Ender Bender 12: Chapter 8, "Rat" (Part 3)

*Cough*

So, as it turns out, it's really difficult for me to motivate myself to read and write about terrible books (on top of the real-life stuff I have to do) when I'm not being paid for it. That said, I'm trying to make writing a bigger part of my life, so that means proving to myself and the general public that I can finish things and meet deadlines.

Just don't ask about Superman Sundays. Not yet, anyway.

So without further ado...

Ender arrives at his evening practice with the launchies, only to find that it's poorly attended. Could it be that he's not the effective leader of men that he thinks he is?

"Haven't you heard?" said another boy, a Launchy from a younger group. "Word's out that any Launchy who comes to your practice sessions won't ever amount to anything in anybody's army. Word's out that the commanders don't want any soldiers who've been damaged by your training."

No, of course it's another conspiracy against Ender! And halfway through the practice, some commanders from different armies came in and took note of everyone there! And fewer and fewer people started coming to practice each night, as the Launchies who did show up were harassed and assaulted.

Hey, it must really suck to be part of a group of people whose existence merits disapproval from those in power, which trickles down to abuse, assault, and harassment in the halls of schools. Good thing Orson Scott Card is the sort of guy who'd stick up for people like that, right?

Ender's ready to quit, but Alai talks him out of it. Who's our protagonist again?

Alai stopped him. "They scare you, too? They slap you up in the bathroom? Stick you head in the pissah? Somebody gots a gun up you bung?"

As an excuse to stop reading this book, I decided at this point to look up what awards Ender's Game has won. Turns out it picked up the Nebula in 1985 and the Hugo in 1986, as well as earning a spot on Amazon's Best Books of the Millennium poll.

Think about that for a minute. Think about the books that have been published since 1001 C.E. Let's assume that we're omitting plays, thus kicking out all the works of Shakespeare. That still leaves Things Fall Apart and A Brief History of Time and Newton's Principia and Dante's Divine Comedy. It still leaves all the works of Jane Austen and John Locke and Charles Darwin and Geoffrey Chaucer and Charles Dickens and Emily Dickinson. It leaves Candide and Gulliver's Travels and 1984. Le Morte d'Arthur! Paradise Lost! Frankenstein! The entirety of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the modern age, and that's just the last half of the millennium.

Ender's Game held the number 32 slot. "Somebody gots a gun up you bung?"

I...I don't know that I was ready for this.

QuizUp, Up, and Away!

So, for the past almost-a-week I've been addicted to QuizUp, a game that scratches a trivia itch that I'd forgotten I had. I've always been kind of a trivia buff, growing up on Jeopardy! and the like, excelling in Scholastic Bowl in high school, and spending way too much time among the top spots of a comic book trivia game on an IRC channel back in college. I've been rising up the ranks in a few categories (I beat the guy who's ranked top in the world in Superhero Comics!), and reporting the occasional inaccuracy and spelling error along the way, because the only thing I'm better at than trivia is pedantry.

But early on I noticed the fundamental unfairness that Batman gets his own category under "Literature" and Superman doesn't. So I submitted fifteen sample questions for a Superman category, and they seem to have gone over pretty well. A content editor at QuizUp sent me back their guidelines for submissions, and I've been working on expanding that list. I've got my Superman Encyclopedia, my Official Superman Quiz Book, and The Chronological Superman open as references and inspiration right now, not to mention years and years of sponging up this information instead of something useful.

So here's where you can come in (it's okay, the content editor said I could enlist friends!): submissions usually consist of 100-300 questions, and I'd like to be on the high end of that. I know I could probably break the bank just on minutiae from the post-Crisis-pre-Flashpoint era, but I want to have some variety and some other super-brains involved. So if you're a Superman enthusiast, feel free to toss over some questions, fun facts, or other bits of content and/or inspiration that you think could be helpful. There's no deadline, but I'd like to submit within two or three weeks. There's also no apparent difficulty limit (though after playing through one too many "who said this random line" questions in the "Star Wars OT" category, maybe there should be), and I figure the softball questions will be the easy ones anyway. So get obscure with your bad self and let your multicolored freak flag fly.

