The Mix : What are people talking about today?

John Ostrander: Watching the World Burn

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 “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”  – Alfred to Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight

To be honest, I think that’s ISIS, especially after the violence in Paris on Friday night.

One of the things I’ve gathered about them from my reading is that they are an apocalyptic cult. They’re looking for the end of the world. Yes, they are Muslim and quote and believe a very literal version of the Koran. But they also believe and are working towards the end of the world. Christianity has had and does have its own apocalyptic cults (e.g. the Rev. Jim Jones in Jonestown) and I read an interesting and, I think, apt, analogy somewhere, suggesting that ISIS is to Islam what the KKK is to Christianity.

The purpose of terrorism is, of course, to cause fear in your enemies but I think it’s also to provoke reactions. To make the governments affected (or allied) “clamp down.” Donald Trump thinks the Paris assault proves the necessity of the wall he wants built, although he has not explained how a wall between America and Mexico would keep out ISIS terrorists.

There are and will be those (especially on the right) who will call for military action. That may be what ISIS wants; such actions could increase the number of volunteers – and money – that flows to them. And there’s that end of the world thing – provoke one last great battle. Hey, Christianity has the Book of Revelations and that has a similar scenario. Whoever’s version you listen to, it’s pretty sure that they feel that God/Allah/Jehovah/Whomever is on their side.

Part of me wants that military action against ISIS. I got very angry (again) with the violence. I wanted, I want, that violence visited upon those who planned it, who ordered it. I want it Biblical, baby, with fire and brimstone. I may be agnostic but I was raised as I was raised and that’s part of it.

Problem is, this was born out of violence. We helped launch ISIS with our adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are victims and refugees and some of them, not all but some, are a result of our adventuring. ISIS has a lot of weapons that come from the US of A, gleaned when the Iraqi troops that we trained ran away, dropping everything behind.

We need to figure out our response and it needs to be a reasoned response, not from the gut or shot from the hip, because the Paris attack is guaranteed not to be the last such atrocity. There will be more and sooner or later some attack will come to our shores. No amount of rhetoric from the right or the left will prevent it. We’d best be prepared and think about how we want to respond when that attack comes. Remember, the other side is not looking for world domination; they’re looking for apocalypse.

Or we can all sit back and sing along with R.E.M. –

“It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine”

Batman: Bad Blood Arrives in February

1000580302BRDBEAUTYUV_5a27557BURBANK, CA (October 29, 2015) – When Batman goes missing, it will take the entire Bat “family” – including new additions Batwoman and Batwing – to keep the peace in Gotham City and unravel the mystery behind the Dark Knight’s disappearance in Batman: Bad Blood.  Produced by Warner Bros. Animation and DC Entertainment, the all-new DC Universe Original Movie will be available from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on February 2, 2016 on Blu-Ray™ Deluxe Edition, Blu-Ray™ Combo Pack and DVD.

Batman: Bad Blood will be available on Blu-rayTM Deluxe Edition for $29.96 SRP, Blu-rayTM Combo Pack for $24.98 SRP and on DVD for $19.98 SRP.  The Blu-rayTM Combo Pack includes a digital version of the movie on Digital HD with UltraViolet. The Blu-ray™ Deluxe Edition will include the Blu-Ray™ Combo Pack, along with an exclusive Nightwing figurine in a numbered limited edition gift set. Fans can also own Batman: Bad Blood in Digital HD on January 19 via purchase from digital retailers.

The mysterious disappearance of Batman, coupled with the emergence of powerful and malevolent new villains in Gotham City, force Nightwing (voice of Sean Maher) and Robin (Stuart Allan) to take crime-fighting into their own hands – while simultaneously searching for their missing leader. They’re not alone for long. New super heroes Batwoman (Yvonne Strahovski) and Batwing (Gaius Charles) – each armed with her/his own sensibilities, physical abilities and crime-fighting tools – arrive in Gotham to assist in the cause.  As this new “family” strives to find its own dynamic, chilling clues lead the group to suspect the Dark Knight may have gone over to the dark side. It’s up to the entire Bat team to uncover the truth before Gotham City falls prey to its greatest threat yet.

