Eric Allen's Blog, page 7
November 4, 2018
NaNo Day 4
Uhg, I'm usually so much faster than this during NaNo, but work is just wearing me out this year with all of the extra election mail. It's literally adding 2-3 hours to my every day of work. It's freaking horrible. I did still hit 10k today, which isn't bad for a 4 day total. I'm still averaging about 2500 words a day so far, which is well above the 1667 NaNo daily goal. So, yay, I guess. Hopefully I'll be able to get a lot more done a lot faster once the election is over.
November 2, 2018
NaNo Day 2: The slightly further along than day 1ening
So NaNo is happening, and I'm working on Shadows of What Might Have Been, book 2 to Memories of What Never Was. Thanks to next week's election I've been completely buried at work this week, and haven't been able to get home with much time to spend writing. Hopefully that will change after Tuesday next week. But I am still overachieving a bit by NaNo standards. You're supposed to get at least 1667 words per day to hit the 50k by the end of the month, and I've gotten a little over 3000 these first two days. Also, this story is a little more complex than the ones I usually write, which takes a bit more time to write, so not only do I have less time this year to write in (so far) I'm also writing slower because there's a lot more elements that have to go into the story. It's all good though. I'm still way ahead of the goal for day 2 with 6086 words. To be honest, though, I doubt I can finish the first draft of this book in 50k words. I already had 45k written, but I think this one is going to end up somewhere between 150k and 170k when it's done. Anyway, expect more pointless posts this month about me saying how awesome I'm doing.
October 30, 2018
So, there I was, at Walmart...
So, there I was, at Walmart, refilling my prescription for anti-anxiety pills, and low and behold, I saw, sitting atop the $10 bin of crap movies and video games that no one wants: Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition. I've avoided Final Fantasy XV until now for a few reasons. First, the trailers and the playable demo that I got with another game, just didn't interest me. I don't really care about dudebros on road trips, and that's what the game was made out to be in literally ALL of the advertising. I could practically smell the toxic fumes of axe body spray coming off of the ads. Second, I had the misfortune to spend money on, and play, Final Fantasy XII and XIII. Both of which were kind of crap in comparison to what the series used to be. Of the two, I preferred XIII, but that's like saying, "of two hot pokers in the eye, one of them burned a little less." Third, I didn't like the whole season pass thing. They released an unfinished game, and then expected me to pay more to fill in what should have already been part of the game at release. And last, I don't really care for action RPGs. I'm kind of more old-school. I prefer the old turned based RPGs to the new stuff that's more about graphics and fast paced action, than it is about story or thoughtful game play.
But there it was, for 10 bucks, the edition that included all of the season pass stuff. I figured I might as well. So, let me first say, that the royal edition is very, VERY lazy. It's just the base game with a download code for all of the extras and updates that were part of the season pass. This was a 50GB download. That shows you how unfinished the game was at launch. I was annoyed that I had to wait overnight for the updates to download and install before I could play it. But the next day I sat down after work and tried it out. The story of the game isn't really all that central to playing it. It seems like it's more vaguely happening in the background, rather than being an active part of the game. I play games for the story. It is literally the only thing I will play a game for. I don't care about difficulty. I don't care about playing dress up. I don't care about the challenge. I don't care ab out pointless side content, or multiplayer online battles. I do have preferences on game play, but if the story is good, I don't really care if the game play is crap. All I really care about is the story. And, well, the story of this game might as well be non-existent.
And yet, I find myself oddly still playing it. It's weird. The game really does not fit what I like in a game, and yet, here I am, still running side quests that I would normally skip completely in any other game, and running out to do monster hunt quests. I even found myself getting annoyed when I was pulled into story sections of the game. The combat is kind of mind-numbing. All you do is hold down R1+Triangle, and your guy will warp around and murder every enemy. You don't even have to look at the screen. The characters are either boring, douchey, or annoying. And god forbid one of them actually be a girl, or anything. I don't get it. I should hate this game, but I don't. It is weirdly addictive, and I don't know why. I just keep scouring the map for new side quest markers, or new diners to pick up more kill quests. I'm like lvl 65 just off of all of the side quests I've done and I haven't even finished chapter 3 of the story. Maybe it's my history with MMOs that's pulling me in, because all the running around, side-questing, and hunting down specific monsters feels like a single-player version of a MMO. They tried doing that with Final Fantasy XII, and it didn't really work for me, but here, it kind of is.
