Is the 'Trilogy' a thing of the past?

Source: http://www.filmofilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/dark-knight-rises1.jpg

I wrote a post yesterday about how Pixar has announced sequels to some of their hottest properties and in the post I talked about how Toy Story was probably the most perfect trilogy. The films all work as standalone stories but there is something about the overall arc of the trilogy and the story it tells that makes it work as a whole piece. The Toy Story trilogy is one of those that when you sit down and try to pick your favourite it's actually quite hard to do. For me it's probably the first one, simply for reasons of nostalgia, but they are all fantastic films.

So why would Pixar feel the need to add any more films to the franchise? The three films told a nice a story and whilst Toy Story 3 did leave the ending somewhat open ended (the toys being left with a new owner) it didn't really call out for a new film to finish the story, because it was already finished. It's not just Pixar that have decided that adding on a fourth film is a wise idea; Lionsgate really announced that the last book in The Hunger Games trilogy will be adapted into two films rather than just one, in the same vein as Harry Potter and Twilight.

I've read The Hunger Games books and, like most people who've read them, I can't see any logical reason for the last book to be adapted into two films because there simply isn't enough material to warrant spreading it across two films.

Think back to the good ol' days of Star Wars, Indiana Jones and more recently, The Lord of the Rings. These are three of the most critically acclaimed trilogies of all time and there's a reason for that. If you think about the basic rules of storytelling all good stories must have a beginning, a middle and an end and this serves well to be spread across three films. Now George Lucas did decide to be a twat and add three more films to his roster that, although weren't completely necessary (or good), did add something to the universe he had created and did work well as trilogy following the classic storytelling outline.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy probably followed this structure best and, in terms of narrative, is probably the best trilogy ever put out to the world. Peter Jackson is currently working on adapting The Hobbit for the big screen and for some reason that is being split into two films. Well I say "some reason", the reason they've put forward is that the second film will offer to bridge the gap between the years of The Hobbit and the start of The Lord of the Rings. I don't think a second film is warranted at all in this situation because LOTR is the only film to ever feature a hobbit character called Bilbo, who also appears in The Lord of the Rings, so it's not likely that people will get confused. It just seems like an opportunity to get more money out of our pockets.

The annoying thing about this is that if Peter Jackson wanted to add in more material to fill out the story wouldn't it have been better, and probably a lot more rewarding for fans, to release an extended edition which would include all the extra content rather than having to pay for two tickets at the cinema (which these days is a fucking rip off).

There is a film coming out tomorrow (20/07/2012) that stands a chance of showing that a good trilogy can still exist. I am talking, of course, about Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises. This highly anticipated film will round off a story that started in 2005 (Batman Begins), continued in 2008 (The Dark Knight) and this latest, and apparently last in the franchise, will hopefully conclude that story. But alas, these days we never really know whether or not there's any truth in a director saying it's the last one (just look up Michael Bay and Transformers 4) so I remain doubtful. Any fans out there will know that a famous comic book storyline sees Bane break Batman's back and the trailer seems to confirm that this is going to happen, and with Joseph Gordon-Levitt being brought it a good cop in this "trilogy closer" it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to see the franchise continuing with a new man beneath the mask. With this being my last glinting ray of hope in world full of extended franchises, going way beyond their sell by date, I guess we'll find out tomorrow whether or not the "Trilogy" is really a thing of the past.

Is Nothing Sacred Anymore?

We're all completely sick of sequels and reboots by now aren't we? Well I hope you are because I know I am. There isn't really anything left that can be considered truly original. When was the last time you went to the cinema and saw a film you had absolutely no idea about before seeing it? I think for me it must have been The Hangover. I didn't really know any of the stars in it and I didn't know it was directed by Todd Philips before I saw it. I just saw it because I thought it looked funny.

Nearly every film that gets a major summer release these days has a 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 attached to the end of it. Is there not really a general rule that once a franchise gets past number 3 they turn really crap? I mean the obvious exception to this rule would probably be Harry Potter, but that was a series of books first that has always been planned across seven installments (8 in the films) so it makes sense.

Even if a film doesn't have a number attached to the end of it it's normally marketed as 'The New (Insert Star/Director name) Film". We have all become so attached to some form of brand identity that people are no longer willing to put their faith into truly original movies.

The one company these days that seems to be producing what we could consider "Modern Classics" is Pixar; Toy Story, Wall-E, Up, Finding Nemo, Monster's Inc, The Incredibles and more. Now one of those has already become a trilogy and two more of those are on their way to getting the franchise treatment. Pixar has very recently announced they will be releasing Finding Nemo 2, Monsters Inc 2 and Toy Story 4. I'm sorry, the Toy Story sequels I could on board with because it made sense seeing the transformation of the relationship between toys and their child transform over the three films as Andy grew up.

