Review - Star Wars: The Force Awakens

WARNING: Spoilers Ahead!

          The hype is strong with this one. So strong, perhaps, that this may very well be my lengthiest review yet. But this shouldn't be so surprising - after all, we are dealing with Star Wars here, an intellectual property so colossal that even the most seasoned critic and writer wouldn't be able to contrive a short, concise review of The Force Awakens while still taking into account all of the appropriate dimensions of the Star Wars universe. It's marketing alone already seems to obligate one to give The Force Awakens its due diligence; right now, for example, the film isn't scheduled to be released for about another week, but I already feel as if I can write half this review just setting the stage for what is already a record-breaking release. And the fact that tickets for The Force Awakens have already sold out at theaters across North America in 2015 does, perhaps, hint at something significant; after all, The Force Awakens will be the final film to round out what I would consider to be one of best years of science fiction since the turn of the century. And, in case you need reminding, this is the year that Age of Ultron and Jurassic World both shattered records, Ant-Man and The Scorch Trials were "sleeper" successes, and, as USA Today reports, the National Board of Review recently named Mad Max: Fury Road as the best film of 2015 [1]. The Force Awakens has a lot to live up to indeed. But I wouldn't worry; again, this is Star Wars, and the success of its hype and marketing have already illustrated that the series can still compete as an important player in the realm of science fiction, despite several questionable moments in its decades-long history. And if it's any reassurance, I highly doubt that anything that could be produced in the Star Wars universe at this point could ever achieve the degree of utter failure that Terminator Genisys managed to achieve.
          In one sense, the Star Wars films need no introduction or explanation. A film series that spans almost half a century, it has revolutionized the science fiction genre since its first installment (A New Hope) in 1977 (perhaps some credit can also be given the original Star Trek series from the late 1960s with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy). Since then, the original trilogy has rounded out with The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 and Return of the Jedi in 1983, a prequel trilogy was released from 1999 to 2005 (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith), a number of spin-offs and peripheral stories have been produced by Lucasfilm (i.e. The Clone Wars), a game studio charged primarily with the development of Star Wars games (LucasArts) had been created and has since been more or less bought out by the monolithic Electronic Arts (much to the dismay of many, not so much because people cared about LucasArts, but more because EA sucks), and Star Wars fans have since earned the distinction of being a new breed of human or sub-species, yet unrealized by scientists, a kind of fanatical cult, unlike the Westboro Baptist Church, but still somehow endowing new meaning on the word "devotion", producing unending amounts of self-insert fan-fiction, more so than any other intellectual property. Now, Lucasfilm has been bought out and Disney owns the rights to the Star Wars franchise. As such, Disney is producing a new sequel trilogy, the first installment of which is The Force Awakens.
          But where to start? Perhaps the most daunting challenge in trying to review The Force Awakens is trying to figure out how to review The Force Awakens. After all, an adequate review would take into consideration all of the relevant context and backstory, which includes having an understanding of everything that came before it. And it goes without saying that, in the case of Star Wars, this would be no easy feat, considering that the Star Wars universe is just that, a universe. One would have to try and account for the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy, the various official and unofficial spin-offs, the board games, video games, action figures, Halloween costumes, and, regrettably, the fan fiction. I suppose the more important question to ask is what J.J. Abrams (or, perhaps more accurately, Disney) hope to achieve with The Force Awakens. Are we aiming to produce a blockbuster to surpass even A New Hope in terms of innovation? While an admirable goal, this would also be a pretentious one; to presume that The Force Awakens will be more innovative than the original would suggest that Disney is capable of producing such a thing, and, while I wouldn't put it past J.J. Abrams, this seems like an unreal expectation of Disney. Or, if we were more cynical, do we presume that Disney is producing The Force Awakens just to cash-in on the Star Wars cash cow? This seems like a reasonable question to ask of not just Disney, but any studio that is producing a reboot. Yet, I also don't think this is accurate; if Disney was just interested in making big bucks, as opposed to, say, quality cinema, then I don't think they would have enlisted Abrams for the job and given him so much control over its production. Abrams strikes me as a filmmaker who cares about whether or not he is producing quality cinema, so Disney's decision to go with Abrams seems to indicate an intention beyond simply just turning a profit. Or, is Disney trying to reboot the Star Wars series in order to introduce it to a new generation of film-goers? This strikes me as a little closer to capturing the intention behind The Force Awakens. While Disney has recently ventured into more mature endeavors, it has historically kept children as its target audience. As such, it would make sense to say that Disney is trying to take a fictional universe that most adults today would be more than familiar with and introduce that to a new generation.
          It seems as if that final question hints at a good starting point for formulating an approach to The Force Awakens. Does The Force Awakens successfully reinvigorate the series for the next generation of science fiction fans and movie-goers? And, reflecting on a point I made earlier, one should keep in mind that, at its fundamental core, The Force Awakens is a reboot, one of several reboots throughout the year. This can perhaps add another dimension to the approach we take to reviewing it; one can assess the merits of the film as a reboot alone, removing it from the larger context of the fictional universe and evaluating it more on its success as a new installment in a series. And it perhaps may be important to weigh it against other reboots of the year - does The Force Awakens, for example, ask the same kinds of provocative questions that Jurassic World asked? And this question would be consistent with the guidelines I laid out for myself in my first review over the summer; much like literature or other forms of visual art, film is a potential outlet of socio-cultural criticism. As such, one can also ask whether or not there are any socio-cultural undertones to The Force Awakens, and, if so, how well the film weaves those points into its overall narrative. Between these points and the questions asked in the previous paragraph, I think I at least have a good idea as to how one should approach The Force Awakens. But, as I hinted at above, in order to adequately review it without being too disingenuous, one has to properly situate it in the Star Wars universe.
          The first installment of the Star Wars series (later dubbed A New Hope) was first released in 1977, with a digital remaster released in 1997. It's two sequels, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, followed in the years after. The series focuses on the Rebel Alliance's struggle against the tyrannical Galactic Empire, and the relationships that develop therein. We are introduced to drug smugglers and gang bosses on desert planets, cities suspended in the clouds of far away star systems, rebel bases assaulted in a hail of lasers on planets made of ice and snow, and an ancient, mysterious "Force" that underlies all events in the galaxy, and is revered by an order known as the "Jedi", essentially the futuristic-space-equivalent of the Knights Templar. The core cast for the series consisted of Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, Harrison Ford as Han Solo, and Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia, and the series more or less put each of them "on the map", so to speak, with their acting careers (only for Carrie Fisher to quickly fall off the map again by becoming a drug addict some time after filming The Blues Brothers). After Star Wars, Mark Hamill went on to a very notable career as the voice of the Joker in almost every animated iteration of the Batman series, while Harrison Ford continued to propel his acting career in history, perhaps most notably as the treasure hunter Indiana Jones, but also as one of the early actors to portray Jack Ryan when the Tom Clancy novels started getting cinematic iterations (i.e. Clear and Present Danger and Patriot Games), ex-cop Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, and even as the President of the United States in Air Force One.
          The prequel trilogy was released between 1999 and 2005, consisting of The Phantom Menace in 1999, Attack of the Clones in 2002, and Revenge of the Sith in 2005. It tells the story of the conflict between the Galactic Republic and the Trade Federation, the attempts of the Jedi Council to try and quell the conflict, the influence of the mysterious Sith Order behind the scenes, and the subsequent downfall of the Republic, the Jedi, and the Federation, and the rise of the Galactic Empire...and, perhaps the most controversial thing in the entire series, the advent of Darth Vader. As can be inferred from the previous sentence, the prequel trilogy is not very well received. As I start writing this, for example, Graeme McMillan of The Hollywood Reporter writes that "the prequel trilogy...is not only a low-point for the franchise, but for science fiction cinema as a whole, and single-handedly (well, triple-handedly, technically) responsible for breaking an entire generation of fans' hearts in its sheer ineptitude" [2]. And McMillan's assessment isn't without merit; perhaps the most questionable thing in the entire prequel trilogy is the way it develops the various characters. The Phantom Menace, for example, introduces us to Jar Jar Binks, a bizarre character that is meant to serve as a kind of guide for the Jedi early on the series, but ends up being a kind of comic relief, and not a very good one at that. Much like the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy was also responsible for launching the successful film career of several of its actors. Perhaps the biggest success story of the prequel trilogy is Natalie Portman, who portrayed Padme Amidala, Queen of Naboo, although it should perhaps also be noted that Ewan McGregor saw a noticeable shift in his career from more independent films (i.e. Nightwatch) to the Hollywood mainstream (in the years immediately following The Phantom Menace, for example, one can quickly see McGregor's CV expand to include films such as Black Hawk Down and Moulin Rouge).
          The lasting influence (or, in the case of the prequel trilogy, controversy) that the Star Wars universe has made on science fiction and pop culture is undeniable. Prior to A New Hope, for example, "space opera" was a phrase usually thrown around in the sci-fi underground, an obscure term usually applied to pulp fiction like the Flash Gordon series. Now, the phrase "space opera" is much more ubiquitous (though, interestingly, not quite "mainstream"), and one researching the Star Wars fictional universe is inevitably bound to quickly come across it. The Star Wars series, including the prequel trilogy, is also responsible for giving us some of the most memorable and influential characters in pop culture today. Even more menial ones, like the generic "stormtrooper", are instantly recognizable, and have even lent their title to a particular phenomenon in cinematography and film criticism (Roger Ebert's famous "Stormtrooper Effect"). Even characters who are featured in the films only a portion of the time, like, say, Boba Fett, have developed something of a cult following. And, of course, many of the tropes and creative concepts introduced by the Star Wars series have at this point infiltrated modern science-fiction and have become ingrained in it. The space dog fights in Battlestar Galactica and Thor: The Dark World bear an uncanny resemblance to the dog fights in A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. The lush landscapes and desolate wastelands of The Chronicles of Riddick and Stargate seem eerily familiar to the landscapes of Hoth, Tatooine, and Endor. One can quickly see the influence that the "lightsaber" has had on the "beam saber" of the Mobile Suit Gundam series or the "psi-blades" of the Dark Templar in StarCraft. And even all of these points still do not capture the extent to which Star Wars has influenced modern science fiction and pop culture, but they are meant to, at least, start to paint the picture.
