A Disturbance in the Force

By now, anyone who even casually skims news about Star Wars, or entertainment news in general, will be well aware of the teeming widespread reaction across the world to apparent leaks of scenes that have been altered in the impending Star Wars BD release. 


Notoriously, this isn't the first time the Star Wars films have come under the revisions of its creator; fashioning what I would argue is the world's first meta-saga. Star Wars for a long time has not just been about the story within, but has also become about its own revisions, reinterpretations and embellishments. 


Along the way, Star Wars fandom has been scattered along a wide spectrum of approval, ranging from the theatrical Original Trilogy, to anything touched by George Lucas to date, and every position in between. In a matter of hours, we have been able to witness this 33 year distribution of Star Wars fandom, as almost every position along the spectrum has been thrown into the mix of the blogosphere.

Of the scenes in question, the most infamous of these is the new vocalisation of Darth Vader in the Original Trilogy's most climactic moment; Anakin's redemption from the dark side.

As I write this, there have already been thousands of forum pages and millons of words utilised to comment, criticise, deny and justify this clip alone. I want to approach my own comments from the perspective of an explicit cognitive dissonance that has been caused by this single alteration to the film; a dissonance that I think is exactly why the fandom of Star Wars has been so scattered over the years.

Upon hearing the audio and later seeing this clip, my mind immediately became torn between the part of me that lamented my expectations and the part that wanted to appreciate the revised vision for this crucial scene.

This first part I would hazard identifies with what seems to be the wider consensus. Star Wars has often been described (even by Lucas himself) as a silent movie of sorts; where the visuals and music crucially tell the story in a visceral manner that dialogue cannot engage with. That notion is epitomised in this very scene as Williams' score rouses the audience as the primary story-teller. The Emperor's theme, heard up to this point only as a deep chant, is now a powerful choral orchestration that builds until it is broken by a reprise of the Force theme, as the dark side is vanquished from Anakin and the galaxy at the same time. With these techniques, the scene in its original state, played almost perfectly; the emotion and tension had been precisely triangulated throughout the Throne Room scene and at this crucial moment, the audience found themselves searching the soulless mask of Vader, looking for any sign that he may find his humanity to save his son. The simple addition of dialogue from Vader now changes that experience and undermines what has led me to appreciate this scene.

As a culture we have come to appreciate Star Wars for two key reasons; its appeal to our sense of nostalgia, and our appreciation of the art in telling the story. The alteration to this quintessential scene has immediately negated the former, and thrown the latter into a matter for dispute. This is how the first part of my mind laments the scene that was, and feels a resentment to the scene that replaced it.

This now brings me to the other side of my dissonance, which I am trying harder to engage with in order to enjoy the BD release as much as possible (admittedly a difficult thing to do with this scene in particular). With the reality of this revision, I think it is important to try to understand and even appreciate what Lucasfilm is adding to the saga. 

These films as a saga, are centred around Anakin and his choices, we witness in this moment a crucial character-forming decision as Anakin redeems himself. The moment of that decision is the key to this scene and is the reason Lucasfilm chose to include Vader's exclamation. As the Emperor bears down on Luke, Vader appears unwavered by his son's pleas, but suddenly turns on the Emperor to save the day. In the context of the Original Trilogy, this worked well because Vader's character and his Jedi past were largely a mystery; however now as the ending chapter of a six-film saga, Anakin's decision suddenly has a great deal more baggage behind it. We know who Anakin was and what drove him to the dark side (a turn that was criticised in Episode III to be poorly setup, yet we are happy for his turn back to happen without even a word spoken). It seems unfitting that with such a dense backstory, the most important action Anakin enacts would occur without the essential filmic device of telegraphing that very decision. The exclamation of "No!" is that salient moment when we know Vader has made his decision.

Having addressed both parts of my mind split by this change to the film, I am confident that with time and thought I will eventually come to accept these new revisions as I have all others with varying regard. However, I can't help but wonder why in making these 'improvements' which no one cared to ask for, there remain neglected faults which have been explicitly documented by fans for years. I think at this stage it's wise to say that's a discussion for another time.

Little Teaser #2

The official hype campaign for The Dark Knight Rises escalates with a teaser poster. This is the second image released for this film, following the publicity shot of Tom Hardy as Bane released a few months back.

