I know, I know, the original quote is “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” I’m enough of a Heinlein buff to remember that. But I’m also aware of the fact that posting stuff on here requires an investment of time, and for most people, time is money. Just like money buys information, information is power, power is corrupting, and corruption (according to some) is just a matter of time. See what I did there? It’s circular.
Anyway.
More than once I have been told “You should get paid to do this.” It’s a sentiment I really appreciate, and Polymancer Studios will indeed be paying me, but not for my Netflix posts. I’ll be following up with them after I wrap up this little update, which includes an expansion of my site.
That little link you might have overlooked? Look again. IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! now has its own page.
I have a little bio page up as well, but that’s beside the point. One of the things that brings people here and keeps them interested definitely deserves to be featured on its own apart from my daily dribbling about writing, gaming, kittens and generally being a dull, uninteresting nerd. It includes a list of ICFN! posts, how I got started doing them and how readers like you can contribute to keep it going even longer.
I have no idea how this is going to turn out. My inbox for suggestions/donations might just sit around collecting dust and cobwebs or I might get a flood of requests for movies I’d normally have zero interest in watching. I guess we’ll just have to see once I get all of this posted.
Like any entertainer worth their salt, I’m doing my best to be aware of what my audience wants. Maybe someone out there wants me reviewing more comedies and less sci-fi. Perhaps there’s a gem of an old fantasy movie that so far has gone unnoticed and unreviewed. It’s likely that a person reading this is thinking of a favorite film that they believe will become a favorite of mine as well.
I’ll make you no promises save this: I’m willing to watch just about anything. I can’t promise I’ll like it, and if I don’t I’ll make damn sure you know it. I try to act like something resembling a professional in this space, which is why I do my utmost to post every day. I know I’ll get some stick for doing that, since in reality I’m about as Peter Pan as someone can get without donning pointy shoes and a fetching green hat, but dammit, I can pretend.
As the process of putting together the Character Bible for The Project winds down, I find myself sorting characters into ‘major’ and ‘minor’ categories. One of the characters that’s been shuffled into the latter area is one that I thought would be considered more important than he really is. He’s one of the antagonists, and the story isn’t so much about him as what’s partially motivating him, so he’s more minor than major. I would like, if I can, to avoid making him or any of my other characters too one-dimensional, but at the same time I want to try and keep my villians’ motivations relatively simple.
Not every evil plot needs to be a Xanatos Gambit. Yes, they’re interesting and awesome when you can pull them off, but sometimes you can tangle yourself up in your own web so much that you drive your plot forward without taking any time to explain exactly who the bag guys are and what they really want. I hate to beat a dead bloated horse that used to run well, but take a look at Star Wars.
In the first three films, there’s something of an overarching scheme to bring down the Republic and raise up the Empire in its place. This could have been handled any number of ways, but Lucas goes about it in the most convoluted canon-destroying way possible. Nowhere in the original films did he mention Force-balancing prophecies, the Jedi being in control of the clone army or the Sith. Now, expanded universe material that exists between the time of the first films and the prequels talks about some of this stuff, but not everybody in the film audience took the time to read all of that stuff. In the course of the films themselves, the motivations of the bad guys go from malevolently straightforward to frustratingly complex.
Consider this scene from the original Star Wars. Remember when we first met Darth Vader?
“Commander, tear this ship apart until you’ve found those plans. And bring me the passengers. I want them ALIVE!“
In one line, we learn so much about the imposing armored dark warrior. He’s driven to find the plans, he doesn’t care what collateral damage is involved in the search, but he also wants the passengers alive, probably for interrogation. It’s equal parts exposition and character establishment, a lesson well-learned and being taught by the manly magic talking beardface. Hey, he was at Sundance, he knows good stories, dammit.
Anyway, in contrast, so much time in the prequels is devoted to empty, dry, dull expository conversation that tells us nothing of value about the speakers. Palpatine is the only villain approaching something resembling true malevolence, while Darth Maul (or as Confused Matthew calls him, Darth Timefiller) and Count Dracula Dooku are little more than soulless dance partners for the Jedi lightsaber throwho-down.
