures in the offing.

Out from Boneville Ch4: Kingdok

Happy 2016 -- the time has come for another Bone re-read post. In order to avoid my positive comments being hyperbolic or various notes becoming repetitious, from now on I'll be structuring these Bone recaps with proper headlines and everything!

PREVIOUSLY ...
While Thorn and Fone Bone get along quite well, Gran'ma Ben and Phoney have gotten off to a rotten start -- and Phoney hates the idea of sleeping in the barn before they go to Barrelhaven for the Cow Race.

Locations
First of all, I love the idea of starting this chapter with a wide shot of the farm. Interestingly, as the last few pages set up, it is important for us to know and like this place so that when the literal "burning homestead" portion of the Hero's Journey comes around, we care, same as the characters.

As for other locations in this chapter, we get some more well-drawn woods and finally a new setting; the mountains where the Hooded One and thousands of other rat creatures meet. Ominous!

Characters
Fone Bone
We know by now that Fone, despite slightly askew motivations where Thorn is concerned, represents our chivalrous hero against the forces of ... well, his nasty cousin right now, but also the forces of evil later on. He doesn't develop a whole lot over the course of Chapter 4, and he doesn't have to: he's helpful, polite and trying very hard not to take advantage of a beautiful young woman. Which often means he's boring. I say he's trying to be a good guy, which is fine, because we also get Phoney.

Phoney
Speaking as an adult, Phoney Bone is just so bad without relief that at this point he might as well be the villain. And this all works very well, because he's hilarious and horrible in equal measure. Luckily for anyone reading Bone to their kids, the complete amorality of the character is so heavy-handed that it's a running joke, and is obviously not the sort of behaviour to mimic.

After the meeting between our stupid, stupid rat creatures and Kingdok, Phoney is completely silent as he hides behind the tree . This teases us with potential development of "the one with the star on his chest", now that Phoney knows that he's who everyone wants to find and is probably terrified.

Thorn
Leaning into the "bits for kids, bits for the parents" ethos of family entertainment, we get one sequence that greatly serves both. Thorn doesn't have a lot of story in this chapter until the very end, but in the middle when she and Fone go for a skinny dip to clean up, she might as well be a Disney character.

Bouncing happily through the woods and describing her plan to sew a bright blue dress, it almost feels like Kingdom Hearts, with our (metaphorically) three-dimensional human princess at ludicrous juxtaposition to the puffy skeletal version of Mickey Mouse. A cartoon who, we are reminded soon after, is more Roger Rabbit than Disney as Fone literally chokes down his libido with a bar of soap. Yeah, that scene is strange.

Regardless, by the end of the chapter, things take a turn for the very serious and there is a wonderful, anime-esque use of flashback that helps develop a sense of context -- if not for the world then at least for Thorn herself. We'll get more on this in the books to come ...

Kingdok
At last, in this chapter we start to meet our bigger baddies -- particularly Darth Vader here, apparent leader of the rat creatures, giant and toothy. Sure, he doesn't have the complex past of a certain Star Wars villain (that part will go to our Emperor Palpatine stand-in, the Hooded One) but at least Kingdok has his own character arc throughout Bone. I'll try not to give too much away for those reading along, just suffice it to say that I recall that this is the most he ever speaks in the series.

Gran'ma Ben
Ah, the anomalous "gitchy feeling" -- possibly one of her best secondary skills, if you could call it that. Things are going to get much, much worse before they get better, and Gran'ma Ben feels it.

The Possum Kids
Glad to see these guys hanging around (oof, that might be one pun too many) and happy to know they'll have more of a role to play in a later book.

Pros
Once again, I am floored by how well Mr Smith weaves quite a lot of dialogue into so many panels per page. It really works, even though it goes against common wisdom of comic writing.

Conversely, in the low- to no-dialogue moments, we see a suspenseful use of silence. Not just Phoney hiding from Kingdok, but the later scene of the moon rising over spooky mountains and the horde of rat creatures.

On the visuals alone, the rat creatures must really, really stink. I mean, they certainly look gross enough -- it helps to multiply their fright factor when they finally attack the farm en mass.

Finally, tying into this week's lesson, another pro is the continued dropping of names and places in the name of world building (and to a lesser extent, foreshadowing). We learn that the Hooded One knows of the dragons, and of Gran'ma. We hear places like Deren Gard and Old Man's Cave mentioned, and we're introduced to Gran'ma's Spidy-Sense, the "gitchy feeling". As the world around the protagonists seems more dangerous and more complicated, our absorption into the story is almost complete.

This week's lesson
I thought that, without a doubt, the lesson of this chapter is about how the momentum set up by the initial "find the Bone cousins" motivation has continued to turn, all fuelled by the jigsaw of what has already been laid out in the previous three chapters. Making use of the downtime between chapters, the story so far has kept from becoming too breakneck or overly complicated. Instead it remains focused squarely on the characters that we've been attached to since Chapter 1.

