Big Hero 6 (a movie review post)

Big Hero 6 is a movie that intrigues me on a lot of levels. It ought to have everything going for it.

It's based on a Marvel property (which I didn't even realize until I was seeing the movie (I can't say what gave it away (okay, I could, but that would be a spoiler))). That said, it's based on a Marvel property that I'm not actually familiar with so this is the rare adaptation (from a comic book) that I can see without having a picture in my mind of how it ought to be. Of course, I looked up the comic when I got home, and the path of adaptation they chose for this one is really interesting.

The comic is loosely set in the X-Men side of Marvel so has the full spectrum of mutants and all of that. The movie has removed everything that isn't technology based or transformed those things into something that is technology based. Basically, they made Big Hero fit into a slightly futuristic world in which people are still just people. And they did a really good job of it, too.

The movie does a great job with the exposition of the story. It's so typical of movies these days to just skip the exposition entirely, so I really appreciate it when a film takes the time to provide a foundation for the story they want to tell. Without having a way to check the timing on the movie, I'm going to guess the first half hour or so is all exposition. Let me re-say what I just said before: I like that!

Visually, the movie is incredible. Not just that it has great animation, but it has a great style. Actually, it looks a lot like The Incredibles, but that's not surprising considering that John Lasseter produced the movie.

Plus, it has the best drunken robot scene ever. Okay, that may not be surprising since it's probably the only drunken robot scene ever, but, still, it's hilarious.

The voice acting is adequate. There's nothing there to make any of it stand out except, maybe, for Scott Adsit, but it's hard to tell how much of that is him and how much is manipulation of his voice to make it work for Baymax.

The villain has a really cool look. That's all I'm saying about that. I mean, I'd be freaked out to have someone like that coming after me.

And the side characters work, too.

It has all the ingredients it needs for me to love it.

But I didn't.

Don't get me wrong; I really liked it; I just didn't love it. And I can't really tell you why other than that I saw the movie playing out the way it was going to go well before it got there. However, that was an interesting experience in-and-of itself, because my kids made the logic jumps the movie wanted them to make so that they would be surprised by what was actually going on when it was revealed at the end. I had to bite my tongue not to spoil it for them. For instance, at one point, my son said something about who the bad guy was, and I almost said, "No, that's not who it is," but I managed to catch myself.

I'm not really sure if that was the problem or not. It might also have been that the main emotional punch of the movie happens toward the beginning, so I had no catharsis at the end.

Really, it's not that important. It's a really good movie. It's great, even. It's just not excellent. It's not a movie I left the theater wanting to see again, which, for me, is the hallmark of an excellent film.

The short film at the beginning, though, that was awesome, and I'd love to see that again.

When Everyone's Special...

...no one  is.

The Incredibles is one of my favorite movies, not just one of my favorite Pixar movies. Not that I couldn't say that about a lot of Pixar movies. But that's beside the point.

This is another post I started quite a while ago, but I think it flows pretty well out of my last post. Really, I'll give my soap box back at some point.

There are two themes in The Incredibles that attract me to it. The first of those is being who you are. Not hiding yourself away and pretending to be other than you are, but that's not what this post is about. This post is about the second theme, the one that has to do with society exalting mediocrity so that everyone can be "special."

It's somewhat of a paradox, too, because we are a society that exalts the "popular" while simultaneously trying to devalue everyone else so that we're all the same. The conflict arises because it boils down to "winners" (like Charlie Sheen >heh<) and "losers." If you're the hot commodity, you're a winner. Everyone else is a loser.

But we live in a society (mostly confined to North American at the moment but spreading) that doesn't believe in having "losers." A society that says everyone can be a winner... no, everyone is a winner. A society that tries to protect the feelings of, well, everyone (and saying "it's all subjective" is the ultimate defense against qualitative judgments of any kind). A society that doesn't believe in pointing out that anything is bad or wrong. A society that says "everything is good all the time." [See my post about the book Bright-sided for more on this.]

Let's use a sports analogy, shall we?

