Katara A:TLA/The Last Airbender

Todays character:  Katara!
ps. see some of my original work here: raweraser.blogspot.com

 

Sweet, a little dramatic at times, but kick ass. 

She may make us full of awe, but stay tuned 

her film (would be) franchise counter part is just 

awe-full. 

You see what I did there.

So small-white-girl, it actually hurts...

Katara:

Aka: Little miss exposition
believability: Katara's characterization throughout the show is truly dynamic. If the show is a story of growth from child to man for Aang, it is even more-so for Katara. She comes off, at the beginning, like a young teenage girl. As the series moves forward, Katara becomes a major player, not just as a vapid love interest for Aang or to narrate the opening credits, but as a warrior, strategist and protagonist. The story becomes as much her story as Aangs. She is responsible but is shown to not always be so.  Possibly the only moment I personally have with Katara where her believability is questioned is at the very end when she finally accepts Aang's crush and returns his love. For me, this is unrealistic. Katara has spent far too much of the show denying Aang feelings for them to suddenly come rushing in. Let's face it, how many young people would actually forgo someone they truly had feelings before just because there was a war on? For most young people, a war like that would be reason enough to prompt marriage, let alone dating. She makes it clear she has no feelings for Aang. His love is so unrequited it hurts. The ending was simple wish fulfillment. That being said, I love all of Katara and Aang's children, so that makes up for it a little, especially Bumi. (But seriously, 'war' didn't exactly stop her when it came to Haru. Or Jet. "Now's not the right time" is girl for "oh god I don't know how to say no without hurting his feelings so I'll let him down so gently that he won't get it")

How did miss exposition stack up? Well... she... she's ok at reading the plot synopsis off of wikipedia... but she misses about 75% of everything that happens inbetween leaving the south pole and... arriving at the north pole... It's actually amazing how we are literally hearing the thoughts of this little 14 year old girl, but we get no trace of her personality at all. I don't believe her because it sounds like she's reading off the wikipedia page. Now I'll be straight with you: this is the screenwriters fault and the directors fault. We see more or less nothing that happens to these characters. We don't see Katara's interactions with her brother or Aang and so we cannot even begin to sense their connection. If only Mr. Llama had read the script before hand! If only he had had the presence of mind to hire a better director! Who were these dumbasses who screwed up Mr. Llama's adaptation?! 
...........
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Oh wait, he wrote and directed it himself... 

 I don't think we've seen so much producer/director/writer failure ever in one room -

Oh. Right. Nevermind.

Score: 9.5/10 0.2/10 (she giggled convincingly like... once)

Flaws:
Katara is, surprisingly, not a Mary Sue; she struggles for a vast majority of the first season in developing her waterbending and is often jealous at the rate Aang progresses in his own training. What takes her months to learn often takes Aang seconds and she is gets jealous and annoyed because of it. She is impulsive in many points, and believes the best in people, especially when she finds them attractive like Haru and especially Jet. This infatuation can even blind her to the insanity jet causes. However, when she does finally see Jet for what he really is, she refuses to be a push over ever again. She holds grudges fast and hard - she never seems to truly forgive Jet for lying to her until it is too late and she cannot save his life. She still shows signs of feelings for him and that her feelings remain hurt. However she is able to mend these faults through Zuko. In many ways for Katara, Zuko and Jet act as foils for one another. Katara trusts them both, is betrayed, and then she rejects them upon their return. The difference in them is not in Zuko and Jet's characters but in Katara's learned lesson: Where she refused to forgive Jet, she forgives Zuko, and the two combine to make an unstoppable team. Also don't forget that time she stole waterbending scrolls from pirates. That was a mistake.

Miss Exposition... isn't all that good at water bending? that's kind of a flaw. She is shown, in the beginning, to have weak control over her powers. However she is terrifyingly good at breaking open giant tombs of ice. Also her powers of poor plot narration are without bounds. For Katara of the film, there really is not much to say about her flaws as a character because we do not see enough of her doing things in the film. So now is the time to give notice to THE BIG casting flaw. Everyone and their mothers have gone on the record saying how dissappointed they were at the casting of now-19-year-old Nicola Peltz. She is pretty vanilla when it comes to ethnicity, and it really was a shame to see a role of such opportunity for an often ignored ethnic class go to another all American white girl. Now, I held out. I had hopes that they cast Nicola because they couldn't not have her. I hoped that they had forgone the ethnic casting because they had found simply the perfect actress, in voice, temperment and maturity to play the role. And yet literally none of those things was the case. From how the movie turned out, Nicola Peltz could have been a hobo child off the street who had never been in front of a camera before in her life. Part of the problem was, indeed, the writing of her character who, despite talking more than any other character in the movie, lacked a single personality trait reminiscent of the source character. She is more vapid than any nightmare. She has no personality, makes no decisions, and so has no flaws.
Score: 9/10  0/10

Abilities:


Katara is a water-bender, and becomes one of the best, if not the best water-bender of all time. But she does not do it slowly. As stated before, much of his skill is trained and worked through slowly. She becomes a thorough learner and an avid studier of what water bending is capable of. She invents new techniques and uses imagination. Through one of the single most interesting and chilling episodes she is even taught the terrifying and morally ambiguous art of blood bending. She learns that her powers are not just good, the way she imagines herself to be, but that they are also something to be wary of. She discovers Uncle Ben's Spiderman clause without ever having to spell it out. It is the challenges and moral quandaries that Katara struggles through that make her abilities interesting.

