Eoghann Irving's Blog, page 23

Doctor Who Review: 2014 Christmas Special — Last Christmas

The 2013 Doctor Who Christmas Special was flawed by the need to resolve so many plot elements and give Matt Smith a swansong and to try and make it Christmassy as well. That's probably too many things for one special to achieve. This time out, it just had to be Christmassy.

That's actually a Moffat thing. The earlier Christmas specials were only very loosely tied to Christmas, but Moffat likes to really hammer home the holiday vibe. I get it, but it's probably unnecessarily limiting. In this case however, putting Santa Claus into a Doctor Who episode is a stroke of genius.

Wait, Santa?

It could have gone hideously wrong mind you. The early trailers showing Nick Frost as Santa were funny but left a lot of questions about how this could possibly work. It works perfectly.

Frost plays Santa with the right mixture of nodding winks and good humor. It's not a parody but it's also somewhat acknowledging the meta-textual nature of what is going on. He also gets to do a bit of verbal sparring with the Doctor, which seems to be a thing lately (legendary characters not getting on with the Doctor).

The Doctor: Beardy weirdy?

Santa: Yes?

The Doctor: How do you get all the presents into your sleigh?

Santa: Bigger on the inside.

Elf: Oooooh.

But wisely Moffat doesn't actually try to integrate Santa into Doctor Who canon (to the extent there is one)

Meta-Inceptional-References

Doctor Who has played the dream card before of course back in Amy's Choice but Moffat goes a different direction with it. Not only does he happily steal from both Alien and The Thing and Miracle on 34th Street (Santa remember?) but he openly tells the audience he's doing that more than once.

There's a horror movie named Alien? That's really offensive. No wonder everybody keeps invading you.

Some may see this as a lack of ideas I supposed, but I think that taking concepts from existing stories and re-working them is legitimate. Which is just was well because Doctor Who does it a lot. And always has.

It's true that an alien invasion at an arctic base is not the most original premise, but it's still a good premise. If for no other reason than it lets Who touch back to something it was always good at, the base in peril story.

And while these aliens don't burst out of people's chests they are pretty damn creepy. You know you don't want them to touch you even before you understand that if they do it's the end for you, outside of the dream.

A Very Clever Doctor

Sometimes the Doctor isn't as smart as he thinks he is. Here though his brain is moving the whole time they are in the dream. He's pretty much figured out what's going on from the beginning, though at points it seems that the dream has lulled him into forgetting. Which is, after all, what the Dream Crabs do.

Yes the Doctor is still crabby (you see what I did there?), and he really doesn't like hugs, and he doesn't pay that much attention to what may offend people. But it does seem like a few of the roughest edges have been sanded down now doesn't it?

In each layer of the dream he figures out the nature of the dream and, again, works out a way to free himself. He's also the only one who's really able to manipulate the dreams to his own advantage.

It is interesting though that, given it's a shared dream, we really don't see any evidence of the Doctor and his life in the dreams. Do Time Lords dream? We've been lead to believe they do, given his previous talk of nightmares.

The Last Hurrah Of Danny Pink

I wasn't expecting to see Danny Pink again. He got a decent send off at the end of last season after all. But this did work nicely as a bookend  to his relationship with Clara.

You're wrong Doctor, I didn't die saving the world, I died saving Clara. The rest of you just got lucky.

Up to that point, as a scene, it was an interesting mixture of creepy (the Doctor's messages to Clara) and sadly sweet. It set her up to move forward with her life and let him, one more time, show how important she was to him.

And Those Other People

If there's an area that I think has been really weak in the last season it's been the secondary characters. Most of whom don't seem to get beyond wallpaper status. That was true again here.

There are several other people in the dream. But they basically never get to be more than "bossy scientist lady", "mouthy girl", and "hungry guy".

You could argue that since it's a dream, it's not surprising that the characters are shallow. But if you're going to threaten to kill them, it's generally helpful to give the audience a reason to care. I don't think we got any here really.

The episode gets away with it, because there's plenty going on anyway and so much of it is working well, but it's a bad trend.

One Of Stronger Christmas Specials

The Doctor Who Christmas Specials are a mixed bunch. I haven't hated any of them, but there are some I've never felt the need to re-watch. And that's unusual given how much I watch Doctor Who.

This one is pretty good. I suspect that it will be enjoyable even for those who didn't appreciate the direction that the last season of Doctor Who took. It is much less experimental in its structure. Or at least it is experimental in a way that's more acceptable to traditional sci-fi fans.

