OnlySlipping

Veiled scribblings and writings. Nonsensical or maybe on to something...

[onlyslipping-blog]

Infinity War? Oh, for sure. (A decade of decadence)

If you want a show in a thunderstorm you set up a lightning rod and watch the pure power dance for your amusement. Our key heroes in the Marvel universe have stood like conduit towers of popular culture, risen like phoenixes from the ashes of a financially struggling 1990s Marvel, for the last 10 years. Not only breathing life into the bank accounts of Marvel but igniting the hunger for comics and movies like no other franchise in the history of cinema, much aided by the lackluster attempts of DC to recreate that magic and all while never quite understanding the complex science of it all.

And like lightning you have Avengers: Infinity War. Planned for and calculated but almost uncontrollable just due to the nature of the beast. More heroes than you can count on all your digits and more stories than an old book of fables from your childhood. Like controlling the floods, it takes the finest form of engineering, which is exactly what Joe and Anthony Russo have done, finely tuned and mathematically planned within an inch of its many lives. So how do you make a mathematically planned storm of countless tales coalesce into something that the smallest child can enjoy alongside their 90 year old grandparents and all inbetween? Simple, you take a Chris add another then add a Robert and this is how you tame the beast.

Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth and Robert Downey Jr are giants, holding the chains of each of the story lines together and pulling like titans to ensure your attention never moves, from heartbreaking deaths to not so heartbreaking deaths we move from story to story, from planet to planet and from hero to hero without a beat missed and they are the magnets for your attention. Battles that would be an entire movie in the hands of lesser studios are but tiny glances in Infinity Wars eyes, never glazed over or ignoring, they are given the perfect time for you to bite the bait and to drag you as if by a speedboat to the next baited hook.

From the last 10 years our heroes and villains have build the strongest foundations that have rewarded investment, if you immersed into the world then every motive and every stance is reasoned, every action justifiable and every conclusion as heartbreaking as it should be. But for the casual viewer you are rewarded with enough. Enough being the keyword for Infinity War, you are given enough action, enough story and enough character development to hook you in and, more importantly, hook you into the future of these intertwined tales. Never too much, never too little. And how they have brought this balance to such potential chaos, only Thanos can tell you that.

With the final black and white credits rolling you are greeted with a glaringly obvious fact, you have one year to wait to see the conclusion of this story and therein lies the potential problem. Time is a great healer, or so they say, but it is also gets people thinking. Minds tick and hope, like Doctor Strange looking into the future we see countless outcomes and hypothesize on our favourite, build the hype around it and others add to this with plots and hopes, growing over the months until the end result is lesser than the idealised version that sits in our frontal lobe. The recent Star Wars films have suffered from this, with a two year gap and a rabid fan base of optimistic thinkers that will always look for the best possible outcome and if the writer cannot match up to the thinkers then you get a damp firework (ala The Last Jedi and its infamously limp Snoke payoff), so will The Avengers 4 live up to the hype of a year of speculation and imaginative creations? Time will tell. But for now we have a film that can proudly stand among the rarest of clubs in media, a franchise that is constantly improving. And who can ask more than that.

© Laurence Cummins

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The Birth, Death, Resurrection and Slaughter Show

Since the night of June 16th 1816 when Dr John Polidori picked up a pen inspired by a storytelling night courtesy of Lord Byron, where he birthed an idea that would turn into his 1819 novel The Vampyre, we have seen the rise of countless (or even Count filled!) tales of the undying blood suckers. From Bram Stokers famously eternal novel to Hammer Horror shocks in the 70s to the grand camp of vampire in the 90s (Interview with a Vampire or Vampire:The Masquerade - Bloodlines anyone?)  it has been a neverending vein of inspiration for anyone wanting to thrill and chill an audience. So when 1986s Castlevania game by Konami fell from the very depths of hell to the laps of willing consumers it seemed like an obvious formula and like any good formula in the hands of a questionable publisher they bled it till even Gilles De Rais wouldn’t touch it anymore (research a bit of Gilles De Rais if you don’t know who he is and wonder why in gods name they haven’t made hundreds of horror movies about him!).

