E.R. Torre's Blog, page 118

40 Best Science Fiction TV Shows of All Time…

…At least according to Rolling Stone.  The full list is here:

40 Best Science Fiction TV Shows of All TIme

One can always quibble with lists like this one.  For example Space 1999, and Stargate SG1 are given higher positions on this list compared to Aeon Flux, which barely lands on the list at #39.

Now, I don’t have anything against these three shows.  Space 1999 had some absolutely stellar effects and it was so much fun to see the then wed couple of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain together after Mission: Impossible.  But let’s face it, the stories weren’t all that great.  Some were, like the show’s concept of the Moon being ripped from Earth orbit and wandering space (and quickly finding aliens and adventure), rather laughable.  HOWEVER, if I were making a list of best TV show music themes (whether sci-fi or not), then Space 1999 is right there close to the top…

Also, when you get to the top 5, it seems to me The Prisoner should be higher.  I have no qualms with (SPOILER ALERT!) Star Trek and Twilight Zone taking up #1 and 2 respectively.  I have no problem also with Dr. Who being at #4.  And Battlestar Galactica, the new version, most certainly is a great show, though it was marred by a bad last season/conclusion.  I would switch Battlestar Galactica from #3 and move it to #5 and raise The Prisoner up to #3.

Thus, my top 3 personal all time favorite sci-fi TV shows would be Star Trek, Twilight Zone, and The Prisoner.  In that order.  I guess two out of three ain’t bad?!

The second big topic will be: What is missing from this list?

Where’s Person of Interest?  Or the delightful and wild Farscape?!  How about the “wow, this series is actually damn good” Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles?  Then there’s the weird and wild UFO, to my mind a better series by the same people behind Space 1999.

UFO, which as you can see from its intro theme, featured a Moon Base, was reportedly the inspiration for Space 1999.  And if you’re willing to put it in the sci-fi category, I’d also add the wonderful Wild, Wild West.  The show was basically James Bond in the Wild West and it was a freaking blast (To keep sane, forget a Will Smith movie version was ever made).  It too had a great theme…

So there’s at least five shows I’d add to the list.  But to add them to the list I’d have to remove some others.  There are a few shows listed in the Rolling Stone article I’m not familiar with/haven’t seen any episodes of so sticking with those I have seen, there are three for sure that wouldn’t make my list.

First up would be the original V.  While I liked the mini-series, afterwards and when it went to full seasons V lost it pretty quickly.  Two others I wouldn’t include are Dollhouse and Quantum Leap.  I understand what some loved about Quantum Leap, but the show never appealed to me.  On the other hand, I can’t understand the love for Dollhouse.  The early episodes of the series suggested creator/cult figure Joss Whedon was completely winging it.  The show was erratic and made very little sense and then, when the ratings faltered, it got “serious” and presented a conclusion.  Like the series itself, the conclusion was…weird.  Didn’t really care for it.

So there you have it for what its worth.  Your mileage, as they say, may vary!

Passengers (2016) redux…

Though I don’t intend to see the film and am turned off by the “twist” presented within (and, based on the reviews, the very lame way its dealt with), I’m nonetheless fascinated with the Chris Pratt/Jennifer Lawrence film Passengers.

In part it is because of similarities to a portion of my novel Ghost of the Argus, which, because it was a big element of said novel, clearly is an interesting topic for me…or else I never would have included it in my novel.

Having said that, a clarification: The idea of someone trapped alone on a spacecraft with a long time to go before it reaches its destination is not some blazingly new or original concept.  Indeed, if you peel off the sci-fi element, the person living all alone goes back at least to Robinson Crusoe.  In sci-fi, there’s what is arguably Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, which featured two astronauts alone on a big starship heading to a distant location while the other crew members were in some kind of cryogenic sleep.

As for the Passengers twist, check this out, the cover to Weird Science #20, originally published in 1951.  I vaguely remembered that particular issue (I’m a fan of the EC line of comics but shamefully admit the cover of this book and its similarity to the movie was pointed out elsewhere):

Pretty much the plot of Passengers, no?

