At this point, I'm beginning to feel like I owe you folks a little bit of an accelerated posting schedule for a while. After all, I did skip a post...or two...it wasn't any more than two, right? In any event, I'll try to speed things up a little for a while, give you some extra bang for your free. Today, it's another test run of the Insanometer as we run it over a good old-fashioned Italian zombie flick from 1980, "Hell of the Living Dead"! (Also known as "Zombie Creeping Flesh", "Zombie Inferno", "Cannibal Virus", "Night of the Zombies", and "Zombi 2: Ultimate Nightmare", on the grounds that you might actually see it six times if you thought it was six different movies.)
Of course, this might be a film from the year 1980, but it looks easily a decade older. The production values on this weren't high to begin with, and most of them went towards gore; decent cameras, films, crowds, actors, and everything else weren't high on the list. In fact, they weren't on the list at all. This is a movie that looks like it was made somewhere around the dawn of color, and that's the remastered version.
The story, though, is a pure aping of whatever was topical and interesting at the time. So we have a zombie crisis ("Dawn of the Dead"), a group of Chuck Norris-esque tough-guy commandos (although they look more like Barry Bostwick in "Megaforce") and a sinister government conspiracy...but I'm getting ahead of myself.
The movie opens with a toxic spill on what looks to be a disused oil rig, but which is actually...um, either intended to be a disused oil rig repurposed as a top-secret lab, or a top-secret lab that the film-makers tried to represent on their budget by filming it on a disused oil rig. The spill creates a bunch of zombies, but destroys a bunch of tension later, because the whole movie is about a journalist teaming up with a group of commandos to find out what's behind the epidemic of zombie flesh-eaters in Papua New Guinea. Since we know from the beginning that it's ooze seeping off of the oil rig/lab, the film is really just an exercise in them getting to what we already know.
Oh, and in watching some of the most spectacular over-acting ever committed to celluloid. The commandos aren't just hard-bitten and gritty, they're borderline psychotic snarling maniacs who are "the best of the best of the best"...and yet do things like charging into a mob of flesh-eating zombies spitting ammunition at random and hoping for the best. Even so, they drop at a plot-required pace, in order of their degree of sympathetic character...um...ness.
They have to contend with zombies, terrorists, and unfriendly natives (the journalist wins over the natives by showing her familiarity with tribal customs. By stripping naked and putting on body paint. My reaction at the time was simply, "Well played, movie. Well played.") Meanwhile, back in New York City, the representative of Papua New Guinea pleads for aid for his beleaguered country to what has to be the most under-attended session of the United Nations ever. They clearly had the budget to rent a big auditorium, but not to get any extras. He's declaiming to maybe five people, tops.
Finally, after much gore and death and violence and blood and deathy bloody violent gory death, they reach the oil rig and find out the chemical was actually doing close to exactly what it was intended to do--apparently, rich people were looking for something to curb over-population, and their solution was a chemical that made poor people eat each other. It's a little bit over-enthusiastic, as seen in an epilogue where New Yorkers are consumed by sinister zombie hordes, but it's a genuine attempt to a solution to a real problem, and I feel like they deserve credit for it.
The plot summary probably makes this sound a little less insane than it is--much of the sheer craziness factor comes from the presentation--but it's still enough for a solid six on the Insanometer. There's a little more "bad" than "crazy" here, but there's plenty of "crazy" for your viewing dollar.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
The Trouble With Soccer
So we're now...what, fifteen days after the end of the World Cup? And once again, Americans have said to the rest of the world, "Thank you very much for showing us your crazy foreign sport, now shush. Football season's about to start." And they haven't even noticed the bitter irony that the rest of the world thinks they're actually talking about the sport they're dismissing.
Why? What exactly is the deal with soccer (for purposes of clarity, I'll use that term for the rest of the column) that makes it so hard to catch on in America? I'm aware that to some people, it's simple enough; soccer doesn't have time for many ad breaks, which makes it hard to televise, which makes it hard to sell to America. But I don't buy that. It's part of it, sure, but soccer does get airtime, and it doesn't get viewers. It remains the unofficial "fifth sport" of American sports, despite attempt after attempt after attempt to shove it down our throats. (Anyone remember the Minnesota Kicks? I do...)
The problem, I think, lies in two major areas: tempo and scoring. Everyone generally talks about the second first, and overlooks the first completely, but I think the two are related in a way that makes them both worth discussing. Sure, soccer's a low-scoring game, but football can end in a score of 7-3 and baseball can end in 1-0. Yet both are vastly more popular than soccer.
Why? Because they have a recognizable, discernable tempo to the game. In football, you can build anticipation for a potential score. When a team crosses the 50-yard-line, the average fan puts down their drink, and the conversation in the room starts to quiet. By the time they've crossed the twenty, fans are leaning forward in their seats, wondering what's going to happen. Even if that drive ends in an interception or a missed field goal, a football fan has a sense of mounting tension that keeps them in their seat for a low-scoring game. (The same is, of course, true of baseball. Two out, bases loaded, count is at 0-2...that inning might end with nobody scoring, but try to get a baseball fan to walk away right then.) In soccer, you can spend twenty-five minutes ten feet away from the goal and nothing will happen...or someone will kick it from half-way across the field and score in five seconds. You can't judge the pace of a game. Hockey and basketball suffer from similar tempo problems to soccer, of course, but basketball is high-scoring, and hockey...well, there's a reason hockey's a distant fourth.
Because hockey also shares another problem with soccer, one that makes both sports relative pariahs in the professional sports world. The Dreaded Tie. Soccer's not just low-scoring, it can be no-scoring. There's nothing in the world more likely to frustrate a fan more than spending 90+ minutes watching a game, only to have it end in a scoreless tie. It's like nothing happened at all. Football? SUDDEN DEATH overtime. Sure, it might not be that fair (although that'll change this year) but you're almost never going to walk away with a tie. Baseball? Extra innings. They go until it's done. Basketball? Overtime until someone wins. Even hockey has taken steps to eliminate the irritating tie, with sudden death shootouts and rules to open up scoring.
As long as soccer stays a low-scoring, erratically paced game, it's probably not going to penetrate the American market. Which probably suits a lot of people just fine, of course; as far as they're concerned, it's our loss if we don't want to watch the game. After all, it'd be a boring world if everyone liked the same thing. (Even so, I bet nobody could watch last year's Saints/Vikings playoff game without becoming a football fan...)
Why? What exactly is the deal with soccer (for purposes of clarity, I'll use that term for the rest of the column) that makes it so hard to catch on in America? I'm aware that to some people, it's simple enough; soccer doesn't have time for many ad breaks, which makes it hard to televise, which makes it hard to sell to America. But I don't buy that. It's part of it, sure, but soccer does get airtime, and it doesn't get viewers. It remains the unofficial "fifth sport" of American sports, despite attempt after attempt after attempt to shove it down our throats. (Anyone remember the Minnesota Kicks? I do...)
The problem, I think, lies in two major areas: tempo and scoring. Everyone generally talks about the second first, and overlooks the first completely, but I think the two are related in a way that makes them both worth discussing. Sure, soccer's a low-scoring game, but football can end in a score of 7-3 and baseball can end in 1-0. Yet both are vastly more popular than soccer.
Why? Because they have a recognizable, discernable tempo to the game. In football, you can build anticipation for a potential score. When a team crosses the 50-yard-line, the average fan puts down their drink, and the conversation in the room starts to quiet. By the time they've crossed the twenty, fans are leaning forward in their seats, wondering what's going to happen. Even if that drive ends in an interception or a missed field goal, a football fan has a sense of mounting tension that keeps them in their seat for a low-scoring game. (The same is, of course, true of baseball. Two out, bases loaded, count is at 0-2...that inning might end with nobody scoring, but try to get a baseball fan to walk away right then.) In soccer, you can spend twenty-five minutes ten feet away from the goal and nothing will happen...or someone will kick it from half-way across the field and score in five seconds. You can't judge the pace of a game. Hockey and basketball suffer from similar tempo problems to soccer, of course, but basketball is high-scoring, and hockey...well, there's a reason hockey's a distant fourth.
Because hockey also shares another problem with soccer, one that makes both sports relative pariahs in the professional sports world. The Dreaded Tie. Soccer's not just low-scoring, it can be no-scoring. There's nothing in the world more likely to frustrate a fan more than spending 90+ minutes watching a game, only to have it end in a scoreless tie. It's like nothing happened at all. Football? SUDDEN DEATH overtime. Sure, it might not be that fair (although that'll change this year) but you're almost never going to walk away with a tie. Baseball? Extra innings. They go until it's done. Basketball? Overtime until someone wins. Even hockey has taken steps to eliminate the irritating tie, with sudden death shootouts and rules to open up scoring.
As long as soccer stays a low-scoring, erratically paced game, it's probably not going to penetrate the American market. Which probably suits a lot of people just fine, of course; as far as they're concerned, it's our loss if we don't want to watch the game. After all, it'd be a boring world if everyone liked the same thing. (Even so, I bet nobody could watch last year's Saints/Vikings playoff game without becoming a football fan...)
Saturday, July 17, 2010
I Miss the Giant Bugs
I've been sorting through some MST3K episodes lately, and it got me thinking about the Golden Age of Killer Animal Movies. Does anyone other than me miss those? Sure, they were almost without exception terrible, both in effects and in acting. Sure, they all had almost exactly the same plot (authority figures stumble onto scene of mysterious carnage, scientist tells them that it must have been caused by giant/swarming animals...but that's impossible!, scientist investigates and winds up narrowly escaping from said animals, authorities don't believe scientist until animals attack en masse, scientist comes up with technobabble solution.) But I miss them, nonetheless.
