Alan Wake's American Nightmare is a sequel

First off, let me just say the quantity of reviewers who've published articles on Alan Wake's American Nightmare and have no idea what they're talking about is astonishing. In almost every article I've read, American Nightmare is described as being a 'spin-off and not a direct continuation of the narrative in the original game.' Others have made direct complaints about 'wanting to see what happened to Alan Wake after the conclusion of the first game' and feeling disappointed that the new game was unrelated. For anyone who's actually paid attention, this is simply not true.

I'll attempt to explain this in spoiler-less fashion, as the story of the original Alan Wake is fantastic and I highly recommend playing it through if you haven't already, particularly if you're a fan of survival horror or the works of such writers as Stephen King. The narrative of the original game ends with a measure of resolution in that Alan has won the battle against the dark presence, but not without sacrifice. Two special DLC episodes, The Signal and The Writer, were released shortly after to directly continue this core storyline, with Alan trapped in the dark place (under the lake apparently) and the true influence of his writing skill allowing him to begin shaping the world around him. The conclusion of the second DLC is a tense cliffhanger. Alan finds his Doppelganger, Mr. Scratch, and begins writing a new story called 'The Return' on his typewriter in order to literally write himself out of the horrific scenario of Bright Falls. Most gamers assumed at this point that Remedy would release a third DLC called 'The Return' to wrap up the story entirely, and to show how Alan Wake would go on to escape from the dark place. The role of Mr. Scratch - the cynical and self destructive copy of the titular character - was at that point uncertain.

In Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Night Springs is the place in which Wake finds himself after writing his way out of Bright Falls. Evidence to support this theory? Read on.
Firstly, and most obviously, Mr. Scratch - Alan Wake's identical but evil twin, spawned at the conclusion of The Writer DLC - is the primary villain in American Nightmare, wreaking havoc everywhere he goes and leaving Wake cryptic messages via TVs throughout the game's 3 distinct areas. If you played The Writer DLC, then you'll remember that possessed television sets spouting insanity were the order of business, but this time Mr. Scratch has gained full control of his maniacal personality and the messages come through fast and clear. Direct story continuation? Check.
Also, at the very start of American Nightmare, as Alan regains consciousness following the opening live-action video cut scene, look to your right. You'll see the cabin from Cauldron Lake slowly slipping beneath the water as a last reminder of the reality that was Bright Falls. This is the stepping point between The Writer DLC and American Nightmare, as Wake writes himself into the new story we see a glimpse of what's left from his last manuscript.
Thirdly, if you simply play through, collect and actually read the manuscripts dotted about the 3 areas of the new game, then it's clearly explained on a number of occasions that Wake is still trying to reach Claire and events in Bright Falls are referenced many times - both written and in dialogue - as having previously occurred. I can't believe that, after all the reviews I've read, I seem to be the only one to have come to this conclusion.

Despite popular belief, American Nightmare is effectively Alan Wake 2, slimmed down for an Xbox Live Arcade release and written in such a way that newcomers won't feel lost without an existing knowledge of the franchise. But for those who are paying attention, details confirming its status as a sequel to the original game are clearly there. One possible reason that so many reviewers are describing the game so erroneously is that they simply haven't played The Signal and The Writer DLC. Without that additional content to bridge the gap between AW and American Nightmare, I can see why someone might come to such a misleading conclusion.

So to anyone reading this rather than any of the mainstream articles on high profile gaming sites, American Nightmare is definitely worth getting. It plays very similarly to the original title, and there are a number of subtle improvements here and there. A broader range of weapons creates a fast paced and action oriented atmosphere when compared to its predecessor, and the change of setting to Arizona is welcomed after many hours spent trawling through mountains and forests. There is more of an emphasis on free roaming in each of the three game areas, and an arcade survival mode with numerous maps makes for a welcome and enjoyable addition. Overall, it might feel slightly lightweight when compared to a full retail title, but it's probably the best game available on the Xbox Live Arcade at present.
But most importantly, American Nightmare continues where we left off in Alan Wake: The Writer, and such a finely written story deserves to be followed to its conclusion.

