Recently I was watching Star Trek: The Next Generation on Amazon and came across the early 3rd season episode featuring an immortal entity going by the name of Kevin Uxbridge. Which always reminds me of the old Star Trek Customizable Card Game from the 90s. The Kevin Uxbridge card you could use in that game was really powerful, allowing you to destroy an Event card or an Artifact being used as an Event. Which for the game was important because Events let you do important stuff.
The card was so powerful that then they had to create another card to nullify it. The same was true for the Amanda Rogers card that let you destroy an Interrupt (except apparently Kevin Uxbridge). The Q2 card (named after a member of the Q Continuum shown in the episode where the John DeLancie Q loses his powers) nullifies both Kevin Uxbridge & Amanda Rogers because those cards were both too powerful.
The 2020 version of this is a lot easier than issuing a whole new card. In the Empires & Puzzles game I play on my phone, each month there's a special character you can potentially get. Last year I got one called Telluria that had a lot of awesome powers: attack, healing, and little minions that would attack the other team and soak up some hit points on defense. The problem is people complained she was too powerful. So in an update they dialed back some of her stats. Not really a lot; it was barely perceptible to me at least. The term for this that people use is NERF-ing. As in the spongy balls and darts and stuff. The idea being that they wanted to make her less dangerous and more soft and spongy.
I'm sure there are other cases of this happening in that game and other games. It's a lot easier than it was for the old Star Trek CCG because you don't have to issue a card; you can just use an update patch to "fix" the problem. Maybe Magic the Gathering or other similar games had that problem, or maybe not.
The point is that sometimes you don't realize a character or whatever is too strong or doing too much damage until you're already using it. In comics this happens a lot with characters like Superman or the Hulk, where sometimes they can throw planets around like bowling balls and other times it's hard for them to bend a gun barrel. It depends on what the writers need. Really "Kryptonite" was invented on the radio show as a way to "NERF" Superman because otherwise it was too hard to make things challenging.
The obvious writing lesson is that you have to be careful in making characters or scenarios too powerful or too perfect or else you might have to go back and "NERF" them later.
Thursday, July 30, 2020
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Tough Guys...And Girls
Recently Pluto TV was showing Earth Final Conflict on its Sci-Fi channel and for no real reason I started rewatching the whole series on Amazon Prime without the obnoxious Siesta Key commercials.
The premise of the show was kind of like V where aliens come to Earth and while they seem good at first, under the surface they're not that good, so there's a Resistance to oppose them. I wrote an entry about the show about 2 years ago and one thing I noted was the large amount of turnover in the series. As part of this, Renee Palmer was introduced in Season 3 as a Resistance fighter who also was CEO of the powerful tech company Doors International.
For two seasons she and a dude named Liam Kincaid were sort of a low-rent Mulder and Scully opposing the alien schemes. At the end of the fourth season, though, Liam disappears while trying to get two alien species to merge their life forces or whatever.
In the fifth season, Renee is pretty much on her own to fight against a new race of aliens who are sort of like energy vampires. This season is not really much fun to watch. For one the new aliens are a one-eighty from the previous ones. But mostly because they had Renee get all pissed off and brooding. She becomes so obsessed with killing the aliens that she frees a serial killer (played by Superman's Margot Kidder) to try to figure out a weakness on the aliens. That's definitely not fun.
Then that made me think of other examples like Linda Hamilton in the Terminator movies or Jamie Lee Curtis in the Halloween movies where they get all pissed off and bitter and brooding to show how tough they are. It made me think about the nature of toughness in movies and TV. To be tough, does a character have to be pissed off, bitter, and brooding?
I don't think so. Sure there are male examples of this like Batman or The Punisher, but what about Captain America? Or Spider-Man? They're not wimps but they're also not pissed off and bitter. Really I think what makes a character tough is more whether they can get up when they're knocked down. Like Captain America in Endgame ready to face off against Thanos and his minions alone. Or Spider-Man getting beat up by Mysterio, Vulture, Green Goblin, the Lizard, Venom, Doc Ock, or whoever and still getting up to save the day. Or Rocky getting beat up by Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, or Ivan Drago and still going round after round and (usually) winning.
So really we should apply the same principles to female characters. They don't need to be pissed off and bitter and wearing a tank top to be tough. All they need is to get up when they're knocked down.
You know a female character who is tough that way? The Scarlet Knight. Emma Earl is almost never pissed off and bitter--and I don't think she ever wears a tank top. She's mostly kind and courteous and caring, but she also doesn't give up. Ever. Not even when she thinks her child is dead. That's toughness.
