Thaddeus Nowak's Blog: Thoughts and Observations, page 23

Movie Review: Frozen (Disney 2013)

I have always enjoyed most Disney movies and I will come right out and say Frozen is worth seeing.

Disney often has lots of musical scores and for some reason this one felt more like a musical.  I did not do any measured comparison, but it seemed there was more singing in Frozen than Tangled and some of their other more recent movies.  I could be wrong, but that was the feeling.

Like all the Disney movies I have seen, there is always a deep adult undercurrent in the film and it shows how bad advice from a parent can make a mess of their children’s lives.

The movie is about two sisters who are the princesses of Arendelle.  The older, Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel), has magic powers, creating snow, ice, and freezing things at will.  When they are young, Elsa accidentally hurts her younger sister Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell of Veronica Mars fame) and blames herself.

The King and Queen take Anna to the trolls to save her.  In the process, Anna’s knowledge of Elsa’s powers is lost and her parents, fearing that Elsa is losing control of her powers, tell her to hide her powers, to conceal herself, and not feel (which causes her powers to activate).  They send away most servants and lock themselves in the castle, separating Elsa away from everyone, even Anna, so Elsa does not hurt anyone else.

The King and Queen are soon out of the picture and the girls grow into teenagers having lived alone and locked away.  Elsa has come of age and is to be crowned Queen of Arendelle.  Not exposed to much social interaction, Anna is actually still well-adjusted.  She’s lonely, but holds onto her adventurous spirit.  She is looking forward to the coronation and the chance to meet people (and as a young woman, find romance).  Elsa on the other hand is still closed off and fearful of letting people into the castle.  She wares gloves and doesn’t want anyone to touch her.

After the coronation and during the subsequent party, a confrontation between the two sisters reveals Elsa’s powers to everyone.  Scared and with people screaming about witchcraft, she runs away, not wanting to face her subjects.  However, she unintentionally and unknowingly sets off an eternal winter.  Anna, wanting to make amends and fix the situation, takes off after Elsa.

This sets Anna on course to encounter Kristoff (voiced by Jonathan Groff) a large, but young Scandinavian man whose job is to cut ice and bring it to the city (and he’s somewhat out of a job now).  Kristoff is wanting to investigate what he saw in the mountains to find the source of the winter (not knowing it was the queen who did it).  The two of them are eventually joined by a snowman, Olaf (voiced by Josh Gad), who Elsa created and brought to life (once when they girls were young and now again).  With Olaf and Sven, Kristoff’s reindeer, the four of them go in search of Elsa in the hopes of ending the winter and saving the country.

There are some predictable plot elements, but also some things that are refreshingly unexpected.  The movie entertained and while the kids will like Olaf and the reindeer, I was intrigued by the interplay between the sisters and the overall resolution of the plot.

There are some great visuals and a couple of songs from he film I really like.  However, I was not fond of all the songs, so if you get the MP3s, you might pick and chose what you want.

Final verdict, Frozen gets 5 out of 5 stars and I’ll be seeing it again in the theaters.

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Movie Review: Warm Bodies

I know Warm Bodes has been out for quite some time and while I had originally wanted to see it, too many things kept taking priority.

Today I had a free rental and it was available so I gave it a shot.  I was impressed.  It was not exactly what I had expected; in fact it was much better than I expected.

Warm Bodies is a love story about a girl and her Zombie.  Not having researched the movie before I watched it, I expected something of a lighthearted romantic comedy.  It is actually a bit more gritty that comedy, perhaps more in line with movies such as Zombieland (another one I enjoyed immensely).

The story is told primarily from the point of view of R (played by Nicholas Hoult), the male lead who cannot remember his name or much of anything about his past before he died (accept he thinks his name started with an “R” sound).  He knows he’s dead and much of the movie is his internal monologue showing his conflicted nature about what he is and his desire to be more.

The female lead, Julie (played by Teresa Palmer), has grown hard in the post apocalypse world, but she is not entirely jaded with life and still hopes for something better.  On a scouting mission to bring supplies back into the walled off city where the last of the humans live, her group is attacked and eaten; however, R is sparked into saving her and leads her back to where he is living at the airport.

R is a bit different, having hoarded many objects that would have meaning to humanity and the living.  Through a series of events, R saves Julie a number of times and eventually builds her trust.  As they bond and she starts treating him more as a person, he begins to change even more, which in turn starts affecting some of the other zombies.  To avoid any spoilers, I’ll leave the description of events there.

