The Hero’s Journey: The Path of Sam Witwicky

                First off, I want to say, I do not hate nor do I blame Shia LaBeouf for anything.  People like to rag on him because it’s easy.  He started out a child actor, and as a young adult actor was given roles in movies that weren’t great, but that’s not his fault.  He did his job and, in the context of the end result, did it well.

Yet, we aren’t necessarily talking about him today, at least not directly.  We are talking about a character he brought to life, one Sam Witwicky, probably the most hated and derided character in the Transformers movie franchise.  However, he’s not even that bad of a character.  We have to look at what he represents, how his actions inform where he is at during the stages of his life that we see. 

In Transformers, the first live action endeavor, we meet young Sam, a high school student desperate for two things; 1) a car, and 2) to get with the girl of his dreams Mikaela Banes.  Now looking backwards in time, through the lenses of age, reason, and experience, we can criticize his choices, his actions, and his motivations…but would we really have acted much different if put in his position?  Think about it the target demographic of your average Michael Bay film…its Sam Witwicky.  That is who Michael Bay plays to, and that is the mindset of the average white heterosexual male American teenager.  You want a car that will help you get noticed by the girls.  That’s it.  Your world is hormones and you have no idea what you are doing.  At no point during the film did Sam really take charge of the situation.  He has strong feelings about Bumblebee and insists he be released, but had it not been for the intervention of Lennox and his team, along with the U.S. Secretary of Defense, he would have been overruled and kicked to the curb.  The only reason he was even there to begin with is because he’s had immediate contact with the aliens.  He has no special skills, talents, or information.  The only time he says something that everyone else in the room doesn’t already know is when he points out that Megatron is a huge threat.  They were going to find that out in a few minutes anyway and it never shifts the tone or the weight of the situation.

Essentially Sam is an unwilling participant in his story, his life has been high jacked, and that is a common element on the hero’s journey.  Often the main character will be forced along his quest by a collection of circumstances.  Luke Skywalker initially rejected Obi-Wan’s offer to become a Jedi.  Bilbo Baggins rejected Gandalf’s offer to become Thorin’s resident burglar.  Young Arthur initially scoffs at the notation that he might actually be the King of England.  Yet just like those narratives, there comes a moment where Sam, likely without thinking about it, accepts his place in the story.  Sam, after the incident at the Hoover Dam becomes a delivery man.  His job is to take the cube from point A to point B.  He has to run the ball down field and it is everyone else who heroically fights off the Decepticons to give him a clear path.  That’s not where he takes his place.  No, again that is just Sam following the direction of everyone else, like you do at that age.  You may think you are forging your own path during your teens, but how much of your own life is decided by other people?  Teachers, parents, principals, doctors, friends, parents of friends, your entire life is dictated by committee.  It wasn’t until Optimus offered himself to take on the cube’s immense power and sacrifice himself that Sam made his own decision.  He and he alone, chose to shove the cube into Megatron’s spark, killing him.  This was the Hail Mary throw.  This could have ended disastrously, but it worked.

However that doesn’t mean that Sam has control of his life now.  Quite the opposite, in Revenge of the Fallen (which I’ll talk in more detail about in a later essay), Sam has returned to his tried and true methodology of taking cues from everyone else, and it makes sense given his age.  Sam is going into college, which means he wants to take control of his own life, but he can’t quite get there.  That is very common for that demographic.  Going from high school into college is a transition period that becomes very complicated very quickly.  He continues to defer to those around him and again, he is summoned into the Hero’s Journey.  His life is defined by those around him and he reacts at lot like how many of his contemporaries react.  I think it’s here that people take issue with Shia LaBeouf because he portrayed a character who isn’t really that likeable, but that is typical for that age group.  People aren’t upset because Shia’s a bad actor or plays a bad character, but rather that the character he portrayed is a reflection of that subsection of society.  They are angry because they see themselves in the character.  A result of writing, or lack there-of created a movie that hit a lot of the same notes as the first.  Which is pretty accurate since your freshman year of college often feels like a rehashing of your high school experience.    That doesn’t excuse the production, but it does inform why they did what they did when they did it.

Where the Hero’s Journey really comes full circle is about the middle of the third film.  The beginning of the film featured another transition for the character, going from college to the world of adults and trying to find a job.  Sam is dealing with a lot at this point, he’s complaining that he got a medal from the president and saved the world twice and can’t tell anyone about it.  On one hand he’s feeling entitled because of all that he did, but on the other hand, he really didn’t do that much.  Again, his Hero’s Journey had him essentially run the ball to the goal while everyone else fought the battle.  In the second film, all he really did was plug a new battery into Optimus Prime.  Had it not been for the intervention of Jetfire, Optimus likely would have been killed again during the ensuing battle.  Sam is placing a lot of important emphasis on his past, which is what you do when you are fresh out of college.  You are hung up on what you did, but what employers, what adults, what the world wants to know is “What are you going to do now?”

