The Lion King makes no sense, etc.

Last night I had to put up with about ten students of varying degrees of drunkenness tonelessly "singing" a bunch of songs from the Silver Age Broadway-influenced era of Disney films. Probably the part of that which really epitomises the whole "fun to think back on, but not so great to actually endure" side of it is when all ten of them bellow the *spoken* parts of the songs.

Incidentally, I'm not so straight-laced that I can't enjoy a bit of mirth and music. But while I love Singin' In The Rain, The Bandwagon, and the style of songs from the 1940s which often appear in musicals from around that time, I'd never say I'm a "fan of musicals" because for most people that means being a fan of Les Miserables, Evita... um... you get the idea.

One of the things I brought up to the other people who were less than enthralled by this little music-fest (or rather, to anyone who I thought was likely to listen) was that many of the words from the Lion King songs make no sense in the context of the film. Simba sings about "the spotlight" and Scar makes a metaphorical remark about "the lights are not all on upstairs" (referring to the Hyenas' stupidity). It extends beyond the songs, too: Zazu says that Scar would make a "charming throw-rug". But the characters in the film should have no knowledge of electric lights, or furniture, or anything like that. There's no technology in their world. I know, they should have no knowledge of the English language either, but we can accept that as part of the internal logic of the film. Just like, if they actually *had* electric lights and so on, we could accept that as part of the film's internal logic, but not if they *don't* have any but still talk and sing about them.

(Incidentally, when I mentioned to one person about there being "internal inconsistencies", he pointed out that some of the animals, e.g. the antelopes, don't speak. That's an entirely different issue, and one I expect to write about in the near future.)

I guess anachronistic references in Disney films can be traced back to The Sword in the Stone, where there was a clearly established mediaeval setting, but where Merlin was able to reference things from the future -- always to the confusion of other characters -- because of his magic powers. This was taken to it natural conclusion (?) with the Genie in Aladdin. But then with The Lion King it just seemed to become "comic characters can know everything."

There should be a page for this on "TV Tropes", which deals with other media besides TV -- in fact there probably already is one, I just don't know what to look for. Basically, I'm meaning where a film establishes a world with its own internal rules, and then one character breaks these rules by making a joke about something no-one in that world should know about. This sort of thing doesn't always matter, of course. No-one cares about anachronistic jokes in Monty Python and the Holy Grail because the film doesn't try to pretend its world has any sort of rules about what its characters are or aren't familiar with. Shrek's kind of a grey area. I don't think Donkey should know what an in-flight movie is, because there are no planes in their world, but it doesn't feel like quite such a big deal somehow.

Vindication, like

As part of my Museum studies course, I am expected to read a fair amount of "theory". This doesn't just mean reading about doing something without actually doing it, but more along the lines of "literary theory", or, if you will, "philosophy." And one of the books which I borrowed from the library to provide some of that theory was called "The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern" by Fredric Jameson. I've only read bits of it, but it's got some interesting things to say about our culture in general, including the popular kind.

It was interesting to read (on page 8, if you're interested in looking for yourself) the author's argument that Star Wars is a "nostalgia film" despite the fact that it doesn't actually take place in the past (well, not in a real past anyway), because it conveys the past by invoking an art form (old-time adventure serials) from the past. It then goes on to say that Raiders of the Lost Ark does both - it suggests the 1930s not just through its setting but through it's storytelling techniques.

Now, that's pretty much what I was saying about Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in my earlier post, although at the time the book was written, Raiders was the only Indiana Jones film on offer. They don't just take place in the 1930s, they take place, in effect, in a film made in the 1930s.

So, it's nice to know that the experts are agreeing with me. Maybe that means I'm kind of an expert as well.

Let the old Doctor die with a fond goodbye...

The four years of Russell T Davies' tenure as Doctor Who showrunner corresponded to my four years at University. I don't mean they were similar (although if I really analysed it, maybe I might find a few similarities), but the year after I graduated, no Doctor Who series. But now I've started a post-grad at a different university and... guess what! This year there will be a new series of Doctor who with a different showrunner. Not only that, but my postgrad course is at Glasgow Uni, and the new showrunner is Steven Moffat, who comes from very near Glasgow. Incredible!

Even without that personal coinceidental reason, I'm one of the many people who thinks Steven Moffat would be a great choice to take over. His episodes have really made the most of the time-travel element of the series... in "Blink" the Doctor records half a conversation for someone several years in the future who will provide the other side of the conversation. In "The Girl in the Fireplace" he and his companions are on a spaceship where different portals lead to different points in the life of a historical figure. In "Silence in the Library" he meets someone who has already met a later incarnation of him. To be fair, other writers, including Russell T Davies, have also done this to an extent.

But one of Davies' flaws, in my opinion, has been an over-fondness of including scenes where something big is shooting down at people in a city (usually London) as they flee for their lives. "The Next Doctor" was a great episode... but it was let down somewhat by the fact that RTD just had to include that giant Cyberman. (Well... he didn't *have* to. That's the point I'm making.) Steven Moffat, on the other hand, has almost always gone for the simple-but-effective... or maybe that should be the simple-thus-effective: people in gas masks, clockwork androids, living statues which are never seen to move onscreen. Oh, and his episodes are terrifying in a way which only ideas and not in-your-face visuals can be.

In Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook's "A Writer's Tale", Davies mentions that he wrote the final draft of all episodes except Moffat's, Chris Chibnall's, Stephen Greenhorn's and Matthew Graham's. We therefore can be sure that the Steven Moffat who writes six episodes of the 2010 series will be the same Steven Moffat who brought us those earlier episodes, and that what we have seen before was not a version of his style that was filtered through Davies' own.

We know a bit about some of the other writers who will return, courtesy of wikipedia - Chris Chibnall will write two episodes (one two-part story, perhaps?), as will Gareth Roberts. Chris Chibnall wrote the highly entertaining "42" in the 2007 series, as well as some of Life on Mars, so that should be good. Gareth Roberts' episodes have also been great so far, although "The Unicorn and the Wasp" can feel a little flippant compared to some of the others. Also, as Roberts had been rewritten by Davies for both of his episodes we've seen before, we may be encountering an entirely new Gareth Roberts this year. We don't really know how much of either "The Shakespeare Code" or "The Unicorn and the Wasp" were Roberts' own and how much were Davies'.

And now we come to the big one: Richard Curtis will be writing an episode, apparently including "Vincent Van Gogh stabbing a yellow monster". I'm slightly wary about this. In a BBC interview he mentions that it's "a treat for his children" and that he's glad that families can sit together to watch "something like Doctor Who and the X Factor"... I'm hoping that he isn't only writing for children and fans of the X Factor. It's also a little troublesome for me that he is writing an episode with a historical setting, given that he has previously written a very well known TV series with a historical setting, one where accuracy ranked probably lowest on the list of priorities. But I hope that with Steven Moffat in charge he's not likely to make the same types of Blackadder-esque blunders which have medieval English kings being rulers of "Britain", which includes Scotland...