As is par for any good teaser key art, we are being treated to a highly conceptual representation of the film that tells us much by not showing a lot at all.

It looks as though Gotham is to be put through some serious trials in this film; visually it appears to be orders of magnitude even worse than either the chemical attack or domestic terrorism that befell Gotham respectively in the last 2 Nolan films. The initial impression from the artwork is of some sort of catastrophe set upon the city, however after some reflection, I can't help but notice a distinct lack of fire and/or explosion, like the DVD key art for The Dark Knight. So what we could be seeing isn't so much the catastrophic destruction of Gotham but rather its decay, perhaps in Batman's absence (which the newly minted teaser trailer seems to imply).

I would also deduce that the decay of Gotham (violent or otherwise) portrayed in this key art represents the internalised drama of the film in which Bruce Wayne's resolve to serve justice is crumbling. We are being shown a rather bleak aesthetic with a heavily subdued (virtually a greyscale) colour pallet

and the artwork's edges receding to an infinite blackness. We are no doubt being sold that this film will be Bruce Wayne's darkest hour; it is a common, yet essential dramatic convention, signifying and justifying the conclusion to an ordeal - as Harvey Dent said in The Dark Knight, "The night is darkest just before the dawn." In the darkness and destruction apparent in the artwork, the only light is cast from the sky - ostensibly the Batman symbol - ultimately Batman is the only hope for the city. I would even go so far as to say also that the persona of Batman could be the only thing to save Bruce Wayne from his own personal turmoil.


Likening this poster to the graffitied wall teaser for The Dark Knight - which represented so well that film's idas of anarchy - I'm sure that there are deeper thematic delineations in this key art, ones that I doubt I could put my finger on without knowing more about the film.

I am greatly looking forward to future key arts for this film, to see where we are going to be taken thematically and artistically by Nolan's final story for Batman, and on a personal note to see how accurately I may be over analysing what may have just been a really cool way to show us the Batman logo.

Little Teaser

I've found this blog has drifted away from Design topics somewhat and begun to mutate into a compendium of libertarian sympathy. Although I do have a mild passion for the fight against government tyranny, my primary passion is Design and artwork for film and that is the course where I would like to steer this ship back towards. 

So I thought to turn over this new leaf, I'd have a look the recent teaser poster for Pixar's new film Brave. 

Generally I love teaser artwork, its typically the most engaging and creative collateral made for a film; the artwork is required to arrest the audience with some intrigue or a strong visual concept based on a wider abstraction of the film. Its almost always more interesting than the head-collage of top-billed cast that usually follows in the subsequent theatrical campaign.

At first glance, I would not have picked this artwork to be for a Pixar film, it is distinctly more atmospheric and mature than any previous Pixar key art perhaps with the exception of Wall-E, which I think is a good sign for this film. I love the lighting used in this artwork; using mist to enhance the sense of distance and amply the glow of the low-lying light source (sun). The bold silhouette of the title treatment and the sole redhead figure gives a distinct tenor of adventure and scale. Furthermore, the artwork constructs a sensation of space and direction, fashioned from the trajectory of the stream running from the character's vantage point and positioning us in the artwork at the base of the poster. The floating magical blue lights trailing behind the character signifies a direction to her movement, a journey. This impression is further underlined by the hazy forms behind the title treatment, lending to a sense of the unknown lying beyond. 

The darker ambience to the artwork along with the style of the title treatment gives the artwork a distinct Burtonesque (referring to Tim Burton) feel, not unlike the key art for Big Fish. The fiery red curls too particularly evoke impressions of Burton's take on the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland.

What this teaser artwork is telling me about the film Brave both excites and concerns me; Pixar seem to be attempting a few fundamentally new things with this movie. This will be the first Pixar film with a female lead character, which of itself is novel and will open up the potential for a new field of character exploration which has yet to be fully realised in a Pixar film. It does however have the potential to in essence change the particular dynamic that has made Pixar's movies so universally appreciated; that is - in reference to Movie Bob's Up review - "...the most primal of mannish heartaches, the father/son dynamic". The setting also appears to be more fantastical than previous films which have always kept some semblance of modernity to them.

