Martial Arts should be realistic!

When it comes to just about any sort of geeky medium, if there's something that sells, it's fight scenes. My friends are pretty unanimous in having 300 listed as their favorite movie. Which is, of course, just one big fight scene. With a rape scene thrown in. In fact, even the Political scenes had stabbing in them. There are two reasons why my “friends” would be so fond of this movie; either it's because they're idiotic, testosterone-driven teenagers, or it's because fight scenes sell.

More often than not, a Martial Art or two is included. Of course, in most of these scenarios, the Martial Art is done almost no justice and it's all thrown away in favor of gratuitous fanservice. Realism is traded in for the ridiculous fantasies of men and women (who liken themselves to “Writers”, I guess) that include post-human stunts with no real explanation.

I think that the worst perpetrator here is this anime and manga stuff that's becoming so popular over here in the states. The Japanese stuff. It goes without saying that there are exceptions, but, while I am not opposed to the idea of Magical Karate, I would like to see some realistic magical karate. That is, characters who cannot inexplicably jump ten stories high or seemingly have superhuman strength. I go to Rurouni Kenshin for my first example; it was a cartoon that I liked back in middle school. And it was a waste of my time. Kenshin, who appeared to be a normal human, could could preform stunts that would ignore just about everything established by physics and human potential.

Comicbook superheroes have an excuse, at least, I guess; Superman is the last son of krypton. Whatever pseudo-science reasoning you attach to it, he's still supposed to be an Alien who can fly and bench-press mount Rushmore. Manga characters have no such substantiation in reason. They are, within the context of the story, just normal people (most of the time). And, even if they do epitomize physical accomplishment, there's no excuse for them to be on par with Krypton's last son. Or even a teenager who was bitten by a radioactive spider (Was it still a radioactive Spider? Really? Marvel hasn't bothered to retcon that yet?).

With the ill-defined exploits of miraculously powerful Japanese people who inexplicably shout out the “Names” of their attacks (Nothing ever so boring as “Hook Punch!!” though. It's always something that has to do with Dragons or Shining light or something)...well, they seem to be the most irritating. That said, I don't read enough Manga or watch enough Anime to offer up any criticism that maintains any sort of validity. Not that that stops me from commenting on the most blatant stereotypes. I'm inclined toward American television and movies, however. Yes, they are, without question, nearly as offensive to a Martial Arts snob like myself. I suppose that it would be best to focus on things that I have actual knowledge of.

More “Americanized” martial artists have been embarrassing themselves for as long as the genre has been around. Guys like Steven Segal and Jean Claude Van Damme have done their best to make Bruce Lee turn in his grave. When an entire genre (yes, “Martial Arts” is a genre) has been degraded to the same old stereotypes and cliches and direct-to-DVD releases...well, that's when you start to wonder if it's a dying breed. Of course, it's always only during the most turbulent times that the savior will appear; Tony Jaa looks to be breathing new life into Martial Arts. An amazing acrobat and athlete in himself and bred to be a “Jackie Chan star” (we're talking Dragon Dynasty Jackie Chan, not Rush Hour Jackie Chan) who does all of his own stunts...most of which would put Mr. Chan in the hospital. The man is amazing. With Asian “Martial Arts” films being a mix of ridiculous gunplay and over-played acrobatics, Tony Jaa brings the medium back to it's roots. That is, I mean, a little Asian guy leaping into the air and smashing a fully grown man's nose in with his flying knee-kick.

And about technical fighting in movies and television where the singular purpose is not the Martial Arts themselves...well, I think that we'll be forever doomed to mediocre fight sequences meant to draw in the “testosterone” crowd that I mentioned earlier. Stunt doubles and wires are the foundation. Of course, one cannot expect every actor to be able to preform breath taking stunts. But they shouldn't have to. Some of my favorite fight scenes of all time were largely preformed by people with no real experience. In The Bourne trilogy, a bit of creative directing convinced me that Matt Damon could kick my ass. What, or course, is the best way to go about this?

