Fury Road

Mad Max Fury Road has been praised on a number of levels. Much of the conversation has been centered around it’s use practical special effects and its treatment of gender. Those are worthy elements, but I want to talk about other things.

First of all, there’s the movies unique rhythm. Many action movies--even well-made ones like Guardians of the Galaxy or Captain America: The Winter Soldier suffer from a samey-ness, not because the characters or stories are anything alike, but because the movies themselves are structured similarly. There are no wasted moments . Everything important is there and everything unimportant is left out. But rhythmically, this strength can become a weakness. Because they are paced similarly It means the movies FEEL the same on a physical level even if the stories themselves are very different.

Fury Road is different.

Fury Road opens with a flurry of character introduction, plot, and world-building that would take up the first third- to one-half of most movies. Max is chased, captured, escapes, and is recaptured again with such whiplash speed, I wondered what was the point of having him escape at all.

After this initial whirlwind tour, the movie hits us with a car chase through the desert that stttreeettttches on and on. Furiosa escapes the Citadel is a single-beat of action on par with “Nick Fury is attacked“ in Winter Soldier or the prison break scene in Guardians of the Galaxy. Yet where these beats last only moments in the latter to movies, in Fury Road, Furiosa’s escape provide the spine of the film.  In Fury Road the character moments don’t  happen around the action scenes, they happen inside of them.

Later it does the opposite, taking a sequence that other movies would build into a set piece--the night fight with the Bullet Farmer--and has the majority of the sequence happen completely off screen.

Bizarre.

And then there’s the climax. Theoretically, this should be the moment where things get bigger and better, where we build to the ultimate moment--is just a repetition of what we’ve seen before…a car chase through the same desert they just passed through back the way they came.

Structurally and literally, the movie is going backwards.

On paper, pacing-wise, this story is an abomination.

On screen, it works beautifully because the rhythms are so different from what we’re used to seeing, we can’t predict where the next beat will land and thus we remain totally engaged.

Great stuff.

Secondly, I like how quietly examined the different ways we use religious ritual in our lives. Immmortan Joe, the War Boys, the Vulvalini, and the Wives all used ritual movements or gesture. In other words, those rituals weren’t just things they believed with their minds or said with their lips, it was something they enacted with their bodies.

I think many times, when it comes to religion, we want to equate it with the mind, with what we believe. Something that we can support or disprove with reasons and rationality.

But religion and religious rituals operate on a level more primal level. Sometimes they control us, sometimes they inspire us, sometimes they are part of our community--helping us celebrate or as a way of telling insiders from outsiders…and sometimes they bring us comfort even if we don’t completely understand, remember, or believe in them.

A third  thing, I liked about the movie was its approach to death. The film might make a statement about gender and politics, but the violence is apolitical--hero and villain alike are stabbed, shot, or thrown under wheels.

And while certainly some deaths are bigger, sadder, or more satisfying than others because of our connection with the characters, no life is treated as inherently more important or valuable than another. It’s  a rare thing in action movies

In Guardians of the Galaxy, for example, Groot’s death is treated as heroic and tragic and valorous; the death of the dozen or so faceless goons he skewered several minutes earlier is treated as a fuck yeah/comedy moment.

Yes, Nux sacrifices himself to save his friends in Fury Road just as Groot does in Guardians of the Galaxy, the deaths feel different. Nux’s death is about Nux--in a sense it is a victory for him as a good death is something he has been working towards the whole movie. Whereas Groot’s death doesn’t seem to be about Groot or even about death. It seems to be about getting an emotional reaction from the audience.

Fury Road treats death with respect, neither glamorizing nor trivializing it. In Fury Road, death is simply death. What matters is our attitudes towards it or our reactions in the fact of it.

The last thing that struck me about Mad Max Fury Road is the thing that struck me the hardest, even though it’s also the thing about which I have the least to say.

It’s the moment where the villainous henchman shouts with a mixture of pride and grief: “I had a little baby brother! And he was perfect! Perfect In Every Way!”

It’s not because of what the line reveals about Rictus Erectus’ character. It’s not because of how the scene speaks to the objectification of mothers as breeders and children as success objects or the role of body perfection and gender and their relationship to power in Immortan Joe’s--and by extension our own--society. It’s not because Rictus was played by Nathan Jones and I like seeing ex-pro wrestlers--even obscure and unsuccessful ones--in movies.

