Most Stories Don’t Matter

Jan 212016
  January 21, 2016

Writer’s Voice and Eugie Foster

I came across a Youtube video, part of a series on literature called Stripped Cover Lit, where the subject was the writer’s voice. They made a list of six great short stories that demonstrated the author’s voice. The six:

Donald Barthelme – The Baby
Ernest Hemingway – Hills Like White Elephants
William Faulkner – That Evening Sun
F. Scott Fitzgerald – Bernice Bobs Her Hair
Lorrie Moore – How to Become a Writer
Eugie Foster – When it Ends, He Catches Her

I have to admit never being a big fan of Fitzgerald, but still, I rather like Eugie being grouped with these, particularly Hemingway and Faulkner.

I’ve been having a lot of conversations (well, online conversations) of late connected to this. I hadn’t used the term “writer’s voice,” but I should have, as it is vastly important when speaking of the art of writing, and of things that have popped up recently in the F&SF community.

Most authors do not have a voice. They write words, but there is nothing that marks those words from the words of others. If an author dies, more often than not, another author could take over, finishing the work without anyone the wiser. There is nothing distinct. There is nothing vital. There are just words, stuck together in sentences. Style, subject, perspective—it’s all the same. If you happen to like that style, that subject, and that perspective, that’s good for you as you have plenty to read. But no story matters more than another. No book matters more. No author matters more. They are all replaceable.

This was a matter of pride for Jim Baen. Everything the same. Everything what you are looking for. Everything replaceable. That makes sense as a marketing strategy, with words being nothing but a commodity. It doesn’t work so well with art. Words that matter, that will be remembered—those cannot be just more of the same. It was one of (my many) complaints with the suggestions of the Sad Puppies. Most of the works had no voice, or if you prefer, all had the same voice with ten thousand other stories. Most could have been written by the same person, perhaps at different points in his career to account for improvement in skill. All the same.

This is why I give more leeway to John C. Wright than others. Because he has a voice. If I plopped down a pile of recent stories, particularly Pup stories, a disconnected reader would be able to pick out two of Wright’s stories, but as for the others, there would be no way to match them. They are all the same. Love or hate Mr. Wright, at least he exists. And it is better to hate a work of art than be bored by it, or to forget it.

This is not purely a Puppy matter. I bring them up because they revel in it, and because they want to give it awards. But this is the norm. Most stories I read lack a voice. I’ve been catching up a bit with my reading and most of what I find feels like everything else I’ve already found. When I find something that truly speaks, I rejoice in that. And I’ve found a few. And those will be the ones I’ll remember and the only ones with a chance of being remembered by the larger community.

Poe had a voice. Lovecraft had a voice. Vonnegut and Bradbury and Lee each had a voice. So did Shakespeare and Austen and Twain and Chekhov if we want to broaden our horizons a bit.

And Eugie had a voice. She actually had two different ones. Her Asian fairytales had a different style, a different perspective, then the likes of Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest, Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast, When it Ends, He Catches Her, and The Art of Victory (yes, that last one you haven’t seen yet, and you’ll love it), though there was a relationship between those voices. Her works were not like so many others. Another author could not just pick up where she stopped. Her voice is not interchangeable with those of others. I can’t say if her stories will be remembered. All the great voices, or merely the distinct ones, are not automatically immortal. The world isn’t fair that way. But they might be.

As for all those stories that are the same, from authors who have no voice, they will fade from memory.

This year I hope to see ones worth remembering, ones whose authors have their own voice, who are not replaceable, to receive the cheers and accolades. It’s a hope, but the world isn’t merit-based either, so I can only hope. I hope more for great writers, distinct writers, with their own individual voices, to rise up and create things that speak to the soul.

For now, I’ll just be amused at grouping Eugie with Hemingway. I wonder what she’d have said to that.

 Thoughts

“Go to Hong Kong and Find a Chinese Girl”

Jan 202016
  January 20, 2016

I was speaking to a Chinese woman whose English was only so-so. I’d just met her and knew her only for the time I was waiting and waiting and waiting some more for a meeting that didn’t happen—long enough for her to ask if I was married and thus, for my widower status to pop up.

And her suggestion: Go to Hong Kong and find a Chinese girl.

I found that both interesting and unexpected, particularly from someone I had known so briefly. Now this did not upset me. In fact, it was at least theoretically helpful advice. It certainly beats all the “Grieve in your own time and then move on” and “Eugie would have wanted you to be happy” and “You just have to move forward” advice that’s been tossed my way. After all, none of that, none of what most people say is of any use. I have no interest in moving on, only I know what Eugie would have wanted, and the only people who feel the need to move forward are the ones who have never thought about what people actually need to do with their lives—which is, pretty much nothing besides die (taxes are optional, though then either death or jail or running away might come into play).

And what this woman said would help, again, theoretically. I do believe in being saved by new love. It has happened to me. For anyone not up to date on my life, Eugie was my second wife. Katie, my first, died when we were both young. It left me without purpose in life—empty. Then I found Eugie, and she gave me purpose. She gave me a reason for existence.

A lot of people think enjoying yourself is a reason. I’ve nothing against people sticking around simply to enjoy themselves, but taking it as THE reason is a recent philosophy and nothing pins it as the truth of the universe. A bit of reading through your local library’s philosophy section, or religion section, will find a good many other views on what life is all about. For most of recorded history, “fun” was not the meaning of life. I’m a big fan of fun and pleasure and generally enjoying myself, but also find it a bit empty. I want more.

So, I find the woman’s view that I need to get another girl to make my life worth having to be perfectly reasonable. It is an answer. The thing is, I haven’t asked the question, but it is the only actual answer anyone has suggested to me.

