Holiday Chicken Special

            I work in an office.  My commitment to giving a dedicated 40-60% of my all to this job on a consistent basis has left me with little energy to write on this blog with any frequency.  Contrary to what you or others may believe, writing takes a lot of mental energy, it is mental exercise that is taxing.

            But while my job does sit on my brain like a big fat dog keeping me from getting up, occasionally it does give me something to talk about… Mostly stuff I can’t post because pointed criticisms of your work, no mater how many layers of anonymity, is not smart.

            Today I have one of the things I can write about, the office Christmas party.  Last year we did a traditional secret Santa format and I gave a picture frame with a picture of myself in it, and in the picture, I am holding up a sign that says, “The Frame is the Present”.  I am (of course) mugging in this picture.  One of my coworkers thought it was such a fun gift idea, she told her husband and the husband decided to do the same thing for all the people in his office.

            I am a trend setter.

            This year we had a Holiday Sock Party… Which is apparently a thing.  The idea being… It is secret Santa, but with Socks.  Alright.

            The organizing member of the office gathered names, favorite colors, candy, hobby/interests, and a preference on whether the person wanted “holiday socks” or just socks.  I listed myself as “ambivalent” on the sock question.

            My draw gave me a woman from the office I have interacted with dozens of times, but her name never stuck, I am kind of an inconsiderate workmate.  Her interest was listed as “Roosters/Country Theme”.  What an odd choice you might be thinking, I made the most of it.

            I went to a craft store, bought a rooster sculpture that was on sale, and made holiday cloths for it out of printer paper.  I also made it a tiny 3D beard out of layers of paper with trimmed edges and secured it with fish line.  I then made her a card, written in character as the “Holiday Chicken”.  That card is presented below along with the image of the titular fowl.

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Season’s Greetings from the Holiday Chicken,

I am obligated to preface all of this by telling you that I am not acting in any official capacity for the Holiday, I am merely passionate about it.

As such, much like Santa reps for Christmas I am attempting to set myself up as a holiday mascot for Christmas Socks.  I will freely admit, I am a poor choice for this job, as being a chicken, socks are… well, let’s just say I have lots of friends who have worn socks.

But!  I want to break into the holiday mascot industry and we all have to start somewhere.

So, socks it is.

Anyway, I have included the receipts, as I feel unqualified to make judgments about what socks people should receive and want them to be able to swap such things if they need to.

Happy Holidays from the Holiday Chicken.

P.S. if you know anyone who works in Santa’s workshop and could get me an interview do not hesitate to pass that information over.  I am not too chicken to ask for help in professional advancement.

(Resume and References available upon request)

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Goodbye Stan Lee

It was not so long ago that I wrote a blog about the death of Harold Ramis… Good lord that was almost 5 years ago… Okay, it has been a while since I last spoke on the topic of death especially as it relates to famous individuals who have had a real impact on me creatively and helped to shape who I am, even if they never met me.

This week Stan Lee, co-creator of many of Marvel Comics’ greatest heroes, and perhaps one of the greatest public icons for science fiction and fantasy ever, passed away.  He remained a living mascot and spokesman for the glory and wonder of imagination for decades.  He was, by all accounts I could find, a good person who legitimately hoped that he had made a difference in the lives of people by telling his silly stories.

He lived to be 95 years old, a revered almost canonized figure of secular values.  “With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility” is such an important lesson that I don’t even think the profundity of it completely lands anymore.

I have been reading comics, watching cartoons, and reading books about his creations long before they took off and became the biggest entertainment business in the world.  Stan’s creations, along with those of Jack Kirby, Bill Finger, and the other legions of creators from that rare era where creativity first started exploding in the way it did, into an age of larger than life characters, those creations have impacted me greatly.

"I used to be embarrassed because I was just a comic-book writer while other people were building bridges or going on to medical careers. And then I began to realize: entertainment is one of the most important things in people’s lives. Without it they might go off the deep end. I feel that if you’re able to entertain people, you’re doing a good thing." – Stan Lee, The Washington Post

I owe Lee a tremendous debt.  I hope that I can be, directly or indirectly, as much of an impact on someone else, as he had on me.  There will never be another Stan Lee, the world is just not set out that way anymore.  But maybe the one we were lucky enough to get was enough.

There are other celebrities that have passed away that had an impact on me that I have not spoken on, and I don’t always want to.  That some creatives hit me in a way that I process on my own because I don’t really know what to say.  But I think that Stan Lee has to be one of the ones I comment on.  It felt okay to.

