To allay our fears, the director was primed to take the stage to tell us that this sequel would indeed be better, but to do that would require admitting the previous one needed improvement. Would he be willing to make that admission? Bravely, Bay did just that when he point blank and without sidestepping, said “that was crap.”
I appreciate that. He’s right, the movie was crap. You know what else was crap? 80% or more of what the rest of the media has been feeding us, completely unapologetically. I appreciate that for once, a director took the time to essentially apologize for what he’d done and promise to do better next time (and have that apology actually be about the movies themselves and not some sort of drunken fiasco). My biggest question at this point is why aren’t there more people doing that?
Seriously, it’s a legitimate question. I sat through Wolverine: Origins, I played Metroid: Other M, I read Brightest Day, and I still have yet to receive an apology for any of those. The time and money I spent on those went off into a black hole of wasted resources, and I have nothing to show for it but disappointment. At this point, I’m not even angry that these things sucked, but that their makers show no sense of reprehensibility for the sucking. I understand sometimes things go wrong. Deadlines need to be met, creative differences arise, certain risks are made that don’t always pay off. I am more than willing to forgive a cook a few broken eggs it means he’ll learn to make the omelet. But I walked away from these instances, and have no indication that an omelet is coming; all I can reasonably expect is more broken eggs and blank looks as to why I’m not enjoying this.
And I’m not the only one who’s hurt by this lack of candor: these makers are hurting themselves. As with addiction rehabilitation, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Without this admission, they will never learn from their mistakes. That’s why honest disclosure is so important. Think about Superman Returns (or don’t, if you prefer). Bryan Singer, who’d been so successful in adapting the mopey, edgy X-Men, dropped that franchise in order to jump to Mr. Bright-and-Shiny superheroes himself, Superman, in what should have been recognized as the most inappropriate pairing of director and material since they tried to get Tim Burton on Superman. As a result, he ruined both franchises.
What we should have gotten:
If ever an apology was overdue, this would be it, yet when Singer finally addressed the issue, the most he faults the film for is being “a bit nostalgic and romantic”. Seriously, the movie refused to delve any deeper into Superman’s vast mythology than “Holy crap, this guy has super strength”; they cast Lois Lane as a pouty banshee; and they gave the big blue boy scout an illegitimate son that he abandoned, but the most the director said was wrong with it was that it was too respectful to its successful predecessors, and that the big thing he would fix would be to ‘tighten up the first act’? If the fates were to frown upon us and Bryan Singer got another shot at Superman, apparently he would make the same mistakes, just without the exposition.
And here we get to the crux of the matter, the fact that this lack of candor not only can, but has and is still leading to the same mistakes being repeated. Take DC Comics. Once upon a time, they were more than willing to not just admit mistakes, but to take action with the audience’s express desires in mind. When they paired Batman with the much maligned new Robin Jason Todd, they heard the cries of anguish at how terrible a character Jason was. Time kept going, and so did the complaints, so eventually they did respond, and how: the audience was polled on whether this new character lived or died. This was not only an admission of guilt in creating a truly unlikable character, it was offering the audience to be a part of correcting the matter, while simultaneously adding a touching new layer to the Batman mythos. In terms of creative penance, this is the gold standard. Fast forward 22 years, and what do we have? The latest Robin is as unlikable as the original Jason, is the illegitimate spawn of Batman and someone-who-is-not-Catwoman, and also Jason’s been brought back too. (Though to be fair, in a bizarre twist, the story that brought Jason back is actually so good it makes it hard to complain). They’re not just not apologizing for current mistakes, they’re actively taking back previous apologies and seeing how many times they can make the same ones again. Last September, they drastically altered Wonder Woman’s costume and back story to something terrible enough to offend just about everybody. A year later, they still haven’t said they’re sorry, and instead they’re going to do the same thing with every other character (including Wonder Woman, again, for good measure). The costumes are even being designed by the same guy who made the much hated last one; they actually picked the guy who thought Wonder Woman needed a leather jacket with football player shoulder pads, showed him the entire collection of DC superheroes and said, “Do your worst.”And he did.
Seriously, Hollywood, and TV Land, and Comics World, enough is enough. I really want to like what you have to give me. Without you I’ll have to spend my free time talking to my family or doing something productive, and neither of us want that. But if you don’t admit your mistakes, then I can’t help you. You’ll keep doing the same things wrong over and over, and I’ll give you the cold shoulder for a while and try to pretend nothing’s wrong. We’ll just keep growing more and more distant until we don’t even know each other anymore. Then one day you’ll wake and look for me, but it will be too late, and I’ll be long gone.
