Good ideas vs. Great ideas

I realize I’m about five years behind the curve with this, but I’ve recently gotten into Doctor Who in a big way (specifically, the David Tennant era). Watching the show, in all its quirky charm, got me thinking about sci-fi, and what separates a merely good, workable idea from a
Great, memorable, game changing one. For example:

Good idea: An interstellar space traveler with a ship that can move through time and space and adapt its shape to match its surroundings.

Great idea: Having the adaptation ability fail so that it’s stuck in a charmingly idiosyncratic form which stands out from its surroundings.



Take Wolverine: When Len Wein introduced everyone’s favorite Canadian mutant in the pages of the Incredible Hulk, those trademark metal claws were intended as simply part of his costume. But it was Chris Claremont who took it a step further: the claws were in his body. Metal claws as part of your costume: cool. Metal plated claws as part of your skeleton: cool, kind of creepy, and way more interesting.



Or there’s the story of a young boy who finds himself the recipient of a great destiny where he will become the greatest magician of all. But what makes Harry Potter so much more compelling than Tim Hunter?
In Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling makes adolescence part of the journey. Harry’s “Hero’s Quest” begins when he enters wizard school at 10, and along the way he picks up skills and experiences that help him face off against his ultimate nemesis at age 17, where he’s finally old enough to go out on his own. The metaphor would almost be overbearing if it weren’t so neatly interwoven into the story. Is it coincidence? How many people’s teen years didn’t feel like some kind of epic journey where every experience was fresh and bigger than life and the most moving thing to ever happen ever? The Harry Potter books are guideposts through the most harrowing period of most peoples’ lives.



These are just some examples. I may touch on more as they come to me, but it's something I'm sure we all could weigh in on.

Wolverine vs. Star Trek - a lesson in trailers

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about this summer’s blockbusters, it’s never trust the trailers.


Take X-Men Origins: Wolverine, for example. From the trailers, it looked like it might share its tone and style with Brian Singer’s X-Men movies, properly balancing a thoughtful, well-written script with some exciting action scenes, all supported by a highly-talented cast. Instead, we got a really talented cast wasted on a script that felt like it was thrown together the weekend before shooting started – and which seemed like a waste of some good characters.



The biggest problem with Wolverine is that it really had a paint-by-numbers feel, introducing various scenes and characters from the comic without any real cohesion. Yes, it all tells one story, but it feels Frankenstein-ed together, and never delivers the impact it was supposed to. That even goes for the action scenes, which end up being a little too CGI-prefect to be really wow-ing.
But hey, it did an ass-ton at the box office, and the sequel (and spin-off) is already in the works, so what do I know?


Logan would like to discuss my criticism personally.

On the other hand...



We have the re-boot of Star Trek. Granted, I may have been a little too purist in my pre-judgment – who could possibly replace Shatner as Kirk? – but I was definitely trepidatious about this film. Yeah, it looked really flashy and hip, but that was never what Star Trek was about – even in that episode with the space hippies.



But thanks mainly to my geeky friends I did end up seeing it, and was happily proven wrong. Very wrong, as it turned out. Give J.J. Abrams (and the screenwriters) credit for keeping what worked with Trek (the personal interactions, the drama, the pseudo-science) and discarding the rest (Scott Bakula – I kid, I kid). Not only did it stay true to the spirit of Star Trek - albeit light on the political metaphor – but it made for a very involving and moving film. And thankfully did well enough that the sequel is in the works.


Spock shows us his happy face.

So the question arises, is the trailer really an inverse indicator of the film’s quality? Not always, of course. But looking at these two examples, maybe there’s hope for Terminator: Salvation after all.


"So, T-800, you ever listen to Huey Lewis?"