Suggesting that I go to Hong Kong to find a girl is a bit more peculiar, but not massively. She was from Hong Kong, and people tend to think people from where they are from are the best people. Plus, I’d said I’d been to Hong Kong, which brought up Eugie’s race, so perhaps she thought I had a thing for Chinese girls.

Again, I’ve no problem with that. Now-a-days it seems frowned upon to have a “type,” but that is another very recent social switch and I bet most people still do, they just won’t admit it. So she may have assumed my type is Chinese girls—not really accurate, but I can see where she was coming from (though I’m betting the “my people are the best” was more the point).

To me, all that is fine: The personal advice to a near stranger and the idea of a Chinese girl being the one to get. Sure. Where it doesn’t work for me is in the underlying nature of it all, which is, that I would try to find reason, or meaning, or a future in life. People do that. They do it all the time. I don’t think most do it with thought. They take it for granted that you must go on, so you must find meaning and that’s that.

I was never good with assumptions. I don’t take it for granted that I must exist, or I must be happy, or that life must have meaning. So I’m not looking for those things. I’m not asking the question, so her answer, while conceptually useful, is not so in practice. I also don’t think the “going to Hong Kong” part is on the money, but your mileage may vary.

I think salvation in love is a fine thing. I think it is pretty much the only thing (I do not think much of the “save yourself” crowd or any of the so popular life roads that all focus on “ME”). And if it ran into me, I wouldn’t avoid it. But I cannot imagine going out looking for it. Salvation will come. Or it won’t (I’ve got my money on the second.) But either way, I’m not going to be running around, searching. That works, as I’m not sure where I put my passport.

 Thoughts

Deaths: Alan and David and Eugie, and many more.

Jan 142016
  January 14, 2016

So Alan Rickman has died. I loved him in Die Hard (didn’t everyone), and in many other films. I saw him first in 1978’s BBC production of Romeo and Juliette. It is still my favorite recorded version (beaten only a stage version I saw around 10 years ago).

And David Bowie died the other day. A mover and shaker in the music world, he changed things in so many ways. When I was in junior high, it was deeply uncool to like Bowie. The few who did so openly were not teased for it, but avoided; people were afraid of them. I didn’t know Bowie’s music very well, but as a controversial child, I was friendly with one of the girls who frightened others, and she introduced me to Ziggy. Not too many years later Bowie was in white jackets and the ultimate in cool, but I never liked his “later” work. But I did listen to Ziggy and the Spiders.

And everyone is crying about the deaths, or singing the two men’s praises. I’ve mixed feelings on it. I cannot get upset at death now. Eugie beat them to it, and did it much earlier, so everyone else is now just copying, and doing so often after a good deal more life.

I see laments that it (each of these deaths) is a tragedy, from people who have evidently had exceptionally easy lives, or do not know the meaning of words. It is a horrible, gut wrenching, world-shattering thing—but not for those saying it. For Iman and Rima Horton, and for others who knew them and loved them, it is terrible beyond words. I do not attempt to feel for them. Humans are poor at sharing grief, or understanding it, but I acknowledge it.

But this isn’t a tragedy for you. Someone you don’t know has died, and they won’t make any more art. Unfortunate. But if that is a tragedy for you, I marvel at your golden life. That isn’t even something to sigh wistfully about.

Among all the misplaced moaning, there is a something of more value: celebration. Rickman and Bowie, and Eugie before them, didn’t go gently into that good night. They left behind great works. While all those who post pictures on the Internet have no connection, no blood to drain, they do have those great works. Loving and mourning and celebrating the individuals is for others. But celebrating, that is for you. So stop inappropriate cries, or pointless introspection of your own mortality (you’re mortal—if you didn’t come to grips with that when you were 18, give it up), and instead listen to Major Tom’s lyrical tale, or watch Hans Gruber play terrorist, or read about a woman who can hear a talking skunk. Then laugh, or cry, or yell, or sing, not to the people you didn’t know, but to the great things they left us. Celebrate their works.

That’s what you can do.

 Thoughts

Ranking Doctor Who

Jan 092016
  January 9, 2016

This is a ranking of the seasons of modern Doctor Who, from 2005 (or NuWHO). I’ll get around do ranking the seasons of Classic Who, but that’s for a different post. I’m looking at the seasons as a whole, so while that mostly means, “were the episodes in it better or worse?”, the structure of the season as a whole and any season long arcs are also factor. I am counting 14 seasons (so FLUX is a season), and then I’ve also included Specials Seasons, which are the three times we’ve gotten a group of at least three specials instead of a season (the five Specials after season 4, the three after Season 13, and the three before Season 14). Other specials I group with the nearest season, with the exception of two during Matt Smith’s time since the BBC insists they are separate, and the fandom agreed, so I’ve ignored them.

And for more info on which episodes brought a season up or pulled it down, check out my ranking of every modern Doctor Who episode:

The Lowest 3rd
The Middle 3rd
The Top 3rd

Now, starting in last place:

 

 

#14 Season 13 (FLUX)

Oh dear god, does Chibnall have no concept of story structure? FLUX is a single adventure split among 6 episodes. Two of those, War of the Sontarans and Village of the Angels, feel like stand alone eps that were rewritten to fit the longer work, but the other four eps cannot stand alone. And as a single, season long story, it is a mess. OK, the good first. The cinematography is very good, probably the best Doctor Who has ever been shot. And Yaz is much more of a character now, even with a bit of agency and less petulant. And while new companion Dan doesn’t do much, he is amiable and a pleasant addition. Semi-companion Jericho is also reasonably well developed. And I like the makeup and performance of the two villains, Swarm and Azure. And that’s it. The rest is junk.