War Horse - Review

For those who saw the trailer to War Horse and immediately wanted to gouge their eyes out at the thought of watching a family-friendly horsey film set to the sweeping backdrop of World War One - this film isn't going to win you over. For those with a slightly more open mind, who understand that the range of 'family-friendly' Spielberg films include such well recognised works as E.T and Hook - War Horse isn't half bad at all, and the film itself definitely isn't as sentimental as the sickening trailer.
Yes, this is just another film making the point that 'war is bad, and people get hurt,' and this topic isn't at all foreign to Spielberg. His past works include Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, Empire of the Sun, and two factually based HBO miniseries - Band of Brothers and The Pacific. It's safe to say the subject of war is of particular interest and is very personal to him, as references to war and the holocaust also inhabit many of his non-war movies.
But War Horse is different in that it delivers this anti-war message within a film that's suitable for the younger viewers among us, and quite importantly it's a film that young people will actually want to see. Your 12 year old son/daughter isn't likely to be in a hurry to watch a documentary about the horrors of war, and quite possibly the message as delivered in that medium might not even make sense to them. But show them a sad story about a horse, which represents the tragedy of war from a lovable four-legged creature's point of view, and suddenly it will all make sense. It's that perspective from which the success of this film can be best appreciated.
The battle scenes in the movie are quite a spectacle (if rather tame in regards to realistic violence), and mark the most epic depiction of World War One on the big screen for many years. In popular movies, it's a war that's generally overlooked, so it's nice to see Spielberg give it the grand treatment.
Acting is top rate on all counts, and the horse is represented well if not a little disconnected from the audience at times. The original tale by Michael Morpurgo was written from the perspective of the horse, so this is probably just a result of the necessary changes made to adapt the story from page to screen. Just think of it this way - if Disney had made this, the horse would probably have talked. That's enough to make anyone appreciate Spielberg's take on the material a whole lot more.
There were only two real gripes I had with the movie. The first was the use of English dialogue by German and French characters, which really bugged me from start to finish. But then I suppose you could again argue that they're trying to make a film that's accessible to children, and children are lazy and don't like to read? Still, having hammy German accents throughout many scenes ruined the illusion for me, especially when the German soldier claimed to speak 'very good English,' despite every other German character on the battlefield speaking fluent English aswell. Hmmm.
The other gripe (while minor) was lead character Albert sounding a bit too 'Samwise Gamgee' for my liking. I half expected him to shout out 'Mr. Frodo!' at just about any second and go bounding off to the Shire.
Overall though, it's not a bad movie, but it's very set on being a family film and therefore it might not be to everyone's tastes. It is a bit cheesy and predictable in parts, but when you think back to E.T for example, and how we put it on a pedestal because many of us grew up with it. Well surprise, E.T is incredibly cheesy too. War Horse is that same kind of cheesy - the kind that this generation of children will grow up with fond memories of.

How To Train Your Dragon - Review

My film viewing habits sometimes follow a somewhat curious pattern, and this is one such example. Over the past few weeks, I've watched The Thing (prequel) and The Human Centipede 2 (Uncut), followed by Happy Feet and How To Train Your Dragon. That's quite an extreme contrast in viewing material.
Human Centipede was graphically shocking as you might expect, but I don't really get my kicks out of watching body torture or rape scenes, so I have to say my Winter might have been better off without it. The Thing prequel was a poor attempt at milking the success of the 1982 John Carpenter horror/thriller, which was a remake itself. The new 2011 film can't decide if it's a remake or new chapter in the series, and it's better off ignored. Anybody who says it's as good as (or better) than the Carpenter version is quite clearly an imbecile.
Happy Feet, on the other hand, surprised me by being a thoroughly enjoyable family-friendly animated feature about a penguin colony in dire need of fish. The voice acting was good, particularly Robin Williams, and I can safely say Australian director George Miller's talent spans beyond making Mad Max movies. Yes, I must be reaching old age prematurely, for I'm openly admitting that I enjoyed a family animation more than seeing several people stitched together end to end. Who would have thought it? (sarcasm)

