Art and Science: One in the Same

I hate the implication that art is just purely subjective; it's not. If it were Transformers 2 and Twilight would be masterpieces heralded for eons to come. Art is, when you boil it down, a science. When people say “Art is just opinions, just because you like something that's just your opinion". It really annoys me, especially as a writer, I feel more qualified to judge what is and what is not good writing. Just like I wouldn't look at a dance routine and say to the dance pro "I think you're doing it all wrong!" 

I refute the idea art is purely opinion and subjective viewpoints. It's not, that's why there are Arts degrees, we are taught how to do things right and how not to do things. It's all predicated from the human belief that we're all completely unique individuals when as much as we'd like to believe it, that's a lie we tell ourselves, we're not all that unique, we're not even that genetically diverse a species let alone personalities that form from social norms and ideas.

There are breakthroughs in art, in film people like Tarrantino, Welles, Scorsese, Copolla, Wilder, they were break through artists. But they just created something "good" that hadn't been done before. There is a universality (is that a word) to our collective experience, it's why Shakespeare is often considered the greatest writer of all time, because what he wrote was universal, it was human themes; revenge, love, hate, trickery e.t.c.

Everything at the end of the day can be boiled down to science. I think art is a science at the end of the day, just an extremely complex one that we don't fully understand the implications of how it affects us. People who have studied a science know more about it, a marine biologist knows more about his field than I do. Just like I know more about art in writing than he likely would. Art is the most complex of sciences because it deals with a level of human psychology we've only just begun to scratch the surface of even today.

By this precept, it is critical analysis and thinking that is evolving over time with new elements being constantly introduced into the field; experts of the craft understand it better than most. Ironically as I write this the "experts" of my own field are the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, whom I disagree with on a yearly basis at the Oscars. In this sense, art is not subjective, it is critical, it is logical, it is a complex logic, but it is logic non-the-less. Art is something we enjoy and "experts" figure out why we enjoy it. Rather like how a chemist would figure out how a drug makes us feel.

There's an old saying:

"If the human mind were so simple we could understand it, we would be too simple to understand it."

Art is based on facts, very complex facts that we don't understand yet and may never understand in the course of human history. Which is why for me it's so important to understand art, because I believe it is the key to human enlightenment and expansion. The highest form of complex science is the arts. When we as humans, limited in our capacities create something as infinitely complex as the Mona Lisa, the Parthenon, Citizen Kane, Let it Be – it proves that perhaps, just perhaps, we’re not as limited as we might think.

So... yeah.

Prick us do we not Bleed?

Something that's come to my attention recently in my industry as a screenwriter is that a lot of people seem to look upon characters who have a lot of money as though that because they are affluent they should have no problems in their life. I first came across this when I was taking a class for "Great Screenplay" the first of which was the legendary Orson Welles masterpiece; Citizen Kane. The film is about a young man Charles Foster Kane who inherits a lot of money and builds a media empire. It also tells us the story of a man that no matter how much money he makes or how much "stuff" he can buy and never even look at in his massive mansion of Xanadu he lives in but was never actually finished before his death, all Kane really wanted was to be loved and appreciated his final thoughts going back to the last truly happy memory he had playing with the Rosebud sleigh.


Now many of my classmates including myself enjoyed this film and really took it's meaning to heart. Others on the other hand had a slightly different feeling about it and that was that the character of Kane was unrelatable; he was a rich man "why should I feel sorry for his problems?". Understandable, I've often said that certain characters aren't meant to be related to; such as the age old argument of how Superman is just not relateable as a character to which I say; he's not meant to be related to he's meant to be looked up to and someone to aspire to be. That being said a lot of people no matter what fancy film school you pay through the nose to go to aren't going to be able to relate to the character of Charles Foster Kane. And if you can't relate to someone like that in a story rooted in emotional development because you can't see yourself in their shoes why should you care about them?


Now I will admit now, I'm fairly privileged; my family is very well off, we own a rather large house in a nice neighbourhood in North London and a small house in Paphos, Cyprus as well as a shared car for my mother and father and my own car. I've made some of my own money with which I've bought various things. My family and I are in a fairly good situation economically or else I wouldn't be able to afford to live in Los Angeles and have gone to great college like I did. That being said we've not always been so well off; I remember times when we seemed to be moving from rented house to rented house whilst my father spent on average nine months at sea just scraping enough money together to get food for our family. I was never ghetto poor, but there were rough times that fortunately we've gotten away from for the most part. For a while there I had something of a guilt hanging over me about that in a strange way, like that I never wanted to admit that I was well off. While I have not had the kind of life that Charles Foster Kane had but I can certainly relate to him. Not because I consider myself rich because I've never let my money define who I was and in the case of Kane that's not how he defines himself either in spite of all the trinkets that he owns in his unfinished manor representative of his own life; it's incomplete and always will be.


In Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" the Jewish money-lender Shylock is put on trial, a trial which is a complete sham, and gives one of the Bard's greatest monologues.

"Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs,

dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with

the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject

to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means,

warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer

as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?

If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us,

do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.

If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility?

Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his

sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge.

The villainy you teach me, I will execute,

and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."

In this speech Shylock is asking if a Jew is some kind of monster? No he's a human being, just because he is different to a Christian does not mean he's got any less human feelings and frailties. My favourite line in all of it is the title of the blog-post. "Prick us, do we not bleed?" Blood is the very life force that runs though human veins. It's indicative of the whole human experience when it's used in symbolism. 


If you cut the hand of a rich man, he bleeds too. Character's like Charles Foster Kane are human too; they have emotions, many of which stem from the fact that people define them only by their economic prosperity. This leaves them feeling alone and empty that in spite of all their achievements, be it financial, artistic or even personal there is almost a lack of soul inside them. People question whether or not we should feel bad for these people because they are rich? I say if you prick them do they not bleed? They are human, with all the flesh, blood and bone of any one of us. Money cannot solve emotional issues, it cannot solve that feeling inside each of us that sometimes we feel that no matter what we achieve it could all just be meaningless. Anyone who says that they truly are happy because of their money is lying through their teeth. Money does no solve true human issues. If we feel empty, or wish to be loved, we can't just comfort ourselves by buying a new shirt, or a car; that would only mask the problem. Perhaps to those without money it seems like that would be enough but it never is. Rich people bleed too; their emotional need to be loved, to feel more than the sum of their successes is just as great as ours. 


Should we feel bad for the rich? I mean they have all this money. But what does that get you? Why should we care about their emotional problems of the 1%? They're rich. Yes, they are; but they are also human.

What I Would Have Changed: Twilight Princess

It's February, new month, new ideas. As promised a few days ago, this is something I'd been meaning to post for a while but here goes. It's a new series on this blog I'm going to call "What I Would Have Changed". It's kind of a What If series with retrospect. Hindsight is 20:20 as they say and I'll basically be saying what I would have done to change certain video games, films, television series e.t.c. We'll be starting with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, a game I really like but know very well it has it's flaws.

What I Would Have Changed: 
“The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess”

As a warning there are MAJOR SPOILERS for Twilight Princess in this article... duh! Also some spoilers for Ocarina of Time but none for Skyward Sword don’t worry.