OK, what went wrong: Two many story threads, many left dangling or missing parts. Far too many characters. Extra villains who are irrelevant and underdeveloped (Sontarans, Daleks, Cybermen, The Grand Serpent). Extra allies who were irrelevant and underdeveloped (Vinder, Bel, Kate). No emotions on events that deserve big emotions (trillions upon trillions have died and the universe is in ruins and no one shows any sign of caring). Lots of emotion shown when there’s no explanation of why they deserve any concern (why does the Doctor care about her past?). Vague motivations (what exactly did the Doctor do that so upset The Division? Bringing “hope” is not an answer). Really distracting concepts of the size of the universe (apparently it is very small) and of physics (matter “slows” antimatter…). Everything ended way to quickly.

Word is that the season was supposed to be 10 episodes long and got cut. OK, then there needed to be some re-writes before they started filming that removed things that didn’t matter to the story so that important things still had room.

Best “individual” ep: Village of the Angels
Worst “individual” ep: The Vanquishers

 

#13 Season 11

In comes a new Doctor and a new showrunner, creating a season of consistency. Unfortunately, it’s consistently not very good. It doesn’t have the worst episode, but it is close, and it never shines. A majority of the eps sit in the middle of the lower third of all modern Who. It’s easy to blame the generally drab writing, but the problem is larger, with the structure of the show. Perhaps three companions were too many. None of them develop personalities, or enough agency to do anything other than meekly obey The Doctor. And none of them have any kind of relationship with The Doctor. They are non-entities that hardly react, and when two of them are motivated by a recent death, not reacting is a huge problem. This is one of the worst depictions of widowhood I’ve ever seen.

Jodie Whittaker’s general take on The Doctor has potential, but that consistency becomes a problem again. She doesn’t change. Not only does she lack an arc (most Doctors don’t have one), she doesn’t behave any differently in different situations. She’s always the same. She’s a little breathless and rattles off exposition with a single tone. The playful childlike Doctor could work, but she needs to respond to her environment.

Chris Chibnall brings with him a dark, ugly aesthetic. He’s trying to make the show look more cinematic, but he lacks the skill and the money. The blocking is flat, the lighting is dim, and the colors are off. Oddly, to go with that, he makes the show more juvenile, with non-stop messaging to kids to “be the best you can be” and “gosh, you can overcome your disadvantages.” It’s both off-putting and twee.

Best ep: Demons of the Punjab
Worst ep: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos

 

#13 2022 Specials

Containing Eve of the Daleks, Legend of the Sea Devils, and The Power of the Doctor, the 2022 Specials continue with the quality, or lack-there-of, that’s marked the Chris Chibnall era. There are unnecessary characters, pointless diversions, and juvenile themes while lacking the fun of earlier eras. And like FLUX, these specials were affected by the COVID lockdown, which is partly to blame for the poor editing and FX of The Sea Devils. On the plus side, only having two companions helped to give each a bit of room to breath, and Dan was the best companion of the era, bringing much needed lightness and fun. And I tend to be rough on Chibnall’s esthetic, but these eps don’t look bad (discounting the editing and FX of The Sea Devils).

I’ve ranked these above Season 11, but it’s close. The worst of these specials is worse than any of the Season 11 episodes (though just barely), but Season 11 has more eps that don’t work, so in the end, the 2022 Specials “Season” wins by being shorter, thus having less bad, rather than more good. And Eve of the Daleks is fun.

Best ep: Eve of the Daleks
Worst ep: Legend of the Sea Devils

 

#11 Season 12

It’s like Season 11, with all its flaws, but a little better. Not much, but a little. The Doctor is still too unchanging, the companions are still drab and have no relationship with The Doctor (but do become petulant once, which is not an improvement), the production is still weak, and the message is still only suited to pre-teens, but individual eps are a step up. The big change was more references to older seasons, with a lot of returning villains, which isn’t in itself good, but the writers seemed to have a better idea of what to do with those.

There were multiple big reveals, that really didn’t mean much. The Doctor is the Timeless Child… So? How does that effect anything? Why would that effect anything? Big emotional arcs need to be emotional. This one isn’t, and, based on 50 years of the show, shouldn’t be. This is the one time the Doctor is emotional, but we’re given no reason why she’s emotional. Considering how often the Doctor has tossed off past personalities (and sometimes shown distain for past selves), why is this past important? The show needs to show us, not just assume that it is.

Best ep: The Haunting of Villa Diodati
Worst ep: Revolution of the Daleks

 

#12 Season 10


This was the season of unfulfilled potential. Peter Capaldi had perfected his Doctor in season 9 and then was given nothing to do with him. Bill was an interesting new companion, on paper, but never developed a rapport with the Doctor and was made into an idiot by the second ep, and truly annoying by the third. The Doctor was a professor (for 50 years) and that was ignored. The great mystery of the vault was no mystery at all and Missy’s arc promised to be the best part of the season but did nothing and petered out—that might be the season’s greatest flaw as it brings a memorable character to nothing after repeatedly building her up.

The individual episodes were surprisingly close in quality, with a majority ending up in the lowest third. Season 10 doesn’t sink to the abysmal lows of Season 8, but it has eight episodes in my lowest third. I count the Christmas episode Twice Upon a Time as part of season 10 instead of part of season 11 as is usually the case as it has The Doctor, companion, writer, and showrunner from season 10, all of which would change for season 11. And season 10 could use the help.

Best ep: Twice Upon a Time
Worst ep: The Pyramid at the End of the World / The Lie of the Land

 

#10 Season 8

If I gave equal weight to the bad episodes in a season, S8 would end up worse than S12, as this season has some truly awful eps. It has both the very worst and the third-worst. But it also has multiple mediocre eps, which isn’t something to be proud of, but is more than S11 or 12 can say.

