I can already see the intro to this month's Month in Review post: "After two months of minimal e-mail contact with my blogging partner and one brief collaboration to reiterate that this is still our blog, I gave up on new content and just let other people write for Exfanding instead."
Look at what's been posted so far this month, and you'll see what I mean. Two guest posts, a post about guest posts, a list post I'd expected to be quick and easy (which, of course, took longer than expected), and the kind of sad filler post I swore I wouldn't be writing anymore. I am grateful for Joseph and Daniel's enthusiasm to contribute this month, because otherwise, I'm not sure I'd even be writing a post today.
Alex and I always used to marvel at how long this blog has lasted compared to the vast majority of other blogs out there. I've come to realize that the driving factor behind our successful self-perpetuation has been collaboration, plain and simple. Yes, we love to write; yes, we've got plenty of things we want to write about. There are so many other forums for us, though--message boards, social media, other websites we contribute content to, personal journals, even regular conversations independent of a digital medium allow us to express ourselves. We can geek out anywhere, and we can write in so many places. Exfanding never had a monopoly on any of that, but what has always set it apart is that it's been our place to geek out. Not mine, and not his, but ours. The fact that
we have anybody reading our material is just a surprising bonus.
That's why blogging has felt so hollow to me as of late--I'm still treating this as our blog, not my blog, which after two months of writing solo is like eating alone at a dinner for two. At an empty restaurant, no less. Last week, I put up a Facebook poll about what I should do for the next Sunday Spotlight--91 people saw it; only three people responded.
It's not about the numbers. It's never been about the numbers. But the numbers still matter. And in the midst of my other side projects, among other places to direct my creative energies, after weeks of not even knowing if my own blogging buddy was still reading what I wrote, the importance of this blog had begun to slip for me--and the numbers were merely confirming that nobody really cared.
I realize that's unfair to the people who do care. It's unfair to the valiant three who did vote on that silly poll. It's unfair to Alex, who, my wife assures me, is still reading the blog (or who's planning to get caught up once things settle down next month).
I was already in a "nothing really matters" mindset after dragging myself through the last several episodes of Madlax, an anime series that starts off with guns blazing and exciting action, quickly slows down (oxymoronic, isn't it?) to explore some mysteries and political intrigue, picks up with the action again, and then throws everything that matters out the window because [spoiler] nothing really matters. Having my wife frown at me for feeling less than exuberant over yet another anime series she liked didn't help the situation.
On top of all that, everything I've been working on for the past several weeks has been a long-term project--playing through the Tribunal expansion pack of The Elder Scrolls III; trying to complete my gargantuan episode guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation for the show's 25th anniversary this month (which I ain't gonna finish in time); picking up the pace on recording and releasing Space Quest 0 videos for YouTube so I can return to my Mega Man 7 playthrough; compiling staff responses for each huge installment of GameCola's Most Essential/Influential Games list; writing more of the quest for my GameCola D&D group--and the completionist in me feels like I'm not doing anything with my life if I'm only chipping away at tasks instead of finishing them, no matter how fun they may be to chip away at.
Especially when the only comments I've been getting on my YouTube channel as of late have been, "wen next video b dun?"
Yet all it took was a successful D&D session and a guest post or two to rekindle my enthusiasm for writing here. Some legitimate collaboration to break me out of my lonely solo side project mentality. Some in-depth human interaction to validate my efforts and remind me how much I love sharing these side projects, regardless of how many people I'm sharing them with. I swear I've written about this same kind of circumstance at least once before on the blog, but even if I haven't, the lesson is a familiar one.
I think I've weathered the storm. The dark clouds are parting, and I can see the sun peeking in again. Though we've got only half a crew yet, the waters are calm, and it's looking clear all the way to the horizon...and in the distance, I think I spy a castaway with a self-published children's book in hand. Whatever the future may bring, for now, we're still sailing.
Thanks for hanging on, Exfanders.
Showing posts with label Anime and Manga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anime and Manga. Show all posts
Friday, September 21, 2012
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Sunday Spotlight: Gurren Lagann
I've seen a number of anime series that build and build toward a satisfying climax, only to go totally weird in the last two episodes and ruin everything. I've seen shows that hold my attention for a while before steadily becoming less interesting as time goes on. Gurren Lagann introduced to me a new category of anime that falls short somewhere: shows that are totally rad except for a string of episodes in the middle that make you very, very angry.
Gurren Lagann is the first anime series I've seen that plays out like an ongoing D&D campaign: characters of humble origin are driven together by chance and circumstance; they embark on a grand adventure against increasingly impossible odds, becoming stronger and more heroic along the way; and no matter whether they achieve victory or taste bitter defeat, the story continues and new adventures arise as a direct result of what the heroes have been through. It's almost like four different series starring most of the same characters, fit neatly into the span of 27 episodes.
You've got Kamina, the irrepressibly and even foolishly gung-ho leader of the group. There's Simon, the cowardly digger who unearths the Gunmen (note the intentional pun on Gundam) called Lagann that sets their adventure into motion. You meet Yoko, the sharpshooter with a heart so warm that she barely needs any clothing to keep out the cold (that clothing restricts her movement is the completely reasonable rationalization given for her skimpy attire).
Along the way, the group meets up with a host of other characters, who range from a fabulous technology wizard, to a quartet of black-clad siblings, to a crewman whose only function is to excitedly press buttons, to a heroically comedic pig mole. They pick up team members from a sheltered, impoverished village just as easily as from the enemy palace. The team is even able to capture enemy Gunmen, changing their situation from being oppressed humans living underground to being powerful humans who roam freely across Earth's surface in their giant mechs.
Gurren Lagann is just as much a show about the characters as it is a show about big robots smashing up other big robots. At times it's a tongue-in-cheek parody, and at other times it's a serious and heartfelt tale of these characters fighting against fate, but more than anything else it's just plain fun. Gonzo action sequences, creative character designs, larger-than-life friends and foes, and smile-inducing dialogue make for a show that is just plain entertaining. The fact the characters are real characters who grow and change through their experiences, and whose actions directly impact the direction of the story, gives the show depth and a meaningful weight that's often absent in action-heavy anime.
That's why I got angry at Gurren Lagann: Following the conclusion of the major story arc that comprises more than half the series, we fast-forward to a point in the story that destroys both the fun and the meaning by having a few key characters shut off their brains to manufacture the conflict of the next story arc.
My wife and I have been watching the first season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and we've been noticing an unfortunate trend: everything is going well until one character shuts off his or her brain, triggering an unnecessary conflict that gives the characters involved a reason to fight, get captured, and/or die pointlessly. Conflict is not flowing naturally from the circumstances--it's more like the writers want to have a big battle between some clone troopers and the local aliens, so they introduce a character supposedly on the side of the good guys whose only goal in life is to kill all the local aliens. The writers have him shut off his brain when people try to reason with him, and have everyone else shut off their brains when he orders them to stop talking and kill the local aliens. This results in the viewer hating the character driving the conflict and calling everyone else an idiot, effectively severing any real investment he or she had in the episode. At least, if this viewer is like me.
My anger toward Gurren Lagann--like my distaste for the last several episodes of The Clone Wars--is not directed so much at the conflicts themselves as it is toward the presentation of those conflicts. Don't allow the viewer to get so angry at the avoidable situations and boneheaded characters that they begin to hate the show itself--temper the viewer's temper with a reason to pity or sympathize with the boneheaded characters, or forgo the emotional investment in people and places that'll make it hurt more when bad things happen to them.
There's a string of five consecutive episodes in Gurren Lagann where several of the heroes are turned into villains, either in the eyes of the viewer or in the eyes of their comrades. After fifteen episodes of natural story progression and logical character interactions, bad things just happen. Characters go off the deep end in pursuit of their beliefs, people stop thinking rationally about the actions and motives of other characters, and the writers--in true Dungeon Master fashion--develop the romantic relationships between characters just enough to be used against them.
If you ask my wife, she'll tell you that everything terrible that happens here is because of how the characters' histories and personalities are shaping their interactions with others and affecting their ability to adapt to their new situation. I don't entirely disagree. The problem is that the writers fail to show the viewer any of the humanizing factors that put these characters' actions into context until too late in the story.
It's one gut punch after another as the characters you once cared for are villanized and their world falls apart...but there's no glimmer of hope that things will get better; no feel-good successes in the face of disaster; no flickers of remorse from the offending parties; nothing to suggest that the good guys who think they're doing the right thing really are doing the right thing. I simply stopped caring at one point--let their world fall apart, because I'd rather see it burn than suffer through another half-dozen episodes of unchecked angst and despair.
By the end of the series, most of the events that had made me angry had been softened with further explanation and perspective, but that doesn't change my drastically unfavorable reaction to the episodes where all I could see were manufactured conflicts and emotionally manipulative situations. Did Gurren Lagann redeem itself? Yes. Once they finally started acting like heroes again, the show quickly went from bearable to downright fun once more. The sour taste in my mouth persists only because of how much I like everything surrounding that string of infuriating and disheartening episodes--Clone Wars is disappointing when it resorts to artificial conflict, but the show so far hasn't done enough to invest me in the characters and raise my expectations of the writing to make it feel like all that much of a letdown.
Overall, Gurren Lagann is one of the most entertaining anime series I've seen in a while, with at least one or two of the best action sequences I've ever had the pleasure of watching in an anime. There are great, memorable characters and a dynamic story that becomes almost absurd in its scope, though delightfully so. Even with my complaints against the way the second major story arc was handled (and your feelings on the matter certainly may vary, as my wife can attest to), I respect the show for its ability to continually build on itself without overstaying its welcome or losing track of its roots. It's a good series that comes recommended to any anime fan, and first-timers with no prior exposure to anime are all but guaranteed to find something they like, whether it's comedy or plot continuity or big robots punching each other with drills.
As a side note, viewers in search of fan service a more complete Gurren Lagann experience should be advised that the English dub of Episode 6, the infamous hot springs episode, is considerably different from the original Japanese cut. It's a near-mandatory anime tradition to have an episode (frequently the sixth one, for some reason) take place at a hot spring, opening the door for scantily clad shenanigans in even the most serious and conservative series. Gurren Lagann is no exception, but the censors obscured some of the racier content with fog clouds, and excised the rest of it altogether, replacing it instead with a clever-but-obtrusive recap of the first five episodes.
As a result, the story feels somewhat disjointed, and most of the humor of the episode is lost, along with some worthwhile character development and even a little foreshadowing. The uncut and subtitled Japanese version is out there for free on the Internet if you poke around a bit, and there are plenty of synopses that go over the version differences if you'd prefer to pass on watching/rewatching the episode with its questionable content intact.
Anypigmole, that's Gurren Lagann for you.
Gurren Lagann is the first anime series I've seen that plays out like an ongoing D&D campaign: characters of humble origin are driven together by chance and circumstance; they embark on a grand adventure against increasingly impossible odds, becoming stronger and more heroic along the way; and no matter whether they achieve victory or taste bitter defeat, the story continues and new adventures arise as a direct result of what the heroes have been through. It's almost like four different series starring most of the same characters, fit neatly into the span of 27 episodes.
My wife and I have been watching the first season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and we've been noticing an unfortunate trend: everything is going well until one character shuts off his or her brain, triggering an unnecessary conflict that gives the characters involved a reason to fight, get captured, and/or die pointlessly. Conflict is not flowing naturally from the circumstances--it's more like the writers want to have a big battle between some clone troopers and the local aliens, so they introduce a character supposedly on the side of the good guys whose only goal in life is to kill all the local aliens. The writers have him shut off his brain when people try to reason with him, and have everyone else shut off their brains when he orders them to stop talking and kill the local aliens. This results in the viewer hating the character driving the conflict and calling everyone else an idiot, effectively severing any real investment he or she had in the episode. At least, if this viewer is like me.
There's a string of five consecutive episodes in Gurren Lagann where several of the heroes are turned into villains, either in the eyes of the viewer or in the eyes of their comrades. After fifteen episodes of natural story progression and logical character interactions, bad things just happen. Characters go off the deep end in pursuit of their beliefs, people stop thinking rationally about the actions and motives of other characters, and the writers--in true Dungeon Master fashion--develop the romantic relationships between characters just enough to be used against them.
It's one gut punch after another as the characters you once cared for are villanized and their world falls apart...but there's no glimmer of hope that things will get better; no feel-good successes in the face of disaster; no flickers of remorse from the offending parties; nothing to suggest that the good guys who think they're doing the right thing really are doing the right thing. I simply stopped caring at one point--let their world fall apart, because I'd rather see it burn than suffer through another half-dozen episodes of unchecked angst and despair.
Anypigmole, that's Gurren Lagann for you.
[Images from gurrenlagann.wikia.com and Wookieepedia.]
Monday, May 7, 2012
*waves hand* This is not the post you were looking for...
