Michael Offutt's Blog, page 127

Wednesday in October means we get Toy Story of Terror!

Wednesday in October means we get TOY STORY OF TERROR! Seriously guys, I'm excited for this Halloween special. I love all things Pixar and can't wait to see it. Here's a trailer for you, and let me know what you think after you watch it tonight. All I gotta say is, it has to "out do" Charlie Brown. And I think we could all use a little humor given how our government is completely dysfunctional and is ruining our lives. Have a great day and remember, ghosts aren't real. Woody said it, so it must be true.

In Star Wars does the Rule of Two make it difficult to come up with original stories?

In the Star Wars universe, does the Rule of Two make it difficult to come up with original stories? So that you can consider this question with the proper nerd cred, the "Rule of Two" denotes that there can only be one Sith Master and their apprentice. In the Clone Wars cartoon series, Count Dooku was Sidious' apprentice. But there was a need for another "Sith-type" so that they could harass the heroes in plots outside the six Lucasfilm movies. This "Sith-type" needed to be able to withstand the powers of the Jedi, not be easily vanquished (unlike droids), and able to be killed off if necessary (and not affect the movies). Oh yeah, and they can't be full-fledged "Sith" because the Rule of Two constrains that.

The series couldn't use Count Dooku too much, because we all see him die in Revenge of the Sith. So it became necessary for writers to create an apprentice who would go around and do all of his dirty work while he spent time keeping the droid armies and the trade federation in line. So that's when they created Asajj Ventress who became his acolyte and assassin. But the writers skirted the whole "Rule of Two" by saying Dooku would only impart Dark Side training to her, but not actual Sith Teachings. Essentially, what got created are two different things (not to mention an "out" for future writers which can seem a bit cheesy).
So is the "Rule of Two" a smart idea? In the end, Star Wars is a franchise that exists to make money. To restrict the existence of other Sith yet allow as many Jedi to exist as possible seems counterproductive to me. Villains drive the Star Wars storyline; without them there is no story. One could argue that the Rule of Two governs and endorses self interest while tightly controlling overreaching ambition. The Order of the Jedi supports this premise because it decayed from the inside as each started to formulate conflicting ideologies. Think of Qui-Gon Jinn for example.
However, it can also be argued that Ventress and anyone like her that uses the force to do evil yet does not bear the title of "Sith" becomes a massive narrative "cop-out." It's easy to say that when Ventress was created/introduced, the Rule of Two got ignored because now you can have two Sith and an infinite number of things that are "almost Sith" but fundamentally, the viewer is never going to be able to tell you what the difference is. They all wield red lightsabers, look menacing, and dress in black.
Star Wars Rebels just released a glimpse of their very first villain and the picture is included below. Yeah, the new villain dresses in black. Yeah, the new villain has a pair of red lightsabers and looks really badass. According to the New York Comic-Con panel where the character was introduced, the Inquisitor's job is to track down the remaining Jedi Knights left alive after Order 66. However, the Inquisitor is not a Sith. He's an "almost Sith" just like Ventress. Is that just another "cop-out?" I guess in the end, I won't care and still watch the series on Disney. In fact I'm excited by it. I do hope that Ahsoka Tano comes back. She won't be a "Jedi" technically so I guess that makes her exist outside the whole "all Jedi are dead" thing too.
It just makes me ask, what's in a name anyway? In a universe of "almost Jedi" and "almost Sith" was there ever really a crisis of not finding a teacher or preserving the mystical history of the Force? I know, important questions all, right? ;P  Have a great Tuesday.

Rick Grimes says Come With Me and Walk the Longest Mile

In this painting by MiseryCannotBeDead Rick Grimes is saying "Come with me and walk the longest mile." It gives me chills, but huzzah, The Walking Dead is back! After last night's episode, something tells me the survivors are in for their worst year yet. Life is hard. In the apocalypse, life appears to be impossible. A reminder to you that the season 4 webisodes are online, and I have to say they are creeptacular.
The Colt Python totally makes this picture.

A rebuttal to the Raiders Minimization episode of the Big Bang Theory

Amy's thoughts on Raiders of the Lost Ark caused Sheldon's jaw to drop. Here
she is closing his mouth, but he's still none too happy about her ruining his favorite movie.Last night, The Big Bang Theory aired an episode called "The Raiders Minimization." Sheldon Cooper and girlfriend Amy Farrah Fowler finished watching the movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, which it turns out is one of Sheldon's favorites. Amy "ruined" it for Sheldon by saying that Indiana Jones is completely unnecessary to the plot. "With or without Indiana Jones, the Nazis would have still gotten the ark, they still would have opened it, and they still would have gotten their faces melted off. He contributed nothing to the overall story."