It’s because I once had a little brother too.

Transformers: The Budiansky Years (Part 3)

“I find it hard to believe you’re as cold and heartless as your race thinks we Autobots are.”

-Skids to Donny Finkleberg, Transformers #22

I used to resent Optimus Prime.

He was too perfect. Mighty warrior. Wise philosopher. Skilled diplomat. All-around goody-two shoes.

How could anyone live up to that? And if they could, how could that kind of person even be interesting?

I was a cynical kid.

Modern Transformers comics play up the war between the Autobots and Decepticons. They also go deeper into the politics of the war--the influences that shaped it, the characters that ignited it, the way it came to be.

What they don’t do, at least not to the same extent as Budiansky did, is emphasize the practical difference between the two sides.

Autobots believe in preserving and defending life. Decepticons believe in conquering it.

Autobots will even stop in mid-battle to protect human and other lives. Avoiding human casualties proves to be the undoing of Skids in #19 (Command Performances!"). In issue #16 ("Plight of the Bumblebee!"), Bumblebee even prioritized helping humans over saving fellow Autobot Jetfire--a sharp contrast to modern Transfomers comics where Bumblebee describes the risks to three humans who are exploring the Decepticon base below as “acceptable losses” (Transformers: Infiltration, #4).

In Issue #24 ("Afterdeath!") of the 80s comic book, while conducting a battle in a video game world, Optimus Prime would rather be destroyed than put even virtual lives at risk. It’s a decision that seemed idealistic, stupid, and nonsensical at the time, especially since his suicidal adherence to his own code of conduct endangers REAL lives since he was essentially taking himself out of the picture and thus giving the Decepticons an enormous advantage.

Meanwhile, in the 2014 movie  Transformers: Age of Extinction movie, Optimus Prime intends to kill the humans that are hunting Transformers.

You've come a long way, baby.

Part of the change--at least in the comics-- is that the audience for Transformers comics has aged. But I also think our attitude towards civilian casualties has changed in the decades since the Transformers first came on the scene. We view them as a regrettable, but necessary part of modern war, assuming we even think of them at all.

I am so used to the current worldview that I didn’t even notice how my attitude changed until I reread the 80s comics and realized how often Budiansky’s Autobots were putting the protection of life ahead of strategic advantage.

It was…a sobering realization.

Optimus Prime’s credo is “Freedom is the Right of All Sentient Beings”…an odd amalgam of Reagan-era American jingoism (The right to be free) and the Buddhist bodhisattva vows (To liberate all sentient beings).

Red, white (okay, silver), and blue coloring aside, I like to think of Optimus as having at least one giant steel foot the latter camp. Compassion is often described as one of his core traits, which is central to Mahayana Buddhism. Enlightened beings are also credited with discernment and wisdom, which Optimus possessed in abundance (Letting himself getting blown up over a videogame notwithstanding). They are also sometimes describe as having extraordinary powers although our Autobodhisattva would be the first endowed with the ability to remake his body into the form of an eighteen-wheeler.

And of course, there is the core of the Bodhisattva vows, to remain on Earth, forsaking Nirvana for oneself until all beings are liberated from the suffering brought about by the Three Poisons.  Optimus Prime also chooses to take up the mantle of Earth’s suffering, fighting to defend the planet.

If we’re going to go all-in on Transformers and Buddhist iconography, we can even make a case for each of Budiansky’s first three Decepticon leaders embodying one of the Three Poisons--Greed (power-hungry Megatron), Ignorance (Shockwave and his cold indifference), and Fear (the miserly Ratbat).

Move over Pali canon, there’s some new sutras in town. One of them is about a car wash that hypnotizes people.

Its all happening, baby.

There are things to criticize about Bob Budiansky’s Transfomers comics. Some of them were childish (Sky Lynx taking kids to a space carnival). Some of the premises were cheesy (The mind-controlling car wash, although let‘s face it, Stephen King would make hay with something like that.). And the less said about ‘Brick Springstern’ the better.

But his focus on characters’ personal stories, the way human and robot change each other, and a dedication to the natural conflict between those fighting to preserve life and those indifferent to them makes for much richer reading than one might first guess.