He lived a long life, and his stories will live longer still.  To quote comic author Neil Gaiman, “Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and adventures are the shadow truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes and forgotten.”

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Some of the Genius of "The Planet of the Apes" (1968)

            The Original 1968 “Planet of the Apes” is a science fiction classic.  It is so influential as to seem pedestrian by modern standards, filled with story elements ranging from cliché to thin.  But much like all classics in any genre, the reason it feels predictable or unremarkable is simply because we grew up in a world that it helped create.  The final twist is one of the most iconic moments in movie history, endlessly parodied and creating a demand for clever twists in the genre from there out…. Kind of.

The Plot

            A group of astronauts crash land on a primitive world, after taking a quick assessment of the local humans and concluding they will be running the place in short order, they are then confronted with a brutal reality, a race of ape-men control the planet and use humans as little more than cattle.  The presence of the astronauts, humans who can speak and possessing scientific knowledge beyond what the apes thought humans capable of, throws the social order into a spin.

            Ultimately, it is revealed that the Apes have been covering up the truth, that a once great human civilization ruled earth before destroying itself.  The last astronaut explores the ruins and reveals that the lost civilization was the USA.  The “Alien Planet” was Earth the whole time.  The Astronauts had been in suspended animation and arrived in the far future after a cataclysmic war.

The Twist

By today’s standards the twist is an anti-twist.  Why would an alien planet have humans?  There is a dead giveaway.  BUT, it is important to understand the world this movie was released into.  I kind of give the twist a pass because at the time Science Fiction was still more allegorical to old time adventure and exploration stories about being at sea and finding islands with natives that resembled us but had a differing social order.

For instance, look at "Star Trek" which was still on the air when the movie was released.  Star Trek had so many human populated planets that the whole thing feels cheap in retrospect.  But, it is a consequence of the genre, Star Trek was asked to use props the studio had on hand so as to squeeze all the utility they could out of them.  “We’ve got a Gangster Planet, an Ancient Rome in Modern Times Planet, we have a planet with a Haunted Castle, and another with Greco Ruins!”

The audience for “Planet of the Apes” was primed to say, "Okay, so this is a planet much like ours that fell to apes."  More akin to a cheap out rendition of the Elder Thing/Shoggoth civilization in, "At the Mountains of Madness" by HP Lovecraft.  Altho, the sub textual message of that story WAS SUPER DIFFERENT than the message of “Apes”.  (I should talk about that sometime.)

Having the twist of “Planet of the Apes” be that it was explicitly Earth might have rocked some mental boats because the audience saw Earth in science fiction as being safe from those kinds of story.  Or at least you knew what you were getting into, like “The Last Man on Earth”.  There weren’t any other post-apocalyptic movies from this era that took place on Earth and that was the big reveal, people were just used to certain genre conventions pulling them toward not getting the twist.  Kind of.

The Context

            Let us briefly travel back in time to the era of 60’s science fiction and look at what I would consider the most influential science fiction works of the time and why that presents an important context for “Planet of the Apes”.  At the time there were four shows that have remained in the popular consciousness because of their deep penetration into pop culture.  “Star Trek” and “Doctor Who” which were more oriented toward exploration in the classic adventure story sense, and “The Twilight Zone” and the “Outer Limits” which were both genre-shows known for having twist endings.

            All four of these shows have an element of anthology storytelling to them.  “Twilight Zone” and “Outer Limits” explicitly, but “Doctor Who” and “Star Trek” often felt like standalone storytelling, continuity was not as strong an element as it is these days, the crew of the Enterprise or TaRDiS would show up at a place, be confronted with a science fiction story, and then solve the story and leave, you could watch a serial of “Doctor Who” or an episode of “Star Trek” and see it as a standalone story for the most part.

            Now, “Doctor Who” would travel to possible futures and show the world in various states of decay, or back in time to show the literal caves humans used to live in.  “Star Trek” would travel to human populated worlds and often times had embarrassing presentations of, “THIS COULD BE EARTH!” presentations with “The Omega Glory” one of the most obnoxious episodes of the series.  But neither of these shows was about seeing EARTH after the fall as a gotcha to the audience.

            “Twilight Zone” and “Outer Limits” on the other hand HAD LOTS OF THIS KIND OF THING!  Tho, the “Twilight Zone” takes the cake in this department, I think there were multiple stories of Adam and Eve making the best of things in the post apocalypse of a civilization that preceded ours or being all that was left of our current world.

