Scott Pearson's Blog, page 4
September 21, 2013
Weird Mofo Cinema, Episode A: Beware! The Blob
[Okay, here’s the deal with the title of this post. I’d like to do Weird Mofo Cinema as a podcast or vlog, but I don’t have the time right now to make that happen, so it’s debuting as an occasional post on my regular blog. On with the show, but be warned: I will spoil decades-old movie plots without hesitation.]
You know something weird is going down when the opening credits of Beware! The Blob (1972), ostensibly a horror movie, play over footage of a kitten frolicking in a field. Come to think of it, though, it’s comparable to the light-hearted (and ill-fitting) opening song of the original film, The Blob (1958). But the original overcame its theme song and was an effectively creepy and scary movie, plus a solid introduction for Steve McQueen in his first leading role. By the time the belated sequel’s opening credits finish, however, naming the director as one Larry Hagman—yes, Larry “J.R.” Hagman—the viewer can’t help but wonder just WTF is going on.
Beware! The Blob quickly makes clear that it’s meant to be a comedy. Interspersed, of course, with people being devoured by the giant quivering Blob that fell to Earth in a meteorite in 1958. The end of the original saw the cold-sensitive Blob parachuted into the Arctic; McQueen’s character commented we would be safe as long as the Arctic stays cold (a line which plays differently in the twenty-first century of shrinking Arctic ice). The sequel is set in motion when a pipeline worker by the name of Chester comes home from the Arctic with a small chunk of a mysterious frozen thing dug up during construction.
While Chester camps out in a tent set up in his living room for no apparent reason, his wife takes the sample out of their freezer and it’s forgotten on the counter. Soon the Blob oozes out of the container and eats the kitten. Aahhh, you see, there was a reason for the title sequence, to make sure you were in love with the cute kitten before it was gobbled up by the slimy ooze.
Chester falls victim to the Blob after his wife, and while he watches The Blob on TV. Umm, what the meta-fuck is up with that? But things are just starting to get weird, in a six-degrees-of-separation kind of way. Even while he’s still being absorbed, he’s found by Lisa, played by Gwynne Gilford, who happens to be the mother of Chris Pine—Captain Kirk in the J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot movies. Lisa’s boyfriend, Bobby, is played by Robert Walker Jr., who was Charlie in the original Star Trek series episode “Charlie X.” They eventually tell Lisa’s story to the town sheriff, played by Richard Webb, who was Finney in the original Star Trek series episode “Court Martial.” Whoa. Mind. Blown.
Familiar faces fill this movie, because Larry Hagman was already well-known, having starred in five seasons of I Dream of Jeannie. According to the producer of both films, Jack H. Harris, in Return of the B Science Fiction and Horror Heroes by Tom Weaver, Hagman said “everybody wanted to be ‘blobbed’ ” and he could “put together a cast for the [movie] but he would like to direct it.” The cast consisted of many hard-working actors who were already recognizable to moviegoers in 1972 and others who are certainly familiar to audiences now.
In the apparently improvised comedic vignettes that unfold between Blob attacks, all sorts of people turn up. Look, there’s Burgess Meredith playing a drunken hippie-hating hobo. Yes, I just said that. One of the other hobos is an all but unrecognizable Hagman in a full beard. He’s soon eaten by the Blob. Look, there’s future-Shirley Cindy Williams. There’s Carol Lynley, who appeared in The Poseidon Adventure and Beware! The Blob in the same year. There’s Danny Goldman, the med student whose questions vex Gene Wilder’s Doctor Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein. There’s Dick Van Patten playing a scout master. There’s old-school comedian Shelley Berman (who would eventually play Larry David’s father on Curb Your Enthusiam) playing a hair stylist.
The movie doesn’t succeed at blending the genres like, say, An American Werewolf in London did (for the most part). Instead, the horror distracts from the comedy and vice versa, so in the end it’s not that funny or that scary, a rather pointless retread that skimped on the effects budget and let its improvising actors go on far too long. Even producer Harris admitted to Tom Weaver that it didn’t work as a sequel, as “it was too funny and not scary enough.”
Really the most effective Blob scene plays out between the Blob and the kitten. The film is like several different stories pasted together with the Blob. We won’t talk about the wrestler in the tub wearing a fez. Yes, I just said that. If you love The Blob, you can take a pass on this, unless you enjoy watching weird mofo cinema that makes you say WTF…then, by all means, spin this one up.
You know something weird is going down when the opening credits of Beware! The Blob (1972), ostensibly a horror movie, play over footage of a kitten frolicking in a field. Come to think of it, though, it’s comparable to the light-hearted (and ill-fitting) opening song of the original film, The Blob (1958). But the original overcame its theme song and was an effectively creepy and scary movie, plus a solid introduction for Steve McQueen in his first leading role. By the time the belated sequel’s opening credits finish, however, naming the director as one Larry Hagman—yes, Larry “J.R.” Hagman—the viewer can’t help but wonder just WTF is going on.
Beware! The Blob quickly makes clear that it’s meant to be a comedy. Interspersed, of course, with people being devoured by the giant quivering Blob that fell to Earth in a meteorite in 1958. The end of the original saw the cold-sensitive Blob parachuted into the Arctic; McQueen’s character commented we would be safe as long as the Arctic stays cold (a line which plays differently in the twenty-first century of shrinking Arctic ice). The sequel is set in motion when a pipeline worker by the name of Chester comes home from the Arctic with a small chunk of a mysterious frozen thing dug up during construction.
While Chester camps out in a tent set up in his living room for no apparent reason, his wife takes the sample out of their freezer and it’s forgotten on the counter. Soon the Blob oozes out of the container and eats the kitten. Aahhh, you see, there was a reason for the title sequence, to make sure you were in love with the cute kitten before it was gobbled up by the slimy ooze.
Chester falls victim to the Blob after his wife, and while he watches The Blob on TV. Umm, what the meta-fuck is up with that? But things are just starting to get weird, in a six-degrees-of-separation kind of way. Even while he’s still being absorbed, he’s found by Lisa, played by Gwynne Gilford, who happens to be the mother of Chris Pine—Captain Kirk in the J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot movies. Lisa’s boyfriend, Bobby, is played by Robert Walker Jr., who was Charlie in the original Star Trek series episode “Charlie X.” They eventually tell Lisa’s story to the town sheriff, played by Richard Webb, who was Finney in the original Star Trek series episode “Court Martial.” Whoa. Mind. Blown.
