Monday, February 02, 2009
Spoiler Alert (I Must Be)
Due to the peculiarities of our little planet, Sunday night in New York equals Monday morning in Japan. As millions of Americans sat down with their delicious drinks and their salty snacks to watch the Super Bowl, I was riding a bus to Hana Town so I could get to work. Once I arrived I was forced to restrain myself from using any kind of Internet application, else I learn the results of the game before I could get home and see the rebroadcast myself. While I sat in the office, purposely isolating myself from information I wanted to know, I thought about the nature of "spoilers."
Mako and I have just recently gotten into two American serial dramas on DVD, Prison Break and Battlestar Galactica. Admittedly, I'm more into the latter than the former (with Mako feeling the exact opposite) but we are actively renting both shows right now. While the subject matter couldn't be more dissimilar, both programs focus on a long-term story over individual, self-contained episodes and both shows are coming to an end this year. In the case of Prison Break, I know for a fact that they spend every season after the first on the run so they must manage to get out of prison sooner or later, yet I am on board for every sudden twist and failed maneuver along the way. It doesn't matter that they're going to escape, I still don't know how, when or who makes it at this point and I am really enjoying the ride.
I am one of those people who takes spoilers pretty seriously. Whether it's the end of a book, a major story arc on TV or even an impressive stunt in a film, I don't want to hear about it second-hand. I want to experience that moment, whatever it may be, on my own terms when I watch/read/play it myself. My outlook is this: people make these stories with an audience in mind. Every surprise, every joke, every tragic death has meaning only because of the narrative that surrounds it. Every element of the story is tied to some other element. The whole is more than the sum of its parts: take one part out of context and feature it in commercials or plaster it across the internet, and the whole is diminished.
Using this admittedly broad definition, it would seem that almost every detail about a book, TV show, movie or video game qualifies as a spoiler. Does this mean that every story I encounter is "spoiled" because I know what actors appear in it or how many seasons the show runs for? Not necessarily. A spoiler is not a black and white concept to me; there are many subtle levels. Given that there is so much media out there vying for my attention, I must take in a certain amount of sensitive information in order to develop an interest in any given piece of entertainment. Something must be "spoiled" in order to establish a story as one I care about.
Take Cloverfield as an example. Would I have rented that film based on nothing but the title? Not a chance, it sounds like a Jane Austin novel. It was only after I found out it was a monster movie (with a gimmick) that I decided I wanted to see it. At the same time, I can only imagine the incredible evening I would have had watching it without knowing a giant creature was going to attack Manhattan by the end of the film. There was also a substantial amount of buzz surrounding one shocking moment, leaving me to sit and wait for it to happen rather than actually be shocked when...no, I won't say it.
So where do I draw the line? What's the difference between a "enjoy the ride" spoiler versus a "sit and wait" spoiler? I wish I could tell you but there simply isn't a way to tell ahead of time what is or is not a cataclysmic bombshell. That's why I'm so cautious about investigating any story and why, once I know I'm interested, I actively avoid learning anything more. When I go to the movies, I close my eyes during nearly every trailer. When I watch Battlestar Galactica, I turn away from the opening credits because they are, bizarrely enough, packed with dramatic moments from the episode I am about to watch. And when a video game podcast starts discussing the highlights of any narrative-driven game I'm hoping to play, I fast-forward until I'm convinced they've moved onto another topic.
Video games are a curious case because they should, in theory, be spoiler-proof by virtue of their interactivity. Enjoying a video game requires you to pick up the controller and actually play through it, so no amount of plot points revealed in advance should rob you of that entertainment. I certainly can't think of any sensitive information I could have heard about Portal, a phenomenal game that I first played months after it became a "huge success," which would have detracted from the experience in any way. There are also scores of video games that have no narrative to speak of, making the only potential "spoilers" being the solutions to the levels. Yet entire websites devoted to video game strategies and solutions exist to answer players' questions. I know I wouldn't have gotten all those PixelJunk Monsters trophies without the occasional tip from GameFAQs.