First off let me get something out of the way, I love Twilight Princess, it was in fact until recently my second favourite game of all time closely; why, because I’m its target audience, I’m one of those people who wanted more of the same and essentially a steroid induced version of Ocarina of Time and boy did we get it with Twilight Princess, everything that was good about Ocarina’s gameplay and visuals were Next-Gen-ifyed. I loved the dark art style the easy to use interface and the impressive graphics for its day (the original release was during the PS2-Gamecube-Xbox era). However this all being said I know several people who didn’t like the game, one of whom Benjamin “Benzaie” Daniel of ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com made a Top 5 (actually Top 2, don’t ask) list about what he didn’t like about the game, a link to which can be found by clicking here. To be honest, I can’t blame them, my love of this game is based in sheer fanboyism at times and really that’s what this game comes off as at times, pandering to the fans. Don’t get me wrong, Twilight Princess is an EXCELLENT game, against other games it’s still easily a 9/10 or even a 10/10. However nearly every Zelda game has innovated in some way and Twilight Princess’ lack of innovation has really become more apparent to me since the release of Skyward Sword and in some ways it comes off as the awkward cousin of Skyward Sword.

A BIT OF HISTORY

Let’s look at the beginning. The Legend of Zelda was probably the first sandbox style game in existence, it was an epic quest packed with hours of adventure, tough battles and complex puzzles; it was a shining jewel of the original NES system and laid the groundwork for all adventure games since. It’s sequel was Zelda II: The Adventure of Link but really, that game had very little to do with the original and is often considered the black sheep of the series despite being actually a very good game it strayed perhaps a little too far into what other games were doing like RPG’s and Platformers and not enough of what the original Zelda was and this is an important lesson, Zelda is a trend-setter, not a trend-follower.

The next big game was A Link to the Past for the SNES and it is quite frankly a masterpiece. Its open world feel is huge with once again hours and hours of gameplay returning to the style that made the original so great and solidifying Zelda as almost a genre of its own. Every inch of the overworld and dungeons seem hand crafted to perfection, every enemy placement, every puzzle, every tree, rock and pot seems perfectly placed. It had a sequel/spin-off game for the GameBoy called Link’s Awakening, which was the first time Zelda went portable and was also a big success bringing the huge adventure world to a handheld machine, something that when people first started watching bricks drop in Tetris on the GameBoy, people thought would be impossible.

Finally the fan-favourite, the critical favourite, the most critically acclaimed game of all-time, Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64. Another masterpiece that would lay the ground work for not just every 3D adventure game but pretty much every 3D game since. Fully rendered 3D environments, excellent visuals and gameplay that fully utilised left, right, up, down and distance like never before. For the first time in a video game we got a 3D sandbox game that would go on to influence everything, every Elder Scrolls game, every God of War, heck even every Grand Theft Auto. Majora’s Mask a direct sequel that utilised a brilliant time mechanic was also very successful.

Then came The Wind Waker for the Nintendo GameCube and it was a raving success despite fanboy’s cries for something more akin to the 2000 Spaceworld Demo of Zelda. They just wanted Ocarina of Time again but in all honesty Wind Waker’s cartoonish art style is beautiful and very fitting for such a gallant game and set the whole game on a massive ocean whilst keeping true to the Zelda genre as it were. So with all the cries for an Ocarina of Time-esque dark Zelda, we finally got Twilight Princess released at the same time for the Nintendo GameCube and Nintendo Wii with different control schemes. Honestly I’d say the Wii Version is superior buuuut.... in light of Skyward Sword it seems very tacked on now despite the motion controls making aiming with a bow or boomerang much easier, it wasn’t a game meant for motion controls and as such, it suffers in comparison with its successor.

Skyward Sword, is only on the Wii. It doesn't have the same problem that Twilight Princess had of being "is it GameCube or is it Wii?” and trying to fit in both. Skyward Sword’s gameplay is unparalleled and is frankly the best gameplay I’ve ever played in a game and it really puts the motion controls of Twilight Princess to shame. As despite Twilight Princess being a better game on the Wii in my opinion, it’s gameplay is more suited to the GameCube’s buttons only controls and the motion controls are mostly a gimmick with this game but a true revolution and game-enhancing with Skyward Sword.

So, now that I’ve gone through the massive history of the Zelda series, skipping many of the handhelds like Minish Cap, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, as they’re not relevant to this topic. I think it’s time I actually discussed what this article is all about. What I would have done to make Twilight Princess a better game. Now obviously I’m not coming out and saying “I can do a better job than Shigeru Miyamoto”, no, I’d personally rather shred my own testicles in a blender than commit such sacrilege. Hindsight is 20:20 and for obvious reasons, they couldn’t see how Skyward Sword would pan out as I don’t think anyone at Nintendo owns a DeLorean DMC-12 or a Blue Police Box. So this is all based on the knowledge I have, on how I feel about Twilight Princess six years later and having played its successor and what I consider to be the only TRUE Wii Zelda game, Skyward Sword.

I’m limiting myself to three rules.

1.       I can’t add technology that didn’t exist e.g. no Motion Plus Controls a-la Skyward Sword or HD Graphics

2.       The game can’t be changed so drastically that it’s no longer recognisable as Twilight Princess, the core elements must remain, the Twili, Zant, Midna, Zelda, Ganondorf e.t.c.

3.        Can’t change the release date, as in, one change I would make would be to swap Twilight Princess and Wind Waker around, as I believe Wind Waker was released too soon and Twilight Princess too late.

With that then, let’s begin.

                THE CHANGES

Twilight Princess’s story is a strange one. Not the story itself but how to feel about it. You get this great sense of nostalgia from it and yet emotional detachment all at once. I think this is because Twilight Princess is designed as the true spiritual successor to Ocarina of Time, we get the nostalgia, but because it’s a cast of characters we don’t know we get emotional detachment. At first that doesn’t seem like a problem, nearly every Zelda game we meet a new supporting cast and we grow to like them, so clearly the flaw is with the characters themselves right? Well, yes and no. The supporting cast with the exception of Midna is pretty forgettable, even Link’s family and friends from Ordon Woods are kinda... meh. So yeah, the characters themselves aren’t the best, but I think the main cause is that we’ve got this yearning to play Ocarina of Time’s successor from the nostalgia and we’re getting these characters we just kinda don’t care about. So does that mean we just scrap the Ocarina of Time nostalgia and try and create a whole new game? Well sure that’d be good but we’re trying to make Twilight Princess better not create a whole new game. This has to be the game Ocarina fanboys wanted. So here is my dramatic change...

Make it a full sequel to Ocarina of Time. Before someone mentions Majora’s Mask, hear me out, as I’m including that game in this timeline. At the end of Ocarina, Adult Link goes back in time to being Child Link and tells Zelda everything, which leads to Ganondorf getting arrested and executed by the Sages, which becomes a focal point of the story a few hundred years later in the original Twilight Princess. Child Link then leaves searching for Navi and ends up in Termina where the events of Majora’s Mask play out and at the end of that he goes back into the woods to continue. Link has been an adult before but he’s back in his child body. Let’s say ten or so years later Link is now all grown up, even older than he was in Ocarina of Time’s adult time (he’d aged seven years). He’s a mature seasoned warrior at this point whose travelled far and wide (and it leaves room for midquels too) and now he’s returning to Hyrule, his homeland for the first time in ten years since he saved it. Instantly we’d have a greater emotional attachment to our protagonist.

