Sup3rnality

I watched Spiderman 3 on Saturday night. I know, probably everyone else has watched it, seeing how it's been out since the 1st; or maybe has already watched it more than once. Well, not that it matters but I thought you'd probably be rolling your eyes at this point thinking 'Yeah, so? I've watched it last week'. For me, there isn't that much of an urgency to watch it anyway. I'm not a fan of the movie nor am I a fan of Tobey Maguire. Again, you may be thinking 'So?'. I don't know... You know how sometimes you just don't really like an actor and cannot be bothered to see a movie he's in? We'll if you have that kind of actor in mind, that's how it is for me.

Anyway, more to the point of this whole train of thought; so I watched the movie. I went to see it with my aunt and uncle, who were the ones that were really interested in seeing the movie to begin with; I was just tagging along. So we sat through the movie. Apart from my fever and a ringing in my ear (probably from the loudness), I sat through the movie fine. I had some issues with it, but it was overall okaylah...(in Malaysian terms that would mean 'so-so'). So when we left the cinema and started driving back, I casually asked what they thought of the movie before I start projecting any of my criticisms. My uncle thought that it was rubbish. My aunt had nothing much to say besides saying that (spoiler alert) *a**y shouldn't have died. Well, at this point, I started saying my piece too.

Basically, what I thought of the movie was that it was all botched up like a bad case of 'kereta potong' (think Frankenstein meets salvages of many automobile accidents). Really. I mean, you get this 'kereta potong' out of many different parts and try putting it out for show. A person buys it, and he's cruising down the road; maybe he wants to test the speed on his new wheels and he accelarates abit and then, what do you know? Another mishmash.

Really, it could have been better. They shouldn't have tried to combine too may things into one movie. The character development was crap. There were too many loose ends. In a word, I'd say 'terabur' (all over the place). Throw away those scenes that totally interrupted the flow of the story. If there's one thing I remember from listening -repeatedly- to Joss Whedon's 'Serenity' commentary (yes, I'm Headgeek of Jossdom in Malaysia, so sue me) it is that some scenes just gotta go. It may be beautiful, it may be touching, it may make the audience curl up and die with emotion; but if disturbs the show's flow, it's just gotta go... Hence the so very little scenes of Inara in 'Serenity'.

Okay, okay, back to the point. so that's what I thought of the movie. And my uncle? Well, let me just give you a brief intro about my uncle before I begin. He grew up reading comics. You name it, Spiderman, Superman, Batman, The Flash...whatever else. He used to tell me about them. How he used to have the whole collection (damn, imagine how much they would cost now if he still had them?) because his father used to send them to him from the States. So he's a great comicbook heroes fan. All them Marvel comics used to be his forte. Stories about superheroes who fight evil, fighting the bad guys who were always so ugly we would hate them at first sight. The baddies are almost non-human, and we are never sorry to see them defeated or die. My uncle read all these comic books growing up and so that is what he wanted to see.

(Another spoiler alert!)

Instead, watching it, he was disapointed with how the villain apologized, how the villain turned good again and then died right after that, how the villain was so human that all he wanted was to make his daughter better etc... And my aunty mentioned that she hated that 'that' person died too. So this were the criticisms coming from my aunt and uncle. I can't critic them any, seeing how that is their opinion and that it is different from what they would have read in their younger days.

And that suddenly made me wonder, isn't it nice but painfully naive to still want that in a movie? I mean, don't get my wrong, my uncle and aunt both very much have the cynicism of some who has lived and seen the changing of the times (for the worse) since the last 50 something years. I assure you vehemently that they are anything but naive. And yet, that is what they look for in a movie. Black hats versus white hats, a happy ending... I'm guessing, they're still looking for a fairytale amidst all the world has to offer.

And me? I am almost 22. I may not have seen or experienced much but I know alot. Sometimes I think I am too old for my age. And yet, despite that, I am still naive. Of course, not the type of naive that makes me the kind of girl who'd simper and gasp at the talk of anything inappropriate or sit back and let things happen to me cos I am merely a girl and thus have to wait for a manly man to save me (much in the vein of simpering Buffy in 'Halloween'. Not that I object having some suave fella swooping in at the first sign of danger, mind, but I can hold my own as well if it comes to that). But I know that I am.

But then, what is it that I look for in movies that are meant for entertainent; movie shows that are parodies of our lives, a reprieve from the real world so we can forget for a little while? The answer is: I look for a semblance of life. I want things to be real. It may be a story of a superhero whom of course, is not at all possible; but that doesn't mean it cannot be based on life. I want to see that the hero is perfectly flawed like any other human, that the villains are not just villains but human beings who have reasons for what they do, that good people die bacause not everyone lives happily ever after. I want to see the villain's repentance, see that the hero doesn't always prevail and get the girl, I want to see a good person die doing what he believes in.

So what does that make me? On one side I have my aunt and uncle who are looking for a fairytale on the silver screen, perhaps to fall into a story that is non-sensical as a sedative to the real world. And I, on the other hand, look for more realism even when things happening around me are real enough to touch.

Does that make me jaded? Or does it just goes to show how much the generation has changed? How, as time goes by, we cannot hope to show our children Disney movies and make them believe it? Of course, in the end they would have to learn to accept the world, but the children; we would want to preserve their innocence for as long as possible; shield them from the brutality of the world, so we can watch them play carefree without them having age lines from so much worry. we would want them to have their childhood.

And there I go veering off into another vein.

And here I am back.

So is it just me? Or are we all doomed to weariness long before our time?

I hope it's just me. Because, well, awareness and being well informed is all well and good, but sometimes I wish we didn't have to grow up so fast.

"We grew up way too fast, now there's nothing to believe" -'Name' by the Goo Goo Dolls.

I miss the days when we would pretend that we were superheroes and I'd tie a towel around my neck to make a cape trail behind me so that I could be Supergirl. Or how I used to believe I was a Ninja Turtle and I had the whole outfit (Donatello by the way. Always liked the smart ones). I
miss the days when we believed in fairytales.

So, we see things differently. Fairytale versus Realism. Who would win? I am hoping neither; because to tell you the truth, I am a great fan of the grey area.

Oh, how Joss has addled my brain so.

Hmmm, I guess one thing is for certain, my uncle and aunt could never watch Buffy or Angel or Firefly/Serenity with me. Grr arrgh.

Love, Lin~