Wishbone and the Amazing Odyssey Analysis.

   How do you do, 

   For the first review of a computer game, I chose one from my childhood that I played endlessly from grade six onward. Wishbone and the Amazing Odyssey was a game for Windows 95, produced by Palladium in 1996 (making this twenty-two years old, but since I have other things turning twenty the nostalgia won me over for this entry), featuring Wishbone, the famous Jack Russell terrier pup with a big imagination. Wishbone had a television series already, on the verge of being renewed for another season when the game came out, and a series of books that either featured a plot of Wishbone and his human friends encountering a situation similar to a book he read, or there's be a book that is based on the classic work done in a format for children to read. I once had two of the latter, one of them being The Odyssey by Homer (which became one of my favorite stories when I was twelve years old). Wishbone had played Odysseus once, in the episode of the series called "Homer Sweet Homer", though it covered only a small part of a larger drama.

    For background, Homer's epic, The Odyssey was composed more than two thousand years ago, in Ancient Greece, as the story of the return of Odysseus as ruler of Ithaca. Much of known story is told in flashback by Odysseus himself, with the greater part dealing of his son, Telemachus, searching for him and the two returning to remove pestering suitors to Penelope, Odysseus' wife. As with any epic from Ancient Greece, the gods play a role in this one, with supportive Athena and Poseidon opposing the hero, plus several characters of mythical origin like a cyclops, a group of giants, and a witch, plus a journey into the Underworld. When we think of such epics that have all that, we might be thinking of recent fantasy works like The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and even Star Wars, but The Odyssey predated them all. Along with its prequel, The Iliad, The Odyssey has held an enduring power in as the adventure story of a generation, which is still felt with each passing generation, inspiring many clones and imitations, like the Roman poet, Virgil, doing his with The Anaied, to the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? in which the setting is placed in Depression Era South. So, this game is basically one of the latest retellings. 

     As an eleven year old boy upon first playing it, I found it marvelous and exciting. Now that I am a man, having read Homer a lot and some critical works on his poems, I know there were a few things changed in the game, but it hasn't lost its attraction in the slightest degree. 

    The game set is simple. Wishbone is showing the viewer the virtual library and a new computer called the Electronic Pictographic Interactive Combopulator, (or EPIC 3000), which is supposedly something like the old VCR for books (twenty years later, we have books on computers and tablets, yet we still don't have something like that). It's never explained how it works, just shown with Wishbone putting in a book and the scanners bring up the image on the screen. Yet, when Wishbone has some trouble, he tries to get his copy of Homer out, only to wind up inside the computer. Now, Wishbone is inside the computer, animated, and placed in the role of Odysseus, and it's up to the player to get Wishbone out by playing the epic. 

    As a computer game, certain liberties to the plot are taken, just like with Dune did a few years prior with its material, the namesake book by Frank Herbert and the movie. Because many details of the Fall of Troy are not in the epic, there is not much done for the Troy scene, other than get Wishbone on the boat and shove off. The character Eurylocus, who only appeared in two books (chapters) is expanded upon as something of a lazy sailor who has to be made into helping Wishbone out. At least, he is kept his character of the epic in his cowardliness. The Lotus Eaters part is dropped and the journey goes straight to the Island of the Cyclops, where there is an out of place temple of Athena with a broken statue. Athena is given a larger role as well, appearing early in the epic and she gives Wishbone her Palladium (in case anyone didn't know, another name for Athena was Pallas), to which a hint will come when clicked on (three times, to be exact, but it's advised not to overuse it), and to tell Eurylocus to get his butt in gear at one point. 

    Great care to keep it child friendly is another thing in the game. The Cyclops, Polythemus, is made a little more comical and his eating of crewman made less graphic (though still done on the screen). The game is a choose-your-own adventure set up, and one path leads to trouble. In this case, chose to let the Cyclops nap after drinking some wine until he wakes up will lead to him eating everyone up, which is covered by a black out. By the same token, if the real name is given and the other cyclopses arrive, another black out is done to hide those neighbors crushing the Cyclops' tormentors. In the epic, Odysseus and his men make a spear and drive it into the Cyclops' eye, which is too violent for children. So, Wishbone puts a blue carpet over his head, which some how hurts the Cyclops' eye and renders him blind (yet the Cyclops never thinks of pulling the blanket off). This is just the beginning, of course. When on the Island of Circe's, Aeaea, we don't see Wishbone turned into a pig, if one doesn't get the right flower on. The same with Elphenor's death being done off camera, or the eating of crewmen by Scylla. When one chooses to let the men eat the cows, we are also spared of the butchering of the cattle, instead shown the bones and men clutching their full stomachs. Even in times when Wishbone is killed, it's done in a way to not scare the kids too much and even give a chance to revive him (but declining that chance ends the game). Remarkably, the setting of Hades is kept it's dark side with even the Palladium not working at one point (plus the scary noises to remind one what Tartarus is about).

   Other changes are less scary. Circe is shown to be somewhat seductive, yet helpful. I like Wishbone's reaction to her being a witch (if possible, I'd have a meme of Hermione Granger rolling her eyes at what he said). Then comes Tiresias, the Blind Prophet, who comes off as a gramps caricature in a tunic with a staff and Agamemnon is shown to be a bored spirit who turned his fame making war into a game (kind of like if President Grant decided to do the same with the Civil War). Even Calypso is shown to be depressed and pitiful, which makes her seem needy at one point. In a strange inversion to mythology, Agamemnon awards Wishbone with a coin after being defeated, which he should have given to Charon upon entering the Underworld. Telemachus doesn't do any traveling in the game. If anything, his and his mother's roles are the ones reduced in the game. Even Poseidon appears early in the journey, instead of late, which actually works as a plot point (I can't figure out why he waited years before confronting Odysseus about how his son, the Cyclops, was hurt). The god's anger at Odysseus becomes the plot point of the epic in the game and basically makes the odyssey possible. 

    Besides the characters, the plot line is changed so one can visit Calypso's island of Ogygia before the Island of Thrinachia, thus showing Scylla and Charybdis as the obstacle to bar the way, though they don't show the Island of Sirens at any point. That part makes good sense, when one thinks about it, as Calypso is meant to be a concealing entity and what better way to conceal than to have something dangerous between her and the outside world. However, this means that the crewmen have to live and be with Wishbone on the island, but none follow him into Calypso's cave, in fact no one goes anywhere with Wishbone after the Cyclops. At the same time, it provides Thrinachia as the turning point that decides the game because it merges two separate islands from the epic together. In the epic, Odysseus stops by Aeolus, master of the winds, and he gives him a bag with the four winds. However, the crew opened it before they reach home and they are blown off course. Later, when they reach Thrinachia, they come near to wade out for help, only for the crew to do wrong by eating Helios' sacred cattle, resulting in them being killed and only Odysseus left alive. Because Aeolus is not in the game, they decided to merge the two together where one could get the winds blowing the right way while dealing with the temptation of beef. I'm sure the Old Bard might know of this from the afterlife and thinking how he could have had it done the same way. Also absent are the Laestrygones, a group of giants who eat humans and destroyed Odysseus' fleet, as well as the Phaecians. The giants are kept out for the sake of keeping things child friendly, and to avoid making it redundant with the cyclopes. The Phaecians are excised to speed up the plot. Even the cameo of Menelaus and Helen are kept out for the same reason (and Helen was the reason for the Trojan War, ergo the reason for Odysseus to be away from home, in the first place). 

