posted
That's Legend as in I Am Legend, incidentally. Just didn't want the stupid subject line to become ludicrously long. (And if you haven't seen IaL yet, you probably want to hit your "back" button.)
This last weekend I went down to Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, and indulged in a glut of movie-watching. Seeing Cloverfield and I Am Legend on subsequent nights got me to thinking.
Some have observed that science fiction movies from earlier ages often seem to speak to larger sentiments of their eras. The sci-fi movies of the fifties, in particular, have been observed to have undertones of the fear of communism (the aliens look just like us... but they're not like us in horrifying and insidious ways) and nuclear energy (any of a wide variety of nuclear-powered monsters.)
If "I Am Legend" and "Cloverfield" could be taken to be representative of the sentiments of this era, I couldn't help but think that the underlying theme might be, "we're (insert preferred expletive meaning 'in trouble')"
In both movies, the protaganists face powerful enemies that there is no certainty of ever defeating; indeed, the ultimate victory of said enemies seems the more likely outcome. In both movies the heroes and their friends are whittled away by slow attrition, while losses or injuries suffered by their enemies (with the possible exception of the final battle of Legend) are trivial and inconsequential.
In both movies, help is not on its way. Or if it is, any respite will be extremely short-lived and possibly illusory. What seems like a rescue will develop into a situation that's worse than the previous status quo.
In both movies, giving the effort everything you've got- up to and including your own life- may only be just enough, and perhaps not even then.
Perhaps I overanalyze; perhaps I should wait and see what else 2008 produces. But for such seasonal blockbusters to be so grim in their outlook does give me pause.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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Not to detract from your point, but it remains to be seen if Cloverfield will be a blockbuster...or if it'll have a front-loaded first weekend then drop like a stone.
Plus "seasonal"?
The middle of January has traditionally been a dumping ground for the films studios don't have much confidence in. One of the things that drew so much attention to Cloverfield was its release during such an unusual month for tentpoles.
Now, back to your point...I have to disagree as far as I Am Legend goes. True the hero dies, but the story's been altered so that he -saves- humankind as we know it. Something that isn't possible in the novel.
Cloverfield is a different story, though it should be noted there's no attempt to build up Rob and his friends as super-heroes, brilliant scientists, wicked cool soldiers, or even above average in any way save their love for a hurt friend.
The emphasis is different. There's aren't the characters would would normally be the focus, these are the ones you'd see getting killed off in the distance.
Edit: I guess my point is, is it a true new paradigm, or is it a gimmicky way of twisting an old genre? Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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I think Cloverfield will peak early, as word of mouth gets out and everyone goes to see just exactly how badass this movie is. But it won't have legs, because I can't imagine many people wanting to sit through another 84 minutes of nauseating camerawork. It's worth it, but once is enough.
I like your theory, Sterling. I'm drawn to the idea that people are more willing to accept that death might be inevitable, but you still do what you can, or what you feel needs to be done. And maybe we aren't society doomed by our extreme selfishness.
Posts: 1286 | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: Not to detract from your point, but it remains to be seen if Cloverfield will be a blockbuster...or if it'll have a front-loaded first weekend then drop like a stone.
True. As I say, I'm in NZ; I can only project off of what I see here, combined with what numbers I can find as they trickle in.
The impression I get is that Cloverfield is going to do just fine, and that it's delay had as much to do with allowing the marketing to reach terminal velocity as any desire to dump it in January. It seems more like "the first big movie of 2008" than "the movie that was, somewhat surprisingly, put out in January"; it also feels more like it's part of the same series of releases as Golden Compass and I am Legend.
Again, though, I'm in New Zealand. It's *summer* here, families are on holidays, everyone is probably seeing more movies than usual, I saw more movies in the last week than I've seen in the last four months, and that may be skewing my view.
'Course, it should also be noted that Cloverfield was also apparently not as expensive a movie to make as your usual holiday blockbuster; if it "only" makes $100 million domestically, that will be a significant success.
quote: Now, back to your point...I have to disagree as far as I Am Legend goes. True the hero dies, but the story's been altered so that he -saves- humankind as we know it. Something that isn't possible in the novel.