But, even the “Twilight Zone” twists come in a bunch of different ways, “Third from the Sun” is about people fleeing the planet in an experimental spaceship as a nuclear war is about to break out, turns out the habitable world they are fleeing to… IS EARTH!

Conclusion

            We have this era of science fiction in which Astronauts like the crew of the Enterprise go to planets *like Earth* that have some twist, only looking like Earth to make a point.  We also have “The Twilight Zone” which has twists all about saying, “And it was Earth all along”.  I think the reason “Planet of the Apes” works is that those two micro-genres in Science Fiction, “we are somewhere else” and “it was Earth” really had not mixed as much at the time.

            When the movie starts we think we are watching “Star Trek” by the end we realize we are watching “The Twilight Zone”.  "Planet of the Apes" bridged that gap and changed people's understanding of the genre so that such a twist wouldn't really work these days without some kind of setup that would require a lot more explanation (for instance, “humans have been space faring for so long Earth has been forgotten and the space explorers went there not knowing what it was”).

            Or, you know, maybe I don’t know what I am talking about.  “Planet of the Apes” had a lot going on with animal rights and the idea of a social order that strips the humanity and history from a people to make them into cattle.  Creating a metaphor that some would call “mixed”, but I prefer to look at as complex.  Trying to do too direct a comparison to real life issues always feels cartoonish to me, I prefer to have a blending of issues so that the audience has to do some of the work and can reach their own conclusions about the touched-on topics.

            Or, you know, maybe I don’t know what I am talking about.

"Oh shit.  There goes the planet."

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Halloween Horror Nights 2018

I went to Halloween Horror Nights this year.  I managed to visit all of the houses, the Villains Academy dance show, and pass thru all the scare zones.  I also managed to go on “The Mummy” ride and the Rock-It Roller Coaster (which, while a good coaster, its theme feels like a parody of what “the youth” thinks is cool).

While I can say that the scare zones were fine, and the dance show was… Lame, I am sorry, there were cool things in it, but overall it did not come together… Everyone knows that the houses are what people are there to see.  So, I am going to review them, as I have done in the past.

I was going to put these in no particular order, then afterword I tried to shuffle them from lamest to best, here are my thoughts on each house.

10) Carnival Graveyard: Rust in Pieces

Rednecks/Carnies hold up in the rusting ruin of an abandoned carnival, and they are all dressed to theme… because I guess they are auditioning to be minions for the Joker.

            This one suffered from multiple issues.  While in my mind, scary carnival is easy to pull off (I wrote a whole novelette with that premise) this one was kind of bland with the idea.  I mean killers in carnival garb is fine, could have a lot of visual variety… But it mostly just shook out to the word “trespassers” written in red paint next to a fake dead body with a pitchfork in it.

            The timing on this one was also off for me, I missed a good chunk of the scares.

9) Slaughter Sinema

Let’s take the idea of grindhouse drive in movies and make a series of different spoof films with horror themes.

The potential for visual variety in this one was high, and several of the areas were really cool… I wish that they had managed to scare me more.

            The timing of the scares was COSMICALLY off.  There was a whole area I walked thru with NOTHING moving.  At some points I was literally squinting into the darkness because I wanted to SEE the thing that was going to jump out at the next person in line.

            This could have been my favorite, but failure of execution kept it from delivering.

8) The Horrors of Blumhouse

A split house featuring scenes from “Happy Death Day” (which was a time loop movie with a masked killer) and “The First Purge” (latest in the surprisingly iconic franchise).

            What an odd pairing.  “Happy Death Day” is a comedy about… a masked killer which does not make for an interesting visual experience.  I have to admit, they do something clever with the house, repeating the same bedroom scene multiple times from different angles to simulate the movie… But it is not scary.

            “The Purge” side of things is better, because the killers all wear a range of diverse and badass masks… I will have to talk about “The Purge” franchise one of these days… But, the house doesn’t really work overall.  Two tastes that taste bland together.

7) Seeds of Extinction

Alien plant life is spreading out and unleashing humanoid plant monsters on the world.

            I like the concept and the setting was nice… I think I would have liked the monsters a lot more if I could freaking see them.  The thing was so poorly lit, it was harder to see in this house than the house where going blind is part of the gimmick.

            I feel this is a bit of a letdown, but not actually bad.

6) Stranger Things

Iconic scenes from one of the best shows in existence.

            It’s fine.  I like the show, as a show.  I get a mild mental *ping* from recognizing something from the show as a room in the house.  I can appreciate the cool monster suit.  This is not particularly scary.  My emotional response was quite mellow.

5) Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Michael Myers is out and swinging his knife wildly at people yet again.

