Speed Racer: A Few Comments

"The colors Duke! The colors!"

• The world of Speed Racer is a bright and multi-colored one. Everything in the film from the scifi race cars, the purple flying machines, to the cabinet of candy pops with a radiance that seems to scream "the future. " The coloration also easily distinguishes the look of Speed Racer from most other films. The colors paint the whole film in a light hearted tone that matches the content. There's hardly a moment of banality in the whole film. After all, this is the future where cars can dance across suspended tracks and where racing rules all. So why bother showing Speed brushing his teeth or washing his face?

The future is a melting pot.

• It pleases me to see that the Wachowski's version of the future is made up of people of all different races and cultures. The announcers and racer especially are a particularly diverse assortment in the film. Take a look.

A wink. A nod. And a bow.

• In order to adapt the anime series into a film, the Wachowski brothers had to make some changes. Still, despite the time being set in the highly "futuristic" future where cars race on tracks that resemble roller coasters, Speed Racer the film still has many throwbacks to the original material. Though I haven't seen the anime series since I was a kid, I'm pretty sure the milk, ninjas, and the pose that Speed makes after winning in the Casa Cristo race is classic material. More interesting is the tone the Wachowski brothers have toward some of the classic material when it clashes with the realism of the live action film. For example, instead of removing the ninja from the scene in th middle of the Casa Cristo race, the ninja were kept ineffectual and goofy. When Trixie asked if those were ninja, Pops responds: "More like a nonja. Terrible what passes for a ninja these days." After all, if those ninja were "real ninja" there's no way the Speed family would have been unharmed.

Rough Play... play being the operative term.

• It's difficult to write an interesting story if the main character never faces any challenges or setbacks. As the saying goes "you can't win them all." Functionally (storytelling wise) the Wachowski brothers had to find a way to rough up Speed without being too violent. The solution ended up being an automatic safety system that encases the driver in bubbles before their car is completely destroyed (see above). This mechanic allowed for the characters to take out opponents without killing them, thus playing and keeping the races in the realm of a sporting event. This mechanic also allowed for Speed to be taken out at the Fuji race. The Wachowski brothers probably realized that showing someone lose a race by crossing the finish line in any place but first wouldn't be as devastating or impactful as having a car get wrecked and watching the driver fly off the track. Over all, the auto-bubbling mechanic made for a better film.

Monkey see, Monkey over do? Nope.

• I appreciate how the real life monkey was implemented into the film. Instead of using a computer generated model, the actors worked with a live Chimp. The monkey was mostly kept to the background of the film. When a scene did focus on it, its actions were simple and quick. Chimp Chimp couldn't steal or distract from the show with such a small role.

Very clean. Mostly air tight.

• After watching Speed Racer again carefully, I've determined that the film is very clean. By clean I mean that Speed Racer tells its main story without adding unnecessary scenes, dragging any scene out too long, or deviating from communicating anything that doesn't directly involve Speed and this plight. The movie didn't waste any time. From the opening scene, the story races along until the blazing finish. Aside from the "we don't have a car" issue before the final race, I haven't found any plot holes. I'm not sure why Speed couldn't use the car he drove at Casa Cristo or in the previous scene. Maybe Pops meant that they don't have a Grand Prix ready car.

Speed Racer: Storytelling Through Action

Speed Racer is a coming of age story where a young boy figures out what to believe in and what's most important in his life. Speed Racer is also a film where cars of the future zoom around gravity defying tracks racing and battling for victory. Speed Racer is in fact both of these movies at once because it's an action film that tells its story through the action of racing. Not only are all the significant actions of the main character directly tied to racing, but every other character and element in the story is as well. If Speed Racer was a video game, the primary function RACING would be fully harmonized throughout the entire work.