Clara was weak and distracted. The Doctor was grumpy and miserable; in theory that could make a fine story, but in practice, it was simply unpleasant to watch. Past grumpy Doctors took some pleasure in it. Then there is the arc. Missy/Heaven turned out not to be the arc, as the little glimpses along the way were only preludes to a single two-part episode. The true arc was the Clara/Danny relationship, which was mishandled, starting with the lack of chemistry between the actors, and then going into the poor writing and underdevelopment of the two. It needed warmth, but we never saw that.

Best ep: Dark Water / Death in Heaven
Worst ep: Kill the Moon

 

#10 Season 14 (aka Doctor Who 2023 Season 1)

Disappointing is the word of the season. With the return of RTD, the finest show-runner Doctor Who ever had, I expected a lot, and got less. Yes, he fixed a lot of problems, but he introduced some as well. And while there was a lot of good to the season, that disappointment leads to the bad standing out.

The season as a whole suffered from its star working on another show (thus giving us two Doctor-lite eps) and its small number of episodes, thus giving us only two standard episodes (Space Babies & Rogue) where we get to know The Doctor and companion as they solve some limited problem, and even those two weren’t completely standard as the first was overly juvenile, and the second separated The Doctor from Ruby for long stretches. This made for a very unbalanced season. Another problem was the poor use of magic. RTD never explained the rules, so it was impossible to determine if there was a real threat or why things happened. Often things just happened, with no rhyme or reason.

An additional problem was the callbacks. We got replicas of scenes from past episodes, characters who were overly similar to those we’ve seen before, and themes the show has already done (The eleventh Doctor spent 8 episodes dwelling on how someone was “special” only to learn they were just a regular person). Which brings me to the seasons failed arc of Ruby’s mother, Susan Twist, and Mrs Flood. The first ended up contradictory and a complete mess, the second was underwhelming, and the third remained a mystery. The season finale needed to stick the landing. It didn’t.

Finally we have the development of The Doctor and Ruby, and unfortunately, they were at their very best at the start of the season. Ncuti Gatwa was great as a joyful, energetic Doctor, until he wasn’t those things, crying and screaming repeatedly. With Fourteen taking away all the grief, it made sense for this to be a happy and stable Doctor. But if for some reason you thinking crying and screaming is happy and stable (I don’t) we have the problem that he did it too much. It stops being a big emotional moment. As for Ruby, she turned into the “Adoptee Must Find Birth-Mother” TV Trope.

If the season as a whole didn’t work, what about individual episodes? They were better, but nothing really great, which also means nothing to make up for the couple of poorer ones. I don’t have a single episode from the season ranked in my top 3rd of NuWho. Well, that’s happened before as there are seasons worse than this.

Best ep: The Church on Ruby Road
Worst ep: The Devil’s Chord

 

#9 Season 7

Matt Smith’s final year was sloppy. It started with a Xmas ep (the Narnia take-off Mother’s story) that didn’t require The Doctor nor include the companions. The regular season was split, acting as two very different seasons, with yet another Xmas ep in the middle. There were no 2-parters, for the first time in the NuWho’s run. The eps were supposed to be standalone, without the tight arcs of the previous two seasons, but each of the halves felt more connected than usual. Season 7A is the stronger half, following the family Pond, just watching them adjust as a family. It starts with a terrible, out-of-nowhere breakup, but that’s done away with quickly and it’s mostly lightness until River returns in a banger half-season finale that writes out the Ponds.

7B is more of a problem. Clara was introduced as a witty, energetic, and strong pre-companion in Asylum of the Daleks and reintroduced in The Snowmen. But when she appeared the 3rd time as a permanent companion, she was stripped of her agency and strength (which she would not regain for a season and a half). She had little of her personality. Eleven was supposed to be a more “grown up” version of himself, which was signified by a new outfit and new TARDIS interior, but the changes appeared only surface level to me. The arc of 7B was “Clara is a Mystery” and that ended with a whimper and a cheat.

This season has only one ep in my top 3rd and four in my bottom 3rd.

Note: The 50th Anniversary and Eleven’s regeneration eps are not considered parts of season 7, belonging to no season, though they wouldn’t change 7’s placement if I included them.

Best ep: The Angels Take Manhattan
Worst ep: Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

 

#8 Season 6

This is a strange season. With the exception of A Christmas Carol and The Doctor’s Wife, all the best episodes are part of the arc, but the arc completely falls apart into meaningless pudding and a huge cheat in the end. Still, I can’t recall having more fun with pudding and a cheat. It may not make sense, but it is moving so quickly, and is so entertaining, I didn’t notice until it was over. Amy & Rory are the heart of it all and are engaging and funny. River is the icing. Those three together are a riot, producing some of the funniest episodes of the show, while also pulling at heartstrings. Matt Smith continues to be an enjoyable and humorous Doctor. I can’t take him seriously as someone half the universe considers the most dangerous being alive, nor does he completely work as a love interest for River, but it is hard to beat him for wacky fun. As I will mention again below, this is one of the best TARDIS teams in Doctor Who history.

The non-arc eps were a tangle of repeats, giving us another stupid healing machine, another horror story based on a kid needing love, another thick morality tale on identity, and another joke ep that included defeating cybermen with love. Most of those weren’t bad, but were below average.