The genre's not gone, of course. Every once in a while, you'll see an "Eight-Legged Freaks" or a "Lake Placid" or a "Deep Blue Sea" pop up...but the era when every third sci-fi movie featured giant insects/gila monsters/bunny rabbits seems to be gone. Me, I blame "Star Wars". (Yes, I know, this is a common theme in fandom. Trust me, I can justify it.) When "Star Wars" came out, the standard for special effects changed. It wasn't enough to suggest the idea of giant grasshoppers attacking Chicago through the cunning use of close-up camera trickery and miniature sets. Nobody believed it, not after seeing starships dogfight over a battle station the size of a moon in detail so realistic you'd swear you were watching a documentary. Film-makers suddenly needed high-quality special effects they couldn't deliver.
With the advent of and improvements to CGI, we're hopefully beginning to see a resurgence of cheesy killer animal movies. "Piranha 3-D" doesn't have realistic-looking fish, exactly, but it has killer fish eating people. Who knows, we could get to the point where it's dirt-cheap to fill the screen with dozens of giant killer frogs that look photo-realistic! Then it's just a matter of filling the cast out with washed-up TV has-beens to get eaten, one by one. I wonder what Scott Baio's doing these days?
The genre's not gone, of course. Every once in a while, you'll see an "Eight-Legged Freaks" or a "Lake Placid" or a "Deep Blue Sea" pop up...but the era when every third sci-fi movie featured giant insects/gila monsters/bunny rabbits seems to be gone. Me, I blame "Star Wars". (Yes, I know, this is a common theme in fandom. Trust me, I can justify it.) When "Star Wars" came out, the standard for special effects changed. It wasn't enough to suggest the idea of giant grasshoppers attacking Chicago through the cunning use of close-up camera trickery and miniature sets. Nobody believed it, not after seeing starships dogfight over a battle station the size of a moon in detail so realistic you'd swear you were watching a documentary. Film-makers suddenly needed high-quality special effects they couldn't deliver.
With the advent of and improvements to CGI, we're hopefully beginning to see a resurgence of cheesy killer animal movies. "Piranha 3-D" doesn't have realistic-looking fish, exactly, but it has killer fish eating people. Who knows, we could get to the point where it's dirt-cheap to fill the screen with dozens of giant killer frogs that look photo-realistic! Then it's just a matter of filling the cast out with washed-up TV has-beens to get eaten, one by one. I wonder what Scott Baio's doing these days?
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
This Outpouring of Toxic Bile Brought to You by: Comics!
Yay! Scott Pilgrim Volume Six finally comes out today!
That means it's over, and I can finally stop hearing about how awesome the comic is about the unlikeable cheating douchebag who finds true love with a horrible manipulative woman, seemingly on no other basis than "it's got lotsa videogame references!" and "it's manga-inspired!" and "oh, after about four volumes, he finally grows up enough to dump the high-school girl he's been two-timing, so that makes it a story about personal growth!"
...oh, crap. There's still a movie coming out, isn't there? *sigh* Maybe someday.
That means it's over, and I can finally stop hearing about how awesome the comic is about the unlikeable cheating douchebag who finds true love with a horrible manipulative woman, seemingly on no other basis than "it's got lotsa videogame references!" and "it's manga-inspired!" and "oh, after about four volumes, he finally grows up enough to dump the high-school girl he's been two-timing, so that makes it a story about personal growth!"
...oh, crap. There's still a movie coming out, isn't there? *sigh* Maybe someday.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Games Past: Eternal Darkness
Yes, technically speaking the "Games Past" series has been about board and card games. But sometimes, you just have to speak out of pure love of something beautiful, and "Eternal Darkness"...if this was a painting, it'd be in the Louvre. If this was a movie, it'd be on the AFI Top 100. If there's an argument to be made that video games are art...this is a twisted, dark, sinister thing of sheer beauty that is well-remembered even after almost a decade.
"Eternal Darkness" is a wonderful Lovecraftian horror story about a young woman who travels to New England to investigate the mysterious death of her uncle (he was found in a locked room, with his head missing.) She finds a secret room in her uncle's house with a book called the Tome of Eternal Darkness...and on reading it, she experiences the lives of everyone else who's read the book in its long history. She discovers an ancient conspiracy to bring an Elder God of primal darkness into our reality, she learns of the realities of magic and the struggles against the Elder God...and she goes rapidly insane.
Because that's the beauty of this game. As you progress through each chapter, taking on the roles of different people in different ages and learning about their struggle against the Elder Gods, you have a sanity meter for every character. Each time your character encounters something creepy and terrible and outside of this reality, your sanity dips. When your sanity is low enough, you start hallucinating.
The hallucinations are sheer brilliance. Your character can walk into a room and find himself on the ceiling, or stumble into a room full of zombies and get the message "Your controller has been disconnected," or see your TV mute itself. Flies crawl on the inside of the screen, walls drip blood, and at one absolutely perfect moment you hallucinate that the game will be continued in a sequel. You find yourself playing the game with the goal of triggering hallucinations, just to see all the neat effects.
And the story is perfectly structured. Every chapter teaches you a new skill, a new spell, something that your main character learns when she returns to the present that helps her find another chapter of the book to read another story to learn another skill. By the time the game is over, you're a bad-ass super-sorcerous gunslinging swordfighter, and then the game gives you a final battle worthy of the person you've become. This game is like a book you want to read again and again. (If for no other reason than you can end it by shooting an ancient lich with an enchanted shotgun.)
Rumor has it that there'll be a sequel, someday, but in the meanwhile, it's worth tracking this game down used and playing it on your Wii. It's an experience worth every minute...oh, and one hallucination will make you scream at your TV screen. I won't say which, but you'll know it when it happens.
"Eternal Darkness" is a wonderful Lovecraftian horror story about a young woman who travels to New England to investigate the mysterious death of her uncle (he was found in a locked room, with his head missing.) She finds a secret room in her uncle's house with a book called the Tome of Eternal Darkness...and on reading it, she experiences the lives of everyone else who's read the book in its long history. She discovers an ancient conspiracy to bring an Elder God of primal darkness into our reality, she learns of the realities of magic and the struggles against the Elder God...and she goes rapidly insane.
Because that's the beauty of this game. As you progress through each chapter, taking on the roles of different people in different ages and learning about their struggle against the Elder Gods, you have a sanity meter for every character. Each time your character encounters something creepy and terrible and outside of this reality, your sanity dips. When your sanity is low enough, you start hallucinating.
The hallucinations are sheer brilliance. Your character can walk into a room and find himself on the ceiling, or stumble into a room full of zombies and get the message "Your controller has been disconnected," or see your TV mute itself. Flies crawl on the inside of the screen, walls drip blood, and at one absolutely perfect moment you hallucinate that the game will be continued in a sequel. You find yourself playing the game with the goal of triggering hallucinations, just to see all the neat effects.
And the story is perfectly structured. Every chapter teaches you a new skill, a new spell, something that your main character learns when she returns to the present that helps her find another chapter of the book to read another story to learn another skill. By the time the game is over, you're a bad-ass super-sorcerous gunslinging swordfighter, and then the game gives you a final battle worthy of the person you've become. This game is like a book you want to read again and again. (If for no other reason than you can end it by shooting an ancient lich with an enchanted shotgun.)
Rumor has it that there'll be a sequel, someday, but in the meanwhile, it's worth tracking this game down used and playing it on your Wii. It's an experience worth every minute...oh, and one hallucination will make you scream at your TV screen. I won't say which, but you'll know it when it happens.
Friday, July 09, 2010
Under the Hood: The Wicker Man
Been a while since I've done one of these ("Under the Hood" columns, not blog entries, although I am aware that I've inexcusably missed an entire entry this week. I'll try to make it up next week, I promise...) Basically, the idea is simple--take a movie that failed on the script level, look at the basic premise, and try to make it all work better. This week, let's look at 'The Wicker Man'.
Not the original with Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward, which was an excellent piece of dark and twisted cinema. (If a bit insensitive to sincere pagans--I don't think it meant to slight the pagan faith, but I know a few people who felt that it was clumsy enough to be insulting.) I mean the genuinely stunningly batshit insane remake with Nicholas Cage, which failed on every possible level. Why, and how can it be improved?
First, you need to understand that the reason the original made use of paganism as the religion of its villain. It wasn't because the screenwriter thought that pagans were evil, it was because paganism is inextricably intertwined with British farming culture, and the film was playing on that fear of being somewhere isolated, well away from "civilization" and its rules, and unable to get in touch with Authority (in whatever form.) Woodward's character isn't faced with creepy pagans, he's faced with people who still follow the Old Ways of the founders of their village the way they always have, and don't have any intention of changing things on behalf of some outsider...even if he does have a badge.
So if you're going to transplant this to America, keeping the pagan thing doesn't make sense. America doesn't have a strong rural pagan tradition. The further out into the country you go, the more Christian you get. So what you'd want is a community that's gone back to the Old Testament, where God demands sacrifice from His people to win His favors...only because these are people, and people can get a little crazy, they've perverted the Old Testament to claim that God wants human sacrifices even more than animal sacrifices. (Yes, this is obviously not supported by scripture. The craziness is not in the faith, it's in the people practicing it, just like the original.)
The community would be in the American Southwest, for two reasons. One, it fits in with the idea from the original that this is a community that lives in marginal farmland, and the "magical thinking" that leads them to sacrifice people to ensure good harvests comes from their inability to control said good harvests. Two, there's less cell phone coverage in the Southwest, and you're going to need that to explain why the cop doesn't just call for back-up.
