Reboot City: Fantastic Four

It wouldn't be hard to do Daredevil right. And, honestly, I can't believe that they haven't gotten The Punisher right yet. They were so close with Punisher: War Zone. So close. The reason is that all you would have to do is read the Marvel Knights books based on these characters. And the movie would just happen. But Fantastic Four is a completely different issue. There have been hundreds of good issues and hundreds of bad issues. There have been two terrible movies, and a couple of cartoons that were actually pretty good.

I think the reboot of Fantastic Four would have to be a lot different from the tone of the comic book movies that we have seen recently. As a matter of fact, this film could be done well if it only responded directly to the problems of the recent Fantastic Four movies. Here are a couple things that need to change:

The next Fantastic Four movie needs to skip over the origin story of the Fantastic Four. Batman's origin story is interesting and timeless. Green Lantern's origin story matters too. Xavier's original dream is necessary to the telling of X-Men stories. And we need to hear Uncle Ben tell Peter Parker that "With great power comes great responsibility." I've encountered the Fantastic Four in a lot of different forms over the years, and I think I can easily say that the re-telling of their origin story is boring and it does not make for a good movie. In the original Fantastic Four film, the origin story felt like a waste of time to me. They got hit by cosmic radiation and transformed. It really had nothing to do with anything except for Reed Richards' guilt for turning Ben Grimm into the Thing.

As a matter of fact, I think that we need to meet the Fantastic Four when they have become completely status quo, when they have blended into society so much that they're not really these amazing heroes. I think we should meet them when they're taken for granted by society. The Fantastic Four will always be there for us, so why bother honoring them. Not only that, but the group should be used to living in the same place with one another. Reed Richards should wake up every morning and just be used to holes in the walls, flames burning around him, bumping into an invisible entity, and a giant stone golem rumbling through the halls. The origin that we ought to see is that of Franklin Richards, the child of the married couple Reed Richards and Sue Storm. Fantastic Four has always been a family book, and there is nothing new and exciting about families. Families are all about being normal and used to one another. If Reed's guilt over transforming Ben Grimm into a monster is important to his character - and it is - then there are hundreds of ways to express this that do not involve spending twenty minutes developing an origin story.

And speaking of Grimm. Fantastic Four has to stop being so grim. There were jokes in the first two Fantastic Four films, but honestly the entire thing was entirely too serious. I admit that there needs to be some degree of seriousness for this movie to matter at all. But Fantastic Four has always been about a spirit of adventure and the glory of technology. The team is constantly averting the end of the world and putting themselves in the line of fire. They show what is good about humankind, but they do it like an old Jules Verne book would do it. Maybe instead of a deep exploration of the relationship between Richards and Doom, Fantastic Four needs to be involved in an inventive and original science fiction story. I think they could combine some of the sense of wonder that you get from the Hellboy movies with a kind of head-spinning sense that the Fantastic Four live in a world that is so different from ours. As a matter of fact, I think that important villains like Doom and Galactus and all of them need to be referenced in the background, but the family and the tone need to be established in the first movie moreso than the villain. Even though both of these movies were riddled with problems, I think that both Green Lantern and Sherlock Holmes told us that you don't have to deal with the main boss in the first film. Give us our main characters and then make us beg for the arch nemesis. Maybe in the face of all the adventure there can be an interesting mystery that, when solved, leads to none other than Victor Von Doom.

And, finally, get better at casting. I think Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans were absolutely perfect as The Thing and The Human Torch, but Reed Richards was poorly cast and Jessica Alba was probably the worst actress who could have ever played the Invisible Woman. It would be better even to go with a nobody who had the look and could act than to get the star power pull for a movie that is absolutely terrible.

My Favorite DC: Green Lantern

The story of my relationship with Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814 Hal Jordan is also the story of my friendship with a guy named Chad. Whereas Hal Jordan proved that he would be the proper Green Lantern candidate when his father died before his eyes and he no longer feared anything, I first met Chad when our Hebrew Bible professor was over fifteen minutes late to class and he proposed that we take a moment to get up out of our seats and dance. I thought to myself, "Why didn't I think of that?" Little did I know, but the entire previous summer Chad had worked his way into my group of friends and turned them all to Dungeons and Dragons. It was only a matter of time before I was a part of this group, and Chad was one of my best friends.

