Guardian fatigue

And speaking of Rise of the Guardians (as I was yesterday), one of my first experiences with it, a few years back, was thinking the title sounded awfully similar to Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. The fact that both were animated movies aimed at children made the possibility of mixing them up even greater.

Thank goodness for Legend's hilarious subtitle, which helped keep things straight.

But it makes me wonder if they won't want to change the title Guardians of the Galaxy by the time James Gunn's movie comes out in August of 2014.

Guardians of the Galaxy is the latest in-production Marvel movie whipping geeks into orgasmic levels of excitement. It was announced at Comic-Con this summer, an adaptation of the interstellar comic books that Marvel first started publishing in 1969. It gives off an instant and probably not coincidental Avengers vibe.

But depending on how kind two years and four years of existence, respectively, are to Rise of and Legend of the Guardians, fans may be getting unfortunate vibes from those two films when Guardians of the Galaxy tries to stake its claim to tentpole status two summers from now.

And even if history is kind to them, who wants to be the third in any trend?

The problem with each of these properties is that they were all based on previously existing material, all of which used the word "Guardians" in the title. The owl books were called Guardians of Ga'Hoole, but I guess they wanted the movie's title to introduce the concept of owls to the consciousness of selective viewers. Rise of the Guardians was based on books called The Guardians of Childhood, and I guess having the word "childhood" in the title would have made that one sound too wimpy. But even if either movie had kept the series' original title, that title would have including the word "Guardians" regardless.

I can see why Guardians of the Galaxy would be loath to change its title, considering that this is the entirety of the title, and it existed as a brand nearly 35 years before Guardians of Ga'Hoole (which came into existence in 2003) and over 40 before The Guardians of Childhood (a newbie, having debuted in novel form only last year). Besides, how many adaptations of well-loved comic books have had to back off from using their original titles?

So I guess they're probably stuck with it, for better or worse.

Something that's kind of funny about this word "guardian" popping up so frequently: Isn't a "guardian" someone who's kind of lame? In fact, to a child, isn't it often seen as a synonym for "parent"? As in "No one under 13 permitted without parent or guardian." To kids, a guardian isn't necessarily someone who keeps you safe. It's someone who rules strictly and arbitrarily, and prevents you from having any fun.

I mean, the galaxy would probably have a blast with all those black holes and supernovas if it weren't for those pesky guardians.

(And I'll thank you not to debate me on scale and scope when it comes to my astronomy-related claims in the previous sentence.)

It's all in the writing

There are others in the game, but it's safe to say that the two current titans in animation are Disney/Pixar and Dreamworks. We can lump Disney and Pixar together because a) Disney owns Pixar, and b) when combined, their output about equals that of Dreamworks.

(Sorry, Universal/Illumination Entertainment -- I'm not inviting you to this party for the disappointing Despicable Me and Dr. Seuss' The Lorax. I'll also now make a dutiful mention of Fox' Ice Age movies.)

Although I certainly prefer the animation styles of Disney/Pixar, I'm not going to credit them with having a significant technical advantage over Dreamworks in that department.

And so, when/if Dreamworks does poach employees from Disney/Pixar, they shouldn't be poaching the animators. They should be poaching the writers.

The writing is why Dreamworks is Pepsi to Disney/Pixar's Coke.

The latest example is Rise of the Guardians, the movie I accidentally saw on Thursday night. I had gone to the Sherman Oaks Arclight for an 8:00 showing of Lincoln, but was denied as the result of an apparent sell-out. Although the "big board" did not list the movie as sold out, neither could I purchase a ticket to it at one of the kiosks. And I was close enough to start time not be able to wait behind over 20 dodos who didn't realize you can also buy tickets from the machines. Even if I did, the wait might only confirm what I already suspected about the paucity of available tickets.

Since it started only five minutes later, Rise of the Guardians was an obvious Plan B. (Though I first made sure that Anna Karenina wasn't playing anytime soon.)