That question becomes an essential theme for Sam during the movie.  As the world he knows is stripped away from him through the violence of the alien war and the betrayal of former allies, he is left with those around him telling him what to do, or rather, what not to do.  Remember our first two films?  His world was loaded with people telling him what he needed to do, what they needed him to do, but now there is no one telling him to take this here and do that, to plug that in there and restart that.  Now they just look at him and say they’ve got nothing.  Nothing he’s done to this point matters, not anymore.  He now has to ask himself “What are you going to do now?”

This, like I was saying, is where he comes full circle.  He finally has agency in his story, he picks himself up and says “I’m going in and I’m going to save the woman I love.”  Even Epps who has come with him to the edge of the city says it’s a lost cause, but he chooses to push on, and honestly, Shia sells that moment.  That is the end of the kid and the beginning of the man.  This time, people are taking cues from him, following his lead.

I was actually kind of glad that the character was absent from the fourth film, not because I didn’t like him, but rather because it was time for his character to move on.  I don’t think Michael Bay and his team would have been able to really shape the character any further, and Shia was having so many problems at the time I don’t know that he would have been able to devote much energy into continuing Sam’s story even if he wanted to.

Ultimately Sam’s story will always be one of contention because the lens of nostalgia is not a forgiving one.  I don’t know that I would mind if they revisited the Sam character later on down the road, but I would ask that they give him a new story, one where he decides where he goes from now on.

Thank you,

Should Chris Pratt play Indiana Jones?

 

I suppose the first question really is “Should there be another Indiana Jones film?”  To answer that, just look back a few years to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  While financially the film did “alright”, it has been raked across the fire-hot coals of the internet in terms of nonsensical plot points, poor CGI in a film series that has always relied on practical effects, and Shia LaBeouf. 

Starting from the top, let’s look at the “nonsensical plot points”.  When people talk about it, they almost always say the exact same thing: Indiana Jones could not have survived the refrigerator incident.  For those of you scratching your head, let me explain.  Early in the film, Indiana Jones is fleeing evil Russians led by Cate Blanchet doing her very best Natasha Fatale impersonation.  Seriously I spent all of her scenes expecting her to hatch a plan to “catch moose and squirrel”.  And I know I’m not alone.  Anyway, Indie runs into what he at first thinks is a quiet little town in the middle of the desert.  Turns out it’s a nuclear test site (it was within walking distance to Area 51, Indie.  I know you’re scared but use your brain.)  Once he discovers he’s about to become something between an overcooked chicken to a fine black cloud of dust, he does the only sensible thing.  He jumps into a lead lined refrigerator and is blown into the air, slams onto the ground and rolls violently several times before coming to a halt, only to be decontaminated later by government agents.  Now if you’ve ever spent any amount of time on the internet looking up this movie, you know how wrong it is.  For those of you who don’t, take a hot dog, wrap it in tinfoil, and put in your oven at 450 degrees.  That hotdog will not be in the same condition when you pull it out as when you put it in there.  Because heat makes metal hot, Indiana Jones might have been spared the radiation, but he would have been roasted alive, not to mention having every bone in his body shattered by the impact.

I will come back to this, trust me.

Outside of oven baked Harrison Ford, the next problem people have with the film is that it went the alien route rather than the supernatural route the series had in its previous three installments.  That’s really it.  That is the sum total of plot complaints I hear about the movie.

Rolling forward the next problem is the CGI in place of the practical effects the previous films had.

Prior to KotCS, the last film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, came out in 1989.  Think about how good CGI was in 1989.  Think about how good the CGI in Jurassic Park was.  It’s easy to see how the producers could spare a few bucks on stunts by doing them in CGI, especially when your principle action hero is pushing 70 at the time of filming.  So I don’t decry them from using CGI.  I do complain that they used poor CGI on a completely stupid scene.  The second I saw Shia swinging from vines along side monkeys, I wanted to slap a producer in the face.  It was a waste of CGI, a waste of script writing, and a waste of an action scene.  By my calculation, that scene took about fifty cents of my money and I want that half dollar back.  I won’t get it, but I want it.

What was that other problem?  Oh, Shia LaBeouf.

You know what?  No he’s not the problem, or even “a problem”.  He’s an actor who gets paid to act in movies.  That’s it.  He signed up to be in an Indiana Jones movie, and for the most part he did a fine job.  What’s that, his character is more of a combination of plot conveniences than anything else?  Have you seen an Indiana Jones movie?  The sum total of the man’s life is a plot convenience.  Shia got offered a shot as a side kick in a Harrison Ford action flick and he jumped at it.  Its…not…his…fault.

He…did…his…job.  He got offered a role as an action hero.  FOUR TIMES!  This could have been the biggest career move in his life.  It’s not his fault they had him swinging with monkeys.  He had faith they knew what they were doing.

