BrightBurn Trailer Analysis

Brightburn looks like something I may have stumbled across on Netflix or seen as a demo reel on IndyMogul. I'm not saying that to knock it, but I can't help but feel if James Gunn's name wasn't plastered all over this trailer in light of his unfair and widely-publicized dismissal by Disney from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this might be regarded as a novelty, a mostly good idea that may or may not be enough to sustain a 90-minute runtime. 



I've got not problem with superhero movies that aren't directly adapting any existing material, and plenty of superheroes share origins along with powers that anybody yelling "rip-off" is a bit late to the party. Superman is a little bit of an odd duck because the "alien orphan" origin has only even been repeated for the sake of parody (Megamind). On that note, to anyone who thinks, "What if Superman were evil?" is in any way edgy or compelling or unsettling as a concept, I lean in and whisper in response, "That's what General Zod is for." Look, the Man of Steel has been around for over 70 years. The lore around him has become a multiverse unto itself, with every possible scenario regarding his morality played out in some way, shape, or form. He's been cloned/weaponized, brainwashed, hypnotized, driven insane, and that's not even putting the General Zod issue in perspective by bringing up all the other extraordinarily powerful adversaries Supes has had to fight off. The Evil Kryptonian is a weak enough proposition on its own merits that even stripping away the other superhero trappings to use as framework for a monster movie isn't blazing any trails. 

That said, on the subject of superhero horror: I'm there. I am so there. It's the only part of that Fant4stic Four reboot which really worked for the narrative and delivered on some genuine tension, even if it had to come at the expense of some pretty egregious character assassination. Seriously, why do villains in these movies have to become so cookie-cutter compared to their source material? We might as well give them all top hats and handlebar mustaches. 

Speaking of motivation (or lack thereof), the trailer implies a revenge angle (a la Carrie), the downtrodden kid getting back at the bullies who mocked him. However, we don't see anything like that. We see him scrawling an emblem over and over again in a notebook along with some voiceover exposition from Elizabeth Banks' character about general life hardships, but we don't have any obvious setup for a motivation. I could call this a flaw, but I actually think it might be a kind of subtle genius; there is no motivation for our menace. In fact, trying to force us to view a movie monster through the lens of a comic book superhero is humbly disarming, the terror bordering on existential. 

I can't find any exact figures on the budget, but horror doesn't lend itself to outlandish production values as their appeal and lasting qualities often have more to do with what you don't see than what you do. They also work best when they're as down-to-earth as possible, at least as a setup before all the terror sets in and disrupts your idyllic Americana-infused backdrop. Much of the psychology of horror is taking something mundane and ordinary to the point of inconsequential and making it into something that can hurt or kill you... or worse. On that front, this is hitting all the right notes: a quiet kid in an anonymous midwestern town is suddenly an uncontrollable force of nature bent on destruction and no one is equipped to handle the situation. 

Speaking of handling the situation, even if this is what could called a "medium budget" horror film with an emphasis on spectacle, it does limit the narrative in terms of resolution. Kevin Smith (in)famously scaled back the original, apocalyptic ending for Red State as it would have quadrupled the budget. Chronicle, another early example of superheroes played up as monsters, had a similarly more grandiose ending scrapped in favor of something more nuanced and ambiguous. Based on that, as well as this trailer, I'm going to throw down a spoiler warning and speculate on how Brightburn may end. Place your bets, cats and kittens; we can't let sports have all the fun. 