Toy Story 3 had a great ending. It was probably the only threequel in history that actually managed to better the two that came before it. But the point is that it ended. I understand that the toys were left with Bonnie and some people want to see that story but is it not better to just leave it open for people to make up their own minds.

Monsters Inc, was a beautiful film. It was a lovely emotional piece that worked completely well as a standalone film. I have a feeling that showing us what happened before that film (because it's actually a prequel about Mike and Sully in College) will take away from the emotional depth of the first and just ruin it.

And Finding Nemo 2. Seriously Pixar? I mean, you'd think that after the events of the first film then Nemo would have learnt his fucking lesson. And to be honest we all know exactly how the plot is going to go; the same as the first one. Nemo gets lost, Dad Tries to find him, get in to shenanigans, finds nemo at the 11th hour. And not to be a buzz kill but surely he should be dead by now.

Pixar have tried turning one of their previous properties into a franchise; Cars. Let's be honest here as well because Cars was basically the first Pixar film that kind of sucked balls. I've not even bothered to see the second one because it looked crap and the reviews seemed to back that up.

They do have some interesting projects lined up such as Brave, coming out later this year, and a film called 1952, a scifi written by Damon Lindelof but that's all we know at this point. Up until the release of Cars, Pixar films had review pretty much unanimous critical acclaim. And then Cars 2 was the only Pixar film to receive a 'Rotten' rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

John Lasseter, the man who runs Pixar, said before the release of Cars 2 that Pixar would only make films if they thought the story was worth telling. Really? Because I don't there was much demand or interest in a sequel to the talking cars story. What is interesting is that Pixar made a lot more money from merchandise and toys on Cars than they did in box office receipts. And what did the sequel happen to introduce; a lot more characters. Therefore a lot more toys and then a lot more money.

So what can we expect from Finding Nemo 2, Monsters Inc 2 and Toy Story 4? I wish I could say I had absolute faith in Pixar and they were only making these films because the story was well worth telling. I can tell you one thing we're guaranteed to see; a lot more characters, toys and merchandise. Pixar used to stand for world class film making, but now all I can see them standing for is a large pay cheque.

What does it mean for humanity when a robot can beat us at Rock, Paper, Scissors?

Okay, first of all watch the video below and then carry on.

The video itself isn't that exciting but the actual technology that has gone into building this robot and the possibilities something like this has now opened for mankind could change everything. Well not everything, but a lot of things.

If you didn't see in the video I'll just give a quick explanation of how it works. Basically the robot has a tiny camera that can detect the tiniest movement on the hand in a millisecond. So by the time you've started moving your hand into the position this robot already knows what you have chosen because it has detected a tiny movement in your hand.

The technology, at the moment, is at quite a basic level in terms of what it can actually do. Yes, it is impressive that it can beat you at a game of rock, paper, scissors but then that is only a choice of three different hand movements and even then it's only really two because you don't have to move your hand from it's original position if you are playing Rock.

But what it does represent is a robot being able to tell what a human being is going to do before they have the chance to complete the action, and create some way of stopping it. So, in the case of this video all we see is that the robot is able to beat the man at a game of rock, paper, scissors, but what if we start to think about where else this could be applied?

If you've seen the film Robocop then you'll have probably jumped to the same first idea I had which is robot police able to tell when someone is about to pull a weapon and they are able to react first and prevent it from happening. Up until now all the stuff like that just seemed like make believe but something like this shows that we are making real strides and it isn't long before T-800s are travelling back to the 80's to assassinate ladies, with really bad hair, whose offspring will one day destroy Skynet.

It could be used in for lots of different uses. With every knew technology it's not long before someone finds a way of selling it as a sex object. I mean is it really that far off engineers being able to build full size robots that can react to even more things? Say a full size robot is able to see when someone is about to trip and they are able to reach and catch them. That would be the first step, right? Well it wouldn't take long for someone to make the leap into the sexual. For example a robot you could have sex with and it would able to tell when ou are about to come and get off so you could... deposit somewhere else. Apologies if I got a bit graphic there but I really couldn't think of a better example. It does get you thinking though, with this leap how long will it be before we are able to build robots with complete personalities of their own and able to act of their own free will?

I'm not saying we should all be investing in as many tinned goods as we can and digging ourselves a bomb shelter in the back garden, all I'm saying is we need to be careful because before we know it we COULD be spelling our own destruction. If you're going to work on some form of sci-fi movie technology from the 80's instead of looking at the The Terminator and Robocop and building robots look at Star Wars and build us a lightsabre please. I'm only suggesting lightsabre's next because I assume they've already figured out and started production on hover-boards so that they're available by October 21st, 2015 (also my 24 Birthday *HINT*)

One final thought; what if two of these robots played each other?