From there, things unfold pretty straightforwardly. The cop drives out to the middle of nowhere to investigate a mysterious letter about a missing girl. His car runs out of gas, and he can't refill it--the townsfolk don't use modern conveniences like motor vehicles. His concerns go from the girl, to being stranded, to being trapped, to being the potential human sacrifice in a re-enactment of Abraham and Isaac. (Perhaps the girl never even existed in this version--the photograph of her is almost a mystic "artifact" to them, to be kept carefully preserved and used to bring the Lord's bounty to them once again in times of tribulation.) The ending, of course, doesn't go well for the officer.
Probably wouldn't be High Art, but then again, neither was the original. But it has the potential for an effective thriller that wouldn't become legendary for its sheer comical badness, and isn't that something?
Not the original with Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward, which was an excellent piece of dark and twisted cinema. (If a bit insensitive to sincere pagans--I don't think it meant to slight the pagan faith, but I know a few people who felt that it was clumsy enough to be insulting.) I mean the genuinely stunningly batshit insane remake with Nicholas Cage, which failed on every possible level. Why, and how can it be improved?
First, you need to understand that the reason the original made use of paganism as the religion of its villain. It wasn't because the screenwriter thought that pagans were evil, it was because paganism is inextricably intertwined with British farming culture, and the film was playing on that fear of being somewhere isolated, well away from "civilization" and its rules, and unable to get in touch with Authority (in whatever form.) Woodward's character isn't faced with creepy pagans, he's faced with people who still follow the Old Ways of the founders of their village the way they always have, and don't have any intention of changing things on behalf of some outsider...even if he does have a badge.
So if you're going to transplant this to America, keeping the pagan thing doesn't make sense. America doesn't have a strong rural pagan tradition. The further out into the country you go, the more Christian you get. So what you'd want is a community that's gone back to the Old Testament, where God demands sacrifice from His people to win His favors...only because these are people, and people can get a little crazy, they've perverted the Old Testament to claim that God wants human sacrifices even more than animal sacrifices. (Yes, this is obviously not supported by scripture. The craziness is not in the faith, it's in the people practicing it, just like the original.)
The community would be in the American Southwest, for two reasons. One, it fits in with the idea from the original that this is a community that lives in marginal farmland, and the "magical thinking" that leads them to sacrifice people to ensure good harvests comes from their inability to control said good harvests. Two, there's less cell phone coverage in the Southwest, and you're going to need that to explain why the cop doesn't just call for back-up.
From there, things unfold pretty straightforwardly. The cop drives out to the middle of nowhere to investigate a mysterious letter about a missing girl. His car runs out of gas, and he can't refill it--the townsfolk don't use modern conveniences like motor vehicles. His concerns go from the girl, to being stranded, to being trapped, to being the potential human sacrifice in a re-enactment of Abraham and Isaac. (Perhaps the girl never even existed in this version--the photograph of her is almost a mystic "artifact" to them, to be kept carefully preserved and used to bring the Lord's bounty to them once again in times of tribulation.) The ending, of course, doesn't go well for the officer.
Probably wouldn't be High Art, but then again, neither was the original. But it has the potential for an effective thriller that wouldn't become legendary for its sheer comical badness, and isn't that something?
Sunday, July 04, 2010
Getting People Involved
I've been spending the weekend at CONvergence in the Twin Cities (which is why this Thursday blog post is taking place Sunday night) and geeking out about a variety of TV shows with a variety of people. And one of the things that occurred to me was the reason I don't seem to be interested in watching "Hustle".
Keep in mind, I'm a big "Leverage" fan. I have been told through multiple sources (technically as many as six) that "Hustle" is the perfect next step for "Leverage" fans, and that I totally need to watch it. And yet, somehow the effect seems to be just the opposite--the more I hear, "You HAVE to see 'Hustle'", the lower it gets on my list of priorities.
I think the reason for this is the words, "You have to see". Telling people about a great series/movie/book/whatever makes it into a chore, a task that they have to check off before they can get on to the other things they need to do. But sitting down and watching it with someone...that makes it into a shared experience. It's a lot better to share your passions than to inflict them on someone, and you know the old saying about catching more flies with honey...
So when it comes to getting people interested in your geek passion, presentation is everything. Do it with them if you can; if you can't, entice them with interesting descriptions instead of making demands. You'll find that you get a lot more new fans that way...assuming what you watch/hear/read is actually any good. "Twilight" fans might not have so much luck in that regard.
Keep in mind, I'm a big "Leverage" fan. I have been told through multiple sources (technically as many as six) that "Hustle" is the perfect next step for "Leverage" fans, and that I totally need to watch it. And yet, somehow the effect seems to be just the opposite--the more I hear, "You HAVE to see 'Hustle'", the lower it gets on my list of priorities.
I think the reason for this is the words, "You have to see". Telling people about a great series/movie/book/whatever makes it into a chore, a task that they have to check off before they can get on to the other things they need to do. But sitting down and watching it with someone...that makes it into a shared experience. It's a lot better to share your passions than to inflict them on someone, and you know the old saying about catching more flies with honey...
So when it comes to getting people interested in your geek passion, presentation is everything. Do it with them if you can; if you can't, entice them with interesting descriptions instead of making demands. You'll find that you get a lot more new fans that way...assuming what you watch/hear/read is actually any good. "Twilight" fans might not have so much luck in that regard.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Sooo...
Don't suppose anyone needs a freelance writer or editor? Because I've got a little unexpected free time, job-wise, and I wouldn't mind a paying gig. Just curious.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
My Bottom Five Candidates for the Big Bad of the Big Bang
I realize that British fans may now make fun of me, since this post is two days late and they, unlike me, have already seen "The Big Bang". But Moffat has done such a good job in avoiding spoilers for who the mysterious villain is for Series Five, I don't feel like I'm going to overlook a ludicrously obvious candidate. Speculation abounds, but nobody really seemed to know prior to broadcast. (Which is, of course, over in the UK. No spoilers in the comments sections, please!)
So this isn't my guesses as to who it is--it's my desperate hopes for who it isn't.
1. Davros. Please, please, please, please, please don't let it be Davros! It doesn't make any sense, it'd come totally out of left field, and Davros has just been used as the season-ending villain (and that came totally out of left field, too.) Anyone would be better than Davros, anyone at all.
2. The Dream Lord. Or the Valeyard, or Zagreus, or any iteration of the "evil Doctor" theme. I just don't think there's much that's interesting about the idea of a villain who's just "the Doctor, only bad", and I'm hoping we won't see that as the menace behind everything that's happened this year.
3. The Master. And speaking of "the Doctor, only bad", John Simm's Master is too self-consciously manic, too overwritten, and was just used in the last big "season finale" special. I'm ready to give the Master a nice long rest and a bit of a rethink before we see him again.
4. Rassilon. I really liked Timothy Dalton's performance, and it would fit the plan that we've seen so far, but as with the Master, didn't he just show up?
5. Amy/River. "Evil companion" isn't doing much more for me than "evil Doctor", plus I like those characters and want them back next season. (Oh, and "evil Rory" would also be on that list, as amusing as the idea would be.)
There we go--soon enough, we'll see whether Moffat disappointed me!
So this isn't my guesses as to who it is--it's my desperate hopes for who it isn't.
1. Davros. Please, please, please, please, please don't let it be Davros! It doesn't make any sense, it'd come totally out of left field, and Davros has just been used as the season-ending villain (and that came totally out of left field, too.) Anyone would be better than Davros, anyone at all.
2. The Dream Lord. Or the Valeyard, or Zagreus, or any iteration of the "evil Doctor" theme. I just don't think there's much that's interesting about the idea of a villain who's just "the Doctor, only bad", and I'm hoping we won't see that as the menace behind everything that's happened this year.
3. The Master. And speaking of "the Doctor, only bad", John Simm's Master is too self-consciously manic, too overwritten, and was just used in the last big "season finale" special. I'm ready to give the Master a nice long rest and a bit of a rethink before we see him again.
4. Rassilon. I really liked Timothy Dalton's performance, and it would fit the plan that we've seen so far, but as with the Master, didn't he just show up?
5. Amy/River. "Evil companion" isn't doing much more for me than "evil Doctor", plus I like those characters and want them back next season. (Oh, and "evil Rory" would also be on that list, as amusing as the idea would be.)
There we go--soon enough, we'll see whether Moffat disappointed me!
Monday, June 21, 2010
Personal Favorites: Messiah of Evil
"Messiah of Evil" isn't one of those movies that gets talked about a lot, even by cult movie enthusiasts. Made by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz (who would later go on to infamy by making "Howard the Duck"), it was released in 1971 to a sort of general disinterest. Which is a shame, because it's a surprisingly creepy and chilling little movie whose atmosphere of dread lingers long after you've finished watching it.
The plot concerns a young woman named Arletty (who's narrating the entire thing from inside an insane asylum) who moves to the tiny town of Point Dune to find out what happened to her father. He was a painter who lived in Point Dune, but he's gone missing, leaving behind only a cryptic diary that hints at bizarre occult rituals and hideous physical transformations. Arletty moves into his old house, and winds up giving crash space to Thom, a folklorist who came to Point Dune to investigate tales of a "dark stranger" who visited the town a hundred years ago, and to Thom's two friends/girlfriends/hey-look-it's-the-Seventies, Toni and Joanne. Arletty finds herself attracted to Thom, but isn't sure she wants to get involved in the complex dynamics of his relationships.