Today's post was written by your favourite blog sidekick, Neko-chan. This was supposed to be a detailed account of her and Nathaniel's adventure to see L'arc~en~Ciel perform at Madison Square Garden, a long-overdue guest post; however, due to Neko-chan being a lazy over-sleeping slacker, this will instead be a short spotlight about the anime series "To."
Friday was Star Wars Day ("May the Fourth be with you"), and I decided I wanted to do more than just wear a licensed t-shirt to celebrate. I have seen the movies countless times, and didn't feel like watching them again on my own (Nathaniel was away on a fishing trip), so instead I kept with the "sci-fi spirit" of the holiday and curled up with a different space-themed show from our Netflix queue, "To."
Released in 2009 by Avex, and directed by Fumihiko SORI (who also did "Vexille" and the latest version of "Appleseed"), the anime series "To" is comprised of two 40-minute episodes set within the backdrop of outer space. The opening music by Tetsuya Takahashi is reminiscent of Yoko Kanno's "Ghost in the Shell," electronica with tribal-ethereal female voices, and the animation is completely computer-generated. I was especially impressed by the cg for the space station and the environments, it was some of the most realistic-looking design work I had ever seen, but something about the cg for the characters was a bit off-putting. It was like a cross between the rotoscoped-over actors of "Waking Life" and a very pretty video game cutscene. Furthermore, unlike the generically beautiful 18-25 year old characters in most anime, "To" actually attempts to bring in a bit of realism by giving its characters wrinkles and other signs of aging and individuality, however the animation still has a "painted" quality to it, so the result was that they looked more like well-sculpted dolls than people, and the juxtaposition of the figures against hyper-realistic backgrounds actually makes them seem even more photoshopped and unrealistic than they would have otherwise.
Both episodes are set in the same world, however there is no cross-over between the characters, and it is difficult to say how they relate to each other in terms of timeline. The first episode centers around Dan, the captain of a space station that acts as the main supply line of goods between earth and its moon colony (the whole station is designed as a cannon that shoots supply crates through space), and Maria, the leader of a deep-space mining operation who has just returned to earth after a 15 year expedition and is stopping at the station to repair and refuel before delivering her cargo of extremely valuable proton energy.
This episode touches on a variety of space-related subjects including earth vs. colony tensions, space terrorism, space exploration and ownership rights, and with how human relationships have adapted to the conditions of space travel (truly long-distance relationships, crew polyamory, and age gaps due to cryofreezing). I was intrigued by the world that was portrayed, however my one problem with this episode was the English translation. It was a bit confusing as to what the nature of the relationship was supposed to be between Dan and Maria, and I actually had to Google it afterwards to understand exactly what the flashbacks and insinuations had meant.
*SPOILER*
*
*
*
*
*
*
They first make it appear as if Maria is Dan's wife who left him and his son, however in actuality she is his mother who abandoned him to seek her own dreams. She left earth 45 years ago on the first of three 15-year expeditions. Each time she finishes an excursion she stops back by earth to catch up with Dan, so it has been 15 years since they have last spoken. During that time, the earth has been plunged into war, his son has died in the fighting, and his wife has passed on, but Maria has been traveling in cryofreeze for most of that time and has missed these events. She has only aged a total of 6 years since she first left earth.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*End Spoiler*
The second episode is much more straightforward, complete, and cohesive than the first. It involves mediation talks between two colonies on a survey planet, the Eurasian colony and the European-American colony, who are fighting over resources and terraforming rights on the planet's surface. It does a good job of showing how national feuds don't end at the border to space, but are carried on within the prejudices of the people. As one character states "Humans can start a war anywhere."
This episode also raises some interesting points about alien life forms: What constitutes sentient life? Do humans have the right to terraform without considering the local ecosystems? Is it irresponsible to destroy something before understanding whether it is truly a threat? Do humans really have a lasting impact on the worlds they contact?
Woven throughout this story is a subplot of lovers caught on opposite sides of the conflict. Additionally, there is an overarching theme of "symbiotic versus parasitic relationships" that carries throughout the episode, and which ties all of the events together. I liked that there was no wasted exposition, everything that is introduced comes back full circle at the end - a bit predictably and heavy-handed perhaps, but in the same way that a short campfire story might be.
Overall, I give "To" 8 wookies out of 10. I enjoyed the visuals, even despite the figure-background disconnect. I enjoyed the soundtrack. The voice-acting was some of the best dubbing I have heard in a long time. I enjoyed that these episodes made me think about the issues that were raised, and that this OVA reminded me of longer anime series such as Planetes, or of book series such as the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, both of which deal with the socio-political aspects of space travel and colonization in a semi-realistic manner. Also, in looking up more information about the show, I learned that this was based on a 10-volume Japanese comic book series called "2001 Nights" written by Yukinobu Hoshino, a comic book series that Nathaniel just happened to pick up last year, and which is just sitting on our bookshelves waiting for me to read.
So whether you are an anime fan, a cg fan, or a comic book fan, I recommend taking a chance on this show. It is short and doesn't require a huge time investment, and it is available on Netflix or DVD, so you have no excuse not to exfand your horizons.
Friday was Star Wars Day ("May the Fourth be with you"), and I decided I wanted to do more than just wear a licensed t-shirt to celebrate. I have seen the movies countless times, and didn't feel like watching them again on my own (Nathaniel was away on a fishing trip), so instead I kept with the "sci-fi spirit" of the holiday and curled up with a different space-themed show from our Netflix queue, "To."
Released in 2009 by Avex, and directed by Fumihiko SORI (who also did "Vexille" and the latest version of "Appleseed"), the anime series "To" is comprised of two 40-minute episodes set within the backdrop of outer space. The opening music by Tetsuya Takahashi is reminiscent of Yoko Kanno's "Ghost in the Shell," electronica with tribal-ethereal female voices, and the animation is completely computer-generated. I was especially impressed by the cg for the space station and the environments, it was some of the most realistic-looking design work I had ever seen, but something about the cg for the characters was a bit off-putting. It was like a cross between the rotoscoped-over actors of "Waking Life" and a very pretty video game cutscene. Furthermore, unlike the generically beautiful 18-25 year old characters in most anime, "To" actually attempts to bring in a bit of realism by giving its characters wrinkles and other signs of aging and individuality, however the animation still has a "painted" quality to it, so the result was that they looked more like well-sculpted dolls than people, and the juxtaposition of the figures against hyper-realistic backgrounds actually makes them seem even more photoshopped and unrealistic than they would have otherwise.
Both episodes are set in the same world, however there is no cross-over between the characters, and it is difficult to say how they relate to each other in terms of timeline. The first episode centers around Dan, the captain of a space station that acts as the main supply line of goods between earth and its moon colony (the whole station is designed as a cannon that shoots supply crates through space), and Maria, the leader of a deep-space mining operation who has just returned to earth after a 15 year expedition and is stopping at the station to repair and refuel before delivering her cargo of extremely valuable proton energy.
This episode touches on a variety of space-related subjects including earth vs. colony tensions, space terrorism, space exploration and ownership rights, and with how human relationships have adapted to the conditions of space travel (truly long-distance relationships, crew polyamory, and age gaps due to cryofreezing). I was intrigued by the world that was portrayed, however my one problem with this episode was the English translation. It was a bit confusing as to what the nature of the relationship was supposed to be between Dan and Maria, and I actually had to Google it afterwards to understand exactly what the flashbacks and insinuations had meant.
*SPOILER*
*
*
*
*
*
*
They first make it appear as if Maria is Dan's wife who left him and his son, however in actuality she is his mother who abandoned him to seek her own dreams. She left earth 45 years ago on the first of three 15-year expeditions. Each time she finishes an excursion she stops back by earth to catch up with Dan, so it has been 15 years since they have last spoken. During that time, the earth has been plunged into war, his son has died in the fighting, and his wife has passed on, but Maria has been traveling in cryofreeze for most of that time and has missed these events. She has only aged a total of 6 years since she first left earth.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*End Spoiler*
The second episode is much more straightforward, complete, and cohesive than the first. It involves mediation talks between two colonies on a survey planet, the Eurasian colony and the European-American colony, who are fighting over resources and terraforming rights on the planet's surface. It does a good job of showing how national feuds don't end at the border to space, but are carried on within the prejudices of the people. As one character states "Humans can start a war anywhere."
This episode also raises some interesting points about alien life forms: What constitutes sentient life? Do humans have the right to terraform without considering the local ecosystems? Is it irresponsible to destroy something before understanding whether it is truly a threat? Do humans really have a lasting impact on the worlds they contact?
Woven throughout this story is a subplot of lovers caught on opposite sides of the conflict. Additionally, there is an overarching theme of "symbiotic versus parasitic relationships" that carries throughout the episode, and which ties all of the events together. I liked that there was no wasted exposition, everything that is introduced comes back full circle at the end - a bit predictably and heavy-handed perhaps, but in the same way that a short campfire story might be.
Overall, I give "To" 8 wookies out of 10. I enjoyed the visuals, even despite the figure-background disconnect. I enjoyed the soundtrack. The voice-acting was some of the best dubbing I have heard in a long time. I enjoyed that these episodes made me think about the issues that were raised, and that this OVA reminded me of longer anime series such as Planetes, or of book series such as the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, both of which deal with the socio-political aspects of space travel and colonization in a semi-realistic manner. Also, in looking up more information about the show, I learned that this was based on a 10-volume Japanese comic book series called "2001 Nights" written by Yukinobu Hoshino, a comic book series that Nathaniel just happened to pick up last year, and which is just sitting on our bookshelves waiting for me to read.
So whether you are an anime fan, a cg fan, or a comic book fan, I recommend taking a chance on this show. It is short and doesn't require a huge time investment, and it is available on Netflix or DVD, so you have no excuse not to exfand your horizons.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Sunday Spotlight: Clannad and Clannad After Story
If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you'll know that I don't write about anime hardly at all. I consider myself a fan, and I've been watching more anime recently thanks to the wonders of Netflix, but as I stated before, "everything I'd like to write about I watched too many years ago to remember fully, and most of the things I've watched recently either aren't things I care to write about, or else I'm not a big enough fan to do a post that'll do the anime justice." Well, I believe I've found one more exception in the form of Clannad and Clannad After Story.
Spoilers, ahoy.
One look at Clannad's Wikipedia page tells me I'd be in way over my head if I attempted to make any explanation of the greater Clannad fandom, so I'll stick with what I know: Clannad is not the kind of show I ever imagined myself liking, let alone getting angry at for not liking. I watch shows with guns and spaceships and rabbits that transform into spaceships; yet, for a time, I was watching the slice-of-life high school drama of Clannad and asking my wife, "WHY DO I LIKE THIS SO MUCH??"
For a time, mind you.
We determined that it was refreshing to watch something...normal. No undead hordes to fight; no bathtubs connected to parallel worlds; no weird science binding your little brother's soul to a suit of armor. Just a socially maladjusted guy in his last year of high school, his troublemaking loudmouth friend, and a half-dozen female classmates with their own unique reasons for getting together with the main character.
I mean, personalities.
Clannad is all about the relationships between friends, family, and romantic interests, and it's the characters that really drive the show. I didn't care much about the drama club they were trying to form, or the cherry trees they were trying to save, or the rival gangs they somehow got involved with; I wanted to see the reasons behind protagonist Okazaki's strained relationship with his father, or the ridiculous showdowns between Sunohara the rabblerouser and Tomoyo the tough girl, or the antics between the playful parents of Okazaki's eventual love interest, the innocent Nagisa.
When Clannad sticks to everyday stories about everyday people, it's surprisingly enjoyable to me. Between the writing and the voice acting, the characters are complex and amusing enough to remain interesting, even when not a single thing blows up. It's only when the frustratingly mysterious and potentially supernatural events start happening that I put on my purple Hulk shorts and get angry.
As I said, Clannad was refreshing because it was normal. No "reality, with a twist," just good ol' fashioned "boy likes five girls and won't ask any of them out for fear of hurting the others' feelings." Throughout the first half of the show, we were teased by occasional sci-fi/fantasy elements that always ended up being perfectly normal once we understood what was going on--every time we were afraid Nagisa was from another planet, we'd soon discover she was just reciting lines from a play; that kind of thing. It was enjoyable to watch the show test the boundaries of reality without ever ceasing to be realistic.
When we learned that starfish-obsessed little Fuko might be the ghost of a girl in a coma across town, we wrote it off as superstition. When Fuko started disappearing from everyone's memory, we counted on it being some unthinkably coordinated class prank. Once it became clear that her disappearance wasn't a prank, the only rationalization we could come up with was that Okezaki was perhaps the one in a coma and had imagined all this. It wasn't long before reality had been breached by fantasy--unnecessary, poorly explained fantasy--and we were hearing about mystical orbs of light and tiny, secret universes connected to our own.
