An Illustrator’s Foray into Adobe Illustrator – Week 4

On May 9, 2012 By James CastroIn Art, Projects, Random FunLeave a comment

Shapes can show emotions too. Really.

Seeing shapes is how illustration begins, especially in Illustrator, but using shapes to create something with personality is a different level. I could gladly live in a world of inanimate sharpened objects and smooth, perfect polygons all day (they are rarely annoying and frequently useful) however living such a life, even in artwork, would be kind of a drag. So I sought ways to turn shapes into characters. In doing so I stumbled across this site, which has been a wonderful resource of Illustrator tutorials:

http://vectips.com/

Not all of them are perfect and some of the instructions can be a little vague, especially if you like to go through tutorials in a “I get the gist” kind of way and skip ahead…you’ll be doing a LOT of ctrl+z…read all the steps…seriously…

This tutorial was by far my favorite on the site as it had the most to do with my kind of illustration and it allowed some real creativity to burst forth:

http://vectips.com/tutorials/create-a-happy-sun-character/

This is a little surprising given my penchant for the macabre but seeing all of the steps needed to create this character; all of the tools used; the various effects, gradients, and polygons combined and altered to turn simple shapes into an expressive character was truly entertaining. It also allowed for a significant amount of learning-while-doing that sticks with me because of the fun I had making the lil sun guy. Here’s my result of the tutorial:

And because I’d rather be howling at the moon that funning in the sun I created this original piece using the steps and tools in the tutorial:

Hopefully all of these sphere tutorials have been as enlightening for other Illustrator neophytes as they were for me. Next week will be one last shape tutorial I found that includes shapes and textures used to make a dramatic and slick-looking graphic…even if it’s not as personable as a happy sun character it’ll be something to look forward to!

An Illustrator’s Foray into Adobe Illustrator – Week 3

On May 2, 2012May 2, 2012 By James CastroIn Art, Projects2 Comments

More spheres! Admittedly working all of these tutorials was pretty addictive and once I started learning how to use Illustrator’s various functions it was hard to stop seeking out new applications to learn.

After designing the previous sphere, which was of course simply a circle shaded to resemble a 3D object, I became curious about the rendering capabilities of Illustrator. While cruising the forums the rendering features are often discussed and, much like pathfinder tools, which can be a little confusing for beginners like me, the 3D rendering feature feels inaccessible.

My first attempt to create something in 3D without instructions was a sphere, what could be simpler than a circle, right? So I created an ellipse and tried a few of the 3D options, creating a cylinder, a disc, and finally this thing:

I clearly needed some assistance with this feature and while searching for “How to Create Spheres” I found another tutorial that showed, as an element of the exercise, how to create 3D spheres. Once you see how it’s done it feels a little less psychotic than all the random shapes you can create just trying to make a polygon a 3D polygon. The tutorial taught how to make a “peel effect” which is similar to the AT&T logo of a shape wrapped around an invisible sphere.

The tutorial:

http://www.tutorialsbucket.com/peel-effect-in-adobe-illustrator-cs5

Not only does this teach how to make 3D spheres using the rendering tools, but how to repeat graphic shapes using transform, how to create symbols, and of course how to apply the symbols to make the peel effect.

During one of the steps it shows how to easily create a 3D rendered sphere like this:

It was one of my favorite basic illustrator tutorials. It was very easy to follow and provided clear steps in the multiple tools used to create the graphic. Also it teaches by osmosis several other useful tools and finally hammered into my analog brain how digital 3D rendering works. I used it to create the peel effect he shows:

PeelEffectBlue — I admit when it worked I did say aloud, “What the…that actually worked!”

One slightly more difficult one of my own:

PeelEffectXmas — It was just an attempt to apply the rectangles in an overlapping fashion but it came out looking a bit like a Christmas tree ornament. It let me try the process one more time though!

And then combined it with what I learned in the previous tutorials to create this original graphic inspired by the wonderful, colorful, world of James Rolfe’s AVGN:

FBomb — Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is…an F-Bomb… And I think the Nerd would approve since it looks like a Nintendo 64 graphic.