It's an interesting premise, but as a writer, I immediately did not like what she was saying. And for a room of supposedly high IQ's, they should have seen this fallacy in Amy's argument. Allow me to explain through example. If Amy had been in my home and said this, my rebuttal would have been thus: "Without Indiana Jones, no one would have known about the story. Therefore he is actually the most important person to the plot. He's the active narrator."
Indiana Jones and Marion in Raiders of the Lost ArkThere are many examples of this kind of storytelling. Moby Dick has a narrator called Ishmael who ends up being the only survivor after the white whale kills everyone. Raiders of the Lost Ark is the same kind of story. If you remove the narrator, Indiana Jones, then the whole story collapses because no one knows about it because no one survives to tell the tale. In other words, he's the point of view character through which we see everything. Even Marion couldn't have been a stand-in because had Indy not been around to save her, the Nazis would have killed her in Nepal and then taken the amulet for themselves.

So how do you like them apples, Amy Farrah Fowler? It looks like Raiders of the Lost Ark is not so minimal after all (and in my opinion) remains one of the great triumphs of fiction. I do have to admit though, that until Amy brought it up in last night's episode, I never realized that Indiana Jones is completely unnecessary to the ultimate outcome (and that is probably much closer to what she meant).

A serious debate on whether dogs have brains

Okay guys...serious debate here. Do like...dogs have brains? You need to watch the video (brought to you via my good friend James Salmonsen who pointed this out).

Today a woman becomes one of the most powerful people in the world. It's about time.

Today is going to be a special day that people should remember for a long time. It's widely expected that Janet Yellen will be nominated by Obama to replace Bernanke as the head of the Federal Reserve come January. When this happens, she will be the first woman to ever chair the Federal Reserve. And this also makes her (arguably) the most powerful policy-making person in the world.

Why would I say this? A single sentence from our present Federal Reserve Chairman earlier this year made the global market shed $3 trillion dollars in 24-hours. Yes, that's right. A single sentence. Even the president might need a couple of sentences to accomplish the same task. Perhaps even a whole paragraph. It's incredible to think of just how powerful that is. One misplaced adjective or adverb can make you lose money, can impact your retirement, can threaten the financial future of your entire family. If you don't live in the U.S. and think you're safe, you're dead wrong. The Nikkei, the Hang Seng, and other markets around the world always look to the U.S. for guidance. That's why we're a super power.

The Federal Reserve Chair is appointed by the president, but once that's done it operates pretty much independently of the executive branch. The Federal Reserve does what it wants to do and only has to answer to Congress. Financial markets reinforce the notion that the Fed chair is essentially "all-powerful." I personally think it's because of QE that the stock market hasn't totally cratered and dropped a thousand points in one day (with all the dysfunction in Washington). That's how powerful the central bank just happens to be.

So who is Janet Yellen? Well she's a real life Dumbledore only her weapon isn't a wand.

1) She has a PhD from Yale and her mentor was Nobel-Prize winning economist James Tobin.
2) She taught at Harvard for five years.
3) She married Nobel Prize winner George Akerlof (another economist).
4) She served as faculty at the London School of Economics for two years.
5) In 1980 she went to work at the University of California, Berkeley.
6) In 1994, President Bill Clinton appointed her to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

In thinking about the strides that women have made recently with Nancy Pelosi becoming the first Speaker of the House, and with Marissa Meyer taking over Yahoo, and now Janet Yellen becoming the first female Federal Reserve Chairman, I have to ask...what's next?

You women out there might have me believe that we'll have a woman president on the horizon (I say that tongue-in-cheek of course). I guess only time will tell.

TL;DR: Today a woman becomes one of the most powerful people in the world. It's about time.

Once Upon A Time's Magic Vagina Hole

Sunday night's Once Upon A Time advertised the new branch off series Once Upon A Time in Wonderland using a most awkward "magic vagina hole." Seriously, does anyone even look at these things before they're broadcast to millions of people? As in placement on a screen? In any event, many lulz have resulted which makes me happy.
Have a great Tuesday. And please...be mindful of strange holes that lead to other universes.

