Hi folks – I just saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Sunday, and now am looking to chat – in a way that keeps spoilers off of social media feeds.
TL;DR review – I loved it.
Therefore, I thought I’d put up this blog post so folks could talk all things TFA without risk of spoiling friends and fellow internet denizens.
That said, everything in the film is fair game from here below, including comments.
You have been warned.
I listen to a *lot* of podcasts. The first one I remember is I Should Be Writing, which was my lifeline to the world of SF/F writing during my MA work in Oregon. I picked the habit back up when I was working as a traveling book rep, since my working week often included 20+ hours of driving.
So now that I work from home, I find that I’ve got way more podcasts that I’m interested in than I can make time to listen to them, even listening over breakfast, lunch, dishes, and afternoon walks.
And since misery loves company, I’m going to recommend some podcasts and episodes, so you too can know the joy of having too many wonderful things to listen to:
Ditch Diggers – A Must-listen for working writers, especially in the SF/F prose world. Hosts Mur Lafferty (of I Should Be Writing Fame) and Matt Wallace give you the no-BS look at what it’s like to write for a living. Ditch Diggers is the Business of Writing Podcast I would have started if they hadn’t gotten to it first – I’m very grateful that they did, because they’re doing a great job.
PlayWell – Games for the Greater Chaotic Good with Adam Koebel – I absolutely love the way Adam talks about making game spaces inclusive and using them to help talk people through difficult topics.
Book Riot – The flagship podcast of the Bookish site Book Riot. Lots of news about the publishing world, with a focus on Literary Fiction.
The Roundtable Podcast – Hosted by Dave “Creageous” Robison, The Roundtable Podcast not only does creator interviews, but they also do regular brainstorming sessions, where a guest writer will bring in an idea or in-progress story, and the hosts (including a working professional Guest Host) help take the idea up to the next level. I’ve appeared on the show a few times, and it’s some of the most fun I’ve had on a podcast as a guest.
And of course, you can hear me on The Skiffy and Fanty Show, mostly talking about media, and also now on Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers, and Fans.
So, now I turn the mic. What are some of your favorite podcasts?
So, if Twitter and online media reviews are any indications, Daredevil is a hit. (I’m really liking it, though I’m only 9 episodes in).
We’re already in the middle of a wave of superhero TV, much of which is far better than has been made in the past.
But what’s next? Supergirl is coming, as is DC’s All-Star Team-Up (or whatever the series with ATOM/Firestorm and co. will be called).
The big Q I have right now is what superhero TV shows will be greenlit on the back of Daredevil‘s success.
What I’m hoping is that we see more supers shows developed with high production values without always already having to be gritty and morally gray. Agents of SHIELD got stronger after a weak launch, but when comparing it to The Flash or Daredevil, it’s now weak sauce.
Here are some ideas that took basically no time to come up with:
Birds of Prey (Pitch: Girls + crime-fighting) – Batgirl and Black Canary + 1-2 other 20-something women being young and fabulous and flawed and friends while fighting crime. You could basically work directly from the Stewart/Fletcher/Tarr Batgirl run for the first season as your starting point (after adjusting the plot of Issue #37).
The Unbeatable Squirrel-Girl (Pitch: No, seriously, this will work) – Here’s part one of Marvel’s play for tween/teen audiences. The new comics run is fun, whacky, and really kid-friendly. Do it as a cartoon if you need to. Avatar: the Last Airbender has proven that cartoons can have tonal range and work across demographic categories.
Ms. Marvel (Pitch: This book is huge, just make it) — This comic is a gigantic hit barely a year into its first run. Capitalize on this sensation while you’ve got it, Marvel. Take a stand by putting a Pakistani-American young woman front-and-center in the MCU. The success of shows like Jane The Virgin and Scandal prove that a woman of color in a lead can succeed in ratings. Though I get maybe wanting to wait with her to introduce Captain Marvel first in the MCU. Doesn’t mean you couldn’t do a 616 series instead of MCU, especially in cartoon form.
Silver Surfer (Pitch: It’s an American Dr. Who) – Take your cues from the current Slott/Allred run and have a ball. Made more difficult by the shiny silver-ness of the lead, but worth considering.