Much of the tension in the trailer not concerned with him discovering his powers comes from a scene of him being uncontrollably drawn to the spaceship that brought him to earth (kept a secret from him by Ma and Pa Not The Kents From Smallville). If I were asked to write a superhero horror movie but keep it simple (read: cheap) I could foresee two possible endings, the first of which involves that spaceship. If we're using it as some kind of narrative Macguffin for the plot to hinge upon, the obvious ending would be for his cradle to be his grave, so to speak. There's a writer's device known as Chekov's Gun, named for the playwright. It goes: If there's a gun on the mantle in the first act, someone had better be dead from it by the third. The inherent advice offered in this quip is to remove any unnecessary detail from your script. The other side of the coin spins it into a workaround for Deus Ex Machina, an ending that comes out of left field with no precedent set. As an example, I'm going to bring up Event Horizon, as I'm often wont to do in any discussion of horror movies. In that film, it's mentioned early on that the midsection of the ship is lined with explosive charges, meant as a last resort safety measure to separate the front of the ship from its engine. It is mentioned in the alpha, thus it becomes our omega. That's an oversimplification, but the point remains that it doesn't come out of left field because we pointed in its direction and said, "Hey, left field's that way and it packs a wallop." If Brightburn is Superman, then maybe his ship was powered by Kryptonite, or is lined with the stuff, or has a manual for how to make it, or what have you. If it is what gives him his powers, maybe it holds what may also take them away. It waxes a tad myopic, but for my money I would call them solid enough nuts and bolts to hold a narrative together. I wouldn't love it, but I would appreciate what it had to do given its circumstances. 

The cast list reveals two names for our super, one labeled as "young" and the other as "adult." Barring any accelerated aging (say, as part of his powers developing), this mostly throws a wrench in the works as to the Chekov's Gun idea for a resolution. This leads me to the ending I would personally prefer, one that ends with the start of a reign of terror. Something people often don't realize about the Alien franchise is that across all of them, the alien always wins. No, really, the alien always wins. Even when it's defeated, it's not only temporary, but such a costly defeat that our survivors end up in worse situations than when they started. Some argue what kind of narrative that is, to have their investment in our heroes overcoming impossible odds not pan out. It's a fair point, but I would ask then where it's written that horror movies need happy endings with all the toys put back in the box? I mean, does anyone watch an adaptation of a Shakespearean tragedy thinking maybe this time no one has to die? 

Going back to Chekov's Kryptonite, there is a third possible outcome, one presented by our voiceover from Not Ma Kent, about there being good in our Little Orphan Anarchy. He may well see the light, recognize he can use his powers for good, and shed his villain persona. Maybe they'll even cheekily end it on the arrival of a true and proper adversary, complete with a "THE END?" card before the credits roll. 

I would hate such an ending. That is the bar I would set for betrayal, a desperate attempt to unring the bell and make some point about redemption to go along with our messiah tropes. That kind of character psychology and pondering is wasted on spine-tingling chills and thrills, however effectively those sensations are delivered. 

I want the superhero horror sub-genre to persist, and I certainly don't want The New Mutants to bear that burden all by itself, but I wonder if Brightburn will deliver the super strength needed to make that happen. 

Black Panther

Fish swim in water, 
birds lay eggs, 
and Marvel movies are good whenever they're not great. 

(tosses napkin on the plate and excuses self from the table)

