The Case for Remaking Small Soldiers
Mar. 3rd, 2016 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeastThe premise for Small Soldiers comes from a complaint that many of us had as children, delivered via Denis Leary rant. The commercials displayed toys that walk and talk on their own. We got hunks of plastic that, if they were top of the line, had arms and legs that could be moved without breaking them off. We were children and it's not like even the rich kids got the tiny sentient being that they could throw into the toy chest when bored, so that disappointment could be overcome... but never entirely die away.
Denis Leary's very wealthy new owner of a toy company has that same disappointment and that brings us to a good premise for a movie. What if a toy company delivered what the commercials promised? What if we got toys that were sentient but didn't derive some kinky satisfaction from making us believe they were lifeless, soulless, inanimate objects. (There, I've just made Toy Story weird for you.)
As premises go, this has a lot of opportunity to it. And, most of that opportunity is wasted.
The toys made are the human Marines (with a leader that seems something of a play on Duke from G.I. Joe) and the alien Gorgons (with a design that does not match the bad guys they're intended to be). Initially, the humans were supposed to be the bad guys, but Denis Leary commands the opposite, which should have made for some redesign of both the storyline and the toy designs.
Regardless of how the movie comes to this point, Small Soldiers's attempt at a new twist on the good guys versus bad guys standard is to paint the ones the toy makers painted as bad guys to be the good guys. This is a twist that was old-hat when it was intigral to the premise of Gargoyles, which premiered the prior year. This is a twist that was old-hat when the first Doctor in Dr. Who had an episode with that twist. I'd be willing to bet the rough draft of the Oddessy included a similar episode that was edited out due to not fitting in with the theme.
Merely flipping the script on which side is the side of good and which is the side of evil leaves the base problem intact, the notion that there is such a thing as a side of evil or a side of good.
In the end, the human protagonist defeats the marine bad guy toys and leaves the Gorgons to construct a boat that they take out on a slow river in search of a promised land from the mythology that they were programmed with. That is presented as a happy ending, but it isn't.
The promised land that they were promised doesn't exist. It's a mythology. They're not going to find it, because it doesn't exist to be found. Oh, they can find a place that they could make into something peaceful prosperous for themselves, but they're not going to find the land that already is so. Neither will they last long on their search. Eventually, and probably not all simultaneously, their batteries will run out. Not needing food or water, they'll slow down and stop, one by one.
Still, the entire premise has such potential. Toys that are made to fit what the commercials have been promising? Great. The toys were made to form two opposing factions? Also great. The factions, thinking the conflict is real, get into a conflict that becomes a credible threat to the lives of humans? Totally works for the action scenes.
We just need to tweek things... and possibly make better use of Robert Picardo.
The first thing that needs to change is the storyline sold with the toys. If the Gorgons are meant to be bad guys, they can be written as bad guys. It can even be by request. Let them be the bad guys... at least at first. The Gorgons are the invaders, demanding a land to make their home and the humans are the good guys, protecting their home from invasion.
Because this is a kids movie, we can still have a couple human child (or tween or teen) protagonists. It can follow in the model of Gremlins, but it doesn't have to try to replicate it in entire. The protagonist (possibly two) would be in position to get to know members of both teams, get to know them enough to like them at least a bit.
Heroes can't be perfectly heroic all the time and bad guys can't be perfectly evil all the time. It's just not sustainable. In their imperfections, each one has likable characters with likable characteristics. And, in an attempt to solve the conflict, one of our protagonists can show the commercial to the toys, letting them know that that is exactly what they are.
That puts the conflict into a new perspective. The homeland that one team is defending and the other is invading doesn't actually exist. It's a fictional McGuffin, something that exists only to be a reason for a conflict in a story that isn't true.
This only changes the problems, it doesn't really solve them. So, the past few years of conflict didn't actually happen. But, in a way, they did. They have shared memory with shared experience of actions by each that are within character. In a way, things that didn't happen did happen in a way that explaining memory as the constructs of a physical processor doesn't undo.
In another way, there is something to win... the conflict. People on both sides have identified themselves in context of the war between two sides. Defeat the enemy is how they've given themselves a purpose, even if memories of just that were just lies told by what is, to them, a Lovecraftian deity called Ownsdude.
But, some don't so identify themselves by the war right here, but by the life they want to live when the war is done... a life that, itself, is a lie. Whether their version of a promised land is a land that, by the grace of whatever faith, is given to you or a life that you can return to once the unpleasantness is finished, they're both lies. They can't find it.
That's not to say that they're doomed to an unhappy ending of one being defeated and the other being left with the emptiness of having won a battle that is nigh-completely meaningless. The lives that they wanted can't be found, but something approaching what they wanted out of those lives can be created. Lives that include a regular source of fresh parts and batteries to go with their new understanding of their needs as technological entities rather than biological.
Not everybody will go in for that idea, of course. Some will have lost too much to the fight or given too much of their identity to the war, regardless of whether that happened in reality or a fictional past. They, not willing to give up on the illusions of a past or the promises thereof, will eventually stop due to the draining of their batteries.
That might be a little dark for a kid's show. But, I don't think it's too dark. And, I think the message is important.
