Review: Star Wars - Rogue One

At least we still have Episode VIII, I guess.

How Do You Do, Fellow Rebels?

I want to start by saying everything about Rogue One felt wrong. Maybe it was the fact that I missed the first five minutes because the concession peasant couldn't handle the line of two entire human beings, but by the time I got back the action was focused on apparently the new Star Wars hero archetype: loner brunette young woman with an attitude problem and a tragic past involving her absentee parents. I can't recall her name exactly, Jam or Gin or something like that, but it doesn't matter because not a single character in Rogue One contains any personality outside of extremely generic, tired tropes.

People lambasted The Force Awakens as a Star Wars-by-committee, but despite its massive retreading of old ground it feels like a masterful work of fiction compared to the egregious blandness of Rogue One. This is a film that would barely serve as a passable action flick with another skin, but something about it being another bad Star Wars gives me a sinking feeling for the future of the series.

I know it's not the first time a film in the franchise has been bad, but for Disney this is one-for-two. What makes it so bad, you might ask? Surely it's not such a crime for a film to just be standard action tripe. Look at Mad Max: Fury Road; as far as movies go it's a fairly basic action movie. The difference here is that its heart was in the right place. Fury Road knew what it was and didn't try to over-complicate things. At its core was a simple tale of escape and downtrodden people attempting to make life better for themselves in the face of inhuman atrocities.

Rogue One attempts several things at once and fails at all of them: on one side is a desperate attempt for Disney to create a lovable ensemble cast; on the other is a garish attempt at a dark action flick with all the bite of a dead horse. To begin with the characters though, much like the prequels it's extremely difficult to even remember names and characteristics of the ensemble. Character growth is all but meaningless given the context of the ending, and considering it's a story we already know there's no reason to ever think these supposed mythical figures were meant to carry much weight in the overall lore of Star Wars. Oh yeah, we might not know their names but their actions--blah blah blah. If that's the thesis of the film then where's the tension? It doesn't matter that there's a generic imperial officer standing in the characters' way when we know that neither he nor the cast make an appearance, or are even referred to once, in any later film. Yeah, I'm sure I'll be extremely surprised by the end result. At least Kyle Katarn went on his own adventures after he single-handedly stole the plans to the Death Star. Redacted by Disney droids.

Character Flaws

Considering the team is supposed to be the critical lynch-pin of the entirety of the rebel alliance, there's very little to actually say about each character other than what they contribute to combat. There's a blind Jedi what fights good and occasionally mutters mystical babble, but I can't for the life of me remember his name. He has a buddy who has a big gun, and his biggest character trait is that he can shoot his big gun. At one point in the movie he shoots his big gun at a lot of people, and that's cool I suppose.

Then there's the pilot--who literally has his personality sucked out by a generic tentacle monster--and a rebel saboteur who...well, he runs around. His goals are so murky that when the film presents a twist that he might not have the best of intentions, it completely falls flat because the audience had no clue what he was supposed to be doing in the first place. The rebel alliance seems to just hire anyone who will come along, motivation be damned. He does mention that the rebellion is just a way of life for him, having been conscripted as a child. Don't look further for depth, because you won't find any.

And of course, there's 「lovable wise-cracking sidekick」. You know you're supposed to love 「lovable wise-cracking sidekick」because he cracks jokes and fights good. Oh don't worry, glossy-eyed reader, because 「lovable wise-cracking sidekick」isn't the only character to be a smarmy one-liner. And oh boy are you going to love his wise-cracks! This is a Disney movie, and if the MCU has shown us anything it's that no living being within the universe can ever go five minutes without becoming 「lovable wise-cracking sidekick」in their own way. In all seriousness, this brings me to one of the more egregious moments in Rogue One.

I Guess Not Even Vader is Sacred Anymore.

I'm not going to say Darth Vader is ruined, because Vader has always been an incredible character. I will say that like Revenge of the Sith, Rogue One completely ruins their depiction of one of the most iconic villains in all of film. Call me jaded, but having Darth Vader pop out a one-liner like a typical MCU villain made my heart hurt--maybe even worse than the infamous "Nooo!" I won't say much, but the character has so few lines that I'm almost baffled he could be handled so poorly.

But Disney has their talons in every facet of Star Wars now, and as such nothing has been deemed sacred. Of the more unbelievably shocking decisions in the film, the directors decided that the characters Princess Leia and Grand Moff Tarkin were apparently essential to appear in the film, and rather than recast either of them some idiot decided it would be fine to create CG faces over the actors present.

Think about that. Now anybody can just pretend to be a dead actor or actress, why even bother with subtlety anymore? And don't worry, it's not good CG either. Rogue One audiences are treated to extremely cartoonish CG characters running around interacting with normal humans. No, not like Jar Jar CG characters, I mean actual CG human beings emoting and gesticulating in a way that even a robot would have a violent uncanny valley reaction. It might be the most horrific use of computer graphics I've ever seen in a movie, and that's without considering the extremely uncomfortable appearance of a young replacement Carrie Fischer only days after her death. It's so morbid that I came out of the theater feeling more shocked than anything.

Oh yeah, Princess Leia is in the film. Nobody told me this going in, but when Disney said Rogue One was a prequel to A New Hope, they meant a direct prequel. So direct, in fact, that there might be about ten minutes' worth of time between the end of this film and the original. And boy oh boy do you bet there are a heaping ton of plot holes.

A Multitude of Plot Holes and Bad Writing

Everything about the plot of Rogue One is wrong, and from here on out I'm going to just assume you've either seen the movie or I've done my part to dissuade you so expect spoilers.

In an attempt to shoehorn in as many unnecessary cameos as possible, C3PO and R2D2 appear on the rebel base. C3PO bemoans his ignorance of the situation while the two watch the rebel fleet blast into hyper space--the same rebel fleet containing the ship Leia appears in at the beginning of A New Hope. You know, the one the droids are on. Don't worry about it, just keep throwing popcorn in your fat mouth and watch the explosions!

I also have a problem with the stupid way the Force is presented. Not that the Force itself is stupid, but the vessel for the Force being shoved into the film--Blind McToken-san--completely destroys any subtlety in multiple scenes by chanting the mantra "I'm one with the Force, the Force is one with me." Boy that's a mouthful, hope he doesn't have to repeat it dozens of times in a single minute at several points in the movie. And it would definitely be a shame if he chanted his mantra very loudly over points where it's very clear Force shenanigans are occurring. To make sure you understand what's happening, Genericmonk Diversity-kun passes his stupid mantra to his buddy, Dontknow Yourname who also chants the saying. Wouldn't want viewers to think, now would we?

And why is Vader sitting around in Sauron's Tower in the middle of a volcano planet? Does he not have extremely bad memories of volcanoes? I'm not saying his house is in a bizarre location but if I lost my legs to ravenous crocodiles I'd probably avoid building a four-story mansion in a swamp.

The Death Star also gives me pause. Not the installation itself, but again the presentation of the war machine in the film. Are you telling me the empire could have just blown up the imperial city on Alderaan to show off the Death Star's weapon but they decided to be jerks and vaporize the entire planet? I didn't know a planet-obliterating super weapon had levels of severity.

How badly do you want to hurt this planet?

The end of Revenge of the Sith implies the Death Star was under construction and was surveyed by both the emperor and Vader near-constantly, yet the rebellion didn't even know its existence until roughly a week or two before they planned to launch their assault? How poor were their information networks to be unaware of a moon-sized doomsday machine? I know Obi-Wan and Han were thrown off for a bit when they approached it but I always thought it was because they were kind of hicks; do you mean to tell me nobody had any idea the Death Star was in construction? Give me a break, guys.

