So here’s a guy who, much like David Koepp, seems to be everywhere. If he’s not headlining scripts, he’s doing uncredited rewrites and is an all-around producer and even director not just of movies but also television. And one can’t deny that he’s been a prolific force in legitimizing superhero movies ever since 1998’s Blade. Except that more often than not he’s denied credit for that very thing.
But exactly who is David S. Goyer? What are his concerns, and do they shine through in his writing? From The Crow: City of Angels to the show Krypton, it’s hard to nail down the man’s style or voice, mostly because he more often than not collaborates with others.
There’s not necessarily anything wrong with being influenced by others. Batman Begins (2005) did, after all, take the three-act structure of Superman (1978) and refined it to a formula. So formulaic, in fact, that Goyer aped himself with Man of Steel (2013)!
I’ve read a few of his screenplays, and they don’t sparkle like, say, Shane Black’s prose. And it’s hard to nail down what’s his material as he collaborates more often than not. He’s more of a first-draft man, laying out the story that others iron out.
That’s true as far back as Dark City, perhaps the best film he’s ever worked on. A gorgeous, haunting movie directed by Alex Proyas (The Crow), it anticipates The Matrix in more ways than one. It’s not just the metropolitan setting, the questioning of reality or the Chosen One archetype, it’s also the black coats, wire work and secret underground societies that control the authorities that both movies have in common. Perhaps both movies were capitalizing on a zeitgeist of the time, with the approaching millennium and an entire demographic cohort, Generation X, left bored and aimless by inherited prosperity. This angry rebellion against domesticity, emasculation and the corporate world could also be seen in American Beauty, Fight Club and Office Space just a year later. But Dark City, much like The Dark Knight trilogy a decade later, could be chalked up more to Goyer’s co-creators, in this case Proyas and fellow screenwriter Lem Dobbs (The Limey, Haywire).
A better indication of Goyer’s talent is Blade, a screenplay that sprung solely from his brain and fingertips. It’s, for instance, infinitely quotable, but more importantly it’s a strong template for streamlining a fantastical concept down into a more accessible package for mainstream audiences. It’s funny, Superman: The Motion Picture and Batman are definitely the urtexts for superhero films, but Blade wrote the language of the 21st century action film by which all modern superhero films spring. Without Blade there is no X-Men and so on and so forth.
Directed by Stephen Norrington, this film gets credit for its influence but not enough as a standalone text with verve, attitude and imagination. Not only is the first 15 minutes an incredible, visceral experience, but the rest of the film is Asian cinema filtered through blaxploitation. That’s right, this movie is funky. It’s urban hyper-reality bordering on cyberpunk, and for that reason (even without smartphones and tablets) it still feels bleeding edge today.
Not just funky, this movie is weird. The vampires are animalistic and decadent, laying the groundwork for the likes of True Blood, Daybreakers and The Strain. Vampirism and the act of drinking blood had been used countless times before as a metaphor for love making, but here it’s fucking. Not just that, but there’s an undercurrent of incest as Blade yearns for his mother the entire movie, projecting her onto Dr. Karen Jenson (N’Bushe Wright), and then when he actually meets his mother she’s all over him. This, of course, culminates in Blade penetrating her.
There’s fun subversion, as well, of race roles and a quiet subtext about masculinity and blackness on display. Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) is a character with an ill-defined backstory, but it’s obvious that he has little man’s complex. First he wants to be a Pure Blood, then Blade, then he wants to be La Magra. He wants to be big. He’s a little white guy, and on several occasions admits to wanting to be a strong black man, all the while accusing Blade of being an “Uncle Tom”. It’s fascinating, a scenario in which the metaphor encompasses vampires as oppressed minorities seeking revolution and Blade as a sellout of his own people.
There’s also a provocative attempt of science vs. religion, with Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) and Karen representing hard logic and scientific fact and Frost’s side hoping for myths and legends. Unfortunately this tends to get muddled, as Blade himself seeks help from a new age mystic (the guy that supplies him with serum) and Frost uses technology to decipher the old scrolls and some sort of advanced sunscreen to protect from sunlight. Maybe the point is that the lines are blurred.
I think Frost’s resentment of the Pure Bloods stems from their lack of acceptance of him. Again, Frost is given little background and most of his ratty yet charismatic presence is as a result of Dorff (an underrated actor who, fortunately, will soon appear in True Detective season 3). Still, the constant use of “fuck” on his part, but not for every character in the movie (something, say, Tarantino suffered from in Pulp Fiction by having everyone swear like sailors), reminded me of people I’ve known that overcompensate by talking big.
As far as I can tell of Frost, and I may be projecting my own imagination here, he’s gathered a following (or maybe made a following) of mostly newborn, turned vampires with promises, money and guile. Obviously Frost is supposed to be a smart guy, but unfortunately we’re never shown a legitimate application of his smarts. He has computers decipher the Book of Erebus…how? It would’ve been nice if he’d been shown cracking a Rosetta Stone or something.
It’s just fascinating that he has so much faith in the old blood god, considering he’s so new to this world. He’s banking everything on La Magra, perhaps because he’s very concerned with being the thing’s vessel and thus proving to himself that he’s something special. Consequently, Frost and his crew are relatively ineffective and only achieve their goals by doing the unexpected, being brash and bold.