The premise of the show was kind of like V where aliens come to Earth and while they seem good at first, under the surface they're not that good, so there's a Resistance to oppose them. I wrote an entry about the show about 2 years ago and one thing I noted was the large amount of turnover in the series. As part of this, Renee Palmer was introduced in Season 3 as a Resistance fighter who also was CEO of the powerful tech company Doors International.
For two seasons she and a dude named Liam Kincaid were sort of a low-rent Mulder and Scully opposing the alien schemes. At the end of the fourth season, though, Liam disappears while trying to get two alien species to merge their life forces or whatever.
In the fifth season, Renee is pretty much on her own to fight against a new race of aliens who are sort of like energy vampires. This season is not really much fun to watch. For one the new aliens are a one-eighty from the previous ones. But mostly because they had Renee get all pissed off and brooding. She becomes so obsessed with killing the aliens that she frees a serial killer (played by Superman's Margot Kidder) to try to figure out a weakness on the aliens. That's definitely not fun.
Then that made me think of other examples like Linda Hamilton in the Terminator movies or Jamie Lee Curtis in the Halloween movies where they get all pissed off and bitter and brooding to show how tough they are. It made me think about the nature of toughness in movies and TV. To be tough, does a character have to be pissed off, bitter, and brooding?
I don't think so. Sure there are male examples of this like Batman or The Punisher, but what about Captain America? Or Spider-Man? They're not wimps but they're also not pissed off and bitter. Really I think what makes a character tough is more whether they can get up when they're knocked down. Like Captain America in Endgame ready to face off against Thanos and his minions alone. Or Spider-Man getting beat up by Mysterio, Vulture, Green Goblin, the Lizard, Venom, Doc Ock, or whoever and still getting up to save the day. Or Rocky getting beat up by Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, or Ivan Drago and still going round after round and (usually) winning.
So really we should apply the same principles to female characters. They don't need to be pissed off and bitter and wearing a tank top to be tough. All they need is to get up when they're knocked down.
You know a female character who is tough that way? The Scarlet Knight. Emma Earl is almost never pissed off and bitter--and I don't think she ever wears a tank top. She's mostly kind and courteous and caring, but she also doesn't give up. Ever. Not even when she thinks her child is dead. That's toughness.
Thursday, July 23, 2020
Forced Writing
Recently for no reason I was re-binging Archer on Hulu, though season 7 I watched on Amazon because I bought it after it came out 4 years ago and that way I didn't have commercials. Anyway, the last episode of that season, the titular Sterling Archer goes to the house of film star Veronica Deane to trick her into confessing to the murder of her ex-husband and director of her current movie. As part of this he brings a cyborg double of himself to record her confession.
She confesses and then grabs a gun he leaves on the table to shoot him four or five times. Then the other Archer pops out to confront her and she shoots him once in the gut before running out of bullets. We're of course meant to think the first Archer was the cyborg but then it turns out the one in the pool is the real him and he's been in a coma for the last 3 seasons.
Anyway, watching it a few times it never makes any sense why A) he brings a gun with real bullets that B) he sets on the table for her to use and C) doesn't wear a bulletproof vest if he's doing A & B. The whole scenario is horribly contrived and forced.
Another example I can quickly think of is in the seventh Star Trek movie, Generations. The evil Lursa and B'Tor hack into Geordi's visor so they can get the Enterprise-D's shield frequency and attack the ship. During the attack the main reactor overloads or something and so they have to separate the ship with the bottom part blowing up and the saucer section crashing on a planet.
That has always felt so contrived and forced because you know in the show they could have ejected the core or some damned thing to save the ship before it blew up. But it was a movie and they wanted a new ship, so they wanted to blow up the old one. Just like in Archer, they wanted to do these stupid coma fantasy seasons so they had to find a way to put him into a coma, whether it really made sense or not.
This sort of thing happens a lot in comic books too. If you have Batman v Superman, who wins the fight will probably be determined by whose book it appears in and/or who's doing the writing. If Superman appears in a Batman book, Batman will probably take him down. If Batman appears in a Superman book, Superman will probably win. And the same is true for any titles, DC, Marvel, or whoever. These fights are frequently contrived to achieve whatever outcome is needed for the story.
In the 80s Marvel had the Transformers meet Spider-Man in one issue and there was a whole spin-off series of Transformers vs GI JOE. IDW has had the Transformers crossover with just about everything: Star Trek, My Little Pony, Ghostbusters, and of course all those other Hasbro properties like GI JOE, Rom: Space Knight, Action Man, Visionaries, and MASK. Which the dumb thing about these for me has always been that Transformers are huge, usually heavily-armed robots. The idea that any humans could defeat them definitely seems contrived. (That was also something I didn't like in the Bay movies.)