Characters

• Speed Racer. First of all, with a name like that, you must be destined to be a great racer. Racing is in Speed's blood and it's also in his name. From the opening of the movie we learn that Speed isn't the best student. This kid's mind is focused on one thing; Racing. It's what makes sense to him: "But when I'm in a T180, I don't know. Everything just makes sense." Everything that's important in Speeds life is connected to racing. After hearing Royalton's racing "education," Speed felt like the whole foundation of his life was crumbling. Speed felt that this revelation was "crushing everything in [his] life that matter[ed] to [him]" After Fuji, Speed wanted to make a difference in the world of racing. And he sought to do so by racing. After all, that's all Speed knew: "But [racing is] the only thing I know how to do and I gotta do something." After failing to change the world of racing through his efforts at Casa Cristo, Speed lost his drive to race. As if following the words of Racer X, by the end of the film Speed is changed by racing and the love of his family/friends: "It doesn't matter if racing never changes. What matters is if we let racing change us" Racer X.
• Pops, Speed's dad, is the owner of their family business Racer Motors. After losing one son to racing, Pops is careful not to make the same mistakes again. At Casa Cristo, Pops witnesses his son grow up. For the first time, Speed stood up for what he believed in (by racing) and tried to make a difference against all odds: "I saw my son become a man."
• Mom Racer, Speed's mother, admires her son's racing as an art form.
• Rex, Speed's brothers, is a talented racer that developed a strong bond with young Speed on the race track. Rex tried to make a difference in the corrupt world by sacrificing his family, fame, and even his face to become Racer X. Though there are few who know his true motives, most see Racer X as the "harbinger of boom" due to the path of destruction he leaves in his wake. To respect and keep his brother's legacy alive, at the beginning of the film Speed slows down so that he wouldn't break Rex's race record at Thunderhead.
• Trixie, Speed's girlfriend, is a fellow racer who wants Speed to reminder her of his commitment by kissing her after winning a big race. 
• Royalton is a corrupt, devilish business man. All that matters to this character is power and money: "All that matters is power and the unassailable might of money"  As he heads his corporation, his current and future success hinge on his ability to manipulate the outcome of races, particularly the Grand Prix. Royalton's corporation isn't the only one linked to racing. Togokahn business is also linked to the outcomes of these races.

Themes/Motifs

• Racing Religion: Racing isn't just a sport. To Pops and the rest of the Racer family, racing is their lives: "For my family, racing's everything." Racing "is like a religion." Royalton only believes in money and power: "That's my religion."
• Cars are more than machines: You might think cars are just vehicles, but some of the characters in Speed Racer think otherwise: "A car's a living breathing thing. She's alive. You can feel her talking to you telling you what she needs. All you need to do is to listen. Close your eyes and listen" Rex Racer. This idea contributes to the spirituality of racing thus supporting the "racing religion" motif.
• Changing the World: When Speed decided to race a Casa Cristo, he was trying to change the world of racing through racing. Previously, Racer X and Taejo Togokhan tried to do the same. "You think you can drive a car and save the world? It doesn't work like that " Pops in a statement that couldn't be more wrong. At the end of the film, Speed's victory in the Grand Prix helps send Royalton to jail thus changing the world of racing forever: "It's a whole new world baby. A whole new world" Ben Burns the announcer and retired Grand Prix winner.

Plot/Story

It's easy to follow the story centered around Speed by looking at the races and the events that come as a direct result of the various races throughout the film. In chronological order...

1. Speed Racer grows up in a loving family devoted to racing.
2. Speed's brother Rex appears to be killed in a racing accident.
3. Speed wins at Thunderhead and preserves his brother's memory and good name.
4. Speed is introduced to Royalton and his "family."
5. Speed declines Royalton's offer and is presented with a striking truth about "real racing"
6. Speed loses the Fuji race like Royalton predicted and questions his faith in racing: "Maybe Royalton's right."
7. Speed enters and wins the race at Casa Cristo in attempt to fight Royalton's evil corporate power.
8. Speed finds out he had been used and vents on the racing track at Thunderhead.
9. Speed gets an opportunity to race in the Grand Prix and his family/friends pull together to prepare.
10. Speed wins the Grand Prix and changes the world. 

