bulletproofheeb

Many things can be said about Tim Burton. He has a great eye for fictional geography, he loves the style of old German silent films and, unlike the oft attributed Zach Snyder, he fits the definition of “visionary”. But one thing that cannot be said of Tim Burton is that he’s a fast learner.

Let me go back a little bit. The some days ago the trailer for his new movie, Alice in Wonderland, was released and a few thoughts went through my head. The first was that the lead actress (Mia Wasikowska) is made up a bit like Helena Bonham Carter, with her hair a bit like a bird-nest(watch out Helena, he might trade up again like on the set of Planet of the Apes). Second, I was put off by the fact that Depp as the Mad Hatter looks like a steampunk Willy Wonka. Finally, I wondered when Tim Burton would learn not to direct other people’s material.

That is the lesson I wish he would learn because it is getting a bit pain for the people who have to watch him slowly stumble towards this inevitable conclusion, one movie at a time. I like Tim Burton, don’t get me wrong. However, I am not completely enamored with him and his style. He makes a good deal of mistakes. These range from casting to project choices. Some of his movies age incredibly well (Beetlejuice) and some not so much (Batman). One of the few consistent facts about his career is that when he directs his own material it tends to be much better than when he takes on someone else’s work.

Let's take a look:

* Technically, these are based on existing stories but are so far removed from the original stories that they could be put into a 3rd category.

**No, he didn’t direct Nightmare Before Christmas

Even if you disagree with some of my mini-judgments there’s still an overwhelming pattern to this list. His best works is all his own and his worst tend to be adaptations. Why is this? Most likely because he has such a strong vision of his movies that it doesn’t matter what the content is; it must fit into his style.  This works perfectly fine if the material is his to begin with. But when it’s a story that already exists he sometimes has to do a number on it in order to force it into the box that is his style.

And now we get his version of Alice in Wonderland. Granted, it’s neither Alice in Wonderland nor Through the Looking Glass but rather a bastard sequel set years after the second visit. However, they are still someone else’s characters and someone else’s world. This all makes me worried about the project. Will it look great? Absolutely, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be a good movie. And with his past performances I don’t know if I trust him anymore. I may or may not see this one in theatres but if I do go it will be with reservation. And if it doesn’t completely blow me out of the water then Burton will become relegated to “Netflix Only” status, along with Michael Bay and other directors I wouldn’t mind seeing but would mind paying for, because I have absolutely no interest in his next project.

What is it? A full length remake of a perfectly serviceable half-hour short he made decades ago: Frankenweenie

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Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince is the first time a director (David Yates) has done more than one Harry Potter film since Chris Columbus began the franchise. The fact that there is now such a strong and consistent style to the films proves both comforting and a bit disappointing.

First off, I enjoyed this movie. Not only does Yates have a wonderful visual style (I’m a sucker for those shiny black ceramic bricks that foretell danger) but he also has a knack for getting very good performances out of young actors in this series. He nicely balances the bizarre world that Alfonso Cuaróne crafted in Prisoner of Azkaban with the high school drama ­Mike Newell brought to the franchise in Goblet of Fire. It’s also fortunate timing in the franchise as Yates seems the most adept at incorporating the larger visual effects. Since the movies are getting darker and more intense these are much more common in the last 3 books than anywhere else in the series.

The one thing that bothers me is, fittingly enough, the one thing he seems to borrow from Chris Columbus and that is a closer adherence to the source material. In films 1 and 2 the films are almost direct adaptations of the books, simply abridged for time. These are also the two weakest films in the franchise to date. The point of adapting something from one medium to another is to add something to the story. All Columbus did was take a bit away. It was nice to see things movie but it really wasn’t a standalone product. It was a companion to the book. Complain about tone shift and changes to detail all you want but Prisoner of Azkaban was the first attempt to make a real movie out of the books. Yes, things were cut, rearranged and changed but in the continuity of the films (which is different than the books, like it or not) it was a necessary and marvelous leap forward.