    Finally, there are characters and situations not in the epic. Using Circe's magic torch, you could navigate a forest and bring Wishbone up to Mount Olympus to actually talk to the gods, in an effort to get them convinced he is worthy of entering the tower. Odysseus never actually visited Mount Olympus in the epic. Athena and Zeus never had a moment of that convincing needed as they could see for themselves. Besides, regardless of how one goes through the dialogue choices, the doors will open (Zeus does say "I will open the way" at one point, a play on words). When Wishbone is killed, one gets to meet Pluto (not the dog, but the God of the Underworld), who should have been called Hades, yet is given the Roman name to match up to his status as the unmentionable, and to avoid confusion between him and his realm (Disney's Hercules came out later and actually used the Greek name). Either way, he is not in the Homeric epic, but there is a point in the epic where Odysseus prays to Persephone (who also never appears in the game). One god in the epic is not in the game, Hermes the messenger. In his place, Athena comes down to warn of Circe and suggest the Moly Plant. Athena is also called upon to convince Calypso to release Wishbone (removing the seven years of imprisonment to a few minutes). One last character who is not in The Odyssey is neither god nor man, but an animal. It's the Duck; a white one that was keyed in during the prologue and just hangs around for no purpose other than to quack when clicked on. That is, until near the end when getting a key to the storage pit requires the Duck's help, though getting the key from the Duck requires help from another duck (shown black like Daffy). Duck's sex is never said in the game, so Wishbone refers to the Duck as it, though the chasing off by another duck could imply it to be a female "harassed" by a male, or a male by a female, or what have you. Still, Wishbone says it best early in the game when he says, "I don't remember reading anything about a duck in The Odyssey." There is a dog in the epic, however, who never shows in the game. Odysseus' dog, Argos, who waited years for his masters' return only to die upon seeing him. The only reason for the exclusion is one, Wishbone is a dog and there wouldn't be room for two, and two, that part was tragic and wouldn't be suited for the finale.

     Besides the liberties with the settings and characters, the game comes with puzzles. To get Athena to help, you have to build her statue, and offer a sacrifice (yet one wonders why doesn't the statue count). Another puzzle is figuring out the flowers in Circe's garden, and how to get to them with the Big Bad Wolf in the way. Third is getting an alternative to cows to feed the men, as well as opening the tower. When shipwrecked on Calypso's island, you also have to repair the ship to sail (though I learned it could be used even without Calypso's sail). Finally, there's getting the bow to prove Wishbone is Odysseus. These puzzles, of course, exist to advance the plot. There are also games within the game. First, Circe challenges Wishbone to checkers, where the pieces are pigs. Next, Wishbone takes on Agamemnon in The Trojan War where to win one has to fill up Troy with blue pieces against the pink ones. Though you overwhelm the pink pieces by a large margin, they can jump the blue pieces like in checkers, while they can't be jumped by the blue. The final game is the shooting the arrow through the axes where the axes have to be aligned so the arrow hits the target. Lose in this one twice and you lose the entire game. Should Wishbone meet Pluto, he faces him in a snakes and ladders style game without the ladders, but with plenty of snakes, in order to be revived in the land of the living. Wishbone can collect coins and bypass them all on the River Styx. Losing in this game also ends the game, and this one is only accessed when Wishbone is killed. In the end, three of the four can be replayed after winning the game.

    When one has completed the game, Wishbone is sent back into reality and the player is awarded a plaque. On this one sees his rank from row man as the lowest to hero at the highest (all based on how many crewmen are killed, how many times Wishbone dies, and how often one sought Athena's advice). I got hero more times than any other ranking when I played this game, though getting the Hades game does make one lose the hero ranking for captain. From this point, the player has the option of starting all over again, or explore the library, which gets one introduced to Ancient Greece, its mythology, Homer, and many other things. In one place, you can watch clips of "Homer Sweet Homer" episode, or read Bulfinch's Mythologies, Wishbone's take on The Odyssey, and of course The Odyssey itself. During the game, you can come back for help whenever the menu slab on the bottom right corner side of the screen flashes a green light. One thing to date the image is the red phone that stands for America Online (AOL), which was a way to get on the internet from the game. Of course, that tied up the phone lines in those days. 

    Along with Bill Nye the Science Guy: Stop the Rock, Wishbone and the Amazing Odyssey was the right sort of game for kids in the 1990s and 2000s, being that it was educational and fun at once. It's a pity they haven't rereleased the game with an updated engine so it could work on Windows 10, or make it HD. It would be better than watching the game played on a video of YouTube, if you ask me, and wishing you could one thing different. Besides, a new generation of kids should be introduced to the little pup with a big imagination as well as Homer's epic, and this game is the way to it. 

Going Twenty: Godzilla

  How do you do, 

  Sometime in 1997, you flipped on the television and saw a skeleton of a T-Rex crushed by a giant foot. Later, it's New Year's and something big knocks down the ball and a voice calls 1998, "the year of Godzilla".

  That is the start of the marketing gimmick for Godzilla, which included all the commercializing tie ends for merchandising. Finally, on Memorial Day Weekend, Godzilla came stomping into theaters and then comes one of the infamous reveals in movie history, if not one of the most shocking let downs on one's expectations of the decade.

  Plenty of things have been said of this movie already, in blogs and videos. If I were to make a thorough analysis here, I'm gonna need a bigger blog. So, it's best to be brief. For one, this isn't the first Godzilla movie, not by a long shot.
  The history of Godzilla goes back to Japan in the 1950s, though the genesis of it is in Hiroshima in 1945. The Atomic bombings left a scar on Japan's psyche and the fears of a nuclear war became global as the US and the USSR underwent a nuclear arms race. The massive destruction, plus the incident with the fishing boat, led to Tomoyuki Tanaka to create the movie that went down in history. In 1954, via the Japanese film making company Toho Co., Ltd, he produced Gojira, introducing the world to the title character as an all destroying monster who is immune to anything the military has to offer. Godzilla lays waste to Tokyo in one scene that recreates Hiroshima. Eventually, a scientist with a weapon of mass destruction of his own decides to use it on the Big G and takes him with him. However, Godzilla wasn't out of the picture for long. From that, all through the fifties, sixties, seventies, and eighties, Godzilla appeared on the big screen in a series of movies, sometimes as the destroyer, sometimes as the hero. The scenes with Godzilla were always done with a man in a suit filmed on a sound stage (which inspired the mecha battles to the "Super Sentai" series, the inspiration to Power Rangers).
   The first time Godzilla was introduced to the States was in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, where like in Power Rangers has original footage of an American actor spliced up with Japanese footage and dubbing of extras. From there, Godzilla entered the American pop culture, including a 1970s cartoon where he is given a side kick, Godzookie, while foiling the bad guys. But, it wasn't really until the early 1990s that Hollywood got into work on making a movie to feature the Big G and Tri-Star got the rights from Toho. It was quite a project to make and it took years, and frequent changes to the creature and the story, before we got our finished project. Starring Matthew Broderick and directed by Robert Emmerich, the United States had a film adaptation of Godzilla, in a sort of remake of Gojira, though with many changes. The setting is moved to New York City (one might say, the Big G. has come to the Big Apple). They also decided to recreate Godzilla into a different monster for realism. This meant keeping him from standing erect, mostly, and having animal like movements. One thing Broderick's character, Nick Totopoulas, claims, "it's just an animal." One controversial thing that came out of this making Godzilla more realistic was the subtraction of his atomic breath, which the film makers sought to placate by having him send out gale force winds in a roar, sometimes blowing fire or causing objects to combust in the process, creating the illusion of the said attack. But that isn't the worst of it.