Is Red in the Blacklist the latest incarnation of Hannibal Lecter?

Despite writing only a few books, Thomas Harris (the writer of Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal) has impacted fiction for decades. More specifically, the character dynamic of the anti-hero as the modern criminal mastermind that likes to play quid pro quo with the incredibly beautiful and smart rookie agent has been used almost to the point of being cliche. I say "almost" because despite my ability to spot this trope whenever it rears its ugly head, when a storyline takes the time to reinvent it, I'm on the hook. And that's exactly what NBC is doing with The Blacklist.

We are introduced to the characters of "Red" and "Liz" in the pilot episode in total Thomas Harris fashion. Red is a super brilliant criminal mastermind who has better intelligence than the top chiefs at the F.B.I. (this is "the skinny" on the scariest people you hope to never cross paths with) and in a nod to the character of Hannibal Lecter, he will only share his knowledge with rookie agent Elizabeth Keen on her first day at work.

"Tell me about the scar on your hand..." Red says to Elizabeth. Well if she doesn't tell him, he's not going to cooperate. That's just the way these quid pro quo things work. So our hero Elizabeth gives Red what he wants by revealing one small layer about herself. And of course, James Spader then tells her what she wants to know regarding a master criminal who is going to abduct a little girl and set her to explode at the D.C. national zoo.
Megan Boone and James SpaderThe clever dialogue of the series more than likely hinges on the psychology involved in profiling villains and their motives. Like Clarice Starling (whom we first came to know in Silence of the Lambs) Elizabeth is also a graduate of Quantico and possesses a degree in forensic psychology. In an interesting scene with the FBI Director, she is asked to profile herself. When he informs her that he's read her resume and doesn't need her to just vomit that back upon his desk, she gets personal in a way that I know I probably couldn't do and manages to seal the deal that she's the right person to be working with Red. One thing I like to do when watching shows like this is to think of how predictable we are in reality? Could my psychology be profiled? Could I (a reasonable human male) get caught up in unreasonable yet predictable psychological behavior? Have you ever heard of the $500.00 $20.00 bill?

Here's how it works:

I have a $20 bill. I'll sell it to you for whatever you want. Bidding starts at $1 and moves in $1 increments.

But there's a catch. Other people get to bid on this $20 bill. If someone outbids you and you throw in the towel, you still have to pay me your final bid. You get nothing in return.

How much are you willing to pay for my $20 bill?

Psychologists have been conducting this experiment for years, usually on students. It always goes the same way. People get excited at first at the prospect of bidding $1, or $5, or $10, for a $20 bill. It's free money. At around $17 or $18, a bidding war arises between two players who realize they could end up having to pay a lot of money for nothing in return. Not wanting to lose, they each bid higher and higher.

Eventually, someone bids $21 for a $20 bill -- which actually makes sense, because at that price the winner loses $1 while the loser is out $20.

Things blow up from there. The bidding war becomes a fight to lose the least, rather than to win the most. And as psychologists know, people hate losing more than they enjoy winning. It's called loss aversion, and it pushes bids for a $20 bill to absurd heights.

Wharton management professor Adam Grant, who plays this game in consulting sessions, says a military officer once paid close to $500 for a $20 bill. Harvard Business School professor Max Bazerman claims to have earned $17,000 auctioning $20 bills to his students, with at least one student paying $204 for a $20 bill.

The psychology of the above irrational example of human greed, the desire to get a bargain, and to not be the one that ends up getting screwed financially is simply a part of human nature. My conclusion then to the questions I posed before the above example is yes, I may think of myself as a reasonable human being but in the end I'm as easily profiled as the next guy. I think all of us secretly know this, and that's why characters in fiction that are smart and able to figure out the motivations and goals of villains are worthy of our attention.

There is one thing that somewhat bothers me about The Blacklist: I don't like how Red is such a direct clone of Hannibal with regard to his snobbiness. He loves surpassing luxury, fine dining, good music, and fine wine. He dresses impeccably, treats people with respect (if they show him respect), and is obviously quite taken with himself in being the smartest one around. I think I would have preferred that they shatter this cliche just a wee bit, but seeing as I cannot afford the lifestyle that Red so readily demands, it will in the least be a window into the decadence of the 1%. This is something that Americans and Hollywood never grow tired of showing us. There are probably dozens of shows on television that feature yachts, expensive cars, jet-setting characters to remote locations of our world, and the finest clothes money can buy.