Best Ep: A Christmas Carol
Worst Ep: The God Complex

 

#8 60th-Anniversary Specials

This 3-episode arc marks the return of Russell T. Davies, David Tennant, and Catherine Tate and it’s a celebration. It was a cry out to the universe that Doctor Who was back. This specials season earns its place with its consistency. The three specials (The Star Beast, Wild Blue Yonder, The Giggle) are all good: the plots are good, the themes are good, the production is good, but far more importantly, the characters are good. It’s all about the characters, and what it does with those characters, mainly The Doctor and Donna, makes this perhaps the most satisfying arc in the show’s history. Plus there were surprises–real surprises, things never done in Who before.

No, none of the individual specials are in the top 10 of all time. Season 7 has one episode better than any of these three, and Season 6 has several. But those also have multiple that are worse, far worse. There’s nothing dragging this “season” down. And having 2 episodes in my top third is an accomplishment that the show hasn’t achieved in eight years.

Best Ep: Wild Blue Yonder
Worst Ep: The Star Beast

 

#7 Season 9

A huge improvement over S8, S9 avoided the depths of the last two seasons, with most of S9’s eps hovering a bit below the mid-point. It only broke into my top 3rd three times, with Heaven Sent, Hell Bent, and with the Christmas episode, The Husbands of River Song. But when it broke in, it really broke in, with two of those in my top 10 of all time.  It had been three seasons since any ep had reached that top tier, and no episode from a later season, to this point, has come close.

What worked was the improved Doctor. They’ve never shifted the personality of a Doctor so noticeably before, and only Sylvester McCoy’s and William Hartnell’s come close. Gone is the man who hates everything. In comes the old rocker, and him I want to watch. Clara returned to a character worth watching by finally reverting to the person we first saw as SoufflĂ© Girl.

The arc was a non-starter, since Moffat’s main concern seemed to be setting up red herrings. The hybrid, Missy, and “Me” came to very little and the Time Lords should have been left out of the season.

S9 just edges out S6 and the 60th Anniversary Specials, not due to average quality, but by its best being so very good. There’s a good argument for moving it above the 2008-2010 Specials, but its four eps in my lowest 3rd drag it down.

Best ep: The Husbands of River Song
Worst ep: Sleep No More

 

#6 2008-2010 Specials

With five oversized episodes, the 2008-2010 Specials manage a half-season, and is as long as Flux. This is still when New Who was at it’s peak and David Tennant IS The Doctor. Great plots are necessary when it is a joy just to follow Ten in whatever he does. And there was one great plot. These specials are a mixture of fluff, the ridiculous, and the brilliant. Both Planet of the Dead and The Next Doctor get a lot of undeserved hate in Who Fandom, mostly due to expectations (did they really think that the Next Doctor in The Next Doctor was going to be The Doctor?). They are both pleasant upper mid-tier eps.

After the buildup in The Waters of Mars, I’d have liked to have seen a final for Tennant dealing more with his slip into godhood, but the long, wandering goodbye was satisfying. If I could chop off the last 25 minutes of that rambling two-parter and make it into its own episode, it would be the best of the “season” and one of the greats.

Best ep: The Waters of Mars
Worst ep: The End of Time

 

#5 Season 5

Matt Smith takes over, switching The Doctor from a brilliant, dangerous, romantic figure to a cocaine-fueled, slapstick comedian. It’s a move toward the series’ roots as a kid’s show. Luckily kids shows can be fun, and this one is. Eleven works well in the light eps, but doesn’t pull off the serious ones, and never appears dangerous, though he is supposed to. That may be the season’s (and Matt Smith’s run’s) biggest problem; he doesn’t have the gravitas of Tennant.

Amy is everything I’d want in a companion: strong, sexy, a bit wild, and smart. More than The Doctor, it is Amy who caries the season. Rory, the man who dies, starts off a bit bland, but improves greatly, growing into an excellent secondary companion, and he really shines in the finale. River is wonderful; though Alex Kingston has little chemistry with Matt Smith, it doesn’t generally matter in the season where their relationship is mainly one of flirting. Once again, we end up with one of the best TARDIS teams of all of Who.

Both the plot arc and character arc are unusually heavy, with the crack in time not only mentioned in all the episodes but actually playing a part in many. Luckily, it was an arc that worked–it’s arguably the best arc of the show. The new Matt Smith music is excellent if overused.

Best ep: The Eleventh Hour
Worst ep: The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood

 

#4 Season 3

S3 was all over the place. Only Season 9 has as extreme quality changes. Leaping from The Family of Blood to The Daleks Take Manhattan can give you whiplash. However, most episodes are above the average. In the end, I rank it above S5 due to awarding more points for great episodes than the number I take away for terrible ones. And now, with so many weaker seasons, The Lazarus Experiment doesn’t seem quite as bad as it once did.

The arc is a complete failure for multiple reasons, but none more so than its ending, with mini-troll Doctor becoming Jesus due to the old Tinkerbell “kids wish really hard” shtick, the Master going for bad comedy, and the whole thing being undone. Basic rule with an seasonal arc: You have to stick the landing. This didn’t. Last of the Time Lords would be the worst ep if it wasn’t part of a two-parter, and gets slightly elevated by its first part.

Freema Agyeman could have made a good companion, but her Martha Jones was given nothing to do, and her failed love story was a bust.

On the other hand, don’t blink.

Best ep: Blink
Worst ep: The Lazarus Experiment

 

#3 Season 2

A new Doctor, and for my money, the best, along with a continuation of one of the great companions makes this a solid season. This was the most emotional season and the two leads had fantastic chemistry, which is why this season works. Often, what The Doctor and Rose are doing doesn’t matter, as long as they do it together. It’s them chatting that is so charming.

The Torchwood/Alternate World/Cyberman arc is well done. It isn’t overly intrusive while telling a story and not cheating in the end. And unlike other some Russel T Davis-era reset button stories, this one comes with a punch.

