The Twisted History of Halloween

 We tend to think of reboots, remakes, and so on as a recent phenomenon.  Rewatching the Halloween series of movies around Halloween time is a good reminder that reboots did not originate in the 21st Century.

The original Halloween came out in 1978 and was an instant hit that launched the careers of Jamie Lee Curtis and John Carpenter.  And the theme song became a staple for Halloween parties.

The sequel Halloween II followed a couple of years later though the events in the movie take place in the same night with most of the same main characters--the ones who survived the first movie anyway.

It starts to get more interesting with Halloween III: Season of the Witch.  It's the only one of 11 movies (to date) not to feature Michael Myers.  It's a standalone movie and because they actually show Halloween on the TV, it's a separate universe from the other movies.

Since that movie wasn't a big hit, in the late 80s they brought Michael Myers back in Halloween IV:  The Return of Michael Myers.  This could be considered a soft reboot as since Jamie Lee Curtis wasn't going to come back, it focuses on her 8-year-old daughter Jamie.  In the movie they say that Jamie's parents died almost a year earlier, which is the first (but not the last) time Jamie Lee Curtis's character was killed off.

Halloween 5:  The Revenge of Michael Myers followed a year or so later as a direct continuation.  After some monetary problems, Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers eventually came along in 1995 as the conclusion of that story arc.  And it was the last movie in the franchise to feature Donald Pleasance as he died by the time it was released.

For the 20th anniversary of the original movie, Jamie Lee Curtis came back for Halloween 20 Years Later or H20.  This is another soft reboot that ignores movies 4-6 and maybe even 2 to be a direct sequel to the original.

A few years later Halloween Resurrection begins as a direct continuation of H20 with Michael Myers finally killing Jamie Lee Curtis after she hesitates to kill him.  The rest of the movie then is about Michael returning home to terrorize some college kids on a reality TV show.

In 2007 then Rob Zombie helmed a full remake of the original Halloween that was longer and not really any better than the original.  A crappy sequel followed in 2009 that didn't perform nearly as well.

Nothing much happened then until 2018, the 40th anniversary of the original, when Jamie Lee Curtis returned for another soft reboot that ignored the remake and the previous soft reboot of H20 to be a direct sequel of the original.  And while I thought it was boring as hell, there will probably be a sequel out in the next year or so.  

Then maybe in 2028 for the 50th anniversary they can have another reboot that ignores the previous reboots.  Or maybe they'll do another remake.

Happy Halloween!  As you celebrate, try to remember there's a virus out there that's killed many times more than all the movie serial killers put together.

Context is Key

 The fire station down the road from me often has a message on their sign saying things like, "1082 Runs to Date."  And it always makes me think, "Is that good or bad?"  Without any data to compare it to, you really don't know.  I mean 1082 Runs could be up by 100 over that point last year or it could be down by 100.  Without the context it's just a random number.

It's kind of the same thing since Amazon started to let people just give ratings for books without typing anything.  Without any context it's just random.  Someone, somewhere gave my book 1 star.  Or someone, somewhere gave my book 5 stars.  Either way it doesn't tell me a lot.  Someone liked it or someone didn't like it.  

There have been more ratings of some books, mostly the free or low cost ones.  One Day As a Bimbo went from 2 reviews to 13, probably because it's free.  Chance of a Lifetime went from 50 to 60 reviews/ratings.  The problem then is you have no idea if the ratings you're getting are good or bad because of the stupid way Amazon weighs ratings instead of just telling you how many there are of each.  So really I have no idea if these people are liking the book or not.  Which from a business standpoint it's always nice to know if people are liking your product or not.

Though to be honest it's not like people who wrote reviews usually told you much most of the time.  I mean some of them were barely comprehensible.  Others would just say "OK" or whatever.  Really what I want to know is what you liked and didn't like.  I don't need you to rehash the plot or say "Ok" or dumb shit like that.  What was good and what was bad?  That's what's useful.

