Comedy As a Weapon

Last month on Pluto TV I watched a documentary from about 8 years ago called Hot Coffee.  The starting point for it was the famous case of a woman suing McDonald's because she was burned by coffee.

The tragic thing is this old woman was lampooned in the nightly talk shows, on an episode of Seinfeld, and in a "Weird Al" Yankovic Song.

But most of us probably never really understood the true facts of the case.  For instance, the old lady wasn't suing for millions of dollars; her basic goal was just for medical costs Medicare hadn't picked up.  The jury awarded the punitive damages of $2.7 million--which a crooked judge knocked down to only about half a million and then was probably knocked down even more in a settlement.

Another thing is the old lady wasn't alone.  There were hundreds of complaints of people being burnt by McDonald's coffee--according to McDonald's own records!  Like cigarettes or the Ford Pinto the company knew of a problem and yet refused to do anything about it.

And yet comedians dragged this old lady through the mud and in so doing helped red states usher in "tort reform" that while on the surface seems like a good idea actually makes it much harder to sue companies who put out unsafe products.

This was before the age of social media with memes and "fake news" even.  It's a problem that's only worse now.  We make something a joke without really understanding the consequences of that and in the end wind up hurting ourselves.  I mean that Seinfeld episode is pretty funny and so too is that "Weird Al" song.  I'm sure a lot of the monologue jokes on Leno and Letterman were good too.  But it unfortunately turned public opinion against something we should actually be for because the best way to really hold corporations accountable is through making them pay.  We need to realize that these jokes are just jokes and we shouldn't take them seriously.  As with "fake news" we need to take the time and understand these issues for ourselves.

It isn't just professional comedians either.  Politicians like to use humor to change public opinion on an issue.  The documentary showed Reagan joking about a guy in a phone booth hit by a drunk driver who sued the phone company.  Which on the surface it sounds ludicrous.  Obviously the drunk driver is at fault.  We need tort reform!  Except like the McDonald's case those weren't the actual facts.  The guy sued the phone company because the phone booth door jammed so he couldn't escape the car.  And also the phone company had received numerous complaints about how dangerous the location of the booth was and yet like McDonald's or Big Tobacco or Ford just tried to sweep it under the rug.

But as the documentary shows the whole issue may soon be a moot point because Corporate America is making sure you can't sue them.  Not just by buying politicians but by working mandatory arbitration into as many contracts as possible.  For all you know you've probably signed a few of those when you signed up for a credit card or cell phone.  Then if you have a problem and want to sue you have to go to an arbitrator instead of a court.  Who's more likely to side with you, some arbitrator or a jury of your peers?  And of course the arbitration will be secret so no one will know the grisly details, sparing the company any bad publicity.

There was the horrible story in the documentary of a woman who worked for Halliburton in Iraq.  They promised when she went over there she'd be living in a trailer with another woman and other women nearby.  Guess what?  They lied.  Instead she was surrounded by men and I think you can guess what happened to a single woman alone with a bunch of horny men.  After the inevitable rape some of the evidence was "misplaced" and the woman was kept in a storage container by armed guards for days.  But because of the fine print in the contract she signed, she wasn't able to take anyone to court.  The perpetrators and company got away with it.

(There's a bitter irony in that the senator who championed the woman's cause in Washington later was none other than Al Franken, who was run out of town by #metoo and #timesup because he kissed a woman before he was a senator and apologized instead of stonewalled like the oaf in the Oval Office.)

That's an extreme case of what can happen when you inadvertently give away your rights because you didn't fully understand something and didn't take it seriously.

Streaming Knight

Since much of what I do at work doesn’t require a lot of thinking my mind tends to wander to other things.  The other day through a long chain that I don’t want to get into I got thinking that there’s probably no way in hell I could do a Scarlet Knight movie but what about a TV show?  There are so many streaming services now that maybe one would buy the idea.

So how would I go about doing it?

I think Season 1 would pretty much be the first book only with a few other things thrown in to pad it out to 10-13 episodes.  The first couple of episodes would introduce Emma Earl, her friend Becky, her coworker Dan whom she has a crush on, and her boss Ian.  It’d cover Dan finding a mysterious object, Ian’s family being murdered, and Ian becoming the Black Dragoon.  Then Emma would answer The Call to become the Scarlet Knight.

There would be the first battle between the Dragoon and Scarlet Knight that Emma wins through blind luck (see the comic book on Amazon).  Then later in the season they’d meet again and Emma narrowly escapes.  In the last couple of episodes Emma finds out Ian is the Dragoon and they have their final battle.

The end of the last episode would have Dan going off to Egypt with his assistant--Isis.  Then at the start of the next season Dan would uncover the artifact that possesses his assistant, giving her the powers of the evil goddess Isis.

So the second season would cover the third book.  A couple of episodes in would be the sort of “Red Wedding” where Becky’s fiance is murdered and then she becomes the new Dragoon.  Over the season Emma would have to unravel the web Isis weaves and then in the last couple of episodes there’d be the final showdown in the Temple of Isis.

That season would end with Becky and Emma’s friendship over and Emma losing her job.  In the start of the next season she would go to work for the secretive Russian businessman Bykov.  And eventually she’d find out he’s up to some scheme and have to stop him while at the same time repairing things with Becky and exploring her feelings for Jim, aka the Sewer Rat.  I’m not sure about doing the body-swapping that’s in the fourth book.  I think I’d probably combine the fourth and fifth ones into one story arc.  The fifth book had an evil businessman developing a bomb underneath a building that led to the Sewer Rat being driven out of his sewer home--and into Emma's.  So we could probably just have Bykov do that.  In the end of that the good witch Sylvia died to save everyone from the bomb; we might kill her off or maybe we'd kill someone else off, depending on if anyone wants a new contract or to go work on their movie career or something.