My response to this movie was sluggish from the start. That's not to say I thought it was poorly made. As I said before, I prefer the character designs in Disney and Pixar, but I could easily recognize the virtuoso work on display here. I just wish it weren't so manically dizzying, is all. So frantic with color and action and general zaniness. "You can tell they worked really hard on this" was the backhanded compliment that kept occurring to me.

It was really the writing that let me down. The inability to make me care about the characters. The inability to give them depth. The inability to fill me with wonder. The inability to make me laugh.

That was the thing that surprised me most about Wreck-It Ralph, which I saw a couple weeks ago. Not surprised that I cared about the characters or was infected with the contagious sense of wonder, but that I was laughing hysterically. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that the movie was perfectly tailored for a child of the 1980s to get its references, but Wreck-It Ralph may have been the hardest I've laughed at a movie this year. (I'll also note that I saw it with two friends who are the same age and have the same references, which certainly helped.)

I didn't laugh once during Rise of the Guardians. Not once.

I might consider Wreck-It Ralph an anomaly if not for the fact that Disney's previous non-Pixar animated release, Tangled, gave me the hardest single laugh I can remember having in the theater. That's a bold statement, but it may be true. I distinguish this hard laugh from other hard laughs because I kept giggling about this particular line of dialogue for minutes afterward. If you've seen the movie, it's when the thief turned hero, Flynn (voice of Zachary Levi), finds himself in an improbable sword fight with a horse, backing up toward the edge of a long dropoff. Yelling above the ruckus, Flynn tells the horse (who, true to nature, can't speak), "Just so you know, this is the strangest thing I've ever done." I'm almost starting to laugh now, just typing this out.

As a comparison, let's look at the other recent Dreamworks movies that didn't make me laugh: How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda ... well, maybe once or twice each. I did laugh at Monsters vs. Aliens, but that stands out as an exception that I attribute more to the vocal actors than the writing. I'd say its third act gives a good idea of its structural failures from a script perspective.

Why are there so many recent Dreamworks Animation movies I'm not even mentioning here? Because I didn't even deem them worth seeing. That list includes the last two Madagascar movies, the second Kung Fu Panda, the last three Shrek movies, Puss in Boots and Megamind. I did really enjoy Bee Movie back in 2007, but had a much more negative impression of it on second viewing. (That also probably speaks to the writing, as that script is all over the place.)

Pure Pepsi, I tell you.

Now, I haven't seen Pixar's last two movies, either. But I do expect to catch Brave in the coming weeks. I'm probably saving Cars 2 for when my son inevitably goes crazy over the Cars movies, which will happen just as soon as we expose him to the first one.

I do realize that the claims I'm making here are rather broad. In fact, if I looked up these movies, I'm sure I'd find their scripts credited to dozens of different writers, multiple per movie in most cases. Naturally, a group of dozens of different writers have varying strengths that should seem to operate independently of whatever studio is employing them.

Except Pixar and the last two Disney films do have a certain unifying force that gives them a consistent quality: John Lasseter. You know, the guy who basically founded Pixar and directed the first two Toy Story movies. (We won't mentioned that he also directed what many people considered three of the lesser Pixar movies, A Bug's Life and the two Cars movies. For the record, I do really like the original Cars.)

I can't be sure to what extent Lasseter meddles in the day-to-day operations of these movies, but I have to think that his fingerprints are all over Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph, which certainly qualifies as a good thing. In fact, it seems as though he's putting more of himself into making really good Disney movies than really good Pixar movies, as Brave seems likely to be the second straight Pixar movie not to win the Oscar for best animated feature. (If you were asking me today, I'd bet on Wreck-It Ralph to win this year.)

Assuming that he does meddle (and that this is a good thing), it's probably not standing over the shoulder of an animator, grabbing his mouse arm and operating the animator like a puppet, showing him the right way to give texture to individual hairs on a character's head. Nope, I'm thinking he's in the writer's room, figuring out just the right way to give the characters texture, dimension and heart.

