Tests and Testiness - Friday Video Distractions with Mike Norton

 

     Another busy week, beginning with a tease of sunshine and warmth before going back to gray, damp and chill here in Eastern PA, but spring's coming!
     The first two of this week's new-to-me items involve genetic testing.

     The Perfect 46 (2014, 1 hr 37 m, currently available as part of Amazon Prime) posits the founding and rise of a company whose initial mission is to combat genetic diseases by providing mankind with a predictive tool. In a world where full mapping of personal genomes -- our individual genetic plans -- has become routine, geneticist Jesse Darden (played by Whit Herford) and others launch a company which allows people to see what the probabilities are that their children will inherit a parent's specific genetic defects and weaknesses, if they pair up with a specific mate. A history of diabetes, or specific cancers, or a skin condition, etc., will they be likely to express in a next generation if mated with a specific person? This leads to a first wave of major upsets, as people who had paired for more conventional, romantic reasons, suddenly find out their genes in combination with their chosen mate's are more likely to yield some level of tragic outcome for their children. As it's marketed as a product, and so something participants are free to use or not use, and there is no overseeing body to prohibit pairings, it gets a pass while under initial governmental investigation, though there are some who immediately lock on it as eugenics, complete with the horrible baggage that term includes from the first half of the 20th century.

     A related, bad turn in the relationship of the company founder and his intended leads to a depressed state for him, and a more questionable second stage of development for the company. They give in to growing consumer demand and use the database of gene maps to recommend pairings between people specifically to negate those known, genetic predispositions. A slippery slope.
     It's very much a movie of talking heads, and so may not hold some people's attention. On the other hand, this is science fiction that's separated from us by only a paper-thin barrier. Even now, this involves subject matter that's already topical, and certainly worth considering. Among them, deciding what aspects of the human condition are bugs to be eliminated or features to be embraced as part of diversity. Discussing whether or not we have the base of knowledge to not recognize that specific genetic conditions are bad in full expression, but may be protective in another, shielding the carrier from something arguably worse.
     My own disappointments included the lack of attention given to the impact of genetic mapping itself in our country, with its barbaric, for-profit health insurance, where a huge danger lies in those companies using these maps to determine risk, liability, and premiums. I certainly understand why they went the narrow route they did, because if they didn't they'd likely never get out of the gate and to the other matters they wanted to bring up here. My other complaint is with believing that the tragedy that ensues wasn't something foreseen; it seemed too far a stretch for me, but perhaps it shouldn't. I don't want to give away the details.
     Arriving on Netflix this time last week is an 8-episode miniseries also based on a genetic test and looking at the impact on society: The One.
     Here, research that began in looking at mating patterns in insects led to related markers in human beings. The same indicators were there, and upon testing it on herself, using a match found in an illegally-accessed, huge database of genetic data, a geneticist she found that the pairing was even more dramatic experience than she could have anticipated. The instant sense of familiarity and attraction, a deja vu experience with another human being, where all elements are positive, and that person becomes an immediate and sustained focus of attention. Everything looks, sounds, smells and feels right. So, once you know there's this test out there -- all that's required is a hair sample and a fee -- how long can you resist wondering if your perfect mate is out there, no matter how content you may be in your current relationship?

     The series deals, albeit more substantially, with much the same theme as another 6-part miniseries I wrote about last October - Soulmates. This newer series was more cohesive, comprehensive and