In fact, at the start of this chapter you could be forgiven for thinking that the story had slowed down, settling into some sort of pastoral comedy where Fone and Phoney bicker as they wait to be reunited with Phoney. But enter the first really big baddies and a few more hints as to the deeper back-story and off we go again.

Basically, Jeff Smith has now transmuted the foreshadowing and character relationships into a straight-as-an-arrow action beat: the Rat Creatures are coming to wreak havoc. Tune in next week.

What a cliffhanger.

Remember the rule of three

It took me actually reading the script of Super 8 to finally realise what always irks me about J. J. Abrams' movies -- and why it doesn't necessarily irritate everyone. Here's a storyteller who (whether through directorial choices or the script he writes) doesn't care much for the rule of three, and pays only the meanest mind to foreshadowing.

The most glaring example (also the least in this argument, but I'll include it because J. J. was still responsible for the final product) was Star Trek Into Darkness, where Khan's super-blood is discovered by Bones to have healing properties because of his testing it on a dead tribble. The only tribble seen beforehand was the painfully ham-handed inclusion of Bones saying "I'm testing Khan's super-blood on a dead tribble because I think it might have healing properties." Cheers Orci and Kurtzman -- as though the rope afforded to a Noo Star Trek ("no longer sci-fi but an action movie instead") is also enough to have a poorly constructed denouement, even for a bad action movie.

Lucky, for fans of his other strengths, Mr Abrams isn't quite so brazenly bad at setting up plots, but in his own self-written movies we still see a lack of respect for the rule of three and foreshadowing. Take Super 8: the reason I decided to write this rant in the first place. Now those of us who dislike the end third of this film share a variety of story and thematic reasons for why it doesn't work -- chief among these (thanks Film Crit Hulk) being how the movie itself lacks evidence in its own understanding of what it wants to do with character resolution and themes. But the movie actually does know what it wants to say: it's just that there's not enough evidence that it does.

At the moment during the end when the alien picks up Joe, according to the shooting script the look it gives him with suddenly human-like eyes is 100% a callback to the Joe and Alice watching home movies scene (where she revealed her father's involvement in Joe's mother's death).

Here's the rub: if you want a particular idea (in this case "the eyes that see within") to sink in, you repeat it. This, in narrative language, highlights to the audience an intentional foreshadowing, rather than world-building or character filigree. You could in fact set aside other major problems with the ending of Super 8 ---

1. the tired cliché of human-like features cluing the audience to "oh, the scary alien's not so bad" (by gum, DOGS do this to us, it's not the most inventive idea), and

2. the fact that Joel Courtney's portrayal of Joe on screen (while captivating) is nowhere close to the suffering, loner tween that the final money shot needed him to be (thanks again to the Hulk -- the contrast between pre-letting-go-of-the-locket-Joe and the theoretical "better" Joe we hope for after the end of the movie just isn't there, he's too well adjusted) --

--- if you had just followed the rule of three, we'd be more inclined to believe "the eyes that see within" was reminiscent of Joe's mother. In other words, the ending of this still-flawed film could have been improved dramatically if the story had just used the rule of three for foreshadowing.

STAR WARS EPISODE VII SPOILERS INCOMING

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You can see the effect of following the rule contrasted with breaking it in the villain and hero of The Force Awakens -- Kylo Ren's struggle with the light sticks to the rule and so it is believable that in remedying his struggle he takes action, because we have had the issue first introduced, then developed at least once before it becomes important. Rule of three.

Conversely, all around the Internet, the detractors of Rey's arc cry foul at how improbably powerful she becomes during the final battle. A moment that was telegraphed when Maz Kanata tells her, part way into the film, that the Force is calling to her: that she has huge potential and she only needs to close her eyes and let it in. (Funny, I just realised that both this and the Super 8 example are "the eyes". Perhaps a running motif in Abrams' work, like super-blood in Orci and Kurtzman's?). You have to remember, and this part is well established, that Rey is not familiar with even hearing the word "Force", and so when Kylo offers to teach her in its ways, it is the mention of the word that causes Rey to recall Maz's teaching. Even with the other key developments with her use of the Force, between Maz and the climactic duel we never have that middle dialogue reference to "letting the Force in" that is necessary for the rule of three.

If the mention of the Force calling to Rey and her needing to let it in was developed before it became important once more in the fight with Kylo, I am fairly convinced that there would be fewer complaints about the apparent "ass pull". After all, one of the more acclaimed positives was Kylo's aforementioned struggle, which had the appropriate development.

For all we know, the infamously cut "Maz goes to the Resistance Base" sequence might have given us the developing mention of letting the Force in. In the final product, however, it doesn't matter because (and I'm being quite presumptuous here), Abrams cares more for pace, energy and ruthlessly propulsive editing than he does for whether or not viewers pick up an important motivational cue; one that can massage potential plot holes and appease narrative dorks like myself.