Consequences. It's all about being as brutal as possible. No matter the medium, if Batman or Indiana Jones hits people without there being any real sort of visible damage, it really loses it's effect. When people seriously fight there are bruises, broken bones and and spilled blood. I'm not exactly asking for a Sin City level of gratuitous gore, but a to see more than a one-punch knock out, for once in my life, would bring me unparalleled joy (not that I have any sort of problem with Guy Ritchie's Snatch. To the contrary, actually.). Of course, overly stylized and poorly choreographed Kill Bill stuff bothers me just as much. I could probably write another article on what a joke female “Martial Artists” are in most western media. So, I think I might just do that, as I don't really have any desire to be labeled as a misogynist because I don't have the space to explain myself within the context of this piece.

One thing that always needs to be covered? The mechanics and workings of firearms. Ever since John Woo decided to descend up Asian cinema, the integration of high-kicks and handguns has become a stable of the quintessential Martial Arts film. Of course, most of these cop movies involve a healthy mix of Tae Kwon Do and bits of shrapnel from fragmentation grenades tearing through just about every body part imaginable; I have no qualms with this. I couldn't even complain about the “Storm Trooper syndrome” (having no real ability to aim your weapon). I don't even care about bullet-dodging (when it's in Equilibrium). It's inconsistent bullet-dodging that tends to drive me up a wall.

Just about every “Martial Arts Superhero” (The Bat-family, Iron Fist, Daredevil, Green Arrow, etc.) manage to avoid multiple ne'er-do-wells with AK-47's. It's nothing short of spectacular that none of them have taken a bullet to the head yet. I thought that the best sort of solution to this, as realistically, bullet dodging is impossible for humans, was introduced in Batman Begins. Making Batman into a Kevlar-clad ninja effectively eliminated the age-old “Why doesn't someone just shoot him?” question. I suggest that creators begin working toward similar solutions immidiately, figuring out something about each and every character that would more easily allow them to avoid having a .45 caliber round sitting cozily between their eyes.

There's a lot that could (and should) be touched on in regards to this, as writers and artists and actors and directors and...whoever else it is that tends to ignore Bruce Lee's most important teaching; Martial Arts should be realistic. And when they aren't, the least you can do is go out of your way to make sure that our suspension of disbelief isn't pushed too far. Make me believe that your character could kick my ass, and I'll be sold.

Young Avengers, part 1

Young Avengers Christmas comes late this year with the “Young Avengers Presents” miniseries. After hemorrhaging fans during a months-long hiatus full of broken promises and at least one canceled miniseries, the team is finally making a comeback. Although they haven’t all been solicited, it seems like each issue except for the Billy and Tommy issue will focus on a team member each. Each gets a fairly notorious Marvel writer and some fans have speculated that these issues are auditions for the authors--one of them might be writing the eventual Young Avengers "season two".

I think YAP will be a good seller and Young Avengers will be a strong series if it ever gets started again. Like I said, it’s been losing fans, but most of them would probably pick up the book if they saw it. Honestly, I don’t think it’s as good as some people think it is, but it’s still a quality book. I think it’s got too much soap opera for a book without great characterization, but maybe that’s because it never got the chance to move beyond setup. When season one of YA ended, they’d just finished the team and wrapped up the last major origin story arc.

Actually, that’s not true. Let me backtrack. Each of the team members (except Kate Bishop, better known as Girl Hawkeye) has a strong connection to the original Avengers and is like a young version of one of them. They also all have terrible codenames. Anyway, because of this, their origins are a big part of the story. With the end of season one, we know where all of the team members come from and what species they are.

Despite this, there’s still a lot for the book to go through. The origins of Vision, Billy and Tommy are rooted in the origins of previously existing Marvel heroes. They’re ridiculously convoluted and thick with retcons, continuity errors, and (let’s face it) some really, really stupid stories. A huge part of season two will be spent figuring out whether or not Billy and Tommy are imaginary or not.

Still, we know the basics about the team, and that’s what I’m going to go through. My goal is for this series of posts to be intelligible to someone who's only peripherally aware of what the Avengers are, but still be entertaining to someone who read all of Young Avenger’s appearances and remembers the first Secret Wars. I’m talking about my impressions of and hopes for each character, in whatever order I feel like. The posts will be divided so that they’re no more than two and a bit pages long in Word, so I don’t know how many posts I’ll make.