 Speed Racer's 3 major victories (in bold) organize the story nicely according to Speeds developmental state from innocence, doubt, searching, and finally to victory/understanding.

Action

The race car action in Speed Racer was designed in a way to give the cars a way to do battle and race at the same time. Such a design gave the choreographers a broader range/definition to work with in order to keep the scenes interesting throughout the film.

• Unlike racing in real life, the cars in Speed Racer go far beyond convention practices. Taking the Tokyo drifting style to the extreme, cars slide around the track at high speeds. Snaking from left to right is the norm, and spinning down the track not uncommon.
• Cars are personal extensions of the drivers. In a normal race, cars avoid bumping and running into each other. In the world of Speed Racer, the race cars are more like bumper cars. Free to bump, push, slam, and ricochet around the track and each other, the film was able to communicate a very human like aggression between the vehicles.
• Finally, the special moves that the cars are equipped with are like fighting moves in a martial arts film. From buzz saws (attacking), spear hooks (grabbing), jumps, to bullet proof shields (blocking), the cars truly seem alive as they move and fight like humans.

Development and Climax

The development of a good action film is simple. To build a powerful climax you don't want to give away everything at the beginning or the middle. It's best to save the best ideas for the climax including special moves and unique ideas. The more a story links into its climax (motivations, goals, characters) the more impactful the climax will be.

Let's look at how the action develops in Speed Racer.

1. Training with Rex when Speed was a kid to go over some of the basics of racing.
2. A relatively simple race at Thunderhead. Speed had to use a jump maneuver to avoid a major collision. 
3. At Fuji Speed did his best, but was ultimately brought down by the spear hook. Experienced some team work with Racer X.
4. Throughout the race at Casa Cristo the team (Speed, Racer X, and Taejo) used many tricks to counteract all the illegal tools the other racers had smuggled into the competition. 
5. At the Grand Prix all of Speed's fancy gadgets are gone. Armed with only the jump springs Speed out races the defending champ, defeats the spear hook attack, counters all the dirty tricks thrown his way, overcomes a system stall, and out races the rest of the competition twice! Everything that the audience has experience in the movie is brought up again to show how much Speed has grown. And with everything in the film centered around racing (particularly the outcome of this race), this climax carried so much more weight.

Many action films fall flat with their climaxes because they put their most interesting action scene at the beginning or middle of the film. By the time the film makes it to the climax, the finish underwhelms. This is bad enough. But when such movies community the main story, themes, and messages of the film outside of the action, the focus of the movie and the storytelling splits.

By picking one action, linking every character, theme, and motif to this action, and developing that action so that each scene builds and supports the climax, you'll have the core of a great action film like Speed Racer.

"She's My Granddaughter" & DPLs

Within any type of writing, there are times when the writer tries to communicate something to the audience indirectly. Usually, the content of these messages offer some kind of insight to to the work. I call these lines dual purpose lines.

DPLs are not the same as breaking the fourth wall. Instead of talking directly to the audience, these lines are directed at characters within the fiction. These special lines carry the dual purpose of being a part of the narrative/writing and communicating to the audience. Read this short poem and see if you can pick out the line(s) that seem to carry a dual purpose.

example 1.

Starfish

I learned about stars in Elementary
Books, and planets, and orbits,
But mostly far away things. My
Teacher used to point down into
The pages, finding the points and connecting
Them from the hundreds of stars on the page
With her fingers. I could never find
The shapes and figures at the end
of my brown fingertips. I searched anyway.

I remember pointing at the fish off the bridge
At the zoo, and turning my
Mother’s purse inside out for a quarter.
I turned a knob and out came a handful of feed.
Then I threw the whole fist in at once
Hundreds of little brownesses racing
To reach the surface of the water,
to touch the frenzied fish,
because my little arms couldn’t
Reach the waves.