While Chad was infiltrating my video game playing group of seminary friends, I was spending my time in Michigan getting introduced to the woman of my dreams, Amy Bolan. When I met her, I said that my comic book interests included Marvel Comics plus Batman. The fact that she was a Batman fan made me delve into Batman all the more. I'm still working on a Batman reading list that I had originally intended to be a kind of book club for Amy and I. But when I returned to school, Chad's passion for Hal Jordan converted me from Marvel plus Batman to Marvel plus Batman and Green Lantern, and eventually to Marvel plus DC. "The cool thing about Hal Jordan," Chad would say, "is that he would be a hero even if he hadn't gotten a Green Lantern power ring." Having read the recent Green Lantern #1 from the DC reboot, this fact has been proven. A de-powered Hal Jordan jumps from balcony to balcony in order to save someone who appears to need help. But I knew this before I read Green Lantern #1, because Chad had given me a must read list for Green Lantern comics.

While Chad has adored Green Lantern for some time, it is largely the work of Geoff Johns that makes Hal Jordan one of my most favorite comic book characters. Another friend of mine, Zac, was once commenting on how complicated Hal Jordan's story was at one point. After all, when his home town of Coast City was destroyed during the events of Reign of the Superman!, Hal Jordan's fear opened him up to an ancient entity named Parallax, the enemy of the Guardians of the universe who was once imprisoned in Oa's power battery and supposedly responsible for the fact that Lanterns are historically weak to the yellow element. Hal dies in order to reignite the Earth's sun in Final Night, only to be brought back to life as the Spectre in Day of Judgment. The entire thing was way over the top and completely over-complicated. But it gave Geoff Johns a chance to shine. In the Green Lantern: Rebirth mini-series, Geoff Johns pits Hal Jordan against both Parallax and the Spectre. When both the Spectre and and Parallax are purged, Johns re-introduces Hal Jordan as Green Lantern in the fourth volume of Green Lantern, one of the most wildly successful comics of the last decade. In many ways, it was a reboot of the entire Green Lantern story (making it unnecessary to reboot Green Lantern with the events of the new DCU). All of the inconsistencies were made consistent. All of the evils of Hal Jordan's and the Guardians' past were returned upon them. And now Green Lantern is known for great stories.

You know that my initiation into Green Lantern was the result of a fantastic friendship with Chad. You also know something about the history of Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern. But I don't think that tells you why Green Lantern is one of my favorite DC characters. The truth behind that has something to do with the balance of will and fear in the Green Lantern books. Sometimes I believe that I have the will to overcome great fear. But mostly I fear that I do not. Every time I read a Green Lantern story, I am forced to know if I have what it takes to do the right thing, and honestly to do magnificent things beyond the abilities of normal people. Because if I am conquered by fear, I am conquered entirely. The question of whether I am ruled by will or fear has become very important to me, and I honestly think that it has built me into a better person. Sure, I compared myself to Batman in my previous entry, and Batman was offered a Sinestro Corps ring. Does that make me a character who is ruled by fear? I don't think so. Maybe it just makes me smart and unrelenting, if not a little bit haunted. But I think I can be something better. I think that I can inspire. After all, the way that Green Lanterns overcome the taint of the yellow element is to feel the fear and then to defeat it.

Green Lantern has actually been a driving force toward my personal betterment, and I'm not sure that there are a lot of characters who will ever do that for anyone else. I have to say that I've held high a variation of Professor Charles Xavier's dream for nearly all of my life, but the person of Charles Xavier does not do for me what the person of Hal Jordan has done. He is the man without fear and he lives in the city without fear. But none of this would be true if fear had not once been there only to be conquered.

Spoiler Alert: Person of Interest S01E03

Person of Interest continues to deal with sensitive human issues related to broad-scale political issues. In this episode, we have reference to September 11, to the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and to the economic downfall of our nation. It seems like Person of Interest is good at dealing with problems that affect the people of New York City. One question I have is whether or not the irrelevant numbers will ever take John Reese out of New York City. Furthermore, I got to thinking that with the escalation of Reese's violence, at what point will "the machine" view him as a relevant threat. That would be insane: one man versus just about every bureau and agency in the United States of America.

1. A Little Ditty About John and Jessica

While the flashback in this episode from 2006 could probably be summed up by the line, "You're still fighting the war. She's still waiting," there was certainly more behind this tripartite scene than simply motivation for John Reese to understand the victim that he was sent to save.

When John and Jessica meet in the airport, Jessica notes that John is back from "over there." I think John mentioned earlier in the episode that he was in Iraq, but I suppose "over there" could mean Iraq, Afghanistan, or possibly even a covert operation somewhere else entirely. John says that he is heading back but it is noted that he is not wearing a uniform. He explains that he has a new job. The easiest explanation is that John took up a private contract with one of the security firms that established a presence in our war efforts over the last few years. But, then again, there could be any of a number of other reasons for John to be leaving without a uniform to a new job.

