Ghostbusters 2016 Breakdown

The 1980’s gave us lots of things to be nostalgic about, but one of the crowning achievements of that era was the original “Ghostbusters” film.  It stands out as a “must see” on almost every film fan’s list.  That alone is enough to label any attempt at a reboot of the franchise as a horrifying cash grab.

It doesn’t help that for the last ten years or so we’ve been hip deep in reboots of classic films.  Some of them have been soulless and shameless; some of them have been heartfelt and even improved on the original.  I think that may be the starting point to the controversy of the new “Ghostbusters” film. 

The History

The original film was collaboration between Dan Aykroyd, Harlold Ramis, and Ivan Reitman.  These were the concept creators, the writers, and the polishers of the story.  As the film grew into a reality and changes had to happen, they happened organically because these three guys were involved all the way.  They shaped the world of the Ghostbusters first hand.  That is a very big deal because under normal circumstances you have one person submit a story idea and they either bring in a script or the script idea is farmed out to writers who submit multiple drafts until one is picked, polished and printed.  The studio hires a director, they cast the characters and the final product can feel very manufactured.  Its and assembly line process really and the original film was not this.  It was something that grew and the people who started it were the ones who finished it.  So, “Ghostbusters” as a film feels alive, like it’s a person and for a lot of fans, that person became a friend.

I grew up with the franchise.  I wore out two VHS copies of the original film; I saw the second film eight times while I was laid up from an injury in the 4th grade (my dad rented it for me).  I watched the original cartoon in its entirety and yes, I even watched “Extreme Ghostbusters”.  Right about here is where a lot of fans get divided.  There was very big push for “Ghostbusters III” but that was on the heels of “Extreme Ghostbusters”, and it was with that series that you could see the quality really flake away from the original concept.  With the lack of quality, so went the interest.  Ghostbusters is a franchise that lives off of its fan base.  It needs a strong foundation in order to support quality work.  The final result of “Ghostbusters III” was a result of a lack of interest in studios would have translated into a bad movie and the creators didn’t think the fans that stayed the course deserved a bad move.  So Ghostbusters faded from theatres and television and lived on in comic book format.  But in its legacy it maintained that friendship with its fans.  It still felt very organic very alive.

“Ghostbusters 2016” does not feel that way.  It feels very manufactured.  At least that’s what the first preview would have you believe.

The Warning Shot

When the first trailer for “Ghostbusters” circa 2016 dropped I honestly started off confused.  Text at the beginning referenced the original franchise, and they played the key cords to the original theme, and then seemed to forget that those events ever took place.  The jokes showcased in the trailer on the raunchy side, bordering on inappropriate because I guess that’s funny.  Then came Leslie Jones’ character.  This was the moment that I think made a lot of fans just cut ties from the move all together.  She was loud, she came across as “hood” and the trailer made her look incredibly stupid.  The portrayal of the character in the trailer made her look like every negative black stereotype imaginable.

Leslie Jones took the back lash personally and even commented “Why can’t a regular person be a Ghostbuster?”

Well, a regular person CAN be a Ghostbuster.  A regular person WAS a Ghostbuster.  Winston Zeddemore played by Ernie Hudson was a guy who came in off the street and applied for the job.  He even had the purest of motives, a steady paycheck.  He grew into one of the most respectable, grounded, and conventionally wise characters of the 1980’s.  He was a role model, he was someone kids, no matter your race, but especially if you were black, could look up to and say “I could be like him.”

The way the first trailer portrayed Jones’ character was the exact opposite of Zeddemore which for many fans spelled disaster.  This was just another slapped together studio film.  And the ghosts on screen didn’t help the image.

Ghostbuster’s ghosts have a very specific look.  They are semi solid but translucent with a very faint glow about them.  These ghosts were bright, loud, neon colors with significant glows that hurt your eyes.  On top of that they invoke a very bad memory as many of them look like they escaped a screening of Eddie Murphy’s “Haunted Mansion”.  Anything that triggers a latent memory of that movie is going to garner a negative reaction.