Link is now the same Link from Ocarina of Time. We played as Link around ten years ago ourselves, as this Link has aged, so have we and we’re back in his shoes. To go on a quick tangent, one of the failures of the Star Wars prequels is that George Lucas failed to realise his primary audience had grown up, or he just didn’t care and wanted to appeal to a new generation, I can’t tell. One of the successes with Harry Potter is that J.K. Rowling did realise this and as such the tone, themes and characters aged with the readers of her books and as such people never grew out of the books because they books kept up with the audience but boy did I feel like I’d outgrown Star Wars when I watched The Phantom Menace at first... then I just realised George Lucas has gone completely barmy and went on with my life. If as many people did, go into playing Twilight Princess wanting Ocarina of Time Mk.2, we’d get the emotional attachment that comes with it and as such the character of Link who we grew up with is now grown up too and we feel attached to him, we’ve played as him before, we’ve seen his struggles and instead of a new Link with a life and family we have to understand, all the groundwork for Link’s back story is already laid out and much like Link, we’ve been away from this era of Hyrule for ten or so years as Twilight Princess was released eight years after Ocarina of Time, nearly a decade. We get the same sense of nostalgia that Link would get returning to this world that once gripped us and enthralled us by the millions. But all is not well, since Link has left the Twilight invasion has begun and now we the player as Link must save this world that both the character and ourselves love so dearly, the stakes are high once again and far more personal this time because Link is now a seasoned pro just like you but the world he once fought to protect is under attack from a new enemy... or is it.

Ganondorf and Link have a History. Unlike in the original game, Link has no animosity toward Ganondorf other than, “he’s the villain who wants to conquer my home and he must be stopped.” But with Link from Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask, he has a history with Ganondorf; he fought and defeated him once, then travelled back in time to put a stop to his plans once and for all but Ganondorf is still out to conquer his land. Ganondorf only knows Link as the “fairy boy” who led to his probably very painful failed execution by the Sages with a giant glowing magical sword and imprisonment in the Twilight Realm. He knows they’re connected via the Triforce and Ganondorf might even try to uncover why and find out that in an alternate future, he succeeded in conquering Hyrule but this boy, now a man, stopped him. It’s personal between them and would make the reveal of Ganondorf as Zant’s master and manipulator all the more threatening than just “the big bad coming to return” because this time, it’s the “big bad whose coming to return who we stopped once before but now is out again and more powerful than ever before... and seriously pissed at us!” At this point Link and Ganondorf want to put each other’s heads on pikes, they must HATE each other with a raw seething hot hatred of hating hate... It’s a lot of hate.

 The Supporting Cast are bolstered. In addition to the supporting cast that exists in the game, which might have to be worked around a little to be more memorable, the supporting cast gets a massive bolstering by having returning characters instead of what for many of the characters are just essentially clones of Ocarina’s characters. The Patriarch of the Goron Tribe, Darbus, for example is basically just Darunia, the Zora Prince Ralis could be changed to the Zora Princess Ruto once more, one who never met Link and never learned the lessons that he would teach her and as such is cowardly like the Prince Ralis. In addition there’d always be the lingering memory that Link has that he’ll always remember these supporting characters but none of them remember him. Bringing us to Zelda; Zelda in Twilight Princess is frankly a very boring version, she has little to no-screen time and really only serves to be “Princess Zelda” and nothing else. However if she were the same Zelda from Ocarina of Time, the one who worked with Link before to help have Ganondorf executed, then we have a character already built and her purpose in the story becomes more relevant and in addition we can add extra story to her that she’s now perhaps even Queen Zelda or still a Princess but preparing to rise to the throne, a fact that was present in the original game but is hardly touched upon, why because she’s really not important to the story at all. But if we have this character who we all knew about to be crowned Queen and then suddenly her old nemesis’ minions launch an invasion of her homeland and defeat her forces, then we’ve got a stronger character and a stronger motivation for saving this Zelda as there’s definitely something between them be it friendship or even romantic feelings of the man who saved her and her Kingdom once but now has returned when she needed him the most. This would also mean that Epona, whom you have from nearly the start of the game is still Epona from the original and avoids what I think is really dumb, having two Links... sure, two Eponas... yeah, you’re just pandering to fanboys now... But if it’s the same horse as before, it’s not pandering it’s logical.

How Link’s “family” fit into the story. Link’s “family” in Ordon Woods like Ilia are the driving focus o the start of the game in Twilight Princess. Obvious if they’re no longer Link’s family there’s no reason to have them is there? Well, yes there is. I liked the story of Link going after the Moblins to save the kids and Ilia. It was brave and heroic of him and then... it just kinda ended as Link’s quest continued on to save Hyrule and as such those characters became kinda forgettable. Well that’s only because they’re a driving focus of the plot, they needn’t be. Let’s say Link arrives in Hyrule by way of Ordon Village, he stays there to rest on his way to Hyrule when the village is attacked, and many are hurt and the reason for their attack? They’re after Link. The villagers blame him for their kids being kidnapped so Link sets out to right the wrong and in doing so heads into Hyrule to discover what’s happened and that something larger is at work which is why he was attacked. Someone wants the Hero of Time out of the way. This way these formerly very important characters that suddenly just kinda became inconsequential to the plot now are only a smaller part of the larger scheme of things.

The City in the Sky is Skyloft. Okay, I’m kinda cheating by using information from a game that hadn’t been made yet, but it’s very clear that the City in the Sky from Twilight Princess is meant to be the remnants of Skyloft from Skyward Sword, so clearly some ideas were in place... my question... why the heck are the natural inhabitants of this technologically advanced civilisation who once were in contact with the Hylians now retarded chickens?! Seriously, of all the things in Twilight Princess this baffled the crap out of me. Okay, now here’s where I’m no longer really cheating, because even if they hadn’t intended for the City to be Skyloft when they made the game, surely they must have known that a super advanced civilisation should not be made up of retarded chickens right? This is just plain ol’ stupid. Sure make them look a little different to Hylians, I’m sure after a thousand years or so since the evens of Skyward Sword the people of Skyloft might start to look a little different to Hylians but chickens? Really? No, just make them people, unless somehow the Loftwings and Humans merged to become tiny retarded chicken heads... yeah... no. Back into cheating mode, a few references to Skyloft would be nice but aren’t necessary so long as the super advanced civilisation in the clouds that we clearly know used to be Skyloft isn’t run by STUPID LOOKING CHICKEN FOLK! Maybe throw in a Loftwing or too, they were awesome.