Contrary to all these points, I am perhaps more paranoid about video game spoilers than of any other media. Much of this revolves around the issue of time. It takes a lot longer to finish a video game than it does a book or a movie, so it's harder to think of myself as "caught up" with what's popular. I may have a chance to see all of the Best Picture nominees by the time the Oscars are handed out, but it's unlikely I will ever finish more than one (if that) of the Game of the Year candidates for 2008. Serial television dramas are similarly hard to catch up with and can run for years, but they also unfold at a uniform pace for everyone. Nobody knows how Lost or Heroes will end yet because the public knowledge of the story is limited to those episodes that have already aired. Once a game like Resident Evil 5 hits the shelves, I expect people to be chattering about major plot points within days, if not hours.
That "chatter" is the other major issue with video games compared to other media: the integral role that the internet plays in gaming culture. The only way to be informed on what new releases look promising or potential additions/updates are available for the games you own is to be online. I don't need to visit any message boards or read any blogs to know when House airs, so the odds that I may come across spoilers is pretty slim. With games, I exist in a constant flinching state when I read through sites like Kotaku, hoping that the page I'm reading does not casually reveal why that plane crashes at the start of BioShock. Yes, it did and no, there was no warning. It wasn't even an article about the game!
Of course, when it comes to sports, the line is pretty easy to draw: knowing the final score before watching the game robs me of all interest. If I had read last year about the Giants' incredible upset of the Patriots while I was at work, I would have been very happy as a Giants fan but I doubt I would have actually turned on the game when I got home. So in the interest of enjoying this year's Super Bowl, I'm just going to shut out the world for a few more hours. I hope it's worth it.
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Mako and I have just recently gotten into two American serial dramas on DVD, Prison Break and Battlestar Galactica. Admittedly, I'm more into the latter than the former (with Mako feeling the exact opposite) but we are actively renting both shows right now. While the subject matter couldn't be more dissimilar, both programs focus on a long-term story over individual, self-contained episodes and both shows are coming to an end this year. In the case of Prison Break, I know for a fact that they spend every season after the first on the run so they must manage to get out of prison sooner or later, yet I am on board for every sudden twist and failed maneuver along the way. It doesn't matter that they're going to escape, I still don't know how, when or who makes it at this point and I am really enjoying the ride.
I am one of those people who takes spoilers pretty seriously. Whether it's the end of a book, a major story arc on TV or even an impressive stunt in a film, I don't want to hear about it second-hand. I want to experience that moment, whatever it may be, on my own terms when I watch/read/play it myself. My outlook is this: people make these stories with an audience in mind. Every surprise, every joke, every tragic death has meaning only because of the narrative that surrounds it. Every element of the story is tied to some other element. The whole is more than the sum of its parts: take one part out of context and feature it in commercials or plaster it across the internet, and the whole is diminished.
Using this admittedly broad definition, it would seem that almost every detail about a book, TV show, movie or video game qualifies as a spoiler. Does this mean that every story I encounter is "spoiled" because I know what actors appear in it or how many seasons the show runs for? Not necessarily. A spoiler is not a black and white concept to me; there are many subtle levels. Given that there is so much media out there vying for my attention, I must take in a certain amount of sensitive information in order to develop an interest in any given piece of entertainment. Something must be "spoiled" in order to establish a story as one I care about.
Take Cloverfield as an example. Would I have rented that film based on nothing but the title? Not a chance, it sounds like a Jane Austin novel. It was only after I found out it was a monster movie (with a gimmick) that I decided I wanted to see it. At the same time, I can only imagine the incredible evening I would have had watching it without knowing a giant creature was going to attack Manhattan by the end of the film. There was also a substantial amount of buzz surrounding one shocking moment, leaving me to sit and wait for it to happen rather than actually be shocked when...no, I won't say it.
So where do I draw the line? What's the difference between a "enjoy the ride" spoiler versus a "sit and wait" spoiler? I wish I could tell you but there simply isn't a way to tell ahead of time what is or is not a cataclysmic bombshell. That's why I'm so cautious about investigating any story and why, once I know I'm interested, I actively avoid learning anything more. When I go to the movies, I close my eyes during nearly every trailer. When I watch Battlestar Galactica, I turn away from the opening credits because they are, bizarrely enough, packed with dramatic moments from the episode I am about to watch. And when a video game podcast starts discussing the highlights of any narrative-driven game I'm hoping to play, I fast-forward until I'm convinced they've moved onto another topic.
