It’s all about Warcraft.
Since last September, I’ve been writing a movie column for 411mania.com. Perhaps you’ve read it. It was a blast to work on – if nothing else, it was a hell of a convenient excuse to load up my Netflix queue and roll around in all the awesome. I caught some flack for [...]
Back in 2006, I finally got on the technology trolley and bought an iPod. At the time, I thought I would just use it to replace my portable CD player and case o’ CDs that I lugged to work every morning. That was before I ever heard the word podcast.
But hear about them I did, and being just a teeny bit on the nerdy side, I was drawn to shows like Slice of SciFi and its cooler, drunken cousin Wingin’ It. Through those shows, I learned about podiobooks, which, honestly, sounded kind of stupid to me. Nothing sounded more awkward and cringe-inducing than listening to some wannabe writer stammer through a reading of unpublishable fiction. See, back then, I was kind of a dick.
Despite my prejudices, one promo caught my interest and wouldn’t let go. It had clones and it had conspiracies, and both the audio and the text sounded competently produced. I downloaded the first episode of J.C. Hutchins’ 7th Son: Descent and listened to a four-year-old boy murder the President of the United States, then curse out the police. I was hooked. This guy brought it. The writing was tight, the pacing was solid, and the story was excellent. This wasn’t some disgruntled hack who couldn’t take criticism having a temper tantrum into his microphone. For the first time, I saw podcasting as a way for reasonable, talented people who, for whatever reason, just couldn’t get that book deal to create an audience for their work. From Hutchins’ promos, I learned about other writers like Scott Sigler, Mur Lafferty, Tee Morris, and Matthew Wayne Selznick who were using the medium in similar ways. This wasn’t awkward and cringey; this was a revolution.
Cut to 2007. Hutchins announced that he had a seeeekrit, which most of us assumed had to do with 7th Son finally finding an publisher (it did, and it will be out later this year – but that wasn’t it). It turned out to be a separate project, one that he dubbed Code Phantom (if you were cool and listened to 7th Son, you’d totally get that). He updated us on his neck-breaking word count totals over the next few months, and some of us did our best to maintain Solidarity and keep up. (Hint: This is not possible.) The most we could learn about the project was that it would a) consume all of Hutchins’ life energy and b) rock our socks off. But details were impossible to find. It seemed like Code Phantom would somehow be bigger than the book, but why or how – nobody knew.
Cut to 2009. Code Phantom is now Personal Effects: Dark Art. And it will, in fact, rock your socks off. Here’s the description, straight from Hutchins’ site.
Personal Effects: Dark Art follows the extensive notes of art therapist Zach Taylor’s investigation into the life and madness of Martin Grace, an accused serial killer who claims to have foreseen, but not caused, his victims’ deaths.
That’s pretty sweet. But what’s that a little further down?
Zach’s investigations start with interviews and art sessions, but then take him far from the hospital grounds — and often very far from the reality that we know. The items among Grace’s personal effects are the keys to understanding his haunted past, and finding the terrifying truth Grace hoped to keep buried.
• Call the phone numbers: You’ll get a character’s voicemail.
• Google the characters and institutions in the text: You’ll find real websites.
• Examine the art and other printed artifacts included inside the cover: If you pay attention, you’ll find more information than the characters themselves discover.
I got your trans-media right here. You can read the book, scare yourself to death, and go on with your life if that’s how you like your fiction. But you can also use the items that come with the book to follow the trail of breadcrumbs to an experience completely beyond the book. The book is part of a much larger narrative, and by following along, so are you. And I haven’t even mentioned how far Rachael Webster will blow your mind across the room.
Oh, and in case you think Hutchins has forgotten his podcasting roots now that he’s all big time, fear not. He is currently producing a short story prequel called Personal Effects: Sword of Blood. If the vlurbs and coloring books aren’t enough to hook you, this will.
The best part? You can buy a copy of Personal Effects: Dark Art. Today. No waiting. No wondering. No Solidarity. Sure, you’ll miss out on the personal growth and maturation that only struggle and delayed gratification can bring, but you don’t want any of that.
Update: My mailman, he knows me, and he knows I’m right.
Now go get yours.