They might not be what we think Transformers should be about. But the storytelling is solid. And once you realize what you’re looking at, they‘re far from boring.

(*) There was a monk who got turned into a fox though. So it’s not like there isn’t SOME precedent.

Transformers: The Budiansky Years (Part 2)

“These robots are prone to highly imitative behavior when exposed to humans.”

-Circuit Breaker, Transformers #23 (Decepticon Graffiti)

The first panel of Bob Budiansky’s first Transformers issue (#5) shows us a full page panel of a black and white episode of the Honeymooners. The next page Is another single-page panel that shows the Honeymooners episode is playing on just one of a number of televisions, each tuned to a different channel. In addition to the black and white sitcom, we see news brodcasts, game shows, and sports broadcasts. And standing before the screens watching…the cyclopean Decepticon commander Shockwave.

“Very illuminating,” he says.

In these opening two panels on these opening two pages, Budiansky introduces us to a theme that he will return to again and again--the effect of the humans and Transformers on each other’s worlds and worldviews.

Humans have been part of the Transformers story from the beginning. The Witwickys--staples of both the comics and the cartoon--were introduced before Budiansky began writing and continued to be a part of it after he left.

But Budiansky added many more characters of his own creation. Billionaire energy industrialist GB Blackrock and Josie Beller are introduced in #5 (via one of the televisions Shockwave is watching). Blackrock becomes an ally of the Autobots while Beller turns into the vengeful Circuit-Breaker.

.Selfish and neurotic comic book writer Donny Finkelberg is introduced in Issue #15 and slowly undergoes a change of heart from self-centered, self-loathing and greedy to making a gesture of altruism at personal cost to himself at the end of Issue #23.

Other human characters enter the comic and disappear as quickly as they appear. Like many of the Transformers themselves, human characters burst into the story for an issue or two and then vanish from the book--and unlike the Transformers they don’t even get the benefit of the occasional one or two panel cameo appearance in the background of crowd or battle scenes. If G.B. Blackrock is the human equivalent of Grimlock, Blaster, or Bumblebee then characters like Ricky Vasquez (Issue #21, ) are Gears or Huffer (*)

But although their encounters with the Transformers are brief, their lives are changed from their contact with the Cybertronians.

There’s Joey Slick (“Shooting Star!” Issue #13) who goes from loser to losing himself while becoming rich and then finding himself and his own inner courage, thanks to the unwilling…and unwitting…help of Megatron.

There’s hot headed Jake Dalrymple (Issues #19 and 20) who pursues Skids after the Autobot scrapes his car. Dalrymple’s interference ends up in Skids near destruction at the hands of Ravage but in the end (after finally listening to his girlfriend Frannie), Dalrymple courageously rams the Decepticon with his car, saving Skids and Charlene.

Issue #20 also features Small town-girl Charlene  (not to be confused with research assistant Charlie from Issues #29-30 who helps Blaster and Goldbug overcome the Scraplets) who ends up having a star-crossed, if chaste romance with Skids (although the panels where she washes him in his vehicle mode are suggestive --it‘s not a Whitesnake video, but it‘s pretty close for a kids‘ comic book).

And the change goes both ways. The Transformers are also shaped by their encounters with the humans.

From trucker Bomber Bill (Issue #10, “The Next Best Thing To Being There!”) to rock star Brick Springstern (Issue #14, “Rock and Roll-Out!“) to dishonest used car salesman Big Steve (Issue #32, “Used Autobots”),  the Transformers and humans are agents of change in one another’s lives.

We mostly see these two-way relations with the Autobots, but the Decepticons are not immune. Megatron is duly impressed by Joey Slick’s courage in “Shooting Star,” while  in less noble fashion, The Battlechargers Runabout and Runamuck are inspired by the sight of a misbehaving child to abandon their assigned mission in favor of a cross country vandalism spree defacing American national monuments (Issue #23, “Decepticon Graffiti.”)

In Budiansky’s world, Transformers and humans are continuously surprising each other. In each other they find things to admire, things that are disappointing, and things that inspire them. Organic or robot, each of them gains a new perspective on their world from their time spent in the world of the other.

In short, they transform one another.

The comic is about exactly what its title tells us it is. The nature of that transfomation though…well, sometimes that’s about more than meets the eye.