Studios Need to Reevaluate

So remember I keep specifying “the first trailer” and “give the impression”.  That’s because that’s just the way the first trailer was cut.  When the second trailer came out there was a very different tone.  There were more dialogs about what was actually going on, smarter jokes and the balance was shifted.  Leslie Jones actually had more screen time in the second trailer and it made her character look a lot better.  There was more wit about her.  Where the first trailer made her look like a screaming fool, the second one made her more down to earth, more aware of the situation and more reasonable in her responses.  Basically they turned her from a screening of “Soul Plane” into an actual person, someone you could have a conversation with.

Toned down also were the gross out jokes.  Frankly I didn’t need to know where Kristin Wiig need to scrub slime out of on her body, and thankfully the second trailer did not retread that material.  Yes, the ghost vomits slime on her but that’s it.

Kate McKinnon comes across as a character that speaks when it’s actually needed but gives great reactions to events going on around her, even when it’s just two characters accidentally talking over each other.

Melissa McCarthy is a great comedic actress, but a lot of times it feels like she’s just playing herself.   Regardless it’s very clear she’s having a blast.

In short the whole tone of the films was elevated from one trailer to the next.

The Fallout

But was this tonal shift enough to get fans interested again in the film?  Well, for some it was.  For some it just drew some harder criticisms.

Having a gender swapped cast did not sit well with feminist, which some people found ironic until you realize that feminism isn’t about putting girls first but rather evening the playing field between the genders.  Feminists wanted a mixed team, men and women working together on equal playing fields.  Having Chris Hemsworth (Thor) as the hired on eye candy very much hurt the message feminists were trying to get out there.

Ultimately the damage is done because the film, for better or for worse is in the can and slated for release with no time to adjust or reshoot or recast to meet the criticisms.  But ultimately that is fine.  Sony is standing by their product and that’s what they need to do right now.  They need to say “like it or not, here it is.”  The big question is whether or not the film will earn enough to justify a sequel.  As we saw with “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” a sequel can be an opportunity to fix flaws in the first of the series.  If they decided to make the cast more inclusive they can either expand the number of Ghostbusters or rotate in new characters and out old characters.

When I came to understand that the film was, in fact, a reboot, I felt that was shortsighted on the part of the studio.  I personally think it would have been great to have the “Ghostbusters” as a business lying dormant for two decades, and have these women discover something serious going on and need to revive the spectral fighting service.  They could go to the remaining 3 Ghostbusters, past their prime to be any help or shell-shocked from their last adventure and they sign over the rights and equipment to the new crew and then the new crew build and improve on that technology.  It would be 5 minutes out of a movie that could have satisfied the fans of yesterday and given the movie a stronger foot hold.

But that didn’t happen.  So what you could do in a sequel is expand the cast by at least 2, include two guys to aid the team  and make them just as important, not more important, just as important to the group.

Also wash out the colors of the ghosts because that’s really painful to look at.  The designs are alright, but they are hard to look at.

Casey at the Bat: A Ninja Turtles Retrospective

I do a lot of talking about Marvel and DC, but given the hit new movie “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Out of the Shadows” I thought I’d branch out and talk about a character that has ties to neither of the major comic book studios.

His voice from the 1987 cartoon is forever embedded in my brain, and that remains the quintessential version of the character, a version that none has been able to live up to…Casey Jones.

He was without a doubt growing up my favorite character.  I am a child of the 80’s and, like all kids, I loved the ninja turtles cartoon.  As I’ve stated before, I grew up in an area where I did not get a lot of comic books, so I had no idea who the lean mean green team were until they were brought to my television set.  So here I was enjoying the adventures of four mutant reptiles with ninja skills, but let’s face it, there’s only so far you can play as the ninja turtles until you run into an imagination wall…you will never actually get to be a ninja turtle.  Then came Casey Jones and he was awesome.  Not only was he human, like me and most of my classmates at the time, he was incredibly easy to play as.  You may or may not have been able to make shift ninja weapons as a kid, but almost everyone I knew had a baseball bat.  I managed to even get my hands on a hockey stick.  Long story.  So while everyone was Raphael or Michelangelo, there I was, sports equipment in hand, paper plate cut into a mask on my face, ready to lend aid to the team.  It was also great since he wasn’t always with the turtles, I could go off and have my own adventures.

So here we go, a brief retrospective of the character of Casey Jones.

Originating from the comics, he was portrayed as basically a lunatic who almost never took off his signature hockey mask, and this was directly translated into the cartoon.  He was more than a little militant about his vigilantism, especially in the cartoon, as he would come down hard on jay walkers and muggers alike, putting him not only a an ally but also at odds with the turtles who felt some restraint somewhere was a good thing.

