#its a little convoluted and requires suspension of disbelief but you know

[sunflowersandscreams]

maybe 1/3 of the way into spontaneous pynchsey fic. gansey needs to be restrained (this is the plot)

[algernoninwonderland]

Miraculous is playing one big game of Calvinball with its magic/power system and it undermines the show quite a bit

TL;DR: Miraculous has, at first glance, a very basic power/magic system… Only whenever it tries to get more complicated than “Moon Prism Power, Make up!” it ends up being an unspeakable mess, due to poor creative decisions that don’t allow for the audience to truly understand what is going on and why, outside of “whatever the plot requires so that we can get to the next scene”. 

It may well be because the people making this show wanted to shift their attention to kwamis and their powers in the future seasons, but holding onto that for seventy-something episodes has done the show a disservice.

Longg isn’t the kwami of Perfection. Longg is the kwami of being a cool dragon. And sometimes, being a cool dragon is enough, you know? Instead of doing complex things poorly, you can tackle simple concepts really well and people won’t think any less of your creation, au contraire.

Throughout the history of the superhero genre, a pretty nifty thing most creators have understood is that you need to explain a bit of how and why the hero’s powers work. Superman is superpowered because it’s all a matter of gravity, a fact underlined in the very first issue of Action Comics, in the very first page of Superman ever. The X-Men are mutants. Sherlock Holmes was bitten by a radioactive detective.

Basically, what happens in most cases is, the creators come up with a set of rules to sort of explain the storyworld so that you know to manage your expectations, so that the storyworld feels more cohesive too. That’s what I call a neat way to allow your audience to suspend their disbelief and feel more involved in the story being told! Things happen and are allowed to happen a certain way for a reason in-universe, there is a kind of logic proper to the work of fiction being built that makes it easier for the audience to fully get into said work.

In Hunter X Hunter, Nen is a pretty cool concept that is well-defined, we see what it is at first with no explanations, and it’s hella intriguing, which makes you want to know more (and that’s deliberate) and then the manga explains it to you a few chapters later and for the most part, Togashi sticks to that definition. And now we understand what is going on and how. Cool, right?

What do we have here? Creative decisions that are often given justifications in-universe to make them more believable in the context of the story being told, even though they are ultimately arbitrary decisions which can be challenged (see how Superman’s powers changed over time, for instance). You can toy with these explanations and that makes for great comedic potential, just look at One Punch Man!

Magic can be a little murkier for sure, because magic doesn’t necessarily follow rational logic. I won’t be getting into the soft/hard magic talk here. Still, if you want your audience to understand what is going on and if you’re not a complete hack (looking at you Joanne Kathleen), you tend to set up some rules so that the audience can grasp what the hell is going on, understand why something is really impressive or really basic. Is it really such a big deal that a character is able to master that one spell? Why? Ursula Le Guin and Brandon Sanderson are really good at that, and manage a good balance of mystery and understandability.

Miraculous fumbles the bag pretty hard when it comes to how its magic/power system works. Which, after 70-something episodes, is not great. 

Part of it is due to the exposition style Miraculous has chosen for itself, which could be great but ultimately isn’t, and part of it is due to poor definition in the first place.

Miraculous hates exposition dumps most of the time, and I think it’s actually a good thing. No one wants to feel as though they’re sitting through a boring class instead of having fun. Well done, guys! Exposition dumps often make you all the more aware of the artificiality of a story. And so, Miraculous mostly relies on context cues as a means of introducing you to the world. They just show you the thing and trust you to understand and interpret it properly. And sometimes, it works really well!

I still sincerely believe that Stormy Weather is a fantastic first episode, and it does its job amazingly well. In 24 minutes, you learn the very basic outlines of how stuff works, relationships between the characters and superpowers. Yes, it’s very basic, but that’s fine, you can’t drop all that new information on your audience all at once. We understand that the power within the Miraculous, that of the kwami, allows for its wearer to transform. This comes with nifty perks, heightened agility, reflexes, amazing strength, magical accessories, and special quirks unique to each of the Miraculouses.

Are we good so far? See, if we stuck to that, it’d be fine. Not mind-blowing but pretty okay still. Doesn’t have to be too complicated to be enjoyable, just look at Sailor Moon!

And then Miraculous tried to spice things up and communicated its ideas so poorly that the arbitrary decisions taken by the writers are glaring, and seriously affect the audience’s suspension of disbelief and enjoyment. 