   I find the suspense in the early scenes a vital hook, especially since the original movie doesn't always show Godzilla. It's like with the film Them! where you see wreckage and shell shocked people, and hear strange sounds, early in but you don't see the ants right away. They don't show up until we are thirty minutes into the movie. Godzilla does the same, showing almost forty minutes into this one. One term used for this is basically "Jaws affect", named for the 1975 movie where due to mechanical failures of the shark they wound using it less than intended, leading much of the movie having scenes where you didn't see the shark, but you saw the fin and heard the music.
    The best moment in my opinion is when Godzilla enters New York. First his yanks on the fishing rod of an old man. Then comes into the fishing market by the dock and wreaks havoc in the streets. For the most part, we don't actually see all of Godzilla in these moments. Just bits of him, such as his feet. As Godzilla walks by, buildings take damage and cars fly, and some people seem to be killed. Now from here is where it begins to deviate (or things begin to go downhill, to some). In the 1954 version, Godzilla would destroy a few buildings and then head back to Tokyo Bay, saving the worst for later in the movie. Here, he stumps around, leaving a mess like a tornado, then "disappears". Logically, there is no way a creature that size could vanish. But he did. Turns out, they gave Godzilla the ability to burrow underground and he is under New York. Noting his taste for fish, Nick suggests they use it as bate to lure him out and it works, thus we finally see the Big G on screen.
    As you would expect, the military gets a little trigger happy and open fires while Godzilla is eating, and the communications are messed up. Godzilla does take the bullets and tank shells as though he were made of titanium, but he ducks as missiles come at him. Then he runs about the streets with helicopters in pursuit. One thing everyone has caught on is that it seems Godzilla is running away from the military and most of the damage is done by the helicopters (sometimes coming across where the US military is idiotic in the process). To me, it seems he is actually leading the helicopters into a trap, as evidenced by the way he defeats them. When they fire a building and think they got him, he comes out from behind them as though to say, "on the contrary, I got you!" The military tries again, but Godzilla doesn't fall for the same trick twice. Instead, he withdraws and ducks into the bay, allowing us to see underwater battles. The US Navy comes in with submarines that seem to get Godzilla with their torpedoes. However, Godzilla is revealed to be playing dead and appeared again. Before that happens, Godzilla spends about twenty minutes of screen time absent.
    A subplot is added to make Godzilla more menacing, though it seems to have backfired to some, which has him laying eggs that hatch out into little Godzillas. When we see the little monsters, they show that they are dangerous in that they can kill people for smelling like fish. Of course, they are vulnerable and are dispatched with. If there are other things to bring in, it's that the sequences with the babies seems too much like the velociraptor scenes in Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Once they are taken out, Godzilla returns and we get a climactic chase through the streets of New York (Matthew Broderick, by the way, is husband of Sarah Jessica Parker who was about to be made famous in Sex and the City, which aired in June of 1998, but I won't say the setting of New York in this movie and that show was anything other than a coincidence)
   The chase becomes confusing, with Godzilla cornering everyone in the Park Avenue tunnel and then attempt to swallow them. Then they dash onto the bridge with Godzilla right behind them. Now, most see the climatic scene and think that this Godzilla was brought down by conventional weapons (considering it took twelve missiles from fighter jets that could sink a ship to bring him down). However, I disagree. It wasn't the missiles that killed Godzilla. They did hurt, but not kill. Hearing how he was letting out painful roars when he got caught in the suspension cables suggestions the bridge was tearing something inside him. Then, he falls over in a final attempt to crush the car, which is enough to break a few bones and something else (like his windpipe). Noting how earlier in the chase that Godzilla slipped and fell at one point shows that it did hurt, adding evidence to it. That is logical since a creature Godzilla's size, if it was knocked over the way the Japanese version was by another monster, would have broken every bone in his body.

   There is plenty of things said about the movie and its depiction of Big G. It's a fact Toho was also displeased with the product that they (not the movie) took God out of Godzilla and renamed the creature as Zilla, or sometimes American Godzilla, and made a lot of pop shots at it. The term GINO has also been coined (meaning Godzilla In Name Only), which is something I never understood until I saw Avengers: Civil War and how it portrayed Spiderman. Back in 2014, Hollywood made another movie on Godzilla, only this time they made him resemble the Japanese counterpart and got rid of some of the taints from the 1998 movie. However, they also made Godzilla go from all destroyer to protector while having the Muto for the antagonist (might work better if this was a sequel instead of reboot, like with T2: Judgement Day).
    But, so much is said about how it treats Big G that we almost never bring up the humans. I could never tell if Nick is supposed to be the hero or a comic relief, because he switches between them frequently. I also don't need to mention that Emmerich has replayed the nerd trope in his other movies. In each, he has a nerd hero who is goofy and awkward, often given words that are ignored. But, at least in Independence Day and Star Gate, their nerds actually do something in the film's climax, while Nick finds the nest and tells the military to roast it, before going on a chase to avoid the Big G. His former fling, Audrey, is a single woman working in New York as a journalist yet is not taken seriously by her boss. It's the standard plot line where a working woman tries to be treated in a serious manner and it doesn't happen from the start, all because of her quirks, or because she's a woman. Audrey complains of it to her friends, who are the standard married couple filling in for female friend and gay guy trope, while showing double standard abuse in another scene. When Audrey sees Nick, she tries to win him over by stealing her bosses tag and sneaking into a secret tent to see him at work, then comes upon the video not seen by the public and uses it for a report. The last gets Nick booted off the team and Audrey loses her story to her sleazy boss, anyway, and it ruins her reconciliation with Nick. Then we have Philippe, a French agent. The French are added as a third country, which one could imply were put there to avoid guilt of nuclear testing. Of course, Philippe mentions how his country makes mistakes that are costly, which is something that speaks to anyone. The military is given characters, such as Sergeant O'Neal, though not fleshed out. Plus, there is Mayor Ebert and his aid, Gene, who are obviously parodies of the film critic dual, Siskell and Ebert. I always find the mayor annoying. He shows no care for his people or the servicemen who die trying to kill Godzilla and makes a fuss about some building destroyed by the military.
    Though we can learn from Godzilla how media hype is not what it's cracked up to be, the human characters will always be secondary to Big G, and even if you don't see this monster as the actual Godzilla, even saying this movie was wrongly titled, I do believe this movie can be comparable to many anti-nuke films of the past. Though parts of the film seem like rip offs of movies not related to Godzilla, the movie as a whole has aged well. The special effects are much better looking than some of things used in the 2014 movie (though the babies do seem fake) and the tension is really high when necessary. Will conclude that there is a good move in reducing Big G in this movie some. If Godzilla had his speed like in the movie coupled with his indestructible skin and atomic breath, imagine how great trouble it would be for the humans in the movie. 

Going Twenty: The Parent Trap

   How do you do,

   As you can tell, if you are in the Northern Hemisphere, it's spring! Time to open up the house to let in some air, refresh the interior air, do some spring cleaning, pack up the winter gear and bring out the summer clothes, and be mindful of pollen and severe weather (currently, it's peak tornado season). But, some good things do come with spring and if you have had twenty of those you would already know that by now. 

   Now that we have gone through Lent, feasted in the Passover, and hunted eggs in Easter (unless some of y'all either don't do all that or are just not Christian), we now enter another movie turning 20. 