As time passes and the hundredth anniversary of the arrival of the stranger approaches, the townsfolk become increasingly creepy and murderous. Joanne and Toni both die two of the best deaths in horror-movie history (Joanne finds out that supermarkets at midnight are exactly as eerie and unnerving as you'd expect, while Toni goes to see a movie in a deserted theater, and is so engrossed in the film she doesn't even notice it slowly fill up with the transformed townspeople. By the time she does...) Arletty slowly succumbs to the same process that changed her father, and although she hasn't yet become insane and murderous, she knows it's just a matter of time.
Finally, things come to a head as the townspeople attack. Arletty and Thom are surrounded, and are forced to swim for it, but then Thom is pulled under. Arletty gives up and swims back to Point Dune, just in time for the dark stranger to return from his home underneath the waves and claim her as his bride. Afterwards, she is allowed to live and to spread her tale of the coming evil, but only because the messiah knows nobody will believe her...
The thing that makes the movie special is the way it understates. Key plot points are only hinted at, giving the film a dream-like atmosphere of paranoia and mystery that stays with you long after the credits. The dark stranger's face is never glimpsed...but he looks tantalizingly similar to Thom, and only appears after Thom is pulled under the waves. The transformation of the townspeople is different enough from typical horror-movie zombies/vampires/werewolves to be haunting. And the use of familiar settings to accentuate the horror is absolutely brilliant (one character is murdered under the neon lights of a 24-hour gas station.)
This one's worth checking out, with the understanding that it's not going to give you the answers a conventional horror film might. It's Lovecraftian without actually being a Lovecraft adaptation, which alone should be enough to entice some people into watching it.
The plot concerns a young woman named Arletty (who's narrating the entire thing from inside an insane asylum) who moves to the tiny town of Point Dune to find out what happened to her father. He was a painter who lived in Point Dune, but he's gone missing, leaving behind only a cryptic diary that hints at bizarre occult rituals and hideous physical transformations. Arletty moves into his old house, and winds up giving crash space to Thom, a folklorist who came to Point Dune to investigate tales of a "dark stranger" who visited the town a hundred years ago, and to Thom's two friends/girlfriends/hey-look-it's-the-Seventies, Toni and Joanne. Arletty finds herself attracted to Thom, but isn't sure she wants to get involved in the complex dynamics of his relationships.
As time passes and the hundredth anniversary of the arrival of the stranger approaches, the townsfolk become increasingly creepy and murderous. Joanne and Toni both die two of the best deaths in horror-movie history (Joanne finds out that supermarkets at midnight are exactly as eerie and unnerving as you'd expect, while Toni goes to see a movie in a deserted theater, and is so engrossed in the film she doesn't even notice it slowly fill up with the transformed townspeople. By the time she does...) Arletty slowly succumbs to the same process that changed her father, and although she hasn't yet become insane and murderous, she knows it's just a matter of time.
Finally, things come to a head as the townspeople attack. Arletty and Thom are surrounded, and are forced to swim for it, but then Thom is pulled under. Arletty gives up and swims back to Point Dune, just in time for the dark stranger to return from his home underneath the waves and claim her as his bride. Afterwards, she is allowed to live and to spread her tale of the coming evil, but only because the messiah knows nobody will believe her...
The thing that makes the movie special is the way it understates. Key plot points are only hinted at, giving the film a dream-like atmosphere of paranoia and mystery that stays with you long after the credits. The dark stranger's face is never glimpsed...but he looks tantalizingly similar to Thom, and only appears after Thom is pulled under the waves. The transformation of the townspeople is different enough from typical horror-movie zombies/vampires/werewolves to be haunting. And the use of familiar settings to accentuate the horror is absolutely brilliant (one character is murdered under the neon lights of a 24-hour gas station.)
This one's worth checking out, with the understanding that it's not going to give you the answers a conventional horror film might. It's Lovecraftian without actually being a Lovecraft adaptation, which alone should be enough to entice some people into watching it.
Friday, June 18, 2010
The Insanometer: Casino Royale
Someday, I pray someone will make a movie about the making of the 1967 Bond spoof "Casino Royale". Because while the movie itself is wildly uneven at best, the story of how it was made is an epic tale of clashing egos, dueling directors, and Hollywood excess that is absolutely riveting. For those of you who don't know, producer Charles K. Feldman managed to get the film rights to the Bond novel before the series of books became a wildly successful series of movies. He tried to make a deal with the people at EON Productions, but when that fell through, he decided to produce the film as a Bond spoof (since he couldn't get things like the theme music, Connery as Bond, the Bond logo, et cetera.)
Feldman's reworked film involved a baccarat expert impersonating James Bond in order to trick Le Chiffre into competing against him, and getting into difficulties when he had to act as a suave superspy instead of the bookish mathematician he really was. The screenplay was finished, the film was cast, shooting began...and it turned out that stars Orson Welles and Peter Sellers could not stand each other. It was hatred at first sight. Sellers either quit or was fired (accounts differ as to which) with the film only half-finished.
Feldman's solution was, to say the least, unique. He hired several other directors, had them film comic vignettes featuring random actors as Bond, and then put together a framing sequence where David Niven, the "original" Bond, put together a complex scheme to confuse SMERSH by setting loose hordes of fake Bonds!
The result is a movie that perfectly encapsulates the experience of watching AMC when you have a high fever. You'll be watching a scene, and it doesn't make any sense to you, and then without any warning or transition it'll become some other scene with totally different characters and you're not sure how any of it fits together, and you don't remember falling asleep but you figure you must have because you don't recognize anything that's going on and none of it connects with anything else and then it ends in something that you're absolutely sure has to be one of those nightmares you get when you're not quite sick enough to go to the hospital, but very very close. It's a movie that has to be seen to be believed, and even then I'm not quite sure I didn't dream it. I can't even actually summarize the plot, because it doesn't follow any kind of linear logic. On the Insanometer, this one is a perfect ten, and I'm strongly resisting the temptation to give it an eleven.
Feldman's reworked film involved a baccarat expert impersonating James Bond in order to trick Le Chiffre into competing against him, and getting into difficulties when he had to act as a suave superspy instead of the bookish mathematician he really was. The screenplay was finished, the film was cast, shooting began...and it turned out that stars Orson Welles and Peter Sellers could not stand each other. It was hatred at first sight. Sellers either quit or was fired (accounts differ as to which) with the film only half-finished.
Feldman's solution was, to say the least, unique. He hired several other directors, had them film comic vignettes featuring random actors as Bond, and then put together a framing sequence where David Niven, the "original" Bond, put together a complex scheme to confuse SMERSH by setting loose hordes of fake Bonds!
The result is a movie that perfectly encapsulates the experience of watching AMC when you have a high fever. You'll be watching a scene, and it doesn't make any sense to you, and then without any warning or transition it'll become some other scene with totally different characters and you're not sure how any of it fits together, and you don't remember falling asleep but you figure you must have because you don't recognize anything that's going on and none of it connects with anything else and then it ends in something that you're absolutely sure has to be one of those nightmares you get when you're not quite sick enough to go to the hospital, but very very close. It's a movie that has to be seen to be believed, and even then I'm not quite sure I didn't dream it. I can't even actually summarize the plot, because it doesn't follow any kind of linear logic. On the Insanometer, this one is a perfect ten, and I'm strongly resisting the temptation to give it an eleven.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
The Dysfunctional-Relationship Tree
I cannot express how much I dislike "The Giving Tree".
Everyone's familiar with this one, right? The one with the kid who keeps coming back to the tree that loves him, demanding more and more from it as he grows older until by the end of the book, he's reduced it to a pathetic stump of dead wood...but it's just fine as far as the tree is concerned, because that means it can give him a nice place to sit.
I love Shel Silverstein, but man...dude had issues. I mean, we're talking "my wife was secretly sleeping with my brother while embezzling from my company funds and framing me for possession of kiddie porn" issues with relationships, judging by that story. It views love as nothing more than an endless, voracious cycle of selfishness, where one party is capricious and oblivious to the depths of the sacrifices made by the other, while the other is a doormat for abuse.
If "The Giving Tree" were reflective of real love, there would be a forest at the end of that story. Because that's what real love does. It makes you bloom.
Everyone's familiar with this one, right? The one with the kid who keeps coming back to the tree that loves him, demanding more and more from it as he grows older until by the end of the book, he's reduced it to a pathetic stump of dead wood...but it's just fine as far as the tree is concerned, because that means it can give him a nice place to sit.
I love Shel Silverstein, but man...dude had issues. I mean, we're talking "my wife was secretly sleeping with my brother while embezzling from my company funds and framing me for possession of kiddie porn" issues with relationships, judging by that story. It views love as nothing more than an endless, voracious cycle of selfishness, where one party is capricious and oblivious to the depths of the sacrifices made by the other, while the other is a doormat for abuse.
If "The Giving Tree" were reflective of real love, there would be a forest at the end of that story. Because that's what real love does. It makes you bloom.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Why Merit Pay for Teachers Is a Bad Idea
Everyone knows that our nation's public schools are in a state of crisis. (Everyone also knows that the public school their individual child goes to is doing a good job, but they assume that there must be a problem with all the others because they keep hearing about "the crisis in our nation's public schools". But that's a whole other post.) But nobody seems to know what to do about it. One of the most popular suggestions involves "merit pay increases" for teachers whose students do well in school.
First and foremost, this is fundamentally wrong-headed. It betrays a lot of the unintentional biases of the people complaining about our nation's education that they think it can be solved by incentive pay; they're assuming that teachers don't really care about the kids, so long as they get a good paycheck out of the deal, and that they only way to motivate them is with a few extra bucks if they make the kid smarter. News flash to everyone involved: Nobody becomes a teacher for the money. The job is thankless enough that you only do it if you really, genuinely like educating kids.