These implications of setting and character - bolstered by a key art with a distinct quality of ambience and fatefulness - are pointing towards Pixar's artistic intentions of carrying a more mature tone with this film. Though with Pixar's track record, I have no doubt there will be plenty of fun to be had on the way.

Free Choice Matters

For a change, I want to post about topics other than government strangle-holds on certain freedoms which I can loosely attribute to Graphic Design. Thusly, I must exorcise the last reserve of my libertarian rejoinder toward the despairing news that featured in the first WTF Edition of Weekly Inspiration... 

The figuratively-free exchange of media has defined the age we live in and fostered with it a cultural undercurrent of libero-democratic ideals, which frequently run against notions of authority and censorship. We have come to expect the online environment to remain an open-source of both consumption and contribution, one that has no need for an omniscient overseeing entity to ensure all runs smoothly.

Reflect on the current state of the Internet and just how it came to be; with media streaming, news services, Facebook, forums, gaming, dating, pornography, education, religion, science, literature, editorials, comedy and competitions - to rattle off a few examples. The Internet is a digital garden bed of culture that has blossomed without the guiding hand of any one overseer; it is an attestation of the robustness of our culture which has duplicated and flourished in a new digital domain. We have witnessed in a manner of decades a microcosm of the natural, self-structured way in which culture, civilisation and democracy emerges, and all by the virtue of a free exchange of media. For a government now, at this late stage of the Internet's manifestation, to attempt to 'filter' what we have free access to consume is antithetical to the values that are the bedrock of modern-online culture.

To the Australian government I say, by all means, stop and persecute people who break our laws and harm our children both on and offline. Those people, like the rest of us, have exercised their freedom and in choosing to break the law, have invited the repercussions to fall upon themselves. But for the rest of us, who have not broken any law, nor have any intent to ever do so, we do not deserve to have that which we value most diluted without our consent.

Weekly Inspiration #5 (WTF Edition)

http://www.news.com.au/technology/internet-filter/telstra-optus-to-begin-censoring-web-next-month/story-fn5j66db-1226079954138


The eminent Christopher Hitchens has said that he likes to begin his days with a distinct sense of 'annoy'; I'm paraphrasing here but it is an emotion that acts as his motivator to write and to challenge the stupidity that goes on in the world.


This post of "Weekly Inspiration" is unique in the sense that I have done this segment with the intent of it being largely positive and a means to direct people towards links that instilled in me a positive inspiration. Well I am now breaking the mould as I, agreement with Hitchens, have felt that negative inspiration is just as constructive.


If this linked story turns out to be true, those of us who are concerned about individual freedom and the government's innate desire to subdue it will all collectively feel the distinct sense of annoy. This is a sense beyond shock, as we've known of government intentions to 'filter' the net for some time; this is more a sense of dread, disgust and dismay. The issue of censorship had faded away as more immediate (deliberate perhaps?) government-instigated disasters began to flood the news-space, but it now seems to be cropping up once again.


What I'm unsure about with this development is that it seems to be a voluntary initiative by Telstra and Optus, both whom I was under the impression that they had been attempting to make the push to censorship difficult for the government. But now if it turns out they are now pioneering a policy of censorship, I can imagine some mass-emigration to begin occurring with those ISPs. I wonder too what will the state of Australia's 'filtering' be when the entire country is supplied Internet services entirely from a monopoly company umbillically linked to the government.


I write this as I am forced to resubmit an advertisement for a bunch of movies to be released in August. The reason is that one of the titles briefed to me was rated R18+ and as you can imagine in the milquetoast society that Australia has become, certain publications cannot advertise movies rated as such. I suspect that the nature of film distribution in South Australia has something to do with it but in any case, I stand by the same principle... No government imposed rule should be able to prevent a population that is statistically made up a group of law-abiding, self-determinant, intellectually-competent adults from consuming media that does not directly, in its production, cause explicit and deliberate harm to anyone.

Weekly Inspiration #4

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/3587-Game-Reviews

Its been a while since this supposedly weekly segment has been posted, so I'll try and fire out a couple in rapid succession in the coming days. Life outside this blog, which is most of it, has become a bit hectic of late and my 2-part post, faking a government plan to treat DVDs like tobacco, took more time to wrap up than I would have liked, and frankly I don't think it really hit all the right points in the end. But I digress...

