A Tale of Two Trailers

By
Scott D. Parker

Two movie trailers dropped this week, both for movies I’m really looking forward to paying money to see. One thrilled me with euphoria, the other, frankly, fell a little flat.

The first long trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke on Thursday. I saw it just after lunch. I was in my office/cube and had only access to my iPod and earbuds--which I blasted.  I’m not ashamed to say that I got goosebumps as soon as  the force theme played across that vast desert landscape. Then, when Luke Skywalker himself spoke, those bumps multiplied. The image of Vader’s burned mask was a surprise but, in retrospect, probably not. Then the images of all the new characters who I will meet in December. Then, after a fade to black, the voice millions of kids adored: Han Solo himself said, “Chewie, we’re home.” And Chewbacca warbled his response.

I was over the fourth moon of Yavin with happiness. And was that some sort of dust in my eyes? I won’t hide the fact that I got a little misty. Think about it: those were voices I hadn’t heard in 32 years. Thirty-two years since the last words spoken at the end of Return of the Jedi, when Leia told Han that Luke was her brother. (Odd when you think about all the remaining moments of the film and there were no words.) Thirty-two years since I had heard from some old friends who helped to shape my childhood and the childhoods of millions of kids over multiple generations.

Just take my money now. Some worry that the hype won’t live up to the expectation, that JJ Abrams can’t deliver on the dreams of millions. I think he will. Now, I’m fully aware that nostalgia plays a big role in this. Understood, but the look, the feel, the vibe of the trailer tells me that we are in good hands.


The other trailer was leaked footage on the internet. It was for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, still a mouthful of a title. I don’t care that court cases don’t use the ‘s’ in vs.,’ they should have used an ‘s’. Anyway, I watched the footage as shot by a hand-held camera. And it was dark. Very dark. Both in tone and in visuals. A day later (Yesterday), the official version was released. The visuals were not as dark as the hand-held footage but the tone remained the same.

Lots of night shots, the better to hide the full look at Ben Affleck’s Batman. No vocals from Superman, which is a shame. I like Henry Cavill in the role. He can convey a lot with his face and those nuances go a long way to making his a good Superman. And, from what I saw, Affleck’s Batman looks really good. He’s even got the white eyes that we’ve seen for decades in the comics. And the robotic, modulated version of his voice was a nice addition. The Flash, on TV, modulates his voice and it’s a good effect, the better to avoid the Christian Bale growl.

By the end of the trailer, Batman and Superman meet, Supes hovering in the sky, Bats in armor on the ground. And they’re gonna fight. And they’re gonna be friends in the end so that they can form the Justice League. The question that entered my head was this: Can’t we just skip ahead to the friend part?

I get that BvS is going to be a reaction to the wide-scale destruction from Man of Steel. This is a post-9/11 world after all. I get that. I get that Bats will stand in for humankind and confront Superman. I get that. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I just hope that the battles between the two will be somewhere in the middle so we can get some smiles and sunshine in this movie. As I wrote on Jay’s Facebook page: “I love Batman and I can find good things in just about every property out there re: Bats. Now, yesterday, we had the Star Wars trailer and that sent me over the moon. Euphoria. This morning, I saw the leaked BvS footage. I clicked with high expectations. I was...I'm not sure. I'm not sure why it is that trailer almost did nothing for me. Yes, I like the themes (i.e., voiceovers) presented, and I liked Bats's metallic voice. But... after the bright excitement of Star Wars, all I'm seeing is dark, dark, dark. Yes, I will see it, without a doubt. I don't hate MoS. But what does it say about that movie and/or franchise when someone like me is almost indifferent? What it just poor timing? Will future trailers reveal more? Why the heck do heroes ALWAYS have to fight?”

Still, there was that moment, the moment when Superman and Batman were on screen, live action, for the very first time. That was indeed tres cool.

Another Facebook friend started a new thread saying “This is my Superman.” It started with a picture of Christopher Reeve and a Harlan Ellison quote. Here it is.

