The Dark Crystal

Directed by: Jim Henson, Frank Oz

Written by: Jim Henson (story), David Odell (screenplay)

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that takes a different direction than any other film that came before it. The film, then, is revolutionary not because it changes the way movies are made, but because it shows that a different way of making movies is possible. "The Dark Crystal" is that kind of film.

As the film begins, the evil Skeksis have ruled for a thousand years, having exiled the gentle Mystics and nearly wiped out the race of Gelflings. But Jen, the last surviving Gelfling, is on a mission to fulfill the prophecy that will end the reign of the Skeksis. Along the way, he encounters various creatures, including the mysterious Aughra and Kira (another Gelfling). But will Jen be able to replace the crystal shard and restore the Dark Crystal before it's too late?

What sets apart "The Dark Crystal" from any other film is that it contains no actors despite the fact that it is a live-action film. Puppets designed by Jim Henson - and not his floppy, if fun, Muppets - populate the world of this film. This has the effect of heightening the fantasy element of the film without drawing from cartoonish effects.

"The Dark Crystal" has its flaws. It's plot is slow in unwinding itself, and a large chunk of the film is spent in necessary exposition. Many of the scenes feel episodic and disconnected. The puppets are also limited in their movements and expressions - although this is made in comparison to modern CGI effects.

Of course, it's hard to compare "The Dark Crystal" to anything else because there is nothing else quite like it. It can only be seen and appreciated on its own.

I like to think of "The Dark Crystal" like an experimental album. Beyond rating it as good and bad, it is simply different. And that difference makes it meaningful.

Wizard and Glass

This - the fourth episode of "The Dark Tower" series - is perhaps the best of the series up to this point. Part of the reason it is so good is because it tells a great story of our hero Roland's past. Unfortunately, because most of this book involves our crew sitting around a campfire while Roland tells us about his past, our fellowship is no closer to The Dark Tower. For a book with so much plot - one front on the war which destroys Roland's world - not much happens regarding the larger plot arc. (Sure, there's a little bit about the revival of the Tick-Tock Man villan, and some direct allusions to The Wizard of Oz - but that part actually feels forced on to the end, as though King realized that he needed to move his characters forward.)

We find out about Roland's first (and probably only) love, as well as about some of his friendships. We learn that Walter (the Man in Black from the first book) was on the side of the Good Man, betraying Roland's world. We also learn that, at the time of his world's crumbling, Roland was just a young man. Stylistically, there are some great action sequences, and the mythology of Roland's world and all its political and social complexities become more clear.

Without giving it too much praise, this book definitely gives the mysterious hero more definition.

The Waste Lands

Finally, Stephen King’s epic series starts to gain some momentum. As explained earlier, the first two books of this series (seven in all, at this point) were essentially exposition pieces: introducing the central characters and their motives. In this book, though, the adventure really begins and the quest moves forward.

Unfortunately, though, the first third of this book takes its cues from the first two books: lots of character development, little plot development. Roland, Eddie, and Susannah are wandering through the forest and are forced to kill a giant bear which Roland explains is a mythological “guardian” of a portal between worlds – and of course, the place where all the portals meet is Dark Tower. The group realizes that their ka-tet (think of Tolkien’s “fellowship”) is incomplete, and that Roland accidentally caused a rift in the space-time continuum while drawing Susannah into his reality (just trust me on this). Through a lot of luck and unexplained magic, the group manages to bring Jake (yes, the boy who died in the first book) back to their world as though he had never died.

Now, the quest can truly begin (and the crowd goes wild)! The group follows the path of the “beam” (a beam of energy which leads to the Dark Tower). Of course, the path of the beam takes them directly into the middle of a war that has been going on for thousands of years. The Grays and the Pubes have been fighting in the city of Lud to the point where all technology has essentially been lost, and neither side remembers how to use what technology is left. Jake is taken hostage and brought before the leader of the Grays – the Tick-Tock Man – who is shot during Roland’s daring rescue.

To leave the city of Lud, the adventurers take Blain the Mono – a sentient (albeit computerized) monorail car who agrees to take them to the end of his line while they entertain him with riddles. If they do not please him with the riddles, he reserves the right to kill them. (Lastly, as a footnote, the Tick-Tock Man is revived by the mysterious Ageless Wanderer who commands him to prevent Roland from reaching the Dark Tower.)

