The Score: Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018)

With the sequel having been released this year, I wanted to go back and review an animated film that absolutely blew me away back in 2018. This film's impact has been tangible on the 3D animation industry with other studios being emboldened to take much riskier, more experimental, and more artistic visual styles. I rewatched this film to see how I would feel about it now, and I am pleased to say that it is still a film I would strongly recommend. I will this film first and probably review the second film shortly after.

The Score: Godzilla Minus One (2023)

 

Yesterday I went and saw Godzilla Minus One in IMAX. I am pleased to say that I loved the film. Since it is very new, I am going to do a spoiler free review before the page-break. 

Godzilla Minus One returns the legendary King of Monsters to his classic role as the antagonist of the story. The setting is a post World War II Japan, and this is used to great effect. The narrative uses this to explore several interesting themes and is a much more thought provoking film than you might expect. Overall, the film also looks good, sounds great, and is well acted and paced. The protagonist of this film is probably the best human protagonist I have seen in a Godzilla film, and he and his costar have good chemistry. I would also like to note that the supporting cast is endearing and many of the characters are decently well characterized, established, and given good payoffs. There are multiple action scenes that worked very well. While the story has many bleak elements to it, I would argue it has many uplifting themes as well. For a story about a giant laser breathing monster, it does a fantastic job grappling with the value of a human life. 

Overall, even if you are not a huge Godzilla fan, I would highly recommend checking this film out in theaters. It made me think, grieve, beam with joy, and rejoice in triumph.

From this point forward, there will be SPOILERS:

The Score: Goodbye, Eri (2022)

Goodbye, Eri is a manga I read this month. It is by Tatsuki Fujimoto, the author of Chainsaw Man. Before clicking through to this review, I want to strongly advise reading the story for yourself. I will give spoilers, and a lot of really impactful moments in this story are built on twists. I will say that the narrative has less problematic content than Chainsaw Man, so I can recommend it to a more general audience. The main sensitive issue is the topic of suicide. If you want to read it, it is available in a Shonen Jump membership (found in most app stores) which you could get for maybe 4$. I enjoyed the short story so much that I wound up buying my own copy! So, now that I've given my spoiler warning, let's get into a short story that is Fujimito to a T.

The Score: How To Train Your Dragon (2010)

I will start off my broad critiques with a film I have loved for over a decade. It is still my favorite film, so it just felt right to cover it first. This will be the first in my series of "The Score" posts. These should be a broad discussion of the piece of media. I will try to focus on what worked and what didn't. In the end, I will give a personal score to each piece of media I discuss in this series. Without further adieu, let's jump into the story that remains my favorite of all time.

The Score: Story Scoresheet (ver1.0)

I have been tinkering around with a scoresheet that I could use to quantify elements of stories that I really value. In this post, I will go through this scoring system and my mentality behind this. This will apply mostly to books, movies, and shows. I feel that games would need additional categories. I may or may not stick to this system and I also may tweak it over time, but for now, it is a fun thought experiment.

Media Criticism: My Mentality

I have loved stories for as long as I can remember. At a young age, my dad read me The Hobbit. In 1999 I recall the Phantom Menace, sparking my love for the Star Wars universe. In 2001, I first got my hands on a Lego Bionicle comic. I read the origin stories of Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four at the house of a good friend. Paper Mario on the Nintendo 64 captured my imagination. I recall many late nights watching a friend journey through the temples of Ocarina of Time. As soon as I turned 13, I watched every single Lord of The Rings film in a row. 

And then How To Train Your Dragon hit theaters in 2010. And that prompted the creation of my first blog. That blog is primarily a celebration of stories I adore, and I am genuinely surprised at how much one film about a boy and his dragon impacted my life.

With my love of HTTYD, I began to delve more deeply into the mechanics of story-writing. I grew more interested in the art of animation, script writing, world-building, and the many other components that contributed to making that one film mean so much to me. With this newfound interest in story-writing, I also developed tools for criticism. I refined my own views on what is good and what is poor writing. I also refined my own understanding of what kind of writing works for me personally and what does not. With this, I have become much more capable of criticizing media I like as well as media I don't. This can come across as negative, but I see media criticism as a way to more fully appreciate why certain stories impact me so much as well as ways other stories fall short. It leads to rich discussion of what components of a story could be changed to improve it. 

The goal of my criticism will not be to ruin the experience of others. But I do believe that there is an objective "good" in the world of writing and art. There is also a very wide spectrum of people and their preferences. As such, there are works that I would concede are well done, perhaps even "objectively" good, that I do not particularly enjoy. There are also works that I know may not be "objectively" the greatest, but they are definitively my favorite. I am fully aware that the line between what I believe is objective quality and subjective quality is a blurry one. But I do believe there is an ideal all writers can strive for. The reason I believe objective good and beauty exist in writing and in art is because I believe what is good and beautiful is rooted in the source of all things good and beautiful. That source is God. 

I believe human creativity is one of the primary ways we display being made in God's image. We see in the creation account in Genesis that God steps back from his creation and calls it good. As such, I believe we can make things that truly are good. That objectively are good. We can strive to mimic God's own creativity. His own eye for beautiful things, His pattern of putting meaning into what would otherwise be a chaotic reality. 

Because of this, I see criticism as one way to strive for that ideal. It is not to drag art down. I don't believe anyone will reach that ideal of a perfect creation. Perfect story. Perfect beauty. Perfect meaning. But I want to struggle for it. So a good deal of my criticism is used to guide my own writing endeavors. It is also to push the public to *want* good art. Not just a mediocre product. And, should any creator see my opinions and critiques, I genuinely hope they will be thought-provoking and helpful.

As my statements have surely made clear, I do base my criticism in my Theology. I plan to be unabashedly Christian in my way of viewing and critiquing art on this second blog. I know my first blog was very personal, and as such it often noted my faith, but this blog will likely make that element of my views more pointed. I am convicted that Christian beliefs are true, and as such I believe they reflect reality. As such, I hope that even a secular audience I may reach will be able to see my point of view. 

So, moving forward in this blog, I plan to tackle and review pieces of media. Some of the posts will likely be specific scores given to stories. Other posts will probably comment more broadly on elements of storytelling pulled from one or multiple examples. There will be plenty of praise and criticism. There will be a broader spectrum of content that I cover. It will all be born from my Christ-inspired belief in objective good, beauty, and truth. If I am lucky, I'd also love to get input from several of my friends who also enjoy the discussion of story and may have tastes that differ greatly from my own (whether this would be getting them to write posts or perhaps recording video essays together, I am not sure). If this sounds interesting to you, I hope you will enjoy this second blog.