I dunno, I only spent $10 on it, and it's kept me entertained for a couple of weeks. It's definitely not the best game ever. It's not especially well made or written. The characters are kind of unlikable. But for what it is, it's weirdly engrossing. If you can find it as cheap as I did, maybe give it a try.
But there it was, for 10 bucks, the edition that included all of the season pass stuff. I figured I might as well. So, let me first say, that the royal edition is very, VERY lazy. It's just the base game with a download code for all of the extras and updates that were part of the season pass. This was a 50GB download. That shows you how unfinished the game was at launch. I was annoyed that I had to wait overnight for the updates to download and install before I could play it. But the next day I sat down after work and tried it out. The story of the game isn't really all that central to playing it. It seems like it's more vaguely happening in the background, rather than being an active part of the game. I play games for the story. It is literally the only thing I will play a game for. I don't care about difficulty. I don't care about playing dress up. I don't care about the challenge. I don't care ab out pointless side content, or multiplayer online battles. I do have preferences on game play, but if the story is good, I don't really care if the game play is crap. All I really care about is the story. And, well, the story of this game might as well be non-existent.
And yet, I find myself oddly still playing it. It's weird. The game really does not fit what I like in a game, and yet, here I am, still running side quests that I would normally skip completely in any other game, and running out to do monster hunt quests. I even found myself getting annoyed when I was pulled into story sections of the game. The combat is kind of mind-numbing. All you do is hold down R1+Triangle, and your guy will warp around and murder every enemy. You don't even have to look at the screen. The characters are either boring, douchey, or annoying. And god forbid one of them actually be a girl, or anything. I don't get it. I should hate this game, but I don't. It is weirdly addictive, and I don't know why. I just keep scouring the map for new side quest markers, or new diners to pick up more kill quests. I'm like lvl 65 just off of all of the side quests I've done and I haven't even finished chapter 3 of the story. Maybe it's my history with MMOs that's pulling me in, because all the running around, side-questing, and hunting down specific monsters feels like a single-player version of a MMO. They tried doing that with Final Fantasy XII, and it didn't really work for me, but here, it kind of is.
I dunno, I only spent $10 on it, and it's kept me entertained for a couple of weeks. It's definitely not the best game ever. It's not especially well made or written. The characters are kind of unlikable. But for what it is, it's weirdly engrossing. If you can find it as cheap as I did, maybe give it a try.
August 27, 2018
Back from vacation
So, for the last two weeks I was at Lake Tahoe for a family reuinion. I spent my days lying on a beach trying to pretend that the rest of my family doesn't exist. I spent much of that time playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2, (I have a solar charger that I use at work to charge my phone and speakers that I brought with me to keep all my gadgets running) but I also started work on Shadows of What Might Have Been, the next book to Memories of What Never Was, on my tablet. Mostly I started on this book because the thought of spending one more minute editing instead of writing something new had me looking for a proverbial basket full of kittens to punch. I wrote a little over 30k words of the first draft while out on the beach. I have a long way to go, but I got pretty much all of the set up for the story finished. This book is going to be a bit less dark than the first one (until the end, anyway) and it's going to have a bit more action in it. Looking back, the first book has a big chase scene to cap out the first act, and a largely undescribed battle scene at the end (because the story was about the characters overcoming their demons rather than things exploding and armies clashing) and that was about it for action. But now that the characters have overcome their demons (outwardly, anyway) there's room in the story for more exciting things to be happening.