Music can be done well again. Okay I’m going to throw this out there, I think the Ocarina was the pinnacle of Zelda musical instruments, since then it’s gotten worse and worse. Wind Waker had the... Wind Waker... it was just directional but y’know what it was fine. Twilight Princess had adjusting pitch with wolf whistles... okay weird... Skyward Sword had a crappy harp that you don’t so much play as you waggle the Wii Remote in time with nicer music that’s being automatically played. The skill variety has gotten less and less. The Ocarina had five notes, Wind Waker had four, Wolf Whistle has three pitches, the Harp is just bollocks. There’s little skill in the wolf whistle and virtually none in the harp, but I could harp on about it all day... (Bad pun is bad). You could keep the wolf whistle but make it better so that is somehow correlates with the Ocarina of Time, which Link has on him from all those years ago, where he last used it in Majora’s Mask. Adding new songs and perhaps even more notes using the C-Stick, X, Y, Z and even L & R buttons to make it challenging to fully remember them. Perhaps the wolf whistle teaches you the melody and then you have to remember it based on the whistle to play through the Ocarina for it to be effective later in the game.

Nintendo GameCube Only. When it comes down to it I’d rather play the Wii version over the GameCube, I’ll admit that readily... however having played Skyward Sword, it kinda makes Twilight Princess’ controls rather lazy by comparison on the Wii. The GameCube version however would be using the same controls as Ocarina of Time, which given that this whole game is now redesigned as a fully fledged sequel to Ocarina instead of just a spiritual successor that gives you an awkward sense of nostalgia and “I’ve played this game before...” feeling. It also leaves it defines it more clearly on the system without straddling the line.

Ganondorf’s Character Development. I’ve sort of covered this by mentioning how making this a direct sequel would enhance the Link-Zelda-Ganondorf characters but it needs to be said again really in more detail. In Wind Waker we really get the idea of this tragic Ganondorf who was filled with jealousy for the beautiful fields of Hyrule whilst his people suffered in the desert, which is why he tried to seize power. In Twilight Princess... he’s just power hungry. Sure he looks badass and the fight at the end is very cinematic and atmospheric but his character is totally underdeveloped in favour of Zant who takes the spotlight as the primary antagonist even after Ganondorf’s presence is revealed. I’m not saying decrease Zant’s development, his role is crucial to what was already good about Twilight Princess’ story, I’m just saying that once Ganondorf is revealed we need to see him and see how he’s manipulating Zant, discover his motivations and yes, see how much he hates Link and Zelda for what they did to him and how it’s their fault his armies were defeated by the Hylians and the Gerudo people slowly started to die out without a new male heir and suffering massive losses from Ganondorf’s invasion of Hyrule, who thanks to the efforts of Link and Zelda is thwarted thanks to an early warning leading to many of their deaths, as such this Link and this Zelda are directly responsible for the failure of his invasion and as such many of his people, whom despite his Greed was actually fighting for according to the Wind Waker are now dead and/or banished from their home. Obviously he shouldn’t have invaded but like many people who is Ganondorf going to blame, himself, no he’ll blame Link and Zelda... did I mention he’s gonna hate them? He might even hate himself secretly because of his own actions but refuses to believe he was in the wrong, his own guilt would get directed at his nemeses. This makes for a compelling Ganondorf who we’ve met before and understand but now can see his motivations clearly and why he has a personal grudge against our protagonists, because y’know he “would have gotten away for it if it weren’t for those meddling kids!”

That about sums it up. In conclusion really Twilight Princess as a game feels like it’s stuck between wanting to be a spiritual successor to Ocarina of Time and a game that stands on its own. I don’t think it needed to be a spiritual successor to Ocarina but rather a sequel, it needed to embrace its own fandom a little more. This game was designed to please the Ocarina of Time fans, the game’s combat mechanics are an upgraded version of Wind Waker, which are itself an upgraded version of Ocarina of Time. And the fact that Link fights against Ganondorf again, rides a horse called Epona through Hyrule field, visits Gorons and Zoras, and thus in the end the game becomes very much an upgraded version of Ocarina of Time but somehow feels detached from it. If it were a true sequel, if this were the Link fans of Ocarina had played as before returning to meet up with the Zelda they met before and fight a Ganondorf who had a personal grudge against this particular Link and the people around him, it would feel like a far more successful effort in replicating Ocarina of Time’s success with a darker art style and darker plot whilst bringing in new elements to the story like Midna, who was a great character and Zant’s Twili Invasion of Hyrule to keep this sequel fresh with some new ideas. Instead the game feels at times like a new Zelda game that uses way too much of Ocarina of Time’s locations, ideas and gameplay as though it were unintentionally ripping off its spiritual predecessor. On the other hand a sequel would feel more like it was made to continue the style of Ocarina whilst adding new elements into the game.

Saying Goodbye to Good TV

Yesterday was the Series Finale of Chuck, a show I've watched, not since the start, but for the last three years and really enjoyed it. About eight months ago a show I'd watched since it's second season and it went on to last ten years making it the record holding science fiction show in North America, this was Smallville. Around about then I was going to do a vlog about my top five series finales, in fact I filmed it all in preparation for the finale but never actually got around to editing it, mostly because I was still using Windows Movie Maker until a few months ago and that program was one of the most insanely frustrating things I've ever experienced (for those of you who don't know I hate video editing with a viscous passion and anything that makes it worse is clearly sent by Satan to torture me). The jist of the video though was talking about my favourite finales of TV shows. Unlike a film or even a film series, when a TV show comes to an end we've not seen two hours or at a trilogy of films coming to maximum eight hours or so, no, we've seen possibly over a hundred hours of television week after week, year after year and, if the show's creators have done their right, we become attached to these characters and their development and it's always sad to see it go more so than a film series ending. Don't get me wrong, I was quite sad when Harry Potter ended but realistically not as sad as when say Scrubs, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or even Smallville ended. This was because unlike Harry Potter, this wasn't like the really good friend I'd see every couple of years, this was more like my best friend I'd see every week and finally saying goodbye.


Now this isn't going to be a Top Five/Ten/Twenty/ElevenBecauseILikeToGoOneStepBeyond/Whatever list because frankly I'm too lazy to do that right now and I've got a lot to get through in this blog post plus I'm working on a new series for this blog called What I Would Have Changed where I talk about certain films, TV series or video games, y'know random nerdy things as the blog name implies, and what I would have changed with my knowledge retroactively to make it better. I'm just simply going to talk about in this blog post, series finales of TV and how I think they tend to end and cause a lasting impact on people.


First off, I think there's several categories of finale, I don't mean "Good" or "Bad" as often that's relative to your experience with the show. For example despite being very sad about the Chuck series coming to an end, I felt a lot of the finale was rather shallow and focused way too much on Chuck and Sarah with the real finale in my opinion coming much earlier in the series when they faced off against Brandon Routh's Daniel Shaw, Chuck's hated rival and the man who once slept with his now wife and murdered his father, now manipulating his life like a puppet-master. On the other hand a lot of people like my brother were disappointed with Smallville's finale which I liked a lot, even if I knew it wasn't perfect, kinda like the whole show at times. So I'm going to split these up into categories in no particular order.