          Now with this very crude background established, I can finally turn to The Force Awakens. And I must say, after having finally seen it, it certainly deserves a large degree of praise, and will likely make my top 5 film list for the year. That said, I should also point out that, in some ways, it doesn't quite live up to all the hype that we have seen leading up to it over the past six months. Specifically, the areas where The Force Awakens shines are its introduction of new, unique characters to the Star Wars universe, it passive commentary on a handful of various socio-cultural issues, and its resistance to utilizing the obscene amounts of CGI that currently permeate throughout modern science fiction. However, the same kind of praise cannot be given to its story; anyone who is even remotely familiar with the Star Wars series will realize that the plot of The Force Awakens is a reimagining of the plot for A New Hope, and the lack of effort in this regard really takes away from what would otherwise be a very solid sci-fi film. At the end of the day, The Force Awakens easily succeeds at introducing the series to the next generation of sci-fi film-goers, and perhaps even presents us with some of the most memorable characters in science fiction, but it had the potential to do so much more.
          The characters are perhaps the most intriguing elements of The Force Awakens. We see the return of old classics Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Leia Organa, played by the original actors Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher, respectively, but it seems as if the overwhelming majority of the hype this time around actually centers around the mysterious Kylo Ren. And Kylo Ren is perhaps the best example of a case where the hype is actually justified. He is, by far, the most unique character in the film, unlike anything ever seen in the Star Wars series up until this point. Portrayed by Adam Driver, Ren fancies himself the spiritual successor to Darth Vader, and, in public and in rumor, he achieves this. He is ruthless and extreme, a student of the Knights of Ren, a sect of acolytes of the Dark Side of the Force, and is one of the most feared warriors in the galaxy. However, his more intimate interactions with the other characters in the film, particularly Rey and Han Solo, illustrate what Kylo Ren is really like: a skilled, but rash young man with daddy problems and bipolar disorder, more akin to the edgy, misguided Anakin Skywalker from the prequel trilogy than Darth Vader (only much better acted). And again, much credit is due to Adam Driver for this performance; at times, I was reminded of Tom Hardy's portrayal of Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, a character that, at one moment, seems wise and well-spoken, and the next, displays a huge degree of anger management issues. But, of course, Kylo Ren was not the only character in the film. Perhaps a great degree of credit is also due to Daisy Ridley for her portrayal of Rey. Rugged and humble, Rey lives alone as a scavenger on the planet Jakku, selling machine parts and artifacts she finds for meager scraps of food. I actually kind of saw elements of the Book of Eli in Rey's interactions on Jakku; Jakku seemed like a desolate wasteland, and Rey was a wasteland wanderer, roaming from place to place, trading post to trading post, settlement to settlement, just trying to make a living. Because of such harsh conditions, she has developed the survival skills she needs; she climbs landscapes and machines alike, knows how to run through the desert sands, and has the necessary fighting skills to ward off muggers and thieves. And Daisy Ridley portrays this character as one that is seasoned in all of this; all of these various elements seem like "just another day out on the town" for Rey. That is, until BB-8 shows up. And it is at this point that I should note that BB-8 is probably the next most memorable character from the film. Much like Kylo Ren is to Darth Vader, BB-8 is the spiritual successor to R2-D2. BB-8 is a white and orange droid that rolls around with the appearance of a soccer ball, as opposed to the kind of clunky trash can that is R2-D2. But, despite being a successor to R2, J.J. Abrams actually manages to give BB-8 a personality that sets it apart. Perhaps the best way I can summarize the difference is as follows: R2-D2, while energetic and spunky, was still a droid, but BB-8 is more like a little animal, a playful labrador retriever or a shy beagle, trapped in the mechanical body of a gadget-loaded soccer ball.
          Another noteworthy factor of The Force Awakens is the fair amount of cultural commentary present in the film. Perhaps in continuing with the trend started by Jurassic World, The Force Awakens has some very up front feminist tones to it. As one can imagine, most of them center around Rey. Rey is depicted as a strong, fit, and independent scavenger, on both a physical level, as evidenced by the fact that she manages to fight of two would-be kidnappers of BB-8 on Jakku, and on a mental level, as evidenced by the fact that she manages to resist the psychic torture of Kylo Ren. And this is in stark contrast to Ren, who, as mentioned above, does not possess the same strength of will as Rey, at times giving a sort of "confession" to the charred mask of Darth Vader for any deviance away from the Dark Side. She is not the same sexualized support character that Princess Leia was in the original trilogy, instead taking center stage as the main protagonist. And it should be noted that Rey is not alone in making such a statement. Captain Phasma (portrayed by Gwendoline Christie of Game of Thrones fame) is a towering storm trooper commander, ruthless and calculated. It should also be noted that Phasma is apparently not the only woman that is sympathetic to the cause of the First Order; we encounter several women serving the First Order throughout the film, both in the role of soldier as a stormtrooper on the front lines, and as operations officers serving directly under General Hux at Starkiller Base. Again, this is in stark contrast to the original trilogy, where there were very few women at all in the films, and, when there were, they always seemed to be sympathetic towards the Rebellion. And much like Rey, Phasma escapes the over-sexualization that unfortunately characterizes a number of successful sci-fi and fantasy series. Her armor is merely a chrome version of normal storm trooper armor, and, were it not for her voice, one would likely not be able to guess that it was a woman wearing it. As Inquisitr points out, the discussion surrounding Captain Phasma can best be summed up by a comment from one poster on the Star Wars Facebook page, and the rather clever response from one of the moderators [3]. And the feminist statements made by Rey and Captain Phasma are not the only the only points of cultural commentary made throughout the film. Finn (portrayed by British-born John Boyega) represents another shift away from the historical cast of white, male protagonists in the Star Wars universe. This point is especially pertinent for science fiction in general; traditionally, more whites and Asians have been burdened (or blessed, depending on how you want to look at it) with the stereotype of the sci-fi nerd, while African-Americans and Hispanics have largely avoided this. To have a black protagonist in one of the most important science fiction series in history undoubtedly illustrates the potential for a shift away from the traditional stereotypes.
          Another characteristic of The Force Awakens that deserves praise is the way that J.J. Abrams decided to handle the special effects for the film. And, in keeping with the precedent set by Fury Road and Jurassic World earlier in the year, Abrams had, much to the benefit of the series, shied away from the grotesque amounts of CGI that characterize the Avengers films, or anything produced by Michael Bay, and preferred to use genuine sets and real props, giving the film a much more realistic appearance and avoiding the silliness that eventually comes with overdoses of CGI. Scenes for The Force Awakens were filmed on location in Iceland, England, and Abu Dhabi, and many of the extraterrestrial characters that Rey encounters on Jakku were realistic props or puppets, as opposed to the artificial appearance of, say, many of the CGI aliens in the Men in Black films. Apparently, it had been the aim of Abrams' production staff all along to recreate the the "real" look and feel of the original trilogy [4]. As I have suggested in the past, the benefits of such an approach are rooted in something much more fundamental than just preserving the look and feel of the "original" Star Wars; while there is nothing inherently wrong with CGI, going overboard with it tends to add a degree of "cartoonishness" to whichever film it is being applied to, and it seems as if the cinematographers of The Force Awakens were inadvertently scratching the surface of this principle when they decided to be more conservative with their application of CGI.
          However, despite the above strengths of The Force Awakens, it wasn't flawless. Perhaps the most glaring thing that it seemed to miss the mark on has to do with its plot and story. I will echo what a lot of other critics have said and point out that, in many ways, The Force Awakens is simply a reimagining of A New Hope. The First Order, having risen from the ashes of the Galactic Empire, has a planet-sized space station, Starkiller Base, that is capable of firing a giant laser beam and blowing up planets. Trying to stop them are the "Resistance", as opposed to the "Rebellion", still led by Leia Organa. It turns out, however, that the person who is really capable of stopping the First Order is Luke Skywalker, who has mysteriously vanished, so the Resistance sets out to try and find him. Aware of Skywalker's potential to resist them, the First Order also sets out to try and find him before the Resistance. The movie opens up with Poe Dameron, a Resistance fighter pilot, hiding a map to Luke Skywalker inside BB-8 on the desert planet of Jakku just before the First Order attacks the village he's in. It was at that moment that my alarms started going off; I couldn't help but slightly cringe at the fact that it appeared as if Abrams quite literally subbed in BB-8 for R2-D2 and a map to Luke Skywalker in place of the plans to the Death Star and then called it Episode VII. Still, I felt inclined to give The Force Awakens the benefit of the doubt - "perhaps", I thought, "the plot will get much more interesting by the end". And then it turns out at the very end that the Rebellion, er, I mean Resistance, launches a fighter assault on the Death Star, er, I mean Starkiller Base, just before it can fire its laser beam. Needless to say, I was overall disappointed with how the story was handled. And it wouldn't be as big of a deal if it wasn't such a crucial thing to get right. As I have said in the past, I regard the story as one of the biggest drivers of quality science fiction, and while the story for the original trilogy was great, that does not justify recycling it again here; we've heard this story before, and have already learned from it. Perhaps the argument could be made that recycling the story was necessary in order to properly reintroduce the series to millenials, many of whom have never seen the original trilogy. But this argument baffles me; I'm a millenial, and I saw the original trilogy when I was a small child, and instead of recreating A New Hope in the form of The Force Awakens simply for the sake of introducing it to millenials, one has to wonder why you can't just show millenials A New Hope. And, on a smaller scale, there is one more thing about the plot that struck me as odd: despite the great amount of hype that the character of Captain Phasma got before the film was released, she had a grand total of about two minutes of screen time. Again, I am not the only one that feels this way; as Jason Guerrasio points out, "the flashy Stormtrooper with chrome armor and cape played by 'Game of Thrones' star Gwendoline Christie has been all over the marketing of the film, the captain of the First Order gets the least screen time out of the newest main cast members in the movie" [5]. Guerrasio goes on to attribute this to editing, pointing out that the run time for the film clocked in at over two hours, so, for editing purposed, the producers had to make the choice to sacrifice some of Phasma's screen time. But even this explanation baffles me; each of the Lord of the Rings films clocked in at over three hours, and nobody seemed to care about their run time. As such, I don't quite understand what is achieved by more or less cutting out Captain Phasma when the film still probably would not be as long as a Lord of the Rings film.
          Let me finish by returning to the original question I posed earlier about the criteria that we should use to evaluate The Force Awakens: does the film reinvigorate the Star Wars series for another generation of science fiction fans? The answer is a solid "Yes", but again, its not perfect. While The Force Awakens has its moments of pure brilliance, such as the concept and character of Kylo Ren, it also has its blunders, such as its unoriginal story. It's unfortunate that it misses the mark on something so core; its poor handling of Captain Phasma is forgivable, but the recycling of the story of A New Hope compromises one of the most important aspects of good science fiction - an imaginative story that is used to ask important philosophical and social questions. As much as I don't want to say it, this disqualifies The Force Awakens from being my film of the year. But again, I must emphasize that it is still light years better than many of the other films I have seen in 2015, and I doubt I will see a character as unique as Kylo Ren in anything coming out of Hollywood anytime soon. Overall, I think it is a great way to close out my cinematic experience for the year, and, because of the way it balances props and CGI, I think I can safely say that 2015 was the year where filmmakers finally learned how to do a reboot.

