A. Lee Martinez's Blog, page 61

Love, Hate, and Everything In-Between

I watched Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World today, and it made me retroactively disappointed in Captain America.  I'm not calling Cap a bad film, but the action adventure elements, satirical and bizarre as they may be in Pilgrim, are sublime.  In fact, there's really nothing quite comparable to it in the recent string of superflicks.  It helps that Pilgrim is such an over-the-top film in so many respects while somehow being a story about young adults experiencing the trials and tribulations of growing up.  And it's obvious that, given the choice, mainstream audiences will reject an experimental masterpiece like Pilgrim.  I wont' say it's because the audience is afraid of stuff like Pilgrim.  But there are a healthy dose of folks who simply won't comprehend the strange mix of geek culture, fantasy action, and subtle character arcs that make up Pilgrim while I think it's safe to say that we can all get behind a guy punching Nazis.

It's not a question of quality.  It's not a question of being "too smart" for the audience.  I've always believed that quality should be measured by execution and intent.  Cap is certainly a safer film than Pilgrim but that's only because it doesn't need to take many risks.  And taking too many risks might even miss the point of a Cap movie.  And sometimes, too often, "playing it safe" is assumed to be a bad thing.  But not all risks are worth taking, and Cap, while not a surprising film, is fun and boisterous.  My own complaints about the toothless nature of its bad guys aside, it's a well-made, well-executed film.

I just wish it had a moment as cool as when Scott Pilgrim jumps through fireballs.

All of this is ultimately a false comparison though.  And too often we end up pitting our own opinions against themselves like some strange cage match.  We have to correlate and rank and otherwise diminish A in service of B.  I'm not just talking about between ourselves either.  I'm talking about our own minds.

Do I like Pilgrim more than Cap?  Oh, yes.  Do I like it a hell of a lot more?  Definitely.  But there's no rule that says I have to compare the two.  Or just because one is a clear winner in my own Desert Island Castaway list that the other must be deemed a loser.  This is why I've gone out of my way to avoid comparing Cap and Green Lantern because, aside from being superhero filcks, their sensibilities and universes are just not comparable.  Or rather, it's absurd to have to pit them against each other just because they're superhero films.  The superhero genre is diverse.  You don't see many people comparing The Punisher to Fantastic Four, which would be absolutely pointless.  So why do we have feel the need to do that to Green Lantern and Cap?  Or, in my particular case, Cap against Pilgrim?

Nothing exists in a vacuum.  If the only superhero fantasy I ever saw was Iron Man 2, then maybe I'd be more forgiving for its faults.  And if I couldn't find a thousand sci fi films better than Tron Legacy then I'd probably not criticize it with as much vitriol as I tend to do.  Although probably not in Legacy's case because it's a really bad film in every way except production design and acting.  (Whoops.  Sorry about that, gang.  Forgive the Legacy digression.  Still kind of peeved about the film with a nerd rage I have yet to overcome.)

In the end, the only person making me rank and collate my loves and hates is me.  And while it might be handy to know what DVD's, books, and games I'd take with me into my bomb shelter when the dinobots begin their rampage, it's not something I have to be chained to.  Because I'd like to believe, in a perfect world, that Scott Pilgrim, Captain America, and, yes, even Tron Legacy can be appreciated by their fans without having to justify that affection.

But I'm probably wrong.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Red Skull, Underdog?

Something occurred to me today.  While Captain America is a pretty fun movie, it has one mistake, writing wise.  It's not a terrible one, but it does end up accidentally weakening the drama and adventure.  I'm not going to talk about the film in tremendous detail, but I will be discussing a few broad plot points, so fair warning, SPOILERS TO FOLLOW.

The biggest mistake Captain America makes is that the villain is the underdog.

It's a basic truism that villains ACT and heroes REACT.  It's a staple of adventure fiction in particular.  Some bad guys have a sinister plan.  Our heroes attempt to stop them from carrying out that sinister plan.  But the pressure is always on the heroes to counter the villain's plans.  The Rebellion must destroy the deathstar.  Indiana Jones must recover the sacred stones.  James Bond must prevent the nuking of Fort Knox.  And so on.

On paper, Captain America seems like par for the course.  The Red Skull runs Hydra.  Hydra is out to rule the world.  And it's up to Cap to save the day.  The only difference is how the story plays out.  And how it plays out puts the Red Skull on the defensive.

In fact, the only proactive scenes with the Red Skull involve him attacking an innocent village and killing some troublesome Nazis in order to establish his villain cred.  After that, everything the Red Skull does is purely defensive and reactive.

It begins with the supersoldier program.  It's true that his agents manage to sabotage the experiment, to prevent the creation of an army of Caps.  But they also fail to prevent our singular Cap from coming into being, and they don't even escape with the sample of supersoldier serum.  All of this is a foregone conclusion, so it's unfair to judge all of Hydra's effectiveness by this one scene.

Yet later, when Cap invades his first Hydra base, frees Allied soldiers, and forces the Red Skull to push the self-destruct button, the pattern is clearly set.  Captain America even learns the details of Hydra's master plan before walking away, completely triumphant.  Our hero has only failed to capture the Red Skull at this point.  Everything he set out to do, he accomplished.  And while the Red Skull isn't down for the count, his applecart has been upset.

And so it is in the film that Cap's victory is so assured that we're treated to a montage of he and his team beating nameless Hydra agents, destroying equipment and facilities, and otherwise, succeeding without sense of loss or urgency.  Only when we get to the train scene, do we have a cost to these victories, but it is, relatively speaking, a small cost to the team.  And Cap still accomplishes his task.