I was quiet stimulated by Extra Credits discussion on game reviewing and even inspired me to consider (maybe) cranking out a review or two and see how they fit...

"The most important critique of modern reviews is that there's no critique, only review."

The Packaged War - Part 2: Someone Think of the Children

With its plans to undermine the tobacco companies' leverage of branded packaging well underway, the government has been greatly encouraged to pursue new avenues; where the superior intellectual and moral mettle of parliament can serve to remove further temptations from the landscape of excess, pervasive in a free society. Where many have expected the next target to be alcohol or fast food, the government has instead chosen DVDs, video games and other products of home entertainment to be the next commercial product to which it will legislate mandatory plain packaging.


DVDs have exploded in popularity over the last decade and begun to normalise the behaviour of watching films in the home. Removing film-watching from the context of a social activity has degenerated the wholesomeness of cinema-going and condensed its audiences into reclusive enclaves whom are more likely to remain sedentary at home rather than engage with the outside world for their entertainment. From this, the government has deemed it necessary to educate the public of the implied social, cultural and health effects of excessive consumption of home video. 

The key to ensuring the success of such regulation, is to comprehensively convince the population of a product's ill-effects on the vulnerable; children are the quintessential proxies for projecting all worst-case scenarios. By incorporating such negatives into the conventional wisdom of the populace, a government can convince people that in limiting the choices of adults, they are protecting the wellbeing of children. From there its a mere extension of reasoning that products that are bad for children are also bad for adults, and should thusly be extracted from the palette of acceptable choices. With ingenius foresight, governments the world over have spent decades acclimatising us to assess the suitability of films by arbitrary ages with rather flimsy justifications. It is from this entrenched system that the government will finally be able to pull the reins on the insidious marketing arms of the home entertainment industry.

The Packaged War - Part 1 On to the Next Step...

With largely bipartisan support from both sides of the parliament and surveys concluding an overwhelming public support, the government's plain packaging policy is well on its way to pioneering a new front in the war against tobacco, and beyond. 

Too long have we allowed people to be willing victims of insidious branding and Orwellian marketing which take the malleable minds of the weak-willed and dilute them into mindless consumption machines, ordained to make the wrong lifestyle choices. 

To our fortune however, the White Knight of the people, the government, has taken up the mantle against the amoral corporations that pull the strings, so that - without irony - they can reclaim our free will for us. We have the luxury to be nonchalant as we, the marionettes, dangle and convulse sporadically beneath them in their tussle, losing nothing more than a few trifling shards of our freedoms. We can rest assured that the government is, after all, acting in our best interests.

What critics might call an untested and conjectural policy, is attributed by a far greater number as a pioneering world-first strategy that strikes at the heart of the ills of our social and physical health. The broad community has demonstrated in its support for this measure that the principal of personal choice cannot trump the greater social good, which is burdened by the selfish choices of individuals; choices motivated evidentially by packaging. Spurred on, the government now looks to the next agressor towards the serfs in its charge; a shadowy looming menace that has, for years, circled the fringes of our culture; a purveyor of the most insidious branding and garish packaging that must be reigned in, to protect the credulous amongst us. The government is now to move against the film industry...


In part 2, I will exclusively reveal the top-secret details of the government's bold plan to protect the Australian people from the proven health and societal dangers of the products of the film industry.

Weekly Inspiration #3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5DiJ_Z6-ic&feature=relmfu

One of the YouTube's best champions of Enlightenment values, Thunderf00t has posted this video to promote an artistic and political protest. There is something very important to defend from dogmas of all stripes and this video elucidates exactly what we stand to lose if our civilisation doesn't resist.

"It is the growth of this tower that has allowed our enlightened world to proceed from the Wright brothers to landing on the moon in less than 100 years."

http://www.flickr.com/groups/dmd2011/pool/show/

Weekly Inspiration #2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfDbA48sXis

A beautifully put-together video that offers a moving perspective on life, one we don't hear often enough. Particular credit needs to be payed to the use of 'Surface of the Sun' by John Murphy (Sunshine).

