Bad Branding to the Max!

Recently HBO Max just became Max and of course a lot of people on the Internet had things to say.  And being the Internet, a lot of them were dumb and/or ignorant.  On the Chive they posted a meme that was factually wrong, but it got me thinking about the paths HBO and its owners took to get to this point.

The meme on the Chive wrongly said HBO Go became HBO Now.  In fact the two things co-existed early on in the streaming era.  The idea was like this:

• HBO Go was for people like me who already had HBO through their cable provider
• HBO Now was for people who didn't already have HBO but wanted to stream the content

And that's how it was for a few years.  Then a couple of years ago HBO Max consolidated the two platforms into one new app.  If you already had HBO you could login and use it free.  Or if you didn't you could create a login and pay to use it.

So far it all pretty much makes sense.  The Go/Now thing was clumsy but this was still pretty early in the streaming era so it makes sense that maybe they didn't have the technical wizardry yet to do both in one app.  Eventually they probably realized that was confusing customers and potential customers and thus created HBO Max to consolidate them.  Though I would have appreciated a heads-up that I could use my HBO account to access it as for months I didn't realize that.

But this latest change makes sense--and doesn't make sense.  I think the idea was born from the merger of WB and Discovery.  The big corporate honchos then wanted a streaming app.  But:

• HBO Max is too closely tied to HBO and not other things like Discovery and WB.
• Calling it "WB Plus" or "Discovery Plus" would not acknowledge the content available from the other.  Also, "Discovery Plus" is already a thing which apparently they're not folding into "Max" just yet.

And so they probably hired some high-priced marketing consultant to come up with the stupid idea of just calling it "Max."  That way it's not tied to HBO, WB, or Discovery.  But also it's not tied to anything at all.  If you ask me, "Max" makes me think of a dog or the Max Havoc movies on Rifftrax.  It does not invoke a streaming service.

An NPR article pretty much agrees with me:

Zaslav already has just shut down his overseas equivalent of Turner Classic Movies in the U.K. And he's the guy who, since taking over the reins at Warner Bros. Discovery, already has turned HBO Max into just Max, which makes no sense — devaluing his own HBO brand.

It actually reminds me of the 90s when a fad was changing a radio station to the name of a person:  Doug, Alice, and so on.  They parodied this on Mystery Science Theater 3000 when the evil mad scientists create a country station called "Frank."  There probably wasn't a "Max" as it's too short, but it's the same kinda thing, innit?

And the same problem with those named stations was the name itself doesn't invoke anything.  Would you be able to guess what kind of music "Alice" played just from the name?  Probably not.  Though if you thought of rocker Alice Cooper you might get it.

It also reminds me of when Netflix was going to call its DVD service "Qwikster" for...reasons.  That also got dragged by the Internet and rightfully so; it is a pretty idiotic name.  And like "Max" it really didn't invoke what it was supposed to invoke.  I mean if I asked you if you tried "Qwikster" you might think it's a delivery service or something like Grubhub or something, right?  Which Grubhub actually invokes what it is:  a hub for getting grub.  Just like Doordash dashes things to your door.  Or Lyft gives you a lift.  Uber does not invoke anything but it's the kind of thing where it was fresh enough and got enough popularity right away that it didn't need to invoke anything.  Maybe with all the attention "Max" is getting for its shitty name, that will happen for it.  Or maybe they'll have to hire another high-priced consultant to come up with something even dumber.

Looking at the competition, Netflix invoked what it was:  you could watch flix on the Net!  Or at first it was really order your flix through the Net.  Amazon Prime Video is videos you watch with Amazon Prime.  Paramount+ and Disney+ are streaming stuff from Paramount and Disney respectively.  Then you get the less invocative ones like Hulu or Crackle.  Tubi makes a little sense in that it's like the tube on the Internet.  (Its original name of TubiTV made more sense.)  YouTube was again the tube but you decided what to watch--or put on it.  So a lot of those make sense in some way.

When choosing a title for a book or game or something else, I always think it's good to have something that does invoke what it's supposed to be.  I mean if you're writing a kid's book you probably don't want to call it "The Slaughter of Innocents."  Or if you're writing a horror book you probably don't want to call it "Sunny Fun Time."  Unless you're being ironic.  I'm not sure if that would work or not.

As for "Max" I was thinking a better name might have been DiscoverWB as it invokes both Discovery and WB.  And "discover" invokes the mission of the app, which is to discover things to watch.  But maybe then people would still think it was just WB.  Maybe "DiscoveryWB" or "WBDiscovery?"

More Comics I Read

 More comics I read, not that anyone really cares.

Justice Society of America, Vol. 5: Black Adam and Isis by Geoff Johns
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Only the first 3 or 4 issues in this are about Black Adam and Isis. It's kind of cut-and-dried as Adam rescues Isis and then they take the power from Billy Batson, who at this point is the wizard Shazam instead of "Captain Marvel." And the Justice Society has to stop them.

The other issues involve some other stuff. A fun one involves Stargirl's birthday party. A two-parter about a Japanese ghost gets a little cringey.

Overall it's OK but not really memorable. The art is decent. Pretty standard DC stuff for this time period.

If you watched the Black Adam movie this really has nothing to do with that.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Lost And Found by Mark Waid
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So basically Scott Lang and Nadia van Dyne get stuck in the quantum realm or whatever the microscopic universe is and have to find their way out. Lots of pseudo-science (or maybe real science) follows. As the late Terry Pratchett would say "it's something quantum." Amusing but not essential or relatable or in many cases even understandable.

 

The Unstoppable Wasp, Vol. 1: Unstoppable! by Jeremy Whitley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While I am not the target audience for this book as a middle-aged man with no kids, it was still mostly a fun read. At times maybe a little annoying, but Nadia's sunny, can-do attitude is kind of infectious and lovable.

Nadia (it means Hope!) Van Dyne was raised most of her life in the "Red Room" that also raised Black Widow. Once she learned she was the daughter of Hank Pym, she managed to create some Pym particles and escape to America.

There she starts recruiting other young female scientists to change the world. But the Red Room is still searching for her and wants to bring her back to Russia. There are I think 5 issues of this and a bonus Avengers issue at the start of the lame Civil War II thing.

Overall while the art was mostly cartoony, it did I suppose fit the subject, which is supposed to be more of a cartoon and not real. The non-grim-n-gritty tone is a nice palate cleanser. There are cameos by Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur, Jarvis the butler, and Janet van Dyne (aka original Wasp). I just wonder though why if she's such a genius she doesn't realize that "Girls In Action Research Labs" would be GIARL not GIRL.

But whatever. Maybe some girls were inspired to get into STEM because of this. Or probably not.

