The answer to the question posed in the title is that this week both the 'Batman' and 'Alien' film franchises released trailers for the next iterations in each respective series. This week has seen the release of not only trailers for those two films, but also Peter Jackson's adaption of J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' (which Anton Bursch wrote about in a diary earlier this week).
The trailer for 'Prometheus' was released today. The film marks the return of Sir Ridley Scott to the 'Alien' franchise. However, Scott has been somewhat coy about whether the film is actually connected to 'Alien,' with him & the actors involved dissuading the use of the word "prequel" to describe the film. But the trailer for the film tells another story.
With 'The Dark Knight Rises,' the full theatrical trailer was released on Monday leading to a lot of fanboy speculation. It is the final Batman film that will be directed by Christopher Nolan, with some websites wondering whether Nolan will kill Batman/Bruce Wayne in this film. Other parts of that speculation includes the possible politics of the film, since the trailer strongly hints that class inequality will be one of the themes of the film.
It's been a while since I've written a diary, so I thought I might do a little speculating about each film, and look back at the other films in their series.
'Prometheus'
Here is the just released teaser trailer for Ridley Scott's 'Prometheus':
From /Film:
Directed by Scott from a script by Damon Lindelof and Jon Spaihts, Prometheus stars Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, Rafe Spall, Logan Marshall-Green, Guy Pearce, and Patrick Wilson along with Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, and Idris Elba. The film will hit theaters June 8, 2012.
Synopsis:
Ridley Scott, director of “Alien” and “Blade Runner,” returns to the genre he helped define. With PROMETHEUS, he creates a groundbreaking mythology, in which a team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a thrilling journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.
Not much is known about the plot of the film. However, a few rumors & tidbits have leaked out. The film is allegedly set 30 years before the events of '
Alien.' The allusion to the Titan god,
Prometheus, of Greek mythology is actually the name of the human ship that makes the journey in the film, but it also has metaphorical significance within the story. As seen in the trailer, it will also involve the "
Space Jockey." It's unknown just how the Aliens (
a.k.a. Xenomorphs) will play into the plot since Scott has been tight-lipped on whether they'll even be in the film.
One other note about the 'Prometheus' trailer released today; it mimics the original 1979 'Alien' trailer almost note for note.
The original 'Alien' is probably one of the best marriages of the horror and science-fiction genres. Because of that, the original film is notable for having one of the first truly strong female characters, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), that defied many of the stereotypes of women in both genres. Ripley isn't defined by the men around her, or by her relationship to them. Weaver's Ripley is a fully realized character that is dealing with a shitty situation the best she can.
From Roger Ebert:
One of the great strengths of "Alien" is its pacing. It takes its time. It waits. It allows silences (the majestic opening shots are underscored by Jerry Goldsmith with scarcely audible, far-off metallic chatterings). It suggests the enormity of the crew's discovery by building up to it with small steps: The interception of a signal (is it a warning or an SOS?). The descent to the extraterrestrial surface. The bitching by Brett and Parker, who are concerned only about collecting their shares. The masterstroke of the surface murk through which the crew members move, their helmet lights hardly penetrating the soup. The shadowy outline of the alien ship. The sight of the alien pilot, frozen in his command chair. The enormity of the discovery inside the ship ("It's full of ... leathery eggs ...").
Another theme that runs throughout '
Alien' is sexuality and rape. H.R. Giger designed all the forms of the Alien species, with it looking biomechanical with an "
open, dripping vaginal mouth."
From The Guardian:
The 'chestburster' scene from Alien, in which an infant extraterrestrial tears its way out through John Hurt's ribcage, is a classic 'gross out' moment, although Alien scriptwriter Dan O'Bannon argues that it also functions as a metaphorical dramatisation of the male fear of penetration. He says that the oral invasion of Hurt's character was 'payback' for all those horror films in which sexually vulnerable women were terrorised by rampaging male monsters.
On film blogs, discussion of this film and its successor (
James Cameron's 'Aliens') can sometimes devolve into arguments over which is the superior movie. One crack made against '
Aliens' is that it's "action movie" and either created or uses a lot of familiar tropes of that genre. However, that's not exactly fair. Yes it's an action movie, but Cameron put some subtext into '
Aliens.'
Cameron has said he based the idea of the movie around the Aliens being a metaphor for the Vietcong. The Aliens have no technology, but are an intelligent group who overcome all the weapons & gadgets of the technologically superior force. Moreover, 'Aliens' builds on the idea of the greed of Weyland-Yutani first introduced in 'Alien.' Paul Reiser's Burke represents the worst human traits coalesced into a junior executive.
Ripley: You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage.