Familiar faces fill this movie, because Larry Hagman was already well-known, having starred in five seasons of I Dream of Jeannie. According to the producer of both films, Jack H. Harris, in Return of the B Science Fiction and Horror Heroes by Tom Weaver, Hagman said “everybody wanted to be ‘blobbed’ ” and he could “put together a cast for the [movie] but he would like to direct it.” The cast consisted of many hard-working actors who were already recognizable to moviegoers in 1972 and others who are certainly familiar to audiences now.
In the apparently improvised comedic vignettes that unfold between Blob attacks, all sorts of people turn up. Look, there’s Burgess Meredith playing a drunken hippie-hating hobo. Yes, I just said that. One of the other hobos is an all but unrecognizable Hagman in a full beard. He’s soon eaten by the Blob. Look, there’s future-Shirley Cindy Williams. There’s Carol Lynley, who appeared in The Poseidon Adventure and Beware! The Blob in the same year. There’s Danny Goldman, the med student whose questions vex Gene Wilder’s Doctor Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein. There’s Dick Van Patten playing a scout master. There’s old-school comedian Shelley Berman (who would eventually play Larry David’s father on Curb Your Enthusiam) playing a hair stylist.
The movie doesn’t succeed at blending the genres like, say, An American Werewolf in London did (for the most part). Instead, the horror distracts from the comedy and vice versa, so in the end it’s not that funny or that scary, a rather pointless retread that skimped on the effects budget and let its improvising actors go on far too long. Even producer Harris admitted to Tom Weaver that it didn’t work as a sequel, as “it was too funny and not scary enough.”
Really the most effective Blob scene plays out between the Blob and the kitten. The film is like several different stories pasted together with the Blob. We won’t talk about the wrestler in the tub wearing a fez. Yes, I just said that. If you love The Blob, you can take a pass on this, unless you enjoy watching weird mofo cinema that makes you say WTF…then, by all means, spin this one up.
September 18, 2013
Return to Darkness: Re-Viewing Star Trek Into Darkness
I just watched Star Trek Into Darkness for the second time courtesy of the newly released DVD. (Side note: because we’re still rocking DVD instead of Blu-ray, we shrugged off the controversial marketing ploy of spreading the extras across multiple vendor-specific Blu-ray releases and just bought the cheap DVD.) Being hardcore Trek geeks, my daughter and I had attended a 3-D midnight premiere back when it hit theaters. We came down on opposite sides of the fence on the film, which you can hear us discuss on our podcast,
Generations Geek
, Episode 9, “Into Geekness.” The kid loved it and went back to it a couple times in theaters, but I was not highly enamored of JJ’s second film after finding the first one an entertaining joyride (even if the script was in need of a coincidencectomy or two or three). I was in no rush to see it again. [Spoiler alert: the rest of this post contains spoilers.]
As often happens in these situations, I found the second viewing much more entertaining because, knowing what was coming, I wasn’t as put off by several key what-the-huh moments of the screenplay (e.g., hiding a spaceship from a nonspace-faring race not in space where they couldn’t possibly see it but instead offshore right by them where it’s quite possible they will see it). I touched upon some of those moments and the increasingly bizarre backlash against fans who didn’t like the film from fans who did in a couple of previous blogs, “JJ Trek’s New Clothes” and “Deja Vu(lcan).” To recap, my objections to the film are not a manifestation of some sort of subconscious problem with everything beyond the 1969 cancellation of the original series; in fact, my problems with STID often have little to do with Star Trek as such (certainly nothing to do with judging whether it’s “really” Star Trek...I find that notion as annoying as judging whether someone is “really” a geek); rather, my problems are frequently with issues that I would be critical of regardless of the specific film in question or the genre to which it belonged. In a nutshell, plot points that make no freaking sense, like the parenthetically aforementioned hiding of the Enterprise underwater. It’s kind of like Batman telling Robin, “No, we’ll hide the Batmobile outside of the Batcave. No one will think of looking for it there.” Or when the Enterprise gets shot to pieces over the Moon causing it to fall almost immediately into Earth’s atmosphere. I’m no rocket scientist, but I believe there’s this little thing called “about a quarter of a million miles” between the two. If I trip on my doorstep in St. Paul, Minnesota, I don’t land outside of a pub in Warwickshire, England. I wish I did, but gravity and space and time behave in largely predictable ways, as Newton and Einstein might tell you (if they weren’t in fact still dead). I don’t like my movies to disregard all common sense or matters of scale. If JJ Abrams made a movie about climbing Everest, would the lead character start out in L.A., get on a bus, and an hour later get dropped off at base camp? Would the mountain be five miles up but only two miles down? These things matter. A story that makes sense matters. That’s the difference between a well-crafted screenplay and just a series of exciting set pieces that barely hold together under the weight of all the details being ignored to make them happen.
All that said: Scotty. He kinda steals the show. Simon Pegg is just brilliant in this role. And I noticed one line he has that I missed the significance of the first time round. Complaining about having the Enterprise underwater, he says that they’be been there since the night before, which implies they went underwater under cover of darkness, which is a nice detail. Still no explanation of why they’d go underwater in the first place, but still a nice detail that also implies they were thinking of leaving under cover of darkness as well.
Other quick thoughts: I want to write fan fiction about that navigator with the shaved head, because she looks like she could kick some serious ass. I hope she’s back in the third film.
Dammit, I miss Pike already. Greenwood nailed that role to the wall and then hit it with three bull’s-eyes, if I may mix metaphors, and I believe I just did. Although many people didn’t like how Kirk’s a bit of a dickweed in JJ Trek, I didn’t mind it, especially while watching him get his ass chewed by Pike. Of course, that fabulous scene in STID is undercut by the fact that Kirk almost immediately gets the Enterprise back again after Pike, once again, gets attacked by a vengeful madman. If I were Kirk’s superior officer in that universe, I would never punish him, because you’d know within moments you’d be getting eaten by a Gorn or something, and Kirk would suddenly be a hero again. Just let the dickweed do what he wants, admiral, it’s not worth the risk.
After the torpedoes detonate aboard the Vengeance, I know things got pretty hairy aboard the Enterprise, what with there only being about a mile and a half between the Earth and the Moon, but maybe if someone had told Khan that they still had his crew alive, he wouldn’t have plunged the Vengeance into San Francisco, killing untold thousands. Or maybe he would have, because, you know, vengeful madman.
Concurrently with seeing the film again, I was reading the novelization by Alan Dean Foster. He tried to cover up lots of plot holes with a geeky spackle of technobabble and a fresh coat of retcon, but there’s only so much you can do with some of these things. He didn’t touch the Enterprise underwater. I mean, come on.