The above graphic was created using the 3D rendering sphere technique learned in the tutorial from this week; the cylinders I created by accident using “bevel and extrude” trying to create spheres before I learned how to do it properly; radial gradient shading learned from last week’s tutorial; and the pen tool (which I accidentally left on the gradient fill and made a nice fire effect). It goes to show, once you learn enough to operate properly, classic trial-and-error methodology still has skills it can impart…and that feels like a Mr. Miyagi-level lesson.

Next week is the last tutorial about making spheres and how they’re used to create textures and even characters. I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to use the 3D rendering tool so feel free to share creative ways to use them. To quote Bender Bending Rrrrrodriguez: Learning is fun.

The inspiration for the F-Bomb:

Support James Rolfe and the AVGN Movie at Cinemassacre.com!

An Illustrator’s Foray into Adobe Illustrator – Week 2

On April 25, 2012May 24, 2012 By James CastroIn Art, Projects2 Comments

Anyone who has done any graphic work, from MS Paint to Photoshop, seeks a way to make a 2D object look 3D. In fact, even with pencil and paper the goal is an illusion of three dimensions using perspective and shadow. I understand how to do that on paper. It took some time to figure it out in Photoshop … and more online tutorials to sort out the details in Illustrator.

Some objects are relatively easy to 3D-up … as we learned from elementary school, anyone can draw the transparent cube … but spheres are different. An imprecise circle looks imprecise, so a 3D version of it does so even more. Once again turning to good ole Google with a “How to make a ball in Illustrator” search provided me with this result, which was actually how to give an object a gloss effect:

http://www.calstatela.edu/its/docs/pdf/illustratorcs5p2.pdf

This tutorial shows how, in typical pencil artist fashion, to make a 2D object appear 3D without rendering graphics. I understood the concept immediately, and it bridged the gap to rendering using the effects tool in Illustrator, which admittedly I didn’t understand at all.

This is the imperfect result of the tutorial, as for some reason the transparent gloss wouldn’t screen properly. The effect still works though!

The added benefit to this tutorial is that for Web design (something I’ll be doing more of and most of us in the graphic design world will be tangling with all too frequently … if nothing else to pay the bills …) you can apply these concepts easily to make flashier buttons, borders, and graphic elements to a page. You could grab the magnifying glass, stick it on a globe like this one, and suddenly you’ve got a punched-up search page. Made even more impressive by effectively matching color schemes, themes, and shapes to help users navigate the page naturally.

This tutorial was another step in using Illustrator’s tools and navigating the page. Looking at each tool or cursor and seeing semi-psychotic things occurring on your art board gets old quickly. Even though some of the tutorials might only show simple things like gradients and how to use shapes, they actually helped me get comfortable with working in the program. From what I’ve found gaining comfort in the program is the most important step to using it well.

The next tutorial I found built on this one … and was my first attempt at 3D rendering in Illustrator …

An Illustrator’s Foray into the World of Adobe Illustrator – Week 1

On April 18, 2012April 18, 2012 By James CastroIn Art, ProjectsLeave a comment

From the moment I picked up a pencil, or crayons, or whatever I could put to paper to leave a mark, I’ve been an illustrator. I still love to draw with paper and pencil and still make sounds effects for the drawings I work on (yes, I rev engines when I’m drawing vehicles or make sword fight sounds when drawing weapons). I’ve loathed to put down the “analog” drawing technology to try the new digital versions, but with all the projects I have in my head and the harsh realities of the art design world it soon became apparent that illustrators who didn’t adapt to digital graphic design methods would be left behind … especially one-man publication studios like me. So a few years ago I started playing with various graphic design software and found that most of them were accessible and could be quite fun to operate in.

I’m a self-taught digital graphic designer. And by self-taught I mean I just try things in software until they work, which usually entails clicking buttons or cursors and then pressing Ctrl+z when the desired result doesn’t occur. I’m no computer guru, but like most in my generation I can usually operate basic programs. I have done most of my graphics work up to this point in various iterations of Adobe Photoshop. Stretching its tools to the max, I have been able to do image editing, graphics creation, logo design, and layouts in software that was never really designed to do all of those functions specifically. Essentially, I’ve been making do with what I had and getting by with “good enough” in design.