Now Yates has taken a half-step back, doing more of a close reading than an inspired adaptation for the story. To be fair some of this blame can be put on the editing and/or the script but Yates is the director and shoulders the responsibility. In Order of the Phoenix there are some minor adaptations but for the most part plot points are shortened and then smoothed over, not rewritten. So while the Yates movies are much closer to the original text I feel that is their greatest weakness. Overall his films feel a bit choppier and cut up than either Goblet or Prisoner. When comparing the book to the movie for Half-blood Prince I can easily see most of the changes and they aren’t shifts for pacing and continuity. For the most part they are actions and subplots being condensed for time, and once aware of it this really shows.

Dumbledor, for instance, is a lot more upfront with Harry from the get go about what he wants. Yes, this does make the movie move faster it also cuts out a lot of the development that happens between them in the book. I know that looks like I just complained it’s not close enough to the novel but that’s not the point at all. The point is Yates doesn’t take that Dumbledor/Harry development and move it elsewhere. He just leaves it on the cutting room floor. The same goes for a lot that happens with Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny. There’s a lot more that’s simply stated in dialogue than shown in action and because Yates shows so much craft in other aspects of the film it really feels like he rushed in the areas he changes.

The real loss here is that Yates proves he’s capable of pulling the emotional depth out of his actors to show these relationships rather than tell you what’s going on. Someone as ham handed as Columbus doesn’t earn that respect in his movies and even Cuaróne’s film seems much more interested in world building a universe of intensity rather than subtle crafting of high school relationships. But Yates follows on the heels of Newell in terms of how he treats the students and staff of Hogwarts. This is the only aspect where he skimps but it does lead to a choppy feel.

Do not misinterpret this criticism. This is a highly enjoyable movie. In terms of this franchise it’s a good one. And sticking so close to the original text will probably be a huge plus to many fans out there. But it does come at an artistic cost. The reason I’ve gone into such depth with this single complaint is that Yates is signed on for the final adaptation, both parts. So this is partially a preemptive review of the Deathly Hallows as well. It’s a double-edged sword; that the comforting fact Yates is more than up to the task of creating appealing and deserving films is paired with the disappointing realization that this will come at the cost of many small character driven moments and subplots.

On a scale of -5 to +5 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince gets a +3

PS Does anyone else find it a little odd that other than the counter still being in the great hall “house points” have all but vanished from the movies?

NOTE: Credit where credit is due. This is actually co-written with my wife. We totally geeked out and this was born. Return of the Jedi has been on twice today and it raises a shitload of questions about continuity. Actually, it doesn't raise them. It brings up inconsistencies between the original trilogy (the real Star Wars movies) and episodes 1,2 and 3 (glorified, and sloppily written fan-fic). The one point that we'll be focusing on is Leia and her actual lineage. In the original trilogy we are told a great many details about the Skywalker family tree

• Luke is Vader's son
• Luke is Leia's sister
• Luke an Leia are twins (I was doubtful that this was in the original trilogy but both Obi-wan and Vader mention it briefly)