It all comes to a head in the grand finale, which isn't much different than a traditional storming-the-enemy-fortress scene.  EXCEPT our heroes aren't storming the fortress at the desperate last minute.  Nope, they're the aggressors, the ones who cause the Red Skull to accelerate his plans.  Once again, the heroes dictate the speed of the plot, not the antagonists.  It would be like if the Rebels blew up the deathstar two weeks before it was actually ready to use.  Or if James Bond walked into the evil genius's lair and just shot the poor villain while he was working on his master plan.

The Red Skull is still able to launch his final gambit, though at this point in the film, he seems an anemic threat.  He might succeed in killing millions of innocent people, but so what?  He's already lost so much of his power, suffered one humiliating defeat after another, it seems like the spiteful last act of a defeated character rather than his moment of possible triumph.  In the end, the Red Skull and Hydra come across as ineffectual and toothless.  For all their lasers and giant tanks and storm trooper army, they seem never to be much of a threat.  You almost don't need Cap to take them out.  Heck, even while storming the fortress, Cap doesn't actually accomplish anything on his own.  He doesn't open the way for his team.  He just walks in and gets captured then is rescued.  So while his storming of the fortress is cool from an action scene standpoint, it actually accomplishes nothing in itself.  In the end, it takes an army of soldiers to bust down the fortress doors.  All Cap seemed to do was act as a bit of a distraction, and even that's debatable.

The question is whether or not this dynamic was intentional or not.

Part of me thinks it must have been.  Because it's just too obvious.  Perhaps Captain America is meant to serve as an homage to American propaganda films of old.  The heroes are bright and shiny and capable.  The bad guys are dark, sinister, and easily foiled with a bit of muscle and determination.  From that perspective, the film works perfectly.  Its portrayal of a world where the righteous fist of justice is more than a match for the forces of evil might be a little blatant, but there's nothing terribly wrong with that.  I certainly am not looking for shades of gray in a movie where a guy dressed in the American flag fights a guy with a skull for a face.

But from a storytelling perspective, I find it dissatisfying.  We hear the word "fluff" bandied around a lot, but Captain America is fluff.  It isn't challenging, and even more disappointing, it isn't even artificially suspenseful.  The audience knows Hydra won't win, but the story seems to know this too.  And it isn't interested in disguising that fact.  There's no illusion of conflict here.  Good guys win.  Bad guys lose.  And there is never really any doubt.

Even the Red Skulls final defeat is so quick and offhand, it's almost like the film doesn't really care itself.  "Of course, he loses," it says.  "He's the bad guy."

I don't know if I consider it a terrible flaw, but it does keep the film from being great for me.  A superhero is only as good as his villain.  And while Cap comes across as a terrific guy with many wonderful heroic qualities, the Red Skull only comes across as a guy in way over his head . . . er . . .  skull.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Epic

This might be a controversial opinion, but I think I Am Number Four is a better superhero flick than Captain America or Iron Man.  Or possibly just about every other mainstream superhero flick out there.

Here me out before you start violently disagreeing.

First of all, we need to define what is the essence of the superhero flick.  This isn't easy.  Everyone seems to have their own values on this.  Since this is my blog, we'll talk about what I value most about superheroes.  And what I value most is ACTION.

Action above all.  End of story.  if I feel let down by the action of a superhero flick, then I feel let down.  I don't care how nuanced and clever the writing is.  I don't care if the characters are fully developed and subtle.  These elements are great and if they can be worked into a superhero movie, I'm all for them.  The Incredibles remains the greatest superhero flick ever because it has great writing, great characters, and slam-bang superhero action adventure.  More than any other superhero film ever, The Incredibles manages to be heartfelt and sincere while being over-the-top and awesome.  That's hard to do, and it's a small wonder no superhero flick since has really captured that for me.  But it's unfair to compare otherwise good movies to something as amazing as The Incredibles.  Instead, let's judge them on their own merits.

To me, the heart of the superhero has ever been epic battles.  The idea of superheroes is built on physical conflict resolved through violence.  People don't like Bruce Wayne because he set up a charitable foundation and helps the needy.  They like him because he swoops out of the shadows and regularly punches a bad guy dressed like a clown.  Captain America isn't about tact or diplomacy.  It's about shoving a red, white, and blue shield into the faces of evildoers.  And Spider-Man's "great power" is, and will always be, the ability to kick people in the head.

On an intellectual level, superheroes are all about raw physical power and the ability to use it for the greater good.  Even if that power isn't physical, like say, Doctor Strange for example, it's still about using your amazing advantages for the benefit of the world.  On the flip side, that's what makes supervillains into villains.  Even if they only rob banks or bully normal people, they represent amazing gifts being used for selfish ends.

Of course, stories with benevolent god figures who are above the law and determine what is and isn't best for society by their own codes is a scary thought in reality.  Hence, the huge number of deconstructions of the genre.  In real life, human beings tend to abuse their powers.  Sometimes because they're jerks.  And sometimes with the best of intentions.  In real life, a person like Superman or Batman would probably be about as big of an arrogant prick as you are would find.  But superheroes don't live in the real world, and while it's all well and good to deconstruct the genre, it often misses the point.  Like any fantasy, introducing reality to the world of superheroes is the quickest way to make it seem petty and foolish.

And now we're a bit off topic.  Sorry about that.

I'm not here to say that I Am Number Four is an amazing movie.  Or that it is even a better movie than Marvel's recent efforts.  Although I will say that Four is a pretty solid movie and that I liked the characters and their story.  Much more than Marvel's Spidey films, for instance, where Peter Parker always comes across as a whiny punk who I don't like at all.

But what really sets Four apart is that, in the final showdown, everything is EPIC.  Larger than life and full of close calls and awesome moments.  At one point, our hero is cornered by a slavering bat-like monster and, just when it appears he's about to meet his end, a heroic monster rushes out to his rescue.  The two beasts grapple in a titanic struggle that culminates in a fight in the school showers.  It is more epic and awesome than anything in Captain America.  Considering that I actually enjoyed Cap, I don't mean this as an insult to his movie, but as high praise toward Four.