Update the second: If my arguments aren’t enough to convince you, maybe you’d prefer a testimonial by Victor Miller, writer of the first Friday the 13th movie. Plus, he’s like a million times scarier than Jason.
Ah, the T.E.A. Party. People who view this as an important, grass-roots protest feel that it isn’t getting the proper coverage, and they’re blaming the liberal media, who were only too happy to cover protests of President Bush’s policies. People who view this as a trumped up, astroturfed protest feel that it’s basically a Fox-sponsored media event, which warrants no more coverage than, say, the attendance at the most recent Boston Celtics game.
And both sides can turn on the news and have their views validated. Fox News tells me that there’s a revolution brewing, and tries to make news by advertising the protests. CNN tells me it’s a tempest in a tea cup, and tries to make news by picking fights with the protesters. MSNBC gets off on dick jokes. No one seems to have any interest in an intellectually honest engagement with the issue. No one is willing to give more than token, straw man consideration of the other side of the argument. It’s all theater.
I’ll offer my opinion here. You might want this to go with it. I think many of the people who attended the tea party protests are legitimately upset about their taxes. I think many of them have been told, possibly by Fox News, that they should be upset about their taxes. I think many of them wanted to see whichever Fox News personality would be attending the protest in their city. I think there is no way to accurately figure out how many of each type of person attended the protest. So I think that while these protests are newsworthy, they don’t represent a ground swell of populist rage. But I also think that the people who are legitimately upset about their taxes have both a point and a right to express it, and they don’t deserve the sophomoric mocking they’ve received, especially from would-be respected news outlets.
Here’s the problem. The only thing a network executive hears in the above paragraph is *click*. TV moves fast, and fast has no time for ‘but’ or ‘if’ – just frothingstreet preaching, and occasional counter frothing street preaching. I’m looking at you, MSNBC. Sure, I laughed at the tea bagging jokes. They were funny. Next time, write them down and send them to Comedy Central. You’re a news organization, and you should be above this. If legitimate conservatives feel that the only place they’ll get fair and balanced coverage is on Fox News, that’s where they’ll turn for their news. I’m sure there are many thoughtful conservatives who watch Fox News for the same reason I watch MSNBC. It’s slanted, but it’s my slant. Which means I risk becoming a talking-point spouting partisan hack as much as they do. I think deep down we’d both rather have a more balanced option.
This is going to be full of spoilers. If you haven’t seen the Battlestar Galactica finale yet, stop reading now.
Battlestar Galactica ended its four-year run last night. I enjoyed it (both the series and the finale) immensely from start to finish. The Interwebs, as is their custom, have exploded with ragey fists of rage. Here’s the most articulate (and most frequently referenced) example of the complaints I’ve seen, from The Sci-Fi Geek. I’ll list his complaints one by one, then offer my thoughts.
1. The flashbacks. They tied poorly back into the story and served as harsh breaks in pacing. Essentially, they were time fillers that served little purpose.
The flashbacks tell us plenty about the characters, but more importantly, they lay out the behind-the-scenes orchestration that’s been going on since day one. Laura Roslin’s flashback explains her fiercely protective nature, and shows us the decision that led to her succession to the presidency. Bill Adama’s shows us how his pride, his biggest character flaw until his life-threatening injury at the hands of Boomer, put him (and Tigh) exactly where he needed to be when the Twelve Colonies were destroyed. Baltar’s provides valuable insight into his privileged, grandstanding personality, while simultaneously playing out the central metaphor of the entire series – destruction of the parent, reinvention of the child. The Kara/Lee flashback shows us the origin of their complex lover/sibling relationship, and it provides a moving counterpoint to her departure on New Earth. Everyone is where they needed to be. All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.
2. Deus Ex Machina. Holy frakking hell, was this episode painted in it. There are so many instances of both pure happenstance and then direct divine intervention it gets hard to count. The Cylon colony is destroyed ON ACCIDENT by nukes on a dead Raptor? WHAT THE FRAK!?! The hallucinations of Baltar really are ‘angels’ appearing to him telling him what to do? And the worst of all, Kara isn’t anything interesting (like the daughter of Daniel, the recently named 13th Cylon), but is instead a shared hallucination of another angel who simply vanishes at the end.