Another season would have Emma getting pregnant and trying to maintain her superhero career.  A couple of episodes would have her travel to the future to meet her daughter and deal with a resurgent Isis.  Like in the sixth book Emma would have the baby only to think she dies shortly after, when in reality agents of Bykov took the baby.  (The placement of this season might depend on if for instance the actress playing Emma would get pregnant in real life.)

The following season Emma would find out her baby is alive and along with Jim, the baby’s father, she’d go to Russia and work her way to Bykov and rescue her daughter Louise, though Jim is killed in the process.  At the end of the season though we find out that Isis has returned and to save Louise, Emma gives up the red armor.

The final season then would be a streamlined version of the 8th book.  As Isis’ power grows and she turns Rampart City into her playground, Emma would be drawn to a parallel world by a girl with special powers and then they do sort of an Into the Spider-Verse thing and Emma gets a new suit of armor before the final confrontation. 

I say that’s the final season because that was the last book but maybe there could be more.  The second book is my least favorite so I wouldn’t include much of that but I think it could be a two-part episode in season 1 to help pad that out.  A villain could fuck with time to create a time tangent where Emma isn’t the Scarlet Knight and her parents are alive and then she has to decide to sacrifice them to put things right.

So there you go, it all sounds extremely plausible.  Unlikely but plausible.

How Much Choice is Too Much?

Previously on the blog I said:

Another interesting theory was mentioned in this article recently about Netflix losing subscribers--at least temporarily.  There's a theory on consumer behavior that when presented with too many streaming services people will turn to broadcast TV and just watch whatever's on.  Sometimes I feel that "decision fatigue" though I don't usually turn to broadcast TV.  But if I can't think of any new or new to me shows I want to watch I'll just turn to a trusty old favorite and start rewatching it like American Dad, Archer, or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  Or sometimes I just do that if there's a new season of that show and I want to get caught up as happened with Crackle's SuperMansion this last weekend.  Pluto TV's MST3K and Rifftrax channels are also something I'll turn to if I just want to turn something on without really committing to watching a full episode of something.

I was just thinking about TV at the time, but then I was thinking that this theory can probably be applied to book shopping as well.  You know why some authors like James Patterson or John Grisham or Dean Koontz sell so many books?  Because they're familiar brands and when in doubt, people will go with the familiar.

Imagine this:  you go in an ice cream parlor and they have 300 flavors to choose from.  Maybe one catches your fancy right away or maybe you (and the server) get tired of trying to decide and just order straight vanilla or chocolate.  Something familiar.  Something "safe."

That's what I think is the root of that article mentioned above.  We think more choices is better, but there's a point where there's too much choice.  If the ice cream parlor has 31 flavors then it's not so bad, but 50, 100, 300, or more and it starts to get to be too much.

If you go into a bookstore and want a book there are literally thousands to choose from.  You might want a mystery but there are so many to choose from you could spend hours reading the back of each one--or you could just grab a Sue Grafton or Agatha Christie or whatever.

If you're looking on Amazon it's about a million times worse.  I mean you could spend days looking for the perfect book--or just grab whatever is popular or familiar to you.  And like when you're buying an ice cream cone, you probably don't want to put hours of work into buying a book.

This is a problem for self-published authors and new or mid-list authors.  There's so much choice that it's hard to stand out.  And when presented with so much choice, people often just go with what's familiar.  The path of least resistance.  As much as I want to complain about it, we all do it.  There's just not enough time or energy to devote to looking for books or finding something to stream.

And yet of course while there's too much choice there's also not enough choice.  If you went to an ice cream parlor that only had 2 flavors you'd think it was a gyp.  Each person probably has his or her own ideal amount of choice to avoid being over or underwhelmed.

What's Old is New Again

A few months ago someone retweeted a Tweet that was pretty brilliant.  I thought I favorited it but I can't find it.  But the gist is that with all these streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, CBS All Access, Disney Plus, etc) we've basically recreated cable TV on the Internet.

Think about the history of TV:  you started out with the three main networks (CBS, NBC, ABC) and PBS.  It was like that until the late 70s when cable came along.  Then you had networks like HBO, ESPN, USA, TBS, MTV, etc.  Through the 80s and 90s cable (and then satellite) added more channels, many of them more specialized like AMC, Comedy Central, History Channel, Food Network, and so on.

With streaming it started with Netflix.  Then Hulu and Amazon basically made it like the big three over-the-air networks from the 50s-70s.  Smaller services like Crackle or TubiTV would be like PBS or UHF stations.

But now we're seeing the expansion like in the late 70s with cable TV.  And most of those are specialized in showing only the movies/TV shows of a particular entity like CBS or Disney.  Provided these are successful then you can expect even more diversifying and specializing until like the Tweet said we basically have cable TV on the Internet.

Except the big difference is that with cable you pay your provider (Comcast, Time Warner, Charter, or whoever) and they provide all the channels.  The same for satellite TV.  But with the Internet you have to pay for your internet service provider and then you have to pay all of these services individually.  Imagine what a nuisance it'd be if you had to pay HBO, ESPN, MTV, TBS, USA, AMC, etc individually.

But on the other hand it means while you have to maintain bills and logins and all that with dozens of streaming services, it also means you get only those you want.  Unlike cable or satellite where you get "packages" that frequently have a couple channels you want and a bunch of channels you don't give a shit about.  So I have a bunch of bills and stuff to juggle but I don't have to flip by a dozen religious or home shopping channels I don't want.

