Wonky World Building and JJ
All storytellers have different strengths and weaknesses. In telling a story, they’ll play to their strengths, and hopefully that compensates for their weaknesses. But what happens when a storyteller’s weakness is storytelling? I can’t fault director JJ Abrams’s ability to make visually stunning movies (lens flares and all). But his storytelling is terrible, which is born from his appalling world-building. Word-building is paramount to me. Get it right, and you can sell me anything. I’ll believe immortals are living among us who can only die if they lose their head; I’ll believe an eccentric inventor builds a time machine out of a DeLorean; I’ll believe an archaelogist is retained by…
Polar Extremes – Highlander and Highlander II
One of my favourite guilty (movie) pleasures is Highlander (1986). In 1518, Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) is born in the clan MacLeod in a small village in Scotland. During a battle with a rival clan, the Frasers, in 1536, the Black Knight, Kurgan (an amazing Clancy Brown), stabs Connor through the belly. Kurgan declares, ‘There can be only one!’ and is about to decapitate Connor when his clansmen save him. But it’s all for nothing. Connor’s wounds are fatal. He dies that night. The next day, he’s up and about and as healthy as ever. Fearing he is possessed, his clan drives him from the village. We rejoin him some…