   As a boy, I grew up watching the original The Parent Trap with Haley Mills, Maureen O'Hara, and Brian Kieth. The movie was historical for the period, showing one a glimpse of life in the 1960s. Feminists would delight that the original had female leads who are more than just eye candy (Mills was going through puberty then), but are very active in the plot line. Besides, this movie was made as the Second Wave Feminism was kicking off. At the same time, it's a family oriented movie full of humor and romance that can stick to you. It also shows that Walt Disney was not all about animated movies, but he did live action movies as well and most of them are just as good as the animated ones. So, you can imagine the surprise some of us had when Disney Pictures decided to create a remake of The Parent Trap with Lindsay Lohan. Expectations on it were high.
    The plot line is the same. Two girls who are identical meet in summer camp and it turns out they are twin sisters. Then they learn their parents divorced long ago and they hatch up a plan to bring them back together by switching places. The plan carries out with one meeting her mother and the other meeting her father, who is engaged to marry another woman. So, that puts a wrench in their plans and it brings the mother to the father's location and the trio prevent the remarriage and reunite as a family.
    Sounds the same, looks the same. There are some differences between the remake and the original, however. For starters, a prologue on the parents, played by Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson, is shown in a romantic meeting on a cruise. The scene does present a problem as it works out too well and brings investment to the characters that makes one question how they divorced. Unlike the original where no such prologue occurs. It's instead just dived in where it gradually gets revealed how the original couple (O'Hara and Kieth) divorced due to their constant fighting. At least it worked well for the 1960s. In the new version, it's never really explained why they divorced, other than going their different ways upon the birth of Annie and Hallie.
    Little is done, of course, in the original with Susan and Sharon, other than make one a tom boy and the other a Bostonian, yet Sharon is shown to get goosebumps when she feels something is about to happen. With Annie and Hallie, hardly much is done but we do see that they have the same tastes in food, which makes their discovery of being twins more predictable. While Susan and Sharon came from opposite ends of the United States, Annie and Hallie have the Atlantic Ocean to separate them. I have no comment on the idea of making one grow up in the UK while the other grew up in the US, whatsoever.
   As if a strange connection to the original, the fiancee of the father figure is the daughter of a woman named Vicky, who is played by the same actress as Vicky in the original. It seems a strange coincidence, though it may have been intentional. We also see the grandfather ask the same question as in the original. This is definitely intentional. Intentional references to the original seem to be a thing with remakes. If you were to watch the silent film The Ten Commandments along side the 1956 version, you would see elements shared in the two movies when it came to the Exodus moments. The difference while they both feature the story of Moses, they had different topics in mind. The two versions of The Parent Trap don't seem to have different topics; only different settings and characters. Now, if we look into Vicky in the original and see her as the mother to Meredith, we would have to consider this a case of history repeating itself. Now, it would have tried to have it in the remake for the mother to be engaged and the father try to win her back, but then there wouldn't be very primal. It would instead be something seen in Sweet Home Alabama. Not only that, the original at least ended with divorced couple reconciled and getting married again (as shown in Susan's dream). The remake even adds the cliched climax where Hallie and her father meet up with her sister and mother at the airport and they all decide to be a family again.
    I would think the different endings have more to do with the films of the period. I don't know much about Quad and Richardson, but I do know that O'Hara and Keith starred together in McClintock! with John Wayne. In McClintock!, O'Hara and John Wayne play a divorced couple who are brought together by their daughter, who also went east with her mother. The set up with McClintock! and The Parent Trap are similar in that stage, minus the twins plot, especially with O'Hara having to deal with a man who is bad at communicating with her while her own stubbornness gets in the way. In both movies, things come to blow quite literally, but with different results. One thing I noted in the original is how Brian Keith tries to be like John Wayne in mannerisms and even try to resemble him in the movie, though he doesn't get it all there. Towards the end, Keith doesn't resort to comedy induced abuse the way John Wayne has in his pairings with O'Hara, resulting in their reconciling in the end over dinner, which, dare I say, Keith winds up doing what Wayne has failed to do in all five of the movies he was with O'Hara: tame her? As I said, I don't know much about Quad and Richardson. The first has his own character that wouldn't be defined until the 2000s as that concerned father figure while Richardson seems like a Meg Ryan wanna be.
    As to Lindsay Lohan, she doesn't try to outdo Haley Mills in this version. I mean, Haley Mills came all the way from England to delight us as Pollyanna and then as Susan and Sharon. Though she tries real hard to hide it, her British accent does show through when playing her characters (it can seem strange to one who is suppose to be from California, though). Lohan is all American, yet she plays one girl raised in England and she attempts to create a British accent. Lohan's wide eyed innocence does give her one edge over Haley Mills' sophistication however. Not only that, it is refreshing to see what Lohan use to look before she grew up. Now, if you are wondering why they didn't get actual twins for the roles, I have no idea. I don't have any thoughts on why Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, the most famous set of twins of the 1990s, weren't cast in this movie, other than maybe the pay rates they demanded or they weren't old enough. I don't really know.

    The Parent Trap might not make expectations to some, but it is worth while to see how things can be repeated. An added plus is how they can make two Lohans on screen without the problems that can happened in the past, thanks to computer technology. Now, if there is a third The Parent Trap coming the technology will be even better, unless they decide to use actual twins. Also, the twins in the next round don't have to be girls. You could have two boys meet in camp and realize they are brothers and see where that will lead, for anything original.
    Speaking of remakes, stay tuned for May as one is stumping to this blog!  

Going Twenty: The Prince of Egypt

   How do you do, 

   I was going to let this one wait until later, but with Easter coming, best move it to March. The Prince of Egypt was the animated retelling of the story of Moses form the Book of Exodus. Though Moses is tied forever to Israel, seen as a revered figure in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the movie does remind us that he was first born in Egypt and spent time in the courts of the Pharaoh, until he killed an Egyptian and was forced to flee. He later came back, after living in exile as a shepherd and hearing the Voice of God in the burning bush, to lead the Hebrews to freedom. Egyptian sources on Moses are dubious, given the Egyptian habit of not recording defeats properly as well as the fact most of what we know of Egypt wasn't disseminated until the 19th Century. The only primary source we have left in the time frame of Moses' time period to show of the man is in four of the five books in the Bible and there are people who believe they were written centuries after Moses' death. Historians came a thousand years later, such as Philo of Alexandria and Josephus. Modern historians now debate on rather or not Moses actually existed, even want to see him as legendary[1], while other people still believe he did exist. This fascination with Moses has increased with Egyptology leading of course to the movies of the man, with The Ten Commandments being the top among them where Charleton Heston plays Moses. The last is a tough act to follow and even the recent Exodus: Gods and Kings hasn't really done it proper justice. 

   That didn't stop Dreamworks from playing their hand with their own animated retelling. Val Kilmer voices Moses, pre-Harry Potter Ralph Fiennes plays Ramases, Michelle Pfeiffer is Moses' wife, Sandra Bullock is Mariam, Jeff Goldblum is Aaron, Steve Martin and Martin Short play Egyptian priests, and Sir Patrick Stewart voices the Pharaoh. With such a cast, it's no wonder the Nostalgia Critic was willing to pit this against The Ten Commandments in his reviews. 