This was the last house we went to and we almost didn’t bother.  Previous years’ “Halloween” houses have been kind of ‘meh’.  This has more to do with my personal ambivalence toward the series (the first one is good in the sense of being a classic, but I actually like the strangeness of number 3 more).  A masked killer is just not that impressive to me from a visuals standpoint, and not conducive to an imaginative house.

That all being said, this one was pretty good.  The timing hit me multiple times and I think it was just laid out well so that I wasn’t constantly aware of where the scare was coming from.  A well-constructed house makes up for blah source material.

4) Dead Exposure: Patient Zero

World War I era zombie outbreak in France… and you are going blind.

This was a surprise highlight for the evening.  The use of lights coming up and fading out, odd flashes, mirrors, and holograms they were able to put a good spin on what could have just been a zombie house with a period setting.

Not everything about it worked, the speakers going in were too loud; one room was just flashing bulbs; but, it had one of the best singular rooms when the lights come on with a zombie, and then go out, only to then return without the zombie.  Cool effect see that is hard to explain the interesting aspects of in words.

3) Poltergeist

A family is haunted by a variety of strange occurrences.

“Poltergeist” is one of my favorite scary movies.  It is well paced, has numerous interesting set pieces and has a likable cast of characters doing their best.

This house was kind of great.  With several HUGE items showing off some of the scariest images in the movie.  I find the use of that clown toy to be a bit much, a consequence of that remake NO ONE SAW.  But, if you have to grab onto memorable things… the clown is memorable.  My biggest complaint is that the house starts at the end of the movie, with coffins and dead bodies erupting out of the ground, like… why?

This might be the best house.  Really the top 3 are all pretty even with one another.

2) Trick ‘r Treat

Based on a movie more people need to watch.  A series of different horror stories weave in and out of one another on Halloween night.

This was conducive to lots of visual variety, undead children, vampire, serial killer, werewolves, and Sam, the creepy sack boy mascot character.

Literally the only issue I had is that right in the front the path splits, I was unsure which direction to walk down, and ended up on a dead-end that should have had a staff member to point me in the right direction.  Aside from that there were plenty of cool images and my friends held it as one of the highlights of the whole visit.

Watch this movie.

1) Scary Tales: Deadly Ever After

Evil interpretations of fairy tales. 

A series of fairy tales, with the wicked witch, humpty dumpty, the three pigs, goldilocks, Rapunzel, and others.  All of them done as horror monsters.  I loved it.  Only one of them did not make any sense to me and that was Humpty Dumpty, but I don’t know what they could have done… That’s not true I immediately have an idea just saying it out loud to myself.  But, that is fine.

Perhaps the most visually interesting of all the houses.  My personal favorite.

Conclusion

I liked Halloween Horror Nights this year more than last.  I got to take in everything, spend plenty of time with most of my friends from grad school, and really the spending time with friends was the core appeal here… the park was just an excuse to see people I used to either live with or live a 5-minute walk from.

I had intended to do this review in multiple parts, but I was busy mentally gearing up for a big test (probably write something about that later) and this just slipped down the priorities list as frivolity is wont to do.

As a side note, why don’t they bring back “Rocky Horror Picture Show”?  I liked it.

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Poem, "Too Long a Summer"

Too Long a Summer

Time has tripped and taken to autumn, but born up by hot wind, away from the cold ground of winter.

Gliding and hanging on far too long to summer.

Confused and bitter at the indignity, flailing in their hopelessness, Time stays alive in every twist with wakes of spiraling steam and tide cast by every move.

Sweaty and fallow cheeked wishing for the shady places of cool long nights to bring.

Angry to feel the warmth and humid air hang to them.

Time is hanging on.  Still believing that the world can be cool again.  Eyes looking out as he slowly falls thru the hot wind, they see leafless trees, not from the approach of winter but of a summer that will never end.

Touching down, the ground is hard and dusty and hot.

Be still, be patient, they say, wiping sweat that falls hard to the ground.

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This was inspired by this poem: "May Morning" by James Wright

If you want to read more of my poems, click here.

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Superhero Romantic Comedy

It was spoken about recently that the Gambit movie (that I am sure they are totally going to make and is in no way some strange shell game being played with investors) would have the tone of a romantic comedy.

Gambit has been a popular character with women for a while.  Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, not being a woman, I am not speaking from experience, I just recall Taylor Kitsch being mentioned as a positive of that god awful “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” film… and he barely did anything but look handsome and participate in a poorly executed fight.

Would this qualify as "smolder"?

