Fire

There were certainly plenty of hints where "Catching Fire" was going. It's not like it would have been a COMPLETE shock anyway to see Who Was Behind It All. 

It's a Hero's saga, after all.  Teamwork, courage, and sacrifice, with a Journey that has an expected course.  No coincidence, either, that it has been 75 years since the end of the last Crisis, placing these Games in the natural generational constellation for a new Crisis to begin. And that means the other generations also have their roles to play - their places to be. 

If you follow that far, then it should be clear from the start who was in charge. I wasn't certain at first,  but those hints kept piling up. And ultimately, let's face it, which side would you expect that Reactive - the one played by one of Gen X's most celebrated actors - going to come down on?

Tyrell

"More Human Than Human"

The slogan of the Tyrell corporation popped into my head on this rainy day in Los Angeles. I realized that Blade Runner is set only a few years from now, in 2019. And we really aren't very similar to that proposed dystopic cityscape, at all.

I've looked up other dates in which The Future is expected to be not so good. They actually often match up with the Strauss and Howe Crisis peak, in or near the 2020s. That may be because creative minds in this mode seem to choose dates when they could expect not to be around any more, or at least near the end of their lives i.e. about 80 or 90 years after their birth. No coincidence, I'm sure.

(Ridley Scott was born in 1937, and the producer and screenwriters were also born between 1930 and 1940. It also works for Orwell (born 1903) which I only checked today.)

Mali

If I keep coming back to this, it's because the path seems so clear: the Crisis looks very much like it could be The Last Crusade. When cheese-eating surrender monkeys are actively taking on Islamists, the question of who will be Us and who Them begs to answer itself. Other paths still beckon, of course, and this might be a detour. An attempt at total war by bankrupt countries could as easily cause battles for massive internal reform, instead - as with Russia and WWI. I suppose asking whether it would be structural or economic reform is unnecessary, as both would be remade in changes a Crisis might engender.

Pan

Disney appears to be re-branding Peter Pan, using a typeface I'd call more elegant and forward looking than what has been used for the last 60 years.

My son is a big fan of the movie, so I've seen it a lot, lately...like, a lot. My wife and I discuss the place in history of it, and here's what we get.

Peter is a Prophet. Regardless of how old he really is, he's a spirit of youth. He takes on the adult Pirates and wins through sheer moral superiority. (And let's note that in Hook, we have the ultimate in ever-youthful Prophets, Robin Williams, becoming a "pirate" himself and being forced to return to his youthful exuberance to beat the (Silent) Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook.) 

Wendy appears to be a Prophet herself, preparing Pan's way and extolling his virtues to her brothers. They and especially the Lost Boys are Reactives - I've heard that generation in England called the Incorrigibles - causing trouble and not quite come into their positive aspects - certainly not as "good" as Peter. 

And of course, "All this has happened before, and it all will happen again."

Apocalypse

"Sherman wasn't doing title checks on his March to the Sea."

This thought occurred to me while watching a PBS show (American Experience, I think) about "Gone with the Wind" author Margaret Mitchell. In response to some intractability on schoolwork, her mother took her on a tour of local estates that had been ravaged by Sherman fifty years earlier. In that area, at least, the families never rebuilt, leaving the wrecks of these huge estate houses as ghosts of the war. And inspiring, no doubt, the dream of a rebuilt Tara.

In any case, while anticipating the next incident in the Crisis, it's important to look beyond conventional wisdom. And to carefully consider the real implications of extreme options. Paying off the mortgage may be a good idea, but it won't help if Sherman rides through your town.

Newtown

It does feel different, even after Columbine and UVA and too many others. Certainly that they were children - 6 and 7 years old - has a lot to do with it, as does how many were murdered. Perhaps, too, it's the time of the Turning that has us more upset - that it's Reactives and Civics identifying with the parents - for those others, the victims were Civics, their parents Boomers and Xers. While the Crisis puts us on edge, there's some idea of an underlying normalcy, which this shatters.

There are calls for change, of course. How much this relates to the Crisis will probably be shown in whether anything is implemented - what do we do, if anything.

Shadow

On a cold rainy November day, my thoughts are turning to Highlander. Not really sure why.

Which is why I'm going to take a post to talk about The Shadow.

I saw this Alec Baldwin superhero feature in the theater, and wanted to like it much more than I did. The reasons I had at the time appear clearer now, and more succinctly described: it's a Redemption story that's instead portrayed as a Hero story. Everything about the protagonist - the timing of the story, his more practical than moral methods, especially his unsavory origin - points to a Reactive character. These usually work best in redemptive plots, where the previous evil (original sin?) is overcome. While there are hints that this was considered, the story ends up more about how he Saves The World. Even there, though, he does it without any real sacrifice. In fact we might say that it's more of a Prophet story, where he succeeds through sheer moral superiority. In any case, it's a muddied resolution: too Bad at the start to just Be Good at the end, not bad enough to be Redeemed, not enough sacrifice to be Heroic.

I remember thinking at the time that it would have worked with a Highlander-like treatment of flashbacks to his earlier life, and his struggle to contain it - that the point is that The Shadow really does know the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. Found out later that - go figure - Mulcahy directed both. Ah, well.