Monday, May 26
So, how about a review of The Matrix Reloaded?
I'm a big fan of science fiction literature--Philip K. Dick, Alfred Bester, Stanislaw Lem, Dan Simmons, Greg Bear, Olaf Stapledon... There are so many interesting science fiction novels out there that I've only scratched the surface. But what all of these novels have in common is their dedication to one simple principle: putting the ideas first. That is, science fiction, unlike other genres, is about ideas above and beyond characters, narratives, or all the stuff that most literature prizes. If you have a good science fiction idea, you can write a good science fiction novel. Yes, this leads to some shoddy writing at times, but what genre can't admit that 75% of its output is crap? The good science fiction writers will always create an interesting, engaging story or interesting, engaging characters to fill out their clever idea. So the tendency many have to link SF with refuse is just not accurate.
Now, back to that idea thing. The problem with most science fiction films is simply that the science fiction ideas, while present, generally serve the formulaic plots and stereotype characters, rather than letting the idea dominate and let the plots and characters feed off that idea. Take Star Wars. It was a good movie, right? So was The Empire Strikes Back. These movies were good because they were founded on an idea: the force. The stories and characters in those films developed out from that basic idea. Ah, but think about Jedi or Episodes I and II. These stories were not about an idea; they were about Luke or Leia or Annakin or Jar-Jar or the clone war. Yes, the force was in all these stories, but that force idea was only part of the scenery. Pushing the focus away from the idea of the force and onto the stories and characters that were created out of the first two films ruined the later movies.
What made the first Matrix film so interesting and so successful was the simple fact that the center of the film was the idea of matrix itself. We didn't need to know or care about Neo or Morpheus or even the Oracle in order to appreciate and become engaged with the concept of humanity living in pods and dreaming reality.
Of course, the ideas of virtual reality and machines enslaving humanity are not new; heck, the machine idea goes back to HG Wells or Lang's Metropolis. A friend of mine--a SF junkie--criticized The Matrix when it came out because it was not based on an original idea. Well, he was correct in saying this. However, what he missed was the obvious: the idea in question had never really been fully developed in a film (lame attempts like The Lawnmower Man nothwithstanding). The idea of the matrix was a revelation to millions who had never read Neuromancer or Stapledon. That the film was also a technical marvel also contributed to the film's success, but the filmmakers were smart enough to let those special effects serve the larger purpose of examining the idea of the matrix itself.
So what about Reloaded? Well, the good news is that the idea is still at the heart of the film. We learn more about the characters--especially Morpheus--and we see a lot of things that were only referenced in the first film (Zion, in particular). But character development and scenery always serve the main goal: revealing more and more of the matrix. In fact, the very point of the film is not Neo seizing control of the matrix and freeing humanity but Neo discovering that the matrix, the thing he thought he understood and could control at will, turns out to be far more complicated than he ever realized.
The film's not perfect. The fight scenes go on about 20 minutes too long. And, frankly, that whole scene with the hundreds of Agent Smiths was simply pointless. At the end, he escapes by flying away; why couldn't Neo just do that when he saw the FIRST Agent Smith? Also, some of the character development that shows up in the film--the triangle involving Morpheus and the Jada Pinkett-Smith character, the weird French program and his melancholy girlfriend--were unnecessary. But, all in all, I have to say that Reloaded is as good as the first film, perhaps even better, simply because it sticks to that matrix idea and examines it to the bitter end. On top of that, it does a stellar job demystifying the whole "the one" idea by putting it in concrete (rather than metaphysical) terms that actually fit within the logic of the matrix itself (rather than being an offshoot of religious hogwash).