 
Flashpoint Beyond by Geoff Johns
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Like Johns's previous Doomsday Clock, this seems like a hollow exercise with no real point except to cash in on a name brand. In the original Flashpoint, the Flash changes things to save his mother and in the process alters the world to a much worse place with Thomas Wayne as Batman instead of Bruce. Thomas works with Barry Allen to change things back. This time, it's Bruce who saves Thomas by recreating the Flashpoint world inside of a couple of artifacts affected by Dr. Manhattan. While Thomas tries to unravel how his world is back, everything is unraveling with the Atlanteans and Amazons still at war and a Kryptonian fleet on the way. Meanwhile someone is killing people who in Bruce's timeline are time travelers. Some of it is interesting, but there are a lot of red herrings. While Thomas travels to England and other places, the whole thing could have been solved without ever leaving Gotham.

This isn't as banal as Doomsday Clock was, but it really lacks the emotional punch of Flashpoint. Probably because this Thomas Wayne is a brutal psychopath. Saving him isn't like saving Bruce in Flashpoint; Bruce's Batman was not a saint but much more worth saving. If Bruce was going to save a version of his father, why this one? Why not one who wasn't a piece of shit? Well because then you couldn't trade on the Flashpoint name brand.

It kinda makes sense that Bruce wants to let his father have another chance to be a hero, but the ethical concerns of this are never considered. I mean he recreates this timeline that suddenly winks countless beings into existence. Many of those on Earth are suffering from the war between the Atlanteans and Amazons and soon will suffer from the Kryptonian invasion. Other than Rip Hunter and the "Time Masters" scolding Bruce for using their toys, no one really considers whether it's right to recreate this fairly awful Earth just so Thomas can get his mojo back. Instead of recreating this world, he really should have just strapped his dad into a virtual reality thing.

It's kind of sad that after great runs on JSA, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Justice League, Johns Peter Principled himself into helping to create the failed "Snyderverse" and now is reduced to trying to stoke the embers of former greatness in an attempt to return to prominence. 

Booster Gold, Vol. 1: 52 Pick-Up by Geoff Johns
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's been a few years since I read 52 but I was familiar enough that it wasn't too jarring to read this years later. It picks up in the wake of 52 and Infinite Crisis where Booster Gold, the self-made hero from the future who's kind of a doofus but whose heart is in the right place, has lost his best friend Ted Kord and is trying to get back in the Justice League. Then he's dragooned by Rip Hunter, Time Master, to help stop someone(s) trying to destroy the Justice League's greatest heroes.

When I watched Deadpool 2 I asked, "Who would you trust less with a time machine than Deadpool?" Booster Gold would probably make that list. Fortunately for the universe, Rip Hunter is overseeing his travels so when he goes back a few years and to the Old West, it doesn't destroy all of history. There are actually a few poignant moments near the end as Booster goes back to stop Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) from being paralyzed and is supposed to learn an important lesson. And then tries to save Ted with help from other Blue Beetles.

It's mostly fun with a few touching moments. The character of Booster really comes through as someone who is a screw-up but not the doofus people think he is. He really does want to be good and help people, but his methods to do so while well-intentioned aren't always the best. And his sense of loss for Ted is palpable.

The art is typical for DC in the 2000s. It's not super-realistic but not crummy sketches either. All-in-all it's a decent story, though I don't know how much is still canon after Final Crisis, Flashpoint, Rebirth, Dark Crisis, and whatever. Maybe none of it. Still, it's a good read before the TV show gets made.

Justice League vs. Suicide Squad by Joshua Williamson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It starts off as the pretty standard "Bigger Jaws" narrative: the Suicide Squad are on a mission, the Justice League intercepts them, they fight, the Suicide Squad improbably wins, and then they team up to take on the bigger threat, ie Maxwell Lord, Lobo, and some other really bad dudes. Then things change a little when most of the Justice League is conscripted into Lord's army. The Suicide Squad and Batman have to team up to stop them.

Overall it's OK for what it is. It's not the kind of comic that's going to make you think or really redefine most of the characters, except maybe Killer Frost. I'm not sure how long she and Lobo were part of the Justice League, though I doubt it was long. There's plenty of action and quipping, so if that's mostly what you want, then this will do it for you.

Most of the art is decent enough. There's one issue especially about the "original" Task Force X that really had sketchy art--as in it mostly looks like they colored in someone's sketches.

I would probably give this 3.5 stars but I'm going to round up to 4. It's not an important or memorable story, but it was fine for what it was.

The Authority (1999-2002): Book One by Warren Ellis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I didn't read any of that Stormwatch stuff, from which this spun out in 1999. But since they're going to do a new TV series or movie or whatever, this was on Prime Reading. I had heard of Midnighter and Apollo since they were brought into the main DC universe a few years ago and recently showed up in "Superman and the Authority" and the Superman Future State stories. The rest of the characters I didn't really know about.

Jenny Sparks and Angie, aka "The Engineer" get the most characterization. Jenny is not immortal, but like Rushdie's Midnight's Children, her birth at the exact turn of the century gives her power. She doesn't age once she's an adult and she has electrical powers. And she's been to a parallel universe where aliens took over Earth in the 1500s and turned much of it into a breeding farm. That universe comes to Jenny's universe and she has to lead the Authority to fight them.

Angie is a young woman who gave up all her blood for nanobots that let her create a robotic shell and lots of neat guns, engines, and devices. I'm not sure how much more is done with her in future volumes, but there was a lot of room to grow.

There's also "the Doctor" (not of the Who variety) who can do environmental magic, like if Captain Planet were a sorcerer or something. And Jack gets power from cities--but only cities. Midnighter is like Batman crossed with Taskmaster of Marvel. Apollo gets power from the sun and most closely is like Superman with the flying and shooting energy and maybe some super strength? There's also Shan who has wings. Maybe because Jack, Shan, Midnighter, and Apollo were in Stormwatch they aren't given a lot of extra characterization.

The first story arc involves superhuman clones. The newly-formed Authority takes them out. And then the parallel world beings. And then some monsters, ending with "God." For all purposes the Authority seems to be doing good. Grant Morrison's introduction makes it sound like they have a hidden agenda, but there's little evidence of that in this volume. Maybe that comes to play later.

Anyway, it was a pretty decent overall. Most of it is action, so it's not going to really make you think too much, but it's not just constant slugfests. There's some weirdness that calls to mind Morrison's Doom Patrol or Gaiman's Sandman, but if that's not your thing there's not too much of that. So basically it's not plain vanilla superhero stuff but it's not so out there that superhero comic fans wouldn't get it.

While there's violence and some gore, there's not nearly as much gore or sexuality as The Boys. By today's standards it's probably a hard PG-13 instead of R-rated. Though Jenny is a lot like a female Billy Butcher--if Butcher had electrical powers.

Hitch's art is good, on par with the DC standard of the late 90s and 2000s. Maybe since this came out in 1999 it's not too 90s in its depiction of people. I mean it's not all guys with huge muscles and women with huge breasts and big hair like a lot of that early-to-mid-90s stuff.

I'd be interested in reading more.