But anyone who loved the movie should read the book...there are bits here and there where I don’t know if they’re Foster’s work or represent scenes in the script that didn’t make the final cut—maybe they’re in some of those deleted scenes you may or may not get to see by tracking down all the versions of the Blu-ray—but they are some nice little touches. I won’t spoil them with examples, you can look for them like Easter eggs.
As often happens in these situations, I found the second viewing much more entertaining because, knowing what was coming, I wasn’t as put off by several key what-the-huh moments of the screenplay (e.g., hiding a spaceship from a nonspace-faring race not in space where they couldn’t possibly see it but instead offshore right by them where it’s quite possible they will see it). I touched upon some of those moments and the increasingly bizarre backlash against fans who didn’t like the film from fans who did in a couple of previous blogs, “JJ Trek’s New Clothes” and “Deja Vu(lcan).” To recap, my objections to the film are not a manifestation of some sort of subconscious problem with everything beyond the 1969 cancellation of the original series; in fact, my problems with STID often have little to do with Star Trek as such (certainly nothing to do with judging whether it’s “really” Star Trek...I find that notion as annoying as judging whether someone is “really” a geek); rather, my problems are frequently with issues that I would be critical of regardless of the specific film in question or the genre to which it belonged. In a nutshell, plot points that make no freaking sense, like the parenthetically aforementioned hiding of the Enterprise underwater. It’s kind of like Batman telling Robin, “No, we’ll hide the Batmobile outside of the Batcave. No one will think of looking for it there.” Or when the Enterprise gets shot to pieces over the Moon causing it to fall almost immediately into Earth’s atmosphere. I’m no rocket scientist, but I believe there’s this little thing called “about a quarter of a million miles” between the two. If I trip on my doorstep in St. Paul, Minnesota, I don’t land outside of a pub in Warwickshire, England. I wish I did, but gravity and space and time behave in largely predictable ways, as Newton and Einstein might tell you (if they weren’t in fact still dead). I don’t like my movies to disregard all common sense or matters of scale. If JJ Abrams made a movie about climbing Everest, would the lead character start out in L.A., get on a bus, and an hour later get dropped off at base camp? Would the mountain be five miles up but only two miles down? These things matter. A story that makes sense matters. That’s the difference between a well-crafted screenplay and just a series of exciting set pieces that barely hold together under the weight of all the details being ignored to make them happen.
All that said: Scotty. He kinda steals the show. Simon Pegg is just brilliant in this role. And I noticed one line he has that I missed the significance of the first time round. Complaining about having the Enterprise underwater, he says that they’be been there since the night before, which implies they went underwater under cover of darkness, which is a nice detail. Still no explanation of why they’d go underwater in the first place, but still a nice detail that also implies they were thinking of leaving under cover of darkness as well.
Other quick thoughts: I want to write fan fiction about that navigator with the shaved head, because she looks like she could kick some serious ass. I hope she’s back in the third film.
Dammit, I miss Pike already. Greenwood nailed that role to the wall and then hit it with three bull’s-eyes, if I may mix metaphors, and I believe I just did. Although many people didn’t like how Kirk’s a bit of a dickweed in JJ Trek, I didn’t mind it, especially while watching him get his ass chewed by Pike. Of course, that fabulous scene in STID is undercut by the fact that Kirk almost immediately gets the Enterprise back again after Pike, once again, gets attacked by a vengeful madman. If I were Kirk’s superior officer in that universe, I would never punish him, because you’d know within moments you’d be getting eaten by a Gorn or something, and Kirk would suddenly be a hero again. Just let the dickweed do what he wants, admiral, it’s not worth the risk.
After the torpedoes detonate aboard the Vengeance, I know things got pretty hairy aboard the Enterprise, what with there only being about a mile and a half between the Earth and the Moon, but maybe if someone had told Khan that they still had his crew alive, he wouldn’t have plunged the Vengeance into San Francisco, killing untold thousands. Or maybe he would have, because, you know, vengeful madman.
Concurrently with seeing the film again, I was reading the novelization by Alan Dean Foster. He tried to cover up lots of plot holes with a geeky spackle of technobabble and a fresh coat of retcon, but there’s only so much you can do with some of these things. He didn’t touch the Enterprise underwater. I mean, come on.
But anyone who loved the movie should read the book...there are bits here and there where I don’t know if they’re Foster’s work or represent scenes in the script that didn’t make the final cut—maybe they’re in some of those deleted scenes you may or may not get to see by tracking down all the versions of the Blu-ray—but they are some nice little touches. I won’t spoil them with examples, you can look for them like Easter eggs.
July 25, 2013
A Mixed Milestone
Back in 2004 my Star Trek story “Full Circle” appeared in Strange New Worlds VII. It was my first sale to a major publisher, Simon & Schuster. I’d had a handful of publishing credits in regional magazines and poetry anthologies previously, but being included in a book from one of the Big Six was a step up.
Present day: I just updated my website to include my latest publication, the short story “The Squire and the Valet” in the anthology ReDeus: Native Lands. Thanks to the one-two-three punch of the ReDeus anthologies Divine Tales, Beyond Borders, and Native Lands published over the last year by Crazy 8 Press, I’ve reached a milestone of ten anthologies, including my Star Trek novella Honor in the Night in Myriad Universes: Shattered Light in 2010.
It’s a bittersweet achievement, unfortunately. The publishing industry is in a state of upheaval, and a few months ago I lost my day job as an acquisitions editor. So although my new anthology debuts at Shore Leave 35 the first weekend in August, for the first time since 2006 I won’t be at the con to sign books, meet fans, and hang out in the bar with the amazing group of writers—you guys know who you are—who have become dear friends over the last seven years.
One doesn’t get into the writing business because it’s easy, however, so this is just another rickety rung on a tall ladder I continue climbing. My eleventh anthology, A Quiet Shelter There, including my story “On My Side,” should be out in 2014 from Hadley Rille Books. And I’ve got some interesting irons in the fire that I will post about when and if they come to fruition. Stay tuned.
Present day: I just updated my website to include my latest publication, the short story “The Squire and the Valet” in the anthology ReDeus: Native Lands. Thanks to the one-two-three punch of the ReDeus anthologies Divine Tales, Beyond Borders, and Native Lands published over the last year by Crazy 8 Press, I’ve reached a milestone of ten anthologies, including my Star Trek novella Honor in the Night in Myriad Universes: Shattered Light in 2010.
It’s a bittersweet achievement, unfortunately. The publishing industry is in a state of upheaval, and a few months ago I lost my day job as an acquisitions editor. So although my new anthology debuts at Shore Leave 35 the first weekend in August, for the first time since 2006 I won’t be at the con to sign books, meet fans, and hang out in the bar with the amazing group of writers—you guys know who you are—who have become dear friends over the last seven years.