The problem with all of these things isn't so much that they happen so much as how they happen. When they're so obviously contrived, it really gets irritating. If characters have to act contrary to common sense or how they usually would or you have to write in some kind of deus ex machina to achieve the desired result, then it's a sign of poor writing.
It's probably just as well I haven't really done crossovers in my books, though the Girl Power series was conceived originally as a Scarlet Knight/Chance of a Lifetime crossover--until I realized no one had probably ever read all 11 books of both series and thus wouldn't care about a crossover. So I just took the core concepts of both series to mash together. On the blog back in May 2013 I wrote a brief description of the crossover story but people didn't really care. So I haven't contrived things that way, but I've probably contrived things in other ways. I'm sure we've all done it at some point in writing.
She confesses and then grabs a gun he leaves on the table to shoot him four or five times. Then the other Archer pops out to confront her and she shoots him once in the gut before running out of bullets. We're of course meant to think the first Archer was the cyborg but then it turns out the one in the pool is the real him and he's been in a coma for the last 3 seasons.
Anyway, watching it a few times it never makes any sense why A) he brings a gun with real bullets that B) he sets on the table for her to use and C) doesn't wear a bulletproof vest if he's doing A & B. The whole scenario is horribly contrived and forced.
Another example I can quickly think of is in the seventh Star Trek movie, Generations. The evil Lursa and B'Tor hack into Geordi's visor so they can get the Enterprise-D's shield frequency and attack the ship. During the attack the main reactor overloads or something and so they have to separate the ship with the bottom part blowing up and the saucer section crashing on a planet.
That has always felt so contrived and forced because you know in the show they could have ejected the core or some damned thing to save the ship before it blew up. But it was a movie and they wanted a new ship, so they wanted to blow up the old one. Just like in Archer, they wanted to do these stupid coma fantasy seasons so they had to find a way to put him into a coma, whether it really made sense or not.
This sort of thing happens a lot in comic books too. If you have Batman v Superman, who wins the fight will probably be determined by whose book it appears in and/or who's doing the writing. If Superman appears in a Batman book, Batman will probably take him down. If Batman appears in a Superman book, Superman will probably win. And the same is true for any titles, DC, Marvel, or whoever. These fights are frequently contrived to achieve whatever outcome is needed for the story.
In the 80s Marvel had the Transformers meet Spider-Man in one issue and there was a whole spin-off series of Transformers vs GI JOE. IDW has had the Transformers crossover with just about everything: Star Trek, My Little Pony, Ghostbusters, and of course all those other Hasbro properties like GI JOE, Rom: Space Knight, Action Man, Visionaries, and MASK. Which the dumb thing about these for me has always been that Transformers are huge, usually heavily-armed robots. The idea that any humans could defeat them definitely seems contrived. (That was also something I didn't like in the Bay movies.)
The problem with all of these things isn't so much that they happen so much as how they happen. When they're so obviously contrived, it really gets irritating. If characters have to act contrary to common sense or how they usually would or you have to write in some kind of deus ex machina to achieve the desired result, then it's a sign of poor writing.
It's probably just as well I haven't really done crossovers in my books, though the Girl Power series was conceived originally as a Scarlet Knight/Chance of a Lifetime crossover--until I realized no one had probably ever read all 11 books of both series and thus wouldn't care about a crossover. So I just took the core concepts of both series to mash together. On the blog back in May 2013 I wrote a brief description of the crossover story but people didn't really care. So I haven't contrived things that way, but I've probably contrived things in other ways. I'm sure we've all done it at some point in writing.
Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Book Math
Though the Chances Are books were published in 2013, they still sell a few copies a month. The thing I don't get though is almost all of those sales are the individual books, not the omnibus. Here's a little math for you:
Books Separately:
Chance of a Lifetime: FREE
Second Chance: $2.99
Last Chance: $2.99
Total: $5.98
Omnibus containing all three books above: $2.99
So if you buy the omnibus you save $2.99! But people don't. Hey, I like money, but it just doesn't make sense why people don't do that.
Or even better, buy the Gender Swap Six Pack that saves even more money:
Chance of a Lifetime: FREE
Second Chance $2.99
Last Chance $2.99
Girl Power: $0.99
The Impostors: $2.99
League of Evil $2.99
Bonus: Girl Power Short Stories: $2.99
That's a total of $15.94 of books for $2.99! But people don't buy that either. Far fewer people buy the Girl Power books anyway, maybe because the first one isn't free anymore. Or maybe people don't buy the Six Pack (technically seven pack) because someone in the UK left a review 5 years ago saying it was only the Girl Power books. Which I fixed...five years ago, but of course Amazon doesn't remove the review so people probably still think it's wrong because they don't bother to look.