What I am trying to say is, taking a character popular with women and marketing it as a genre popular with women seems like a smart move and a good way to again go outside the usual genre trappings that dominate superhero and science fiction media these days.

Honestly, I have kind of wanted something like this for a while.  I am going to explain what I mean and then I am going to share some sad movie news that relates.

Remember the dialogue in "Winter Soldier" with Black Widow trying to get Captain America to go on a date.  I kind of want that movie of Captain America going on a date.

Have Cap go out with someone he doesn't connect with because they are from different time periods.  A woman who grew up watching “She-Ra” and being able to participate in sports because of title 9 is going to be a lot to handle for a guy like Steve, who admittedly is exceptionally liberal for his time and whose 1 true love was an ace super spy.  They are not going to get the same pop culture references regardless of how much Marvin Gaye Captain America has been listening to.

After the date have him go on a short adventure as Captain America stopping a bank robbery by the Serpent Society, a group of snake themed villains who are colorful and have a simple gimmick, no need for a full on “Marvel Phase III” bad guy like Ego or Killmonger with complexity and shit.  Just goofy assholes who rob banks.

On the adventure have him meet Diamond Back, a villain he has had relationships with in the comics.  Have Cap connect with her via dialogue, witty repartee, film their fight scene like a sex scene (a trick Del Toro used for the bow staff fight scene in “Pacific Rim”), and ultimately have Cap let her get away because he was charmed by the adventure and attraction.

Insert scenes of Cap, Bucky, and Falcon eating Po boy sandwiches and talking about the confrontation.  Have the realization being that he can't connect to normal people anymore because the world he grew up in (his normal) doesn't exist, all of his relationships are going to be ones he has via being Captain America.  That is a cool revelation to make about your hero and his mental state.

This sort of story can work as a "Romancing the Stone" style fun adventure film and I WANT IT!
NOT EVERY MOVIE NEEDS THE PLANET EXPLODING!

I want movies about everyday lives of superheroes too.  And not just Spiderman and Antman, because most of there stuff amounts to, “The world is once again stomping on my neck.”

Sad News

Saw this on twitter, and I have a nagging suspicion that it means my idea for a movie is never going to happen.

Officially wrapped on Avengers 4. It was an emotional day to say the least. Playing this role over the last 8 years has been an honor. To everyone in front of the camera, behind the camera, and in the audience, thank you for the memories! Eternally grateful.

— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) October 4, 2018

Well, he had to leave the role at some point.  Chris Evens strikes me as a really great guy and from what he puts out on twitter… He might actually be one more injustice away from taking to the rooftops and fighting crime for real.

I hope he continues to be an entertaining presence in movies.

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"Free Market" a Short Story

The storm had passed.  With its passing homes and businesses, roads and fields, so much had been swept away.  A few people remained, their possessions gone, but clinging to hope that they would one day rebuild...

"It is called the free market," said the merchant flush with goods to the crowd of hungry people.  "You pay me my price, or you don't get any product."

"We are desperate," said the man at the front of the crowd.  "It is a time of crisis and you want to exploit our desperation."

"I am not a charity," said the Merchant.  "And I don't see anyone else around here who has anything to sell.  So, pay me what I want or fuck off."

The desperate man at the front of the crowd hit the merchant hard across the face.

"What?!" screamed the merchant, his teeth red with blood.  "What gives you the right to hit me?"

A stone thrown from the crowd of hungry people thumped into the merchants shoulder.

"Ah!" screamed the merchant in pain.  "You are all animals!"

Another strike from a third person.  Then a kick.  They were not individuals anymore.  They were a mob.

"Stop!" screamed the merchant between cries of pain.  "Please!"

The merchant was on the ground now, being stomped on as the crowd surrounded his goods and started handing them out among themselves.  Before long all that was left was an empty cart with the merchant curled up under it to keep out of the drizzle.

The now desperate man flinched when he heard the sound of footsteps but felt relief when he looked out and saw a man wearing a Caduceus carrying a bag of medicine and bandages.

"Please help me," said the desperate man.

"I would love to," said the healer.  "Tell me, how much is my help worth to you?"

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This story was inspired by this sociopathic article by John Stossel, a journalist I used to like and respect.  Now, I just think he is an unsympathetic dick.

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Audible Review, "Genesis"

Introduction

I recently finished another boring book that had strange pacing problems, it was “Genesis” by Ken Lozito and narrated by Scott Aeillo.  It is book one in the “First Colony” series.  I got it on sale from Audible as I am a frequent reader of science fiction.

