Legend: Analysis of an Oddity

To those that don't know, when Ridley Scott's Legend was first released in 1985 it wasn't recieved well with US test audiences (mainly teenagers who all thought it was a bit funny and old-fashioned amongst other qualms), so Ridley Scott was forced to edit the movie, drop the Jerry Goldsmith classical score and bring in German electronic band Tangerine Dream to modernise and contemporise the feel of the film for the then MTV-savvy youth. Whilst the US got this new, different version, the rest of the world got the original peice of work, and as a result the movie became infamous and synonymous due to it's different, varied but still fantastic versions of the film. I grew up watching the Tangerine Dream version of the movie, but recently I bought the Region 1 (American) Ultimate Edition DVD which includes both versions of the film. I now have 3 versions of it- the version that is currently available in the UK (the only one out in the UK which is a different cut to others), the original Director's Cut and the US theatrical version. After watching all 3 back-to-back, here is what i think the pros and cons are for each version of Ridley Scott's underrated (and underappreciated) classic :

US Theatrical Version (Tangerine Dream soundtrack)

Pros
+the opening prologue music sets the tone well, as does the text
+good electronic music by Tangerine Dream throughout
+ a darker, more sinister tone through the whole film
+a cool retro 80s feel to it
+ Bryan Ferry in the end credits is a nice touch that adds to the 80s feel
+scene with Darkness in his lair at the start is more menacing and evil
+an MTV vibe

Cons
- editing sucks
-scenes don't make any sense now becuase of the excessive trimming
- way too short encounter with Meg Mucklebones leads to a wasted character
- "Loved by the Sun" near the end absoloutly KILLS the vibe of the movie, an awful, cliche cheese-ridden song that marrs the quality of the film
- the 80s vibe makes it look dated
-Darkness is seen at the start, kind of kills the surprise and terror of what he looks like
-Voice of father is annoying and doesn't work as well as the Director's cut
-an MTV vibe

Director's Cut (Goldsmith score)

Pros
+Longer scenes which make sense such as the conversation with Nell
+No retro 80s quality to it so it doesn't look dated, instead more timeless
+happier tone
+orchestral score makes it look and feel more like a ballet, which works really well
+Darkness is not seen till his entrance out of the mirror which makes it more terrfying and works better
+Voice of father is high pitched, hissing, makes it scary
+ Encounter with Meg is longer, better, more screen time and more characterisation for an awesome character
+no MTV vibe

Cons
-the Goldsmith score is hit and miss at times
-Goldsmith score is too uplifting and happy, and the darker vibe that the TD music adds is lost
-Lily can be very annoying in this version as all her scenes are longer
-no opening scrolling text, which i think worked well
-"My True Loves Eyes" i don't think works at all, and i personally hate the song

European DVD version

Pros
+Slightly longer scenes but not as near as long as the Director's Cut
+/- the Goldsmith score only

Cons
-lots of other minor scenes cut out
-Darkness spinning around in space at the end is cut out
-Voice of Father is the stupid one from the TD version, not the Director's Cut

This is basically the director's cut but slightly shorter with minor changes and more significant scenes cut out, essentially an inferior version to the Director's Cut so it is in fact the worst version out of all three.

Personally, i like Tangerine Dream's music and think it fits well with the movie, but the version of the film with that score is terrible- things are cut out here and there and disrupts the whole flow, and characterisation suffers becuase of this. The Director's Cut perfectly gives us fleshed out characters and scenes but the music is to a desired taste, it's nice orchestral musical gives it an operatic quality but the ethereal tone of Tangerine Dream's electronic soundtrack gives it a funkier vibe. Legend is indeed an oddity and in all it goes to personal taste, but here i think it's a question of music over story and vice versa- the TD version sounds great but the story suffers whilst the Goldsmith score sounds okay but the story is more fluid. I guess for me everytime i watch the movie will have to be twice to enjoy it on both accounts- both of them have merits which are far too good to miss.

Mistaken Symbolism

Games developers really need to be a bit careful when they delve into other cultures and religions for their "inspiration". I'm not religious in any way but i can see how it can be see as very insulting for those that are, especially when imagery, symbolism and ideas are used in video games which can be seen as ignorance and disrespect. Everyone is guily but none more so than the Japanese, who really should research a bit more before doing things as careless as they have done in many games over the decades.

