Saturday Waffling (June 22, 2013)
I’ve taken the Wonder Woman book back in house, and will be self publishing it. More news on that as it develops – I have to figure some things out there because I have too many books in too short a period and don’t want to flood the market.
Speaking of Flood, Bloomsbury Academic has an interview with me and my co-author Alex Reed on that book, which is out in November. Which is also the rough estimate for nearly everything else – Hartnell version two (no earlier, since I’ve got An Adventure in Time and Space and The Beginning to do for it, though those really can be dropped in a week before release – it’s what I did with Wheel of Ice), Baker Volume one (revised all the existing essays, still need to write new ones), and, as I said, Wonder Woman.
Last War in Albion will run on the next four Thursdays, then take a hiatus. I’m terribly proud of it, but also rather nervous – especially early on when the shape of the project isn’t clear yet.
I’ve got a pile of stuff I owe other people, most of it terribly interesting stuff that you’ll get to enjoy some day.
Tell me what the future will be like.
June 21, 2013 @ 10:42 pm
Tell me what the future will be like.
Rocketpacks for everybody! Also, alien domination.
June 21, 2013 @ 10:42 pm
The future will be just like now, only more so.
June 21, 2013 @ 10:46 pm
The Future Will Be Silent.
June 21, 2013 @ 10:48 pm
Missing Doctor Who episodes will be rumored to have been discovered, be denied, be confirmed by spurious evidence… and then evaporate before our eyes…
Again,
And again,
and…
June 22, 2013 @ 12:06 am
Google will be sentient and rename itself World Observing Thinker And Network.
June 22, 2013 @ 12:17 am
Well, I couldn't tell you, the future is unwritten. Or at least revisable.
June 22, 2013 @ 12:45 am
Spoilers!
Hey, someone had to do it. Actually I believe the future is an infinite web of possibilities. but we only get to chose one ( unless you're the Doctor).
In other news, I saw 'Man of Steel' last night. Oh dear. DC haven't got a clue have they?
June 22, 2013 @ 3:32 am
David Byrne has an opinion on the matter.
June 22, 2013 @ 5:05 am
You can't revise the future! Not one second!
June 22, 2013 @ 6:24 am
"In other news, I saw 'Man of Steel' last night. Oh dear. DC haven't got a clue have they?"
My condolences. I too made the mistake of agreeing to see that film.
That said, as with all movies that rely on special effects, it was fun to look for the moments when they fell apart. My personal favorite moment was during the Big Fight sequence (not to be confused with the climatic Big Fight sequence) in which, despite the place being pretty torn apart, strafed by helicopters and bombed by Warthogs, they would still cut to long shorts in which you could quite clearly see vehicles in the background looking for all the world as though they were on their Sunday drive!
June 22, 2013 @ 6:36 am
The idea of rocketpacks/flying cars terrifies me. Have you seen how people drive at the first sign of rain? Imagine them doing that over your house!
June 22, 2013 @ 6:41 am
I saw Star Trek this weekend. Big, flashy, no emotional resonance. Competently fun — it's like, did you notice that cloth of their uniforms has the Starfleet logo weave? A bit of extra star trek in your star trek so you can star trek while you star trek.
June 22, 2013 @ 6:41 am
Others are coming.
June 22, 2013 @ 6:42 am
Tell me what the future will be like.
Crunchy, with a hint of nutty flavor.
June 22, 2013 @ 7:40 am
In my crystal ball I can see…
…cooking. Followed by eating while watching the final episode of Spaced.
June 22, 2013 @ 7:56 am
I saw Star Trek: Into Darkness last weekend, and I liked it despite itself. It was goofy, incomprehensible at points, the basic science was laughably terrible, and I thought Benedict Cumberbatch's performance wasn't that great….but I went in with low expectations and enjoyed it on that level. If they make a third one with that cast, then Bones should get a bigger part, that actor does a really good job with the material. Plus, he and Scotty might work as good counterpoints to the "boom boom ASPLODE!" ethics of Kirk.
June 22, 2013 @ 8:20 am
"Plastics!"
June 22, 2013 @ 8:33 am
I saw Man of Steel last night too and hardly understood it. It just seemed like a bunch of loosely tied together action sequences and Lois Lane was pointless. They also skipped around between scenes and flashbacks a lot. Oh, and clearly the best part was the fight sequence where a gigantic Sears store is placed obviously in the background and does not get damaged. I saw Star Trek a month ago and it had much more of a plot than this.
Although to be fair, I'm not familiar at all with Superman and only went because I was on a date and so my full attention was not on the movie.
June 22, 2013 @ 9:52 am
I thought Start Trek got by on sheer cleverness and enjoyability; and while it's probably never wise to think too hard about the science or plot logic of that kind of movie, I did think the plot made a lot more sense than the first film's did, at least in terms of character motivations. (Which isn't saying a lot, but still.)
Man of Steel could have been rather good (though not great) if it had been completely re-written. The story itself is basically fine, but the final version of the script is just garbage. (A particularly atrocious moment is the random discussion of evolution during Supes' fight with the the female villain*; yes, I realize that we expect fight-scene banter in action movies, but here it's not just pointless but ludicrous.)
It could have been a really good movie, though, if they'd focused most of the film on Supes' struggle to come to terms with his powers, both in terms of controlling them and accepting them emotionally. It was nice that we got that at all, but it should have lasted more than five minutes.
*….who is apparently called Faora, not Ursa. But in neither film can they really be called well-rounded characters, so I really have no idea what the difference is.