    The heart of The Prince of Egypt is the tale of two brothers who grow up best of friends until time comes for their destiny. Moses and Ramases are portrayed as two best of friends who are raised as brothers in the court of Pharaoh Seti. They are shown doing a chariot race that leaves the city a mess and we get a picture of how being prince wasn't all fun in the sun (literally as well as figuratively). Pharaoh chastises them both, but on Ramases' head does he put most of the scolding in an overbearing matter that makes him harsh. This has a traumatic result where Ramases later believes that he will not be "the weak link" by letting the Israelites go. There is a good shot in his first confrontation where when he talks, we see the heads of a Pharaoh icon and the Sphinx, which practically tells you his words are not his own but those from previous Pharaohs. Ramases has now become his own father.
    Moses also has a transformation. At the start, he is something of a manchild who gets Ramases into trouble in a few times, but does try to fix things. Then, one day, he encounters his brother and sister who know him, and the path of his goes down from there. He finds out he wasn't Egyptian as previously thought and the man he knew as a father was responsible for the deaths of his kin. This sends Moses into a spiraling path that ends with him killing an Egyptian and fleeing into the desert. I am some what more in favor of The Ten Commandments' interpretation, though Exodus makes the killing of the Egyptian a case of Moses committing murder for his kin, then attempting to cover it up. Yet, by having Moses discovering the truth of his heritage and having an identity crises that ends in murder is a good enough plot line, even if it's in a movie geared to children.
    Moses then meets the Daughters of Jethro, one of whom came to the Egyptian court and was made fun of by Moses. Zipporah basically is given this plot line as a way to appeal to modern audiences because the woman who became Moses' wife hardly does much in Exodus, but The Ten Commandments made her a strong woman who catches Moses' eye. Here, we see more development of the two not being in love at first but gradually becoming the couple we know of. Of course, this ends because the film is about the Exodus and not a love story (which explains the lack of someone like Nefertiri in this movie).
    Moses meets God in form of the burning bush in a scene that features him touching the fire and not getting burned, practically a case of an animated movie having someone literally touching God. The Voice of God even sounds warm and friendly (getting loud only on one occasion) and something akin to an audio recording sounds to show He has heard the cries of the Hebrews. He appoints Moses to return to Egypt and speak with the Pharaoh. By this point, Seti has died and Ramases is in charge.
    When Moses turns his staff into a snake, we are treated to a musical number by the two priests that gives an introduction to Egyptian gods. They start with Ra, the Sun God and Chief of the Gods, and go through a couple of them. One thing I noted is the song doesn't include Osiris, Isis, Thoth, or Amun (patron god of the throne city of Thebes, where the throne scenes supposedly take place in, unless it's all in Pi-Rameses), while not including the gods that were added to through Syrian conquests and Greek rule. Will add that they list out the names of the gods as though they were reciting some kind of spell (making the priests as magicians). Basically, the movie attempts to take a view into Egyptian religion while showing that the magic the two priests make is all illusion. In the "Playing With the Big Boys" scene, they have servants dim the lights and do alot of special effects to hide their changing rods into snakes, while Moses' transformed without magic or effects, but in front of everyone (if someone who believes there is an explanation stood in that room, he could explain how it was that when Moses had Aaron place the staff down, without reciting any prayer or chant, and with no means of concealing in such a crowded room, that the staff began to move and become a snake?) When the Nile turns red, they imitate the miracle with red dust from a pocket. Of course, the magicians cannot compete with the Lord as they have no way to imitate the later plagues (by the way, if you are wondering if Allah is on the list, the answer is no because this was before Islam came to Egypt and most Muslims would tell you Allah was in form of the snake standing beside Moses, facing off the ancient gods).
    According to this little document[2] and the webpage "Yahweh Versus the Gods of Egypt"[3] it is interpreted that the Ten Plagues in Exodus were basically an attack on the Egyptian gods and the last one against the Pharaoh himself. There is some disagreement to this, as Peter Horne argues[4]. The movie seems to be in the school of thought the two pages have. In the movie, the Pharaoh is referred to as "the morning and evening star", which goes near to Revelations' "I am the Alpha and the Omega"[5]. We do know that the morning and evening star are actually the same planet: Venus. However, in the time period of the movie, it wasn't known that way. What is used is that Venus is the brightest object in the sky, after the sun and the moon, whereas the Pharaoh is ruler of the Egyptians, yet is a mortal ruler compared to the gods.Yet, the plagues come and hurt Ramases greatly, as his people and his kingdom suffer for his stubbornness. When he sees his son, he attempts to appear strong by announcing another massacre of the Hebrew young, prompting the final plague to come and take away his own son.
    The final plague shows the end of Moses and Ramases as friends. The ruler has lost his son to the plague, which is the most heart breaking thing for any parent. At least, he orders Moses and the Hebrews to leave Egypt. Their departure is accompanied by the show stopping "When You Believe" and we even get to see the Crossing of the Red Sea where Moses and Ramases must make their show down. Moses and the Hebrews make it to the other side while the Egyptians are defeated. If there is one disappointment in the story line it's that it cuts off right as Moses comes down from Mount Sinai with the tablets of the commandments. It's epic, but it should tie in to the whole prince motif if the Ten Commandments were given a scene and Moses brings them to the crowds to show.

    The animation is great, with the voice acting better. I find how respectful to religion the movie gets, never making a mockery of any belief, either the Jewish faith or the Egyptian (though the latter is always shown as fake). The human development is the heart and soul of The Prince of Egypt. I do find that it's presented as a tragedy. Here, we see two best friends, raised as brothers, who become enemies by the end of the story. It's like with The Fox and the Hound, without the latter's ending. Touching scene appears after Plague Nine where Rameses and Moses talk in a temple and remember the old days, with Pharaoh wishing things could go back to the way they were. This scene is one of many that makes Pharaoh Ramases a tragic figure and Moses a character seeking out who he really was. When the latter finds his destiny, it drives him against Ramases who is pressured by his upbringing and tradition to opposing Moses. In short, The Prince of Egypt is a tragedy in the very sense of the word.The two are never going to reconcile.
    With that, we end by saying the legacy of The Prince of Egypt is long reaching with the sort of prequel, Joseph: King of Dreams, in 2000. May not be as good as The Ten Commandments in my book, but it is a good movie when introducing people to the Story of Moses and the Book of Exodus. You could even watch this movie while you celebrate the Passover and Easter.    
    As they say in each Seder Meal, "Next year in Jerusalem!"

    Reference:

[1] Brown, Andrew. "Man versus myth: does it matter if the Moses story is based on fact." The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/nov/30/moses-man-versus-myth-ridley-scott. (Nov. 29, 2014.)
[2] Dobelman, "Ten Plagues for Ten Egyptian Gods and Goddesses."  http://www.stat.rice.edu/~dobelman/Dinotech/10_Eqyptian_gods_10_Plagues.pdf (retrieved 2018)
[3] Baugher, Charles. "Yahweh Versus the Gods of Egypt." Knowing the Bible. https://www.knowingthebible.net/yahweh-versus-the-gods-of-egypt (2007) updated 2018.
[4] Horne, Peter. "Did the Plagues God Sent on Egypt Target Egyptian Gods?"  https://fakegesis.wordpress.com/2015/02/27/did-the-plagues-god-sent-on-egypt-target-egyptian-gods/. (2015)
[5] Revelations of St. John. 22:13.

Going Twenty: The Wedding Singer.

  How do you do, 

  The Wedding Singer was the movie that starred Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore and it deals with the two witnessing weddings and falling for each other as they plan their own. In short, it's a run of the mill rom-com. In fact, if you look carefully, you might note Robbie and Julia's initials match with that of Romeo and Juliet, though it does seem a remarkable coincidence. It has Adam Sandler doing his normal cynical, wincing shtick in the movie, yet showing a vulnerable side to him, while Drew Barrymore, the little girl who appeared in E.T. The Extraterrestrial, now grown up into a lovely actress, is the center of attention for everyone from two timing sweethearts to perverts. They are with a bunch of unknowns, mostly.
   Much of the plot is basically the two who are engaged to another person and are dealing with the fact their intendeds are not what they thought they were while they wrestle with their feelings. For example, Robbie is getting married at the start, only for his bride to run out on him. Why did she run out? Because she doesn't want to be tied down to a man who lives in his sister's basement and is payed meatballs for music lessons, plus shows no interest in seeing the world. This practically reminds one of An Officer and a Gentleman where a cadet drops out of the academy to marry a girl, only for her to reject him that he is planning to be a civilian and not a Naval aviator. Julia is also engaged, but her fiance is as slow as molasses in setting up a date. When he does, he then disappears and is revealed to be having a girlfriend on the side.
    The latter gets most of the screen time. In fact, the movie is all about Julia finding out her fiance is not what she thought he was when the cheating factor is added. However, like most Hollywood movies it leaves out one item: Julia is technically seeing another man behind her fiance's back, which the movie shows is a good thing. Cheating on someone is wrong, it doesn't matter if the other person is cheating too. It's the double standard done with Titanic, but it does a few things differently. With Cal and Rose, we see a spoiled rich guy who is very abusive with Rose, a coward who flees from death when the ship is sinking and lets others die for him, and is willing to shoot at his own fiancee. Julia's fiance is not as wicked as Rose's in that sense and one could feel for them still. However, because he is cheating on her and not intending to reform it puts him into the same spot as standard bad fiance trope. In the meantime, Julia is given a free pass to be with Robbie, despite the fact that they don't express their feelings openingly. One example, when someone thinks of them as a couple they deny it and claim to be siblings. Even when they are strained, Julia can't say her soon to be husband's name without getting upset and gets all flustered at saying Robbie's (which makes Robbie think she is moving on).