Anyway, this happens with some Eric Filler books too; there are plenty of times where people buy a bunch of random Transformed books when it would have been cheaper to buy an omnibus or two with the same books. Or some of the other series where people buy 3-4 books when they could just buy one omnibus and save money.
But oh well. It's their money. Which goes to me and Amazon--and eventually the IRS.
Books Separately:
Chance of a Lifetime: FREE
Second Chance: $2.99
Last Chance: $2.99
Total: $5.98
Omnibus containing all three books above: $2.99
So if you buy the omnibus you save $2.99! But people don't. Hey, I like money, but it just doesn't make sense why people don't do that.
Or even better, buy the Gender Swap Six Pack that saves even more money:
Chance of a Lifetime: FREE
Second Chance $2.99
Last Chance $2.99
Girl Power: $0.99
The Impostors: $2.99
League of Evil $2.99
Bonus: Girl Power Short Stories: $2.99
That's a total of $15.94 of books for $2.99! But people don't buy that either. Far fewer people buy the Girl Power books anyway, maybe because the first one isn't free anymore. Or maybe people don't buy the Six Pack (technically seven pack) because someone in the UK left a review 5 years ago saying it was only the Girl Power books. Which I fixed...five years ago, but of course Amazon doesn't remove the review so people probably still think it's wrong because they don't bother to look.
Anyway, this happens with some Eric Filler books too; there are plenty of times where people buy a bunch of random Transformed books when it would have been cheaper to buy an omnibus or two with the same books. Or some of the other series where people buy 3-4 books when they could just buy one omnibus and save money.
But oh well. It's their money. Which goes to me and Amazon--and eventually the IRS.
Thursday, July 16, 2020
Where Have the Writers Gone?
A weird fact I found out not long ago: most of my old writing buddies haven't published much in years. I hadn't been paying attention, but one day I was looking up my PT Dilloway books on Amazon to see if I had any reviews and just for the hell of it I clicked a link on an old issue of Indie Writers Monthly from 2013. Check this out:
It's kind of depressing that it seems like most of my former writing friends have mostly stopped writing--unless they're using different names. What could be behind this? Maybe they're just busy with families and jobs and stuff. If any of them want to give me a shout out, go right ahead in the comments.
- Andrew Leon doesn't have a book listed since February 2018 and that was nonfiction. The last fiction book was April 2016.
- Briane Pagel doesn't have a book listed since November 2016
- Rusty Carl (aka Rusty Webb) doesn't have a book listed since September 2013
- Sandra Ulbrich Almazan has a couple of short stories over the last couple of years but nothing novel-length since October 2017
- Nigel Mitchell doesn't have a book listed since June 2018
- Neil Vogler doesn't have a book listed since April 2016
- Amazon says Jay Noel has released two books this year but I think they're both re-releases from a few years ago
- Even Tony Laplume hasn't published any fiction on Amazon since June 2018
It's kind of depressing that it seems like most of my former writing friends have mostly stopped writing--unless they're using different names. What could be behind this? Maybe they're just busy with families and jobs and stuff. If any of them want to give me a shout out, go right ahead in the comments.
Tuesday, July 14, 2020
Vote With Your Dollars--And Your Reviews
Last week I got a very long email from an Eric Filler fan. This person was going on with all these suggestions of what she wanted to see in stories. I'm not going to elaborate on all of it, but it was mostly that she didn't want happy endings and wanted a lot more punishment in the stories.
The thing is, the large percentage of people who review my Eric Filler books have said they want the exact opposite, which is why I haven't been doing that as much. Most of the books she liked were ones from 4-6 years ago, but do you think she actually reviewed any of them? No. If she had, maybe I would have been more inclined to keep writing books like that.
Business experts talk about the public "voting with its dollars" but sometimes raw dollars don't really tell you the full story. With books, movies, and other creative properties, just because people buy something doesn't tell you that they actually liked it or what in particular they might have liked about it. That's what you do with reviews.
In politics they say if you don't vote, you can't complain. If you don't review books, you can't complain that they don't do what you want to do. If you wait 4-6 years to contact the author about all the things you want, then time may pass you by because other proactive people have already beaten you to the punch.
The thing is, the large percentage of people who review my Eric Filler books have said they want the exact opposite, which is why I haven't been doing that as much. Most of the books she liked were ones from 4-6 years ago, but do you think she actually reviewed any of them? No. If she had, maybe I would have been more inclined to keep writing books like that.
Business experts talk about the public "voting with its dollars" but sometimes raw dollars don't really tell you the full story. With books, movies, and other creative properties, just because people buy something doesn't tell you that they actually liked it or what in particular they might have liked about it. That's what you do with reviews.