Anyway, that’s about all I have to say about this film…unless of course something else occurs to me!

How much for that Bladder of Snuff…?

Over at Slate.com Rebecca Onion has a delightful post offering the following:

What Things Cost in an American Country Store in 1836

At the risk of giving everything away from the above article I’m going to…oh hell, give everything away.  Here you go:

You still should check out the article to find out where this list comes from and why it was made (As noted in the question, this was intended as an aid to potential businessmen who were interested in setting up a full stock for a store).

Fascinating, fascinating stuff.

Zsa Zsa Gabor, R.I.P.

As this hellish year marches towards its own end, we have yet another passing, this time of Zsa Zsa Gabor.  She was 99 years old and, from what I’ve read, spent the past five years living thanks only to machines.

A horrible way to go, IMHO.  Hope she was so far gone during those last years that she didn’t actually feel anything.

Considering some of the very big names/personalities that have passed this year, one would think Zsa Zsa Gabor would be a more minor one.  I suppose in some ways she was.  She was known most for being a “personality” in the days well before the Kardashians or the Housewives of the various counties/cities.  She was at times outrageous and a celebrity because of this.  She was also married 8 times, 9 if you count a one day marriage/annulment and was as feisty as she was sexual…

She also provided some delightful quotes and that’s what I found the most amusing and interesting about her.

Some of her “best” quotes can be found here:

Zsa Zsa Gabor’s Best Quotes about Love, Marriage, and Divorce

At the risk of turning people away from the link, here are my two favorites quotes by her:

“I want a man who’s kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a millionaire?”

And…

”A girl must marry for love, and keep on marrying until she finds it.”

Rest in Peace, Zsa Zsa.  I hope your life was as entertaining and enjoyable as it seemed from the outside looking in.

Passengers (2016), creative coincidence, and telling a story

Back in the stone age and when I was in High School, I was given a creative writing assignment:  Imagine you were on vacation on the TV show Fantasy Island , what would your fantasy be?

For those too young to know, Fantasy Island was a TV show that ran from 1977 to 1984 and featured and as the perhaps supernatural easy-going hosts of Fantasy Island, a place where the various guest stars -a revolving bunch of relatively well know actors- to the show came and spent a weekend living out a fantasy.  The fantasies/stories presented could be humorous, touching, action filled, etc.

In many ways, this was a more “benevolent” version of The Prisoner, where people wanted to be on the island rather than escape it.  A new version of the show would appear in 1998 and feature Malcolm McDowell in the titular “host” role but the show went nowhere and was cancelled after a single season.

Anyway, I considered the assignment and what “fantasy” would be.  After thinking about it, I thought it would be really cool to spend a quiet weekend in a super-large spacecraft, far away from anyone and everyone and in a place I could unquestionably enjoy some peace and quiet (As you can guess, at that time I must have really had my fill of people!).

Anyway, the idea remained in my head for years.  Around 2012 when I first began writing Ghost of the Argus, the fifth book in the Corrosive Knights series, I was finally able to use that concept along with some new wrinkles: The person “trapped” in the super large spacecraft has 50 years to go before reaching his destination.  Why was he on the ship?  Who put him there?  These mysteries were revealed in the telling of the story.

Perhaps earlier this year or sometime late last year I heard about the and film Passengers and, once again, experienced that curious sensation of creative coincidence.  The trailer below gives you a general idea of the movie’s plot.

Now, before you think I’m about to go into a “they ripped me off!” diatribe, nope.  My understanding is that Passengers existed as a screenplay many years before the movie was finally green-lit, though I certainly had no awareness of it until filming started.  Unless the person who wrote the screenplay was in my English class way back in 1981/82 or so and was so floored with my “spending time alone in a large spacecraft” concept, I very much doubt my concept was taken.

While a case of creative “coincidence” is certainly intriguing, it doesn’t amount to anything more than that, I’ve come here to talk about Passenger’s plot, which when I first heard about it raised the hair on the back of my head for all the wrong reasons.