Because my daughter was playing softball (you can read that story here), my wife and I have been doing lots if digging and searching around for information about teams and leagues and all of that sort of thing. Meaning, my wife has been doing lots of research and passing the interesting bits on to me. One of the articles I read that really stood out to me is the rise of Little Leagues that do not have winners. Well, that's not true; they don't have losers. Everyone gets to be a winner. There are no outs. There are no scores. Everyone gets to hit the ball and run the bases. Why? Because we, as parents, need to protect our children from being "losers." And having hurt feelings.

But it doesn't fool the kids. And it doesn't help the kids. The kids want there to be winners, and they're willing to accept the prospect of losing, because they want the chance to win. They want the chance to win.

But none of us want our kids to be "losers," so we take that prospect away from them. We want to make them all winners, but the problem is that you can't have winners if you don't also have losers.

In many ways, I feel like this whole self-publishing game is becoming like these little leagues. We're not allowed to say anything negative, because we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. No one is "allowed" to be a loser, and, if there are no losers, everyone gets to be a "winner." Even if that's not true. And we all know it's not true, but, if no one says anything bad, we can keep pretending.

There's this book I want to read, The Fourth Turning, that's all about this stuff from a generational perspective. We own the book, but it's out on loan (because I didn't get to it fast enough after my wife read it). Of course, loaned books can't usually be said to be owned books very often. That's my perspective anyway. Loaning it out is equivalent to giving it away.

At any rate, my generation, in the book, is known as the "unprotected" generation and looking at how I grew up, I tend to agree. We were the generation of latchkey kids (and I started being one by age 7). The current generation, the millennials, the generation my generation is raising, is known as the "protected" generation, and it is a direct response to the self-involvement of our own parents by trying to be over involved in our own kids' lives. It should be the "over protected" generation. [I've been reading a lot about how our aversion to allow our kids to experience risk is not so good for their internal development. Sure, they don't get broken bones, but they never learn how to take risks or, sometimes, even think for themselves.] And there was this other article about the first of the millennials entering the job market and how they need constant supervision and feedback (because they've never really learned how to be independent).

Anyway... I'm straying a bit, and it's getting late, so I need to wrap this up.

The point is this:
There are people in the world like Dash and Mr. Incredible. Not people with super powers, but people that standout above all the rest. We really don't get anywhere by trying to force everyone into a mold of sameness. The problem we have is that we don't want to acknowledge that there are some people that really need to either find something else to do or work harder at whatever it is before they can be good enough.

Like my brother playing basketball in high school. He was a short, white boy. Shorter than me, and I'm only 5'8". But my brother could play and play well, and it's what he wanted most to do. He had to work hard at it. And he did. Hours every day. And I bet you're expecting me to tell you some miracle story about his hard work and perseverance, but I'm not going to. He did make his high school team. He was the only white boy on the team one year. Mostly, he just warmed the bench, though. Why? Because, as good as he was, he wasn't better than the other boys on his team. Mostly because he just wasn't tall enough. And that's a suck thing to be that good but still not to be able to compete. Eventually, he had to come to the conclusion that he wasn't going to be able to do that thing, basketball, and he went to other things.

But he did try. He gave it his all to see if he could make it, but he just couldn't pull it off. But he still plays for fun, so it's not like it was taken away from him.

To bring this back to writing, I'm going to switch movies. There's a quote at the end of Ratatouille that I love, but I'm only going to paraphrase it for you, "Not everyone can be a great writer, but a great writer can come from anyone." I do think everyone should have the opportunity to take their shot at being a great writer. Or a great anything. However, I don't think everyone can do it. I don't think most people can do it. Which is not to say that you shouldn't try. But, if you're going to try, work hard at it. And take the criticism (both bad and good (because to critique something is not just pointing out the bad)) people give you while you are busy working hard, and use it to get better.

Some people won't be tall enough. Some won't be fast enough. Some will just never get the break they need. Some will never get good enough because we don't tell them they need to work on their grammar so as to avoid hurting someone's feelings. And that's really the worst thing that can happen. To not become a winner because no one ever bothered to tell you that you were losing.

Everyone can't be special, because when everyone's special, no one is.