Secret AI Invasion

I don’t normally rag on artificial intelligence. For one, I’m not an expert. And two, my many issues have been better-articulated by others: it looks fake. It looks ugly. It steals from artists and makes inferior copies of their work. Add in that it can’t even get limbs right, and it’s baffling that anyone treats it as a godsend.

Enter Secret Invasion.

For those who don’t know, I prefer to binge-watch shows on streaming services. It’s not the “healthiest” way to stay current, but I lack patience. Plus, it’s much easier to stay current if I don’t have to wait for a new episode. This is especially true with Disney+, where I wait for the second-last episode before binge-watching in preparation for the finale. I’ve yet to start Secret Invasion because of this, as it started syndication recently. But it’s a double-edged sword, as the debut has generated plenty of controversy for its opening sequence.

Essentially, generating the opening sequence artificially attracted discussion. And none of it was positive. It doesn’t help that The WGA, Hollywood’s writing union, is striking over, amongst other concerns, AI replacing humans. With all of the frustrations in Hollywood currently, this was a bad call on The MCU’s part. It not only ruins the joke involving K.E.V.I.N in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, it’s making people appreciate Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse more despite the news about its production.

I’ll address the elephant in the room now: I understand why Marvel did this. Secret Invasion is about a group of shapeshifting Skrulls pretending to be humans, and an opening that looks noticeably-off only enhances that. Also, contrary to initial concerns, the artists responsible were, in fact, compensated fairly for it. So yes, I get it. I really do.

That said, I think this was a poor decision. Not only does the title sequence look awful, it sets a terrible precedent for future projects. If another strike occurs, or if the current one gets worse, and artists aren’t readily-available for future shows and movies, what’s to stop Marvel from going to an open-source AI and repeating this? AI isn’t only faster than humans, it’s cheaper. Because you don’t have to pay to make something new.

Another concern is ethics. Stealing from artists without crediting them aside, this is scab-like behaviour. The WGA’s currently striking over poor working conditions, including contending with AI for jobs. Having studios use AI instead of negotiating with people’s the coward’s way out. I’m not against AI altogether, it has untapped potential, but it needs guiding hands to function properly. Essentially, AI should be working with people, not against them. This is the latter.

This situation reeks of greed and dishonesty on Marvel’s part. But ignoring that, however hard it is, it’s a shame that an opening sequence is detracting from the show proper. From what I’ve heard, the premiere episode’s quite good! There’s plenty to mine from this, and it’s supposed to have another great antagonist. I also have heard that it’s a slow-burn, taking inspiration from thrillers like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. While the last Disney+ show to do that, Andor, wasn’t to my liking, I’m open to it. I watch anime, after all!

By having this AI controversy, it becomes a game of “What’s more important?”. Because while the new show is being discussed, it’s not for the right reasons. It’s also giving fuel to detractors of The MCU who boast about how it’s “soulless”. Never mind the double-standards these detractors have when they find an MCU project they like, why give them credibility? Shouldn’t you prove them wrong instead?

There’s more I can say, like how Marvel should know better, but I don’t think I can exert any more effort on this. Because we know this was wrong. And it’ll keep being wrong, despite later clarifications on how the sequence was made. I’d simply be flogging a dead horse if I continued on. Where’s the fun in that?

One final note involves the revisionist history people have about Sony now. People are trying to rehabilitate the studio’s track-record because of Lord and Miller’s take on Spider-Man, and I must protest. Are we that far-removed from Mark Webb’s take on the IP? Or how Sony bungled the third entry in Sam Raimi’s tenure, shoehorning in Venom? Have we forgotten the disasters that were the Venom films and Morbius, something Sony seems to not understand the failures of? Why should I turn a blind eye because an animated Spider-Man venture has more soul than a credits sequence from The MCU?

It’s easy to overlook a spotty history with distance, and nostalgia’s quite tempting. But let’s not make Sony the “good guys” because The MCU and Disney did something bad. While Raimi’s Spider-Man movies were (mostly) more interesting than anything The MCU’s ever made, Sony’s overall track-record with Spider-Man, up until recently, is abhorrent. (The same could be said of Fox and the X-Men.) And no amount of goodwill from the team behind The LEGO Movie can fix that, especially given how they’ve treated their animators!

Okay, I’ve gotten that out of my system. Perhaps we can transition to something pleasant?

A Radioactive Spider

I saw Elemental.

I know you’re all waiting for my thoughts, but that’s not what this is about. Rather, seeing it reconfirmed my concern about theatrically-animated movies. Because we’re riding a wave of visually-inventive animation from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It wasn’t immediate, but the ripple effects are starting to reverberate, and now every movie’s copying it. And while that inventiveness is good, I’m worried it might overstay its welcome.