   One thing that bothers me in The Wedding Singer is the disrespect for its leading lady. Case in point, when Julia is invited by Robbie to dance with one of the boys in the Bar Mitzvah party, we see an old man say something perverted and he high fives with a young boy next to him. I will say that no matter how senile they got, an old man like that never said that or high fived a boy after saying it like he did in the movie where I was from in 1998; it sets a bad example for the children. Even the boy she dances with can't resist the urge to give her a squeeze in the bottom, though Julia laughs it off since he is just a child (a grown up man in the same position would have gotten slapped in the face). Of course, this form of harassment is presented as a joke, if not shown a loophole that children can get away with things (yet this is a party that celebrates a boy becoming a man where such a loophole no longer exists). Julia even kisses the kid at the end. Practically going on the line of "boys will be boys", itself a form a enabling sexism. If you really want this kind of treatment to end, the teaching doesn't happen when he is eighteen or twenty-one. It should be done as soon as possible, like when he is entering Kindergarten. Until they put etiquette into the curriculum for five year olds, it looks like the only people who can teach the boy how to treat the ladies are his parents. Not only that, but the movie tries to deflect the whole thing by having Robbie take a girl for a partner and make her do the same to him (feminists out there are creeped out by some Mederma commercial, which tells me they would find a grown man putting a prepubescent girl's hands on his butt to be just as heinous). An elderly couple is also shown doing that to each other, just as the gay couple in the movie, primarily to make one dismiss as consensual (which is a good enough point. There are certain privileges to one's body you could give to your spouse or partner that no stranger or friend would ever get, like exploring your private parts). Then it becomes unnoticeable because everyone is doing, which is the wrong message to send. It brings up that old question, if so and so jumped off a bridge would you?
   That is not the only one. Earlier in the film, someone slaps Julia on her butt while she is carrying dishes away. Though it does show the man being creepy, it mostly stereotypes the man as just another guy who is many years older without taking into consideration that men her age or younger can also harass people. At least, it's noticeable by many, including Mr. Cieply, that harassment is not good natured, especially such gropes as shown. In the previous scene, he states "It seemed innocent enough in 1998; but 19 years later, the sequence is bristling with sexual and even legal issues. Is the bar mitzvah boy guilty of abuse, and destined, at a minimum, for some stern counseling lest he wind up in a Title IX  proceeding at his future college? Or is Julia in trouble for encouraging sexual contact with a minor – something that could bring a criminal charge if someone chose to pursue it"[1].
    Like most rom-coms, The Wedding Singer is caked by cliches. Boy meets girl, girl is with a boring guy already, boy and girl see each other and fall for each other, there is a conflict, then the last minute chase to something to spill out their feelings. At least, sex is not put in. There is also the old woman who is celebrating her anniversary with her husband and she is singing then, while taking lessons from Robbie. Of course, they paint her as a horny older woman on par with The Producers' Little Old Ladies. These all can detract from the positive parts of the movie, though.

  The Wedding Singer has a bit of 1980s nostalgia about it. The men sport those curled perms, we see a DeLorean car, there are the 1980s bands on MTV and so on. In fact, The Wedding Singer foreshadows this 1980s nostalgia feeling that is currently being felt with the show The Goldbergs. Content wise, it's secular, not even going into too much detail in the Bar Mitzvah scene and Julia's fiance is planning to get married in Vegas, possibly in some secular chapel. For the LGBT people, The Wedding Singer seems progressive for its time: there's a same-sex couple consisting of men who are shown to be a functioning couple, and they even help with Robbie when he is jilted at the altar. Robbie also has a transgender named George in the band (might have come out as a joke in 1998 of a woman named George, but now it's become more of "ahead of its time" to most modern eyes) who is played by a transgender actress, the late Alexis Arquette. Of course, George is mostly a background piece to exist as avatar for the transgender audience, yet doesn't really contribute to the plot on a large scale (but then again, why do that when they can just show up? That seems to be the mindset of many recent hits where they stuff as many minority representations only to not develop the characters or make a contribution to the plot). I am sure that it would be surprising to many, just like looking over older movies and finding one with a black hero or an independent woman in a time when the Civil Rights Era was new or Second Wave Feminism was yet to happen. But, it does show that nothing is new under the sun.
    If there is a legacy with The Wedding Singer, it shows mostly how Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore have excellent chemistry, which explains why they are paired again in 50 First Dates.

Notes. 

^1. Cieply, Michael, "Lessons From the Wedding Singer:" Deadline Hollywood. (2017).

Sources.

Cieply, Michael, "Lessons From the Wedding Singer:" Deadline Hollywood.  http://deadline.com/2017/11/lessons-from-wedding-singer-on-screen-gropes-are-past-1202206684/ (2017).

Going Twenty: Great Expectations

   How do you do, 

  I have a friend in college who is turning 20 this year. I also remembered that Dawson's Creek and That 70's Show also turn twenty. Given that 1998 was quite a good year for classic movies (even if it wasn't exactly the best of years), I figured it'd be interesting to have a series of reviews on the movies that are turning twenty. They won't be in the Review and Commentary sort, but be a brief analysis to the film or some thoughts concerning it. They will be posted once on each month, so it will all be covered within a year.

   For January, we start with Great Expectations. Starring Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow, along with an all star cast that includes Chris Cooper, Robert DeNiro, Anne Bancroft, and Hank Azaria, Great Expectations is based on Charles Dickens' book of the same name. First published in 1861, Great Expectations is a Gothic novel in robes of Bildungsroman. In the Dickens novel, we meet the boy Pip who helps an escaped convict allude the law, stealing things from his sister and her husband in the process (his sister was older and became his guardian on the deaths of their parents, while marrying a blacksmith named Joe), and gets rewarded for it with training as a gentleman by Miss Havisham, a reclusive woman who was jilted at the altar and raising the cold, yet beautiful Estella as a man hater. Pip grows up and becomes a gentleman, which was basically a man of means in the time period, and seeks the hand of Estella, who has become a woman, but when he finds out his patron was the convict he helped escape -- well, things turn out not to be expected in the end. Though not one of the most recognized works of Charles Dickens, yet not one of the lesser known ones either, Great Expectations is the quintessential tale of social mobility in a way that Horatio Algar wrote about in the States, though not in the same opportunistic tone as the latter. Instead, Pip is tied up by the expectations around him. As a boy, he is expected to be dutiful and respectful of adults; as a youth, he is expected to be a gentleman; to women like Miss Havisham and Estella, he is expected to be the wrong guy when it comes to love, or rather wrong for any woman because he is a man, and so on. On top of that, when one has a patron who makes it possible to rise above a station the expectation is that the patron to be a person of moral character, not a man on the run from the law. It has inspired many film adaptations, most well known by David Lean in 1946.

  This movie is an updated retelling of David Lean's film from the 1940s, which is based on Charles Dicken's masterpiece novel, only it moves the setting from Early Victorian England to Modern Day New York. This transitional overhaul not only means the change in the setting, but some of the characters are renamed. For example, Pip becomes Finn and Miss Havisham becomes Nora Dismoor. Abel Magwitch, the man whom Pip rescued, is changed from an escaped convict from Australia to a mobster on the run, who even takes Pip with him to Mexico at one point. Even the mansion of Miss Havisham is replaced by Florida based "Paradiso Perduto" (literally, "paradise lost") and it looks more like a place you'd want to spend time instead of the dark and decrepit building seen in the book.

