Wade Garret's Blog, page 4
August 1, 2017
Let's be honest
This looks OK *at best* because of HUGE suckage based on previous films
WHILE THIS?
And THIS
!!!!!!!LOOK STUPID AWESOME!!!!!!!*And I'm a DC guy, so no one wanted the DCU movies to challenge Marvel all the way, but sadly, overall, they've not even come close :(
June 3, 2017
Wonder Woman
So, right out of the gate, let me say this movie was bar far, I'll repeat that, BY FAR, the best the DCU has put out since MoS. Now, that being said, we can move forward and discuss this first ever film singularly depicting this TITAN of comic history and one of the HOLY TRINITY and founding members of the Justice League
*And no, Cyborg shouldn't be there, it should be Martian Manhunter :)
Ok, so, everything that takes place in Themiscyra was great.
The Set. Costumes. Combat. Throne and some of the best acting moments in the whole movie. Even the fight on the beach, which I thought was going to be silly, was pretty cool. All great.
The two women beside Diana, her Mother (right) her aunt (left) gave great performances. Maybe we'll see them again? 
Steve Trevor (Left of Diana) and his band of Misfit Soldiers were kinda, well, there as filler. Yet also somehow not needed. Kinda funny. Hints of complex backstories that went nowhere. So, they were okish. Think something on your plate that you might eat, but if you didn't, no one would be offended because the hero of the meal didn't really need anything else to make it satisfying.
******And it's not fair to make the comparison to Captain America's Band of Brothers, which to me makes more sense given he's an actual soldier and so that depth is more reasonable to spend time on, given Cap is a Hero within a war and Wonder Woman is a Hero traveling through war *Because if Aries was, say...IN LONDON, away from the FRONT LINE....the vibe of the film would've been much different. Also, Cap's guys had barely any screentime vs Wonder Woman's****** And, yes Steve's buddies, they served to tease the dynamics and complexities of THE GREAT WAR and maybe to broaden her understanding of men, each unique. But, not even close enough to stop me from wondering what could've been done, in the film, if all their screen time had gone to, say, Wonder Woman?
Just saying, fewer characters. More women. Each important. Ya know, it works really really well.
1) Yes! Great job on the Movie character. The Comic image, well, yeah. Not good.2) Hmm? About time spent on characters who could've used more playtime on screen, more story? Yeah, here's a good example.
Why are all Boss Fights/Final Showdowns so hard to see? Why does the DCU, since MoS, love the same Fire + Smoke + Debris + Super Fast Action Sequence ALL CGI?????? Plz, someone show them there are other times to fight in and there's plenty of other things to contrast with. Also, video-game style fight scenes aren't a must, you can mix it up with real actors and real sets and real action, intermixed with the super crazy stuff. Trust me. We'll love it. See, you're seeing this now and you're saying to yourself "What's the big deal, I can see all this clearly" But what you've got to remember, is this is a LOOP and this is only a few seconds of the action. During the WHOLE final showdown....well, you'll get the point when you see it. So. I'm not going to spoil the plot for you, or even talk about the Villain—who I have many thoughts about. Instead, you should go see the movie. And again, so you don't get me wrong. I really did enjoy the movie. I went with my daughters and my wife. It was great to see them watching this Goddess take her rightful place in Cinema. Glad DCU has something else to finally be happy with.
Fingers crossed for the future.
May 12, 2017
Have you been watching?
I wasn't blown away with the first episode, but then I'm not sure if was blown away by this point in the novel either?My only complaint about the first episode was Bilquis and the New God of the Internet. What we got from her was kinda tame—I wanted something a big more monstrous, little more Super Natural. What we got from him was also basic; pretty sure the book had better details.
The second episode was better. Better actors. Getting deeper into the story.
Maybe this is where I started enjoying the book more.
All-in-all, not a bad show so far.
Though no idea how they're going to stretch it out into two seasons (without maybe altering the path of the novel) because the book isn't very long.
April 27, 2017
Why do I write in Reverse? by author K.R Conway
Not long ago I was on the phone with another author friend while hashing out a story idea I had. When I was done, she replied, “Dude – you’re incapable of writing a straight contemporary story.”
Word.
The truth is, she’s right. I mean, I COULD do it, but at some point there would be a sizable, Kindle-hurling twist or the whole thing would just go off the rails a’la Spielberg’s Super 8 or something like that.
I blame this tendency to write like a loon on two things: genetics and writing in reverse.
The genetics is, well, crazy encoded.
Writing in reverse, however, is teachable and explainable:
Writing in Reverse forces me to dig deeply into the characters – their personalities, complexities, voice, drive, etc. It is the ULTIMATE tool for writing characters that come screaming off the page and haunt the reader well past the end of the book. And, personally, I like to torture them (both characters and, yeah, maybe the reader too).