[1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2015/12/01/nbr-names-mad-max-fury-road-best-film-of-the-year/76625652/

[2] http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/star-wars-time-stop-pretending-846139

[3] http://www.inquisitr.com/2384430/star-wars-facebook-page-responds-to-sexist-captain-phasma-armor-comment/

[4] http://mashable.com/2013/08/22/star-wars-episode-vii-film/#4GYnuRE2BgqV

[5] http://www.businessinsider.com/star-wars-the-force-awakens-complaint-2015-12

Review - Crimson Peak

          Ok, it's finally time to get back in to "the swing of things", so to speak. It has been some time since I have done a film review (since Ant-Man, to be exact), and October was filled with all kinds of things to keep me (and the blog) occupied, from defending the antics of Rebecca Brink to scrambling around the Starbucks Center for Hack Day. October was also the month that saw a handful of movies that, at least initially, seemed interesting; The Last Witch Hunter, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, and Crimson Peak, to be specific. I actually hadn't heard much about The Last Witch Hunter until I saw the poster for it when I went to see Ant-Man, and, other than realizing it had Vin Diesel in it, I didn't learn much more about it between then and its release. The Paranormal Activity series, on the other hand, is a series that I am familiar with, and, I will admit, is a series that I actually enjoy, despite the fact that the films consist of little more than strings of jump-scares tied together by a tissue-thin plot. And, like The Last Witch Hunter, Crimson Peak is a movie that I had never heard of until I saw the poster for it when I went to see Ant-Man. What caught my initial attention was the caption "From the director of Pan's Labyrinth and The Others".
          Between those three, it didn't take long for me to decide to do this review on Crimson Peak. The more intriguing part of the decision process is perhaps that fact that I didn't really have to do much to narrow it down; The Last Witch Hunter reportedly bombed, and, though I said that I enjoy the Paranormal Activity series, I have become more and more disenchanted with it as it has dragged on. And then compare these stats against a film by Guillermo Del Toro, a very talented filmmaker, and the choice becomes almost a no-brainer. In any case, this review will be something different for me to write, and hopefully something just as enjoyable to read, insofar as this will be a review of a horror film, in stark contrast to the action and sci-fi films I have reviewed thus far. And I have been wanting to do a review of a horror film for a while now; as a long-time fan of the genre, with a small collection of the classic black-and-whites (i.e. The House on Haunted Hill and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), I believe I at least have an idea of what it means to be a good horror film.
          I must confess that I had a handful of expectations going in to Crimson Peak, most of which were met, though I will say that I was disappointed with regard to others. The expectations I had pretty much stem from the fact that Crimson Peak was made by Guillermo Del Toro, a Mexican filmmaker that has previously showcased a large degree of artistic and fantastic talent. Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno en espanol), for example, with a pure stroke of genius, somehow managed to blur the lines between a children's fairy tale, a fantastic horror story, and an extremely violent adult war film, all presented in the Spanish language, thus adding a new dimension of fiction to Spanish-language cinema. And by no means is Del Toro's genius confined to the Spanish language. One simply need to look at Pacific Rim to see a recent English-language example of Del Toro's talent. What makes Pacific Rim particularly interesting is the fact that it pays homage to the Japanese "mecha" genre of fiction, a genre that anyone who watched cartoons as a child in the 90s, like myself, should be familiar with (Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam Wing should ring some bells here). And it seems pretty clear that it was Del Toro's intent to pay homage to the genre, as evidenced by that fact that he casts Rinko Kikuchi, a Japanese actress, in one of the leading roles. Another aspect of Crimson Peak that led me to have the expectations that I did was the fact that Tom Hiddleston was cast into one of the leading roles. While Tom Hiddleston seems to have become one of the latest fangirl heartthrobs, much in the same way that Benedict Cumberbatch did after Star Trek Into Darkness or Joseph Gordon-Levitt after The Dark Knight Rises and Inception (and much in the same way that I predict Adam Driver will be after The Force Awakens), I actually have a degree of respect for him. Hiddleston is certainly one of the better actors in the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for his portrayal of Loki (a title really only rivaled by Downey Jr.'s portrayal of Tony Stark). Add to this the fact that he has a degree in Classics from Cambridge, a field that, as I have admitted in the past, I have had a long interest in, and he commands a degree of respect from me.
          Given this background information on the "who's who" of Crimson Peak, I was already expecting something with much more depth than the other two choices. Given Del Toro's track record with art and storytelling, I knew that Crimson Peak wouldn't rely on the jump-scare gimmicks that Paranormal Activity relies on. This is not to say that Crimson Peak didn't have its moments of suspense, but, unlike Paranormal Activity, it does not use them as a crutch, so to speak (i.e. Crimson Peak doesn't rely on jump-scares as its primary driving force). And, given Hiddleston's more refined and sophisticated background, as well as Del Toro's attention to story, I also knew that Crimson Peak wasn't going to rely on the drawn-out action sequences that I imagine characterize The Last Witch Hunter, which I expect to be closer to Blade than anything Del Toro has produced. At this point, the question then becomes "what kind of horror movie is Crimson Peak?" Well, Crimson Peak is best described as a dark romance, at times invoking elements of a ghost story told around a campfire in the woods, and at other times invoking elements of suspense and mystery, akin to what you would find in The Bone Collector or Red Dragon. If one wanted to try and set Crimson Peak among literary examples, it is reminiscent of Victorian-era romanticism and the gothic novel, more akin to The Hound of the Baskervilles or The Turn of the Screw or the works of John Keats and Sheridan Le Fanu as opposed to the extreme violence, malice, and weirdness that characterize more modern entries in the horror genre, such as the works of H.P. Lovecraft or Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart.
          Crimson Peak opens up with one Edith Cushing reminiscing on the funeral of her mother, who had died of illness when she was still a child. One cold night soon thereafter, the ghost of Edith's mother visits the child in the middle of the night and warns her to stay away from a mysterious place called "Crimson Peak", a warning that Edith would not be able to make sense of until years later. Fast forward fourteen years. Edith (Mia Wasikowska) is an aspiring writer in the Victorian period looking to the break the stereotype of female writers at the time by producing a ghost story as opposed to a romance novel, while her father, Carter Cushing (Jim Beaver), is a very wealthy and successful American businessman based in Buffalo, NY. Edith finds herself working reception for her father's business one day when Sir Thomas Sharpe (Hiddleston), a young English baronet, walks in with a business proposal for Mr. Cushing to invest in his invention for a machine that is supposed to revolutionize clay mining for bricks. Sharpe's business proposal is ultimately rejected by Mr. Cushing and he has no other choice but to leave empty handed, but not before catching the attention of, and more or less swooning, Edith. What unfolds after that is a blood-soaked love story between Edith and Thomas, which includes the murder of Edith's father, Edith marrying Thomas and moving to his estate in England, the very ominous demeanor of Thomas' sister, Lucille (Jessica Chastain), the disappearance of several women throughout Europe, and Edith's ghostly visions. And it is eventually revealed that, because the thin red clay beneath the Sharpe Estate has a tendency to stain the winter snow red, the hill that the Sharpe Estate is built on is sometimes referred to as "Crimson Peak".
          Again, there is no question that Crimson Peak is something far more sophisticated than most horror films that have been produced lately, and that it does a large number of things well. Perhaps first and foremost, Crimson Peak actually has a pretty compelling story. The references to The Bone Collector and Red Dragon that I made earlier seem pretty accurate for a handful of reasons; Crimson Peak has the elements of mystery and suspense that characterize The Bone Collector and Red Dragon, and keep one intellectually invested in the film. For example, Carter Cushing is murdered fairly early on in the film, but it is not readily apparent who did it and why. What makes this mystery particularly compelling is Del Toro's genius in its implementation; despite the fact that we are unsure who the murderer was, we are actually provided with a handful of potential suspects as well as a number of clues with regard to a motive. This gives Crimson Peak a kind of "whodunit" dimension, slightly mesmerizing in its own right, like a Sherlock Holmes novel or a game of "Clue". Yet another aspect of the film that is done well that complements this mystery element is its great character development, and, while Del Toro's writing of these characters certainly merits praise, virtually all of the actors deserve credit here, from Hiddleston to Charlie Hunnam, who plays Edith's American love interest that ultimately investigates the mysteries surround the Sharpe siblings. For example, only a half-wit would hastily arrive at the conclusion that Thomas murdered Carter Cushing; someone a little more analytical would realize that the character profile for Thomas Sharpe does not lend itself well to the manner of the murder, or even the initial motive given. Meanwhile, one has to wonder who the shady private investigator that Carter Cushing hires to snoop on the Sharpes, Mr. Holly, really is. Beyond the plot and character development, there are, of course, the overall aesthetics and artistic presentation of the set pieces, very much in Del Toro's signature style. The ghosts, for example, have the same crooked and contorted walk that characterized the child-eating "Pale Man" in Pan's Labyrinth. The hill of red clay that the Sharpe Estate is built on occasionally causes the house to ooze bright red from the walls, contrasting the cool, dark blacks and greys of the paint, sometimes even evoking the famous ending scene of The Amityville Horror. And Crimson Peak ties all of this together nicely with its own share of blood and violence, unafraid to showcase the grim circumstances driving the plot.
          However, despite all of these things that Crimson Peak does well, I would hesitate to put it in the same category as Del Toro's greater works. There are two primary things that I think the film misses the mark on, so to speak. First, even though Crimson Peak has a far more sophisticated plot than any other recent horror film, its plot is still pretty generic: a haunted house in Victorian England. Don't get me wrong; I have been a long time fan of Victorian poetry and literature (I do have an Edgar Allan Poe tattoo and Dracula still remains one of my all time favorite novels), and Victorian Britain has served as the setting of some of the most classic ghost stories. But that's the very point that works against Crimson Peak; we have plenty of Victorian ghost stories already. And while adding more of a good thing doesn't hurt, one must compare Crimson Peak to Del Toro's previous work. Perhaps this is just a kind of "artsy snobbishness" on my part, but Crimson Peak seems to lack the imagination or innovation of Pan's Labyrinth; El Laberinto del Fauno situated a very graphic children's fairly tale in the middle of the Spanish Civil War, and did it all in the Spanish language, almost single-handedly jump-starting Spanish-language horror and fantasy cinema (perhaps the biggest title in Spanish-language horror cinema at the time was [REC], and this was still a fairly obscure title until its English-language remake in Quarantine, which is still a relatively obscure title even for English-speaking audiences). Pan's Labyrinth was more or less something unheard of before, unlike Crimson Peak, which feels as if it has been done dozens of times. Even among Del Toro's English-language works, Crimson Peak lacks the innovation of Pacific Rim, which brought English-speaking audiences a live-action iteration of the Japanese "mecha" genre, which hadn't really been done before (at least, not done well). The second big point of criticism that I think can be aimed at Crimson Peak has to do with its implementation of the actual ghosts in the film. Quite frankly, it's not clear to me whether the ghosts were even a necessary part of the film. The plot could have been carried out without them and more or less have achieved the same effect. For example, as mentioned, Edith's mother's ghost makes an appearance in the first five minutes of the film and warns her to stay away from Crimson Peak, but when the time actually comes for adult Edith to heed that warning, she actually does nothing; Edith learns she is at Crimson Peak, but merely reflects on the warning for a brief moment before resuming her day to day activities. In another scene towards the end of the film, when Edith has a better understanding of who these ghosts are, she runs in to one of them in the hallway of the Sharpe Estate and asks it where she should go in order to get to the bottom of this mystery (in an almost "Scooby Doo" fashion), at which point the ghost just promptly points her down another hallway, more or less rendering the ghost as nothing more than a supernatural sign post. It is also particularly interesting that Edith seems to be the only person that can interact with them for the overwhelming majority of the film; one would imagine that an angry, vengeful ghost would seek to haunt and torment his or her murderer, but in this case the ghosts simply seem to relegate themselves to sign post status. And if one were to try and make the argument that perhaps the ghosts are figments of Edith's imagination, then such an interpretation would quickly fail; the ghosts bring about tangible effects in the world, such as slamming doors and throwing balls, things that cannot be experienced by one person alone. Yet despite this, every other character in the movie seems to be more or less oblivious to the ghosts, nor do the ghosts try to bring about anything more substantial than slamming doors.
          Overall, Crimson Peak certainly gets my recommendation, and it is, by far, one of the better horror films I have seen in a long time, but it is also not Guillermo Del Toro's best work. It is your pretty typical ghost story, set against the tried and true backdrop of Victorian England, augmented by elements of mystery and romance. However, if one is looking for something more innovative or imaginative,  a little more avant-garde than classic, then I would refer him or her elsewhere. The problem with that is that Crimson Peak is more or less the apex of horror films right now, much to my great dismay.