The notion of a higher power has permeated this series. Baltar has struggled from the day he took Helo’s Raptor seat with the notion that he has a divine destiny. The path to Earth was revealed by consulting ancient prophecies, listening to fevered visions, and collecting divine artifacts. Caprica Six, Baltar, Starbuck, Deanna, Leoben, and all of the Final Five have had conversations with at least one imaginary person providing spiritual insight. This was not a Deus Ex Machina – these angels have been active throughout the series.
3. Luddism (by the truckload). Did Michael Crichton ghost write this episode? Frak. Yes, we get that technology is evil. But in the end, because Lee Fraking Adama asks for it, the entirety of Colonial Fleet trashes their spaceships and reverts to primitive agriculural living conditions on their new home. Because that’s somehow better.
Humans survive the Fall of Caprica because of Luddite attitudes. The Galactica is not networked because Adama doesn’t want it infected with Cylon viruses. And who could blame him? An entire civilization fell because of a war with its inventions. Along the way, they find out this is not the first time that’s happened to their species. By the time they find yet another planet to live on, a decision to keep the technology would require justification, not one to junk it.
4. Poor Characterization. The greatest example of this is Cavil. He was so good in some of the last few episodes of this season (one of the few bright spots) and in the end, the man who wanted to live forever shoots himself in a panic. He makes no effort to get away or try to survive. Just yells “Frak!” puts a gun into his mouth and pulls the trigger because a firefight breaks out around him. Well, I guess if I had to watch this episode too many times, I might do the same.
Cavil hates being a skinjob. He wants his mechanical body back. He’ll settle for resurrection, because while he might be stuck in a bag of meat, it wouldn’t be a mortal one, and it gives him more time to find a way to reverse the Final Five’s alterations. The Final Five – all five of them – are the key to resurrection. When Galen kills Tory, Cavil knows it’s hopeless. He’ll die in this body. He’s nothing if not a realist.
5. Gaius Baltar and his Magic Tongue. Sounds like a porno, but what is it about this insipid, self serving little toad of a human being that makes him appealing to, well, anyone? From the ridiculousness of his harem and his ‘followers’ throughout the season, to him finally being able to speechify the terrible Cylon leader down from holding Hera hostage. I didn’t believe it at all.
From time to time in life, you’ll meet people you dislike. Those people often have friends and family who like them very much. When you encounter such characters in fiction, it is not an example of poor writing or poor characterization if the same holds true. Plenty of characters do not like Gaius Baltar. Many do. And if he’s shown himself capable of anything during the series, it’s speechifying.
6. Kara Thrace and her Special Destiny. The cover band for Hendrix is in and it’s completely unsatisfying, proving once again the original is the best. It turns out her entire special destiny is simply a cover for a Deus Ex Machina. She’s not related to Cylons or anything else that might actually make sense. She’s an angel, sent back by God, to guide the Colonists to some unnamed planet where humans have evolved on their own. This little blue planet that has a single large moon, seven continents, has 70.8% water cover, and is filled with wildlife, and whose eventual name rhymes with dearth, as in a dearth of good plot… (if you can’t guess which planet I’m talking about, you’ve got a dearth of something).
That Kara Thrace had a special destiny, revealed by prophecy, to lead humanity to its home has been repeated throughout the last two seasons. She did just that. This series has never spackled over religion with pseudo-science, so why should Kara’s destiny play out any differently?
7. Lee (Perfect Child) Adama. Because it’s Lee’s suggestion, everyone decides Luddism is the best way to go and they completely trash all modern technology, mingle with the prehistoric human population, and begin the race of man on Earth from about 150,000 years before the modern date. Why is it no one is ever able to argue against the shit the occasionally dribbles out of this man’s mouth? Why wasn’t there three seconds of someone going ‘but what about modern medicine? Sanitation? etc?’ Instead we get Romo Lampkin going ‘well, everyone’s really amenable’. *headdesk* And in the end, Lee doesn’t even want to participate in making things livable for the human race. He wants to go wander off and find his inner free spirit and see pretty things. Frak you, Lee Adama, you worthless piece of dren.
See my answer to 3. Mix it with my answer to 5. Dumping technology that has led to the destruction of your and at least two other civilizations does not become a bad idea because Lee can be kind of a prick.
