John C. Wright's Journal

After less than stellar attempts to adapt popular anime to live action, Netflix has learned to be faithful to the original material. Their attempt to adapt the magna and anime ONE PIECE by Odo Eiichiro is a remarkable success. Purists will be irked at every change made in the adaptation, justly so in some cases, and in others not.

Non-purists, that is, those with no familiarity with the original, or no clear memory, will enjoy a fine viewing experience: for the Netflix version is serviceable, occasionally brilliant, and makes only one or two missteps. Non-purists will not be comparing every line against the original, which is, in this reviewer’s opinion, the greatest work of genius of any medium or genre since Tolkien.

The non-purists will have a better time, since no craftsman, however skilled, can match once-in-a-lifetime genius. A skilled and honest adaptation of a work of inspired genius will always disappoint, because the genius-inspired version is better; but it will always satisfy if, as here, it is skilled and honest.

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This is reprint of a review from 2007, edited of some excess. 

Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass, hits back at critics who accuse him of peddling candy-coated atheism. “I am a story teller,” he said. “If I wanted to send a message I would have written a sermon.”

It is to laugh. Poor man. Poor, poor man. Is this not exactly what he has written?

Someone name for me a book that is more obviously a bit of preaching that simply abandoned its story line more blatantly?
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This is the least fantastic book that has ever been shelved with the fantasy.

I confess out the outset that TITUS GROAN is decidedly not to my taste, but I will try manfully to give an honest picture of its merit to anyone whose tastes differ from mine.

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I did a review of the Golden Age and deservedly forgotten MISS FURY comic penned by Tarpé Mills, where I said the writing had some clever ideas, but was turgid and slow, too wordy.

Not everyone has the same taste as mine, so, in all fairness, allow me to display a page taken from MISS FURY which shows a good example of everything both right and wrong.

This will also give me a chance to post two more cheesecake shots I could not fit into the column.

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Miss Fury is a forgotten heroine of the Golden Age. She is remembered these days, ironically, for her tangential resemblance to what she is not.

She first appeared as The Black Fury in April of 1941 as a Sunday comic strip by June Tarpé Mills, one of few women working in comics at the time, and it shows. There was a contemporaneous comic about a dark-coated stallion named Black Fury, so she, and her strip, was retitled Miss Fury in November 1941, and later gathered into comic book form.

Black Fury is remembered as the first a crime-fighting superheroine, dressed in a skintight black catsuit, complete with cat ears and claws, predating DC’s comics iconic Catwoman and Marvel’s clone Black Cat.

One article about Miss Fury (read in preparation for this column) asserted that the black leopard catsuit, worn for crimefighting, had the supernatural voodoo ability to bestow increased strength and speed on the wearer.

All this is untrue, or, at least, highly doubtful.

Miss Fury is not a superheroine. She is not Catwoman.

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SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (2023) is the middle film of an animated trilogy beginning with SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (2018) and to be continued in SPIDER-MAN: BEYOND THE SPIDER-VERSE (planned for 2024).

The screenplay was written by David Callaham, and by the producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. David Callaham also wrote for ANT-MAN and THE EXPENDIBLES as well as SHANG-SHI and the remake of MORTAL KOMBAT. I note the names because the writing was exceptional.

Two things surprised me about this film: first, it was much better than anticipated. Reviewers and friends who’d seen it either downplayed or did not see its virtues.

Second, it ends in a cliffhanger, which, again, I would have expected reviewers to mention.

Also surprising was the character of Spider-Gwen, whom I merely found annoying in the first film, in this was portrayed so sympathetically and so three-dimensionally, that at times I almost forgot her stupid half-shaved hairdo and eyebrow piercings.

To turn a dislikable character into a likable, or even a lovable one, displays a mastery of writing craft: the same virtuoso writing was on display with the character of Spider-Punk, disliked at first, then admired.

A final surprise was how little the wokeness there was, perhaps none.

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There are several draconian edicts to which all modern Hollywood productions must bow the kneel in servile homage:

• First, all romance is mixed race. No white male and white female suffer mutual attraction.
• Second, no female needs rescue, nor aid, nor advice. She may not gain through grit, learn lessons, make mistakes, or rally after failure. Perfect creatures need no improvement, make no mistakes, and never fail. Hence she can have no character growth, hence no character at all. Women cannot be women, and certainly not modest, feminine, nor maidenly nor maternal. She is never sexy.
• Third, no male can be portrayed displaying leadership, combative spirit, boldness. He can neither protect the weak nor inspire the faint. Men cannot be men.

I am very sad to say that DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THEIVES (2023) adheres to all these precepts precisely. Despite this, the film portrays a rollicking tale of sword and sorcery adventure, replete with action, danger, thrills & spills, sprinkled with wry jokes and good cheer.