(*) Which still puts them a step above Windcharger or Trailbreaker.

Transformers:The Budiansky Years (Part 1)

Given that that I’ve written a whole slew of fictional counselling sessions with them, it’s probably no surprise I’m a fan of the Transformers. I’ve loved them since I was a kid.

What might be surprising is that in spite of the fact I collected the Marvel comics run from #1 into the early thirties, for the most part, I often found those comics boring.

Too much people. Not enough giant robots fighting.

The writer on most of those comics was a fellow named Bob Budiansky, Budiansky created the backstories and names for most of the Transformers and took over writing duties on the comic starting with Issue #5. Years later, another writer, Simon Furman, took over the book. Furman’s run on the Transformers is considered a high point of the series. Most modern Transformers comics are still built on the foundation laid by Simon Furman: galactic scale warfare, tribal politics, the meaning of leadership, forays into mysticism and religion, and a Cybertronian-centric narrative.

But revisiting those Budiansky issues recently, I have a new appreciation for his stories. They were different from what I wanted at the time, but rereading he first thirty or so issues of his run on Transformers I notice three recurring points of focus: smaller-scale personal stories, the interaction between humans and Transformers, and an emphasis on morality.

Although Transfomers is ostensibly about a multi-million year old, galaxy-spanning robot war, Budiansky tended to use the war as a setting for his stories rather than as the story itself. Most of his best stories featured only one or two protagonists struggling with a specific problem or limitation.

Sometimes he would do this by isolating characters.

For example, from issue #5 to Issue #8 when he rediscovers the Dinobots (*), Ratchet is the ONLY Autobot character in the comic, the rest having been incapacitated since Issue #4. It’s hard to have story about a war between giant robot armies when one of the armies has only ONE member, and a medic, at that.

But the story is not about the galactic war. It is about Ratchet finding a way to rescue his friends in the face of insurmountable odds and his own self-doubt…and defeating Megatron, the mightiest of Decepticons in the process (**).

In a similar fashion, Bumblebee is isolated (although by choice, feeling he is a liability to the group)  in Issue #16. Skids is the only Autobot in Issue #20 (“Showdown!”) and Ravage the only Decepticon to make a physical appearance (although Megatron shows up in a dream sequence). In issue #13 (“Shooting Star!”), Megatron is the lone Transformer to appear, and he is locked in gun mode for most of the issue--the protagonist of the story is a human, turning the Transformers into side characters in their own comic.

Even when there are numerous characters in the story, the emotional arc often centers around just one or two characters. A number of Autobots are in on the action in issue #10, but the story’s emotional arc(and climactic moment) revolves around Huffer and his homesickness.

Similarly, issues #17 and 18 introduce us to a number of new Autobots and Decepticons who are fighting on Cybertron, but the war is not the story. The war is the setting. The story is the story of Blaster, an Autobot defying orders to first rescue, then avenge his friend Scrounge, an Autobot labelled as useless, but who ends up both discovering crucial information and dying courageously for the Autobot cause.

The Decepticons, as the villains, tend to get less in the way of personal treatment, but Budiansky does attempt to make the Decepticon leaders distinct from one another:

Shockwave, Megatron’s rival for command of the Decepticons, is coldly logical, a strong contrast to the more hot-blooded Megatron. Meanwhile one of the most unique of the Decepticon high command is the (by Transformer standards) diminutive Ratbat, whose leadership style is more in keeping with a penny-pinching bureaucrat than a bloodthirsty conqueror (***).

Even Megatron, whose personality for the most part is indistinguishable from countless other villainous would-be despots, has his moments. Issue #25 is focused around Megatron’s inability to accept the death of Optimus Prime in the previous issue. Whether the denial is brought about by a twisted form of grief at the loss of the foe that has defined his existence for four million years or the blow to Megatron’s ego that it was a human and not the Decepticon leader who killed Prime, the result adds an interesting, if unexpected, layer of depth to a previously one-dimensional character.

I love the way story reveals character now. But back in 1986 I wanted to see more robots, more fighting, and More Than Meets The Eye.

I also wanted to see less of something in my Transformers comics.

That something was humans.