But S2 ends up in 3rd place because it can’t beat the writing for individual episodes in seasons 1 & 4. A majority of this season is in my top 3rd, with real standouts like The Girl in the Fireplace, and The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, in addition to the arc-heavy eps, but it barely cracks my top 10 and has several episodes below the 50% mark (Fear Her, The Idiots Lantern).

Best ep: The Girl in the Fireplace
Worst ep: The Idiot’s Lantern

 

#2 Season 4

So much good: The Doctor is fantastic; Companion Donna starts overly shrill but ends up golden; The return of Martha, better than she was in her own season and of Rose, and both get better endings than they had previously. The Dalek/Doctor Donna arc is one of the best, finishing with a fan service episode that delivers exactly what this fan wanted while avoiding being embarrassing. And we get the introduction of River. There’s real emotion in these tales while also telling good stories and delving into the characters. Even the weaker episodes aren’t that weak, not compared to other seasons.

Season 4 has twelve episodes in my top 3rd (counting two-parters as 2), including multiple in the top 10.

Best ep: Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead
Worst ep: Midnight

 

#1 Season 1

It started with the best. With 3 eps in my 10 ten (4 if you split the 2-parter), including #1, 12 eps in my top third, and none in the bottom 3rd, S1 easily ranks as the best season when considered episode by episode. The plot of the arc is wobbly to the extent that there was a season-long arc, but the real arc is the change in The Doctor, from broken, angry warrior to a Time Lord with a future, as well as the growth of Rose, and those both work beautifully.

The character development was on point. We knew who these people were by the time the first episode ended, and each week we were given deeper insights and we watched them learn and change. Christopher Eccleston is one of the best Doctors of all of Who (both NuWho and Classic) and Rose in one of the finest companions, creating a top notch TARDIS team.

Add in Captain Jack (one of the two best secondary companions of all time), an amusing collection of tertiary characters, some well presented themes, and a lot of fun, and S1 sings. Even the world building (well, Universe building) was solid, which is not always where Doctor Who shines. This first season was highly emotional, more than the classic show ever was. It was easy to get immersed in this Doctor’s adventures. The music helps as well. Composer Murray Gold is a huge asset to the show.

The only flaw is that there isn’t more of it as Eccleston was a great Doctor and there was a lot more that he could have done. Perhaps his arc wouldn’t have had quite the power if he’d stuck around, but I’d have been willing to chance that.

Best ep: The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances
Worst ep: BoomTown

 

 

 Lists, Thoughts

Assassin’s Creed (2016)

Jan 062016
 
two reels

Murderer Cal Lynch (Michael Fassbender) is taken by a secret organization of Templars to their lab run by Rikkin (Jeremy Irons). There, Rikkin’s daughter Sofia will use scientific hocus pocus to regress Lynch to his past life as the Assassin Aguilar (still Michael Fassbender). Sofia hopes to find the Apple of Eden, a MacGuffin that removes all freewill, and thereby end all violence and the everlasting war between the Templars and the Assassins, and Aguilar was the last known person to have it.

Assassin’s Creed was never going to be a great movie. Ignoring that it is based on a video game and video game movies tend not to do well, its basic structure dooms it: the film is split. All of the action is in the past with Aguilar, but we don’t know him. We’re told that the Apple is bad because it takes away freewill and that’s about it. Not shown, just told. So there’s a whole lot of fight scenes between people I didn’t know and didn’t care about for a thing that only matters because I was told it matters. In the present, Lynch doesn’t do anything. He’s angsty and talks a good deal to Sofia, but since the action is in the past, he’s just there between regressions. There’s no way to make that work.

Now, within the limits set by that structure, it could have been much worse. The action is well shot. The story, while far from gripping, at least makes sense. And Fassbender, who elevates everything he touches, makes it all respectable. I don’t know much about Lynch, but I care, a little, because Fassbender makes me care.

It could also have been better. Sofia’s personality is a whirling fog of confusion. Cotillard gazes and poses (ah, so much gazing) and there seems little connection between her expression and whatever emotion I’m guessing Sofia should feel. I’ve been unimpressed by her in other films, so I cannot tell if this was her failing or if the director kept telling her she was to feel one thing when the script was going another way.

The whole sci-fi angle was a mistake as well. They should have kept the regression as magic instead of DNA technobabble since that would have stopped me from asking questions that there are no answers to. But the biggest problem is how gloomy it is. If you are making a movie about super assassins fighting for an enchanted ball then maybe you shouldn’t pretend you are adapting a Russian novel. How to do you make this material pretentious? By its nature it should be fun, but Assassin’s Creed doesn’t want to be fun. It wants to be important, and it was never, ever, going to manage that.

 Fantasy, Reviews Tagged with:

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)

Jan 032016
 
one reel

Alice’s (Mia Wasikowska) fortunes are taking a nasty turn right when she spots a mirror that leads her back to Underland. Once there she finds that the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) is dying due to grief over his long dead family. The White Queen (Anne Hathaway) encourages Alice to travel back in time to save his family, but to do so will make an enemy out of Time himself (Sacha Baron Cohen), who happens to be dating the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter).

“Cynical money-grubbing exercise” is a phrase I’ve heard used for Alice Through The Looking Glass, and one that seems to have doomed the film at the box office, but only because it is completely accurate. Alice In Wonderland (2010) was a huge hit, far beyond expectations, which meant there was more money to be had. Now much of the film business has a touch of cynical money-grubbing about it, but normally the powers-that-be have the good graces to attempt to hide it, that or do their money-grubbing at levels other than the script. But with Alice 2, nothing is done because someone had a good idea (that they could then be money-grubbing about) or they wanted to express a deep theme (perhaps cynically). Even Alien v Predator had more integrity.