I'm not sure how much time I'm going to be able to devote to writing this in the next few months. The Christmas meat grinder is about the drop on my job, yes, even now at the end of August, but we'll see. I have plans to finish it up for NaNo this year if I haven't gotten a first draft completed by then.
Why start on it at all when I've yet to finish the first book, much less sell it to a publisher? Well, because I need to be working on something, because I've kind of forgotten what to do with my time when I'm not spending it writing or editing, and I need a break from editing. And, you know, writing the story is the fun part for me. I don't really care if no one ever reads it, or if I never get it published. Creating the story, and the world, and the characters is what I enjoy. And I figure the first book will be a bit easier to sell if I have work on the second and/or third one I can say, look, see, I've got progress on the rest of the story.
I'm not sure how much time I'm going to be able to devote to writing this in the next few months. The Christmas meat grinder is about the drop on my job, yes, even now at the end of August, but we'll see. I have plans to finish it up for NaNo this year if I haven't gotten a first draft completed by then.
Why start on it at all when I've yet to finish the first book, much less sell it to a publisher? Well, because I need to be working on something, because I've kind of forgotten what to do with my time when I'm not spending it writing or editing, and I need a break from editing. And, you know, writing the story is the fun part for me. I don't really care if no one ever reads it, or if I never get it published. Creating the story, and the world, and the characters is what I enjoy. And I figure the first book will be a bit easier to sell if I have work on the second and/or third one I can say, look, see, I've got progress on the rest of the story.
August 21, 2018
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
So, a few years ago, my favorite video game writer, Tetsuya Takahashi, released his latest game. Xenoblade Chronicles. He's the guy responsible for Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 7 and 10, Xenogears, and the Xenosaga trilogy. It almost didn't make it to the USA because Nintendo of America were idiots that didn't think there was any interest in the game. But luckily Nintendo of Europe took the initiative, translating and dubbing it into English. And when they saw how well it was selling over there, Nintendo of America ported over the EU version for us. I wrote a blog post a while back after I played through that game and fanboyed all over it. It was an amazing game with an amazing story. I loved every minute of it. I actually bought a Wii just so that I could play it.
A couple years later, they released Xenoblade Chronicles X. I was looking forward to it as the sequel to the best game I'd played all freaking decade. I bought a Wii-U just so that I could play it. And I was completely and utterly disappointed with it. Instead of a deep and rich story around amazingly well developed characters, we got a silent protagonist (one of the things I absolutely hate in story based video games like this) no character, no personality, nada. And the game itself was just boring, and not very well put together. It tried to incorprate a lot of MMORPG aspects, and Skyrim-esque open world crap that just didn't work. Plus they got a new music guy that just blew it to an epic degree. To this day, I still haven't finished it, and I really have no desire to either.
But then I started seeing articles about Xenoblade Chronicles 2. A game that, aparently, was pretending the X never even existed. And Good riddance to it. I've been a little poor over the last year or so, trying to pay down my student loans and car ASAP to get myself out of debt and buy a house. So I haven't really had much money to spend on grabbing myself a Nintendo Switch. But I just recieved a very large payout from work over being underpaid for a year a few years back, and I figured I might as well grab one while I have the chance. Because I really, REALLY wanted to play Xenoblade 2. The reviews for the game have been absolutely spectacular. It seems like NO ONE doesn't like this game.
So I finally got my hands on a Switch, and a copy of Xenoblade 2. And now, 90 hours of gameplay later, I have emerged from my cave to shout to the world how much I loved it. It was even better than the first game. The character design is a litle more cartoony than the first game, but that didn't annoy me too much. The characters are great. The English translation and acting is surprisingly good. They got the music guy from the first game back, and he delivered a soundtrack that was even better than that of the first game. A soundtrack that I had to go buy, even though it was $45 due to being like 5 discs long. Yasunori Mitsuda, composer of the Xenogears soundtrack, and writer of the theme songs for all of the Xeno games came back for the theme song to this one, and it's just as good as the others (and a big part of some real tear jerker scenes at the end). The battle system is complicated and challenging without being too complicated to figure out. There is a huge world to explore, and many secrets to find. But the thing that stands out most is the story. The story is very engrossing, and the characters are all very likeable and loveable. It's got some really amazing action cutscenes, and some real tear jerker scenes near the end. That's how you can tell they told the story well, when you start getting choked up when bad things happen to the characters you care about. When I finished it, I just kind of sat around for a few days in complete awe over how great a game it was. I did not hesitate for one second to shell out another $30 for the game's expansion pass, which comes with what is basically an entire prequel game that releases next month. If the story and characters are even half the quality that I saw in the base game, it will be worth the extra money to play it.