Writing in Reverse (WIR) allows me to jump down the line in the story and test out plot threads and story layers against my characters. By using WIR, I know (well in advance) if something isn’t going to work with my cast because I’m building REAL fictional people who will not be forced into something that is against their natural “character.” Kinda like my real-life teenager . . .
Readers HATE that – when a character does something that doesn’t make sense for THAT particular character.
WIR also allows me to build detailed backstories and motivations for my characters. It allows me to change traits, modify voice, and in general build a cast that I can write for without even thinking about it. I know instinctively how a character will react / say / do in ANY situation and it makes writing a breeze.
Great stories lay down a path which forces the character to make choices based on who they are as a real person, not necessarily on what the author wants. That’s what WIR does brilliantly. It works great for any genre, even if it’s straight contemporary.
That said, I’m weird, so when I start playing around with a story idea, it usually starts out like this:
And ends up like THIS:
For more posts on Writing In Reverse CLICK HERE.See YOU at #NESCBWI16
April 5, 2017
April 2, 2017
JL: I just can't get excited
It looks like Snyder has learned nothing...ITS BACK!!!!!!
1) It's one of the best Scifi Shows on TV
2) If you're not watching it, I'm not sure what you're doing with your life.
3) FIRST EPISODE OF NEW SEASON WAS CRAZY GOOD!!!!
Passengers
I have seen it. Better than expected.
*Star Lord and Mystique deliver :)
Logan
I have seen it. And it was good.
Rhythm: The Enemy of Story, by Aahabershaw
Link:
Zzzzz…This is going to be partly a writing post, partly a gaming post, and partly a literary post. I don’t outline these things, so who the hell knows what’s going to happen next. Let’ start with… (throws dart) literature. Okay, so the past few years I’ve themed my Lit Survey class around the Hero’s Journey (mostly Campbell’s Monomyth, etc.). Inevitably, we start talking about superhero movies in the class, as superhero tales are the ones most recognizably Campbellian in form. While I do like these movies (overall), after reading hundreds and hundreds of pages of student work on Calls to Adventure, Crossing the Threshold, the Normal World Vs the Special World and so on and so forth, I tend to get bored with the whole thing.
Now, as it happens, it’s rather difficult to escape the basic rhythms of this story form, particularly if you intend to tell a story involving a protagonist intended to be even vaguely heroic – this stuff is deeply ingrained in our collective unconscious and our ideas of story. Inevitably we wind up following some variation of this path – both in our reading, our own writing, and even at the RPG table.
The challenge, though, is to resist the urge to paint by the numbers – follow the journey, step by step, like a kind of roadmap. While you can tell some very competent tales that way, you also fall into being predictable. Spend enough time with this structure, and things cease to amaze you, which is, frankly, a terrible loss.
Of course, totally diverging from this format has its own problems – the story becomes unsatisfying or strange to the point where you no longer connect with it. Kafka, for all his brilliance, isn’t telling stories that delight and engage so much as confuse and confound. This has its place and its own appeal, naturally, and I’m not suggesting the avant garde, post-modern, or abstract tale is a worthless endeavor. It’s that if you want to tell a heroic story but you also want to make it new, you need to find variations of the monomyth that are poorly traveled. There are many ways to do this, of course – shake up who your hero is, shake up the setting, shake up the stakes, and resist hitting the steps of the story “cleanly.” If you want a master class in how this is done, watch any given Cohen Brothers film – they are regularly, consistently unusual and amazing, even though, in broad terms, they are (usually) telling the story of a central character who is yanked from their normal world, sent through an ordeal, who then returns to the normal world somehow changed and enlightened. They just do it in the messiest, most bizarre way possible.
Oh great, more piles of gold…In tabletop RPGs, there are dangers in rhythm, as well. The standard form is this: Players receive a call to adventure, they delve into the dungeon and slay monsters, and they are rewarded with treasure. In D&D in particular, this is what we sign up for, right? But there is only so long this can happen before the game gets old. Too many gaming sessions can be described as “role-play, role-play, kill little thing, argue, big battle, treasure.” I fall into this routine myself. There are plenty of games out there that don’t lend themselves to this, sure, but plenty more that do, I’d argue. Even in those games that don’t do this, the danger of routine still looms large, it’s just that the routine changes.
