Archive for the 'Big Ideas' Category

03
May

The R2D2 DVD Projector

By Drew 0 Comments
Categories: Big Ideas, Gadgets and Tech

I’m not sure what to make of this, but it leaves me feeling dizzy:

It’s certainly an interesting artifact, and if you’re a geek you realize just how right it is on so many levels. In many ways it represents a genuine manifestation of the role that R2D2 fulfilled in the series, providing mobile technical expertise, and displaying just the right video to the right people at the right time.

It also has all the right inputs, allowing the player to interact with a variety of modern objects. I have to admit that I almost gasped with glee when the iPod dock popped out of the chassis.  This is clearly something that has been thought about, and designed with a clear audience in mind, although it’s doubtful the slacker hipster stereotype who’s playing their awesome game on the ceiling of their deluxe bachelor pad is the person who would buy this (or even actually exists). But the nerd is clearly the target market, and it’s a well aimed piece of tech.

It’s also a masterpiece of instant obsolescence. 

From the moment you buy it, those slots and connectors are already out of date, and note that if you want to watch an HD-DVD you’ll need to hook up that PS3 they’re talking about. This is a piece of tech that is all about the moment, and as impressive as it is to have a mobile high def screen, it’s something that’s going to last about as long as your average computer.

That said, there’s something truly futuristic about the idea of this thing. It’s the beginning of the transformation of the appliance from a passive to an active device, wrapped up into a context that defines both the expectations and the use of the device.

24
Apr

Origins of the Superhero Species

By Drew 0 Comments
Categories: Big Ideas, Film and Comics

Cracked online has run an article breaking down the 8 Pointless Laws All Comic Book Movies Follow. Much like the old magazine it’s “heh-heh” rather than “haw-haw” funny, and works a little too hard trying to make hard and fast rules that don’t always work, but law #8 is the one that got me thinking:

#8. The First Film Requires a Tedious Origin Story

For some unknown reason, tradition states that the first movie must consist largely of something no one in the audience paid to see: The superhero as he lived before he could do any cool superhero stuff.

Other genres don’t feel the need to do this; Die Hard didn’t spend the first half of the movie with John McClane taking target practice, Rambo didn’t spend an hour showing Rambo in basic training. Why can’t we just jump in?

Instead we have to watch Peter Parker struggling as a photographer, and Bruce Banner quietly working as a scientist, as if we must first appreciate the tedium of their regular lives before we get to see them jump off an exploding building.

Which isn’t true for any number of reasons. First and foremost is that almost every action movie of any stripe likes to show us what the main character is like before events beyond their control turn them into the hero. John McClane’s problems with his wife for example, or Rambo as a simple drifter before the eeeevil local law enforcement forces him to reveal that underneath the homeless exterior lies a well oiled fighting machine created by our own government!

But one thing that makes Superheroes super is that they have powers that are outside of what can be explained away simply by a little suspension of disbelief.  So, if you’re superhuman then the audience would like to know how you got that way, and the writer would like to use that to create some cool thematic resonance, if that’s okay with you..

imageSetting up the powers to mimic emotions is a trick that’s been used ever since Stan Lee created the Fantastic Four back in the sixties, and the one that put Marvel on the map: The superheroes external transformation is their “old” inner-self suddenly appearing on the outside, and that allows them to become someone better within.

Look at the FF: Sue gains newfound confidence from her invisibility, Ben Grimm gets in touch with his emotions after becoming a man of stone, Johnny controls his “fiery temper” by learning to master his flaming body, and Reed Richards learns to control his brilliant (but unfocused) mind by learning to control his “out of control” body, and in the process becomes a true leader.

And when it works, it works well.  Why are we looking forward to seeing Iron Man this summer? Just watch the trailer again. We know that Tony Stark is a man with an iron heart. And when his human heart is damaged, he learns compassion for his fellow man by becoming encased in steel.

Their origin stories are what makes these ridiculous characters acceptable and dramatic. It gives them an emotional motivation as well.  Spiderman and Batman are out there trying to change the world in order to right the wrongs that were committed against the people that they loved. In Spiderman’s case the accident came after he gained his powers, in Batman’s it drove him to become a man capable of superhuman acts.  But what fun would it be if we never saw what it is that drives them?

16
Apr

Dan Abnett rocks socks in the Warhammer 40K Universe

By Drew 0 Comments
Categories: Science Fiction, Big Ideas and Books

While there are plenty of good books out in the world, one place that you don’t find to expect much love is in licensed tales.  They’re usually disposable bits of fluff designed to scoop up nerds who can’t get enough of their favorite characters and are willing to wade through substandard side stories just to get another whiff of their fictional drug of choice. That’s why discovering Dan Abnett’s books set in the Warhammer 40K universe came as such a shock.

I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for the cold as ice, hard as steel, and dark as night war-torn universe that sits behind Games Workshop tabletop miniatures game where there “Will be only war”.  I even read some of the original novels they put out back in the day, although even at the time I recognized that they were just a way to get a quick hit out of that universe without having to go to all the trouble of actually role playing the damn thing. I also read enough of the back story in the different manuals and such that I had a working understanding that I could use to at least try and hold my own in a conversation with British nerds if the need ever arose.

imageThat’s why, when another all American geek with a love for the 40K world told me that they were finally novelizing the Horus Heresy, I had to give it a shot. I won’t go into it here, except to say that it’s the kind of ridiculous science fiction pseudo mystical nonsense that never gets made into movies, but often shows up as the wordy prologue to a video game.  It’s also the defining event of that universe, taking place 10,000 years before the game itself.  (Yes, it’s Warhammer 30K.)