 A man with exactly 0 chill and 0 eff's to give!

Coming to life on screen, he was voiced by Pat Fraley, a veteran voice actor who took a “Clint Eastwood” touch to his voice.  Like I said, this voice was embedded in my head as THE voice for the character.

When the turtles translated to the big screen in 1990, Casey Jones played by Elias Koteas came right along with him and, frankly he did a great job in the role.  I like that Elias could play literally anyone, he has that every-man look that would let him blend into the crowd.  This time the character had more of a “Taxi Driver” feel to him, and one of the best things about the character is that he had, like in the comics and cartoon, no real backstory to him. 

Albeit he looks bored half the time.

The comics portrayed him as a guy who became a vigilante because he watched too much tv.  That’s it.  All the film did was add that he at one point played professional hockey.  As we will see later…sometimes less is more.

The 1990 film did, however add one thing to the character as he soon became the love interest of April O’Neil.  This concept has been referred to by some as the “Forced Romantic Interest” or FRI.  Reasonably speaking, there’s no reason these characters should ever hook up, but because every action movie needed a love story  tacked on, these two characters were paired off.  Granted if April had hooked up with anyone else in the story it would have been weird and wrong…and disgusting.

But that set a new tone for the character and the romantic sub-plot carried over to the third live action film of the 1990’s franchise where Koteas once again took on the role in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Turtles in Time.”

Oh god, that movie was bad. 

Let’s move on.

The next time we see Casey in the franchise proper is in 2003 when the turtles get a “4Kids” makeover on Fox.  Their look and storylines were updated, with darker plot lines and more character development, and Casey was given a backstory.

Uhh...

His backstory is terribly generic in that he and his family had been wronged by a street gang called the Purple Dragons, led by a guy named Hun, and that tragedy led him to a life of vigilantism.  Once again he’s the FRI for April O’Neil.  As much as I like that they included him, and Marc Thompson did a great job of portraying him, I felt like he was just over used.  He was placed as a member of the main cast and almost muted down to make him more appealing to April (and thus young girls) and less awesome than the turtles.  I can understand why they did that, but I felt it short changed the character and restricted Thompson’s flexibility with the character.

Casey surfaces again in 2007 on the big screen in the animated adventure “TMNT”.  The movie was alright, but not great.  It was beautifully rendered, but the tone was a little harder to place.  Casey is practically neutered in this film with him being portrayed as the average boyfriend to April rather than a guy who could hold his own against ninja’s.  He gets a few action sequences here and there, but the character is played as kind of dull.  It didn’t help that for the feature they wanted to hire name-brand actors rather than voice over experts, so he’s played blandly by Chris Evans.

Chris is an amazing actor…on screen.  Voice over-not so much.

That leads us to the 2012 Nickelodeon TV series, portrayed by Josh Peck where his character is damaged almost beyond repair.  He’s now a teenager with aspirations of being a gimmick superhero.  Gone, just completely gone is the edge that made the character stand out in the early days.  He’s played as a self-important jerk who, through reasons that completely baffle me, still has a romantic relationship with April O’Neil.

I don’t like this character at all.

There was one glimmer of hope in all the scaling down of Jones.  That came on YouTube in 2011 when an independent movie was released detailing an origin story for Casey, one that better meshed the "tragic past" with the "kind of crazy" background of the character.  Here Hilarion Banks plays the titular character and the whole thing is amazingly done.  My one issue, my only issue, is that Hilarion is relatively small in build so he doesn't carry an imposing presence.  That can work to the characters advantage as those he comes across underestimate him.

He remembered that his mask is suppose to be ON his face!



But if you didn't like slender Hilarion Banks, web series Super Power Beat Down grants your wish by casting John Hennigan in the role as he battles street superhero Kick-Ass.  Being a professional wrestler, Hennigan had the moves to bring Jones to life, but don't expect to much from him by way of acting.

Crazy-Check, Sweaty-Check, alright...ACTION

 

So, that brings us back into the theatre where Casey Jones is now portrayed by Stephen Amell in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Out of the Shadows”.  Again, he’s not edgy, he’s not damaged, he’s a corrections officer who lost prisoners during a break-out staged during prisoner transport.  He allies himself with April and the turtles to see justice done.  Stephen doesn’t do a bad job in the role, but he’s not playing Casey Jones to me.  He’s playing Steven Amell in a hockey mask.