Batman: Reptilian by Garth Ennis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As a "Black Label" story this is not part of the official Batman continuity in the comics. That always frees creators to do different things. In this case it's a story about Batman and Killer Croc. While we usually think of Croc as being, you know, like a crocodile or alligator on two legs, this takes a different tack. What if Croc was something else entirely?

Something has been attacking the criminals of Gotham including most of Batman's rogue's gallery. And it's not Batman, so he starts looking into it. But what is Killer Croc's role in these attacks that seem to be committed by a reptilian creature?

Overall it's a pretty fun read. For the creator of The Boys this is actually a pretty restrained comic. There is some blood and gore but not too much and not a ton of graphic violence either. A lot of the first four issues or so are just Batman looking into the aftermath of the creature's attacks and searching for the connection.

The tone of the story and Ennis's take on Batman is set in the beginning in an unrelated bit where a boxer's lawyer celebrates his client being found not guilty because Batman's evidence was ruled inadmissible. Batman walks up to the boxer and calls him a coward and goads the boxer into trying to punch him and then hits him a lot harder. "Self-defense," he says and walks away.

The only fault I have is sometimes Batman sounds a little too British. That can happen when you have a writer from North Ireland writing an American character. It's something I saw a lot in Transformers comics where the British writers had the robots from Cybertron using a lot of British slang. For American readers it can be a little off-putting.

The art is OK. It has that sort of painted style like Alex Ross but not with the attempts at realism. Some of the supporting characters look downright cartoony.

Overall while it's basically an Elseworlds thing it's still a good read for Batman fans.

Batman: The Imposter by Mattson Tomlin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This just feels like a mish-mash of previous Batman stories in comics, film, and TV. The whole "imposter" thing has been done before in comics and at the start of "The Dark Knight." Even the romance angle felt like we'd already seen it before and there wasn't nearly enough development to it. I suppose part of the problem is this was only 3 "books;" it probably needed to be longer to develop the story more.

But even then it'd be hard for it not to feel like a Bat-loaf of prior stories all mixed together and under-cooked into something inedible. Like "Batman Year One," "Batman Begins," and the more recent "The Batman," this is about a young Bruce Wayne who's only been Batman for a couple of years and is still figuring things out. Since this is a Black Label story it can make some changes to the traditional continuity so that Alfred put Bruce into a Russian military school when he was 11 or 12 and then took off. And after working with Batman for a couple of years, "Captain Gordon" was run out of town. Then someone dressed as Batman starts killing criminals. Bruce and a female detective both investigate the imposter and fall in love. And mayhem ensues...

Like I said, this doesn't feel like it has any new ideas or really anything interesting to say. It's just rehashing a lot of stuff that's already been done. Been there, done that. The character of the imposter isn't really developed and the reveal is a big "so what?" because it's not anyone of significance.

The art doesn't do the book any favors. While it claims to be "moody," often it's just incoherent, making it difficult to really see what's happening.

I really didn't enjoy anything about this book. It makes me glad I got it on sale last holiday season so I'm not out much.

Dawn of DC Knight Terrors FCBD Special Edition #1: 2023 by Joshua Williamson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The story is OK but not great. Someone's pitch was probably, "It's like Nightmare on Elm Street but with superheroes!" Meh. Definitely an "event" I could wait to read until it's all in a trade collection and marked down to a couple of bucks.

The art is that lame kind that looks really rushed, like someone was in a hurry and had to color in sketches.

So definitely a hard pass for me on this.

Dawn of DC Primer Special Edition #1: 2023 by Joshua Williamson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This Free Comic Book Day issue is to update readers on the state of DC's universe after the previous "Dark Crisis," which I haven't read. Anyway, for...reasons, Amanda Waller is employing a bunch of criminals to assassinate superheroes. She should probably just contact Billy Butcher and The Boys since that's their specialty.

The art of that story is the kind that just looks rushed, basic, and like colored sketches, so I guess it's good this was free.

After that little teaser story there are a bunch of pages to reintroduce various characters and give you their status quo at the moment--until the next big event shakes things up again. Sigh.

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Insecure Wednesday: Filler and I Don't Mean Eric

 For Monday's entry I posted my Goodreads review of Mango Bob, a book I wanted to like but really didn't, mostly because the description promised a Carl Hiaasen-type crime comedy thriller in Florida but in reality there was a lot of padding with the crime story being really thin and incompetently done.

If Alex Cavanaugh reads this, he can back me up on this:  a lot of bad movies use filler to pad their run times.  Something bad movies love to do is show people driving from one place to another and parking and getting out and walking to a door.  James Nguyen of Birdemic infamy became the go-to punchline in Rifftrax movies for this.  In A Talking Cat!?! there is literally a five-minute sequence in the middle of the movie just showing a woman's car driving down a road back to her house.  Why?  No real reason except it added to the runtime.

In R.O.T.O.R. there's literally a whole scene of the main character and his new female partner checking into a hotel after he picks her up at the airport--which we also have to see in detail.  The female partner goes into her room, takes off an oversized dress for a Rambo-type outfit, and then they leave never to return.  Other than killing a couple of minutes (and probably getting the production some free rooms) what does this really add to the movie?

Even less bad movies can be guilty of this, like the Star Wars movies where there are gratuitous shots of ships flying to a planet or station and landing.  I think the "Special Editions" in the late 90s added some of these scenes, which while they show us the planets and stations and whatever aren't really necessary to the plot and just add to the runtime.  Or like Star Trek the Motion Picture where it takes like half-an-hour just to see the revamped Enterprise as Kirk is heading to it for the first time.

Most of the first third of Mango Bob felt like this kind of vamping.  There's all this boring, pointless detail about him going to a Saul Goodman-type lawyer (who is never seen again) to get a quickie divorce.  And then him moving into a state park with a tent to stay.  And then buying a motor home from his workplace.  The latter is important to the story--such as it is--but we didn't need so much detail about him selling his truck and essentially trading it for the motor home.  And then back in the state park there's so much detail about how to park the motor home and hook it up to the electrical and water outlets and blah, blah, blah.  I mean, are you writing a comedy crime thriller or a how-to guide on RVs?  The latter would have made more sense.

There can be that fine line to walk where if you don't give enough detail things aren't clear, but if you provide too much detail you're going to bore the audience.  Obviously you want some details, but you want those details to be important.  They should contribute something to the story whether it's part of the plot or contributing to the atmosphere.

Part of how you can tell the difference is something mentioned by the actress playing Lisa's mom in The Disaster Artist.  She laments that her character in The Room is mentioned to have breast cancer but the detail never comes back.  Filler details are the sort of thing that don't come back or really have any significance to the plot.  Saying she has breast cancer is a pretty small amount of filler, but imagine if they had shown her going to a doctor and getting tests and stuff?  That's the kind of filler a lot of bad movies do.

Especially when editing, what you have to ask yourself is if the scene you're writing is actually important to the audience's understanding of the plot or if you're just putting it in there to make the story longer.  If it's the latter, you really need to get rid of it.

