NETFLIX WITHOUT CHILL: Logan, 21st Century Western

NETFLIX WITHOUT CHILL

by Georgi Sarafov

Logan, The 21st Century Western “​What have I become my sweetest friend, everyone I know goes away in the end. And you could have it all, my empire of dirt, I will let you down will make you hurt.” - Johnny Cash

Logan has legitimized the superhero genre, showing that it can reach and even surpass the emotional impact of any other dramatic film. In the early stages when the script was being fleshed out, the director had said “ when a car hits somebody, he will stay dead and if you are expecting 20 superheroes all in one place like some sort of an Avengers fuck-a-thon, then this is not the film for you. Hugh Jackman also has a creative input that shapes and deepens Logan’s character.

It all started around 2015 when Jackman was promoting Chappie. The director of the film asked him one night what the third Wolverine film was going to be about. On the morning after Hugh woke up hungover on a couch grabbed the voice recorder sitting on the table and taped that the film is going to be influenced by the films Shane, Unforgiven and The Wrestler. And the film really does feel like the ones it took inspiration from.

These titles are only about 50 percent of the film’s source material, the other half is the comic book Old Man Logan. Even though it is not a complete adaptation, the book is the main starting point. You can even see all that in the movie itself. Shane is actually shown and referenced in Logan and directly draws parallels between the 2 movies.

When the first few issues of the comics came out I was in college, working in Geoffrey’s Comics in Gardena, California. When I saw the first 3 issues of the book, it was the artwork that impressed me a lot. Later on, this has become a criteria when determining the reading value of a comic book - it is rarely that you find shitty text along with good artwork, because both the writing and drawing process that have quality, demand effort and dedication.

What makes Logan a good film? The source material of course. There isn’t just one thing that you can point at and say “this makes it a good film” , because here, the totality of the elements makes the film a success. I’ll tell you about the three films that Logan draws inspiration from and the comic book Old Man Logan.

The first one is a western from 1953 - Shane. Famous for depicting the west with broad landscapes, filmed in Cinemascope format, which by today’s standards is a screen 3 times as wide. The filming itself was done by 3 cameras set up next to each other and when the film was projected in the cinema it was through 3 projectors simultaneously.

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Shane’s character is a silent gunslinger with a mysterious past. He picks a small town where he intends to live a quiet and normal life, but the town is frequently raided by a band of robbers. Thinking that he had left the past behind him, Shane realizes that unfortunately, he has to use his guns for one last time. Guns are no more than tools for him, he does not exact pleasure in what he has to do. In his final dialogue with the bad guy Shane tells him that his lawless way of life is going to end soon because gunslingers and cattle thieves are old relics of the old west and the times, they are a changin’.

The second film, Unforgiven is again a western, written and directed by Clint Eastwood.

It realistically portrays the genre without the glamour typical for western films. The story is about an old gunslinger for hire who accepts one last job to kill a man who almost murdered and disfigured a woman. Many years have passed since he last killed somebody and he is now an old farmer, who has lost his wife and takes care of his two daughters. In the past, he has sworn to never again touch alcohol or draw a gun. The script has been co-written with one of the original Blade Runner script writers.

Unforgiven is defined as Clint Eastwood’s meditation upon bravery, heroism, fury, aging, honor and all the burdens of life that his character carries throughout the years.

Wolverine’s realism also relies on the The Wrestler, a drama from 2008 where Mickey Rourke is a washed out professional wrestler, who, in spite of his declining health, continues to wrestle in a desperate attempt to revive his glory from the 80’s. In the film he also tries to regain his daughter’s trust who’s been estranged from him. The main obstacle he faces is a heart surgery that he undergoes. Doctors tell him his heart and body are not capable to take any more damage from the wrestle matches. He ultimately fails to reconnect with his daughter, the woman that he falls in love with does not share his feelings. He goes back to drugs and alcohol and in spite of his ill condition he goes to do a final wrestling match. Nobody knows if he will survive. Before the match begins he says, he belongs to the ring, close to his fans, who, unlike the rest of society, love him.

Yep. These are Logan’s film predecessors. Besides the films, the comic book Old Man Logan is the other part that makes up for the rest of the source material. It is set up 50 years in the future. That is 50 years after the battle when all superheroes fell and now the country is separated in several states controlled by Hulk, Kingpin, Dr.Doom and the Red Skull. Wolverine has a farm and a family. He lives in the land ruled by Hulk’s inbred offspring who are half-human, half-green cannibals and threaten to kill everyone who does not pay them extortion rent money for living on their land. After being two weeks behind Logan’s family is being threatened as well. The hulks confront Logan and beat

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him to the ground but he does not fight back. There is something mysterious in his past that has broken him and he has sworn not to pop out his adamantium claws. It is not clear what exactly happened in the past and what made him take this decision.

Hawkeye, pays Logan a visit and offers to take him on the mission he has embarked: to deliver a briefcase of super soldier serum, the same that was used for the creation of Captain America, across the whole country and use it to create 99 new superheroes, who will overthrow the villains that control the country. Logan is reluctant and turns down Hawkeye immediately until he finds out there is a big money reward for the couriers. For the sake of his family, Logan accepts the offer and embarks on the journey across the country. During their travel, they pass by sites where the biggest battles have taken place and the skeleton corpses of the heroes have become a part of the landscape. Logan meets people and mutants who still remember him and the X-Men, as the heroes they were. Besides him no other X-Men are shown or mentioned in the first issues and no back story is provided. That happens further along the narrative. One night Hawkeye and Logan sit by a fire in the desert and with the advancing of the night Logan tells the whole story of his past and fate of the X-Men. SPOILER ALERT! For those of you who have not read the book, you should do it first and come back later, because I don’t want to spoil the awesome story for you. And for the rest, this is when Old Man Logan takes turn in the storytelling. It turns out that Logan has been tricked by Misterio to kill all the X-Men. Misterio’s illusion was so advanced that Logan could not even sense the deception. He ends up slaughtering his friends.

This is the main reason he would not take out his claws and fight anymore. This book turns into one of the most significant stories of Marvel in the 21st century. It became an instant classic. Few years later Old Man Logan’s journey was continued in an ongoing comic book series.

Visually and historically the film fits the book adaptation, but it has an original story that seeks its own creative development. It got a oscar nominations and to be honest it was one of the best films of 2017. Logan and Deadpool were the first two films that started breaking the mold of conventional comic book film categorization, which resulted in more non-comic book audiences and higher appreciation for the medium.

A Modern day classic by all means.

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