Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, 1995
The Lorax, 2012
What makes a bad movie?
The cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, the film adaptation of the popular show where comedians and puppets mock a bad film, tended to pick on the schlocky conventions of science-fiction. This Island Earth, the film they chose to mock for their film, had terrible casting, bad acting, cheesy effects, and a silly script. Being selected for any MST 3000 production meant there were deep problems with the film, but something charming in the production.
This Island Earth had a plot that made no sense (how would a race that mastered interstellar travel fail to understand atomic power?) and men in rubber suits. Godzilla overcame both of those problems because it ad a human core. The leads in This Island Earth delivered clunky dialogue like bricks. Cal, the leading man, seemed chosen more for his deep voice and handsome looks rather than acting talent. People in the film didn't seem to buy the concept (such as the Metalunans), so they posed rather than acted. The effects, while groundbreaking, demonstrated the basic problems with new technology.
This Island Earth was one of the first science-fiction films in Technicolor. The colors, while vibrant for the time, showed the basic flaws of rubber suits in color: Abstraction was difficult in color. Rubber suits were easy to accept in black-and-white because fine details were lost in grays, and the film itself looked unreal. Audiences suspended their disbelief with the film color, so the monsters were easy to accept when the audience already accepted a monochromatic world. Although audiences may have loved the colors at the time, This Island Earth uses the same cinematographic techniques one would use with a black-and-white film. The film was worth keeping because it showed that difficult transition from black-and-white to color, and functions less as a film and more as a "look at our new technology" film.
Was the movie bad? In a way, yes, but the film could still charm fans of the genre. The film was a quick cash-in on atomic-powered monsters and spaceships, and classic science-fiction films had that theme, too. In the process of making the movie, there were a few interesting points. Although there were some less-than-stellar performances, it was clear that some people tried really hard to make a bad script work.
The Lorax was bad because it had a good script and threw it away. Instead of going for the emotional core and difficult message of the original story, the studio that brought us Despicable Me ruined a great book by tacking on a happy ending. The original story acts as a frame for Ted (Zac Ephron) to attempt to plant a tree in order to impress Audrey (Taylor Swift). He attempts to dodge an evil CEO who profits from selling fresh air in a plastic town.
The first problem with the story was that Ted never cared much about the environment; Ted cared about getting the girl. He became interested in the tree because the girl was interested in trees. If the girl was interested in destroying the last tree, Ted would have done that as well. Ted never had a sensible transition from caring about his own desires to the larger global issues. We are supposed to see that Ted was inspired by Once-Ler's story and just flips without cause. Dr. Seuss' original work scared the reader into action, but the film resolves everything with a dance number and a new tree.
The Lorax lacks any pacing or emotion. Nearly every shot had some kind of joke, meaning there were no breaks. Comedy is about space and timing, and The Lorax has neither. Every joke is thrown up, no matter how obvious or dumb, so I felt inundated by jokes. Worst of all, many of the visual jokes are fat jokes at the expense of a chubby bear. The script could have been better with half the jokes because then it could have highs and lows.
Like Despicable Me, the ending cheapened the emotional tone. Instead of the call to activism present in the original Lorax, we get a Hollywood ending where old friends reunite. Despicable Me avoided the tender moments that would have shown character development in favor of a goofy dance number. Unlike the Pixar and Disney films, Universal fails to grasp that animated films can still have heart. In fact, hard messages slide by easily because of the abstraction. Wall-E dealt with the problems of environmental preservation in ways The Lorax avoids.
Is The Lorax a bad film? It would be below-average if not for the source material. The joke-a-minute formula sold worse franchises, but one of Dr. Seuss' most controversial books needed a better script and ending. The Cat in the Hat was just a silly story, but real activists cite The Lorax as something that inspired them to care more for the environment. The Once-Ler in the book was not evil but short-sighted. The film makes his slide into corruption into a goofy song where he towers over former friends and snubs them, thus losing the thread. This Island Earth was bad by accident, but The Lorax was bad by design.
Other films:
Reel Injun, 2000
Stalingrad, 2003
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