Strange Magic: Regarding Doctor Strange
Growing up, there were elements of Korean mysticism around me that wasn't really aware of at the time. For most of my elementary school years, my maternal grandmother lived with us and, every morning after doing a pre-dawn walk around the neighborhood, she would quietly deal Korean tarot cards in her room. It was not uncommon that I would wake up to the sound of shuffling cards down the hall and saunter over half-awake to observe. The Korean tarot deck is, as you can imagine, quite different from its European counterpart, employing 22 cards instead of European tarot's 78. Having said that, both forms of card-based divination involve reading through pairs; tarot cards are incomplete alone.
Similarly, Korean mysticism takes heavy cues from Chinese I Ching which has elemental-based divination readings formed by patterned hexagrams; there are 4 such hexagrams on the South Korean flag. But none of these divinations work individually, they are defined in relation to what's around them; even reading tea leaves only works in tandem with larger association. The universe is a collective, not a single entity; like any math equation, it can only be solved by accounting through multiple parts. 2016's Doctor Strange saw its egotistical title character have to realize he is only a small part of the universe around him; effectively just one small component of a much larger equation.
You could tell Marvel was kind of scared to delve into the magical possibilities of their characters in their early days. That's why Thor and the rest of his fellow Asgardians were explained off as an ancient alien species with Nordic aesthetics. But you can't really explain off something Master of the Mystic Arts, Doctor Strange, Marvel's go-to character for all that wonderfully weird witchcraft and mind-bending sorcery that exists on the fringes of the Marvel Universe.
I mean, they try to dismiss it scientifically as almost an afterthought; Tilda Swinton's The Ancient One noting like spells work like programs that draw their power from the raw dimensional energy of the multiverse but, fuck it, they're spells; that perfunctory explanation is pretty quickly brushed away as soon as the words leave The Ancient One's mouth.
The most obvious comparison to Stephen Strange is Tony Stark, both snarkily, overconfident men of high society that seem to get their jollies rubbing their superior intellect in the face of anyone that crosses their paths. Both men experts of their fields (Tony in taking lives as a weapons manufacturer and Stephen saving them as a neurosurgeon so versatile that can apparently do everything like a medical Swiss Army Knife) with chips on their respective shoulders so big they could be seen from space. But while Tony's insecurity stems from a need to please a long-deceased father, Stephen's comes from a deep-seated fear of failure; Strange has to be the best under the quietly paranoid fear that everyone will judge him somehow more harshly than he judges others.
Of course, both men also receive a severe, long-coming reality check when an untimely injury alters the course of their lives forever; Tony with a chest full of shrapnel from a missile of his own design and Stephen's hands completely mangled in a bit of reckless driving while preoccupied with his next breakthrough procedure to grace medical headlines everywhere. The thing is, Tony has to quickly adapt to survive while Stephen has to fall low because it's only when we get low after a cataclysm that we truly change.
What I'm trying to say here is that Stephen Strange is somehow a bigger dick than Tony Stark and that dude literally built an empire coming up with new ways to kill people. That's just impressive in a backwards kind of way.
Stephen Strange could've become a researcher or teacher after the loss of his hands, but no, he wants the glory and the spotlight. So after pushing away the one person that has time for him, Rachel McAdams' Christine Palmer, he goes to the other side of the world on a rumor to find a mythical way to heal his hands. I never understood Strange's initial incredulousness when he first meets Mordo and The Ancient One; what did he expect to find in the middle of Nepal? He probably didn't know himself but I'm sure he thought his recovery didn't involve getting ripped, learning martial arts, and magic.
I'm a little divided on Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One. On the one hand, it's definitely an Asian caricature (The film even pokes fun at that assumption with Strange first assuming an elderly Asian gentleman is his future sifu) but on the other they effectively whitewashed the role. While I'm sure there was a happy medium somewhere...Tilda Swinton is always damn good.
There are no noticeable weak links in the cast, it may be among the best ensemble Marvel has ever recruited. Mad Mikkelsen as the villain? Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mordo? I could've done without Cumberbatch using a Doctor Gregory House voice but that's a quibble because he does do a good job. The visual standouts are Strange's first psychedelic foray through the multiverse and the tessellations that seem to drive most of the spellcasting's effects on the real world. Having watched thirteen films previous where the climax involve dudes slamming and blasting lasers at each other, the action here involving the manipulation of space and time is a welcome, refreshing change.