The bleeding of the Castlevania name continued for years, each game growing and evolving like a good dhampir should. The franchise spread far and wide onto different platforms and different languages as the sales grew and grew, when the formula felt as if it was due for a crypt they brought in the only thing to rejuvenate a vampire, new blood. This new blood was Koji Igarashi, who birthed the centrepiece of the Castlevania crown, Symphony of the Night, which spread it’s infernal wings spawning countless sequels and inspired titles in the Metroidvania vein. Like Dracula himself this new blood kept him going for years, gracing handhelds and home consoles around the world. As the formula again began to fade they brought in new blood again, in the form of the Metal Gear master, HIdeo Kojima, who, like Dracula himself, was very much a prisoner of a castle, this castle just happened to be Konami itself. Kojima could only breathe life into one title before the sequel killed any momentum as it very much appeared that the old beast was in need of something more than just new blood. Ritual books at the ready...

Nothing followed but scandal for Konami. The mob wanted Konamis blood, instead of pitchforks the mob were modern, there were a neverending list of complaints leveled at it by journalists and employees, including one Hideo Kojima who appeared to be finally free from his eternal bonds. A company selling games needs peoples to buy games to grease the wheels, but like anything old all that came out was dust and promises. Franchises that could floor a market and sell enough to pay for a 3rd yacht like Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Zone of the Enders and, of course, Castlevania had all be driven into the ground with the worst kind of stake (poor quality sequels!). So no new titles emerged from Konamis gates, with its PR acting like a rotting corpse and permanently decaying, the future doesn’t look bright. Konami recently announced a fate worse than death for a franchise, an IoS game. Money it will make but future possibilities it will alienate, a miserable pessimistic outlook indeed but a proven outlook, think on any franchise of video games that got a sole mobile edition and then came back to be better...here is where I would expect to write an example for the optimists but hours of research leads me to, well, nothing.

Saviour of all ancient ones, Netflix, came to the rescue with an animated series, which was much like everyone's first time, pretty damn good but so short you couldn’t quite get the most out of it. And with a promise of new episodes it seems Dracula in this form is in another castle. And with that it seems the undying Dracula could not be killed off so easy. All the best things can be ruined by the hands of greed and laziness, I am firmly placing my gaze at The Matrix sequels....and Final Fantasy XIII….and Street Fighter V….and that TV series Heroes, the list is longer than Alucards cape. As every vampire will tell you, even your favourite thing needs some new blood every now and then, regardless of the fear. And sometimes it needs something much more like a seismic shift and for the heavens to rain with blood, but nothing great truly dies, even at the hands of the greedy.

(C) Laurence Cummins

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The Art of Confrontation and Cuteness

In the shadow of a nuclear bomb and an industry of warplanes and death surrounding you with a legacy of brutality encompassing the worlds view of your nation it would be so easy for you to be sombre and reflective, to let your art reflect the pain that so many artists falsely manufacturer to make people feel a sense of authenticity. But not for Hayao Miyazaki, a name that few people would not recognise as one of the most prominent faces in movie making today. Far from avoiding his personal past, the past of his country and the social issues that face the world today Hayao Miyazaki uses it like few creators do and hides it, it is hidden from the masses but the few who delve a little deeper find an underbelly that truly confronts you with a stark reality. Whereas Disney runs from the racism in its past, deciding not to reissue films with racism tones, Studio Ghiblis work never commits to anything other than presenting facts veiled in fantastical stories to help remove you from the damages of the world.

Spirited Away stands atop a mountain to be the finest animated film of its time, on the surface a tale of a girl who has to delve into a magical world to find a way to return her parents from the pig forms that they have been transformed into, meeting fantastical creatures and folklore ghosts and dragons along the journey all graced with a beautiful timeless art style that will sell art prints and bags till Miyazaki is no longer with us. But underneath is a tale of a little girl all alone in a world, put to work in the slavery that demands it of her, seemingly long before she is ready, which can also be taken as a veiled statement on the child sex trade, which is far from the standard graces of a modern animated title. There is no judgement. No stance. It is presented in stark vision. It lets you be the judge. Years after its inception this will forever confront an issue that is yet to fade and will not vanish for the foreseeable future.