BEFORE I BEGIN THERE ARE GOING TO BE SPOILERS FOR MANY SHOWS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

FULL CIRCLE


Full Circle; the type of finale where it analyses everything that's come before specifically where the story has come from and brings things full circle to give a sense of completeness. Generally these finales tend to be on shows with a "half-arc" where the show is not completely serialised but not completely episodic either, where there is an arc woven into the fabric of the show but the episodes themselves generally tend to be separate and easy to watch. The name is thought to originate in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. On the other hand there's only really one moment in that show's finale that brought it full circle, when Buffy finally gets what she wants "To Be Normal", something she wanted since the start. Examples of Full Circle are, Chuck, which used Sarah's memory wipe to bring many things from the first episode and first season back to try and get her to love Chuck again. Heroes most certainly had this in it's last moments ending with Claire intentionally jumping off a high point and saying "My Name is Claire Bennett, and as far as you know, that was attempt number one" bringing it back to her recordings from the first few episodes. 


Probably the best full circle ending was Angel and it most certainly had a full-circle ending, and unlike it's sister show Buffy, it didn't end on just one not of full-circle, the whole episode brought back little references to the seasons before it, bringing back guest stars like Lindsey and Connor. Hell even earlier in the season on the 100th episode they brought back Cordelia and Doyle, albeit the latter via video as unfortunately the actor had passed away. It also ended on a great note which really brought the message of the whole series full circle. Angel was about two things at it's core; redemption and achieving redemption through a never ending struggle of good and evil. For Angel who once murdered thousands of people and was a sadistic bastard until he was cursed with a soul, redemption is what he seeks spiritually and since the first season his physical reward would be that he could become human and be free of the vampire's curse and get his soul back permanently as prophesied. Now twice in the first season Angel was given this opportunity. The first is when he gets the mystical Gem of Omara, a ring that would make him invincible to sunlight and other vampire weaknesses, essentially making him closer to humanity. However Angel decides to destroy the ring because he saw it as just "false redemption", seeking to earn his reward rather than have it given to him. Later in the first season Angel is made human when his blood mixes with a specific breed of demon. Unfortunately this makes him weaker than he was and unable to protect Buffy when the time is right (I believe it's referencing Season Seven of Buffy at this point). As such Angel reverses time giving up his one chance at happiness to be with Buffy; once again, redemption has to be earned not given freely. In the second season Angel has given up hope realising that no matter what he does he'll always be "fighting the good" fight and in the long run it might not make a damn bit of difference, but has an epiphany that the slightest difference to one person's life is what makes that fight worth fighting. It's fighting that fight even if it seems hopeless and even if it won't ever be won long after he's turned to dust that's how he can earn his redemption. 

Throughout the series Angel's physical reward of redemption can be granted by the Shanshu Prophecy, a prophecy that says the Vampire with a Soul will play a major role in the Apocalypse and as such will be made human as his reward. Many times also Angel stops "counting score" because it's really not about that. In the finale Angel has made lied his way into the most powerful cabal of demons in our world known as the "Circle of the Black Thorn" in an attempt to bring them down. During his manipulations they test his trust to them; he must sign away, literally in his own blood, his right to the Shanshu Prophecy; making Spike, his rival and now the only other Vampire with a Soul, the man who would fulfil it. He is giving up the physical reward of redemption and he does it. Why? Because he's not counting score, he's not after the physical reward any more, he doesn't need the carrot in front to attain the spiritual redemption he's so sought. In fact the last shot of the series has the survivors of the assault on the circle meeting up in an alleyway by the Hyperion Hotel, their base of operations from seasons 2-4, and being charged down by dragons, giants and all manner of thousands of demons sent to kill them by Wolfram and Hart, the extra-dimensional overlords of the Circle of the Black Thorn. Angel and the others might die, and killing the Circle may have done nothing in the long run, but he's earned his redemption by doing his job; fighting that never ending good fight. Despite what the comics say the series ends on a note that says Angel and the survivors will die in this onslaught, some quicker than others who are already dying but as Angel steps forward with a sword in his hand and smile on his face the last words of the show are "Let's Go To Work". And with that his job continues, fighting the good fight, dealing blows to evil and his spiritual redemption, even if he no longer has the rights to his physical one, is earned. Full Circle.


Holy crap I wrote a lot there, okay onto the next one, promise they won't all be like that.


THE END


The End; often the saddest of finales because it's usually when so much stuff happens that it would be near impossible to continue on the way things were. In an action series this usually means big explosions of the hero's home base e.t.c. In The Practice it meant the practice shutting down and everyone going their separate ways. Many characters die in these finales just to really close the book. 

Probably my favourite example of this is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In case you haven't guessed already I really like Joss Whedon's work on these shows. In Buffy the finale ends with the entire town getting swallowed in an Earthquake, two or three main characters dead or dying, and Buffy has now created an army of slayers meaning her job is now redundant and she can go on to live an normal life. Simply put it's pretty god damn epic. I'm obviously not going to go into much more but really that's where it ended and no matter what those comics say, that's where Buffy's journey ends for me. The End.


At the end of the third season of Chuck they prepared a series finale, the Buy More is destroyed, Chuck's father is killed, Chuck and Sarah are in a relationship together and they've just brought down "The Ring" the big bad of the last season. The show got to continue for another two years and as such we instead got the Full Circle ending I mentioned before.


A WHOLE NEW WORLD


This is when a show ends and the characters and situation are irrevocably changed but moving on into a new chapter of their lives. Much like "The End", "A Whole New World" has all of it's qualities but also many qualities of what I'll go into below in "And The Adventure Continues..." as it often has some epic event that forever changes the story but also says that the characters will continue in this world in new adventures unseen. Unlike "The End" however usually more characters survive the onslaught so that they CAN carry on.


I've named it this because this is exactly how Heroes ended. Okay it's also named after the song in Aladdin but still... Heroes as I've said before ended with Claire jumping off the top of the tower and injuring herself, that was full circle but what I didn't say was that in doing show she reveals the existence of metahuman people to the world live on national television. Forever changing the world they live in but never actually showing how it ends. This was also partially a "Premature Cancellation" but it mostly goes here in the Whole New World section to the point that the coda of the show or the epilogue is actually called "The New World" hence where I took the name from... and Aladdin.

Greek is also an example of this. The show ends with one of the main fraternities the "Kappa Tau Gamma" house being bulldozed despite their efforts to save it. Two of the protagonists have now graduated also and leave and Rusty, the audience surrogate character now becomes the new President of Kappa Tau as leads them into a new generation of peace with their rivals as they must now build a new house. It's adventures unseen once again but also a perfect example of things ending as the main love story of Cappie and Casey gets a happy ending; Cappie finally leaves college behind him and commits to Casey and leaves the Kappa Tau behind him in that bulldozed house as the song "Forever Young" plays in the background. Whilst I normally hate music like that being played as it's so on the nose, I have to admit this really got me at the time, the question of "Do you really wanna live forever young?" is a poignant one and as someone who not too long ago graduated from University it's something I really felt especially when I went back there for the first time in two years and really felt like I missed that place. It's a very sad finale.


This sort of finale is as with Heroes often one made in fear of cancellation and written to wrap things up but leave hope for the future. Unlike the next category however it's usually written when cancellation is an almost certainty or has already become a certainty and it's just wrapping up loose ends. It's usually very sad like "The End" but has some hope for the future leaving a smile on your face. This is the most bitter-sweet of the types of series finale.