The Doctor and Clara will return in The Magician's Apprentice.

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Book Review: Storm Without End (Requiem For The Rift King #1) by R. J. Blain

Storm Without End makes no secret of its multi-volume nature. It says it right on the cover but if I'm going to pick the thing that irked me most reading this book it was the lack of a complete story. It's not just that there are things left unresolved. It's that nothing is resolved at all. I didn't feel like I'd reached the end of a story arc.

That complaint out of the way I should emphasise that I fully expect to read the next book in the series and that one of the reasons I found the abrupt end so frustrating is that I was really interested in the mysteries that had been set up. Multi-book stories are both popular with readers (who seem to like long fantasy stories) and also a good thing for the author because the second book is a known quantity and easier sell. But balancing giving a satisfying story with hooking people in for the next part is not an easy thing. There's certainly plenty of hook here.

Who, What, Where?

We're brought into this fantasy world almost entirely in the dark and rather mysteriously our primary viewpoint character Kalen also seems to be in the dark. Confused about where he is and how he got there.

This authorly sleight of hand has two benefits. It legitimately lets people explain things or figure things out without it feeling like a blatant infodump and it also allows the story to sparingly hand out information keeping the reader in the dark.

At times that can be quite frustrating and you just want to know what's going on and who that guy is referring to, and why is The Rift so dangerous anyway? But, it does keep you interested. Perhaps the more substantive complaint is that even by the end of this first book there are still an awful lot of unknowns. And some of it is stuff where I feel that characters should at least be asking the questions even if they don't get definitive answers back.

Politics and Religion Mix With Violence

There's a lot of both politics and religion going on in Storm Without End. But we're mostly seeing the results of that, not the maneuvering that creates the situation. So to that extent the world we're presented with is both deep and shallow at this point.

We know almost nothing actually about the religion of the invading country except that it appears to be quite nasty. We also know almost nothing about the true nature of the Rift King even though he is the primary viewpoint character for the story. The implication is that there is more to be revealed in both cases.

What we do know is that a combination of politics and religion has basically created the conditions for the invasion that is happening. Why Kalen, the Rift King has ended up in the middle of it is less clear. And what he or anyone else is going to do about it, I guess will be answered in the next book?

Always At A Disadvantage

Kalen himself is actually quite an appealing character. He's clearly very capable (most of the time, sometimes he's just jumpy) but he spends most of this book at one major disadvantage or another. As the Rift King he has significant power (hinted at for much of the book and this one is explained at least partially before the book is done) but circumstances contrive to keep him frequently helpless whether it's from a broken hand or some other situation.

What's appealing about him is that this endless succession of bad luck doesn't seem to get him down that much. He just keeps planning and trying and fighting back.  And when he gets to build up steam a little he can do some damage.

But it does mean he spends the whole book being reactionary, as do his allies. He seems to have been caught by surprise by this invasion (despite being a King and having substantial intelligence at his command) and gets repeatedly caught and handed off to different groups that he then has to attempt to escape from.

Summarizing it like this it sounds a bit negative, but the thing is that the pacing and the action keep that side of the book hopping along nicely. There's always something dramatic or dangerous happening, you always want to read the next chapter to see how he gets out of it.

Talking Animals?

Well, sort of. Kalen and the others from the Rift seem to be able to telepathically communicate with their horses and the animals seem to be substantially smarter and more dangerous than your regular horse.

In addition there are other horse-like creatures that are also able to communicate telepathically. I'm not clear if there's a link between the two or not. These certainly aren't cutesy talking animals, they can be downright vicious in fact and they do have distinct personalities of their own.

There's really nothing cutesy about this story at all. The Rift is clearly a bloody and dangerous place as are the other kingdoms.

Lots of Potential, All Setup

So basically I enjoyed reading this, until it stopped.  It feels, looking back on it, as though I've mainly read setup for what will happen in the next two books.

But I really want to read what will happen.

Storm Without End (Requiem for the Rift King Book 1)

by RJ Blain [Pen & Page Publishing]

Price:
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Sunrise Safari At Disney's Animal Kingdom

So my personal highlight from this year's Disney trip was the Sunrise Safari at Disney's Animal Kingdom. This is (or was) an extended version of the regular Kilimanjaro Safari ride plus a buffet breakfast available for a modest, by Disney standards, price to DVC members staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge.

Sadly this has been discontinued (perhaps due to ongoing expansion work at Animal Kingdom or in connection with the planned expansion of regular Safari hours) though our guide said that a replacement was being planned which would focus on the animals in the Savannah's at the Lodge itself.