The good points of “The Waste Lands”:

1. We start to get a much broader view of Roland’s world. Up until now, Roland and his crew have wandered through a desolate desert, a dark mountain, an isolated beach, and a mostly-lifeless forest. Suddenly, Roland’s world has cities with inhabitants!

2. The characters now have a direction in which to move – the path of the beam! Their quest had been somewhat directionless until they noticed the beam. Now, how close or far they are from the Dark Tower is still unknown. At least now we know their going towards it, though, and should get there eventually.

3. Jake is back! That loose-end from the first book was tied up well-enough while also allowing the events of the first book to have an effect on the rest of the series.

The weaker points of “The Waste Lands:”

1. The title of the book was completely misleading. We do not encounter the Waste Lands until the last few pages of the book. And even then, they are only described as “nightmarish landscapes” that the sojourners pass over while riding in Blain the Mono.

2. The Dark Tower is not necessarily any closer than it was at the beginning of the book. It’s still not any clearer, either, what Roland’s obsession with it is and what he hopes to accomplish when he gets there.

3. There’s still a sense of exposition to the larger multi-book story arc. Only at the end of the book do we catch a glimpse of this Ageless Wanderer who is clearly Roland’s foil. You’d think that after the first several hundred pages that the antagonist would have been introduced – but you’d be wrong.

4. The book ends in the middle of rising action – Blain and the ka-tet agreeing to transit in exchange for riddles. The author’s note at the end only states that the book ended where King felt it naturally did – which is a bunch of hogwash!

I think I’ll be taking a break from this series for a bit. I hope the next book has a little more forward-progress than “The Dark Tower” series has had so far. On the other hand, I freely admit, I want to know how things turn out for Roland and the gang.

The Drawing of the Three

After powering through "The Gunslinger" (and realizing that it was all exposition for the full "The Dark Tower"), I moved quickly on to the second book - "The Drawing of the Three" - hoping to get to the meat of the series. Although I did find more action, it was still tempered with some disappointment.

Summary

When we last left our hero Roland (the last Gunslinger), he was falling asleep on a beach where he was told (by his former rival, the Man in Black) to wait for "the drawing of the three" who would help him on his quest.

As this story opens, Roland wakes up on that mysterious beach to find himself surrounded by giant black lobster monstrosities (creatively named "lobstrosities"). These lobsters surprisingly attack him, biting off the first two fingers of his right, dominant hand. It also turns out that the lobster bite is poisonous, and that Roland doesn't have long to live. To top it all off, the tide had risen while he was sleeping and soaked all his ammunition, leaving him with a guessing game of which rounds will fire and which are duds.

Yet, when hope is low, a mysterious door appears on the beach, and Roland finds that by going through the door, he can take control of a man in our modern (1980s) world - Eddie Dean. Unfortunately (because nothing can be easy for Roland on his quest), Eddie Dean is a junkie who is in a lot of trouble with the law and the mob. Dramatically (and somewhat comically), Roland saves Eddie and "draws" him into his world so that Eddie can join the quest for the Dark Tower - and bring a lot of aspirin with him.

After recovering for a few days, Roland and Eddie continue up the mysterious beach and find another door. This door leads to our world in the mid-1960s. Roland brings back the next member of his crew - the wheelchair-bound split-personality Odetta Holmes / Detta Walker. Unfortunately, as sweet and kind and compassionate as Odetta is, Detta is twice as violent and nasty. In Roland's world, the two men are forced to tie her to her chair to stay safe while trying to figure out how to control the two personalities.

With food running low, ammunition running lower, and the danger higher than ever, the three continue up the beach until it nearly disappears. There, they find the third (and final) door. Entering it, Roland enters the mind of Jack Mort - the man whose actions led to Odetta / Detta losing her legs and to Jake entering Roland's world. Roland prevents Mort from killing Jake (leading to a time paradox which, I'm certain, will lead to trouble later), and, after grabbing some more ammunition for his guns, makes Mort jump in front of a subway train. The death of Mort in our world fuses the two sides of Odetta / Detta into a single personality - Susannah.

Now a healthy trio, Roland, Eddie, and Susannah continue into the foothills in search of the Dark Tower.

Analysis

This second book of the "Dark Tower" series provided a lot more concrete, understandable action tan the first book. Unfortunately, most of this action is perpendicular to the plot, not moving it forward in many significant ways. At the end of the book, I did not feel that Roland was any closer to the Dark Tower (or really understanding the nature of the Tower) than he was at the beginning. The only major change is that at the end of the book Roland has company on his quest.