The point I’m trying to reach is that you don’t have to make every villain or antagonist a brilliant chess-playing mastermind. Sure, a Magnificent Bastard character is going to draw in readers and add color to the story, but there’s only so much of it a single story can take. Most of the time, it’s probably best for your villains to have straightforward motivations so you don’t end up getting hoisted by your own evil petard when a reader calls you out for something that’s poorly explained.
And for the love of Vader, don’t try any of that “Our motivations are far too inscrutable for puny mortal minds to comprehend” bullshit. It didn’t work in the Matrix, it didn’t work in Mass Effect. I don’t think it’ll ever work, and I for one am never going to try. Good isn’t as dumb as you might think, no matter how much I love that Spaceballs quote.
I’ve been playing Dragon Age: Origins when I’m not playing Star Trek Online. As much as I want to return to Mass Effect to prepare Shepard for the impending arrival of the sequel and write a review for Dragon Age, I think I should finish at least one play-through of the fantasy RPG first.
The problem is that Dragon Age is, for me, long.
Maybe it’s because I’m playing a mage and further complicated my life by going for the Arcane Warrior specialization rather than focusing on big high-damage “OH CHRIST MY FLESH IS MELTING OFF YOU BASTARD” spells, which can make some of the boss fights pretty frustrating affairs. I’ve rearranged my party a couple times and I think I’ve gotten it down now, though. It could also be due to the fact that I’m conversing with my party members because I have this weird notion that I should get to know the people willing to lay down their lives for my somewhat bland-expressioned protagonist. And maybe I’m just playing in the wrong order, since I’m over 20 hours in and have only just now picked up the spirit healer NPC, who is awesome in her magic skills but considering that I’m going for something a bit like a D&D CoDzilla, she’s a bit redundant at this point.
I’m already thinking of playing through again at least twice, once as the Dalish elf I created before the game even came out, and once as a human noble because I hear that backstory’s pretty interesting. My darling paramour (in real life, not the one I picked in the game) has played the City Elf & Dwarf Noble backstories but has been sucked in completely by the Mass Effect universe which is part of the reason I’ll be picking it up next week. But the point is I can’t start a new game quite yet because the old game isn’t done and I’m not inexcusably stuck.
Anyway, I need to shovel out my car, but suffice it to say that I hope to have my Dragon Age review up soon. I’m hoping there will be more moments like the one pictured above. In case you don’t know, you meet the person responsible for the creation of golems, and that story, along with all the peripheral stuff around it, is pretty damn awesome if you ask me.
See that? Even our kitten likes games. I thought I’d take a moment of your time to remind you that no gamer exists in a vacuum, and tell you about what some of the other important gamers in my life are up to and blogging about.
Epixaricacy has been playing Mass Effect. I’ve talked about the game before and now find myself drawn back towards it, despite the fact I haven’t finished Dragon Age yet. It’s something she regularly reminds me to do, and if I can plow through it I should get a review up for that as well. In the meantime, check out what my better half has to say about Mass Effect. Her perspective is interesting, to say nothing of how liberally she sprinkles curses into her words, and it’s nice to have her writing about something she enjoys.
Scionical has posted a review of Bayonetta. I doubt I’ll be picking this one up. I wasn’t that much a fan of the Devil May Cry series, and if Bayonetta mostly serves as eye candy while pretending she isn’t Dante, why not just download pictures of her and leave it at that? Apparently, Scionical went the extra mile and rented the game, and like Epixaricacy, serves up his thoughts with a huge helping of lovely profanity. Why, you might ask? So you don’t have to.
So what about games that are even newer? Perhaps those still in the testing phase? Surely I have no insight into that part of the industry…
But, lo! What is this? The Gamer Panda is more than willing to share her thoughts and experiences in being a tester of games. She’s also a masterful herder of cats, well-trained in the use of a pen, and I even hear she makes soap and sells it on the Internet. She may or may not also live on Paper Street.
Time for me to be off and slay some dragons. Excelsior!