She-Hulk – (Pitch: It’s Ally McBeal for the 20-teens. OR It’s feminist superpowered Law + Order). Take your cues from the recent runs and go for a procedural show where the lead is both Law + Order by herself. Cast a statuesque actress or CG her up in post-production (the former is a smarter idea) and go for episodic plots – A plot is the legal case of the week, B-plot is a superhero plot. The next week, reverse it so the supers plot is the A-plot. And then use subplots in mini and maxi-arcs to give the whole show shape.
Wonder Woman (Pitch: The West Wing + Greek Gods). This has been tried for TV, but not in the way I think would work best. Let Wonder Woman be a Big Damn Hero and an international diplomatic figure. She’s a Big Deal. Draws inspiration from the Greg Rucka run on the character, maybe mix that in with the Greek God-tastic Azzarello run.
X-Men (Pitch: It’s a CW Show. With the X-Men). HOW IS THIS NOT ALREADY HAPPENING? CW is doing a lot of SFF, and an X-Men show focusing on younger heroes, a mix of existing and brand-new mutants, with some familiar faces on faculty, WOULD ROCK. To answer my own question, I imagine this hasn’t happened mostly because of Fox and Marvel’s strained relationship, but there’s money being left on the table here, folks. Looking at shows like The Flash, I think the tech is there to start putting more visually-impressive supers on TV. The look of many visually-distinct mutants can be achieved with good makeup.
What supers shows do you want to see, and how would you do it?
When I heard the news of Tor.com launching a novella imprint, focusing on digital sales and experimenting with different sales and promotion strategies, as well as offering a higher royalty rate on digital sales, Macmillan had my curiosity.
When they hired my former Angry Robot colleague Lee Harris as the Imprint’s Senior Editor, well…
I will be attending the Phoenix Comic Con this week, working the Angry Robot Books booth and appearing as an author. I’ve been to New York Comic-Con twice, and I love seeing and participating in these huge celebrations of popular culture.
Aside from basking in the geekitude, here’s where you can find me:
Friday
Angry Robot Preview Panel – 12:00-1:00, North 128a
Urban Fantasy and the Real World – 1:30-2:30, North 126bc
Saturday
Drinks With Authors – 8-11PM, Renaissance Salon 5-8
And the rest of the con, I’ll mostly be at the Angry Robot Booth, #2410-2412.
Hi folks,
Last night, Jackie of Literary Escapism had me on for a live interview via Google Hangout on Air. Which means that now, you can watch that interview for free over on YouTube. We talked about Geekomancy, the Ree Reyes series, my attempts to write diversely, and more!
Having watched a number of the new shows that debut this fall, here are some thoughts:
My Generation: I was interested in this show in no small part due to the fact that the main characters, nine students from the class of 2000 at an Austin high school, are nearly my age-peers. I graduated in the class of 2001 (we did not play Space Odyssey, I’m sad to say), and am far away from where I thought I would be at that time.
This show takes the mocumentary style and applies it to a drama, where filmmakers followed nine students throughout their senior year, and is now checking in with them ten years later. The characters are introduced with their High School clique labels, such as “The Nerd,” “The Brains,” “The Jock,” etc. and then shown in their current lives, often very far away from where they’d expected to be. Circumstances in the characters’ lives bring many of them back to Austin, re-connecting with those who had never left or already returned.
The pilot clearly set the stakes, established the characters and their current trajectories vs. their self-professed worlds that they had imagined for themselves in 2000. It’s not fantastic, but it’s compelling so far and I’m likely to keep watching for a little while, if for no reason than the degree to which it makes me think about what has been happening in my own life vs. what I expected when I was a senior in HS.
The Event — This is the new The New LOST. The Event uses mosaic-style storytelling, jumping between characters and time frames in a fairly jarring manner, though over the episode, the rhythm became less distracting for me. The focus on Sean Walker (Jason Ritter) in the first episode brings the audience into the middle of The titular Event, balanced with POV sections from President Martinez (played by Blair Underwood — no relation) and others.
For me, much of my level of ongoing interest will depend on the truth of the Mt. Inostranka facility. Who are these people, and how are they connected to The Event? Once we know more about that, it’ll be easier to decide how much I care. There are several options that are yawn-worthy, and some others that could prove quite compelling.