This is one of the reasons I can't get behind The Dark Knight.  Aside from my problems with the plot, it never really feels epic.  Because this is Batman, I don't expect planet destroying explosions or legions of robots, but I also don't expect the film to just kind of peter out to an anti-climax.  This judgment is a bit unfair though because The Dark Knight is not trying to be my ideal superhero flick, and thus, we are on different ends of a similar spectrum.

Perhaps I'm just out of sync with the rest of the world, but everything people mocked about Green Lantern, I loved.  And I felt like the epic scale of the thing was what made it work.  Captain America had its epic moments, but not enough to make it truly great.  It introduced amazing things like ray guns and super giant tanks and then it really didn't do much with them.  Hydra never came across as more dangerous than the Nazis.  The Red Skull never seemed more of a threat than any other madman.  And his defeat was too easy and too quick.

Although, it's better than Iron Man 2's anemic Whiplash battle at the end, which is over so fast you could probably blink and miss it.

All of which, means nothing.  Criticism aside, this is the way people seem to prefer it.  And like any genre, the superhero film is an evolving concept.  There is no definitive final version of what makes a great superhero movie, and we'll all disagree.  But if you're going to have ray guns, storm troopers, and evil geniuses in your movie, I say go big or go home.

Cap is a good movie.  It's even a good superhero movie.  But it seems like a snack, not the main course.  It's why I'd much rather watch I Am Number Four or Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World to scratch my particular superhero itch.  But that's just one guy's opinion.  Make of it what you will.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Branded

It's time to talk branding.  Specifically, my brand.

Yes, I am a brand.  Of a sort.  With eight published books, a ninth due out next year, and hopefully a long career ahead of me, it's not an unreasonable observation.  Though I'll admit it's weird to say that aloud.  Or type it out loud in this particular case.  Nevertheless, it's become increasingly obvious that for my career to continue to grow, that branding isn't something I can dismiss as unimportant or someone else's concern.

Since I've so far written a collection of unconnected, standalone novels, I don't have the option of branding a world or a character.  I have to somehow figure a way to sell myself, to capture the idea of an A. Lee Martinez novel in some pithy, easily sold way.  I don't honestly know how to do that right now.

One of the biggest obstacles is that the writer I perceive myself to be is not usually the writer I'm perceived to be.  There's no reason to bang that same old drum again, but it does raise an interesting questions.  Am I doing myself any favors by fighting my "funny fantasist" rep?

I don't exactly rail at being called "funny", but I do tend to avoid playing it up.  Yet it's clear that "funny" is the adjective that most often comes up when talking about my books.  So often and reliably in fact that I can't really think of anytime someone approached me and said a book of mine was thrilling or original.  No, it's always "funny" or "zany" or "silly" or some other adjective.

It's no secret I don't consider myself a funny writer, but maybe I should just accept it.  Maybe it'd be easier it I dove headfirst into the category.  Not by writing "funny" books.  That's not the problem.  But instead, by being funnier.  By writing blogs that are funny.  By accepting that I will always be funny and that there's nothing terribly wrong with that.  This blog entry itself is a perfect example.  Would it be more beneficial to write something about chupacabras than my thoughts on my career?  If someone hears about "that funny writer" A. Lee Martinez and comes to this blog hoping to discover how goofy and zany I am, only to read a long, self-indulgent post of an artist struggling to define himself, is that a plus or a minus?

In a story, the best characters are the simplest.  The characters that can be easily defined with one or two qualities are the ones that stand the test of time, the people can relate to.  If I am a brand, if I am a character, then I'm not doing myself any favors by confusing things.

Granted, many writers in my category can have reputations for being both funny and smart.  But they almost always start with "funny" and work their way backwards.  They embrace humor in a way that I'll admit I just haven't done.  Even when my publisher emphasizes the humor in my work, I cringe.  Almost instinctively.  Because it's just not how I see myself.

But in the court of public opinion, how one wants to be perceived always takes a backseat to how one is perceived.  If most people think of me as "funny", it really doesn't make any difference if I disagree.  Because I don't determine my brand.  Or rather, I'm just one determining factors of many.

My publisher is another of those factors, and they will continue to sell me as funny.  And I can't say they're wrong to do so.

My audience is another factor, and they will continue to most likely categorize me with other funny writers.  That hasn't come close to changing in eight books.  My ninth about a supervillain squid probably isn't going to change that either.

And there are the critics.  Again, funny is the name of the game.

So the A. Lee Martinez brand stands for "funny fantasy".  And maybe I should just accept it.  But if I do, what does that mean?  Should I take extra efforts to ensure that my books are funny?  Should I emphasize my humorous side when doing interviews?  Should this blog be a steady stream of zaniness?  And when I talk about my books, should I be sure to push the humor above all else?

My reflex is to say NO, but as is often the case, reflex just might be wrong.  Maybe I should stop sending mixed signals and just accept the brand I carry.  It doesn't actually mean I have to change what I write.  It just means selling it in a more user friendly fashion.  And that's not a bad thing.

Chasing the Moon doesn't have to be a strange exploration of an incomprehensible universe.  It can just as easily be about a plucky heroine who finds herself in over her head while trying to keep her monstrous roommates from getting into trouble.  Emperor Mollusk Versus The Sinister Brain could be my homage to pulp adventure.  Or it could be a madcap story of an evil genius without a spine.