In politics they say if you don't vote, you can't complain. If you don't review books, you can't complain that they don't do what you want to do. If you wait 4-6 years to contact the author about all the things you want, then time may pass you by because other proactive people have already beaten you to the punch.
Thursday, July 9, 2020
Celebrity Opinions Are the Only Ones That Matter
The other day I saw JK Rowling trending and of course it had nothing to do with a new book or theme park attraction or TV series or anything. Nope, she was popping off about transgender people...again. Despite that probably nobody asked. Despite that she has no expertise on the subject. Despite that she has no stake at all in the issue.
This has really become a problem in the social media age because unfortunately if you're a celebrity, people will actually hear all your dumb ass shower thoughts and treat them seriously. The biggest problem is that when you get celebrities spouting conspiracy theories, it gives those crackpot theories credibility with people. Like anti-vaccination wasn't a huge thing until celebrities like Jenny McCarthy began spouting off in support of it. Or recently I saw a hashtag about now-deceased fiddler Charlie Daniels supporting Benghazi conspiracy theories. Or celebrities supporting flat Earth nonsense. Or of course Donald Trump and "birtherism."
It doesn't seem to matter then what actual experts on any of those subjects say (or for instance the many long, costly investigations of Benghazi), there are always going to be a substantial number of people who believe the theories supported by the celebrities, who have a lot more reach than most scientists or other experts. So these conspiracy theories manage to hang around in the mainstream instead of just being relegated to crazy homeless people on street corners like they should be.
So the unfortunate thing is that when someone like JK Rowling goes around spouting crap about a subject she knows nothing about, people will treat it seriously when in reality her opinion on transgender people has less value than mine. I mean, I write books that are considered "transgender" so I actually have more knowledge and a stake in the subject, but who gives a shit about my opinion?
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Celebrities like Rowling should be more careful in what they say then. I can go on Twitter or Facebook and say any stupid ass thing I like, because who's going to know or care? Maybe 3 people. Whereas if a celebrity spews some dumb, uniformed opinion, it can influence millions of people. So they really need to be more responsible, because they aren't normal people; they can't use social media the way the rest of us would.
Is it fair? No, but that's one of the prices you pay for success.
Yesterday a letter was published by Harper's Magazine where Rowling was among the celebrities whining about "cancel culture." For celebrities I guess it's a lot easy to blame us little people for being mean to them than for them to actually think before they post.
But the thing is that in the end you're responsible for your own words, whether spoken or typed. That's true for all of us, but when you have the power of celebrities, it's especially true. As a great man and celebrity once wrote, "With great power comes great responsibility."
This has really become a problem in the social media age because unfortunately if you're a celebrity, people will actually hear all your dumb ass shower thoughts and treat them seriously. The biggest problem is that when you get celebrities spouting conspiracy theories, it gives those crackpot theories credibility with people. Like anti-vaccination wasn't a huge thing until celebrities like Jenny McCarthy began spouting off in support of it. Or recently I saw a hashtag about now-deceased fiddler Charlie Daniels supporting Benghazi conspiracy theories. Or celebrities supporting flat Earth nonsense. Or of course Donald Trump and "birtherism."
It doesn't seem to matter then what actual experts on any of those subjects say (or for instance the many long, costly investigations of Benghazi), there are always going to be a substantial number of people who believe the theories supported by the celebrities, who have a lot more reach than most scientists or other experts. So these conspiracy theories manage to hang around in the mainstream instead of just being relegated to crazy homeless people on street corners like they should be.
So the unfortunate thing is that when someone like JK Rowling goes around spouting crap about a subject she knows nothing about, people will treat it seriously when in reality her opinion on transgender people has less value than mine. I mean, I write books that are considered "transgender" so I actually have more knowledge and a stake in the subject, but who gives a shit about my opinion?
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Celebrities like Rowling should be more careful in what they say then. I can go on Twitter or Facebook and say any stupid ass thing I like, because who's going to know or care? Maybe 3 people. Whereas if a celebrity spews some dumb, uniformed opinion, it can influence millions of people. So they really need to be more responsible, because they aren't normal people; they can't use social media the way the rest of us would.
Is it fair? No, but that's one of the prices you pay for success.
Yesterday a letter was published by Harper's Magazine where Rowling was among the celebrities whining about "cancel culture." For celebrities I guess it's a lot easy to blame us little people for being mean to them than for them to actually think before they post.
But the thing is that in the end you're responsible for your own words, whether spoken or typed. That's true for all of us, but when you have the power of celebrities, it's especially true. As a great man and celebrity once wrote, "With great power comes great responsibility."