One doesn’t get into the writing business because it’s easy, however, so this is just another rickety rung on a tall ladder I continue climbing. My eleventh anthology, A Quiet Shelter There, including my story “On My Side,” should be out in 2014 from Hadley Rille Books. And I’ve got some interesting irons in the fire that I will post about when and if they come to fruition. Stay tuned.
June 25, 2013
Theremin, A Fascinating Life Clumsily Told
I recently watched the documentary Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey about the life of Leon Theremin, pioneer of electronic music. If you don’t recognize the name, I guarantee you’d recognize the sound of his most famous invention, the theremin, a musical instrument which is played without touching it.
Its unearthly tones have been used in music as varied as the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” and the soundtracks of Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound and Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still.
The documentary earned rave reviews, including “two thumbs up” from Sisko & Ebert as well as Best Documentary at the 1994 Sundance film festival. I had long looked forward to seeing it due to my interest in Theremin and the movie’s reputation.
I was, however, disappointed to find the documentary uneven and unclear. Without narration, it moves haphazardly through Theremin’s life, making a jumble of his complicated history. Viewers are often left to piece together the disparate events on their own.
Some of the subjects interviewed seem to have been given little direction or editing; Brian Wilson, tapped to discuss his use of the theremin in the iconic “Good Vibrations,” is allowed to ramble on with his trademark incoherency far longer than is useful.
Theremin arrived in the Unites States in 1927. The film makes extensive use of Clara Rockmore, arguably the greatest theremin player ever, but even with her lengthy interviews much is unclear. I don’t recall Theremin’s first wife being mentioned in the film. Theremin proposed to Rockmore (she said no), but when? When did he divorce his first wife? He married his second wife sometime in the mid-1930s, but it’s unclear.
In 1938 Theremin disappeared back to Russia under mysterious circumstances, and his wife, friends, and associates could not find out what had happened. His life in the hands of the Soviets from that time forward has some astonishing twists and turns that are carelessly related. There were times I almost wanted to shout questions at the screen to try to get an understanding of when things were happening.
Although rumored to have been executed, he was eventually discovered to be alive by Rockmore and her husband, but it’s unclear when. I’ll not list any further spoilers, but suffice to say it sometimes comes across that the filmmaker didn’t do research to illuminate any details beyond what his interview subjects told him. This is complicated by the elderly Theremin’s shaky and hard-to-follow English.
All that said, I would still recommend people interested in the subject to see the documentary. The period footage and the new interview footage are fascinating even when you can’t fit together the jumbled jigsaw puzzle of his tragic life.
Its unearthly tones have been used in music as varied as the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” and the soundtracks of Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound and Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still.
The documentary earned rave reviews, including “two thumbs up” from Sisko & Ebert as well as Best Documentary at the 1994 Sundance film festival. I had long looked forward to seeing it due to my interest in Theremin and the movie’s reputation.
I was, however, disappointed to find the documentary uneven and unclear. Without narration, it moves haphazardly through Theremin’s life, making a jumble of his complicated history. Viewers are often left to piece together the disparate events on their own.
Some of the subjects interviewed seem to have been given little direction or editing; Brian Wilson, tapped to discuss his use of the theremin in the iconic “Good Vibrations,” is allowed to ramble on with his trademark incoherency far longer than is useful.
Theremin arrived in the Unites States in 1927. The film makes extensive use of Clara Rockmore, arguably the greatest theremin player ever, but even with her lengthy interviews much is unclear. I don’t recall Theremin’s first wife being mentioned in the film. Theremin proposed to Rockmore (she said no), but when? When did he divorce his first wife? He married his second wife sometime in the mid-1930s, but it’s unclear.
In 1938 Theremin disappeared back to Russia under mysterious circumstances, and his wife, friends, and associates could not find out what had happened. His life in the hands of the Soviets from that time forward has some astonishing twists and turns that are carelessly related. There were times I almost wanted to shout questions at the screen to try to get an understanding of when things were happening.
Although rumored to have been executed, he was eventually discovered to be alive by Rockmore and her husband, but it’s unclear when. I’ll not list any further spoilers, but suffice to say it sometimes comes across that the filmmaker didn’t do research to illuminate any details beyond what his interview subjects told him. This is complicated by the elderly Theremin’s shaky and hard-to-follow English.
All that said, I would still recommend people interested in the subject to see the documentary. The period footage and the new interview footage are fascinating even when you can’t fit together the jumbled jigsaw puzzle of his tragic life.
June 16, 2013
Unnecessary Prequels, Part Two
Last week’s episode of Enemy Lines delved into The Thing (2011), the prolonged deleted scene that is the prequel to The Thing (1982). Now, spoiler alert, I’m going to spoil Prometheus. I mean really spoil it, just get up in its grille and spoil the shit out of it.
Before the release of Prometheus, Ridley Scott became annoyingly coy about whether or not he was making a prequel to Alien. Now that I’ve seen it, I understand. Prometheus glances off Alien, taking place in the same universe as the 1979 film, but it’s a different story. The problem is that it’s a story that makes no sense and is largely driven by characters with random motivations doing unbelievably stupid things.
The film opens with a pale alien/god stripping down to show us how ripped he is before consuming something that causes him to disintegrate on a genetic level. His remains mix into a scenic waterfall to make a genetic soup that will eventually simmer into humans. This makes it immediately clear to the audience that this is going to be a WTF(BILC) movie: What the fuck? (But it looks cool!)
Apparently alien-gods that are kick-ass bodybuilders and travel the galaxy seeding planets with life don’t think of just adding their genetic disintegration snack to a simple blood sample, but instead prefer a suicide approach. WTF(BILC)
Next we get some human Scientists. I cap it because that seems to be how they feel about themselves: Back off, man, we’re Scientists. They discover a star chart in various ancient artworks across multiple civilizations, which they think is an invitation. Somehow, a few dots scratched in stone is accurate enough that they’re able to find the exact match dozens of light years away. WTF(BILC)
So they travel there and high jinks ensue. I’m not going to list all the WTF(BILC) moments, because the sheer volume could break the internet. And some of the WTF stuff doesn’t even look that cool, like when they keep taking their helmets off in an alien environment which, although it has breathable air, could still be full of who knows what sort of bizarre alien shit. Which, of course, it is. But why would they think of that? They’re just a bunch of Scientists.
Let’s just do a quick sampler list of further WTFs:
1. Two guys freak out and want to go back to the ship when the team finds some dead aliens. Even though they’ve mapped the site, and one of the freaked-out guys was in charge of the mapping tech, the two get lost.
2. When the rest of the team evacuates the site, they think the other guys must have already gone back to the ship even though all the ground vehicles are still there.