I will be getting into some SPOILERS not mentioned in the trailer above so if you’re interested in seeing the film, you may want to move along.

SPOILERS FOLLOW!

YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!!!

Still here?

Ok, so the trailer above shows us a super large spacecraft traveling over a hundred years to its destination.  There are people aboard the ship, all of them in some kind of stasis, in theory sleeping until they reach their destination.  However, two of the passengers (played by Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, natch), are awoken too early and suddenly they are the only “awake” passengers on this ship…a ship which won’t reach its destination for another 90 years.

What do these two very charismatic and beautiful people do?  What awoke them?  Can they somehow get themselves back into stasis or are they condemned to live out the rest of their lives and likely die well before the ship reaches its destination?

Here’s the twist which is not revealed in the trailer but which has been revealed elsewhere:  Only one of these two passengers, Chris Pratt’s character, was awoken too early.  His character spends a year alone on the ship, slowly going crazy, until he stumbles upon Jennifer Lawrence’s character’s stasis chamber.  Though he never met her before, he accesses her files and falls in love with who he thinks she is.

And then he does the unthinkable:  He awakens her.

Think about this: Our protagonist in this film is now, essentially, a stalker and kidnapper.  He has decided on his own to condemn this woman to the prison he’s found himself in, just because he can’t take the loneliness anymore.

This, my friends, makes him a villain.  A despicable one at that.  He takes his own personal needs and places them above another person’s life, effectively condemning this woman to his prison and, eventually, death.

It is my understanding -of course- his character hides the fact that he’s responsible for Jennifer Lawrence’s character early awakening.  The deception kept secret, the two grow closer and closer to each other until they are a couple.

Reading the movie’s early reviews (you can check them at Rottentomatoes.com, where the film so far isn’t tracking well at all), several critics point out that when Chris Pratt’s character decides to awaken that women, the film should have become a straight up horror movie.

Unfortunately, the reviews suggest when Jennifer Lawrence’s character realizes what was done to her, the film promptly falls on its face and fails to properly address the horror of this situation.  Instead, audiences are given Chris Pratt’s character “cute” ways of winning back the love of Jennifer Lawrence’s character.

The bad taste, many of the critics note, lingers.

Consider this: What if the Chris Pratt character had been, say, a homosexual and the person he awoke was a heterosexual?  How would we view his character then?  What if instead of dashing, handsome Chris Pratt, the movie’s protagonist was played by someone considerably less dashing and handsome and far older?  And what would we think if this person awoke someone who was very young?  Like too young?

We shouldn’t have to think of all these things yet the film cuts off those considerations by presenting us two beautiful mega-movie stars so of course they should fall in love which each other and work out whatever problems they have.

I mean, what’s kidnapping and sentencing someone to death between forced lovers, right?

I won’t be catching Passengers because while its plot is similar to something I came up with and used in one of my books, the wrinkles placed in this movie, frankly, make my skin crawl.

Passengers comes out later this week.  I wonder if others will find the story as distasteful as many of the critics so far have.

Smartwatches…R.I.P.?!

Over at Gizmodo.com Alex Cranz offers an article on Smartwatches.  This article anticipates/predicts the death of these products:

Smartwatches are dying because they’re useless

I’ve noted before I absolutely love tech and am always curious about new tech.  I’m intrigued by them and always interested in reading about, if not actually trying/buying new products, provided they are useful.

On the other hand, I’m not quick to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.  I noted several times before how articles were predicting the end of the desktop PC.  My feeling was that while laptops/tablets were wonderful, there would always be, at least for me, a need to have a desktop computer.  I like the big screen (today, you can get multiple really big screens if you want).  I prefer the full ergonomic keyboard versus the ones usually found on laptops.

Further, it was my feeling the whole “desktop computers are dying” article failed to note that desktop PCs by that time had reached a point where they were so damn good (in terms of speed, capacity, and durability) there was no need for people to buy a new desktop PC every year like we used to when the processors were constantly being improved.