In terms of question content, here's the scoop:

1. Questions are multiple choice, with three incorrect answers and one correct answer.
   
2. I'll be submitting everything on their Excel template. You don't need to worry much about formatting, but if you do send stuff in Excel/table form, lovely.
   
3. Questions can't be longer than 130 characters, including spaces. Answer options can't be longer than 30 characters, including spaces.
   
4. All answer choices should start with an uppercase letter.
   
5. Try to avoid questions that involve choosing the one answer that's incorrect. If you do one of these, make sure "NOT" is in all-caps. For instance, I have "Which of these has NOT been a location for Superman's Fortress of Solitude?"
   
6. Any titles within questions should have double quotation marks (") around them. Titles in answer choices don't need any special punctuation.

I've already contacted some Superman Superfans of my acquaintance, but if you know someone I missed, feel free to direct them this way. You can leave stuff in the comments here, or e-mail me at tfoss1983 [at] gmail.

Oh, and if you want to challenge me on QuizUp, my username is tfoss1983, but the display name is Tom-El. Friends are very welcome!

Guessing Game

I watched a movie today. The screenplay was written by a critically-acclaimed filmmaker who had previously worked on Batman films. The protagonist was a dark-haired guy, played by an actor from the British Isles. As a baby, our hero was sent away in a ship to a new world by his dying parents, carrying with him their hopes and dreams for a better future. He was raised by simple folk, who were nonetheless wiser than they seemed. He grew up yearning for Justice, wondering where he came from. As an adult, it turned out that he had special abilities not shared by mortals, and that he was part of a greater destiny. He fell deeply in love with a red-haired woman from another land, and in a secluded sanctum in the frozen north, she helped him find his true purpose. But there were other forces at work, forces of evil, forces who stood against the hope represented by our hero, and who would stop at nothing to remake the world to fit their ideals. The hero fought his nemesis to defend those he's sworn to protect, and in the end, he killed his foe with an injury to the neck, and saved the life of the red-haired girl. He then flies off into the sky, and it's said that others will follow him into the stars. I had wanted the movie to be really good, but in the end it was kind of dumb and overlong.

Oh, and Russell Crowe was in it.

Do you know the movie?






Naturally, it was "Winter's Tale," an urban fantasy-tinged romance that was released this week. Parts of the story were quite good, and the special effects (when they showed up) were quite nice. There were some nice, moving moments, but the attempt to turn what should have been an interesting, character-driven story into an epic battle between good and evil--right down to having Lucifer himself involved--fell flat. There were a couple of characters whose brief appearances lead me to believe there's more of them on the cutting room floor or in the book that this was based on, leading them to become little more than magical black man and mystic Native American stereotypes. The film ends with a bit of narration that seems overly concerned with justifying the logical implications of the metaphysics suggested by the plot, and it fails mostly in that it calls specific attention to those shaky metaphysics in the first place. If it had toned the scales down a bit, and been more confident in its central romance and characters, it might have been quite good. As it turned out, it's the third disappointing movie with Russell Crowe I've seen in the last year and a half.

And it would have been greatly improved with someone being pursued by a bear, but that's true of most films.

The Problem of Doomsday

Apparently there's talk about DC redoing the Death of Superman story for the New 52, which shouldn't be entirely surprising. They've spent the last year redoing Batman: Year One, so naturally they'd look toward their most successful single story as another greatest hit to replay (Heaven forbid they try to make new stories; the New 52 is about repeating things that worked in the past). It's just a shame, because Doomsday is so completely played out. Doomsday has been played out since the last page of "Superman" (vol. 2) #75, which frankly should have been the last time we ever saw him.

I love the Death and Return of Superman storyline. It's bloated, it's tied into a huge mess of early-'90s subplots that make the story difficult to recommend to new readers, but it's better than a lot of people give it credit for, and it's a pointed commentary on the '90s trends toward younger, edgier, more violent versions of heroes. Given how DC has embraced those trends wholeheartedly with the New 52, it's again unsurprising that they'd want a version that was free of such uncomfortable subtext.

But I don't love Doomsday. Doomsday was never a character; he (it?) was a tool. Doomsday was designed to be a mindless force of nature, an unstoppable creature of death and destruction made incarnate, something that could believably kill Superman, without making Superman's sacrifice entirely anticlimactic. Doomsday was also a creature who could die in the battle without triggering all our uneasiness over Superman killing, since Doomsday was barely even alive in a conventional sense. There are probably other ways to read that battle besides Superman fighting against popular sentiment, against the idea that he's outdated and no longer has a place in the world, but I think that's the reading that makes the most sense given the rest of the story.