It's all in how you spin it.  And maybe it wouldn't hurt to put a different spin on my brand.  It's all about finding my audience, selling books.  I gotta make a living here.  And if I should happen to trick a few people into buying books with more than just "wacky" at their heart, then that's all the better.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Humor Me

The role of humor in storytelling is vastly underrated.  Not just in the "Ha Ha, that's silly" sense.  Although that type does tend to be easily dismissed as frivolous and unimportant.  But I'm also talking about humor that has something to say, which is so often overlooked and thrown aside that many just don't seem to get the point of it.

The only reason I dislike being labeled a "funny" writer is because it seems to come with that sort of baggage.  But really, I try to have my humor come from real places and genuine characters.  I don't write to be silly.  Even if a story is about monster gods and vampires in overalls, I'm not just out to be goofy for goofy's sake.  And if my hero happens to be a robot who talks like a P.I. or a raccoon god in a Hawaiian shirt, it doesn't necessarily mean that weirdness is my goal.

Most of my stories are set in strange universes and feature odd characters.  I tend to have a healthy dose of humor even as those universes explode or those characters struggle with their day-to-day lives.  Often, it's the juxtaposition of the ordinary and the fantastic that form the humor in my stories, but just as often, I think it's the universal elements of existence that form the funny bits.

In Gil's All Fright Diner, Duke and Earl's exchange witty banter.  But it's built on an understanding of just how good of friends they are.  Most scenes between Earl and Cathy have humor on the foundation of Earl's awkwardness, his gradual realization of what Cathy represents to him, and how his own insecurities and clumsiness make things more difficult than they have to be.  And Tammy and Chad have a real relationship, even if it isn't a healthy one.

In In the Company of Ogres, Never Dead Ned's weary attitude and loss of motivation is something we all experience now and then.  He's an immortal who doesn't see the point in any of it.  And if you can't relate to that, well, count yourself lucky.

A Nameless Witch is about family and friends, love and loss.

The Automatic Detective is about the struggle against our inner nature and learning to find our place in the world.

Too Many Curses is about the hidden strength in those we so often consider weak and powerless.  And about how one person can bring people together without even realizing it.

Monster is about our inability to learn from our mistakes and to keep failing because of that.  It's about notions of destiny and control with Monster and Judy representing two ends of a very different spectrum.

Divine Misfortune is about our desire to have the universe notice us without ever really pausing to ask what that means. And it's also about responsibility and growing up, even when you don't technically have to.

Chasing the Moon is about living in an incomprehensible universe where nothing is certain and everything could be important or pointless.  And you're unlikely to ever know which is which.

Underneath all the humor and weirdness, I have to believe all these stories have something important to say.  Because these stories matter to me.  That's why I wrote them.  I care about the characters, their struggles, their tragedies and triumphs.  Even in the most absurd situation, I have to think they're worth investing in.  Otherwise, what's the point?  If it's just about a cheap laugh, I'd feel like I'm wasting my time with them.

I don't expect everyone to see anything deeper in what I write, but I'll admit it bothers me when my books get dismissed as empty calories, as the literary equivalent of a Three Stooges short or a Tom & Jerry cartoon.  Heck, I love Tom & Jerry, but I'd like to think I have more emotional resonance than that.  Though I can't force anyone to see that.  I can only write the stories and hope someone does.  And if they should find them just silly, I can't complain about that either.  Because if someone likes the books, it shouldn't matter.  My royalty checks cash the same either way.

But if you should happen to see me on the street or at a convention or wherever, I wouldn't complain if you said something like "Hey, I really liked Nessy the kobold.  She's a great character" alongside your "Your books are so funny" compliment.  Not that I'll hold it against you if you don't.  But it'd be nice to hear once in a while just the same.

Oh, and Emperor Mollusk Versus the Sinister Brain?  That's about living with the our mistakes and ourselves.  Also, giant awesome robot fights.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Passing on Robot Gore

I haven't seen the new Transformers film, and I really don't have any desire to.  I'm not going to bother judging it on the basis of quality.  Quality is an ethereal thing, and it all boils down to opinion.  I might think Green Lantern was a really fun and cool superhero movie (and one of the best movies I've seen this year), but I'm largely alone in that opinion.  It doesn't mean I'm wrong.  It doesn't mean anything.  It's not going to change anyone's opinion, and my opinion certainly isn't going to change.

But some things aren't opinion.  Some things are simple facts.  And, from what I've heard, I have no interest in the robot gore and dark unpleasantness of the film.  No one else seems to really mind it, but it's just not my thing.  Maybe I'm just an old man now, and if so, I shake my old man fist to an indifferent universe.  Because I'm frankly kind of sick of all the bloodshed.

I'm not against gore in general.  It fits fine in the right genre.  And I'm not against darkness.  Also fine in the right stories.  I didn't particularly enjoy Kick-Ass, but it was thematically consistent.  And watering down the violence would've been both unnecessary and silly because that's the kind of film Kick-Ass is trying to be.  So while I might not enjoy the film, I certainly don't fault it for its violent imagery and unpleasant aspects.

But Transformers shouldn't be Kick-Ass.  I don't need to watch as robots are painfully disemboweled, as their metallic flesh is ripped from their bodies, as their heads are sliced in two in slow motion.  I know that I'm not supposed to feel that way because they're robots, but there's just a gruesomeness to the entire affair that I find repellent.

It's not that I'm even against violence in a Transformers film.  The classic animated film is full of death and destruction.  It begins with the death of an entire planet.  The death of Iron Hide is probably one of the most powerful cinematic moments in my own personal experience.  It shocked me at the time, and it still shocks me.  It's pretty rough stuff, and I still shudder when I think of Megatron, smirking, saying "Such heroic nonsense" before he blows up Iron Hide just out of frame.

Robots are beaten and battered and destroyed like mad in the film.  It just doesn't feel the need to give us a close up of robotic intestines spilling out across the battleground.  And certainly there's no extended scenes of Transformers begging for their lives, only to be killed, execution style.