Anyway, context is important.  Numbers with no context don't really SAY anything.

From Premise to Story

Last week Eric Filler got one of those rare fan emails.  For some reason they all seem to make a request, despite that I don't think I've ever written a story on request.  I would if someone paid me, but they don't.  Anyway, the email ended by saying:

 I would love to see one with a black man turning into a girl superhero

And it got me thinking that this is a premise, not a story.  To turn this premise into a story, we have to do a lot of work on it.  Let me show you!  (It'd be cooler with a whiteboard or chalkboard, but whatever.)

Let's take it in order.  You want a black man.  OK, how old is he?  Is he tall or short?  Rich or poor?  Does he live alone or does he have family?

He turns into a girl...how?  Magic?  Some kind of chemical?  Lab accident?  Alien technology?

As for the girl part, how old is the girl?  Since Amazon banned age regression stories (from me anyway) she'd have to at least be eighteen.  Is she fat or thin?  Tall or short?  Big tits or little tits?

And if she's a superhero, what are her powers?  Flight?  Invulnerability?  Super speed?  Heat vision?  Telekinesis?  What does her costume look like?  Cape or no cape?

Only when you start making all these decisions can you turn the premise into an actual story.  That's pretty much how all stories start out:  you have a basic premise and it snowballs as you start to fill in those specific details.  Hopefully as you fill in the details you answer the rest of the questions about the story, like:  who is the antagonist?  What do they want?  What does the hero want?  

Until you can work all that out, you aren't going to have much more than a premise.

There you go.  Class dismissed.

Back at the Top (LOL)

 

This probably means I sold 2 copies today but so what?  A win is a win.

A Little Knowledge

A Little Knowledge by Chrystal Wynd
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As someone who watches Rifftrax and Mystery Science Theater 3000 quite a bit, I'm pretty familiar with bad movies. One thing a lot of bad movies have in common is an utter disregard for logic. Why does the girl being chased always run UPstairs to trap herself? Why would you break into a spooky old house to set up your HAM radio? Why would you try to fight birds with a coat hanger? And so on.

Right away there was a leap of logic like in a 60s Italian horror movie where someone said how "impressionable" Hawaiians are. In this case it was that Julie's Asian heritage made her not believe in things. Um...what? What does being of Asian have to do with being skeptical? And then another ham-fisted mention of Julie's Asian heritage later in saying that blonde hair and Asian features would make her look like a bimbo. What? Then an even more ham-fisted mention of her brother's heritage when he's with the main character. And since when are bimbos known to lisp? And wait, they're witches at some kind of magic school? That was mentioned so casually, like it was totally normal. Why would the librarian have power to discipline students? Don't they have a headmaster or headmistress?

Besides that there were things worded oddly like, "she said feelingly" and someone's "thunderous" face. Along with the typos this isn't written very well. The core concept was decent but it's not well executed. But I decided a while ago to not give books I got for free less than 3 stars. Especially since it took less than an hour to read, it's not like I was really out much.

That is all.

View all my reviews

A Hero's Journey: Special Edition - Now in Paperback Too!

 The ebook of the Special Edition of A Hero's Journey came out last weekend.  And now you can buy it in paperback if you don't like ebooks.  It's $13.99 with Prime shipping for free.

Since I was making paperbacks, I finally got around to making a paperback of The Night's Legacy.  The core of that story is like a stand-alone of Louise's story in the sixth book of the Scarlet Knight series.  The hardest part of that was finding the original image to redo the cover so the text wouldn't be out of the margins.

That's $10.99 with free Prime shipping.  The ebook is still only 99 cents.

So there you go.  Enjoy.

A Hero's Journey: Special Edition Now Available in EBook!

 The headline says it all:  the Special Edition of A Hero's Journey (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #1) is now available in ebook on Amazon.  I could have done it sooner, but I reread the other seven books in paperback first.