Granted, we might have seen this coming. Throughout both Clannad and Clannad After Story are brief segments featuring a young girl who looks strikingly like Nagisa, and a little robot that looks strikingly like an Ewok. They have nothing to do with Tomoyo becoming student council president or Okazaki getting a job with the power company; their primary function, as best as I could tell, was to annoy viewers until whatever metaphor they conveyed was brought to light. Like anything else in the series that smacked of the supernatural, I was expecting these segments to be easily explained as something symbolic, imaginary, or misconstrued later on. As it turned out, we had been watching a legitimately real alternate dream reality starring Nagisa's daughter and Okazaki the robot. Or something like that.
I call this "Sunshine Syndrome": watching something go in a direction you don't like, and hoping against hope that things will turn out differently than they look like they're gonna, even after the point of no return. Clannad effectively dumped a fantasy Kool-Aid packet into the refreshing water of its story, but never bothered to stir in any sugar to make it palatable. We kept watching, wishing for an explanation that would clarify and justify these supernatural plot twists. It wasn't until a few episodes before the end of the sequel series, Clannad After Story, that it was revealed this whole business was a total waste of our time.
This was not a situation like the end of Neon Genesis Evangelion where everything suddenly goes from making sense to not making sense to the casual viewer; this was a situation like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull where there are hints that there might be aliens, even though there doesn't need to be aliens, and then aliens show up in the last five minutes because wouldn't it be fun to have aliens. It damages the integrity of a work of fiction to include a wild plot twist that completely redefines the fictional universe for the sake of this one thing that might be neat to have.
Now, I'm willing to concede that the translation might be somewhat to blame. Netflix offered only the dubbed version, not subbed, and it was apparent from some of the supposedly clever dialogue with Fuko and the hyper-intelligent Kotomi that we were missing valuable nuances lost from the original Japanese. Perhaps this alternate world business also made more sense before the translation.
As I understand from skimming Clannad's Wikipedia page, the series is based on an interactive story/dating simulation where the player, as Okazaki, can choose to pursue any of the girls as a romantic interest. With that in mind, it makes more sense that a few episodes of Clannad and Clannad After Story are "what if?" scenarios that explore what would have happened if Okazaki had started dating Tomoyo, or gotten entangled with twin sisters Ryou and Kyou, or if he had still married Nagisa but never had to suffer through her death after childbirth or the eventual death of their daughter. These alternate reality episodes are certainly intriguing, but the series could have fit them in without ever going off the deep end with fantasy explanations.
One option: Don't even bother to explain them. Let them be bonus "what if?" scenarios, and leave it at that. Another option: Address the scientific possibility of alternate universes up front, instead of waiting halfway through the series to start a story arc that treats the subject like mystical forbidden research. There's no middle ground with fantasy: embrace it as fact, or leave it out entirely. Don't let it dribble all over something that is more satisfying and complete without it.
I'm annoyed about the whole situation because Clannad was shaping up to be the first totally normal, relatively serious slice-of-life anime I'd ever truly liked. Before the alternate timeline episodes started popping up, I'd even had a debate with my wife that Okazaki had absolutely no chemistry with Nagisa, and would have been better off getting together with Tomoyo (or, as I called her, "Kicky Girl," because I had a heck of a time remembering names in this show). I never debate fictional dating relationships in the hypothetical. I debate the canonicity of Star Trek episodes.
Clannad hooked me in a way I'd never been hooked before, which is why the sloppily resolved game-changing fantasy twist didn't just disappoint, but ruined the whole show. Now it fell into the category of "dramas with an element of fantasy," and having seen my fair share of Escaflownes and Fruits Baskets that seamlessly integrated fantasy elements into normal everyday life, Clannad couldn't stack up against the competition as a complete package.
I did like both Clannad and Clannad After Story. My interest waned when the charm of being a wholly "normal" anime was revoked. I felt vindicated when a whole episode was devoted to proving me right that Kicky Girl was a perfect match for Okazaki in some other timeline. It felt like drudgery to watch Okazaki pursue Nagisa for the next several episodes afterwards, knowing he had left behind the only girl who was both more encouraging and more encouraged by being closer than friends with him. I warmed up to the show again when Okazaki moved out and could see how much of a positive impact Nagisa had on him, and vice-versa. I became indifferent to the show after Nagisa died, and their daughter's death a few episodes later just felt hollow. Then there was the big flash of light where everything changed and no one had died, but by that point the idea of parallel universes and alternate timelines was a cheap excuse to bring in a happy ending and to cleverly stretch the budget through a few more episodes.
Perhaps in some alternate universe I'm writing about how great it was that Clannad used thoughtful explanations and effective foreshadowing to get me excited about all the different branching storylines--some happy, some sad--all the while leaving enough clues to make the biggest mystery of the show be which timeline was the "real" one, instead of why a few mishandled supernatural elements had to sully what was otherwise an enjoyable and compelling character-centric story.
Spoilers, ahoy.
One look at Clannad's Wikipedia page tells me I'd be in way over my head if I attempted to make any explanation of the greater Clannad fandom, so I'll stick with what I know: Clannad is not the kind of show I ever imagined myself liking, let alone getting angry at for not liking. I watch shows with guns and spaceships and rabbits that transform into spaceships; yet, for a time, I was watching the slice-of-life high school drama of Clannad and asking my wife, "WHY DO I LIKE THIS SO MUCH??"For a time, mind you.
We determined that it was refreshing to watch something...normal. No undead hordes to fight; no bathtubs connected to parallel worlds; no weird science binding your little brother's soul to a suit of armor. Just a socially maladjusted guy in his last year of high school, his troublemaking loudmouth friend, and a half-dozen female classmates with their own unique reasons for getting together with the main character.I mean, personalities.
Clannad is all about the relationships between friends, family, and romantic interests, and it's the characters that really drive the show. I didn't care much about the drama club they were trying to form, or the cherry trees they were trying to save, or the rival gangs they somehow got involved with; I wanted to see the reasons behind protagonist Okazaki's strained relationship with his father, or the ridiculous showdowns between Sunohara the rabblerouser and Tomoyo the tough girl, or the antics between the playful parents of Okazaki's eventual love interest, the innocent Nagisa.
When Clannad sticks to everyday stories about everyday people, it's surprisingly enjoyable to me. Between the writing and the voice acting, the characters are complex and amusing enough to remain interesting, even when not a single thing blows up. It's only when the frustratingly mysterious and potentially supernatural events start happening that I put on my purple Hulk shorts and get angry.
As I said, Clannad was refreshing because it was normal. No "reality, with a twist," just good ol' fashioned "boy likes five girls and won't ask any of them out for fear of hurting the others' feelings." Throughout the first half of the show, we were teased by occasional sci-fi/fantasy elements that always ended up being perfectly normal once we understood what was going on--every time we were afraid Nagisa was from another planet, we'd soon discover she was just reciting lines from a play; that kind of thing. It was enjoyable to watch the show test the boundaries of reality without ever ceasing to be realistic.
When we learned that starfish-obsessed little Fuko might be the ghost of a girl in a coma across town, we wrote it off as superstition. When Fuko started disappearing from everyone's memory, we counted on it being some unthinkably coordinated class prank. Once it became clear that her disappearance wasn't a prank, the only rationalization we could come up with was that Okezaki was perhaps the one in a coma and had imagined all this. It wasn't long before reality had been breached by fantasy--unnecessary, poorly explained fantasy--and we were hearing about mystical orbs of light and tiny, secret universes connected to our own.
Granted, we might have seen this coming. Throughout both Clannad and Clannad After Story are brief segments featuring a young girl who looks strikingly like Nagisa, and a little robot that looks strikingly like an Ewok. They have nothing to do with Tomoyo becoming student council president or Okazaki getting a job with the power company; their primary function, as best as I could tell, was to annoy viewers until whatever metaphor they conveyed was brought to light. Like anything else in the series that smacked of the supernatural, I was expecting these segments to be easily explained as something symbolic, imaginary, or misconstrued later on. As it turned out, we had been watching a legitimately real alternate dream reality starring Nagisa's daughter and Okazaki the robot. Or something like that.
I call this "Sunshine Syndrome": watching something go in a direction you don't like, and hoping against hope that things will turn out differently than they look like they're gonna, even after the point of no return. Clannad effectively dumped a fantasy Kool-Aid packet into the refreshing water of its story, but never bothered to stir in any sugar to make it palatable. We kept watching, wishing for an explanation that would clarify and justify these supernatural plot twists. It wasn't until a few episodes before the end of the sequel series, Clannad After Story, that it was revealed this whole business was a total waste of our time.
This was not a situation like the end of Neon Genesis Evangelion where everything suddenly goes from making sense to not making sense to the casual viewer; this was a situation like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull where there are hints that there might be aliens, even though there doesn't need to be aliens, and then aliens show up in the last five minutes because wouldn't it be fun to have aliens. It damages the integrity of a work of fiction to include a wild plot twist that completely redefines the fictional universe for the sake of this one thing that might be neat to have.Now, I'm willing to concede that the translation might be somewhat to blame. Netflix offered only the dubbed version, not subbed, and it was apparent from some of the supposedly clever dialogue with Fuko and the hyper-intelligent Kotomi that we were missing valuable nuances lost from the original Japanese. Perhaps this alternate world business also made more sense before the translation.
As I understand from skimming Clannad's Wikipedia page, the series is based on an interactive story/dating simulation where the player, as Okazaki, can choose to pursue any of the girls as a romantic interest. With that in mind, it makes more sense that a few episodes of Clannad and Clannad After Story are "what if?" scenarios that explore what would have happened if Okazaki had started dating Tomoyo, or gotten entangled with twin sisters Ryou and Kyou, or if he had still married Nagisa but never had to suffer through her death after childbirth or the eventual death of their daughter. These alternate reality episodes are certainly intriguing, but the series could have fit them in without ever going off the deep end with fantasy explanations.
One option: Don't even bother to explain them. Let them be bonus "what if?" scenarios, and leave it at that. Another option: Address the scientific possibility of alternate universes up front, instead of waiting halfway through the series to start a story arc that treats the subject like mystical forbidden research. There's no middle ground with fantasy: embrace it as fact, or leave it out entirely. Don't let it dribble all over something that is more satisfying and complete without it.I'm annoyed about the whole situation because Clannad was shaping up to be the first totally normal, relatively serious slice-of-life anime I'd ever truly liked. Before the alternate timeline episodes started popping up, I'd even had a debate with my wife that Okazaki had absolutely no chemistry with Nagisa, and would have been better off getting together with Tomoyo (or, as I called her, "Kicky Girl," because I had a heck of a time remembering names in this show). I never debate fictional dating relationships in the hypothetical. I debate the canonicity of Star Trek episodes.
Clannad hooked me in a way I'd never been hooked before, which is why the sloppily resolved game-changing fantasy twist didn't just disappoint, but ruined the whole show. Now it fell into the category of "dramas with an element of fantasy," and having seen my fair share of Escaflownes and Fruits Baskets that seamlessly integrated fantasy elements into normal everyday life, Clannad couldn't stack up against the competition as a complete package.
I did like both Clannad and Clannad After Story. My interest waned when the charm of being a wholly "normal" anime was revoked. I felt vindicated when a whole episode was devoted to proving me right that Kicky Girl was a perfect match for Okazaki in some other timeline. It felt like drudgery to watch Okazaki pursue Nagisa for the next several episodes afterwards, knowing he had left behind the only girl who was both more encouraging and more encouraged by being closer than friends with him. I warmed up to the show again when Okazaki moved out and could see how much of a positive impact Nagisa had on him, and vice-versa. I became indifferent to the show after Nagisa died, and their daughter's death a few episodes later just felt hollow. Then there was the big flash of light where everything changed and no one had died, but by that point the idea of parallel universes and alternate timelines was a cheap excuse to bring in a happy ending and to cleverly stretch the budget through a few more episodes.
Perhaps in some alternate universe I'm writing about how great it was that Clannad used thoughtful explanations and effective foreshadowing to get me excited about all the different branching storylines--some happy, some sad--all the while leaving enough clues to make the biggest mystery of the show be which timeline was the "real" one, instead of why a few mishandled supernatural elements had to sully what was otherwise an enjoyable and compelling character-centric story.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
The Secret World of Poor Marketing
Today we present a guest post from Exfanding guest post veteran and wedding victim neko-chan.
As Nathaniel stated earlier in the blog, I dragged him out last week to see the new anime movie, The Secret World of Arrietty. This film, produced by Studio Ghibli and renowned Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, beautifully reimagines the characters and setting of Mary Norton’s classic British children’s book series, The Borrowers, from a Japanese perspective. It is a heart-warming tale of friendship, adolescence, and growing up.