Yeah, that's a big pass for me.

I'm reminded of Pirates of the Caribbean 2, where within the first five minutes we're treated to a pirate getting his eye ripped out by a raven.  And this is a Disney movie.  A Disney movie based on an amusement park ride.  It seems strange to me that nobody seemed to notice or care.

So it is that if I'm going to watch a movie about alien space robots based on a line of toys, I'm not really interested in gore and bloodshed of this type.  I don't mind watching Autobots and Decepticons die.  But I'd rather not turn it into some strange form of PG-13 gore indulgence.  And I know that the Transformers are waging a war, but I have no interest in seeing it treated as one in any genuine sense.  If I want to see the horrors of war, I'll go see Saving Private Ryan.  If I want to watch unpleasant violence, I'll rent Hostel.  And if I want to see a strange mix of the two, I don't think I want to see it in a movie about alien robots.

But that's just me.  I am wrong.  I loved Green Lantern because I found it fun and charming and appealing to the kid in me.  But I'm wrong.  Because it's obvious the audience would rather watch mechanical evisceration.  And that's their right.

But if this is what passes for "mindless fun", I guess I have a different definition than most.

It's no wonder that I'm considered a fluffy writer because I'm just not interested in this stuff.  And definitely not in my fantasy adventure fiction.  If the levels of torture and gore are so entrenched in our entertainment that we can't even allow space robots to be relatively broad in its portrayal of violence and the struggle of good VS. evil, then I have no plans to rise to that challenge in my own work.

It's a logical turn of events.  I am almost 40.  So it's only natural that I should find standards of taste passing me by in mainstream entertainment.  Still, it's frustrating to watch it happen, but that's life.

We all get old.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

A Post-Nostalgia Society

This one's going to get controversial.  Let me preface it by saying these are just my own thoughts and that you will probably have different opinions.  I'm not interested in right or wrong.  I'm hoping to throw some comments out onto the internet because that's what we do these days.

My generation has a problem with nostalgia.  We've never really experienced it.  We are probably the first generation to have near complete access to everything we loved as kids.  It's an unintended consequence of the information age, but almost nothing from the 80′s onward has ever really gone away.  And if absence makes the heart grow fonder and familiarity breeds contempt, then that's more troubling than we immediately realize.

Traditionally, nostalgia comes from a longing for something you used to have.  It's that warm fuzzy feeling we get when we're reminded of something we haven't thought about in years.  It's remembering something, usually through the positive spectrum of faulty memory, in a fond way.  It's a movie you haven't seen in over a decade.  Or a toy you threw away when you were twelve.  Or a TV show that you can't quite remember the title of but you're pretty sure at some point somebody fought a dragon with a laser gun and that it was the greatest thing you'd ever seen up to that point.

That is gone now.  If you are 40 or younger,  nearly everything you like, everything you held dear, is available for you to watch, buy, or otherwise experience again.  And while that shouldn't be a bad thing, it's also time to acknowledge an unintended consequence.

Nostalgia also used to mean you were allowed to outgrow something.  It also meant popular culture would evolve and change as creators and corporations were required to market and sell new ideas, if only to win over the next generation.  This is almost a thing of the past.

There's really very little "youth" culture anymore.  Everything young is usually either a repackaging of an older idea (and usually not even that old) or aimed at a much wider audience than mere kids.  Aside from purely pre-schooler entertainment like Dora the Explorer and her ilk, there's little aimed at children.  And even Dora has a bad habit of putting on princess dresses to get the much desired tween buck.

The danger is two-fold.

First, it doesn't allow us to let anything fall to the wayside.  Once we become  a fan of something, we're supposed to be a fan forever.  It's The Firefly Effect.  In the early 80′s, a failed and canceled show like Firefly might be remembered by a few.  It might even sit quietly in the shadows of obscurity for a few decades before getting a reboot.  But it would most probably be a footnote, no different than Manimal or Automan.  A cool idea that just didn't go anywhere.  Yet in this day and age, when people can watch and rewatch DVD sets a thousand times, when they can just log onto a search engine to find a thousand websites all devoted to not letting it go, when comic book companies can't wait to ride a wave of undeserved pre-nostalgia toward easy money, a show like Firefly keeps going on.  Even when it should be allowed to just go away and let something else get a shot at being culturally important.

I don't dislike Firefly by the way.  I just don't believe it's earned the rabid loyalty it's gotten.  It's a failed TV show.  Yes, the network did screw it.  The networks screw lots of shows.  That's just the way it works.  Time to move on.

The pre-nostalgia is so common nowadays that it even appears before the show is on the air.  The cult of Firefly was born the moment the idea was first whispered by Joss Whedon.  It was ready to exist before pen was put to paper, before a single character was created, before a single episode aired.  We're so ready to serve this pre-nostalgic impulse that many of us are actively looking for something to be beholden to, to hail as wonderful and forever awesome, even before we know what it is.

I know this view will be a bit controversial, especially among Firefly fans, but it's something worth saying because, frankly, I'm annoyed by the entire concept.  Six episodes on network TV do not make a "classic".  Calling yourself a "browncoat" doesn't put you on the same footing as a "trekkie" or "trekker".  Creating a fandom through sheer willpower and desire to have something to be a fan over is an exercise in circular logic.  Firefly is great because it has so many fans.  It has so many fans because it's great.

Heck, I love Kolchak: The Night Stalker like nobody's business, but it doesn't change the fact that it was only on for a single season.  Although it did end up with more episodes than Firefly so I guess I'm more justified. Still, you wouldn't expect me to call myself a "blue suit" and tell you over and over again about how awesome Kolchak is.  And it is awesome.