The movie is smart enough that I don't doubt it's aware that its ending has the heroine and child entering a heavily fortified town in which a percentage of a percentage of the human population reside, while the "dark seekers" outside still outnumber them tremendously. Neville's sacrifice may have made the redemption of the human race possible, but I don't think it's a certainty.
quote:Cloverfield is a different story, though it should be noted there's no attempt to build up Rob and his friends as super-heroes, brilliant scientists, wicked cool soldiers, or even above average in any way save their love for a hurt friend.
The emphasis is different. There's aren't the characters would would normally be the focus, these are the ones you'd see getting killed off in the distance.
Yes, but- in keeping with their role as civilians, rather than action-movie stereotypes- their goals are also comparably more modest. They don't seek to defeat the creatures, only to rescue their friend and evacuate.
We see enough of the military- those who normally would be the action heroes- to see that, by their own assessment, they aren't succeeding in their fight against the creatures.
The action heroes are failing in the background. The people we're asked to identify with are failing in the foreground.
quote:Edit: I guess my point is, is it a true new paradigm, or is it a gimmicky way of twisting an old genre?
The comparison to Blair Witch isn't entirely inapt- by virtue of the circumstances in which the "material" which makes up the film is recovered, we are aware of the probable outcome.
But the setting encourages us to see what happens to the protaganists as representative of stories that are happening all over the city, and to identify with the protaganists that much more because of it.
The recent "War of the Worlds" also comes to mind. But it's a "WotW" where dumb luck isn't going to save everyone.
It's going to be at least the rest of 2008 before I could say with assurance that the movies exemplify an increasingly prevading tone, and probably longer than that before I could say if Cloverfield has an effect on the medium beyond spawning sub-par imitations.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Sterling: The movie is smart enough that I don't doubt it's aware that its ending has the heroine and child entering a heavily fortified town in which a percentage of a percentage of the human population reside, while the "dark seekers" outside still outnumber them tremendously. Neville's sacrifice may have made the redemption of the human race possible, but I don't think it's a certainty.
No offense, but baloney. They made the woman into the Mouthpiece of God, planted butterfly imagery throughout the movie to justify the bizarre Deus Ex Machina, then planted the gratuitous Marley speech and song to let the audience know everything was full of hope and promise. The movie was dumb enough to not trust the audience with a truly bittersweet ending, let alone the darkly ironic original one of the novel.
And Hud's video recording, but its nature, gives us an extremely limited view of what was happening. We only know a few highlight of the seven hours. We don't know what happened after the "seven hour" span...except that somehow the recording survived and was procured by the government.
There's no real resolution beyond "these people died in fear and confusion"...the fate of almost everything else is left unresolved.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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As far as Legend goes... Do you really think we're expected to believe that a vial of blood that's travelled at room temperature for hundreds of miles is going to lead to capturing Dark Seekers piecemeal, lowering their body temperatures in improvised medical settings, and injecting them with serum until they're no longer the majority of human life on the planet?
Either the movie is smarter than I think, or it's wayyy dumber. At least its ending is (and I know there are certainly some critics who've come to that conclusion.)
To my mind, the way that Cloverfield is presented suggests two things: One, that there remains an organized government premise that is capable of things like recovering the footage that makes up the movie, and Two, that there is a present (and likely urgent) need for such footage to be examined by that same government, perhaps for clues and understanding.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:If "I Am Legend" and "Cloverfield" could be taken to be representative of the sentiments of this era, I couldn't help but think that the underlying theme might be, "we're (insert preferred expletive meaning 'in trouble')"
I think that is only half of the equation. The full underlying theme, I think, is more along the lines of "We will die in the end, but what really matters is what we do as individuals before the end comes." It is as if this generation of disaster films do not raise up some grand victory of mankind over the forces of evil, and instead has focused on the smaller, but possibly more meaningful or more realistic victories of individuals in their own small but extremely significant lives. I think that is a hopeful view of the world - not hopeful in the sense that we can defeat an insurmountable enemy, but hopeful in the sense that an insurmountable enemy cannot prevent us from living whatever lives we have to the fullest or from bringing out what is most nobel about ourselves.
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