All I can really do is repost this picture from last time. It is all the words I need: 

                                              (although again it should be noted that the actual choreographers did an interesting and well thought out job. Much of their fighting f-ups were due to the lack of cgi anything)
Score: 9/10  4/10

Personality Type:
She is unsure of herself, excitable and above all, annoyingly hopeful. She quickly learns the healing powers most female characters are subjected to, and throughout the first season develops into a nurturing mother figure for both her brother Sokka and the new Avatar, Aang. But the best part about Katara is that even by the end of the first season, she does not stay that way. She gets crushes on boys and falls in with the wrong crowd (Jet is clearly a sociopath). She even deals head on with sexism in a legitimate way: she accepts it from Jet and ignores it because of her feelings, she fights it from Paku because she demands her right to be able to defend herself, and, most importantly, she demands that she not be treated as a sexual object. On multiple occasions Aang asks Katara to be more than friends and she tells him, to the point she is not interested. He does not listen and so she actually makes him listen to her. These are events that real young women everywhere have to deal with. Katara knows when she wants a man and when she does not and she will tell you so.

Personality? What's that? And let me make this clear: I do not blame Nicola Peltz. She was offered a role, she took it. Do I personally disagree with the decision to cast her? Yes. But here's the thing: she's actually not a bad actress. Take a look at her work in Bates Motel. Bailey is an interesting and dark character and Nicola plays her well. She's interesting to watch and has a lot of ups and downs. The entirety of lacking personality is in the poorly written script. Also it didn't help that her costars gave miserable performances as well. Seriously, all she does is exposition:

Score: 8.5/10 1/10

Fears:
Katara's Fears: losing anyone else she cares about, being seen as the healer girl, not living up to her potential, being naive and tricked, becoming ruthless -- a fear that is shown multiple times throughout the show. It impressively shows that a young girl could be turned into a killing machine and monster. Much like Katara's main foil, Azula.
Mr. Llama's Katara's fears: speaking anything that isn't exposition. Betraying emotion. Interacting with castmates. Her angry angry brother Soaka. Irritable Dev Patel. Its actually kind of hilarious.
Score: 7/10  3/10

Position of Power:
Katara is, as was said earlier, often misjudged, She is powerful and can be truly terrifying but because she is young and because she is a girl she is seen as weak by those in positions of power. Azula uses Katara as a vulnerability during her fight with Zuko, and it is exactly this misguided judgement on Katara that leads to Azula's ultimate defeat. Among the Aang group, she is the mother, and her judgement is respected nine times out of ten. One of the few times she loses her argument is when she is grudging to take in Zuko upon his return to the Gaang. She makes it clear that she is a mama bear and there in she reins.
Ms. speaks-only-in-basic-plot-points has not power amid the people. She fights, she heals, but she becomes a voyeristic component of the film. She is used as, I have stated often, the bringer of exposition and is the immediate go-to for the viewer to relate to and see through the eyes of. Because of this, her own personal conflicts and decisions are negated from the film almost entirely. What we are left with is an empty husk that we are intended to take and use for our own feelings. Sadly there is not much their to find. She watches and so we must look on with her.
Score: 7.5/10 2/10

Conflicts:
Katara's conflicts are many and multifaceted throughout the television show. She falls in love, she falls out of love, she gets hurt, she faces physical adversity, she must revive a fallen friend, she is betrayed, and she faces her own inner demons. Much of this has been talked over but it should be noted: where the Aang of the show and the Aang of the film undergo similar conflicts, the Katara of the two mediums do not. Gone from the film is the sexism and moral quandaries of that little fourteen year old girl. In its stead is left gaps and holes and a filler of stagnant attempts to turn Katara and Aang's younger lives into a convincing love story.
Score: 10/10 2/10

Love Plots:
She has so many and they are all interesting. Now, we all know I am not a huge fan of Kataang, so I will forgo another rant. What I will say about their relationship is that the portions of developing Aangs crush and Katara's lack of interest were some of the most human moments in the show. Things like this happen all the time in the lives of young adults. Your close friend develops feelings for you, feelings that you don't happen to return. How should Katara Cope? How should Aang? The most realistic part of this is that Aang even ignores Katara's protests and tries anyway. It is not necessarily a morally sound thing to do, and it even feels a little scummy but it is undeniably realistic. It is because of this intensely interesting relationship that the show has develped between these two characters that I cannot see their relationship working out. Without the well developed narrative and character relationships, I could not have come to that conclusion. Katara's other relationships are just as interesting as well. The betrayal, early on of Jet, has been discussed but it comes as a pivital moment in Katara's life. That betrayal helps her grow up and helps her understand more about herself-- and she hates it! She goes on to grow these grudges for Jet that move on to Zuko. More than anything, after the sudden death of Jet, her unresolved feelings about what Jet has done pass on to the next person to betray her: Zuko. His betrayal hits her in close proximity to Jets and for the rest of the series she treats him as one would treat the ex of a bad break up. She is scorned by love. To say that no romantic feelings occured between Zuko and Katara is ignoring a large portion of their characters. Nothing may have come from it in the cannon created by Bryan and Michael, but they clearly have horomones flying around between them in their scenes. Katara's relationships make her more interesting, and she never comes off as a boy swapping girl with one man for every day of the week. It just makes her seem more human.

And if we ever needed more proof:

 In the distance the wailing of a thousand Zutara fans (not to mention the hoisting of their pitchforks and torches) can be heard... Mind included...

If you do not interact with the other characters in any way people can see, then relationships cannot develop. That being said, the closest thing we had to even slight romance was between, once again, Zuko and Katara. You know, if you count fear and love as the same thing. I bet Azula does. 

Score: 9/10 1/10

In hopes that Mr. Llama will never try to continue his epic catastrophy ever again and leave a beautiful thing to its original form (also that someday somehow Zutara will become in the cannon with Katara and Zuko as old people):

Overall Complexity:
Katara is a very complex, unique and interesting young character. To try to reiterate what has been stated above would be boring to read. Just know this: Mr. Llama's film took a character that had everything going for her and wrote her into obscurity. She became little more than a pair of eyes and a cute face. It is not the actresses fault that this character fails so much on screen. This is the fault of her director, who wrote himself a screenplay that lacked any kind of intrinsically emotional value. You cannot become attached to characters who have no substance. You cannot destroy everyones childhood and you will not destroy mine.

Good DAY sir!