Mango Bob is Not a Trip Worth Taking

Mango Bob by Bill Myers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really have to compliment whoever wrote this description:

"Walker's task should be simple: drive the Love Bus 1,200 miles cross-country to Florida and deliver a cat named Mango Bob to a woman he's never met. But things are never really as simple as they seem. An unsolved murder involving the Love Bus and the Mexican mafia, along with a major case of mistaken identity, complicate Walker's efforts. Add a crazy gun-toting senior citizen, Mango Bob's escape attempts, and the hot kayak chick, and you get a rollicking travel romp through the Sunshine State."

It really makes it sound like an off-brand Carl Hiaasen or Dave Barry type wacky crime thriller in Florida. But the actual book is almost nothing like that. Instead the first 25% is just a Walden-like account of Walker getting divorced, living in a tent, and then buying a motor home. The titular cat doesn't even show up until the book is almost half over.  Most of the book takes place in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama rather than Florida.

There's so much detail about RVing, the cat's habits, and kayaking while the crime story is paper-thin even on my Kindle. The carjacking and murder (or suicide) is dealt with so incompetently that I wish the author hadn't even bothered with it and just wrote a cozy romance about the love triangle of Walker, Sara, and Mango Bob.

I definitely don't have any interest in reading any sequels.  Oh, and naming characters "Johnny Walker" and "Jack Daniels" is so hackneyed.

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Final Thoughts on Watching the Original Transformers Series

 Three weeks ago I posted about watching the first two seasons of the original Transformers series, which coincided with the new movie.  But there was still one whole season that took place after the disastrous 1986 animated movie--which is still one of my sentimental favorites--and the three-episode "Rebirth" miniseries that introduced a lot of the 4th wave of toys.

• I hated Rodimus Prime far less than before.  This time around I didn't hate the new Autobot leader Rodimus Prime as much as when I was a kid.  A big part of it had nothing to do with the show itself and more to do with the Lost Light comics I read a few years ago.  Rodimus was the leader for that expedition and while the original TV show character isn't nearly as good, I think it gave me more of a soft spot for the character I didn't have back in the late 80s when he was mostly the guy replacing the beloved Optimus Prime.  And in a way, what happened to Rodimus was sort of a forerunner to what happened to Azrael in Batman comics, though I don't think Rodimus was so much destined to fail.  With Azrael or the "Reign of the Supermen" characters, I think the plan always was to bring the original back.  But with Rodimus I don't think that was Hasbro's plan as there wasn't a new Optimus Prime toy until the fifth wave about two years after Rodimus's introduction.  When Optimus returns in the TV show he's the same as before, without any new gimmicks or a new alt-mode or anything.  That just doesn't jive with Hasbro's usual MO.  I think it was just Hasbro panicked when the ratings (and probably toy sales) dipped.  While fans usually considered Rodimus whiny and annoying it's really only 3-4 episodes of the whole season where he's kinda whiny about being the leader.  Like often happens, I think it just got blown out of proportion.  Really I think Rodimus's most hateable moment is when a planet of Autobot pacifists is blown up and Rodimus really has no empathy for the survivors losing their home.  He's basically like, "Meh, your planet sucked anyway."  It was out of character for an Autobot.  Stuff like that makes him more a victim of poor writing than anything.  Like in "Dark Awakening" he just hands the Matrix off to zombie Optimus when what was probably just a few episodes earlier in "The Burden Hardest to Bear" he realizes that he's the guy and the Matrix is his cross to bear.  When you're a kid you aren't going to think about stuff like that but it becomes more noticeable about 35 years later.
• Some episodes needed room to breathe.  The third season doesn't really have an episode I like as much as "Fire in the Sky," "The Master Builder," or "War Dawn" of the first two seasons but there are some decent ones.  Episodes like "The Burden Hardest to Bear," "Forever is a Long Time Coming," and "Only Human" had some decent concepts.  The real problem was they could have used to be two-part episodes so there was more time to explore them.  The latter I did in a story of the same name when three Autobot-type robots land on Earth to search for a comrade and take on human bodies.  The TV episode is only 22 minutes so there's barely any time for the Autobots who are turned into humans to deal with all the complications of being tiny flesh creatures.  A two-part episode or a book like mine provides a much better opportunity to get into the central conflict.
• Carnage in C-Minor is Worse Than Kremzeek!  The story of the episode is actually a pretty serviceable Transformers story:  there's a planet where the leaders use musical harmony as a weapon and of course the Decepticons capture it and the Autobots have to stop them.  But when I watched it this time, the actual drawing and animation were so, so bad.  It seemed every scene had characters who were drawn badly, not drawn to scale, or miscolored.  And I'm not sure if whoever was doing the animation even read the script from  how characters like the Aerialbots would show up suddenly and then disappear or how at one point Hot Spot was standing next to Defensor--of which he is the central component.  It was just hard to watch and more annoying in a way than "Kremzeek" because it was just so incompetent.
• Speaking of incompetence...I don't know who's in charge of the Pluto TV On Demand, but several of the episodes were out of order.  "Dark Awakening" is supposed to be the final episode before "The Return of Optimus Prime" but they have it like 7th or 8th.  There's even a segment at the end that says, "Is this the last we've seen of Optimus Prime?  Tune in tomorrow..."  In one episode, Octane laments to Sandstorm how angry the Decepticons are with him for trying to usurp Trypticon...which was a few episodes down the list.  Speaking of Sandstorm, there's another episode farther down the list that's supposed to introduce him as part of a planet of pacifist Autobots.  And I'm pretty sure "The Quintesson Journal" was supposed to go AFTER "The Big Broadcast of 2006" instead of the other way around because in BB2006 the Quints are trying to recover the journal that in QJ exposes their Ferengi-like dealings with the galaxy, such as selling weapons to both sides of an intergalactic conflict.  They really needed someone who knows what he/she is doing to curate this list.
• Someone didn't do the math.  Supposedly Captain Marissa Fairborn of the Earth Defense Command is the daughter of Flint and Lady Jaye in GI Joe.  I mean, the captioning even refers to her "father" in one episode as Flint.  Buuut, since GI Joe was running concurrently to Transformers and Flint and Lady Jaye had no daughter, that would mean Marissa could only be about 19 years old at most as the third season takes place in 2005-2006.  Unless she's some kind of Emma Earl-type genius, I don't see how she's a captain in the defense command at such a young age.  This is something shows often don't think about but it's an annoying little hobby of mine.  Another stupid game I play is, "How old would this character be now?"
• There is almost no way to make Headmasters and Targetmasters not stupid.  The last 3 episodes introduce the new lines of toys known as Headmasters and Targetmasters.  The Headmasters had heads that could pop off to become little guys who could be pilots of the Transformer's vehicle/animal mode.  The Targetmasters had guns that would turn into a little guy to again serve as a pilot if you want.  The show tries gamely to come up with a concept for why a Transformer might have his head turned into a little dude that comes off.  In this case they go to the planet Nebulos and the Nebulons have their own civil war.  There's really no good reason for them to create Headmasters and Targetmasters other than they have to.  Having a pilot provides a slight benefit on the unfamiliar planet of Nebulos, but it's not where they'd really need to have their heads turned into little suits of armor.  The comic book also struggled to find a way to justify this and I think did an even worse job.  "To show we come in peace, have our heads!"  Um...what?  I just don't see much of a way to justify this with organic pilots.  I think the later Titans Return line that revived the gimmick justified it a little better by saying that the little head guy was a tiny robot who would give the rest of the robot some special power or ability it wouldn't otherwise have.  That's probably the best way to do it.  Still, while it's a fun thing for a toy, it's not really great for a story.