“Batman: Bad Blood is a thrill-ride that will keep every fan on the edge of their seat,” said Mary Ellen Thomas, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Vice President, Family & Animation Marketing. “Featuring an original story, a top-notch voice cast and dynamic new characters, Batman: Bad Blood is an essential addition to the DC Universe Original Movie collection.”

As the voice of Batman, Jason O’Mara (Complications, Terra Nova) leads a celebrity-laden cast that includes Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck, 24, The Astronauts Wives Club) as Batwoman/Katherine Kane, Morena Baccarin (Homeland, Gotham) as Talia al Ghul, Sean Maher (Firefly, Serenity, Much Ado About Nothing) as Nightwing, Gaius Charles (Grey’s Anatomy, Friday Night Lights, Aquarius) as Batwing, Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters) as Lucius Fox, and Stuart Allan (Batman vs. Robin) as Robin/Damian Wayne. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation and DC Entertainment, Batman: Bad Blood is directed by Jay Oliva (Man of Steel, Batman vs. Robin) from a script by J.M. DeMatteis (Batman vs. Robin). James Tucker (Justice League: Throne of Atlantis, Batman vs. Robin) is Supervising Producer. Benjamin Melniker & Michael Uslan are Executive Producers. Sam Register is Executive Producer.

Batman: Bad Blood – Enhanced Content

DVD

  • An exclusive sneak peek at the next DC Universe Original Movie, Justice League vs. Teen Titans.

Blu-ray™ Combo Pack

  • An exclusive sneak peek at the next DC Universe Original Movie, Justice League vs. Teen Titans.
  • Featurette – “Putting the Fight in the Gotham” – Batman is the world’s greatest detective, but he is also a formidable fighter.  This documentary reveals the magic and strategy behind some of the best-choreographed fights in the latest animated film offering, Batman: Bad Blood.
  • Featurette – “Expanding the Family of Batman” – From the Golden Age to today’s current super heroes, the Batman family has both increased in numbers and, occasionally and dramatically, lost some of its members.  Each family member brings about a new shade to the Batman mythos while providing an exciting new perspective to the storytelling.  This documentary is about the introduction of Batwoman and Batwing into the Batman family in this all-new animated film.
  • From the DC Comics Vault– Two 22-minute Episodes
    • Batman: The Brave and the Bold – “The Knights of Tomorrow”
    • Batman: The Animated Series – “Avatar”

Blu-ray™ Deluxe Edition

  • Exclusive Limited Edition Nightwing Figurine
  • An exclusive sneak peek at the next DC Universe Original Movie, Justice League vs. Teen Titans.
  • Featurette – “Putting the Fight in the Gotham” – Batman is the world’s greatest detective, but he is also a formidable fighter.  This documentary reveals the magic and strategy behind some of the best-choreographed fights in the latest animated film offering, Batman: Bad Blood.
  • Featurette – “Expanding the Family of Batman” – From the Golden Age to today’s current super heroes, the Batman family has both increased in numbers and, occasionally and dramatically, lost some of its members.  Each family member brings about a new shade to the Batman mythos while providing an exciting new perspective to the storytelling.  This documentary is about the introduction of Batwoman and Batwing into the Batman family in this all-new animated film.
  • From the DC Comics Vault– Two 22-minute Episodes
    • Batman: The Brave and the Bold – “The Knights of Tomorrow”
    • Batman: The Animated Series – “Avatar”

DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION ELEMENTS

Batman: Bad Blood will be available for streaming and download to watch anywhere in high definition and standard definition on their favorite devices from select digital retailers including Amazon, CinemaNow, Flixster, iTunes, PlayStation, Vudu, Xbox and others. Starting January 19, Batman: Bad Blood will also be available digitally on Video On Demand services from cable and satellite providers, and on select gaming consoles.