And we didn't need to see that the exhaust port was an intentional design flaw. You can tell me Vader was a whiny teenager all day, but once you start retconning completely unnecessary plot details to fit into a weepy melodrama in a story nobody wanted I completely check out. Nothing about the sabotage plan made any sense and cheapens the impact of Luke being overcome by the Force in order to destroy the Death Star. If Mads designed the exhaust port to intentionally be sabotaged then does that mean he intended for any stupid bastard to be able to blow it up? Luke saved the day in the nick of time and he was only able to do so with the Force, but if they weren't in such a hurry is the implication that Joe Shitkicker could have slipped his boot into the exhaust port and destroyed the entire thing?

Conclusion

I hated Rogue One in a way I never knew possible. What I thought would be a long cold war film set in a franchise I loved instead devolved into a bipolar, nonsensical mess full of cliches, plot holes, and some of the most uneven writing I've seen all year--including my own, and that's quite a feat. Everything about Rogue One is completely dreadful and I regret having seen it. This is a popcorn movie for people who hate both movies and popcorn, who just want to see pretty colors and stupid things they remember from their childhood. At least the last hour is pure mind-numbing action for the stupids, I guess? Maybe Episode VIII will be better.

OH YEAH HERE'S AN UNPRECEDENTED EDIT: PLEASE DESIST WITH SHAKY CAM DURING DIALOGUE. PLEASE. I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO THROW UP BECAUSE THE CAMERA MAN WAS HAVING THE SHAKES. STOP.

Unwatchable 

Future Plans and Hopes For This Blog

2016 has been an absolutely insane year for me, and because of that my overall frequency of blog posts have been--well, pretty much the same as last year. However, despite posting very infrequently and never promoting this blog outside of a vagrant tweet I'm extremely proud of my viewer stats which has somehow jumped up to 2,000 total views since I began posting in 2015. I know it's not much, especially compared to how quickly some social media presences seem to explode these days, but I personally blame my own shyness and the platform I'm working on.

While I do have a Youtube channel, I post there with even less frequency than the Subjective Objective blog and it's mostly just there to show that I can in fact edit video at the same level as a ten-year-old. I'd be lying if I said I'm not in this for recognition; I thrive on validation and check my stats every day to see if somehow my numbers have skyrocketed through sorcery or whatever. That said, the fact that this blog gets views at all (my Walking Dead piece got triple digits!) warms my heart and pushes me to continue expanding the scope of my reviews.

As such, I decided to post a little update for the consistent two dozen or so viewers this blog gets. Hopefully, word of mouth will spread before either the heat death of the universe or me eventually giving up on all this. So without further ado, here are some goals I have for Subjective Objective in 2017:

1: More consistent updates.
-When I started Subjective Objective, my initial goal was to have a public review site to dump my thoughts on movies or games. Before I moved to Blogspot I had been updating on Facebook via notes largely due to being insecure about my stupid goblin face and bad opinions, but so far the only feedback has been constructive dialogue. No commenting on my goblin face, no public haranguing. I'm going to take the silence as encouragement so expect to see me at least making the attempt to post more than one blog a month.

2: More articles.
-Earlier this year I began experimenting with various types of articles, from updates on E3 2016 to opinion pieces on a range of topics. I enjoyed doing these and plan to comment on more diverse subjects. My plan is to alienate all of my friends and family by June, so please make an effort to get tired of my posts before then.

3: Video-article crossovers
-This isn't so much a new idea for the blog as it is an expansion of what I'd been doing previously. For my reviews of Deus Ex and Gravity Rush, I posted a transcript of my Youtube review while supplying a link to the video. I enjoy doing these supplemental pieces but I know very few of you want to hear my drooling hillbilly voice. My passion is in writing in the first place; with that in mind, I'll likely be posting in-depth game reviews and posting a shorter version on my Youtube channel.

4: Retrospective reviews
-Major retrospectives are the focal point of my plans for the future, and it's one of the main reasons I'm more or less focusing my efforts on the blog. I don't have time or money to create huge video reviews, get off me, cretins. For a bit of a preview, here are some franchises I plan on tackling as part of these retrospectives:

Star Wars (Original trilogy, prequels, then newer movies)
Xenogears, followed by Xenosaga and Xenoblade
Berserk
Uncharted
The Godfather

And so on. If there are multiple entries, I want to tackle it in a retrospective.

5: Podcast
-I really don't want to go into much detail about this one, but I'm very close to getting a podcast running. The co-host is someone who's contributed to my videos and I'm very excited to share more if I can ever convince her to join my efforts to rule the galaxy.

6: Patreon
-Yeah, I'm going to crawl over to Struggling Liberal Arts Welfare at some point next year. I don't expect anything out of it, but I figure if I'm doing all this I might as well go all the way. Details are forthcoming, but please keep an eye on my page so I can buy food and not die.

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That's about it, I just wanted to tell the small handful of you who read this with consistency that Subjective Objective is going to be a big part of my life in 2017. I'm excited to share more with you and hope this tiny blog can reach more people as the year goes on.

A Post In Which I Gush Over Horror

I recently played the demo for Resident Evil VII and overall really enjoyed the experience. It's a bold departure from series conventions and seems like a humble step in apologizing for the debacle that was Resident Evil 6. I haven't finished that game so I can't comment on it, but Resident Evil VII is a great entry into the new first-person horror genre. It has a decent fail state, the atmosphere is genuinely creepy, and the scares are unnerving. But after my second attempt through the house I started to notice that I wasn't hesitating as much, the visuals weren't getting to me like they did the first time. I started to question exactly what it was that was diminishing the horror for me, and after a long deliberation with the help of a team of horror scientists I believe I can finally elucidate my feelings on the topic. And in no less than five thousand words!

PT and the Horror of Family

I don't think there are many people who would deny similarities between Resident Evil VII and Konami's aborted masterpiece PT, but the similarities end when the plot and backstory are put into perspective. At the time of this writing the Resident Evil demo hasn't been fully patched yet so I can't really say what the full scope is, but the story appears to be related to a haunted house full of paranoid hillbillies. While I can relate to this sentiment in my personal life, this story is mostly a means to an end. You don't need to understand the danger, the tension and danger is pretty easily recognized. Get out of the hillbilly house before they welcome you into their family--which, by the way, I must say I'm ashamed no single internet genius has found a way to do. It's a brilliant survival setup and I'm sure the main game will be excellent, but we're talking about memorability here. By the time Resident Evil 8 comes out who knows what public opinion will be in regards to this thing? Some stupid asshole from a game website will probably talk about how bad and dated REVII is a month after it comes out so I'm not even going to bother assuming something like public opinion.

PT is different. PT resonates on multiple levels, so much so that I can't help but wonder if some of it is accidental. While the crux of the game is the same--leave the house in any way possible--PT instead focuses on a more dramatic, personal story. Fans of the series will probably accept this as the norm when comparing Silent Hill and Resident Evil, but as a big fan of both it's important to note the horror influences PT is dripping in and how they're executed. But first, an overview of the plot.

PT begins with a warning that reality is shattered within the house, that the gap between the door is "a separate reality" and that you, the player and the character, might not be real at all. With this warning, the door to the player's small room opens--an observant player will note the ghost is the one who opens the door for them, indicating a sort of benevolence to what will become the threat of the game. At this point the player traverses a small hallway littered with trash as a speaker on the radio warns that a certain house in the neighborhood--the one in which the player is trapped--was recently the scene of a grisly murder by a deranged father. All the children are dead, as is the pregnant mother.

Fans of The Shining will immediately recognize this as a similar backstory to the Overlook Hotel, where a father brutally murdered his daughters and wife before committing suicide. Nearly word-for-word this backstory is repeated, but whether or not the inspiration is there the similarities are too big to ignore. The Shining is probably the biggest example of the "family horror" tale, although PT goes in a different direction. In fact, the direction of the story is closer to the Japanese version of The Grudge, in which a jealous husband lives on through his vengeful grudge after murdering his wife and son.