Video games are a curious case because they should, in theory, be spoiler-proof by virtue of their interactivity. Enjoying a video game requires you to pick up the controller and actually play through it, so no amount of plot points revealed in advance should rob you of that entertainment. I certainly can't think of any sensitive information I could have heard about Portal, a phenomenal game that I first played months after it became a "huge success," which would have detracted from the experience in any way. There are also scores of video games that have no narrative to speak of, making the only potential "spoilers" being the solutions to the levels. Yet entire websites devoted to video game strategies and solutions exist to answer players' questions. I know I wouldn't have gotten all those PixelJunk Monsters trophies without the occasional tip from GameFAQs.
Contrary to all these points, I am perhaps more paranoid about video game spoilers than of any other media. Much of this revolves around the issue of time. It takes a lot longer to finish a video game than it does a book or a movie, so it's harder to think of myself as "caught up" with what's popular. I may have a chance to see all of the Best Picture nominees by the time the Oscars are handed out, but it's unlikely I will ever finish more than one (if that) of the Game of the Year candidates for 2008. Serial television dramas are similarly hard to catch up with and can run for years, but they also unfold at a uniform pace for everyone. Nobody knows how Lost or Heroes will end yet because the public knowledge of the story is limited to those episodes that have already aired. Once a game like Resident Evil 5 hits the shelves, I expect people to be chattering about major plot points within days, if not hours.
That "chatter" is the other major issue with video games compared to other media: the integral role that the internet plays in gaming culture. The only way to be informed on what new releases look promising or potential additions/updates are available for the games you own is to be online. I don't need to visit any message boards or read any blogs to know when House airs, so the odds that I may come across spoilers is pretty slim. With games, I exist in a constant flinching state when I read through sites like Kotaku, hoping that the page I'm reading does not casually reveal why that plane crashes at the start of BioShock. Yes, it did and no, there was no warning. It wasn't even an article about the game!
Of course, when it comes to sports, the line is pretty easy to draw: knowing the final score before watching the game robs me of all interest. If I had read last year about the Giants' incredible upset of the Patriots while I was at work, I would have been very happy as a Giants fan but I doubt I would have actually turned on the game when I got home. So in the interest of enjoying this year's Super Bowl, I'm just going to shut out the world for a few more hours. I hope it's worth it.
Labels: BioShock, BSG, Cloverfield, football, movies, Portal, Prison Break, sports, television, video games
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Monday, September 08, 2008
Monster Envy
Good news, if a little late: today at work I finally had an opportunity to sort out everything that didn't get done last week in preparation for classes. I think I'm going to have to get used to the fact that nothing around here gets done before the semester starts. Even if you have an entire day devoted to preparing for classes during summer break, there's always going to be some crucial element left undone that will have to wait until after the students show up and the teaching staff is extremely busy.
I had some "me" time this weekend because Mako went to Kobe for not one but two B'z concerts, both times returning home around midnight. I turned my lonely-frown upside-down by renting a film that I could watch and enjoy alone that she had absolutely no interest in seeing. It wasn't until I got to the video store that I realized the perfect choice had just hit the shelves this weekend: Cloverfield.
I found the movie to be extremely compelling. As a fan of The Blair Witch Project, I was an easy sell for the "gimmick" of Cloverfield wherein all the action is presented from a single hand-held camera's perspective. They cheat a little bit with professional edits that don't jive with the notion that somebody is just sitting there recording everything, and there were occasions where the gimmick strained my suspension of disbelief (instead of "Don't go in that room" I found myself thinking "Put the camera down and run, asshole!") but otherwise the choice to use hand-held photography made the movie far more enjoyable than if it had just been presented like a typical monster-destroys-New-York movie (US Godzilla, I'm looking at you). The central characters weren't the most interesting bunch of folks but the gimmick forced them into the spotlight and kept them there for the entire story. The more time they spent on the screen, the more I couldn't help but identify with them, in at least some small way or another.