The kwamis aren’t just cutesy mascots, they’re gods. And yet their powers are very limited. Why? Well, the show doesn’t really bring that question up, we can only try and infer things. Now, what are these limitations, and why do they exist in the first place? I’ve got a vague answer to the first question (a time limit for transformation once the special power is being used).

The answer to that second question is very unsatisfactory, and that’s the only one I’ve got: “because the plot requires it if we want to do such and such thing”. Which is an answer that applies to absolutely all creative decisions in fiction, yes, but there’s usually more to it as well, in competently-made shows at least, it’s not so transparent. Why is Marinette able to wield so many Miraculouses at once? Well, it’d look cool and it’d make her look powerful, so why not! But Adrien can’t. Why? He just can’t. No explanations whatsoever. Just because. It’s magic. Shut up and watch the show.

Well, that’s not entirely true. We’ve got fleeting remarks about being able to unlock kwami powers and maintaining a transformation for longer and whatnot. The problem is, they’re just that, fleeting remarks, and worse, they are so scattered across the show it’s really easy to forget about them in-between episodes, especially since the release schedule is absolute nonsense (it isn’t the creators’ fault, but it certainly has an impact on the way the audience engages with the show). So no, the show isn’t going down the “just roll with it” route, not entirely… And that makes the lack of proper explanation that much worse.

It feels as through the few rules there are in Miraculous are being made up on the fly and… Heh. That’s just not great.

It doesn’t help that the powers themselves are… Really something, huh?

Chat Noir’s power is the only one that really fits with what his kwami is meant to represent. Destruction. Easy to represent, right?

Creation is trickier, that requires being imaginative, and Miraculous isn’t terribly imaginative when it comes to its lucky charms. Hey kids, did you know that you could use a ladder to stop an ice-skater? How creative! I mean you could also use salt to melt the ice, or a baseball bat to smash his kneecaps, then… The point is, being convoluted isn’t the same thing as being creative, and while Chat Noir gets to decide what he destroys, Ladybug gets an item thrown at her and you better believe she’ll find an use to it… How is that creation exactly? Is the lucky charm popping out of thin air creation? That’s a bit underwhelming, isn’t it?

Tikki represents convolution, Nooroo is the power of creating minor antagonists…

I had to check the Wiki to remember what concepts the other kwamis are meant to represent. There’s a disconnect between that and the way powers are represented on-screen. Pollen isn’t the kwami of Subjection. Pollen is the kwami of stabbing people with a stinger. How do I know that? I watched the show and nothing else.

If you want your audience to not be confused, if you don’t want your story to feel completely arbitrary to your audience (though it’ll always be just that), maybe take the time to explain things that are crucial for the understanding of the storyworld’s inner workings. You don’t have to give everything away in the first ten episodes, not at all, but you should explain them at some point, take the time to do so if these are more complex concepts that are crucial to your show. And if they aren’t key to your show, you don’t have to include them, and I promise no-one will notice.

[robotnik-mun]

can you elaborate on endgame? when did you realize it was quite bad and how so?

Firstly, my apologies that this took so long, as I had to gather up my thoughts and type them all down. 

Now to answer your question, it was during the lawsuit and after I had taken a look at Penders’ twitter and his forums and gotten a good look at what the man himself was really like. While it might sound like that I’m simply being a contrarian out of spite due to that fact, but the truth of it is that upon having my eyes opened, I was able to observe his work with a more objective eye than before, and separated from my personal feelings towards the man, it became clear that a lot of his work was objectively quite terrible. As such, re-reading Endgame with a more critical eye and a better understanding of storytelling, everything began to fall apart?

The reasons for that? Let me count them, though I am sure there are things that slipped my mind.

1) To begin with, the basic premise of the plot, namely Sonic being framed for a crime he didn’t commit? Had been done so many times by that point in the comic that none of the good guys really had much of a reason to believe it to be true. First there was the incident with Pseudo-Sonic, then the times with Evil Sonic and the Anti Freedom Fighters, and then there was the time Sonic got amnesia and was tricked by Robotnik into attacking his friends, and of course not even ten isues ago the whole “Mecha Madness” thing had happened with Sonic being accused of a crime he didn’t commit.

After all the times this has happened, nobody would have a good reason to be so convinced that it was actually Sonic who did the deed. It literally requires everyone involved to forget all the times that something like this has happened and just blithely accept that Sonic has murdered Sally for no discernable reasons. It’s particularly jarring in the case of Antoine, who had previously gotted ahead of himself with accusing Sonic of having deliberately gone to Robotnik in the aftermath of Mecha Madness, only to be proven *thoroughly* wrong. But no, Sonic’s friends and team mates just immediately believe it, despite having gone through all this several times already.