Marc Alan Fishman: Missed Opportunities

final-crisis-2503683Barely a week ago, WWE World Champion Seth Rollins turned his knee into goo after botching a routine move. The Internet Wrestling Community was set on fire with speculation to the immediate future of the flagship of professional wrestling. And a few days later, the fire was doused with the reality of predictable corporate future endeavors. A tournament to crown the new king of the ring was announced (no, not the King of the Ring™… I’m being poetic, damnit), and the brackets were filled to the brim with rehashed match-ups.

To any savvy fan, the winner is already clear-cut. Worse than that, the obvious feuds they were building to were pre-populated into the tourney. It was the worst possible outcome following the worst possible injury to happen to the roster at the worst time.

What sucks the most though is what brings me here to my personal rant this week: the missed opportunities.

Too often, we fans of Geek Culture can’t see the forest for the trees. It’s inherent in our very nature to forget to enjoy the journey, not simply skip to – and then quickly judge – the outcome. Typically, I would have reached that catharsis after lambasting you, my cherished fans, with several iterations on that theme. Like This American Life, but less maudlin. To take a bit of my own medicine though, I’m going to play devil’s advocate; I’ll argue in favor of screwing the well-worn journey in lieu of an unguessable ending. Someone cue some lighting or something.

I listened to Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast this week, wherein he was able to confront Lorne Michaels as to why he didn’t get hired on at SNL back in 1996. Rather than dance around the subject for an hour or so and reach the eventual bittersweet climax as I’d anticipated, Maron flipped his own typical script to change the predictable outcome. Within seconds Maron let slip his big finale, and covered his missed opportunity so many years ago. The answer, predictable perhaps more to his audience to then himself, was a complicated mélange of half-explanations. Somewhere between network notes, the right stuff, or the right timing, Maron simply wasn’t the proper fit. Michaels danced around it a few times more throughout their nearly two-hour talk, but the larger arc to their conversation held true. With the predictable ending out of the way, the two men connected on a much deeper level. As a listener, I wasn’t on the edge of my seat awaiting the answer. Instead, I was relaxed as they were, and I thoroughly enjoyed their banter in the moment. For the first time in listening to his podcast (which I’ve been a fan of for about four years now), I truly felt the connection brewing between Maron and his guest. It was riveting.

So it was disappointing to come home to Vince McMahon’s machine, chugging to the same destination it was headed in, when the universe handed him the ability to remove the predictability his product has been plagued with for the last five years – save only for the time when Seth Rollins himself turned heel. Missing the opportunity to even fill a tournament bracket with a few honest-to-Rao underdogs could have been the shot to the arm the wrestling community has sought after since the conception of Stone Cold Steve Austin. It’s been over nearly two decades since we’ve heard “Austin 3:16 just whipped your ass!” and we’ve not seen a better moment since.

And don’t think I’ve forgotten our dearly beloved comic books, my friends. You see, part of my longstanding feud with purchasing weekly books has been inherently tied to the continual delivery of the same beats over and over. The missed opportunities for originality. When Swamp Thing crossed over with its sister title Animal Man, we got yet-another-epic where nothing-would-be-the-same-again, when in fact it’d been beat-for-beat the same crap I’d read in a million other books.

To make it worse, it forced extra issues into my subscription box, under the auspices of being a completest. Call me – like so many others in our brood – a completest. Fearing forever that the one issue we’ll miss will end up being Wonder Woman #219. Don’t get the reference? Google it.

Suffice to say that in the information age it’s hard to put one over on an audience. When BitTorrents, Wikipedia, and a DVR exist, fast-forwarding to the end is easier than ever. The only way to fight it then, is to stop taking us from point A to B. Start instead at C, backtrack to A, and end somewhere on Q. So long as it makes sense for the characters to have ended up where they needed to be in a believable way – under whatever accepted rules exist in their respective universe – then everyone wins in the end. If not? Well, you’ll end up like so many Matrix sequels, and back issues of Countdown to Final Crisis.

At the bottom of the discount bin, along side an unending ocean of missed opportunity.

Martha Thomases: Insane, Edgy, Horrific, Great!

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What do you do when something you love goes off the deep end?

If that something is person, you support him to the best of your ability and try to get him the help he needs. A person who goes off the deep end is suffering, and you, as a human, should do your best to make that person better.