In this version of the story, Sho, a sickly boy who is sent to rest at his family’s country estate before his upcoming heart surgery, strikes up an unlikely friendship with Arrietty, a rambunctious 14-year old girl who is the size of a mouse and lives with her family under the floorboards of the house. Over the course of the story, these two children learn important life lessons, both from the adults around them and from each other:
• They learn that their actions have both positive and negative consequences, and that they must bear the mantle of responsibility for the decisions they make.
• They learn that rules are in place for a reason, and to trust in the firm guidance and wisdom of those with more experience; however, they also learn that personal beliefs can colour or transcend logic, and that sometimes rules and values must be re-evaluated as new knowledge is gained.
• They learn to cultivate a sense of self-respect and dignity – to be able to believe in their own value, strength, and abilities, while at the same time being able to accept help and correction with grace and humility.
• Finally, they learn that while sometimes there are hardships, and life won’t always work out the way you hope and expect, you can still take pleasure and comfort in the company of loved ones, and in the good memories that you have shared with others.
Nathaniel and I both enjoyed this movie, and appreciated the way parenting and friendships were handled and portrayed. There was a sense of “realness” and humanity, despite it being a fantastical tale, and I think the movie is as instructive as it is entertaining. Diehard fans of the books may have issue with the literary license Miyazaki takes with the plot, but honestly it was more true to the spirit of the characters than past incarnations in film and television.
Having said all that, I now want to talk a bit about how this film has been marketed, targeted, and received in the USA, and the continuing problem of how anime is conceptualized in America.
Aside from one poster in the back corner of a movie theatre lobby a few months back, and a passing mention by a fellow anime enthusiast on Facebook, I did not hear anything about this film until after it had already been released. The same thing happened a few years back with Ponyo. There always seems to be the dual reaction of “Wait, there’s a new Miyazaki film?!” and “Why didn’t I know?!” which goes to show just how critically under-marketed these films are. If anime fans themselves don’t realize they should be flocking to the theatres for a new release, how are average Americans going to take any interest?
It just strikes me as odd that Disney, who is responsible for releasing these films in the US market, and who is a recognized master of branding, can’t seem to properly promote any of the anime titles it licenses. Even if they didn’t own the merchandising rights, they could have at least released a few previews in the theatres to spark public interest, right? But I don’t remember seeing any kind of advance trailers or sneak-peeks at all.
It all comes down to economics. In this day and age, with so many movies being created and distributed, advertising is necessary to capture the public’s attention and make them spend their $8-$12 on your movie, rather than anyone else’s. Yet, on the main Disney website, Arrietty is just a passing mention on their “Characters” page; all of their efforts are instead devoted to promoting their own upcoming projects, Brave and John Carter. Why? Because the cost to license a film made by someone else is less than the cost to develop and release a film from scratch, so they need a bigger return on their own investments, and only need to break even on the films they have brought over from other countries.
I guess I don’t blame Disney, as they would potentially be shooting themselves in the foot if they got everyone excited for the newest anime release and then had no one come to see John Carter; however, it doesn’t seem fair that this disparity in marketing is partially responsible for the lackluster performance of anime titles in the American box office.
And it’s not just the films released by Disney. When is the last time an anime movie was marketed using the same principles as a regular film? Pokemon: 2000? Films such as Ghost in the Shell in 1995 were quietly marketed to the wrong demographic, and even newly developed films like Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos are only getting a limited theatrical release in the US, with the sole advertising strategy being a few web banners on the distributor’s webpage, and an email announcement to fans on the distributor’s newsletter. There is a prevailing belief that anime fans will either watch these films online or will wait until they come to disc, and that the rest of America is simply not interested, which will continue to be the case until a successful marketing campaign actually informs fans and causes the rest of America to get interested.
The companies that release anime in the United States also seem to be unable to grasp the intended target demographic for these films and series. They wrongly assume that anything animated is made exclusively for children. They market and advertise according to that standard, and are reluctant to pick up titles that may contradict or break from this pattern. In the past, they have even gone so far as to heavily edit the visual content and dialogue of anime shows (removing cigarettes, nudity, violence, homosexual relationships, etc.) in order to make them conform with American norms and values for children’s programming, because that is the only way we can conceptualize cartoons.
However, animation in Japan is merely another way of telling a story, no different from live-action, CG, puppetry, stop-animation, or any other visual film media. Stories run the full gamut of human experience and subject matter, and the choice to portray these stories in an animated format is not made for age reasons, but for budgetary and stylistic reasons. Simply, you can do things in animation that would be difficult to do in the physical realm of live-action, and you can create a unique visual “look” or artistic style with the 2D line that is distinctly different from the visual style of any other media. You cannot lump all anime under the category of “Kids Only” any more than you can lump all live-action movies under the canopy of “Kids Only.” Yet American companies still try their hardest to do exactly that.
Of course, I can give some obvious examples such as Akira and Perfect Blue as being distinctly not made for kids, but let’s take a look at The Secret World of Arrietty as a less-obvious example. Was this based on a children’s book? Yes. Was it intended to be watched, in part, by children? Yes. But is that that the target demographic? No.
The target demographic should have been people in the 25-50 range. These are the people who grew up reading and loving Mary Norton’s books, and who have a special connection to these characters. These are the people who have seen the last four movie and mini-series adaptations of these stories (1973, 1992, 1997, and 2011). These are the people who initially grew up with anime such as Speed Racer and Astro Boy, who have probably seen all of Miyazaki’s other films, and who have maintained a history and a relationship with this media and its story-telling style. These are the people who have children or grandchildren that they are excited to see these films with as a family. These are not the people who were targeted by Disney - the original pioneer of the “animated family movie,” and the one company that should have known better.
Now let’s take a look at how said movie was received by the American public: 94% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with an audience rating of 87% liking it, yet over the course of the past two weeks it has pulled in only $4.5M in box office sales. It is critically acclaimed, it is loved by fans, yet the public is not rushing out to see it. This, to me, is a tragedy. Compare that to the fact that Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds, which received a Tomatometer rating of only 27%, made $16M in the past 3 days. This says that we, as Americans, are willing to pay more to see a bad movie that we can easily understand and classify than we will pay to see a good movie that challenges our conceptions of what animation is and can be in the movie spectrum.
Oh, and speaking of the public reception to this movie, let’s not forget dear old Lou Dobbs, who has repeatedly demonized the movie in our national media, stating that Arrietty is preaching a liberal agenda, anti-1%/pro-Occupy message to our children. He gives no mention to Norton or to when the books were written, and he glosses over the fact that this movie was not made in Hollywood or even in this country, thereby making it unlikely that either the creators or the inspiration of this film had any sort of American political agenda in mind.
Apparently to Dobbs, the way the Borrowers gather natural resources from their environment (the house and garden), and use these resources to manufacture their food and shelter equates to “justifying the right of the poor to steal from the rich,” and is not simply making a direct parallel to how humans gather resources from their own environment in order to manufacture goods and meet the needs of food and shelter.
Likewise, the borrowers’ outright refusal to take the ornate luxury items in the dollhouse is not, as Dobbs thinks, a rejection of wealth and the elite, it is a choice by the borrowers to live with freedom and dignity, instead of like dolls or caged pets. Dobbs’ ethnocentric viewpoints taint a perfectly innocent story by trying to force it into a modern political paradigm it was never intended to fit in.
Overall, I am glad I had the opportunity to see this movie in the theatre. I am glad it is getting wonderful reviews by both fans and movie critics. However, I worry about the fate of anime in the realm of the American theatre due to poor marketing, the misunderstanding of intended demographics, and the misinterpretation of themes as “culturally-threatening” due to blatant misinformation and existing bias.
We need to start showing movie producers that Americans are mature enough and open-minded enough to embrace films of quality, regardless of national origin, with formats that challenge our conception of what movies look and feel like, and that may or may not have anything to do with the messages and themes we are used to hearing.
So I urge you to go see this film. Take a chance on something different. I guarantee that whether you love it or hate it, whether you think it should be seen by everyone or whether you think it should be demonized, you will at least have exfanded your horizons of Japanese film, and of what animation can mean to film as a visual media.
[Click to enlarge]
As Nathaniel stated earlier in the blog, I dragged him out last week to see the new anime movie, The Secret World of Arrietty. This film, produced by Studio Ghibli and renowned Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, beautifully reimagines the characters and setting of Mary Norton’s classic British children’s book series, The Borrowers, from a Japanese perspective. It is a heart-warming tale of friendship, adolescence, and growing up.In this version of the story, Sho, a sickly boy who is sent to rest at his family’s country estate before his upcoming heart surgery, strikes up an unlikely friendship with Arrietty, a rambunctious 14-year old girl who is the size of a mouse and lives with her family under the floorboards of the house. Over the course of the story, these two children learn important life lessons, both from the adults around them and from each other:
• They learn that their actions have both positive and negative consequences, and that they must bear the mantle of responsibility for the decisions they make.
• They learn that rules are in place for a reason, and to trust in the firm guidance and wisdom of those with more experience; however, they also learn that personal beliefs can colour or transcend logic, and that sometimes rules and values must be re-evaluated as new knowledge is gained.
• They learn to cultivate a sense of self-respect and dignity – to be able to believe in their own value, strength, and abilities, while at the same time being able to accept help and correction with grace and humility.
• Finally, they learn that while sometimes there are hardships, and life won’t always work out the way you hope and expect, you can still take pleasure and comfort in the company of loved ones, and in the good memories that you have shared with others.
Nathaniel and I both enjoyed this movie, and appreciated the way parenting and friendships were handled and portrayed. There was a sense of “realness” and humanity, despite it being a fantastical tale, and I think the movie is as instructive as it is entertaining. Diehard fans of the books may have issue with the literary license Miyazaki takes with the plot, but honestly it was more true to the spirit of the characters than past incarnations in film and television.Having said all that, I now want to talk a bit about how this film has been marketed, targeted, and received in the USA, and the continuing problem of how anime is conceptualized in America.
Aside from one poster in the back corner of a movie theatre lobby a few months back, and a passing mention by a fellow anime enthusiast on Facebook, I did not hear anything about this film until after it had already been released. The same thing happened a few years back with Ponyo. There always seems to be the dual reaction of “Wait, there’s a new Miyazaki film?!” and “Why didn’t I know?!” which goes to show just how critically under-marketed these films are. If anime fans themselves don’t realize they should be flocking to the theatres for a new release, how are average Americans going to take any interest?
It just strikes me as odd that Disney, who is responsible for releasing these films in the US market, and who is a recognized master of branding, can’t seem to properly promote any of the anime titles it licenses. Even if they didn’t own the merchandising rights, they could have at least released a few previews in the theatres to spark public interest, right? But I don’t remember seeing any kind of advance trailers or sneak-peeks at all.
It all comes down to economics. In this day and age, with so many movies being created and distributed, advertising is necessary to capture the public’s attention and make them spend their $8-$12 on your movie, rather than anyone else’s. Yet, on the main Disney website, Arrietty is just a passing mention on their “Characters” page; all of their efforts are instead devoted to promoting their own upcoming projects, Brave and John Carter. Why? Because the cost to license a film made by someone else is less than the cost to develop and release a film from scratch, so they need a bigger return on their own investments, and only need to break even on the films they have brought over from other countries.
I guess I don’t blame Disney, as they would potentially be shooting themselves in the foot if they got everyone excited for the newest anime release and then had no one come to see John Carter; however, it doesn’t seem fair that this disparity in marketing is partially responsible for the lackluster performance of anime titles in the American box office.
And it’s not just the films released by Disney. When is the last time an anime movie was marketed using the same principles as a regular film? Pokemon: 2000? Films such as Ghost in the Shell in 1995 were quietly marketed to the wrong demographic, and even newly developed films like Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos are only getting a limited theatrical release in the US, with the sole advertising strategy being a few web banners on the distributor’s webpage, and an email announcement to fans on the distributor’s newsletter. There is a prevailing belief that anime fans will either watch these films online or will wait until they come to disc, and that the rest of America is simply not interested, which will continue to be the case until a successful marketing campaign actually informs fans and causes the rest of America to get interested.
The companies that release anime in the United States also seem to be unable to grasp the intended target demographic for these films and series. They wrongly assume that anything animated is made exclusively for children. They market and advertise according to that standard, and are reluctant to pick up titles that may contradict or break from this pattern. In the past, they have even gone so far as to heavily edit the visual content and dialogue of anime shows (removing cigarettes, nudity, violence, homosexual relationships, etc.) in order to make them conform with American norms and values for children’s programming, because that is the only way we can conceptualize cartoons.