Where the movie does falter, however, is in its seeming lack of commitment to its ending. After Whistler dies, there’s a montage of Blade preparing for the final battle in which he’s shown tearing a plant from its pot and severing its roots. This is an ersatz hybrid plant that figures into two scenes: the first sees Karen exploring Blade’s room and discovering the plant, while the second is the aforementioned scene. The plant itself is a juxtaposition of two species from disparate lineages: leaves and roots of a Dracaena, with flowers of Leucospermum stuck in around the base
The scene draws attention to itself and is clearly supposed to be indicative of Blade’s mindset. Blade himself is a hybrid, both human and vampire, and by cutting the roots he’s severing ties. But severing ties with what? Is he declaring he’s not defined by his heritage? I’ve always interpreted it as him rejecting what’s left of his humanity. This would seem to be confirmed when Blade shoots a human security guard while invading Frost’s lair. The man pleads, saying “Please, I just work for them!” And Blade shoots him in the face with no mercy. This character arc then culminates when Blade drinks Karen’s blood to recover and nearly kills her. He’s embraced his vampire side and become more powerful for it, but this is then contradicted by the end in which he asks Karen to make a better serum.
Blade II, by comparison, doesn’t have nearly as much on its mind. Directed by Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, The Shape of Water), it’s a very pretty movie with very cool creature designs and practical FX but it lacks the freight-train energy of the first movie. From a story perspective, however, there’s a natural escalation of the plot and the Reapers are good villains, and it’s clear that Goyer developed the screenplay with star Wesley Snipes so there wasn’t any creative differences with the director.
But all that means is the blame can be put on Goyer. First of all, the movie suffers from there being way too many characters. Too many characters in the Bloodpack, a few without any dialogue, and Whistler is brought back with little to do. There’s a hint of suspicion about him at first, but then nothing. Plus there’s a love interest in Nyssa (Leonor Varela), but Blade’s affection for her comes out of nowhere (I think there was a love scene in the script that got cut out).
As well, Blade himself doesn’t really progress as a character. The only time Snipes gets to stretch himself acting wise is when he slaps Ron Pearlman and puts him in his place. The rest of the movie is stone-cold badass, which is fine but repetitive. The first ended with him coming to terms with his blood lust…but in this one he’s still struggling. He seems to gain sympathy for the vampires (at least pure bloods like Nyssa), but is then back to hunting them without remorse in the unfortunate third movie.
It’s a solid sequel with great action and fun, but ultimately shallow, characters. As well, it lacks a certain edge the first one had. The House of Pain can’t really compare with the Blood Rave from the first, and little touches (like the bar with the little Japanese girls singing) gave Blade‘s world real personality. The second one only benefits from being in Prague, but really could have been anywhere as it’s just endless concrete atriums and cathedrals.
It does, however, bring into stark focus the consistent throughlines across Goyer’s movies. An easy comparison can be made between the Blade trilogy, with the third movie, Blade: Trinity (2004), directed by Goyer himself, and The Dark Knight trilogy in terms of plot points, themes and motifs. Certainly not quality as a whole, but there are matters of importance that keep recurring in Goyer’s oeuvre. Blade himself, with his interrogation tactics, inventory of gadgets and penchant for violence and anger, is comparable to Goyer’s Batman. The vampires as an Illuminati-esque organization with influence in every echelon of society is in line with the League of Shadows. There’s the aforementioned sense of escalation. And in terms of look, Goyer likes his heroes in black coats and capes.
And there’s the fact that Goyer writes strong women well. From Karen in Blade to Rachel Dawes in The Dark Knight trilogy to Lois Lane in the Superman movies, he gives them smarts and gumption and agency. Unfortunately, they’re never the main character and often subordinate to a male lead or, in Rachel’s case, get fridged in order to motivate the male hero.
This is curious in the light of some backlash Goyer received a few years ago. In 2014 Goyer was interviewed, along with a panel of his peers, for a podcast called Scriptnotes, before a live studio audience. Some off-the-cuff remarks were made, taken out of context perhaps, by Goyer about She-Hulk having originally been created so the Hulk would have someone to have sex with, as teen readers imagine themselves transforming into the Hulk and needed a power fantasy. This wasn’t Goyer’s best moment, but he clarified in later interviews and has kept his head low since. He doesn’t appear to have any outrageous political beliefs and doesn’t get into flame wars with fanboys like, say, Roberto Orci.
Man of Steel, which I’ve discussed extensively, was written solely by Goyer and it wears its comic book influences on its sleeve. This is understandable considering the man has his bona fides, having written a JSA comic for nearly 50 issues with Geoff Johns, and if anything can be said about him, he made superheroes palatable to general audiences. But that movie received backlash, mostly from its excessive collateral damage and climactic moment when Superman kills General Zod. And while I think it’s hard to say whether or not he’s to blame for what went wrong with that movie (again, collaboration), it is well-documented that the neck-snapping moment was director Zack Snyder’s idea.
Goyer dropped out fairly early on with its follow-up Batman v Superman, claiming commitment to other projects, so it’s ironic that the blood-thirsty Batman on display there is not unlike Blade. One wonders if his leaving the project was entirely amicable, considering he’s apparently taken his ideas for Superman and transferred them over to Krypton, a show he developed.
So what can be said about David S. Goyer? He’s reliable, he’s workmanlike, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of comic book history and he can probably get your angsty young man into a costume by the hour mark. Although, in his defense, Blade is the epitome of in medias res. Aside from that he can craft some funny dialogue when he’s allowed to have a foul mouth, and he certainly knows how to create functioning worlds for characters who might otherwise be considered silly. And most importantly, for better or for worse, without him the superhero renaissance wouldn’t have happened.
The Bartcave 