satisfying, as it dealt with several relationships, but did so in a more linear fashion over the course of the six episodes. Soulmates (which I caught on AMC) posited the test - a much vaguer matter - and gave us six, separate stories involving the impact of the test's existence. If it's to be a choice between those two series, I'd recommend going for The One.
     This isn't to say that The One is flawless. One of the interesting story arcs involves a twist as someone in a committed relationship sends a sample in quietly, but it isn't for the person we'd expect, and is with a different agenda in mind. (I don't want to give more away than necessary.) The flaw is that the prospective match gets pulled into this unwittingly... which shouldn't be possible, because in the full program all participants are officially registered, so unless that person was also put into the database by someone else and not told about it, they should have also been notified about a match. I can't help but think that someone involved had to have caught the major mistake, but it must have been decided that most of the audience would either not be that attentive or would simply be more forgiving because they liked the characters and/or the situation.
     That aside, though, it's an engaging six episodes, and another series to spark some interesting conversations.
     Shifting gears substantially, we turn from the above tests to the testiness also mentioned in this week's title. One of the testiest of beasts in the modern world is the fan of genre entertainment. The "fans" who ultimately remind us that the term has its roots in the work fanatic, and that these are frequently beasts ruled by conflicting passions. In recent years we've seen that most of the real hate generated in reacting to many films and series comes from those who profess to be biggest fans of whatever the movie or show is about. Passions are volatile things.
     Among the fans of the subgenre of fantasy entertainment that's comic book superheroes and vigilantes, there are those of the various adaptations of characters from the DC universe. Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman being the heroic holy trinity of DC/National characters whose roots go back to just before World War II.
 

    Much as with their versions in print, DC's heroes and villains have been subjects to repeated reinterpretations and relaunches over the years, with limited success in sustaining true continuity of detail over long stretches of time.
     In more recent years, the contrast with their prime competitors, the Marvel Universe of screen adaptations, has become sharper, especially once Marvel Studios got into motion circa 2008, and Disney bought it all up the following year, then in more recent years managed to buy or deal to regain control of nearly everything else that had been licensed out back in the 20th century. Disney's managed to forge an increasingly tight Marvel Cinematic Universe in the past 13 years, and only seems to be picking up steamx. This has prompted the folks at Warner (now a holding of AT&T) who own the DC properties to try to pull something similar together. A big problem is that they'd gotten drawn into often thinking that their only reliable property for big screen adaptations for most of the 21st century has been Batman, and that they need to apply much the same dark and gritty approach as they try to work out from there. Yes, there have been other successes, as with at least the first Wonder Woman movie, one for Aquaman, and another to launch the former Captain Marvel, now long-since, awkwardly referenced as Shazam. Still, it's understandable that they'd want to anchor their universe to characters of global renown, Batman and Superman.
     One of the directors whose been given a position of prominence in this has been Zack Snyder. His 2009 adaptation of Watchmen was something of a triumph as far as I was concerned, managing to adapt a 12-part series from the late middle '80s into a single film, and led to him being given access to Superman (starting with 2013's Man of Steel), then Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in 2016, and Justice League the following year. Executives got cold, nervous feet during the production of the latter film, and so others were brought in to "fix" the film late in production, so that what came to the screen, ultimately, was not fully what Snyder had in mind. In the years since then, Snyder gave statements to that end, and the idea of a "Snyder Cut" of Justice League became a commonly-heard topic among fandom. Well, yesterday, March 18th, Zach Snyder's Justice League arrived on HBO Max.

     Coming in at 242 minutes (that's four hours and two minutes), it presumably included all of the bits he'd wanted to be there as a team of Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash and Cyborg came together to try to save the world from an ancient threat. As Superman had died during his previous