Anyway, those are some random thoughts on the last season-plus of the show.  Like the movie it's still a sentimental favorite.

When Don't You Separate Art & Artist?

 I've followed the Chive on Facebook for a while.  Mostly they just post silly PG-13/R-rated content and sometimes lame "articles" that are really just cherry-picking a bunch of Tweets to assemble them into a listicle.  One day I came across this joke:

I just skimmed and went, "Oh, ha ha."  I mean it wasn't a great joke.  Pretty obvious, really.  A basic "dad joke."  Then I saw they were quoting Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert who only a short time before this posted had been making racist remarks (again).  And so then there's that uncomfortable moment of realizing that they were using a hacky joke by someone who is basically a Nazi.  Cringe!

When I mentioned this in the comments, someone attacks me saying I'm not "mature" enough.  "You're just a child!"  Though they didn't say it in so many words, I think they were saying a "mature" person would separate the art and the artist.  It's just a joke, right?

Thinking it over, I don't really think so.  This wasn't a Dilbert comic strip or episode of the TV show.  This wasn't fiction at all.  This was the actual guy's social media account.  The same kind of account from which he makes his racist rants.  Quoting a dad joke off there is really not cool.  Because that's how you normalize guys like that.  It's like saying, "See, he's not such a bad guy!"  When he's a huge piece of shit.  People like Jimmy Fallon doing that helped to get Trump elected despite being a huge piece of shit.

And like I was saying, there's no fictional product to shield this.  If this was a Dilbert cartoon then fine, it's not coming straight from the horse's mouth--or ass.  Though being somewhat knowledgeable about recent events, I'd still find it pretty cringey.

I was never much of a Dilbert reader and didn't really like the show that much (Dogbert was kinda funny as sort of a mashup of Brian and Stewie on Family Guy), so I definitely wouldn't be a huge defender of Adams in the first place.  But if it were still on somewhere I could watch it, I'd probably watch Seinfeld even though Michael Richards is a racist shithead.  I mean, Kramer is just a character in the show, not an actual guy.  Just like I could still watch Kevin Spacey in movies like LA Confidential or American Beauty because he's playing a character.  If I wanted to rewatch The Mandalorian I wouldn't fast-forward the parts with Gina Carano because again it's just a character.  In those cases you can be "mature" and separate the art and the artist, but when it's nonfiction like a social media account, it just doesn't seem the same to me.  It's not being filtered through a writer, director, producer, etc.; social media accounts are basically the person his/herself.  Even if an intern wrote it, it's still being presented as Adams's own words, not the words of a fictional character.

And it's not like Adams is my employer or anything.  I mean, if I were at work and a boss makes a tawdry joke I'm not going to quit on the spot.  In a perfect world maybe I would, but in the real world I need money.  And reporting it to someone would just be a waste of effort and in the end probably wouldn't accomplish anything.  But again, this is not that.

What annoys me the most is you put this up and then I'm just scrolling through my Facebook and see this and now you're pulling me into this.  I have enough shit to deal with that I don't need the guilt of chuckling at a joke from a racist shithead.  It's kind of like the Kid Rock Bud Light thing only for good reasons instead of homophobic ones.

Basically all brands (including the Chive) should just not get involved in this dumb shit.  And if you are, at least do it for a better joke.  Like the Chris Rock-Will Smith thing, lost in the shuffle is that it wasn't even a good joke!

Anyway, I don't think "a child" would give this that much thought.  Now, what do you think?  Anyone?  Anyone?  Oh, right, Ben Stein wasn't all that great either.  Awkward.

Don't Make Your "Villain" Have Too Just of a Mission

Friday I posted my mini-review of Creed III along with some other movies and the problem with that movie was I really had a hard time rooting against the villain.  In fact, I mostly agreed he got screwed, so why shouldn't he get revenge on the "hero?"

The setup was that when they were teenagers Adonis Creed and Dame Anderson were amateur boxers.  Dame actually wins the Golden Gloves tournament and is kind of an older brother to Adonis.  After the tournament they go to a party store to get some snacks.  Adonis sees a guy named Leon who was a neighborhood criminal.  Adonis punches Leon and gets jumped by a couple of thugs.  Then Dame pulls a gun to get the thugs to let Adonis go.  As the cops roll up, Adonis runs away while Dame is arrested and jailed for the next 20 years.

During that 20 years, Adonis becomes a rich, famous boxer with a wife and young daughter.  You could say he has Dame's life.  Meanwhile, he never writes, calls, or visits Dame in prison.  Yet Dame never ratted him out to the cops or media; the latter probably could have got him some money from a tabloid that he could have used on the outside to make a new life.

Given these facts, why is it I'm supposed to think Dame is the villain and Adonis is the hero?  When they have their big boxing match at Dodger Stadium, why am I supposed to be cheering for Adonis?  I mean, really, I was kinda siding with Dame.  He has a legitimate beef.  He protected Adonis and went to prison and Adonis never even sent him a thank you note.  Why shouldn't he want revenge for that?

Contrast this with Rocky III:  Clubber Lang (Mr. T--I pity the fool!) is a brutal boxer from the projects of Chicago.  He sees Rocky Balboa as this rich, soft white guy who's coasting into retirement.  Rocky's manager Mick won't give Clubber a fight because he knows Rocky would lose.  So Clubber crashes Rocky's retirement press conference to goad him into a fight by insulting him and even suggesting that Rocky's wife Adrian would prefer a "real man" instead.  Like Dame, Clubber has some good reasons, but in this case, Rocky is also justified in that Clubber is insulting him and his wife.  Whereas, what justification does Adonis have to be pissed at Dame?

Adding to why the plot of Rocky III works, there's also the redemption angle.  Rocky gets his ass kicked by Clubber and in the process his manager dies of a heart attack perhaps caused by Clubber shoving him and the beating he was giving Rocky.  To get his fighting mojo--and manhood--back, Rocky goes to see Adonis's dad in LA and trains to beat Clubber.

In Creed III there's not really a redemption angle.  Adonis retires after a fight in the beginning of the movie.  Thanks to Dame, some people start to question Adonis's toughness and all that but it really isn't that big of a deal.  I mean, in today's Internet culture you have people try to say Michael Jordan wasn't really that good--he was nothing without Pippen!  (Is that why the Bulls won 0 championships when MJ was "retired?"  And have won 0 championships since he retired for good?)