Second, this rests on a false assumption; namely, that teachers can control the learning ability of their students. A host of other factors, from parental involvement to socio-economic background to plain old innate intelligence, helps or hinders a child's education. Doling out merit pay to teachers would be like giving incentive pay to someone for assembling a machine within a certain time frame, then pointing them to a pile of random car parts and saying, "Get to it."
And third, this violates one of the most fundamental and basic rules of doling out money, which is "Never put incentive pay in the hands of someone who controls the conditions of it being released." As mentioned, teachers don't make a ton of money. Telling them that they can have extra cash if they're lenient graders or give the children unethical amounts of assistance on standardized tests is putting a lot of temptation in the way of people who might be in some serious need of money. While most teachers don't do the job for the money, it's Rule Number One: Don't put temptation in people's way, or they might just take it.
Of course, you could take the time, effort, and expense to enforce ethical guidelines and make sure teachers can't cheat...but honestly, you could also just hire more teachers, since the clearest correlation has always been between class size and academic success. But since the whole "crisis" is a thinly-disguised attempt to get rid of the teachers' union to begin with, it's not likely that anyone will propose a solution that involves hiring extra ones.
First and foremost, this is fundamentally wrong-headed. It betrays a lot of the unintentional biases of the people complaining about our nation's education that they think it can be solved by incentive pay; they're assuming that teachers don't really care about the kids, so long as they get a good paycheck out of the deal, and that they only way to motivate them is with a few extra bucks if they make the kid smarter. News flash to everyone involved: Nobody becomes a teacher for the money. The job is thankless enough that you only do it if you really, genuinely like educating kids.
Second, this rests on a false assumption; namely, that teachers can control the learning ability of their students. A host of other factors, from parental involvement to socio-economic background to plain old innate intelligence, helps or hinders a child's education. Doling out merit pay to teachers would be like giving incentive pay to someone for assembling a machine within a certain time frame, then pointing them to a pile of random car parts and saying, "Get to it."
And third, this violates one of the most fundamental and basic rules of doling out money, which is "Never put incentive pay in the hands of someone who controls the conditions of it being released." As mentioned, teachers don't make a ton of money. Telling them that they can have extra cash if they're lenient graders or give the children unethical amounts of assistance on standardized tests is putting a lot of temptation in the way of people who might be in some serious need of money. While most teachers don't do the job for the money, it's Rule Number One: Don't put temptation in people's way, or they might just take it.
Of course, you could take the time, effort, and expense to enforce ethical guidelines and make sure teachers can't cheat...but honestly, you could also just hire more teachers, since the clearest correlation has always been between class size and academic success. But since the whole "crisis" is a thinly-disguised attempt to get rid of the teachers' union to begin with, it's not likely that anyone will propose a solution that involves hiring extra ones.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Next Week on Documentaries for Sharks: Human Abductions?
Many sharks believe "human abduction" to be a myth. But we here at the Documentaries for Sharks channel have heard chilling eyewitness testimony that the accounts of sharks being abducted by human beings are terrifyingly real. One shark, Keiko, described her horrific experience.
"I was eating," she said, "when suddenly I felt an agonizing pain in my mouth, and a sensation of impossible lightness. It was as though I was being drawn upwards; no matter how I struggled, I couldn't dive. Then suddenly, the water simply vanished--I could see it all around me, but I was trapped in a strange, perfectly square area of pure air. They had taken me to their mothership.
"They placed a tube in my mouth so I could breathe, and began to examine me. One of them probed my reproductive organs, while another drew blood from me. Then they implanted a piece of their strange alien technology on my fin." Chillingly, examinations show this alien device to be very real. Is it a clever hoax...or evidence that human beings are real, too? Shark scientists have long hypothesized about a race that can survive in outer air, and the strange (but delicious) bodies discovered over the years have given us much cause to speculate about the biology and culture of such a species. But this is the clearest proof so far.
"Then just as suddenly as the water had vanished, it returned," Keiko finished. "The humans retreated to their mothership and allowed me to swim away. Even the pain in my mouth was gone. I don't know if I'll ever feel the same way, though." Perhaps none of us will, Keiko. Perhaps none of us will.
"I was eating," she said, "when suddenly I felt an agonizing pain in my mouth, and a sensation of impossible lightness. It was as though I was being drawn upwards; no matter how I struggled, I couldn't dive. Then suddenly, the water simply vanished--I could see it all around me, but I was trapped in a strange, perfectly square area of pure air. They had taken me to their mothership.
"They placed a tube in my mouth so I could breathe, and began to examine me. One of them probed my reproductive organs, while another drew blood from me. Then they implanted a piece of their strange alien technology on my fin." Chillingly, examinations show this alien device to be very real. Is it a clever hoax...or evidence that human beings are real, too? Shark scientists have long hypothesized about a race that can survive in outer air, and the strange (but delicious) bodies discovered over the years have given us much cause to speculate about the biology and culture of such a species. But this is the clearest proof so far.
"Then just as suddenly as the water had vanished, it returned," Keiko finished. "The humans retreated to their mothership and allowed me to swim away. Even the pain in my mouth was gone. I don't know if I'll ever feel the same way, though." Perhaps none of us will, Keiko. Perhaps none of us will.
Friday, June 04, 2010
Birds of Prey #1, And Everything That's Wrong With DC
Recently, after a post I made on mightygodking.com about the similarities between 90s comics and modern comics, someone commented, "You know, if you don't like these comics, you can just stop reading them." Which is amusing to me because fundamentally, I don't. I haven't picked up a DC book since before Final Crisis, and I haven't picked up a Marvel book since World War Hulk. (This would be the current, mainstream "Marvel/DC Universe" comics; I still pick up trades and compilations of out-of-continuity material or older stuff from time to time.) It's just that really, if you are curious about finding out what's going on at the Big Two, it's remarkably easy to keep informed without ever buying a book. (And I'm not talking about pirating, here. Just the news and reviews alone will let you know the basic plot beats of the major crossovers, and let's face it--the selling point of most crossovers is "What's going to happen?", not "Isn't this spectacularly well-written?") I don't have to give DC my money to find out that Blackest Night sucked, and I'm much happier not doing so.
But all that changed last week, when I finally broke down and bought a copy of Birds of Prey #1. It wasn't that I'm a huge Gail Simone fan, although I have liked her writing ever since the days of "You'll All Be Sorry!" It wasn't that I was a huge BoP fan, although I've got quite a few collections of the series...especially the Gail Simone run. Those two things were enticing, but not enough to get me to dive back into comics for the first time in well over a year. No, the thing that sealed the deal was the return of Hawk and Dove.
I make no secret of it--I'm a huge Hawk and Dove fan. The Karl and Barbara Kesel series was the very first DC comic I ever collected, and I still adore it to pieces to this day. The dialogue was sharp and witty, the plots moved swiftly, and I loved that it did things like create all-new villains (while also rehabilitating some obscure ones like Copperhead and Velvet Tiger.) Finding out that they had revived the characters and were using them in a book I already liked with a writer I already liked made a "hmmm..." into an "Oooooh!"
But it took them nineteen years to get to that point. Because in '91, immediately after the cancellation of their series, first Dove died, then Hawk turned evil, then they created a new Hawk and Dove, then those two fell into instant comics obscurity, then Hawk died, then Dove came back, then they created a new Hawk, then the old Hawk came back as a zombie and killed the new Hawk, and finally after all that they used Blackest Night to sweep the whole damn mess under the rug and bring back Hawk and Dove as the team I remembered. And what did I do? I went out and bought a comic book solely because they guest-starred in it. (And it was very good, thanks. Gail Simone clearly has the same kind of fond memories of the Kesel series that I do, and portrayed them very faithfully.)
But the point is, DC missed out on nineteen years of sales because they decided that they could boost the circulation of Armageddon 2001 #2 if they killed off one hero and had another do a heel turn. Instead of growing a well-rounded, diverse set of supporting characters who could boost sales of a book and eventually break out from B-list to A-list status, they have decided on a slash-and-burn strategy of managing their intellectual properties. Obviously, in the case of Hawk and Dove, they've repented. But what about all the people who might pick up a copy of the new Ray Palmer Atom comic because they really like Ryan Choi and he's a regular secondary character? What about the people who liked Holly Granger as Hawk, and would have bought a comic with her in it? What about the Elongated Man fans, the Tempest fans, the Azrael fans, the people who will support their favorite character even if they don't have their own book?
Killing off characters isn't just bleak, unpleasant storytelling that's shock purely for shock's sake. It's also a dumb business decision. While Birds of Prey itself is demonstrating what DC could be doing right, it's also demonstrating exactly what everywhere else in DC is doing wrong.
But all that changed last week, when I finally broke down and bought a copy of Birds of Prey #1. It wasn't that I'm a huge Gail Simone fan, although I have liked her writing ever since the days of "You'll All Be Sorry!" It wasn't that I was a huge BoP fan, although I've got quite a few collections of the series...especially the Gail Simone run. Those two things were enticing, but not enough to get me to dive back into comics for the first time in well over a year. No, the thing that sealed the deal was the return of Hawk and Dove.
I make no secret of it--I'm a huge Hawk and Dove fan. The Karl and Barbara Kesel series was the very first DC comic I ever collected, and I still adore it to pieces to this day. The dialogue was sharp and witty, the plots moved swiftly, and I loved that it did things like create all-new villains (while also rehabilitating some obscure ones like Copperhead and Velvet Tiger.) Finding out that they had revived the characters and were using them in a book I already liked with a writer I already liked made a "hmmm..." into an "Oooooh!"