2. The End of the World as We Know It

Whenever "the machine" displays the timeline for flashbacks, it always ends in 2012. Does this mean that Person of Interest will be dealing with the 2012 end of the world conspiracies connected to the ending of the Mayan calendar? Does this mean that "the machine" is so good at tracing trends that it has limited future vision? This has already been hinted at, considering the fact that the show deals with predicting possible threats. Of course, since this is based on probability there is always a decent probability that "the machine" will be wrong. There's a decent chance this is nothing, but in case it is something, I don't want to be scooped by anyone else. Lois Lane style.

3. Carter is Harder than We Thought

Detective Carter seemed like a simple New York City beat cop turned detective. That's what I assumed, because that's what always shows up on TV. Even John Doggett was a cop who just did the work and became a special agent assigned to the X-Files. Well, it turns out that Carter had at least two tours of duty in the military, in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe Carter and Reese aren't so different after all.

4. Cliffhanger

This week's episodic storyline was not completed within the scope of one episode. Everything that happened was mere puppet work, but who was the puppet master?

The only detail we have is the particular item that was stolen from the police department. The envelope was surrounding CASE H73-36 surrounding NAME ELIAS, M. In the envelope was a picture of a woman who appears to have been stabbed to death and what appears to be the murder weapon.

Someone is trying to cover up a murder that they committed. If it's someone we know, then we only really have Lionel, the dirty cop, Finch's friend from the flashback (who we presume is dead), and Jessica from John's flashback (who we presume is dead; also, the killer would seem to be a man considering the phone conversation that took place). If it's someone new, then maybe we have a villain who will be around for more than just an episode.

See you next week.

Arnold 365, Day 280 (Kindergarten Cop)

Banner by Adam Friedli.

The Guild Index: Season Three

For The Guild Index: Season One, click here.
For The Guild Index: Season Two, click here.

Red State (2011)

For some time I've thought that if they made a movie about the modern Democratic Party it would be a comedy, but if they made a movie about the modern Republican Party it would be a horror film. Kevin Smith recently made the latter and called it Red State. I'm still waiting on the former.

Red State is a mixture of Westboro Baptist Church, the David Koresh incident in Waco, Texas, the Patriot Act, and a variety of other real life occurrences. From the perspective of any one of these particular groups or events, Red State would seem to be building a straw man argument. But Red State is not simply a slippery slope argument against the horrors of Fred Phelps and their anti-gay propaganda. As a matter of fact, Kevin Smith makes certain that you understand that Phelps is merely practicing his first amendment rights, no matter how much of a dick he is, whereas Five Points (five points make a pentagram, in case you didn't notice) is a horrible and murderous death cult. Taken together, however, all of these real life occurrences make one believe that the events of Red State are not just horror or dark comedy or a straw man or a slippery slope. I hold that our nation's history since my birth proves that we're never too far away from events such as those depicted in Red State happening.

Now, I mentioned earlier that this film has a great deal to do with the Republican Party. After all, it is the Republican Party which on-again/off-again courts extremist religious groups (Westboro Baptist Church) and political groups (the Tea Party). It is also the Republican Party that brought about some of the most egregious examples of human rights violations through the Patriot Act. Let's not forget that the term Red State is a political term that refers to a state that votes Republican. But the biggest reason I think that Red State represents the Republican party is that, throughout the confusions of big government (which Republicans never used to stand for), big business and big religion, the individuals who believe that they're being represented get lost in the mess. Here's a spoiler: Every single character that we relate to from the first half of the movie is killed without a care before the end of the movie. All of the innocents, along with all who would stand up for the innocents, are murdered for no good reason. (Of course, that's a funny phrase. It assumes that there is a good reason to murder.) And any justice that comes about in the end of the film comes about as a result of a fluke.

Having said all of that, I want to say that it is not my intention to make this post a long rant against the Republican Party. After all, nearly everyone I've ever known who is a Republican became a Republican because of what the party once was. They tell me that Republicans used to actually stand up for the individual, that Republicans used to fight against big business/big govenment Democrats. Well, that's not the case anymore. If you ask me, Red State is a wake up call. It tells us both what the Republican Party has become and what it could become in the future if it doesn't experience a dramatic overhaul. Like last year's Machete, this year's Red State does what horror used to do all the time: It tells a cautionary tale. And cautionary tales are meant to warn us before we go down the wrong path.

In other words, if you're a Christian or a Republican who protested this movie, I think you might be better serving your belief system by making sure that you're the Christian, that you're the Republican, who makes certain that the group you represents never gets this far out of control. I believe that you can be better than the people in this film.

Arnold 365, Day 279 (Last Action Hero)

Banner by Adam Friedli.