Just like that notion, Doomsday just won't go away, no matter how many different ways he's disposed of. I've talked before about my distaste for General Zod, and the problem with Doomsday is perhaps even worse. Zod, at least, has a personality. Zod can be reasoned with; Zod can form plans and have nuances to his character. Doomsday is pure, unrestrained, unthinking brutality, which makes him kind of a one-note character, inasmuch as he even is a character. And while Zod can presumably be killed for good, Doomsday's actual power is that he can't. Ever since his second appearance, his ability has been that whatever kills him only makes him stronger, so you can't even have the out of breaking his neck.

Doomsday's appeal, in addition to his presence in the top-selling comic story of the last twenty-five years, mostly has to do with his unique (if frequently ridiculous--bike shorts?) appearance, and the fact that he presents a physical challenge to Superman. There was a time when recurring physical villains were a fairly small part of Superman's rogues gallery, mostly consisting of Metallo, some Apokoliptians, a rotating cast of Phantom Zoners, and arguably Parasite and Bizarro. Over the course of the last thirty years, that roster has grown somewhat. Lex Luthor got a bodysuit, Brainiac got various upgraded bodies, Atomic Skull was altered into a more physically threatening form, villains like Conduit and the Eradicator and Mongul were introduced, but the number of villains who routinely go toe to toe with Superman is still rather small. The problem is that these are the villains who are largely perceived to be Superman's A-list, I think. It's understandable that artists want to draw (and audiences want to read) Superman hitting things--I'm certainly among them--but there's a way to do that without having him constantly in fisticuffs with his enemies. Superman's been fighting robot henchmen for most of the last 75 years, and I honestly think that's more satisfying than seeing him avoid hitting a battlesuit-clad Lex Luthor in the unarmored head.

So Doomsday keeps popping up, because people keep looking through Superman's rogues gallery for villains he can get into a decent fistfight with, and running out of options. There have been some valiant attempts to make him interesting, and I'll readily admit to reading and rereading every panel of "Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey" more times than I can remember. But even that story recognized that Doomsday alone is an uninteresting villain; he only worked in concert with the Cyborg Superman and (to a lesser degree) Darkseid. His next outing was as a pawn (and host body) for Brainiac, which was the last story creator Dan Jurgens told about the monster. Then we got the inevitable (and ridiculous) Superman/Doomsday team-up against Imperiex, then "Superman" #175 which gave the creature intellect (and wrapped a bow around the villain's entire existence), then we got the Reign of Doomsday nonsense with variations on the creature and I've kind of tuned that out.

A lot of this would be avoided if writers would stop feeling so beholden to the idea that every Superman story needs him socking the villain across the jaw or punching someone through buildings. Relying on Superman's strength rather than his intellect gives us diminishing returns both in terms of repetitive storytelling and serious limitations on threats and enemies. He's never going to be able to have a satisfying fight with the Prankster or Toyman or Mr. Mxyzptlk. There's a reason most of Superman's villains are more intellectually challenging, because it requires more clever storytelling than "who can punch harder?"

Failing that, they could at least dig a little deeper for a Vartox or a Titano or a Rampage, rather than giving us another unnecessary spoonful of Doom. Or, you know, they could invent new characters and try to tell new stories, but I suspect blame for that falls more on the shoulders of the editorial staff.

All that needed to be said about Doomsday was there in "The Death of Superman." All that reasonably should have been said was done by the time Jeph Loeb finished up his issue with the character. And yet he continues to stick around, because he has evolved beyond the ability to die. It's just a shame that he can't seem to evolve into something interesting.

Some thoughts on Doctor Who

I've been on a big Doctor Who kick since a little before the 50th anniversary special. It's been slightly obsessive, to be honest. So I figured I'd do something productive (sort of) with it and pop out another bulleted list of incoherent thoughts. Spoilers ahead for things that have been out for months now.