Having/using a desktop PC also didn’t mean I didn’t need or want a tablet or laptop computer.  Its just that when I’m writing, which as an author one tends to do, my preference is to do so while sitting behind my trusty ol’ desktop computer.

The smartwatches, though?

Their usefulness remained elusive to me.  I mean, there were certain things that were undeniably cool about them but it just seemed they were nothing more than an even smaller version of your smartphone, but with two very big problems: 1) their battery charge, at least in those early model releases, seemed pathetically small and 2) their actual usefulness depended on being linked to smartphones.

Why, I asked myself, would you get a smartwatch which needs to be charged every day and, if actually used, as often as twice a day?  Then again, why get a smartwatch when you already have a smartphone doing the things the smartwatch is supposed to do?  Its not like carrying a smartphone is a burden.  If you already carry around a smartphone, why get this ancillary bit of tech?

So I didn’t bother looking into smartwatches much more after reading the initial reviews/stories of their capabilities.  Over time it appeared the hysteria for this new tech dropped quite a bit.  Now there are numbers attesting to this, from the article linked to above:

A more recent report from IDC suggests the Apple Watch, the most popular product of its kind, saw a 71.3 percent drop in sales from last year, overall sales dropped 51.6 percent.

Yikes.

Unless I’m terribly mistaken (not beyond the realm of possibility), the Apple Watch was the only “new” tech Apple provided in the last few years.  I mean, they are doing well with their iPhone and iPad and I suppose their laptops are growing in popularity versus before, but other than Apple TV (is that a success?  I genuinely don’t know), the Smartwatch was their Big New Product™ and, based on the numbers listed above, it appears that product is in the process of bombing.

This leads me to a secondary point which I’ve also noted before:  The success of a business, especially a tech based business, is to convince people every so often -say within a year or less- they have either a) a better version of an already popular product which their buyers need to get and thus spend money on while discarding the old in favor of the new or b) the company offers something “new: to buy and, hopefully, this product will prove popular and, over time, slides into the “a” column.

Desktop PCs are a beautiful example of this.  The desktop computer was first sold in the very late 1970’s/early 1980’s (my first desktop computer was the Atari 800).  The desktop computer proved a popular product and soon we had the IBM based machines with their mighty 8088 processors.

These computers were, compared to the computers of today, absolute garbage but at that time were state of the art.  Improvements were rapidly made and for those who lived through the rise of the desktop PC you’ll remember we went through a succession of better and better models.  In almost every case, you quite literally had to consider buying a new model each year as the new ones put the older models to shame.

And then, as I stated above, we reached a point where the desktop PC reached a plateau and suddenly it wasn’t so very necessary to consider buying a new desktop PC to replace your old one.  In my case, I used to buy new desktop PCs every year to two years and suddenly I realized a desktop PC I had worked for me a mind-boggling 5-6 years before I decided to replace it…and that was because I noticed the machine was glitching.

The current computer I have is 2+ years old.  I have neither need nor desire to replace it with a new one and don’t anticipate doing so for years to come.

As successful as Apple is, I suspect they’ve reached a similar point with their tech.  It wasn’t all that very long ago when new versions of their iPhone would come out and it was a freaking event.  I mean, people were lining up around the block and overnight to be the first to get their hands on the new and improved model.  And the new and improved models were indeed new and very much improved over the previous ones.

Now, though, while the iPhone remains very popular, the newer versions don’t grip the public like before.  I don’t see lines forming like they used to at the various tech shops/cell phone companies for their new product.

Same seems to apply to their tablets.  I love my iPad.  At least two new versions of the iPad were released since I bought mine.  While I certainly would love to buy one of those new 12 inch monitor versions, the reality is that I get pretty much everything I want out of my current iPad and don’t need the new one.  Buying a new model is an expensive luxury I can afford not to have.

But at least those products proved successful enough to get people interested in buying, if for a while, each new version.  With the Smartwatch, it appears this bit of tech may be hitting a dead end almost from the start and people may be aware now they simply don’t need them.

It is possible, of course, for future iterations of the Smartwatch to come and prove themselves more useful.  Then again, if we go by the sales figures, things look mighty bleak for the future of the Smartwatch.