3. When the guys that got left behind find a creepy alien worm/snake, one of them—and remember, they were scared of DEAD aliens—talks to it like it’s a puppy and tries to touch it. Then things get squishy.
4. When one of the Scientists ends up pregnant with an alien squid baby, the crew is going to put her in suspended animation until they get back to Earth. Instead, she beats up a couple people so she can escape and perform a C-section on herself (see next WTF) . . . and then everyone acts like it never happened. No one says, “You hit me in the head when I was trying to save you. That shit’s messed up.” Or “Dude, what’s with the line of sutures on your stomach?” Or “So, boy? Girl? Other? Where are you registered?”
5. Scientist with alien squid baby ducks into a robotic med unit so she can take care of business, but the unit isn’t programmed for C-sections because it’s set up to treat males only. But the unit is the personal property of Charlize Theron’s character, whose skin-tight suits make it clear that she is in fact a woman. This raises two possibilities: a) that she is secretly a man, but that’s a pretty big WTF, even for this movie, or 2) that she is secretly an android (a distinct possibility that is hinted at in a couple other scenes) and she only has this as a way to say, "See, I'm a person, I need a robotic med unit in case something happens to me that would hurt a human but not an android, because I'm a person not an android. Why are we talking about androids?" Either way, however, it’s pointless, because she gets killed (see next WTF) and the whole thing was just awkwardly injected into the story (like an alien squid baby) to provide a way to extract an alien squid baby.
6. Big alien spaceship crashes and is rolling over toward C-section and Secret Android/Man. They run in the direction it’s falling, like dumb animals on the road running in the direction the car behind them is driving. Finally C-section runs perpendicular to the ship and gets to watch Secret Android/Man get crushed because she never thinks to turn left or right. But then when the ship stops rolling and tips over, C-section goes back to moving in the direction it’s falling and it lands on top of her, but she lucks out and there’s enough of a space beneath it that she survives.
7. Along the way it’s revealed that the alien/god bodybuilders had second thoughts about humans and were at this site preparing deadly alien creatures to bring back to Earth to exterminate us. Which then leaves them with no motivation at all to have ever revealed the location of their weapons lab to early civilizations which ended up in cave paintings and set this whole story in motion in the first place.
8. Turns out the whole mission was actually underwritten by a terminally old guy hoping the alien/god bodybuilders would cure him. Instead of being played by someone old, he’s played by a guy in obvious old-age makeup, I assume to trick the audience into expecting he will be regenerated at some point so that it’s more of a surprise when he gets offed by the roid-raging alien/god they wake from suspended animation. Not cool.
9. The alien/god bodybuilder doesn’t die at the controls of his ship like you expect to match the scene in the derelict ship in Alien, so this isn’t even the same ship or batch of aliens as in that film, making the link to Alien so tangential that it comes across as a shameless marketing ploy to package an independent story as being related to a beloved film classic.
Well. I’ve already gone on far longer than I meant to, and I only scratched the surface of all the nonsensical events that drive this film. But it sure looks cool.
Before the release of Prometheus, Ridley Scott became annoyingly coy about whether or not he was making a prequel to Alien. Now that I’ve seen it, I understand. Prometheus glances off Alien, taking place in the same universe as the 1979 film, but it’s a different story. The problem is that it’s a story that makes no sense and is largely driven by characters with random motivations doing unbelievably stupid things.
The film opens with a pale alien/god stripping down to show us how ripped he is before consuming something that causes him to disintegrate on a genetic level. His remains mix into a scenic waterfall to make a genetic soup that will eventually simmer into humans. This makes it immediately clear to the audience that this is going to be a WTF(BILC) movie: What the fuck? (But it looks cool!)
Apparently alien-gods that are kick-ass bodybuilders and travel the galaxy seeding planets with life don’t think of just adding their genetic disintegration snack to a simple blood sample, but instead prefer a suicide approach. WTF(BILC)
Next we get some human Scientists. I cap it because that seems to be how they feel about themselves: Back off, man, we’re Scientists. They discover a star chart in various ancient artworks across multiple civilizations, which they think is an invitation. Somehow, a few dots scratched in stone is accurate enough that they’re able to find the exact match dozens of light years away. WTF(BILC)
So they travel there and high jinks ensue. I’m not going to list all the WTF(BILC) moments, because the sheer volume could break the internet. And some of the WTF stuff doesn’t even look that cool, like when they keep taking their helmets off in an alien environment which, although it has breathable air, could still be full of who knows what sort of bizarre alien shit. Which, of course, it is. But why would they think of that? They’re just a bunch of Scientists.
Let’s just do a quick sampler list of further WTFs:
1. Two guys freak out and want to go back to the ship when the team finds some dead aliens. Even though they’ve mapped the site, and one of the freaked-out guys was in charge of the mapping tech, the two get lost.
2. When the rest of the team evacuates the site, they think the other guys must have already gone back to the ship even though all the ground vehicles are still there.
3. When the guys that got left behind find a creepy alien worm/snake, one of them—and remember, they were scared of DEAD aliens—talks to it like it’s a puppy and tries to touch it. Then things get squishy.
4. When one of the Scientists ends up pregnant with an alien squid baby, the crew is going to put her in suspended animation until they get back to Earth. Instead, she beats up a couple people so she can escape and perform a C-section on herself (see next WTF) . . . and then everyone acts like it never happened. No one says, “You hit me in the head when I was trying to save you. That shit’s messed up.” Or “Dude, what’s with the line of sutures on your stomach?” Or “So, boy? Girl? Other? Where are you registered?”
5. Scientist with alien squid baby ducks into a robotic med unit so she can take care of business, but the unit isn’t programmed for C-sections because it’s set up to treat males only. But the unit is the personal property of Charlize Theron’s character, whose skin-tight suits make it clear that she is in fact a woman. This raises two possibilities: a) that she is secretly a man, but that’s a pretty big WTF, even for this movie, or 2) that she is secretly an android (a distinct possibility that is hinted at in a couple other scenes) and she only has this as a way to say, "See, I'm a person, I need a robotic med unit in case something happens to me that would hurt a human but not an android, because I'm a person not an android. Why are we talking about androids?" Either way, however, it’s pointless, because she gets killed (see next WTF) and the whole thing was just awkwardly injected into the story (like an alien squid baby) to provide a way to extract an alien squid baby.
6. Big alien spaceship crashes and is rolling over toward C-section and Secret Android/Man. They run in the direction it’s falling, like dumb animals on the road running in the direction the car behind them is driving. Finally C-section runs perpendicular to the ship and gets to watch Secret Android/Man get crushed because she never thinks to turn left or right. But then when the ship stops rolling and tips over, C-section goes back to moving in the direction it’s falling and it lands on top of her, but she lucks out and there’s enough of a space beneath it that she survives.