The results speak for themselves. Disney/Pixar movies feature characters and scenarios you care about, which lead to exciting and poignant narrative climaxes.

Dreamworks?

With Rise of the Guardians being a particularly valid example, Dreamworks movies are just a big light show. 

Some pretty crap pairings

I like me a good puzzle.

Not necessarily those brain teasers that threaten to drive a person crazy. I'll try those from time to time, but I'm usually driven crazy before I solve them.

No, more than anything I mean I like fitting things together so they just plain work. And one "recent" (almost five years ago) example of that was the seating arrangements for our wedding.

That was my responsibility, and I attacked it with gusto. I loved the challenge of taking a group of disparate guests (nearly 100) and dividing them up so that each table included the perfect blend of similar personalities, and at least one really gregarious person who could help get everyone talking. The key was working out the whole table, not just eight of the ten seats. The final results of my mixing and matching left me with a much greater sense of accomplishment and satisfaction than such a task probably should have.

The Mission Tiki Drive-In needs someone like me.

With many fewer variables to consider, they've done an absolute shit job figuring out which movies should fit with which this week.

As I may have told you before, I get a weekly email from Mission Tiki telling me which movies are paired for double features on which screens. They've probably made some bad pairings before, but this week's pairings are particularly egregious.

The only prominent new movie opening today is Killing Them Softly, which joins a slate of seven returning movies: Skyfall, Wreck-It Ralph, Flight, Twilight: BDP2, Taken 2, Rise of the Guardians and Red Dawn.

Now, if you want a little challenge of your own, take a minute to pair off these eight movies in the ways you think would be smartest.

When you do so, keep in mind that this drive-in theater does not let you switch screens between the two features. I should know, as discussed here.

Therefore, also keep in mind that both movies should be appropriate for the same audiences to watch. I'm sure there are some people who come to watch only a single movie and then leave, but you're paying for two movies, so they should arrange it so you can see both of them. (Actually, you're paying only $7 for adults and $1 for kids from 5-9, with those under 5 free, so the price is justified for only watching a single movie. Still, that's no fun, and it's not how the movies are advertised.)

Have you made your selections?

I'll show you mine in a minute, but let me first show you theirs. The first movie listed below plays twice, both before and after the second movie, to accommodate the late-arriving crowd.

Killing Them Softly with Skyfall
Wreck-It Ralph with Twilight
Rise of the Guardians with Flight
Red Dawn with Taken 2

If the problem with this arrangement doesn't immediately jump out at you, let me give you a little assist.

Three of these pairings are basically fine. Not ideal, but fine.

The fourth is an outrage.

I'm talking about Rise of the Guardians and Flight.

(And very minor spoilers about Flight are about to follow.)

Guardians is rated PG. But since it's an animated movie, you wouldn't be surprised if some parents assumed it was rated G. Meaning it would be suitable for their youngest possible tots. And believe me, there are always plenty of young tots at this drive-in.

Flight? R. R for Restricted.

R for full frontal nudity and cocaine use in the first five minutes.

That's right, all you lovers of the female flesh -- in the first five minutes of Flight, you see Nadine Velazquez, erstwhile cast member on My Name is Earl and The League, boobs and bush front. (You see her butt, too, but that's comparatively quaint.)

Actually, forget what I said about five minutes. You see this in the first one minute of the movie.

Not long after that, major movie star Denzel Washington leans over a glass table and snorts a couple lines of cocaine.

So even if parents were savvy about the rating and prospective content of Flight, and even if they were hurrying to pack up their kids and leave before the next movie started, there's a decent chance those kids would be exposed to pubic hair and drugs before their parents even had a chance to do anything about it.

And any parents know that you can't pack up your kids to leave somewhere in only a minute or two. Especially if you've got coolers out and a half-dozen kids running around like maniacs, you're looking at ten or 15 minutes.

What's more, it's one thing to know that an R-rated movie is coming on, and what it may contain. It's another thing to be assaulted by the movie's kid-unfriendly elements while the opening credits are still rolling.