What about when that something is fiction? Is it okay to enjoy watching?

I ask this because this season of American Horror Story: Hotel is completely nutso. Whatever narrative drive there might be is completely sabotaged by the sex and blood and beauty.

It’s really fun.

AHS is one of a new kind of television show, like Fargo and True Detective, which tell a complete story each season but then start over from scratch, with a new cast, new characters, and a new premise. Unlike those other two shows, AHS keeps many (but not all) of the same actors, like a repertory company or a neighborhood theater group. Some actors, like Evan Peters and Sarah Paulson have been on every season. Others, like Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett showed up a few seasons in and have stayed around.

Jessica Lange was on the first four seasons, but didn’t come back this year. Would she have kept the story on the rails? Would we want her to?

Each season, producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk take a horror story trope and play with its conventions. In the the first season, American Horror Story: Murder House, for example, a normal family bought a haunted house. I thought it was good, but it didn’t knock me out. I liked the way the story meandered, with guest stars appearing long enough to get killed, but I wasn’t entirely hooked.

It wasn’t until the second season, American Horror Story: Asylum that the craziness revealed itself in all its glory. Set in a Catholic insane asylum in 1964, the show had nuns with secret pasts, demonic possession, Nazi scientists, alien visitors, serial killers and more. I realized that the producers were going for more than a simple scare in the episode titled “The Name Game”, in which Jessica Lange burst into song in the middle of the day room.

She sang again, on other seasons, but it was never quite so bonkers. Neither was the premise.

For the third season, American Horror Story: Coven, the setting was a school for witches in New Orleans. It was humid and full of voodoo (and great characters), but not up to the second. And last season’s American Horror Story: Freak Show had a two-headed woman and Jessica Lange singing David Bowie’s “Golden Years,” but still nothing as wonky as the Nazi doctor being stalked by Anne Frank, which we had in Season Two.

This season, the premise is that the Hotel Cortez, a Los Angeles Art Deco jewel well past its prime, is run by a vampire, played by Lady Gaga. As if it were run by Black Flag pesticides, guests check in but they don’t check out. A detective with a tragic past is investigating a series of murders. Denis O’Hare plays the greatest bartender in the world.

I could go on, but there really isn’t any point. Each episode contains enough blood to fill a swimming pool, and plenty of sex, among every kind of combination of consenting adults you might imagine. Often, all of these things are in the same frame.

The clothes are beautiful. The men are beautiful (special shout out to Wes Bentley, Matt Bomer, Finn Wittrock and Cheyenne Jackson). The sets are beautiful.

All this beauty doesn’t make characters, however. I couldn’t tell you who the protagonist is. I can’t tell you what the menace is.

And yet, I would watch it every day if that was a choice.

Murphy and Falchuk are capable of making emotionally moving television. In addition to Glee and Nip/Tuck, they were behind HBO’s production of The Normal Heart, which had me crying buckets (and also featured Bomer, Wittrock and O’Hare).

Have there been comics that are as much fun to watch and make so little sense? I can’t think of any. Maybe S. Clay Wilson’s Checkered Demon, except that didn’t have as many cute guys in it.

There’s going to be a sixth season. I don’t know anything about it, but I’m setting my DVR.

The Point Radio: Just How Real Is DONNY?

Ad man, TV talk show host and now a sitcom star. It’s been an interesting journey for Donny Deutsch and he talks about how it took him to his new series DONNY, where he plays a version of himself? Plus martial arts is back on the small screen with AMC’s INTO THE BADLANDS. Series Danny Wu reveals why this new series is definitely binge worthy.

Follow us here on Instagram or on Twitter here.

Tweeks: Welcome to Nightvale Book & Live Show Review

If you watch our show at all, then you know we are obsessive fans of the totally random and awesome Welcome To Night Vale podcast. Well, now there’s a novel based on the crazy strange desert community of Night Vale where all conspiracy theories are real… and so we, of course, duh, were all over it. The book revolves around Night Vale citizens Jackie Fierro and Diane Crayton, the man in the tan suit passing out papers that say “King City” and a shape-shifting teenage boy. We’ll just come out and say it: TWEEKS APPROVED!