Undercovers — The new sexy spy offering from Alias-creator J.J. Abrams is cute and fun. It’s not fantastic, but it does show a happily-married african-american couple as series leads, which is still noteworthy for network TV. It’s Sexy People Doing Sexy Spy Things, but it’s pretty well-done, and the leads are both gorgeous and likeable. I won’t stay home for this one, but I’ll probably catch up via Hulu every so often.
No Ordinary Family — The Pilot of this one hasn’t actually aired, but I got to watch a preview last month when they had it in limited availability. No Ordinary Family is very nearly a Live Action The Incredibles, with an origin closer to the Fantastic Four, who were an obvious inspiration for the Pixar film.
Michael Chiklis is Jim Powell, police sketch artist and under-appreciated dad. He feels fairly powerless and disconnected from his family, including his Bigwig Scientist Wife, Stephanie Powell (Julie Benz). Their children are Just-Trying-To-Fit-In Daphne (Kay Panabaker) and Undiagnosed Learning Disability Kid Brother JJ (Jimmy Bennett).
Jim convinces the family to take a vacation, which leads to their plane crashing into the Amazon — their trip is ruined, but shortly after their return, the members of the family begin manifesting super-powers. Jim gains incredible strength and toughness, Stephanie gets super-speed, Daphne becomes telepathic and JJ gets a massive intelligence boost.
The show’s formula seems like it will include Jim using his powers and police connections to fight crime while the rest of the family goes about their lives trying to deal with their powers — there are also hints of a larger super-world which will likely play a role as the show goes forward.
Of the new shows this season, I’m probably most excited about No Ordinary Family — it’s fun, doesn’t take itself to seriously, and seems to be respectful of its genre roots.
Hawaii Five-O — The joys of remakes. I didn’t really watch much of the original, as it was mostly before my time. However, the new show keeps what some say is the best part of the original show — the opening theme.
Alex O’Laughlin plays Steve McGarrett, who is brought out of the Middle East and offered a position heading a new state police unit in Hawaii, with no red tape and vast resources, tasked with bringing down TV-worthy criminals across the state.
He crosses paths with Danny “Danno” Williams, a divorced father who moved to Hawaii to be near his daughter (who primarily lives with her mother and step-dad), and also recruits Chin Ho (Daniel Dae Kim), a disgraced cop who worked with McGarrett’s father. Rounding out the cast is Grace Park, playing Chin Ho’s cousin Kona “Kono” Kalakaua, a hotshot rookie policewoman. McGarrett recruits her right out of the academy, as she’d have trouble getting respect in the normal force due to her familial connection to the disgraced Chin Ho.
The exotic locale, nostalgia, and charming cast are likely to be the show’s best assets, at least to begin with. I admit that if the show finds a way to highlight Grace “Boomer” Park’s gorgeousness on a regular basis, that will help by willingness to watch.
This is going to get deep into Spoilers, friends. See the movie, then read this post. If you’ve generally agreed with my reviews, than just go see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and come back to read this post after.
The film adaptation of Bryan O’Malley’s geek-tastic Scott Pilgrim comic series hit the big screens last week…to unimpressive monetary results, bringing in just over $10 million, 5th place behind 1) The Expendables 2) Eat, Pray, Love 3) The Other Guys and 4) Inception.
Its rating is in the high 80%s, higher than all of the movies which beat it monetarily (except Inception). It has tons of geek appeal. So why did it “bomb”?
Here’s the thing — it’s very particular geek appeal.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is for people who (preferably) share several or more of the following traits:
Moreso than possibly any movie in recent memory, the very celluloid upon which the Scott Pilgrim movie is filmed is comprised of Geekdom. Geekiness was like oxygen. The film is densely coded with visual and auditory references to geek culture, from comics to video games, but also to sitcoms and with commentary on the romantic comedy genre. It starts with a chiptune version of the Universal theme as the screen shows a slowly turning old-school video game graphics rendering of the Universal globe. The opening credit sequence is rife with visual allusions to video games and comics.
