Author Archives: Joe

Destroy all Consoles

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Joe| Leave a comment

Sony announced the PS4 yesterday, and it is a thing that should not be. Game consoles as we know them need to go extinct. They present system is clunky, inefficient, bad for the consumers, and frankly annoying. Below are a few of my cranky gripes about the state of gaming, why consoles should die, and what I’d like to see.

-All consoles should be able to play all games. Remember back when CDs were a thing? I know, it was a long time ago, but bear with me. Would you have bought a CD player that could only play discs from EMI? What about one that would only play albums by artists on Atlantic Records? How about some indie player that only ever played Kill Rock Stars? Would you accept that? Obviously not. Yet, that’s the system we accept for games. It’s mind boggling in how long it’s persisted, and kind of maddening that consumers aren’t more upset about it. In no other kind of media to buyers accept such limitations, but when it comes to video games people actually get fanboyish about their favorite consoles. That’s ridiculous.

-Physical disks should die. Why the hell do we still have physical disks? We have the Internet. Cutting out disks would mean that game companies would no longer have to worry about the manufacturing and distribution of disks or retail middleman taking a cut. That would (hopefully) drive down the costs of games. Hopefully. Maybe not EA or Activision’s games, as those companies are kind of shadowy and evil, but hopefully those of other companies.

-There needs to be an iTunes for old games. Yes, Nintendo had the Virtual Console, but that wasn’t enough. Far too many old games are fading away because the hardware that ran them has gone obsolete. I’d love to have a service where I could purchase classics like Planescape: Torment, Monkey Island, or the Sega X-Men games.

-Nintendo should just be a software company. The whole reason people buy Nintendo’s consoles anymore is to play Mario, Zelda, and Metroid games. I seriously doubt that anyone buys Nintendo’s consoles because they want to play games in general. No, they want to play Nintendo’s games specifically. As someone who grew up with Mario, Link, and Samus I’d be happy to sit down and revisit some of these old IPs for a game or two, but not so much that I want to actually buy the ridiculously clunky flop that is the WiiU.

-Consoles should be generic and upgradeable, like PCs. I replaced all manner of parts in my old desktop. I jammed more RAM into it, gave it a new graphics card, replaced the fan and the power source, swapped out all of the peripherals, and replaced just about everything except the motherboard and CPU. I’d appreciate that kind of screws-not-glue approach to consoles. Instead of things being upgraded in fits and starts with new generations of consoles coming every few years, we’d just have a gradual increase in what people’s machines were capable of.

-Fuck it, consoles should just be PCs. A PC that hooks up to your big TV where you can do stuff with a controller, and you’re not locked into a single company’s hardware, OS, game library, or anything like that. Can we have that? No?

Fine, I’ll just wait for the Steam Box.

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Posted in Video Games

What I Learned From Going to the Zoo Yesterday

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Joe| Leave a comment

oregonzooYesterday my girlfriend and I went to the Oregon Zoo for a Valentine’s Day date. It was great! I’d recommend going on a weekday, as one does not have to compete with crowds, and we got a good long look at several of the animals. At the end of it, I was giddy. Animals are amazing, and being exposed to so much tremendous biology in a single afternoon was a great experience. Here are a few things I learned.

-Sea Lions are huge. Seriously. You know that because they’re an apex predator and they have “lion” right in their name, but when you seem them up close it’s sort of eye-popping how large and graceful they are. They also make a noise that’s kind of a bark-y roar-y sound.

-Bats can be beautiful. People think of bats as being creepy (like Dracula) or kind of dark and badass (like Batman) but one doesn’t really think of them as beautiful. But they are. Bats don’t glide- they are the only mammal to truly fly, and they do it well. Their movement is graceful and precise, and they are every bit as inspiring as birds.

-Baby elephants are cute. If you don’t think so, then you are probably one of those serial killers who physically lacks a sense of empathy.

-Everybody poops. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera famously characterized kitsch as the denial of shit. If that’s the case, than the zoo is one of the least kitschy places one can visit, as the reality of excrement is vividly apparent. But that’s okay! Pooping does not make you less cool. Everyone does it. Even awesome animals like rhinos.