7. Along the way it’s revealed that the alien/god bodybuilders had second thoughts about humans and were at this site preparing deadly alien creatures to bring back to Earth to exterminate us. Which then leaves them with no motivation at all to have ever revealed the location of their weapons lab to early civilizations which ended up in cave paintings and set this whole story in motion in the first place.
8. Turns out the whole mission was actually underwritten by a terminally old guy hoping the alien/god bodybuilders would cure him. Instead of being played by someone old, he’s played by a guy in obvious old-age makeup, I assume to trick the audience into expecting he will be regenerated at some point so that it’s more of a surprise when he gets offed by the roid-raging alien/god they wake from suspended animation. Not cool.
9. The alien/god bodybuilder doesn’t die at the controls of his ship like you expect to match the scene in the derelict ship in Alien, so this isn’t even the same ship or batch of aliens as in that film, making the link to Alien so tangential that it comes across as a shameless marketing ploy to package an independent story as being related to a beloved film classic.
Well. I’ve already gone on far longer than I meant to, and I only scratched the surface of all the nonsensical events that drive this film. But it sure looks cool.
June 9, 2013
Unnecessary Prequels, Part One
I just got around to watching The Thing (2011) and Prometheus, prequels to the fan-favorite science fiction films The Thing (1982) and Alien. Yes, the prequel to The Thing is called The Thing. More on that later. But first . . . spoiler alert. You know the drill.
Presumably one makes a prequel to answer questions the viewers had after seeing the original film. Like after The Thing (1982), when viewers wondered what exactly happened at the Norwegian Antarctic camp which first found the shapeshifting alien and dug it up from the ice. Or when otherwise-satisfied viewers left the theater after Alien and said, “But who made humans?” Oh, wait, no one asked that after Alien. Ever.
First up, The Thing (2011). The short answer to “What happened at the Norwegian camp?” is “The exact same freakin’ thing as at the American camp except with a female lead.” In some ways this is a remake, as it hits almost every plot point of the original, except with Norwegian accents and occasional subtitles. Some of the dialogue is almost verbatim. It’s a preremakequel.
They tried to open it up a bit more by going inside the alien ship, but it’s not much of a diversion, since we already know they kept the alien from escaping, since the ship was still there in the ice in the original film. Which is, of course, the challenge of making such a direct prequel . . . the audience already knows the ending.
Nevertheless, it’s a surprisingly effective film despite the fact that it’s the same plot and is completely unnecessary. As we get to the final scenes, they are, inevitably, the opening scenes of the 1982 movie. By giving it the same name (see, I told you I would get back to this), the filmmakers seem to be asking us to accept that it’s just one big movie. The problem is that the reason why the Norwegian camp scenes in the 1982 film were so effective was precisely because we didn’t know what had happened there. The prequel deflates that by spelling it all out. No one who hasn’t watch The Thing (1982) should watch the prequel first, because it’s just one long spoiler.
There is some cleverness to how the producers of the prequel nestled it into the original. I’ll admit that when the prequel first moves into the room with the alien in the ice block, which we saw in the original film after all the destruction, it’s kinda cool. Not everything fits, however; when Mac visits the ship in the ice in the 1982 film, they don't see the two snowcats that should be there, one with a charred alien corpse, the other with a frozen dead woman. In the end, however, the entire prequel feels like a really long deleted scene from the original. And like most deleted scenes, even when they’re fun to watch, you’re not really missing anything by skipping over them.
Next week: Unnecessary Prequels, Part Two. (See what I did there? I’m doing a sequel about prequels.)
Presumably one makes a prequel to answer questions the viewers had after seeing the original film. Like after The Thing (1982), when viewers wondered what exactly happened at the Norwegian Antarctic camp which first found the shapeshifting alien and dug it up from the ice. Or when otherwise-satisfied viewers left the theater after Alien and said, “But who made humans?” Oh, wait, no one asked that after Alien. Ever.
First up, The Thing (2011). The short answer to “What happened at the Norwegian camp?” is “The exact same freakin’ thing as at the American camp except with a female lead.” In some ways this is a remake, as it hits almost every plot point of the original, except with Norwegian accents and occasional subtitles. Some of the dialogue is almost verbatim. It’s a preremakequel.
They tried to open it up a bit more by going inside the alien ship, but it’s not much of a diversion, since we already know they kept the alien from escaping, since the ship was still there in the ice in the original film. Which is, of course, the challenge of making such a direct prequel . . . the audience already knows the ending.
Nevertheless, it’s a surprisingly effective film despite the fact that it’s the same plot and is completely unnecessary. As we get to the final scenes, they are, inevitably, the opening scenes of the 1982 movie. By giving it the same name (see, I told you I would get back to this), the filmmakers seem to be asking us to accept that it’s just one big movie. The problem is that the reason why the Norwegian camp scenes in the 1982 film were so effective was precisely because we didn’t know what had happened there. The prequel deflates that by spelling it all out. No one who hasn’t watch The Thing (1982) should watch the prequel first, because it’s just one long spoiler.
There is some cleverness to how the producers of the prequel nestled it into the original. I’ll admit that when the prequel first moves into the room with the alien in the ice block, which we saw in the original film after all the destruction, it’s kinda cool. Not everything fits, however; when Mac visits the ship in the ice in the 1982 film, they don't see the two snowcats that should be there, one with a charred alien corpse, the other with a frozen dead woman. In the end, however, the entire prequel feels like a really long deleted scene from the original. And like most deleted scenes, even when they’re fun to watch, you’re not really missing anything by skipping over them.
Next week: Unnecessary Prequels, Part Two. (See what I did there? I’m doing a sequel about prequels.)
June 2, 2013
Deja Vu(lcan)
Last week I commented on my growing frustration that a number of Trek fans who have enjoyed the new film are dismissing those fans who didn’t enjoy the new film as just suffering from original-series sour grapes. I’ve now realized this is deja vu all over again.
While going through notes on possible blog posts, I rediscovered my unfinished review of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I never finished writing the review because my daughter and I talked about the film in our podcast, Generations Geek (Episode 4: The Day the Geek Stood Still). There in the review was a rant about a similar topic, but with Star Trek scratched out and Middle-earth written in. So, begin Hobbit rant:
I need to comment on an article with a title that really burned my lembas: “Dislike Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit? Then You Don’t Know Tolkien.” Granted, the article is a little more focused than the headline would lead you to believe, replying to specific negative comments from professional critics, but it still rubs me the wrong way.