That being the case I'm really glad I got a chance to do this Safari. As the name suggests it starts early. Everyone gathers in the Lobby at the Lodge around 7am and is loaded into a couple of buses to be taken to the back entrance to Animal Kingdom. On the way the guides, who work with the animals, offer up lots of back stage information.

Once there we are treated to an extended (roughly double the length) safari that offers two major advantages over the regular ride. One is that you have an expert guide there giving lots of information about both the animals you are seeing and the habit that they are in. The other, and for me biggest, advantage is that the vehicle stops for every animal you see.

And if you like taking photographs, that is huge. Because Disney, being Disney themed up the safari ride with an artificially bumpy road (those tire ruts are actually concrete) which means that while you're moving it's virtually impossible to snap an in focus photo.

But when we are stopped (and the driver was extremely good at finding the best place to view the animals) then there's plenty of time not only to take photos, but even to use a telephoto lens to get nice closeup shots that are actually in focus.

Naturally I took loads of photos, but I've picked out a representative sample. I think they turned out pretty well. Obviously I was still limited in terms of the angles I could shoot from and while we got a lot more time, it wasn't unlimited. Still with the early morning (and despite it being a cold day) we got to see a lot of animals. At one point pretty much the entire herd of giraffes walked around our vehicle.

The guides are extremely knowledgeable. Ours had worked at Animal Kingdom Lodge since it opened and prior to that worked at Animal Kingdom when it was setting up. He was extremely friendly and happily answered any and all questions that anyone had.

After the  safari itself was done we were walked out into the park (this would be around the regular opening time)  and to the Pizzafari restaurant. There we were taken into one of the rooms (apparently referred to as the camouflage room for our buffet breakfast.

Since the Sunrise Safari is very limited in the number of people on it, this was probably the quietest meal I have ever eaten at any Disney location. The food was very pleasant also with the highlight perhaps being the banana french toast (with sugar). As is common at the Animal Kingdom there were some African elements to the food but those who wanted to stay safely American in their eating habits could do so.

If this tour was still available, I would absolutely recommend it to people as well worth the money. While it doesn't offer the close up encounters that the Wild Africa Trek does, it was substantially cheaper and doesn't have the physical restriction. Hopefully they will bring it back in some form at a later date.

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Book Review: The King's Sword by C. J. Brightley

At the end of a recent book review I made a comment to the effect that I was getting rather weary of 'grimdark' fantasy. Well The King's Sword is about as far from 'grimdark' as you can get. In fact the central characters are so consistently good and honorable in their world view the author does run the risk of her story being dismissed as naïve. But, you know, there's really nothing wrong with a story that exemplifies good behavior rather than bad.

The story is told entirely from the viewpoint of Kemen Sendoa, a retired solider, who rescues a teenage boy lost and out in the countryside in deep winter. The boy turns out to be the son of the, now dead, King of Erdemen and thus heir presumptive.

Wait, Don't Tell Me, I've Heard This One Before

It's true that this isn't a particularly original concept for a storyline. A prince on the run from a usurper and helped by a grizzled veteran. But the quality of stories should be judged by their execution not the originality of a one line synopsis, so let's not rush to conclusions here.

Kemen seems to be a particularly honorable soldier with a strong love for his country despite his country failing to show that love back and also very firm beliefs on how a country should be ruled. This is admittedly a rather modern take on nationality but it also serves to explain his actions given that early on the Prince Hakan is a bit snivelly and spoilt. To be fair, given the circumstances the Prince really doesn't behave that badly, and I'd be pretty sulky myself.

Kemen does take Hakan under his wing, in a gruff and barely tolerating him sort of way and proceeds to give him life lessons. This part of the book does come across as a little heavy handed in places. We get a lot of very detailed scenes of Kemen training Hakan in sword fighting or unarmed combat, discussions about various people and places in this world and also an internal monologue from Kemen about the importance of honor.

I think the pacing here is unfortunate because while there are a lot of important things happening in terms of world and character building, it does feel very slow and I found myself wondering when things were going to start happening.  That's almost never a good thing for the reader to be thinking.

On the more positive side this methodical and detailed build up gives us a lot of time in Kemen's head and the result is a very rounded character.

Let Me Tell You About This World

The word infodump is bandied about in a derogatory fashion pretty frequently I've noticed. Not always accurately. There's a legitimate issue hidden behind that word though. Sometimes the author needs to get a lot of information in the readers head quickly and the most efficient, if not most elegant, way is simply to tell them. Sometimes, however, it's more that the author really wants to share extra information with the reader.