If these references go over your head, Scott Pilgrim may not be for you. It’s easy to position as a representative narrative for Generation Y (or Generation X, depending on who you ask), which also leads into another point that some have raised. Why, though, do some reviewers find it necessary to rag on the target demographic of a film that they (the reviewer) ostensibly didn’t understand or enjoy?
See, for example, this NPR story, which links to a number of the negative review (more of the film’s target audience than the film itself): http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129150813
Did you read that story? Ok.
So what we have here is a movie that is really most effective for a narrow demographic, and somehow that makes it a bad movie. Do reviewers pan a romantic comedy when it doesn’t try to appeal to people outside the ‘chick flick’ audience? Or rag on an action movie when it fails to transcend its genre and compete for an Best Picture Oscar?
What about Scott Pilgrim is it that attracted such rancor in reviews? Is it the same thing that lead to the film’s mediocre box office performance? i09.com’s Cyriaque Lamar gives several reasons in this article: http://io9.com/5613417/scott-pilgrim-vs-the-lamentable-weekend-gross-++-what-happened
But I don’t know if I think those reasons quite add up.
Some may call Scott Pilgrim’s “failure” a referendum on geek culture, heralding the end of the Age of the Geek. I’m more inclined to point at the fact that the film uses a great deal of medium and genre emulation in its cinematography, as the film at turns replicates comic books, video games, the fighter genre of games, sitcoms and the indie drama/comedy. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World leaps nimbly between those styles and referents, and for a viewer conversant with the Recommended Reading/Viewing/Playing, it works. I’ve never laughed so continually or so un-selfconsciously at a film in quite a long time.
This wasn’t a film where geek culture was being re-packaged for the majority, like the X-Men films or Iron Man or Spider-Man films. In these cases, a character and/or story well-known in the geek community is re-told and re-purposed for a general audience, adapting it to be more understandable, with a smoothed-out backstory less laden with decades of continuity. While Scott Pilgrim was adapted and streamlined for the screen, it was still (for me) very much a geeky movie for geeks, and never apologized for it.
It’s also important to discuss the Hipster aspect of the film. Pilgrim of the movie is less actively a geek than he is in the comics, and instead comes off as in no small part a slacker hipster kid — he has little life ambition, plays in a band, but isn’t any good at it, and only shows agency and energy when it comes to Ramona and then his fight scenes. There are a number of places where Hipster culture and Geek culture overlap, which I find amusing since for me, at their hearts, Geekiness and Hipsterness are antithetical.
In my evaluation, Geekdom is at its core a culture of geniune enthusiasm. You “geek out” about something when your enthusiasm shows to a degree which may be seen as excessive to some.
By contrast, Hipsterness for me is about irony — it’s about taking an attitude/position towards something. Hipsters associate with cultural materials or behaviors, but they do so to comment on them in a kind of Bertold Brecht way — Hipsters drink PBR because of its blue-collar associations, made ironic by the fact that most Hipsters come from decidely white-collar backgrounds — Hipsters listen to music and then take a ‘been there done that’ attitude to it.
Not being engaged in Hipster culture, my ideas about it are nowhere as developed as my thoughts on geek culture — but it’s worth the time to talk a bit about Hipsters for Scott Pilgrim, due to the associations on the part of both the film and the source comic (which delves deeply into the Toronto scenester world).
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World combines Romantic Comedy, Battle of the Bands, Fighting Game and Coming-of-Age tropes and tale-types, positing a world where young men and women have troubled romantic and personal histories as they fumble around trying to learn how to be themselves, but despite that complication, the world can be made simple by the application of the video game logic — Scott Pilgrim can bring his video game experience to bear and literalize the metaphor of “dealing with baggage from your S.O.’s exes” by fighting them in sequence. Scott Pilgrim literalizes several more metaphors of romance/baggage, from the ex who can still “Get into your head” (the chip) to being your own worst enemy (Nega-Scott!).
Some have discussed Scott Pilgrim vs. the World as a musical, but instead of singing, the characters fight — they still have soundtracks that convey the emotions of the scene, but express themselves and resolve conflicts via juggles and 64-hit combos and leveling up rather than in singing.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World will likely even out or turn a profit, given the chance that it will develop a strong record of DVD sales and home-release viewing.