Through the Looking Glass isn’t an unpleasant film. I’ve enjoyed films less that I rate better. It is a pretty film and some of the art design is spectacular. And there’s certainly some talent in front of the cameras, even if it is mostly wasted. There are many objective qualities dealing with filmmaking for which Alice 2 ranks quite highly. And it is far less boring then dozens of other films put out this year. If it was a stand-alone film I might give it an extra reel and say to turn it on if it happens to pop up on free TV. Not a ringing endorsement, I know, but better than saying to avoid it.

But it isn’t a stand-alone film. It is a sequel. And a sequel has one job: Don’t mess up the original. And in that Alice 2 fails. Not on the level of Alien 3’s failure, but enough. It makes the world so much smaller. It makes things that were of great importance trivial. It weaken characters. It forces a kind of logic on surreal situations and lessens the world Disney had constructed.

Alice 2 is more prequel than sequel. The time travel “plot” allows for origin stories for both the Red & White Queens as well as the Hatter. But these are origin stories that not only are unnecessary, they rip at the fabric of the movie. Explanations should not be attempted for nonsense, and nonsense is at the heart of both Lewis Carroll’s work and Tim Burton’s. There is no emotional heart to the picture, only information we were better off without. When not in the past, we get family reunions no one has asked for. In the “real world” we get to revisit things that were firmly settled in the previous film and should have been left that way.

The marketing was all about Johnny Depp and so was the film (remember, cynical money-grubbing) which makes it doubly unfortunate that he is terrible. Depp is an idiosyncratic actor and there is often only a short distance between his brilliance and his embarrassing failure. This time he jumped over to the embarrassing side. Most of the rest of the characters, the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), Tweedledee/Tweedledum (Matt Lucas), the Dormouse (Barbara Windsor) the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen), and Absolem (Alan Rickman) have no purpose in the film but are there because this is a sequel and that’s how cash-based sequels work.

If I’m sounding too negative, I will admit that Alice Through The Looking Glass would make a fine screen saver.

 Fantasy, Reviews Tagged with:

The 7 of 87 Race Issue. Why the Pups Can’t Be Defended.

Dec 312015
  December 31, 2015

So, I just wrote an obnoxiously long FB post, in response to someone who supports the Pups. And as it occurs to me she might not want to answer, and it was obnoxiously long, I figured I’d post it here. And yes, it is on a topic I cover in greater depth in Welcome to the Doomsphere: Sad Puppies, Hugos, and Politics. The topic at this point was, according to the other person in the discussion, that Brad was a nice, reasonable guy when it started, and he only went off the rails later when he got a lot of flak. But that at first, he was trying to do a good thing. I disagreed:

I don’t feel much sympathy for Brad–he picked a fight. I agree he changed over time. He ended up with that stuff about SJWs taking him away to gulags in the night, which was a far flight from where he started. But you speak as if he started nicely, and that anger changed him. He picked a fight in his very first post (before he’d gotten any grief). He was not just talking about getting good stories awards. He started–very first post–attacking those he didn’t like.

A good place to look is Ken Burnside’s long post Hugo essay over on Mad Genius Club, because he is a Pup to the hilt (Pup nominee for related work), supporting a ton of things I don’t. But he points out that everything was doomed to trouble and fights from moment one, by Brad, that half of that very first Puppy post was about stories, and half was “Let’s turn this into a culture-war front.” Brad picked a fight where there wasn’t one, and then got upset that the fight he started was a fight. He started Sad Puppies 3 with an insult and a statement that it was as important to hurt others as get the stories he liked nominated (which was also Larry’s line–his was to “explode the heads of the literati”). Brad didn’t start with an innocent post, he start, knowingly as he later admitted, a fight.

It was also in that very first post that he started with his “affirmative action” line. He said later, in a defense against the Sad Puppies just being a bunch of people complaining that their favorites didn’t win (which is true of pretty much everyone) that the affirmative action bit is the heart of the Pups. And here is the point every Pup has to answer: That’s the heart, to stop people getting nominated just due to who they are, due to their gender and race. And the question is: which people? I went back, for 8 years prior to the 2 main Pup years; in that time 87 people have been nominated for a literary Hugo (some mutliple times–Resnick does well). 87 people. Of those, only 7 are not White.

So first, us SJWs are terrible at affirmative action only getting 7 in. Wow, those are terrible numbers. Now this whole race thing was brought up by Brad and the Puppies (I had no idea the racial makeup before–even though as an SJW, I was responsible for it somehow).

So, Brad looked at 7, mostly Asian people in a group of 87, and came to the conclusion that those 7 just didn’t belong and could only have gotten there by affirmative action. There is no way that Brad, or the Pups, can come out of that looking good. Either he is mindboggling stupid (perhaps he heard someone on the Internet who said they vote by race and he was so very dim that he took that to mean something), or he’s a special type of unpleasantly stupid, or he’s coniving. There is no, “Gosh, he’s a good guy” option with that. 7 of 87.

And that’s the thing, if you are going to defend the Pups, you have to find some way around that 7 of 87 issue. (And no, he didn’t mean it isn’t a way around because he repeated that he did mean it, and was backed up by many Pups. And no, he didn’t intend to discriminate against other races isn’t a way around either–because he did discriminate.) So, if you are saying the Pups are really OK, and that Brad was nice before the kickback begun, there has to be an out for that 7 of 87, and I sure can’t see one.