The world this story is set in is notionally a fantasy world in that while there is no magic and there don't seem to be any monsters, it is set in a broadly medieval time period and it's clearly not our world. It's also a fairly well realized world with elements of language, multiple cultures and other details in place.

I imagine that C. J. Brightley spent a good amount of time building all that as background for the story, so it's hardly surprising if she wants to share as much as she can with the reader. The problem is that sometimes it doesn't feel like it has much to do with the plot.  Discussions about various geographic locations or cultures seem to exist mainly to share that information. This added to my impatience with the first half of the book. It might have been better to hold some of that back for when they became relevant in future stories.

Overthrowing The Usurper

Fortunately all of the backstory and world building and character moments are leading somewhere. Kemen finally decides to stop traipsing around the countryside and make a stand of sorts. From this point on, things happen and a lot of the elements set up earlier on do pay off.

Hakan starts to show a rather more Kingly (or at least Princely) side to his character and Kemen's lectures on how to rule well are put to some good use.

If there's a problem at all with this section of the book it's that maybe Kemen and Hakan have it a little too easy. Well, Kemen actually gets beaten up a fair bit so that's probably not the right phrasing.  But at no point did I ever doubt how things were going to end. Kemen is just a bit too good and no one really challenges him either physically or morally. It would have been nice to see a character with a different viewpoint stand up to him a little.

Kemen also, and this does seem to be in character for him, is very morally certain and confident which I think dampens the feeling of jeopardy in the situations they face.

Good People Trying To Do The Right Thing

In short, what we have here is a tale of two good people trying to do the right thing both for themselves and for their country. That's not a bad starting point for a story. And Kemen is generally a likeable and appealing protagonist.

While the first part of the book did seem slow to me, it wasn't a slog to read by any means and I was enjoying it quite a bit once the pace picked up.  I do wonder if having a single viewpoint protagonist may have worked against the story at little bit by making Kemen's world view overwhelmingly dominant and also making the political and military threats seem very distant most of the time.

This is the first of a series of three books and there's certainly room to explore the characters and world further particularly if it involves moving into areas where Kemen is less self-confident.

The King's Sword (Erdemen Honor) (Volume 1)

by C. J. Brightley [Egia LLC]

Price:
$11.69
£8.52
CDN$ 14.63
EUR 10,62
EUR 10,78

It is nice to be able to come away from a book without feeling that every character you've read about, including the protagonists, are horrible, deceitful and probably deserve to be pushed off a bridge.

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Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

Well this was just plain fun. I had a smile on my face through almost the entire movie. And if you want a TLDR for this review, then fun pretty much sums it all up. Certainly this isn't an intellectually challenging movie but I think I can safely say that you'll enjoy every moment of it.

When Marvel Studios announced they were making a Guardians of the Galaxy movie there was a lot of doubt online (where everyone thinks they are an expert) about the viability of taking a bunch of characters that probably wouldn't even be described as D-list and making a movie based on them. Shows what the internet knows.

Mix, Match and Magic

If I was to describe Guardians of the Galaxy I'd probably say that it's Star Wars meets The Italian Job with a bit of Dirty Dozen thrown in there as well. There's a lot of familiar imagery and tropes in play with this movie. In fact the entire sound track is pretty much just playing on your pop nostalgia. Mixing all those different elements together could result in a mess, but in this case it doesn't. They blend nicely. The familiar elements serve to effectively ground a movie which is set almost entirely in space and in places the majority of the audience will never have heard of.

But that strangeness doesn't matter because they can immediately identify the type of characters they are dealing with here. They know who to cheer for. Having the Guardians be a rag tag mixture of bounty hunters, assassins and thieves is probably a smart move too because modern audiences seem to be more inclined to cheer the anti-hero than the out and out good guy.

Infinity Stones?

So the ostensible plot of the movie is that Ronan the Accuser (Kree bad guy) and Thanos (they even refer to him as the Mad Titan, yay!) plan to use one of the Infinity Stones (Gems if you're a comicbook reader) to destroy the planet of Xandar which is protected by the Nova Corps (good guys with sticks up their butts). Star-Lord and by extension the rest of the group who will become the Guardians of the Galaxy gets caught up in the hunt for the Infinity Stone and off we go from there.