Protesters for years have made statements, screamed their viewpoint, stood upon a podium and let the populous know that they are right and the other is wrong. Others take their stance differently, like Thích Quảng Đức, the monk who was protesting the treatment of Buddhist monks by the Southern Vietnamese government who was covered in gasoline by two fellow monks and set alight, burning in the streets sat cross legged while the public watched and a few snapped photos that will stand as testament to that time in human history forever. Without saying a word everyone who encountered the famous photo of the burning monk knew his cause, no screaming or shouting, no pushed opinions, just facts, displayed to the majority and letting them ask and evaluate.

Miyazaki challenges you not with self immolation but using the most modern of techniques, consumerism. Not only tackling Spirited Aways issue but a childs need for imagination in a time of turmoil in My Neighbour Totoro, nature reclaiming modern life in Pom Poko, the effects of war and the constant nuclear threat to all life in Nausicaa, the list goes on. Every film tackles issues, no matter where they are or how small the glance, everything is present and waiting to be seen.

Being confronted by social and ecological issues sounds like a far cry from an accessible movie and far from anything a modern viewer would embrace with the passion and the vigour that Studio Ghibli fans pick up and view Hayao Miyazakis work, but the majesty of Miyazaki is the magic. Every single atom is created from a place of pure imagination, the worlds breathe with a realness that your childhood worlds breathed with, every character moves with the grace of how you imagine your imaginary friend from years ago moved and every world has a tangible magic that the animation only enhances with every flourish. A rare treat in a world of churned out animation and 3D work that lacks the one thing we all watch movies of this type for, imagination.

Miyazakis past and his world view creates masterpieces, creating beauty from things that could be tragic. In a world where tragedy is dropped from planes and explodes in market squares with vengeance every single day you wonder where the next creator of this important and vital art form will come from next. Maybe our children will be watching the finest work from a Syrian film maker that can transport you to a completely different world while reminding you of the dangers of our current volatile political power struggles and want for politicians to mark their legacy with a bomb blast.

      (C) Laurence Cummins

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Norse For You, Buddy!

Finding the start of a trend is like finding a Starbucks NOT full of open laptops and constantly checked phones, virtually impossible and annoying to attempt. But our very modern renaissance with the Norse can be personified in two current games, Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice and God of War (2018), both of these games use the Norse setting to build a world surrounding a more personal story, from the brutal struggles with mental health to the need to escape the past and stand up to become a parent. The Norse stylings and folklore swirls around these tales, embellishing everything from boss fights to locations to myths all exploited in the best possible way. In an opposite direction the Marvel franchise Thor is the most obvious medium to use Norse styling but avoids delving in too deep like the plague that swept the seas all those years ago. Thors visuals are played out embracing the futurist elements, even down to Odins eye piece (or in a foreshadow to a future Apple trademark, should that be iPiece), while never reveling in the true history beyond basic names and family ties. Almost as if the players had been plucked from the play. The first Thor movie released in 2011, the style of Thor had almost obviously been dictated by the plans for the future Marvel universe but in the sequel it embraced a more encompassing ‘historic setting’ creating, arguably, the weakest Marvel movie Thor: The Dark World (I’ll hide from the three Thor: The Dark World fans behind my recreation of Captain Americas shield), maybe cinema is yet to catch up with the true power of the Norse.

Which brings us to the most important question, how can films and video games approach the same subject but be so different? The obvious answer is the interactivity of video games, but there is a deeper layer, interactivity is only a factor if we WANT to be immersed. As we enter a cinema we know that we are entering for a set time, two hours of our lives sat in mildly uncomfortable seats surrounded by the sneezing and the chewing of the locals, but video games ask more of you, they demand your time, your attention, your movement and your thought. If you fall asleep during a movie it will continue, if you fall asleep during a video game then Nathan Drake will stay standing perfectly still like he was in a Sony E3 conference demo. You NEED to be involved, regardless of your willingness. So the style and visuals must be the first vine to grab around you, then the story and then the characters, all to be topped off with the music and flourishes that a fine game maker will add to enhance your immersion. A movie carries these exact same factors but you aren’t expected to give anything other than being awake to engage. So when you present a game with such a rich history as the Norse and allow us all to revel in the embellishments of the setting, this allows engagement to be a natural feeling, but by giving us such a limited window of engagement in a movie how can we all fall down the rabbit hole of immersion.   