Cloverfield reminded me of the excellent Korean-made monster flick The Host (which I saw last year), in that both films kept the action tightly focused on a small group of people. The Host didn't use the first-person-cameraman idea but otherwise it and Cloverfield follow an extremely similar set-up: the audience meets the protagonists and gets a glimpse of who they are before things get crazy. Once the monster arrives, the audience and the on-screen characters have to deal with the situation together - that is, neither the characters on-screen or the people watching the movie know more than the other about the creature. Cloverfield slightly missteps here because the opening titles actually reveal more to the audience than we need to know about how the "footage" we see will end. I wouldn't call it a spoiler but it's decidedly unnecessary to try and "explain" why we are watching the events unfold from somebody's personal camera. The Blair Witch Project needed a reason as it was tied to the premise and marketing of the film as a documentary about still-missing film students. Cloverfield is obvious fiction from the first scene, so the framing device is completely superfluous.
By contrast, bigger, broader, and dumber disaster films insist on a giant cast of players, spreading themselves way too thin across standard character stereotypes. The loser trying to redeem himself in the face of sudden adversity, the clueless authority figure unwilling to make the hard choices to solve the crisis, the brilliant scientist who tries to warn others but is ignored, the hardcore soldier who puts his duty ahead of his own well-being, etc. etc. etc...none of these dullards show up in Cloverfield and I think the gimmick helped to keep them away. With a single camera recording the entire film, there can be no cutaways to City Hall or NASA or anywhere.
If I had a problem with Cloverfield, it was the far-fetched notion that these people could continually and apparently randomly keep running into the monster again and again. I know Manhattan isn't the biggest island but it's large enough to make me wonder how these tiny humans might possibly encounter the lumbering behemoth so many times, even when they are doing their best to run away from it. Slasher films do this a lot, but at least in those cases the slowpoke killer is actively chasing the protagonists. I'm not sure why the creature in Cloverfield seemed to happen upon the same unarmed civilians so often, because there's no reason to believe it was trying to find them.
However, I got more out of Cloverfield than a good thrill. As a New Yorker who has been dealing with his share of homesickness lately, I found myself getting a little emotional due to all the New York memories the film reminded me of. Right from the first scene near Central Park and Columbus Circle, I thought of a New Year's party my friends & I managed to get into in a penthouse a few years back in that neighborhood. The trip to Coney Island was a nostalgic one made all the more painful by today's news that Astroland may be closed for good. Even throwaway scenes like shopping in a New York deli made me feel like I was missing something in my life here in Japan.
Speaking of Japan, there was another element that spoke to me personally. All of the main characters are gathered at a surprise "farewell party" for one guy who's going off to Japan for a new job. While watching the party scenes, my mind wandered a bit and I started to feel sad that I've never had a farewell party, let alone a surprise farewell party. Then I started thinking about all the parties I have attended in New York and how awkward I always managed to feel, so even if I had such a party I don't think I would be able to enjoy it. This reminded me of the fun we did have this March when I came to town, followed by frustration by the fact that I came to New York to celebrate my wedding and I barely had any time to relax with my friends - arguably the main goal of the trip in the first place.
Wow...as you can see, the movie overwhelmed me for a variety of reasons. Let me just wrap up here with a strong recommendation of Cloverfield and add a forceful declaration that this November, things will be different. And if a monster attacks during our evening of karaoke, I volunteer to hold the camera.
つづく...(Click here to read more)
I had some "me" time this weekend because Mako went to Kobe for not one but two B'z concerts, both times returning home around midnight. I turned my lonely-frown upside-down by renting a film that I could watch and enjoy alone that she had absolutely no interest in seeing. It wasn't until I got to the video store that I realized the perfect choice had just hit the shelves this weekend: Cloverfield.