PREMATURE CANCELLATION


The Premature Cancellation is not the opposite of a sexual problem as it might appear to be but is when a show is cancelled before it's had time to wrap up it's stories and usually has to tag on an ending that seems fitting. Sometimes shows will be forced to do something like this and leave it all hanging as they have no idea if they're going to be cancelled long after they've filmed it.

Perfect example: Stargate Universe a show that in it's first season I really did not enjoy. In it's second season, I absolutely loved and was very sad to see it go. It ended on a note that was very much a cliffhanger to be resolved by the next season, Eli Wallace being the only man on board the destiny waiting for them to find out if they'd ever escape the galaxy as the rest go into hibernation unsure if they'd wake up three weeks or a hundred years from now. From that description it's a big cliffhanger and really it was but the way it was shot and written it was done to accentuate the fact that Eli had grown up and that was good because at the start he was the immature geek and whilst intelligent not quite on the experience level as Dr. Nicholas Rush, played by Robert "Should Have Won a Fucking Emmy for this Role" Carlyle. By the series finale only two seasons in when ratings had dropped like a lead brick in a pond, Eli was a man. He was outsmarting even Dr. Rush at times and was left in charge of the well being of the crew of the Destiny.


Premature cancellations often try and bring things full circle with mixed results.  They're often sad because we know the reason they're ending and yet we just have to accept that this is where the journey ends, not at it's logical conclusion but in a wrap up that's forced on the show with little time to spare.


THE BIG GOODBYE


This is the most common of series finales, as what is a series finale if not a goodbye to characters we've loved often for close to a decade sometimes for even longer. It's the most common in sitcoms and often used in dramas too. It's usually where the characters get to say an emotional goodbye to each other on screen even if they are going to see each other again, they probably won't see each other often.


A quick note before I get into a whopping four examples of this is that 24  ended on this note. Despite knowing that it was going to be the next thing really it ended on a goodbye to Jack Bauer and the cast and crew and it's really worth noting here. Chloe and Jack say goodbye to each other for the last time as Jack goes on the run from the Russian and US governments.

First example, a little sitcom known as Friends you've probably never heard of it. Anyway in all seriousness this finale was all about The Big Goodbye. It was Monica and Chandler moving out of the city, it was Ross and Rachael getting together again at last and once it's spin off show Joey had begun; it was Joey moving to Los Angeles. Friends' final scene was with Ross and Rachael together and Monica and Chandler moving out of their apartment, the main apartment of the series with no-one filling the void this time. It was a big goodbye to all those characters and quite a sad one too.

Second example is Scrubs, now before anyone says anything, yes I know there was technically another season after this. I DON'T CARE! Season 9 was good but it was a different show with a different primary character and narrator even if JD returned for a few episodes. It was a different show, it should have been a spin-off, hell if it had been it might have been more successful. Hell even the title had the words [Med School] written in the bottom corner. It wasn't the same show. Scrubs ended with Season 8, with JD leaving the hospital and an influx of emotion as dozens of guest stars returned and as he in typical JD fashion envisioned what his future would be like essentially telling us all that that's what will happen in the unseen world after the show ends. I love this finale it actually had me openly in tears by the end. It was an emotional and beautiful goodbye.


Third example is M*A*S*H, now I'll be the first to admit I haven't seen all the episodes so I'll keep this short. But the Korean War, the setting for the show that went on about three times as long as the actual war, is over and everyone is finally going home. They all say emotional goodbyes and as Hawkeye and co fly off in that helicopter once last time they literally see the word M*A*S*H now turned into GOODBYE, a message from BJ. Hell the finally is called "Goodbye, Farwell and Amen". This is the most watched finale of all time, I think it's actually the most watched episode of television in history having over 70% audience share and over 100 million viewers in the United States. Very sad.

Forth and final example is the science fiction drama Star Trek: Deep Space Nine unlike The Next Generation, which fits into the next category, DS9, as it was known, was very serialised, especially in it's later years with full seven-part arcs revolving around the Dominion War. It was a not a "continuing adventure" show like Next Gen, it was a show with an arc, a beginning, a middle and an end. And boy was the ending sad. And yes I've warned spoilers but seriously don't read this if you haven't seen it. Go onto the next paragraph. Deep Space Nine ends with Captain Benjamin Sisko's "death", Chief O'Brien leaving the station, Worf becoming Ambassador to the Klingon Empire, everyone going their separate ways and saying one of the most emotional goodbyes ever. Just watch that montage here if you don't believe me.


The Big Goodbye is often a sad and often most logical conclusion to a series. It's interesting to see these and compare because it's the standard ending really compared to the other styles of finale.


AND THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES...


When the ending is that nothing really changes even if it's HUGE the ending is that the characters will continue their journey in adventures unseen. Perfect example of this is Stargate SG-1 a finale that didn't even end the big bad threat of the Ori, later to be ended in the rather average film Stargate: Ark of Truth. The finale involved the team of SG-1 and the base commander getting trapped on a ship frozen in time, if they stop the time loop they die. This finale didn't do any form of ending the series as such and ended on a note as they were about to go through the Stargate on yet another mission; not even a mission that would lead to the movie. Just an average mission and they go through the Stargate and as they say The Adventure Continues...

Another example is Star Trek: The Next Generation a series nominated for Best Drama Emmy and the series finale that won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation beating out some serious competition including movies like Interview with a Vampire, The Mask and Stargate. This finale was awesome and in my Top 5 list I originally wrote I ranked this as number one as it's awesome. It's a brilliant episode that examines three timelines through the eyes of Captain Picard. The first timeline is his current one, seven years into commanding the USS Enterprise D. The second is in the past, on his first day commanding the Enterprise and the final is set twenty years into the future where he's going insane from a degenerative brain disease and Admiral Riker his former first officer doesn't believe him that he's time travelling. It's also slightly full circle this episode but as I'd written so much for Angel I didn't want to bog that category down any more. We have the original pilot episode's era, the current era and the potential future era. We have the antagonist from the pilot, Q, returning and in an antagonist role again. It's all full circle. However the ending leaves on a note that makes you happy, Captain Picard for the first time joins the crew for poker night, also a full circle moment, and the adventure continues. In fact Q even says this, his whole reason for tormenting Picard as it were from the pilot episode "Encounter at Farpoint" to the series finale "All Good Things..." was that he was putting humanity on trial for their barbarous history, deeming if they were worthy to exist. He leaves it on a note that the "Trial Never Ends", making us all wonder if he's really ever going to leave them alone, but is that the message? I think it's what Star Trek was all about really, don't get me wrong, I can respect the original series but the Next Generation was what brought Star Trek into the mainstream and it was what made Star Trek's message so clear; exploring the human condition, that's the trial. It's full circle but also ends on an note saying that the crew will go on to continue to explore the human condition going boldy where no-one has gone before.