If you have the means to grab a Nintendo Switch and a copy of this game, I highly recommend it. It was even better than the first game. It's probably the best game I've played since the turn of the freaking century. If you don't have the means, you can watch all of the story scenes on youtube. The way they did the story cutscenes is that there are only a few spots where it skips over fights that you fight in the game, but otherwise, it's like watching a 15 hour long movie. You miss none of the story, and very little of the action by just watching the cutscenes. But, I mean, get the game. Give money to these people for their work. They deserve it. This game was amazing. It seems that games like this are a dying breed, and that is a very sad thing to me. I grew up playing story based RPGs, and though I don't have as much time and money to devote to the hobby these days, I still really enjoy a good RPG when they come along. This one is one of the best of the best, and I can't recommend it enough.
A couple years later, they released Xenoblade Chronicles X. I was looking forward to it as the sequel to the best game I'd played all freaking decade. I bought a Wii-U just so that I could play it. And I was completely and utterly disappointed with it. Instead of a deep and rich story around amazingly well developed characters, we got a silent protagonist (one of the things I absolutely hate in story based video games like this) no character, no personality, nada. And the game itself was just boring, and not very well put together. It tried to incorprate a lot of MMORPG aspects, and Skyrim-esque open world crap that just didn't work. Plus they got a new music guy that just blew it to an epic degree. To this day, I still haven't finished it, and I really have no desire to either.
But then I started seeing articles about Xenoblade Chronicles 2. A game that, aparently, was pretending the X never even existed. And Good riddance to it. I've been a little poor over the last year or so, trying to pay down my student loans and car ASAP to get myself out of debt and buy a house. So I haven't really had much money to spend on grabbing myself a Nintendo Switch. But I just recieved a very large payout from work over being underpaid for a year a few years back, and I figured I might as well grab one while I have the chance. Because I really, REALLY wanted to play Xenoblade 2. The reviews for the game have been absolutely spectacular. It seems like NO ONE doesn't like this game.
So I finally got my hands on a Switch, and a copy of Xenoblade 2. And now, 90 hours of gameplay later, I have emerged from my cave to shout to the world how much I loved it. It was even better than the first game. The character design is a litle more cartoony than the first game, but that didn't annoy me too much. The characters are great. The English translation and acting is surprisingly good. They got the music guy from the first game back, and he delivered a soundtrack that was even better than that of the first game. A soundtrack that I had to go buy, even though it was $45 due to being like 5 discs long. Yasunori Mitsuda, composer of the Xenogears soundtrack, and writer of the theme songs for all of the Xeno games came back for the theme song to this one, and it's just as good as the others (and a big part of some real tear jerker scenes at the end). The battle system is complicated and challenging without being too complicated to figure out. There is a huge world to explore, and many secrets to find. But the thing that stands out most is the story. The story is very engrossing, and the characters are all very likeable and loveable. It's got some really amazing action cutscenes, and some real tear jerker scenes near the end. That's how you can tell they told the story well, when you start getting choked up when bad things happen to the characters you care about. When I finished it, I just kind of sat around for a few days in complete awe over how great a game it was. I did not hesitate for one second to shell out another $30 for the game's expansion pass, which comes with what is basically an entire prequel game that releases next month. If the story and characters are even half the quality that I saw in the base game, it will be worth the extra money to play it.
