1. RIP to Val Kilmer, who passed away this week at the age of 65 of complications from pneumonia (no doubt exacerbated by his bout with throat cancer that left him almost incapable of speech in his later years).
Mr. Kilmer was one of that rare brand of 80s action-star heart-throbs who were also legitimately excellent actors (Tom Cruise is another). He had a reputation for being difficult to work with on set, which I’m sure was deserved, but he was dynamite on screen. At least, when he decided to work.
It is mercifully fitting that his final film role was in Top Gun: Maverick, reprising the role that helped launch his career. As I said in my thoughts on the film, his scene was my favorite part of the film, both because it was a chance for these two great actors to play off each other one last time in a heartfelt and well-written scene, but moreso because of the real-world undertones. Here are two of the last great 80s action stars, in a sequel to one of the great 80s action flicks, the film that kick-started their careers. One is still doing what he’s always done, but knows it won’t last much longer, while the other is dying. It was a poignant and fitting send-off to a vanished type of film, as well (as it turned out) to one of the stars that made it great.
Rest in Peace
2. A fun fact I learned this week, which I’d never put together before: Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine were the great-grandparents of St. Louis IX.
Their daughter, Eleanor, married King Alphonso VIII of Castille, and their daughter was Blanche of Castille, St. Louis’s very remarkable mother.
Not only that, but it was Eleanor who arranged her granddaughter’s marriage to Louis VIII of France. Originally, the plan was for Blanche’s sister, Urraca, to marry Louis. But Grandma Eleanor, after sizing the girls up during a visit, decided that Blanche was more suited for the job of being Queen of France (something Eleanor knew quite well, having held the post herself for a time).
3. Meanwhile, one of Blanche’s other sisters (she had several: they were mostly girls in that family), Berengaria of Castile, was the mother of King St. Fernando III; St. Louis’s cousin and Spanish counterpart.
Whatever else may be said about them, a family that has two Saint-Kings in the same generation is doing something right.
4. Chauvinistic Medieval Men: “Women are only good for having babies, looking pretty, praying, setting ideals for us to aspire to, and running our kingdoms when we’re not around.”
5. America: “There’s no reason to hate someone just because you disagree politically.”
Also America: “Your neighbour’s vote determines what kind of country your children will live in.”
6. I always like it when I spend a lot of time writing and working out an idea, only to find a genuine genius said the same thing more efficiently. I makes me feel like I’m on the right track:
“Either every imaginable institution is founded on a religious concept or it is only a passing phenomenon. Institutions are strong and durable to the degree that they are, so to speak, deified. Not only is human reason, or what is ignorantly called philosophy, incapable of supplying these foundations, which with equal ignorance are called superstitious, but philosophy is, on the contrary, an essentially disruptive force.”
-Joseph de Maistre, Considerations on France
7. As a fan of Minecraft, I have zero interest in the garish, obnoxious-looking Hollywood sludge that came out of this week.
On the other hand, if they’d made this…that would get my attention.
It actually depresses me a little that we will never get this version of a Minecraft movie. Lord, I hate the current film industry.
Serpent's Den 
“They have just as much to lose if the overworld falls…”
Fun fact: I believe there’s some historical precedent for this way of thinking. While the Holy League that fought the Turkish Empire at the Battle of Lepanto in the Gulf of Corinth was predominantly Catholic (naturally), I seem to recall hearing that there were Protestant allies present and even a few Muslims who opposed Turkish rule.
Said battle also involved the West finally uniting – amidst the chaos of the Reformation Wars, no less – after generations of promising aid to the Kingdom of Hungary and sending none (to let political rivals take the heat), to take the fight to an enemy that had encroached nearly to within naval striking distance of the Seat of Rome herself; featured secret weapons advanced by the science of war on the part of Christendom; and there was even a lady dancer who joined the warriors and fought and killed Turkish soldiers.
Real life isn’t usually as epic as movies, but these sorts of tales are not unheard of even in history.
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I appreciate how this Minecraft fan “trailer” has enough creative monster (& animal) types and character development to look more interesting than just another fantasy knockoff, but is pretty well grounded in classic/historic tropes like kingdoms and loyalty and battle between light and darkness to be taken seriously.
You’ve got knights bowing to their lords, desperate alliances against overwhelming forces, a warrior princess, a sense of the sacred (and of evil as being a violation of the sacred), reflection on the past, pathos… all things that make traditional epics interesting.