It's a common horror trope and for good reason: you can't choose your family, and you can't choose what the people closest to you do or how they're going to react to the difficulties of their life. Every version of this story ends in tragedy, but The Shining is the one which I feel sticks the landing best. While The Grudge meanders through its plot until the end, The Shining implements backstory into the main narrative to create a cohesive, unforgettable whole. And I'm not talking about the original, five-hundred page novel with ghost shrubberies and evil demons. The ghosts of the Overlook Hotel are demonic, but they're not inherently evil--the merely persist. They persist in agony and sadness, tormented by the atrocities the ghosts of the hotel have driven them to commit.

This is the primary drive of the family-related horror story, and why it's also very easy to drop the ball when attempting a horror story. You see in movies like Sinister (which I haven't seen because my standards are too high) the tragic backstory is used for window dressing, to simply set up the plot in order to shock the viewer and rake in a few million dollars before being forgotten about in a few years. The shock of a story like The Shining is in presenting the horror to the viewer and making them sympathize with the family. I don't understand how very hard it could be to make the main characters sympathetic, but merely having a sad or depressing backdrop isn't enough.

The incident with Jack and the Torrance family is not isolated. Jack is a miserable alcoholic with a bubbling demon he's pushing down. He's an abusive individual trying to do his best, an everyman that the viewer absolutely does not want to see themselves in. He's abused his son to the point of traumatizing him into creating a literal friendly spirit for protection; his wife is terrified of him and is reticent to even admit physical abuse is occurring; and his career is spiraling into complete failure. You might not entirely sympathize with him, but he's such that anyone can empathize with the character. If you don't sympathize with Wendy by default you're an inhuman monster, but she's a character who tries her hardest to raise her son and deal with her abusive husband. It might not be overwhelmingly forlorn, but it's a human story about some humans that aren't in the best shape of their lives.

It's easy to forget, but at this late point in the film

Wendy still has no clue the Overlook Hotel is haunted.

PT shares a similar narrative backdrop but skips the main family narrative. Instead, we play as Norman of Reedus, a man among men who should, but can't, punch ghosts in the face. The ghosts of PT aren't tangible threats; I brought up The Grudge for a reason, as the vengeful spirits are similarly unstoppable forces of nature. The difference in Jack and Kayako is the human element: Kayako is an unkillable monster, a spirit forced into undeath by the hateful curse of the husband that murdered her. On the other hand, Jack is a human; he's tempted by human demons and is dispatched in a human manner. The difference between PT and Resident Evil VII is that, with a human enemy, the player or protagonist is capable of eventually overcoming them even when faced with low odds of survival. With a ghost like Kayako or Lisa, the outcome is either to accept your fate (the former) or run like hell to escape.

What I really like about PT is that the unkillable, unstoppable ghost is not there to initially kill the player. It merely wants to help them escape until it feels threatened. As the player proceeds through the nightmarish, continuing hallway of the house--a horrifying and non-euclidean descent into madness reminiscent of the post-modern novel House of Leaves (which also shares narrative similarities with The Shining) they are eventually locked in the bathroom with yet another horror reference, this time to David Lynch's masterwork Eraserhead.

The Horror of Failure

Eraserhead is a difficult movie to parse, and even more difficult to discuss without either spoiling it or failing to present the film in a cohesive manner. It's largely visual and is full of allegory and symbolism. It's profound while being incredibly personal, and I won't pretend like I fully grasped the concept the first time I saw it as a teenager. After coming back to it a few years later I felt like I appreciated it much more, and at this point in my life it's become something of a goalpost for existential despair that's as haunting now as it probably was to people who saw it years ago. It resonates with anyone who's ever feared failure, but as a reversal to the fear of family; it's a fear that one's ineptitude for family, of growing up and settling down, will lead to the decay of ego and eventually life itself.

This little jerk is not only a terrifying image in itself, he's also associated with all the negative elements of the film. Growing old and sacrificing your health, your personal relationships, and becoming a worthless cog in an unfeeling machine are all big parts of Eraserhead, and they all come back to this cruel sack of meat. The film's protagonist, Henry, is forced to take care of The Baby after his wife is driven insane by it and in turn begins to lose his mind. The baby taunts him in its own weird way and causes Henry to feel guilt about leaving it. At one pivotal point in the film, and what I consider to be the turning point of Henry's character, he attempts to finally tell the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall (that's her name) how he feels after having sex and losing contact with her at an earlier point in the film. When he does so and finds she's with another man, he briefly, and crushingly, sees himself the way she has since their encounter:

While many interpret Eraserhead in different ways, in my own interpretation this is a man who has sacrificed so much of his life to his child that it has consumed his life--to the woman known to him specifically as the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall (the idealized girl next door), he's a repulsive creature. Not because he looks like a monster, but because his identity and ego have been taken over to the point where this is all he is. As a virulent young man, as a father, and as an individual working a demanding job, Henry is a failure.

The crossed line, it should be pointed out, is that Henry himself has resigned himself to failure. In an effort to destroy this failure, he murders the baby--his identity--and crawls into the loving arms of the only woman who will accept him: The Lady in the Radiator.

Hot. Because radiators are very warm, get it? Huehuehuehue

The Lady in the Radiator might not be what many consider the ideal partner. She's hideously deformed, and also she lives inside a radiator. She's no Beautiful Girl Across the Hall, that's for sure--oh, and she's not real. But stuff like beauty and reality don't really matter much for the tortured Henry Spencer, all he wants is someone who will accept him and welcome him with loving arms. Even if she does sing about taking him to heaven and smashing sperm-like creatures: Henry doesn't care about stuff like masculinity or even life, he accepts failure graciously after fighting it so long throughout the film.

So what does this all have to do with the horror masterpiece PT, exactly? Forget that little detail? Well, not much, except for this:

Anyone who had seen Eraserhead before playing PT were likely in for a pleasant surprise upon discovering this pitiful creature in the sink, but it's not clear (and never will be) if the baby is a villain in the vein of Henry's Baby or just a benevolent ghost. It assists the player in escaping the house, but many players might simply take a look at the creature and accept it as it appears. I think the visual allusion to Eraserhead might help in interpreting the patriarch of the family, as well. To go further with this, here's a quote from the baby further into PT:

"You got fired, so you drown your sorrows in booze. She had to get a part-time job working a grocery store cash register. Only reason she could earn a wage at all, is the manager liked the way she looked in a skirt. You remember, right? Exactly 10 months back."

So is the father merely a remorseless murderer who isn't worth our sympathy? I wouldn't be so quick to judge. Much like Henry, the unnamed patriarch of the family faces a deep pit of despair, having been laid off from his job and watching miserably as his wife is the only person in the family making any money--a fact which he believes directly correlates with his wife's pregnancy. That's not to say he's not the father, but in his mind the threat of failure--failure at life, of being a father and husband, at losing the ability as an independent individual--all culminate in the quickening of Lisa's pregnancy.

The horror of failure isn't one which relies too heavily on an outward fear, but rather of internalizing the failure of the subject of the story. The patriarch of PT considered himself a failure much like Henry Spencer, the climax of whose arc culminates in the murder of his infant whatever-it-is. Coincidentally, The Shining's Jack is something of a failed writer, his severe writer's block being the primary cause of anxiety which leads to his Faustian deal later in the film. This even extends to the other film I mentioned, The Grudge, in which Kayako's husband brutally murders her, their son, and their poor innocent cat after discovering Kayako is stalking another man. Even the threat of the loss of masculinity can be perceived as a failure, and for some of these characters that's all it takes to spiral into destructive tendencies.

That's not to say we should totally sympathize with many of these characters--for some, namely the villains of The Grudge and The Shining, it's very difficult to see them as anything but psychotic murderers. The fear that arises from these characters is the razor-thin line of sanity which these characters stepped over after accepting their own failure. The victim of this horror is rarely ever the one who has failed; Henry is something of an outlier in this group since the outcome of his failure, a creature his wife's doctors say is not even human, is the one tormenting him. The viewer instead sympathizes with the victim, who often is punished for a paranoid delusion. Neither Lisa nor Kayako were stated to have actually done anything, but still met with a grisly fate.