Still, the problem is slicing things too thin.  Ideally I'd like just one platform where I can call up any movie or show whenever I feel like.  But the way it's going you'll have to have dozens of services just to watch all the stuff you want.  It sounds like a real pain in the ass to me.

I still maintain it's stupid to actively subscribe to all of these all year just to watch a couple of shows.  It makes a lot more sense to just sign up for a month or two when the full season is out and then quit one and sign up for another and go around that way while maybe maintaining a membership to a more diversified platform like Netflix or Hulu (as long as they are diversified) or Amazon Prime, which also does a lot more than TV and movies.  But that's probably too much work for people and there's FOMO--Fear of Missing Out.  If I don't watch each episode of Star Trek Discovery or The Twilight Zone or The Mandalorian as it comes out I'll be missing out and my friends will think I'm lame!  So that's why it'll work--at least for a lot of these services.  But there will probably be failures along the way too.  Like DC Comics's streaming service is already in trouble having canceled Swamp Thing before the second episode even aired!

Another interesting theory was mentioned in this article recently about Netflix losing subscribers--at least temporarily.  There's a theory on consumer behavior that when presented with too many streaming services people will turn to broadcast TV and just watch whatever's on.  Sometimes I feel that "decision fatigue" though I don't usually turn to broadcast TV.  But if I can't think of any new or new to me shows I want to watch I'll just turn to a trusty old favorite and start rewatching it like American Dad, Archer, or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  Or sometimes I just do that if there's a new season of that show and I want to get caught up as happened with Crackle's SuperMansion this last weekend.  Pluto TV's MST3K and Rifftrax channels are also something I'll turn to if I just want to turn something on without really committing to watching a full episode of something.

So I think that theory is at least partially true; the thinner you slice the streaming pie the more people will decide to stop watching entirely.

And that's how you kill a golden goose.

Don't Forget to Tip Your Writer

On Facebook a couple of months ago someone divvied this and I shared it because it really made sense.

It's true that a lot of people will tip a barista a dollar (or more) for a cup of coffee and not really bat an eyelash.  But pay for a book or song or movie or photo or whatever?  Hell no!  That stuff should be free!  As the Facebook post points out, it takes a lot longer for someone to write a book (or to create any of that other stuff) than it does for a barista to create a latte.  It takes a lot longer to write a book than to bring you a meal at a restaurant, so why are you obligated to give them a big tip while complaining books should be free?

Part of it is that buying a coffee or a meal at a restaurant is a face-to-face transaction.  So there's some amount of social shaming involved.  If you don't tip then people might see and think you're an asshole.  Not to mention what the barista or waitress/waiter will think of you.  So you feel a social obligation to tip that doesn't exist with buying a book because the author isn't present--unless you're at a book signing.

Plus when you give a big tip you can feel like a big shot.  Especially if you think the barista or waitress is cute you might give her a big tip so she'll like you.  (Not that I ever do that.)  Or to impress people with you with your largess.

You can say, well tipping is part of their wages.  It's their livelihood.  Duh, you think writers are writing just for the pure hell of it?  Writers need money to live on too.  So no, books shouldn't be free.  Pirating a book or buying and then returning it makes you an even bigger asshole than not tipping.  Maybe no one will see it but it's still true.

Generally though I think when it comes to non-food or drink transactions a lot of people tend to be cheap assholes.  (Including me.)  A while back eBay added a feature to let you allow people to make offers on items.  You can set a floor, which is good because some people are complete assholes.  You might have an item that retails for $200 and someone will come along and offer you $50 for it.  Really?  A few times someone even has the gall to message me to ask, what's the lowest you'll take for this?  In other words:  what's the absolute rock bottom price because I don't want to pay a penny more than I absolutely have to.  It's like, hey I'm trying to make money here; it's hard to do that when you want me to give stuff away for 20% of its retail value.

It feels that way with selling books sometimes.  People love free books, but paying for them?  Not so much.  Maybe I should sell more books in person; then people might feel more compelled to give me money.

The Price of Price

Auction sites like eBay have been around for 20 years or more now and yet it seems like there are a lot of people who still don't seem to understand how it works.  Some of the people I've sold stuff to seem to be under the impression I'm a multi-billion dollar company like Amazon or Walmart with my own tech support like Best Buy's Geek Squad.

One person bought some kind of fancy lock from me and even though the box had a flyer inside giving a 1-800 number to call if you have problems installing it, who does the buyer contact?  Me.  Me who has never opened the box or laid eyes on the actual item, let alone has any fucking clue how to install it.  And when I said to contact the company what does this person do?  Lies and says the item was broken, forcing me to take the item back.

Another person bought a software program and then bizarrely asked me if I could sell him 5 more BEFORE even trying to install the first one.  When he couldn't get the code to work, who does he contact?  Me, of course.  And accuse me of giving him a fake.  And what am I supposed to do about it?  Well in this case I had him send me the activation key and then I contacted the company to make sure it was legit and I got a download link for the buyer to use.

Then someone else buys a printer and waits a whole fucking month before she tries to use the thing.  Then she finds out some amber light won't go off.  So then she of course contacts me.  Who, again, has never laid eyes on the actual product.  And when I suggest she contact the company she gives me negative feedback.  What the hell do you want me to do?  As Bones McCoy would say, Dammit Jim, I'm an accountant, not a computer repairman!

Seriously I don't think these people understand how an auction site works.  You're buying from a third-party seller.  You're not buying from the company or a representative of that company or even a representative of that industry.  You're buying from an ordinary person.  If you want a seller who can offer tech support or can afford zero-hassle returns then you ought to have gone to an actual store like Walmart or Best Buy or wherever.

