InkBlot’s Inkernet

I was talking this over with a coworker today, so I thought I’d put it out here for dicussion.  My rules of Superhero Movies aren’t necessarily proscriptive, but instead describe what Superhero Movies ought to do, if they wish to be successful.  Plenty of movies try to exceed these limitations all the time, and the results aren’t always pretty.

It’s a work in progress, so I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Rule the First:  Superhero Movies should begin with the origin story. Sounds obvious, right?  To an extent, it is.  Let’s face it, movie studios aren’t catering only to the comic book fans.  They want to draw in everyone who loves a good action hero movie.  More than this, though, that first movie really ought to focus on the origin story.  For most superheroes, that’s the most interesting, most important story there is.  Movies which try to skim over the origin to get to “the good bits” are usually cheating themselves, and us.

Rule the Second: One villian at a time. Please!  Multiple villians crowd the story, especially in the sequels.  You start with one, then the sequel gets two, part three gets four, and on, and on, and…let’s face it, looking at X-Men and Fantastic Four, Hollywood has enough trouble juggling multiple heroes, we don’t need to try throwing in multiple villians.

Actually, it might be fairer to say X-Men is the exception to the rule…sort of.  The X-Men movies were intended to be ensemble pieces, and to that end, their cast of villians didn’t do too bad.  Not as bad as the heroes.  Far too many heroes, particularly big name actors, and the writers just didn’t seem to know what to do with all of them.  That’s not a superhero problem, that’s a “writing for ensemble characters” problem, which is an entirely other post.

Rule the Third: You get one to two sequels, that’s it. Why?  It goes back to the first rule about origin stories.  Past that, your first sequel is usually adressing the fallout of the first.  Our hero accepts their new purpose, and must reconcile it with their pre-hero selves.  The second sequel usually sets up an “ultimate enemy” or other obstacle to overcome.  Some franchises compress these into the same sequel, which can cut yourself quite short.

• Superman I sets up Superman’s origin.  The sequel has Superman fighting to reconcile his dualing personas (at one point choosing Clark over Superman), while also facing his greatest enemy: General Zod.  After this, the franchise goes downhill rapidly as none of the other storylines can compete.
• Spiderman I sets up Spidey’s origin, and the first sequel deals with Peter coping with his new superhero identity.  Good enough.  Spiderman 3 tried to set up “Spidey’s Greatest Enemy,” but broke rule #2 and could decide if it was Venom, Harry Osborn or Mary Jane.  Just kidding on that last one, but really, Sandman wasn’t even in the running.  In fact, why was he even there?
• Batman’s first run had origin story, then flounders with a sequel which doesn’t really do anything.  So the next sequel brings in new villians, a new sidkick, a new main actor, and still accomplishes nothing.  So next up? More villians, more sidekicks, and superhero nipples!  Yeah, let’s stop there.
• Batman’s next run, Batman Begins, starts over with a different look at the origin story.  The sequel introduces an ultimate enemy in the Joker.  To my mind, this limits the next sequel a bit - since I can’t see a villian topping the joker in that one.  They’ll have to put the focus on Bats, either with a “fallout” story featuring a love interest, or some sort of “personal challenge” story where Batman’s greatest enemy is himself.  The comic’s Breaking the Bat story might work, if Venom didn’t look so cheesy on the big screen.  The more recent RIP storyline has some potential, if they can strip out the baggage of the comics, like the alternative bat-men, the sidekicks, etc.
• Iron Man, Hulk and Wolverine have all had their origin stories, even if Wolverine got some screen time in the X-Men movies.  Early reports from Iron Man 2 suggest it’s a fallout story.  Hulk might get a sequel if Marvel works things out with Ed Norton (note to Marvel: DO THIS!), and Wolverine is a shoe-in.

So that’s what I have so far.  Like it? Hate it? Got ideas of your own?  Post, I command thee!

Apparently, a columnist over as MSNBC has gotten a bit offended that Dell has launched a new sub-site called Della, targeting her side of the demographic pool.  Well, except that they’re targeting women with interests in fashion, fitness, time-management and possibly mobile computing?  And it looks like that’s not quite her demographic after all. Continue Reading »

I’m quite a literary nut some days, as much as I geek out about technology and computers I also geek out about literature and, on occasion, literary theory.  Egads!  So, after seeing the new Star Trek movie last weekend¹, I came across two articles I thought I’d put forward.  The first is from John Rogers at Kung Fu Monkey, Star Trek and Breaking the Rules.  The second is from Eric Burns-White at Websnark, a site I follow on a regular basis.  And yes, when you look at my posting schedule, that last sentence works, darnit!  Anyway, Eric’s rebuttal: On Treks into Heroism and Reclaiming Ashes: Star Trek and the Heroic Journey.

So you know now, they both contain spoilers! Massive, earth shattering, why-bother-to-see-the-movie-now? kind of spoilers.  You have been warned.

Oh, and I personally prefer Eric’s analysis.  As overwrought as Campbell’s Hero’s Journey is in movies today, it’s always nice to see a really clever movie come along and sneak it in right under your nose.  If you read Eric’s essay and think, “huh, I didn’t even see that!” Then JJ Abrams can pat himself on the back.

That is, of course, if he or his script writers even planned it that way.  And if they didn’t?  Well, that’s even better.

1. and so you know: yes, it rocks! ↩

I like webcomics.  They’re a bright part of my morning.  So why is it that after I’ve carefully sorted my bookmarks into folders based on when they update (daily, MWF, etc.), I still proceed to check them all, every day?

But at least I’m organized.