Still, there were a few important facts established through this book:

1. Roland's world is connected to ours. But these connections are not necessarily restricted by time. (So, time passing in Roland's world does not affect time passing in our world).

2. Roland admits that he his compelled to find the Dark Tower, although he still is not clear (or, at least, does not reveal) what motivates him to do so.

3. Jake did not necessarily die (and so, was not necessarily drawn into Roland's world).

4. Roland knows that he might have to sacrifice Eddie or Susannah on his quest. And he's not afraid to do so.

5. Roland only has one usable hand, and so will need to rely on others to survive. (In other words, Eddie and Susannah are not necessarily as expendable as Roland thinks they are.)

6. Roland has a very foggy past (partly due to his foggy age). And I'm absolutely certain that events from his past (which we haven't learned yet) will come into play as the adventure continues.

I'm having trouble writing a much deeper analysis of this, simply because I don't feel that there was much else in this book worth analyzing. Like a cartoon character trying to run, but really just spinning his legs, a lot happened in this book without the story moving forward.

The good news is that the book did keep me entertained, and I'm going to keep reading the series. It definitely seems like things are really about to take off for Roland (and his new posse). In the end, King has masterfully woven another tale, even if that tale feels hollow in the face of the larger context of the novel.

On to "The Waste Lands"...

The Gunslinger

Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve always gone to Steven to get my haircut. And as long as I can remember talking to Steven about books, I’ve known that Steven is a Stephen King fanatic. As I started to grow more mature in my reading, Steven’s influence flexed its grip, and I began reading Stephen King as well. Although I’ve read several of King’s novels – including the massive undertaking “The Stand” – I’ve never attempted his series of novels “The Dark Tower.” This all changed when I got a haircut two weeks ago. Steven said he had something for me, and then brought out a bag from Pei Wei filled with the first six books of “The Dark Tower” sequence. Although the bag weighs at least twenty pounds, without representing the entire text of the series, I dove right in, beginning (obviously) with the first book of the series (which is, coincidentally, by far the shortest).

“The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger” begins the epic quest of Roland, the last Gunslinger. As we meet him, he his chasing “the man in black” across a desert in some sort of western-fantasy world. Apparently, Roland has been chasing him for a long, long time and has very recently been catching up. In the first part of the novel, Roland walks into a trap the man in black has set up in a know-nothing town, and the only way out is to, quite literally, kill every person in the small city (including his own lover). Further on, at an abandoned way station in the desert the Gunslinger encounters a boy – Jake – who apparently died in our world (at the hands of the man in black) only to re-awaken in Roland’s world. The Gunslinger allows Jake to join his quest, and the two miraculously cross a seemingly endless desert to arrive at the mountains – with the man in black now in sight. The pair encounters a malicious oracle who suggests that Roland will have to kill the boy if he wants to catch his quarry. As Roland and Jake pursue the man in black through the caverns of the mountain, they are attacked by Slow Mutants (human like creatures with distorted features who glow in the dark) and narrowly escape. With the cavern’s exit within reach, the man in black blocks their egress, and Jake clings desperately to the side of a rail-bridge. Roland has to choose between the boy and the man in black and, painfully, chooses the main in black. The novel ends with the man in black revealing that their dying world is just a single grain on a piece of grass in an even larger universe – all part of an infinitely large and small chain of worlds. Roland is set off on his quest to find the Dark Tower (a nexus between the many worlds) and to face off against The Beast who guards it.

Of course, that’s all merely the main story. Through the course of a few flashbacks and “firelight stories,” we learn a lot about Roland’s past (though many mysteries are also raised in the aftermath). For example, we learn that he grew up in highly regimented and caste-regulated society. This court resembles, loosely, Arthurian legends, although the noble knights are replaced with gunslinging cowboys. Yet, sometime between Roland’s childhood and the “present” of the novel, there has been a devastating war and that world is “dying,” leaving Roland as the last true Gunslinger. There are lots of references to Roland’s father being cuckolded, a vicious trickster named Marten, and a beautiful woman named Susan – but these references remain murky.

The world that King establishes in the first of “The Dark Tower” books can be best imagined as a hybrid between Clint Eastwood’s early westerns (lots of isolated towns, desolation, dirt, and sweat) and King Arthur’s court (class structures, knights and maidens). This comparison is practically invited by the reference to a wizard from our world named “Maerlyn” (think: Merlin). There are also elements of traditional quest stories and poems – notably “The Odyssey” of course. Also, apparently the name Roland is a reference to a Robert Browning poem (but, at this point, I’m too lazy to care about the allusion beyond what is mentioned in the afterword to the book).