-Naked mole rats are actually quite small. They are more like naked mole mice.

-There’s a species of gazelle that eats vegetation while standing on its hind legs. It’s called a gerenuk and it’s really weird to watch it not fall over.

-Male lions are not actually all that king-of-beast-y. They don’t really hunt (the lionesses do) and they sleep a lot. Nevertheless, we got to see a male sitting on a rock with his mane blowing in the wind looking all Lion King and stuff. It was cool. Lions at least get style points.

-Bald eagles like fish. We saw America’s national bird with a fish in its talons tearing it apart with its beak. It was amazing to watch such an up-close example of predation, and it also made me happy that Benjamin Franklin didn’t get his way about making the turkey our national symbol.

-African wild dogs have adorable ears. They’re big and fuzzy.

-Mammals are awesome. They can do all kinds of things. Water stuff? We have sea lions, otters, and polar bears. Flying stuff? All kinds of bats. Climbing stuff? Check out those monkeys. Running stuff? You can’t beat the cheetah. Digging stuff? Naked mole rats, actual moles, and various rabbits have that covered. Mammals are amazing in their diversity and complexity. They’re like a G.I. Joe team where all the members have a niche that they’re good at. I’m proud to be a mammal. It’s good company.

-Hippos are something you should fear. They might seem all big and cute, but really they are gigantic bags of pure anger.

-Caracals are one of my new favorite cat types. They have tufts on their ears and can jump really high to hunt birds.

And lastly,

-We live in an extraordinary world. It’s a world filled with monkeys and tigers and iridescent birds. It’s mind boggling, diverse, and wonderful. Nature should hold you in stunned awe. Evolution has given us millions upon millions of co-residents of Earth, and seeing even a tiny sampling of them can make for an extraordinary afternoon.

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Posted in Uncategorized

In Which I Finally Watch Requiem For a Dream

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Joe| Leave a comment

Requiem_for_a_dreamLast night, recovering from a nasty week of being sick, I stayed in my apartment and watched Requiem For a Dream. I’d never seen it, and it’s been on my to watch list ever since I’d seen Aronofsky’s (utterly hilarious) Black Swan. I didn’t know anything about the movie, other than it was about drugs and that Jennifer Connelly was in it. Having seen Aronofsky’s goofy Pi and chuckle-inducing Black Swan, I expected Requiem to be as broad and silly as his other work. It wasn’t. Not really. Requiem For a Dream is almost, but not quite, camp or exploitation. It goes up to the line, but doesn’t cross.

Spoilers for a twelve year old movie ahead.

Aronofsky can’t resist the building blocks and stylistic flourishes of camp. Requiem For a Dream abounds with fast edits, sped up footage, slowed down footage, fish-eye lenses, high emotions, exploitation, and a even a little bit of speechifying. Several of the scenes scenes involving hallucinations veer almost into the comical- a refrigerator opens to reveal several jagged teeth, a character imagines watching herself on television, and people jump from a television set and into a living room. There’s also a dumb scene with an imaginary pie. At the end of the movie, the four main characters, all drug users, meet grisly fates worthy of an after school special. One is jailed, one is in a psychiatric ward, one becomes a prostitute and another gets his arm sawed off. Say no to drugs, kids. You’ll become a crazy one-armed hooker, and then you’ll go to jail.

And yet, I don’t think Requiem For a Dream is camp or exploitation- it works as a genuine drama.  Most of the credit for that goes to the actors- the four principals all play their roles straight. In the midst of Aronofsky’s goofy (but enjoyable) direction they seem like real, actual humans rather than the overy stylized meat puppets that inhabit most camp or exploitation movies. I’d go so far as to say that the actors save the movie- the story is basically “don’t do drugs,” the director seems to busy playing with lenses and footage speed, and the soundtrack (can’t believe I haven’t mentioned the soundtrack yet- it’s really overbearing, but also kind of great) sounds like it comes from the opening credits of a daytime soap opera. The performances, though, don’t clash with the over-the top style. Rather, they balance it out. They’re like the cool tonic and lime to Aronofsky’s harsh, spiky gin. The four actors ground the movie, and in hammier, more scenery-chewing hands, the film would have been a frothy, hokey disaster.