8. No last Viper fight for Apollo and Starbuck. Yeah, I missed those. And there was a massive Viper/Raider battle this episode, and Hot Dog was our only major character involved in it. Ugh. Why are the two best pilots running the ground assault? Helo and Sharon could have handled that with cut backs into the Viper fight to add tension, action, and fun.
The story was about rescuing Hera, and Hera was inside the Colony. It makes more narrative sense to put Kara and Lee where the story is. If they were piloting Vipers, the dogfight would have needed more screen time, and that would have hurt the pacing more than you imagine the flashbacks did.
9. Adama’s ending. He becomes a hermit on another continent, with only Laura’s grave for company after she finally succumbs to her cancer. It…. ugh. Laura’s was the only ending I felt any emotion for at all. I loved the Laura Roslin character and I’m happy she finally got something at the end, but the way they have Adama react to her ending just killed me. He removes himself completely and is never seen again. As if the sum total of his emotional investment is just Laura. Not his son, or his crew, or humanity. I can’t imagine how what they’ve gone through would not create an unbreakable bond of community that would tie them all together for generations to come. Instead three major characters essentially just lay down and die (Laura literally, then Adama, and then Kara, who vanishes), and one who just wanders off (Lee).
Lee spent most of his life living in his father’s shadow. Near the end of the series, he stepped out of it. Adama’s decision to build his cabin and live alone doesn’t imply an emotional disconnect from his son; rather, it implies that he has accepted his new role. The old man has earned his retirement. He’s not needed anymore. His work is done, and he is leaving the new work to the next generation.
10. The 150,000 years later with the ‘Angels’. Yes, RDM and Eick, we get the fact that God intervened. And by tossing those two (formerly known as Head!Six and Head!Baltar) into modern day New York Times Square, you help reinforce that YES, God had to come down and save humanity from itself. You leave no mystery or imagination. Thank you, you pretentious hacks.
See my answer to 2. A higher power (call him God if you want, but you know he hates that name) has been visible throughout the series, taking whatever form is most useful. Plenty of mystery remains – What is this higher power? Why did it intervene this cycle? Has it tried to intervene before and failed? Will all of this happen again? I have a theory about this (which is going in another post, since this is long enough as it is), so I guess the writers left at least enough mystery and imagination for me.
From the minute I saw the first trailer, I’ve been childishly excited about Zack Snyder’s Watchmen movie. Scratch that. From the minute I read Watchmen when I was 10, I’ve been childishly excited about Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, I just didn’t have a tangible hook to hang my excitement on. Thanks to last minute coolness by the in-laws, my wife and I were able to go to the midnight show – happy birthday to me.
Tagging along with my excitement for this movie has been my terror that it would be mangled. Since Watchmen is complex, non-linear, and written by Alan Moore, this fear was reasonable. Glowing praise from Secretary of Geek Affairs nominee Wil Wheaton allayed those fears somewhat, as did the fact that the most critical reviews seemed to expose more about the writer than the movie. Note to Michael Philips – when a character’s mask is a Rorschach test, complaining that “the audience drools for justice, and while Rorschach is meant to be a psychopath, he’s our psychopath” is akin to taking one yourself on the page.
From this point on, there are going to be spoilers. You have been warned.
The movie is excellent. It nails the mood of the comic, and, just like the comic, it allows you to grab one of a number narrative threads and follow it through. I felt enormous empathy for Nite Owl, and judging by the teenage boys cheering in the theater, Rorschach resonates with his target audience. Still, I was nervous. I had read rumors of an altered ending, and while I don’t fret over details as long as the essentials are preserved, this rumored ending threatened to be a change in characterization, which I have a hard time forgiving. My only complaint in the Lord of the Rings adaptations was the treatment of Faramir. Combining characters, compressing time sequences, hell, even having elves at Helm’s Deep didn’t bother me as much as turning noble, untouchable, heroic Faramir into Boromir Lite. So when I heard a rumor that, instead of uniting humanity by dropping a giant one-eyed vagina squid on New York, Ozymandias convinces Dr. Manhattan to nuke it, I was irritated. It didn’t fit his character.