If you have the means to grab a Nintendo Switch and a copy of this game, I highly recommend it. It was even better than the first game. It's probably the best game I've played since the turn of the freaking century. If you don't have the means, you can watch all of the story scenes on youtube. The way they did the story cutscenes is that there are only a few spots where it skips over fights that you fight in the game, but otherwise, it's like watching a 15 hour long movie. You miss none of the story, and very little of the action by just watching the cutscenes. But, I mean, get the game. Give money to these people for their work. They deserve it. This game was amazing. It seems that games like this are a dying breed, and that is a very sad thing to me. I grew up playing story based RPGs, and though I don't have as much time and money to devote to the hobby these days, I still really enjoy a good RPG when they come along. This one is one of the best of the best, and I can't recommend it enough.
August 7, 2018
Memories of What Never Was - Draft 5 done
So, I finished up the fifth draft of Memories of What Never Was, and you can read it at the bottom of this page if you are so inclined.
And yes, it has only been a week since I finished the 4th draft. This draft was basically just a read through out loud to see if all of the writing sounded natural. I tweaked a few things here and there to make the writing flow better so I wouldn't get tongue tied reading it aloud. I added in a few lines here and there to clarify things I thought might have been a bit too vague. I also came across an instance where Brand acted wildly out of character for a page or so just to create a bit of momentary drama. I kind of can't believe it took me 5 whole drafts to even notice the problem. A character should always act like himself, no matter what. No amount of momentary drama will ever make up for breaking a character like that. If you can't think of another way to create the drama while also being true to the character (which I did) maybe the drama just wasn't meant to be.
Anyway, I think maybe just one more draft should finish this one up. I'm going to head over and work on the final draft of Spires of Inifinty before I get to it. If anyone out there of the two or three people who actually read my blog would like to play beta reader for me, I'll be happy to e-mail a copy of it to you so you don't have to read it off of my craptastic website. Mostly, what I'm looking for, is not people who will tell me how good they think it is. I can get all that I want of that from my mom. What I need is someone to tell me what they don't like about it. What they think I'm doing wrong.
And yes, it has only been a week since I finished the 4th draft. This draft was basically just a read through out loud to see if all of the writing sounded natural. I tweaked a few things here and there to make the writing flow better so I wouldn't get tongue tied reading it aloud. I added in a few lines here and there to clarify things I thought might have been a bit too vague. I also came across an instance where Brand acted wildly out of character for a page or so just to create a bit of momentary drama. I kind of can't believe it took me 5 whole drafts to even notice the problem. A character should always act like himself, no matter what. No amount of momentary drama will ever make up for breaking a character like that. If you can't think of another way to create the drama while also being true to the character (which I did) maybe the drama just wasn't meant to be.
Anyway, I think maybe just one more draft should finish this one up. I'm going to head over and work on the final draft of Spires of Inifinty before I get to it. If anyone out there of the two or three people who actually read my blog would like to play beta reader for me, I'll be happy to e-mail a copy of it to you so you don't have to read it off of my craptastic website. Mostly, what I'm looking for, is not people who will tell me how good they think it is. I can get all that I want of that from my mom. What I need is someone to tell me what they don't like about it. What they think I'm doing wrong.
July 30, 2018
Memories of What Never Was Draft 4 done
So, finished the 4th draft of Memories of What Never Was, and you can read it at the bottom of this page if you are so inclined.
So with this draft mostly what I did was just smoothed out the writing a bit more, removed some unnecessary words here and there, and I added in a new idea or three that came to me as I was working on it. I also did a little more work on Kriss' character, and now I think I finally have her exactly where I want her to be. I mean, she's only the hero of the story. She, of all characters, kind of has to be done as close to perfectly as possible.
So with this draft mostly what I did was just smoothed out the writing a bit more, removed some unnecessary words here and there, and I added in a new idea or three that came to me as I was working on it. I also did a little more work on Kriss' character, and now I think I finally have her exactly where I want her to be. I mean, she's only the hero of the story. She, of all characters, kind of has to be done as close to perfectly as possible.