But that hard-earned sympathy comes with a price: horror!

The Horror of Horror

According to the website LiveScience, horror stimulates a reflex that has kept humans alive since the stone age: the acute stress response. If you're a dullard, this refers to the fight-or-flight response, the defense system that sends our minds into an over-active state, heightening one's senses long enough to either run away from, or punch satisfactorily, a perceived threat. What makes horror so effective is that the brain knows its owner isn't stupid (in most cases) and, to take the words of LS, "experiences this adrenaline rush as enjoyable."

The most important factor in horror, and the most difficult to pull off, is to set the participant's mind into that state and pushing them past the stimulus to achieve victory. The difficulty comes in depowering the protagonist in order to maintain the fear response, but because advances in modern film- and game-making, it's become easier than ever to mistake "shock" and "horror."

I want to use two recent movies as an example: Paranormal Activity (I don't care which one you pick) and Eli Roth's The Green Inferno. One of these has more sequels than it knows what to do with, and the other had to fight to even get a wide release. Guess which one gets overlooked in discussion?

Paranormal Activity tricks the audience into a fight-or-flight response by marketing itself as "that one movie what makes you jump bad." But seriously, all of its marketing relied entirely on showing audience members jumping and screaming like morons being paid to overreact to a movie--sorry, I mean like just average morons. When you go into any of these movies you know exactly what's going to happen, and the whole time you're going to be on edge because you know the loud crash will pop off after several minutes of silence. The most effective scene in any of the Paranormal Activities I actually watched--which admittedly aren't many--is from the first movie when the haunted girl gets out of bed and stares at her boyfriend. It makes my skin crawl and part of that comes from the fear of the familiar, of sympathizing with the girl who is unfairly haunted and her boyfriend, vulnerable and at the mercy of the demon. The scene goes on for an agonizing minute in real time (two hours, according to the movie)--and for a film as short as the first Paranormal Activity with every second being precious, an entire minute with something like this is downright terrifying.

But seriously, I need to stop writing these at night.

Those movies are cheap "jump scare" factories. You don't go into them to sympathize with a troubled family or reveal truths about yourself, you go there to jump in your seat, laugh it off, then go home to your sad life. Every single one of these movies is the same: innocent family gets haunted and it gets progressively worse. But diminishing returns are important in any movie, so when you have seven films (I'm looking at you, Saw) with the same gimmick and emotional payload, your brain just stops caring. To go back to that LS article:

"'In these cases, those engaging in high-risk activities will tell you that the risk is lowered by their training and precautions,'" enabling them to enjoy the experience, Rudd said. The key structure in the brain responsible for this effect is likely the amygdala, he added, which is key to forming and storing memories linked with emotions."

If you keep shoving this crap at your viewer they're going to stop caring; you can perceive in real-time the slow degradation of these films as a passion project into a machine, churning out the same miserable experience. If you ever wondered what "soulless cash-grab" meant, here you go, this is the dictionary definition of the term. It's the reason I'm so fond of a one-off movie or video game; it's also why I stay glued to a television show like Game of Thrones--which has a clear story charging head-long into its inevitable conclusion--as opposed to The Walking Dead and the showrunners' promise of "continuing until we can no longer film" or whatever they said. I've long since stopped caring. We all want closure, a denouement that wraps the story in a neat bow. It dilutes the original vision when a simple project is turned into a self-proclaimed "saga" with no end in sight, propped up by a shameless gimmick.

On that note, The Green Inferno is very firmly a one-and-done ordeal, and I don't want to spoil it too much because I desperately want others to just watch it as soon as possible. If you aren't aware, in this film a bunch of whiny internet activists decide to do something important for a change--signifying that the movie is in fact fiction--and protest a logging company destroying land in South America. The plan goes awry and the students are held at the mercy of an indigenous cannibal tribe.

The horror of the film comes primarily from sympathy, but it's also hard to fully hate the tribe given that they're still extremely primitive. The students actually attempt a noble cause and the horror that awaits them is not only shocking, but heart-wrenching. The climax of the film is one of the most tense moments I've had in recent years of film, and without giving it away let me just say it's not exactly something a man would typically need to worry about. Rather, the threat comes from genuine tension and fear for the character. While Green Inferno doesn't try to shy away from startling its viewer--you like eyeballs?--it also doesn't attempt to do so in a cheap way akin to Paranormal Acitivity. It sets up its laughably simple plot, establishes the characters, and descends into a maddening crescendo of violence and horror until its conclusion.

To bring my point back around, these two films engage the audience in different ways that involve depowering the protagonists, and ultimately the viewer. For Paranormal Activity, the protagonists are mostly depowered in the simplest way a haunting movie can achieve: they're humans, ghosts don't care about the laws of physics, people get terrorized until the climax. The true depowering comes from the viewer, who has no recourse but to passively watch the action. In order to maximize the fear, these films take advantage of the passive state of viewing and take cheap shots at the audience, shocking them with loud noises and sudden visuals. There's very little memorable here, least of all the experience of watching the movie. I don't know about you, but I take a lot of stock in what movies can hold my attention and which are just wastes of time and spending ninety minutes on edge that I'll be annoyed into a fear response does not make for a memorable movie.

On the other hand, the protagonists of Green Inferno are depowered by being mobbed by a tribe of savages (literal, not metaphorical) who proceed to eat, torture, and rape the cast. The film relies on lingering imagery and shocking visuals while establishing a very real threat: this is tonally a horrifying movie, and the gore is merely window dressing. It doesn't resort to loud noises and jump scares to affect the audience, instead focusing on the strength of its laughable script and direction to create an experience the viewer will remember. When you revisit a Paranormal Activity, you know where the gimmicks are hiding. You can see the man behind the curtain, whereas in a movie like Green Inferno it's, well, a movie. It's not a theme park ride, it's a story with characters, themes, and a story.

But both of these movies pale in comparisons to the legends mentioned earlier. Eraserhead, The Shining and even The Grudge are still being discussed today, especially the earlier two, and part of that legacy stems from the masterful presentation of those films. There are massive layers of subtext, and in the case of Eraserhead the film's obscurity is so well-crafted that it begs, pleads for the viewer to give it a unique interpretation. If I went back to The Shining right now I assure you there's something new I'd pick up that I never noticed in a prior viewing--in fact, just in writing this post I realized that Wendy didn't even realize the Overlook was haunted, and that to her Jack's meltdown was just an inevitability. That picture you saw earlier in the post? Yeah, that wasn't part of my initial analysis of the film. But wait, wasn't this all supposed to be about video games?

The Horror of Video Games

I will never play Gone Home again. I didn't know what I was getting into at first, but after about fifteen minutes of playing and realizing the spooky atmosphere was entirely wasted, I started to notice the seams. While I was hoping for a send-up to games like Clocktower or Alone in the Dark, instead I found myself dumped into a sterile, lifeless house that didn't react to a thing I was doing and lazily threw me into a melodramatic story that had the pretension to tell me to piece together its own plot, as if I had nothing better to do.

See, I view replay value--or, if we're still talking in movie terms, a movie that can be watched again and again--as one of the most important elements in game design. Sure, the plot of Zone of the Enders 2 is laughable at best, but when I can play through a unique high-speed mech game in two hours then why wouldn't I want to try it out on higher levels? Action games are rife with replay value, such as Devil May Cry 3 and 4 or Ninja Gaiden. You may not realize it, but this also applies to Resident Evil and Silent Hill in their own special ways.

For the former, the player is under constant scrutiny to hurry through the game indirectly. Completion can unlock new rewards for a second playthrough, and an excellent playthrough can allow the player to earn new toys or even new challenges to give a new spin the next time. Resident Evil is the root of all stylish action games whether you like it or not, and this has been apparent since the first game in the series. This sort of replay value is aimed at the game player, one who wants to experience a video game first and foremost.