Photos - Starbucks Hack Day 2015

In the Field - Starbucks Hack Day 2015

          Finally, I get to write a piece more journalism-oriented than philosophical. This is to be contrasted, of course, with the various film reviews and philosophical pieces that I have done so far. In fact, it is a slight relief to finally be able to write a piece like this, insofar as I keep saying that I will do something with a journalism slant to it only to not have produced one up to this point. One of the virtues of doing a piece like this is that, insofar as it is more or less a report of something that has transpired, there will be less commentary and more explanation, which will make for a shorter piece. This is particularly so since this event wasn't that large (though nonetheless notable). Perhaps this will even be a piece that I can get done in one sitting (turns out, it wasn't). And on that note, I present my findings on Starbucks Hack Day 2015.
          This past Tuesday, October 27th, Starbucks hosted their annual Hack Day at their global headquarters in Seattle. The event was open primarily to employees, but there was, no doubt, a handful of visitors that had the opportunity to attend. And as can be implied by the previous sentence, if it wasn't made clear by my user profile or previous posts, I am a Starbucks employee based at the Starbucks Center in Seattle. I was fortunate enough to convince my supervisor to let me take a chunk of my normal shift to attend the event. I had only heard of the event a few days prior, so I still wasn't quite sure what to expect; the name of the event, for example, implied something along the lines of the DefCon or Black Hat conferences, which, as someone with a side interest in mathematics and the cyber underground, initially piqued my curiosity (this is not to say that I actually expected Starbucks Hack Day to be anything remotely close to DefCon). At the same time, the flyers for the event were done in such a way as to make the event seem more like an arts-and-crafts workshop than any kind of conference or event of that nature. In either case, I still felt like it would make for a nice topic to report on (in addition to being a nice reprieve from my usual duties that day), so I was inclined to attend nonetheless.
          The event took place in a moderately large conference hall on the 3rd floor of the Starbucks Center. Like any other convention or conference, there were booths set up where employees (internally referred to as "partners") were able to demonstrate whatever idea or innovation that they had been working on. Slightly to my disappointment, it wasn't so much of a hacking conference so much as it was a technology and innovation showcase, which is still certainly notable. Mobile apps seemed to be the overarching theme of the event, with the vast majority of the booths showing some kind of new iOS or Android application targeted at both customers and employees alike.
          The first demo I was able to take part in was called "Get Rollin'", a training application for new baristas designed by Steve Walker, Jason Stoff, and Bill McNeil. This particular application took advantage of the tilting sensor feature in iOS devices (iOS veterans may be familiar with this function from games like Naught or Zombie Highway). Essentially, this particular application constituted a game where new partners would have to carefully guide a silver ball along a path of tiles floating in space without falling off the side. The catch is that the path would occasionally fork, presenting the budding barista with a decision of which path to take, where each path in the fork would correspond to a possible answer to a Starbucks training question. Answer the question incorrectly and the path would disappear under the ball and it would be game over. In one way, there is actually the potential here for something truly immersive; somehow, either through the raw design of the aesthetics or the core gameplay concepts, I was reminded of Playstation's Intelligent Qube from 1997, which, in retrospect, was something of a work of art. At the same time, I found myself questioning the value of such an application; as someone who spent years working in restaurants and coffee shops while I was a student, the training required for such labor isn't particularly difficult or complex, so one is left to wonder to what extent such an app is really necessary. And even it does help a new employee train for their position, it seems as if it would wear out its usefulness once the employee has finished training. Ultimately, "Get Rollin'" was a great concept, and it certainly stood out from the rest of the applications on display, but perhaps the concept would better be served as a full-fledged game as opposed to being confined to a training app.
          After briefly playing around with the "Get Rollin'" app, I was ushered over to the booth for an application called "Markout!", designed by Stephen Ramirez, Nicole Tidwell, Diane Kerstein, David Gutierrez, and Zachary Camara. Again, this was another app targeted at Starbucks employees mostly for internal use, though I should say that there were some features of it that, if expanded on, would make for an interesting app for consumers. Essentially, this app functions as a reminder for employees to take advantage of their employee discounts. Pretty straightforward, though I admit that I am slightly scared to think that partners need to be reminded to take advantage of one of their most basic perks. What makes this app particularly interesting is a kind in-built stat tracker; an employee can input the information for the product that he or she used the discount for and then the app can make recommendations based on the user's habits. For example, if an employee used his or her discount to get a bag of a particular kind of dark roast, then the app uses that data to make suggestions for the following week, based on such things as roast, growing region, and so on. The data tracking portion of this app struck me as having vast potential; if it were reimagined in an app for consumers, it could potentially illustrate which of the various nuances of a coffee's flavor profile American consumers really enjoy, as well as serve as a kind of introduction into the world of coffee for the layperson.
          After getting the demo for the "Markout!" app, I continued to meander about the hall until I came to "Siren's Echo", designed by Tom Fernandez. The crowd around this booth was particularly large, and it didn't take me long to see why. This was a significant departure from the other apps on display; "Siren's Echo" showcased a kind of voice recognition software. Simply put, whatever someone would say into a microphone, the "Siren" would say back in a calm, clear woman's voice. One can't help but think of Apple's Siri technology when watching the demo. And while the technology itself was nothing new (again, Siri is, more or less, a full-fledged artificial intelligence, way more advanced than the "Siren"), it's applications struck me as the more important thing here. For example, one could image this technology replacing the headsets and baristas at a drive-thru store, more or less leaving the ordering process in the drive-thru automated. Or, more in line with Siri and the theme of mobile devices, this technology could be integrated into the mobile app for consumers, so they no longer have to navigate complex menus to place an order over the Starbucks app. It wasn't particularly clear which system architecture this software was optimized for, iOS or Android (or maybe I just missed it), but, since the increasingly ubiquitous Starbucks app is on both platforms, I would imagine that, if "Siren's Echo" develops into something bigger, it would be available on both.
          These were only three of the apps on display this past week, though these were the ones that stood out to me more, mostly for the aforementioned reasons. There was a contest at the end of the event where attendees got to vote on their favorite booth, but, for various reasons, I wasn't able to stick around to see the winner. However, this piece hopefully provides a brief glimpse into the technological developments taking place event at a company as retail and consumer-focused as Starbucks. I was also able to get some photos of the event, some of which I will attach to this post, and others I will post under the "Photography" label, marking my first foray into the intersection of writing and photography.