What strikes out as strange is that there are multiple instances where Leia and Vader are emotionally distant to each other despite expectations. Leia meets Vader face to face after he ship is captures in A New Hope and there is not emotional recognition. This seems odd since we know that both are strong in the force and that Vader's relation to Luke let them sense each other later in the series. But we'll come back to the "Force paternity test" later. The second thing that seems strange between Vader and Leia is that Vader searches the force and feels that Luke has a twin sister: Leia. He then goes on to refer to her as "your twin sister" and "your sister" (to Luke). Never once does he even acknowledge her as his own daughter. Third, Leia doesn't attend the ritual burning of Vader's body on the forest moon of Endor after the destruction of the second Death Star. At this point Luke as told her that they are sibling and that Vader is his father. He never says Vader is her father and she isn't shaken by the fact that he seemingly is hers as well. Shes doesn't feel the need for closure with Vader, either for the destruction of her home planet Alderaan or to deal with the death of her possible father, by attending his funeral. From all of this is seems that Luke and Leia, while twins, do not share the same father. And this is a point that has bothered me for a while now. There is absolutely no connection between Leia and Vader but there is between Leia and Luke. How can this be? And it becomes even more evident when the "Force paternity test" is brought up. What is the Force paternity test? It is the ability of one strong with the Force to simply know biological relationships between people. We see Luke use it to tell whether Vader is being truthful about their father/son relationship. Luke feels that it is true. We see Leia use something similar to verify that she and Luke are siblings in Return of the Jedi. We possibly see Vader use it to tell that Luke has a twin sister (though it could just be him pulling out the memory of Obi-wan telling Luke) and furthermore we may see it in the fact that Vader seemingly refuses to call Leia his daughter. The last instance I'll postulate this occurs is when the family tree is revealed to Leia. She searches the Force and sees that she and Luke are related but never even hints at a suspicion of being related to Vader. At this point I need to note that I will not be accepting the Episode 3 events as fact. If anyone doubts that Episodes 1-3 are in a different continuity than 4-6 all one has to do is look at the fact that Luke asks Leia :

"Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?" She replies: "She was very beautiful. Kind, but...sad."

And if you're going to tell me that Leia remembers that from her birth (that's ridiculous) and Luke does not (that's doubly ridiculous) you're a fool. And if you need more proof, how is it that Obi-wan doesn't know of Leia's existence until Yoda tells him about her, though he was present at her birth in Revenge of the Sith? So without the actions that take place in episode 3 we don't know that Luke and Leia share the same father. From all evidence in A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi it truly seems as if they only share a mother. And that's possible. There is a medical term "hetero-paternal superfecundation" or bi-paternal twinning. This refers to an event when a mother carries two children at the same time from two different fathers. Most often this is when the mother releases two eggs (dizygotic) and has intercourse multiple times, leading to each egg being fertilized by different fathers. It is also possibly that an egg can be released during an already existing pregnancy and that egg can be fertilized by a second person, though this is much rarer. This is all true and it really does happen. Theory: Luke and Leia are a result of bi-paternal twinning. According to the original trilogy this answers every question raised about the family of Vader, Luke and Leia.

• It answers why Leia remembers her real mother. Because she is kept by her real mother and Luke is sent away in order to protect Leia if Vader ever comes looking for his son.
• It answers why Leia feels no connection to Vader though she does feel a conncetion to Luke.
• It answers why Vader never aknowledges any relation to Leia, even when searching the Force on the second Death Star.

And this makes the most sense to me. The fact that I went out to hunt down this information (my wife actually mentioned the medical phenomina from it's inclusion in a One Life to Live plot line) rather than accept the story fed to me by Revenge of the Sith just goes to show how terrible a movie Episode 3 really is. And with that I close my case. What follows is pure speculation. I would guess, without knowledge of episodes 1-3, that Obi-wan is Leia's father. It seems that she does have a conncetion with him the way Luke does with Vader. When she is captured by Vader and the fate of the rebellion is in jeopardy she trusts her gut instincts and sends a message to Obi-wan, a man she has never met before. It also fits that she has been told of Obi-wan, though not enough to make her think that they are related. Also, when Alderaan is destroyed not only would Obi-wan feel the destruction of the planet but the emotion that he experiences would seem to be shared between he and Leia. He is visibly shaken by the even even though he has never been to that planet to our knowledge. He seems to be feeling it through Leia. Is it crazy to think that Luke and Leia's mother was involved with Obi-wan and that Anakin raped her after he turned to the dark side? It fits into original trilogy continuity. However it is just a theory. And while it fits it is not hinted at to nearly the degree that the other theory is; That Luke and Leia are twins that share only a mother.