That is until I was given the opportunity to work with both Illustrator CS5 and InDesign CS5 and discovered the greater power inherent in using the appropriate software for the appropriate task.

I went into Illustrator thinking it would be like Photoshop. I could start with a concept and click my way around until I found what worked and “undo” my way through the program until it did what I wanted. In Illustrator I found the first piece of software that did not let me do this. Unlike Photoshop, when you start a project in Illustrator you start with nothing. No image to edit, only your creativity to go on. So in one sense it’s freeing; you’re no longer trapped by the confines of a base image and are free to create an image of your own. This freedom has its own limits however, and those are represented by the software interface. Many features in Illustrator don’t do exactly what you’d expect. For example, those who think an eraser in Illustrator will do what it does in Photoshop will be shocked when it does nothing of the sort. I, like I’m sure many of you, found myself scrambling to make sense out of what everything does and how it’s different.

I’m always reluctant to seek help in software. I always feel I should be able to figure it out, but in the case of Illustrator I really needed the assistance. I turned to one of my best friends, Google, and did the most basic search: “Illustrator drawing tips” and came up with the following tutorial as a result:

http://terrywhite.com/techblog/5-tips-on-drawing-in-illustrator-cs5-with-special-guest-mordy-golding/

This 15-minute tutorial was a terrific starting point, and I highly recommend it. The host instructs you on how to make a magnifying glass in Illustrator CS5 using just the shape creation and shape builder tools. More importantly, he assists you in seeing images as shapes and you start to think in combinations of shapes to make compositions. I followed the steps and made the simple graphic he teaches you:

By performing only a couple of functions of the shape builder tool, you begin to think of other applications for it. You can go from a simple polygon shape like the glass and create slightly more complex objects made of polygons like this:

OriginalAXE — Axe graphic made using the methods learned in the "5 Tips" tutorial.

It’s a very flawed graphic but a vast improvement over not even knowing how to navigate the software!

Unsatisfied with the flat look of the metal on the axe I was curious how to make it look more like real metal, so I searched “metal textures in illustrator” and came up with this:

http://www.khulsey.com/adobe-illustrator-gradient-mesh.html

With those two tutorials combined, I gained the tools I needed to get started and created this:

AxeNew — New and improved Axe using the methods learned in the "5 Tips" and "Metal Texture" tutorials.

Two tutorials and things have drastically improved!

If you’re new to Illustrator, give these tutorials a try. It takes a tiny bit of the mystique out of the software and gives you a great place to start getting used to the interface. Plus you’re creating from scratch in a way unlike anything you can do Photoshop. If someone like me, who still clings to pencil and paper like grim death can be dragged into the digital age by these, anyone can!

Over the coming weeks as I learn things in Illustrator I’ll post them. Next week I’ll post a couple great tutorials I found on building spheres, adding more texture, and rendering in 3D. I’m learning as I go, as many of you might be doing too, so if anyone out there has any tutorials they’ve found related to the one I’ve posted for the week, please share them. Hopefully, we can all navigate the complexity of Illustrator together …