Besides reviewing the novel by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor this week, we try once again to explain the podcast (SPOILERS: we can’t), and we talk about the WTNV live show with opener Eliza Rickman at The Balboa Theatre in San Diego last Tuesday.

For those who still have no idea what Welcome To Night Vale is…we plead with you to check the Welcome To Night Vale podcast out. However, we just suggest you don’t listen to it while you are trying to do other things. Definitely don’t listen and drive. We suggest it as a night time ritual, while you are having your Me Time before you go to sleep. This is creepy, weird, sarcastic, and totally confusing — but worth the ride.

All Hail The Glow Cloud.

Dennis O’Neil: The Pit and the Conundrum

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When big pharma hears about the Lazarus Pit it will, of course, take out a patent on it and then… oh, maybe offer it as an option at upscale spas. Oh yeah, the wife and I both took a dip in the pit. Pretty pricey – 11 million and if you’re already dead double that – but boy! Way, way better than a massage…

The Pit, as far as I know, doesn’t really exist, at least not in our world. It’s a fictional apparatus that first appeared in Batman #233, back in the dark ages – we’re talking 1971 – and, like so much comic book material, has recently migrated to television, specifically to a Wednesday night program titled Arrow.

The Pit was originally the exclusive property of a 400-year-old scamp named Ra’s Al Ghul, who used it to restore himself when he was on the threshold of the Great Beyond, or maybe a half step past it. It fixed him up, all right, but he emerged from it a raving lunatic, an affliction that gradually abated.

There were conditions: it was strongly implied that The Pit could work its therapy only on Ra’s and that it was slowly losing potency – a time would come when it did nothing for Ra’s except maybe wrinkle his skin; it was highly toxic, so if anyone other than Ra’s dived in, kaput, the end, exit screaming; and it had to be situated over a certain kind of energy vortex – you couldn’t just dig one in the back yard if you wanted to one-up the neighbors and their puny swimming pool. Later, like all that lasts, The Pit evolved: it would only work once per person, and, most recently, The Pit can do its medicinal voodoo-hoodoo on someone who was good and truly dead – none of this sissy only-at-death’s-door bushwa.

Good storytelling demands that limitations exist if you’re working in a serial form and you want to run the bring-‘em-back-alive scam. The question naturally arises: why not just revive everybody who dies and – oops! – there goes conflict, suspense, maybe some other plot elements, doggone it. It’s the storyteller’s job to answer the question.

In a recent Arrow arc, the good guys used The Pit to revive one Sarah Lance, who’d been dead quite a while – maybe months. The Pit did its stuff, but Sarah didn’t recover her sanity until somebody realized that The Pit had taken her soul. The heroes’ team did some procedure, Sarah’s soul was restored, and off they went to another adventure.

The soul business gives me pause. What kind of soul – whose definition are we using? If by “soul” we mean some immaterial thing that lives within us, we suddenly face a version of philosophy’s old mind–body problem: if the soul is immaterial, how can material things – The Pit, for instance – act on it? And if it’s not immaterial… where is it?

Maybe I should ask my guardian angel and get back to you.

Ed Note: That awesome graphic atop this column is from, and is ©, The Sports Hero (All Rights Reserved, so watch your ass), “Where Sports & Comics Collide,” which is a wonderful concept.

Molly Jackson: Many Faces of Fandoms

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Fandoms can be a wonderful thing. People who are drawn together by love of a particular series, be it written/filmed/drawn/created in any way, can and have banded together to do some amazing things. I’ve written about how my fellow Browncoats (a.k.a. Firefly fans) and I have raised money for Equality Now. Supernatural fans have come together along with show star Jared Padalecki to raise money for nonprofit organization To Write Love on Her Arms. Gamers have gaming marathons for various charities throughout the world.

Most recently, Star Wars fans took to Twitter to help a dying fan see Episode 7. Sadly, Daniel passed away a few days after his screening. It may be right out of a movie script (ala Fanboys) but it was a touching gesture by fans, cast, crew, and SW franchise to make sure it happened.

With all this in mind, why am I telling you how awesome fans are? Because sadly, sometimes they aren’t awesome. Sometimes people ruin the friendship that grows out of fandom love. That has happened from the Steven Universe fans. A small group of SU fans appears to be growing increasingly mean to the point of brutal. Another fan documented the escalating issues, which have gotten out of control. Fans have been so vicious to other about opinions on the show, they are using rape and death threats. At this point, the ongoing abuses have caused someone to attempt to take their own life.

No fandom is worth any life. I can’t say that loud enough. I love being in fandom groups but I would give them all up in a heartbeat if it meant saving a life. My personal entertainment does not come at the expense of someone’s emotional wellbeing. If yours does, you need to reevaluate.

Steven Universe is a show a lot of friends have told me to watch. After this, I don’t think I can. Yes, I know I can watch a show without being involved with the fandom. But if I like it, I know I’ll want to see what’s out there. It might be unfair to judge a show by the actions of its active fan base. If this is the negativity surrounding a show that is described as all about love, understanding, and equality, then I need to stop before I start.

The real fear is that this can happen to any fan group because the internet is filled with people who think anonymity means no consequences. That since you don’t know the person on the other end in real life, they don’t really matter. Good rule of thumb to use: If you won’t say it to someone’s face, don’t say it on the internet. Be respectful to each other. That means you can still argue facts or provide criticism, but you don’t threaten someone bodily harm because they have a different opinion.

Imagine a world where every conversation on the internet is an engaging one for the right reasons. Imagine reading the comments only makes you cringe from bad grammar, not crude language. Don’t sit there and think it isn’t possible. Go make it possible by showing the world there are still decent human beings on the internet.

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or actions, please seek help and assistance.

Mike Gold, Disturbed

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The most disturbing thing that happened to me in comics – non-violent, that is – occurred more than 30 years ago during the early days of the real First Comics. In fact, it didn’t even happen to me directly. It happened to then-associate editor Rick Oliver. That’s how disturbing it was to me.

We had published a story, damned if I remember what it was, about evil robots doing what evil robots do – murdering humans and generally raising a ruckus. That’s been a popular theme over the years, and if you think about it that’s just what Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and Bill Gates were talking about last August when they were talking about the dangers of artificial intelligence. As an aside, any time that kind of brain trust agrees on anything, I pay attention. But I digress.

A gentleman called us quite perturbed that we published such a story. Actually, perturbed isn’t quite the right phrase. Hysterical would be more accurate. He went apeshit because we did a story that violated (actually, ignored) Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. In case you’re not up on such things, those laws go exactly like this:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

An admirable plot device, and Dr. Asimov held to it consistently for decades… in his fiction. Fiction. He never said it was science fact. Actually, he did say he wasn’t the guy who came up with it, that it was something writer/editor John C. Campbell said to him in December of 1940. On the other hand, Editor Campbell claimed that Author Asimov already had the Three Laws in his mind. But I digress. Again.

If this were an in-person conversation at a comic book or a science fiction convention, the caller would have been arrested and taken to a mental ward for observation. Seriously; he was that upset. When Rick told me about the call, I had newfound gratitude for Alexander Graham Bell.

Most of us understand that there are whack jobs out there (I’m sorry I don’t recall the politically correct phrase for “whack jobs”), and we’ve all seen more than a few hanging out around our Great Comic Book Donut Shop. This gentleman didn’t recognize that the Three Laws were merely a good idea and a great fictional plot device. Hell, he didn’t even recognize we had yet to create robots that are useful enough to need the Three Laws. Today, even drones have human controllers.

He desperately needed to get a life… and probably some lithium. But he represents a danger that we see in all of us who are passionate about our hobbies. You see this sort of thing at media conventions all the time – fans who are disappointed that actors aren’t as familiar with their work as they are. Plenty of times I’ve heard fans say that one actor or another was stupid (or worse) because he/she/it didn’t remember some minutia from a teevee series from many years past.

So. Why am I reminded about this now?

Simple. The fourth Republican debate was on teevee last night.

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Box Office Democracy: Spectre

In Casino Royale, a bartender asks James Bond if he wants his martini shaken or stirred and Bond looks back at the man and responds, “Do I look like I give a damn?” and if your theater was anything like mine the crowd went nuts. It was a clear signal that we were discarding some of the older more tired aspects of the Bond franchise.

In Spectre, Bond orders a martini, adds that he would like it “shaken not stirred” and it was a deflating moment. It was a sign that for whatever reason the people responsible for making Bond movies are no longer interested in making something exciting or fresh (or even a transparent attempt at grabbing for Bourne fans) but to make the thing they’ve made so many times before. While Casino Royale felt like a look ahead in to the 21st century of action movies Spectre is a wistful glance back at the 1970s, and that’s not what I want out of a movie anymore. Spoilers ahead.

The thing that separates Spectre from the Bond movies at all is that the plot continues its trajectory away from sweeping supervillainy and more towards personal conflict. While the eponymous organization is surely evil as their board meeting of crime activity suggests the plan they hope to execute in this film is honestly rather mundane. Spectre wants to be the technical backbone for a multinational security surveillance treaty, essentially a slightly more evil version of the Trans Pacific Partnership, a bad thing certainly but it pales in comparison to irradiating all the gold in Fort Knox or holding the world hostage with stolen atomic bombs. Perhaps this is supposed to reflect the changing face of global fear in the modern world but once I’ve accepted all these other things it just feels like lower stakes.

Where the stakes are much higher are with Bond himself. This movie goes to incredible lengths to show that all of the personal problems, depicted on-screen or otherwise, that Bond has experienced have been the direct result of the machinations of Ernst Stavro Blofield, the man in charge of this massive criminal organization. The events of the previous three films were all leading to this and it’s probably best you don’t pick at that too much because it doesn’t make much sense at all. I see what they’re going for, that it would be nice for these movies to feel a bit more personal, but I’m quite sick of hearing about Vesper at this point and it makes the film feel more generic because every action film is going for this kind of thing, the climax of this film could easily have been a Lethal Weapon finale, it doesn’t feel particularly unique.

I might be asking too much from a Bond movie. Spectre provides so many of the things we expect from these movies. There are stunning locations, beautiful cars, exquisite tight-fitting clothing for both men and women, and a healthy dose of quips in dry British accents. That’s the franchise right there, that’s enough for the vast majority of the audience and if we accept that those are the bullet points Bond movies are supposed to hit this one does a great job: I would very much like to visit Morocco, drive a DB10, look as good as Daniel Craig and be as cool as a British secret agent. This is top-notch escapist power fantasy.

I don’t understand all of the casting choices in Spectre. Dave Bautista is asked to show none of the charm he displayed in Guardians of the Galaxy as he basically plays a brick wall for Bond to bounce off of in this film. I’m not even sure he has three lines if we’re not counting screams and grunts. Christoph Waltz is a brilliant performer as ever but he gets only the bare minimum of screen time for a Bond villain. He gets to reveal his evil plan, he gets to arrange an elaborate death trap, and he gets to participate in a chase. Waltz is in one scene in the first half of the movie and that creates anticipation but also makes the rest of the events feel less important. The worst casting was Andrew Scott as the head of British intelligence. You can’t cast someone most famous for playing a scheming villain, cast him as the smarmy new authority figure and then expect to get a meaningful third act beat out of his inevitable betrayal.

Perhaps I was just wrong about what this run of Bond movies was supposed to do. It seems that they don’t want to move in a new direction for the franchise, instead it looks like they wanted to create the illusion of a brave new direction while they went and rebooted everything even further back. We have a stuffy older man as M again (sorry Ralph Fiennes), we have Moneypenny back again, we have Q delivering tricked out Aston Martins, and we have villains in elaborate remote bases with their fluffy cats and their slow avoidable death traps. Pierce Brosnan could have been in this movie; hell, with a filter or two this could have been Timothy Dalton, and that’s disappointing. This could be a modern action franchise but instead it seems willing to go back to trading in nostalgia and clichés.

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