Tuesday, July 7, 2020
DC & WB Are Ready to Fail Again
After the failure of BvS and Justice League (the Non-Snyder Cut!), DC and Warner Bros got back on track with Aquaman, Shazam, and Joker. Throw in the success of Wonder Woman before Justice League and they had 4 of 5 movies do pretty well. Then came Harley Prey or Birds of Quinn or whatever you want to call that stupid mess, though even that might get a pass because of COVID-19 affecting the international gross especially.
So after a bumpy start, things were looking up for the DC/Warner Bros partnership. Maybe too much up because just like after Man of Steel they're getting dollar signs in their eyes again. First came the news they were finally going to do a Snyder Cut of Justice League for the HBO Max service. Which I gave them a pass on as just a publicity stunt (a very costly one) to try to get recognition and subscribers for the brand. To a less expensive degree it's like when Disney announced a new season of Clone Wars to air on the new Disney+ service.
Then came news that they're trying to woo Michael Keaton back to play Batman in the long-gestating Flash movie. And that in turn would set up some whole multiverse situation. That's what set off the alarm bells for me. A "multiverse" is just another attempt at having a "cinematic universe" and if you pay attention Marvel has been toying with the multiverse concept in the last Spider-Man movie and the upcoming Doctor Strange movie, which is probably part of DC/WB's motivation. And also there's probably some motivation after the big "Crisis on Infinite Earths" thing on the CW that probably got a lot more viewers than their shows usually get, though how many of those viewers stuck around and how many (like me) were just watching to see the cameos?
And then Maurice Mitchell mentioned an unsubstantiated report that Ben Affleck might do some kind of Batman projects on HBO Max. Ugh. Why? You already have the Battinson movie filming. Why muddle the issue with another Batman, especially one that didn't perform at the box office?
A well-known and very true saying is that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Look, DC/WB, you had your biggest successes by doing solo movies only loosely connected to each other (except Joker). Why rock the boat? What happened the last time you went chasing after the white whale of Marvel-type numbers? Failure and mockery. Playing it safe is not sexy and often not fun, but it's, you know, safe. And after the failure of that Harley Quinn thing, you're not exactly playing with house money here.
And really I said a while back that a Flashpoint movie is a bad idea because you've barely established the character in the movies. It made more sense in the TV show because they'd already done 2 seasons, so they'd laid the groundwork for it. Rushing into a multiverse and time travel and a bunch of shit like that is the same kind of shit that led to the failure of the Snyderverse in the first place. And your Flash movie has already gone through a half-dozen directors and probably even more writers, so it's maybe not the property you want to roll out your big new thing with.
They of course won't listen to me and in a few years we'll find out who was right. (Probably me.)
So after a bumpy start, things were looking up for the DC/Warner Bros partnership. Maybe too much up because just like after Man of Steel they're getting dollar signs in their eyes again. First came the news they were finally going to do a Snyder Cut of Justice League for the HBO Max service. Which I gave them a pass on as just a publicity stunt (a very costly one) to try to get recognition and subscribers for the brand. To a less expensive degree it's like when Disney announced a new season of Clone Wars to air on the new Disney+ service.
Then came news that they're trying to woo Michael Keaton back to play Batman in the long-gestating Flash movie. And that in turn would set up some whole multiverse situation. That's what set off the alarm bells for me. A "multiverse" is just another attempt at having a "cinematic universe" and if you pay attention Marvel has been toying with the multiverse concept in the last Spider-Man movie and the upcoming Doctor Strange movie, which is probably part of DC/WB's motivation. And also there's probably some motivation after the big "Crisis on Infinite Earths" thing on the CW that probably got a lot more viewers than their shows usually get, though how many of those viewers stuck around and how many (like me) were just watching to see the cameos?
And then Maurice Mitchell mentioned an unsubstantiated report that Ben Affleck might do some kind of Batman projects on HBO Max. Ugh. Why? You already have the Battinson movie filming. Why muddle the issue with another Batman, especially one that didn't perform at the box office?
A well-known and very true saying is that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Look, DC/WB, you had your biggest successes by doing solo movies only loosely connected to each other (except Joker). Why rock the boat? What happened the last time you went chasing after the white whale of Marvel-type numbers? Failure and mockery. Playing it safe is not sexy and often not fun, but it's, you know, safe. And after the failure of that Harley Quinn thing, you're not exactly playing with house money here.
And really I said a while back that a Flashpoint movie is a bad idea because you've barely established the character in the movies. It made more sense in the TV show because they'd already done 2 seasons, so they'd laid the groundwork for it. Rushing into a multiverse and time travel and a bunch of shit like that is the same kind of shit that led to the failure of the Snyderverse in the first place. And your Flash movie has already gone through a half-dozen directors and probably even more writers, so it's maybe not the property you want to roll out your big new thing with.