While there is definite violence and fighting in the movie, it is actually more about the connection they make and the building of their relationship.  There are a few clichés parts, such as issues with her father (who is the leader of the humans and played by John Malkovich, another of my favorites).  There is also not much of an explanation of the mechanics of the universe and how the zombies work, but I don’t think you’ll find much science behind zombies in any zombie film.

While I am not a huge fan of the zombie horror films, this one fits right in with the type of zombie films I do enjoy (Shaun of the Dead, Resident Evil, Zombiland, …).  I will give Warm Bodies 4 out of 5 stars and now that I’ve seen it, I’ll probably add it to my video collection at some point.

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The Power of Magic

Magic is a mainstay of fantasy stories.  In practically all fantasy novels there will be some power or ability that certain people/creatures have that could be considered magic.  The mechanics for each world and setting tend to be varied, sometimes significantly.  In some stories, the magic system is well-defined, in others, it can be vague and even inconsistent.  In some worlds everyone understands magic, in others only a select few are graced with knowledge while the rest believe only in folklore.

Some of the first books I started reading where fantasy novels and I must say they made a strong impression on me.  There were the classics of Tolkien and Ursula Le Guin, but there were also quite of few fantasy novels set in worlds based off role-playing games like  Dungeons & Dragons.  There have been books with high fantasy and low.  Worlds filled with magic and those that barely have any at all.  The vastness of the different approaches to magic is one of the things that can make reading fantasy such a new experience with each series.  However, it can also turn me off the story if I don’t like how the mechanics work.

I’ve played a number of different role-playing games over the years, all with their own strengths and weaknesses.  However, I’ve always found D&D‘s concept of having to re-memorize spells each time they are cast to be a bit of a kludgy mechanic and it is one of the reasons I have not read many books in recent years that are set in a game based world.  I understand the need to balance the power of character classes, but I tend to like systems bases on the patterns we see in nature and this mechanism cannot easily be explained as a natural process.

In worlds where magic is more free-form, there can be massive disparities in how magic works from situation to situation.  It does not mean the story is ruined, but it can be distracting.  Harry Potter is a series that I really like (so much so that on one of my trips to London I bought the English version of the books and shipped them home).  However, the story has balance issues for me.  With a few wand flicks time and space can be collapsed and none of the “muggles” will notice the extra block of flats where Harry and the others hang out just sprung into existence.  A charm can allow you to travel back in time.  A boy can turn into half a shark with ease.  However, a master of the art doesn’t use his powers to repair injuries and counter snake venom, perhaps by using a transformation to reform his body without injury.

Some stories surprise me in a lasting way.  For instance, Barbra Hambly’s Sun Wolf and Starhawk series introduced me to the idea that invisibility was not actually making something transparent where light will pass completely through it.  Instead, “turning invisible” was done by influencing the minds of the viewers to simply disregard the fact the person was there.  It is something we do all the time in our own world when we are paying attention to one thing and miss noticing something right in front of our eyes.  It was a subtle magic where the power was the influencing of a person’s mind instead of altering the physical properties of an entire person.  It conserved energy in the universe and I must admit, I loved the idea.

A large problem for a writer with magic in his or her world is balancing the power of those with it against those without it.  It can be a fundamental game changer in wars and political structures as well as everyday life.  There are so many aspects of life that magic would permeate and impact such as healing and life expectancy as well as the mundane, such as heating food for dinner.  Our understanding of tactics in wars and conflicts could be completely changed.  A fantasy world, even one like mine set in what would be described as a medieval setting, cannot truly mirror our own history.  Therefore, the impact of the power should have some evidence in the history of the world and the cultures of the people.

The magic that most appeals to me is one that mirrors patterns we see in nature.  A conservation of energy and matter, effects being proportional to cost, and for those who are physics and chemistry majors, magic systems that build off the four fundamental forces: strong and weak nuclear, electromagnetic, and gravitational.  By knowing some basics around the forces in our own world, a more proportionate system of magic can be constructed in the writer’s.  By its nature, magic cannot exactly mirror the physic of our world, but if it borrows ideas and builds on them, I feel it can lead to a more balanced world.

To be honest, magic is hard to manage while keeping the story interesting.  Sometimes as a writer, we may want something to happen one way, but the magic system we devised will pop up its little head and say, “Hey, did you forget that I, the elephant in the room, counter that?”  It can mean creating little plot twists to get around the magic or even big changes in the story to avoid the plot hole.  But regardless if the system of magic requires ceremonies around woodland pools, potions and wands, or just mental exercises, being consistent is a key to successful management of the power.