After that, I got to thinking: if Snyder is re-imagining Superman for the 21st Century--and the 1938 Superman/1950s TV Superman/1978 Movie Superman say one thing about him and us as a society in those respective years--what does MoS and BvS say about us now? Is this who we've become?

It's Superman! - A Book Review

(In honor of the new Superman movie released this weekend--I'm seeing it this morning--as well as the acknowledgement that I did not get to finish the piece I was writing last night about breaking down a favorite novel [tune in next week], I present this review of a Superman story you may not know about but might want to read. It's from 2011 and it's presented here without edit.)

I've always been a Batman guy. Even as a kid, I gravitated towards the Caped Crusader with his more outlandish villains, his humanness, and his tales that seemed just a bit more real. As a kid, I loved Superman, but I liked him best when he was with other characters. My Superman comic collection fits in probably one-and-a-half comic book boxes (approx 250/box). My Batman collection spans three boxes at least, perhaps four. Even as an adult, I still kept up with Batman while Big Blue just seemed to fade away.

So how to explain the sudden desire, about a month ago, to read a Superman tale? The author, to be exact. Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman is just about the best Superman story I've read in a long time. Not hard to do considering I've not read a Supes story in years. Morrison recaptured that whimsical Superman pre-1986, when DC Comics rebooted Kal-el's story from the beginning.

But I've always wondered about Superman's true beginning. Since his debut was in 1938, that makes him a Depression-era hero. For all the years of telling and retelling his origin, writers have always tried to update Clark Kent's story. Where was the tale that put Clark back in the 1930s? Tom De Haven must have had the same question, but he answered it with his novel, It's Superman.

When you get right down to it, some of the best Superman stories are, in fact, Clark Kent stories. A good friend of mine--a member of my little SF book club--commented that, since Superman is so strong and so invulnerable, the only good Superman story is an origin story. He might have something there. Case in point: TV's "Smallville" has stretched Clark's discovery of his alter ego over ten years. Jeph Loeb captured an excellent, modern retelling of Clark's story with "Superman: For All Seasons." But not since the Depression has there been a good, honest story about Clark Kent and Superman in the 1930s.

Superman, as created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, is an American story of the Depression. Tom De Haven captures the look, the feel, the smells, the sounds of the Depression with intimate detail. Not hardly a page goes by without some reference to how we lived in the middle of the 1930s. It served as a wonderful touchstone to the types of lives that Siegel and Shuster lived as they created the first, great superhero. To be honest, this tale is more pulp than SF. Heck, it's almost Steinbeckian in its slowness and non-action.

Not that that's a bad thing. De Haven allows all the characters to breath on their own. The story is the origin of how Clark went from a farm boy in Kansas to a reporter and superhero in New York. And, yes, De Haven sets the story in NYC, not the fictional Metropolis. It's yet another piece that makes the story of this alien more real.

Lois Lane and Lex Luthor play their obligatory roles. Lois is almost the most fully realized character in the book. She is not some modern 2011 woman trapped in the 1930s, complete with winks and nods to us 21st Century readers. She is a modern, 1930s-era woman. She wants to be taken seriously as a reporter--something the male reporters don't do--but, also, upon meeting one character, tries out his last name with her own first name, wondering about marriage and kids.

Lex is fabulous. This isn't the mad scientist of the Silver Age of Superman's history. Lex, now, is more in line with the post-1986 rebooting of the character: a rich, brilliantly intelligent man, an Alderman, and a gangster. He doesn't want to rule the world, he just wants to rule the organized crime groups in NYC. Unlike Clark, Lex knows that his intelligence makes him an outsider among the more "normal" people.