Denis Leary's very wealthy new owner of a toy company has that same disappointment and that brings us to a good premise for a movie. What if a toy company delivered what the commercials promised? What if we got toys that were sentient but didn't derive some kinky satisfaction from making us believe they were lifeless, soulless, inanimate objects. (There, I've just made Toy Story weird for you.)
As premises go, this has a lot of opportunity to it. And, most of that opportunity is wasted.
The toys made are the human Marines (with a leader that seems something of a play on Duke from G.I. Joe) and the alien Gorgons (with a design that does not match the bad guys they're intended to be). Initially, the humans were supposed to be the bad guys, but Denis Leary commands the opposite, which should have made for some redesign of both the storyline and the toy designs.
Regardless of how the movie comes to this point, Small Soldiers's attempt at a new twist on the good guys versus bad guys standard is to paint the ones the toy makers painted as bad guys to be the good guys. This is a twist that was old-hat when it was intigral to the premise of Gargoyles, which premiered the prior year. This is a twist that was old-hat when the first Doctor in Dr. Who had an episode with that twist. I'd be willing to bet the rough draft of the Oddessy included a similar episode that was edited out due to not fitting in with the theme.
Merely flipping the script on which side is the side of good and which is the side of evil leaves the base problem intact, the notion that there is such a thing as a side of evil or a side of good.
In the end, the human protagonist defeats the marine bad guy toys and leaves the Gorgons to construct a boat that they take out on a slow river in search of a promised land from the mythology that they were programmed with. That is presented as a happy ending, but it isn't.
The promised land that they were promised doesn't exist. It's a mythology. They're not going to find it, because it doesn't exist to be found. Oh, they can find a place that they could make into something peaceful prosperous for themselves, but they're not going to find the land that already is so. Neither will they last long on their search. Eventually, and probably not all simultaneously, their batteries will run out. Not needing food or water, they'll slow down and stop, one by one.
Still, the entire premise has such potential. Toys that are made to fit what the commercials have been promising? Great. The toys were made to form two opposing factions? Also great. The factions, thinking the conflict is real, get into a conflict that becomes a credible threat to the lives of humans? Totally works for the action scenes.
We just need to tweek things... and possibly make better use of Robert Picardo.
The first thing that needs to change is the storyline sold with the toys. If the Gorgons are meant to be bad guys, they can be written as bad guys. It can even be by request. Let them be the bad guys... at least at first. The Gorgons are the invaders, demanding a land to make their home and the humans are the good guys, protecting their home from invasion.
Because this is a kids movie, we can still have a couple human child (or tween or teen) protagonists. It can follow in the model of Gremlins, but it doesn't have to try to replicate it in entire. The protagonist (possibly two) would be in position to get to know members of both teams, get to know them enough to like them at least a bit.
Heroes can't be perfectly heroic all the time and bad guys can't be perfectly evil all the time. It's just not sustainable. In their imperfections, each one has likable characters with likable characteristics. And, in an attempt to solve the conflict, one of our protagonists can show the commercial to the toys, letting them know that that is exactly what they are.
That puts the conflict into a new perspective. The homeland that one team is defending and the other is invading doesn't actually exist. It's a fictional McGuffin, something that exists only to be a reason for a conflict in a story that isn't true.
This only changes the problems, it doesn't really solve them. So, the past few years of conflict didn't actually happen. But, in a way, they did. They have shared memory with shared experience of actions by each that are within character. In a way, things that didn't happen did happen in a way that explaining memory as the constructs of a physical processor doesn't undo.
In another way, there is something to win... the conflict. People on both sides have identified themselves in context of the war between two sides. Defeat the enemy is how they've given themselves a purpose, even if memories of just that were just lies told by what is, to them, a Lovecraftian deity called Ownsdude.
But, some don't so identify themselves by the war right here, but by the life they want to live when the war is done... a life that, itself, is a lie. Whether their version of a promised land is a land that, by the grace of whatever faith, is given to you or a life that you can return to once the unpleasantness is finished, they're both lies. They can't find it.
That's not to say that they're doomed to an unhappy ending of one being defeated and the other being left with the emptiness of having won a battle that is nigh-completely meaningless. The lives that they wanted can't be found, but something approaching what they wanted out of those lives can be created. Lives that include a regular source of fresh parts and batteries to go with their new understanding of their needs as technological entities rather than biological.
Not everybody will go in for that idea, of course. Some will have lost too much to the fight or given too much of their identity to the war, regardless of whether that happened in reality or a fictional past. They, not willing to give up on the illusions of a past or the promises thereof, will eventually stop due to the draining of their batteries.
That might be a little dark for a kid's show. But, I don't think it's too dark. And, I think the message is important.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-07 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-07 03:44 am (UTC)Through the cartoons, it seems a general split of the Decepticons being just... programmed evil... for reasons unknown.
But, if you gave something more specific for them to conflict over, then let them know that they were really toys created with false memories... it's doable.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-07 02:07 pm (UTC)As for the original cartoon, there is a hint from the Quintessons (the original builders of the Cybertronian robots) in The Movie and Season 3 that the Decepticons arose from their military export models, thus perhaps having an predilection for violence and conquest built in.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-07 06:00 pm (UTC)Any premise where they're inherently on opposite sides just because one is evil and the other is good will be one that could continue, because one programmed to be evil.