Overall complexity: 8.7 TV and 1.65 FILM


I'll do Sokka next. Eventually.

Aang Avatar/The Last Airbender

Hey guys sorry it's been a while- Finals took over my life. A couple things:
If you liked any of my writing here, or are just into really horrible poetry/fiction, then read my sister blog, Raw Eraser. This will probably update more often thanks to fiction and poetry being my forte, as opposed to analysis. Anywho, onto the fun:

Todays character: 

 

But wait, we aren't doing just this lovable bumpkin, but also:

 That's right folks. For the forseeable future, Avatar is the name of the game. Lets turn to the criteria:

Aang:

Aka: Ungg
believability: The Aang of the TV show is a pretty realistic kid. At ten years old he's got the weight of the Dalai Lama and the super powers of captain planet under his command and yet he still manages to appear like a normal, if flawed child. His strength as a character lies in his flaws because his flaws take this character who should, by all accounts, be a Mary sue of epic proportions and makes him human. Through out the original run of the series, we see him grow and change, starting out care free and just wanting to have fun and we see him grow up. He learns to control his wild emotions and live by a certain code of morality. However, we also see him jealous and petty and silly. He even goes as far as hurting Katara in an attempt to show off, and is the first one to forgive Zuko when no one else will. Aang's believability continues even into Legend of Korra, where we see, from his children's perspective, all his faults as a father. Aang may be the Avatar, but he is humanized to a full extent, and having the reproach of his children reminds the viewer that even the avatar is not perfect. He, in this later society has been idealized to an absurd degree, and this reality check not only strengthens Aangs character, post mortem, but also serves as a way to develope the characters important to the new series and create a real bond in his children, Bumi, Kiya, and Tenzin.

As for "Ahng" of the Last Airbender failure, his actor, Noah Ringer, 17, might not be entirely responsible. The acting we do see in this film is more than a bit painful, with Noah and his female accomplice, Nicola Peltz, sharing so few lines of dialogue, it is hard to believe the two children have even met. By the end of the film, Aang has had exactly 8 conversations total with his friends, most of which had to do with surroundings and nothing to do with character development. The situations don't give him a chance to grieve his people or to even play like a child. The lovable little annoyance that was Aang from the original series is gone, mostly because everything that happens that could potentially develop his character is ripped away leaving a kid with martial arts training to stand around awkwardly between fight scenes. (and lets not get into the mess that was the visual effects of this movie... The effects here could have been improved with rotating gobos and that is saying something). This Aang is not a child. He is not a person caught up in something bigger than himself. He does not fear his responsibility, he does not feel pain at being alone, he does not feel the joy in simplicities kids do. He is a blob of nothing with a really cool wardrobe choice. (But actually. Only thing decent about the film, whoever was on costume, kudos- everything looks really cool- except Yue's head penis... but we'll get to that later.)
Score: 9/10 2/10

Flaws: We have talked a little about flaws above, but just to recap: He is so afraid of responsibility he actually runs away starting the whole 100 years of avatar free world. He is stubborn, and in some sense, his morals create for him this ambiguous entity that might be a flaw but might be his biggest virtue. The ambiguity in Aang's response to violence is remarkable. He refuses to kill what is the equivalent of Firebreathing Hitler (oh well now I have to make that a picture... )

and finds a way to stop the dictator without killing him. He rides a real strugglebus and manages to end the series with the same innocence he started it with, rare in a Bildungsroman such as this. In addition to moral issues, Aang has flaws in other sectors- he is love struck in one of the most annoyingly childlike ways, and he spends much of the series annoying Katara with childish advances. Not to say it goes to far into rape culture society or anything, but Aang does perpetrate several unwanted kisses to Katara, who wants to sort out her feelings. The issue it addresses, about wanting children to know its ok to say no is an important one that is done, in a way, by Nickelodeon that is not scary or that presses the point into uncomfortable territory. Aang kisses Katara. She does not like this. He tries it again later. She gets annoyed and puts him down. All is right with the world. Aangs flaws make him human.
Oh Aaaanchu... bless you, child, you are like some kind of dry toast saint. Or maybe a rice pudding saint. The film's attempt at Aang lacked one of the most important qualities discussed, at legnth, above: Flaws. The kid has no flaws- he is simply a little kid with insanely good martial arts skills who's happy go-lucky personality doesn't even exist. Even when he comes out of the ice block, having just, in his temporal memory, fled from home fearing responsiblity, he shows little emotion towards his situation. When Katara asks him why he was in the ice, he laughs it off "I was upset and ran away I should get home" and Katara asks "Are you still upset?" and Aang laughs: no!" We are led to believe Aang holds pretty much no feelings or flaws that caused his cowardly escape. The plot, from the very beginning, has been thwarted. And as far as Aang was concerned, the perfect little kungfuJesus was so holy and clean, he made Dora the Explora look like a little skank.
Score: 9/10  0.2/10