You have failed this cit...wait, where am I again?

 

 

Honestly none of the actors have done a bad job, they’ve just been playing the characters they were given, and like so many franchises as it evolves and changes hands, so will the characters.  So many traits of the characters past have made it down through the years it’s a shame that Casey lost so much of what made him memorable in the first place.

Hopefully through it all, you found a Casey Jones that appeals to you.

Thanks for reading.

 

The Sword of Superman: A Retrospective from someone who was THERE!

Oh the Pre-Crisis era.  For those of you who don’t know, the Pre-Crisis era refers to any event that happened before “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, the first and arguably best revamping of the DC comic book universe.  It was an unprecedented event whose sole purpose was to cut the wheat from the chaff, as it were, and clean up the history of the shared universe that had characters doing all matter of crazy things, sometimes in two places at once.  Basically, continuity was Swiss cheese at the time and nearly impossible to follow.

During the pre-crisis era, Superman had a wealth of wonky powers, some of which made absolutely no sense whatsoever.  One element however sticks out in my mind from way back in the ancient days of 1984.

Growing up in Portland, Texas, a sleepy little town on the Gulf Coast, just north of Corpus Christi, comics were not in great supply.  I was five, and if I wanted comics, I had to hitch a ride with my parents whenever they happened to go to Feudos, a neat little market in one of the quiet shopping centers in town.  Feudos had them all…at least to a five year old’s perspective.  Spider-Man and Superman are the ones that stick out in my head.  One specific comic stands out in my memory of this time, and if you haven’t heard of it, don’t feel bad.  It became part of the chaff that was Crisis on Infinite Earths.  It is, of course, the Sword of Superman, ala “Superman Annual 10”.

Now during the pre-crisis era, you would get several explanations for one single event, and the most famously confused event ever was “Why the ‘S’ shield logo?”

Well NOW we all know that it was the family crest for the House of El on Krypton, but back then it apparently had a more significant meaning.

According to the issue, during the Big Bang some primordial matter and energy came together and formed itself into something like an English broadsword.  Because reasons. 

 

This sword, bearing the “S” shield just existed in history since the dawn of time and when Ma Kent was making Superboy’s first costume, the sword reached out to him telepathically to place the “S” emblem on his suit, apparently because the sword knew he would be important one day.

Later Superman would come into contact with the sword and it would turn him, basically into a god.  I mean more so than he already was.  He became an all knowing, all seeing protector of good, truth, and righteousness.  Think the Infinity Gauntlet, but for good guys.

But there was a price that came with all this power.  The populace he was sworn to protect feared him.  Granted he’s wielding a sword, something that’s generally identified with cutting and stabbing, not something you want to associate with the defender of life.  That’d be like giving Superman a gun…

Yep, that happened too, but that's for a different blog.

So Superman rejected the sword in a sequence of panels that was so weird it may have permanently scarred my young psyche.  Not enough to make me stop reading the comic. I read it till it fell apart, not unlike what happens to the sword!

                       

 

Spoiler alert, don’t let a pre-teen handle comics without educating him on how to properly care for them in the even they are worth money one day.

So Superman rejected the sword’s power, and it seemed pretty cool with it.  It wasn’t mad at all as it left back into the cosmos and, a year later, was seemingly wiped from history.

But why?  With all the stuff that has trickled through the veil of time over the years, why has Superman’s Sword remained off limits?  Well, at the time it was written out of existence we had Superman and Supergirl, and a slew of super-pets.  That limited who could wield the sword to exactly two people.  Its not like the Infinity Gauntlet or the Cosmic Cube, who could potentially be wielded by anyone.  Its tied directly to two characters and pretty much halts the story all together.  If writers thought it was hard to write around Superman’s powers before, giving him the potential to have infinite power makes it very difficult.

Then there was the growing cast of Team Superman, involving Steel, Superboy, Supergirl, the return of Krypto, and so forth.  Now you could bring in the Sword and let it have some options on which to present that power to, but then how do you get rid of it to let the characters have normal stories again?  It’s been around literally since the dawn of time.  It’s not getting destroyed.  You could put it in the Fortress under lock and key, but then, how can you have cataclysmic events when you could just pull out the sword and fix everything?  How do you justify the Death of Superman if the Sword could have taken care of Doomsday in short order?