After watching Requiem, I couldn’t help but think how much better it was than Black Swan, and how much more I was on board with it, goofy elements and all. I enjoyed Black Swan a good deal, but not really as drama. I liked it as an exercise in excess, and I’m not sure if that’s what the filmmakers wanted. At the end of Black Swan I thought “that was absurd and entertaining.” At the end of Requiem, I actually felt something for the characters.

Aronofsky seems to be one of those artists who shouldn’t be allowed to do whatever he wants. He needs something, be it a budget, a producer, a person he knows, to call him out on his excesses and tell him when to reign it in. Requiem demonstrates that he can make a great film, but Swan shows that, if left to his own devices, he probably won’t.

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Posted in Movies

2012: A Slow Climb

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Joe| 2 Comments

I’ve found the conversation starter “What do you do?” to be more than a little annoying. For the most part I’ve said “I’m a tour guide,” and left it at that. I don’t like introducing myself as a writer. After all, if someone waits tables and occasionally acts, they are not an actor. They are a waiter who acts. You’re an actor when you do it full time. In an attempt to be honest or humble, I answer “What do you do?” with my day job, as opposed to the job that I find truly rewarding. I am not a writer. I’m a tour guide who writes. You’re a writer when you do it full time.

In 2012, I’ve found that this perspective is unproductive and self-defeating, especially because it’s become more and more not the case. I’ve spent a good part of this year as a freelance contributor to the Portland Mercury, the awesomest alternative weekly in the U.S. I reviewed books, movies, and television, blogged about video games, history, and a conceptual art museum, wrote a few long-form features, and interviewed several interesting people, including mayoral candidate Jefferson Smith on election night. When not writing for the Mercury, I also did a bit of Portland-centric travel writing and ghost wrote some marketing copy. In 2012, I wrote more than I ever have before, and I loved it. On top of that, I started doing regular history lectures at downtown Portland’s Jack London Bar, which has been a blast. I am a tour guide. But I’m a writer, too.

However, gnawing at the back of my mind is the pessimistic fact that I’m playing catch-up. I’m thirty-two years old (young yet, I hope) and I still don’t have a full-time job. I’ve made things work, stitching together my part time job with several freelance assignments. I’m able to pay for rent, groceries, all that. But, I don’t have a steady position inside of an established institution. That gnaws at me. I would give up quite a bit to have a full time job. Ideally, I’d want something in the fields of publishing or communications, but I know those are dying industries- newspapers will probably not last the decade. However, being a crew member of a sinking ship seems better than never setting sail at all. Realistically, I’ll probably get a position in marketing firm somewhere. If I were ever given a chance at any kind of regular editorial job, though, I would learn how to do backflips specifically so I could do them in celebration.

I also acknowledge that if/when I do get a full time job, Future Me will look back on this time like it’s some kind of idyllic Bohemia, and long for the days when I lived in a studio apartment, worked for tips, and freelanced for a publication that let use swears as much and as often as I wanted to. 2012 has been good. In some ways, very good. I have no anxiety whatsoever, for example, about my personal life- I have a fantastic girlfriend and a wonderful social circle. I’m glad that all of my angst is connected to professional matters and not more intimate affairs.

If 2013 is like 2012 (but moreso) I will get somewhere. If 2014 is like 2013 (but moreso) I will get somewhere. And so on. However, opportunities for meaningful employment are not as numerous as they were in previous decades. We can climb, we have to, but the summit is shrouded with clouds.

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Posted in Year in Review

Things I Have Been Asked By Portland Tourists

Posted on November 13, 2012 by Joe| 4 Comments

As a Portland tour guide, I am often asked questions about my city. Here are some of them.

“Why do so many people in Portland have backpacks?”

“Why do people in Portland dress like that?”

“What are Portland’s major religions?”

“Is it true that people have chickens in their yard?”

“Where’s the Apple store?”

“Is being a tour guide your main job?” [I do not like this question]

“Have you seen Portlandia?”

“What’s the deal with Voodoo Doughnut?”

“How come there are so many homeless people?”

“Why is Portland called ‘Stumptown?’”

“Is Portland safe?”