"Stars must die so that I can live... I stepped out of a supernova"

Design by Bureaucracy

As a person with a strong Libertarian inclination, I found myself recently considering the impact of Government interference in my own industry of work. Perhaps despite my better judgement, I'm going to have a crack at a socio-political discussion about Design - could anything be more cringe-worthy?

What set me on this particular train of thought was a talk-back discussion regarding a cigarette company that was seeking compensation from the Australian Government for the claim that the mandatory on-pack health warnings had affected their branding and subsequent sales. There are understandable intentions on both sides of this story, but like many similar stories that have circulated over recent years, I am convinced that the Government is in the wrong.

As introduced, I have a strong Libertarian inclination, that is, my opinion is that the role of Governments in society should be strictly limited from infringing on individual freedom. They of course have a role to play in law, justice, defence, diplomacy, health, infrastructure and education and resultantly their influences do bleed into people's lives through such provisions. However, it seems that Governments can easily over-step their bounds when they begin to interfere in people's choices.

Now, before this becomes an unwieldily broad topic, I am going to bring this back to the cigarette packaging. The intention of the Government with mandatory health warnings is to advise consumers of the known health risks of smoking and as noble as it may be, it's my opinion that the Government has not only infringed on the cigarette branding but also the work of Designers. And now busy-body bureaucrats are moving forward with laws dictating that cigarettes should only be sold in plain packaging, akin to less than a 'No Frills' branding. In effect, this would decimate any local Design studio that serviced the tobacco industry. That this was even proposed raises serious concerns about the arbitrary way the Government can affect the work of Designers. 

I know nothing about Design for tobacco so any further comment would clearly be speculation, but I would like to take these concerns and transplant them to an area of Design more familiar to me. In my own niche of the Entertainment Industry, there has been considerable Government interference which has directly affected the practice of Graphic Design. The greatest area of Government influence has been in their policies on the ratings classification of films. In around 2005 the OFLC revamped the classification system, not in any substantial way, but in a rather garish 'rebranding' - it is the same letter-based rating system, with the same points of consumer advice. Unlike the old ratings however, the new ratings device makes no concessions to integrate into the artwork it accompanies. Sitting there, in it's intrusive bureaucratic fashion, the large white device ensures that the Government's rating is the primary feature of the artwork. 

My Libertarian sympathies are greatly offended by the fact that my profession - to make the most effective artwork for DVD packaging - is impinged by the Government deciding that consumers in a free market need to be overtly educated on what content is appropriate based on whatever arbitrary age/maturity group they want to divide us into.

My Design sensibilities are also offended, mainly by the visual ugliness of this Government intrusion. Perhaps it's a lack of budget to alter the artwork, or perhaps truly no one gives a shit, but the horrible ratings device is usually slapped on in it's mandated position - like the intrusive bureaucratic fingerprint it is - with no thought to the composition of the keyart or what might be covered.

What's worse is the notion put forward that R18 rated films should be only displayed in plain packaging, not unlike with the cigarettes that got me started on this topic. No! No! No! No!!!

DVDs from the US are classified in their own system, however it is displayed on the back of the sleeve, given equal weighting to the rest of the important information about the content of the disc (running time, audio formats, aspect ratio). This is how Australia should label it's film classification, the Government does not need to step in for the Entertainment Industry to ensure films are skewed to the correct audiences, there are people employed by the film companies to do that very thing - it's called marketing. 

As a Designer my function is essentially as a branch of marketing; to visually convey a film in a way that corresponds with the desired direction chosen by the marketers. There are subtle ways in which tone, colour and composition can inform a consumer if a film is right for them, ways which are much more effective than a colour-coded categorization. The Government should not be in the business of marketing because, unimpinged, we professionals will do it better every time.

Star Wars Blu-ray Key Art (continued) The Prequel Trilogy

   

This, I think, will be the last of my commentary on the Star Wars BD artwork for a while; there are plenty of other 'musings' to be done and after 3 fairly lengthy posts about essentially the same topic, I'm getting awfully close to 'beating the dead horse' territory. Naturally, this third post will be the shortest, mainly for the reason that a lot of what I have to say can be gleaned from the previous posts.