The second, more damaging effect of this obsessive nostalgic impulse is that the next generation isn't really getting any new toys to play with.  Even if we accept (as we probably must) that pop culture will suffer from certain levels of stagnation, we have a deeper problem.  The only thing worse than a generation refusing to let go of childish things is one that expects those childish things to grow up with them.

Kids like dumb things.  Silly things.  Things that require child-like wonder to enjoy.  And most adults simply don't possess that wonder.  This isn't a problem when you just admit it and move on, but when you insist on taking silly, wondrous childish things and stuffing them into a "mature" box, more often than not something is lost.

Transformers are a line of toys built on the premise that kids like robots and kids like cars and why not put both together in one package?  There's a storyline that comes with them, but at the end of the day, it's about toys.  And it's stupid.  Do I really need to point out that the notion of alien robots that change into cars, jets, and dinosaurs is about as silly as you can get.  Even on the most forgiving level possible, it's goofy.  No amount of justification can really make it work.

Or how about an entire military organization whose sole purpose is to fight a single terrorist organization.  Everyone on both sides gets distinctive costumes, code names, and gimmicks.  Oh, and both teams get a ninja because . . . why the hell not?

And then there's the emerald space cop with the magic ring who makes objects out of green energy.  This is a character designed with twelve year olds in mind.  The biggest mistake the Green Lantern film made was actually being a movie that understood this.  It's only sin was in realizing just how goofy the entire concept is and still trying to make a film out of it.

In comparison, The Dark Knight takes the concept of a man who dresses as a bat to fight crime and turns it into a maudlin, depressing, unexciting snoozefest.  It does so in the name of sophistication while entirely missing the point of what makes Batman work.  He works because he's ridiculous.  I know I'm in the minority on this one, but to me, a Batman film that you don't want to take your kids to is worthy of mockery.  It's like a Care Bears movie with ritual murder.  It doesn't make a damn bit of sense.

Though my objections to The Dark Knight exist mostly because it represents everything I hate about modern comic book superheroes while Green Lantern represents everything I love and it can be a bit disheartening to see the public's reaction to both is the opposite of my own.  Not because I care if one gets all the praise but because it's always discouraging to see something you enjoyed mocked for the very qualities you love about it.

Then again, I could start my own Green Lantern movie fan club, find a bunch of people that agree with me.  It wouldn't be that hard in this day and age.

I'm not suggesting that we can't have "mature" superheroes.  Or that our only two choices are shallow fluff or grimdark grittiness.  But I do think that pre-nostalgia is a real cultural problem.  I just don't have a solution for it yet.  I'll let you know when I do.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Weird Tales

Sent Emperor Mollusk Versus the Sinister Brain off to begin the copy editing process.  The publishing business works on a long timeline, and it won't be out until sometime next year.  I won't talk too much about it at this point other than to say it's the story of a supervillain from Neptune who is so intelligent and capable that conquering Earth is actually part of his backstory.  Emperor Mollusk (and, yes, his first name is Emperor because that's the kind of confident invertebrate he is) is basically Lex Luthor with no Superman to stand in his way.  He's not infallible, but he is smarter than you and he knows it.

The appeal of Emperor Mollusk for me is that he's every bit as brilliant as he thinks he is, but still struggling to figure things out.  I've always felt that Lex Luthor would invent Superman if Superman didn't exist.  Because Lex needs a challenge.  Also, Lex has a hard time accepting his own limitations, and what better target for his annoyance than a man who can fly and is bulletproof and who is always standing in his way?  If there was no Superman, Lex Luthor would just find some other foe.  Because Lex is never happy.  He's always scheming, always out to find the next challenge.

That's Emperor Mollusk in a nutshell.  The big difference between Emperor and Lex is that Emperor has no foe to aim his wrath at, no convenient answer for why he fails, no central obstacle he can obsess upon.  Also, Emperor doesn't have a spine and only weighs about eight pounds.

Or maybe Emperor is a morally dubious version of Doc Savage.  The only difference is that Doc had a body perfected through rigorous training and superior genetics while Emperor walks around in a variety of mechanical exoskeletons.  This gives him a leg up on Doc, considering that no matter how hard Doc trains, he'll never have built-in rocket launchers.  Just ain't gonna happen.

The pulp aspect of Emperor's universe is obvious.  Every planet in the Sol system (and even the sun itself) are all inhabited.  There are alien invasions, mutant dinosaurs, and flying saucers.  The story cross the globe from Paris to the (not quite) lost continent of Atlantis to the tourist colonies of the moon.  Characters are either plotting.  Or fighting.  Or plotting while fighting.  And through it all, Emperor Mollusk strides like a titan, a legend in his own universe.

Too bad you'll have to wait a year to read it.  But it'll be worth it.  I promise.

Thinking about the novel though, I realize how fortunate I am to be here, doing what I do.  If you consider the millions of aspiring writers out there who would willingly do this job for free, I have to say I'm amazed and humbled to have this opportunity.  I'm not just lucky enough to be a novelologist.  I'm even luckier to be allowed to write stories that are, for lack of a better term, "kind of weird".

I'm sure there's much weirder stuff out there, and I don't want to suggest that more conventional novels are "selling out."  Either assertion would be both incorrect and obnoxious.  There's a market for cool vampires and everybody-dies-pointlessly literature.  It's a diverse world we live in.  Still, I'm pleasantly surprised that there's room in it for a character like Emperor Mollusk and his strange adventures.

Considering Emperor Mollusk is my ninth book, I think it's not too indulgent to reflect on my career up to this point.  And that's where I feel damn lucky because not only do I have a career in the first place, but that I can write stories about robots and vampires and tentacled supervillians.  These aren't only stories I like.  They're stories I feel confident aren't being told by a lot of other writers.