It’s not just another generic story with stock characters in a stock setting following a stock plot, even though the setting is obviously rooted in medieval kingdoms and the plot is, at bottom, well tread. Nor is it a modern subversion in which there are no goodguys, no real victory, and no conceivable happy ending; the more standard aspects are the classic conflict between good and evil. Instead, the impression (from what little we see) is that within the standard epic premises, the characters are the interesting thing, torn by hard choices, high stakes and the unlikelihood of success, but driven by the necessity of fighting on despite all that.
And aren’t the best epics always that way? Personal stories, often of internal or spiritual conflict, nestled within the more straightforward, grand conflict. The Iliad was a spat between Achilles and Agamemnon, until it became a spat between Achilles and Hector, amid the broader Trojan War. Lord of the Rings features clashes between vast armies led by kings (living or wraith), but hinges on the struggle of a few small people to overcome temptation and make a long, arduous journey into the heart of peril.
So, here, the plot is simplistic if all you take is “the kingdom must fight back against the Nether and Herobrine before it’s too late,” – and yet there’s the urging of Sir Stephanos to overcome the king’s indecision even if it means accepting help from earthly enemies, there’s Princess/Queen Alexandra facing whatever choice she made and the wounds (or corruption?) that ensued from it, and her knights ready to trust her to the end regardless. The epic setting to provide moral clarity and meaning to the personal drama that’s what the story is really about.
It’s been many a long year since a movie trailer made me actually want to see a movie; pity this one’s just a fragment of fanfiction and not the real thing!
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It’s interesting the dilemma of big corporate productions on the one hand owning all the established “IP” but treating it all as just a bag of trademarks to slap on usually generic productions (probably calculated to avoid offending any people in a focus group that folks with intelligence and higher expectations aren’t a part of), while indie artists and the more talented fans can run rings around them but are limited in how much they can produce legitimately since the companies own all the characters and settings and canonical plot history etc.
(By the way… who on Earth thought that the important thing about Minecraft was blocky shapes, without even conveying the pixelly-digital aesthetic? It’s not as though Mario for the movie needed to be built out of cubes just because his first hit game was, nor is it as though one cannot do a full 3D animated art style but convey the pixelly digital undertone of being a Videogame Movie as was done in in Wreck-It Ralph. Like… Steve just can’t even. OK?)
The creative artists, to step up from a few fan videos here and there to something that can stand on its own, are going to have to develop original ideas from scratch. Many of them we know are perfectly capable of it: just look how unique this “trailer’s” take on Minecraft’s elements are. They’re also going to need some way to organize all that goes into making larger productions: not just some art here or there but a writer for a more prolonged plot, pay for artists to animate continually till the thing’s complete, multiple voice actors unless it’s going to be something like a graphic novel with text, organization to keep all of these working smoothly together and on time and under budget, and someone with a solid creative vision to guide it. And for all that to pay off, also advertising so people want to see it. Basically why movies take entire crews and big budgets, although hopefully indies could find ways to keep the budget lower.
And then, ultimately, that’s an awful lot of up-front investment for something that may or may not blow up and make money depending entirely on whether some other company’s platform’s algorithm decides to take a liking to it or not.
Reminds me of the argument that a lot of what changed back and forth over the history of Hollywood, between originally, the good times, and now, is whether or not movie studios can own (or otherwise control or limit) theatres. If they can’t, then they have to compete to sell their movies to theatres and theatres have to compete to host the movies people want to see and lesser studios can take a shot at getting their films in at least some theatres. If they can, you get the theatres just showing movies from the few studios that buy up most of them, and moviegoers’ only market choices are to pay for those studios’ movies or none at all.
Not the whole story, obviously, but a big part of it. We need the infrastructure of the big budget filmmakers (and other types of publishers etc) to be open to smaller competitors so that genuinely creative people still get a shot and not only the generic corpos. Then we need a lot more of the best fan story makers to start getting together and trying their hands at original work, unencumbered by existing “IP” holds.
Sorry, I’m rambling and ranting now.
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Did you see this one? https://youtu.be/1RxKOid3isQ?feature=shared Okay, the premise is a little unrealistic (veterans should “retire” into training recruits), but it adds to the drama well, and I really enjoyed the action, and it felt so much longer than the couple minutes it is. I’m looking forward to part 2 (which has been teased) and should probably see if this artist has made anything else good.
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