25/02: JL: New Frontier (Dafna's review)
Because it has finally been shown at Wondercon, I feel a bit more comfortable posting my review of Justice League: New Frontier here. This was originally posted at my livejournal, but since work is kicking me and Chris' ass lately (we will be covering Wizard World LA so look forward to that) it can't hurt to give this blog a kick in the pants.
And yes, there are spoilers. Continue at your own risk.
I am in no way capable of being critical over the JL: New Frontier movie. On a purely shallow note, the credit sequence made me swoon, and the fact that they even attempted the lush texture of the original forgives pretty much everything else. While the voice-acting saps the material of the original subtlety and nuance, I don't really care - I've been asking for ages for someone to attempt a more mature animated feature, one that figured "adult" material required something more than just T&A and by god, New Frontier is trying. Just because the voice actors aren't necessarily familiar with the medium yet (one of the many risks involved with getting big name "real" actors" for projects like these), New Frontier has the good graces to not be Superman/Doomsday (which I enjoyed, for entirely different reasons too inappropriate to go into here.)
New Frontier tries to be true to the original material, tries to emulate the tone, the feel, the style, and along with the effort comes a degree of success that rivals most other literary-film adaptations even if it never fully succeeds.
...and to be honest, like I said, I'm too much of a fan to watch this film critically and I'm not going to. This is one of those type of projects where knowing that they tried to be true to the source, and only came up short because the medium just isn't there yet almost, almost makes up for what didn't/couldn't work. I say "medium", but I mean the distinctly Western kind; anime, I feel, benefits from a degree of acceptance as a genuine medium regardless of the age the viewer that Western animation is still working towards. It doesn't fall short from lack of respect of the original material which is almost good enough.
Yes, I'm pretty much equating enjoyment of the movie with the ability to appreciate the athleticism of the special Olympics. Dudes, just work with me here.
Compacting a work that was originally experienced over a number of months is impossible to fully service in an hour and a half film and instead of the subtle grace of the original work, every ounce of meaning within the original work is telegraphed on pretty much every level of the film. Like pretty much any long-form piece of work, the material is always better serviced by equally long-form storytelling, never mind the medium.
It doesn't quite escape the self-seriousness that most super-hero adaptations can't quite shake (lets be honest, it's in the nature of the genre, the printed page manages to mitigate most of it) but it never veers into camp in a futile attempt to avoid the inevitable and I damn well appreciate it. I could go on, but I'm already running low on my pretending I have things to say instead of just fan-girling resources as it is.
Yeah, reading over this post, I realize this is mostly coming across as faint praise within a sea of caveats, but I really did enjoy it. Yeah, the book was better, but that's pretty much always the case when a work moves from one medium to another.
God, I've become my mother -I can't just give a compliment, I have to preface it with "if only..." I should just give into my genetic fate.
How about this: Wonder Woman's boots, how fucking hard did those rule?
Also, Jeremy Sisto's Batman, I like you, you can stay.
PS: SLAM. SLAM BRADLEY. I TAKE WHAT I CAN GET.
And yes, there are spoilers. Continue at your own risk.
I am in no way capable of being critical over the JL: New Frontier movie. On a purely shallow note, the credit sequence made me swoon, and the fact that they even attempted the lush texture of the original forgives pretty much everything else. While the voice-acting saps the material of the original subtlety and nuance, I don't really care - I've been asking for ages for someone to attempt a more mature animated feature, one that figured "adult" material required something more than just T&A and by god, New Frontier is trying. Just because the voice actors aren't necessarily familiar with the medium yet (one of the many risks involved with getting big name "real" actors" for projects like these), New Frontier has the good graces to not be Superman/Doomsday (which I enjoyed, for entirely different reasons too inappropriate to go into here.)
New Frontier tries to be true to the original material, tries to emulate the tone, the feel, the style, and along with the effort comes a degree of success that rivals most other literary-film adaptations even if it never fully succeeds.
...and to be honest, like I said, I'm too much of a fan to watch this film critically and I'm not going to. This is one of those type of projects where knowing that they tried to be true to the source, and only came up short because the medium just isn't there yet almost, almost makes up for what didn't/couldn't work. I say "medium", but I mean the distinctly Western kind; anime, I feel, benefits from a degree of acceptance as a genuine medium regardless of the age the viewer that Western animation is still working towards. It doesn't fall short from lack of respect of the original material which is almost good enough.
Yes, I'm pretty much equating enjoyment of the movie with the ability to appreciate the athleticism of the special Olympics. Dudes, just work with me here.
Compacting a work that was originally experienced over a number of months is impossible to fully service in an hour and a half film and instead of the subtle grace of the original work, every ounce of meaning within the original work is telegraphed on pretty much every level of the film. Like pretty much any long-form piece of work, the material is always better serviced by equally long-form storytelling, never mind the medium.
It doesn't quite escape the self-seriousness that most super-hero adaptations can't quite shake (lets be honest, it's in the nature of the genre, the printed page manages to mitigate most of it) but it never veers into camp in a futile attempt to avoid the inevitable and I damn well appreciate it. I could go on, but I'm already running low on my pretending I have things to say instead of just fan-girling resources as it is.
Yeah, reading over this post, I realize this is mostly coming across as faint praise within a sea of caveats, but I really did enjoy it. Yeah, the book was better, but that's pretty much always the case when a work moves from one medium to another.
God, I've become my mother -I can't just give a compliment, I have to preface it with "if only..." I should just give into my genetic fate.
How about this: Wonder Woman's boots, how fucking hard did those rule?
Also, Jeremy Sisto's Batman, I like you, you can stay.
PS: SLAM. SLAM BRADLEY. I TAKE WHAT I CAN GET.