Compounding the matter is that they were aware Robotnik could build Robotniks that perfectly mimic the appearance and mannerisms of people- Tails encountered Fiona, St. John witnessed the Sally duplicate, and Sally herself surely would have told everyone about what had happened during that time, to say nothing of the Substitute Freedom Fighters who had similarly witnessed the same. It’s an incredibly glaring ommission that none of this was brought up by any of Sonic’s friends, with only Chuck acting as his advocate- and even then neglecting to mention any of the prior incidents at all.

In short? The basic plot is kicked off not because of how convincingly the premise is displayed, but because that premise is willed to work and the plot to move on by it due to the fact that the writer wills it.

2) Speaking of the frame job itself, the circumstances around it make less and less sense the more you think about. Drago managed to convince Hershey to put on a Sonic suit and sent her out into Robotropolis to do... something, and thanks to the costume having special lenses that made other people look like Snively, she thought she was killing Snively rather than Sally. This begs the question though of what it was Drago exactly said she would be doing in Robotropolis, and how the hell he managed to get her into the suit. That outfit was so perfect that it fooled everyone into thinking it was Sonic, so try and picture how it might look when not being worn by somebody. This meant that Drago presented Hershey with what essentially looked like a perfect replica of Sonic’s *skin*, and at no point did she see fit to ask questions about where he got it or why she had to wear it.

Similarly, while the deception of the ‘Snively Lens’ would explain how she could wind up killing Sally under a false pretense, it was never established if there was a similar thing going on with the ears- she might have *seen* Snively, but would also be in a position to hear Sally. And thats without getting into how she could have gotten into the position that she did without spotting anybody else in the Freedom Fighter group, despite it being a joint effort between the Knothole Freedom Fighters and the Wolf Pack and as such a lot more people being in Robotropolis than normal. It stresses the suspension of disbelief that she just happened to spot absolutely no one else in that entire time when she was in Robotropolis in the costume.

And getting past all that, it’s just plain *convoluted*. An easier and more believable explanation would have been that Robotnik just used a robot made to look like Sonic (particularly since he earlier managed to replace King Max with precisely that) or used Metal Sonic with a hologram or something like that. But paying off a traitorous Freedom Fighter to get his girlfriend to put on a costume with special lenses to trick her into killing off Sally Acorn? Say it out loud and tell me how that sounds.

3) Also, far too many bits and pieces of the story’s outcome hinge on coincidence and fortuitous happenstance. I firstly mentioned how somehow, nobody at all thought about all the other times Sonic had been framed, but that isn’t the only time when things happen because the writer wills it to happen, and in a lot of cases it is done to the heroes benefit. Firstly you have Sonic being sentenced to be imprisoned at Devil’s Gulag. On the way over though, Robotnik sends his forces to shoot down the aircraft carrying Sonic, which results in him surviving the crash and escaping. Ignoring the question of how the Freedom Fighters are even able to have and maintain a prison, Robotnik’s action makes little sense- Devil’s Gulag is far away and isolated in the middle of the ocean, it’d be a perfect place to keep Sonic away, and if he really HAD to kill Sonic, it’d make more sense to bomb the place when he was secure. Instead though, Robotnik’s actions only give Sonic a means of an escape, because of COURSE he would survive a crash that killed everyone else.

Then of course, Bunnie and Antoine are captured and rather than being taken to Robotropolis to be Roboticized, where we learn that Croc-Bot is a traitor who has planted an explosive upon one of his Combot guards and intends to use it to assassinate Robotnik. So naturally, Bunnie and Antoine are able to escape, make off with the explosive and later use it to destroy the Ultimate Annihilator. By tremendous coincidence their dire situation turns out to actually ultimately be for the best as they are gift wrapped important information and a means to deal with the problem.

Similarly there is the scene where Knuckles and Sonic start fighting due to Knuckles being informed of Sonic’s crime and, in his grief, not believing him and attacking him, only for Dulcy to declare that Sonic is telling the truth, and since dragons ‘cannot lie’, everyone just immediately accepts what she says. These details have never, ever come up before and are never references again- it is literally conjured into being for the sake of the story and in the name of making everyone magically trust Sonic despite being previously hellbent on capturing him. And you know, if that was the case, then why didn’t Dulcy say anything back in Knothole? Oh wait, that’s the logic talking, silly me.