But it took them nineteen years to get to that point. Because in '91, immediately after the cancellation of their series, first Dove died, then Hawk turned evil, then they created a new Hawk and Dove, then those two fell into instant comics obscurity, then Hawk died, then Dove came back, then they created a new Hawk, then the old Hawk came back as a zombie and killed the new Hawk, and finally after all that they used Blackest Night to sweep the whole damn mess under the rug and bring back Hawk and Dove as the team I remembered. And what did I do? I went out and bought a comic book solely because they guest-starred in it. (And it was very good, thanks. Gail Simone clearly has the same kind of fond memories of the Kesel series that I do, and portrayed them very faithfully.)
But the point is, DC missed out on nineteen years of sales because they decided that they could boost the circulation of Armageddon 2001 #2 if they killed off one hero and had another do a heel turn. Instead of growing a well-rounded, diverse set of supporting characters who could boost sales of a book and eventually break out from B-list to A-list status, they have decided on a slash-and-burn strategy of managing their intellectual properties. Obviously, in the case of Hawk and Dove, they've repented. But what about all the people who might pick up a copy of the new Ray Palmer Atom comic because they really like Ryan Choi and he's a regular secondary character? What about the people who liked Holly Granger as Hawk, and would have bought a comic with her in it? What about the Elongated Man fans, the Tempest fans, the Azrael fans, the people who will support their favorite character even if they don't have their own book?
Killing off characters isn't just bleak, unpleasant storytelling that's shock purely for shock's sake. It's also a dumb business decision. While Birds of Prey itself is demonstrating what DC could be doing right, it's also demonstrating exactly what everywhere else in DC is doing wrong.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Warning: Geek Rant Ahead
Seriously: This is going to be nerdy, pointless, and probably offensive to some other geeks with deeply-held opinions about science-fiction movies. Depending on your feelings about "Blade Runner", you might want to turn back now.
OK, going to assume anyone who's still here either agrees with me, or at least won't take it personally when I say the following: Deckard is not, I repeat not a replicant. Because if he was a replicant, then "Blade Runner" would be entirely pointless and uninteresting instead of just being mostly pointless and uninteresting.
For one thing, "Deckard is a replicant" is the laziest, hackiest, dullest possible ending anyone could come up with given the basic set-up of the film. Seriously, it's the goddamned Tomato in the Mirror ending! "Dude...what if the guy who was hunting replicants...was a replicant himself? Whoa. I think I just sprained my brain." It's the sort of thing that you think of in the short story you wrote in eighth grade, not the ending you want to give your multi-million dollar budget sci-fi motion picture.
Also, it doesn't make a ton of sense. Yes, Rachel's example does show that you can make a replicant with false memories, one that believes itself to be human, but what about everyone Deckard interacts with? Are they all in on it, every single person in the movie, and pretending to have known Deckard for ages in order to provide verisimilitude for his memory implant so that he won't go rogue? (Except for his partner, who apparently knows he's a replicant but only tells him by leaving cryptic hints in the form of origami unicorns.) And would they really let a replicant wander around without his partner as much as he does, given that they're supposed to be so highly dangerous? (Speaking of, if you were going to make a replicant to hunt replicants, wouldn't you make one that isn't quite so likely to get his ass kicked on an almost-continual basis? If Deckard's a replicant, he's a candy-ass replicant.) And would they really, at the end, not be waiting at his apartment in force to retire him if he was actually a replicant? That's a lot of plot holes that get resolved simply by taking things at face value. Occam's Razor alone tells us Deckard was human.
But more importantly, it misses the whole point of the film, which is that all of the stated reasons society gives for needing to hunt down the replicants are entirely false, and the real reason that Blade Runners hunt down replicants was the same reason plantation owners hunted escaped slaves. Their entire society relies on replicants doing the dirty, nasty, ugly jobs out in space. It relies on disposable human labor. So they have to convince themselves that "replicants aren't like us." They're not humans. They're things. You can do whatever you want to things.
But what's the supposed difference between "replicants" and "people"? Replicants lack empathy. They don't care about anything but themselves. They can't feel for others. Simple, and apparently even testable. (Although gosh, you have to wonder how many entirely human sociopaths failed that test and died unmourned.) The people have feelings for each other, the replicants don't. It's how you know who to kill.
But that's what they tell each other in the movie. What do we see? We see replicants banding together against a strange, hostile world. We see them mourning each other, avenging each other's deaths...and most importantly, we see the last act of Roy Batty. He saves Deckard's life at the end, an act that has absolutely no explanation other than as an act of pure empathic kindness. He gains nothing from it: He's in the last minutes of his life, and saving Deckard or letting him die won't prolong it. He has no reason to care about Deckard--the man killed his lover just minutes ago. He saves him because he looks down, he sees Deckard struggling pathetically like an overturned turtle, and he feels something.
And on the flip side, we have Deckard. A man who's such a good Blade Runner that his own partner can't help but wonder if he's a replicant under some sort of deep cover, simply because Deckard has spent so many years gunning down things that look like people that he's had to shut down all his emotions just to keep from committing suicide. Deckard quit because he found out he was forgetting how to be a human being. How many Blade Runners could pass the Voight-Kampf test? How many of them have lost their empathy just to survive a job that involves killing people all day, every day?
That's the point of Blade Runner. It's about a replicant who acts like a man, saving a man who acts like a replicant. It's about the lie at the heart of the world Deckard lives in. Once Deckard has seen that lie first-hand, once he's learned that replicants can love others selflessly and truly, he can be with Rachel at last. He can start remembering how to be human again. (It's no coincidence that the Deckard in the book had a wife that was written out for the movie.)
It's still not a perfect movie. It's so bloodlessly subtextual that there's almost no text to it. It's a movie about slavery where nobody ever talks about slavery, a movie about a man who realizes that it's just as wrong to murder artificial humans as natural ones, but who never gets around to saying so. It's a movie that actually did need a voice-over, just not the one that we got. We needed to be inside Deckard's head; instead, we got something added in post-production by nervous execs.
But if it were really about Deckard being a replicant who doesn't know it? Then it would be utterly without redeeming value as a story. It'd be nothing but a bunch of pretty aesthetics, a decent performance from Rutger Hauer, and a Vangelis score that plays about three times louder than the dialogue. And the worst part is, sometimes I think that's what most Blade Runner fans actually want.
OK, going to assume anyone who's still here either agrees with me, or at least won't take it personally when I say the following: Deckard is not, I repeat not a replicant. Because if he was a replicant, then "Blade Runner" would be entirely pointless and uninteresting instead of just being mostly pointless and uninteresting.
For one thing, "Deckard is a replicant" is the laziest, hackiest, dullest possible ending anyone could come up with given the basic set-up of the film. Seriously, it's the goddamned Tomato in the Mirror ending! "Dude...what if the guy who was hunting replicants...was a replicant himself? Whoa. I think I just sprained my brain." It's the sort of thing that you think of in the short story you wrote in eighth grade, not the ending you want to give your multi-million dollar budget sci-fi motion picture.
Also, it doesn't make a ton of sense. Yes, Rachel's example does show that you can make a replicant with false memories, one that believes itself to be human, but what about everyone Deckard interacts with? Are they all in on it, every single person in the movie, and pretending to have known Deckard for ages in order to provide verisimilitude for his memory implant so that he won't go rogue? (Except for his partner, who apparently knows he's a replicant but only tells him by leaving cryptic hints in the form of origami unicorns.) And would they really let a replicant wander around without his partner as much as he does, given that they're supposed to be so highly dangerous? (Speaking of, if you were going to make a replicant to hunt replicants, wouldn't you make one that isn't quite so likely to get his ass kicked on an almost-continual basis? If Deckard's a replicant, he's a candy-ass replicant.) And would they really, at the end, not be waiting at his apartment in force to retire him if he was actually a replicant? That's a lot of plot holes that get resolved simply by taking things at face value. Occam's Razor alone tells us Deckard was human.
But more importantly, it misses the whole point of the film, which is that all of the stated reasons society gives for needing to hunt down the replicants are entirely false, and the real reason that Blade Runners hunt down replicants was the same reason plantation owners hunted escaped slaves. Their entire society relies on replicants doing the dirty, nasty, ugly jobs out in space. It relies on disposable human labor. So they have to convince themselves that "replicants aren't like us." They're not humans. They're things. You can do whatever you want to things.
But what's the supposed difference between "replicants" and "people"? Replicants lack empathy. They don't care about anything but themselves. They can't feel for others. Simple, and apparently even testable. (Although gosh, you have to wonder how many entirely human sociopaths failed that test and died unmourned.) The people have feelings for each other, the replicants don't. It's how you know who to kill.
But that's what they tell each other in the movie. What do we see? We see replicants banding together against a strange, hostile world. We see them mourning each other, avenging each other's deaths...and most importantly, we see the last act of Roy Batty. He saves Deckard's life at the end, an act that has absolutely no explanation other than as an act of pure empathic kindness. He gains nothing from it: He's in the last minutes of his life, and saving Deckard or letting him die won't prolong it. He has no reason to care about Deckard--the man killed his lover just minutes ago. He saves him because he looks down, he sees Deckard struggling pathetically like an overturned turtle, and he feels something.
And on the flip side, we have Deckard. A man who's such a good Blade Runner that his own partner can't help but wonder if he's a replicant under some sort of deep cover, simply because Deckard has spent so many years gunning down things that look like people that he's had to shut down all his emotions just to keep from committing suicide. Deckard quit because he found out he was forgetting how to be a human being. How many Blade Runners could pass the Voight-Kampf test? How many of them have lost their empathy just to survive a job that involves killing people all day, every day?