The first book in the series, Horus Rising, was written by Dan Abnett, a working writer who’s written everything from mainstream superhero comics to Wallace and Grommet books.  And it was good.  Better than good.  The story fast paced, the characters were gripping, and the prose turned phrases and manipulated words with enough skill that I often found myself rereading a paragraph or two just to figure out how he the author had managed to pirouette some bit of nonsense into a chunk of clever character motivated writing.

I grabbed the second book in the series, but he didn’t write it, and it didn’t have any of that zing, pop, or pizzazz. I’d found a new author, and he was good.

It turns out that Abnett’s magnum opus is the Eisenhorn series, about an “Inquisitor” who must root out the (in his reality) very real corruption that comes from the creatures of Chaos that are attempting to break through and destroy our reality.

The three volumes have been collected into a single, moderately-priced omnibus that I cant recommend highly enough.  It isn’t Shakespeare, but if you’re looking for rollicking big ideas science fiction that transports you into another world, and doesn’t hold back on the character or scale (he’s throwing world’s around by the end of the thing), then you won’t be sorry you gave it a try.

I’ve also started reading his Gaunt’s Ghosts series, an epic about a group of soldiers who fight to protect the universe from an evil that has destroyed their home world.  It’s got battle scenes that will have you reading well past your bedtime, if you’re into that sort of thing.

He’s got other titles as well, that I have yet to dip into, but I’m sure I’ll read them all. What are guilty pleasures for, if you can’t indulge them?

Do you know of what I speak? Do I see clearly, or have I been infected with the taint of the Warp? Let’s hear it in the comments…

21
Mar

Nawlz

By Drew 1 Comment
Categories: Big Ideas, Comics and Internet

Comic books are a strange beast from a writers point of view, given that they are primarily a visual playground.  “Well written comics” is a bit of an oxymoron, because the right images can overcome the writing.  Jack Kirby is sort of like that… his ideas were so big they overcame the stiffness of the prose.

So someone has finally gone and created an online comic book that is truly the fusion of the web and the “stop and go” frames that have defined the medium.

It’s kind of hard to explain so check it out.

image

It just may blow your mind.

There may be other stuff like this on the web, but if not, I think someone just reinvented something…

15
Mar

Why Hulk kinda sucks

By Drew 1 Comment
Categories: Big Ideas, Content, Film and Comics

There’s a new Hulk trailer out this week. The new film is supposed to be better than the Ang Lee angst fest that we had a few years ago, but I have to admit that that the latest trailer doesn’t give me very much hope

image Unlike a lot of Marvel characters, there isn’t an inherent “great Hulk story”. As a friend of mine pointed out, of the original characters that Stan Lee created in the sixties, he’s probably among the weakest ones.

Even his comic-book origin is kind of unfocused. It’s a cold war fable involving a new kind of atomic bomb, and some very red communist bad guys that include a scientist named Igor (that nobody notices is a spy), and villain named the Gargoyle, who changes sides once he’s cured by good-old American science.

That original version of the character also wasn’t triggered by anger. Instead he was a cross between Mr. Hyde, and the werewolf; a monster by night and a man by day. The book wasn’t really a hit, and it was canceled after only six issues, eventually coming back after some succesful guest appearances in the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers.

imageThe entire history of the comic has really been a study in ways to to tell good stories about an out of control monster. The different takes have been more or less successful, as the Hulk’s intelligence runs the gamut from grunting animal to erudite leader. But sooner or later he ends up back where he started, yelling “Hulk Smash” as he rips apart a tank. He’s also gone through a number of color changes (he’s currently red in the comics).

On television the solution was to turn Banner into a version of the Fugitive. Each week he’d visit a different town, and face a new set of corrupt officials or menacing gangsters. It allowed him to “make a difference in the lives of everyone he touched,” and then move on, While it wasn’t perfect, it worked pretty well as a vehicle for the character.  They also used that “man on the run” plot in the comics recently, and it was probably the best the book had been in a while.  But like every Hulk story, eventually it gets stale , so they shot the character into space and made him the warlord king of an alien planet, ultimately leading to his coming back to Earth, and tearing a lot of stuff apart.

image The main problem is that the human side of the character, Dr. Banner, has to disappear whenever the title character is around. So if you’re trying to tell a story about a man working to free himself of the monster inside, that comes to a screeching halt whenever the Hulk is around.  Suddenly your hero is an out of control beast, smashing up the landscape, and basically doing the things that would make you a villain in any other story. That works great when he’s not the main character. The recent Ultimates series did a great job of showing that the character can be used as a weapon, but only with great consequences both for Banner, and the people using him. You also can’t cure the guy, or the story is over.

As a metaphor, the idea of the Hulk as a living atom bomb held back by nothing more than the weak spirit of an average man is probably the most useful from a storytelling perspective.  I’m just not sure that’s ever going to work for the main character in a summer action blockbuster.

Sure, “Hulk smash,” he just may not be able to smash box office records.

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