I'm a big fan of science fiction literature--Philip K. Dick, Alfred Bester, Stanislaw Lem, Dan Simmons, Greg Bear, Olaf Stapledon... There are so many interesting science fiction novels out there that I've only scratched the surface. But what all of these novels have in common is their dedication to one simple principle: putting the ideas first. That is, science fiction, unlike other genres, is about ideas above and beyond characters, narratives, or all the stuff that most literature prizes. If you have a good science fiction idea, you can write a good science fiction novel. Yes, this leads to some shoddy writing at times, but what genre can't admit that 75% of its output is crap? The good science fiction writers will always create an interesting, engaging story or interesting, engaging characters to fill out their clever idea. So the tendency many have to link SF with refuse is just not accurate.
Now, back to that idea thing. The problem with most science fiction films is simply that the science fiction ideas, while present, generally serve the formulaic plots and stereotype characters, rather than letting the idea dominate and let the plots and characters feed off that idea. Take Star Wars. It was a good movie, right? So was The Empire Strikes Back. These movies were good because they were founded on an idea: the force. The stories and characters in those films developed out from that basic idea. Ah, but think about Jedi or Episodes I and II. These stories were not about an idea; they were about Luke or Leia or Annakin or Jar-Jar or the clone war. Yes, the force was in all these stories, but that force idea was only part of the scenery. Pushing the focus away from the idea of the force and onto the stories and characters that were created out of the first two films ruined the later movies.
What made the first Matrix film so interesting and so successful was the simple fact that the center of the film was the idea of matrix itself. We didn't need to know or care about Neo or Morpheus or even the Oracle in order to appreciate and become engaged with the concept of humanity living in pods and dreaming reality.
Of course, the ideas of virtual reality and machines enslaving humanity are not new; heck, the machine idea goes back to HG Wells or Lang's Metropolis. A friend of mine--a SF junkie--criticized The Matrix when it came out because it was not based on an original idea. Well, he was correct in saying this. However, what he missed was the obvious: the idea in question had never really been fully developed in a film (lame attempts like The Lawnmower Man nothwithstanding). The idea of the matrix was a revelation to millions who had never read Neuromancer or Stapledon. That the film was also a technical marvel also contributed to the film's success, but the filmmakers were smart enough to let those special effects serve the larger purpose of examining the idea of the matrix itself.
So what about Reloaded? Well, the good news is that the idea is still at the heart of the film. We learn more about the characters--especially Morpheus--and we see a lot of things that were only referenced in the first film (Zion, in particular). But character development and scenery always serve the main goal: revealing more and more of the matrix. In fact, the very point of the film is not Neo seizing control of the matrix and freeing humanity but Neo discovering that the matrix, the thing he thought he understood and could control at will, turns out to be far more complicated than he ever realized.
The film's not perfect. The fight scenes go on about 20 minutes too long. And, frankly, that whole scene with the hundreds of Agent Smiths was simply pointless. At the end, he escapes by flying away; why couldn't Neo just do that when he saw the FIRST Agent Smith? Also, some of the character development that shows up in the film--the triangle involving Morpheus and the Jada Pinkett-Smith character, the weird French program and his melancholy girlfriend--were unnecessary. But, all in all, I have to say that Reloaded is as good as the first film, perhaps even better, simply because it sticks to that matrix idea and examines it to the bitter end. On top of that, it does a stellar job demystifying the whole "the one" idea by putting it in concrete (rather than metaphysical) terms that actually fit within the logic of the matrix itself (rather than being an offshoot of religious hogwash).
Friday, May 9
I teach college students how to write. Believe me, if anyone needs to learn how to write, it's college students. You wouldn't believe the kinds of writing our "best and brightest" are turning out. Hell, I once had a student spell the word "stupid" with a "6"! I'm not kidding. But it gets worse. I've seen 25 word sentences without verbs! I once saw a three-line sentence with eighteen commas, which basically meant that there was a comma after every other word.