Review - Ant-Man

          This will be something of an experiment for me. If these words actually make it to the blog, then that means that I decided to go ahead and review Ant-Man. It should be noted that I haven't actually seen the film yet, but I felt inclined to put pen to paper (or, in this case, fingers to keyboard) and start writing anyway, which is what makes this review experimental. I imagine that I could perhaps get about a third of the review done and get the groundwork for the review out of the way without needing to have seen it. Of course, if I decide to go see Ant-Man and finish this review, then I will be seeing it in the coming days, and I will note the point at which I will be writing after having seen it.
          And I could really only pull this off with Ant-Man, insofar as my relationship with superhero/comic movies has been a rocky one. I have never really been a fan of the whole superhero craze in Hollywood, with a few notable exceptions. The Batman films, for example, I really enjoy, particularly the Chris Nolan and Tim Burton iterations of Batman. Other than that, I am usually hit or miss with my satisfaction of superhero films, and in those cases that I am more satisfied than I am disappointed, it is usually only a mild satisfaction. It probably doesn't help that I wasn't a big comic-reader when I was younger (Spawn being the only notable exception to that), so when I talk to fans of the films who inevitably try to compare them to the comics, I always feel as if I am at a loss for words. The superhero craze has been particularly infectious these past few years; it seems as if the action movie landscape in Hollywood right now is littered with reboots (see The Amazing Spiderman), spin-offs (see Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice), and endless sequels (see the entire X-Men series). Studios have even figured out a way to invest more money and wrap all of these reboots, spin-offs, and sequels together into one lovely package and call it a "cinematic universe". Now one might wonder, if my general disposition towards superhero films is unfavorable, why I would even bother seeing, and then reviewing, Ant-Man. The answer is actually quite simple; for the past several days I have been debating what my next blog entry should be. I want to do another review, but there is actually nothing good playing at the movies right now, and Ant-Man, not because it was initially enticing, but because it sounded like the least lame thing playing, seemed to be the best option. I entertained the idea of instead starting my next "Philosophy" entry, but I quickly realized that I actually just wrote one of those right before my Scorch Trials review, and, while I have been brainstorming topics for my next "Philosophy" entry, I don't have all of my resources or materials laid out yet for the topic I have in mind. Nor did I feel inclined to just skip a period and wait until either something good came out in the theaters or until I was ready to write my next "Philosophy" piece. Thus, by sheer circumstance, I am strongly considering doing an Ant-Man review, though I confess a degree of reluctance.
          Marvel's whole "cinematic universe" might be a good place to start an Ant-Man review; the whole superhero genre the past few years has been dominated by Marvel's Avengers and all of the individual IPs that feed into it (i.e. Iron Man, Captain America, etc). I will confess that, despite what I said in the previous paragraph, I have actually seen most of the movies in Marvel's cinematic universe, and that there are actually a few noteworthy standouts. I actually really enjoyed Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which presented us with Captain America, the paragon of American values, questioning the imperialistic and paranoid motivations behind the government developing what more or less amounted to doomsday machines, all in the name of "keeping America safe". This is in stark contrast to the first installment of the Captain America series, which could accurately be summed up by noting that the first half of the movie is backstory in 1940s New York City and the second half is a drawn-out montage of American Flag-Man punching Nazis until the very end, where the villain is then randomly beamed into space. At the very least, one could say the first Captain America film was cliche (so much so that one might also think it was actually just a trailer for a new Wolfenstein game, albeit an excruciatingly drawn-out trailer), and, at the more cynical end of the spectrum, one could call the first Captain America film a really boring attempt at pro-American propaganda. Beyond the Captain America series, I also thought Thor: The Dark World was fairly enjoyable, not necessarily because it had some compelling story or asked some important questions, but because its blend of sci-fi technology and its constant references to Norse mythology illustrated a kind of sci-fi/fantasy crossover that is little seen in film. In some ways, the design and architecture of Asgard invokes the design and architecture seen in The Chronicles of Riddick, while, if I may say so, the whole sci-fi/fantasy crossover thing actually hints at Warhammer 40,000 (make of that what you will). I should also perhaps give some credit to the first Iron Man film, which seemed to understand the core notion in science fiction known as the "suspension of disbelief". One of my biggest criticisms of superhero films is that they all seem to miss the mark on invoking the suspension of disbelief; it is painfully apparent how implausible the events of most these films are, almost to the point of being absurd. A telltale sign of good science fiction is that there is a sense in which the events of the film are plausible, causing the audience to sympathize more with the narrative, or "suspend their disbelief". (Perhaps a side note could be said here that one of the reasons that J.J. Abrams' Star Trek series is so strong is because he knows how to invoke the suspension of disbelief.) The first Iron Man actually did a fairly good job at this, painting a Middle East ravaged by constant war and terrorism, when, suddenly, an engineering genius creates a robotic suit to combat both extremists and private military contractors that sell weapons to these groups on the black market.
          Beyond these examples, if one is looking for genuinely good sci-fi or fantasy films, I usually refer them elsewhere. I should point out that I don't think that the Marvel cinematic universe is invariably bad, but I also don't consider it to be of the quality of Fury Road or Jurassic World this past summer. It's average, run-of-the-mill, where the number of pros are even with the cons (and perhaps even, on one of my more cynical days, the cons slightly outweigh the pros). For example, in may last review for Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, I made an analogy between a film's use of CGI and a addict's use of heroin. Marvel's cinematic universe is the prime example of the addict sprawled out on the dirty mattress; virtually every film in every series relies on CGI so much that one might wonder whether or not one were actually watching a Pixar film, or at what points in the films there was any actual acting. Perhaps it can be argued that I am holding the Marvel movies to an unfair standard insofar as it would seem like any superhero movie will inevitably have obscene levels of CGI, simply by the nature of it being a superhero movie. However, if Chris Nolan's Dark Knight series taught us anything, it taught us two things: 1) it is possible to have a superhero film with compelling characters and equal parts action and drama, and 2) it is possible to have all of this without relying on CGI.
          For the purposes of an Ant-Man review, I should perhaps focus specifically on the two Avengers films, insofar as Ant-Man is purported to be the next major player in the Avengers roster. In all honesty, I consider the two Avengers films to be among the lowest points for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. One might counter by pointing out that Age of Ultron was record-breaking, and that, at the end of its theatrical run, it became one of the highest-grossing films of 2015. However, after seeing Age of Ultron, I look at this statistic not as a testament to how good Age of Ultron actually is, but rather more as a confirmation of my suspicion that the average American movie-goer is borderline brain dead. The Avengers films are more or less what any sensible person would expect when you have a Norse god fighting alongside a guy in robot suit fighting alongside American-Flag Man against an invading alien force or an artificial intelligence gone rogue: one large clusterfuck, dripping with a fresh coat of CGI, without any semblance of depth or character. The plots of both films are tissue-thin; in the first Avengers, for example, Loki opens a portal to an invading alien force in order to try and subjugate Earth, and the Avengers have to stop him. That's it. I've tried to look at it in many other ways, for the sake of playing devil's advocate, to see if one can actually sympathize with Loki, and it turns out that one can't. It's black-and-white. And, as one can imagine, the ending is just as predictable as ever: they stop Loki. The good guys win and the bad guys lose. And Age of Ultron is a lot more of the same; a rogue artificial intelligence is bent on wiping out the human race, and the Avengers have to stop it - which they do. Unlike the first Avengers, however, Age of Ultron at least makes an attempt to try and get the viewer to sympathize with Ultron, such as when Ultron says how sick and twisted humanity is right after he is created. And this might have been an interesting twist indeed...if the film actually succeeded at doing this. In order to get us to sympathize with Ultron, one would need to witness first-hand the flaws and horrors of humanity in such a way as to think that humanity truly is a horrible thing, which the film doesn't do. Ultron simply tells us that humans are bad, he doesn't actually show us why humans are bad.