Had it been written without the wokeness, this film would be a favorite of mine. But it was written with, so it is not.

Which puts me in the paradox of being unable either to recommend nor not to recommend this film.

You, dear reader, might not even see or notice the wokeness and so you will have a perfectly fine time. I do not wish to cheat you of your joy by warning you not to see it. On the other hand, if, as I am, you are allergic to wokeness, I do not wish to cheat you of payday money better spent on beer by urging you to go see it.

So I will say both yes and no.

The parts that were good were very good, and ticket buyers should reward Hollywood for doing its job in a fashion that was well above average. But the parts that were bad were politically correct, which I find not just unworkmanlike but vile and anti-human. And by vile, I mean evil. I find anti-whitism annoying, but I find anti-marriage abhorrent.

So, in short, the film was worth seeing, and do not regret the pittance I paid to watch it via a streaming service, but the political correctness prevented a satisfying ending.

Spoilers beyond this point.

***   ***   ***

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I took my children to see the computer-animated SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE this week, and a fine time was had by all. In sum, there were no liberal sucker punches, no subversive message, little or no wokeness.

The Princess was an all-American girl, an adventuring, platform-jumping tomboy, forthright and folksy. She was perfectly sweet but as unalike a princess as possible, so the film was not perfect.

The plot could have been tweaked and tightened up in a place or two — but these are minor complaints against an overall enjoyable and professional product, with a well-chosen soundtrack, expertly voice-acted, charming, funny, and, at times, moving.

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First things first: There are no “Woke” sucker punches in the film. Somehow, it escaped Cultural Revolution vandalism. However, the actresses lack glamor and sex appeal, for they are dressed and adorned most drably.

Drawbacks? Very few: There is perhaps some unevenness of tone, vacillating between slapstick and somber, too much shouting and screaming for my taste.

The film is otherwise engaging, and at times moving, deeper than the prior films, and darker, but with splendid visuals, action, thrills, moments grossly horrific, moments heartfelt to bring a tear, and at least one moment of supernatural awe.

There is also that most rare quality, wisdom, in the one line Rocket the space Raccoon says to his creator at their final confrontation. I would not dare spoil the surprise, but it is my favorite line in the film, perhaps in any film.

Well worth your time and ticket money. If, as seems likely, this is the last MCU film I ever see, it is a fine fare-thee-well.

The 1927 silent film METROPOLIS was released a few years ago in a restored version, with long missing scenes put back in place. The film includes visions as strange and prophetic as anything an astrologer could dream, including a tower fittingly called “Neubabelsberg” or “The New Tower of Babel” and including the Twelfth Night masquerade deception of a machine man dressed as a maiden.

I have been eagerly yearning, if not salivating, to own this restored version, ever since I heard the rumor of it.

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I am not a fan of SHREK nor any of its sequels. I am unamused by the potty humor, political correctness, and crass ugliness which characterizes Shrek’s world; and I am frankly repulsed by the whole sulfurous postmodern project of scrawling graffiti on beloved childhood classics of fable and fairy tale. Such vandalism is blasphemous; the cynicism is trite; the nihilism is sad.

Hence it is with almost boundless surprise to see a film set in this background, starring a spin-off character, reflecting none of these flaws, but instead being a pleasure to watch.

The humor is charming and good hearted, the tale is wholesome, the animation is handsome.

PUSS IN BOOTS 2 was, in fact, the best feature film I saw in 2022.

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LOOKING BACKWARD 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy is something of a historical curiosity that science fiction readers might find curious.

It is among the earliest of science fiction books, but shares more in common with GULLIVER’S TRAVELS by Swift, or UTOPIA by More, or even the TIMAEUS of Plato than it does with genre fiction.

It is not witty nor satirical nor philosophical like these works, nor worth reading. But it is a lecture dressed in the garb of a traveler’s tale of a far land, in this case, a land lurking in the undiscovered future rather than on an undiscovered island.

It is a description in detail of the proposed utopia to be brought on by a socialist World Monopoly written in the heavy-handed lecturing style of a finger-wagging insufferably smug young intellectual. (Bellamy was 37 when he wrote this, but his style is that of a youth ten or twenty years his junior.)

The work has one or two clever bits of writing, but otherwise, is best left to rot on the dustbin of history, where it belongs.

The book is unbearably foolish, jejune, dull and unreadable.

Literally unreadable in my case. I could not wade through the whole mass of vomitously and venomously idiotic writing.

Honesty requires I confess my review below does not purport to be a thorough nor even honest, merely a collection of spleenish reactions provoked by passages of a work  I could not tolerate nor finish.

A closer study of the work by someone with a stronger stomach might adduce a more favorable opinion.

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