Similarly, Snively’s sabotage is oddly limited- he sabotages the Ultimate Annihilator to kill Robotnik, true, but he himself hates the Freedom Fighters and would want them dead as much as he would want Robotnik dead. Why would he reprogram the thing to target only Robotnik and not take the chance to eliminate ALL of his enemies by simply leaving it unchanged save for including Robotnik and excluding himself? It’s a blatantly stupid move by the guy, one that is only made because the story demands that Knothole and everyone in it survives, along with Sonic.

4) Key plot details are badly, badly foreshadowed and explained, if at all. To begin with, Drago is only introduced a mere issues earlier, and his betrayal lacks impact because everything about him screams ‘Bad Guy!’ to begin with, and similarly, Hershey is only introduced in this arc, and as such we can not really be convinced of the significance of what is happening because we have little prior investment to help us actually feel the betrayal. Also, it is never made clear how Robotnik was able to capture Dr. Quack’s family without anybody noticing- again, this is this is the first time we ever see or have mention of them, but that aside, they live in Knothole, as does the doctor. It’s hard to believe that nobody would notice would notice that they were absent, especially given that its implied to have happened over the course of several days before Endgame commences. Then there is the matter of Snively- everything he has done is revealed AFTER everything has happened, and even in the ‘Director’s Cut’ there is only a single page to build up Snively’s actions.

Almost all the details pertaining to why Endgame happened and how it was resolved are explained via exposition near the very end of the series. It’s bad storytelling and incredibly lazy to boot.

5) Glaringly, this story takes a lot of beats from the Harrison Ford movie ‘The Fugitive’, enough that it becomes distracting. Sonic is falsely accused of a crime he didn’t commit, he’s being transported to a prison in a vehicle until that vehicle is waylaid and he manages to escape with his life intact, he’s forced to go on the run while being pursued by somebody who refuses to believe that he is innocent (with even less of a reason than in that film, ironically), and there is even a scene where Sonic evades capture by diving down a *waterfall*. I mean come on- there’s referencing, and then there’s just stealing shit.

6) On a more personal note, knowing Penders motivations for this story and his attempt to permanently kill off Sally even after SEGA told him no has severely soured my ability to appreciate even what it was trying to do, particularly since Sally’s death was done purely for the sake of motivating Sonic to ‘cut loose’... it’s a really textbook example of ‘Stuffing Women In Fridges’, even though that term gets overused a lot of the time, but it’s true- by his original statements, a major female character and love interest had to die purely so that it would motivate the hero and, as such, doesn’t get to play a real role in what was built up as the series finale. The fact that Penders has given several OTHER excuses for why she had to die only makes it all the more worse.

7) And finally.... everything that the heroes do in this story ultimately doesn’t really do anything to influence the results of how it turned out. Snively’s behind the scenes scheming ensured that Knothole was never, ever in any real danger to begin with, and Crocbot was already on the way to killing Robotnik. If Sonic had just stayed put in Devil’s Gulag, or if Bunnie and Antoine had never managed to escape when they did? The outcome would still be the same- Knothole would get zapped, but it wouldn’t actually be destroyed, and Crocbot’s explosive would have gone off anyway and Robotnik would STILL be dead, and Sally would still be alive in suspension. Every major event of the book is out of the heroes hands and, ultimately, the heroes just weren’t really needed. All that happenstance and coincidence has meant that the people we’re supposed to care about, are the least relevant factor in any of it.

In short? This story, which was meant to be the one where Sonic is pushed to his brink, is ultimately resolved not because of anything he did, but because of things that OTHER people did, and things ultimately still would have resolved themselves if Sonic had just sit down and done nothing at all. The Big Finale for the book, and Sonic has the least impact on anything. It’s pathetic.

So yeah, what else can I really say? The story is a mess. The plot points are contrived and forced, the characters act stupid in order to let things happen, the heroes are able to succeed more by coincidence and storytelling convenience than anything genuine, the writing is just plain bad and heavily derivative of an outside source, and in the end, none of it really mattered because nothing the heroes did really mattered when everything is looked at from a distance. There are a few moments that are genuinely cool, and the fight scene between Sonic and Robotnik is still my favorite fight, bar none. But that isn’t enough to salvage it. That isn’t enough to forgive all the horrible, glaring problems with the story, pacing and execution of this thing.

Hope that explains it.