July 9, 2018
Memories of What Never Was Draft 3 complete
So I took a bit of time off, because I was kind of burnt out, but now I'm back to work on Memories of What Never Was, and I've finished up Draft 3. You can find it at the bottom of this page if you are so inclined. Blah. Blah. Manuscript format. Blah. Blah.
So, in this draft I mostly just worked on the writing itself, as I think I've got all of the story and character elements pretty much where I want them to be. I removed a lot of repetitious writing, and filler words, as well as a truckload of adverbs, because as Stephen King says, the road to hell is paved with adverbs. I reworded things so they sounded better, or more professional, and made a few small tweaks that still needed to be made to the characters, but not by much.
One other thing I changed was the Infinity War to the Empyrean War, for obvious reasons. I first started putting this story and world together about 15-20 years ago. At that time, I had not read any Avenger's comics, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe was but a glint in the milkman's eye. I was more into Spider-Man, Green Lantern, and Batman at the time. I must have heard "Infinity War" while geeking out somewhere, and thought it sounded cool enough to use. But now, it's not appropriate to use anymore, because, well, everyone and their dog will think I'm copying Marvel. Which, I probably was all along, but eh, who knows where I came up with the name. I kind of like the sound of Empyrean War a bit more. It has a bit of a ring to it, and its meaning is a bit more in line with what the war actuall was.
Anyway, this book still needs a lot of work, but it is definitely coming along.
So, in this draft I mostly just worked on the writing itself, as I think I've got all of the story and character elements pretty much where I want them to be. I removed a lot of repetitious writing, and filler words, as well as a truckload of adverbs, because as Stephen King says, the road to hell is paved with adverbs. I reworded things so they sounded better, or more professional, and made a few small tweaks that still needed to be made to the characters, but not by much.
One other thing I changed was the Infinity War to the Empyrean War, for obvious reasons. I first started putting this story and world together about 15-20 years ago. At that time, I had not read any Avenger's comics, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe was but a glint in the milkman's eye. I was more into Spider-Man, Green Lantern, and Batman at the time. I must have heard "Infinity War" while geeking out somewhere, and thought it sounded cool enough to use. But now, it's not appropriate to use anymore, because, well, everyone and their dog will think I'm copying Marvel. Which, I probably was all along, but eh, who knows where I came up with the name. I kind of like the sound of Empyrean War a bit more. It has a bit of a ring to it, and its meaning is a bit more in line with what the war actuall was.
Anyway, this book still needs a lot of work, but it is definitely coming along.
May 28, 2018
The Han Solo Movie
So, the Han Solo movie is the Star Wars movie that no one really cared about. Honestly, I wasn't expecting much out of it, but it was not a movie I really needed to see. In my opinion, there are far more interesting Star Wars characters to make a prequel movie about, far more interesting Star Wars stories to tell, and all kinds of new and original movies they could be making with the Star Wars name and universe. And I was somewhat following the troubles with production of the movie with mild amusement as well. My expectations for this movie were so unbelievably low, that when it turned out to be ok-ish, I was pleasantly surprised. Is it a great movie. Not really. Is it a movie that needed to be made? Nope. Is it a story that needed to be told? No, especially since there are several books/comics that already exist, telling the Han Solo origin story. Did it entertain me for a couple hours? Yeah. There were a few pretty good jokes. A few good action scenes. The train heist and the Kessel Run are probably the best. Did it add anything to the character, show any new sides, give us something new or interesting to think about while watching Han Solo in the movies that take place after this one? Not really. They played it very safe, and that was kind of boring, really. Why tell a Han Solo origin story, if you're not going to add any new dimensions to his character?
My biggest problem with the movie was that it never did anything unexpected. The Force Awakens, that did some pretty unexpected things. Rogue One, that did some pretty unexpected things. The Last Jedi, love it or hate it, did some pretty unexpected things. Solo... Solo was a pretty by the numbers heist movie that took no risks, and didn't try to be anything new or original. It's a movie I've seen a thousand times before with different titles. Honestly, heist movies are so done to death that you kind of really need a bit more than Han Solo, and a Star Wars setting to make me care much about it.
