NY Times reports on the effort to “recalibrate” comic book heroes like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman for “a grittier century.” Damn, and I thought the last century was gritty. What do they know that we don’t?
Author: Anders Monsen (Page 76 of 83)
Wally Conger mentioned recently at his blog, out of step, news about Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars novels coming to the big screen. I grew up reading ERB’s books on Tarzan, Venus, Mars, and Pellucidar, lending credence to the statement that the Golden Age of science fiction is twelve. (Personally, the Pellucidar novels were my favorites, under the Ace imprint from the 1970s.) I am somewhat leery of this cinematic effort, though. One fascinating tidbit I take away from director Jon Favreau’s interview linked at out of step is the fact it’s taken 75 years to get this close, and the script isn’t even ready yet! Much easier for Tarzan, which arrived in cinemas almost before the print dried.
An interesting choice for this year’s Nobel Prize. I was not aware of Harold Pinter’s poetry as much as his plays, nor his recent political stance against the Iraq Invasion. Julian Sanchez over at Reason Hit and Run seems more amused by the fact that Pinter was born in Hackney, although this bio mentions Pinter’s recent anti-war book of poetry, as well as this interesting quote: “Pinter’s early fascination with politics was also evident in The Hothouse (1980), a bilious black comedy set in a state-run hospital in which nonconformists are classified as mental patients. Written in 1958, it was never publicly performed till 1980.” In a subsequent sentence, however, it just seems like Pinter copies Henrik Ibsen’s play, The Wild Duck, in discussing The Caretaker, which is “about power and pipe dreams: about the desire for domination and about the human need for illusions.” The Nobel Price tends to result in an upsurge of sales for the winner, and often puzzlement at the selection by critics. Earlier this week the Nobel Prize for literature received another type of attention when a judge denounced last year’s selection and quit the panel.
UPDATE: Just read a comment over at Libertarian Samizdata calling Pinter an apologist for Slobodan Milosevic, “Europe’s most prolific socialist mass murderer since Joseph Stalin.” Pinter else has been ridiculed as a “Champagne Socialist” and hypocrite for declining a knighthood by a conservative government and accepting state honors from a social democractic one. Perhaps this award is a good thing after all, as it will shine the light of truth on its recipients.
Can’t help myself. This is too damn funny. (But don’t click unless you’ve seen the movie.)
Conservatives must have relaxed the drug laws slightly to come to this conclusion, that penguins somehow represent conservative values. Earlier in the Fall, the New York Times also mused on the rise of conservative movies, wondering whether a few recent movies viewed as having conservative values should be “interpreted as peace offerings in the culture wars, or as canny attempts to open a new front in the endless battle for the soul of the American public?” Since most American media members see the world as liberal and everything-not-liberal-as-conservative, lumping The Incredibles as a “conservative” movie demonstrates a Procrustian worldview. And yet, there is a conservative movement out there, far-reaching and ambitious, that could co-opt or take down libertarian ideas entirely in the public’s mind. Witness Libertas, which throws around the word “liberty,” yet also advertises itself as a “forum for conservative though on film.” No wonder the modern left sees libertarians as part of the conservative movement: no one talks liberty as much and loudly as the conservatives, while trampling gleefully on individual freedom at the same time.
Today I received in a mail a copy of 3000 Years, a novel by Richard Mgrdechian published this year. I plan on digging into the book right away, posting a brief review here, and then probably a longer review in the print edition of Prometheus in a few months – yes, hard to believe in our internet age, but print newsletters still exist. Published quarterly, at around 16 pages per issue, Prometheus has been around under various editors since 1982, nearly 25 years now. The Fall newsletter should be in the mail to LFS members, subscribers, and friends Any Day Now. Send me an email if you’re interested in getting a sample copy.
Another entry from the “books not yet read” department, Michael L. Wentz‘s new novel (published October 6, 2005), Resurrection of Liberty. The description makes it sound like a space opera/young adult adventure story amid a background where “freedom has been leached from the galaxy, replaced with slavery, oppression, and destruction.”
By strange coincidence (see earlier post) I came across this article from the 1997 edition of the first ever issue of The Heinlein Journal. Sf critic Farah Mendlesohn places some comments about Heinlein’s “feminism” in context, and provides insight into the decline of strong female roles in sf during the 1940s and 1950s. One can argue that this falls into a greater social contraction in media with the rise of movie Production Codes, strict editorial guidelines, and crackdown on comic books. Heinlein appears to emerge as the only writer of that era to grant his female characters greater roles, but no doubt there are others out there, too.
[cross-posted at Liberty and Power] Thanks to David Beito for the guest blogging opportunity.