Abilities:
By all accounts, Aang should be over powered. He has the power of the gods, thousands of years worth of ancestors to call up at any time, can control four different elements and has the respect of pretty much the entire world, sans the fire nation. And yet, while he has the basics for all of the elements and potential to master them, the entire plot revolves around his attempts to master all four, something I wouldn't quite say he even achieves by the end. He comes fully equiped with Air bending, yet we see very little use of airbending that would qualify as offensive or masterful. He has cool tricks and can show off for friends, but it is my belief that airbending is the one art in which Aang will never be able to achieve the mastery of his people because his training was never completed. As for the other elements, while he picks up water fairly quickly, he is still eventually surpassed by Katara, who can perform amazing healing and even learns how to blood bend (I cannot wait to go over the moral ambiguities of Katara). Fire is fun for Aang, but he shows a lack of control that eventually leads to Aang's fear of it until the end of the series. Toph makes it plenty clear that Aang lacks a firm grasp of earth bending. He becomes less of an over powered character and more of an average powered character that can do a lot of different things. His powers are tempered by his flaws.
At this point I would hope that we have all seen the .gifs of the special effects in The Last Airbender movie. Noah's technical martial arts skills may be pretty Bolin (geddit? I'm adorable with puns today) but the way they are portrayed and linked with the actual bending of elements is atrocious. But... lets take a moment and just acknoledge that, yes, the martial arts in the movie was actually pretty cool. We can laugh all we want about the post edit special effects failures, but that does not mean that the intent on the actors parts was not there. The forms and styles were pretty kick ass. So kudos to you, actor combatants- However, in movie-verse, these guys are way under powered. For which we have the special effects team to thank. What it looked like, honestly, is that the on location crew and choreographers had a good idea of what they were doing and how it should play out when the special effects are added. There are several times within the film that you can actually see an actor make an attack cue (and trust me on this, I know- I am an actor combatant in the SAFD) and then absolutely nothing happens. Some people had problems with the necessity of fire being around, but I didn't find that an issue so much as the lack of preparation on the part of the postedit team. The problem is not in the actors but entirely in the special effects artists who I am half convinced were M. Knight's children working in mspaint. 

                                              (actually this looks better than what they did...)
Score: 8/10  5/10 (the actor combatants really were good. Blame the postedit)

Personality Type:
I'll be honest, I've never been a huge fan of Aang's personality- it would grate with mine in real life and I would find him annoying and needy. However, he has enough of a personality for me to have an opinion on it, which means that the writers, actors, artists and editors did their job. He is a real person.
Ong grates on me as well but its for his lack of personality, which for me is a death sentence to character. He has no real feelings on anything, or, if he does, we never get to see it because Shamallama made the movie in such a manner that we hardly get any screen time or development with our main characters.
Score: 7/10 -1/10

Fears:
Aang's fears: the firelord, responsibility, letting people down, hurting other people, Killing anything, Losing what he cherishes, his own mortality, hurting Katara, the genocide of his people (though too late on that one oops), losing Appa, losing the war, failing his world, being the avatar. And that folks, is a well rounded character.
Ong's fears: character development, back story, showing emotion, being interesting to watch, the gays? ethnic characters, and representing the wonderful show he was supposed to be inspired by.
Score: 9/10  0/10

Position of Power:
You know, you'd think with the Avatar's rep he would be pretty much the pope, but like, he gets disrespect all over the place- not just from the fire nation but like, from the Earth Kingdom, that town that oppose the Kiyoshi Warriors, pretty much everywhere he goes there are people that hate him or disrespect him for leaving them alone for a hundred years or else because he is trying to stop various government and claim some control.
Ong... well... um... he.... We don't really know his power position because pretty much the only time we see it addressed is in the Northern water tribe, and even then he pretty much announces his existence and they hand over the reigns of the entire tribe to a bunch of children who they know about as well as the audience does. My god, none of these people connected...
Score: 8/10 1/10

Conflicts:
The conflicts of both the film and the show are more or less the same, but with varying levels of execution. Television, for this format, makes far more sense to begin with because the episodic plot structure allows for character development in between point of plot and among various episodes which have mini plots throughout. The film failed mostly because it tried to rush through the mini-plots and the character development and jump to the bones of the story, where all that matters is Zuko, the Firelord, Zhao and the Northern Water Tribe. The film did not leave time for the childlike fun and wonder that made the television series so poignant and enjoyable as a legitimate family show. It was not fun or funny or cool for the children and it was not heartwarming, thematic and didactic. We had no stake in the lives of any of the characters, espeically Aang. It just kinda sucked. The conflicts may be exactly the same and they may even be good ones. For that reason alone I will give the score for his category as joint- they will both receive the same. It only proves that even the best conflicts can be ruined in a narrative work through bad directing.
Score: 10/10 10/10

Love Plots:
I will be totally honest here, I was never a fan of Aang's love plots in this series. As the Ember Island Players point out, Katara treats Aang consistently like a son or at best a younger brother, and I just never see the spark there. Their personalities mesh like that of Hermione and Harry, and their relationship feels almost as incestuous to me as one between Katara and Sokka would. (note: personal ship here would be Toph/Aang, but I can't change what is. Besides, I am a fan of all three of Kataang's children) I always felt the Katara Aang romance felt too forced, and as an author, I know that you yourself will know if your intended pairing just will not work out. Fans saw this, its clear even the animation team saw this (by the amount of time they spend on it in Ember Island players), perhaps the only people who did not see it were the youngest sect of the children watching the show. I am not saying Katara and Zuko were meant to be (but who wouldn't love to see a TROLOLOLOL filled ship between old people Katara and Zuko in Korra?) but the way the love plot was set up it started out ok as puppy love but seemed distracting and forced once the war was brought to the forefront, not to mention that even in a war time, Katara shouldn't be that adamant about their nonromantic involvement if she wasn't really just trying to let him down easy. If a spark is there, it will be there regaurdless. Also Rapekisses.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA LOVE PLOT WHAT'S THAT? srlsy, did Katara and Ong even interact? Could we even call that a romance?
Score: 4/10 0/10
 Masculine Power:
Two words: Twinkle toes. (but like, in a good way. Who needs masculine power as a 12 year old? By the end the guy is pretty jacked, though he really has to stop forcing himself on the ladies.)
Two words: Twinkle toes. (cool fighting... though some acting classes couldn't hurt...)
7/10  5/10
Overall Complexity:
Overall, it comes down to this: Aang from the TV show is a well thought out, interesting and original character who has emotions, can be annoying, irritating, lovable, adorable and the range of human emotions. He is complex and has interesting motivations and can be selfish, greedy, cowardly and scared.
Aang from the film has none of the charms or identity that makes him recognizable as the character we know and love despite an interesting and creative rebrand with the costuming (admit it people, the costumes were good. Just nothing else. And don't give me any shit about the tattoo, that was a cool makeup choice as well, even if it differs a little. Really, its a shame the film was so poor because cosplayers everywhere would have had a good time making some of the changes the film did and having those costumes as an example). However clothes do not make the man, and Aang did not meet up with anyones expectations- his characterization was too shallow, and that coming from rich and impressive source material. Aang could use hand to hand combat, but that was about it. We don't know what he likes, what he doesn't like, we don't see his puppy love, his longing, his hope, his loss of hope, his fear or anything that makes Aang Aang. He's just boring.
Overall complexity: 7.8 TV and 2.467 FILM