I swear I'm not trying to be a grouch about this, and none of my critiques are meant to put the movie down. This is one of the better ones, maybe not Thor or the 1st and 3rd Captain America movies, but definitely better than Iron Man 2, possibly the only Marvel movie I actively dislike (if only because I haven't seen The Incredible Hulk, which is only because I can't stand Edward Norton). As for Panther, the extent of my knowledge of the character begins and ends with a miniseries written by Reginald Hudlin and artwork by John Romita Jr., and as far as that goes they nailed the character and lore, delivering on all my expectations. I'm glad they kept the outside references to the other films at a minimum save some cameos and flashbacks, keeping it self-contained (like Doctor Strange) while firmly nested in the overall timeline. I'm certainly glad it didn't pull an Iron Man 2 and grind its own plot to a screeching halt to tell me how great Infinity War is going to be. On the whole, my only true criticism of the film is that while it's self-contained in terms of story, it is all still a bit familiar, and beyond some awesome art direction (What The Last Jedi did for red, Black Panther does for purple), there's not a lot it brings to the table we haven't seen before. There's a little Cap here in the car chases, a little Stark there in the gadgetry department, and a dusting of Thor (or even Guardians) for some of the battle scenes. Again, this isn't bad, but I think sometime after the end of Iron Man 3 and just before the halfway mark of Guardians 2, I may have hit my point of saturation. We had no idea what to expect from Thor or Captain America, certainly not their second installments, and those pre-Disney Marvel adaptations like Daredevil or Ang Lee's Hulk had their issues, but at least their flaws were interesting, even experimental on some levels. Now, we've clearly found a rhythm and a rhyme you can marry to any melody and it won't not produce a chart-climber. I hate saying that given how close to the brink of death the superhero genre has been from time to time, but on the whole the nicest thing I can say about this movie is that if you've loved all the past Marvel films, this one won't disappoint, but if you're maybe growing a little tired of filling out the MCU Bingo card, this isn't going to shake up the game. 
Then again, as I've implied, I am one of those weirdos who likes Eric Bana's Hulk and Ben Affleck's Daredevil, so don't let my damning with faint praise deter you from giving it a shot. 

Seven Quick Notes on Thor Being A Woman

Thor #1 cover by RDauterman

For the record, I take no issue with Thor being a woman. I am, however, puzzled by the decision, and worried about its implications.

1. The last time Marvel did this was with Ghost Rider, when sales dropped and the book was in danger of being canceled. It did not help. In business, this is called the glass cliff. It's a kind of "last resort, pandering while thinking outside the box" sort of synergistic effort in which a business that's not doing well will promote someone they wouldn't normally give the job to, the hope being either 1) They turn the company around, and they get to look progressive in the process, or 2) The company fails, and they get the protection of being able to say, "We tried the woman, and the woman didn't work out. Oh, well... Que Sera Sera." Speaking of intentions...

2. This is where matters get really touchy, so let the record show this a very broad generalization with a lot of assumptions which are most likely wrong. When a fictional character typically portrayed as white and male gets a race or gender swap, there's an issue of "why/why not?" that inevitably comes up.If the decision to make Thor a woman is "Because we can, so there!" Then it's arbitrary and therefore token, a stunt (see point 1). If, however, there's meant to be a greater significance to Thor being a woman, a comment on gender roles or a criticism of women in western mythology, then the risk is that the message overshadows the medium, Thor the character being traded in for Thor the statement. Granted, there's nothing wrong with that, Wonder Woman is a similar kind of statement, but she's also an interesting and compelling character in spite of the socio-political connotations attached to her. Similarly, when it came to Loki...

3. When Loki became a woman, it was in Lady Sif's likeness (she'd been killed in a recent story arc) to taunt Thor and play on his feelings of guilt. In other words, there was an in-narrative reason for the change that was in line with the original character, not merely a swap for swap's sake. Speaking of Lady Sif...

4. The comic Thor actually has a surprisingly good batting average when it comes to gender representation. There's Lady Sif, Amora the enchantress, Hela of the underworld (Loki's daughter), Brunnhilde and her Valkyrior troops, to name a few. Really, it's not like Thor was hurting for female characters, apart from a touch more variety outside of a love interest for The God of Thunder.

5. The idea of someone else being able to wield Mjolnir (by essentially the law of averages) was already explored with Beta Ray Bill, which makes the passing of the hammer seem all the more token. Thor doesn't work nearly as well as a legacy hero compared to, say, Green Lantern or The Phantom or even Batman (Knightfall, Beyond, Incorporated...).

6. What exactly will this mean for the films? It wouldn't be surprising if Tom Hiddleston passed on the role to Jaimie Alexander since there's a precedent for it in the comic. However, while we don't know the context for this change in the comics as of the time of this writing, Chris Hemsworth's commitment to his role plus the task of finding someone to take up the role in his place (given what a hard time it's been to bring Wonder Woman to modern audiences), it would make more sense for Marvel/Disney to leave the comic to its own devices and maybe consider following suit if the movies were to show a drop in box office returns. Given how the films have fared thus far, that sort of change would be years away even in the worst case scenario.