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Lightning Storm – 4 Oct 2013

While lightning is dangerous and does kill, I still love to see a sky filled with these fantastic light shows.  I was driving home last night right into the heart of the storm.  Unfortunately, my house was not situated in the best place to view it.  However, I did capture a few minutes of video and caught this strike during the lightning storm.

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What’s in a name? What’s my name?

Author name?

I’ve been told Thaddeus Nowak is a great author name by a number of people and I have to say I  agree–I like it.  I’ve also been asked a number of times if it is a pseudonym.

I am happy to say Thaddeus Nowak is the name my parents gave me, so while I cannot take credit for choosing the name, I will take credit for keeping it.

Ted, which is what I go by for day-to-day conversation, was also borrowed from my grandfather.  His name was Thaddeus and they called him Ted.  Where you get Ted out of Thaddeus I have not been able to determine accurately.  I’ve googled it a few times, but instead of getting the etymology of the name, I often end up finding a long list of baby names (or in my case, potential character names).

I do know that when I was taking an anthropology class, the professor was trying to guess nicknames from the roster and he guessed Ted.  I never got a chance to ask why he guessed that; sadly, an opportunity lost.

I do know that through history, nicknames were chosen in different ways during different periods.  Sometimes the names were shortened forms of the given name, other times, they were shortened and the first letter change, and in other periods, people just came up with something completely different.  That got me thinking about how my characters might have ended up with their names and how their cultures would have influenced things.

Character names

For me, when I am looking for character names, I often go with something that calls to me on a subconscious level; at least for the primary characters.  I have a list of names I have seen or heard over the years and go back to it when the need arises.  I add to it regularly.  Sometimes I’ll stop what I am doing and jot a new one down (perhaps in a way that disturbs people who may be watching: why are you writing my name down?).  I used to do it on a notepad I carried with me, but now I can pretend I just got a text message and have to respond.  Oh, how smart phones can cover the truth of what we are doing and I no longer have to explain that your name is perfect for the villain in my book.

When writing, I was initially torn with the idea of the characters having nicknames and how best to use them.  I wanted to avoid confusing people by having too many names floating about the prose.  However, when you look around and see how many people are using a name other than their given name, I decided it was more natural to go ahead and allow the primary characters who had nicknames to use them.  Hopefully, the result came out as I had intended and it flows seamlessly.

I have also noticed that many people are very particular about their name and do not want people to take the liberty of shortening it for them.  Others don’t want to use their given name at all.  To honor those people, in Mother’s Curse, Douglas (one of Stephenie’s companions) explained when asked, that “My father called me Douglas, not Doug.”

Changing topics, I wanted to thank everyone who came out to the KC Ren Fest this weekend and stopped by to chat.  I had a lot of fun talking with everyone and look forward to doing it again next weekend!

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KC Ren Fest 2013 — Weekend 3

Yesterday was a great day at the KC Renaissance Festival!  The weather was excellent (not sweltering like the last two weekends) and I got to meet a lot of wonderful people.  I also fell in love with a new dagger from my friends at Dwarf Mountain Knives (a weakness of mine).  I didn’t buy the dagger yet (mostly because I bought a new one on the first weekend, which is pictured to the right).  However, that might change before the end of faire.

I’m helping my sister-in-law out in her booth (531, Samantha Nowak Illustrations) and she has a lot of great art work available in the booth and on-line.  We also have my books at her shop (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

I had fun talking to a couple of different authors who stopped by, as well as a lot of existing fans and hopefully even more new fans of Stephenie’s story.  The only problem with a busy faire is all the dust that gets kicked up.  I inhaled so much dust I’ll be coughing it up for a week and my voice is now a bit rough, but I love being out there and wouldn’t miss it; there are so many great people to talk to and it is a lot of fun.

Last night turned out great as well.  After I got home from faire, we ran out for a late dinner and had a chance to meet several very nice people (and a good waiter).  That is one thing I love about being an author, being able to talk to new people.

I will not be at fest today, but if you are, I have signed copies on Sam’s booth.  I will be back next Saturday and several weekends to follow.