Silent Hill takes a more film-like approach to both its story-telling and replay value, although it doesn't skimp on the gameplay. Because I'm an obnoxious tool and apparently a trend-follower, I'll use the second game in the series as my example here. The last time I played Silent Hill 2, I took a route backward I had never thought of before while exploring the end of the game. I hadn't thought to check the lower floors of the hotel before after it became flooded, but something compelled me to this time. Somehow, in my years of this being one of my favorite games of all time, I completely missed a conversation between James and Mary's doctor which opened an entirely new interpretation of the story to me. In my playthrough before that, while searching through the same area I noticed the furnace in the hotel had "my name is Jack, I'm one hot guy!" etched into the side. While not a major detail, I was delighted with the nod to The Shining, even if it was the inferior novel to an extraordinary film (Eat shit, Stephen King. That movie salvaged your terrible novel). As a reward for merely having read that book I immediately could piece together the cause and origin of the fire which destroyed the hotel, and had I not attempted to replay the game with exploration in mind I would not have found it.

And that's not even to mention the multiple endings of Silent Hill 2, which this post absolutely cannot contain on its own. Silent Hill 2 shifts and molds its endings based on the way the player not only interacts with the world, but how they interact with themselves in the world. It's a brilliant bit of postmodern storytelling in games, and one which seamlessly takes player choice into account while tallying up points for one of six endings tailor-made for each individual playstyle. One of these endings can only be achieved in a second game and even then requires a great deal of attention and exploration.

It's strange, then, that both of the teasers for Resident Evil VII and the aborted Silent Hills use the formula of the latter in their design choices. Resident Evil VII's demo, for instance, changes up as the player breaks sequences within the game, offering new variations of the ending and even opening new areas to explore. While PT doesn't offer particularly different outcomes, it instead has multiple fail states, puzzles, and different variations of the ways in which Lisa can haunt the player.

A rare appearance from Lisa, one which

made me prematurely end a run of the game.

The primary concern of a horror game, then, is to simply not be a Paranormal Activity. While you could make a (flimsy) argument that PT and Resident Evil VII seem to be following this trend of first-person jump-scare games, the truth of the matter is that both of these games borrow primarily from higher, more elevated inspirations. Both of these titles aim to immerse the player not in cheap scares but in building a world that can only be accomplished through video games.

As of this writing, a number of players are scrambling to find the meaning behind an innocuous mannequin finger in the Resident Evil demo. Nobody knows what it does, but the mystery is part of an experience unique to video games. Exploring the house in the game could lead to the player being "welcomed into the family" with any wrong move, which is considered a fail state. In the same vein, PT offered several riddles to solve, some easy and some a little more obscure. If the player roamed the halls too much or "cycled" through the never-ending hallway, Lisa would be lurking in the hall and give a fail state of her own. As mentioned earlier, horror predominantly aims to present its audience with a fight-or-flight response, and video games, giving direct input to the player and offering them the choice to fight or flee, might be the perfect venue for horror to thrive.

I could go on . . .

I've been sitting on this blog for a few months, unsure whether or not I want to release it as it's mostly a jumbled mess of ideas--as the title states, it's basically just me gushing about why I love horror so much. However, I'm about to move and won't have a chance to write a blog for a while and after re-reading this piece, I'm fairly happy with it. Given the date, I also think it would be nice to have a horror-themed blog. You know, it's almost Thanksgiving. The horror behind snapping a turkey's twig neck and listening to your family talk about how much they hate everything and everyone makes it truly one of the most horrifying times of the year.

Happy Halloween!

Review and Analysis: Berserk - The Battle for Doldrey

Eons ago, we took a look at the first of the Berserk reboot films, The Egg of the King. While I'm not particularly in love with the film and think it's a failure on many levels, it's at least a competent movie considering its budget and run time. They fit as much as they could in there, although I'd argue they could have pared back on the giant, ugly battle scenes littering the film. It might be a bad entry to Berserk, but for someone with no interest in the manga or original anime it's better than nothing at all.

That criticism doesn't apply to The Battle for Doldrey, the second film in the reboot trilogy. Bigger, flashier, uglier, and missing all the subtlety of Berserk, this film instead capitalizes on the notion that we really just need to get to the third film already so let's get through this as quickly as possible. What ensues might be the biggest regretful purchase of my entire life, a sequel that doubles down on all the faults of the original while cramming as much worthless CG as possible. Let's get down to business--someone's gotta put effort into this movie, right?

Big Dumb Action

As I mentioned, one of the biggest flaws of the first Golden Age film is the near-total excision of many of the tragic scenes which give Berserk its emotional weight. When going into this movie my initial thought was "it cannot be as bad as the first." Some of the most iconic Berserk moments occur during the events of the film, and a fan of the series only needs to hear that the film adapts the Golden Age chapters starting with the Hawks' assault on the fortress Doldrey and eventually ending on Griffith's fall from grace to get excited for the political intrigue to come. These chapters are actually my favorite part of the Golden Age as we not only get to see the inner machinations of the politics in the setting, but we also get very interesting battle scenes as well as many character arcs being fleshed out--both the Band of the Hawk and the political leaders of Midland and Chuder are explored in-depth. Basically, Battle for Doldrey is the cornerstone of the Golden Age; without this span of chapters the emotional punch of the Golden Age finale is severely lessened.

After the credits, Battle for Doldrey wastes no time in disappointing the viewer. Rather than the intricate political scheming between the queen of Midland, Foss and Griffith, the movie rushes straight into the first major battle of Doldrey with Griffith's Raiders leading the Hawk into battle. Foss was removed from Julius's schemes in the first film and I was hoping that at least he'd make an appearance starting from this point, and his exclusion from this film means that several of the most important emotional anchors holding down the Golden Age story arc have been entirely lifted. As a reader of the manga or even someone who has viewed the 1997 anime, this is likely going to be the film loses much of its weight. Foss becomes a major player later in this point of the story, the Queen of Midland is important for Griffith's development, and the loss of her initial encounter with Griffith means that he no longer has any political strife in the story.

Arguably Griffith's most terrifying display of strength is completely absent from this film.

I want to talk about the Queen a little more before I move on to this abortion of a film. The Queen, who as far as I can tell is never properly named in the story, serves as both a raising of stakes in Griffith's meteoric rise in political power and a means of exploring the consequences of Guts assassinating Julius. The Queen and Julius were having an affair and she's positive Griffith was responsible for his death, so not only is Guts wracked with the emotional guilt of murdering Julius and Adonis but now Griffith himself is brought back into the tumultuous plot. Her death also serves as a grim reminder that Griffith is far from the pure, angelic figure he portrays for the masses. I'll go into that in more detail later in the review, but Griffith's character is explored very well at this point in the story and without the Queen's presence much of that character development is removed.

Even more startling than this omission is the removal of Charlotte and Griffith's courting. Before leaving Midland Charlotte gives Griffith a small magnet in the shape of a knight; she tells him it's good luck and that her similar magnet will be drawn to his when he returns from battle. It's a naive and rather cute moment from a character who is basically just drawn in to Griffith's political schemes without much say in the matter, and this small gesture is a small nod to the audience that Griffith has won her heart over after his attempts in the previous film. It may not seem like much, but it gives depth to their relationship which makes later events in the film utterly baffling without their inclusion.  And just remember, these three paragraphs come from seconds of starting the film. Get ready, we've only just begun.

"The aptly-named Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Film"

As the film opens, Guts is tearing through Chuder troops while mulling over Griffith's shattering words at the end of the previous film. While this gaudy CG battle is a rather annoying and busy way to begin the movie, it's actually a relief to see that the CG budget has clearly been improved and it may not be such an eyesore this time around.