In short, stop being hateful because you never got your shot at being a side kick to Indiana Jones and leave the man alone.

Where was I?  Right, Chris Pratt.  Should he play Indiana Jones?  Sure, why not.

Oh, you need more than that.  Okay, go watch Guardians of the Galaxy.  Again, I say “sure, why not.”  He’s already played Han Solo.  But should they bother making another Indiana Jones movie?

Sure, why not.

Again, too little?

Well there are three directions they can take the franchise from this point on.  Keep going forward, either by changing Jones the same way you change James Bond, or by having him rejuvenated by the effects of the aliens/Holy Grail.  Remember, he drank from the Holy Grail once.  He was within spitting distance of ancient aliens after doing them a HUGE favor.  Who knows the results?

Option 2: Pratt/Jones’ adventures take place in between the gaps in the movies.  Remember that, according to the tie in fiction, Jones had a ton of adventures, not just the Ark, Stones, Cup, Skull adventures we were along for.  Pratt’s films could take place between these movies, which actually leaves a lot of room for story and character development.  Heck, we’ve played with aliens, why not do a little time traveling and have young Jones meet Shia’s character.  Skys the limit folks.

Option 3: Straight reboot.  Honestly if the only thing you can think to do with Indiana Jones is reboot the franchise all together; you might as well not bother at all.

The Crow vs Hollywood

 

If you are a fan of superhero movies, action movies, or revenge movies, you probably remember the 1994 (twenty-one years!) film starring Brandon Lee entitled “The Crow”.  For those of you who don’t remember, this featured Lee as musician Eric Draven.  Late one evening Mr. Draven and his fiancé are terrorized and ultimately murdered by a gang.  One year later, Draven returns from the grave, summoned by the titular bird, and exact bloody revenge for the crimes that went unpunished.  There is also a fight scene on top of a roof and a pseudo psychic lady.  And Tony Todd is there to, basically being Tony Todd.  It was the 1990’s.

So why do I bring it up now?  Well, the movie spawned a handful of sequels, most of which went straight to video, and one mediocre TV series.  Now, the problem with all of the sequels was that it tried to copy the original, as sequels often do.  You see, there is a common phenomenon when it comes to Hollywood where in when a movies does particularly well at the box office, the studios will immediately try to capitalize on it’s popularity by producing a film nearly identical in story structure with half the budget and none of the returning actors.  This is called cashing in or riding coattails.

What made the original film original was the same thing that made the following sequels terrible.  A good movie, I mean a really good movie, is like a lightning strike.  Its bright, its powerful, and it leaves an impression on everyone who witnessed it.  Sequels are kind of like getting a spot light and shining it in people’s faces and claiming it’s just as good as the original strike, even though everyone present knows full and well it’s not even close.

Back in 1990’s, and still today but especially back then, movie studios didn’t really care about how good the sequel was.  They relied strictly on name brand to carry their product and sat back waiting to count money.  Now what is inexplicable to me is how a studio can crank out a subpar follow up film (in the case of The Crow it was “The Crow: City of Angels”) which makes less money than the original and fans decry as being an inferior film, only to follow it up with progressively worse movies (The Crow: Salvation and The Crow: Wicked Prayer).  These films follow the exact same formula but consistently fail to capture the magic of the original.

The Crow got a decent follow up in the form of the Canadian TV series entitled “The Crow: Stairway to Heaven” which followed the original Crow, Eric Draven now played by Marc Dacascos.  This time, however instead of returning to the grave after his quest is completed, Draven continues to roam the earth fighting evil.  Why did this work when others didn’t?  Well, while fans of the original admitted that it was not the same caliber of the original, they had to admit that it respected the source material and actually tried to spin original stories.  In short, it didn’t do a straight up copy of the original.  It tried to be its own story.

That is where the studios failed.  When CoA failed to perform in the box office, they should have backed up and focused on telling a new, better story.  Not the same story, only with less budget. 

Modern sequels of popular movies have seemed to learn this lesson.  When follow ups to 1989’s “Batman” failed in the forms of “Batman Forever” and “Batman and Robin” Warner Brothers understood where they went wrong.  When “Batman Begins” rebooted the franchise, the follow up “The Dark Knight” was widely credited as being a much better film than the its predecessor.  The same thing happened with Iron-Man 2 and Captain America: the Winter Soldier.  They succeeded because they were going to tell new stories, explore new avenues of the narrative.  Spider-Man 2 was better than Spider-Man (Sam Rami series).  Iron-Man 3 was better than Iron-Man 2.  We’re moving, generally in the right direction with sequels, we’re continuing the story rather than rehashing the old one or telling a sub-par narrative with flashy lights to distract the audience. 

Now as I am typing this, they are working on a reboot of the franchise.  What is actually encouraging is that right now they are on the fourth or fifth attempt at rebooting it, which means they have time to get it right.  Does it mean they will use that time wisely, that’s debatable.