• Night of the Doctor: I think Paul McGann might be my favorite Doctor, so it was incredible to see him back in live action--and with his own hair this time! That they actually acknowledged the companions from the audio adventures was a beautiful little cherry on top. I'd love to see more mini-episodes with past Doctors like this, and I hope BBC is thinking really hard about it. This made me run out and find "The Brain of Morbius"--well, this and the fact that the Eighth Doctor Audio sequel to that story was coming up in my listening rotation.
  
• The Eighth Doctor Audios: It had been so long since I listened to any of these that I kind of forgot where I left off. I started up listening again with "Immortal Beloved," which was familiar enough that I know I'd heard it before, but nothing else seemed familiar until "Max Warp," which I distinctly remember listening to while mowing the lawn several years back. So, no idea what exactly ended up happening there. I'm most of the way through Series 3 now, and kind of holding off because I know the finale is a sequel to "Planet of the Spiders," which I haven't seen yet. And I've been holding off on watching that because I feel like I should watch more Third Doctor stories before seeing his swansong. And that's led into me watching just a ton of classic Doctor Who whenever I have the chance. Anyway, the EDAs are great (even if I don't like Lucie Miller quite as much as Charley Pollard), and I'm particularly excited to dig into "Dark Eyes."
  
• The Day of the Doctor: I thought the 50th Anniversary special was just delightful. Lots of nods to the past (though I'd forgotten that Kate Lethbridge-Stewart had been introduced previously), with a fun story that gave all three Doctors a chance to shine. While I kind of wish Christopher Eccleston had at least done something with it, I frankly think John Hurt's War Doctor fit better in that role, and did wonderfully. I hope that (if Hurt is willing) the BBC is working on getting him to do some other media. I'd love to hear some War Doctor audios, even if they were done by BBC Audio like the "Hornet's Nest" releases and not Big Finish (as I understand there's some weird issues with the rights).
  
  One of the guys at my LCS said "The Day of the Doctor" was everything he wished "Man of Steel" had been, and I think that works really well. Not only was it fun and reverent of the past while giving a good new story, but it also featured the Doctor doing what the Doctor does (and what Superman usually does): finding a better way to win. And not just when it comes to averting a human-Zygon war, but also with regard to the Time War.
  
  I've seen criticism about the retcon, but frankly I think it's misguided. I understand the desire to keep the new series' driving tragedy for the Doctor, but it hasn't been mentioned much--if at all--since before "The Eleventh Hour." It hasn't really driven the series in a long time. Moreover, the more we learned about the Time War, the less sense it made for the Doctor's character. Like, it's one thing to know that there was a Great Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks, in which countless worlds (including Gallifrey and Skaro) were destroyed, and in which the Doctor made the impossible choice to destroy the Time Lords and Daleks once and for all--well, except for the Master and the Daleks, both of whom made it out all right. But it's another thing to think about what that actually means. The Doctor committed genocide. Twice over. Yes, we're assured that by the end, the Time Lords were as bad as the Daleks if not worse, but...really? All of the Time Lords? Even the children (we know there are Gallifreyan children, thanks to "The Sound of Drums")? Even Romana and Susan? It just doesn't hold up.
  
  It all runs into the same problem that Superman had in the Silver Age. There's a great line in the Wizard Death of Superman Special (I know, I'm surprised too) about how, after awhile, it seemed like the only people actually killed in Krypton's destruction were Superman's parents and a few close neighbors. At least Superman got the people of Kandor, Supergirl, and the Kryptonian Super-pets out of the selective survival deal. Seems like only the evil people survived the Time War.
  
  And when the Doctor is one of those survivors and has double genocide in his past, it's hard not to wonder if he might not be an exception.
  
  "The Day of the Doctor" didn't undo the fact that the Doctor was driven to desperation such that he'd be willing to push that button. It didn't undo all the other terrors and atrocities of the Time War, like the destruction of the Nestene and Zygon homeworlds and the disembodiment of the Gelth. What it undid was the notion that he'd try to save Davros of all people, but destroy Gallifrey. The Doctor doesn't do genocide, not even for entities as bad as the Daleks. That's been established for a good long while. It doesn't even negate the remorse felt by Nine and Ten, since he had still been driven to the point of committing that double genocide, even if there ended up being another way. Whether or not he pulled the trigger, he'd been willing to do something that otherwise would have been abhorrent to him, and that would give anyone cause for remorse and reevaluation.
  