Because we just don’t come with owner’s manuals.  Recently, over livejournal way, an sci-fi/fantasy author posted an article on her blog about “writing the Other”, that is, writing characters of different races or genders than yourself.  Now, it seems funny for the science fiction or fantasy crowds to worry over this, but we’re not talking about bug eyed aliens, or orcs and goblins.  We’re talking normal, every day people not unlike ourselves…except for that one important difference that makes their life completely unlike anything we’ve experienced.

Let’s face it.  When you’re writing about elves, you’re usually not expecting them to actually READ your books.

So, this author took a stab at trying to encourage other authors not to shy away from such characters (as often we do, for fear of looking foolish), and even offered some tips to keep foot from mouth.  Much discussion ensued, particularly from the sort of people that fit into the  “Other” category in relation to the author.  It began well enough, with constructive criticism that explored the topic more deeply.  Then it began to segue into comparisons to the author’s own works, including one book which began with kind of a classic example of “How Not To Do It” (on purpose, being something of a theme in that book).  Which is where, from what I can tell, things began to get out of hand.

Some folks who hadn’t read the books being discussed all the way through had ill-informed opinions, some friends of the author began to intervene on her behalf, and conversation became even more heated.  You might be tempted to say, “well, that’s how this sort of thing goes.”  However, looking from the outside, I think the biggest derailment was caused more by preexisting personality conflicts - that is, friction between some people in the overall discussion that exisited well before this drama erupted.  Be aware, that’s my opinion and may or may not reflect reality.  I found the whole thing disappointing, and stayed far out of it.  If you truly wish to try and sort out the real story for yourself, there’s a chronicle of links here, or a more concise summary here.

The overall drama has been dubbed Race Fail ‘09.  Don’t let the name fool you, as acutally more useful conversation about race and understanding was had than not.  The “fail” part, as I said, seemed more about personality conflicts and errors in communication that led to battle lines being drawn, livejournals being deleted, and people being hurt.  The thing to remember, is there really aren’t any battle lines; there’s no “sides” in this.  There’s people.  People trying to understand one another.

So, I recommend to you the following discussions.  They’re closed now, but they happened over on John Scalzi’s blog: Whatever.  Scalzi had remained out of the drama until it was unceremoniously dumped on his porch step.  His initial reaction was to fire the shotgun in the air, and demand everyone off his lawn.  He was harshly criticised for this, for being dismissive of the overall topic.  After some time to calm down, and some thoughtful voices reaching out to him, Scalzi apologized and reopened discussion on his own site by inviting a few guest speakers over.

I learned a lot from these threads, and it’s given me much to think about.  I hope it will do the same for you.  I don’t ask anyone to go in there thinking, “this is the correct and only way to think about this.”  I do want you to realize this is some very well reasoned, thoughtful insights on a topic area that, frankly, I’ve never had to think about before.  But some people have….some people have no choice.  So listen to their words, their thoughts.  And consider yourself, and where you’re at in your life.

Mary Anne Mohanraj Gets You Up to Speed, Part I

Mary Anne Mohanraj Gets You Up to Speed, Part II

Taking One for the Team: K. Tempest Bradford

For all my loyal readers…er, both of you (hi, mom!)…I apologize for the interruption in service.  My hosting service has to suddenly move data centers, and DNS entries shift, and it’s chaos and confusion for a bit.  Well, a day.  Not so bad.

Anyway, I’m back online, where I was.  So, I suppose I ought to start writing something useful again.  Let me ponder this, and get back to you.

If you never gone out to see a live performance of, well, anything, I encourage you to change this.  A concert, a play, a musical, an orchestra…we can watch these things on television all the time, but live and in person can be an exhilirating experience.

OK, now the PSA is out of the way, I was checking my e-mail((one of them, at any rate)), and saw a slew of newsletters from ticket venues.  I like the thought, as performers have come to town and left town, often before I’d heard anything about it.  So I don’t mind a bit of spam from somewhere like the American Airlines Center who’s just told me Fleetwood Mac is coming in April.  If the Mac were my thing, I’d be well prepared to buy tickets when they go on sale later this month.

The Bass Hall also had a newsletter today.  I’ve probably see more productions there than the AAC, so looked at it first.  And what marvelous entertained did they want to inform me of?  What special, advance ticket purchase did they wish to extend to me, one of their loyal patrons?

The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.

At the Bass Hall.

Cheerleaders.

I haven’t fallen off the earth again, it’s just been very quiet the last month.  So, if you are here, um, look in your stockings for any digital gadgets like thumb drives, digital photo frames, etc., and make sure they’re clean.  In fact, if you haven’t got one, find a decent anti-virus for your home computer.  You could do worse than AVG-Free.  You could, in fact, do better if you weren’t such a cheapskate, but hey, I’m not judging.

Me and my better half about to step through the Stargate

This past weekend, my wife and I went down to the Texas Renaissance Festival in Plantersville.  One of the nation’s largest renaissance festivals (so their website claims), we’ve been going to it for over a decade now.  Some years we go in costume, usually faux-medieval outfits comprised of things we’d bought the previous year, swords and all.  Some years we just go in our skivvies, particularly if the weather looks to be bad.

This year, I thought we could try something new.  After discussing it with Cindy, we began laying plans back in October.  We nearly had things in place for Halloween, but alas had to wait for everything to arrive last week; just in time for this weekend when we went down to the festival as our very own Stargate SG Team.  So read on for details of our adventure, and full instructions on how we put our outfits together - where to buy, what to buy, and what options you have. Continue Reading »

I know, frightening…but I saw this clip on some livejournal friends’ blogs, and I was moved.  There’s a video here, and a transcript below.

Continue Reading »