Let’s start with Hulkling (see what I mean about the names?).

Theodore Altman. Half-Kree, half-Skrull, default shape human, shapeshifting, quick healing, super strength. A few decades back, Marvel had a big event called the Kree-Skrull war. The Skrulls are a race of shapeshifting warriors with a huge empire who’ve picked on Earth a few times. They go way back to the one of the first Fantastic Four issues. Most Skrulls are just faceless legions of soldiers who can be butchered in fancy splash pages because they can grow pretty much anything back, but a few are actually given personalities.

The Kree have super-strength and look like humans, but sometimes they’ve got different color skin. They hate the Skrulls. If you’re a hardcore nerd, that summary made you twitch, but if you’re not, that’s all you need to know about the species.

Anyway, during this war, Skrull princess Anelle and Kree warrior Captain Marvel had a one-night stand, resulting in Teddy. Captain Marvel was an Earth superhero and considered it his adopted home. He was a great man who tragically died of cancer in a fantastic trade paperback that I recommend to everyone. Unfortunately, modern Marvel decided to crap on this by bringing him back in a stupid one-shot, having nobody react to his reappearance, and then not doing anything with him for months. I recall seeing a quote from one of the writers claiming that they couldn’t have been expected to write an epic story about life and death in a one-shot. They shouldn’t have written the damn thing at all.

During a recent “cosmic Marvel” event called Annihilation, the Skrull empire was apparently torn to pieces and has retreated to Earth in a last-ditch effort to take it over. This is called Secret Invasion. I, personally, know it as “yet another excuse to have splash pages masquerading as fight scenes and have a bunch of heroes act like irrational jackasses and fight each other instead of villains.” Don’t worry, there will be no lasting repercussions whatsoever, so you don’t need to know anything about it. Anyway, this all takes place after the story arc I’m about to describe.

At the end of the Young Avengers arc where Teddy found out about all this, the Kree and the Skrull were fighting over him because he could be an heir to both empires and end the conflict forever. There was an agreement that he would leave Earth and spend half a year with the Kree and half a year with the Skrulls. For a few pages, it seems like he did, but it was revealed to be the Super Skrull in disguise (ordinary Skrull with Fantastic Four powers and hypno-eyes). I think the Super Skrull dropped the charade in Annihilation because he had bigger things to worry about.

I doubt the Skrull are still a big enough threat for the Kree to be concerned over, so there’ll be no more huge battles over him. The Skrulls are also too ragtag to risk asking Teddy for help, since he’d probably blow the whistle on their stealth operation. Teddy was raised as a human by one of the servants of Anelle, who took him to Earth as a baby and was his mother—he has no reason to betray humanity. On the other hand, the Skrulls might consider him an ally, since he helped the Super Skrull gain such a delicate position, even after the Super Skrull killed his mother.

I’m not kidding. The Super Skrull set his damn mother on fire and she burned to death in front of him. Then he kidnapped Teddy to be dragged off to become Emperor of the Skrulls. Previously, he’d kidnapped another member of the Young Avengers and threatened to kill him. I don’t have a problem with Teddy setting him up in the super-sweet spy position because he’s a kid who probably has no concept of “cosmic”. He did it to save his own skin and it was a pretty clever solution. Even so, he had a nice long conversation earlier with the Super Skrull that was actually civil. I have no idea what the hell his deal is! The last arc was almost entire about him, but Teddy doesn’t have enough depth or internal conflicts. A teenage boy who helped out the man that killed his mom must have a pretty rich internal life

His issue in YAP will be about him meeting the recently resurrected Captain Marvel. I think it’s a good idea. It's a chance for both of them to get some time in the spotlight and for someone to develop their personalities and how Captain Marvel feels about being displaced in time (this is how his cheap cop-out resurrection was done: by making it not really a resurrection).

Another thing… Teddy and Billy, another teammate, are in a gay relationship. I’ll get to that when I get to Billy so you can judge the situation as a whole. I will say right now that I support gay rights and I have no problem with homosexual relationships existing in comics.

I hope that this wasn't too long and incoherent for you. I tend to get like this when I'm talking about comics.

Who is J.J. Abrams?