But those grammar problems are no match for the content problems in student papers. Students generally struggle to understand even the most basic written argument. My wife (who also teaches college) gave her class of advanced composition students a quiz over a reading. The reading concerned a specific supreme court case that focused on a high school principal searching a female student's purse and finding pot. One of the questions on the quiz asked, quite simply, whether this was originally a civil or criminal case. It's an easy question, especially because the first paragraph of the article clearly stated, "This was a criminal case." Well, 75% of her students called it a "civil" case. Why did they make that mistake? I'll tell you why: because it was written down. It wasn't on TV. It wasn't delivered to them in the form of a song. Students just don't know how to read.
Now, I say "students" as if I'm talking about all students. That is, of course, a huge exaggeration. There are plenty of students who can read perfectly well, and who would easily get a question like the one I just mentioned correct. I also should add that I find the idea that people today are stupider than they used to be preposterous. Students are just as smart today as they were 20, 30, 40 years ago. Heck, they're smarter. The trouble is, the kind of intelligence that is praised and rewarded in our society today is rote learning--memorization, filling in blanks, calculating theorems. The kinds of learning that count--like critical thinking and analysis--are almost entirely ignored in high schools, largely because the only way to really evaluate critical thinking and analysis are through reading interesting books (which cost money) and writing interesting papers (which take time to grade and, hence, cost money). Learning how to write is learning how to think and how to reason. It's at the heart of college education, yet it costs money because that kind of learning can only take place in smaller classes. Hence, more classroom space is required, and hence more instructors are required. But colleges know that they can't escape the importance of their students learning how to write and think. The trouble is, high schools pretend that they can ignore that importance, so they do.
It's getting better, though. The SAT test now has a written component (or will). That should force high schools to make their students better prepared for the exam--we can only hope. Still, the results of that kind of development (along with many other developments, like the elimination of the idiotic notion of "whole language" learning, where teachers aren't supposed to teach grammar but let students magically learn grammar by immersing themselves in books) will not be felt for a decade or so. In the meantime, I'm planning to see a lot more "stupi6s."
But those grammar problems are no match for the content problems in student papers. Students generally struggle to understand even the most basic written argument. My wife (who also teaches college) gave her class of advanced composition students a quiz over a reading. The reading concerned a specific supreme court case that focused on a high school principal searching a female student's purse and finding pot. One of the questions on the quiz asked, quite simply, whether this was originally a civil or criminal case. It's an easy question, especially because the first paragraph of the article clearly stated, "This was a criminal case." Well, 75% of her students called it a "civil" case. Why did they make that mistake? I'll tell you why: because it was written down. It wasn't on TV. It wasn't delivered to them in the form of a song. Students just don't know how to read.
Now, I say "students" as if I'm talking about all students. That is, of course, a huge exaggeration. There are plenty of students who can read perfectly well, and who would easily get a question like the one I just mentioned correct. I also should add that I find the idea that people today are stupider than they used to be preposterous. Students are just as smart today as they were 20, 30, 40 years ago. Heck, they're smarter. The trouble is, the kind of intelligence that is praised and rewarded in our society today is rote learning--memorization, filling in blanks, calculating theorems. The kinds of learning that count--like critical thinking and analysis--are almost entirely ignored in high schools, largely because the only way to really evaluate critical thinking and analysis are through reading interesting books (which cost money) and writing interesting papers (which take time to grade and, hence, cost money). Learning how to write is learning how to think and how to reason. It's at the heart of college education, yet it costs money because that kind of learning can only take place in smaller classes. Hence, more classroom space is required, and hence more instructors are required. But colleges know that they can't escape the importance of their students learning how to write and think. The trouble is, high schools pretend that they can ignore that importance, so they do.
It's getting better, though. The SAT test now has a written component (or will). That should force high schools to make their students better prepared for the exam--we can only hope. Still, the results of that kind of development (along with many other developments, like the elimination of the idiotic notion of "whole language" learning, where teachers aren't supposed to teach grammar but let students magically learn grammar by immersing themselves in books) will not be felt for a decade or so. In the meantime, I'm planning to see a lot more "stupi6s."