In Super Castlevania 4 for the Super Nintendo games console there was an image of a Crucifix which is destroyed by lightning. They had to change it when the game came to the US for fears of complaints.

Castlevania Aria of Sorrow for he Game Boy Advance made the Hindu Goddess Kali into a monster that tries to kill you.

Shinobi for the PS2 also had a monster who looked exactly like a statue of Buddha.

Shiva, God of destruction and transformation ambiguity and paradox, is also the name of a blue demon woman with Ice powers which helps and is controlled by the player in battle in the Final Fantasy games by Squaresoft.

Agni and Rudra are the Gods of fire and wind in the Hindu religion. Games developer Capcom needed a cool sounding name for swords of fire and wind power in their game Devil May Cry 3 for the PS2, and some ignorant bozo thought it would work to name them after the Hindu gods. Now this is fine if you are just naming a weapon after a God, but the fact that the weapons are personifed into evil demon monsters that you have to fight first before they turn into weapons you can use is what takes the cake. That's like having a weapon which has the power to control water and calling it Moses, but Moses is a monster you have to fight first before you get to have the weapon named after him. Would anyone ever dream of doing that? of course not, it would cause outrage. So why do it with Hinduism? Pure ignorance if you ask me.

They pick things becuase they look cool with no disregard that it may be offensive to other religions. That kind of narrow-mindedness needs to be stopped. I think it's silly and i don't really care but considering we live in a world where religion is a huge thing and it can upset people and drive them to do silly acts in the name of it, i think we should be a little more careful regarding it. Otherwise we get angry insulted people rowing over it from all sides which is just pointless and uneeded.

Look at the whole Harry Potter thing where Christians boycotted it becuase it promoted dark magic and witchcraft.

Also look at that incident in Europe where someone drew a cartoon of Allah and muslims around the world were so offended they wanted to behead whoever did it.

And also recently where that teacher in Sudan named a teddy bear Mohammed and agian, they wanted to execute her.

It's a sad time we live in when such things can upset people but thats the way it is. And in that respect i'm saying that these games developers should be more careful when naming things after religious dieites or text when there are people out there willing to do crazy things in the name of religion.

Games may be popular world-wide but they don't get as much attention as novels and movies and tv shows. If Agni and Rudra depicted as demons were in a movie then it surely would have resulted in getting noticed and protested agianst.

The fact is Agni and Rudra are kind, heavenly Gods who bestow prosperity in the Hindu religion but in Devil May Cry 3 they are evil monsters in a hellish place you have to fight. Even is it is a reference, it's still insulting because they've given postive, Godly names to negative personas. Same with Kali and Shiva- these are dieties people worship yet they are depicted as devils/monsters that try to kill you in the Castlevania and Final Fantasy games. Of course this is offensive to Hindus, it's absurd that Capcom even put them in there. I remember playing DMC1 and one of my christian freinds was angry at the use of christian text and imagery in the game, especially showing Mundus as a Lucifer/fallen angel figure, the last levels blatantly being fought in some pseudo-Heaven and Hell and Trish in a crucifixtion pose, despite her being a demon created by "the devil". I laughed at her at first but becuause she held religion dear to her i can understand where she was coming from. Just becuase we don't find it offensive doesn't mean they don't.

Sure, we can see it as "references" to religion and Gods, but other's won't. There's a fine line between "homage" and insult, spcially when it concenrs religion. To us, we just see a bearded guy who made up a bunch of stories years ago. To them, it's Jesus Christ- saviour of saviours, king of Kings, son of God. To religious people this man actually LIVED and will come back one day, and everything he said is the truth. They see things differently, and hold their life to it with infinite respect. And in this crazy world we live in where people are willing to take their own life for a religion the whole-heartedly agree in, it's very careless and stupid for games companies to be taking this kind of narrow-minded approach to religious text and imagery in games. Yes it's just a video game, but it doesn't matter- if it insults a religion then it can upset the world. It can cause a lot of unnecssary hassle and frankly the world's already in a dire state already, last thing we want is to piss off some religious extremeists agian.