Through most of the movie I was thinking, well, this is okay, I guess, but why does it exist? Money. that's why it exists. Just so Disney can get more of my money. But, judging by the box office performance for its opening weekend, that is sort of backfiring in their face. No one is really going to see the movie. There are several reasons why this could be, but I think the biggest is that Disney REALLY overestimated how much people were going to care about seeing a Han Solo movie. They didn't really do their research and just sort of assumed that everyone was going to be lining up to see this one, when, as the box office numbers are reflecting, no one really cared to begin with, and would probably have preferred a different Star Wars movie. The trailers didn't really do this movie justice. If you look back at Rogue One, a lot of people, myself included, were pumped to see that movie. The marketing for that movie showed off all of the things I was hoping to see in a Star Wars movie. This one, the marketing was pretty subdued, and never really showed off much that looked very interesting in the movie. Solo is a lot better a movie than it looks, going by the marketing alone, but still, I just don't think there was enough audience interest to begin with to justify making the movie in the first place.
That being said, I did enjoy it. Donald Glover is PERFECT as Lando, he even gets the voice down eerily well. Guy whose name I couldn't spell to save my life as Han Solo was okay. I mean, there are better actors out there. I think the problem with his performance is that he is supposed to be the center of the movie, but he is surrounded by people who steal every scene from him, because they just have more presence as actors than he does. Woody Harrelson and Donald Glover pretty much steal every single scene they're in, which leaves very little for Han Solo to shine through in his own movie. The movie has a lot of cool action scenes that are really well shot. But the love story is pretty weak, because, well, Amelia Clark is kind of a terrible actress. She's definitely the weakest link in the cast, and her character just doesn't have much going for her other than generic love interest because reasons.
Anyway, going back to my post on Star Wars movie rankings, I'd probably put this one at about equal to Return of the Jedi or The Last Jedi. It's not great. It's not horrible. It's just kind of average as far as Star Wars movies go. It's maybe a little bit better than The Last Jedi, if anything, but by such a miniscule amout that it doesn't really matter. It could have been MUCH worse, but it also could have been better too. I hope Disney learns from this experience, and starts making some more original Star Wars movies, and maybe listens to fans when they collectively say "meh" at the announcement of your next big thing. Star Wars has a pretty large built in audience, BUT you still have to make movies that the fans want to see, and, well, they kind of didn't with this one.
My biggest problem with the movie was that it never did anything unexpected. The Force Awakens, that did some pretty unexpected things. Rogue One, that did some pretty unexpected things. The Last Jedi, love it or hate it, did some pretty unexpected things. Solo... Solo was a pretty by the numbers heist movie that took no risks, and didn't try to be anything new or original. It's a movie I've seen a thousand times before with different titles. Honestly, heist movies are so done to death that you kind of really need a bit more than Han Solo, and a Star Wars setting to make me care much about it.
Through most of the movie I was thinking, well, this is okay, I guess, but why does it exist? Money. that's why it exists. Just so Disney can get more of my money. But, judging by the box office performance for its opening weekend, that is sort of backfiring in their face. No one is really going to see the movie. There are several reasons why this could be, but I think the biggest is that Disney REALLY overestimated how much people were going to care about seeing a Han Solo movie. They didn't really do their research and just sort of assumed that everyone was going to be lining up to see this one, when, as the box office numbers are reflecting, no one really cared to begin with, and would probably have preferred a different Star Wars movie. The trailers didn't really do this movie justice. If you look back at Rogue One, a lot of people, myself included, were pumped to see that movie. The marketing for that movie showed off all of the things I was hoping to see in a Star Wars movie. This one, the marketing was pretty subdued, and never really showed off much that looked very interesting in the movie. Solo is a lot better a movie than it looks, going by the marketing alone, but still, I just don't think there was enough audience interest to begin with to justify making the movie in the first place.