The Special Edition includes nearly 50,000 words previously cut.  It also includes a new introduction by me about how the book came together from its humble origins as part of The Leading Men back in 2002.  Now you can read it the way it was meant to be read!

While rereading it, it occurred to me that since the series ended in 2010, if it followed along in real time, Emma would be 40 on Halloween.  Emma's natural daughter Louise would then be 12 and her adopted daughter from another dimension Joanna would be 18.  Since Louise and Joanna are both geniuses like Emma, Louise would probably be in high school and Joanna would be probably graduating college, probably with a doctorate in something.  Joanna has psychic abilities that allow her to contact versions of her father in other realities and to travel to other worlds; those abilities would probably have gotten even stronger over 10 years.  Emma's boyfriend (husband?) Jim Rizzard--formerly the Sewer Rat--would be a couple of years older than Emma.  Over ten years he'd have probably stopped living with rats in the sewers to live on the surface with Emma and Louise, their daughter.  Maybe they'd have more kids.

Meanwhile her best friend Becky would be 41 and her boyfriend (husband maybe) Dan Dreyfus would be a few years older than that.  Becky couldn't have kids, but she did have eggs frozen so maybe a surrogate (Emma?) would have given them a kid or two.

Emma's friends the former witch Agnes Chiostro and her wife Akako moved to the dimension where Joanna came from.  They'd both be in their 30s by now.  Akako was a tattoo artist and Agnes a college student when they came into that dimension.  I'm not sure what Agnes would get a degree in since all she knew about before was magic and sewing.  Their daughter Renee would be 11 and perhaps her strange magic abilities would begin showing.

In another dimension, Emma's friend Tim Cooper would be in his 30s too and for the last 10 years has been fighting crime in his sort of Iron Man-like suit.  His loyal sidekick is the genius Renee Kim, who would be 21 and probably a billionaire tech company person like Elon Musk.  By then maybe Tim would finally win the heart of Detective Sylvia Joubert, who would also be in her 30s.  

Emma's friends Amanda Murdoch and Megan Putnam would be in their 30s too.  Amanda would probably be a workaholic detective in the mold of her mentor, Lottie Donovan (who died in book 7) while Megan would probably be the partner in an architectural firm.

And then there's time traveler Marie Marsh who could show up at almost any age.  I haven't done much with her since book 2 (since she died in the original version but lived in the revised version) so maybe it'd be time to bring her back for some reason.

And Emma and Jim's faithful companion Pepe the rat would have long since died, though after 10 years he would have many, many generations of offspring.

So to do a sequel after all this time, there would be a lot to take into consideration.  I'm just saying.

Potpourri October 2020

 I haven't felt like writing anything--even blog entries--for a few weeks.  Here are some random thoughts and junk.

One of the happiest moments during the pandemic so far was when I found out there's a Rifftrax app for the Roku!  It's something I've looked for a few times in the past because Pluto TV only shows a small percentage of Rifftrax videos and Amazon Prime can be really wonky with titles coming and going at random.  When almost all of them disappeared from Amazon Prime I checked the Roku channels and found the official app.

For $5.99/month or $65/year you can get access to almost all the Rifftrax VODs up into 2017.  There are a few missing like Supersonic Man, Neutron the Atomic Superman, and Brainiac, but there are some others that haven't been on Pluto TV or Amazon like Super Mario Bros, The Wizard, Red Dawn (with Joel McHale), and Viva Kineval, a really lame 70s movie starring Evel Kineval as himself versus an evil promoter played by Leslie Nielsen.  And there are a lot of ones that used to be on Pluto TV but got dropped like Ghosthouse, Last Slumber Party, Rock n Roll Nightmare, Cool as Ice, and Psycho II.  And there are some that were briefly on Amazon Prime like Ruby, No Retreat/No Surrender, and Kingdom of Spiders starring William Shatner.  Plus there are lots of the shorts, some of which have been on live shows but more that haven't.  So it's a bonanza of riffing!