They of course won't listen to me and in a few years we'll find out who was right. (Probably me.)
Thursday, July 2, 2020
Virtue Signaling is Not a Virtue
In most causes I'm a liberal, but I'm also a middle-aged white guy in the Midwest, so I have my limits. Some things in the last couple of weeks are straining even my liberal sensibilities.
After all the Black Lives Matter protests in the last few weeks, a bunch of white people voicing non-white animated characters decided they had to step down. Like Mike Henry on Family Guy, who voiced Cleveland Brown for 20 years and all through a spin-off show, suddenly decides that a white guy shouldn't be voicing a black character anymore.
Most of these I find pretty ridiculous. It's a fucking cartoon! What the fuck difference does it make? I get in real life you don't want white people coloring their faces to play other ethnicities; that's pretty cringe-worthy in the 21st Century. But we're talking about cartoons! Unless I go to IMDB or a panel at a convention or something, I'm not going to know what any of the voice actors look like, let alone what color they are unless it's someone famous. When I was watching cartoons in the 80s do you think I gave a shit what Peter Cullen or Frank Welker looked like? They were Optimus Prime and Megatron--and a bunch of other voices too--that's all I gave a shit about.
The whole logic behind it is kind of silly. Black people have to voice black people! OK, so gay people have to voice gay characters now? Jewish people have to voice Jewish characters now? A rabbit has to voice Bugs Bunny? A robot has to voice Optimus Prime? Where are liberals going to draw the line on this? What about on shows like Bob's Burgers where men voice female characters? Is that sexist? What about on The Simpsons where women voice the young male characters like Bart and Milhouse? Is that sexist? Ageist? Shouldn't they hire actual boys to do the voices?
The obvious thing with the latter is that a boy's voice would change in a couple of years, whereas if you hire a woman to do the boy's voice, you can have that same woman still doing it 30 years later. Plus you don't have to worry about child labor laws. That's just practical.
And that's the thing: most shows don't do these things because they're racist or sexist; they do them because they're practical--and cheap. Especially in the old days they didn't have the money to pay someone to do each character, so if you could get a Frank Welker to do a dozen voices in Transformers or just about any other 80s cartoon or James Doohan to do a bunch of voices on the Star Trek cartoon series, that's just what you do to save money. When shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy started out, guys like Hank Azaria and Mike Henry did characters of different colors probably just because they were cheap and available. I'm sure if they had the budget at the beginning they could have hired an Indian to voice Apu and a black guy to voice Carl Carlson and so on but they probably didn't think the show would be on 30 years later or that Apu and Carl would be recurring characters over 30 years, so fuck it, Hank Azaria is here already.
Speaking of, by today's standard the Apu voice is racist not just because it's a white guy doing it, but because it's a white guy doing a cliche accent. Whereas there's nothing really wrong with Carl's voice because it's not really accented. If he were doing it with some stereotypical jivey accent, that would be racist. Mike Henry on Family Guy is closer to that, but not really. Who am I to judge? Well, this is my blog; go write your own fucking blog if you want to say something different.
Along these lines we also have more tearing down statues and vandalizing statues and renaming buildings and such. After a while it gets out of hand. I can understand tearing down Confederate general statues; they were traitors and losers. But then of course people want to go farther than that. We have to tear down the Columbus statues because he tortured Native Americans! We have to tear down Jefferson and Washington statues because they owned slaves! FDR created internment camps for Asian-Americans!
Look, there is no one perfect. No historical figure is ever going to be purely good or evil. You have to weigh the good against the bad. Washington and Jefferson owned slaves (and the latter fucked them too) but without their efforts we wouldn't have a country where you could complain about cartoon voice actors and statues. FDR approved internment camps, but if he had lost to some "America First" asshole in 1940, we might be living in a Man in the High Castle or Plot Against America universe right now. The Columbus one I'd go with because he didn't really "discover America;" he landed in fucking Cuba, not America!
I'm just saying, try to have some perspective. Because while Hollywood thinks they're being brave or helping some cause by stepping down from voice acting roles, Princeton might think they're being progressive for taking Woodrow Wilson's name off buildings, and the Coasts might think they're helping social justice by removing statues of just about anyone, where I live, that's the shit where we just roll our eyes. And you know what happens? People like Donald fucking Trump use that shit as fuel to say, "those stupid liberals want to take away your heritage!" Social Justice Warriors! Make the Libs Cry! Blah blah blah.
If liberals want to win this year, we can't get distracted by issues the majority of people don't really give a shit about. Most people don't give a shit who voices who in cartoons. They don't give a shit about most of the statues. Focus on what matters. Black Lives Matter. Cops shouldn't murder unarmed people. Keep the focus on that and not a bunch of virtue signaling nonsense that no one between LA and New York will give a shit about. Otherwise you're going to end up with another 4 fucking years of Trump bullshit.