And then of course there are all those parents who don't know what Flight's about, and will be just sitting there, blissfully watching the second movie, until all the sudden, a 40-foot vagina is staring them in the face.

Someone needs to put a stop to this before the first show tonight, methinks. At least it's raining in Los Angeles, so perhaps Mother Nature will step in where stupid human beings either can't or won't.

The thing is, this should be easy enough to fix.

And now we've come to the part of our program where you and I compare notes on our own pairings for these eight movies. This is what I came up with:

Flight of the Guardians with Wreck-It Ralph
Red Dawn with Twilight
Killing Them Softly with Flight
Skyfall with Taken 2

The first pairing is so obvious, it should have hit them over the head with something heavy. You have two animated movies with very little scandalous content. Put them together on the same bill.

The second seems pretty obvious as well. These are the two movies featuring primarily casts of late teenagers/early twentysomethings. I'm sure there's a fair amount of angst in both. Not to mention that both of the damn movies have the word "dawn" in their titles. (A little on-the-nose? I don't care, I like it.)

The remaining four movies could probably be divided up in almost any fashion. In fact, I was tempted to pair Skyfall and Flight, just because of their similar titles.

But when you look a little closer, a more logical configuration does present itself. There are two PG-13 movies here, and two R movies. Just match up the two R movies, you idiots.

Last week they weren't smoking this much crack. Killing Them Softly replaced Hotel Transylvania, which finally finished an improbably long run that would have started in late September. Transylvania had been matched up with Guardians. Ralph was with Twilight -- not perfect, but at least the younger audiences probably aren't going to be scarred for life by anything that happens in Twilight. Flight was with Taken 2 (that's fine) and Red Dawn was with Skyfall (that's also fine). There are some Rs mixed in with some PG-13s, but I don't really think that line of demarcation means what it used to mean.

Who knows why they got soft in the head this week.

Now, I don't want to rule out the possibility that there's some kind of profit algorithm they use to determine what goes with what. Maybe strong performers only go with strong performers, or maybe just the opposite -- maybe strong performers need to prop up weak performers. (Though I don't know how you can accurately determine which movie is responsible for a double feature performing well.) Or maybe there's a newness variable, or maybe there's some kind of variable to determine which movie needs to be shown first. After all, if you match the two animated movies, you are pushing the start time of Wreck-It Ralph back to 9:30. Maybe they've witnessed the exodus of cars from the lot after the first movie ends, and they know that most of the tykes clear out after the first movie anyway.

But even just the risk of incurring the anger of dozens of parents, for whom Nadine's "special area" was never part of their evening plans, seems like a good reason to throw that algorithm out the window. At least for one week.

At this point I should admit that protecting kids at the drive-in from things they shouldn't see is an imperfect science to begin with. All you have to do is rotate your head to watch any one of the other three movies. You can see all four screens from almost any vantage point (though the other three would be farther away and therefore harder to make out clearly). The drive-in logistics department just assumes you're going to want to keep your eyes trained on the screen of the movie whose sound is also playing on your FM dial. But if you're talking about a young kid, that's not a safe assumption. If you're a young kid whose attention easily wanders, his/her eyes might easily and unwittingly wander to Nadine Velazquez' crotch. 

At least in that case it would be a random occurrence, not part of our regularly scheduled program.

Of course, they could solve some of these problems by just allowing people to switch theaters between movies. I've never quite understood why they're so strict about that. Except that it probably does have something to do with judging which movies are performing and which are starting to stink like old fish.

Besides, power-hungry assholes get off on being power-hungry assholes, and no, I'm not talking about those guys who drove up to us in their golf cart to prevent us from switching screens to see Hall Pass after we'd finished Battle: Los Angeles in March of last year.

And no, I'm not still bitter.

Though they could go a long way toward mending fences with me if they hired me as a "pairings consultant." I would do it for a very modest fee: $25 a week.

If they're looking for referrals, I offer for their consideration the hundred happy guests at my wedding.