Ash v Evil Dead Season 2 (2016), redux

Yesterday I wrote about the finale of season 2 of Ash v Evil Dead and how the showrunner of the series up to this point, Craig DiGregorio, left the show after that second season and allowed himself to be interviewed as to why.  It turned out there were strong creative differences between one of the show’s producers, strongly hinted as being Robert Tapert, and he.  The end result of these differences was a season 2 finale that was very different from what Mr. DiGregorio intended (you can read about all that, including how he wanted to end the season, here).

In my original writings linked to above, I noted that I wasn’t all that impressed with the season 2 finale though I really liked all the stuff that happened before it.  Overall I felt season 2 was even better than season 1 of Ash v Evil Dead, though each suffered from rather lame (IMHO!) finales.

After reading Mr. DiGregorio’s interview and how he intended to finish off season 2, I was left incredibly conflicted.  On the one hand, Mr. DiGregorio steered the show through two very fun and enjoyable seasons and he clearly steered the show, story-wise, in a certain direction which was leading up to his version of the season 2 finale.  As detailed in his interview, the character of Kelly Maxwell () was to be revealed, because of the time traveling shenanigans of the leads, to be the daughter of Ash ().

In retrospect, this was set up almost from the show’s very beginning!  Please note this, the season 1 trailer, and particularly the lines of dialogue at the 2:47 minute mark:

Bear in mind, this trailer was released before even one episode of the first season aired.  The line of dialogue in which Ash states he feels Kelly is a younger version of him, is the first of many hints given through the first and second seasons of the show that Ash and she share some kind of commonality.

What is so damn perplexing in my mind is: How could the people behind the show go through almost two full seasons giving us these little hints and setting up this big reveal… and then at what appears to be the very last second scuttling it and going in a completely different (and for my money, far lamer) conclusion?!

But as I said above, I felt conflicted by learning this information.  The fact is that as much control as Mr. DiGregorio had over the first two seasons of the Ash v Evil Dead, he was not one of the three people who actually control the characters and concepts.  Robert Tapert, who was implied as being the one responsible for nixing Mr. DiGregorio’s original concept for the season 2 finale is, for better or worse, one of the people who has been with the Evil Dead series since the very first film was released back in 1981.  He is one of the owners of the franchise and he certainly has every right in the world to demand things be done to his standards.

The big question is: Why did it take so long for him to realize he didn’t want to go in this particular direction?

I get from Mr. DiGregorio’s interview that the season finale as presented was a rush job as the original script and his concepts were scuttled at the very last minute.  That certainly explains why many of the hints of Kelly’s background remain sprinkled throughout the show’s two seasons.

So I have to ask: What happened?

Was Mr. Tapert not aware of the direction Mr. DiGregorio was going in?  If so, was Mr. Tapert not as hands on as he should have been and only now decided to flex his creative muscles?  Or could it be that Mr. DiGregorio failed in fully briefing his bosses and didn’t give him sufficient “heads up” about his ideas for the Kelly character?

Either way it seems communication was an issue between the two and, sadly, it resulted in Mr. DiGregorio not only walking away from a series he had done some damn good work on, but also removing what could have been a far more exciting conclusion to this second season that what was made.

Like everyone else, I have no idea how Ash v Evil Dead will be next season.  The show will have a new creative overseer and, I’m assuming, he will be more compliant to Mr. Tapert’s ideas of where the show should go.

I’m trying to be optimistic but these revelations have shaken my faith -at least a little- in what to expect in the final product.

We’ll see.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story…the early reviews

They’re pretty positive, so Star Wars fans, looks like you’ve got a…

…huh…?

Ok, so the reviews are pretty positive and Rottentomatoes.com has the film scoring a nice 84% positive among critics so far but…is there a proverbial disturbance in the force?

Some of the positive reviews clearly are that: Very positive.  Naturally, there are those who outright do not like the film.  While going through the reviews both good and bad, I get at least a couple of repeated criticisms leveled at the film by most critics.  They are: 1) The film’s leads, including Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso, are very bland and 2) the film kinda muddles along for the first 2/3rds of its run time before giving audiences a rousing climax/finale.