  So, yeah, I generally thought that "Day of the Doctor" was the best that "Doctor Who" has been in awhile.
  
• The Time of the Doctor: But the next installment? Hoo boy. What a sharp drop in quality there, as Steven Moffat tried to cram half a season of story into a single episode, and pretend that it had all been planned that way from the beginning rather than being hastily assembled in a rather slapdash manner, which it clearly was. The dinner with Clara's family deserved a full episode (a la "The Power of Three") rather than being the quickly-dropped introduction. Ever since the mystery of Clara was solved (in a way that also didn't make a whole lot of sense), it's become abundantly clear that they've never really bothered to give her any characterization beyond it. Rose, Martha, Donna, and Amy have all had lives and families outside of the TARDIS, and that's helped to give them a sort of grounding in reality (and conflicts to motivate them and create drama). Clara was created as ungrounded initially and intentionally, and as a result the most we've seen is that she's a babysitter who likes to make soufflé. A sitcom episode with her and the Doctor would have been a great way to correct that, but instead we get the unnecessary and weird nudity stuff and hop out into space for the most nonsensical adventure in quite some time.
  
  There are too many ideas in "The Time of the Doctor," and too few of them are any good. Others have pointed out quite accurately that it doesn't make sense for the technologically parasitic Silents to be confessional priests in the space-church, and also that there's not much point in confession if you can't actually remember doing it. The truth-field is fun, right up until the Doctor lies about having a plan and punches a great big hole in the plot. It'd be nice to have some female characters who aren't instantly and secretly in love with the Doctor, though that goes back to Davies. Then again, at least Davies had Captain Jack also in love with the Doctor, as a small bit of balance.
  
  And then there's the regeneration. I saw people complaining that he was using regeneration energy as a weapon, and I don't really mind that. It was strong enough to devastate the TARDIS in "The End of Time," so it's not entirely out of the question that it could blow up a Dalek ship or two here. The problem I have is with the unnecessary and wasteful bit where Eleven is actually Thirteen.
  
  I say "wasteful" because it throws away an interesting dynamic and source of drama without getting anything in return. The Doctor who knows he's the last incarnation is a story we deserve to see (even if we know he's not really the last incarnation). What does he do differently when he knows that the end isn't just the end for this body, but the end, period? It gives the search for Gallifrey a sense of greater urgency, since we and the Doctor know the Time Lords have ways of granting additional regenerations (they did it for the Master, after all).
  
  Instead, we cram all that angst into a single brief scene in a single episode, for no reason except that Moffat wanted to cram the Time Lords into this episode as well, shoving them behind the crack in the universe that never got much of an explanation and wasn't helped by the throwaway attempt in this episode. It was a dumb choice, especially hinging it on a fairly brief scene in a show that aired six years ago (okay, five and a half when "Time" aired). Dumb, dumb, dumb, and that kind of dumb choice making really muddied what should have been a heartfelt and tearful goodbye to Matt Smith.
  
  And that's ignoring the constant wink-clever metatextual dialogue, the eye-rolling bowtie drop, the unnecessary (and weird-looking, I imagine because of the wig) Amy, and the plot that was done better in "Orbis." I've liked Matt Smith's Doctor a lot, despite some of the writing choices along the way, and he deserved a better sendoff than he received. "The Night of the Doctor" was a mess.
  
  And it won't get cleaned up until flipping August.

Wow, somehow I wrote all that and didn't even get into my classic Who binge or the ebooks and comics I've been consuming. I guess I'll have to write up a part 2...

Oh Snap

From "Absolute Power," the 47th episode of "Superman: The Animated Series."

CETEA: We may have our wars and our factions, but we are not the barbarians Jax-Ur portrayed.

SUPERMAN: Even so, I can't fight him, Cetea.

CETEA: You must! You're the only one powerful enough.

SUPERMAN: If I do, your planet will be the loser. A battle between us would cause more destruction and bloodshed than all the wars that came before.

CETEA: We're willing to risk it.

SUPERMAN: I'm not. Not that way.

Sigh.