– Ted

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KC Ren Fest 2013 — First Two Weekends

I had a great time at KC Ren Fest this weekend.  I was not able to make it out very long the first weekend (other commitments), but I helped Sam and Joe (my sister-in-law and my brother) at their booth yesterday and today.  She has fantasy art and Enchanted Names (her art work that she’ll customize for you) for sale.  You can check out what she has to offer at SamanthaNowak.com and her booth number at faire is 531

What’s more, I have copies of Mother’s Cures and Daughter’s Justice in the shop.  So, if you are in the KC area and have a taste for the renaissance, come out.  You can get signed copies of either book in her booth and on several of the weekends, I will be out there in person, such as next Saturday, 14 Sep 2013.  (Which should hopefully be 20 degrees cooler than the last two weekends; I wore a kilt the last two days it was so hot.)

It was good to talk with several people I met in prior years and I hope to see more of you this year and in years to come.

-Ted

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Stephenie’s Father’s Coat-of-arms – part 5 of 5

All this talk of family leaves me feeling nostalgic, at least until I think of my mother. And unfortunately, I cannot leave her out. She has shaped so much of my life and that shaping has not been pleasant. They say a mother who commits a sin against the gods will have a daughter born a witch; a daughter who bares the curse the mother should suffer. I don’t feel evil, but the rest of the world would burn me if they knew.

For my father to adopt the castle of Duman on his coat-of-arms to honor my mother is hard for me to accept. It is supposed to be a symbol of the protector, but my mother has not been a protector. I know he told me it was to remind him of how not to treat people and perhaps my mother’s father is at least in part to blame.

My mother came from Kynto and that country has always been aggressive. My grandfather wrestled control of the throne with his armies and continued to threatened the people until his son killed him for the throne. It is possible to rule with either compassion or hate, but while you can go from compassion to hate, you cannot go the other way.

Since I want to end this series on a positive note, I will say that while my mother’s disdain and repulsion hurt, I found love and compassion from my father and older brother. They gave me attention I would likely never of had. The isolation from typical feminine expectations also gave me courage to be what I want and the fortitude to stand on my own. Some days it was hard to muster the hope, but I managed to pull through.

What drives you to carry on when things become hard?

- Stephenie

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Stephenie’s Father’s Coat-of-arms – part 4 of 5

The white hawk on my father’s coat-of-arms was added as another honor to his mother and her father, Duke Urlas Vercima of Esland. My father said he saw a painting of him when they had traveled to Esland for Kara’s wedding (my sister). Urlas was a round man my father said, someone who had spent many hours enjoying feasts in his later years. Even the artist had trouble keeping him in his cloths and the frame of the four-foot wide painting.

However, when my father was there, he said so many people approached him and wanted to shake his hand because he was the son of Kara Vercima and the grandson of Duke Urlas. At first my father thought it might be a cruel jest. However, after he talked to more and more people, he realized the Duke was a national hero for brokering the peace treaty and there was even a bronze statue of him standing ten feet tall overlooking the harbor.

My father told me he felt ashamed and stupid for even silently thinking his mother’s father would have been a useless sort of man and told me never to judge people too hastily.

For me, I took a different lesson from the story. I know it may be cynical, but I have always been the subject of other people’s quick judgments and I recognized there is power in that. I don’t like to exploit anyone, but other people’s incorrect assumptions about me have saved my life more than once. Besides, I live a life of lies to hide what I am; I rely of people seeing what they want, not what is real.

Have you ever surprised someone by being something they never expected?

- Stephenie

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Stephenie’s Father’s Coat-of-arms – part 3 of 5

Ted’s given me the whole week to talk and today I wanted to mention my grandmother Kara, from my father’s side, for whom, my oldest sister was named. My Grandmother died when she was young; just twenty-eight, which frighteningly enough is Henton’s age. My father was ten years old at the time, but she had already arranged for his marriage to my mother. I’ll leave that out for now, since I don’t feel like digging into those painful thoughts.

Queen Kara was very pretty. I often stared at the painting of her hanging along the grand stairs of the square keep. She was standing in a very elegant green dress. Some of my older sisters said I was wrong, but I could swear the artist painted riding boots under her dress. Father said she was very proper, but could put any man in his place. I never met her, but I think I would have liked her.

She was born in Esland, which borders the Endless Sea; however, her mother and grandfather came from Calis, which is to our north and on the Sea of Tet. The ironic thing is that my older sister Kara, named for my Grandmother, married the Crown Prince of Esland. Seems everywhere I look, there is some tie back to our family in some way. Unfortunately for Kara, this ironic fate ended badly, for she was killed by Senzar invaders, which lead to my father and brother going off to war.

Has anything particularly ironic happened to you? If so, how did it turn out?

- Stephenie

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