All in all, I enjoyed the pilot of The Blacklist, but I have to say that I'm more curious as to how they will change the Hannibal Lecter character in this new reincarnation played by James Spader. He's obviously not a murderer or a cannibal. That is refreshing. I wonder if he'll go from being FBI's most wanted in the first episode, to occupying a crucial and trusted position working with the good guys. Is that kind of redemption even possible in real life? I'd best not ask those kinds of questions because the answer is probably far more mundane and obviously less interesting.

These Batman Sengoku era images could belong in any home right next to the fine China

Artist Scott Wade is selling prints of some fabulous Sengoku Batman images. For those of you not in the know, "Sengoku" refers to a period in Japanese history referred to as the "Warring States Period." As its name implies, during this time Japan was embroiled in nearly constant social upheaval, political intrigue, and constant military conflict. It lasted for two-hundred years (between the 15th and 17th centuries) and eventually led to the unification of political power under the Tokugawa Shogunate. A lot of beautiful silk screen art pieces such as the one below are typical of this era:
Being half-Japanese, I love Japanese artwork and have a few prints and silk screens in my home. However, I'd love to get some of the following Batman prints simply because they're both beautiful and show that special geekiness that is "oh so me."

In a gist, these Batman Sengoku era images could belong in any home right next to the fine China. Wouldn't that be a cool dinner conversation? Have a great weekend.

Samuel L Jackson reprising his role as Nick Fury in Agents of Shield proves how Disney and Marvel can make the impossible possible.

The cameo of Samuel L. Jackson reprising his role as Nick Fury in last night's Agents of Shield just proves how Disney and Marvel can make the impossible possible.

When I make this statement, I'm talking about continuity. The ability to pull together an actual superhero universe and not have to go looking for new actors and actresses every time they need to cast a character. As one caveat, I would never have thought what they did to bring the Avengers to life could have been done. I mean...come on. Make an Iron Man movie, a Captain America movie, a Thor movie, and then intertwine them with the stars from each to balance one huge blockbuster? That just makes me shake my head. I think it's lucky if a director can keep the same actors together for a trilogy, much less an entire universe of films spanning half a decade, different writers, and different directors. Usually something happens--a death, an actor dispute, a director quitting in rage, an artist expressing personal license--to screw that up in the years that it takes to film such a project. Harry Potter had to recast Dumbledore and Hogwarts always looked different to me (that's just one example). How many times has Batman been recast before Christopher Nolan stepped in to put a stop to the madness?

Somehow, Marvel with the bottomless pockets of Disney seems to be able to bring back the same actors and actresses with a higher chance of success than I have observed anywhere else. They even get the girlfriends right (Natalie Portman as Thor's girlfriend for the sequel, Thor: The Dark World). Not even Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg could manage that feat with the Back to the Future sequels.

But is money the deciding factor here? Is the reason why we get different actors and actresses standing in for characters in sequels all related to the pocketbook? Or is Disney/Marvel just incredibly lucky? Whatever the answer may be, I like it. And I see it will be no different with Whedon's Agents of Shield and that makes me happy. If Iron Man, Captain America, or Red Skull (for example) are ever called upon, I'm going to expect Robert Downey, Chris Evans, or Hugo Weaving. If we need to see Black Widow, let's celebrate Scarlett Johansson's return to television.

Bravo Disney! Bravo Marvel! I salute you on your ability to avoid breaking my suspension of disbelief. Casting a new actor in an old role is as jarring to me as coming across blatant spelling errors and grammar errors when caught up in a story that I'm reading. The machine Disney has created with its Marvel franchise is almost perfect. Sure, there are still some improvements to be made. However, I don't honestly believe any other company or individual could handle this better.

It makes me salivate in just thinking about what's coming down the pipe for Star Wars. If the Marvel movies are any indication, they will bring continuity to the Lucas legacy in every way possible. I'm thinking the same actor for Boba Fett as in the movies for just one example. Any "lesser" company would just cast whomever they want. But not Disney. They'll do it right. Are you listening D.C.? You could learn a thing or two from their efforts. Stop recasting Batman. Pay Christian Bale whatever he wants to come back. Don't ever recast Superman. If Marvel can do it, it's not impossible, and these characters which are beloved by everyone deserve the best treatment. If you can't do it, then stop making those films. Admit that you suck and just give up on making craptastic movies.

That is all.