          Beyond the poor plots, the fight scenes in both movies illustrate the aforementioned clusterfuck. One simply has to look at the ending fight scene in Age of Ultron as evidence; everything that was unique about the characters in their individual IPs is lost during the ending fight against Ultron. Every character can be categorized as someone that either punches stuff or shoots energy beams out of his or her face. Captain America punches stuff. Thor punches stuff. The Hulk punches stuff really hard. Iron man shoots energy beams. Even The Scarlet Witch, a character that was introduced at the beginning of the film as an Eastern European refugee with psychic powers, a potentially unique kind of antagonist for the Avengers (it was interesting to watch her manipulate the dreams and mental states of our heroes throughout the first half of the film), simply resorts to shooting energy beams by the end of the film. Indeed, I found myself wondering what exactly it was about The Scarlet Witch that made her a 'witch' (she clearly didn't have anything in common with Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and I'm trying to imagine how The Blair Witch Project would have turned out if the Witch in that film was anything like The Scarlet Witch, or how closely any of the aforementioned 'witches' relate to the historical witches of the Salem Witch Trials). And let us not forget The Vision, a character that was introduced five minutes before the final fight against Ultron, who immediately just starts shooting energy beams. In short, every semblance of character is lost in the fight scenes; in Age of Ultron, I could have replaced the Avengers with Rock-em Sock-em Robots and achieved the same effect. There is no explanation as to why it has to be Captain America or why it has to be Hawkeye that fights Ultron. And this also confirms my earlier suspicion about the average American movie-goer; the fact that they keep hyping up the ending fight scene in Age of Ultron tells me that none of them actually stopped for a second and asked exactly what the fuck is going on (essentially, this .gif illustrates the ending fight scene in Age of Ultron well: http://i.imgur.com/s89eq.jpg).
          Now with the appropriate context on The Avengers given, I can start to focus on Ant-Man. It is also from this point that I write having actually seen it - and I must say, I was fairly impressed. And this is actually saying something; not only have I been historically skeptical of superhero films, but I have never been a Paul Rudd fan. I have never been able to make it through five minutes of any of Rudd's previous films without either finding something else to watch or leaving the building altogether. However, Rudd's performance actually delivers in Ant-Man. Rudd plays Scott Lang, a misunderstood thief trying to rebuild his life after being released from San Quentin State Prison in the San Francisco Bay Area. He takes up some dead-end jobs to try and generate a modest income (it should be noted that Lang's interactions with both customers and co-workers at Baskin Robbins are not too far removed from what it is actually like working in the minimum wage service industry - i.e. cancerous), with the ultimate aim of re-earning the favor of his ex-wife in order to be able to see his daughter again, both of whom now live with her new fiancee, who also happens to be a seasoned cop. Meanwhile, Darren Cross, a prodigy in biological engineering, is on the verge of discovering a way to shrink a biological organism to minuscule size, a breakthrough he intends to incorporate into his Yellowjacket combat suit and sell to various contractors and organizations. However, the technology had previously been discovered and harnessed by Cross' mentor, Hank Pym (portrayed by Michael Douglas), who, after seeing the destructive and volatile potential of the technology, locked it away, refusing to share it with Cross and reveal it to the rest of the world. Upon learning that Cross is on the verge of perfecting the Yellowjacket prototype, Pym enlists the help of the struggling Lang to try and steal it. Pym introduces Lang to the Ant-Suit, a shrinking suit that Pym used for covert operations during the Cold War. Harnessing the power of the suit, and with the help of Pym, Pym's daughter, Hope, and his ex-con roommates, Lang sets out to infiltrate Cross' laboratories, destroy the Yellowjacket suit, and stop Cross.
          Scott Lang/Ant-Man is distinct from other Avengers characters, due in large part to Rudd's performance. Rudd makes the character unique, gives him an individual identity, much in the same way that Downey Jr. sets Tony Stark/Iron Man apart from the other Avengers. This is to be contrasted with Chris Hemsworth's Thor and Chris Evans' Captain America, where one could simply reverse the roles and have Evans portray Thor and Hemsworth portray Captain American, and it would amount to absolutely zero difference in any of the Thor, Captain America, or Avengers films. Even on a conceptual level, Ant-Man stands out from the rest of the Avengers; there is something much more intriguing about an ex-con thief who wears an ant costume and can shrink down to minuscule size than a guy from Brooklyn wearing an American flag going around punching Nazis (the former requires at least some degree of imagination, while anyone can replicate the latter by stapling a swastika to his clothing and then proceeding to get punched in the face, which would be guaranteed to sell). Speaking of the Ant-Suit, I think praise is in order for the costume design. Despite the fact that I haven't been the biggest fan of Marvel's Cinematic Universe, one aspect of it that I always thought was extremely well done was the costume design, and Ant-Man is no exception. Perhaps this is because the Ant-Suit itself refers back to that "suspension of disbelief" I had mentioned earlier on; the suit is by no means over-the-top, and, in fact, when Lang first finds it in Pym's house, he refers to it as an old motorcycle outfit, albeit a slightly strange one. The simplicity in both its presentation as an upgraded leather motorcycle outfit, together with its equally straightforward black and red color theme, is further augmented by the fact that the helmet actually looks like an ant, also without being too over-the-top. If the designers wanted to be silly, for example, the helmet for the Ant-Suit could have been something complete with antennae and pincers which, through some bizarre process, could have molded onto Lang's head, rendering Lang as some frightful hybrid of Zorak from Space Ghost and Jeff Goldblum's Fly. Instead, the helmet for the Ant-Suit is better compared to a futuristic gas mask with a black and red color theme, still resembling an ant, but only in very subtle ways. Speaking of the "suspension of disbelief", perhaps my overall satisfaction with Ant-Man can be summarized by pointing out that, unlike some other installments of the Avengers films, Ant-Man actually succeeds in getting the viewer to suspend his or her disbelief. The idea that a genius scientist discovers a technology that can shrink biological organisms, and then incorporates that technology into a suit that only subtly looks like an ant, is not too far-fetched, or, at least, it's not as ridiculous as a guy running around wearing an American flag that throws a shield that somehow always manages to come back to him while knocking every bad guy unconscious in the process.
          However, despite its strong points, Ant-Man isn't flawless. The most glaring error that Ant-Man makes is what I sometimes refer as "backstory padding". Pym and his conflict with Cross and the Yellowjacket suit were all introduced in the first 5 minutes of the film - and then this conflict isn't really addressed again until about an hour in, when the film is halfway over. Everything leading up to that point was more or less backstory on both Lang and Pym, as well as Lang training with the Ant-Suit. For example, it could be said that the first half hour of the film was kind of like a documentary on Lang's life immediately following hist release from prison; we see the kinds of jobs he takes up, how strained his relationship with his wife is, and how his daughter is the most important thing to him. At the same time, we also see how Pym struggles with his efforts to hide his shrinking technology, his rocky relationship with his daughter, and how he copes with the loss of his wife. Again, it feels as if the larger issue - Cross and the Yellowjacket suit - is just a footnote to this, something briefly mentioned in passing. And the second half hour of the film only inches us closer to dealing with the Yellowjacket prototype; one could say that the second half hour is actually just a montage of clips of Lang learning how to use the suit and how to mind-control ants, and such a summary wouldn't be too disingenuous. This error of "backstory padding" is also not new to the Avengers films; the first Captain America film is perhaps the worst perpetrator of this. The first fifteen minutes of Captain America introduces us to how Rogers undergoes the experiments that turn him into the supersoldier that he is, while the next hour or so is a montage of scenes of him punching Nazis on the various battlefields of World War II. His first confrontation with Red Skull doesn't come until much later. One might argue that such a thorough illustration of backstory is necessary in order to properly introduce the characters, and, therefore, that my criticisms of these "introductory" films on these grounds is unjust. But, interestingly, one can also point to a different Avenger's introductory film as an example of one that presented the backstory correctly. The first Iron Man film wasted no time in cutting to the chase; the movie opens up with the only really relevant scene in Tony Stark's backstory as far as the plot of the first film in concerned - the explosion in the Middle East the riddled him with shrapnel. After that, Iron Man only spent about 20 minutes providing context to this, and then, before long, the Iron Man suit is touching down in terrorist strongholds, liberating hostages. A lot more could have been done with both Captain America and Ant-Man if they didn't fall into the trap of "backstory padding", and illustrated the backstory narrative more in the fashion of Iron Man.
          If I were to try and summarize my satisfaction with Ant-Man in a brief one or two sentences, there are, I think, two core things that it does well: 1) it takes an already unique concept (that of a man who can shrink down to the size of an ant) and gives it character and personality, and 2) it does a good job at understanding and manipulating the notion of the "suspension of disbelief". Despite it's slightly drawn out backstory, Ant-Man paints a picture of an ex-con who is not necessarily a bad person, just misunderstood, down on his luck, who only desires to be with his daughter again. His world is turned inside-out when a scientific genius offers him the chance to don a suit that allows him to shrink down to the size of an ant, a concept that is much more intriguing than an American supersoldier fighting Nazis in World War II, a concept that, at this point, is so overdone that one might wonder whether or not there is any imagination left in Hollywood. Speaking of scientific geniuses and advanced technology, Ant-Man also draws from good science fiction films and presents its narrative as feasible in a modern context, where we are asked to suspend our disbelief and imagine that, for just a brief moment, we were to wake up tomorrow and such a shrinking technology became the latest engineering breakthrough, and illustrates to us potential worlds in which that shrinking technology falls into the wrong hands.