But of course then you couldn't have gotten the item for a lot less money than if you'd gone to an actual store.  That's the price of just shopping on price:  you're not going to necessarily get the service and other benefits of shopping at a real store.

It's like if you go to McDonald's you have to expect you're not going to get the gourmet food and ass-kissing service of a fancy four-star restaurant.  It's like they say:  you get what you pay for.  If you're a dumbass who needs your hand held to get anything running, maybe you ought to pay a little more to buy it from someone who can do that. 

But that's not the American Way.  The American Way is to expect to pay dollar store prices and get luxury quality service.  We're all pretty damned spoiled that way.

The Limits of Subversive Humor

A few months ago Pluto TV added some new Paramount-owned channels from MTV, Comedy Central, and so on.  One of these called "MTV Guy Code" frequently shows some old Beavis and Butt-Head episodes from the "Mike Judge Collection" released in the mid-2000s that just have the episode segments without the music videos between them because of rights issues with the videos.

Anyway, the first episode isn't very good because the segments all come from the first season.  Besides cruder animation and voices that don't sound right, the show's humor was a bit too harsh.  In one episode they huff paint thinner and in a couple others they torture animals and insects.

By the second episode though the show started to find its stride by toning down their behavior a little.  They were still very, very, very stupid but not as much of hoodlums as in the first season.  Which I think goes to show that even crude, subversive humor has its limits.

For instance it's OK for characters in shows or movies to drink alcohol or smoke pot, but doing hard drugs like heroin, meth, coke, or crack is not good.  And definitely not crude drug-seeking activities like huffing.  LSD is OK if they have a funny and/or weird trip.  Ecstasy and amphetamines can be ok if it's for instance a button-downed character who takes them by accident or ignorance so they start going wild.  Regular abuse of those is not really funny.

Torturing animals is definitely not funny behavior.  It's just sad, serial killer behavior.  But it is funny if an idiot is going to do something to an animal but the animal turns the tables by mauling and/or humping them.

In the case of Beavis and Butt-Head the show really wouldn't have been watchable--for me anyway--if it had kept with that first season attitude.  By getting rid of some of the more self-destructive traits the show found its winning formula of two really incredibly stupid teenagers who through their own stupidity and ignorance often manage to subvert the values and mores of 90s society.  Not just the "politically correct" but pretty much the adult world in general.

Though still the best segments are when Beavis gets hyped up on sugar or coffee or whatever to turn into "the Great Cornholio."  I need TP for my bunghole!  Are you threatening me?  Now that's comedy.

Probably my next most favorite episode segment was the XMas one where an angel tries to convince Butt-Head how much better the world would be if he'd never been born.  The reverse It's a Wonderful Life.

An interesting fact is Beavis and Butt-Head is the origin for MTV's Daria series, which was far smarter and less crude--probably why it didn't generate the same amount of success.

When Will Hollywood's Gravy Train End?

Last week I talked about an article by Scott Mendelson of Forbes about the death of small movies in theaters.  Mendelson also linked to another article recently about how Batman in 1989 was the template for the current blockbuster that will ruin Hollywood.

Like last week I don't disagree with the whole thing.  I think that movie probably did establish some trends not just for comic book movies but blockbuster movies in general.

Where I disagree is that the current trend of big property movies will necessarily ruin Hollywood.  And the reason why can also be found with Batman.  And James Bond.  And Spider-Man.  And the X-Men.  How many reboots have those franchises had?  How many different lead actors?  And people still go see them.

James Bond is probably the leader in this.  They switched from Connery to Lazenby for one movie, then back to Connery for one, and then for almost the next 15 years it was Roger Moore.  Then came the sort of soft reboot with Timothy Dalton that got sidetracked more by studio issues than grosses before yet another soft reboot with Pierce Brosnan for another decade before a full reboot with Daniel Craig which has been going for over a decade now.

And the thing is as I mentioned people keep going to see the movies.  Nearly 60 years and 6 actors and it's still around.  Since 1989 there have been 5 Batman actors and in a couple of years there will be a sixth.  Since 1978 there have been 3 Superman actors and eventually there will be another.  Since 2002 there have been 3 Spider-Man actors in live action and then more in the animated Into the Spider-Verse.  Since 2000 there have been two different sets of X-Men including when they overlapped in Days of Future Past.  And now that Disney/Marvel has the rights, you can bet there will be a third iteration, including finally a new Wolverine.

So the reason the current trend can go on for a while is that a lot of these franchises aren't one shot deals.  They can be rebooted over and over again, sometimes a soft reboot or other times a full reboot.  The reason I think is that these properties are versatile.  It'd be hard to reboot Harry Potter or Twilight or The Hunger Games because those are based on books.  They're essentially static.  Even Star Wars Disney found was problematic with Solo last year; they couldn't just run anyone out there as Han Solo and make a billion dollars.

James Bond was also based on books but only in the loosest fashion; by the end of the 60s the only thing the books and movies had in common was the main character's name and profession.  I mean read  Moonraker the book and then watch the movie; they're two completely different stories.  In the book Bond never even gets airborne let alone goes into space to fuck beautiful women and fire laser guns.

Comic book characters are even more versatile than Bond.  They can be whatever the artist (and by extension the audience) want them to be.  We've had campy Adam West Batman.  We've had mostly serious neo-Gothic Michael Keaton Batman.  We've had pretty boy Batman Val Kilmer.  We had another campy Batman with George Clooney.  We've had a straight, modern Batman with Christian Bale.  And we've had the over-the-top dark, violent Batman with Ben Affleck.  And who knows what we'll have with Robert Pattinson.  And just like Batman there have been different takes on some of his enemies, especially the Joker.