Initial caution aside, Doctor Strange works largely because just like the character itself or those I Ching hexagrams and Korean tarot cards it relies heavily from the strength of others; Cumberbatch is great but a concept this far out there needs the foundational support he fortunately gets. And for all the wacky visuals and metaphysical derring-do throughout the flick, my favorite moment really just is a quiet conversation between Strange and The Ancient One as their astral forms watch a lightning storm as time slows down exponentially around them.
A welcome addition and change of pace (even though the Marvel origin story formula runs heavy here), Doctor Strange succeeded where Thor kind of wavered by unabashedly introducing magic and mysticism to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With another Infinity Stone introduced, only the shuffling of some pieces in outer space and the full introduction of a certain African nation were left before the board would be set for the Infinity War.
Similarly, Korean mysticism takes heavy cues from Chinese I Ching which has elemental-based divination readings formed by patterned hexagrams; there are 4 such hexagrams on the South Korean flag. But none of these divinations work individually, they are defined in relation to what's around them; even reading tea leaves only works in tandem with larger association. The universe is a collective, not a single entity; like any math equation, it can only be solved by accounting through multiple parts. 2016's Doctor Strange saw its egotistical title character have to realize he is only a small part of the universe around him; effectively just one small component of a much larger equation.
You could tell Marvel was kind of scared to delve into the magical possibilities of their characters in their early days. That's why Thor and the rest of his fellow Asgardians were explained off as an ancient alien species with Nordic aesthetics. But you can't really explain off something Master of the Mystic Arts, Doctor Strange, Marvel's go-to character for all that wonderfully weird witchcraft and mind-bending sorcery that exists on the fringes of the Marvel Universe.
I mean, they try to dismiss it scientifically as almost an afterthought; Tilda Swinton's The Ancient One noting like spells work like programs that draw their power from the raw dimensional energy of the multiverse but, fuck it, they're spells; that perfunctory explanation is pretty quickly brushed away as soon as the words leave The Ancient One's mouth.
The most obvious comparison to Stephen Strange is Tony Stark, both snarkily, overconfident men of high society that seem to get their jollies rubbing their superior intellect in the face of anyone that crosses their paths. Both men experts of their fields (Tony in taking lives as a weapons manufacturer and Stephen saving them as a neurosurgeon so versatile that can apparently do everything like a medical Swiss Army Knife) with chips on their respective shoulders so big they could be seen from space. But while Tony's insecurity stems from a need to please a long-deceased father, Stephen's comes from a deep-seated fear of failure; Strange has to be the best under the quietly paranoid fear that everyone will judge him somehow more harshly than he judges others.
Of course, both men also receive a severe, long-coming reality check when an untimely injury alters the course of their lives forever; Tony with a chest full of shrapnel from a missile of his own design and Stephen's hands completely mangled in a bit of reckless driving while preoccupied with his next breakthrough procedure to grace medical headlines everywhere. The thing is, Tony has to quickly adapt to survive while Stephen has to fall low because it's only when we get low after a cataclysm that we truly change.
What I'm trying to say here is that Stephen Strange is somehow a bigger dick than Tony Stark and that dude literally built an empire coming up with new ways to kill people. That's just impressive in a backwards kind of way.
Stephen Strange could've become a researcher or teacher after the loss of his hands, but no, he wants the glory and the spotlight. So after pushing away the one person that has time for him, Rachel McAdams' Christine Palmer, he goes to the other side of the world on a rumor to find a mythical way to heal his hands. I never understood Strange's initial incredulousness when he first meets Mordo and The Ancient One; what did he expect to find in the middle of Nepal? He probably didn't know himself but I'm sure he thought his recovery didn't involve getting ripped, learning martial arts, and magic.
I'm a little divided on Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One. On the one hand, it's definitely an Asian caricature (The film even pokes fun at that assumption with Strange first assuming an elderly Asian gentleman is his future sifu) but on the other they effectively whitewashed the role. While I'm sure there was a happy medium somewhere...Tilda Swinton is always damn good.
There are no noticeable weak links in the cast, it may be among the best ensemble Marvel has ever recruited. Mad Mikkelsen as the villain? Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mordo? I could've done without Cumberbatch using a Doctor Gregory House voice but that's a quibble because he does do a good job. The visual standouts are Strange's first psychedelic foray through the multiverse and the tessellations that seem to drive most of the spellcasting's effects on the real world. Having watched thirteen films previous where the climax involve dudes slamming and blasting lasers at each other, the action here involving the manipulation of space and time is a welcome, refreshing change.
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