Yeah, the set design thing is super interesting. I really think that’s the case with Star Wars, even more than just its effects overall. A lot of it, I think has to do with darkness, or managing light and dark. This is why so many “art film” classics are in black and white–because there’s much more concern for the overall look of the film, and b/w has way more contrast than color. Think of all the classic German expressionist films–especially “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” (easily one of the best films ever made), and then the way that the Germans influenced Billy Wilder when he shot Double Indemnity and launched film noir in Hollywood–again, so much work is done by the sets (and especially the lighting); I think at the time, Double Indemnity was the darkest studio movie ever shot. Kubrick’s movies too were all so carefully designed in their look.

I just don’t know if there can be such a thing as a blockbuster B-movie. I’ll have to keep thinking about it.

back to the FX – i thought X-Men 1 looked pretty bad, FX-wise. but the script and actors were so good that i think it was easy to gloss over. the sets in X1 were amazing, though, in my opinion. the sets in Wolvie were just whatever. i actually think this set design thing is fascinating. it never occurred to me before! i dunno man maybe it’s cause you and Neal know Wolvie mostly from the movies but he’s always had mostly B-movie adventures in the comics. not bad, mind you, but B-movie. so my expectations were probably different in that sense.

Wolvie-as-a-B-movie also seems to be leading towards this problem with expectations. Since expecting a B-movie is way way different from expecting a blockbuster. And big movies that have tried to cop the B-movie thing tend to fail, at least from a large audience perspective. Starship Troopers for instance, has a pretty devoted following at this point, amongst college-educated hipster types that figure out its B-movie impulses, but when it first came out it fell flat as hell (I do think its good, but mostly because that way I can give Verhoeven credit for three sci-fi masterpieces, which is a better number than just two).

The large budget B-movie is the worst kind, because its large budget is still smaller than a blockbuster budget; it’s just a studio making a movie as cheaply as possible (or nearly so). I’d guess that Wolverine cost less than half as much as Terminator. And it shows.

Yeah, like I said Nick, I feel about going with A Scanner Darkly,, but it is one of Dick’s more popular novels. Drugs are bad, m’kay? I’m trying to think which of his novels would have been better to go with. Maybe Radio Free Albemuth. Or Ubik. Oh well.

You should like Gentlemen of the Road; its short and an action novel.

As for the SFX, like I say, I’m kind of surprised at myself for deciding on focusing on them, but they do end up having a lot to do with what makes Wolverine look so completely half-assed. But in terms of expectations, everyone was expecting T4 to look good–and it does (and has high quality sound design to match its look)–but expecting the story and everything else to suck, so when T4 didn’t totally blow it became a pleasant surprise. The first two X-Men movies also looked very good, so there was a similar bar set for visual FX within franchise that Wolverine didn’t even bother trying to match, which is what makes it so frustrating.

to take the Wolverine debate one step further, i think that the reason the movie didn’t peak its potential as a blockbuster is simply because the character hasn’t been around long enough. if you look at the comic book superheroes who have had successful forays into film, you’ll notice that almost every single one of them has about 40 plus years under their belt and they’re still adding stories to the ongoing narrative. i think Wolverine needs to add some of those extra layers to his mythos in the comics first. by the time someone relaunches Wolvie in movies in 10 to 20 years, the film has greater potential to have more solid blockbuster storytelling and psychology – because there will be better material to pull from that has truly stood the test of time.

still, i enjoyed the hell out of the Wolvie movie. it wasn’t perfect, but i thought it was really fun.

Pete, you ever see Timecop? i watched it this weekend and LOVED it. the ending is a bit of a cop out (as well as a time travel conundrum) but the movie still holds up. and there are barely any FX in it. mostly “time warping” where the background becomes rippled, and one climactic scene that only lasts for a few seconds. the sets, however, do leave much to be desired.

AND A Scanner Darkly. oh how i loathe that book. in fact, i already placed one of my two copies on Amazon and sold it last night. i had to buy two copies because i lost it last week and i had promised myself i would finish it in time for today.

it was just awful. it was a heavy-handed, whiny book about the symbiotic relationship between crime and law enforcement, filtered through the lens of drug use. the characters were annoying and the situations lacked excitement. the worst part was the author’s note at the end about the druggies of the sixties who were punished too harshly for experimenting. i was also irritated with Dick’s hangup on ethnicity. whenever a non-white character entered the story, every mention of the them was preceded by “black” or “colored” or “Chinese.” he even did this in consecutive sentences when it was completely unnecessary.

overall, i’m glad i read it. but it was a painful experience, and, in my opinion, a poorly written book.

and Neal, like i told Pete before, Marvel didn’t make the Wolverine movie. that was Fox. this film was not part of their movie strategy. they only have the rights to the Avengers stuff right now.

T4 > Wolverine – I’ll buy that – but only because I had such low expectations for T4 to begin with. Foolhardy as it may have been, I was expecting a lot more from Wolverine. On a relative scale, the Terminator franchise will suffer a lot less than XMEN. However, whereas Terminator is nearing the end of the line, The Marvel’s movie strategy is just hitting its stride. In absolute terms, both movies were garbage pail.

You focused on SFX – and you even invoked Star Wars and Wolverine’s shitty claws. I think that is important – and I will quote Nick here, ‘After Star Wars, there really is no excuse for bad SFX’. I wholeheartedly concur with that. I mean, all things being equal (read: budget), why aren’t all movie SFX on par with each other? I know there are other things that go into the mix and of course SFX aren’t everything, but were I a studio executive I’d probably get a lot of mileage out of that line.

and the book club – weren’t we going to do Chabon’s Mysteries of Pittsburgh, or did I make that up?