Followup later to see the scores of some other beloved characters from the show and film

Chase Meridian - Batman Forever

Sorry this one is late guys! Midterms and all of that nonsense-

Next up: Chase Meridian
AKA Eye Candy

Believability:
What is there to say about Chase Meridian, a character invented for the franchise film of the 90s, Batman Forever. Out of the entire Franchise, she lasted a single film. From today's standards (behind which the movie, made in 1995, should be judged, let's not dispute that point) Chase is a vapid nympho bubble. She spends the film Vacillating between being in love with Batman (who is, lets face it, a fairly disagreeable man in a rubber suit with silly nipples on it) and Bruce Wayne (a Billionaire who tries to take her on nice dates... to the circus?). Funny story, they're really the same person, and Bruce spends the love plot getting dumped because Chase decides she wants his other persona. Twice. She dumps Bruce Wayne for Batman, and then at the end Batman for Bruce Wayne. CHASE, THEY'RE THE SAME DAMN PERSON. I can't really say her character wasn't believable; I know of many vapid young women who hide behind the guise of sex appeal to forgo actually being an interesting person, and Nicole Kidman played one of these to a T. Her acting was actually quite good, considering the quality of the film, and her only issue stemmed from her playing a character as complicated as the plot of Fifty Shades of Grey (hint, there is no plot in Fifty shades- Like Chase Meridian, it only pretends to be complicated by putting on a sexual front). However, I did believe, as I watched it, that a person like Chase could exist.
Score: 5/10

Flaws:
Being unable to decide between a man and his alter ego, despite one being dressed entirely in rubber with little nipp- ok I think I've finally killed that joke. Batman and Robin wear rubber nipples. We get it. Other flaws... lack of centrality to the plot? Lack of personality? Lack of character growth? Personally my favorite questionable moment of hers occurs when she the Bat first meet. Bruce tells her, much to her excitement, that he has read her work and found her to be naive. Instead of being offended, this further impresses the airhead, because she is too busy ogling him in the shadow of a thousand moving lights to notices she has just been insulted. What's horrifying is that Bruce ends up ogling her as well, not minutes after disavowing her ability as a psychologist.
Score: 1/10
Abilities
Stealing the Bat-Signal for her private use (something they barely ever comment on, despite that signal being an emergency beacon, not a toy). Wearing short revealing clothes, and attempting seduction in the lamest possible manners for a film this expressionistic. Pointing out the obvious-- no, seriously. To cover for her lame seduction attempt using the Bat-Signal, Chase tells Bruce the huge and shocking revelation that Two-Face's Achilles heel is his coin. In addition it turns out that she is something of a Batman stalker, collecting tons of files and pictures of him, none of which Bruce finds the least bit concerning. It would be like if one of those boys from New Direction (Andrew, Master of All Knowledge has pointed out to me that the band is in fact called One Direction. He has said leaving it as is makes me sound like an 80 year old with three hip replacements and varicose veins (his words, not mine) trying to up my status with the local youngins  and get with the times. For the Record, I am in my twenties. He also mentions that New Directions is the name of that Glee club on that aptly named Glee Club show, Glee. To him I say, neither one is really any good at music, so does it really matter which fan-base I offend? To which I say this:) started dating a fan and was ok with finding her bedroom plastered with posters of him, the mouths of which are all slightly warped from sad preteen kissing practice. No one wants that...
Score: 2/10
Personality type
To be fair, I can see what they were trying to do in regards to her personality. Batman, as a concept, was constructed during the era of film noir. As the film genre got popular, certain tropes were formed, and as women in the 30s and 50s were being told to stay at the home, the characters reflected that. However, this iteration of Batman seems to be trying to use more of a style of 1940s Film Noir, when women in the work force showed promise. World War II was upon us, and the films of that generation often placed women in working situations. For example, Chase's occupation as a psychologist, would be an example of an educated woman outside the normal family model. The 40s were some of the most liberating for the women of noir, and the basic femme fatale of Double Indemnity was replaced with the working woman of Laura. At best, what the writers of the film were trying to do was combine the liberated working woman of 40s noir with the sexy femme fatale of an earlier noir era. The only problem, of course, being that the two tropes combined have a tendency to counteract one another, especially when you are trying to go all out with both options at the same time. The women of 40s noir, if not desexualized, were certainly masculine in dress, and often had more difficulty choosing between her work and her mothering nature than is seen in Chase, who's entire career is added as an afterthought to appease an audience that would not except a "weak female". They show the character practicing self defense, and use snappy sexualized language to try and make her strong, while at the same time ignoring any sort of character arc for her to go through to give her depth. She becomes neither the Redeeming woman nor Femme Fatale of the 30s and 50s, but nor does she become the working beauty of the 50s. She is left as a vapid reference to all, muddled and useless.

   Working Beauty Laura           Dangerous Femme Fatale                   ... Chase Meridian.
Score: 4/10 for effort
Fears:
Well, we can't call Chase entirely insane. Her only apparent fear in the film was being dangled in an air tube over a pit of metal spikes (Two face calls it a 'watery grave' which, until you see a small amount of water near the base of the spikes, makes absolutely no sense... Of all the puns he could have made, he went with watery? How about a pun with piercing? swords? Hell, she tries to be sexy often enough- we could have thrown a nice innuendo in there about Batman's penis. But no. "Watery"...). That cold metal death trap would scare pretty much anyone. And other than that, this woman shows no fear-- not because she's a strong female character, but because she is too bland to have a phobia...
Score: 3/10
Position of Power within the Story:
She doesn't even equate to the level of power chick within the five man band set up. She is, through and through, the love interest. And not even a very interesting one at that. However, she does have a small purpose in the plot (although her part could easily have been filled by a lamp), and Batman is 'forced to choose' between Chase and Robin. Not really much of a choice as he is easily able to save both, despite using the bat hooks that should, in theory, pull his limbs out of his sockets.