If you read this blog, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is probably for you. I enjoyed the hell out of it, and plan to see it at least once more in theatres, delving deeper into the thickly-laid references.
This looks like a pleasant kind of cheesy. Let’s hope it brings the awesome.
Strong shades of The Incredibles, but crossed with Heroes (hopefully ala Season One) or a comedic Rising Stars.
I’ve found my way onto Google Wave and am very excited about its potential as a communication/collaboration tool, especially for geeky things. And by this I’m mostly talking about Role-Playing Games.
Not much of this blog’s content ends up being about RPGs, despite the fact that my M.A. thesis was on tabletop RPGs and I’ve been playing/following RPGs since I was in fourth grade.
Like any new communication technology, one of the first things that people have done with Google Wave, aside from making porn (I can only guess, based upon the general adage) is to see if you can use to it game. Because when your early adopter set is pretty much geeks, one of the things they’re likely to do when exploring a new technology is get it to roll dice so we can play exciting games of make-believe with our friends. It’s what we do.
There have been a number of different exploratory attempts along these lines, and I’ll try to create a short round-up here before moving into actual discussion/analysis:
The emerging thought is that while Google Wave is in its infancy, its official utility/intended utility is very much up in the air. The Futurismic post’s title is a paraphrase of Neuromancer, stating “the geek finds its own uses for things.” Much like how Wired commented on how Twitter’s ‘real use’ was decided by its users, Google Wave is being investigated for its various potentials, and Geek communities are pursuing explorations and trails of the technology as a strong next step/sideways development for roleplaying games as collaborative storytelling.
The idea put forward by the Game Playwrights is one of the most interesting, and the one I’ll ruminate upon further. Using a Google Wave as a persistent artifact of play changes the textual status that of RPGs. A tabletop RPG doesn’t leave an artifact of play, nor does a LARP. Each of those could be recorded, by video or audio, but would not represent a polished or total account of the story, instead showing a very fractured account. But if Google Wave games (or Waveltop, as some are calling them) move towards the ‘script of play’ model that Will Hindmarch of Game Playwrights is suggesting, we may see a move towards RPGs leaving behind readable texts, and this is for me, a very interesting move.
There is certainly already discussion of games past in the RPG community. From ‘let me tell you about my character’ to game stories like The Gazebo or group-specific stories about how one player is deep in character, using a special voice and cadence, embodying his motions, and saying with a sweeping motion, “Allow me to introduce my cousin”, gesturing to the player of the ‘cousin’ who is in fact…asleep on the couch. But even the actual play reports lauded in the Forge community among others are less direct than the ‘Wave as script of play’ idea.
If Wave players are using this script of play as their primary narrative reference but are also constructing it in a way that reads like a story/script, this, for me, would make it infinitely easier for players to read about and engage with one another’s stories in a way more consistent with films, television, novels, etc.
Different versions of one module could be combined and sold alongside a module (Buy Keep on the Borderlands, complete with game scripts by the Penny Arcade/PvP teams as well as three other star teams), and moreover, there would be room for groups to emerge as stars/paragons of RPG writing/play moreso than already exists (the stars such as they are tend to be specific game designers, known as designers more than being known as players) We may even see a re-figuration of the RPG novel. Could it be that once developed, people would pay to read the polished game texts of well-reputed RPG groups published as e-books/pdfs? It’s a very different way of monetizing the efforts of role-players, like but rather unlike the efforts of the gaming group who decided their superhero game was taking too much time away from writing and decided to do the Wild Cards anthology novels.
And of course, this need not be monetized, nor is it inevitably going to become monetized. However, in these early explorations, it’s not hard to see the varied ways that this technology could serve as a breakthrough tool for roleplayers to engage with one another. It is of course notable that the role-playing done via Google Wave is a notable offshoot of tabletop play, since it will not convey any degree of embodied performance, instead relying on writing as performance, At least until someone pushes the technology even further and weaves together audio play to cohesive uninterrupted narratives. (There are a number of podcasts/records of play that take the raw audio of a RPG session and distribute it, but again as said before and restated, the main appeal of Google Wave is the ease with which it allows a seamless narrative text which is both a part of play and a readable artifact that results from play.
I’m hoping to take part in some of this exploration myself, and will comment on that as I can.