Die Hard and its Presidential Pretenders

I love "Die Hard." I'm one of the increasingly large and insufferable mass of people who watch "Die Hard" each Christmas, and I genuinely think it may be the best action movie of all time. Naturally, it's spawned lots of pretenders--not least of which are four other "Die Hard" movies--which I've lately been fascinated by. Fascinated enough that I got together with my Movies Schmovies brother Jon, and we watched a double-feature of "Die Hard in the White House" movies, "Olympus Has Fallen" and "White House Down," which are part of the slightly broader "Die Hard with the President" subgenre that began (as far as I know) with "Air Force One."

"Olympus Has Fallen" was generally pretty joyless, though Aaron Eckhart's turn as recent widower President Benjamin Asher gave me lots of opportunities to say "I believe in Presi Dent," and to imagine the Gotham politics that got him elected, along with Speaker of the House Lucius Fox. Jon remarked that Bruce Wayne told Harvey "One fundraiser with my pals, you’ll never need another cent," and apparently that meant "no matter what office you run for." The film features North Korean commandos taking over the White House, in order to get the codes for the failsafe system that can detonate any American nuclear weapon, with hopes of destroying all of them in their silos and exploding the country. Only ex-Special Forces, ex-Secret Service agent Gerard Butler can rescue the President's son and also, if there's time, the President.

Of the two Die-Hard-in-the-White-House movies from this past year, "Olympus Has Fallen" is the less Die-Hard-y of the two, which I think is a lot of why it was so boring. There are a couple of big things that I think most of the imitations miss about what makes "Die Hard" compelling, and "Olympus Has Fallen" misses them more than most.

First, there's the character of John McClane. During their first walkie-talkie conversation, Hans Gruber asks if John is "Just another American who saw too many movies as a child? Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he's John Wayne? Rambo? Marshal Dillon?" It's an important contrast, Dillon and Wayne being symbols of the classic cowboy adventurer, moral to a fault, paragons of virtue, and champions of the rule of law. John McClane is a good cop, but he's more shrewd and pragmatic than lawfully virtuous. But the more important contrast, and the one that most of the "Die Hard" wannabes miss, is the comparison to Rambo. "First Blood" was only six years old when "Die Hard" came out, which was the same year that "Rambo III" hit theaters. And while John Rambo was a mostly stoic, super-capable one-man army ex-special forces agent, John McClane most certainly wasn't. One of the things I most appreciate about "Die Hard"--and most dislike about more recent films in the franchise, like "A Good Day to Die Hard"--is that John becomes progressively more injured and weary throughout the film. When he finally takes a bullet from Karl's gun, it's a big deal. When he's pulling shards of glass out of his feet, it feels like an actual injury, and he's limping and trailing blood for the rest of the movie. By the time we get to that final confrontation, John is exhausted and bloody; his voice is ragged. It actively shocks Holly to see him like that. He's not the "Last Action Hero" only-a-flesh-wound action movie protagonist. He's not a one-man army who can ramp a car into a helicopter. He's just a resourceful cop with an attitude. His conversations with himself show that he's not super-confident, and his dialogue in the actual heat of battle is the kind of nonsensical angry stuff that any of us would say if grappling with a giant German on a staircase ("You motherf***er, I'm gonna kill you! I'm gonna f***in' cook you, and I'm gonna f***ing eat you!"). John's at his most clever when he's talking with Hans on the walkie-talkie, and a lot of that is bravado. He doesn't get the James Bond post-killing quips that have become standard action hero fare.

Gerard Butler's Agent Mike Banning is not John McClane. He is that hyper-capable, ex-special forces agent who knows all the ins and outs of the White House. He doesn't have to take notes or look at maps the way John McClane does. He's actually at his least clever when talking with the North Korean villains, though a lot of that is because this movie was apparently scripted by pulling lines from the Big Book of Action Movie clichés. "Die Hard" is thoroughly quotable; "Olympus Has Fallen" is littered with "but it's against protocol!" and "the United States doesn't negotiate with terrorists" and "where's my son?!" Mike Banning doesn't talk to himself, doesn't question himself, doesn't feel any ill effects from his injuries, and as a result is a much less interesting character.