One of the more curious reviews I read was this one, by Germain Lussler at i09.com, a writer who I find very entertaining to read.  His review of the film can be found here:

Rogue One Truly Understands How To Be A Great Star Wars Film

Based on that headline, you would think the film was a home run for Mr. Lussler, who in his review admits to being a HUGE Star Wars fan.

Yet as positive as the review starts out, Mr. Lussler then notes the things he feels are either wrong or don’t work in the film and, by the end of his review, wonders:

But as you leave (the movie), you may also start to wonder something. The film has so many surprises and winks to the rest of the franchise—are all those fan moments of excitement and recognition masking the film’s other flaws? If you’re a Star Wars fan, it’s hard to say definitively when you’re on one side or the other, but I do feel the characters, pacing, and story are engaging without them. Hopefully the many connections to the other films—and there are a lot of them—act more as sprinkles on top.

The fact of the matter is that for many, Star Wars and its various films have moved beyond critical reaction.  To many, the love of the features is such that they’ll dive into any new film of the franchise with an incredibly sunny disposition and, in many cases, actively ignore any faults that may lie within.  A reassessment and realization of a film’s flaws (if any) may -or may not- happen later on but by then the latest movie will have made a tremendous amount at the box-office and, in future years and regardless of how they feel about the film later on these same fans will own copies of those movies as well.

While George Lucas prequel films are today almost universally panned, people forget they did great business at the box office and people lined up and eagerly watched each and every one of these films.  At the time of their original release many stated they loved the films, only to later go back and admit their flaws.  I suspect many of these fans who later admitted to not liking those films have copies of them and, with the arrival of Rogue One, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if many do a viewing of these three prequel films before going into the latest one, which takes place just before the events of the original Star Wars film (Or Star Wars IV: A New Hope as it was renamed).

As I’ve stated many times before, I was never all that into Star Wars and doubt I’ll catch Rogue One in theaters when it is released this week.  Having said that, unlike all those who seemed to take glee in stomping on a creative work, I sincerely hope fans get what they need from in this film.

I sincerely hope they enjoy the hell out of it.

On Writing… and the season two finale of Ash vs. Evil Dead

I’m not alone in loving most of the Evil Dead series.  What started as a low budget movie released in 1981…

…was “rebooted” into a satisfying horror/comedy mix which absolutely worked in 1987’s Evil Dead II.

So successful was this film that in 1992 we were treated with a third movie, Army of Darkness.  In this movie’s case, we moved farther away from horror and more into straight up comedy…

Like Evil Dead II, I loved it.  Audiences, however, didn’t.  Not at that time.  In fact, Army of Darkness was a flop when it was initially released though subsequent home video releases made plenty for the studios.  However, that initial failure is the reason it took many years, twenty one in fact, before we had another Evil Dead feature.  2013’s reboot, entitled Evil Dead, was a straight up horror movie which, IMHO, wasn’t all that great, though I do think the trailer is creepy as hell…

This film did well at the box office and, with the realization that perhaps there was a demand for more Bruce Campbell starring Evil Dead, the wheels were in motion.  It would come to be.  Not as a new movie but rather a series from Starz titled Ash vs Evil Dead…

The first season of this series, IMHO, was quite good and took the same blend of horror and comedy that worked so well in Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness.  I loved the new show though I thought its finale wasn’t all that great.  Still, it was a very entertaining ride and I very much looked forward to season 2.

The second season, IMHO, was absolutely glorious, better than the quite good season 1.  Last Sunday, December 11th, the season finale of season 2 of Ash vs Evil Dead was played and…I’m sad to report history repeated itself.  As good as the second season was, I found the final episode/resolution, like season 1’s, also disappointing

Turns out, there might be a reason for that.