That's the point of Blade Runner. It's about a replicant who acts like a man, saving a man who acts like a replicant. It's about the lie at the heart of the world Deckard lives in. Once Deckard has seen that lie first-hand, once he's learned that replicants can love others selflessly and truly, he can be with Rachel at last. He can start remembering how to be human again. (It's no coincidence that the Deckard in the book had a wife that was written out for the movie.)
It's still not a perfect movie. It's so bloodlessly subtextual that there's almost no text to it. It's a movie about slavery where nobody ever talks about slavery, a movie about a man who realizes that it's just as wrong to murder artificial humans as natural ones, but who never gets around to saying so. It's a movie that actually did need a voice-over, just not the one that we got. We needed to be inside Deckard's head; instead, we got something added in post-production by nervous execs.
But if it were really about Deckard being a replicant who doesn't know it? Then it would be utterly without redeeming value as a story. It'd be nothing but a bunch of pretty aesthetics, a decent performance from Rutger Hauer, and a Vangelis score that plays about three times louder than the dialogue. And the worst part is, sometimes I think that's what most Blade Runner fans actually want.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Why LOST's Series Finale Disappointed
Because LOST was six seasons long. That's 121 episodes, or eighty-four hours and forty-two minutes of solid television. Think about that. If you decided to do nothing but watch LOST for eight hours a day, five days a week, it would take you more than two weeks to get through the whole thing. That's a lot of build-up to get to a one-hour payoff.
And of course, that's not even the full story. Because let's face it, the people who were really into the LOST finale had been watching the show since the beginning. Sure, it wasn't a continuous time commitment, but the really big LOST fans put six years of anticipation into the ending of the series. Six years of discussing, dissecting, examining and cross-examining in the firm and fervent belief that the series would reward that degree of enthusiasm. (Ironically, Penny Arcade got it more or less right from the start.)
And what did they get? A fairy-tale ending. The Island is a big magic power source guarded by an immortal, who is looking for a replacement. The guardian has an evil shapeshifting brother who covets the power and hates the guardian. There's a big fight. Good wins, but not without cost. It's a decent enough ending, fairly common and no better or worse than the people writing it, but the people who put six years and eighty-four hours of emotional investment into the show were never going to be satisfied with that.
Honestly? They were never going to be satisfied, period. You can't come up with an ending good enough to justify 121 episodes of build-up. That's the danger of series built around big mysteries, from LOST to BSG to Twin Peaks. The answer to "Who killed Laura Palmer?" is always just going to be, "Some person," and the longer you wait before revealing the answer, the more irritated people are going to be that they waited that long. Building a series around one big mystery is risky for that very reason. Sometimes it's better to have a show where every episode can stand alone. The pay-off may not be as big, but at least it won't fall flat.
And of course, that's not even the full story. Because let's face it, the people who were really into the LOST finale had been watching the show since the beginning. Sure, it wasn't a continuous time commitment, but the really big LOST fans put six years of anticipation into the ending of the series. Six years of discussing, dissecting, examining and cross-examining in the firm and fervent belief that the series would reward that degree of enthusiasm. (Ironically, Penny Arcade got it more or less right from the start.)
And what did they get? A fairy-tale ending. The Island is a big magic power source guarded by an immortal, who is looking for a replacement. The guardian has an evil shapeshifting brother who covets the power and hates the guardian. There's a big fight. Good wins, but not without cost. It's a decent enough ending, fairly common and no better or worse than the people writing it, but the people who put six years and eighty-four hours of emotional investment into the show were never going to be satisfied with that.
Honestly? They were never going to be satisfied, period. You can't come up with an ending good enough to justify 121 episodes of build-up. That's the danger of series built around big mysteries, from LOST to BSG to Twin Peaks. The answer to "Who killed Laura Palmer?" is always just going to be, "Some person," and the longer you wait before revealing the answer, the more irritated people are going to be that they waited that long. Building a series around one big mystery is risky for that very reason. Sometimes it's better to have a show where every episode can stand alone. The pay-off may not be as big, but at least it won't fall flat.
Monday, May 24, 2010
The Mythos Wall
Interesting question (well, I hope it is...) At what point does a series' mythos become an impenetrable barrier to attracting new viewers?
Obviously, I ask because of a certain television series that has just recently reached its conclusion. I'm pretty sure that it's a bit late now for me to start watching 'Lost', seeing as how it's not actually airing anymore; but even before last night's series finale, I was already getting the feeling that if I wanted to watch the show, I'd need to do it by buying DVDs and starting from Season One. There are plenty of other shows like that, as well: The X-Files, Babylon 5, even the Stargate serieses tend to get pretty deeply into their backstories by a few years in. (Doctor Who, a show that's in it for the long haul, tends to resolve everything and start over every five years or so, but it's the exception to the rule.)
So how long does it take for a show to become something that "you really have to start at the beginning" to watch? Is it a good thing, or a bad thing? And when did it start?
Taking the latter first; as a science-fiction trend, I'd say the push for longer and more involved story-arcs arrived alongside the home video market. Before that, we had soap operas, which obviously involved a lot of involved backstory...but we'll get back to that later...but really, the episodes of most sci-fi shows before Babylon 5 could be seen in any order without confusing the viewer too much. Occasionally, you'd find a new doctor on ST: TNG (or a new Doctor on Doctor Who) but for the most part, producers didn't think they could do stories with long, involved arcs, because they couldn't guarantee that people would see the episodes that set up the episode they were watching right now.
Home video changed all that. Even before DVD, series like B5 and Highlander were putting out big, chunky season sets that took up whole bookshelves. Sure in the knowledge that people would be able to follow their plotlines for only a minimal $100 investment, they could do longer, more involved storylines. DVD only accelerated the evolution of the trend.
But unsurprisingly, some people didn't necessarily want to shell out $50 (it got cheaper by the time DVD rolled around) to catch up on the show everyone was talking about. Or, for that matter, to invest thirty-two hours of viewing time, either. For those people, comments by the fans along the lines of "oh, you really need to watch it from the beginning to get the full effect" might as well have been saying, "Too late, buddy!"
Which is probably not what the producers wanted. Because let's face it, for all that shows like "Lost" have more involved backstories, it's still not like you're watching one long movie cut up into a couple hundred hour-long chunks. Fans tend to overestimate the impenetrability of their favorite shows and continuities, perhaps because it makes them feel a little more special to know that they're one of the Chosen Few who can understand everything that's going on in their favorite show. They love to start telling people that a show really rewards patient viewers as soon as the second episode, creating an almost self-fulfilling prophecy of confusion. But soap operas specialize in tangled plots that go on for years, and they've been able to consistently attract new viewers. Obviously, if what's going on that moment on screen is interesting, people will be willing to sit down and watch until they've picked up all the stuff they didn't understand.
Unless the series is, y'know, over. Then it probably is a bit too late.
Obviously, I ask because of a certain television series that has just recently reached its conclusion. I'm pretty sure that it's a bit late now for me to start watching 'Lost', seeing as how it's not actually airing anymore; but even before last night's series finale, I was already getting the feeling that if I wanted to watch the show, I'd need to do it by buying DVDs and starting from Season One. There are plenty of other shows like that, as well: The X-Files, Babylon 5, even the Stargate serieses tend to get pretty deeply into their backstories by a few years in. (Doctor Who, a show that's in it for the long haul, tends to resolve everything and start over every five years or so, but it's the exception to the rule.)
So how long does it take for a show to become something that "you really have to start at the beginning" to watch? Is it a good thing, or a bad thing? And when did it start?
Taking the latter first; as a science-fiction trend, I'd say the push for longer and more involved story-arcs arrived alongside the home video market. Before that, we had soap operas, which obviously involved a lot of involved backstory...but we'll get back to that later...but really, the episodes of most sci-fi shows before Babylon 5 could be seen in any order without confusing the viewer too much. Occasionally, you'd find a new doctor on ST: TNG (or a new Doctor on Doctor Who) but for the most part, producers didn't think they could do stories with long, involved arcs, because they couldn't guarantee that people would see the episodes that set up the episode they were watching right now.
Home video changed all that. Even before DVD, series like B5 and Highlander were putting out big, chunky season sets that took up whole bookshelves. Sure in the knowledge that people would be able to follow their plotlines for only a minimal $100 investment, they could do longer, more involved storylines. DVD only accelerated the evolution of the trend.
But unsurprisingly, some people didn't necessarily want to shell out $50 (it got cheaper by the time DVD rolled around) to catch up on the show everyone was talking about. Or, for that matter, to invest thirty-two hours of viewing time, either. For those people, comments by the fans along the lines of "oh, you really need to watch it from the beginning to get the full effect" might as well have been saying, "Too late, buddy!"
Which is probably not what the producers wanted. Because let's face it, for all that shows like "Lost" have more involved backstories, it's still not like you're watching one long movie cut up into a couple hundred hour-long chunks. Fans tend to overestimate the impenetrability of their favorite shows and continuities, perhaps because it makes them feel a little more special to know that they're one of the Chosen Few who can understand everything that's going on in their favorite show. They love to start telling people that a show really rewards patient viewers as soon as the second episode, creating an almost self-fulfilling prophecy of confusion. But soap operas specialize in tangled plots that go on for years, and they've been able to consistently attract new viewers. Obviously, if what's going on that moment on screen is interesting, people will be willing to sit down and watch until they've picked up all the stuff they didn't understand.
Unless the series is, y'know, over. Then it probably is a bit too late.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Controversial Statement of the Day
There is no such thing as a "science-fiction" genre. Or, for that matter, a fantasy one. These are just labels applied to books with certain narrative elements by people who are deeply uncomfortable with made-up things, and want to be sure that they can avoid any work of fiction that they can't pretend is real.