Playing around with visual styles isn’t necessarily bad. That’s how innovation and adaptation happen. However, this could have unfortunate consequences for more traditional styles of animation, crowding them out and forcing them to die off. That, and I’m positive this new style will reach an over-saturation point. But to explain why, let’s go back to Pixar’s heyday. Let’s dive into what happened post-Toy Story.

Toy Story practically changed the animation industry overnight. It wasn’t Pixar’s first project, as they had small successes in short films and TV commercials prior. It also wasn’t the first use of CGI, as small bits of the technology had been used all through the 80’s and early-90’s. But Toy Story was definitely the first, fully-CGI animated film, really pushing the limits of the medium. It was also a critical and financial hit. For the first time ever, it was possible to tell a story with this technology, even if only for 81-minutes.

So how did Pixar respond to this? Simple: they followed it with another hit 3 years later. And another the following year. And then one 2 years after. By the mid-2000’s, Pixar’s influence was being felt in the industry, with other animation studios trying their hands at CGI. Unfortunately, the success of these movies also caused traditionally-animated movies to feel antiquated. Said movies stopped being financially-viable, started dropping in quality and fell out of favour. Even with Disney’s attempted revival, it simply wasn’t a big draw anymore.

Complicating matters was over-saturation. CGI was making huge jumps yearly, and animation was no exception, but the quality of some of the films was slipping. For every hit like The Incredibles, you had something like Shark Tale. People were exploiting it like no tomorrow, and it showed. And even once the quality control began to pick up, a new problem emerged: how realistic is too realistic?

This is something I first noticed with Rango. I happen to love Rango. It’s my favourite animated movie of 2011, and it has one of my favourite chase scenes on film. It also looks beautiful, capturing the majesty of the desert town. But its sole human character looks really ugly. I don’t mean that in a “he looks like an old man” way, but rather a “he looks like an Uncanny Valley monstrosity” way. He’s the limitations of photorealistic CGI animation actualized.

That’s the problem that CGI animation started running into. As environments and background details began looking more lifelike, to the point of being difficult to tell apart from reality, the character models kept falling into The Uncanny Valley. Alternatively, the cartoony character models looked out of place in the environments. And sometimes, as with Beowulf, you had both issues simultaneously.

This is something that, thankfully, has been rectified with movies like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Those kinds of experiences aren’t striving for photorealism. Rather, they’re focusing on simulated reality through stylization. If the “Pixar look” is about pushing the envelope of reality, these movies are about challenging that. They’re arguing that there’s only so far to push the envelope before you turn people off, something Pixar has begun recognizing and scaling back.

Which brings me to my original concern. On one hand, these movies are taking a unique approach, showing that realism isn’t the only answer. On the other hand, they’re crowding out more conventional forms of CGI animation, making them feel obsolete. They’re essentially, drowning out variety. Sound familiar?

Another issue is quality. When is “enough” enough? When does the new format become the norm, such that the quality drops? And when does this new style reach its version of The Uncanny Valley?

Honestly, I want variety. Pixar’s gotten flak recently for “not keeping up”, but that misses what they bring to the table. Ignoring films like Luca and Turning Red, both of which are excellent, Pixar’s strength lies in making photorealistic animation work. They not only get its limitations, mostly, they also keep pushing and innovating them. That’s crucial in the conversation of animation and isn’t valued or acknowledged enough, and I’m afraid it’ll get lost in this new trend.

I’m not disparaging this new crop of movies. This is an exciting time for animation, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and Wish both look amazing! But I don’t want the new to crowd out and replace the old. I don’t want a repeat of traditional animation in the 2000’s. That’s not good for the medium.

I’m also not romanticizing traditional animation. Not only was plenty of it garbage, but even the good stuff often had racist and sexist coding. Every format of storytelling has its trash, animation included! But there’s a charm to traditional animation that, while not “better”, isn’t present in CGI animation, photorealistic or stylized. And it deserves acknowledgment in the greater conversation, much like photorealism.

Movies, irrespective of style, are hard to make. Pixar films, in particular, take roughly 6 years on average to complete, largely because of what goes into them on all levels. That’s not “laziness”, even if it’s not always appealing. It’s not always “exciting”, but insisting that Pixar “hasn’t kept up” is dishonest criticism. Especially since Lord and Miller, the visionaries behind this new trend, are human and, therefore, prone to eventually “getting it wrong”. I only hope that doesn’t happen too late in the game.

And Elemental? Please see it. It’s not Pixar’s best movie, but it’s enjoyable. It also doesn’t deserve to become a box-office bomb, as that’ll put another nail in the coffin for original stories. That, and it’ll send the wrong message to the higher ups. It’s bad enough that Pixar’s last 3 years were difficult without that.