Religion is far too powerful a weapon these days, over the half the world embrace some form and it's a way of life for people, they believe it with their whole bodies. Half the world's wars have been fought over some kind of religious dispute- and the fact is it's always been around and it's here to stay, and thats the sad state of it all unfortuenatly which means holding our tongue when discussing it for fear of upsetting minorities, countries, even nations. But that defies the definition of free speech- what exactly is it? And do we really have it? Not really.

Battle Royale: The Issues

I was watching this the other day on TV (haven't seen it in ages) still an entertaining film, but there was something that bugged me about the whole BR program in the first place: Rather than just have random schools and classes picked to play the BR game, i felt it would have been much better if the people forced were kids with a track history of being ASBO/nuisances/hoodlums/punks.

It's kind of silly that generally nice, kind, polite and happy kids that aren't screwed in the head who care about getting an education and want to do something with their lives are chosen to play the game. To put it simply- anyone with a record of some sort, whether criminal or not, should have automatically had their name put into a database for the game, not just random schools and classes with nice kids that have done nothing wrong.

I know the game's purpose is the Government's desperate and radical way of cutting down on the troublemakers of the country thus weening the future so only "worthy" people inhabit it, but come on- some generally nice kids were killed off for no apparant reason except the fact that the school was chosen in a "random lottery" way. I think whoever made up that law should have thought about it more.

All i understand is the description at the start of the movie, where it explains that society has collapsed and kids were rebelling agianst the adults to make it a more dangerous place to live, and BR was a legitamte way of how adults fought back. Sure, but not all the kids were being idiots- hence not all the kids should have been forced to play the game, just the troublemakers as punishment. And then it would have been the survivor from that roster who would have learnt the lesson and then has the decision to turn their life around for the better. If they didn't, then they would have probably died in the game.

I just can't seem to understand how killing off the good kids too would help in the detoxification of the country. Surely it's adding to the problems and now you have a country that will be full of the screwed-up/punk kids that have won BR too? For example, the winner of the game shown at the start, how can she ever move on from her nightmarish experiences of the game and how is her mental instability supposed to help in society? Constant mental breakdowns would plague her and ruin her life, probably leading to suicide at some point, the same affect with anyone whho survived the ordeal. She's as good as useless in society now and can probably never make do in the real world wheras she would have if she had never been invloved- so agian BR is making things even more worse to the individuals involved.

Gather the fact that (from what i gather) this game happens every year (or even more often) and it's really not doing anything positive to soceity, ultimatly creating a situation where the kids unite and rebel in the sequel through acts of extreme terrorism trying to prove a point. And if the kids didn't fight back, the adults of the children involved would have.

I know it's a work of fiction but still these questions plagued me throught and detracted from my overall enjoyment. I would have liked it more if they were all thugs playing the game, and then we find out that they aren't really all that bad after all, just misunderstood, being the way the are becuase life/upbringing/other personal issues have made them who they are, and they learn about themselves and know they have failed and see their flaws and decide to do something about it, turn a new leaf etc. I think we would have felt sorry for them more once we got to find out about the characters much more this way, as we do with the messed up charaters in the movie who seem evil but really aren't (like the girl who was abused as a kid). I believe no-one is really bad in this world just misunderstood/lost, so in that sense as an audience we would have found out that we got them all wrong, just like all the adults did when they passed the law in the first place.

Considering the world is in a shithole right now and Governments in every country are doing everything they can to stop kids shooting/stabbing/murdering etc people (and failing to do something about it) i can totally see something like a BR program (to an extent) happening as a realistic form of punishment, it's certainly a lot more believable than bringing back capital punishment. Okay so the movie is entirly a work of OTT fiction, i'm not suggesting they do it how it is in the movie with neck-bombs and weapons like a Running Man type game, but sending off kids to a contained island to learn to work together and a chance to change themselves as a form of punishment is very believable, and a lot less harsh than any form of normal prison which would screw them up even more.

In that sense ony the people worth punishing should have gone. They should also have been given sentences through court hearings and verdicts and the public given a choice whether to send them there or not. At least it makes it more believable than a "random lottery".

I just like my films to have a certian foundation for their arguments, sure they do a simple enough job explaning why BR exists but too many questions are left unanswered becuase of this which gets in the way of me enjoying the movie as it should. Sorry, i just ask a lot of questions as to why thats all.

Good film nonetheless, a hell of a lot better than the sequel. However i'm not looking forward to the American remake (damn you!) but i hope it answers my dilemma properly.