I think, personally, from both a nostalgic point of view and from a story telling point of view, you could justify bringing the sword back into continuity.  Tweak it’s origin just a bit, where it became the symbol of Hope on Krypton and later was adopted as the crest for the House of El, and leave it “out there” waiting for Superman to prove himself again.

Just a thought.

Thanks for reading

 

 

Draco Malfoy and the Plot Convenience

So they were showing a bunch of Harry Potter movies over the course of the Memorial Day weekend and I watched a few with my oldest because, frankly it’d been a while since I had seen the films.

In “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” we see early in the film Draco being a general dick and tearing a page out of a book.  That scene right there sparked a huge fan theory that Draco slipped the page to Hermione because he secretly had a crush on her and…well it spools off from there.  But I have a slight variation of that theory.

The torn page Hermione ends up with in the film is the one Draco tore out, but he didn’t give it to her.

Draco’s early characterization, wonderfully performed by Tom Felton, shows him being a selfish dick most of the time.  Okay, all the time, but prior to going to school this year his father engineered a plot to restore Voldemort by way of using Tom Riddle’s diary.  So we know, obviously, that the diary was in Lucius’ possession and probably accessible to a disrespectful punk like Draco.  Draco, one way or another gleam from the diary that the Chamber of Secrets houses a basilisk, and his dad is going to unleash the beast in the school, but doesn’t learn any more than that.  In going back-to-school shopping, he comes across a book about various monsters, including a page on basilisks.  Why buy the book when you only need one page?  He knows that thing is going to be stalking students and he likes being alive so he wants to know everything he can.  He’s selfish, not stupid.

So he goes into school with torn page in pocket.

Now Draco doesn’t know a lot.  He has no idea who the heir to Slytherin is, nor does he care, he just knows what he needs to know.

While Ron and Harry are off having their spider adventure, Hermione goes looking for answers from the restricted section and comes back petrified but with a torn page from a book clutched in her hand.  The book on the other hand, is nowhere to be found, and this would normally be way out of character for Hermione as she would feel physical pain if she destroyed or defaced a book.  So where did the page come from?

I think Draco either discarded it feeling he had enough info to survive, or she saw him with it and swiped it when he was distracted, which given that she had botched her own portion of the polyjuice potion and couldn’t help Ron and Harry with the interrogation, it seems likely she would have taken more direct measures to find out what he knew.

That’s one theory.

The other theory is Draco is just being a little prick and the page Hermione had was just notes she was taking while in the restricted section.

Gotham: Into the Woods: A Review

Well, it’s been more than a minute since our last episode of Gotham, so let’s talk really quick about “Into the Woods”.

                                                                  No, not that.  Stop that.

Yes, “Into the Woods”.  So we kick off with Bruce and Kat running away from a thief they stole from, resulting in both teenagers leaping to the next roof top, and Bruce openly mocking the full adult criminal who’s probably about to have a coronary from the whole event.  This is punctuated by Bruce tossing some of the ill-gotten cash off the roof top.  Why did he do that, I have no idea.  Maybe he was just caught up in the moment; maybe he likes it when Selena beats him for throwing away the money they could have died trying to get.  I don’t know.

But that’s not why you’re here.  You’re here because of Jim Gordon, on the run from the law and trying to clear his name.  Through Bullock’s, ahem, contact inside internal affairs (imagine the Harvey Bullock from the animated series “distracting” someone like that!) Gordon obtains a tape recording of the anonymous tip placed to IA about his involvement in the Galavan murder.  Gordon, after running afoul of the law yet again, because “lay low” means make a spectacle of yourself in Jimbo’s mind, he takes it to Ed Nygma to see if he can clean it up and they can identify the man who framed him.

Oh good old Ed cleans it up, and during their conversation leading to the fateful playback, Gordon figures out that Ed was the one who set him up.  Ed gets the upper hand by shocking Gordon and prepares to deal with him by driving him out to the woods and burying him.  Gordon wakes up and takes off, but not before getting shot in the leg.  After a brief chase, Ed loses Gordon, but not before spelling out the entire situation to him; that he’s trying to dodge the rap for killing Kristen Kringle.