We’ll tackle that in Part 2

(*) Issue #8 also featured the Dinobots being beaten by two different opponents less than fifteen pages apart despite a five-to-one numerical advantage. Their next appearance was for two panels eleven issues later when they quit the Autobots and they didn’t show up again until #27. Grimlock and Co. might be signature characters in Transformers comic book lore, but they got off to an underwhelming start to say the least.

(**) It also established a link between Ratchet and Megatron which would be revisited later in the series by Furman, a link that probably wouldn’t have happened without Budiansky’s story. But it’s a brilliant storytelling juxtaposition. Optimus Prime and Megatron are ideological opposites, but they are both powerful warriors and leaders. Ratchet on the other hand is far lesss-powerful, charismatic, and lower in the command structure not to mention a medical officer and non-combatant. The difference between Autobot and Decepticon philosophies is not best embodied by the difference between Optimus Prime and Megatron. It’s embodied in the difference between Megatron and RATCHET.

(***)When the Decepticons launch a successful surprise assault on the Autobots, Ratbat rejoices at the ambush’s energy efficiency, exclaiming: “What a banner day this will become in the annals of Decepticon fuel accounting!” It’s no “Kneel before Zod,” that‘s for sure.

Books: Christopher Buelhman

I picked up Christopher Buelhman's The Necromancer’s House on Monday. I read through one hundred pages in the bookstore.

By Saturday afternoon I had read all four of his books: The Necromancer's House, Those Across The River, Between Two Fires, and The Lesser Dead.

They're all great and all very different from one another thanks to the variety of settings he uses (The Lesser Dead is set in 1970s New York while Between Two Fires takes place in plague-ridden Darg Ages France) but the thing I wanted to rave about from a technical sense is how well Buelhman understands set-ups and pay-offs.

He is so good at exposition--at giving you exactly as much information as you need for where you are in the story. He doesn’t give you so much that you see where things are going long before they get there.

But he doesn’t hold things back or hide things either so that he can give you a SHOCKING TWIST that has you feeling cheated or flipping back through pages to find something that you missed.

Everything is right there on the page.

More Than Meets The Mind--Episode 13: Razorclaw (Decepticon)

RAZORCLAW: It was the most awesome battle I’ve been privileged to be a part of. The denizens of Charon should be grateful.

That’s an interesting perspective.

Those that survived will be talking about that battle for the rest of their lives. It’s the most significant thing that has ever happened to that backwater and the only thing it will be remembered for.

The survivors described it as the most hellish day of their lives.

The most hellish moment of their lives? It was glorious. It was the best thing that could ever have happened to them.

I don’t---

Let me tell you about my day.

This morning, Starscream pulled me aside for a “frank talk about the direction of the Decepticon cause “ and to not-so-subtly gauge my level of support for his potential leadership.

Next, I had a meeting with Ratbat about Predaking’s energy expenditure. We came in well under-budget, and were summarily rewarded by having next cycle’s budget cut by fifteen percent since we “obviously didn’t need it.’

Then  I spent three hours with Onslaught as he outlined his strategic plans for the defense of Fakkus--a planet, incidentally, that we cannot defend as it is not currently held by us and that we have no intention of capturing as it is in the middle of Autobot space and has a strategic value of exactly zero.

 Finally, Drag Strip approached me because Motormaster was--and I quote--”mean to him.” He said that as a Decepticon warrior, he should not be subject to bullying and asked about transferring from the Stunticons to the Predacons. When I told him that we were not seeking new additions, he told me he could defeat my current team with one arm missing.

What happened?

I tore off his arm and gave him the opportunity to prove it. Headstrong, Tantrum, and Rampage ripped him to pieces and Divebomb dropped the remains off Polyhex tower. It was the high point of my day.

I see.

Do you? Because now I have to attend a disciplinary review board convened for next week. Instead of thanking me for backing him up, Motormaster  lodged a formal complaint with Shockwave that I undermined him and exceeded my authority by disciplining troops under his command.

Charon was not hellish. Charon was beautiful.

Hell is middle management.

Skin Like Iron

One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them.  The Lord said to Satan, “where have you come from?”

Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.”

-Job 1:6-7

For some of us the road is more important than anything.

More important than money. More important than careers. And as guilty as we feel about it when we lay awake at night--more important to the people who are nearest and dearest to us.

"Have you considered My servant Job?" the Lord asks, and we think: Job? Who gives a shit about Job? What is there to consider about some faithful, well-to-do family man?