To a certain extent, Smallville is this. The whole show had been building for ten years and in for the most part a very good progression about Clark becoming Superman. Most people make a mistake with Smallville, they often say "He's not Superman yet, he can't fly, this isn't the man we know... blah, blahhh,blahahshasdsdhgblabab..." I don't care. Not the point, you're missing the point. This isn't a show about Superman, this is a show about Clark Kent and his journey to become Superman, the man we all know and love and by the final episode he is. No matter what people say, I loved it. Does it occasionally drift from comic continuity, yes, but it works in the context. Does it insult your intelligence often, yeah quite often. I don't care, I love it. The ending is of Clark ripping open his shirt to reveal the Superman symbol to the theme of John William's "Superman" music from the famous 1978 movie. It was AWESOME. We know the adventure continues and I would have loved to have seen a spin off show which could see Clark and Lex return. It's also very full circle in man ways as from the first episode Clark is literally asked "What are you? Man or Superman?" when Lana see's his book on Nietzsche, a reference that would be brought back time and again. He responds "I haven't quite figured that out yet". By the finale, he's made that choice, he's now confident in who he is, even if he has to hide it behind those dorky glasses, persona and a bad haircut.


This sort of finale is quite nice actually because it leaves the audience with a really big smile on their face as they know their characters will continue on their journeys even if we don't get to watch them. It's usually done either because there's a fairly good chance that it could continue, there's a spin-off show that relies on this show being around or the writer's didn't want to just end their creation and thought it'd be nicer to see this. For Star Trek: The Next Generation it's mostly the first one as they were going on to do movies, one that summer in fact. For Stargate it's all of the above.




So that about wraps it up. Those are all the finales in my opinion. I've provided YouTube clips to show off if you want to see them. If you have any opinions please don't hesitate to comment. Film people often look down on TV as the "lower form" of entertainment and sometimes it is. There's a beauty in a two hour movie being able to express a story. TV however is able to develop characters further and this is coming from a guy who did his masters thesis in film as opposed to TV. TV leaves a lasting impression because of the time we spend with it and I think a good series finale can leave you wanting more and wanting for them to leave it as is forever both at once.

SOPA, Stop Online Piracy Act

Today Wikipeida, That Guy With The Glasses and dozens of other sites have gone completely dark to prove a point. SOPA is wrong. The Stop Online Piracy Act currently on the floor of Congress in the United States could potentially damage the internet irrevocably. 

The bill basically says that companies like Sony, FOX, Universal, can claim copyright infringement and not just shut down one video on YouTube or a user's account on facebook, but the whole damn site. It's the equivalent of one soldier performing an illegal act during war time so his whole branch of the military gets put in prison for it. The worst part is that it's giving the Government powers they don't need, the power to simply shut down websites without due process and remove them from search engines such as Google, Bing or Yahoo. 

Hundreds of companies are against this bill, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Nintendo, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, even Barack Obama and his White House Press have made a public statement that they do not endorse the bill with Vice President Joe Biden making a video for YouTube explaining how damaging this was a while back.

The internet is the fastest growing sector of the economy in the world. In a recession, can we really afford something like this... no? But it's not only that, it's immoral, it's wrong... and hell, even Rep. Lamar Smith who created the bill has actually violated it. Don't believe me? Click this picture here on the right and see...

What can YOU do to support the Anti-SOPA, Anti-PIPA campaign? Simple, here is a website that will tell you everything you need to know: http://www.americancensorship.org draw awareness through twitter and facebook by using a twibbon, a banner th at will go over your profile picture to raise awareness. Click that here. http://twibbon.com/join/Stop-SOPA-111611

Still not convinced? Then watch this video. 

Thanks for listening, and remember, we have to fight to protect the internet. Piracy may be wrong, I don't agree with piracy, but neither do I agree on making the internet a place where information can be stripped down by those in power. People who are given power are shown time and again that they will abuse it, not everyone will, there are some good people out there, but there only has to be one or two assholes, which we all know exist to ruin it for everyone. Right now SOPA and PIPA are too vague in their wording. Help us fight for a free and better internet today.

Golden Globes 2012

Last night was as second time running host Ricky Gervais put it, "the second most prestigious film award ceremony in the world". He's right, it ain't the Oscars, but the Golden Globes definitely are a lot of fun. Despite being pretty pissed off at them year after year at the Globes, Emmys and Oscars, I love watching these award shows because it shows a part of the year where people get honoured for their work. Some people like George C. Scott don't like the idea of competition in acting, I don't see it as a competition so much as when your peers can honour you for the work you've done this year and if you've done great work like Scott did Patton back in the 70s, then you should surely be honoured.


A lot pleased me about this year's Golden Globes, some truly deserved awards were given out. One mention I'd like to make before I begin is that of Idris Elba winning his Golden Globe for "Luther". I am extremely pleased about this despite only having seen a few episodes of the show. From what I've seen he's an absolutely terrific actor and one of Britain's rising stars in my opinion.


Now, the awards I was very pleased with winning were for starters obviously Elba, who won for Luther. A great performance from a great actor. He was joined by my choice for Best Supporting Actor in a TV Series, Mini-Series or Movie by Peter Dinklage for Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones, a show that I personally think is one of the best shows I've ever seen on TV. Peter Dinklage's performance as the manipulative but honourable Tyrion was a personal highlight for me, it was Sean Bean that got me into the show it will be Peter Dinklage that will keep me watching. 


The next award I was very pleased with was Best Director which went to Martin Scoresese for Hugo. An award I thought he thoroughly deserved. Hugo was also my choice for Best Drama but we'll get to that. Scorsese's direction of his first 3D movie really showed how the medium can be used when it's put in the hands of a master. Scorsese knew how 3D works and how to make it work, much like James Cameron did two years ago with Avatar, Scorsese has shown us how 3D can be used for the betterment of film, first off by shooting that medium and secondly by using it's use of depth perception to our advantages. In Avatar it was the sweeping landscapes of Pandora, in Hugo it was recreating scenes like the famous Train and the wonder and amazement that just a little thing like depth can really add to the movie going experience. Hugo however did not win for Best Drama, The Descendants did. I've not seen that film, but I've not heard great things either, I was pretty disappointed. 


The Best Comedy however I was very pleased that The Artist won. A silent film in this day and age. In many ways Hugo and The Artist are very similar films, they both celebrate the magic of cinema, Hugo tells of the wonders of it's advancement and that even with 3D and colours and digital visual effects, Cinema can still wow and amaze us through it's characters and passion for the art. The Artist did the same but without sound, without colour, with effects. It showed the same thing, that without 3D, colours, sounds or effects, a film can still be great and the passion of the art is all that matters. Both are very valid and whilst Hugo will be my choice for Best Picture at the Oscars this year, The Artist is very funny and beautifully made.


The host Ricky Gervais didn't get as much on screen time this year as he did last. He was however still very funny, not quite as funny as last year but still very funny. He was a touch cynical this year it almost seemed but I really enjoyed him hosting and I hope he gets a third year and becomes the Billy Crystal of the Globes.




EDIT: There was one thing I forgot to mention. Morgan Freeman's lifetime award was beautiful and getting Sidney Poitier to hand it out to him was very nice. It was strange because Sidney is lookin' good! He's about fifteen years older than Freeman and Freeman looks way older! Good job! It was also nice to see just how awesome Freeman's career has been, he's been in films with Christopher "Superman" Reeve and Christian "Batman" Bale. Yeah... oh yeah, and he's been Nelson Mandella and well.... God.... yeah he's awesome.