The Infinity Stones are what ties this movie to the previous Marvel movies as we have seen some of them previously in Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers and Thor: The Dark World. Anyone who's read the comics knows exactly where this is going, but even if you haven't read those comics this movie pretty much clues you in. For that reason you might think that this movie would make a poor stand alone. But you'd be wrong. All you really need to know is that the Infinity Stones are powerful and dangerous and the bad guys want them. Everything else just falls into line.

They Call Me Star-Lord

Or at least Peter Quill really wishes they would. It's a nice running joke that most people have no idea who he is and think his naming himself is rather pretentious, but then by the end of the movie someone does use his chosen name. Quill as played by Chris Pratt is something of a manchild. He's selfish and goofy but fundamentally good natured. Pratt is perfectly at home in the role and he makes the character someone you want to like.

They got my dick message.

Quill really has the clearest character arc of the movie, starting off as a body who struggles with the death of his mother (in a clever twist her dying of cancer makes her look strangely alien) and really has never come to terms with that. Of course by the end of the movie he's having to take responsibility for his actions. It's not an incredibly original story arc, but it's an effective one and gives the movie it's only really deep emotional moments.

We don't get to see inside the other Guardians nearly as much but they do all get their moments.  Rocket Raccoon for example is bitter and snarky but the moment where he points out that he didn't ask to be experimented on and turned into what he is touches just the right chord. Similarly Drax is mostly there for dead-pan humor (and violence) but he too gets a few moments when we find out about the death of his family. Groot is, of course, Groot.

I didn't ask to be torn apart and put back together over and over and turned into some little monster!

If there's a weak one in the bunch I'm probably going to point to Gamora. Not because she's a bad character, but because she's the one that feels like she really needed some more development. She's one of the deadliest women in the galaxy. She's Thanos' daughter. And she betrays him. But we never get a chance to explore what brought her to that point. And while the decision makes sense because it would probably stop the momentum of the movie, it does leave an odd gap. The others are thieves and scoundrels, certainly, but she is a cold blooded murderer. And yet they really never question it.

A secondary  theme of the movie seems to be family. Quill has lost his family and at first makes do with the Ravagers, then clearly sets up the Guardians as a surrogate family.Gamora and Nebula are both adopted daughters of Thanos and yet both look to betray him at the first opportunity. Which doesn't say too much for his parenting skills.  Where Nebula just looks for the strongest person she can find in the hope of killing Thanos (and thus being free of him) Gamora seems to be looking for more.

You see what he has turned me into? You kill him and I will help you destroy a thousand planets.

The Freedom Of Ignoring Continuity

I'm surprised there hasn't been more of an outcry in the comicbook community about the movie's very casual regard for continuity. Some of the characters in Guardians of the Galaxy frequently bare little resemblance to their equivalent characters in the comics.

Thanos himself seems to hew pretty closely to the original, but Yondu for example owes little more than  his mohawk and sonic controlled arrow to the original Guardians character. Star-Lord himself is a pretty radical departure from the character presented even a few years ago. Although I notice that Marvel has essentially recreated the character in the comics to match the one portrayed on screen. Ronan is an interesting case in that the character itself hasn't departed too far from his nature in the comics, but the Kree culture surrounding him seems to have.

Perhaps the lack of fuss is because the movie was so much fun that people are cutting it a lot of slack. Personally I see it as an example of why being able to ignore continuity is a good thing. When what was written by someone else in a story 10 years ago gets in the way of telling a good story now, you should cut it loose.

There's certainly no shortage of references for the fan boys though. Whether it's the post-credits appearance of Howard the Duck or the brief appearances of Cosmo there are plenty of nods for those who are familiar with Marvel's cosmic titles.

Guardians of the Galaxy (3D Blu-ray + Blu-ray + Digital Copy)

by James Gunn [Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment]

Price:
$24.96
£20.82
CDN$ 29.96
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Not Such A Big Risk After All

So it turns out that Marvel's big risk was actually something of a safe bet. The Marvel brand is now strong enough that they don't have to have big name characters to launch a hugely popular movie, and the Marvel Studios machine has polished its format up to such an extent that they can produce these sorts of movies like clockwork.

I do have a concern that between Marvel's schedule and Warner's also announced schedule that the superhero movie bubble pretty much has to burst, but in the mean time if we get movies as fun as this I don't care.

Related articles

Who's Your Daddy, Star-Lord? Unlocking "Guardians of the Galaxy's" Major Mystery (comicbookresources.com)
Guardians of the Galaxy 2: James Gunn Doesn't Want To Use Nova 'Right Now' (screenrant.com)
10 Biggest Mistakes In The Marvel Cinematic Universe (whatculture.com)

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