[johnnymundano]

Shut In (2016)

Directed by Farren Blackburn

Screenplay by Christina Hodson

Music by Nathaniel Méchaly

Country: France, Canada

Running time: 91 minutes

CAST

Naomi Watts as Mary Portman

Oliver Platt as Dr. Bennett Wilson

Charlie Heaton as Stephen Portman

David Cubitt as Doug Hart

Jacob Tremblay as Tom Patterson

Clémentine Poidatz as Lucy

Crystal Balint as Grace Mitchell

Alex Braunstein as Aaron Hart

Peter Outerbridge as Richard Portman

Shut In is the kind of glossy, well-acted mainstream thriller I sometimes feel polite society would rather I waste my eyes on, rather than ancient, less than salubrious Italian chillers no one normal cares about. Of course when I do watch a glossy, well-acted mainstream thriller like Shut In I often find they are crap, and thus feel a lot better about watching a paraplegic Donald Pleasance solving crimes with a straight razor wielding chimp. Or whatever the hell was going on in Phenomena (1985). Fun Fact: When I first typed the title of this post it came out of my fingers as Shit In. Subconscious much?

If it was my cheeky little subconscious at work it would be quite apt as that’s what they call “psychology” and Shut In concerns Mary (Naomi Watts), a female child psychologist. Mary works from her isolated home since she also has to care for her step-son Stephen (Charlie Heaton), who is in a vegetative state following a car accident in which his father died. That’s a hard row to hoe, so Mary is herself receiving counselling from Dr. Wilson (Oliver Platt). Things may be starting to look up for poor Mary, as she is contemplatively flicking through care home brochures for Stephen while cautiously reciprocating amorous advances from burly Doug (David Cubitt). When Tom (Jacob Tremblay), a patient Mary has become attached to, goes missing Sarah begins hearing strange noises and dreaming strange dreams. As the days pass Mary starts to fear she is losing her mind, and as a snow storm closes the stage is set for a confrontation as predictable as it is silly.

If you want to enjoy the terribleness of Shut In for yourself you should stop reading there (or here, I guess) as I am going to SPOIL it by talking about how awful it is. Unfortunately it is impossible to get across quite how offensively dumb Shut In is without SPOILING it. Or at least, I’m not going to bother finding a way because, hey, life’s too short. And, let’s face it Shut In SPOILS itself by being awful. The set-up is good but, c’mon, who can’t see what’s coming?  In the interests of fairness I tried to hide it in the synopsis, but if you watch the movie it’s as predictable as the fact this sentence will end with a full stop. The whole movie is a kind of exercise in flop sweated desperation as it frogmarches its plot into the ridiculous convolutions required to make this insipid bullshittery “work”. And for all its huffing and puffing Shut in still doesn’t work. It’s not even that you can see what’s coming, a Gay Pride float in a Gay Pride Parade has more subtlety, it’s that it all makes no sense whatsoever. In comparison Body Double (1984) looks like a documentary. Shut In doesn’t just require you to suspend your disbelief, it requires you to hang it by the neck until dead.

Shut In is set in a world of idiots, where someone can be diagnosed as being in a vegetative state following a car smash, with the only check being that they haven’t moved much since they were admitted. Apparently nobody has done any tests on Stephen during the 6 months since the crash other than looking at him and deciding he hasn’t moved. Cunningly though, Stephen only moves when nobody is around. He just, you know, “knows” when nobody is around, and so has never been caught once in 6 months. He must be the only teenager in existence who has never been surprised by his parent when doing something he shouldn’t be doing. During those 6 months Mary has been taking care of Stephen’s every need; feeding, bathing and whatevering him. At no point during the 6 months of Mary pushing baby food into his mouth or sponging his Gentleman Jim in the bath has he once broken cover. As Stephen Charlie Heaton (from TV’s ‘80s nostalgia bath and merchandise generator Stranger Things) is okay, but he plays an impossible character. “Evil man-child with preternatural levels of self-control” would task anyone to imbue it with believability. He tries, bless him but ends up as just a common or garden movie nutter.  

Naomi Watts is fantastic, but Naomi Watts is always fantastic. Unfortunately for Naomi Watts being fantastic isn’t enough here. She’s like a solid core of believability around which a load of noisy, ridiculous bullshit revolves, constantly reminding you that Naomi Watts should be doing something better with her time. Maybe she took the role as some kind of audition tape, she does get to do a whole load of acting after all; doting mother, crazy lady, fierce protector and drug addled goofball. Because for Shut In’s plot to work (it doesn’t) Stephen has to slip her his pills which cause her to get way spacy. Okay,  I’m not a medical professional so maybe they do medicate shut-ins with the kind of drugs Stephen uses to put a crimp in Mary’s reality. Sure, it’s possible that shut-ins are basically doped up and tripping balls all the time in there, but I doubt it. if any medical professionals would like to take the time out of their busy schedule to defend the use of medication in Shut In, you know where to find me. Oh, and poor old lovable Oliver Platt plays a psychiatrist who provides face-time therapy before the script forces him to emulate the Scatman Crothers role in Kubrick’s The Shining (1980). At times, in fact, you can almost hear Shut In grunt with the effort to emulate The Shining, but all it does is make you want to watch The Shining rather than Shut In.