Like with the Original Trilogy artwork, I think the artistic style hits the right notes in paying homage to the now-classic hand-painted posters of Star Wars. The style and composition of the artwork follows that of the Original Trilogy, visually pairing the 2 trilogies as an intricate and artistically dynamic collection. The composition is quite literally a reflection of the Original Trilogy artwork, availing one of the few conceptual links with the Saga boxset; the congruence of the two Star Wars storylines.


I mentioned in my comments on the Original Trilogy, that either Vader or Luke were the appropriate options for the featured character in the artwork, well for the Prequel Trilogy Anakin was really the only sensible choice, but instead we have Yoda. As recognisable as Yoda is, his position as the dominating figure for any Star Wars film, let alone a trilogy of them, is an incorrect choice. Yoda is and always has been a supporting character, a means to express the deeper philosophies of the story (at least in "Empire"). To have him as the dominant character in favour of Anakin, conceptually undermines what the rest of the BD artwork has been telling us about the Star Wars saga. Furthermore as a consequence of having Yoda feature on the artwork, the key art has an obligatory tone of green; frankly, red would have been a better choice. Given the near-mythic relationship between red and blue in the Star Wars saga, it was really a missed opportunity to permeate this with the 2 trilogies.


As much the Original Trilogy's composition was its weakest point, the Prequel artwork is much stronger in this regard. The collage of supporting characters (and Anakin) occupy a more structured space; rather than filling in space on Yoda's face the collage quite gracefully frames it, giving the key art a greater sense of coalescence and making it overall the stronger artwork of the 2 trilogies.

Star Wars Blu-ray Key Art (continued) The Original Trilogy

The first thing that can be said for the key arts for the separate trilogies is that they are certainly more dynamic then the artwork for the Saga collection, which I've already talked about in my previous post. Overall, I quite like the art that has been created although it's not without its problems, both separately and as a whole. I am again glad that some level of artistry was implemented over the style (or lack thereof) of the DVD key arts.

I'm going to begin with the Original Trilogy, mostly because I am strongly of the opinion that this is where the experience of Star Wars MUST begin. Without the original films, the Prequels would have even less resonance. The Star Wars Prequels were written, designed, filmed and marketed with the original films very much in front of mind; the full intended effect of those films is inextricable from the iconography of the Original Trilogy. After all, the main hook of a prequel story is that each progression in the story foreshadows what we already know is to come. But back to the artwork...


Like with the Saga boxset, this artwork utilises a style that pays homage to the 1977 posters for Star Wars, but unlike the Saga box the artwork is dynamic, detailed and employs a colour pallet that identifies Star Wars more successfully. In fact, the dynamism of this artwork is so far removed from the Saga box that the 2 seem visually divorced from one another, I count this as a mark against the Saga Collection key art. What I like most about this style of artwork is that it embraces it's hand-painted artistry, it doesn't try to disguise the painting but instead uses bold strokes and spatters, although I think it does over-do this effect to a degree.


Featuring Vader in this artwork is almost an inevitability, and it's actually surprising that an image like this wasn't used for the Saga Collection artwork; Vader is after all the most recognisable and iconic character from the films. The only problem with this choice I find is that the concept introduced by the Saga box is at odds with what the separate trilogies are telling us about the films. The Box key art tells us that the Star Wars films are about the mirrored journeys of Anakin and Luke. It would then seem to make more conceptual sense that the Original Trilogy featured Luke as its focal character, in fact Luke is given hardly any prominence in the collage of characters and I think that is a big misstep.


While I'm on the topic of the missteps of this artwork, the biggest problem with this key art - the one that stops me from finding it as a poster and framing it on my wall - is the artwork's general lack of structure. I like the concept of 'hiding' characters within the image of Vader as it were, but it has been done without a real sense of layout and we really just have various key characters filling in the empty spaces that happen to occur in the Vader image. If the collage of characters had a layout that better fit the available space, then this artwork would be almost faultless.


Before I move on, I'm going to make a prediction (see below) that if this artwork sees the light of day here in Australia, Lando, Leia, Han, Chewy and a third of C3PO will be skillfully and with the greatest of finesse omitted from the front in favour the crucial consumer rating that defines the superior packaging design available to Australian Consumers.*
(*please read sarcasm)