7. Does all this have anyone else thinking of the Silicon Knights' game Too Human, or is that just me?

As I've said, it doesn't bother me in the least that Marvel wants to make Thor a woman. It's piqued my curiosity, and I think it could be pretty cool. I simply wonder piquing interest and looking cool is all that's gone into the mission statement behind this venture. If so, that will be sad, so here's hoping I'm wrong.

Qomics Quintology IV: What If? No. 83

We take a look at one of What If...?'s boldest and most experimental "alterniverses."

Something about my current editing process:
As I'm using Linux, my video editing options are somewhere between slim and nil. For a time, I used a program called OpenShot, which I was very impressed with to the point of calling it the Linux equivalent to iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. The trouble is that I went from using a small form-factor Linux computer that I built to a Dell Optiplex that some law firm my roommate's nephew worked for didn't want anymore. It ran Windows XP, but was locked with a password and had no recovery disk, which prompted me to just running Linux Mint on it. All seemed well and good, but somehow Openshot decided it didn't want to work anymore. The first time I used OpenShot, I got an error message telling me I needed some codecs so it could properly export the video. Luckily, all I had to do was enter the names of the codecs and the error message in a search and I got a solution right away. Later, when I got the Dell, I ran into a similar problem, but when I downloaded and installed the right components (and a few others) just like before, absolutely nothing happened. OpenShot just didn't want to work at all.
This meant I had to use YouTube's built-in video editor, which is serviceable but has two important problems. The first problem is that I basically have to upload all my raw footage, edit each clip individually (namely trimming), and then open a new project in YouTube's editor. This takes hours. One of the great advantages of recording to SD cards or an internal memory is that all I have to do is drag and drop the clips into the editor, which works almost instantly. With using YouTube's editor, it's akin to using tapes, where you have to sit and watch it download in real time. The second and most irritating problem is that, if I use multiple cameras, the video's overall resolution defaults to the lowest.
The Nokia Nuron, which could well be my favorite video camera ever, has the ability to shoot with colored filters, trim and merge clips, and even allow me to dub over the soundtrack. It's surprisingly robust for a feature that's essentially an afterthought on a phone. The catch is that not only is it not a high definition video, it's barely standard definition.
Without getting into a whole mathematical mess of aspect ratios and resolutions, the key point is that my Sony Cybershot shoots HD video, which means each frame is 720 pixels tall. A DVD, by comparison, is 480 pixels tall (that's standard definition). The Nuron's widescreen mode is 360 pixels tall. Since I'm recording the introductions to most of these videos on the Nuron, that means I'm asking YouTube's editor to merge a 720 image with a 360 image. In the end, the maximum resolution of the completed video project is only 360 pixels tall. No high definition, not even standard definition. It's still 120 lines more than a VHS tape, but it basically means I'm not getting the best image possible.
On the whole, though, while shooting in HD is appealing, I care far more about my videos being widescreen, so it's a small loss and really just irritates me because HD video eats memory card space.
In short, I really should just upgrade my system to something that can handle a more practical and versatile editing program such as Sony Vegas, but two things: 1) I can't afford that kind of upgrade (got a bit eaten alive on my taxes thanks to something from my past coming back to haunt me) and 2) In the end, I don't make videos all that often. It's only rarely that I get the bug to film something and it often goes as quickly as it arrives. About the only reason I put as much effort into it as I do is because apart from sales of my prints on DeviantART, my videos are one of the few things I produce that can generate money via ad revenue. Granted, it's not going to supplant my day job anytime soon, if ever at all, but it'd be nice for a few embellishments and frivolities, so anything that can help get me a return on my investment (even for a hobby) is worth pursuing.