However, animation in Japan is merely another way of telling a story, no different from live-action, CG, puppetry, stop-animation, or any other visual film media. Stories run the full gamut of human experience and subject matter, and the choice to portray these stories in an animated format is not made for age reasons, but for budgetary and stylistic reasons. Simply, you can do things in animation that would be difficult to do in the physical realm of live-action, and you can create a unique visual “look” or artistic style with the 2D line that is distinctly different from the visual style of any other media. You cannot lump all anime under the category of “Kids Only” any more than you can lump all live-action movies under the canopy of “Kids Only.” Yet American companies still try their hardest to do exactly that.
Of course, I can give some obvious examples such as Akira and Perfect Blue as being distinctly not made for kids, but let’s take a look at The Secret World of Arrietty as a less-obvious example. Was this based on a children’s book? Yes. Was it intended to be watched, in part, by children? Yes. But is that that the target demographic? No.
The target demographic should have been people in the 25-50 range. These are the people who grew up reading and loving Mary Norton’s books, and who have a special connection to these characters. These are the people who have seen the last four movie and mini-series adaptations of these stories (1973, 1992, 1997, and 2011). These are the people who initially grew up with anime such as Speed Racer and Astro Boy, who have probably seen all of Miyazaki’s other films, and who have maintained a history and a relationship with this media and its story-telling style. These are the people who have children or grandchildren that they are excited to see these films with as a family. These are not the people who were targeted by Disney - the original pioneer of the “animated family movie,” and the one company that should have known better.
Now let’s take a look at how said movie was received by the American public: 94% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with an audience rating of 87% liking it, yet over the course of the past two weeks it has pulled in only $4.5M in box office sales. It is critically acclaimed, it is loved by fans, yet the public is not rushing out to see it. This, to me, is a tragedy. Compare that to the fact that Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds, which received a Tomatometer rating of only 27%, made $16M in the past 3 days. This says that we, as Americans, are willing to pay more to see a bad movie that we can easily understand and classify than we will pay to see a good movie that challenges our conceptions of what animation is and can be in the movie spectrum.Oh, and speaking of the public reception to this movie, let’s not forget dear old Lou Dobbs, who has repeatedly demonized the movie in our national media, stating that Arrietty is preaching a liberal agenda, anti-1%/pro-Occupy message to our children. He gives no mention to Norton or to when the books were written, and he glosses over the fact that this movie was not made in Hollywood or even in this country, thereby making it unlikely that either the creators or the inspiration of this film had any sort of American political agenda in mind.
Apparently to Dobbs, the way the Borrowers gather natural resources from their environment (the house and garden), and use these resources to manufacture their food and shelter equates to “justifying the right of the poor to steal from the rich,” and is not simply making a direct parallel to how humans gather resources from their own environment in order to manufacture goods and meet the needs of food and shelter.Likewise, the borrowers’ outright refusal to take the ornate luxury items in the dollhouse is not, as Dobbs thinks, a rejection of wealth and the elite, it is a choice by the borrowers to live with freedom and dignity, instead of like dolls or caged pets. Dobbs’ ethnocentric viewpoints taint a perfectly innocent story by trying to force it into a modern political paradigm it was never intended to fit in.
Overall, I am glad I had the opportunity to see this movie in the theatre. I am glad it is getting wonderful reviews by both fans and movie critics. However, I worry about the fate of anime in the realm of the American theatre due to poor marketing, the misunderstanding of intended demographics, and the misinterpretation of themes as “culturally-threatening” due to blatant misinformation and existing bias.
We need to start showing movie producers that Americans are mature enough and open-minded enough to embrace films of quality, regardless of national origin, with formats that challenge our conception of what movies look and feel like, and that may or may not have anything to do with the messages and themes we are used to hearing.
So I urge you to go see this film. Take a chance on something different. I guarantee that whether you love it or hate it, whether you think it should be seen by everyone or whether you think it should be demonized, you will at least have exfanded your horizons of Japanese film, and of what animation can mean to film as a visual media.
[Click to enlarge]Saturday, January 21, 2012
Exfanding Review: Fullmetal Alchemist
A fair warning: Here be spoilers.
A few times this month I've referenced Fullmetal Alchemist, the anime series about two young boys in search of the Philosopher's Stone, the fabled red rock that will allow an alchemist to ignore the law of equivalent exchange: that you can only get as much as you put in. Ed and Al (whose names together form a clever anagram for "lead," the substance historical alchemists sought to transform into gold) aren't even tall enough to ride Space Mountain at Disney World when their mother dies, and with their father long gone, they do what any grade-school kids would do: use the sophisticated and forbidden alchemy practice of human transmutation to resurrect their dead mother.
There's only one catch: equivalent exchange. What's a fair trade for a human life? Ed finds out the hard way that it costs an arm and a leg, quite literally. Al loses his entire body, but is saved from total annihilation when, in desperation, his brother's alchemy anchors Al's soul to a nearby suit of armor. What do their sacrifices gain them? A horrific imitation of their mother that dies shortly after its creation.
Fast forward several years. The boys have realized their mistake; now they just want their real bodies back. Al remains a huge walking suit of armor. Ed now has mechanical replacement limbs, and still isn't tall enough to ride Space Mountain. So they set off on a quest for the mythical stone that can undo the damage without requiring two more limbs and another body to do it.
Along the way, they encounter others who have experimented with human transmutation, and others in search of the Philosopher's Stone. The interplay of motives and actions between characters makes for an intriguing series with plenty of plot twists, the characters are intriguing and memorable, and there's enough humor to keep the heavy subject matter from becoming too overwhelming. Still, with less than ten episodes to go until the end of the series, my enthusiasm for the show is gradually giving way to a sort of mild depression that I'm ready to shake off.
Characters continually go to disturbing lengths to achieve their goals, and unhappy events (and flashbacks to unhappy events) are commonplace--yet these aren't responsible for the gloom that's been setting in. I can appreciate that these characters and these situations make the story as engaging as it is; we could still have a good story without anyone ever blending their dog with their innocent daughter to create a new creature, but the psychological impact that anyone would ever do such a thing gives an incredible amount of depth to the story and the characters.
I think that's just it: I can handle the plot, but what's weighing on me most is what the plot is saying about the characters.
Look at any character who's after the Philosopher's Stone. Look at any character who's tried to bring back the dead. Though there are still a number of motives to be uncovered in these last few episodes, there's a recurring theme: these people cannot let go of the past.
I will be the first to admit that I live happily in the past--I play retro video games, I hold off on new technology until it's old, and I wax nostalgic about the joy and simplicity of days gone by. Yet I embrace the present, look forward to the future, and am not so firmly rooted in the past that I let it consume my every thought and action. The characters in Fullmetal Alchemist are driven to reclaim what was lost or what should have been, reliving the past until things turn out right.
The boy seeking the restoration of his lost limbs, despite being told repeatedly how beneficial his mechanical ones are...
The man who has devoted his life to avenging his dead brother and fallen people...
The husband who creates living puppets to remind him of his late wife...
The military officer whose ambition to move up in the ranks is fueled by his fear of being ordered to repeat his mistakes...
Even here, the principle of equivalent exchange applies: instead of building a future, these characters are using the present to fix the past. They're giving up one to focus on the other. It's sad to see the tragedy that has befallen these characters; it's depressing to see them dragging themselves backward when the only way for their wounds to truly heal is by moving forward.
I dig that I'm invested enough in these characters and their world for this to be making an impact on me. But it's time to move on. For as much as I enjoy the animation style, the action sequences, the characters, and the thought-provoking and humorous dialogue, it's time for someone to get what they want. No matter the resolution--happy, sad, or none at all--I'll take it. There's a handful of episodes left and plenty more anime out there I want to experience; gotta move out from under this cloud if I'm going to see it all.
A few times this month I've referenced Fullmetal Alchemist, the anime series about two young boys in search of the Philosopher's Stone, the fabled red rock that will allow an alchemist to ignore the law of equivalent exchange: that you can only get as much as you put in. Ed and Al (whose names together form a clever anagram for "lead," the substance historical alchemists sought to transform into gold) aren't even tall enough to ride Space Mountain at Disney World when their mother dies, and with their father long gone, they do what any grade-school kids would do: use the sophisticated and forbidden alchemy practice of human transmutation to resurrect their dead mother.
There's only one catch: equivalent exchange. What's a fair trade for a human life? Ed finds out the hard way that it costs an arm and a leg, quite literally. Al loses his entire body, but is saved from total annihilation when, in desperation, his brother's alchemy anchors Al's soul to a nearby suit of armor. What do their sacrifices gain them? A horrific imitation of their mother that dies shortly after its creation.Fast forward several years. The boys have realized their mistake; now they just want their real bodies back. Al remains a huge walking suit of armor. Ed now has mechanical replacement limbs, and still isn't tall enough to ride Space Mountain. So they set off on a quest for the mythical stone that can undo the damage without requiring two more limbs and another body to do it.
Along the way, they encounter others who have experimented with human transmutation, and others in search of the Philosopher's Stone. The interplay of motives and actions between characters makes for an intriguing series with plenty of plot twists, the characters are intriguing and memorable, and there's enough humor to keep the heavy subject matter from becoming too overwhelming. Still, with less than ten episodes to go until the end of the series, my enthusiasm for the show is gradually giving way to a sort of mild depression that I'm ready to shake off.Characters continually go to disturbing lengths to achieve their goals, and unhappy events (and flashbacks to unhappy events) are commonplace--yet these aren't responsible for the gloom that's been setting in. I can appreciate that these characters and these situations make the story as engaging as it is; we could still have a good story without anyone ever blending their dog with their innocent daughter to create a new creature, but the psychological impact that anyone would ever do such a thing gives an incredible amount of depth to the story and the characters.
I think that's just it: I can handle the plot, but what's weighing on me most is what the plot is saying about the characters.Look at any character who's after the Philosopher's Stone. Look at any character who's tried to bring back the dead. Though there are still a number of motives to be uncovered in these last few episodes, there's a recurring theme: these people cannot let go of the past.
I will be the first to admit that I live happily in the past--I play retro video games, I hold off on new technology until it's old, and I wax nostalgic about the joy and simplicity of days gone by. Yet I embrace the present, look forward to the future, and am not so firmly rooted in the past that I let it consume my every thought and action. The characters in Fullmetal Alchemist are driven to reclaim what was lost or what should have been, reliving the past until things turn out right.
The boy seeking the restoration of his lost limbs, despite being told repeatedly how beneficial his mechanical ones are...The man who has devoted his life to avenging his dead brother and fallen people...
The husband who creates living puppets to remind him of his late wife...
The military officer whose ambition to move up in the ranks is fueled by his fear of being ordered to repeat his mistakes...
Even here, the principle of equivalent exchange applies: instead of building a future, these characters are using the present to fix the past. They're giving up one to focus on the other. It's sad to see the tragedy that has befallen these characters; it's depressing to see them dragging themselves backward when the only way for their wounds to truly heal is by moving forward.
I dig that I'm invested enough in these characters and their world for this to be making an impact on me. But it's time to move on. For as much as I enjoy the animation style, the action sequences, the characters, and the thought-provoking and humorous dialogue, it's time for someone to get what they want. No matter the resolution--happy, sad, or none at all--I'll take it. There's a handful of episodes left and plenty more anime out there I want to experience; gotta move out from under this cloud if I'm going to see it all.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Onward to the Next Adventure
With all the creative input I've been receiving the past few weeks, I've been starting to formulate my next Dungeons & Dragons adventure in my head.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind has begun to break my mind out of the rut of "hobbits in huts" with surprising locations such as a city comprised of organic shell-looking buildings, rocky stretches of land plagued by blinding red dust storms, and a sort of quarantined area blocked off by towering walls of ghostly energy.
I've been getting ideas for villains from the likes of Fullmetal Alchemist and Bunraku--villains who are formidable in their own right, but downright devastating when working as a team. Tangled reminded me of how much I enjoy creating memorable side characters and injecting a measure of humor into my adventures.
Nearly everything I've been watching, playing, or reading recently has triggered some thought or another about what to throw at my adventurers the next time I run a campaign. Now I just need to figure out where to start.
Literally, where to start.
My first campaign world was the one I inherited from my first Dungeon Master, who decided he'd like to take a break from running the world to play in it instead. I took on the mantle of DM and carried on the quest from where he left off, making his world my own. This world was the setting of every quest I ran in college, its history deepening and its borders expanding on a weekly basis. I made it a point to keep detailed maps and thorough records of world lore for the sake of preserving continuity, but I found that I had written myself into more than a few corners. There were ways out of these corners, to be sure, but I already had enough inspiration for a brand-new campaign setting to be able to let my first world rest comfortably after graduation.
Unlike the old world, the new world was to be planned out farther in advance than a full course schedule would allow, with the players' actions significantly shaping the direction of the world. Virtually every encounter was to be a first contact scenario--the quests were to be set early enough in the world's history that most races had never heard of one another. Magic and other planes had yet to be discovered. Everything the characters did would have an impact somewhere down the line, and there would be forces at work from the very beginning that wouldn't reveal themselves until someone reached Epic-level status and could take them on.