outing, they also had to deal with that.
     As my week had been substantially front-loaded, and Thursday was going to be one of my work from home days where I had no shot at useful data until mid-morning, I shifted my schedule around and started watching it just past 3am Eastern, when it went live. I'd happened to wake up not long before, as is often the case. Watched the first couple hours, then packed it in, finishing it up much later in the day.
     On the whole, I'd call it a mild success, providing one can rely upon having an audience willing to spend the time on what's likely as not a relic. It contains multiple plot thread starters for other films that are unlikely to ever be made - and that's a good thing. A few too many slow-motion scenes, a grayed, visual bleakness that can wear on a person, and a tad too much video game style cgi, but that's Zack Snyder. If the length isn't more than the audience can bear, it makes for a marginally better - more complete - film than the 2017 audience saw. Still, much of it is a waste. Any supposed victory in having Darkseid appear on screen is pure illusion - and not just because he's another cgi menace - as he does little.
     I likely roll more smoothly with these DC films than some others because I didn't bond with the DC heroes as a child the way I did with the Marvel ones. I don't have the sensitive skin in the game that some other fans do. Given the way DC's almost always treated its universe of characters, effectively flushing so much of their history on a whim, only to have someone else bring pieces of it back later, I've often been at a loss as to why so many can still care enough to be take offense.
     As it's debuting on a streaming service, and even had internal chapter breaks, the length's not at all as excessive as such a project would have sounded even six years ago. Binging through series twice or more this length within a day has become much more common.
     Finally, and on a much brighter note, today sees the premier of the latest from Warner/DC's able competitor, Disney/Marvel, with the latest piece of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

     This is part one of six weekly installments on Disney+, the second project of Marvel's Phase 4, which debuted earlier this year with the nine-part WandaVision. While I greatly enjoyed that quirky series, I expect this latest one to more immediately hit the mark with the fans, and it's easy to see why this was originally scheduled to be the start of Phase 4, though the pandemic delays saw reshufflings of the schedule.
     It's expected to largely be a buddy story, as two of Captain America's - Steve Rogers' - partners find themselves working together and managing the legacy of their now-retired friend. Steve made the call to have the full life he'd originally missed by being accidentally frozen for seventy years, ultimately aging himself into retirement in an alternate timeline. There he built a life with the love he originally lost to duty, one of many legacies from Marvel Phase 3's peak event, Avengers: Endgame. As with WandaVision, I expect to be poring over these six episodes, rewatching them in the run-up to the next. I've been soaking in the source comics since the late '60s, and despite the many, many, many changes from those sources in the adaptations, I'm continuing to enjoy this second childhood that's being shared around the world.
     The first episode is engaging and entertaining -- and packed, without feeling crowded.
     As our titular leads are among the 50% who disappeared during "The Blip" - the five year stretch between when Thanos reduced half of the universe's living things to smoke, and when the Avengers managed to bring them all back - they're dealing with trying to pick up their lives. This is the state for much of the world, for while, doubtless, many were grateful for the return of lost loved ones, there's the fact that nearly all of those who had been left behind had long since accepted their losses and moved on. The world had moved on.
     For Bucky - the "Winter Soldier" (Sebastian Stan) - there's the extra layer of him having been an internationally-wanted criminal, having been a brainwashed assassin - and part of his pardon involves therapy and a three-step process of making amends to those whose lives his actions derailed. He's plagued by nightmarish memories, as he can recall in detail the many assassinations he'd been programmed to carry out. As a technically 106 year-old man, he's also going through some of what his buddy Steve did after having had a 70 year nap on ice, trying to deal with the modern world. He's an anachronism, having been born and raised in the 1920s and '30s, though the nature of how he was thawed out when needed has given him more interim touchstones covering the decades he was being used as a murderous puppet.
     Along with all this, there's a terrorist organization intent on collapsing governments - the Flag Smashers. For five years Thanos' Malthusian machinations had gifted the sorrowful remainder of humanity with an instant bounty. The disappearance of half all hungry mouths and grasping hands. The sudden return has aggressively restored tensions, likely worse than ever, because of the sudden, stark contrast.

     Along with all this, the first episode includes Sam Wilson's (Howard Mackie) decision concerning Steve Rogers' passing of the shield, and so the mantle of Captain America, to him -- and sets in motion the ramifications of Sam's decision.
     Unlike the efforts from Warner, the Disney machine remains focused and on-point, with oversight from Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who has come to oversee all of the MCU projects for screens large and small. It's built to be enjoyed individually, but to fit together and so reward the viewers who are digging the big picture.
     That's as much as I have the time for this week. Here's hoping for nicer weather, as so many of us need to be able to get out and enjoy some sunlight and open air. -- Mike