“What’s the difference between the streetcar and light rail?”

“Where’s the Pearl District?”

“What’s that building right there?”

“Where are you from?” [When I say "Portland" people often act surprised.]

“Is it true that there’s a place where they put bacon on donuts?”

“Where’s the bad part of town?”

“Do people here like Obama?”

“The sea gulls here seem fatter than the sea gulls on the east coast. Why is that?”  [I later found out that the east and west coasts do, in fact, have different varieties of seagulls.]

“What do people here think of Portlandia?”

“What’s quinoa?”

“What time are the food carts open?”

“Why are there so many strip clubs?”

“What’s up with Voodoo Doughnut?”

“Do people really ride their bikes naked?”

[Said while looking east across the Willamette from Waterfront Park.] “Is that area across the river still part of Portland?”

“I heard that some people in Portland have goats. Is that true?”

“Do you guys really not have a sales tax?”

“What do you guys think of Seattle?”

“Why don’t people here pump their own gas?”

“What, exactly, is a ‘hipster?’”

“Where’s Voodoo Doughnut?”

And,

“What’s with all the white people?”

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Posted in Uncategorized

Respect the Sandwich!

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Joe| 2 Comments

The cartoony side-scroller video game Castle Crashers has, obviously, several upgrades. Magic, weapons, mounts, familiars- all the kinds of things that you’d expect to find in a fantasy video game. However, the most powerful item in the game has nothing to do with magic, maces, or fantasy creatures. The item in Castle Crashers that transforms your 2D knights into hulked-out monstrosities is none other than a humble sandwich. After partaking of meat, cheese, veggies and bread the tiny characters transform into massive machines of badass destruction, able to slam through enemies and obstacles with quickness and ease.

This is entirely appropriate, as sandwiches are magical. They are amazing, fantastic, wonderful creations, and they don’t get the respect they deserve. A good sandwich is every bit the amazing food-based experience as anything else that is given the term “fine dining.”

Sandwiches, to put it simply, are not simple, though we think of them as such. They are, in fact, a collection of several variables, all of which could go very wrong or very right. They are bread, meat, vegetables, cheese, condiments, and sundry other edibles. They are made of not one, not two, and oftentimes not just three items. And a sandwich must get all of those things right if it wishes to succeed.

For example, I got a bratwurst from a food cart that shall go unnamed. The meat itself was excellent. Very excellent, actually. The toppings were all very good- an amalgamation of onions, garlic, and mustard. The tart and carmelized toppings mingled pleasingly with the meat. The bun, though? The bun was awful. It was the kind of sad, bland bun that one would find wrapped in clear plastic at Safeway. It was stunning in its unremarkableness, and utterly spoiled the experience. The meat and veggies and mustard were all good, but that single stumble sank the whole enterprise.

By contrast, I recently had a banh mi at Double Dragon that expertly jumped through each and every hoop. The meat was cooked just right, and the shredded vegetables and hot sauce cooperated excellently with the pork belly. The bread had a certain crunch to it that was toasty without being too crumbly, and the whole thing was moist but not to the point of sloppiness. On every metric, the sandwich succeeded, and finished it with a feeling of satisfaction and admiration.

Sandwiches are not to be dismissed. They are not to be scoffed at or derided as mere bar or deli fare. Sandwiches can instantly satisfy one’s craving for carbohydrates, protein, fiber, and sundry flavor notes.  Respect the sandwich. Admire the sandwich. Love the sandwich. Within it lies skill and beauty, a layered concoction greater than the sum of its parts, each one an edible example of e pluribus unum.

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Posted in Food

I Guess I Won’t Watch the Olympics, Then

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Joe| 1 Comment

I fenced in college. I enjoyed it a great deal, and still like to think that I would know my way around a foil if one were placed into my hand. When I got home from work this evening, I wanted to watch some Olympic fencing, and revel in the amazing, stabby athleticism of people who are probably embarrassingly superior to me. I went to the NBC website, thinking that that would be my go-to place for Olympic videos. I found a little tab that said “Select Sport” went to “Fencing” and then this abomination popped up:

NBC, I’m trying to watch this on my computer. You know about computers, right? The dominant information-sharing machine of our time? Those? I want to use mine to consume your product. Not a TV. I don’t have a cable provider. I have an ISP. Asking someone to say who their TV provider is before watching something on the Internet is kind of like requiring someone to show proof of horse and buggy ownership before getting into a car. It is utter idiocy. I’d be fine watching ads with my fencing. I would even pay five or ten bucks so I could watch Olympic videos from the NBC site. However, this? This is backward luddite nonsense.