Casca is having problems of her own as her period is starting on the battlefield and gets into a scrap with the chauvinist Adon, a comic relief villain who loves shouting his attacks out as if this were an anime or something. Adon effortlessly wipes out some Hawk redshirts and taunts Casca before Guts appears to drive him back. Casca cuts the fight short after passing out off a cliff; Adon shoots Guts with a crossbow before he can pull her up and the two tumble into a nearby river. Before I continue I want to remark on just how impressive the visuals are for this movie, especially at this point in the pouring rain as Guts and Casca are drenched after the brutal dive from the cliff. We're not talking about this from a visual standpoint and I don't want to harp on about such a small aspect, so I just wanted to get it out of the way here.

Griffith hears a report that Casca and Guts have gone missing and a soldier warns Griffith to not cut their forces before the scene goes back to Casca and Guts in a cave. There's a cute little moment where a bug crawls on Casca's head and Guts delicately sets it aside, a detail that's new in this film, and casually strips off her soaked clothes. He realizes she's on her period and remarks on how difficult it must be to be a woman. The camera pans out on one of Berserk's most iconic moments: Guts, taciturn with one hand on his sword and another around a nude Casca, watching diligently for soldiers as he repays Casca for doing the same when he first met the Hawks.

I love this scene and it's honestly one of the first that comes to mind when I think about the Golden Age, and it's done more or less with the respect its due here. My only problem stems not from the cinematography itself but rather how Guts is portrayed in general in the film. Guts is still a teenager at this point in the story, still insecure and very young. This is the most intimate he's ever been with a person, and the image of him doing this as a teenager while still traumatized by Donavon makes him look more mature than his age. In the film, Guts just looks like normal Guts. Huge, intimidating, square-jawed and built like a brick wall. The innocence of youth is all but gone because he looks like he's in his thirties. What should be a tender moment between youth is less impactful.

Emotional Roller Coasters

Moving on, another out-of-focus moronic flashback is shown. Casca is beaten and nearly raped by a nobleman before Griffith rescues her, leaving her with his sword to test her resolve. She murders the nobleman and the flashback ends. Casca wakes up and is less than pleased with Guts in a humorous exchange as she throws pieces of armor and even her sword at Guts. The humor is drained when Guts callously brings up her position as a woman, which causes her to break down and spill her

guts

about why she hates him.

In a shocking display of ineptitude the film skips Casca explaining her past to Guts. I don't know why they couldn't have put the flashback here when she's explaining why she's jealous of Guts. This is the big moment when they finally start to understand each other, when Casca explains how she came from a poor village and a nobleman saved her only to reveal he wanted her for his rape dungeon (or whatever) and Griffith rescued her. Even more perplexing is the omission of a large majority of Griffith's tryst with Gennon, governor of Castle Doldrey. There are a few throwaway lines that tell the audience about this event, but compared to the original version where it's shown just how involved the two were it's pretty disappointing.

Pictured: human emotion

While I'm kind of ambivalent of their one-night stand, it was nice for Griffith to have some sort of emotional investment in his advance on Doldrey. He wants to silence Gennon before word of their relationship gets out, Guts wants to prove himself one last time as Griffith's right-hand man, and Casca is more or less seeking revenge on Adon for shaming her in combat. All three of the major players have some sort of investment in the battle, and omitting most of Griffith's relationship with Gennon changes that for the viewer. Of course it's more than hinted at when the two meet on the battlefield, but the manga and 1997 anime are very explicit in what went on between the two of them, how far Griffith would go to bolster the Hawks and how it affected Casca's feelings toward Griffith.

What I can't forgive in this omission is the real reason why Griffith sought Gennon's help in the first place. After discovering a small child who he foolishly allowed on the battlefield in one of the Hawks' first skirmishes, Griffith becomes torn between his dream and the weight of the lives of his men on the battlefield. Griffith is still basically a kid at this point and his dreams are already taking a toll on him. With one small affair between him and Gennon Griffith could bolster his supplies and the lives of his men with only a small personal sacrifice. Casca reveals that learning this caused her to feel complex emotions as well, but the event made her respect Griffith more after learning the emotional turmoil it's caused.

The image of Griffith picking up a wooden toy on top of the corpse of the bright-eyed boy is another one of those major icons of the Golden Age, and without it here not only does it drain the emotional weight of Griffith's choices as leader of the Hawks, it also removes more than a few pivotal gut-punches later in the series. But that's not this review, so we must soldier onward. The film has only been on for seventeen minutes and I'm pretty sure this officially counts as an essay at this point.

Back to the film, Guts and Casca are growing closer for no reason and the famous one-hundred-man battle commences. Adon appears again with his retinue and Guts challenges them all, urging Casca to find Griffith. The animation and choreography is stellar and there's not much to say on it. The 1997 anime is subtitled "A Gale of Blades" or something similar, and this fight represents that idea wonderfully. Guts swings his enormous sword like it's nothing and we get to see a rare occurrence of him struggling, and it's not because he's fighting a giant monster this time.

Casca fights some men on her own, who naturally go straight to rape. She is rescued by the Hawks after fighting off her captors and the focus returns to Guts. After the battle Guts is found by Griffith, Judeau and Casca, the latter of which is suddenly very concerned with his well-being. Casca tearfully hugs him as Griffith approaches. Another funny little addition to the movie is Guts raising his wounded hand, having forgotten that he didn't take the arrow all the way out. I love the small touches the director made--it's a shame so much had to be cut, because a full series with this much attention would be marvelous. The Hawks also capture Adon, a new change to this movie, and one which I naturally hate.

The Battle for Dull-drey

The eponymous battle for Castle Doldrey approaches as some of the Midland army fails at assaulting the castle. Part of the reason the title is unappealing to me is that this is honestly a pretty small part of this mini-arc of the Golden Age, and mostly just serves as padding between the important political maneuvering between the major players. Of course the directors clearly know more about the series than I do, as this battle becomes the forefront of the movie while everything else is pushed aside.

Griffith volunteers to lead the charge into Doldrey, a fortress which has a reputation for its impenetrable nature. Morale and defense are both low and the military council are floundering for a solution, so Griffith states that the Hawks will lead the charge by himself--the King, now convinced of the strength of the Hawks, officially orders the Hawks to attack Doldrey.

I should note that another major scene, the Bonfire of Dreams, was cut from the film. This happens before the council and serves as a relaxing interlude between battles, as Guts is still recovering from the one-hundred-man battle and preparations for the next assault have yet to be finalized. Guts and Casca have a relatively deep conversation about the bonfire in the middle of the Hawks' camp, referring to Griffith as a bonfire himself while the soldiers are akin to the smaller fires around the camp, drawing around a much larger fire. There are great little moments between all the major players in the Hawks, Casca has a cute scene with Griffith, and Guts implies that this will likely be his final campaign with the Hawks. Much like camp scenes in the first film I don't understand why this is cut, because the last thing any of the Berserk films needs is less character development. It's not a particularly protracted scene and serves to ease the viewer into the very real possibility that Guts will be separating himself from the Hawks shortly.

Not only that, but because Griffith's relationship with Gennon is almost cut entirely the transition to the governor of Doldrey is extremely awkward and comes out of nowhere. You've got this old guy being served by effeminate men who look startlingly like Griffith commanding a large armored man, Boscogn, to bring Griffith in alive. There's no context and even the introduction of Boscogn is cut short. Boscogn himself is established as being a frightening Chuder commander after he publicly shames Adon and strips him of command. Because Adon is captured Boscogn can't intimidate him, so rather than having him shown as a leader who commands fear in his underlings he's just shown tearing apart soldiers on the battlefield. I guess that's the only way to make a character intimidating in these dumb movies. Gennon is also strangely older than he was in the original series and manga, so much older in fact that I kind of wonder why he's even lusting for Griffith's loins at all. Shouldn't he be doing old people things like playing Midland Bingo?