We are skating around the biggest Norse elephant in the great hall, Game of Thrones, a Norse feeling and setting that has millions engaged around the world swooning for every word and begging for every nipple to see what will happen next. Engagement and immersion are embraced and reveled in week after week (or year after year as the season gaps grow), so the TV series as a principle knows the power and possibility of the Norse, with shows like Vikings and The Last Kingdom proudly showing off its allegiance to the All Father.

So maybe cinema isn’t big enough to deal with the scale and the scope of the Norse, it takes us to Rome grasping the rich Roman heritage, telling us all we need to know in one movie as seen in Gladiator and can take the highest of high fantasy (not a Cheech and Chong kind of high) Lord of the Rings, turning it into a multi movie behemoth that sparked fantasy fires in many a young mind. But cinema, then and now, seems to skate around the great potential as if it were as empty as the day after Ragnarok. So long may video games hold the torch high as it walks the harden path of bringing the Norse majesty to us all, because Odin knows we need more of it right now! Until the day when we get an inevitable soulless Call of Duty cash in, Call of Duty: Baldurs Revenge, that truly marks the death of a trend.

(C) Laurence Cummins

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Prepare To Thrive

At some point Lordran has entered most of our lives, whether it be fleeting glances of the inside of the Undead Asylum and a swiftly smashed controller at the hands of the Asylum Demon or if it just knowing that almost tagline esque phrase of ‘Git Gud’ to poorly sum up its challenging difficulty or if you are one of the chosen undead that parried that Lord of Cinder to hell and back again on new game plus 6 it seems that Dark Souls has managed to claw its way into the mind and zeitgeist of us all, pretty impressive for a game that originally released way back in mists of 2011 that has risen above its sequels and ‘spin off’, Bloodborne, to stand as one of the finest games of the modern day. How come we just can’t say no to some Solaire, alienate Artorias or silence Siegmeyer in 2018?

When Dark Souls Remastered reared its head from the abyss to show off its 4K texture and teased a revisit to Lordran it didn’t pull on the nostalgia veins like a remaster normally should. Even in a world where The Last of Us had a remaster a few short years after its original release it still felt as if we were truly revisiting the heartbreak and trauma of Joel and Ellie, but Lordran just hasn’t faded. From the endless spawning of popular Let’s Plays using the original Dark Souls as a baited hook to catch an audience to the lore hunters that have theorised for over half a decade as to just what is the Age of Dark like and who exactly is Sen anyway! It proves that we all still thirst for the world that Gwyn called home.

The limited merchandise void has been lifting slowly since its release with fearsome Artorias and Sif figures glancing at us all, tempting us through comic shop windows, to bootleg Souls t-shirts being flogged by dodgy marketeers with targeted Facebook ads and stunning recreations of the rings being worn at every comic-con by the faithful, all while missing the evergrowing need for an Onion Knight plushie! But the Dark Souls merchandise sector could never be called ‘excessive’, from a country that has birthed modern commercialism with it’s (frankly fantastic) amount of merchandising surrounding games and movies it would be worryingly easy to unleash a miasma of merch to drain our wallets and potent real estate in our living spaces. But the wisdom over at From Software, makers of Dark Souls and other criminally under merchandised titles, say no, and who are we to argue.

Communities survive and grow in this day and age because they completely engage with a product and hunger for more without ever tinting those rose coloured glasses, so with a game that rewards only the most dedicated followers, this is key. The days of mystery are behind us, the days when no one knew that Slipknot were just a bunch of old men in masks and no one knew if that 6 pixel ‘UFO’ video clumsily uploaded online was actually real or if Marilyn Manson really has all his ribs, so when a rare title pops up and challenges us with something we don’t expect, it gets us, catches deeper than nostalgia and attaches itself to us for the rest of our lives. Why don’t more games approach with this method? Is it lack of faith in their audience or is it a level of brilliance few even care to challenge themselves with? I personally believe that it takes an old soul (pun firmly chosen) to protect their work in a way that holds the screams of the strongest stuff of all...integrity and faith, faith that a few will understand your vision, no matter how many that few happen to be.

For me Dark Souls in 2018 can be summed up by a phrase that is always given out as terrible dating advice but in terms of Dark Souls sums its entire ethos better than anything:

“Treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen.”

And in this case, it worked as I constantly refresh those browsers to find out when I can play Dark Souls Remastered on a bus with my Switch and just why those Shadows Die Twice...

(C) Laurence Cummins