I say routine and rhythm is “dangerous” because it risks, to my mind, what is ultimately fatal to a book or game alike: becoming boring and predictable. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants things to go smoothly and perfectly all the time (even when they say they do) because it kills the excitement of the unknown. For gaming, as with storytelling, this requires you to consciously seek variations on a theme. Break the mold. Have the dungeon be empty, but have it lead players on some different, deeper quest. Have the monster be absent – it’s back at the village, killing and eating all those people your players are sworn to protect. Never forget the narrative fun that can be had with a cursed item (note: not for making players look stupid, but for giving them benefits that have extreme costs. Yes, that’s a +5 sword. No, you can’t ever sheathe it or wipe off the blood. Enjoy visiting the orphanage.). Have the players be wildly overmatched to the point where they need to flee the dungeon (and make it back through all the deathtraps backwards). Have the adventure involve no dungeon AT ALL. Have the players save the town from a flash flood. Drop them in a desert with no food or water and watch them scrabble to survive. Make one of them king for a day.
The point here is that, as important as the forms and rituals of our storytelling world are to making our stories satisfy, we also need to remember that variety is the spice of life. Break the mold. Change the dance. Improvise.
Good luck!
Zzzzz…This is going to be partly a writing post, partly a gaming post, and partly a literary post. I don’t outline these things, so who the hell knows what’s going to happen next. Let’ start with… (throws dart) literature. Okay, so the past few years I’ve themed my Lit Survey class around the Hero’s Journey (mostly Campbell’s Monomyth, etc.). Inevitably, we start talking about superhero movies in the class, as superhero tales are the ones most recognizably Campbellian in form. While I do like these movies (overall), after reading hundreds and hundreds of pages of student work on Calls to Adventure, Crossing the Threshold, the Normal World Vs the Special World and so on and so forth, I tend to get bored with the whole thing.Now, as it happens, it’s rather difficult to escape the basic rhythms of this story form, particularly if you intend to tell a story involving a protagonist intended to be even vaguely heroic – this stuff is deeply ingrained in our collective unconscious and our ideas of story. Inevitably we wind up following some variation of this path – both in our reading, our own writing, and even at the RPG table.
The challenge, though, is to resist the urge to paint by the numbers – follow the journey, step by step, like a kind of roadmap. While you can tell some very competent tales that way, you also fall into being predictable. Spend enough time with this structure, and things cease to amaze you, which is, frankly, a terrible loss.
Of course, totally diverging from this format has its own problems – the story becomes unsatisfying or strange to the point where you no longer connect with it. Kafka, for all his brilliance, isn’t telling stories that delight and engage so much as confuse and confound. This has its place and its own appeal, naturally, and I’m not suggesting the avant garde, post-modern, or abstract tale is a worthless endeavor. It’s that if you want to tell a heroic story but you also want to make it new, you need to find variations of the monomyth that are poorly traveled. There are many ways to do this, of course – shake up who your hero is, shake up the setting, shake up the stakes, and resist hitting the steps of the story “cleanly.” If you want a master class in how this is done, watch any given Cohen Brothers film – they are regularly, consistently unusual and amazing, even though, in broad terms, they are (usually) telling the story of a central character who is yanked from their normal world, sent through an ordeal, who then returns to the normal world somehow changed and enlightened. They just do it in the messiest, most bizarre way possible.
Oh great, more piles of gold…In tabletop RPGs, there are dangers in rhythm, as well. The standard form is this: Players receive a call to adventure, they delve into the dungeon and slay monsters, and they are rewarded with treasure. In D&D in particular, this is what we sign up for, right? But there is only so long this can happen before the game gets old. Too many gaming sessions can be described as “role-play, role-play, kill little thing, argue, big battle, treasure.” I fall into this routine myself. There are plenty of games out there that don’t lend themselves to this, sure, but plenty more that do, I’d argue. Even in those games that don’t do this, the danger of routine still looms large, it’s just that the routine changes.I say routine and rhythm is “dangerous” because it risks, to my mind, what is ultimately fatal to a book or game alike: becoming boring and predictable. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants things to go smoothly and perfectly all the time (even when they say they do) because it kills the excitement of the unknown. For gaming, as with storytelling, this requires you to consciously seek variations on a theme. Break the mold. Have the dungeon be empty, but have it lead players on some different, deeper quest. Have the monster be absent – it’s back at the village, killing and eating all those people your players are sworn to protect. Never forget the narrative fun that can be had with a cursed item (note: not for making players look stupid, but for giving them benefits that have extreme costs. Yes, that’s a +5 sword. No, you can’t ever sheathe it or wipe off the blood. Enjoy visiting the orphanage.). Have the players be wildly overmatched to the point where they need to flee the dungeon (and make it back through all the deathtraps backwards). Have the adventure involve no dungeon AT ALL. Have the players save the town from a flash flood. Drop them in a desert with no food or water and watch them scrabble to survive. Make one of them king for a day.
The point here is that, as important as the forms and rituals of our storytelling world are to making our stories satisfy, we also need to remember that variety is the spice of life. Break the mold. Change the dance. Improvise.
Good luck!