                                   See? Chase could be replaced by a lamp, and we would care just as much. 
                                                                      Maybe more: "Two Face, how dare you ruin a perfectly
                                                                                              good Lamp like that!"
Score: 2/10
Conflicts:
Who does she love? Batman? Bruce Wayne? Clinging rubber latex? She's about as deep as her hair color.
1/10
Love plots:
Oh good, we have reached her entire purpose in the movie, being a love plot that creates her own problems by being unable to decide between Bruce Wayne and Bruce Wayne. Despite 'love interest' being her whole job description in the film, she just isn't very moving. She has no character of her own, spends the film trying, pretty much in vain, to be sexy. Nicole Kidman, although not my favorite actress, has proven that she can play complex characters and although this film is fairly early in her career, they give her almost nothing to work with. She even lacks a death that would at least put her character to rest-- She clearly does not appear in the sequel, Batman and Robin, (now starring George Clooney as Batman), it is clear she was not a successful character. So why wasn't she bumped off? As stated above, she exists solely to create this 'tough choice' for Batman at the end of the film, where he must choose between Robin and a lamp his woman. Honestly, instead of trying so hard to save both, he should've just let Chase fall into the pit. No one would cry over a broken lamp. It's only slightly higher on the list of things people care about right between spilled milk and The Jonas Brothers breakup.

                                           #NoOneCared
Score: 2/10
Female Power and Subversion
The one thing we can say for Chase Meridian is that they tried to make her a subversion to the Noir Heroine despite failing immensely.  They show her practicing martial arts, let her retain a female sexuality- even in the 90s, rare for a mainstream film- and give her a job that requires a higher college and graduate school education. However instead of being a new Buffy Summers, Chase Meridian never uses any of her skills- not her degree in psychology, not her self defense-- except for her interest in Batman sex, to help further the plot. The ending tacks on a small moment where she visits Edward (The Riddler) to determine his psychosis, but the entire scene is entirely unnecessary. The writers have taken a character that could have been interesting and flawed if they had chose to make her so. Instead, they ran with a character who's sole purpose is to titillate the prepubescent boys that would describe the film as "the best movie ever" as opposed to those who see it as a cult classic akin to King Kong, The Devil's Carnival and the original comics, all in one. They have given Chase's character the requisite background to be interesting, but failed in the execution -- most disappointing considering she does not exist within the comic's cannon universe, and therefore cannot even claim to be a shout-out with a known back-story like other under utilized feminine characters in other superhero films (such as Gwen Stacey in Tobey McGuire's Spiderman. Also let's not get into a Marvel vs DC fight here. Those Spiderman Films had their own flaws, Gwen Stacey is just not one of them, I would argue).

                                                -And Gwen still had more of a personality than Chase does...
Score: 4/10
Over-all Complexity
I've said it before and I'll say it again; Chase had a lot of potential as a character, but frankly was limited by the nature of this film. The film is campy, and fast paced, and time for character development was not taken into account for any of the characters; even Batman and Robin's bonding and the deaths of their families were only barely talked over. Given this nature, Chase had no chance of becoming more interesting than she was. This film is not intended as a dramatic master-piece, and frankly, developing these characters would have turned a hilariously bad film into just a bad film. When considering just her character, however, Chase is horribly under-utilized, under-developed and needs more interesting underwear (considering how flamboyant everything else is, her skivvies are drastically boring...). Within the context of the film, she plays a stereotype expected of the film genre. The fan-base itself seems to think of her similarly to how I do. The occasional person loves her character, describing Nicole Kidman's acting with multiple exclamation points while most of the population has said she was a character with potential, being performed by a talented actress, which fell flat on the screen due to vapid dialogue and a lack of any on screen character development. It's ok, Nicole, it really isn't your fault.
Final Score: 2.6


My cut off for a Mary Sue is a 3.0, and Chase Meridian fits this score. She is not over powered, not over indulgent and not even particularly annoying. In fact, as she is acted, she seems fairly normal-- too normal for the messed up world of Gotham. She is one of those Mary-Sues who is a badly designed character because she is simply bland, uninteresting, and a stand in character for any female watching. She lacks a distinctive personality, and it is her lack of characteristics and flaws which make her uninteresting. She is a pair of tits and an ass to be used as a plot device, nothing more.

Stay tuned later today for Two Face, and tomorrow, to finish out this week's film, The Riddler. Tomorrow next week's film will be revealed- Those interested can refresh themselves on the film or watch the movie for the first time.

Over and Out!

Dick Greyson AKA Robin - Batman Forever

Continuing with:

Dick Greyson
Aka: Robin

beleivability: What a product of the 90s... I am very glad that within dialogue they physically mention Dick Greyson being a college student, because at first, my one problem with the boy wonder was that he didn't really make sense as the orphaned youngster the comics portray him as. His scooter, for one thing, looks like a full fledged Harley. Interestingly, as a gymnast, he was entirely believable. From the very beginning of the film, you meet his family, you see the circus, and you witness the killing of his parents. He starts out entirely believable as a do-gooder, as he saves the entire circus tent (including Bruce Wayne) from exploading by selflessly going after a giant cartoony balloon bomb and shoving it out of the tent (and somehow into a pool near the top of the tent... maybe I missed that part when I was off staring at the spinning colored lights everywhere). He was another actor that acted surprisingly well considering the tone of the film. He played college bro with a tragic history forgoing most of his douchy brofests to prove himself a good person. His vengeance plays off like an all talk fratboy about the prank of stealing the opposing teams mascot before a game, but it oddly fits his character. Admittedly, while watching it, my roommate and I kept pondering the signifigance of the one earring, only to remember that during the 90s, wearing one douchebag earring on the left was not a symbol of latent homosexuality, but technically a hip fashion statement. Though to be fair, Batman is a full grown man who runs around in spandex and keeps a teenage gymnast in his basement... Still, not a bad rendition of Robin, if off from the normal interpretation. (This is Tim Burton after all).
Score: 7/10
Flaws: Not as many as you would think. Although driving the batmobile and not getting himself into dumb gang fights with the painted ladies of Chalkzone may be some of his failures... Considering how often he actually succeeds with what he is doing, you almost wish he would have more.
Score: 4/10
Abilities: flying through the air like a gymnastic squirrel. Er, robin. Rocking a single earring. Simultaneous angst and laid back attitude. Choosing to ignore Batman's wisdom. Getting past the Alfred radar. He does however, get points for being just as acrobatic as you would hope. His physical feats were nothing short of well done. Also another fetching round of rubber nipples on his Robin Suit. (and should we talk about that codpiece bulge he has going? I bet the joker would get in on that moment-

Score: 7/10
Personality Type: I suppose my earlier analogy to a frat boy about sums up my feelings on his personality. I hate to say it, but I don't particularly take him seriously-- maybe its the moment when he makes out with a girl while pretending to be batman, maybe its still that damned earring, reflecting the light of a thousand rotating gobos, but he seems like the type of person I would smile at, be friendly to, and pat on the head, scratching behind his ears when he has done something good, and throwing a bone to every once in a while. Good intentioned, strong, but not exactly intelligent.
Score: 4/10
Fears: Dick's fears were consciously addressed by the filmmakers, however, it wasn't really Dick's own thoughts that manifested the fears, but Batman's prodding in the right direction that made him seem to realize he may want to consider the repercussions of killing people. The fact that it took him as long as it did to understand heroism was a tad odd, considering the selfless act he performed at the beginning of the movie, but he got there eventually. Speaking of that selfless act, it seems one of Robin's fears has little to do with death, considering how often he rushes headlong into it. Kudos to him for approaching a giant bomb, silly looking though it was.
Score: 4/10
Position of Power: The Lancer. I wouldn't really call Dick Batman's muscle, but he does possess strong abilities, and he spends the entire film trying to convince Bruce of his value as a partner. In many ways, it seems as if he is really just training for his future pursuits as a superhero in his own right. High five to the writer for adding in that reference to Nightwing when Dick was exploring sidekick names.
Score: 5/10
Conflicts: Well, it may just be a small thing, but Harvey Dent did just kill his entire family (sortof) in front of him. Revenge for your fallen kin seems a pretty big motivator. It's only a shame that the different directions of this plot motivator were largely ignored. Going the obvious route in this film, however, may have been the right choice, what with crazies like Jim Carrey-- sorry "The Riddler" and Tommy Lee Flamboyant running around.
Score: 6/10
Love Plots: Well, there was that chick he made out with one time in Legend of the Hidden Temple land... and possibly Batman? I'm still unclear on what he means by 'partner'

Score: 1/10

 Masculine Power: Well, he certainly thinks he has a lot of power, but he's quite the meathead. Muscle with no thought at all. "I'm really batman, I just forgot my suit, ok?". Cause everyone buys that, Dick. Clearly we know that you were named for your where your brain is.
4/10
Overall Complexity:
There are definately parts of this Robin I liked- it was interesting to have a situation where we physically watched this fairly carefree boys life go to smithereens. In fact, I felt he was most likable at the beginning of his appearance, as what happens to him is purely tragic. Even his mild angsting is fine, as it fits his mood, and how he may have reacted under such circumstances. When he saves the day but sees his family dead below him, I would say that, even with the camp surrounding the movie, we all felt some pain for the young man in the rafters. However, once this moment is complete, his character development sort of unravels, as he starts playing with Bruce's toys (unintended sexual moment win) and only uses cursory lines to unconvincingly remind us of his intent of killing Tommy Lee Fushiasuit. His performance is less than convincing in these moments, which detracts from the overall character, as you know from the outset that Robin will never murder Two Face. This detracts from the main drama of the plot, and feels as if the director were going through the motions. However, this is not a serious drama in any sense, so perhaps these stronger emotions would have detracted from the intention of the film entirely.
Overall complexity: 4.6/10

Stay tuned tomorrow for Chase Meridian... 

Bruce Wayne AKA Batman - Batman Forever

This week:

Selections from Batman Forever, produced by Tim Burton, directed by Joel Schumacher
Coming as no surprise to anyone who has happened to glance into the windows of a hot topic during Halloween and been overwhelmed with the shear amount of Jack Skellington merchandise (much of it embellished with everything from spikes to sequins),  Tim Burton's adaption of the 'lovable' pseudo-furry known as Batman (hey, he does dress up  like a bat an awful lot), is filled with smoke machines, camp, decadence, and an extraordinary number of rotating gobos (some of which are in odd places: Chase Meridian's love nest, a crime scene, ect.). The film even contains one of the most  ridiculous bank heist ever, from the helicopter used to lift a several ton safe from inside a building to Batman's ability to put back said safe in the same position it left despite a one in a million chance, while drowning in acid coming from pretty much nowhere. Even the guy stuck in the vault with him knows enough to pull a line straight from STARWARS: It's a trap! Just like starting this film thinking it might be a serious thriller.