There's also the issue of the villains. "Die Hard" makes itself a little more timeless, I think, by making its villains a multicultural cadre looking for money rather than achieving a political goal. Aside from the references to "West Germany," Hans Gruber could be upper-class Eurotrash from any era. Political motivations come and go, and while it'll likely be some time before North Korea and the U.S. have a friendly relationship, there's every chance that this plot will eventually seem as much a relic as all those films about Soviet terrorists, or about Rambo teaming up with the mujahideen. The multicolored group under Gruber also largely sidesteps the issue of racism, which is a very real problem any time you're casting one particular ethnicity as "the enemy."

One of the other things "Die Hard" does well is characterization. Every major character gets a story arc, from John to Holly to Ellis to Argyle, and even the minor characters have memorable moments, like the one terrorist who just wants a candy bar. In contrast, there's only one villain who gets even a little characterization in "Olympus Has Fallen," and even most of the heroic characters only exist as platitude-spouters. Everyone is a stereotype, and while that's a technique that can work well (see "Pacific Rim") it just comes off as lazy here.

"White House Down" provides a pretty stark contrast. It's a much more entertaining film, in part because it's not nearly so deadly serious as "Olympus Has Fallen," and in part because the screenwriter appears to have spent about fifteen minutes outlining his own story, then said "screw it" and did a find-and-replace on the "Die Hard" script. It's so slavishly devoted to aping "Die Hard" that the villains have a secret second plan, there's a scene with our hero on top of a speeding elevator, and there's even a "Mrs. McClane" moment. There are times where I honestly wished that it would ape "Die Hard" a little more--Channing Tatum is a hell of a lot more charming and compelling than Gerard Butler, with more humble origins as a secret service applicant who doesn't meet Maggie Gyllenhaal's (another "The Dark Knight" connection!) exacting standards, but he could still stand to be less sure of himself. We get a couple of bits of John McClane-esque "this is a bad idea" moments, but not really enough of them.

Otherwise, though, the places where "White House Down" distinguishes itself from "Die Hard" tend to be done well. Channing Tatum's politics-obsessed daughter is the Holly Gennero analogue, trapped in the occupied White House, and using her keen vlogging skills to leak information to the outside world. In most action and horror movies, cell phones are so inconvenient to plot contrivance that they have to be disposed of quickly, but this is one of the few things I've seen where a smartphone is not just used well, but made integral to the story. For much of the movie, Tatum is accompanied by Jamie Foxx's not-Barack-Obama President character, and the dynamic between the two is pretty entertaining--it takes a page from "Die Hard with a Vengeance," which is my second-favorite "Die Hard" flick, so that's a bonus for me.

"White House Down" follows the "Die Hard" formula with the minor characters, though it's not quite as skilled in giving them all good moments (the Glenn Beck stand-in is a fun idea but doesn't really get much to do). It does manage "Die Hard"'s trick of making seemingly innocuous lines and details, like a throwaway note about the tunnels that JFK used to sneak Marilyn Monroe into the White House or Tatum's daughter's flag-twirling, into more significant story elements down the line. It gives the movie a sense of cohesion that, again, too many of the pretenders miss. "Die Hard" is full of those moments, and it's really pretty shocking how much of the dialogue is foreshadowing.

I think the worst part of "White House Down" ended up being its politics, which are straight-up bonkers. The President has made a treaty with a bunch of nations that requires removing all the American troops from the Middle East, and in a world where even talking to Iran or withdrawing some troops is cause for major bipartisan pants-soiling in Congress, that broke my suspension of disbelief more than any other aspect of the film. Until, of course, it turns out bad guy James Woods's plan was to nuke the entire Middle East. I think the idea was to prevent the film from being too real-world political by inventing scenarios that were so over-the-top that they couldn't be owned by either major party, but it might have been better to go a little more subtle.

It seems I've come to the end of this rambling without an overall point. To sum up: "Die Hard" is an excellent movie, and is smarter than most give it credit for. Too many of its imitators (and sequels) are dazzled by memorable lines and explosions, and miss what made the movie clever and unique enough to stand the test of time. But if you're in the mood for a "Die Hard"-style flick that has a sense of humor about itself and also has an action President, you could do worse than "White House Down." Specifically, you could rent "Olympus Has Fallen." That would be worse.

Apropos of nothing, there's a line in "White House Down" (I think) which we misheard, and it sounded like something about Harrison Ford, which brought up the notion that to deal with the threat of White House-occupying terrorists, they needed to bring in the Battle President, and that would be amazing.

How I feel right now