Craig DiGregorio, Ash v Evil Dead’s showrunner, left the series after season 2 and, following the presentation of the season finale, was interviewed on why he left the show.  As it turns out, there were considerable creative differences between he and producer Robert Tapert (who has been with the Evil Dead series since its inception) which resulted in a last minute rewrite/reworking of the season 2’s finale.

If you have seen season 2 of the show and are curious as to what the original plans for the finale were, check out this interview with Mr. DiGregorio…

Craig DiGregorio on leaving Ash v Evil Dead and the original season two finale

Read it?

Seen it?

Good.

I won’t go into all the details presented in the interview as they speak for themselves, but the ending Mr. DiGregorio was working at sure sounds a lot better than what we were given.  Again, the season itself was a complete blast and therefore I can’t be too unhappy by the fact that the final episode didn’t work for me as well as it should have.

I am, however, concerned about what will come.

Mr. DiGregorio, whether you agree with his opinions or not (or feel he shouldn’t have spoken out as he did, biting the hand that feeds you and all that), was behind two for the most part delightful seasons of the show.  While Ash v Evil Dead tended to lean toward comedy and some felt there should have been more of a balance between that and horror, I loved it…well, again, except for the end of season 1 and now the end of season 2.

Would Mr. DiGregorio’s original ideas have worked better?  We’ll never really know though the ideas he presents are certainly far more ambitious and, to my mind, interesting than (SPOILERS!) the bland celebratory festival we were given in the season 2 finale, which played out like -of all things- the ending of Return of the Jedi, complete with ghostly apparitions giving our heroes the “thumbs up”.

I point all this out -and if you’ve paid attention to the headline of this blog entry- because we’re dealing with the job of writing here.

When I was considerably younger, I dreamed of one day being the writer of Batman.  I loved, loved, loved the character and having a hand in his stories was my ultimate writer’s dream.  Mind you, this was before Batman became BATMAN, the character everyone now knows and loves.  Back when I had this dream, Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns and Tim Burton’s Batman movie was still to be and the multi-billion dollar franchise megalith the character has become wasn’t quite there.

Yes, people knew the character, if only from the Adam West TV series, but he was far from the character everyone knows and loves today.

Which means if you are the writer of Batman today you have to deal with the suits behind the character.  You have to please them as much -probably even more!- than the readers.  You have to heed their advice even if it means cutting story ideas you may love to pursue what the people who own the character want you to do.

In the case of Mr. DiGregorio, it feels like he was in a similar situation.  He spent two years devoted to Ash v Evil Dead and, for the most part, delivered a pretty damn great product.  If his interview reveals anything it is that some of his concepts and ideas -and most certainly his ending to season 2 of the series- clashed with producer Robert Tapert’s vision.  Clearly these clashes were too much and he left the show.  Equally clearly, he’s not all that happy with the “new” ending which was imposed upon the season.

Yet he’s also sanguine enough to note that Mr. Tapert, being one of the people behind the Evil Dead from its inception, rightfully had the power and right to exercise control over the product and impose his ideas over Mr. DiGregorio’s.

Some have said this interview was a hatchet job directed at Mr. Tapert, a one-sided low blow from a disgruntled writer who thinks himself bigger than those who created the series to begin with.

I suppose it is possible but what I read was an interview with a man who clearly put in a great deal of effort into a product he was proud of but ultimately had to leave it over creative differences.  Then again, as I writer, I have sympathy for someone who works hard on a creative idea only to see it scuttled for something they may feel is inferior.

Think about that: Mr. DiGregorio is a writer.  His profession offers almost no guarantees of a steady paycheck, yet he lands a plum job working on a successful series.  He could have swallowed his pride and “gone with the flow” and continued his job but felt that his vision and the producers clashed so much that he decided to walk away.

From a well paying, high profile job.

There was rancor in the interview, certainly, and Mr. DiGregorio is clearly nursing a bruised ego.  But I didn’t read the same levels of rancor some have said there was.  He appeared sanguine about the situation and noted he had to go because he simply didn’t have the power over the product and didn’t want to continue clashing with the producer who clearly wasn’t into his ideas.

This, to me, is the adult way of going about things.