There is a strange connection between our world and Roland’s world. The boy Jake somehow leapt between the two worlds. A gas pipe at the way station in the middle of the desert seems to connect the two worlds. There’s even a strange subway-like terminal that Roland and Jake walk through in the middle of the caverns of the western mountains – although the remains of those working at the station have apparently been dead for a very, very long time.

Our protagonist – Roland, the last Gunslinger – provides an interesting point of discussion. He is not necessarily sympathetic – heartlessly choosing his own ambition over saving the boy Jake. Yet, at the same time, we find it hard to judge him. Although we quest with him for 216 pages (at least, in the edition I read), we hardly get to know him. Sure, we know that he was the youngest boy ever to earn the title “Gunslinger” and that something bad went down between Marten (the man in black’s master) and Roland’s father – but, to be honest, that’s all we really find out. We never even quite find out why he’s chasing the man in black – and that goal alone makes up the main conflict of the novel.

Considering that there are at least six more books in this series (more, if King keeps adding to the epic), I’m finding it hard to judge here the value of the entire sequence of novels. Ultimately, “The Gunslinger” provides mere exposition for the longer series, while also allowing us a little glimpse into this strange (but fascinating) universe. I just hope that the rest of the series picks up the pace a little bit, because “The Gunslinger” was painfully slow at parts. At the very least, I can see how “The Gunslinger” provides a lot of food-for-thought for a fantasy reader and gives a rich and unique universe for Roland to wander through on his quest for The Dark Tower.

(The next book in the series: “The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three”!)

Avatar

Last night my wife and I went to see the new James Cameron movie "Avatar" in 3-D. Actually, it wasn't so much a "movie" as it was a "completely different experience." I have never been quite as amazed and awed coming out of a movie theatre as I was last night.

Now, this is not to say that "Avatar" is the perfect film. Rather, it is unlike anything else I've ever seen (although it obviously takes some elements from previous science fiction and fantasy books and movies). Using 3-D technology, Cameron was able to take the audience to another world.

But, before I start gushing, a little bit about the movie. Apparently, in the future, humans are mining some sort of high-energy ore on a planet called Pandora, which is worth a ton of money back on earth. The only problem is that the planet is already inhabited by a blue humanoid species which considers pretty much every nook and cranny of the planet to be sacred in one way or another. Enter Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a former marine who has taken his brother's place in the "Avatar Program" - which allows humans to take control of an alien body and live through that body. The company in charge of the mining needs to get to a massive ore deposit which, unfortunately, lies directly beneath the natives' largest city (so to speak), and is looking for a diplomatic, but forceful, way of moving the aliens. Tensions rise between the scientific team researching the planet - led by Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) - and the business and security teams - led by Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) and Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) respectively. Long story short - too late! - the science team, using their avatar bodies, defects and joins the natives in resisting the human expansion. Sully manages to become the leader of the natives (in a manner reminiscent of the rise of Paul / Muad'ib in "Dune"), and - in a fantastically massive battle scene - manage to defeat the invading corporation.

The movie was well written. The plot unfolded nicely with enough twists and turns that it did not become predictable. Many story elements that were developed early on - such as, say, the territoriality of the native animals - played out nicely at the end.

It was hard to ignore the political message of the movie - there is no question left as to where James Cameron stands on issues like Manifest Destiny or, say, the Iraq War. But that aspect of the movie does not dominate the entire story or drag it down. Rather, it adds to the mystique of the plot and gives it a nice allegorical feeling without coming down too preachy.

This blog wouldn't be complete, though, if I didn't comment further on the 3-D experience. Seeing this movie in 3-D gave me a glimpse into the feeling my parents must have had when they first saw color television - something familiar taken to a completely different level. I didn't so much "watch" "Avatar" in 3-D, I "experienced" it. Cameron did a great job of using the 3-D technology to create a sense of realism and depth to the environment without falling into the usual 3-D traps of making something jump out at the audience.

I highly recommend seeing "Avatar" in the theatre. And, if you're already shelling out $11 to see it, I'd highly highly recommend paying the extra couple of dollars to see it in 3-D. (Unless you have a depth-perception problem, because the effects may be lost on you and you could have spent that money on overpriced candy.)