The real highlight though was How To Train Your Dragon. I didn't really expect too much from it, as it was just something to watch with the missus on a bank holiday weekend. But it turned out to be the best film I've seen recently, and almost definitely the best animated feature I've seen in a very long time. For someone like me, it's no issue to admit that Toy Story brings back fond memories of family cinema trips and the early days of Pixar's CG films, and the sequels were eagerly anticipated as the long awaited conclusion to a series I'd grown up with. But for me to say How To Train Your Dragon is probably better than any of the Toy Story movies (surely not!) - now that's serious talk. And in terms of Dreamworks animated movies, yes it's also better than anything Shrek related. Let's face it, I might aswell just say this movie has become my favourite 3D animated film, with Pixar's UP being close competition.
There are a few cheesy moments for the sake of the children (the main character is called Hiccup for example), and there's the whole 'cute creature' element that sells the package to its feel-good family audience, but these are things that should be expected from this type of family animated adventure. And apart from these minor gripes it's all positive. Good voice acting, superb animation, a stunning music score, a song by Jonsi from Sigur Ros, a story that's far from original but holds up well within the film's concept. And there are dragons ofcourse, and Vikings. You can't go wrong with that combination, and when all those elements come together in perfect measure, you get a number of spectacular scenes that really leave the competition for dead. There's no formula for scenes like that in a movie. Occasionally, all the right creative influences are at work and it just happens.
Despite it being a film suitable for children, with no violence, profanity or gore in sight, once you get that cinematic buzz from those perfectly crafted screen moments, it's a film that's impossible to dislike. It's definitely in that 'feel good film' category, and it seems to bear a few similarities to Avatar regarding a scene or two, but in every way How To Train Your Dragon beats Avatar at it's own game, and it does it at about half the running time and half the budget. Amazing.

Retrospective - Stargate

Kurt Russell as Colonel Jack O'Neil (Stargate, 1994) 

For many of you, the mention of the word Stargate might bring about thoughts of Richard Dean 'Macgyver' Anderson travelling to various destinations across the universe with his SG-1 team, smart mouthing his superiors and getting himself out of ridiculous situations with just a tub of moth balls and a roll of tin foil. Or it might remind you of the later series Stargate Atlantis, or even the recently cancelled Stargate Universe.

But for me, the mention of Stargate brings about thoughts of the distant and mostly disregarded 1994 movie, directed by Roland Emmerich at the highest point of his career. Unlike the TV show, the 1994 movie featured a rather restrained Kurt Russell in the role of Colonel Jack O'Neil. James Spader (Boston Legal) is Daniel Jackson, a role later taken over by Michael Shanks. There is no sign of Samantha Carter here, or the loyal Jaffa Teal'c. Infact, the only actors to appear in both the Stargate movie and the SG-1 TV series are Alexis Cruz as Skaara and Erick Avari as Kasuf. Everyone else is either absent or recast. So for those watching the film for the first time after seeing the TV show, it won't feel much like familiar territory, but the same underlying formula is all there.

Stargate was quite successful on its initial release, launching Emmerich and co-writer Dean Devlin into the mainstream, and presenting them with the opportunity to make more widely recognised movies such as Independence Day in 1996.

Richard Dean Anderson as Colonel Jack O'Neill (Stargate SG-1)

It's no wonder Stargate spawned a TV spin off that ran for 10 years and 10 seasons. The film was rich with ancient conspiracies, Egyptian mythology, new age 90s digital effects and well structured action with a sweeping music score by newcomer David Arnold, who had apparently been working in a video store before he was hired for the movie. All of these elements seemed to spark the imagination of its audiences, and the Stargate itself was the plot device responsible for literally opening up a whole world of franchise opportunity. Quite a number of real Ancient Egyptian historians believe in the existence of a Stargate, some having published extended texts aiming to prove their theories. Others think the pyramids were built by aliens, and all of these theories form the basis of the film, with the character of Daniel Jackson being the voice for these historians and their far flung ideas. It's a movie that answers so many 'what if' questions, and due to a very enthusiastic level of research on the part of the writers, it pulls it off in a convincing fashion.

Patrick Tatopolous' Anubis guard design

But in my mind, there's a far more obvious reason for the success of the movie. The narrative features a team of United States Airmen travelling to a desolate desert world to save its primitive inhabitants from the clutches of an oppressive overlord. Now is that tapping into the mentality of American audiences still sore from a Middle Eastern conflict or what?

The movie's Horus guard design

If I'm completely honest, I prefer the movie to any of the subsequent television adaptations. The film feels much more grand and cinematic, as you would expect. But in addition to that, the concepts are presented much more believably, and the integration of ancient Egyptian cultural reference gives it much more focus than the amalgamation of ideas presented on the show. The realisation of the Horus and Anubis guard costumes by Greek designer Patrick Tatopolous ranks as one of the most memorable and ridiculously cool costume designs in movie history, and Spader and Russell still feel like the definitive versions of their respective characters even after all these years. It's the character progression within the movie that sells them, depicting a Colonel O'Neil tackling the loss of his son by going on an apparent 'suicide mission', while Dr. Jackson is ever the face of optimism despite seemingly insurmountable odds.