What’s worse is how nasty the (barely sub-) subtext of Shut  In is; it seems, intentionally or not, to be that as soon as they reach adolescence you should maybe give some serious thought to killing your kids before they kill you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie as fearful of children growing up. And I’ve seen Christine (1983) more than once. And, yeah, Stephen is Mary’s step-son not her birth son, but that’s obviously just pathetic cowardice on the scriptwriter’s part. It all gets a bit Oedipal in there towards the end, which would be supremely creepy if he was her natural son, and Shut In just isn’t that low class, thanks. It would have been better if Shut In had grasped the nettle and gone low, because supremely creepy is at least interesting. And the movie ends up being supremely creepy accidentally anyway, with its emphasis on kids being monsters once they won’t let you chuch their chubby cheeks anymore. The “feel good” ending is truly horrible. Mary ends up adopting the tiny, cute moppet Tom after killing her own son, Stephen. A smarter movie would have gone in hard on this nastiness and left you uncertain about whether she’ll be violently trading in Tom too once his balls drop. Basically, Shut In needed to be a lot nastier and far smarter, it needed someone like Brian de Palma to work. But there is no one else like Brian De Palma, and so Shut In doesn’t have Brian De Palma, and so it doesn’t work.

Seriously, Shut In is so bad it’s baffling. It looks like the kind of movie mums and dads like, it’s got a great cast, it’s civilly filmed and there’s an onus on suspense rather than gore. I’m not averse to that myself on occasion, but then I am a dad. But, Christ, the plot to this thing is so ridiculous it should star George Hilton and Edwige Fenech and come in a banana yellow blu-ray case, with a commentary track by Troy Howarth consisting of him just laughing for 91 minutes. 

[eddiejpoplar]

2018 Automobile All-Stars: The Winners

So good was the assembly of machines at our 2018 All-Stars competition that our editors at one point stood atop Mount Charleston, soaked in the introspection-inspiring views, and mumbled something about naming every car present an official All-Star, and it wasn’t the thin mountain air talking. We can’t be more clear about this: To receive an invitation to our annual shootout, culled from an initial list of dozens more, always means a car is massively impressive and already a winner worthy of recognition. This year more than ever, there are absolutely no losers in this group.

As always, our formula is simple: no price caps, no categories, and no convoluted point-scoring rules. We pride ourselves on being this industry’s most straightforward awards shootout: The vehicles that spark the most passion, inspire the biggest grins, and deliver an experience as true to their original intent as possible inevitably walk away with an All-Stars trophy.

Is it raw speed that matters most? Physics-defying handling? World-class interior appointments? Those things all count, but this isn’t just a numbers game. It’s a soul-searching quest to identify cars that stir emotions, achievable only by driving them and, more critically, feeling them, hearing them, even smelling them. Because oftentimes the most important elements to dedicated car enthusiasts aren’t apparent on a stopwatch, a dyno, or a score sheet but only through the heart.

This year was among the most difficult evaluations in the history of our event. Compelling arguments were made for far more than the eight vehicles we ultimately chose as the 2018 All-Stars, but when the votes came in, this group stood just high enough above the rest to make the top step of the podium.

2018 McLaren 720

After Every Drive You’ll Expect a Checkered Flag

“A single-seat race car for the road.” That’s the takeaway a lot of us shared after exiting this sizzling McLaren’s form-fitting driver’s seat—once we were able to catch our collective breath, that is. More than any other car in this year’s formidable All-Stars field, the 720S left everyone who drove it gobsmacked, speed-struck, and, frankly, in need of a little quiet time.

“From 100 to 160 mph, it made the Lambo and the Ford GT feel positively wheezy,” gushed our resident hot shoe, Andy Pilgrim, after lapping the Speedvegas circuit. Contributor Marc Noordeloos agreed: “I can’t remember the last time I drove a car this fast. Wow.” Let it be noted that both of those guys spend a lot of time in seriously quick machinery. Then again, such is the giddiness that erupts when you drive a vehicle that can sprint to 60 mph in just 2.5 seconds and blitz to a top end of 212 mph. (Fittingly, this track-day predator wears bodywork inspired by the beautifully menacing shape of the great white shark.)