Lex's brains is a nice counterpoint to Clark's brawn, a usual aspect of Superman stories. But, in this retelling, Clark isn't very smart, constantly doubting what he should do. In fact, it is Clark's constant questioning of his powers that, depending on what kind of story you want, will sway you one way or the other. For those of y'all (like another member of my book club) who read the word "Superman" on the cover and wait for Superman to do something super, you'll be disappointed. For those of y'all (like me) who enjoys the human side of Clark's story, this novel will be right up your alley. In the world of 2011, if one discovers one has superpowers, we'd likely try to get a TV deal. For someone like the Clark Kent of the 1930s, he almost doesn't know what to do.

Superman, like Batman, James Bond, and various animated characters, has adapted as the decades have passed. With my reading of It's Superman coming around the 900th issue* of Action Comics--the comic where Superman debuted--and it's modern, super-smart, SF version of Superman, it's fascinating to read a novel that takes Clark/Superman all the way back to his beginning.

Set Me Up

By Russel D McLean

And yes, that goshdarned whippersnapper Jay Stringer beat me to the punch yesterday with his Batman/Superman bit, but I’m not rewriting this week’s entry…

Setting and place are often overlooked by writers. A presiding sense of “well, its just a backdrop, innit,” crowds too many stories. But here’s the facts, Jack: Place is pivotal. Your story can’t just happen in a vacuum. And despite what you think, your choice of setting informs everything about your work.

Long time (and short time) readers of this blog will know that – along with a few of my fellow DSDers – I’m a big comic book geek, and when it comes to setting and importance, I can think of no finer examples than Batman and Superman.
Batman stories tend to take place primarily in Gotham City; a place that feels like hell has literally sprouted roots from the earth. It is dirty, urban sprawl at its worst and most rotten. It is the kind of place where not even money can buy you safety, as millionaire Bruce Wayne’s parents found to their cost.

On the flip side, Superman tends to hang out in the city of Metropolis. It’s a vibrant and dynamic city. We usually see it in the daytime, with the Daily Planet building – standing as it does for good, honest journalism – standing erect as a monument to truth and honesty. It’s the kind of place where a man like Superman can help to bring out the best in its citizens. Okay, it has its problems – as does any city – but unlike Gotham, those problems are rarely overwhelming. Metropolis is – relatively speaking – a city of hope.

Both cities reflect not only the characters who inhabit them but also the very feel of a story. The choice of location allows you to set mood and to play themes and ideas in unexpected ways.

Let’s take an example from my own writing life. The decision to set my crime novels (at least, those featuring J McNee) in Dundee was no accident. It was partly a case of wanting to write about somewhere different, but also because I could use the setting – an industrial town that had been through poverty and was seeing money come back through new industries – as the perfect setting for a crime novel. There was a natural tension to the setting that perfectly matched what I wanted to write about. It was more than just a place I could give street names to.

Which, of course, is a mistake many people make. One novel I read years ago tried so hard to make itself “local” that it lost all colour and atmosphere. Dropping in street names and referencing local publicans is not enough to create a strong and vibrant setting. No, I’d rather read about the feel of a place, how it affects the characters and the action of a novel.

But before you go thinking that I’m limiting a setting to one description, one aspect of itself, let’s think about it a while: a setting can be one thing to one person and something entirely different to a novel. After all, the Edinburgh of Tony Black, Ian Rankin and Allan Guthrie may be a horrible, terrible, dangerous place where it always bloody well rains, but through the eyes of someone like Alexander McCall Smith it becomes far more genteel, a place of a sunnier disposition where things tend to work out for the best.

And yes, all of those writers are using the same “setting”, the same city.

But they’re using it in very different ways.

Which makes you wonder if one could write a happy go lucky comedy of errors set in Gotham City and a dark, twister tale of broken bones in Metropolis. Maybe you could, if you used the settings correctly.

Setting is a matter of perspective. Same way as a character can be a hero from one point of view and a villain from another, a setting can achieve a certain mood from one perspective and quite another if you view it from a different angle.

So use your setting. Tie it in to your characters, your story, your mood. But remember that you have to consider how you’re using your setting, what kind of eyes you’re seeing it through. And that you are never, ever, ever writing characters in a vacuum.