Chalk one up for ignoring Internet rumors. Ozymandias convinces Dr. Manhattan to help him create a boundless source of energy, while secretly using the result of that work to hide and detonate nuclear bombs in crucial cities, including New York. Dr. Manhattan is not complicit, so his characterization is not affected. The story is essentially unaltered – there is still a doomsday weapon, it has simply changed form. These nuclear weapons replace Ozymandias’ fake space alien of doom, the most unreasonable part of the comic, with a more logical threat that grows out of the narrative structure.
Alan Moore, as is his custom, has disavowed this adaptation of his work. His loss. Zack Snyder and company treated their source material with great respect, but were brave enough to make changes that improved the story’s internal logic and consistency. Nothing will take the place of reading the original work, but that’s not why the movie exists.
Now that this nerd watershed has passed, I will quietly bounce in childlike anticipation of the DVD with its inevitable extended director’s cut.
Beverly Stayart is the only Beverly Stayart in the history of ever.
The celebrated Ms. Stayart gained worldwide fame as “the author of numerous scholarly bulletin board posts on the heritage of the Saponi Indian Nation, as well as two poems published at a Danish website concerning the plight of baby seals in Canada.” After some ego surfing, THE Beverly Stayart discovered links that led to spam sites and pornographic videos. (Damned if I can find them, though…) This affront to the fine and noble name of Beverly Stayart could not go unanswered, and so she acted with all speed to defend it, as “[t]he name ‘Bev Stayart’ has commercial value because of her humanitarian endeavors, positive and wholesome image, and the popularity of her scholarly posts on the Internet.”
There is no way any of this is attention whoring on the part of Beverly Stayart. And there is no way I am enabling it by writing about Beverly Stayart.
Of course, all of this is absurd, since even if she can prove her claim of uniqueness, Yahoo is in no way responsible for the content of pages that turn up in its search results. But Beverly Stayart’s will sure as hell show up in a lot more now.
Seems Mr. Jean Fortune, lemonade aficionado, was told he could not have any lemonade with his Number 7 combo meal at his local Burger King restaurant. The employee expected him to believe there was no lemonade in the entire building. This was something up with which Mr. Fortune would not put, so he put his tax dollars to work and called 911.
Because why the hell not?
Listen as the 911 operator serves Mr. Fortune a slice of You’re a Stupid Moron and You Should Feel Bad Pie for dessert. The tangy tartness of her disdain is more delicious than any lemonade he might have found.
I’ll watch anything Joss Whedon makes. And it’s no secret that a central feature of nearly everything he makes is at least one powerful but damaged woman. Buffy. Faith. Tara. Willow. Fred. River. So I wasn’t surprised that the previews for Whedon’s new series Dollhouse showed its protagonist, Echo (Eliza Dushku), kicking ass and taking initials. The surprise didn’t come until Friday, when I watched the series premiere, Ghost.
Echo is an Active – her personality has been wiped, and she and others like her live in an abandoned Ikea where they sleep, shower, and wander around looking attractive and vapid. When her corporate overlords have need, they give her a personality, or some combination of personalities, that will allow her to complete a mission, after which she is returned to her vapid, slack-jawed state. If the “Women in Refrigerators” isn’t thick enough for you, Echo rescues a little girl from one at the end of the episode. Also, the foreshadowing is super subtle.
Whedon identifies himself as a feminist, and I have no reason to doubt him. If you squint and turn your head just right, you can even make out some male Actives in the background (and – Spoiler Alert – you can definitely spot one at the end of the premiere). Dollhouse is probably a too-clever-by-half metaphor to explore women’s subjugation by society, and Echo will probably break free of the control structure imposed upon her by her psychotically geeky programmer. But that’s just the problem. The probably. Dollhouse is either a parable for the choir, or it’s misogynistic as all hell. Either way, I’m gonna sit this one out.
Somewhere, there is a use for a man with an equal love for science fiction, caffeine, and 19th-century American literature. When that use is found, I will probably be playing video games, and I will miss out.
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Dave on June 9th, 2009
Tagging along with my excitement for this movie has been my terror that it would be mangled. Since Watchmen is complex, non-linear, and written by Alan Moore, 
Looks like 
Echo is an Active – her personality has been wiped, and she and others like her live in an abandoned Ikea where they sleep, shower, and wander around looking attractive and vapid. When her corporate overlords have need, they give her a personality, or some combination of personalities, that will allow her to complete a mission, after which she is returned to her vapid, slack-jawed state. If the “