Of course there have been failures like Superman Returns or Amazing Spider-Man 2 so it's not a slam-dunk with rebooting franchises.  It can be hit or miss.  In those cases I think it was in large part because of the story more than anything.  In the former case it was a confusing sorta-sequel that didn't really grab people.  In the latter case it was Sony too aggressively trying to create a cinematic universe to rival the MCU.  (And a couple of years later WB repeated Sony's mistake and ruined Superman a second time with BvS followed by Justice League.)

Still, I don't think this gravy train has run its course by a long shot because it's the characters not the actors playing them that's important.  Eventually I'm sure we'll have another Tony Stark and Steve Rogers.  Will they be as successful as Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans?  Time will tell.

Not Every Story Has a Hero

A couple of months ago I got another one of those annoying reviews where someone whined that the start of a book was "mean."  Though I didn't really think it was that mean.

24 Hour Asian Girl is about a husband who's been spending a lot of time using a site that lets him peep on Japanese schoolgirls.  His wife goes to see the mysterious Mrs. Vantu who gives her a potion that basically makes the husband into one of the girls he was peeping on.  Which is sort of a variation on that old thing where if your kid smokes a cigarette you make him smoke a carton so in theory he won't want to smoke anymore.

But this is so mean!  And I'm thinking, wait so you don't think this guy ignoring his wife to peep on schoolgirls deserves to be punished?  I guess if you read a lot of erotica it does make sense you'd side with the voyeur, right?

But it's emblematic of the inability some people have to recognize that just because someone is the main character doesn't mean that person is the "hero" of the story.  Take one of the oldest novels in existence, Don Quixote.  Recently my frenemy Tony Laplume read it and he had the same reaction I did:  Cervantes never intended people to think Don Quixote was some tragic hero and lovable dreamer.  Just the opposite, actually.  He was a dangerous lunatic worshipping a time best forgotten.

Someone, somewhere, sometime read the book (or Cliff Notes) and somehow misread it and came up with all that Man of la Mancha "Impossible Dream" stuff and since most people don't want to actually read the book, they just assumed that's what the book was about.

For the most part, Alan Moore's Watchmen is the same.  People think because it's about super"heroes" that they're like traditional superheroes like Superman or Batman or Captain America or whatever.  When in actuality Moore was doing the same as Cervantes and using these characters for criticism.  Because the "heroes" of the story are a megalomaniac, a paranoid psychopath, a sadist, a couple of thrill seekers, and someone whose god-like powers have caused him to completely lose touch with humanity so that he'd rather hang out on a lifeless world.

So when DC Comics and now HBO do prequels and sequels and whatnot, I just think they don't really get what the original story was about.  It wasn't another superhero franchise to exploit.  When you treat it that way, you're just missing the whole point of it, much like Man of la Mancha missed the point of Don Quixote.

I guess though we're so programmed that stories are about good guys vs bad guys that it's hard for some people to realize when the "hero" isn't really a hero.

The Death of Small Movies in Theaters

On Twitter about a week ago I saw an article by Forbes magazine's film industry expert Scott Mendelson lamenting how poorly small movies are faring while audiences go to either big movies or none at all.  People just aren't going to see smaller, better movies like Book Smart, Late Night, or The Dead Don't Die.

First of all, raise your hand if you heard of those movies before now.  Chances are you probably haven't.  Whereas everyone on the planet knew about Avengers Endgame.

Second is something my brother mentioned on Facebook:  most of these movies aren't hardly IN theaters for people to watch.  Your average multiplex has 15-20 screens, most of which at this time of year are showing the biggest movies, preferably ones they can charge more money for 3D or IMAX.  No one cares about seeing Book Smart in 3D or IMAX.  So the movie theaters wisely focus on the potentially big money makers.  That's just capitalism.  The smaller movies then usually get squeezed out to just a few showings for a couple of weeks.  In big cities you have small, indie theaters that will show these movies but in small cities you're not going to get that and don't have the screens to focus on movies that aren't likely to make money.

As I said in my previous point no one wants to pay extra to see Book Smart in 3D or IMAX.  In fact, why go see Book Smart in the theater at all?  With a big movie like Avengers Endgame I drag my ass to the theater because it's got all those fancy effects and big sound and all that.  Plus everyone is talking about it on social media and potentially in real life.  Who's talking about Book Smart?  Film industry people, mostly.  Not your friends or families or followers or people you follow.  So there's no FOMO.

Mostly what I think people like Mendelson don't get is that going to the movies these days is more of a chore than a pleasure.  Back in the 30s and 40s you didn't have TV or probably air conditioning so the movies were a welcome refuge in the summer.  Even in the 80s and 90s you probably didn't have a great TV and you didn't have the ease of streaming like you do now.  Now people like Michael Offutt can have 60-inch 4K 3D TVs with theater quality sound in their homes.  Even poor schlubs like me have flat screens and a Blu-Ray player and Roku.

So the thing about a movie like Book Smart is to see it in a theater I have to go at an appointed time, pay $6 minimum per ticket, plus $5 for a drink, $5 for popcorn, etc.   For just me I could wind up paying $15-$20 to see a movie at a time the theater sets.  And if I have to use the bathroom I can't put it on pause to go.  I can't use my phone or talk to people unless I'm a huge jerk.  Or I can wait for it to come out on streaming or Redbox and pay $1.59 if not stream it for "free" and watch it when I want, with the ability to pause it if I want and to talk and text all I want.  I don't have to pay for my own snacks either.  I can even watch it several times if I want without having to go back to the theater to go through the whole process again.