Gordon finds his way back to Selena, which is weird because as far as I knew this was a new place for her to stay at so how would he know where to find her?  I suppose he could have asked around, because as man bleeding from an open wound on his leg asking about a teenage girl doesn’t draw any suspicion.

Well, then again, this IS Gotham.

So he passes out on the couch and Bruce calls in Alfred for an assist.  While back at stately Wayne Manor, Alfred does a fair amount of berating both Bruce and Gordon for their questionable judgement calls as of late, but ultimately is willing to help both out.

They convince Selena to tip off the police about Gordon’s activities, making sure Nygma overhears.  Gordon has gone to track down the Penguin to find out where Kristen Kringle is buried.

Let’s talk about Penguin for just a bit.  Grieved over the loss of his father, which is understandable considering until about two episodes ago he didn’t know the man existed and he showed honest to goodness love towards the often abused Oswald.  About to be kicked out, he strikes a deal with his stepmother; he will stay on as the family’s servant and they don’t throw him out into the cold.  They abuse the crap out of him and plot to fake his suicide, but they will let him stay for a little while if only to save cash on actual servants.  While performing his duties in the kitchen he discovers the decanter of liquor that had been tainted (at the cost of one of the household dogs) and plots his revenge.  It’s a very “Cinderella” story; if Cinderella murdered, mutilated, cooked and fed her step siblings to her evil step mother, only to brutally stab her to death after the big reveal.

Like Disney by way of Stephen King!

Nygma treks out into the woods (TITLE!) and starts digging up Kristen to move her body when he’s confronted by Gordon.  Holding the disposed detective at gun point, he gives a full confession only to be swarmed by police, led by Barnes, and is taken into custody, clearing Gordon’s name in one fell swoop.

Gordon is offered his job back, and will return to work after tracking down more information on the Wayne’s murder.  Barnes agrees, but only if he promises to call Leslie Tompkins.  Later Gordon tries to call, but can’t bring himself to talk to her.  His brooding is interrupted by Barbra Keane, who’s fresh out of Arkham.

Meanwhile back at the manor, Alfred tells Bruce that the mysterious computer is fixed, but if he’s going to pursue the secrets of his father, he’s going to have to leave Selena and his life on the streets behind.  Granted it was more akin to an elaborate sleep over, but still the decision is hard but he tells an angry Selena that his place is in the Manor.

There were a lot of strong points to this episode and everyone brought their A-game.  I didn’t necessarily appreciate seeing how Bullock stays off of IA’s radar, but I guess it makes sense.  This is clearly not a show for kids.  It was great to see the Penguin unleashed again, and you can tell this re-born bird of crime is going places.

But what about Gordon?

So not too long ago, last week I believe, I proclaimed that Gordon was bad at his job and this week kinda sorta didn’t convince me otherwise.  He’s a decent detective, but ultimately it came down to him being in the right place in the right time and having an opponent who gave all but a power point presentation for his evil plan.

I’m glad we got a reasonable conclusion to the storyline, at least as reasonable as you can get with Gotham, and it’s important for viewers like myself to not judge it by either the rules of real life police work or by the standards of criminal procedural shows.  It’s not fair to the show at large because it’s so very different, so very grounded as being a comic book that you can’t measure it by the same lengths.

So did we get redemption for some off kilter story telling?  Yes and no; Gordon’s return from the gutter was expected, but putting a character that’s eventually going to be Police Commissioner through that kind of thing really questions his qualifications for that job.  Nygma being locked away in Arkham was nice, Penguin returning from his sniveling form was satisfying because you really hated those three, and I’m interested to see where they go with the “healed” Barbra.  The Bruce, Selena, Alfred dynamic was a little more subtle this time around but Alfred was making a good point, that Bruce needed to focus on one thing or another, but he can’t have both right now.

So while I don’t think Gordon is any better at his job than he was last episode, I think the show redeemed some of itself for me to keep me interested in where this is all going.

Til next time.

Jim Gordon...What were you Thinking?

(Quietly banging head into desk) Okay, okay, okay…so recall how made a blog on March 10^th about how Jim Gordon was bad at his job because his ethical choices have really, really, really sucked.  I almost wish I did v-logs just so you could actually see how agitated I am at what I saw on last week’s Gotham.