But how do the characters live up as full entities by themselves in this film?

note: this review will not draw on previous sources- Only to be considered are the cannon of this film series by its own... merit.
Scale 1bad-----10good

Bruce Wayne:

Aka: Batman
believability: despite the fame of the recent
franchise starring men of well known report (Yes Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, we mean you), it was actually a nice change to see a funny (if not witty) portrayal of the brooding billionaire. His lines such as "I'll get drive-through" combined with a dry sense of humor played well with his personality, making him troubled but not sulking or childish. The character, although lacking the sentimental, cathartic track of Bale's later batman, seems believable in his reality (which is saying something if you have seen Burton's Gotham City). Some of his feats of strength and ingenuity (can we say jumping directly into holes from thousands of feet up?) have so crossed into the realm of the insane that the joker wouldn't attempt it, but the actual man, when speaking to a earring clad Dick Grayson, are rooted in a reality and solidly defined.
Score: 8/10
Flaws: Bruce in this film is not exactly stupid, per-say, however he is a tad careless when it comes to the obvious. For one thing, he hires an extremely emotionally unstable Jim Carrey-- sorry-- Riddler to work for his company, and is very easily tricked into a trap by both a young Drew Berrymore and a flamboyant Tommy Lee Jones (Two Face). He, similarly, lacks an air of superiority, and, especially where Nicole Kidman is concerned, acts like a puppy waiting to be given a treat. Not ineffectual, but not highly interesting.
Score: 3/10
Abilities: Apart from being able to withstand an excessive amount of rotating colored lights (yes I'm still obsessing over those damn gobos), this incarnation of Batman possesses the unique abilities of Jumping into small spaces from excessively high places, not breaking his limbs when using the grapling hook, and not having a gravelly voice of a 75 year old smoker. Some of his abilities are borderline superhuman, many entertaining as hell. 
Score: 5/10
Personality Type: As mentioned earlier, this batman possesses some qualities of a puppy, and while often serious has a dry humor to him that makes him human. In addition, he is firm in his beliefs of being against killing, but respectful enough of Dick to let him make his own decisions. I wouldn't mind catching a drink with that guy, despite the serious hilarity of his rubber suit possessing perfectly shaped rubber nipples.
Score: 7/10
Fears: I know batman is supposed to fear bats, but this film takes the fear and turns it into more an odd fixation. His real fear stems clearly from the murder of his parents as a child, and shows to have given him some real trauma. Val Kilmer doesn't overplay this trauma too much, and for much of the movie you forget about it. However, it does lend some real credence to his conversations with Dick Grayson that serve to move the plot forward, even if the character development is minimal. 
Score: 4/10
Position of Power: The Hero. We don't really see too much of batman's gritty antihero side in this film-- odd only because Batman is often thought of as one of the original anti-heroes.
Score: 1/10
Conflicts: Gotham's going to shit. Dick Grayson keeps trying to be his friend. Alfred isn't very good at being observant (lets Dick get away with the Batmobile, opened the door to not one but two super-villains...). Morgan Freeman isn't there to rock his world or narrate his life (We all know tha'ts what Bale pays him for). All in all, an average day.
Score: 5/10
Love Plots: Oh no, there is only one woman in the film, and ah shit, its Nicole Kidman. Oh well, we will make do. Cue a vapid romance with a women entirely too obsessed with men wearing rubber bat costumes. But hey, Bruce Wayne got laid, and really, no judgement here.
Score: 2/10
 Masculine Power: Throughout the film Batman felt fairly in control as the dominant power. Even when it came to Nicole Kidman's character, it never seemed as though Bruce felt out of his league really, and the viewer's impression of the batman never faltered. He never seemed to suffer any castration anxiety or a threat by a female power (perhaps due to the lack of a femme fatale (quite a shame, considering Batman's roots in film noir and the many versions of the trope within the comics)). Homoerotic subtext lingered like a fine mist throughout the film, but was more noticeable in Dick Grayson's constant attempts to be linked with Bruce as a "partner" than any act Bruce did of his own accord. The two men did seem to like each other, and it sure did look as though Bruce admired the boy's acrobat costume even before it went from spandex to Alfred-vamped.  (side note: fake rubber abs... really? on everything? and what is the purpose of the nipples?) However, they never even get close to addressing the issue-- a reading I would love to see filmed at some point. The man does keep a teenage gymnast in his basement, after all.
5/10
Overall Complexity: It is hard to separate Burton's Batman from his source material counterpart. The complexity of one tends to inform the other, and knowing more because of multiple sources makes the result look more complex than he is. However, in this cannon, this batman still receives a fairly favorable pass. He is not the most interesting variation, and although he does feel some pain from his childhood, he seems well adjusted enough (relative to other Batman from different universes) to at least give Dick Grayson some sound advice. However, lets remember that we are still talking about a man who dresses up like a bat to fight crime in a city filled of gangs that use black-lights to make their skin light up. So well adjusted in Gotham is really quite relative.
Overall complexity: 4.4/10

This Bruce Wayne has not quite reached Gary Stu level, however, he's nearing the border. What saves him is his dry humor, and, quite frankly, the level of camp in the film that make the movie not about being a serious drama, but about being something moderately hilarious. It is a dark comedy, in reality. The psychoses, unlike in Nolan's Batman trilogy, are not meant to be creepy and relatable enough to freak you out. They are intended to be campy and fun and frankly stupid. This movie knows what it wants to be and wants to do. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to waste a few hours for a few laughs with some friends.

Followup later to see the scores of some other beloved characters from the film.

#batnipples
Stay tuned for Robin, Two Face, Riddler, and Chase Meridian all explored.

Over and Out

How This Blog is Going to Work

Hello and Welcome to Boobie Toob, the busty girl's blog on characters in film, television, video-games, books and movies and their status as a character. 

Mostly what this means is I plan to calculate their level of solid character to their level of MarySue/GaryStu, using a solid mixture of criteria, and info to support it. 

In addition, we will look at flaws in the plot around these characters and a variety of facts about them. Characters can be taken on request, but I'll pretty much be posting characters as I feel like it.

Criteria:

- believability
- flaws
- abilities
- personality type
- fears
- position of power within the story
- conflicts
- love plots
- (For women) Female power and subversions
- (For men) Masculine power and subversions
- over all complexity
- fan-base thoughts
- my thoughts
- Gary Stu/Mary Sue final judgement

Included will be examples of the character - photos, videos, cosplay and more