Remakes and Reboots: Part 4

On February 7, 2011April 17, 2012 By James CastroIn MoviesLeave a comment

The Failed Remake

Of course not all remakes can achieve the heights of some of the previously mentioned films. We have recently been inundated with remakes that have either fallen short or failed spectacularly. Famously, there is the disastrous remake of Psycho, which was copied short-for-shot with a new cast in color. As if a new director could possibly have made the film better than Alfred Hitchcock? The argument could be made that it is the same method used for the Night of the Living Dead update, but there are subtle differences… most importantly Savini participated in Romero movies and made his film to honor Romero and help audiences remember the original. Psycho… I’m not entirely certain what the purpose of it was. Everyone, even people who have never seen it, KNOW the original. It was shot by a cinematic virtuoso whose work could not be replicated or improved upon. The same could be said for Kurosawa (if Hitchcock has an equal, his name is Akira Kurosawa), but remakes of Kurosawa often honor the original and try to place the basics of his story in a new place (as we have seen, with mixed results). There has been word that Kurosawa’s magnum opus, The Seven Samurai, is getting yet another American remake, this one starring George Clooney. Not only would it be the second western remake of this terrific film, this is overall a TERRIBLE idea, however still will not insult the original as much as reshooting the source film in color, shot-for-shot, with new actors as though he didn’t get it right the first time a la Psycho. Please people… just bite the bullet, enjoy the black and white and watch the originals… there’s a reason these films are considered some of, if not THE, greatest movies in film history…

Cult Classic Case Study: Clash of the Titans (1981)

Leaving classics aside (as the general reception of the Psycho reaction proved) cult classics have become the focus of the remake machine. While they are more understandable fodder for a remake, the reason behind the popularity of the original is still lost on most remakers. One easy example is Planet of the Apes, which also achieved the same level of negative response as Psycho despite Tim Burton at the helm. I saw the remake only once, and I remember enough to know I wouldn’t want to see it again. We’ll jump to a more recent remake disaster: Clash of the Titans.

First, the nature of the cult classic. The cult classic remains a cult because it succeeds in spite of its flaws. It is greater than the sum of its parts. Clash of the Titans (1981) was a delightfully cheesy feast. Harry Hamlin’s Perseus is a feathered-haired relic of the late 70s and early 80s. Monsters and creations by stop-motion animation wizard Ray Harryhausen show the art form at its precision best, from scorpions and vultures, to tiny clockwork owls, and Medusa with her dozens of snakes. Acting legends like Laurence Olivier, and soon-to-be legends like Maggie Smith graced the screen with B-movie actors like Hamlin and Ursula Andress. The story is right out of the basics of mythology, a hero is set upon by a vengeful god… he now has to set out on a journey, far too big for him, aided only by his guile (and some well-placed allies on Olympus) he goes to save his love, Andromeda, from the wrath of a sea goddess and her vicious creatures. He gets an adorable clockwork owl, Bubo from Athena, a special sword and shield (of course), and rides the unridable Pegasus, one of Zeus’ winged horses. Along the way, he fights with the twisted Calibos, fends off attacks from Calibos’ vulture and scorpions, duels Medusa, and finally saves the day by turning Poseidon’s mighty Kraken to stone with Medusa’s severed head. The film is fun because it is so silly. Stop motion isn’t as slick as CGI, but that’s what makes it special, something that took craft, patience, and years if not decades of training to get a physical something in front of the camera with actual lights reflecting off of it and casting actual shadows. You wonder at how the little R2D2-esque owl flew, or how the menacing vulture, or the elegant Pegasus did the same. You know it’s all just “the movies,” but you still leave it wondering how someone could take the time and effort to do all these things. Perseus himself is a demi-god who acts like an everyman. He doesn’t have the strength of Hercules, by far the most famous demi-god, but his cleverness makes up for it. He succeeds by out-thinking enemies not out-muscling them. He gets help when he needs it, and accepts it because he knows he needs it. He travels the world to save his love while the gods literally play at dice high above him.

The film is not the masterpiece of Yojimbo, or Psycho, it’s not even a reflection of the times like The Karate Kid, instead it’s just a fun movie designed to entertain audiences and take them away to a fantasy world like movies are meant to do. Then the remake…

Cult Classic Remake: Clash of the Titans (2010)

It’s hard to tell whether the 2010 version was supposed to be a remake or a reboot of a series. In the end, it doesn’t matter. It is one of the worst remakes, and one of the worst recent movies, in a number of years.