Predators Among Us

I sometimes feel like superhero detractors go looking for reasons for the films to fail. With DC, there are constant reminders of James Gunn’s Tweets in order to have David Zaslav to fire him and bring back Zack Snyder. On Marvel’s front, every “misstep” is used as “proof” that The MCU should’ve ended with The Avengers: Endgame. And let’s not forget Martin Scorsese. Because enough ink hasn’t been spilled over that, right?

My current ire’s about the allegations against headliners in several of these movies. We need no introduction to the rampage of Ezra Miller, something made worse by them recently headlining The Flash. Ignoring the film’s quality, Miller’s numerous scandals, arrests and allegations are enough to make anyone question why they’re still in the industry. I get that Miller’s on a contract, but Miller being given publicity despite that is upsetting. Doubly-so given the film’s director, Andy Muschietti, stating he’d love to work with Miller again.

It's bad enough that a literal felon’s headlining a franchise, but Disney’s in no position to judge. It was recently revealed that Jonathan Majors, the actor who plays Kang, was arrested on domestic assault charges. Majors had choked his partner to near suffocation, and 911 had gotten involved. In addition, there were abuse claims made by people who worked with him on two separate film sets, and his casting agency has now dropped him. Oh dear…

Okay, Marvel has no leg to stand on. That alone would be concerning, but now Tenoch Huerta, who plays Namor in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, also has sexual assault allegations against him. It was revealed in a Spanish source that María Elena Ríos had Tweeted about his predatory behaviour, and that the organization Poder Prieto, which combats racism, had gone after her. This puts Huerta’s legacy and impact in serious doubt. Because what good would it be to keep him around?

It also brings up a bigger problem. When Majors’ and Huerta’s behaviour came to light, there were people who made this a game of “gotcha”. It was “justice” for criticizing Miller and DC, and it was proof that “Marvel was in trouble”. And I need to interject. This is bad news, but the response raises two, maybe three, concerns:

The first is that it’s not enough to screen an actor. For one, people can lie. I’ve seen that happen before. And two, someone can pass the sniff test, then become an open predator later. Remember that actors are human beings, as are screeners. Humans can’t catch everything, and predators are good at covering their tracks.

Second, this isn’t really about Huerta, Majors or Miller. This is about their victims. These three have caused real harm, and they’ve shielded themselves from accountability. They don’t deserve anything other than recasting, lest they perpetuate more harm. Period.

And third, don’t make this a game of tit-for-that. Miller sucks, but so does Majors. And so does Huerta. This isn’t about “retribution”. Rather, it’s about three actors being predatory and working under a system that shields people from consequences. If anything, they’re proof that Hollywood needs to be more ready to let people go for their misbehaviour. Also, their victims deserve justice.

I don’t like it when this nonsense happens. I enjoyed Miller in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I thought Majors was perfect as Kang. And Huerta was really invested in Namor. They all have done excellent work before! But the past isn’t the present, and people with influence should be held to a higher standard. Because unlike what Charles Barkley once said, celebrities, like it or not, have direct impacts on the public at large. People look up to them, so they should role model good behaviour. That doesn’t mean perfection, but accountability goes a long way…

I’m also bummed out because people in Hollywood have been blackballed for calling out abusive behaviour before, and I’ve seen actors recast over less. Even regarding The MCU, simply look at what happened with Terrence Howard. I know these scandals put DC and Marvel in awkward positions, especially since Miller, Majors and Huerta have multi-movie contracts, but at some point it’s worth cutting losses. Remember, not only does keeping these individuals harm their victims, it does nothing to prevent them from doing more harm. And you’d be naïve to assume otherwise.

As for what to do, the only one of the three I consider an easy fix for is Jonathan Majors. Kang has many iterations in Marvel comics, so it’d be easy to take an antagonist like The High Evolutionary and retcon him to be a Kang variant. It wouldn’t be farfetched either, given that Kang and The High Evolutionary are similar enough movie-wise. And if that’s questioned? Make up an explanation that fits MCU canon!

Finally, I have to mention that making this about “wokeness” is wrong. Yes, Miller, Majors and Huerta are minorities. Miller’s a non-binary Jew, Majors is black, and Huerta’s Latino. You’d have to be dense to not see that. But their behaviour’s less about “woke casting” and more about abusive influence. The latter has nothing to do with the former.

So yes, that’s all I have to say. Can we drop it now, please?

Mario's Duelling Rabbids

One of my final reviews for Infinite Rainy Day was on Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. I thought it was fun, giving it plenty of praise. 5 years later, I’ve beaten the sequel, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope. Unsurprisingly, I enjoyed it a lot too. But which is the better game? That’s the real question!