It sucked...

The Plot

            After a botched military black operation against the international criminal organization known as “The Syndicate” results in the death of millions, Colonel Conner is kidnapped by his commanding officer and put onto the first ever interstellar colony ship.  Conner will be made the fall guy for the botched op but will be allowed to live in exile on some distant alien world.

            After arriving Conner quickly ingratiates himself with the comically inept colonists by telling them incredibly basic tactics and saving people from their own stupidity.  He becomes head of his own search and rescue team and after a short period of time spent in the role manages to save people from a horde of slavering monsters.

            Then, rather than offer any sort of denouement, the last 30 minutes of the story is a massive sequel hook to a book I will never read.

The voice actor did his best, with the material he was given.

           

First: Some Good Stuff

            This book has a lot of good set up.  A main character with a dark past fighting terrorists and criminals; hundreds of thousands of colonists in suspended animation means that the author will never run out of new and interesting characters that need no explanation for why they haven’t been around; and there are mysteries on the planet, with alien ruins and monsters that promise adventure in a pulp science fiction sense.

            The action scenes are pretty good.  I have a good understanding of the geography of each fight, the capabilities of the monsters and equipment, and the limitations of the heroes due to injury and other limiting factors.  It is a shame the action scenes are boring because they are in service to my first complaint.

Now the Bad Stuff: Lame Characters

            The dialogue is boring, flat, and functional.  Little humor or humanizing aspects exist.  When variations occur, it is to illustrate a character as a whiney stupid dipshit.  No one uses interesting turns of phrase, nobody gives any small stories to explain their own world view, nobody except Conner seems to have any backstory of note.  Call me crazy, but the command staff of the first interstellar colony ship from Earth would have some pretty elite and interesting people, not just a gaggle of dweebs.

            I guess when I said, “…never run out of new interesting characters…” when talking about the good stuff, I was giving credit to the concept/set-up, but I can’t point to anything in the execution.  Aside from the two roles of, “Complain about Conner” and “Agree with Conner” there really isn’t much going on that characters get up to.  I guess, “Resent Conner for being right” is a third option.

There is Sean, the son of the governor who wants to join search and rescue to reach his full potential and get away from his parent’s smothering him, and he shares a name with Conner’s son who he left behind on Earth.  Sooooooooo, Sean had SO MUCH POTENTIAL as a story element, but fails for the same reason everyone fails.  He is just so flat.

But hey, there is a scene in which Conner fights alien monsters in power armor.  That is kind of cool.
I mean, nobody dies and there is no tension at all in the scene.  So, it is kind of toothless and boring.

Bigger Complaint: Boring Protagonist

            Beyond the background characters being boring the real diamond hard issue at the core of the story is Conner himself.  HE IS BORING TO SUCH AN EPIC LEVEL.  He is not a character so much as he is a collection of skills.  He makes a decision, he does a thing, and then the situation resolves itself. 

There is never a point where Conner has a character defect (fear, lack of confidence, indecision, or even something more complex like greed or over confidence).  There is no point where he makes a mistake or lapse in judgement which results in something bad happening.  Conner is always right, Conner always has the tools to resolve the situation (with one exception where a scientist has to do science at a science thing while Conner protects them), and Conner is only opposed by the petty jealousy and bullshit of others, never his own.

Honestly, the Doom Marine has loads of personality, especially by the standards of early video game characters.
I feel bad comparing this guy to Conner.

Conner’s story begins with him BEING FRAMED FOR THE DEATHS OF MILLIONS and you would figure such a thing would cause some mistrust with the gaggle of strangers he now has to work with… NOPE!  The strangers immediately accept that he was framed.

Conner doesn’t even feel all that bad about all the people dying, at no point does that disaster cause him to second guess himself, feel guilty about maybe having made a bad call, and at no point do the circumstances of the disaster reflect on the story.  The bad guys did this, he just happened to be there to catch all the shit.  Conner learns nothing from the experience… Which makes me wonder, as a reader, why the author bothered with the deaths of millions as a starting point?

Conner could have just been on the Colony ship to work in law enforcement on the new planet.  Same background in the military but wanting to start a new life on the frontier.  You could even leave his estranged family back on Earth, have him move on because he could not face them after all the stuff he did in the military.  It changes NOTHING about the rest of the story.