Not that this is a new thing, mind you. I guess I won’t be watching any magnificent dancy/stabby people after all.

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Posted in Rants, Television

Gotham City, DPRK: The Big, Thumpy Politics of The Dark Knight Rises

Posted on July 22, 2012 by Joe| Leave a comment

Here, everyone. Have another post about Batman!

Major spoilers ahead. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, go away, see it, and then  feel free to shove this post into your eyeballs.

This isn’t a review. I greatly enjoyed The Dark Knight Rises, though thought it had some pacing problems. Despite being almost three hours long, it felt a little rushed in some places, and there were a few plot holes that just had to be waved away by saying “because Batman.” It wasn’t as good as either The Dark Knight or Batman Begins, but still excellent. If nothing else, I loved how amazingly gigantic Nolan made the final chapter of the trilogy.

The Dark Knight Rises is a hugely ambitious movie that definitely wants to be about something. The film acknowledges the existence of poverty again and again with scenes of an orphanage and Selina Kyle’s impoverished friend. We’re also reminded of the decadent corruption of the corporate class when we see Bane initially working with Gotham’s business elite. The Dent Act, the thing that put thousands of criminals behind bars, is based on false pretenses. At the outset of the film, the social order is not ideal. It is ripe for upending. However, the shape that that revolution or reform takes is of vital importance. Bane, storming into Gotham, offers a new way. Over the course of of the movie, the various characters cavort and bellow in front of the camera, and I couldn’t help but think of which real-life political figures the characters were most like. For instance:

Bane is Kim Jong Il

Bane is a tyrant with a horde of dedicated followers who clearly adhere to a kind of cult of personality. He values martial strength as a virtue in and of itself, and the society that he leads, occupied Gotham, is bereft of any kind of infrastructure, culture, or way of being not directly related to its own militant self-perpetuation. Like almost all totalitarian regimes, Bane takes power in the name of “the people,” exploits popular discontent with the existing system, and gives his militaristic rule only the barest patina of rule of law (One of my favorite parts of the film was the Scarecrow playing the part of Robspierre).

The fear of nuclear annihilation is the trump card that keeps the rest of the world from streaming into Bane Jong-Il’s impoverished hermit kingdom. The bridges of Gotham echo the perpetual standoff of the Korean DMZ, and past an arbitrary line known as a “border” Bane can preside over decay as he pleases, parading his dystopia in the face of the world.

Catwoman is George Orwell (kinda)

I will admit this is something of a stretch, but bear with me for a moment. Orwell was a socialist who hated communism. He longed for change, equity, and greater fairness in the political and economic systems of his time, but when he saw Communism distort the ideals of him and his fellow leftists, he denounced it as tyranny. Selina Kyle is not happy with the inequality or unfairness of Gotham, and says as much to Bruce Wayne. (By the way, I absolutely loved Anne Hathaway as Kyle- she nailed it. That being said, I did think her “storm is coming” speech was a tad too heavy-handed.) However, she rejects the false populism of Bane, knowing that even though an unfair social order has been upended, it did not happen in the right way. Catwoman blowing away Bane with the guns on the Bat Pod was as potent a denunciation as Orwell gave to Stalinism in 1984.

Batman is George Washington and/or Nelson Mandela

Nolan ends the series with Bruce Wayne faking his own death, hanging up the cape and cowl, and disappearing. He willingly gives up power, prestige, and position that others would clamber and fight over, and bequeaths the identity Batman to another at the end of the film. Both George Washington and Mandela did a great service to their respective countries by willingly giving up power. Both of them could have held on to the title “president” for the rest of their days, but neither of them had an interest in their person being synonymous with the ideals of their country. Batman also does not want his legacy to be entangled in the person of Bruce Wayne- he wants it to be universal. This puts him far away from the Kim Jong Ils, Fidel Castros, Moammar Qaddafis and Mao Zedongs of the world. He’s more in keeping with Washington or Mandela who declined to make a position explicitly personal, and therefore potentially more tyrannical.