Doldrey is more or less Helm's Deep, and part of the reason this battle sticks with me more than the latter is that rather than the heroes being behind the impenetrable fortress, they're strategically rushing to capture the fortress instead. It's a neat concept and one that I think Berserk pulls off well.

A huge, noisy, idiotic CG fight takes place as the Hawks split into two groups. You can only describe action so many ways, but if I had to summarize it I'd have to say "busy" and "ugly." Why is Gennon's harem of little boys aged up? Did they think he was too weird and villainous? Is that why they aged him up? I don't get what's happening with him.

Boscogn and Guts face off, and once again I'm shocked by how poorly the director understands the series. Boscogn kind of serves as the final boss of the Band of the Hawk arc, a mountain of a man who pushes Guts to his limit. In the manga and original series he breaks Guts's massive sword, becoming the first human opponent to push Guts back. He's a stronger opponent than even the hundred troops, and his defeat comes from a surprise assist from Zodd--who is completely absent from this movie.

On the other side of the battlefield, Casca and her troops invade Doldrey while the castle is unoccupied. The soldiers who accompanied Adon back into Doldrey hatch their plan, meaning that Casca had to underhandedly sneak into the fortress in order to win. Adon, somehow, gets his hands on a spear and he and Casca fight. Why did he not just turn around and reveal it was them when they were going through Boscogn's vanguard? Why did he wait until after they took over the castle before launching a last-ditch attack? He was surrounded by Hawks, what could he have possibly expected? This movie is so stupid.

Adon breaks Casca's sword and she kills him by stealing his sword, which they should have confiscated, and pirouettes around his spear to stab him in the throat. A much less impressive finish than her flipping over him and cutting his head in half, but "much less impressive" is more or less this film's tagline. On the other side of the battlefield Guts somehow distracts Boscogn, a military general, with a flag, sneaks around him, and cuts off his and his horse's head in one swing. Again, more impressive in the original when it was a desperate swing of a sword Zodd threw to him after Guts was pushed back by Boscogn. At this point Guts has had absolutely zero challenge and nobody has been able to defeat him in battle. This gives the impression that Guts is unbeatable when, by this point in the two original series, he's been pushed to his limit enough times that the viewer can appreciate a villain when they've got the upper hand, while still cheering when Guts effortlessly takes out mobs of goons. He's not supposed to be unbeatable, just extremely tough.

After suffering defeat through under-handed and virtually impossible means, Gennon is left alone on the battlefield as Griffith approaches him (at about three frames per second). The conversation they had in the original versions plays out almost verbatim, which has no emotional weight because it's a payoff to what should be a fairly long-running story arc. The lighting looks very good here though. At least there's some positive aspect here, but compared to how flaccid this scene feels wihout the emotional weight it doesn't mean much. The Hawks then go on to murder Gennon's innocent booty boys for seemingly no reason.

It's like Michael Bay directed this movie: all substance with the life and soul vampired out of it. The reason Berserk  resonates with so many people is that these massive onslaughts and incredible battles are predicated upon with heavy emotional investment. Griffith had an affair with Gennon because of the traumatic weight of the child soldier's death, allowing him enough supplies to maintain his men and avoid unnecessary casualties. Guts holding Casca is sincere because we've seen how he reacts to people simply brushing against him. Having empathy for these characters comes naturally because they have traumatic life experiences, which is why we love watching them succeed and hate to see them fail. Berserk creator and famed iDOLM@STER connoisseur Kentaro Miura answered an interview question saying that Berserk has more in common with shoujo (teen girl) manga than a series aimed at men, as girl-oriented characters "express every feeling powerfully." It elevates the massive action setpieces to resonate more powerfully with viewers. If anything, these movies are like the shonen or male-oriented series that people might consider it at first glance. The emotions are sucked out of these movies and it shows. Well, and about half the story content as well. Speaking of story, let's get back into this thing.

53 minutes into the film, the reviewer reflects on his decisions and feels for the first time regret at the failure of his life

The Hawks return with great fanfare to Windham, capital city of Midland. We don't get to see Charlotte fussing about to see Griffith, we don't get to see Corkus Hulk Out--although he does pick up a woman like a puppy. It's pretty off-putting and again, all the soul is ripped completely out of the scene.

More cuts are made to the story, although one--which I mentioned earlier--had me so bummed that it ruined the rest of the experience. In the original versions, Foss and the Queen have nearly finished their scheme to take Griffith out of the picture. This is also when the Queen mourns for Julius, who she's having an affair with. Because Foss was excised entirely the subplot with his daughter is removed, wherein Griffith kidnaps an innocent little girl and holds her hostage to get information out of Foss. The darkest depths of Griffith's ambition begins to be explored, and the characters in general are much deeper than they are in this film. Griffith rises up as a famous general with no opposition and it feels lazy.

Next is the ballroom scene, a fun diversion from the action as the characters relax and enjoy themselves among the nobles. The only people who aren't having fun, as it were, are Guts and Casca, who connect more deeply than they did in the forest. For whatever reason the Conviction Arc characters Farnese, Serpico and Azan are here, totally out of place for where they should be in the story. Yeah, cameos are alright I guess, but what are they doing here? Wouldn't the Vandimions specifically be trying to stay out of the Midland-Chuder conflict? Why would they show up this quickly? As far as I can remember this trio should be at the Holy See, investigating the coming of the Hawk of Darkness. What's going on here, exactly? Shouldn't Farnese and Serpico be too young at this point? This cameo is terrible.

In the original story, this is the point when the Queen lays her trap. Griffith drinks poisoned wine, interrupting the ball and creating pandemonium. Guts chases down the assassin, but the real event takes place hours later: Foss traps the Queen's council with the rest of the conspirators and Griffith has them burned alive. Griffith casually explains that there are no innocent players in war, and that she's lost her game. The Queen dies shouting Griffith's name, and Foss is reunited with his daughter. Guts, again, kills the mercenaries Griffith hired, this time as one final favor to Griffith and the Hawks. There is now nobody to get in Griffith's way and Foss, now terrified, is wrapped around Griffith's finger for any future plan he has in mind. In short, Griffith has succeeded.

None of this happens in the film. Not one bit. Not a single ounce of this story thread is explored, and instead of political intrigue the viewer is damned to watch ugly CG models dancing around in the ball room. NOTHING happens and the entire point of the ballroom scene is completely ruined. The King also allows Charlotte to meet with Griffith, which contradicts a later point in the film. This alone makes the movie a hideous failure in my eyes, far worse than anything in the previous film. But don't worry, it's not over yet!

Time for more removed scenes! After tying up his loose ends, Guts decides once and for all to quit the Band of the Hawk. Before he can go, Casca stops him to plead for Guts to stay. After he leaves her behind, Judeau and Corkus take him to a bar and try to reason with him; while Corkus angrily refutes Guts's desires to separate himself and follow his own dreams, while Judeau gives a little bit of his backstory and actually encourages Guts to set off on his own. In particular, Judeau hints that Guts should ask Casca to come along with him on his journey, if not at least tell her how he feels. Guts explains he can't do that because it would mean separating Casca from her own dream of following Griffith. More character development which is sadly cut, and instead the scene just shifts completely to Guts leaving the Hawks.

For no reason, the important members of the Hawks--Casca, Corkus, Judeau, Pippin, Rickert and Griffith all appear on a hill outside of Windham and deliver what amounts to an extremely truncated version of their original lines. Griffith is stunned that Guts would leave, and I'm stunned because the characters all guessed that Guts would leave on the same night of the ball and take this exact path. Corkus just comes off as a jerk rather than a weak coward who depends on Griffith, Judeau has nothing to say, Pippin says nothing and Casca makes a half-hearted attempt to keep him from leaving. The only reason they cut him off in the original is because Casca noticed Guts leaving and had time to call Griffith to run in front of him while Judeau and Corkus distracted him. It makes absolutely no sense that they'd meet Guts on the hill and I'm still stunned that the director thought this was a good idea.