BETTER YET, have the incident mean something.  Conner is fighting the Syndicate and learns that thousands of Syndicate operatives are implanted on the colony ship, they want to run their own planet by taking control of the colony.  The idea of an elite team having to ferret out a group that wants to build their own new criminal empire in the stars, that sounds epic.  You could even point out that such an idea goes back thru history, the Medici family than ran Florence (and by extension Italy via their bank empire and control of the Vatican) their symbol was the visible planets in the sky, and another sphere representing their family.  That is fucking awesome, and a perfect symbol for what Conner could be fighting against.

BETTER EVEN STILL, have Conner be responsible for the deaths of millions.  Have that fact kept secret and he is haunted not only by causing those deaths, but the very real danger that someone might somehow discover who he is, and that discovery destroy their trust in him… OR BRAND HIM AS A CRIMINAL AND KILL HIM.  There is a scene, Sean finds out Conner killed a huge number of people out of negligence or stupidity and rejects him, “My surrogate son has seen thru the veneer of heroism I use to shield the world from the monster within me.  DRAMA!”

There is so much potential, and it is flushed away.  Conner becomes the boring competent protagonist, what a character like Captain America becomes in the hands of a bad writer.  It is not impossible to make this type of protagonist work, but you have to challenge his Character not his Abilities.

To continue the comparison, Captain America is interesting when someone shows him an easier way to accomplish his goals, but that way compromises Cap’s ethics, and then Cap has to deal with the harm and loss of life that comes with taking the hard road to hold to his principles.  Conner should have had to confront something that challenged his morals, not something that tested his ability to use power armor or a laser rifle.

Instead, Conner just wins, and the people who disagree with him are seen as dipshits.  Maybe I would be more tolerant of that if (at the very least) Conner’s advice was not so basic and simple as to be insulting to my intelligence.  His discussion of check-in procedures and use of surveillance technology is so simple that the fact that the colonists weren’t using those tactics makes them come off as buffoonish.

Minor Complaint: Names

            Conner’s team was called “Ghosts”.  The bad guys are “The Syndicate”.  The planet is “New Earth”.  Everything is so generically named it feels like I am playing “Destiny”.

Bitch if you want, fans of Destiny.  The names for things in this blow.
The game also blows.

*Sigh and Groan*

            I feel almost bad writing this out, as the author seems like an okay guy.  I feel like the bones of this book work as a basic adventure story with a lot of sequel hooks thrown in… But good lord would I love to just go in and re-write this thing with punchier dialogue, more personal scenes, and more character conflict that feels earned rather than petty bickering.  Things that play to my writing strengths and my taste in stories.

            “Genesis” is weak.  There are just too many other books with similar subject matter that are loads better.  “Old Man’s War” absolutely pummels this story into the dirt, same with “We are Legion (We are Bob)” or even “Steel World” which is not high art, but at the very least has some tension and humor.

            I guess I finished “Genesis”, joining it to a growing number of books with the distinction of, “Bad books I made it thru”.  I cannot recommend this, it was like trying to eat an unseasoned and under cooked potato.

"Attack on Titan" sucks too.

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5 Quick Movie Reviews and #RehireJamesGunn

I recently went on vacation.  It was nice.  Kind of reset my brain from a state of complacency.  I want to write more about it, but I am out of practice writing things that have depth because of work eating up all my time.  Really, my ability to write things with depth is frequently few and far between.

Rather than try to jabber out thoughts on this topic, I thought instead to just talk about and easy topic, the variety of movies I watched on the plane over and back from Europe.  Watching these on a plane is really the only scenario in which I would watch them.

1) Rampage: I like Dwayne Johnson, pretty much everyone does.  He is in a lot of god awful movies and this is not an exception.  While there is plenty of fun things in this, and I must say, that alligator monster is one of the most intimidating things I have seen in a movie, overall this is a really dumb, over explained, really dumb, and kind of too long movie.

2) (Cock) Blockers: I was shocked at how much I enjoyed this movie.  The dialogue is funny, the subversion of the whole teen boner comedy thing is funny, sure there are instances of goofy gross out humor that did not hit with me, but it hit far more than it missed and had much more heart to it than I was prepared for.

3) A Quiet Place: This is another one in which the sum of the parts are greater than the whole.  Individual sequences and character moments and motivations work for me, especially a scene in which they fall into a corn silo, and there is some great planting and payoff for everything that makes it all hang together.  Unfortunately, I am one of those guys for which the ludicrousness of the premise drags the movie down.  I am sorry, it is just too silly a premise for my brain.  I liked it in spite of that, I guess, but that kept it from working for me entirely.