Seriously, we’re talking hands shaking I am so mad at this show right now.

So, I love the Penguin subplot, that was very well done and I frankly wish Reubens had been with the show longer, but take what you can get.

Bullock’s big plan to help Gordon clear his name is to have him escape Blackgate under the ruse that he was killed by a fellow inmate, and is aided by Carmine Falcone.

That’s your plan.  That is the absolute best you can come up with?  “Carmine still has the resources to…” do a prison break?  Yes, actually that I believe, but you’d think that it would make more sense for Carmine to come out of the shadows, use a judge he had in a back pocket to overturn the conviction and have Gordon freed that way.  Sure he wouldn’t be a GCPD detective anymore, but he could work to clear his name without having to hide from literally the entire city.

But he faked his death, they won’t be looking for him! I hear you saying it, and here’s the problem with that.  The warden is still alive.  He saw, physically saw Jim Gordon alive and escaping and was knocked out.  Unless that guard proceeded to pummel the warden to death after Gordon fled, there’s a very credible witness to tell the police that Jim Gordon is a fugitive in the wind and decidedly not dead, which makes the whole “free to clear your name” thing a lot more complicated.

So let’s look at the absolute best case scenario.  Jim Gordon clears his name.  He can’t legally be reinstated into the GCPD, or join any other law enforcement agency.  While he may have been sent to prison under false pretenses, he still knowingly and willingly escaped of his own accord and that’s still a crime.  Will they throw him behind bars for it?  Eh maybe not, but he’s still guilty of it.  With that on his record, the closest thing he can do to law enforcement might be as a life guard at the public pool.

The major issue I’m having is that a police procedural show, even one based on a comic book, should have some foundation in actual law enforcement practices.

Justice Leage: We are....Family?

Today I want to take a second or two to talk about a theory I recently saw on Nerdist on YouTube.  Specifically that Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and the Flash from the DC cinematic universe may actually be Kryptonians, or perhaps descendants of ancient Kryptonians.

The principle of the theory is that it would be easier to explain their amazing abilities by chalking them up to Kryptonian heritage, adding that they would be less affected or completely immune to Kryptonite because they had that weakness bred out over time.  The idea stems from two places.  The first is from Man of Steel where Jor-El, explaining the history of Krypton, talks about ancient Kryptonian colonies, citing why there was a Kryptonian scout ship located on Earth, buried under ice for thousands of years.  Okay, that’s our jumping off point which actually leads into the second place, Wonder Woman’s sword.

Nerdist pointed out in their video that there is some writing on the blade that is decidedly not ancient Greek and theorized that the writing isn’t simply decorative, since the production company spends a lot of time with attention to details.  Here’s what I could find as far as the blade was concerned.

 

They’re right, that’s not simply ancient Greek.  It actually looks like a conglomeration of several writing styles from the ancient world.  So here is it: It’s possible that the ancient Kryptonians who came to Earth in the scout ship over 5000 years ago encountered ancient humans and were considered gods due to their amazing powers.  Wonder Woman is, by accounts in the film, a daughter of Zeus, who could be the leader of the ancient Kryptonians, and probably figures as the chief god of any polytheistic religion.  Her amazing abilities stem from this heritage.  Atlantis, founded by an offshoot of these Kryptonians and Aquaman, again possibly the son of Poseidon, also half Kryptonian.  Barry Allen could be of the blood line of Kryptonians and only had his powers activated by a bolt of lightning due to them lying dormant for generations.

Sounds pretty straight forward, but there are a few hiccups in the theory.  Namely the writing style established for Kryptonians by Man of Steel

 

None of these symbols looks like anything on the sword for Wonder Woman.  Something should cross over but none of these symbols even come close to matching up.  If Kryptonians founded the writing style for Ancient Greece, you’d think at least a few of their symbols would have surfaced, but they are completely different.

The second major problem comes from a story telling aspect.  This theory, while straight forward is also incredibly lazy.  Part of what makes the Justice League such a great story telling platform is that you have a group of characters from a very diverse background.  Everyone brings something very different to the table and if you tie in three of your major characters, characters who historically have very unique back stories and make them all cousins, you start turning the JLA into the superhero equivalent of the mafia.  It just feels out of place and I hope they don’t do it.  I would hate for them to explain the extraordinary away in one hand wave as “They’re all basically Kryptonians.”