Take your Job and shove it, man. What can a Person of the Road learn from some…some citizen. I want to know what Satan saw going back and forth.

I want to roam around too.

Our road can be literal--wrestling, comedy, or music. It can also be a metaphorical road such as the pursuit of truth, science, or the secrets in our own heart.

Either way, we can’t not follow it.

But there is, as with all things, a price to be paid.

The road forces you to face yourself, and that’s a hard thing. Not just a thing that‘s hard, but a thing that hardens.

Townes Van Zandt’s Pancho & Lefty is a song about cowboys, courage, death, life, and regret. But it’s also a song about the road, the choice to follow where it leads, and paying the price.

Here’s the story: Pancho and Lefty are presumably bandits who terrorized the Mexican countryside in spite of the attempts of the hapless Federales to bring them to justice. Eventually, they catch up to and hang Pancho while Lefty flees to Ohio. It is strongly implied that the only reason for Pancho’s defeat was that Lefty betrayed him to the Federales, likely because he was bribed (*).

In any case, we have a few characters in our story.

Pancho, the man who fought.

Lefty, the one who fled.

And the Federales, who didn’t do anything at all.

The song contrasts Pancho and Lefty, but for me, the real contrast is between the two protagonists and the Federales. While the two men made different choices and reaped different consequences, both of them made choices.

The Federales…not so much.

The Federales claim credit for successes and rationalize failure, but they never take action. They defeat Pancho through Lefty’s actions, not their own. The only things the Federales do in the song is talk about what they could have done:  We could have caught Pancho anytime we wanted. We let Lefty go…out of kindness.

And for what? The song starts out talking about “All the Federales” but by the last chorus there are only “A few grey Federales” left.  Their bold talk, their self-righteousness, their caution, their lack of action gains them nothing.  They are as subject to death and aging as Pancho and Lefty. The only difference is unlike the song’s protagonists, they remain nameless and faceless, greying and dying while talking about things they could have done.

Pancho chooses the road and dies on it. Lefty starts along the road and turns back. The Federales refuse to step on the road at all. And as a result, from the beginning of the song to the end, they never change

It would be easy to judge them for it.

But as we learn from Pancho and Lefty’s respective fates, choosing the road is no guarantee of successful travels. Like Pancho, we can strive fully and still fail, with no one to listen to or care about the things we most want to communicate. Like Lefty, we can quit and bury everything we once strived for and spend the rest of our new lives frozen with regret and wondering about what could have been.

We romanticize the road. As the unnamed narrator cautions us in the first verse, we think it will keep us “free and clean.” Whatever our dream, we believe we can sink into it and it will keep us from harm, that the righteous armour of our commitment to a cause  is the only protection we need.

We find out this is not the case. We learn things about the world, about others, about ourselves that we might not have wished to discover. We find failure, rejection and disappointment. We experience betrayal, sometimes at the hands of others, sometimes due to our own shortcomings, insecurities, or expectations. Our victories don’t bring us the things we expect; instead of an end to the road, we find it now stretches out further than we ever dreamed. Sometimes instead of a clear path, the road becomes murky and hard to follow or expands into a labyrinth.

As a result, we harden ourselves. We find ourselves wearing our skin like iron. We will not let what we’ve seen, what we’ve felt, what we’ve learned hurt us again.

But in doing so, we becoming something other than what we were. It’s never talked about in the song, but I wonder if on the morning of the Day of the Dust, Pancho or Lefty ever looked in the mirror and wondered what had happened to them, how the pursuit of what they loved had turned them into something they no longer recognized.

Something to mull over.

I started this post talking about Job (**). He’s an interesting case. He never wanted to be on the road. But the road found him anyway. God brought it to him.

That sometimes happens. None of us are safe. Some of us choose the road, but sometimes--through tragedy, adversity, or the unexpected--the road chooses us.

(*)Not everyone agrees with that assessment. At least one writer points out that there is no textual evidence in the lyrics that Pancho and Lefty EVER EVEN MET EACH OTHER. Which is mind-blowing and textually true, but still feels like a reach to me.

(**) Which is weird, because spiritually speaking, the Book of Job doesn't do much for me. I'm an Ecclesiastes man to the bone.