   Even if the characters are not renamed, there are some suspension of disbelief needed. Best case in point is Estella, whom the book has to be a combination of Alice from Alice In Wonderland and Wednesday Adams from The Adams Family. When she grows up, she might not be much to look at, but beauty is to the eye of the beholder. That seems to be something the movie doesn't get. So, we are to expect the beautiful Gwyneth Paltrow to be the cold Estella in this instance. For the most part, Paltrow makes her to be a sex goddess who teases her men, yet provides no sense in relief with sex. It's something some feminist would complain that the movie basically objectifies her, as if she exists only to please a man and not providing anything other than teases is a form of being cold. At the same time, there is Chris Cooper who seems cast against type as Joe. He does handle the scene of coming to the party remarkably well. Anne Bancroft may seem to try to shake off her Mrs. Robinson image, but it fails in her character being somewhat young. Hank Azaria being a rival interest for Finn works in my opinion, though some of you might disagree.
   So, the movie has many actors miscast. However, the novel's story line is strangely intact. Finn is still trained to be a gentleman while having Estella allude him upon adulthood. Finn does have a crush on her, seeing any other man near her as a rival. Yet, the plotline of Pip attempting to enter the gentry is replaced now by Finn becoming an artist. He makes pictures, including some of Estella, and he becomes popular with them. When he finds out his benefactor was the criminal he helped, he decides to study art in Paris. The connection in the novel where it turns out Abel Magwitch is the father of Estella is not in the movie, which now makes any connection between Finn and Estella to be something of a coincidence. Charles Dickens resolved the Pip-Estella love story with Estella becoming a widow and then remarrying, but not to Pip. Editors and fans actually wrote to Dickens about that and a revised ending was written instead. However, it's still left in the air if they wind up together. In the movie, Estella marries Walter and then divorces. The movie hints at Estella and Finn reconciling as they hold hands, like in the book.

   There are other strikes against Great Expectations for this updating. The modern setting is one thing, but the movie tries too hard on it. In fact, much of it is an homage to Titanic, obviously with Finn making a nude sketch of Estella in one scene, then making love to her after taking her from her fiance. At least, when Kate Winslet poses nude for her sketch, there was a meaning behind it: her character is throwing away what could amount to be an abusive marriage to a fuss budget of a tycoon heir for a fling with a penniless artist, her main act of defiance being in hanging out with him more and posing nude to explore her inner self (using the necklace her fiance gave her as a way to hurt him) before deciding to get off with her new boyfriend. Plus, that sketch had to happen because it is the clue to the said necklace in the prologue and without which the narrative would be impossible (unless the plot twist was the seeker was her grandson looking over her legacy). In Paltrow's case, I can't think of anything to the pictures other than something for the male gaze, and it's done in a teasing manner since she is never completely naked on screen. She does tease her artist on that, also, implying it's just another attempt to lead Finn on. Then, to sort of mock what Titanic had, she smokes while posing, moves around a lot, and the pictures don't even look as impressive. That and the acting does get a little wooden on a few occasions.
   Great Expectations might not be remembered well twenty years later, and its being in put into modern period causes the film to be dated (whereas the Victorian setting is timeless), it is a nice enough interpretation on how a classic might work if it was outside of its times. There we start with "Going Twenty". Tune in late in February for the next entry.

Joyeux Noel: Review and Commentary.

  How do you do, 

  Merry Christmas to the readers where ever they may be. In this festive season of the year, I am willing to do what was overdue back in 2014 and look into the movie about the Christmas Truce. Joyeux Noel is the film, which is French for "Merry Christmas", released in 2005. As the title suggests, the movie is foreign to Americans. It's a French film, mostly, directed by a Frenchman, Christian Carion, and starring French actors supported by British and German stars that most Americans have never heard of (those of us in the States are familiar with Diane Krueger from Troy and few others). It is sad I will say that we are now a century since the United States entered the war and there is no apparent similar one to happen between the German Army and the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) as far as I could find. I will say that it provides an interesting story. 

  The movie condenses the whole truce, which happened in isolated or sporadic locations along the Western Front into a fictional account without any actual officers or enlisted men involved, though the German Crown Prince appears in two scenes. It's something to remind me of the way The Battle of the Bulge (1965) did where the entire battle along the Ardennes is reduced to a small, limited action in one place (and climaxes, strangely, in a barren desert with low rolling hills) while fictional characters meet without ever involving Generals Eisenhower, Patton, Peiper, or van Rundstedt. In a way, the action makes it more allegorical and allows each nation to be represented. 

   The movie opens with images of tranquil scenes from the Edwardian period, sort of giving the modern viewer a snap shot of a world long forgotten. This is later replaced by a school room setting where a lone boy recites a poem to empty desks, sort of implying they are the voice of the nation they represent (France, Great Britain, and Germany, in that order). The French child gives a speech that is very poetic, yet subtly xenophobic, as it talks of the people calling for relief in Alsaac, the place France lost in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The British boy is more blunt and sounds like someone calling for genocide. The German lad is more defensive and puts blame on England as the natural enemy. The innocent voices of the boys reciting this war like poem is indeed tragic and has to be heard to be believed. Then we see the war begin. 