With the Heinlein Centenary celebrations scheduled for July 7, 2007, more and more stories about sf writer Robert A. Heinlein will start to surface. Long criticized by liberals, Heinlein (seen by many fans, writers, and critics as the first libertarian sf writer), gets a nod over at the New York Times (registration required) for his radical ideas instead of the usual reactionary claims. M.G. Lord’s essay hints that Heinlein’s radical ideas about women found better expressions in his earlier works, especially the less serious juvenile stories. Lord even praises parts of Starship Troopers, often mis-read as a “fascist” and “militaristic” work. Several of Heinlein’s young female characters indeed appeared more capable and individualistic than their male counterparts, and tended to remind me of Harper Lee’s Scout, from To Kill a Mockingbird. This may be a matter of opinion, but I tend to agree with the contrast between Heinlein’s earlier and later books; works published after 1970 grew longer and more complex, but at the same time less interesting.
A few negative comments have emerged from people who saw the movie. Claire Wolfe’s disappointment is two-fold. She believes it was better as a TV series, and thought a particular scene derivative. I tend to respect Wolfe’s comments, but the scene to which she alludes, where Serenity arrives at Mr. Universe’s planet to find an Armanda of Alliance ships, and somehow manages to surprise and slip past them, by no means originated with Galaxy Quest. Although the title eludes me, I seem to remember a Western movie where stampeding cattle was used much in the same way.
Seth Stevenson at Slate shares the same view. The idea that Whedon should stick to television comes from the perception that Whedon’s “nuanced characters with complex, long-running relationships” are better suited to long-running TV shows rather than a two-hour feature film. Wolfe voices this as you ” can’t just scale up a TV series and call it a movie.” Stevenson even quotes Whedon, who once said, “Why are the best writers in TV? Because they can control their product. They’re given something resembling respect.” Of course, the way Fox killed Firefly after Whedon garnered mucho respect disproved this statement. Whedon had limited control over his product, as executives demanded changes to Mal’s character, kyboshed the original pilot for “more action,” and dropped the show mid-way through the season. Another argument brought up for why TV is a horrible medium is actually raised as praise by Stevenson:
Whedon has killed off his shows’ major characters, then resurrected them—repeatedly. He turned Buffy’s friend Willow gay, then made her into a murderous hellion, then turned her sweet and good again. But even as Buffy’s plots whirligigged around, the characters remained self-aware, and the banter remained off-handed and cute.
I suppose that if Firefly had lived, Zoe and Jayne might have gotten together, and Simon turned out to be an Alliance spy, killing Kaylee and running off with Inara. Such are the downfalls of TV and episodic shows with no defined story arc, as the current show Lost demonstrates. Who knows where it’s going? Not even the writers themselves, I fear. Each episode of Firefly, 43 minutes in length once you snip out commercials, is barely enough to tell a small story or two. One could see the greater story arcs building in some episodes, but other episodes sacrificed this story to bring up more sex and violence, often with little or no character development. Serenity, at around 120 minutes (or three times the length of one Firefly episode), can show more of the major plot, but also (like any single episode), tends to focus on core characters. The ensemble cast of nine, plus two other supporting characters, must share precious time. Another movie with a fellowship of nine could give more time to each member over nearly ten hours, but not so in the constrained allotment of a single movie.
Box Office Mojo calls the movie “more episodic (and cacophonous) than cinematic” and an “obnoxiously loud movie.” Serenity is merely a “cowboys and Indians space adventure.” Box Office Mojo also listed preliminary numbers of $3.9 mil from Friday, second behind the more famous Jodie Foster’s Flightplan, which is good news for Whedon and Universal. Other than failing to hear occasional dialog, I found the movie at times serene, never “cacophonous.”
On the other hand, most mainstream reviews have been positive. Two thumbs up from Roper and Ebert, for example. Elsewhere I was taken to task for mentioning the movie in terms of “genre,” yet almost every reviewer has mentioned Serenity in terms of its science fiction elements (the local San Antonio paper managed to do this in each of the first seven paragraphs of its positive review). Much has been made of Whedon’s blend of Western and SF. Yet there are elements of siege movies (Zulu, Alamo), and horror (Dawn of the Dead), as well as space resembling the sea, with pirates, sharks, and killing grounds. Genre definitions can be limiting, yet also there are certain things you can do within the scope of SF movies than other genres don’t really allow. Taking pieces from recognizable themes is no sin. For a movie with a $40 million budget, some effects fail to meet Industrial Light and Magic standards, yet the plot, dialog, and characters stand far above any recent Star Wars movie.
As for my last words, I’d acknowledge that some of the characters received less time and development than others. Yet again, given two hours and a story to tell, the writer has to make a choice. Bemoan not unfulfilled anticipations of what could have been, but rather examine the actual result. If there is no more Serenity, no more Firefly, Whedon has told his story. Events that might have happened in season two or three of a TV show all came to a head in this movie, for good or bad. I think aside from the Mr. Universe plot and how a couple of characters seemed more whiny than on the show, that Serenity was a damned good movie. Having seen it twice my opinions have not changed. And so, no more blog entries for me on this movie, until news of a possible sequel is announced.