If there’s a song that better encapsulates both the plot and mood of a film, I’ve yet to hear it. Flash Gordon is based upon two things: a science fiction comic strip, and the 1930’s adventure film serial starring Buster Crabbe. Long before the likes of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 and RDM’s Battlestar Galactica came along as pioneers in the realm of ‘darker and edgier’ science fiction stories, a trend that Flash would himself follow, the use of older material like this was more about a homage than a revision. However, Flash Gordon comes to us with one intention in mind, one that lies at the root of the reason why we see movies in the first place: to have some fun.
Evil: It’s A Growth Industry!
Flash Gordon‘s story begins with a simple question: “What do despotic galactic overlords do when they get bored?” If you’re Ming the Merciless (Max van Sydow), you toy with the eco-system of a planet that can’t fight back. In this case, Ming picks on Earth. NASA informs the public that the phenomena making Mother Earth scream obscenities are perfectly natural and nothing to worry about, but mad scientist Hans Zarkov (Topol) is the only man sane enough to recognize this abusive weather as an attack from outer space. At gunpoint, he brings two people who happened into his lab along on his journey to halt the attacks: journalist Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) and football superstar Flash Gordon (Sam J Jones). In short order, the Earthlings find themselves among the planets of Mongo, and when Flash realizes who this despot is and what he’s about, he sets his sights on kicking this guy square in his Merciless Mings.
Flash! And the most impractical sword in the universe!
Forget the grayish browns and brownish grays that predominate most modern science fiction story. Flash Gordon is bursting at the seams with bright colors, shimmering costumes and characters that have some memorable features right down to the bit players. In addition to being a treat for the eyeballs, the whole affair has a campiness to it. The only thing terribly serious about the film is how much its tongue is stuck in its cheek. But it’s not taking the piss out of science fiction in a mean-spirited way. It feels like a send-up rather than a parody, a loving callback to the things people love about reading the strips in the newspaper – remember newspapers? – and seeing Buster run around in those short pants of his. I think the most important thing about Flash Gordon, though, is that everybody seems to be having fun. From Max van Sydow’s deliciously malevolent Ming to Timothy Dalton’s swashbuckling sylvan prince, the whole cast seems to be going along with the ridiculous nature of the film’s premise because it’s the most fun they’ve had since they decided to make a living pretending to be other people. I mean, they gave Brian Blessed wings and a large blunt weapon – how can you not have fun in that get-up?
Seriously. Look at that man’s grin.
This is a film that, by today’s standards, would not work as a legitimate science fiction adventure. I think we’ve become a bit too used to the sort of gritty pseudo-realism present in Avatar or District 9. Even the Star Wars films, once known for high adventure among the stars for better and for worse, became darker as they wore on in recent years, along with becoming less coherent. Now, I don’t mind science fiction staying tethered somewhat to the realm of the possible, but the fact that Flash Gordon zooms directly towards the border of the ridiculous and crosses it without nary a backward glance makes it surprisingly refreshing. This story has no deep message, no philosophical bent, not even that much of a plot. But unlike the works of Lucas, this feeling is intentional, and while it’s been said you can’t do camp on purpose, Flash Gordon camps things up so much, it’s hard to imagine the filmmakers not knowing how outlandish the end product would be.
Do I even have to mention Princess Aura? Define “hubba-hubba”.
Entertainment, especially in escapist forms like movies and video games, is about having fun. It’s about losing oneself in the experience provided by the medium. Sometimes you can lose yourself in a deep and touching story, but there are also times when you as an audience member just want to sit back and enjoy the show. Flash Gordon doesn’t punish you for trying to think during the movie the way other badly made films might – rather, it elbows you in the ribs and tells you we’re here to have fun, not to wonder how Flash can survive on a rocket cycle in space with no enclosure or exactly how the physics of Mongo work. Yeah, the plot is thinner than a thread-bare shoestring and the special effects might seem laughably produced in comparison to modern robust CGI suites, but you know what? In this case, none of that matters. Flash Gordon is all about having fun, and that’s why we watch movies. If you’ve forgotten that, gentle reader, put this on your Netflix queue right away. If nothing else, you have an excuse for playing Queen’s music at high volume, and if you don’t think that’s fun, check your pulse. You’re probably dead. And only Flash can save you now.
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