Reminder that, as always, this is all subjective. There’ll also be spoilers. You’ve been warned.

(Videos courtesy of Nintendo of America.)

Story:

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If there’s a downside to most Nintendo franchises, it’s their stories being practically non-existent. This is especially true with their RPGs, which have premises, but little else. I love Mario games in particular, but every “plot beat” is recycled and can be called from a mile away. Essentially, it’s not worth discussing this section. But I’ll try anyway.

In Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, a nameless and faceless inventor creates a robot named BEEP-O. BEEP-O’s tasked with guarding a transportation device, but when some Rabbids sneak up and activate it, they, together with BEEP-O, are transported to The Mushroom Kingdom. From here, Mario and friends travel the kingdom and clean the Rabbids’ mess, all while BEEP-O figures out who keeps sending him emails.

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope picks up where the previous game ended, introducing an antagonist named Cursa. Cursa’s absorbed Princess Rosalina’s observatory and wants to destroy The Mushroom Kingdom. Being the heroic types, Mario and friends, with the help of BEEP-O and his new AI companion, Jeanie, go galaxy hopping to rid everywhere of corruption. Unlike the previous game, there’s a plot structure here, including some surprises and a twist-reveal. It’s not a great story, but it’s something!

I already know which game I’m giving the point to. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle has fun with its lack of a narrative, it even reveals that BEEP-O sent the emails to himself in the post-credits scene, but its story’s not really a story. Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope’s narrative leaves plenty to be desired, but it actually has one. And it has character arcs, however lame or shallow they are. Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope wins.

Winner:

Controls and Gameplay:

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If Mario RPGs aren’t known for their stories, then they compensate for that with their mechanics. Simply put, they’re streamlined to be easily-accessible for children, making them “baby’s first RPGs” outside of the Pokémon games. With the Mario + Rabbids games, they’re “baby’s first tactical RPGs”, as they play a lot like the Fire Emblem games, but nowhere near as complicated or frustrating. This is especially true of the controls, with each button having its use. You can even fast-forward enemy combat with Y and skip cutscenes by holding B. How convenient.

While both games control and play similarly, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope has two advantages. For one, the over-world’s more open. Whereas Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle was straightforward and divided into chapters, making exploration nigh-impossible, the sequel has diverging paths in each world for optional side-quests. This not only fleshes them out more, it makes them feel bigger too. You really get a feel for the finer details, which is great given that some of the puzzles are really challenging!

The second improvement is the combat. The combat objectives are the same as the first game, but you get more variety. The first game had five options for each character (move, jump/dash, standard attack, secondary attack and special item), while the sequel has two additional moves via the Sparks, creatures with special attacks that can be upgraded with Star Shards. This not only makes battle mechanics more exciting, but these Sparks can be mixed and matched for each of the 9 companions, which is helpful considering that you’re forced to use all of them against Cursa.

One potential downside, however, is that Cursa’s fight drags. The battle with MegaDragonBowser’s tedious and unfair, but it’s short and straightforward. There’s a sense of accomplishment with beating him, as he puts up a real fight. Cursa isn’t as hard, especially if you’ve levelled up your party, but the battle takes too long and lacks the full impact. With MegaDragonBowser, you have to work for your victory. Not with Cursa.

Still, I’m giving this to Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope. It’s not as difficult, especially near the end, but it has much more to offer. It also has more variety.

Winner:

Aesthetic:

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I’m going to be upfront and give this to Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope. Aside from the graphical improvements, it takes advantage of the Switch’s hardware. The original game felt like a slightly improved 3DS title on the Switch, with its linearity and shortness of length. The sequel, however, feels like a genuine Switch entry, which is great for anyone who wants to see what an RPG’s like on the system. It also has more variety in its worlds and characters.

Winner:

Sound:

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You’d think this’d be another easy win for Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, right? After all, it has full-on voice acting, something Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle only has snippets of! Unfortunately, the voice acting’s inconsistent. It’s limited to select characters, and it doesn’t always match the text-boxes. It also loops one-liners in battle. It can be skipped over too, which is a bummer. Basically, what’s the point in having VAs perform lines if you’re not actually incentivized to hear them?

So yeah, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle wins.

Winner:

Overall Appeal:

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Now for the final category. While I love both of these games, I have to choose one. Which’ll it be? The game that started everything, or its sequel? The entry where you fight Rabbid Donkey Kong, arguably my favourite boss, or the entry where you fight Dark Bowser? Simplicity, or Sparks?

I’m going with Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope. Sure, Cursa’s not as engaging a final boss as MegaDragonBowser, and the voice acting’s wasted, but everything else is an upgrade. (And I already loved Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle!) Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope wins.

Winner:

Overall Winner:

Apologies for taking so long with this, but I hope you enjoyed!