Network: A Screenplay Analysis

NETWORK
Screenplay Analysis by: 

Petros L. Ioannou

Network is a 1976 film about the “first known instance of a man to be killed because of lousy ratings.” It is an absurd jaunt into a satirical and yet extremely potent and spellbinding world written by three-time Academy Award winning screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky. The story revolves around a news anchor called Howard Beale who has an on-air meltdown and threatens to blow his brains out live on national television on the fictional UBS network. This in turn creates a series of events that lead to him becoming something of a television messiah to the people and leading the people around him to get dragged through his insanity crisis as we the audience get dragged into the insane world of television that Chayefsky created.

If there’s one way to describe the events of this film it’s “Snowball Effect”. One event leads to a bigger one, which in turn creates another bigger event, and starts a chain reaction that results in one of the most bizarre and insane scenarios ever played out on screen and yet one of the most powerful messages. From the very start we’re told about Howard’s life up to this point by the narrator. He was the number one news anchor in America until his wife left him, his ratings dropped, Howard began to drink and now his ratings have dramatically dropped and he’s been fired. Before the film’s even begun a snowball effect has started, he gets depressed because of one incident after another and it is something we can all relate to in our lives unless you’ve led a bizarrely perfect carefree life. He gets depressed from the mountain of stress that piled on him. Knowing from personal experience I know how tough that can be, stress can make you lose sleep, it can make you lose weight, it can make you lose your appetite and cause all kinds of havoc with your personal and professional lives and that’s what’s happened to Howard, before this film has even begun.  This is compounded by other people’s lives intertwining to enhance this snowball effect. How  Max’s problems with the restricting of the News Division leads him to angrily let Howard continue his “I ran out of bullshit” rant on the air, which in turn spikes the ratings and gets Howard on the show and begins the insane rise in popularity and his eventual death.

It’s strange; you can almost look at Howard’s personal journey as vaguely similar to that of recent events in history. In particular, the utter insanity and eventual firing that recently surrounded formerly TV’s highest paid actor, Charlie Sheen.  Sheen completely lost his mind, he ranted and raved in interviews and uStreams leading to him getting fired from the show. Sheen’s rants were indeed some of the most insane things we’ve ever heard spoken aloud, “I have tiger blood and Adonis DNA” or “I’m an F18 Bro, I’m tired of pretending that I’m not a total bitchin’ rockstar from Mars”, or my personal favourite, “Brrrr!!! Hold on stupid plane above with noise attached!! WINNING!!” Suffice to say Charlie Sheen really went off the deep end in a manner so bizarre not even a movie could write that kind of thing. Even Howard in Network is speaking an iota of sense in his madness, Sheen just went balls-to-the-wall insane. However what is very similar is the way their madness was used and abused to the benefit of gaining ratings. When Sheen was finally fired from his job on Two and a Half Men, he was replaced with actor Ashton Kutcher. At the same time Comedy Central hired Sheen to do one of their famous “roasts” with him, where an assortment of friends and other comedians mock him live on stage before he gets a rebuttal and decided to air it right after the first episode of Two and Half Men with Ashton Kutcher. Kutcher’s first episode gained the CBS show a 26.8 Million viewership, the highest the show had ever recorded, higher than any episode where Sheen was in the lead role, it was not however because of Kutcher, but because of Sheen’s madness and the fallout from which people wanted to see what happened. At the same time, Comedy Central got it’s highest ratings in the Cable Network’s history for Charlie Sheen’s roast. However since then the ratings for Two and a Half Men have rapidly dwindled. The madness Charlie Sheen almost seems like it’s what inspired the madness of Howard Beale only Network was actually written over thirty-five years before Sheen ever started crying that he was “Winning”, Sheen was only eleven years old when this movie hit theatres.

But it’s not just Sheen that Howard Beale seems to be like, he’s reminiscent of people like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly. Unlike Howard Beale, these are real people, who genuinely think that what they’re saying makes perfect sense. But they’re really tools to the political machine, just like Howard becomes towards the end of the script, and for lack of a better expression “shit-stirrers”. People who throw all multitudes of “the truth” or what they believe is the truth at the audience, and reject any notion that they could possibly be wrong. And networks like FOX and MSNBC are perfectly willing to let them go insane live on the air scream at callers and tell people that there is absolutely a God because the “sun goes up, sun goes down, never a miscommunication”, for one simple reason. Ratings, these rants and raves bring in ratings just like Sheen did; and most importantly just like Howard Beale did in the screenplay for Network. Each of these commentators who spouts that they and they alone speak “the truth” be they politically inclined to the left or right considers themselves to be the man standing in front of the camera screaming “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” But they’re not. They’re tools used for ratings, just like Howard Beale becomes. The film is almost prophetic in its presentation, a satire of present day news shows written thirty years before the present day. It’s as though Paddy Chayefsky travelled thirty years into the future, got mad as hell at the state of television news, got his ideas, travelled back and put pen to paper to write one of the most incredible screenplays ever written.

And yet even as I write this analysis of what is an incredible screenplay it’s brought to my attention the grandest irony in all of this. This is screenplay, with a political message about TV stupification, in film, now being broadcast on TV being taken away and having it analysed by a film student studying how to put something on the screen.

I could go on for hours about the political message of this screenplay, its prophetic nature and the grand irony in me, a film student writing a screenplay analysis on it. But let’s look at the characters for a moment outside of Howard. Everyone is a product of their generation; Diana is a cold calculating “programmed droid” who was raised by television who can’t deal with “primal doubts” that every human has so she simply ignores them and lets them build up as they slowly rot her from the core to the point that she willingly has a man executed for having poor ratings and doesn’t give a second thought to it, the world is a television show with three act stories for movie of the week. Then there is Max an older man going through a mid-life crisis, his traditional values feel askew in this confusing new world where his friends either go crazy, abandon him or die of a heart attack. He leaves his wife, his family and his life behind to be with Diana because nothing else makes sense in this world and he wants to be a part of the new one or least bring a part of his world into the new one that Diana represents and as with their relationship and his attempts to try and be a part of Howard Beale’s raving ranting ratings success, it is an abject failure because he does not belong in the new world. Finally there is one scene with the famous Arthur Jensen, the owner of the parent company that owns the parent company that owns the Network. He is the top dog of all top dogs, and in a single scene with a single monologue has more power and insanity burning through him than the whole of the rest of the cast. “It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today.” – How prophetic this statement is. This film was made before the fall of the Soviet Union and that would be theisr own downfall. The political furore of this film and his character as he espouses it is incredible! “The World is a Business Deal.” How right he is as he continues to say that the “individual is finished..... people are as replaceable as piston rods”. How right is he? Howard Beale’s death has advertisements rolling over it. That should say it all.

Network is preachy, overbearing, unsubtle and yet very subtle, methodical, emotional. It stands on a soap box but does it through personal characters. It might just be one of the best films ever made, on par with Citizen Kane and The Godfather even. Rocky is my favourite films of all time. Taxi Driver is also an amazing film. But how this didn’t win best picture is absolutely BEYOND ME! It thoroughly deserved winning Best Screenplay however and it stands the test of time so well, it’s like prophetic gospel!