(DISCLAIMER:  If there's one way to prove yourself an idiot, it's to declare something like the above on the internet.  I'm sure there are probably hundreds of other writers creating stories a thousand times weirder and more unique than anything I'm doing.  So don't misquote me as saying something like "All those other writers are hacks and only I am creative and daring enough to write anything worth reading!"  In fact, I probably shouldn't have even put that on the internet because someone will probably use it against me at some future point.  So never mind.)

Whether or not I'm truly doing anything unique or if I'm just some guy writing weird novels with delusions of grandeur, I'm still damn lucky to be here.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Green Lantern (Cultural Counter Punch)

There's a line in the cultural sand of superheroes.  It's a line that says superheroes are either "dark and sophisticated" like The Dark Knight or "slight and stupid" like Green Lantern.  It's deeper than superheroes actually.  It's how we have been taught to view the world now.  Shows like Dexter and The Wire and others like them tell us, over and over again, that good guys are an illusion and that genuinely heroic protagonists are a thing of the past.  It's everywhere in our culture, but it's most obvious to me in superheroes because they come from such a starkly different point-of-view originally.

For long time, I've mostly ignored this accepted "truth".  I haven't tried to make a big deal about it because why should I care?  If people want to watch dark shows where everyone's an asshole, then that's their choice.  But this live and let live attitude has not been returned.  I have sat by as the dark side wages war against the other side.  The truth is that I can't ignore films like The Dark Knight and all the praise they get because, inevitably, it leads to outright hostility toward anything even remotely different.

I hate the term "culture war".  And its standard use doesn't fit this topic very well.  But there is a battle for our cultural media, how it portrays good guys and bad guys, how it tells stories, and which stories are valued.  If the critics who heaped loads of praise on The Dark Knight and First Class insist insist on attacking a good, fun, and smart film like Green Lantern, then somebody has to step up and counterattack.  And it appears that person is me.

Here goes:

Green Lantern is a heck of a good film.  Perhaps the best superhero flick I've seen in ages.  It is fun, lively, and has a terrific little story that never loses sight of its human characters.  It promises an epic battle and (mostly) delivers, and has some very creative action adventure pieces.  In short, Green Lantern is everything any reasonable person should expect from a magic ring space cop movie.  And even a little more.

This is a movie that dares to say being a superhero is cool.  Hal Jordan is not damaged goods.  He doesn't come from a tragic past.  He isn't fighting against a psychopath clown.  And in the end, he is a good man fighting to stop a monstrous evil.  His character arc GL is well-planned, believable, and satisfying.  His supporting cast is just important and established enough to make us care about them without making them cardboard characters.  And his use of his powers is every bit as fun and absurd as they should be.

Anyone who says otherwise is wrong.  Anyone who says The Dark Knight or Watchmen are provably superior films is wrong.  Given the nature of all these films and their goals, comparing them is like trying to pick your favorite food.  They aren't trying to satisfy the same appetite.  And this isn't a failing on GL's part.  This is a deliberate choice.  One I can fully get behind.

If I have to pick a side in this cultural war, I'll take an unapologetic film like Green Lantern over an aching to be meaningful film like Dark Knight anyday.  I shouldn't have to pick though.  Fans should be able to like what they like without falling into the trap of "My superhero is better than your superhero" nonsense.

The FX in GL are outstanding.  Even if they weren't, I know this is a story about aliens and monsters.  As long as the FX are trying, I can play along.  Although, really, the FX are outstanding.  I think people are less annoyed by the FX and more by the more fantastic elements.

GL's one weakness comes in the appearance of Amanda Waller.  She's a great character who is in here for no clear reason, who accomplishes nothing, and who demonstrates none of her comic book portrayal's competence and demeanor.  It's annoying that, while the character is short and overweight in the comics, she is tall and leggy (and even introduced wearing ridiculous heels).  But it's more annoying that she appears to be an entirely different character.  I could take skinny Amanda Waller.  I can't take dumbass Amanda Waller.

Yes, shame on you Green Lantern for this major mistake in an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable film.

So if you are hesitant to see Green Lantern because of the negative reviews, I'm here to say ignore them.  Unless you hate the fantastic and prefer your superheroes more grounded in reality.  That's okay too.  Just don't get mad at me for enjoying a less dark, more positive superhero where the good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and where punching a fear monster in the face with a giant fist is what heroes do.

There's a line in GL that summarizes everything I love about this film and how ridiculous I find its critics.

"I'm sorry.  Did I embarrass you when I created a racetrack out of pure willpower and saved hundreds of lives?"

Hell, no, Green Lantern.  Quite the opposite in fact.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

In Brightest Day… (a criticism of criticism)

I really, really, really liked Green Lantern.  I liked it so much, in fact, that I'm actively annoyed that other people are so down on it.  I don't care if people disliked it.  I don't mind if people call it bad.  But the virulent venom aimed at this particular flick is just not warranted.

I have a simple rule.  If people start complaining about set design or CGI, they're usually just expressing a strong hostility toward the film they're watching.  It's not that I think there isn't such a thing as good and bad set design, subtle or sloppy CGI.  I just think that complaints about these elements come from a complete lack of cooperation from the audience.  I don't care what story you're telling or how well you tell it.  If the audience doesn't want to like it, you can't make them.  Conversely, the opposite is often true.  If someone is determined to enjoy something, they can usually dig out a positive nugget or two.

I'm not out to tackle all the elements of Green Lantern, but I will go ahead and talk about one complaint that always bugs me.  There's a bunch of people who just can't seem to accept the fact that CGI is here to stay.  And they also can't seem to accept the fact that it won't always be seamless.  These complaints seem so frivolous to me that I almost hate addressing them.  But it comes up again and again, so let's just do this.