    One thing I note on how things are tied up in book ends in the movie is illustrated by how the main characters are in a setting. For example, the Anglican priest, Father Palmer, is introduced in a church with one of the two boys who knows and he is lighting candles that go out as the door they depart from is opened. He is then left looking at the candles that are now smoking and ponders on how the two could just run off into war. At the end of the movie, he hears a sermon by his bishop that ultimately makes him lose his faith, thus the candles become the symbol of it. In both his first and last scene, he is near a temple of worship and is puzzled by the conflicting nature of war and Christianity. When he tries to be the peace keeper in the situation, his superior makes him out to be unfit for leadership in spiritual matters. Rather or not Father Palmer would be able to keep up his stretcher duties as an unofficial priest is open to interpretation. Then there is the couple of opera stars, Sprink and Anna, who first appear on stage in what looks like a Wagner show. They are playing lovers who are apparently doomed by forbidden love and Anna is shown singing the "Ave Maria", which may make the opera be a Schubert one. Gradually, the movie has it where they are always separated by outside circumstances in real life as Sprink is called to active duty and is sent to the front. Eventually, Anna goes there and convinces the generals to let them sing a duet at the Crown Prince's party. From that point, she goes to the front and they sing to the troops. When the officer in charge finds out of their sneaking away, he tells Sprink he'll be arrested and sent away while Anna will be brought back to Berlin. Instead of letting that happen, they desert to the French who escort them to the rear. Where next is anyone's guess but I would like to think of them fleeing to the US as it was still neutral (until 1917) or they found their way to Denmark. Then there's Lieutenant Audebert starting out by arguing with his father, a major general, about being with his men. He departs from the story in the same manner. He would rather be with his men than take up being an artillery officer where he would be safer.
    If there is one thing I catch from all this is that the movie contains alot of anti-authority themes in each plot thread. Audebert has his father to deal with. Then there is Sprink who is disillusioned from war. At the start, he walks the halls as the center of attention (he is the star of the opera, after all). He likes the attention and his willingness to sing for everyone puts him in a situation that should have gotten him killed in normal circumstances. Then he calls out his superior officer for being willing to return to business as usual after the truce and the fraternization. His officer, Lieutenant Horstmayer, deals with his own when meeting the Crown Prince near the end. The Crown Prince, who somehow is given command near Lens, even though he was actually in the Verdun sector, is shown as boorish, arrogant, vain, and pushy. He stumps out the harmonica of one soldier as part of their punishment in the box car, which he states they will never see their families as they are sent to the Eastern Front, and he sneers at the lieutenant's Iron Cross medal, "They give that to just about anyone." Since the character revealed to be Jewish, it would seem a casual Anti-Semitic remark, but in reality it's that the medal, used for acts of bravery, is worn by what he perceives to be a coward. A British major in command of the Highlanders is seen as the mean officer that no one likes, but can't do anything of it because of ranks. He never stays for the truce, only shows up after, never leads in battle, and chews out everyone in his line of vision. So, the best thing done is Father Palmer escorting the man out of the trench in his "short cut", similar to how General Weberly of White Christmas doing to his replacement, which turns out to be a hike through the latrine. A soldier fires in the air and makes them drop, getting the major covered in human waste. It's meant for laughs and the British lieutenant permits a little laugh for a while. Palmer gets his with the Bishop, thus bringing in the religious authority's authority into the mix.
    The authority figures here are in the rear, mostly, and dictate how the war is to be fought and one. Neither will end until the other is defeated (the Bishop even says they must kill every German, lest their sons would have to do so again). Meanwhile, the protagonists are the grunts of the armies and their respected lower officers who are sent to do all the dirty work. In this period, most of the men had never been out of their country and the idea of multiculturalism was almost none existing at the time. So, it accurately shows the way the two sides greet and gradually warm up to each other. Even an atheist in the German Army tries to bring up the one Scotsman who mourns his brother for champagne while everyone else is attending a service. Needless to say, the man turns it down. Two soldiers encounter a cat who goes between them and they give the cat different names, which reminds one of battles having different names, or regions. As to the officers, they communicate in English, mostly, and talk of visiting places. Horstmayer had visited Paris, once, and he and Audebert even plan to meet again after the war. Then there is the shot of a soccer match held, which from accounts did happen. The Saxon regiment took on an opposing army, and plenty more where the games were held within their own. One could imagine several of the British Tommies cheering one team over another in the process, if he would like, though I can't find anything that would support that.
    When the every-men of the group had met each other and learned how they are alike, it certainly made them question the war. One French letter suggested that Poincare take Lorraine himself. So, the authority figures crack down. The French are removed to the Verdun sector where they would later be fighting in one of the greatest battles of that war. If they came out of Verdun as heroes, all sins of the Truce washed away, I am sure Audebert and his men would later take part in the 1917 Mutinies as well. The Highlanders are disbanded and scattered while replacements take over. The Germans are sent to the east with replacements brought in. This prevents future fraternizing. So, the movie ends on a bitter note that the authorities have won by moving the little guy away from his new friends. Yet, with the way the Germans are heard singing "I'm Dreaming of Home", introduced to them by the Scots, it does present a kind of hopeful message that the underlings are not completely defeated (ironic, since Germany is defeated at the end of the First World War, but the British and the French are also destroyed in another way. One shot shows Audebert standing alone on the front where there is nothing but ruins, snow, shell holes, and graves, while his orderly, Ponchel, lies dead. That basically shows that while the Allies win, it was a hollow victory). In a symbolic sense, the war itself is the antagonist of the movie. It's impersonal, it's inhuman, and it kills all, destroys all, and feels nothing. Because it is an idea and not a person, war can be vilified like it does here, and it causes the leaders to become priests in a pagan religion who say the gods demand sacrifice and the common man becomes the sacrificial offerings. Yet, for one shining moment, from Belgium down through France to the Swiss border, over a million men in different uniforms, speaking different languages, made peace to celebrate the birth of one who took it on Himself to be the sacrifice and end such sorrows such as war. The Bishop gets it wrong in thinking the soldiers are on a holy crusade after reading that passage. When including the following verses, the reading goes:

Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's enemies shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me.[1]

What Christ was talking of was a spiritual war fought within us, where we place things before God and people before God. That last is something that is not brought up in the movie, but anyone who studies the passage will know it so. The Bishop thus is hypocritical in the fact he puts his country's hostility and war before his God's holy wish for peace and goodwill. His interpretation is also Old Testament, as though he were trying to be like Samuel to have the Israelites kill all the Amalekites so that their nation wouldn't be threatened in the future. No doubt, the atrocities committed in the war were alarming (excluding the baby bayoneting, as that was propaganda), that would pale compared to World War II with the Holocaust dwarfing them all. In a symbolic sense, the division comes true where Palmer is now opposite of his own bishop, and everyone else, at the end of the movie. 
    The movie does leave out a few details. For example, the British suffragettes actually petitioned for peace in 1914 with a letter addressed to German and Austrian women. Also, on the eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Benedict XV, requested a ceasefire on Christmas between the fighting nations. As you would expect, no one heeded his call. The lack of such reference to the pope is the reason why I don't view Palmer and his bishop as Catholic, despite the Bishop crossing himself at the end of the sermon. While the aftermath is shown, the movie doesn't dwell too much on the consequences where future truces of that nature became rare and far from in between. In fact, after the great battles of 1916, a bitter sentiment had come upon the fighting men that prevented such. By the time the United States enter the war, all tries to a Christmas truce had ended and the closest thing came a year later with the 1918 Armistice. Considering that nothing like it seemed to have happened during World War II, it's a bet that the aftermath was also the death of that sort of chivalry. We have degraded to the point that we don't respect the sanctity of certain days or months that soldiers will fight regardless (and the irony is some of the recent examples have happened near the same part of the world where Jesus had walked the earth). We could go into debates on the differences, but it will detract from this review.
    A few things to bring up include the content. For a war movie, very little of a war is shown. Just a raid on the trenches a la Saving Private Ryan (two minute warning, someone vomiting, a pep speech, all before they charge in to the machine gun fire) followed by everyone eying the other. There is an artillery bombardment near the end of the Truce where the two sides use each other's trenches for cover (ironic in a way that the Allies wanted to get into the German trenches and did so in a different way than planned). The profanity is minor, mostly something done by the English speakers, while despite the warning on the label the sex scene is brief. I like how Christian Carion artistically made it where Sprink and Anna simply kiss passionately, then black out, and then fade in to reveal them in bed, with Sprink baring Anna's backside, (though the male audience is denied seeing Diane Krueger's buttocks), they grunt in a position, and then are suddenly dressed for the duet. Of course, we do see two beetles copulating in the French trenches, something that Audebert later draws a picture of. Father Palmer, an Anglican, provides the religion in the movie, with most of the soldiers being Christian, of various denominations, besides the German lieutenant being Jewish. Anna sings the "Ave Maria", not once but twice in the movie, though neither the Bach or the Schubert versions. In accuracy, the movie gets it right to some degree and misses mark in others. For one, I can't figure out how Horstmayer, Audebert, and Lieutenant Gordon of the Scotsmen could be all well dressed with immaculate uniforms after weeks, or months, of trench warfare. If their orderlies found a way, it's plausible. But their enlisted men didn't have ways of cleaning and the washing machines of the time were primitive. Sprink would have done the cleaning and delousing before meeting Anna and it would have taken hours. It would be more accurate if actual smudge was shown. Then there is the fact the Bishop concludes his sermon with "The Lord be with you" to which the soldiers reply "And also with you." This use to be used among Catholics in the Mass, after Vatican II, and I have found that Episcopals and Anglicans had it in reserve while the more accurate "And with your spirit" ("Et cum spiritu tuo"). If they actually had "And also with you" at the time, I wouldn't know, but it has been said that Catholics wouldn't responded that way, which is why I wouldn't see the British clergy in the movie as Catholic, regardless of what TV tropes claims.
    Though rated PG 13, Joyeux Noel is a good enough movie to be viewed on Christmas, even after the Centennial of the Truce has come and gone. It offers one a way of seeing peace being made. It reminds me of what He who we celebrate as being born on Christmas stated, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called Children of God." No doubt, the men who made that peace will be blessed, and the same to any of the leaders who have the conviction, be they Jew or Gentile, be they religious or none, to put aside their differences and break bread together. If more of that happened, we could actually have peace on earth and good will toward men.


^1. Matthew, chapter 10, verse 34-37. Douay-Rheims version.