So the problem is two-fold with this movie:  the villain's motivation is actually too good and the hero's motivation is pretty weak.  Thus the epic fight at the end isn't really that epic.  If you really want the end battle to be epic, you have to make sure the motivations are clear and that what the bad guy wants is bad and what the good guy wants is good.  Otherwise, the stakes get pretty murky.

That doesn't mean your bad guy always has to be a mustache-twirling megalomaniac.  I mean in Rocky III, Clubber doesn't want to take over the world and he's not holding the arena hostage or anything.  But he is a brutal, nasty jerk who has done our hero wrong by insulting him and his wife, possibly killing his manager, and making Rocky question himself/his manhood.  So when Rocky wins the fight, we're glad because Clubber was a jerk and Rocky is a good guy.  Whereas in Creed III, why should I want Adonis to win?  What does he even win?  He gets the title belts back, but since he retired a champion he never really lost them.  Dame might have insulted him, but it was the truth, wasn't it?  Adonis ran away and abandoned his friend.  Sure he was young and stupid, but he was still a coward.  Why should I want the villain to fail?  Dame was kind of a jerk but he had a right to be, didn't he?  As I said, Adonis was basically living his life.  Not that he was blameless--he did have priors that contributed to his sentence and was not behaving well enough to get out early either--but he had a right to be mad and want revenge.  So when he loses, he loses a lot more than Adonis wins.

When writing a story then, it's important to make sure that your conflict has the proper stakes.  You want people to want the hero to win and win something important enough to make the journey worthwhile.  Otherwise, what's the point?

Stuff I Watched Late May-Mid June Edition

 This will undoubtedly be shorter than the last one as it hasn't been so long since the last time.  Even though people don't seem to care about these, I have found it is a lot easier to find reviews on Blogger than on Facebook, so I will continue with this just so at least I'll know what I watched and then when Tony Laplume gets around to more capsule reviews I can see what I thought of the movie.

Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania:  When this movie struggled, haters were quick to announce that superhero movie fatigue was finally here.  Then Shazam 2 flopped to reinforce that--never mind that DC announcing a movie universe reboot had pretty well kneecapped this franchise.  Then GOTG 3 did pretty well so now where are we?  Anyway, the haters should have remembered that the Ant-Man franchise has pretty much been Marvel's weakest one.  That it exists at all is because of Edgar Wright's persistence--only for it to get hijacked by "the MCU."

It is puzzling then that Marvel chose to make this the big launch of their Phase 5, but then it is one of their most venerable franchises remaining.  With Thor basically retired and Gunn leaving GOTG for DC, this was the next oldest franchise left.  Still, the problem is the first two stories were pretty small in scope while this is much, much bigger--and yet technically smaller as it's in the subatomic quantum realm.  As I opined on Facebook, this was like if Alien From LA starring supermodel Kathy Ireland had had a $300M budget.  It is pretty much the same story:  normal people (or normal-ish since it's Scott Lang, his daughter, Hank Pym, and Janet and Hope van Dyne) are drawn into a world beneath our own filled with strange beings that is ruled by an evil empire.

In this case the empire is run by Kang, played by Jonathan Majors who played a different version of the character in Loki.  He was trapped in the quantum realm by other versions of him and then later by Janet.  To escape he needs Pym particles, so he takes Scott's daughter and forces Scott to get the MacGuffin he needs to escape.

Overall it wasn't bad but it really isn't great either.  As I said, the first two movies were much smaller in scope, more street-level superheroics than grandiose battles of huge armies and whatnot.  So it really hits different.  There's also no Luis or Scott's ex-wife and only a brief, lineless cameo of Jimmy Woo.  Jonathan Majors really dominates the movie as Kang while Paul Rudd is mostly given the task of protecting his daughter and looking befuddled.  When Scott and Hope confess their love at the end it's really unbelievable because there's hardly any screen time shared by them that isn't shared with other characters.  Michelle Pfeiffer gets a couple of decent scenes while Michael Douglas really only gets one.  And the latest actress to play Cassie is OK.  Bill Murray guest stars as basically a white Lando Calrissian. 

Much has been made about the effects and some really don't look great--especially MODOK.  I'm not sure why they chose to use him as even in the comics he's pretty goofy-looking.  They should have just left him in the Patton Oswalt stop-motion series.  Or spent more money to make it look better--if that's even possible.  I don't think it is.  Anyway, it's probably too early to announce the MCU is in trouble, but maybe its best days are behind it. (2/5)

Creed III:  As I said on Facebook, this was basically Rocky III meets Warrior.  Like Rocky III it involves the main character facing a jealous rival who takes his title and then has to get it back.  Like Warrior, that jealous rival is someone he knows, only a friend instead of a brother.  Years earlier Adonis Creed (Michael B Jordan) got into a fight with a neighborhood criminal and was bailed out by his friend Dame Anderson (Jonathan Majors) who pulled a gun.  While Adonis got away clean, Dame went to jail for about 20 years.  Once Dame gets out, he manages to take the heavyweight championship in sort of a Rocky fashion.  Then he starts ragging on Adonis until Adonis fights him.  The problem with the movie is the "villain"'s motivation is actually pretty reasonable.  I mean Dame went to prison for saving Adonis and didn't give Adonis up.  Meanwhile Adonis becomes a famous, rich boxer and never once calls, writes, or visits his former friend.  So why shouldn't Dame be angry with him?  Why shouldn't he want revenge?  Really this could have been solved with some talking instead of fighting. While Rocky III is pretty clear in who we want to win, I couldn't really cheer Adonis that much. Otherwise it's OK even if Sylvester Stallone never appears as Rocky. (3/5) (Fun Facts:  no one from the Rocky movies shows up but Drago's son from Creed II appears and Stallone is credited as a producer.  Jordan, Majors, and Tess Thompson are all in this and part of the MCU.)

Renfield:  I watched this on Peacock.  If you're familiar with Dracula--the book and movie--Renfield was the henchman to Count Dracula, sort of his Igor.  This movie stars Nicholas Hoult (Beast of the X-Men soft reboot movies) as Renfield, who has grown tired of finding fresh bodies for his ungrateful master played by Nicolas Cage.  After taking refuge in New Orleans, he joins a support group for people in a codependent relationship.  Soon he meets a local cop (Awkwafina) and the son (Ben Schwartz) of a local gangster (Shohreh Aghdashloo of The Expanse).  Mayhem ensues as Renfield tries to break away from Dracula's control.  The movie was written by Robert Kirkman of The Walking Dead fame, though his superhero series Invincible is more of a touchstone as this has that same Matthew Vaughn-type mix of humor, graphic violence, and gore.  Overall it's OK, though not great.  While Cage as Dracula was a selling point early on, his scene chewing ends up as more of a distraction than anything. With someone more subtle the attempts at real feeling would have worked better.  (2.5/5) (Fun Fact:  the movie was directed by Chris McKay who previously worked on The Lego Movie and Robot Chicken, which is more this movie's speed.)