Ra's original alien form before the
TV show abandoned the concept

Disappointingly, when adapting Stargate to the TV format, there were a number of changes made that create noticeable inconsistencies between the film and SG-1. In the movie, there were no such characters as the Goa'uld, who are represented in the show as host stealing parasitic worms. In the 1994 feature, Ra is depicted as a bipedal 'Roswell' type alien and described as the last of a dying race who takes human form through possessing a selected host. Other discrepancies between the film and series include various unexplainable character name changes, and a new arrangement of stargate symbols that almost completely re-engineers the gate dialling concept from the film. As you might expect, these inconsistencies have been integrated into the series canon via explanations by fans and extended fiction, but they're still there as a reminder of the original concepts set in motion by the 1994 film.

The Goa'uld parasite as depicted in SG-1

But despite these minor problems, I'm still a fan of SG-1. The first seasons in particular were excellent, with their plot lines expanding upon the themes touched on in the movie. Although the differences between Kurt Russell and Richard Dean Anderson's take on Colonel O'Neil(l) are enormous, both versions of the character are entertaining to watch. But as the series went on, things became overcomplicated, and a noticeable shift from the thematic material of the movie distanced a lot of viewers, including myself. But it could hardly have run for 10 seasons without introducing new concepts along the way, so this was inevitable.

Interestingly, Dean Devlin has explained that he always intended for Stargate to be a trilogy of films, but the rights were snatched up by MGM and rolled into a TV show before they had chance to put a second movie into production. He's now stated as recently as July 2011 that he intends to see the sequels made in an alternate continuity to the TV series, and apparently MGM is interested. Now that Stargate has run its course on TV, perhaps a new movie from the original creators is not such a far fetched idea?

How would you feel about another Stargate movie? Is it too late to resurrect the original cast? Should it be a sequel to the TV shows? Or should it be left well alone?

Sequels, Remakes, Reboots and Re-adaptations

The same origin story twice within 10 years

Every time I read an article on the Internet discussing an impending remake of a beloved classic from 80s cinema, I scroll down to see comments like 'Hollywood has run out of ideas.' With all respect to the comment author, this is simply not true.
I totally agree that current film is overcrowded by sequels, remakes, reboots and re-adaptations. But a lack of originality is not to blame for the derivative and cyclic nature of the film industry. We are.

There are thousands of original ideas and potentially groundbreaking screenplays out there waiting to be adapted into films, but they never get made. From the perspective of a film producer, who is investing millions of dollars in the production of a film, it's much safer to throw money at something that already has an established name, and therefore an existing audience and a guarantee of revenue. Think about it. Even if you're disgusted that your favourite cult movie is being given a fresh coat of paint, you'll go and watch it anyway out of curiosity, therefore selling a ticket that another original movie won't.

Therefore the only 'original' films that get off the ground nowadays are usually funded by independent investors, and although these producers have a much more limited budget, they have a more artisitic agenda and are more likely to support up and coming filmmakers. But unsurprisingly, these films rarely do well at the box office, suffering from a low marketing budget and lack of commercial exposure.

With all things considered, it's worth remembering that although the Hollywood machine delivers an abundance of terrible movies, the franchise/remake mentality has also generated material like Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight and James Cameron's Terminator 2. But franchise films of this quality are few and far between, and usually the product of a master director with a good footing at the studio.
But money is still the driving force here, as although many big name directors started out as artistic independents, they soon became household names and reliable marketing tools for the studios to sell their films with (Tim Burton I'm looking at you). Think of how many movies you've been to watch because the director was responsible for another film you already like, and think of the motive behind the slugline on the poster that reads 'From the Director of...'
When it boils down to it, there are many consistent ways that Hollywood markets it's films nowadays, such as with a big name director or producer, a big name star, or by selling us a sequel or a remake of something we already like. But it's all about selling a product, not high art.

The latest pointless prequel

So essentially, it's quite simple. The film industry supports films they think will fill seats, and refuses to support those that don't. So if you're so fed up with all the reboots and remakes, don't watch them, and instead spend your hard earned money watching a lesser known film from a more deserving director. It's us - the viewers - that decide the popular trends in this massive industry, but we all seem so obsessed with seeing the same material reinvented over and over again.