In case all these omissions have been confusing, allow me to recap events comparing the source material to the second film. The red highlights are used to emphasize cut plot points which serve as build-up for this film and the next.

Charlotte gives Griffith her lodestone - Casca falls off the cliff - Casca tells Guts her backstory and Griffith's affair with Gennon - the One-Hundred Man battle - Bonfire of Dreams - the council of war - Battle for Doldrey - the ball - Foss's betrayal and the queen's death - Guts is confronted by Casca, Judeau and Corkus - Guts arrives on the hill

Casca falls off the cliff - Casca's backstory plays to the audience - the One Hundred Man battle - the council of war - the Battle for Doldrey - the ball - Guts arrives on the hill

The movie is called The Battle for Doldrey, yet this event in the manga is surrounded by heavy emotional scenes and punctuated by Griffith eliminating his political opponents. The Midland-Chuder conflict is just another battle for the Hawks, though one which catapults them into fame and glory. Up to this point in the film, almost nothing of substance has actually occurred outside of the major battle scenes--some of which, namely the eponymous battle for Doldrey, have been heavily simplified. As noted, all of the content cut from the film is character development but every single bit of it is used as setup for either later events in the second film or parts of the next film.

Either way, Guts and Griffith have their rematch, and even a one-swing battle lacks the impact of the original. A big reason for this being that Griffith begins to calculate how he can win against Guts. While it probably wouldn't have played out well in a feature film, it's important that Griffith doesn't once believe he can lose this fight. In the moments before they clash, Griffith goes over several tactics on how best to swing his blade so as not to disfigure or kill Guts.

So when he ultimately loses his duel, has his shoulder bruised and his blade snapped, it's more than just a demoralizing loss--Griffith's entire world is shattered because he never once considered he'd lose the duel. While there is a small amount of inner monologue of Griffith asking himself why Guts would want to quit, it means very little when the viewer is not given the simple tidbit of why Griffith becomes so broken from this loss. Guts has not only overpowered him physically, but mentally as well. He's broken past Griffith's ambition and none of the Hawk can stop him from leaving now, not that they would want to. There's no reason for this small detail to be cut out when the director was already so good about adding little touches to some scenes.

That said, the impact of their duel is pretty impressive, short and sweet but animated with great precision and care. It lacks much of the emotional weight, but at least it looks good. Having Guts casually exhale is a nice little touch and shows just how little effort Guts put into their duel. After fighting the likes of Boscogn, it's no doubt that Guts thought Griffith was small potatoes.

The Payoff

The payoff for all these loose ends and removed scenes hits home in the film's ending scenes. Griffith shows up to Charlotte's room during a storm that night, and without wasting any time things are wrong. In the original, Charlotte is distraught after the death of her stepmother--which she doesn't know is Griffith's fault--and basically allows Griffith to seduce her. The events leading to this payoff make every little detail seem like they were put into place very meticulously--and if you've read the deleted scene from the manga, you know exactly why that is.

Charlotte, a young woman whose life is torn between her duty as princess and her yearning for Griffith, is emotionally fragile after the death of her stepmother--who her father married because her birth mother also died. Charlotte is a character surrounded by tragedy who just keeps making bad mistakes to get away from her tragic upbringing; a girl who would rather live a simple life than that of a noble. And here comes Griffith, swoocing right in to take the pain away. And Griffith himself is emotionally devastated after losing his one true love, big hulking manly Guts. So the two do what is definitely a bad idea and give into Griffith's seduction; Griffith is having revenge sex on Guts with the woman he's been courting, while Charlotte is embracing the man she loves while he's in pain.

Nope!

Because the film has cut so much--the assassination of the queen, manipulating Foss, Griffith having "bro" moments with Guts after killing the hired thugs, the revelation of Griffith's loss of innocence with the child soldier, and a host of other omitted details--this emotional roller coaster of a sex scene is completely sapped of its intended goal as the payoff for Griffith's ambition. Griffith has surrounded himself with strong individuals both as allies and enemies, and after seeing the depths of his ambition it's crushing to see that he's still just a man and is prone to weakness like everybody else.

In Battle for Doldrey, Griffith going to Charlotte just makes him look like a big whiny baby. There's no stress that's gotten under his skin, there's no evil undercurrent that's been peaking through the whole time. The sex scene instead just comes off as a petulant child who had one thing go wrong and he's throwing a fit. This isn't a man who's been poisoned in public, who's been forced to kidnap a child and even assassinate a queen just to survive.

It should also be noted that in the prologue of both the manga and original anime, Guts is wandering the land as the black swordsman while hunting Griffith and the apostles for revenge. Part of why this works so well is that moments like this imply that Guts merely walking out on the Hawks caused Griffith to snap, and why his subsequent capture is all the more confusing as complications arise. The viewer might think Griffith became king and persecuted Guts after seducing Charlotte, and after his capture the viewer is left to realize that something very dark happened to turn the crippled Griffith into the godlike Femto. I should also point out that Charlotte reacts way too strongly to a simple titty-grab. Come on dude, it's not that big a deal.

Like the ballroom dance and the enormous and ugly battle scene, far too much of the budget was put into this scene. Yeah, it's hot and sweaty and Griffith thinking about Guts while pounding a babe is as creepy as it needs to be for his character, but this scene didn't need to be two minutes long while the assassination and child soldier subplots were omitted. Then when Griffith climaxes he does so in like a cross position so that it looks like he's Jesus. It's strange, unnecessary, and honestly feels indulgent. Not that I'm saying it didn't need to be in the movie, it's a pivotal part of Griffith's character, but when so much was cut at its expense I just can't help but wonder how much of the budget had to be diverted to each individual hump.

The morning after, Griffith is caught immediately without putting up a fight. Another important detail was cut so that we could see a close-up of Charlotte's fat butt: Griffith doesn't go for his sword. It's a minor detail, but in the original he doesn't have his sword because Guts broke it, and if he'd had it he might have been able to escape the Windham guards. But he doesn't even twitch his sword hand. Griffith doesn't try in the least. What a hero.

Meanwhile, the Hawks are summoned for "training" and are ruthlessly massacred by the Midland Army. Luckily, arrows only rain down on red shirts as far as the viewer can tell. Griffith is being tortured by the King, who condemns Griffith and tells him that his dream is over. Griffith chides the king for being horned up for his own daughter and that his refusal to sign a political marriage in wartime was suspicious, so the king nearly whips him to death.

Casca leads the Hawks away from the field as the King orders a deformed torturer to keep Griffith alive, telling him to ensure the Hawk never takes flight again. In another part of the country, Guts crosses paths with a caravan carrying a certain elf, and Guts stops for just a second to look back. In the torture chamber, the torturer grabs Griffith's Red Behelit, the Egg of the King, and drops it into the sewer.

Finally, one final scene that's missing: the King actually goes up to Charlotte's chambers and very much attempts to rape her. Griffith was not wrong in his assumption, and when a horrified Charlotte literally kicks the King's teeth in it naturally destroys their already-strained relationship. It's a terrifying addition to an already unsettling story, and once again the omission of this plot detail completely shatters important events in a later story arc.

Verdict

Loud, overly-indulgent, ugly and skipping key scenes that are necessary for character arcs and simple motivation, Berserk: The Battle for Doldrey is doubtlessly the absolute worst way to experience the story of the Golden Age. Key characters who need to be present for the story are entirely absent, fight choreography is uninspired and some battles have their stakes all but thrown away, and honestly I don't think I need to elaborate further. A pitiful attempt at adapting one of my favorite manga series of all time, Battle for Doldrey indulges in its ugly CG battles rather than focus on the heart and soul of what made Berserk such an unforgettable ride. I spent most of this review just pointing out inconsistencies and removed plot elements, and that alone should indicate the correct answer is simply...

READ THE MANGA.