I’m sure all of you have heard of J.J. Abrams by now, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years (ugh, cliché). He wrote Armageddon, that movie about the asteroid with Bruce Willis directed by Michael Bay. He created the TV series Felicity, about a girl in college named… Felicity. He then created the TV series Alias, about a young woman who is a spy. But the thing that he’s most well known for… and the thing he’s probably done the least for… is the show that everyone knows.

LOST.

A bunch of survivors on a plane flight from Sydney to Los Angeles crash land on a mysterious island. Everyone knows what Lost is. When people think of J. J. Abrams, they think of Lost. But why?

I believe the idea of a TV show set on an island about survivors of a plane crash was conceived by a guy named Jeffrey Lieber. But, as you can assume, it’s not really that original or an interesting idea. So the guys at ABC contacted J.J. Abrams (of Armageddon, Felicity and Alias fame) and got his input on the idea. He explained how he wanted the island to be mysterious and a character in itself… but he didn’t want to write it himself.

So they got him a co-writer. This is where Damon Lindelof comes in.

The two met, and wrote an outline for a TV show called Lost… and television history was made. The outline was approved, the two wrote a script, and then Abrams directed the pilot. The show was picked up and become a commercial and cult success.

After that, Abrams disappeared. He didn’t write or direct anymore episodes. As far as I can tell, the only thing he’s done has plot the third season premiere and “executive produce,” which all I know about is just sitting around and receiving money for nothing. If anyone should be credited with the success of Lost, it should be Lindelof.

Due to the success of Lost (and to a certain extent, Alias), Abrams was noticed by Tom Cruise, who saw the first season of Alias, and decided he wanted Abrams to direct the third instalment of Mission Impossible III, which turned out to be a pretty big success.

After this, Abrams went on to “executive produce” a couple of shows (probably buying expensive things and going on exotic holidays with all the money he was making). He guest directed an episode of The Office (US version) and then produced one of the most mysterious movies ever created… Cloverfield.

I’m sure everyone is familiar with the mysterious trailer that premiered in front of the Transformers movie (directed by Abrams’s old friend, Michael Bay). It’s the one with the people at the party, then there’s an explosion and you hear a giant monster roar and everyone panics. And then the Statue of Liberty’s head crashes down through the streets and the words “From Producer J.J. Abrams” pops up along with a date.

Everyone on the internet was wondering what it was. Eventually the title “Cloverfield” was leaked, and a massive game erupted across the internet with fans trying to figure out what the movie was about, how all the tie-in sites tied in… it was crazy. And all because J.J. Abrams’s name was attached.

The movie is actually written by Drew Goddard. It is directed by Matt Reeves. The only thing Abrams has contributed is the idea of a monster attacking New York City (a very original idea) but viewed through the eyes of people on the street (this is actually quite unique). The problem is… it is Abrams’s Cloverfield. It’s not Goddard’s Cloverfield. Or even Reeves’s Cloverfield. Abrams gets all the credit, and yet he’s only a producer… once more.

Currently, Abrams is directed the new Star Trek movie, due Christmas Day. He’s also creating a new TV series called Fringe. I have no doubt he’ll probably only write or direct the pilot episode and then become “Executive Producer” if it continues. After Star Trek, he is supposedly attached to an “Untitled Hunter Scott Project” and has shown interest in a series of Dark Tower film adaptions, based on the popular series by Stephen King. Apparently Abrams bought the rights to make a Dark Tower movie from King for $19 (a number of some import, King would say). Lindelof is supposedly the most likely candidate to be writing the screenplay (which is probably a good thing, as Lindelof is a big King fan and has packed in many references to his work in Lost).

Abrams has become incredibly popular. Some think he’s going to be the next Spielberg. Others think he’s just a hack. Either way, expect more big things from this man in the years to come.

Who is J.J. Abrams? Right now, he is money.

P.S. Also, just in case Mr. Abrams (awesome) or one of his crazy fans (slightly less than awesome) one day finds their way across this blog… I don’t actually hate you. I’m really a big fan. I just find it strange that you seem to have so many projects going on at once, and seem to jump from one to the next… but then again, that means we have more Abrams-related projects coming out constantly, which is a good thing!

Okay. That’s the end of my sucking up.