So what's the advantage for me seeing it in the theater?  Maybe if someone else wants to see it, which for me is unlikely.  Even for larger small movies like last year's Bad Times at the El Royale I can go through the hassle of going to the movie theater or just wait eight months for when it's on HBO.  It's a lot more convenient for me to watch it at home for no extra cost and there's really nothing I'm missing by not going to the movie theater.

It's like sports where it's much more of a chore than a pleasure to go watch it live than to watch it at home in the comfort of my home.  The only reason I'd want to drag my ass to downtown Detroit to watch the Lions, Tigers, Pistons, or Red Wings is if other people are going or if it's a big event like a playoff game.  I think it's clear the same is happening with the movies now; home theater technology and streaming/Redbox have made it much more convenient to watch movies at home unless it's a big event.  That's not good for those little movies in terms of theatrical fortunes.  Is it bad for movie theaters?  Maybe but what can they really do?  Unless they can rewind technology to the 30s.

Even Creative Collaboration Needs Someone in Charge

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned I watched a documentary on Mystery Science Theater 3000 on a set of DVDs.  Something it answered was why after the first season on local TV the credits always listed Michael J Nelson as the "Head Writer."  Sometimes watching it I'd think, "Well ooh la la, he's the 'Head Writer.'"  As Ron Burgundy would say, "I'm kind of a big deal."

But there was actually a good reason for it.  The show had a group of six or seven writers and the way it worked was that generally every week the writers would each watch the movie on their own in their office or at home or whatever.  Then they'd come together and decide which jokes to use and which to throw out--and obviously a lot of them got thrown out with so many people doing it.  So they decided early on they needed someone to herd the cats, hence the need for someone to be "Head Writer."

The thing this highlights is that even when you have a bunch of creatives collaborating, you still need someone to be in charge.  True democracy doesn't really work because it invites chaos.  And especially when you have a tight deadline, you need a firm hand on the tiller to make sure things get done and people aren't just goofing off and passing the buck.

And in a roundabout fashion this brings me to Star Wars.  Recently they came out with the first trailer for Episode IX:  The Rise of Skywalker.  And my brother and I both noticed that JJ Abrams seemed to be literally trying to repair some of the damage Rian Johnson caused.  For instance Rey's lightsaber is back together--or she made a new one that looks mostly the same.  And Kylo Ren's helmet is pieced back together.  Maybe there will be some other corrections in the story itself.

The problem this seemed to highlight is with Disney taking over Star Wars.  Since they spent billions of dollars to acquire it from George Lucas, they wanted to recoup their investment as quickly as possible.  Thus almost immediate production of a new trilogy and the separate "story" that became Rogue One.

But part of the problem is to get these movies out quicker they decided to use the same approach that worked for Marvel's movies by assigning a separate filmmaker for each movie.  JJ Abrams was only supposed to direct the first one, Rian Johnson the second, and Colin Trevorrow the third one.  This division of labor is fine for separate but connected superhero franchises, but it doesn't work for a trilogy, especially not when you have someone like Rian Johnson involved.  Look at all the things he broke:  Rey's lightsaber, Kylo's mask, Poe's X-Wing, the mystery of Rey's past, the Resistance, Luke Skywalker...

Sometimes in writing groups they do collaborative stories where like one person starts a story and another person picks it up and and so on and so on.  It can be fun--unless you get a Rian Johnson who decides to just break everything or otherwise try to radically alter things if not end it altogether.  Then it's annoying if it doesn't outright lead to infighting and bickering.

The reason you get a Rian Johnson is because there's no one in charge, or at least no one with a strong enough hand on the tiller.  For better or for worse the first six movies the buck stopped with George Lucas.  That's why you could have three different directors for the first three movies and they still turned out pretty well.  They also took 3 years between movies, not 2 years, which gave them more time to work on everything.

But when Disney took over you lost that central authority.  They basically seem to have a committee running it.  (Cue the I am NOT a committee joke!)  Between that and trying to put one out every two years they wound up with The Last Jedi and Solo.  And they lost Colin Trevorrow and then had to scramble to rehire JJ Abrams to clean up Johnson's mess.

What really brought it home for me was the end of The Last Jedi showing the little kids who might one day become a resistance.  It was so dumb because hello, it's the end of the SECOND movie in a TRILOGY!  You still have a whole other movie and it's not going to wait 10-20 years for these kids to grow up so what's the point?!  Didn't anyone tell Johnson he wasn't writing the end of the story?  Stuff like that really made me think either no one was really paying attention when this was being made or they just didn't know what they were doing.  And it makes me question whether anyone here had a real vision beyond dollar signs.  Clearly they needed to tap someone the "Head Writer" to herd the cats.

BTW, this isn't the first time this has happened with Star Wars.  In the novels back in the 90s there was a similar situation.  Timothy Zahn wrote the first trilogy of books but after that they started farming them out to a bunch of different authors.  About 1998 Zahn wrote a duology of books and it was kind of clear that he wanted to put some things right, most notably the relationship between Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade.  Zahn had set the stage towards hooking them up but the writers after him broke them up and basically by '98 had them totally separate.  So a central focus of Zahn's books was getting them back together.  Another part of it was in Zahn's books Luke's Force powers were pretty consistent with to what at that point was in the movies, but authors after him had Luke flying and beaming himself across the galaxy or some bullshit like that.  So Zahn had Luke decide to dial back the Force use out of fear that he would go over to the dark side because he no doubt felt things had gotten a bit out of hand.  It definitely seems like Abrams is doing the same thing.  That's what happens when you don't have one strong hand on the tiller--you end up going in circles.