4) Game Night: Being that playing games with friends is one of the core sources of fun in my life, and that being an exasperated white guy with a brother who is more likable than me… It is really like this movie was made for me.  I wish I had a Rachel McAdams in my life.  I liked this movie a lot, even tho the plane was showing the cut for content version with most of the cursing removed.

5) Justice League: I hated it the least of all the DC movies so far and kind of wish it was an even more aggressive reboot of the franchise.  In fact, I wish it had been the first movie in the whole universe… Kind of.  Since these characters are more recognizable than the Marvel Heroes (or were 12 years ago) they could have started with this movie, had them allude to some event that killed Superman and how it was kind of Batman’s fault, have all the League members off doing their own thing (but have it that everyone knows each other already).
Then have the plot be Batman bringing them back together to fight the coming super monster, resurrecting Superman with alien space magic along the way.  As is, the movie is a slog of people over explaining everything, a really terrible backstory to the villain and the mother boxes, and it being too fucking long.  I could write a whole thing about this… Maybe I will.

Other movie crap that was brought to my attention was that James Gunn, a writer I would consider a personal hero, because of how diverse, colorful, and meaningful his work is, GOT FUCKING FIRED BY DISNEY from working on “Guardians of the Galaxy” a franchise made great in large part because of his creative voice guiding it.
This was pretty universally seen as a bad move by Disney.  The full details of what went down, in case you don’t know involve a targeted harassment campaign against Gunn by a group of online Nazi-Trolls, who dug thru the writers substantial backlog of shock humor nonsense and pretended to be offended by the off-color jokes to provoke Disney to fire Gunn.  The Nazis won in this instance.

Being that Gunn was hired years ago now and all of this material has been in the public eye for longer (for example of how shocking his work can get, he wrote an incest parody of Romeo and Juliet for the schlock film company Troma, called “Tromeo and Juliet”) the fact that Disney acted on this now after Gunn had worked on multiple films that had each earned more than $800 million… This seems pretty fucking stupid and random.
People who aren’t stupid and don’t want Nazis to win took to Twitter with the #RehireJamesGunn logo and it is kind of working.  The cast and crew on the films are rebelling against the change, Disney has delayed production on the 3rd film in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise (A SUPER PROFITABLE AND POPULAR PART OF THE MEGA MARVEL FILM FRANCHISE).

I do not know how this will shake out, obviously I hope it goes in a certain direction.  But for the sake of mental exercise I tried to figure out which unlucky bastard might get stuck with the director chair after all of this is over if Gunn is not rehired.

1) Taika Waititi brought the Thor mythos very much in line with the Guardians look/feel, and we could see Korg and Meek in the Guardians.  This seems like a fun swerve and I think that Taika could say something with the Guardians franchise in much the same way he and the rest of the creative staff said something with “Thor Ragnorok”.

2) Joss Whedon could do it, I mean, "Serenity" was about a team of outlaws on a spaceship saving the day, he has worked with Marvel before on multiple occasions and when given the freedom of the goofy and colorful outer space setting that Marvel seems okay with crazy shit happening in I think the burdensome production difficulties of “Age of Ultron” would be forgotten.

3) Jon Favreau is a frequent executive producer on Marvel stuff still and is comfortable with CGI stuff ("The Jungle Book" and “The Lion King”).  Much like Whedon he has worked on multiple successful projects and would be given more creative freedom, that can be a big benefit.  He might also like the chance to play a space character… Probably the Champion of the Universe because of Jon’s love of Boxing.

4) Rian Johnson could direct, the last space movie he made for Disney made a billion dollars, and assholes haven’t stopped talking about it since then.  That will get movie twitter gabbing about things.

5) Patty Jenkins would be an interesting person to steal away from Warner Brothers.  She directed Wonder Woman, a movie I disliked but that had good production values, I would love to see her introduce any number of characters to the series.  AND fun fact, she was in consideration to direct “Thor the Dark World” and her not getting the role is why Natalie Portman decided to not come back… So, maybe have Jane Foster show up in Guardians having built her own wormhole machine?

6) Andy Serkis has been trying to direct more and could do stuff with mo-cap for some fantastic creatures.  He has worked with Marvel in Black Panther as Klaue.  Having him put together a cast for the Guardians fighting the High Evolutionary and an army of Animal-Men sort of a space variation of “The Island of Doctor Moreau” sounds cool.

Regardless of what likable and creative person they grab, and what interesting story or creative voices that allows them to explore it will still have this shit hanging over it.  It is sad.

That basically wraps up my random movie thoughts.  Again, this is just a practice/warm up for writing something more substantive in the future, so, take this disposable morass for what it is, mental junk food.

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