June 22, 2013 @ 10:59 am
Alien domination…wait are we dominating them or are they dominating us or are they dominating something else altogether?
June 22, 2013 @ 11:29 am
I thought ST:Into Darkness was okay but not great. It was worth using up my once-every-few-months free ticket, but probably not worth it if I'd had to spend $15.
Going to see a midnight showing of Wrath of Khan tonight. Never seen it in theaters (I was a toddler when it originally came out) so I'm excited–it is my favorite Star Trek movie.
June 22, 2013 @ 11:30 am
The immediate future appears to consist of me trying to persuade Amazon to let me correct the info in my Amazon Sellers account, which they locked me out of because they couldn't verify the info. Which of course they couldn't, because the info in there is wrong.
ARGH!
June 22, 2013 @ 1:21 pm
I have been reliably informed that it will be rather bright, so shades might be in order…
June 22, 2013 @ 3:22 pm
I had a similar problem with iTunes last night. I was encouraged by their staff NOT to download anything from their store because I dont wish to sync my iPod with my computer.
June 22, 2013 @ 6:00 pm
Voorhees beat me to one joke, Spacewarp beat me to the other. I got nothing.
June 22, 2013 @ 7:34 pm
Spoilers!
Yes?
June 22, 2013 @ 8:35 pm
I called it "Star Trek Into Solving Every Problem By Hitting It, Kicking It, or Shooting It."
The rebooted franchise is a sad waste of an appealing cast and gorgeous art direction. I'm not the biggest Star Trek fan by any stretch, but Abrams clearly hates it.
June 22, 2013 @ 8:36 pm
Yellow Smiley offers me X
Like he's drinking seven up
I would rather drink 6 razor blades
Razor blades from a paper cup
He can't understand, I say 2 tough
It's just that I've seen the future
And boy it's rough
June 22, 2013 @ 10:18 pm
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother
it is murder.
June 23, 2013 @ 3:29 am
Saw Star Trek a few weeks ago, and agree that they could do so much more with it, but…
SPOILERS
I have to admit that I geeked out completely when I realised the inversion they were doing with Kirk and Spock's roles was going to carry through to the actual dialogue. That was a masterful piece of script craft, that I really appreciated.
In a way, it kind of points to the fact that Abrams is aware that the original franchise is frankly problematic (saying that he hates it is, I think, a bridge too far), and the use of a "timey wimey" pretext to reboot the whole thing gives him license to improve some of the clunky parts of the old franchise.
But he is also well aware that he is at the helm of a BIG Hollywood franchise, and thus he is required to provide "boom boom ASPLODE!"
So provide it he does. With enough references to the old series that geeks, whose last memory of the show is watching it as a repeat on a Sunday afternoon with their dad and thinking that Kirk defeating the Gorn was REVELATORY, that they can go – "Oh, wow! McCoy WAS always complaining about his ex-wife!" (extra Star Trek while you Star Trek indeed). And he is also using the excuse to freshen up some of the character journeys for a modern audience as well.
More than just your usual enjoyable fluff.
Enjoyable fluff, well done.
June 23, 2013 @ 5:57 am
So provide it he does. With enough references to the old series that geeks, whose last memory of the show is watching it as a repeat on a Sunday afternoon with their dad and thinking that Kirk defeating the Gorn was REVELATORY, that they can go – "Oh, wow! McCoy WAS always complaining about his ex-wife!" (extra Star Trek while you Star Trek indeed). And he is also using the excuse to freshen up some of the character journeys for a modern audience as well.
Certainly, it's something to watch 'Star Trek ' (2009) and say "Spock and Uhura? Wtf?", then go home and watch The Trouble with Tribbles or Charlie X, and suddenly realize "Holy crap, those two totally used to date."
But by and large, I find AbramsTrek to be sort of "ordinary". Fun enough to watch once, but not something that carries any mythic resonance for me. There's a certain feel to Star Trek that just isn't there, and without it, it's just branding that makes this new Trek Universe anything other than "Generic Space Action Movie Franchise"
June 23, 2013 @ 6:29 am
Where's the better world that was declared
At the 1964 World's Fair?
Where's the only orb that's got a plan?
It's at EPCOT Center Disneyland
We're supposed to all drive flying cars
We're supposed to all have homes on Mars
We're supposed to live 200 years
We're supposed to live, we're supposed to live in
The future…
June 23, 2013 @ 7:03 am
You can try "never liked" if that fits better than "hates" for you: http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-talk/j-j-abrams-star-trek-too-philosophical-192548775.html
I would much rather see him reboot it with NO references to the past beyond what's necessary to keep it recognizable, but preserve at least a modicum of the "philosophical" part of it. But that's obviously not what he's interested in.
As for the inversion of the dialogue, I'll just say I'm glad you enjoyed it and I wish I could have. I almost yelled at the screen, "Write your OWN movie, damn it!"
June 23, 2013 @ 8:46 am
'The future's got it covered.
With what will be discovered.'
The Future
SPARKS
from Kimono My House.
June 23, 2013 @ 9:35 am
I called it "Star Trek Into Solving Every Problem By Hitting It, Kicking It, or Shooting It."
But wasn't the most recent movie a sustained critique of that approach?
June 23, 2013 @ 12:20 pm
BerserkRL: absolutely! The movie clearly shows that sometimes, each of these tactics may be insufficient; in fact, all three may be necessary!
June 25, 2013 @ 3:03 am
Tell me what the future will be like.
They'll hang flags from cranes
On my wedding day…