One of the most successful Formula 1 teams of all time, McLaren has notched 12 world drivers’ championships and eight constructors’ titles since its first F1 race in 1966. The company knows a thing or three about speed. That’s evident the moment you slide behind the wheel of the 720S: That same race-bred character is evident in its every molecule, integral to its visceral, purebred purpose. The tub, the windshield surround, and much of the greenhouse are crafted in lightweight, super-rigid carbon fiber. (McLaren claims the new structure—dubbed Monocage II—cuts 40 pounds off the outgoing 650S’ monocoque.) The cockpit is a pilot-focused workspace of premium leather, deep racing buckets, and minimal controls. The view to the front, enhanced by notably thin A-pillars, is nothing short of breathtaking—like riding in the nose turret of a B-17 or, yes, in the open cockpit of a Grand Prix car.

The engine lies right behind you, and what a monumental piece of work it is. Twin turbos and 32 valves feeding 4.0 liters of V-8 displacement, all tweaked and tuned to produce 710 horsepower at a screaming 7,500 rpm. Mind you, that’s 79 horsepower more than the already volcanic Lamborghini Huracán Performante. Add such muscle to the 720S’ light touch on the scales—it weighs less than 3,200 pounds—and you have performance that leaves even veteran auto journalists laughing in disbelief.

The McLaren’s suspension redefines handling brilliance. Outfitted with Proactive Chassis Control II—which continuously monitors driving conditions and automatically adjusts chassis dynamics—plus driver-adjustable modes (including a new Comfort setting) and huge, sticky Pirelli P Zero tires, the 720S delivers both blistering responsiveness on the race circuit and supreme civility on the road. “Precise, linear electrohydraulic steering tells you exactly what the car is doing,” Noordeloos said. “Amazing and rewarding on both the track and the road.” Design editor Robert Cumberford concurred. “Suspension is superb, for handling and for comfort,” he said. The 720S is one of those exceedingly rare sporting machines that truly becomes one with its driver. You wear the car like a wet suit, and through that fine skin you feel every tickle of the road, easily sense the grip of the tires, instinctively grasp the approaching limit. The 720S is better than you are—and in turn wrings the best out of you. Few cars of such extreme capability are so reassuring to push hard.

Quibbles? Nothing significant in a car like this. “You need to be a contortionist to get in and skilled at sleight of hand to buckle the safety belts,” Cumberford grumbled. Noordeloos complained about the touchscreen, noting that many often-needed functions—normally operated by cockpit switches or buttons—are buried deep in the system. Also, the McLaren’s standard carbon-ceramic brakes are touchy and take some time to adjust to, though there’s no doubt about their staggering stopping power.

Those are trifles compared with the incomparable driving experience the 720S delivers. Social media editor Billy Rehbock summed up the McLaren’s All-Stars win best: “It’s almost unbelievable how many boxes the 720S ticks. Supercar styling, power, handling, drivability. One of the wildest cars I’ve ever driven. I wanted more the minute I got out.”

—Arthur St. Antoine

2018 McLaren 720S Specifications

PRICE $288,845/$378,215 (base/as tested) ENGIN 4.0L DOHC 32-valve twin-turbo V-8/710 hp @ 7,500 rpm, 568 lb-ft @ 5,500 TRANSMISSION  7-speed dual-clutch automatic LAYOUT 2-door, 2-passenger, mid-engine, RWD coupe EPA MILEAGE 15/22 mpg (city/hwy) L x W x H 178.9 x 76.0 x 47.1 in WHEELBASE 105.1 in WEIGHT 3,150 lb 0-60 MPH 2.5 sec TOP SPEED 212 mph

2017 Ford GT

Who Says Racing Doesn’t Matter?

Road racing’s popularity in the United States is a long way removed from its all-time high decades ago, and that’s a real shame in our collective opinion. It’s also a bit bizarre when you consider how many sports cars and supercars this country’s affluent purchasers snap up annually—cars that produce their astounding performance thanks to technologies and engineering lessons learned on racetracks around the globe. Regardless of whether you’re a race fan, the good news for enthusiasts is that manufacturers continue to push the motorsports envelope, leading to ever more impressive offerings for the street.