There has been a trend in movies, especially action movies and historical period movies, for revenge as a motivation for the protagonist. Braveheart and Gladiator are two critically acclaimed movies that display this trend. It’s strange to consider as revenge is, at its root, a very ugly thing; something not to be desired in a person, and certainly not a hero. In the 1980s Clash (hereafter known as Clash) Perseus’ motivation was rescue. He has offended the sea goddess, Thetis, and now she seeks her revenge by forcing Perseus’ betrothed Andromeda to be sacrificed. Note that it is the villain of the piece after revenge… as traditionally a villain would be after something that petty. In the 2010 remake, Crap of the Titans (hereafter known as Crap… for obvious reasons) Perseus’ family is killed by Hades at sea (Why Hades at SEA and not Poseidon? I’d guess because the filmmakers thought, “Hey Hades is like the Devil he’s so much COOLER than Poseidon!”), and Perseus tries to defy the gods by tracking down Hades and defeating him. That’s right, Perseus is seeking revenge for his family, which we’ve seen in every movie that features a guy with a sword since 1997… yawn. Perseus in Clash looked every bit the classic Greek hero (save for the feathered hair). Greeks always favored cunning over brute force. Perseus uses his cunning constantly, he’s quick, clever, and fast thinking. Things aren’t always spelled out for him (or the audience), and he has to decipher mysterious puzzles to defeat overpowering enemies. And Perseus in Crap? He’s a generic thug. His shaved head, square jaw, and tiny-tight mouth make him look more like a second string UFC challenger than a Greek hero. He’s capable of two emotions, rage and despair. He shifts his feet, looks sad, shouts, and acts as though he has no common sense whatsoever. He uses NO guile instead relying on just being mighty. He is very mighty. He cuts his way out of a big scorpion after all. He refuses favors of gods trying to help him; instead he endangers his travelling companions because of his own pride and selfishness. He is easily the most unlikable movie hero of the last 5 years. His quest doesn’t even make sense. Andromeda is no longer his love interest. She’s just a princess who gave him water and will be sacrificed because the town her father rules has defied the gods. It seems Perseus (especially the selfish brute they made him) could go on his quest to “kill” a deathless god without worrying about saving her since he has no plot-developed attachment to her. Instead his love interest is Io, who is as unnecessary a character as has never existed in a movie. She’s basically there to prod this mess of a plot along and explain things to Perseus (and the audience who are treated like imbeciles by the filmmakers). They could’ve named her Expositiana and been more honest with everyone. Then there is Perseus’ quest. He wants to kill Hades? What kind of sense does that make? The gods can’t even kill each other… Even Homeric hero Diomedes was only able send Ares back to Olympus after gutting him with a spear imbued with power by Athena herself. Today’s Perseus’ quest can be described in real life as this: your family is killed in a drive by; so you collect the finest police officers in the city and your closest friends to go punch a Gambino in the face. Well done, you’ve killed everyone with you and eventually yourself, even if you knock him out, break his nose, and put him in the hospital for a month. Eventually, they will be coming for you, and they have the ability to take you out far better than you can take them out… Even if you are friends with the Governor…

Breaking the Remake Rules: Insulting the Original

So that’s the plot. It’s bad enough. How can a remake be worse than just a bad movie? Easily, it can insult, demean, and forever try to one-up the original. As I said from the beginning, remakes owe the original their existence. They should recognize this, accept it, and honor the source material as much as possible. Crap breaks this rule and never misses an opportunity to declare itself bigger, better, and badder than Clash. They achieved the last one at least… in all the wrong ways.

Early in the film Perseus finds the clockwork owl. He is told to leave it behind, as it’s apparently nothing useful. The filmmakers to the audience: take THAT beloved classic character! When scorpions appear in the desert in Crap they start out about the same size as the ones Perseus fights in Clash, then they get bigger and bigger until the final scorpion is the size of Delta’s Pacific airline fleet welded together into some metallic art-school drop-out garbage collage. The filmmakers to the audience: You see?! Look how much bigger and menacing our monsters are! In Crap, Perseus comes upon a herd of elegant white Pegasus (which were all killed but one in Clash), suddenly they scatter and run as a bigger, BLACK Pegasus stomps into scene. Filmmakers to audience: Yeah, we scared off those piddly white ones you saw in the original. Look at how much COOLER the menacing BLACK Pegasus is! Aren’t we awesome? In Crap, the Kraken finally shows up released from, I guess Hades. And why a SEA beast, the Kraken, is controlled by the lord of the underworld I have NO idea… just another display of how absolutely poorly the film was written using the original ideas. The Kraken is the size of Tokyo bay. Filmmakers to audience: See what we said about the scorpions? Yeah, he’s bigger, slimier and looks like a video game end boss, phase II.

In the end of Clash, Perseus uses his guile to turn the Kraken to stone, save the day, and win his girl. The end of Crap is the same thing, but Perseus of course doesn’t get Andromeda. Instead, a coda is added where Io, who has DIED, is brought back from the dead by a LITERAL deus ex machina, and they leave the opening for a sequel, which is now impending for next year. Pat yourselves on the back everyone for appealing to the lowest common denominator…

Remakes & Reboots: Part 3

On January 23, 2011April 17, 2012 By James CastroIn MoviesLeave a comment

The Effective Updated Remake

Recently Hollywood has been taken to task for the deluge of remakes of old films, modern films, TV series, and foreign films. Some of them are mystifying; why American Studios need to remake a British film less than 5 years old is beyond me. Why American studios need to remake foreign language films in English even newer than that is even stranger… But remaking old ideas is the nature of film and can, in some ways, advance both modern film and shed new light on the original. Case in point, The Karate Kid. The 1984 film is a martial arts film as much as Rocky is a boxing film. In fact, both Kid and Rocky had the same director, John A. Avildson. Avildson’s Kid is about the outsider, forced to move from his only home to a strange land where social classes and rules of behavior are different from the world he knows. Karate is the outlet he uses to fit in, and then excel, to win the respect of the society he has been thrust into. It stresses the most important lesson of martial arts, that it be learned so it never has to be used, and is bolstered by fantastic performances by both a young Ralph Macchio (an under-appreciated performance on his part) and an aging Pat Morita who was nominated for an Academy Award for his Mr. Miyagi and finally allowed him to shed the role of Arnold from Happy Days. Interestingly, the part was envisioned for Toshiro Mifune, who was believed to be too intense for the role. It’s a buddy story, as the brash youth befriends the lonely aging master; an action flick, as Macchio’s Daniel fights his way to respect; and a coming-of-age story, as Daniel matures as his Karate lessons continue. It spawned a few sequels. The sequels were less successful but did no harm to the message of the original story.

The 2010 remake initially came as terrible news to many of us who grew up with the original. First, we were given the news that Jackie Chan, an excellent actor who has martial arts ability not possessed by Morita, but also has proven himself to be a fine dramatic actor, would be cast in the “Miyagi” role. Many of us who are fans of Asian films at first felt fear that the creators might pull a Memoirs of a Geisha on us and try to pass Chan off as Japanese, as Hollywood apparently believes all Asian ethnicities are interchangeable. Instead, we were hit with another piece of news that the film would take place in China… and that it was essentially being used as a vehicle for Will Smith’s son, Jayden, and produced by Smith’s production company. It all smelled like a setup; a big budget film designed to promote a star’s kid’s career and make money off of a younger generation without having to create an all-new story. Even more unusual was the film’s title, which remained The Karate Kid, despite the fact that it took place in China and the titular Kid was clearly going to be learning China’s Kung Fu not Japan’s Karate. Forums went ablaze with comments of how Hollywood was “raping” the childhoods of countless American 20-30 somethings (though if your childhood was fragile enough to be based around a 1984 movie perhaps it’s time to find something new to hang your hat on anyway…) and it was destroying the legacy of the original (as though the ever diminishing sequels hadn’t already taken some of the shine off that apple).