Potpourri

It's July 3rd which means tomorrow is July 4th (did I blow your mind?) and people who can afford it are probably going on vacation so fewer people than usual will notice this.  Maybe even the Google bots have the weekend off.  Anyway, I'm just going to mention a few things for the hell of it.

I haven't released an Eric Filler book since May 24th but I decided I'd try writing two other short books under two different names created by a name generator as a test to see what would sell better.

The first one was a gender swap age regression story by "Jessie Love" called A Change Will Do You Good.  Actually the title I came up with as the story was almost done because it went better with the story than the original working title.  It's a pretty simple story where a guy goes to a bar after not being able to get it up with his wife.  The bartender offers to make him a drink that is guaranteed to make him forget.  He drinks it and then passes out.

He wakes up in an alley as a little girl with no memory of how he got there.  Eventually he gets home and his wife starts mothering him.  She had had three miscarriages previously so for her it was finally a chance to be a mommy.  There's a guy who gave the main character a ride home who has a young daughter about the same age the main character becomes.  They become best friends and unbeknownst to her the girl's dad and the main character's wife are also becoming best friends..

Originally I was going to go all the way through to the wedding and then the bartender would show up at the reception and the main character would confront her.  But I got lazy and decided to take a shortcut by having the bartender show up as a babysitter.  Then she explains that she's an angel who's also the other little girl's mother and she decided to play matchmaker because really this situation is better for everyone.  Hooray.

The sales were about the same as recent Eric Filler ones.  But after a couple of weeks it got 4 reviews, three of them 5 stars.  Then there was one by "John Daniels" who's actually trolled all my other names except, ironically, my real/realish names.  He was pissed there wasn't enough "research" like this was an academic treatise or something.  And he whined that 8-year-olds don't need carried to the bathroom.  Which was taken out of context.  The girl didn't ask to be taken to the bathroom; her guardian picked her up to comfort her when she was feeling self-conscious.  Duh.  The other people liked that it ended happily ever after and one called it "G-rated" though I don't think the mentions of impotence and miscarriages are G rated material.

Anyway, I guess if I did another one with that name I'd have to make sure it ends happily ever after and crap.  Though I don't really have any ideas for that yet.

The other one I did was a short erotica story by "Naomi Caged" called Roomie Swap because I couldn't think of a better title.  It's only about 20 pages and tells the story of a loser in a college dorm who one night starts getting messages on his phone about some supplement to make him irresistible to women.  He finally takes it and turns into a gorgeous woman who then gets fucked by one of his roommates and the roommate's girlfriend.  Plus the other roommate.  So it's mostly sex.

The book was pretty much DOA on Amazon.  It's sold less than 10 copies and the KDP pages read aren't that great either.  I don't know if that proves anything or not.  Maybe I should try again and see if the same result happens or not.

Comparatively to other years I haven't really written all that much this year.  I haven't felt especially motivated.  And the last month I've really gotten into this game on my phone.  It's like an RPG thing called Empires and Puzzles that was advertised when I was playing another game.  It's one of those rare cases where advertising actually paid off in large part because there was a playable demo so I could try it before I downloaded it from the App Store.

Anyway, it's pretty fun as you build your town and build teams of characters.  There are five different colors:  red, blue, green, yellow, and purple and each color is a different class of character.  Then there are different rarities of characters from common up to ultra rare.  Obviously the more rare the character the more powerful they are.  Once you "summon" a character then you have to level them up.  Not by fighting in battles but basically by absorbing other characters, which costs food.

The annoying thing is this is the sort of game that has all these obstacles designed to make you want to spend real money so you can buy upgrades.  You need food and iron to upgrade your characters and build things and buy potions and special items and so on.  You need "world energy" to fight battles, raid other players, and fight "titans" (dragons) with your alliance.  The energy takes a while to build back up--unless you buy more.  Just like buildings take a while to build--unless you pay to bypass it.

Like most of these games it's not really a scam because you don't have to spend money.  And I try not to.  I've only done it a couple of times and not for a lot.  But of course it's better if you do spend money because you can do more and get better stuff.  Resisting the temptation can be hard sometimes, like when you get your butt kicked by someone else or get stuck on a mission.  Or just if you're bored and don't want to wait hours or even more than a day to get something upgraded.

That's how those games get you--if you let them.

There you go, just some random stuff.

#AtoZChallenge Bonus: Titan's Robotech Reboot Comic Fails

When I was doing my A to Z Challenge on Robotech last April I used a number of covers from Titan Comics' recent Robotech reboot comic series because they were pretty cool and easy to find.  But I hadn't actually read the comics yet because they were too expensive.  Fortunately a sale a few weeks ago remedied that, though soon I wished I hadn't.

Issue #1/Volume #1 Cover

First, I noted on Facebook that the sale itself was kind of stupid.  There were two "volumes" each with 4 issues for $5.99 apiece whereas the individual issues were only 99 cents.  So it was about $2 cheaper per volume to just buy the issues separately.  Which was a joke.  Marvel and DC usually have 5-6 issues per volume so the math is close enough that I'd probably buy the collected volume for the sake of convenience.  But only 4 issues makes it completely uneconomical.  I'm just saying.

Anyway, math aside the series wasn't great.  The first 6 issues or so are written by Brian Wood who's the author of the DMZ series and some Disney Star Wars books and comics, none of which I've read.  And from this I probably wouldn't strain myself to read anything he's done either.  After that former Transformers writer Simon Furman takes over, not that it really makes a difference.