Make no mistake, Ford’s latest GT is a modern homologation special created first and foremost to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, a feat it accomplished in 2016. Its competition-bred roots are apparent immediately in the road-going version—but not everyone appreciates them right away. Some of our staff even initially declared the car a bit of a disappointment, relatively speaking, on the street, as the dual-clutch gearbox isn’t as slick and smooth as some others on the market. And although the twin-turbo EcoBoost’s 647 horsepower and 550 lb-ft of torque are nothing to mock, neither do they make the GT as brain-bendingly quick as something like the McLaren 720S. Of course, that really says more about the amazing state of the performance car world when a machine capable of running from 0 to 60 mph in a tick less than three seconds is no longer automatically considered mind-blowing in the acceleration department.

The car’s carbon-fiber monocoque construction is a piece of race-proven hardware, but simultaneously the no-frills cockpit’s motorsports-influenced design and trim give you a bit of that old kit-car feeling. But we knew from our experience driving the GT last year that initial impressions don’t tell anywhere close to the full story. As Noordeloos noted while making it clear the GT didn’t blow him away on the street, “It feels like it’s dying to go to the track.”

Some of us smiled knowingly, as once the GT hit the Speedvegas road course, any lingering doubts about it disintegrated within the first lap or two. Suddenly the engine that sounded a bit agricultural at low rpms on the street began to spit and hiss all manner of turbo and induction sounds, snorting, popping, and screaming its way through corners faster than anything else on site as its monster midrange torque proved massively impressive. Previous grumbles from taller drivers about a lack of headroom disappeared as they suddenly and happily found a way to shoehorn their helmet-clad skulls into the left seat, grinning the entire time. The GT’s steering, braking, and suspension setup are all phenomenal, allowing you to attack apex curbs with an aggressive I-will-own-you style that seemingly rewards drivers more the harder they push.

On top of all the mechanical goodness, the more experienced and skilled drivers among us repeatedly mentioned the GT’s aerodynamic performance. “Without doubt it has the most downforce and generates the most lateral g’s on the track, especially when using the suspension in the ultra-low Track mode,” Pilgrim said. “It’s definitely the best-handling car in the field.” Indeed, where other cars required a throttle lift to make it through certain sections of the circuit, the GT dug in and rocketed itself off of corners with no issues. The chassis balance and grip it provided in Speedvegas’s quicker turns—none of which qualify as truly high-speed—and the corresponding confidence it inspired had several of us dreaming about running the car somewhere more wide open, like Road America or Road Atlanta or Spa-Francorchamps.

So then, the 2017 Ford GT proved itself as one of the best, most track-capable production cars of all time, which led to our stable of drivers rethinking its character on the road as well. It won’t feel familiar to drivers of Porsches and Ferraris and Lamborghinis, as its overall design philosophy is far more results-based than comfort- and luxury-oriented. In other words, exactly what Ford Performance intended from the outset. As a group, we were wholly unprepared for this car’s capabilities. It’s a zero-compromises speed master, and if you drive it, you don’t have to give two cents of a care about road racing—but you’ll understand instantly why it still matters. This is easily one of the most intriguing cars of the past decade and then some. After all, almost no one builds them like this anymore.

—Mac Morrison

2017 Ford GT Specifications

PRICE $450,000 (base) ENGINE 3.5L twin-turbo DOHC 24-valve V-6/647 hp @ 6,250 rpm, 550 lb-ft @ 5,900 rpm TRANSMISSION 7-speed dual-clutch automatic LAYOUT 2-door, 2-passenger, mid-engine, RWD coupe EPA MILEAGE 11/18 mpg (city/hwy) L x W x H 187.5 x 78.9 x 43.7 in (41.7 in low mode) WHEELBASE 106.7 in WEIGHT 3,354 lb 0-60 MPH 2.9 sec (est) TOP SPEED 216 mph

2017 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS

From Out of Nowhere

The amusing thing is, we didn’t plan to invite the 2017 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS to this year’s edition of All-Stars. We wanted the latest GT3 and believed we had it locked in. But a ripple in Porsche’s test-vehicle pool meant the car originally earmarked for our evaluation was sent packing back to the mother ship in Germany, leaving us empty-handed.

“But wait,” Porsche Cars North America inquired. “Would you like us to send the new GTS?” We looked at each other for a brief moment, huddled together, and reviewed this 911’s case for attending. We remembered how we laughed last year when we realized this 450-horsepower, turbocharged, rear-drive Carrera is much faster than the turb from Performance Junk Blogger 6 http://ift.tt/2FzLgRS via IFTTT