I got sloppy with the record-keeping. I rushed a few adventures out the door and completely blew the opportunity to set things up as I wanted. My world map was a mess. I was so focused on the big picture that I overlooked so many of the smaller details that framed the big picture.
Now I'm here, thinking about where to hold this new quest I've got in mind.
There's the first world, well-established and rich in history. There's the second world, still young enough to be reshaped to better fit my original purpose for it. Any quest I could come up with would easily have a home in one of these worlds, yet the more I mull it over, the more I want to take a crack at a third world.
If this were anything other than a tabletop roleplaying game, I'd be getting annoyed at myself right now for threatening to reboot my franchise again. Yet this isn't a matter of profit, creative poverty, or desire to breathe new life into a dying series. I want to take the lessons I've learned from both worlds and apply them in the creation of something that draws on the best elements of each: a malleable game world with a bit of history behind it, a bit of subtle hinting toward future quests, and plenty to explore in the here and now.
Besides, I never really abandoned the first world, even after creating the second one. The two were always linked, though you didn't hear that from me. How they were linked was a secret I planned to reveal to my players toward the end of their adventures in the second world, and nothing says there's not room for yet another world to be linked somehow. A fresh start doesn't have to mean I'm giving up on the past; all it means is that I've got new stories to tell.
I think it's time to start putting some ideas down on paper.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind has begun to break my mind out of the rut of "hobbits in huts" with surprising locations such as a city comprised of organic shell-looking buildings, rocky stretches of land plagued by blinding red dust storms, and a sort of quarantined area blocked off by towering walls of ghostly energy.
I've been getting ideas for villains from the likes of Fullmetal Alchemist and Bunraku--villains who are formidable in their own right, but downright devastating when working as a team. Tangled reminded me of how much I enjoy creating memorable side characters and injecting a measure of humor into my adventures.
Nearly everything I've been watching, playing, or reading recently has triggered some thought or another about what to throw at my adventurers the next time I run a campaign. Now I just need to figure out where to start.
Literally, where to start.
My first campaign world was the one I inherited from my first Dungeon Master, who decided he'd like to take a break from running the world to play in it instead. I took on the mantle of DM and carried on the quest from where he left off, making his world my own. This world was the setting of every quest I ran in college, its history deepening and its borders expanding on a weekly basis. I made it a point to keep detailed maps and thorough records of world lore for the sake of preserving continuity, but I found that I had written myself into more than a few corners. There were ways out of these corners, to be sure, but I already had enough inspiration for a brand-new campaign setting to be able to let my first world rest comfortably after graduation.
Unlike the old world, the new world was to be planned out farther in advance than a full course schedule would allow, with the players' actions significantly shaping the direction of the world. Virtually every encounter was to be a first contact scenario--the quests were to be set early enough in the world's history that most races had never heard of one another. Magic and other planes had yet to be discovered. Everything the characters did would have an impact somewhere down the line, and there would be forces at work from the very beginning that wouldn't reveal themselves until someone reached Epic-level status and could take them on.
I got sloppy with the record-keeping. I rushed a few adventures out the door and completely blew the opportunity to set things up as I wanted. My world map was a mess. I was so focused on the big picture that I overlooked so many of the smaller details that framed the big picture.
Now I'm here, thinking about where to hold this new quest I've got in mind.
There's the first world, well-established and rich in history. There's the second world, still young enough to be reshaped to better fit my original purpose for it. Any quest I could come up with would easily have a home in one of these worlds, yet the more I mull it over, the more I want to take a crack at a third world.
If this were anything other than a tabletop roleplaying game, I'd be getting annoyed at myself right now for threatening to reboot my franchise again. Yet this isn't a matter of profit, creative poverty, or desire to breathe new life into a dying series. I want to take the lessons I've learned from both worlds and apply them in the creation of something that draws on the best elements of each: a malleable game world with a bit of history behind it, a bit of subtle hinting toward future quests, and plenty to explore in the here and now.
Besides, I never really abandoned the first world, even after creating the second one. The two were always linked, though you didn't hear that from me. How they were linked was a secret I planned to reveal to my players toward the end of their adventures in the second world, and nothing says there's not room for yet another world to be linked somehow. A fresh start doesn't have to mean I'm giving up on the past; all it means is that I've got new stories to tell.
I think it's time to start putting some ideas down on paper.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Netflixin'
I've already written about my resistance to modern technology, but it's worth reiterating that it generally takes me anywhere from a few months to nearly a decade before The Next Big Thing seems safe, desirable, reasonably priced, and/or at all necessary. Such was the case with Netflix, which up until late 2011 was (in my mind) some online and order-by-mail DVD service that sounded like more trouble and expense than it was worth.
I had a local library with an impressive movie collection. I collected all the TV shows I cared to watch (read: Star Trek) on DVD. I had no real need for Netflix. That didn't stop me from being fascinated by it when my wife and I visited my family for an extended Turkey Day stay.
Netflix's on-demand streaming media service had been popular with my friends for some time, yet despite several exposures to Netflix at their homes, I had never gotten the opportunity to poke around on my own for something to watch. During my long Thanksgiving break this past year, I had access to my brother-in-law's Netflix account and plenty of time in which to watch such movies as Toy Story 3 and Dragnet. I'm still curious about that which is newfangled, even if I don't immediately embrace it, so I relished the chance to flood my brother-in-law's Instant Queue with Lethal Weapon, Airplane!, and other essential viewing he'd missed out on.
Downloading Life Force and various Gradius games during my Konami kick had warmed me up to the idea of digital distribution, and it wasn't long before Netflix won me over entirely. Buying anything on DVD was becoming a costly endeavor (both in terms of money and shelf space), and my unpredictable schedule had discouraged me from borrowing movies from the library that needed to be returned or renewed every few days. Despite some glaring omissions in the catalog (e.g.: Weekend at Bernie's), Netflix seemed like the perfect solution to my ongoing viewing dilemmas.
Obviously my family was paying attention to my wide-eyed stare and gaping mouth as I skimmed through Netflix's massive library, because a month later I had a free subscription waiting for me under the Christmas tree.
I was excited. Now I could watch RoboCop 1-3 and other films I wanted to try out before admitting I owned them on DVD.
My wife was not so enthusiastic.
Her objection: By watching movies on Netflix instead of buying DVDs, we're effectively taking away money from the creators.
My response: By watching terrible movies on Netflix and buying DVDs of the good ones, we're supporting the creators we like and not wasting any money on the ones we don't.
Her objection: Video rental stores used to be a fun place to hang out with friends, and Netflix is putting them all out of business.
My response: My friends just deliberated over which movie to rent until it was too late to watch anything anyhow. Besides, we haven't had friends or video stores since, like, 2006. (I kid--I saw an ironically named West Coast Video in central Pennsylvania in 2007).
Nevertheless, I went ahead and set up the Netflix account, downloaded the Netflix Channel on my Nintendo Wii, and unwittingly left my wife alone with the Wii Remote for a few minutes. When I returned, I heard a gasp and found my Instant Queue, completely empty just moments ago, filled with anime.
"Wow, Clannad? And Baccano! They have all of Gurren Lagann! Ooh, I've heard about Highschool of the Dead...wait, I haven't seen Bleach yet, either..."
Her objection: There's not enough time in the day to watch all this anime! My response: You're absolutely right, dear. Netflix is a terrible thing.
I had a local library with an impressive movie collection. I collected all the TV shows I cared to watch (read: Star Trek) on DVD. I had no real need for Netflix. That didn't stop me from being fascinated by it when my wife and I visited my family for an extended Turkey Day stay.
Netflix's on-demand streaming media service had been popular with my friends for some time, yet despite several exposures to Netflix at their homes, I had never gotten the opportunity to poke around on my own for something to watch. During my long Thanksgiving break this past year, I had access to my brother-in-law's Netflix account and plenty of time in which to watch such movies as Toy Story 3 and Dragnet. I'm still curious about that which is newfangled, even if I don't immediately embrace it, so I relished the chance to flood my brother-in-law's Instant Queue with Lethal Weapon, Airplane!, and other essential viewing he'd missed out on.
Downloading Life Force and various Gradius games during my Konami kick had warmed me up to the idea of digital distribution, and it wasn't long before Netflix won me over entirely. Buying anything on DVD was becoming a costly endeavor (both in terms of money and shelf space), and my unpredictable schedule had discouraged me from borrowing movies from the library that needed to be returned or renewed every few days. Despite some glaring omissions in the catalog (e.g.: Weekend at Bernie's), Netflix seemed like the perfect solution to my ongoing viewing dilemmas.
Obviously my family was paying attention to my wide-eyed stare and gaping mouth as I skimmed through Netflix's massive library, because a month later I had a free subscription waiting for me under the Christmas tree.
I was excited. Now I could watch RoboCop 1-3 and other films I wanted to try out before admitting I owned them on DVD.My wife was not so enthusiastic.
Her objection: By watching movies on Netflix instead of buying DVDs, we're effectively taking away money from the creators.
My response: By watching terrible movies on Netflix and buying DVDs of the good ones, we're supporting the creators we like and not wasting any money on the ones we don't.
Her objection: Video rental stores used to be a fun place to hang out with friends, and Netflix is putting them all out of business.
My response: My friends just deliberated over which movie to rent until it was too late to watch anything anyhow. Besides, we haven't had friends or video stores since, like, 2006. (I kid--I saw an ironically named West Coast Video in central Pennsylvania in 2007).
Nevertheless, I went ahead and set up the Netflix account, downloaded the Netflix Channel on my Nintendo Wii, and unwittingly left my wife alone with the Wii Remote for a few minutes. When I returned, I heard a gasp and found my Instant Queue, completely empty just moments ago, filled with anime.
"Wow, Clannad? And Baccano! They have all of Gurren Lagann! Ooh, I've heard about Highschool of the Dead...wait, I haven't seen Bleach yet, either..."
Her objection: There's not enough time in the day to watch all this anime! My response: You're absolutely right, dear. Netflix is a terrible thing.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
A Year of Opportunities
We've already covered our official resolutions for 2012, but I'd like to lay out some fandom-centric...aspirations, if you will. I hesitate to say "resolutions," because the year ahead is more or less a blank slate at the moment--I'm looking to make the most of the opportunities I have while I've got the time available. Here's what I've got in mind:
- Write more about tabletop roleplaying games. I admit the vast majority of my experience is with Dungeons & Dragons, but there are still plenty of stories to be told and advice to be given.
- Finish my quest to watch through every official Star Trek that exists. I've completed The Original and Animated Series, Next Generation, and all the accompanying movies. My wife and I are now at the end of Deep Space Nine's fifth season, and we're two seasons into Voyager. We'll cap things off with Enterprise, after which I'll begin to brace myself for J.J. Abrams' next Star Trek film in 2013.
- Follow up on my User's Guide to Star Trek: The Original and Animated Series monster mega-post with a guide to TNG and DS9, most likely saving VOY and ENT for the following year.
- Trim down the ratio of unfinished games to beaten and completed games on my Backloggery. I collect games faster than I finish them, and I'd like that to change one way or another.
- Find a suitable permanent recording solution. I've been fighting with a problem-laden makeshift solution since early 2009, and the technical issues keep getting more outrageous with every video series.
One of my friends set the ball in motion by getting me a professional-quality microphone to replace the discount headset I've been using--the one that's barely compatible with my sound card and makes a clunking sound any time I shake my head too much while talking (I get very animated while doing my commentary). Now I just need video recording software that'll last longer than 10 minutes at a clip, and video editing software that works as well as Windows Movie Maker for slapping together multiple video clips and overlapping audio clips, but can also output videos of sufficient quality and size for YouTube without getting any other programs involved. I've had a few suggestions, but more are always welcome.
- Respond to blog comments in a more timely fashion. Seriously, this should not be so difficult for me.
- Follow through on review requests. We've had at least two people offer us review copies for this blog, and we have failed to post so much as a bullet point referencing the material in question. To the people who have offered us things to review, I am sincerely sorry.
- Get caught up on some of the key anime series I've missed. There was a discussion recently on my YouTube channel about Fullmetal Alchemist, which I'd heard plenty about but had never found the opportunity to watch; it's tough to keep track of your comments section when you have no idea what's going on. My parents got me a subscription to Netflix for Christmas, and it turns out there's a wealth of anime available, including FMA. You can imagine how my wife and I spent the last three hours of our day after setting up our account this past Sunday. It's like my college's anime club all over again, and I'm excited about what else is available to watch.
- Avoid staying up past midnight to finish blog posts. On a completely unrelated note, this seems like a good place to stop.