There really should have been a 0 issue or expanded first issue to do a little setting up.  As it is you get about 5 pages to introduce the main characters on the SDF-1 and Macross Island and then the Zentraedi show up and everything starts going to hell.  In the rush to get the plot going we lose a lot of interaction like Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes arguing as he crashes the Veritech stunt show, followed by Rick and Roy Fokker getting reacquainted after the 10 years or so Roy has spent with the SDF-1 project.  And we don't get to see Minmei with her family or any of that other stuff that was in the first episode of the show.  Nope, we've got to get things moving because readers bought this for giant robots fighting aliens!

And this sets the tone for the whole series.  Everything is so rushed and jumbled that it loses the intimacy in the character relationships.  Things are pared down so much that it's hard to understand if Rick really cares about Minmei--and she about him--and if Lisa cares about Rick.  Near the end of issue #20 Lisa suddenly kisses Rick and it makes no sense because except for a little talk as captives in a Zentraedi ship they really hadn't done anything that might warrant a kiss.

(And just on an aesthetic level Lisa's hair is light brown or dark blonde, it's not red.  I mean I like redheads but come on it doesn't even match the covers of their own books.)

As weird as it might sound to an outsider, the series about humans in giant robots fighting giant aliens is actually about relationships:  Rick-Lisa-Minmei, Roy-Claudia Grant, Max Sterling-Miriya Parino, Gloval-the bridge crew, Minmei-Kyle, and almost the entire Zentraedi race-Minmei.  So when you lose the intimacy you lose a lot of what made the story work.  Because in the end twas beauty that slayed the beast, or in this case the Zentraedi armada.  Minmei's love songs, Max and Miriya's wedding, and other displays of affection woke the slumbering emotions, the humanity, of the Zentraedi so they could overthrow the programming of the Robotech Masters.  Unfortunately most of this is about as emotional as the Zentraedi before they came into contact with humans.

The need to rush things along also fundamentally alters some characters.  In the show and books, it took a little while to convince Rick Hunter to become a fighter pilot once he was trapped on the SDF-1 with the rest of the people of Macross Island.  His father had raised him to more or less be a pacifist, which was a source of tension between Rick and Roy Fokker once Roy joined the military.  Even though he killed a few Zentraedi during the initial attack, Rick still didn't want to be a combat pilot.  But for the sake of convenience the comic changes it so that once he's aboard Rick desperately wants to be a fighter pilot.  Because there wasn't time to actually let the character develop, let's just radically alter him instead.  The same thing happens with Minmei's cousin Lynn-Kyle.  In the show Kyle is staunchly anti-military.  When the SDF-1 first returns to Earth, Rick is given permission to ferry Minmei back home, where she meets her cousin and he agrees to go back with her to try to stop the war.  But in the comic the SDF-1 goes to moon base ALUCE (which was actually only referenced in the second series, Southern Cross) where Kyle is part of the "civilian oversight" of the military base.  Not only is he working on a military base; Kyle is even wearing an RDF uniform!  WTF?  No way would he be wearing that uniform and working anywhere near a military base.  That's like someone from PETA working in a slaughterhouse and wearing that company's uniform.

Then there's the needless addition of superpowers for Rick and Minmei.  In the show Rick and Minmei are in Rick's little stunt plane over Macross when the SDF-1 folds and ends up near Pluto.  The plane crashes inside an unused part of the SDF-1 where Rick and Minmei are stranded for weeks until they're found by a construction crew.  This is somewhat the same in the comic (only they're in a Veritech, not the stunt plane) but later Rick goes blind before he gains a sort of Jedi-like ability to see without his eyes and control Robotechnology around him.  This is used to escape from a Zentraedi ship, whereas in the show Rick, Lisa, Max, and Ben Dixon just steal a Zentraedi Battlepod and fly it back to the SDF-1, which is complicated by the fact the Battlepod is designed for 40-foot aliens, not humans.  Still, they didn't need to fall back on some deus ex machina like sudden-onset superpowers.  Later it's revealed Minmei has a superpower of her own.  See, she doesn't get famous on the SDF-1 and with the Zentraedi because she's actually a good singer; nope, it's because she has a superpower that makes her voice hypnotic.  Which really just cheapens things with the Zentraedi.  Forget all that stuff I said about awakening their humanity and all that; nope, it's just that her superpowered voice makes them turn.

Besides all that like the JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot or the Battlestar Galactica reboot the series throws in some shit with time travel, multiverses, and clones.  The evil Dr. Zand has made numerous clones of Roy Fokker, one of whom kills Captain Gloval--who also has a clone.  Zand captures the real Roy and tells him in Bond villain style that the SDF-1 has conduits through space and maybe time, which he uses to direct energy to the Invid homeworld of Optera to draw the Invid to Earth.  Why?  I don't know.  It's also heavily implied that the SDF-1 that crashes on Earth in the beginning was actually from the future or a quantum duplicate or some damned thing with Lisa, Rick, Roy, and everyone else on board.  None of this has really paid off yet but like Rick and Minmei having superpowers I don't think it really adds anything of value.

The problem like Star Trek reboots is what do you want?  If you just tell the exact same story then it'd be pretty pointless, wouldn't it?  But at the same time you can't fundamentally alter characters and events so you lose what actually made things work.  What this series feels like is like what I said about The Orville:  it's a bad cover of the original.  You can play the same notes and sing the same lyrics but that doesn't mean it's going to be the same, not unless you take the time to actually know what made the original work in the first place.  This comic book series like The Orville fails to do that and so it winds up feeling like a shallow imitation.

If this is the direction they were hoping to go for a live action movie then I guess it's good Harmony Gold has their heads so far up their asses it'll never happen.