All that being said, I don’t think that The Dark Knight Rises had a singular political thrust to it. It wasn’t Animal Farm. Instead, it used various political fears and attitudes as backdrop and coloration for the story it wanted to tell. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Nolan’s trilogy very much is of its time, and very freely uses characters and people as broad representations for things that he knows are sources of anxiety for the audience.

(Case in point- the Gotham City PD. If the Nolan movies were actually “realistic,” as people seem to be fond of calling them, several of the cops would have probably joined Bane’s thugs. When freed, they probably wouldn’t have strode bravely into battle- instead, they probably would have wandered about filthy, broken and malnourished. However, I didn’t see them as representing literal cops. The big, final street battle was all about the rule of law finally confronting tyranny. Nolan’s movies are as sleek, stylized and unrealistic as anything from comics- that style is simply better at passing itself off as realism.)

I wonder how much of Nolan’s trilogy will look dated in ten or twenty years. Or, I wonder how much of it will be seen as a kind of time capsule for our era. Either way, the trilogy is mainly about the politics, crime, fears, terrors, and social welfare of a place called Gotham City. It does not necessarily work as a human drama or as a series wherein superheroes are put into a “realistic” environment. What makes it work, though, is that it makes visible very real, often unformed fears of terrorism and tyranny. The trilogy gives its hugeness the room it deserves, allowing its characters to be broad avatars who parade loudly before us as inspiring or terrifying symbols, the most prominent of all being Batman himself.

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Posted in Comic Books, Movies, Politics

My Completely Unsolicited Ideas About The Next Inevitable Batman Movie

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Joe| Leave a comment

Via: http://davedrawscomics.blogspot.com/2008/08/batman-robin-and-nightwing.html

Like most of America, I’m going to see The Dark Knight Rises this evening and am quite excited about that prospect. Given that Batman is an intellectual property that basically prints money, it’s inevitable that Warner Brothers is going to reboot the series in a few years in some way, shape, or form. Retreading the Nolan movies would be a mistake- if they try to out-Nolan Nolan, it’s just going to be embarrassing for everyone involved. If they try to go all Adam West on us, fans will rebel. If they rehash Batman’s origins, that will just be boring.

What to do?

My wholly and completely unsolicited idea: Make it all about the Batman/Robin dynamic.

We’ve already seen Batman become Batman, fight dudes, brood, all that other Bat-stuff. One thing we haven’t seen him do yet is be the Bat-dad of the Bat Family. Seeing an actually good movie where Batman has to deal with having a partner, working with people, etc., would be a something new. Here’s the pitch-

Act I:

Dick Grayson grows out of his role as Robin, and takes up the Mantle of Nightwing. Grayson goes out on his own, punches some dudes, and has a great time being a vigilante without any help from Dad/Batman. Meanwhile, Bats is still in Gotham, feeling kind of like an empty nester and, despite his insistence otherwise, isn’t dealing with the loneliness well. Meanwhile, a young photojournalist/hacker/Robin wannabe named Tim Drake is spying on Bats.

Act II:

A villain (someone uncomplicated- let’s say Killer Croc) messes up some stuff in Gotham. Bats gets clobbered, but is saved at the last minute by Tim Drake. Who insists that he’s the new Robin. Batman grumbles and makes lots of cantankerous old man sounds, but eventually gives in accepts the new kid. He’s also secretly relieved, because he knows that he actually needs a partner in crime(fighting).

Meanwhile, Nightwing uncovers an Evil Plan and realizes that he alone can’t stop it. He contacts Bats, and they make a plan to stop whatever evil MacGuffin is about to happen.

Act III:

Batman, Robin, and Nightwing get together and punch evil.