- Write more about tabletop roleplaying games. I admit the vast majority of my experience is with Dungeons & Dragons, but there are still plenty of stories to be told and advice to be given.
- Finish my quest to watch through every official Star Trek that exists. I've completed The Original and Animated Series, Next Generation, and all the accompanying movies. My wife and I are now at the end of Deep Space Nine's fifth season, and we're two seasons into Voyager. We'll cap things off with Enterprise, after which I'll begin to brace myself for J.J. Abrams' next Star Trek film in 2013.
- Follow up on my User's Guide to Star Trek: The Original and Animated Series monster mega-post with a guide to TNG and DS9, most likely saving VOY and ENT for the following year.
- Trim down the ratio of unfinished games to beaten and completed games on my Backloggery. I collect games faster than I finish them, and I'd like that to change one way or another.
- Find a suitable permanent recording solution. I've been fighting with a problem-laden makeshift solution since early 2009, and the technical issues keep getting more outrageous with every video series.One of my friends set the ball in motion by getting me a professional-quality microphone to replace the discount headset I've been using--the one that's barely compatible with my sound card and makes a clunking sound any time I shake my head too much while talking (I get very animated while doing my commentary). Now I just need video recording software that'll last longer than 10 minutes at a clip, and video editing software that works as well as Windows Movie Maker for slapping together multiple video clips and overlapping audio clips, but can also output videos of sufficient quality and size for YouTube without getting any other programs involved. I've had a few suggestions, but more are always welcome.
- Respond to blog comments in a more timely fashion. Seriously, this should not be so difficult for me.
- Follow through on review requests. We've had at least two people offer us review copies for this blog, and we have failed to post so much as a bullet point referencing the material in question. To the people who have offered us things to review, I am sincerely sorry.
- Get caught up on some of the key anime series I've missed. There was a discussion recently on my YouTube channel about Fullmetal Alchemist, which I'd heard plenty about but had never found the opportunity to watch; it's tough to keep track of your comments section when you have no idea what's going on. My parents got me a subscription to Netflix for Christmas, and it turns out there's a wealth of anime available, including FMA. You can imagine how my wife and I spent the last three hours of our day after setting up our account this past Sunday. It's like my college's anime club all over again, and I'm excited about what else is available to watch.
- Avoid staying up past midnight to finish blog posts. On a completely unrelated note, this seems like a good place to stop.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
The Next Phase
I dated a nerdy girl, made a nerdy proposal to her, and got married with enough nerdy touches to keep the geeky side of our personalities visible without overtaking the traditions of the ceremony itself. We're both creative sorts, and relished (and occasionally cursed) all the opportunities we had to inject our crafty, dorky ideas into the wedding and reception, generally at the last minute.
In order for anyone to enjoy our crafty, dorky ideas, we needed to ensure there would be guests present at the wedding. Combining my love of Star Trek and puns with my now-wife's collection of Japanese manga and her Photoshopping know-how, we collaborated on this Next Generation-themed invitation that would be sure to lure our friends and family (or scare them away):
In order for anyone to enjoy our crafty, dorky ideas, we needed to ensure there would be guests present at the wedding. Combining my love of Star Trek and puns with my now-wife's collection of Japanese manga and her Photoshopping know-how, we collaborated on this Next Generation-themed invitation that would be sure to lure our friends and family (or scare them away):
(click to enlarge)
Saturday, October 22, 2011
New York Comic-Con / Anime Festival 2011 Recap: Part Two
Hey! You made it back for part two! Good for you! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please refer to yesterday's post where we began this (epic, sprawling, and only a little whiny) recap of New York Comic-Con 2011.
Yesterday we covered Big Ideas, like how the layout of the convention was a bit offputting and how it really isn't a comic book convention anymore. Today we talk about the Good Stuff, like who we saw, what we bought, and what our favorite aspects of this absolutely massive show were.
Finally, without further preamble, here's part two. We dive right into the good stuff, so enjoy! And leave comments--we know some of you guys were there!
Alex: So, since we're talking about positive things. For me, the biggest positive? Hands-down it was Artist Alley (the comics version, I mean). The sheer number of quality creators at this show was staggering and impressive.
I've never been, but I can only surmise that NYCC's Artist Alley is comparable only to San Diego in terms of numbers and quality. You had the top artists in all of comics, all literally lined up in (several) rows.
While commission lists filled up at a ridiculous pace--some artists had over 60 names on their lists before Friday morning!--there were plenty of opportunities to say hello to people, get autographs, and to purchase prints, original art, or pre-prepared artwork.
This year's Artist Alley was a whole lot easier to navigate than was last year's, and walking around never felt too crowded. Which is a good thing when you're babbling on to Stéphane Roux about how big a fan of his you are.
I was (for once) smart enough to get on pre-convention commission lists and I made out like a bandit. Take, for example, this Victorian Huntress commission by artist Mike Dooney.
He had a long, long list of pre-show commissions which he opened up over a month before the first day of the con. On the other side of that particular coin, Marvel artist Ryan Stegman opened his commission list the weekend before the show started. And, I was told, I managed to be the first one on that list!
As I do at all cons, I added to my Death gallery (yes, yes, I know, very morbid), starting with this moody image by Mr. Stegman:
I was also fortunate in that an exhibitor's badge and a buddy who got in Thursday night allowed for me to get on commission lists at the show. So I managed to get on Supergirl artist Mahmud Asrar's list--one that grew exponentially throughout the weekend. I think I was number five on that one.
I was pretty much blown away with what he came up with, especially considering the amount of work he had to tackle over the span of four days. I know a lot of people give artists grief--"What do you mean you won't get to my sketch today?!?!"--but let me tell you something:
They work their butts off at these cons.
And a whole lot of them do so in an attempt just to cover their traveling expenses. I think people tend to forget that their art is their life, and even though it's someone the vast majority of us wishes we could do for a living...it's still work.
And it's hard work.
My last addition to my Death Miscellany was by Matthew Clark, the fantastic DC artist on books like Doom Patrol and Superman/Batman. I've been a fan of his work for a while and I was thrilled to be able to get a sketch. And, really, "sketch" doesn't do this piece justice.
What can I say? I love Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and as endearing as Morpheus might be, I think it's safe to say that Death is everyone's favorite character from that seminal work.
But enough about Death. Let's move on to The Batman. Now, as with all of these pieces, I really do need to actually scan them and not just use my phone to snap quick photos of them.
But it's late, I'm tired, and at some point Nathaniel needs to add his bit to this here post. So, rounding things out, here's The Dark Knight in all his creepy, moody glory.
This one is by Stuart Sayger, who may be the nicest person in all of comics. And after this weekend I can safely say that there are a lot of nice people in comics.
I spent most of the con in Artist Alley, obviously, and with that lineup, why would I go anywhere else? I love original art, but there's something really special about commissioning a favorite artist to do a drawing just for you.
Nathaniel: Hey, I got some fancy doodles, too. I just can't talk about them until after Christmas. Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise.
[Checks calendar. Definitely after Christmas now. Venture Bros. fans might enjoy these sketches I commissioned for the two friends who introduced me to the show. The first is by storyboard artist Jon Roscetti; the second is by background artist Denny Fincke, whom I had the pleasure of chatting with for a bit. From both, I had asked for a character they haven't been asked to draw much of. Incredibly, without prompting, they both came up with Henchman 21.]
Actually, I can talk about my fiancée's sketchbook. After having spent two-and-a-half days marching around Comic-Con in costume, she wanted nothing more than to take a break on Sunday afternoon and sit in line anywhere just to get off her feet for a while...and she left me her sketchbook to get a few doodles from the attending artists.
Normally, I just gawk at art and then move on to the t-shirts and action figures that I understand. Buying prints I can do, but talking to...people? Convincing them to scribble something artistic in a little notebook?
Surprisingly fun.
Systematically working my way up one aisle and down the next, I passed by every artist in the comics alley, and later, the anime alley. Most of the doodles I got were from people I'd never heard of, which became overwhelmingly obvious when I started inadvertently soliciting colorists and artists' assistants for professional sketches. One person drew a shoe. Another drew a turret from Portal.
This is where my convention experience began to pick up: I was conventioning with a purpose again. "Show up and have fun" only works when you have no idea what you're getting into; this time around, I knew exactly who and what I wasn't willing to wait in line for 2+ hours to see, and I'd already done about all the shopping I could afford to do. Collecting pictures for my gal gave me a direction, and it got me to thinking about some doodle projects of my own...
I met an an artist whose work I'd seen and whose name I forget, complimenting him on the cool and unusual Blackest Night cover that was featured in an old Waiting for Wednesday post, which always catches my attention when the image shows up among the posts spotlighted in the LinkWithin widget at the bottom of each post we write.
I met up with my brother-in-law a few times, who was also collecting scribbles. While he was getting his first sketch of the day (I'm awful at names, so I don't recall who this person was, either), I stood nearby and perused the merchandise on the artist's table. I walked away with $3 worth of Chris Wnuk: Secret Jew comics (click to make the funny bigger).
One of the highlights of the afternoon was meeting C. Martin Croker. Now, I wouldn't have immediately recognized the name, either, but a helpful handmade sign behind him covered all the basics: this was the animation director for Space Ghost Coast to Coast, who also voiced Zorak and Moltar.
Fantastic! This is why I go to conventions.
We had a nice little chat about Space Ghost, and I mentioned how my gal and I enjoy it the most when we're deliriously tired--the show suddenly becomes obscenely hysterical. He followed up with a story about how he and the people with him at the time, when the nonstop news coverage became too overwhelmingly depressing to bear, sat down to Space Ghost in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. Wow.
After our conversation, I asked if he'd mind doing a quick sketch for my fiancée (I had to bribe him, as per the pricing guide on his sign), and he drew a partial Zorak, providing running commentary in his authentic Zorak voice the whole time. Once again, fantastic.
I actually covered a tremendous amount of ground at the convention--between Saturday and Sunday, I combed the entire Artist Alley for comics, the entire Artist Alley for anime, every corner of the Dealers' Room, the Autograph Room (once just about everybody had packed up and left) and most importantly, the food court. A few highlights of my wanderings:
- Star Trek action figures I'd never seen before. And I was a pretty avid collector when the Playmates line of TNG figures was out, tapering off (but still paying attention) shortly after the DS9 figures showed up. Remember Lt. Carey on VOY? No? Well, Playmates didn't forget.
- A t-shirt with the following wonderful (horrible) logo on it:
- The DeLorean from Back to the Future, the Michael Keatmobile, and the Adam Westmobile. Yes, the DeLorean is that blurry in real life.
- Lots of Mega Man costumes. Hey, they had a panel on Mega Man comics--these are totally valid costumes for this convention.
Lastly--and there are plenty of other tales and mini-tales to tell, but I'll close with this one--my brother-in-law, my wife-to-be, and I were headed out on Saturday evening as the Artist Alley was closing down when we ran into a table we were not expecting to see. Not, like, turned a corner too fast and toppled over a table; what I mean is that we were surprised to find a table showcasing my fiancée's all-time favorite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation: "The Inner Light."
I prod my gal, gesturing toward the table, and she rushes over with mouth agape at the stack of scripts and photos of "The Inner Light" (along with scripts of "Starship Mine" and pictures from the DS9 episode "Armageddon Game")...and for-sale replicas of Picard's iconic flute from the episode--the one that sold for $40,000 at auction. This is an episode that is incredibly dear to the Star Trek fan community.
Meanwhile, my brother-in-law was saying, "Wait, what's 'The Inner Light'?"
While my fiancée recoiled in shock, I responded plainly and informatively, "It's one of the most popular episodes of Star Trek." Morgan Gendel, The bespectacled, respectably graying gentleman behind the table responded with what sounded like genuine, humble gratitude: "Thank you."
I turned to him, paused for a second, and asked, "You wrote the episode?" Indeed he had. At last, this table started to make sense. We didn't have much time to chat, as the convention volunteers were already shooing everyone off the floor, but I made a mental note to stop by the next day. I also reminded my fiancée to bring her copy of "The Inner Light"--just that individual episode on VHS--for a signature. We split up the next day and she went to see Morgan separately, but he apparently expressed surprise that such a VHS existed in the first place. Now it's a collector's item, for sure.
My brother-in-law and I stopped by first thing in the morning on Sunday to say hello, and a conversation ensued about pitching the script for "The Inner Light" multiple times before it was accepted, differences in opinion on the Captain America film (which I still haven't seen--gotta catch up!), and how obnoxious it is for Morgan's family to watch movies with him, a scriptwriter with a penchant for picking everything apart. We agreed that modern movies tend to have too big a focus on the special effects and not enough care put into the scripts...which led me to the Big Question.
"I assume you've seen the newest Star Trek movie?"