That being said, I did enjoy it. Donald Glover is PERFECT as Lando, he even gets the voice down eerily well. Guy whose name I couldn't spell to save my life as Han Solo was okay. I mean, there are better actors out there. I think the problem with his performance is that he is supposed to be the center of the movie, but he is surrounded by people who steal every scene from him, because they just have more presence as actors than he does. Woody Harrelson and Donald Glover pretty much steal every single scene they're in, which leaves very little for Han Solo to shine through in his own movie. The movie has a lot of cool action scenes that are really well shot. But the love story is pretty weak, because, well, Amelia Clark is kind of a terrible actress. She's definitely the weakest link in the cast, and her character just doesn't have much going for her other than generic love interest because reasons.
Anyway, going back to my post on Star Wars movie rankings, I'd probably put this one at about equal to Return of the Jedi or The Last Jedi. It's not great. It's not horrible. It's just kind of average as far as Star Wars movies go. It's maybe a little bit better than The Last Jedi, if anything, but by such a miniscule amout that it doesn't really matter. It could have been MUCH worse, but it also could have been better too. I hope Disney learns from this experience, and starts making some more original Star Wars movies, and maybe listens to fans when they collectively say "meh" at the announcement of your next big thing. Star Wars has a pretty large built in audience, BUT you still have to make movies that the fans want to see, and, well, they kind of didn't with this one.
May 12, 2018
Spires of Infinity rewrite Draft 4 done
Yes, it has only been two days. I'm on vacation this week. So, yeah, I finished up the fourth draft of my Spires of Infinite rewrite. If you feel the overwhelming urge, you can find it at the bottom of this page. Blah blah blah manuscript format blah blah.
Mostly this draft was just a read through aloud to make sure all of hte wording feels natural. I also made sure all of my capitalization, spelling, and hyphenation was uniform throughout the entire manuscript. There were a few very minor edits I made when I ran across something that tongue tied me while I was reading it aloud, which is a clear sign to me that it needs a bit of work put into it to polish it off. There were also some very minor dialog additions I made, and a few small details that I missed adding in on previous drafts. I ended up adding about 400 words to this draft, still keeping in just under 100k total. By this point I've probably read through this book about 15 times since I wrote the first draft back in November. Sometimes it's easy to miss minor things like capitalization, spellings on words you made up, and other such stuff in the tedium of reading a book 15 times in 7 months.
One more draft should do it on this one, and then I start trying to sell it. I have a bit of editing software that I usually use on my final drafts, but it does cost a $30 a month subscription fee to use it, so I'm going to get Memories of What never was all ironed out and ready for a final draft first so that I can cram running both of them through the software into the same month and only have to pay for one month of use. Which means I'm not going to finish off the final draft of this one for a couple months or so while I work on that. At the moment, though, it's pretty close to being finished.
Mostly this draft was just a read through aloud to make sure all of hte wording feels natural. I also made sure all of my capitalization, spelling, and hyphenation was uniform throughout the entire manuscript. There were a few very minor edits I made when I ran across something that tongue tied me while I was reading it aloud, which is a clear sign to me that it needs a bit of work put into it to polish it off. There were also some very minor dialog additions I made, and a few small details that I missed adding in on previous drafts. I ended up adding about 400 words to this draft, still keeping in just under 100k total. By this point I've probably read through this book about 15 times since I wrote the first draft back in November. Sometimes it's easy to miss minor things like capitalization, spellings on words you made up, and other such stuff in the tedium of reading a book 15 times in 7 months.
One more draft should do it on this one, and then I start trying to sell it. I have a bit of editing software that I usually use on my final drafts, but it does cost a $30 a month subscription fee to use it, so I'm going to get Memories of What never was all ironed out and ready for a final draft first so that I can cram running both of them through the software into the same month and only have to pay for one month of use. Which means I'm not going to finish off the final draft of this one for a couple months or so while I work on that. At the moment, though, it's pretty close to being finished.