The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard:  2017's The Hitman's Bodyguard was a fun movie, though not particularly great.  Basically Ryan Reynolds was Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L Jackson was Samuel L Jackson and they just did their shtick to a plot that was basically Midnight Run in Europe.  There weren't really many loose ends to tie up, but the movie made money, so they of course had to make a sequel.  Plus it gave everyone a free trip to Croatia!  And also Italy, Portugal, and the UK.  The title is only barely accurate as Reynolds isn't really the hitman's wife's bodyguard.  They are together quite a bit for the first two acts, but it's not really the same thing as the last movie.  Samuel L Jackson has been kidnapped and so they rescue him but then get embroiled in a plot by Antonio Banderas playing a Greek guy with either a bad wig or bad dye job to destroy the EU as revenge for sanctions against Greece.  There's a lot of violence and blood and cameos by Frank Grillo as an Interpol agent and Morgan Freeman as Reynolds's "father" and mentor.  Even if this hadn't been made on the cusp of the pandemic and released during it, it probably wouldn't have made much money because it's just a fairly lame sequel that few wanted and no one needed.  If you have Netflix, watch Reynolds in Red Notice instead--it's slightly better! (2.5/5) (Fun Facts:  Last time I noted if Deadpool becomes part of the MCU he and Jackson--and Elodie Yung who wasn't in this movie--were both part of that.  This time you have two extra MCU alums in Selma Hayek from Eternals and Frank Grillo from Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  At one point Samuel L Jackson grabs a mace and says, "Let's see what what a mace will do."  You know, because he played Mace Windu?  Get it?  Yeah, that's the caliber of humor you should expect.)

Resident Alien (S1):  This Syfy series was one I wanted to watch but couldn't until it was on Peacock and I had the premium Peacock through my cable service.  Based on a comic from Dark Horse, it's a new take on the idea of an alien crash-landing on Earth and trying to blend in.  In this case Alan Tudyk is an alien who takes on the form of Harry Vanderspiegle, a doctor living in a remote cabin in Patience, Colorado.  After his ship crashes, he spends months watching TV to sort of learn to be human.  Then the local doctor is killed and the police dragoon "Harry" into being the local doctor.  Meanwhile there's one kid who can see him in his alien form and he has to find the parts for his ship so he can complete his mission--to exterminate humanity.

The twist in the show is that "Harry" is not a cuddly alien like ET or wacky like Alf, Mork, the Coneheads, or 3rd Rock From the Sun aliens.  Nor is he a monstrous killing machine like Predator or the xenomorphs of Alien/Aliens.  He's just kind of a dick.  If you didn't know he was an alien you might think he's autistic or has Asperger's or something like that.

A lot of the first season is given to relationship drama involving a Native American woman named Asta and the daughter she gave away to a local family.  Probably not enough is given to solving the murder of the doctor Harry has to replace until a new one can be brought in.  Meanwhile a government task force led by an aged Linda Hamilton is seeking Harry and his ship.  Most of the episodes use that Breaking Bad setup of using the pre-title scene to go into something that happened in the past that has an influence on the current episode like the real Harry meeting an artist with a Vulcan haircut in New York who shows up later in the episode to find out what happened to her husband.  

It's mostly a fun show even if you know Harry isn't going to destroy humanity--yet.  I mean, there is a second season. (3/5) (Fun Facts:  Tudyk's former Firefly co-star Nathan Fillion voices an octopus Harry can understand as they're part of the same evolutionary family.  Voyager's Robert Duncan McNeill is a producer and directs some episodes.  Family Guy & The Orville writer/producer Cherry Ch...really long name is also a writer/producer of this.)

Resident Alien (S2):  Like a lot of movies or TV shows, the sequel isn't quite as good as the original.  At the end of Season 1 "Harry Vanderspiegle" was leaving Earth when he realized the human kid who can see him had stowed away.  In taking the kid back to Earth, Harry's ship crashes and he suffers from amnesia until Asta finds him and snaps him out of it.  It's a bit implausible that the ship crashes in a baseball field and yet no one questions why there's a huge rut in foul territory.  I know they can't see the ship but they can see the rut, can't they?

Meanwhile, once Harry gets his memory back, he builds a bunker and starts preparing for the end of the world.  The first four episodes or so are kind of slow and then things start picking up as Harry creates a new "radio" and finds out one of his people is in New York.  This in turns uncovers a baby, which was probably inspired by the popularity of "The Child," aka Grogu in The Mandalorian.  Fittingly this child is not nearly as adorable--or nice.  There's a big twist about who the real father of the baby actually is.

There are also some twists in the case of the murdered doctor in town.  Unfortunately a lot of time is given to residents of the town and their relationship problems.  Mostly the mayor and his wife and Asta's friend D'arcy.  There's also the chubby female deputy who's obsessed with UFOs and the black sheriff who has trouble getting over the death of his partner back in Washington DC.  A little of that stuff is good for added character moments, but when it's taking up 2/3 of the episodes it starts to feel like padding.

The season ends with some action as Harry has to rescue the baby and confronts the "Greys," another race of aliens operating on Earth.  Overall it starts a little slow but builds to a fairly satisfying finish.  (3/5) (Fun Facts:  A Grey alien is voiced by Star Trek's George Takei.  With 16 episodes, this season is like 2 seasons of some shows.)

Picard Season 3:  After a second season that largely disappointed fans, they got a new showrunner and like The Rise of Skywalker seemed to want to do something a lot more fan-friendly.  While I generally enjoyed the show, it was in the end perhaps a little too eager-to-please.  Borrowing from Star Trek II, Picard finds out he has a son--with Dr. Crusher!  It turns out they were friends with benefits.  Picard, Riker, Seven of Nine, and the crew of the ugly new Titan soon are chased by a "bounty hunter" who turns out to be a Changeling.  It was nice they got the Changelings and some DS9 into it, though still no actual characters exclusively from DS9 in the show--I guess the fans of that don't need servicing.  After some OK episodes and some "Just moving the pieces around the board episodes" it finally gets to the grand finale...which kind of annoyed me.  The Changelings are using Picard's body and the Borg to put some code in transporters that causes younger crew to become like Borg only without the metal on their bodies.  And Starfleet has this dumb new system to link all their ships--which of course gets hijacked.  I got thinking it was pretty much like the reboot of Battlestar Galactica and Robotech:  The Shadow Chronicles.  Does Trek really need to rip off other properties?  And one of its own writers since Ronald D Moore created the BSG reboot and wrote for TNG and DS9?  It sort of stuck in my craw.  And like those other two properties, the only thing that would still work is an old ship--the Enterprise-D.  It was kind of neat to see it again but kind of unbelievable.  Also, using Jack as sort of the Borg Queen's stand-in to control the zombies was sort of like the original X-Men movie.