I first read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in high school and although I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve reread them, I’d guess well over a dozen times (including once aloud to my then baby daughter). I’ve also read, among other things, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The Children of Hurin, and the twelve-volume The History of Middle Earth. I’m very excited that the fiftieth anniversary edition of The Lord of the Rings finally says “They can go ten miles north to Brandywine Bridge” instead of “twenty miles.” (Those of you who know what I’m talking about KNOW what I’m talking about. Am I right?)
I own the animated The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but not the animated The Return of the King because it’s a train wreck (people who think Bakshi’s LOTR film is bad really need to check out this “kid-friendly” version of the last book by the same people who made the lovely cartoon Hobbit: it includes orcs singing the song “Where There’s a Whip There’s a Way,” which is simultaneously the worst Middle-earth song ever and the best S&M song ever). I own both Jackson’s theatrical and expanded versions of his Lord of the Rings movies.
All of that background is to say, ZOMG, if I wasn’t thrilled with the first Hobbit movie, don’t presume that means I don’t know my frakkin’ Tolkien. I’m not going to tell people they shouldn’t like the film simply because of my own lukewarm response, so do me the courtesy of not dictating that I should like it by questioning my Tolkienitude if I don’t.
End Hobbit rant. So, people, please: if you enjoy a film, that’s great, you got your money’s worth. Tell me why you love the movie, I’d like to hear your opinion. But if I don’t like the film, don’t undercut my point of view by implying I just don’t understand or I’m not open to new interpretations. Listen to what I’m saying about the movie. The film you love may not be perfect, but I’m not saying you shouldn’t still enjoy it. As filmgoers, we weight the various elements of a movie in different ways, so our scales will balance out differently. One person’s minor flaw is another person’s final straw.
While going through notes on possible blog posts, I rediscovered my unfinished review of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I never finished writing the review because my daughter and I talked about the film in our podcast, Generations Geek (Episode 4: The Day the Geek Stood Still). There in the review was a rant about a similar topic, but with Star Trek scratched out and Middle-earth written in. So, begin Hobbit rant:
I need to comment on an article with a title that really burned my lembas: “Dislike Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit? Then You Don’t Know Tolkien.” Granted, the article is a little more focused than the headline would lead you to believe, replying to specific negative comments from professional critics, but it still rubs me the wrong way.
I first read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in high school and although I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve reread them, I’d guess well over a dozen times (including once aloud to my then baby daughter). I’ve also read, among other things, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The Children of Hurin, and the twelve-volume The History of Middle Earth. I’m very excited that the fiftieth anniversary edition of The Lord of the Rings finally says “They can go ten miles north to Brandywine Bridge” instead of “twenty miles.” (Those of you who know what I’m talking about KNOW what I’m talking about. Am I right?)
I own the animated The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but not the animated The Return of the King because it’s a train wreck (people who think Bakshi’s LOTR film is bad really need to check out this “kid-friendly” version of the last book by the same people who made the lovely cartoon Hobbit: it includes orcs singing the song “Where There’s a Whip There’s a Way,” which is simultaneously the worst Middle-earth song ever and the best S&M song ever). I own both Jackson’s theatrical and expanded versions of his Lord of the Rings movies.
All of that background is to say, ZOMG, if I wasn’t thrilled with the first Hobbit movie, don’t presume that means I don’t know my frakkin’ Tolkien. I’m not going to tell people they shouldn’t like the film simply because of my own lukewarm response, so do me the courtesy of not dictating that I should like it by questioning my Tolkienitude if I don’t.
End Hobbit rant. So, people, please: if you enjoy a film, that’s great, you got your money’s worth. Tell me why you love the movie, I’d like to hear your opinion. But if I don’t like the film, don’t undercut my point of view by implying I just don’t understand or I’m not open to new interpretations. Listen to what I’m saying about the movie. The film you love may not be perfect, but I’m not saying you shouldn’t still enjoy it. As filmgoers, we weight the various elements of a movie in different ways, so our scales will balance out differently. One person’s minor flaw is another person’s final straw.
May 28, 2013
JJ Trek's New Clothes
Another Trek fan has posted that most people who don’t like Star Trek Into Darkness just haven’t accepted that this is an alternate timeline. This attitude is really starting to tick me off.
Nearly all of my problems with the movie have to do with its problems as a movie, regardless of it being Trek in general or its specific timeline. If you like the movie, that’s fine, I’m glad when people like Trek, but don’t dismiss my criticisms with a whitewash of “Oh, you just don’t like it because it’s not Shatner and Nimoy.”
I don’t care that it’s not Shatner and Nimoy, and I certainly don’t care that it’s set in an alternate timeline. I wrote an alternate timeline Trek novella for Simon & Schuster! I enjoy alternate timelines, and rebooting the franchise in an alternate timeline was the right decision.
But when I read a book or watch a movie, I hope for a certain level of quality in the writing. That includes believable characters with relatable emotional arcs, as well as consistent plot points that evolve organically as complications develop from the actions of the characters.
As a film, Into Darkness fails upon those points, and any other details about timelines or actors are irrelevant. Now come the spoilers. Hiding the Enterprise underwater made no sense. Hiding cryopods in photon torpedoes made no sense. Relying on a madman frozen for three hundred years to design new weapons made no sense. Harrison fleeing to the Klingon homeworld made no sense. The idea that a giant warship could be built in secret made no sense. And so on.
That’s just sloppy writing. You can either try to persuade me that I’m mistaken with details from the movie or even just say I’m taking it too seriously. But please don’t brush me aside as some sort of disgruntled fanatic, which is really just sticking your fingers in your ears and saying “Lalalalalalalala” in a Pee-Wee Herman voice. Feel free to enjoy the movie in spite of these flaws, but don't disrespect my reasons for not liking the movie.
Nearly all of my problems with the movie have to do with its problems as a movie, regardless of it being Trek in general or its specific timeline. If you like the movie, that’s fine, I’m glad when people like Trek, but don’t dismiss my criticisms with a whitewash of “Oh, you just don’t like it because it’s not Shatner and Nimoy.”
I don’t care that it’s not Shatner and Nimoy, and I certainly don’t care that it’s set in an alternate timeline. I wrote an alternate timeline Trek novella for Simon & Schuster! I enjoy alternate timelines, and rebooting the franchise in an alternate timeline was the right decision.
But when I read a book or watch a movie, I hope for a certain level of quality in the writing. That includes believable characters with relatable emotional arcs, as well as consistent plot points that evolve organically as complications develop from the actions of the characters.