I suppose the big question becomes: How will the show do without Mr. DiGregorio?  If he was responsible for many of the good things the series presented in its first 2 seasons, how will things go with season 3?

As with so many things, we’ll see next year…

The Last Witch Hunter (2015) a (mildly) belated review

Hmmm…The Last Witch Hunter…it was a film, right?  The follow up to his incredibly successful (and goofily over-the-top) Furious 7?  Which in turn was his follow up to his cute (even though I personally didn’t like the overall film) vocal turn in Guardians of the Galaxy, right?

I mean, Vin Diesel was on such a roll!  Yet I recall The Last Witch Hunter (I’ll refer to it as LWH from now on) came and fled the theaters -and everyone’s memories- quicker than you could say, “Vin Diesel is in a new movie and its called–”

I kid, I kid.

But the reality is that while this film featured a big cast, including Michael Caine, Elijah Wood, and Rose Leslie in the principal roles, the studios seemed to smell a stinker and while the movie was released to theaters, it felt like not much of an effort was made in the promotion of this feature.  It kinda came and went.

The critics were certainly not kind.  Over on Rottentomatoes.com, LWH scored a pathetic 16% positive among critics yet, curiously, total reviews were only 123.  Generally, a “big” film release winds up with at least 200 “professional” reviews.  Furious 7, for example, had 233 professional reviews.  Suicide Squad had 294.  Jason Bourne 259.  Thus, LWH’s 123 is a pretty small amount.

The point is, critics weren’t all that interested in, or bothered, to review the film and those that did, obviously, hated what they saw.  Audiences, too, weren’t all that impressed.  Again based on Rottentomatoes.com, only 44% had a favorable opinion of it.

So why the heck did I like the film?

Don’t get me wrong: LWH is far from a “superb” film.  It loses steam as it goes along and the climax wasn’t nearly as exciting as it could have been.

And yet, I liked the damn thing.

In some ways the movie reminded me of the Hellboy comics/movies.  Here we have an alternate reality where the “real world” goes about its business yet in dark corners and alleys a parallel world of magic exists, in this case where witches go about their daily business.  At one time, however, witches and humans clashed.  800 years before Kaulder (Vin Diesel) and his people confronted a particularly evil witch.  Kaulder slayed her but she “cursed” him with immortality.

In the present, Kaulder works for a religious organization which has made peace with the witch population.  Kaulder acts as an enforcer, making sure the witches don’t stray and/or abuse their power.  While the witches view him as a stern, fascistic “cop” and rightfully fear he may end their lives at any moment, we find that Kaulder, while stern and no-nonsense and has a past which should make him hate all witches, is actually a very even keeled man who isn’t a bloodthirsty killer at all (I really liked the opening “present” day act on an airplane and the way Kaulder interacts with a witch who has accidentally endangered the entire flight).

Kaulder’s right hand man, a priest named Dolan (Michael Caine), is the 36th “Dolan” to have stood by Kaulder and helped him do his job.  When the movie starts Dolan 36 is set to retire and a new Dolan (#37, played by Elijah Woods) is set to take over.  But Dolan 36 dies of old age…apparently…and after the funeral Kaulder suspects something is amiss.

When Kaulder and Dolan 37 investigate Dolan 36th’s apartment, they find things indeed aren’t what they seem and a mystery is revealed…one that has ties to Kaulder’s origins.

I won’t go into more spoilers but, again, this movie entertained me.  The effects are top notch and the story moves along nicely.

It is a straight up fantasy story and perhaps those accustomed to seeing Vin Diesel play either sci-fi heroes (a-la Riddick) or macho car-driving heroes had a hard time accepting him in an action/fantasy role, especially when he plays a character who many think is a “bad ass” but turns out to be the type of hero that is willing to smile and has a soft spot in his heart for others…even if they may be witches.

Again, LWH isn’t The Greatest Thing I’ve Ever Seen™, but it is an entertaining action/adventure/fantasy that wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the studios and the relatively few critics who bothered to write about it thought it was.  At least IMHO!