Then it flies into a Borg ship like Return of the Jedi, which was hard to believe.  There's an overly happy ending that leaves a bit too saccharine taste.  I suppose it was appropriate that it ended with a poker game as didn't the series start with Picard playing cards with Data in a dream?  

Overall it was OK.  I suppose how much you like it depends on how much you like being fan serviced.  I thought it was a little over-the-top in trying to give fans everything it thought they wanted.  It was nice to see the old crew again, though really I think Worf was more fun when he was just hanging with Raffi as sort of a Jedi Master than when he reunited with the old cast.  If you were really a fan of the first season (or first two seasons) then you probably wouldn't like how most of the characters from that first season have been either killed or sidelined.  Since I didn't like the first season and didn't watch the second season, it didn't bug me much. (3/5) (Fun Facts:  there are a bunch of cameos of people and ships like Alice Krige as the zombie Borg Queen, Tuvok, Ensign Ro, Commander Shelby, the voice of Walter Koenig as his own grandson, holo-Moriarty, the "HMS Bounty" from Star Trek IV, the Defiant from DS9, and the Voyager.  Plus Starfleet apparently has a Genesis device even though it blew up and the corpse of James T Kirk.  Amanda Plummer plays Vaida the Changeling; she's the daughter of Christopher Plummer, who was the bad guy in Star Trek VI.  I didn't check but I'm pretty sure one of Geordi's daughters in the show was his daughter in real life; I mean they have the same last name.)

Yellow Bird:  This 2022 movie I watched on Amazon is a low-budget story about a middle-aged guy (also the director, who looks like a fat Elon Musk) who was a PR agent until he married a selfish woman with a chubby daughter and wound up working at the eponymous grocery store that looks like a Spartan-type supermarket.  Then he gets promoted to store manager.  It's an OK movie.  Maybe not as funny as you might think it should be.  Really it's the sort that just needed better actors instead of those who should be bit players. (2/5) (Fun Facts: one actress is named "Plastic Martyr" which I assume is not her real name.  Bill Murray's brother Brian voices a ceramic gnome the main guy hallucinates about for some reason.) 

The Pro and Con of Kindle Unlimited

 Amazon has had the Kindle Unlimited thing for probably about 10 years now, if not longer.  In some ways it can be good to help add to income, but sometimes, I have my doubts about just how helpful it is.  I mean, check out these numbers from May 30th:

You notice how many pages of the books were read and yet how little money I receive?  Let's crunch some numbers here:

Ginger and A Most Unusual Ring are each about 85 pages according to Amazon.  So that means in that picture, about 2.25 full books worth of reading.  Of course that's oversimplifying because it could be 200 people just read a page and quit.  But still, if I sell 2 copies of each book, that's roughly $4.  So for those two books I'd be making $8 instead of a paltry $1.58.  That's a pretty big difference, especially over 31 days of the month.

But the thing is, you don't know if the people who read pages through Kindle Unlimited would actually buy the book if there were no Kindle Unlimited.  If they had to spend $2.99 instead of reading it "free" they might be a bit more discriminating about what they read.  So I might make less money than I am.

The Pro of KU is that maybe I get more readers.  The Con of it is that those readers are potentially providing me with less money.  Part of that is Amazon's fault as this whole system can get messed up with people who use "book stuffing" or now generate a lot of crap with "AI" or just the Nikki Crescent types who put out a new book every two days.  That stuff splits the pot wider and wider and we all end up suffering for it.

Would I consider dumping KU?  Not really.  Most other sites are so paranoid about erotica-type stories that I probably couldn't even publish on them and I doubt the sales I'd get would make up for the loss of the KU.  But maybe I should try one at least for a month or so and then switch it to KU just to see what happens.  Those who write "normal" books might have more options.

What do you think?

What Makes A Classic?

 I had a random thought while driving home one day:  a lot of the ordinary cars of my childhood have pretty much gone extinct.  By that I mean you hardly ever see a Chevy Celebrity or Ford Probe or Buick Skylark in the wild anymore.  Most of those passenger cars, vans, and trucks from the 80s and 90s are now rusting away in junkyards or some hillbilly's yard.

It occurred to me that the reason those vehicles are extinct and others like muscle cars of the 60s and 70s or hot rods of the 40s or 50s are still around is that no one chose to preserve those vehicles.  I mean, most people don't want to restore a Ford Probe and drive it around.  Or put a big fancy engine in it and give it a bright paint job.  No one thinks a Celebrity is a "classic" car.

For that matter, most of the ordinary cars of pretty much ever have also wound up in junkyards as scrap because no one bothers to try to preserve them.  What remains are the sports cars, some trucks, and some sedans from olden times.  And that also goes for museums.  I mean, I doubt any museum is going to have a Chevy Cavalier unless it was used as a pace car or connected to some famous event.  Those things just aren't that interesting to people.

What remains are things that people think have style and power.  Or historical value.  Cars like Model Ts, Bel Airs, or Corvettes.  The regular cars that were just pretty plain and boring get junked and no one cars.  After a while, no one probably even remembers them.  In another 20 years or so, that will probably true of Ford Focuses and the like.

This Focus is already in the junkyard. [sob]

(Electric cars might be forced to be junked the same way people have to get rid of old iPhones--because there's no longer the support for them.  I mean if your Volt or Tesla recharge station goes bad and they don't make any compatible ones anymore, you'd probably have to get rid of the car, right?  Unless you want to pay to get one from eBay or something.)

Such is the way for everything when you think about it.  Most of the books from the last 400 years wind up being lost and forgotten.  What remains are the "classics" people decided to preserve for one reason or another.  Because back in the 1600s there couldn't have just been Shakespeare, the Bible, Don Quixote, King Arthur, and Canterbury Tales.  There were probably plenty of other plays and books that no one saved.  Or in the 1930s there was tons of stuff being printed for pulp magazines and dime store paperbacks; most of that stuff is probably lost.

And of the billions of books on Amazon now, how many will survive into the future?  1%?  Less?  I doubt any of mine would be preserved by other people, because why should they be?  I'm not famous or infamous.  I wasn't well-regarded by critics or audiences.  There's really no reason that anyone would bother preserving the complete works of Eric Filler for eternity.  The Harry Potter books, definitely.  The more popular works of Stephen King, sure.  Award winning books, probably.  The early works of John Grisham or James Patterson?  Oprah's Book Club picks?  There I think it starts getting kinda spongy.  

Depressing as it may seem, the same applies to people.  Most people wind up being forgotten by history.  A few leaders, scientists, authors, philosophers, prophets, or criminals are preserved in the public records.  The other millions (and now billions) are forgotten except maybe within their own families or cities.  Isn't that why pharaohs wanted those pyramids?  So no one could forget them?

Anyway, next time you're on the road, maybe take a longer look at those ordinary cars--because it might be your last.