As a film, Into Darkness fails upon those points, and any other details about timelines or actors are irrelevant. Now come the spoilers. Hiding the Enterprise underwater made no sense. Hiding cryopods in photon torpedoes made no sense. Relying on a madman frozen for three hundred years to design new weapons made no sense. Harrison fleeing to the Klingon homeworld made no sense. The idea that a giant warship could be built in secret made no sense. And so on.
That’s just sloppy writing. You can either try to persuade me that I’m mistaken with details from the movie or even just say I’m taking it too seriously. But please don’t brush me aside as some sort of disgruntled fanatic, which is really just sticking your fingers in your ears and saying “Lalalalalalalala” in a Pee-Wee Herman voice. Feel free to enjoy the movie in spite of these flaws, but don't disrespect my reasons for not liking the movie.
May 13, 2013
Labels, Schmabels. A Semi-Coherent Monday Rant.
Labels can be helpful if you’re shopping for clothing or food. If food companies are made to disclose the irradiated baby seal hearts they’re using as sausage filler on the label, that’s quite helpful for the irradiated baby seal heart intolerant. But political labels…pshaw. Yes, I said “pshaw,” and I don’t regret it. I’m tired of them and what they stand for.
I admittedly fall on the left side of the spectrum. I usually call myself a liberal. Some say “leftist.” Some say “lefty,” using the diminutive form with a sneer, as if you really make a cogent political point by adding that long-e sound, when what you really do is make yourself look like a puffed-up name-caller.
The problem with political labels—and what are the parties but the biggest brand-name labels?—is they elevate ideology above thought. Voters reflexively disparage their opposing labels, and politicians do stupid things to maintain their own labels. It’s part of the overall dumbing down of American politics. That said, I’m going to do some of my own dumbing down to make my point.
The Republicans lean so far to the right that if you went into a GOP convention and shouted “Free government cheese!” most of them would smash their foreheads on the right side of the door frames trying to flee the nanny state. And most of them would have stuffed their pockets with cheese.
The Democrats have moved so far over to compromise that most of them seem like also-ran Republicans. They still trumpet a few key planks from the platform so that you know they’re Democrats, but the notes they blow are shrill and random. They’re just all over the place, like a roomful of frightened cats with a lot of Hollywood friends.
The Libertarians stand smugly aside because they have actually convinced themselves that simply because they are not the other two parties that it means their self-serving nonsense is better than all the other self-serving nonsense. It’s like whooping cough congratulating itself for not being small pox or diphtheria.
There are other parties, but they tend toward the single issue. Like the Jeans That Fit Party, whose platform consists of demanding jeans that fit both a tubby midsection and stubby legs. I’m not a card-carrying member, but I did hand out flyers for them once.
I’m increasingly convinced our government would do better if it were selected from a playground. Take a group of kids playing well together and put them in office. That sense of fair play, kindness, and community would serve us well. We’d probably play nicer with the rest of the world, and we’d also get longer recesses and free pudding. That’s a win-win scenario.
So eff politics by label and catchphrase. I want to start the Nuanced Party. We’ll never win an election because our policy answers will be too long for sound bites. I’m going to launch the party by leading a march on Washington where we carry blank signs so that people have to really think about what should be on them.
But now I gotta go. I need to label my comic book storage boxes.
I admittedly fall on the left side of the spectrum. I usually call myself a liberal. Some say “leftist.” Some say “lefty,” using the diminutive form with a sneer, as if you really make a cogent political point by adding that long-e sound, when what you really do is make yourself look like a puffed-up name-caller.
The problem with political labels—and what are the parties but the biggest brand-name labels?—is they elevate ideology above thought. Voters reflexively disparage their opposing labels, and politicians do stupid things to maintain their own labels. It’s part of the overall dumbing down of American politics. That said, I’m going to do some of my own dumbing down to make my point.
The Republicans lean so far to the right that if you went into a GOP convention and shouted “Free government cheese!” most of them would smash their foreheads on the right side of the door frames trying to flee the nanny state. And most of them would have stuffed their pockets with cheese.
The Democrats have moved so far over to compromise that most of them seem like also-ran Republicans. They still trumpet a few key planks from the platform so that you know they’re Democrats, but the notes they blow are shrill and random. They’re just all over the place, like a roomful of frightened cats with a lot of Hollywood friends.
The Libertarians stand smugly aside because they have actually convinced themselves that simply because they are not the other two parties that it means their self-serving nonsense is better than all the other self-serving nonsense. It’s like whooping cough congratulating itself for not being small pox or diphtheria.
There are other parties, but they tend toward the single issue. Like the Jeans That Fit Party, whose platform consists of demanding jeans that fit both a tubby midsection and stubby legs. I’m not a card-carrying member, but I did hand out flyers for them once.
I’m increasingly convinced our government would do better if it were selected from a playground. Take a group of kids playing well together and put them in office. That sense of fair play, kindness, and community would serve us well. We’d probably play nicer with the rest of the world, and we’d also get longer recesses and free pudding. That’s a win-win scenario.
So eff politics by label and catchphrase. I want to start the Nuanced Party. We’ll never win an election because our policy answers will be too long for sound bites. I’m going to launch the party by leading a march on Washington where we carry blank signs so that people have to really think about what should be on them.
But now I gotta go. I need to label my comic book storage boxes.
April 7, 2013
Some Publishing Nuts and Bolts
Here’s a little behind-the-scenes publishing info. Photo insert placement is one of the hundreds of odd little decisions I make as a book’s editor. Books aren’t simply a bound-up stack of single pages; they’re a bound-up stack of little booklets; each little booklet, called a signature, is a folded group of a certain number of pages. The number of pages per signature can be 16, 32, or 48 (or others, but these are what I deal with the most).
When a book has a photo insert, that special signature of glossy paper gets placed between the regular text signatures. At some point, a person from production will come to see me and say something like, “Where do you want the insert? The best breaks are at pages 138/139 and 234/235.” The page numbers might not match what you would expect from the signature size if the book has front matter paginated with roman numerals.
The preferred placement for an insert is usually near the middle of the book, but it’s also nice if it doesn’t break a sentence, that is if the last signature before the insert ends with a complete sentence instead of in the middle of a sentence that’s concluded after the insert. It doesn’t always work out this way. Sometimes the only clean signature break is on, say, page 48 of a 336 page book, and it would just look weird having the insert that close to the front of the book.
Under those circumstances, I’ll pick the signature break closest to the middle, but with some more preferences involved. If I have to break a sentence, fine, but I wouldn’t want to interrupt a hyphenated word. That just seems rude somehow. These are the kinds of esoteric aesthetic decisions that go into making a book. I think they help, at least subliminally, the end experience for the reader by providing a nice flow while reading.