The proof is this: You can find a "pure" horror story, one that crosses no genre boundaries and is plain and simple an attempt to scare the ever-loving crap out of someone. (Like, say, "Friday the 13th", or "The Collector".) You can find a "pure" comedy, a "pure" romance, a "pure" drama, a "pure" adventure...
But it's impossible to find a science-fiction story that isn't also part of another genre. "Star Wars" is sci-fi/adventure, "Alien" is sci-fi/horror, "Ghostbusters" is sci-fi/comedy, "Dark City" is sci-fi/mystery/horror/adventure/horror/back-to-the-mystery-for-a-bit/romance/adventure...it's no coincidence that science-fiction/fantasy tends to be a pioneer in genre-blending. How can it not? It has to steal other genres simply to exist.
"Science-fiction" is simply a collection of narrative elements, involving speculations based on what we know of science, applied to stories in other genres. "Fantasy" is similar, but involves speculations based on what we used to think was true in science but now know better. (Which means that Isaac Asimov's "Lucky Starr" books went from being a sci-fi adventure series to a fantasy adventure series over the course of sixty years.) Neither one is a genre.
I am, of course, open to contradictions on this. Anyone want to cite a "pure" sci-fi or fantasy story? (Keeping in mind, of course, that "satire" is a genre.)
The proof is this: You can find a "pure" horror story, one that crosses no genre boundaries and is plain and simple an attempt to scare the ever-loving crap out of someone. (Like, say, "Friday the 13th", or "The Collector".) You can find a "pure" comedy, a "pure" romance, a "pure" drama, a "pure" adventure...
But it's impossible to find a science-fiction story that isn't also part of another genre. "Star Wars" is sci-fi/adventure, "Alien" is sci-fi/horror, "Ghostbusters" is sci-fi/comedy, "Dark City" is sci-fi/mystery/horror/adventure/horror/back-to-the-mystery-for-a-bit/romance/adventure...it's no coincidence that science-fiction/fantasy tends to be a pioneer in genre-blending. How can it not? It has to steal other genres simply to exist.
"Science-fiction" is simply a collection of narrative elements, involving speculations based on what we know of science, applied to stories in other genres. "Fantasy" is similar, but involves speculations based on what we used to think was true in science but now know better. (Which means that Isaac Asimov's "Lucky Starr" books went from being a sci-fi adventure series to a fantasy adventure series over the course of sixty years.) Neither one is a genre.
I am, of course, open to contradictions on this. Anyone want to cite a "pure" sci-fi or fantasy story? (Keeping in mind, of course, that "satire" is a genre.)
Monday, May 17, 2010
Handicapping Palin
And not in the Jeff Gilooly sense, either.
It does seem to be one of the big political questions out there. Will Sarah Palin run for President in 2012? Political pundits are divided; some see her as a serious, transformative candidate (her boosters imagine her as a populist revolutionary, her detractors as a willfully ignorant demagogue) while others believe her to be a slick-talking huckster who's left politics for the far more lucrative profession of entertainer/pundit. The key moment that will tell who's right is 2012. If she makes a serious bid for the Presidency, then she clearly hasn't given up her political ambitions. If she sits it out, she's another Glenn Beck. (Which would be two more Glenn Becks than we actually need.)
My feelings? I think that on the one hand, it's pretty clear that she likes being rich. (Hey, who doesn't?) She quit halfway through her only term of elected office in order to cash in on her celebrity status, something that she had to know might come back to haunt her later on. (More on this...) And notably, running a political campaign is not something that makes money, it costs money. Especially when she doesn't have the kind of fund-raising apparatus and insider connections needed to raise the big donations, the way Dubya did. If she runs, she's going to be hemorrhaging cash, something that she's been very averse to doing, and she won't get any potential payoff until 2016 at the earliest. Unless, of course, she becomes the first President to quit after two years to do speaking tours...
On the other hand, a Presidential bid, even a failed one, boosts her credibility as a political pundit and gives her another fifteen minutes of fame. Her fanbase is demanding it, and they're a fickle group; failure to run could seriously tarnish her status as a populist revolutionary in their eyes, while failure to win can only increase it. ("Sarah's too much of a maverick to break through the Washington establishment! At least, that's what she's saying at her latest rally! Let's all buy tickets!") And it's easy to throw your hat into the ring, at least at first; you can always drop out when it starts getting expensive.
But most importantly, Sarah Palin has a lot of weaknesses as a politician that she has so far managed to conceal because they haven't been exposed to much scrutiny--Alaska has a small population, and she was hand-picked to run for Vice-President. A Presidential bid is going to expose those weaknesses. She will not be able to avoid unscripted interviews with tough media figures the way she has for much of her political career--George W. Bush pulled it off, but he had a lot of family connections to experienced political operators who could arrange that kind of strategy. Sarah Palin does not trust and is not trusted by those same campaign experts.
And that's also worth mentioning all by itself--Sarah Palin does not have a staff, and she doesn't want one. She is fast becoming notorious for being slapdash, organizationally speaking...something that works fine when you're just co-ordinating your speaking appearances and media engagements, but not so much when you're running for President. She doesn't have the kind of apparatus in place that you need for a serious political campaign, and more importantly, her experiences with that kind of apparatus in 2008 have left her very wary of putting them into place. She's going to try to go it alone, if she goes.
And that might not work very well, because the campaigning process (especially on a national stage) is brutal. She's not going to be able to conduct her Presidential bid through Facebook, speaking rallies, and appearances on Fox News. She's going to have to get in there and face off against other candidates who will be happy to use her weaknesses against her--remember that "quit halfway through her term as governor" thing? You can bet Mitt Romney will remind you, if you forget. And if Palin has shown a single defining character trait through her time in the political spotlight, it's that she's thin-skinned and holds grudges easily. (Or is that two traits?)
Put it all together and my guess is that you get something like this: Palin will make a Presidential bid in 2012, but it won't last long. She'll last through a few primaries, then drop out, citing a desire to protect her family from the vicious, unmotivated attacks that her opponents have unfairly leveled at them. Experts will cite the fact that she was running out of money and didn't do well in those first few primaries, but Palin will have already retreated back to the world of entertainment, where she can create her own reality. And make good money doing it, too.
It does seem to be one of the big political questions out there. Will Sarah Palin run for President in 2012? Political pundits are divided; some see her as a serious, transformative candidate (her boosters imagine her as a populist revolutionary, her detractors as a willfully ignorant demagogue) while others believe her to be a slick-talking huckster who's left politics for the far more lucrative profession of entertainer/pundit. The key moment that will tell who's right is 2012. If she makes a serious bid for the Presidency, then she clearly hasn't given up her political ambitions. If she sits it out, she's another Glenn Beck. (Which would be two more Glenn Becks than we actually need.)
My feelings? I think that on the one hand, it's pretty clear that she likes being rich. (Hey, who doesn't?) She quit halfway through her only term of elected office in order to cash in on her celebrity status, something that she had to know might come back to haunt her later on. (More on this...) And notably, running a political campaign is not something that makes money, it costs money. Especially when she doesn't have the kind of fund-raising apparatus and insider connections needed to raise the big donations, the way Dubya did. If she runs, she's going to be hemorrhaging cash, something that she's been very averse to doing, and she won't get any potential payoff until 2016 at the earliest. Unless, of course, she becomes the first President to quit after two years to do speaking tours...
On the other hand, a Presidential bid, even a failed one, boosts her credibility as a political pundit and gives her another fifteen minutes of fame. Her fanbase is demanding it, and they're a fickle group; failure to run could seriously tarnish her status as a populist revolutionary in their eyes, while failure to win can only increase it. ("Sarah's too much of a maverick to break through the Washington establishment! At least, that's what she's saying at her latest rally! Let's all buy tickets!") And it's easy to throw your hat into the ring, at least at first; you can always drop out when it starts getting expensive.
But most importantly, Sarah Palin has a lot of weaknesses as a politician that she has so far managed to conceal because they haven't been exposed to much scrutiny--Alaska has a small population, and she was hand-picked to run for Vice-President. A Presidential bid is going to expose those weaknesses. She will not be able to avoid unscripted interviews with tough media figures the way she has for much of her political career--George W. Bush pulled it off, but he had a lot of family connections to experienced political operators who could arrange that kind of strategy. Sarah Palin does not trust and is not trusted by those same campaign experts.
And that's also worth mentioning all by itself--Sarah Palin does not have a staff, and she doesn't want one. She is fast becoming notorious for being slapdash, organizationally speaking...something that works fine when you're just co-ordinating your speaking appearances and media engagements, but not so much when you're running for President. She doesn't have the kind of apparatus in place that you need for a serious political campaign, and more importantly, her experiences with that kind of apparatus in 2008 have left her very wary of putting them into place. She's going to try to go it alone, if she goes.
And that might not work very well, because the campaigning process (especially on a national stage) is brutal. She's not going to be able to conduct her Presidential bid through Facebook, speaking rallies, and appearances on Fox News. She's going to have to get in there and face off against other candidates who will be happy to use her weaknesses against her--remember that "quit halfway through her term as governor" thing? You can bet Mitt Romney will remind you, if you forget. And if Palin has shown a single defining character trait through her time in the political spotlight, it's that she's thin-skinned and holds grudges easily. (Or is that two traits?)
Put it all together and my guess is that you get something like this: Palin will make a Presidential bid in 2012, but it won't last long. She'll last through a few primaries, then drop out, citing a desire to protect her family from the vicious, unmotivated attacks that her opponents have unfairly leveled at them. Experts will cite the fact that she was running out of money and didn't do well in those first few primaries, but Palin will have already retreated back to the world of entertainment, where she can create her own reality. And make good money doing it, too.
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