I’d love to see a movie like this. It would be necessarily different in tone from the Nolan movies (sort of a necessity when you have Robin), wouldn’t be about Batman’s origins or lonely struggle against evil-ness, and the plot wouldn’t be villain-driven. Like The Avengers, the central conflict would be about the heroes negotiating their relationships, overcoming their own conflicts, and then coming together. It would be fresh, new, and would potentially make up for that other horrible Batman and Robin movie. It could be great. (And yes, I know it doesn’t have Jason Todd. Let’s just stick to the actually good Robins.)

So there’s my idea. If anyone at Warner Brother is reading this, you now owe me five million dollars. You’re welcome.

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Posted in Comic Books, Movies

Why Avatar: The Last Airbender is One of the Greatest TV Shows Ever Made

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Joe| Leave a comment

Some time ago, I made a go of watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. I was in Japan at the time, and watching more anime than was probably good for me. The only Avatar episodes I could find, though, were in English. I was displeased- I didn’t want a dubbed version of Avatar. I wanted it in the original Japanese, so I could maybe actually learn something from it. I looked and looked and couldn’t find any non-dubbed versions of Avatar. It was all in English. I watched Full Metal Alchemist instead.

Later on, much to my chagrin and humiliation, I found out that was because Avatar is, in fact, an American cartoon and was recorded in English.

Earlier this month I finally watched the last episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I loved it. I know that the show has been off the air since 2008 and I’m very late to the party about this, but whatever. I feel the need to enthusiastically yell at the Internet about why I enjoyed it so much. If I had to only briefly summarize why I enjoyed it so much, I’d say that Avatar does not traffic in cliches, and is utterly original. In more detail, though:

Avatar nicely demonstrates that “fantasy” truly is limitless.

There is a depressing sameness to fantasy novels/movies/shows/games/etc. If you go to bookstore a peruse the sci-fi/fantasy aisle, you’ll most of the fantastical novels are all about medieval psuedo-Europe. Oftentimes, there are magical swords, wizards, and elves or dwarves or whatever. You know. Tolkien stuff. That stuff is fine, but it’s been played out. The very word “fantasy” implies that a book or show could be about any given thing. It could be about talking ducks or sentient rocks. It could be about a very excitable trees or pan-dimensional toasters. Anything. It’s a fantasy. The writers could go anywhere. Instead, the genre just comes back to the same magic sword stuff, and tosses some elves in there. As much as I enjoyed, for example Dragon Age, I was highly disappointed that it just recycled fantasy conventions. It was great- but it all felt a little stale. Fantasy, lots of creators seem to think, means emulating Tolkien.

Avatar gleefully says “fuck that.” It is a fantasy show, yes, but it’s a fantasy show that’s not about elf-y/dwarf-y stuff. Instead, it’s about Kung Fu. Except the Kung Fu is on fire and there are also people who can make tidal waves by using Tai Chi. One of the principal characters is a six-legged flying bison, because, well, why the hell not? Of course bison can fly. This is a fantasy world and bison can just do that. There are giant lion turtles the size of islands, multi-winged penguins, and immense badger moles who can teach you how to punch mountains. Avatar is a fantasy in that you get the impression that the creators actually, you know fantasized. It is like you are seeing someone’s immensely creative daydream on screen, rather than any kind of adherence to conventions.

What’s more, the show dispenses with both the middle ages and with pseudo-Europe. The technology level of the show seems to be around the late mid 1800s- an industrial revolution has certainly started, but it’s not so widespread that the world is completely mechanized. There are things like trains, ironclad ships, zepplins, and tanks, though they exist alongside with less developed setting elements as well.

The setting evokes Asia more than anything else, though two of the principal characters come from a culture that strongly resembles that of Native Americans. Avatar does for Asian and Native American society what fantasy has done for Europe over and over again- it stylizes it and showcases it as something adventurous and inspiring. What’s more, the Asiatic elements are not just window dressing or some kind of exotic other intruding upon a European setting- instead, the Asian and Native American elements are the setting.

(By the way- I think it’s immensely fantastic that the Avatar showcases nonwhite characters. I don’t ever want to see the live action adaptation of the show, but after watching it I can definitely understand the disappointment of fans who saw characters they loved get whitewashed. The fantasy genre has done a lot to make pseudo-Europe seem kind of badass. And, that’s fine. That’s good. Avatar, though, gave the same kind of wide-eyed fantastical treatment to other cultures, and the world’s a richer place for it. Speaking of which…)

Kung Fu!