I found the movie to be extremely compelling. As a fan of The Blair Witch Project, I was an easy sell for the "gimmick" of Cloverfield wherein all the action is presented from a single hand-held camera's perspective. They cheat a little bit with professional edits that don't jive with the notion that somebody is just sitting there recording everything, and there were occasions where the gimmick strained my suspension of disbelief (instead of "Don't go in that room" I found myself thinking "Put the camera down and run, asshole!") but otherwise the choice to use hand-held photography made the movie far more enjoyable than if it had just been presented like a typical monster-destroys-New-York movie (US Godzilla, I'm looking at you). The central characters weren't the most interesting bunch of folks but the gimmick forced them into the spotlight and kept them there for the entire story. The more time they spent on the screen, the more I couldn't help but identify with them, in at least some small way or another.
Cloverfield reminded me of the excellent Korean-made monster flick The Host (which I saw last year), in that both films kept the action tightly focused on a small group of people. The Host didn't use the first-person-cameraman idea but otherwise it and Cloverfield follow an extremely similar set-up: the audience meets the protagonists and gets a glimpse of who they are before things get crazy. Once the monster arrives, the audience and the on-screen characters have to deal with the situation together - that is, neither the characters on-screen or the people watching the movie know more than the other about the creature. Cloverfield slightly missteps here because the opening titles actually reveal more to the audience than we need to know about how the "footage" we see will end. I wouldn't call it a spoiler but it's decidedly unnecessary to try and "explain" why we are watching the events unfold from somebody's personal camera. The Blair Witch Project needed a reason as it was tied to the premise and marketing of the film as a documentary about still-missing film students. Cloverfield is obvious fiction from the first scene, so the framing device is completely superfluous.
By contrast, bigger, broader, and dumber disaster films insist on a giant cast of players, spreading themselves way too thin across standard character stereotypes. The loser trying to redeem himself in the face of sudden adversity, the clueless authority figure unwilling to make the hard choices to solve the crisis, the brilliant scientist who tries to warn others but is ignored, the hardcore soldier who puts his duty ahead of his own well-being, etc. etc. etc...none of these dullards show up in Cloverfield and I think the gimmick helped to keep them away. With a single camera recording the entire film, there can be no cutaways to City Hall or NASA or anywhere.
If I had a problem with Cloverfield, it was the far-fetched notion that these people could continually and apparently randomly keep running into the monster again and again. I know Manhattan isn't the biggest island but it's large enough to make me wonder how these tiny humans might possibly encounter the lumbering behemoth so many times, even when they are doing their best to run away from it. Slasher films do this a lot, but at least in those cases the slowpoke killer is actively chasing the protagonists. I'm not sure why the creature in Cloverfield seemed to happen upon the same unarmed civilians so often, because there's no reason to believe it was trying to find them.
However, I got more out of Cloverfield than a good thrill. As a New Yorker who has been dealing with his share of homesickness lately, I found myself getting a little emotional due to all the New York memories the film reminded me of. Right from the first scene near Central Park and Columbus Circle, I thought of a New Year's party my friends & I managed to get into in a penthouse a few years back in that neighborhood. The trip to Coney Island was a nostalgic one made all the more painful by today's news that Astroland may be closed for good. Even throwaway scenes like shopping in a New York deli made me feel like I was missing something in my life here in Japan.
Speaking of Japan, there was another element that spoke to me personally. All of the main characters are gathered at a surprise "farewell party" for one guy who's going off to Japan for a new job. While watching the party scenes, my mind wandered a bit and I started to feel sad that I've never had a farewell party, let alone a surprise farewell party. Then I started thinking about all the parties I have attended in New York and how awkward I always managed to feel, so even if I had such a party I don't think I would be able to enjoy it. This reminded me of the fun we did have this March when I came to town, followed by frustration by the fact that I came to New York to celebrate my wedding and I barely had any time to relax with my friends - arguably the main goal of the trip in the first place.
Wow...as you can see, the movie overwhelmed me for a variety of reasons. Let me just wrap up here with a strong recommendation of Cloverfield and add a forceful declaration that this November, things will be different. And if a monster attacks during our evening of karaoke, I volunteer to hold the camera.
Labels: but I love gatherings, Cloverfield, fuzzy memories, movies
つづく...(Click here to read more)