CGI isn't going away.  It will remain a vital part of modern filmmaking and will only grow more important in the future.  An even more important observation is that CGI isn't going to fool you into believing the unbelievable.  The job of FX is not to be invisible.  Most of the time, they can't be.  If there's a giant monster or a laser or a spaceship, you will know it is fake.  The job of an FX isn't to convince us these things are real.  It's to allow us to pretend (along with the film) that they are.

Some of my favorite movies have lousy FX.  The original King Kong, Clash of the Titans, and many others use extensive stop-motion animation.  These FX are actually astonishingly good, but they are "bad" if your definition is that they are clearly FX.  The Muppets are terrific, but they're clearly puppets.  But what kind of asshole is going to poke a kid watching Sesame Street and constantly remind him of that?

So it is too in Green Lantern that there's really just no way to make an utterly convincing alien planet populated by thousands of strange life forms and make it completely convincing.  And when Hal Jordan flies through space or fights a giant yellow fear monster, we know it's mostly special FX.  If we didn't, we'd be delusional.

Yeah, it's fake.  We all get it.  The people that can play along aren't being dumb.  They're just allowing themselves to enjoy the experience.  And, no, it's not dumb.  It's fun and cool and completely ridiculous, but what part of magic green space cop made you think realism was the goal?

Which brings me to my final point.  I know that, even in the world of comic books, fun, outrageous adventure is looked down upon.  People will praise The Dark Knight and X-Men: First Class for being "intelligent" superhero flicks.  They'll heap compliments on Kick-Ass and Watchmen fore being elaborate deconstructions, kind of.  (Although neither of those films really qualify as deconstructions because they're very much traditional superhero films, just with more blood and swearing than usual.  But that's a subject for another time.)  What people don't seem to be able to do anymore is enjoy a good ol' fashion fantasy adventure.

The superhero "genre", however you want to define it, is pretty damn diverse by its very nature.  It's impossible to compare characters like Batman and the Punisher to characters like Superman and Green Lantern.  Or Green Arrow.  Or Spider-Man.  Or just about any other character.  Not all superheroes are meant to be dark and gritty.  They're not all meant to be brightness and hope, either.  They are all these things and more.  When I loved superhero comics (though it's been a while), I loved their diversity most of all.  I could read about the Punisher fighting crime on the streets and the Silver Surfer flying through space.  It was a world where mole people could attack a city, or street thugs with colorful gimmicks could commit crimes.  In short, superheroes work best when they're treated not as uniform category of fiction but as a sprawling category.

It's unfair, even downright silly, to expect the same thing from Green Lantern as you would from Batman or X-Men.  Because Green Lantern isn't that character.  His powers are completely outlandish.  His universe is utterly fantastic sci fi.  It's not a lack of "sophistication" to write a Green Lantern movie where our hero gets his heroic mantle then saves the day by destroying a giant yellow fear monster.  It's not "childish" for a film to have a good guy who is obviously good and a bad guy who is obviously bad.  And it's perfectly fine for some stories to be about kicking ass in the name of justice.

Also, it's okay to say that Green Lantern has some very strange powers that are goofy if taken at face value.  Sure, he makes catapults and race cars and swords out of pure willpower.  That's what makes him unique and interesting as both a superhero.  It's the kind of silly conceit that makes no apologies.  (Which is another thing that always irks me.  I hate apologetic fantasy, especially apologetic superheroes.  But again, another topic for another day.)

It occurs to me that I haven't discussed the specifics of Green Lantern much.  Possibly because I was less annoyed by the critics of the film than by the flimsiness of these recurring criticisms.  So let's talk about the film itself.

Green Lantern will no doubt have the same problem Thor has.  It crosses an invisible line that most superhero films avoid.  While Iron Man and Batman Begins are both about superheroes, they're largely grounded in the real world.  And even characters like the Hulk and Superman, while incredibly powerful, are human and human-like.  They also live and work on Earth.

But Green Lantern (like Thor) is a very sci fi character.  While Hal Jordon lives on Earth and mostly hangs around there, he still has a link to a much grander universe.  But where Thor is built on established Norse mythology (admittedly loosely), Green Lantern is an entirely original mythology.  And it's probably even a bit stranger than Thor's.  After all, millions of years ago, immortal aliens created a bunch of magic rings that they hand out to worthy beings to act as cosmic law enforcement officers.  At least the Asgardians (and their foes) are human and human-like.

There's a scene that encapsulates everything great about Green Lantern and everything wrong with Green Lantern, depending on your point of view.  It's when Hal Jordan is on Oa, surrounded by countless other Green Lanterns.  The movie could've played it safe and avoided anything too weird.  Just slap a few rubber forehead aliens in the scene and keep it simple.  Instead, we see an incredibly diverse group of creatures.  There's a giant bug lantern, a rock lantern, a robot lantern, and so on.  (Side note:  If DC decides to make the robot lantern an official character and is looking for someone to write the story, I happily volunteer.)

Your reaction to this scene will probably tell you everything you need to know about the movie.  If you think it's "cheesy", "silly", or "dumb", then you are not the kind of person who should go to see a movie about a magic green space cop.  If you (like me) think this is awesome, then you should go ahead and ignore the negative reviews.

Really.  That's all you need to know.

The acting is good.  The story is fine.  The FX are more than solid.  There are thrills, fun, and at one point, a giant yellow fear monster gets punched in the face by a huge green energy fist.  And if that doesn't convince you that this is everything a sci fi superhero spectacular should be, then save us all the trouble and don't bother.  Some of us are here to have a good time, and we don't need you harshing our mellow.

Oh, and one last thing.  The movie isn't dumb just because it's fun.  If being smart always has to equal depressing and dull, then it's no wonder we take such a dim view of intelligence.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee