All that Glitters isn't Gold

    This is a slightly different article than I am used to writing, as it won’t necessarily focus on writing a novel, but more on a passing fancy I’ve always had in writing screenplays and scripts for graphic novels, both fascinating mediums for telling stories in vivid images.  However, some aspects of what I am about to talk about do transcend mediums and can apply to novels as much as any visual medium.

    Every year we see new developments in computer graphic technology, new and interesting styles of art, inking, and panelling in graphic novels, and these are all amazing and awe inspiring things.  They make stories easier to tell in their respective mediums, because with them we can show new things that you couldn’t show before.  While some fan boys might hate me for saying this, George Lucas illustrates my point the best with many of his digital enhancements of the original Star Wars movies.  The addition of digital banthas and rontos in Mos Eisley (Episode IV) did, in fact, add something to the story that wasn’t there before.
    Conversely, these advancements in the methodology of visual media are something of a double-edged sword; they can cut both ways and have negative impacts as much as positive ones.  The users of these technologies and methodologies can, in fact, rely on them too heavily and forget the essence of storytelling: to compel people with thought provoking stories and situations.
    That is, in my opinion, the core of good storytelling, to provoke discussion and thought on topics of importance or even on topics of philosophy.  No matter what it is you wish to see discussed as a result of your work, you should never let how it looks surpass what it means.
    Take, for example, the new blockbuster leviathan Avatar, written and directed (perhaps that is the core problem) by James Cameron, the Master of new and shiny moving pictures.  Avatar has taken a lot of bad press about its overt racism, and I won’t beat that dead horse except to say my God, how obvious it was that the navi were native Americans, right down to having Wes Studi (a familiar face from Last of the Mohicans) play the Chief.  I don't see that as racist, as it shouldn’t be taken as insulting to use the Native Americans as a model for the suffering of man’s Manifest Destiny.
    What I didn’t like about the movie, and truthfully what spurred this piece, was the obvious lack of a new story.  In fact, if I were to have effectively cut and pasted segments from a dozen other movies, I think I could have told the same story; it just wouldn’t look nearly as good.  If you haven’t seen it, pay special attention to the main character’s speech at the Mother Tree, when it’s done, add, “They can take our lives, but they can never take our freedom.”  My point should become very clear then.

    Cameron, and anyone who helped him write Avatar, made a stunning movie with a limp story.  Others have done the same thing (and some have ruined great stories).  War of the Worlds and the Time Machine come to mind, where the visuals were quite good and the story was (by no fault of the original books) refuse.  Then there is the knife forced into the heart of my childhood, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  I can say exactly what ruins the story (WARNING: SPOILER ALERT): it is the death, and rapid resurrection, of Optimus Prime. 
    Some of the great moments in fiction are death scenes, especially in speculative fiction genres.  The death of King Arthur, Boromir of Gondor, Sturm Brightblade of Solamnia, and yes, Optimus Prime of Cybertron (at least in the original 1980s cartoon movie).  These scenes actually inspire emotional response and set an example for the reader/viewer.  Each person above died for a cause, most of them quite noble, and is honoured for it.  The death of Prime in the most recent movie was a fine death scene, and I won’t lie, I was impressed and touched (I’m a fan boy, what can I say).  The problem was, Optimus Prime is resurrected an hour later, given temporary upgrades in the style of some pulp Japanese anime, and the meat of his death, the message, the meaning, the essence of it, is destroyed because now the writer says “Death isn’t permanent and it is not a great sacrifice for a hero.”

    I suspect I’ve gotten off track in my original message.  I think if you suffer through it you can see I am saying that pretty pictures DO NOT EVER trump good story.  Look at the lists of the American Film Institutes Top 100 movies (in any and all genres) and you’ll see that the greatest movies aren’t always the ones with amazing graphics (but it doesn’t hurt).  Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey top the science fiction list, Field of Dreams is in the top ten fantasy movies; Lawrence of Arabia, Ben Hur, and Schindler’s List top the Epic Movies Lists.  All six movies have spectacular stories, clever cinematography, and some do use “new technology” (new for its time) to tell their story, none of them though, use that new technology as a crutch to sell tripe to viewers.