Plus you can buy stuff from the main Rifftrax site and watch it on the app, though it only works with the videos on demand, I think.  I bought one on sale to try it out and it worked just fine.  Recently they added Oblivion, a low-budget sci-fi Western and I hope they add the sequel and more stuff from 2017 and later.

When I wasn't watching Rifftrax I managed to watch a few other shows.

I finally got around to watching Agent Carter on Disney+.  I never caught it on ABC and it was never on Amazon Prime or I don't think on Hulu.  Anyway, I liked it a lot better than the only season of Agents of SHIELD I watched.  I think because it takes place in the 40s it's better.  Unlike SHIELD you don't have to worry about what's going on in the MCU and you don't keep wondering why Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, etc won't show up because other than Thor, none of them were really around in the 40s.  Dominic Cooper reprises his role as Howard Stark a few times and the Howling Commandos show up in an episode but otherwise there aren't any cameos.

I think the first season was a little tighter, maybe because it was 8 episodes and not 10.  The second season moved from New York to LA but it seemed like it could have been wrapped up a little sooner.  It unfortunately ended with a little bit of a cliffhanger when Peggy's boss is shot by a mysterious assassin.  And then of course Endgame's ludicrous ending made the whole show irrelevant.  Hooray?

I also watched Crossing Swords on Hulu.  It's another project by people who work on Robot Chicken.  I don't really like it as much as some of their other side projects like Supermansion and Titan Maximum.  Instead of puppets the people in this look sort of like the old Little People figures only they're more squarish.  It takes place in a world sort of like a Middle Ages kingdom.  Patrick (voiced by Nicolas Hoult) dreams of being a knight.  In the first episode he participates in a tournament to become a squire and manages to get the job.  Soon he's working with the selfish king and his equally selfish wife and daughter.

Since it's from people involved with Robot Chicken there's a lot of the same low-brow humor so I'm sure no one who might ever read this blog would watch it.  I did enjoy it, though maybe not as much as those other two shows I mentioned.  One thing is certain:  the main character has the best name ever!

A random thought on watching more recent seasons of The Simpsons:  Julie Kavner needs to retire.  Her voice is just getting so bad that I started muting it.  I suppose it's not unexpected after so many years.  Jessica Walter on Archer is getting the same way where sometimes it's hard to listen to.

As far as writing goes like I said, I haven't done a lot.  It's mostly a bout of "writer's malaise" where I have stuff I could write but I just don't feel like it.  Maybe it's just all the covid stupidity finally getting to me.  I did recently think of something and started doing some preliminary work.  Basically I thought that I had done a Transformers-themed gender swap story and one based on a GI Joe episode, so why not like a Voltron/Power Rangers-themed gender swap story?  Right?  I think part of the inspiration was I rented the Rifftrax movie Attack of the Super Monsters that was this really awful thing where it's half that puppets/guys in suits Power Rangers stuff and half late 70s anime stuff.  The way they combine these is anything but seamless.  I think the "movie" was like 4 episodes where pretty much the evil dinosaur puppets would mutate and sic animals on humans.  The most bizarre one involved mutating rats.  The female member of the good guys is at the dry cleaner to pick up a blouse when a rat suddenly rips through her blouse.  The weird thing is her brother gets all pissed off at her because she didn't demand her money back from the dry cleaner.  Later the dry cleaner is being chased by rats and the chick wants to go out and save him.  Her brother actually hits her!  I mean like hard enough to knock her down.  Then he goes out to try to rescue the guy.  It was just WTF?!  I hope that gets on the Rifftrax app someday or maybe I'd buy it because it is truly bizarre even for Japanese TV.

Anyway, I even went and made some Sims for this story idea since I had Power Rangers costumes based on the 2017 movie.

Maybe I should try to wait until November and do a stupid NanoWriMo on it.  Or not.  Whatever.