Review - Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

          I have officially ventured into new territory with Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials. This is the first movie I have actually seen in Seattle, as well as my first review of a movie that is neither a remake nor a reboot (Fury Road, Jurassic World, and Terminator I saw while I was still living in California), and already it feels slightly foreign. With Fury Road, Jurassic World, and Terminator, I had a point of comparison, or a foundation to build off of, in the earlier installments of those series. With Scorch Trials, I have a new and very active series that only has one previous installment, so that leaves me with very little ground with which to juxtapose it, other than of course its attempt at being a well-rounded science fiction film. It also feels foreign in the fact that I have learned the hard way that there is actually somewhere else in the world that has more expensive movie theaters than California.
          For those that know me, going to see the Maze Runner films may seem slightly out of character; it is a series targeted towards an adolescent demographic (a la Hunger Games), which I have historically found laughable (the Harry Potter series was the big movie series of my adolescent years, and while I will admit to enjoying the books as a child, in my adolescent years, I was busy watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Legend of Drunken Master, and Event Horizon while my peers were watching the Harry Potter films). Accordingly, it might be useful to note that my interest in the Maze Runner series more or less came about by sheer accident; there is a cheap, $2 movie theater near where I used to live in Southern California that screens movies right after their normal screening release in other theaters, for those that either missed the normal screening or for those that didn't feel like paying the $11 to go see a movie in California (apparently it's $13 in Seattle). This theater was one of my go-to movie theaters at the time, since this was back when I was still a barista and $11 was very precious (that's almost two burritos in San Diego, a city in a state where gas prices have hovered between $3.50 and $4.75 for the past three years). Earlier this year, sometime in February or March, I had a nice, long three day weekend, and all of my friends were either out of town or preoccupied with other matters, not to mention the fact that it had been a while since I had been to a movie. I looked at what was playing at the $2 theater at the time and found this movie called The Maze Runner, which I had never even heard of before. It's synopsis was the most interesting when compared to all of the other movies being screened at the time, so I said "what the hell" and spent an afternoon at the movies. Then it was about halfway through the movie that I realized who the target demographic was. Despite this, I actually found the first Maze Runner rather enjoyable, enough so that it piqued my interest in the film series so that I felt inclined to go see this second installment.
          The Maze Runner films are based on a young-adult sci-fi book series by James Dashner. Admittedly, I had never even heard of the book series before going to see the first movie (likely because I'm a little out of the age group for it; this is a very recent series). It was the synopsis of the first movie I read online that got me going to see the first one. In The Maze Runner, a group of adolescent males (interestingly later joined by one female) are mysteriously trapped in a small, lush oasis known as "The Glade", which is surrounded on all sides by a towering, complex monolith of a maze, with no memory or recollection of who they are or how they got there. Occasionally, some of the walls in the maze open up, allowing the boys to explore the inner corridors of the maze, perhaps finding new supplies or a way out. This is notably a dangerous endeavor, however, as the maze is crawling with giant, murderous, cybernetic insects known as "Grievers". The film starts with protagonist Thomas joining our group of scouts in The Glade, of course with no memory of who he is. However, apparently Thomas is the only one in the world with the cunning and leadership skills necessary to help the group escape from The Glade, as he eventually motivates the group (including the eventual female member, Theresa) to venture out into the maze and unravel the mystery of who they are and what they are doing there. It turns out, somewhat unsurprisingly, that the world outside the maze has been devastated by a deadly virus, known as "The Flare", that has driven the world's population mad and towards the brink of extinction, with only a handful of survivors and Earth's landscape left in a desolate, chaotic state known as "The Scorch" (take a wild guess as to where The Scorch Trials takes place). Thomas and his fellow Gladers are actually a new generation of youth that are apparently immune to The Flare, so they were captured by a mysterious, antagonistic organization called W.C.K.D., had their memories erased, and thrown into The Glade to study the inner psychological and neurological workings of their brains in order to try and find a cure for The Flare. The Maze Runner ends with Thomas and crew escaping the maze, the higher-ups at W.C.K.D. being killed off by a different, unnamed organization, and our heroes evacuating with said group into the desolation that is The Scorch. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials picks up literally right where The Maze Runner left off, with Thomas waking up in the same helicopter he passed out in at the end of the first film.
          There are a few things that should perhaps be said about the first film before diving into The Scorch Trials. While it didn't do anything groundbreaking, The Maze Runner was a nice reprieve from the non-stop action, reboot mess that is the current state of science fiction and fantasy films in Hollywood. One simply has to look at Age of Ultron to see that sci-fi films have become like drug addicts; if CGI were a narcotic, and intellectual properties were users, then we would find many of today's sci-fi IPs sprawled out on a dirty mattress in a boarded up house with used needles strewn about the floor. The Maze Runner, in contrast, paces itself, and, instead of taking the Michael Bay approach to science fiction (explosions left and right), it seems as if it is trying to do justice to its literary origins (I say "seem" mostly because I haven't actually read the books).
          There is something very Lord of the Flies about The Maze Runner; as the film progresses, one can document various points where there are almost inevitable power struggles between the boys, particularly after the arrival of Thomas in The Glade. Factions slowly develop, with some taking the side of Thomas in that they think they should try to escape the maze, and others taking the side of Gally, another one of the boys in The Glade, one of the secondary antagonists in the film, who thinks that they should stay. On that note, there is an important question that The Maze Runner asks that a lot of the events and relationships in the film center around: is it better to stay in The Glade, where they know they're safe, but perhaps imprisoned, or try and leave The Glade, where things may be dangerous and uncertain, but also liberating? The spirit behind this question perhaps motivates the phrase "ignorance is bliss"; Gally certainly would rather live in ignorance and security, while Thomas desires to uncover the Truth, with whatever hazards that may bring. Asking this question ultimately earns the film my favor; while this question is not anything new or unheard of, it's one that hasn't been asked in a long time, and the fact that The Maze Runner even asks question at all is already more a claim to success than Terminator Genisys ever had. There were a couple interesting points in The Maze Runner that could have developed into interesting questions, but didn't, for a handful of reasons (i.e. when Theresa, a young, attractive female is suddenly dropped into a camp of adolescent males - a lot of things could have developed here, but those questions might have been too mature for an audience of American adolescents, and likely would have gone way over their heads). Despite this, the first Maze Runner film earned my favor, enough that, when I heard that a second one was being release this past weekend, I thought it would make a good topic for my next review.
          And thus we have arrived at The Scorch Trials. Those who are skilled in identifying the subtle nuances between different science fiction sub-genres will notice a pretty distinct shift of tone between The Scorch Trials and the first film. Where The Maze Runner had a distinct dystopian feel to it, examining a group of adolescent males trying to create a functioning society complete with social strata (again, like Lord of the Flies) while a larger faceless entity watched from a kind of "God perspective" above (think 1984), The Scorch Trials seems to abandon that framework, preferring to instead take the approach of something much more dire and apocalyptic, with vast forsaken wastelands (think Cormac McCarthy's The Road or the Fallout series of games), sprinkled here and there with the ruins of dilapidated cities and the small settlements of those who have managed to dodge both the spread of the Flare and the capture of W.C.K.D (a la The Book of Eli), as well as the crazed demi-zombies of those who have been infected with The Flare and now terrorize The Scorch (a la I am Legend). The Scorch Trials literally picks up right where The Maze Runner left off, so much so that one could probably cut out the credits of the first film and tape the two reels together with a piece of scotch tape and someone who didn't know better might actually think it was all one long film. Thomas wakes up in the helicopter that rescued our group of protagonists at the end of the first film, which takes them to a new, high security facility in The Scorch, where they encounter the survivors of other mazes. Having supposedly escaped the trap of W.C.K.D., the new facility, which promises to keep them secure and eventually take them to a new kind of "paradise", however, seems too good to be true, and Thomas immediately becomes suspicious when Aris, an interesting, slightly creepy boy from a maze full of women (much like Theresa was for Thomas' group) helps him sneak around the complex one night soon after they arrive (one well versed in Greek myth might think of the Amazons when learning about Aris' maze, but instead of Aris filling the role of Hercules completing one of his Labors, perhaps it would be more accurate to portray him as Paris earning the affection of Greek and Trojan women alike). As Fate would have it (and not surprisingly), it turns out this new facility is actually W.C.K.D. in disguise, and the man that runs the place, Janson, is actually under the direct command of Ava Paige, one of the higher ups at W.C.K.D. that was supposedly killed off at the end of the first film. Thomas and Aris quickly learn that this "paradise" that Janson is taking the maze survivors to is actually some kind of chemically induced coma, allowing W.C.K.D.'s scientists to harvest the relevant enzymes from their brains which may allow them to produce a cure for The Flare. It doesn't take long for our group of protagonists to orchestrate their escape, dodging W.C.K.D. security forces and bolting out the front gate into the chaos of The Scorch, where they encounter smugglers, rebel groups, old technology, and, of course, the crazies infected by The Flare.