Cameron's '
Avatar' is sort of a mirror copy of 'Aliens' in some ways. In both films, humanity travels to a world far, far away & a corporation is trying to exploit its resources for our own gain (Aliens; terraforming LV-426 & capturing the aliens for bio-weapons research, Avatar: mining Unobtainium). In both, humanity encounters a hostile alien species that we don't really understand & any attempt to control that species results in disaster. And in both, the military/corporate defense forces are ultimately overpowered by the lower-tech alien species.
The only difference is that in 'Aliens' the audience is totally on-board with nuking the bastards to Kingdom Come and making the xenomorphs extinct.
'The Dark Knight Rises'
Is Batman a force of the "1%"?
That seems to be one of the themes presented in 'The Dark Knight Rises.'
From Slate:
Back in October, there were rumors that Christopher Nolan was going to shoot part of The Dark Knight Rises at Zuccotti Park, with the Occupy Wall Street protesters serving as backdrop for his latest version of Gotham City. That didn't happen (though there was filming near Wall Street)... Even if Nolan decided against filming at Zuccotti Park, it seems he may in fact depict Batman as the 1 percent.
The politics of superhero films can be a sometimes interesting debate. At the core of every superhero story is a notion the system or regular people are either too inept, corrupt or impotent to deal with the problems of the world, so a person or group of people must go beyond the law to achieve a just result. Although, arguably every superhero breaks the laws in doing this, within the story they do it to save lives & stop an even greater evil.
However, if any superhero on the level of Superman, Batman, Iron Man or Spider-Man were to actually exist in our reality, I highly doubt they would be universally embraced. There would be lawsuits & protests over their actions. Along the same lines, from time to time there have been debates over the entire genre where words like "fascism" are thrown around. Because Batman's parents were murdered & he has billions to spend on Batsuits & urban assault vehicles, does that give him the moral authority to tear ass through Gotham & go after criminals?
The previous film in Nolan's Batman series, 'The Dark Knight,' caused a bit of debate upon release when some claimed The Joker was a stand-in for terrorism and Batman & Gotham's response a metaphor for the War on Terror.
The Joker — who is particularly maniacal and nihilistic in this version of the Batman story — is an Osama Bin Laden-style terrorist. He not only engages in mass carnage, he aims to damage a free society by instilling fear in the public.
The Gotham City Police Department is conventional law enforcement.
And Batman is something else: a darker response to the terrorist threat. He sets up a form of domestic surveillance, using people’s cell phones. He uses torture to uncover the details of an ongoing plot.
So, what is the movie’s attitude to this Bush Administration-style approach to combatting terrorism? In some ways, it seems sympathetic. The domestic-spying system that Batman sets up is helpful to him in his campaign against the Joker. The torture elicits (somewhat) useful information. On the other hand, Lucius Fox — Batman’s aide de camp and weapon-supplier — makes a brief civil liberties speech, and says he will only go along with the spying project once. That’s better than the Bush Administration or the telecom companies have done in real life.
Mainly, though, the movie seems to paint it all in moral grays — like almost everything else in this Gotham City. This latest Batman is not exactly a hero — he is someone who fights evil while, in many ways, bearing an uncanny resemblance to it.
The depiction of Batman in both comic & film form has fluctuated greatly over the years, from the camp of the Adam West TV series to the dark, mentally disturbed version in Frank Miller's "
The Dark Knight Returns" (
the graphic-novel which is the basis for most of the "darker & grittier" interpretations of Batman).
The Nolan film series is itself a reaction to the failure of the campy-ness of the Joel Schumacher Batman films, which bottomed out with 'Batman & Robin.'
In the interview with Empire magazine, Christopher Nolan has stated some of the details about the story of 'The Dark Knight Rises.' (Mild spoilers below.)
According to Nolan, 'The Dark Knight Rises' occurs eight years after the events of 'The Dark Knight' and Bruce Wayne is not in a good place. Rumors have stated the film will incorporate some elements of the "Knightfall" storyline from the comic-book. Also, some of the plot details (especially the time difference & an older Batman) as well as some of the images of Bane, his men and the state of Gotham City seem to take elements from Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns."
Christian Bale: "How long will you let the pain and loss define your life? Walking around chasing bad guys is very heroic and attracts attention, but at the end it all accounts for, as a means to deal with the pain of a huge loss. We agreed that Bruce Wayne is absolutely sincere as Bruce Wayne, and as Batman utterly sincere but Bruce Wayne, the playboy, is a pure facade, it's a lie he has, somehow, to control one side of your soul that's not really under control. In fact, only Alfred knows who he is. It's time for Bruce Wayne to face the pain, that has always stirred his life."