As you may recall, I was not the biggest fan of the newest Star Trek movie, yet anything I've ever heard from the casts and crews of the various Star Treks about the 2009 film has been nothing but positive. It revitalized the franchise, it made the series relevant again, it would've done creator Gene Roddenberry proud, etc.
"It had a lousy script." I don't believe those were Morgan's exact words, but the sentiment was the same. Begin spoilers.
Writers Orci and Kurtzman were determined to shoehorn in Leonard Nimoy as Spock, to reassure people that he was, is, and forever will be Spock (no matter who else after him wears those ears), and as a result, they couldn't just tell a good story--they had to work their story around Spock Prime. The new Spock, played by Zachary Quinto, could certainly pull of the role skillfully...but his romantic relationship and emotional outbursts drew his character in a different direction than the classic Spock he could have played so well.
I also brought up the lack of carefully crafted situations that organically created emotional responses from the audience. I used the example of Spock's mother, Amanda--oh she's falling, she's falling, we should probably grab her, she's falling, she's falling, oh she's dead. Now we've manipulated the audience's emotions and needlessly scarred one of the main characters for life. Paraphrasing Morgan: "Right. If you want to get an emotional response, just push a character off a cliff."
End spoilers.
After two years of being in the minority amongst fans and Trek actors alike, it was refreshing to find another writer (in addition to the author of Star Trek by the Minute) with an eye on the script who ended up with some of the same misgivings I did. Perhaps I'm more of a critical moviegoer and less of a curmudgeonly traditionalist fan than I once thought.
But hey, you probably didn't come here to read so much about Star Trek. Let's conclude with Chewbacca playing Pac-Man, some actual props and costumes used in the movie Iron Man 2 (which we jointly reviewed last year), more convention costumes (sorry to say, I missed my fleeting chance to snap a picture of Axe Cop), The Goon on wheels, and the most elaborate free sketch I could have hoped for (note the coffee cup).
Yesterday we covered Big Ideas, like how the layout of the convention was a bit offputting and how it really isn't a comic book convention anymore. Today we talk about the Good Stuff, like who we saw, what we bought, and what our favorite aspects of this absolutely massive show were.
Finally, without further preamble, here's part two. We dive right into the good stuff, so enjoy! And leave comments--we know some of you guys were there!
----
Alex: So, since we're talking about positive things. For me, the biggest positive? Hands-down it was Artist Alley (the comics version, I mean). The sheer number of quality creators at this show was staggering and impressive.
I've never been, but I can only surmise that NYCC's Artist Alley is comparable only to San Diego in terms of numbers and quality. You had the top artists in all of comics, all literally lined up in (several) rows.
While commission lists filled up at a ridiculous pace--some artists had over 60 names on their lists before Friday morning!--there were plenty of opportunities to say hello to people, get autographs, and to purchase prints, original art, or pre-prepared artwork.
This year's Artist Alley was a whole lot easier to navigate than was last year's, and walking around never felt too crowded. Which is a good thing when you're babbling on to Stéphane Roux about how big a fan of his you are.
I was (for once) smart enough to get on pre-convention commission lists and I made out like a bandit. Take, for example, this Victorian Huntress commission by artist Mike Dooney.
He had a long, long list of pre-show commissions which he opened up over a month before the first day of the con. On the other side of that particular coin, Marvel artist Ryan Stegman opened his commission list the weekend before the show started. And, I was told, I managed to be the first one on that list!As I do at all cons, I added to my Death gallery (yes, yes, I know, very morbid), starting with this moody image by Mr. Stegman:
I was also fortunate in that an exhibitor's badge and a buddy who got in Thursday night allowed for me to get on commission lists at the show. So I managed to get on Supergirl artist Mahmud Asrar's list--one that grew exponentially throughout the weekend. I think I was number five on that one.
I was pretty much blown away with what he came up with, especially considering the amount of work he had to tackle over the span of four days. I know a lot of people give artists grief--"What do you mean you won't get to my sketch today?!?!"--but let me tell you something:They work their butts off at these cons.
And a whole lot of them do so in an attempt just to cover their traveling expenses. I think people tend to forget that their art is their life, and even though it's someone the vast majority of us wishes we could do for a living...it's still work.
And it's hard work.
My last addition to my Death Miscellany was by Matthew Clark, the fantastic DC artist on books like Doom Patrol and Superman/Batman. I've been a fan of his work for a while and I was thrilled to be able to get a sketch. And, really, "sketch" doesn't do this piece justice.
What can I say? I love Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and as endearing as Morpheus might be, I think it's safe to say that Death is everyone's favorite character from that seminal work.But enough about Death. Let's move on to The Batman. Now, as with all of these pieces, I really do need to actually scan them and not just use my phone to snap quick photos of them.
But it's late, I'm tired, and at some point Nathaniel needs to add his bit to this here post. So, rounding things out, here's The Dark Knight in all his creepy, moody glory.
This one is by Stuart Sayger, who may be the nicest person in all of comics. And after this weekend I can safely say that there are a lot of nice people in comics.I spent most of the con in Artist Alley, obviously, and with that lineup, why would I go anywhere else? I love original art, but there's something really special about commissioning a favorite artist to do a drawing just for you.
Nathaniel: Hey, I got some fancy doodles, too. I just can't talk about them until after Christmas. Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise.
[Checks calendar. Definitely after Christmas now. Venture Bros. fans might enjoy these sketches I commissioned for the two friends who introduced me to the show. The first is by storyboard artist Jon Roscetti; the second is by background artist Denny Fincke, whom I had the pleasure of chatting with for a bit. From both, I had asked for a character they haven't been asked to draw much of. Incredibly, without prompting, they both came up with Henchman 21.]
Actually, I can talk about my fiancée's sketchbook. After having spent two-and-a-half days marching around Comic-Con in costume, she wanted nothing more than to take a break on Sunday afternoon and sit in line anywhere just to get off her feet for a while...and she left me her sketchbook to get a few doodles from the attending artists.
Normally, I just gawk at art and then move on to the t-shirts and action figures that I understand. Buying prints I can do, but talking to...people? Convincing them to scribble something artistic in a little notebook?
Surprisingly fun.
Systematically working my way up one aisle and down the next, I passed by every artist in the comics alley, and later, the anime alley. Most of the doodles I got were from people I'd never heard of, which became overwhelmingly obvious when I started inadvertently soliciting colorists and artists' assistants for professional sketches. One person drew a shoe. Another drew a turret from Portal.
This is where my convention experience began to pick up: I was conventioning with a purpose again. "Show up and have fun" only works when you have no idea what you're getting into; this time around, I knew exactly who and what I wasn't willing to wait in line for 2+ hours to see, and I'd already done about all the shopping I could afford to do. Collecting pictures for my gal gave me a direction, and it got me to thinking about some doodle projects of my own...I met an an artist whose work I'd seen and whose name I forget, complimenting him on the cool and unusual Blackest Night cover that was featured in an old Waiting for Wednesday post, which always catches my attention when the image shows up among the posts spotlighted in the LinkWithin widget at the bottom of each post we write.
I met up with my brother-in-law a few times, who was also collecting scribbles. While he was getting his first sketch of the day (I'm awful at names, so I don't recall who this person was, either), I stood nearby and perused the merchandise on the artist's table. I walked away with $3 worth of Chris Wnuk: Secret Jew comics (click to make the funny bigger).
One of the highlights of the afternoon was meeting C. Martin Croker. Now, I wouldn't have immediately recognized the name, either, but a helpful handmade sign behind him covered all the basics: this was the animation director for Space Ghost Coast to Coast, who also voiced Zorak and Moltar.Fantastic! This is why I go to conventions.
We had a nice little chat about Space Ghost, and I mentioned how my gal and I enjoy it the most when we're deliriously tired--the show suddenly becomes obscenely hysterical. He followed up with a story about how he and the people with him at the time, when the nonstop news coverage became too overwhelmingly depressing to bear, sat down to Space Ghost in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. Wow.
After our conversation, I asked if he'd mind doing a quick sketch for my fiancée (I had to bribe him, as per the pricing guide on his sign), and he drew a partial Zorak, providing running commentary in his authentic Zorak voice the whole time. Once again, fantastic.
I actually covered a tremendous amount of ground at the convention--between Saturday and Sunday, I combed the entire Artist Alley for comics, the entire Artist Alley for anime, every corner of the Dealers' Room, the Autograph Room (once just about everybody had packed up and left) and most importantly, the food court. A few highlights of my wanderings:- Star Trek action figures I'd never seen before. And I was a pretty avid collector when the Playmates line of TNG figures was out, tapering off (but still paying attention) shortly after the DS9 figures showed up. Remember Lt. Carey on VOY? No? Well, Playmates didn't forget.
- A t-shirt with the following wonderful (horrible) logo on it:
- The DeLorean from Back to the Future, the Michael Keatmobile, and the Adam Westmobile. Yes, the DeLorean is that blurry in real life.
- Lots of Mega Man costumes. Hey, they had a panel on Mega Man comics--these are totally valid costumes for this convention.
Lastly--and there are plenty of other tales and mini-tales to tell, but I'll close with this one--my brother-in-law, my wife-to-be, and I were headed out on Saturday evening as the Artist Alley was closing down when we ran into a table we were not expecting to see. Not, like, turned a corner too fast and toppled over a table; what I mean is that we were surprised to find a table showcasing my fiancée's all-time favorite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation: "The Inner Light."
I prod my gal, gesturing toward the table, and she rushes over with mouth agape at the stack of scripts and photos of "The Inner Light" (along with scripts of "Starship Mine" and pictures from the DS9 episode "Armageddon Game")...and for-sale replicas of Picard's iconic flute from the episode--the one that sold for $40,000 at auction. This is an episode that is incredibly dear to the Star Trek fan community.Meanwhile, my brother-in-law was saying, "Wait, what's 'The Inner Light'?"
While my fiancée recoiled in shock, I responded plainly and informatively, "It's one of the most popular episodes of Star Trek." Morgan Gendel, The bespectacled, respectably graying gentleman behind the table responded with what sounded like genuine, humble gratitude: "Thank you."
I turned to him, paused for a second, and asked, "You wrote the episode?" Indeed he had. At last, this table started to make sense. We didn't have much time to chat, as the convention volunteers were already shooing everyone off the floor, but I made a mental note to stop by the next day. I also reminded my fiancée to bring her copy of "The Inner Light"--just that individual episode on VHS--for a signature. We split up the next day and she went to see Morgan separately, but he apparently expressed surprise that such a VHS existed in the first place. Now it's a collector's item, for sure.
My brother-in-law and I stopped by first thing in the morning on Sunday to say hello, and a conversation ensued about pitching the script for "The Inner Light" multiple times before it was accepted, differences in opinion on the Captain America film (which I still haven't seen--gotta catch up!), and how obnoxious it is for Morgan's family to watch movies with him, a scriptwriter with a penchant for picking everything apart. We agreed that modern movies tend to have too big a focus on the special effects and not enough care put into the scripts...which led me to the Big Question.
"I assume you've seen the newest Star Trek movie?"
As you may recall, I was not the biggest fan of the newest Star Trek movie, yet anything I've ever heard from the casts and crews of the various Star Treks about the 2009 film has been nothing but positive. It revitalized the franchise, it made the series relevant again, it would've done creator Gene Roddenberry proud, etc."It had a lousy script." I don't believe those were Morgan's exact words, but the sentiment was the same. Begin spoilers.
Writers Orci and Kurtzman were determined to shoehorn in Leonard Nimoy as Spock, to reassure people that he was, is, and forever will be Spock (no matter who else after him wears those ears), and as a result, they couldn't just tell a good story--they had to work their story around Spock Prime. The new Spock, played by Zachary Quinto, could certainly pull of the role skillfully...but his romantic relationship and emotional outbursts drew his character in a different direction than the classic Spock he could have played so well.
I also brought up the lack of carefully crafted situations that organically created emotional responses from the audience. I used the example of Spock's mother, Amanda--oh she's falling, she's falling, we should probably grab her, she's falling, she's falling, oh she's dead. Now we've manipulated the audience's emotions and needlessly scarred one of the main characters for life. Paraphrasing Morgan: "Right. If you want to get an emotional response, just push a character off a cliff."End spoilers.
After two years of being in the minority amongst fans and Trek actors alike, it was refreshing to find another writer (in addition to the author of Star Trek by the Minute) with an eye on the script who ended up with some of the same misgivings I did. Perhaps I'm more of a critical moviegoer and less of a curmudgeonly traditionalist fan than I once thought.
But hey, you probably didn't come here to read so much about Star Trek. Let's conclude with Chewbacca playing Pac-Man, some actual props and costumes used in the movie Iron Man 2 (which we jointly reviewed last year), more convention costumes (sorry to say, I missed my fleeting chance to snap a picture of Axe Cop), The Goon on wheels, and the most elaborate free sketch I could have hoped for (note the coffee cup).
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