Then the film came out. It was clear that the makers of this film not only admired and honored the original, but also its message. Chan’s Mr. Han was every bit as nuanced as the original Miyagi, and the story of the outsider was just as poignant in the new story as in the 1984 version. In many ways it is a superior film, the class struggle has a more meaningful ending (even if it is a bit more Hollywood) as Jayden’s character, the young Dre, receives acceptance from Meiying’s family unlike Daniel who did not receive the same from Ali’s. The martial arts message is just as clear, and the ending in which the Kid receives acceptance is a bit more in-your-face. It displayed some terrific film making and a very interesting partnership between U.S. and Chinese film industries. In one scene Han appears to chase flies with chopsticks, playing off of the notion in the original of Miyagi trying to catch a fly with chopsticks. Han then smacks the fly with a fly swatter, showing that this is the same film, but a different film at the same time. It doesn’t mock the original scene or claim to be better, it simply announces that this different film.

It fails to achieve the near-perfection of Fistful of Dollars however in some aspects and due to its compromises. Through no fault of his own, 12-year-old Jayden Smith is not quite the emotionally powerful actor 16-year-old Ralph Macchio was in the original. Macchio’s character was goofy, fun, playful, helpless, brash, and despairing and Macchio was able to portray all of these remarkably well. Jayden’s character, Dre, didn’t have nearly the range given to Daniel in the 1984 version, partially due to the writing, and while Jayden was excellent in some areas, he was only serviceable in others, largely due to inexperience. Still it is easy to see he will probably achieve every bit of the ability his father has at portraying both drama and comedy effectively as he ages. The most disappointing aspect of the film is Mr. Han’s tragedy is nowhere near as meaningful as Mr. Miyagi’s, and that point, one of the most powerful points in the first film, is misused in the remake.

In the 1984 version Miyagi served honorably in World War II as a soldier in Europe. While he bravely served his nation, winning a medal of honor (a fact not thrust in the audience’s face through dialogue but found by Daniel during the scene), his pregnant wife was in a Japanese internment camp in the United States where she died during child birth due to the poor medical treatment available in the camp. Miyagi bravely served his adoptive nation, while the nation’s racist policies essentially killed his wife and child. On the anniversary of his wife’s (and unborn child’s) death, Miyagi dresses in his army jacket and drinks his pains away. The scene breaks the stone-wall-like Miyagi down, the man who seems so unbeatable shows he has been beaten by life; it shows why he is lonely, why he at first refuses to allow Daniel into his life, and eventually why he comes to accept him as a surrogate son. Daniel for his part can only listen to what has happened. When Miyagi finally passes out, Daniel can only make him comfortable in his bed and cover him with blankets. He then goes through Miyagi’s World War II materials, which Miyagi has stashed away, medals and commendations, and the photograph of his wife. The scene remains powerful because of its multilayered messages: Miyagi was a hero then, he stays a hero now; he can save Daniel in a way he couldn’t save his own son; and for Daniel’s part he sees there are some problems that cannot be fixed, talked out, or ever gotten over; all he can do is be there for his friend.

Mr. Han suffered his own tragedy, losing his wife and son in a car accident after an argument. During the film we see Han working on a beaten up Volkswagen Scirocco in his home. On the day Dre doesn’t train he comes to see Han who is destroying the car he just restored. He relates the story of his wife and son, (who was a couple years younger than Dre), when he and his wife argued, and he accidentally wrecked the car in a rainstorm, killing both his wife and son. While Han is old enough to have experienced some of the more relevant and important moments in recent Chinese history (such as the Great Leap Forward) that would have more poignantly paralleled the original story, I get the impression the Chinese film industry possibly did not want to criticize recent Chinese history as thoroughly as Avildson was willing to criticize recent American history. We’re left instead with a car wreck, which admittedly is tragic. The more problematic element is that Dre helps Han by doing one of their training sessions immediately after the story. I can understand the impetus for this, some audiences may have desired a more active resolution to the subplot, but it is far more effective in the 1984 version. Not everything can be easily fixed. Not every problem can be resolved. Anyone who has had a friend cry on their shoulder knows sometimes the only thing you can do is be there until they recover, and be there the next time. The newer version took the easy way out on this subplot, which is a major disappointment, but not fatal to the film, which remains, overall, an excellent remake just shy of achieving a Fistful of Dollars level remake.

Revenant Publications

Author: James Castro