But you, you’re a starfish.
You’re a star. And a fish.
Five points. Five Fingers.
You get to touch everything
Because you don’t have any eyes.
I guess that’s the point.

When I wrote this poem, I wanted to help the reader focus on the key themes from the outset. The first line of the poem hones in on learning, understanding, and the youth of the speaker: "I learned about stars in Elementary/Books, and planets, and orbits,/But mostly far away things." The motifs throughout the rest of the poem also bring a specific context to the opening line. The relationship between knowing and not knowing is paralleled through spatial distance. In this case, distance is measured by what the speaker can get his hands on, and everything else that is still out of reach to him. By the end of the poem, the speaker weighs the idea of being able to see/be exposed to more than he can understand and how that's a quality that's may not be exclusive to his youth.

When I submitted this poem through an advanced poetry workshop, professor Jack Myers commented on how he recognized the special quality to the dual purpose opening line. He describe the line as jumping out at him, which is an apt description considering that the line is partially directed at the reader/audience.

example 2.

From the beginning of this video.

"Who are you really?" Naota

"I'm an illusion of your youth. A manifestation of the feelings in your adolescent heart." Haruko

When asked who Haruko is, she replies with this fanciful and poetic retort. When I first watched FLCL, I dismissed Haruko's reply as a joke or a line of nonsensical gibberish. I realize now that not only was my assessment of the line wrong, but reaching that conclusion is what the writer wanted me to think as evident by Naota's reply: "Where did you get that one from? Anime?" By referencing the same medium that the main narrative exists in, we are partially taken out of the story. FLCL commonly breaks time, space, and scene to make a joke. So, in this case, one more joke wouldn't be out of the ordinary.

FLCL is a masterful coming of age story about a young boy named Naota. To set the stage for this story, the creators took several creative avenues. The kids act like adults, and the adults like kids. Though these roles are reversed, the story still finds a way to make the characters function in their traditional roles. In other words, the kids may act like adults, but when pressured, they revert to acting like kids. The conflicting pressures of childhood life manifest in the story as robots that burst forth from the foreheads of the kid characters. Social pressures start this strange reaction, and action like only anime can depict finishes off each of the series 6 stories/episodes. And finally, the world of sex, love, and longing are housed in FLCL's most eccentric supporting character Haruko. In an innocent way, Haruko enter Naota's life and leaves mysteriously with Naota growing up a little in the process.

So the whimsical line that Haruko gives speaks to the core of FLCL's story.

example. 3

In Spirited Away, Kamajii the boiler man delivers a slightly out of place, yet revealing line. Skip to about 9:00.

"She's my granddaughter." No. Chihiro is not your granddaughter. She's just a little girl that wandered into Kamajii's boiler room. I used to think that Kamajii gave this line to protect Chihiro. Perhaps by lying to Lin Chihiro could get a job at the bath house. But Lin knows that Chihiro is a human girl and that Kamajii is not human, eliminating the chance of any family ties. Also, Lin and Kamajii appear to be on good terms with each other. If Kamajii really wanted Lin to take Chihiro to see Yubaba for a job, he wouldn't need to lie to get it to happen. What's also interesting about the given title of granddaughter to Chihiro is that it isn't mentioned at any other point in the film. It's almost as if the line was never said.

The line wasn't written into the scene for for Lin. It was written for us, the audience. The movie, Spirited Away, is the story of a girl named Chihiro, an only child, who is spirited away into this magical world where she slowly comes to know new "family" and friends that create a support system that allows Chihiro to grow into a more confident individual. If Kamajii is Chihiro's new grandfather, then Lin is her big sister. Haku is her big brother. Zaniba, her grandmother (or Granny). What's important about realizing Chihiro's new family and friends, is that their love is the magic that transformed her. The link between magic (an element not of the real world) and work/love (elements we're all familiar with) is the glue that holds the film together.

Keep your ears open. DPLs are all around you.