Lots of movies and TV shows have terrible fights scenes. I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with martial arts. I took fencing and Aikido in college, and learned how to handle a bokken (i.e., a wooden katana) passably well. I spent about a year, once, getting the crap beaten out of me via Pikiti-Tirisia Kali, a Filipino martial art. While I’m by no means a skilled fighter-guy, I know enough to be sort of snobbish about movie fights, and to know how actual humans would actually move if they had swords and stuff.

Anyhow, most fighting scenes in movies and TV are bollocks. Either because the parties concerned don’t know what they’re doing, or because the choreographers just want to make it look cool. I love The Princess Bride as much as any nostalgia-addled nerd, but nothing in that movie resembles actual fencing. Sure, it’s fun, it’s great, it’s a classic but… wow. You don’t actually use a rapier like that. Anyway…

Avatar‘s fighting scenes are not crap. In fact, they’re really, really good. The characters move in very natural ways, and even though the fights often involve boulders and fireballs, all of the action seems like it’s the result of actual humans moving around. It’s free of unrealistic action that pervades other media, and it certainly doesn’t have anything like this. My (limited) experience with martial arts made me enjoy the show’s fight scenes more, not less, and that’s a very, very rare thing in a TV show.

It’s funny

Weirdly, genre entertainments and comedy don’t really go together well. There are very few science fiction comedies (the Back to the Future series is the only one that springs to mind) and most fantasy epics such as The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones stick to the serious side of things. Avatar, however, actually allows for pratfalls, puns, jokes, etc. And not only that, but it’s pretty good at all of those things. The show is really, really good at comedy, and that only adds to its charms rather than diminishing the epic-ness of the proceedings. The recent season of Game of Thrones actually had a few laughs, but for the most part genre fiction (perhaps because it’s historically been starved of respect) tends to take itself pretty seriously. Avatar, however, proves that you can have a huge, sprawling (and yes, “epic” as well) fantasy and still have jokes. Humor does not detract from the emotional depth of a given piece of fiction. It enhances it. On a related note…

It very skillfully plays with genre

Lots of shows have one-off genre episodes- think Buffy‘s musical episode. Avatar is no exception. One episode of Avatar (“Zuko Alone”) is essentially a spaghetti western. There’s another that’s very similar to an 80s teen comedy. In yet another, the main characters encounter a bunch of Ken Kesey-esque hippies, and at one point there’s a haiku rap battle. The sampling of genre elements, though, does not compromise the integrity of the show. There’s not any blatant fourth wall breaking or cutesy winking at the camera. Instead, Avatar does episodes wherein it tackles given genres on it’s own terms. The aforementioned spaghetti western episode isn’t done as a joke or a parody. Instead, it’s a really, really good half hour about one of the characters feeling lost, alone, and uncertain of his place in the world. Doing up his experience as a drifting, Eastwood-esque vagabond doesn’t cheapen his character development. Instead, the show’s creators use the spaghetti western genre because it works for what the character is going through. The show samples different kinds of genres, and it often does so in a very funny way, but it does not do that to parody those genres. Instead, Avatar knows that those genres have something to offer the characters and the story, and the conventions of those modes of storytelling are appropriate for the moment.

Lastly-

Korra is how you do a sequel.

Yeah, I’ve started watching Korra. It’s fantastic, and I’m very, very pleased that it’s highly different from its predecessor. Avatar looked like it happened in the 1850s or 60s. Korra, seventy years later, really does look like it happens in the 1920s or 30s. Time has passed, the world is different, and the conflicts in Korra are different from those in Avatar. I kind of want a Fire Ferrets jersey.

I hope the team who does these shows keeps with it. I hope they make a sequel to Korra set in the equivalent to the modern day, and a sequel to that set in a cyberpunk-ish future. I hope Nickelodeon gives them gigantic piles of money with which to make television, and that they stay consistently brilliant. I feel really silly, now, about waiting so long to watch this thing. I have been utterly, totally, and completely won over. And I’m not kidding about that Fire Ferrets jersey. Someone please make that happen.

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Posted in Fantasy, Television