After all the Black Lives Matter protests in the last few weeks, a bunch of white people voicing non-white animated characters decided they had to step down. Like Mike Henry on Family Guy, who voiced Cleveland Brown for 20 years and all through a spin-off show, suddenly decides that a white guy shouldn't be voicing a black character anymore.
Most of these I find pretty ridiculous. It's a fucking cartoon! What the fuck difference does it make? I get in real life you don't want white people coloring their faces to play other ethnicities; that's pretty cringe-worthy in the 21st Century. But we're talking about cartoons! Unless I go to IMDB or a panel at a convention or something, I'm not going to know what any of the voice actors look like, let alone what color they are unless it's someone famous. When I was watching cartoons in the 80s do you think I gave a shit what Peter Cullen or Frank Welker looked like? They were Optimus Prime and Megatron--and a bunch of other voices too--that's all I gave a shit about.
The whole logic behind it is kind of silly. Black people have to voice black people! OK, so gay people have to voice gay characters now? Jewish people have to voice Jewish characters now? A rabbit has to voice Bugs Bunny? A robot has to voice Optimus Prime? Where are liberals going to draw the line on this? What about on shows like Bob's Burgers where men voice female characters? Is that sexist? What about on The Simpsons where women voice the young male characters like Bart and Milhouse? Is that sexist? Ageist? Shouldn't they hire actual boys to do the voices?
The obvious thing with the latter is that a boy's voice would change in a couple of years, whereas if you hire a woman to do the boy's voice, you can have that same woman still doing it 30 years later. Plus you don't have to worry about child labor laws. That's just practical.
And that's the thing: most shows don't do these things because they're racist or sexist; they do them because they're practical--and cheap. Especially in the old days they didn't have the money to pay someone to do each character, so if you could get a Frank Welker to do a dozen voices in Transformers or just about any other 80s cartoon or James Doohan to do a bunch of voices on the Star Trek cartoon series, that's just what you do to save money. When shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy started out, guys like Hank Azaria and Mike Henry did characters of different colors probably just because they were cheap and available. I'm sure if they had the budget at the beginning they could have hired an Indian to voice Apu and a black guy to voice Carl Carlson and so on but they probably didn't think the show would be on 30 years later or that Apu and Carl would be recurring characters over 30 years, so fuck it, Hank Azaria is here already.
Speaking of, by today's standard the Apu voice is racist not just because it's a white guy doing it, but because it's a white guy doing a cliche accent. Whereas there's nothing really wrong with Carl's voice because it's not really accented. If he were doing it with some stereotypical jivey accent, that would be racist. Mike Henry on Family Guy is closer to that, but not really. Who am I to judge? Well, this is my blog; go write your own fucking blog if you want to say something different.
Along these lines we also have more tearing down statues and vandalizing statues and renaming buildings and such. After a while it gets out of hand. I can understand tearing down Confederate general statues; they were traitors and losers. But then of course people want to go farther than that. We have to tear down the Columbus statues because he tortured Native Americans! We have to tear down Jefferson and Washington statues because they owned slaves! FDR created internment camps for Asian-Americans!
Look, there is no one perfect. No historical figure is ever going to be purely good or evil. You have to weigh the good against the bad. Washington and Jefferson owned slaves (and the latter fucked them too) but without their efforts we wouldn't have a country where you could complain about cartoon voice actors and statues. FDR approved internment camps, but if he had lost to some "America First" asshole in 1940, we might be living in a Man in the High Castle or Plot Against America universe right now. The Columbus one I'd go with because he didn't really "discover America;" he landed in fucking Cuba, not America!
I'm just saying, try to have some perspective. Because while Hollywood thinks they're being brave or helping some cause by stepping down from voice acting roles, Princeton might think they're being progressive for taking Woodrow Wilson's name off buildings, and the Coasts might think they're helping social justice by removing statues of just about anyone, where I live, that's the shit where we just roll our eyes. And you know what happens? People like Donald fucking Trump use that shit as fuel to say, "those stupid liberals want to take away your heritage!" Social Justice Warriors! Make the Libs Cry! Blah blah blah.
If liberals want to win this year, we can't get distracted by issues the majority of people don't really give a shit about. Most people don't give a shit who voices who in cartoons. They don't give a shit about most of the statues. Focus on what matters. Black Lives Matter. Cops shouldn't murder unarmed people. Keep the focus on that and not a bunch of virtue signaling nonsense that no one between LA and New York will give a shit about. Otherwise you're going to end up with another 4 fucking years of Trump bullshit.
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