          Like its predecessor, The Scorch Trials asks some very important questions. I found that the events of the film center around two questions in particular: 1) "Does the end ever justify the means?" and, in keeping in the spirit of the first film, 2) "Can ignorance really be bliss?" It's unfortunate that, also like its predecessor, The Scorch Trials merely presents the questions without ever really offering to answer them, and, on the few occasions that it does hint at an answer, it is usually the cliched view of the protagonists that we are just expected to accept at face value. (1) highlights the dilemma that W.C.K.D. presents for Thomas and crew. I think the spirit of the question is best equated to the utilitarian dilemma of the person that can save the crew of only one of two sinking ships; on the first ship is only a small handful of individuals composed of the person's friends, while on the second ship is a much larger group of complete strangers. More accurately, the aim of the question can also be captured by pointing to the dilemma of a scientist that has the opportunity to discover the cure for cancer, but in the process has to test the cure on live human subjects with potentially adverse and painful effects that may kill them. And such is the case with W.C.K.D.; it is the aim of Paige and W.C.K.D. that they uncover the cure for The Flare, and they seem to be on the right track. The unfortunate thing for our protagonists, however, is that "being on the right track" involves subjecting those that are immune to the disease to the deadly trials of the mazes, in order to cultivate the appropriate proteins and enzymes in their brains so that they can be harvested later. Accordingly, insofar as W.C.K.D.'s situation parallels the generic utilitarian dilemma above, one could try to evaluate W.C.K.D.'s position using the standard approaches given to the above dilemma. The common resolution, and the one that self-assumed righteous individuals are quick to take up, is that the larger crew of the second sinking ship (the complete strangers) should be the one that should be saved "for the greater good". On this view, the end of "saving a larger group of people" justifies the means of "sacrificing one's friends". Applying this approach to W.C.K.D.'s situation, then it would seem that W.C.K.D. is actually justified in its approach; the end of "finding a cure for The Flare" justifies the means of "sacrificing the maze survivors". If this is the most common approach (and seemingly the most intuitive), one is then left to wonder why W.C.K.D. are just unconditionally presented as the bad guys in the film? Alas, it is here that I think The Scorch Trials misses a great opportunity; instead of really entertaining the idea that "maybe W.C.K.D. has a point", the film doesn't engage the idea, nor even appear to consider it. Imagine how different, and perhaps more interesting, the movie would be if W.C.K.D. were actually presented as the protagonists of the film, and Thomas and crew, the antagonists. Or, on the other hand, if one would move to reject the common utilitarian resolution to the dilemma, and argue that one is perfectly justified in letting the larger group of survivors drown in favor of saving one's friends, which is fine, then at least engage the idea and explain why it is a bad idea, and why any alternative would be a better option, neither of which Thomas, or anybody else for that matter, seems to do. A lot of the other characters just blindly follow Thomas, no questions asked, and I imagine that many movie-goers just take it for granted that Thomas is a smart, confident, young kid, when, with a little bit of reflection and contemplation, one could potentially make the case that Thomas is a complete moron.
          Before addressing question (2), there is one last thing that can be said about (1) and the situations described in the above paragraph. Towards the end of The Scorch Trials, Theresa, the single female in Thomas' merry band of protagonists, actually sells out the location of the group to W.C.K.D., telling Thomas that it's better that W.C.K.D. find a cure, resulting in a violent, fiery raid by W.C.K.D. forces on a resistance group. One might look at this scene as a kind of counter-example to my above point that the film doesn't actually consider any alternative to Thomas' view. However, this conclusion would be too hastily drawn, and, again after a little bit of reflection, one would realize that Theresa doesn't really do that by the end of the movie. Theresa simply converts herself from protagonist to antagonist, and the effect that such a scene has the audience is that they simply start hating Theresa and sympathize even more with Thomas. In other words, in order for The Scorch Trials to really provide a counter-example to my above claims, we would need to see a real conflict of ideas, where the pros and cons of each are given equal consideration. As I think the above thought experiments illustrate, the morality surrounding the proposed solutions to these dilemmas is not clear-cut black and white. However, The Scorch Trials presents us with the red herring that the solutions to these dilemmas are supposed to be clear-cut. Instead of Theresa representing an alternative point of view that engages Thomas in discussion (either figuratively or literally), she simply converts herself into yet another hurdle for Thomas and crew to overcome. In short, she is not an adequate representation of an alternative point of view, but rather more of an emotion-jerker for the audience.
          (2) is actually a question that gets recycled from the first film. I mentioned that Gally was an antagonistic force for Thomas in The Maze Runner, preferring to stay in the safety and security in The Glade than venture out into the unknown of the maze and The Scorch. But much like (1), the audience is lead to think that those that actually entertain this point are crazy, as opposed to considering the prospect that, perhaps, it would be better to live in the sheltered, secluded oases that are The Glade or W.C.K.D.'s facility as opposed to endure the harshness of The Scorch. This conflict of ideas is readily apparent if one were to question what exactly it was that Thomas and crew actually achieved by escaping The Glade at the end of the first film, or by eluding capture by W.C.K.D. in The Scorch Trials. In fact, one might even wonder exactly what it is that Thomas is even hoping to achieve. W.C.K.D., for all intents and purposes, wants to find a cure for a disease that threatens to wipe out the human race, while it's not entirely clear what Thomas is doing. (One might argue that Thomas is simply concerned with his own self-preservation, and that self-preservation, in and of itself, is a sufficient impetus for action, a view I would be happy to endorse if I thought that it were applicable in this case. Thomas is presented as the apotheosis of righteousness in the films - selfless, compassionate, and brave. Thomas' character seems wholly at odds with one who is motivated by his or her own self-interest or self-perservation, thus it would seem slightly misplaced to try and argue that Thomas' motivation in the films is simply his own self-preservation where his character is meant to be otherwise). In this case, Gally's perspective at the end of the first film might have some merit to it; The Glade, while isolated from whatever possibilities and blessings that the rest of the world may present, is also safe from the world's horrors. Thomas, on the other hand, offers nothing but uncertainty and action without forethought. Don't get me wrong; I vehemently reject the idea that "ignorance is bliss", and much more favor the notion that, to truly find Paradise, one has to endure trials and uncertainty and ultimately find Truth, however pleasant or miserable it may be. The difference is that Thomas never actually makes this argument; it's just assumed from the outset of both films that Gally and Paige are wrong, which would be fine for the movie to portray if it actually made the case for Thomas' view, which it didn't. Both films seem to have Thomas and crew simply running in random directions, sometimes with particular destinations in mind, but without any kind of larger goal or aim.
          The tension between these two ideas surrounding (2) can be brought out even more if we put it in the context of Philosophy's famous "Sense Machine" thought experiment. This idea was alluded to very, very briefly towards the beginning of The Scorch Trials when Thomas and Aris found that the "paradise" that Jansen was leading the maze survivors to was actually a chemically induced coma. In general philosophical discussion, the "Sense Machine" scenario can be paraphrased as something like the following: suppose that, one day when you wake up, you are greeted by a scientist that offers you the opportunity to experience any sensation you so desire. This sensation can be anything, from feeling a cool summer breeze brush against your skin, to a visually stunning theater performance on Broadway, to having the greatest orgasm ever in a medieval harem. And every detail will be present; this sensation will feel exactly like the real thing in every way, so much so that one wouldn't be able to tell the difference between this sensation and any other experience of the exact same thing. And, even better, this scientist will be able to perpetually replicate this sensation, or other sensations of equal pleasure, and offers you the opportunity to experience them constantly, thus allowing one to forever revel in ecstasy and bliss. However, there is a catch: these sensations aren't technically real. In fact, in order to constantly experience them, one would have to be perpetually fixed to some kind of virtual reality machine, which feeds his or her brain the appropriate neural stimuli as to replicate the sensation in every detail. Not the "real thing" per se, but, from the perspective of sensation, one would not be able to tell the difference. The question that is then posed to participants in this thought experiment is a simple one: Would you do it? Would you enter the Sense Machine? Gally would, judging by his perspective in the first film, and both Paige and Theresa don't seem to think that it's such a bad thing to harvest the proteins from a maze survivor as long as he or she is being properly stimulated in his or her coma. The argument can then be made that it is a win/win situation for Paige and the maze survivors; Paige gets the cure for The Flare while the survivors are comatose, but the survivors don't even realize it because their brains are being given pleasant sensations.
          But, alas, like the alternative solutions to (1), this idea is never really entertained in The Scorch Trials. We are supposed to assume that morality in The Scorch Trials is as clear cut is as Thomas makes it out to be, nor is there ever any W.C.K.D. sympathizer present to make their case. If Jansen or Paige ever really stopped and asked Thomas why a life out in The Scorch is in any way better than a life in an artificial paradise, then the film would be getting at something fundamentally important. However, the film merely hints at the question, and doesn't really actually engage it. What would have been even more provocative would have been to have the case made in favor of W.C.K.D.'s artificial paradise, while Thomas' perspective is left unsupported. A moral 360 such as this would undoubtedly turn several heads, and, within the context of the larger "Sense Machine" thought experiment, it might have really motivated people to stop and actually try to explain why being hooked up to the Sense Machine is truly a bad thing, a feat that many will find, I think, painfully daunting. I am more than willing to support one who at least makes an attempt to explain why the Sense Machine is a bad thing, but, at least when it comes to the Maze Runner series, such a dissenter is absent.
          It may seem as if I am being slightly more critical of The Scorch Trials than I am lauding it. However, despite this, I cannot end this review without giving The Scorch Trials a recommendation. The previous paragraphs highlight the ways in which The Scorch Trials can be improved, but it would do the film a disservice to not underline the things that it does well. As mentioned, The Scorch Trials asks some very important questions, and although these questions are predictable, almost to the point of being cliche, the fact that it asks questions at all already sets it a cut above other recent science fiction films. Couple this with the fact that, also unlike many recent science fiction films, The Scorch Trials isn't so reliant on CGI to achieve its effects, nor is it the most action-heavy sci-fi film of the summer, then you have something that serves as a nice reprieve from a lot of other sci-fi films of the year, even if it just mediocre at doing so. The end of The Scorch Trials, right after W.C.K.D. raids the resistance group and recaptures a large portion of the maze survivors, including one of Thomas' merry band, hints heavily at a third film where our protagonists turn the tables and, instead of running from W.C.K.D., they attack W.C.K.D. head-on. Assuming that this third installment of the Maze Runner series is released at all, and that I am still doing movie reviews at that time, I can already forecast a point that I will hold it responsible for: we will yet again see the very same conflict of ideas described above, whether the characters in the film realize it or not. But, unlike these first two films where the conflict was most evident in relationships among the characters, this future third Maze Runner film will illustrate the conflict by means of violence and armed struggle. And, quite honestly, this is where the series has an opportunity to shine; a person's values can be made most evident in violent struggle, and, if the series really wants to illustrate the above conflict of ideas in the way that I suggested, where it actually makes the case for at least one of them, then the best time to do it would be against a backdrop of armed conflict, where each combatant expresses his or her understanding of what he or she is doing and why. Whether or not it actually will do this, well, we will just have to wait and see.