The gender side of things doesn’t help either (the numbers are way off there as well), but looking at the 7 or 87–that must be too many for the Pups to be other than the bad guys is all this–will do nicely. Before this, race never came up in my look at the Hugos. Nor did it for most people I know. But Brad and the Pups are obsessed with it somehow keeping them down. So, how do you defend the 7 of 87? Without a defense of that, there is no defense of the Pups.

 Thoughts

The Problem With Good

Dec 262015
  December 26, 2015

This has been a year of subpar to horrible things. Not in any enormous, epic, or catastrophic way, but in a more sleazy and pathetic sense. My thoughts are mainly on art, but it’s seeped into other things here and there. Our politics has been embarrassing. Watch one Republican debate and you want to hide away your citizenship. Of course Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, has not been displaying the best of humankind either. Poland and Hungry are making it clear that they can trump our slimiest worldview. Yes, that was a pun. Then there is our cultural reaction to Syrian refuges; it’s been immoral and wretched. The cowardice on display, there, and across the nation in so many ways, has been top notch. But I mean to talk about art.

Literature is harder to judge. There’s so much and a real understanding of what this year has brought won’t be available for decades. But in my little corner of the world, there’s been the Puppies, who not only wrote and promoted some dreadful stories, but then fought to reward them, grinding up the SF literary world for the year. It’s been a lowly place to be.

My area is film, and film has been sad. There has not been a single great film this year—not one I’ve seen anyway, and I’ve seen a good many. Maybe one hidden away, far from science fiction, fantasy, and horror, but I’m not holding my breath. No great advancements. No breathtaking ideas. Nothing deep and meaningful.

What about fun? How about fun films? Even those have been shadows of their former selves. After years of anticipation we got the new Star Wars picture, and it was
OK. Basically a remake, with all the same beats we’ve seen before. It wasn’t horrible, but it was far from great. And Marvel slipped as well. Ant-Man and The Avengers 2 were both fine, but will not be remembered, and worse, they displayed the cracks in the MCU and those are only going to grow. Cinema this year has been all emptiness. Artistically vacant via corporate mega-blockbuster-construction. You could wipe out the year in film and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.

Television? It too has been a wasteland. But OK, television has usually been a wasteland. But it is certainly back in wasteland form. A good example for me has been Doctor Who. For a few years, it was kinda brilliant. Emotional. Fun. Meaningful now and again. But Not this year. And not last year. It’s been pretty sludgy.  Sure, it’s had a few moments, but none that couldn’t be lost without concern.

And then there was tonight. And tonight messed everything up.

You see, all that garbage, and all that mediocrity—it’s been my friend. TV not worth turning on? Great. Movies easy to forget? Excellent. The Puppies? People don’t get that about me and the Sad/Rabid Puppies. I love those guy. They’ve been marvelous. They mutilated the little corner of an art form I value, and I can’t thank them enough.

As for politics and human nature, I’ve seen so much that’s abhorrent and it’s been a real dream for me. All those things, not worth seeing. All those things, better not seen.

And I’ve appreciated that.

Because Eugie can’t see them. She’s missing them all. I’ve watched the movies, the TV shows, heard new music, and known how Eugie would have reacted. How she’d have rolled her eyes at Death Star 3. How she’d have shook her head at the great fight to hold up buildings and said we should stay home and skip Bond. How she’d have turned away from the new Doctor and checked Facebook, which is only Facebook, so not a big deal. How she’d have tossed the crap Puppy books across the room. How she’d have said those stories, those movies, and the world, needs an editor, and she’d have been right.

I’ve gotten by seeing things I knew she wouldn’t have liked, would have been happier not to see. The garbage in art, in politics, in the souls of men, has been a gift to me.

And then someone had to do something right.

I watched the Christmas ep of Doctor Who tonight. And it was funny. And it was clever. And it was well paced. And it was meaningful. And it was fun. And I knew she’d have loved it. She’s have giggled and nodded. She’d have commented on how they understood happily ever after.

And it is terrible. I hate it. I hate that finally there is something that she would unequivocally loved, and she will never have the chance. She would have smiled, which is the point to their being good things in the universe, and now she will never smile which makes it pointless. It makes me curse that the world didn’t burn, that it insists on still turning.

The meaning of the show works so well when you are living the happily ever after. Not so afterwards. When she was dying, that would have been the time. It would have reverberated then. Not, I suppose, that we needed it. She shone so brightly then. We both understood how the universe works. But still, it would have been nice.

Now, that meaning is past tense. Goodness is pain. I have faith that mediocrity will take hold quite quickly, and walk arm in arm with stupidity and ugliness. I look forward to it, and I’m sure if I were to look even now I’d find it. But it will take some time till I can do that. The wounds never heal, but they usually are not ripped wider. So I await equilibrium, and the return of the intellectual, artistic, and spiritual penumbra. I don’t think I’ll have to wait long. That’s not good for most of you, but it is for me. Good has always been subjective anway.

 Thoughts

FosteronFilm’s 8 Best SF Films of 2015

Dec 232015
  December 23, 2015

Following up on my 7 worst post, it’s time for the best 8 SF films of 2015. And again, I’m doing less than 10 because the year isn’t quite over yet. I’ll fill in those last 2 slots if anything deserving pops up. Here’s the best 2015 had to offer, starting with:

 

#8 Terminator Genisys

In the future, just after John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to save his mother, Doctor Who infectsfuture humanity with Skynet. Reese appears in a past that has changed from the first two Terminator movies. Sarah Connor has a protector Terminator and is already a kick-ass fighter. They have to take out a few cyborgs and stop the creation of skynet.

That this showed up on my Top list for the year does not say good things about the SF films of 2015. Well, it was better than the previous Terminator film. If you were of the opinion they should have stopped after two, this movie isn’t going to change that. Emilia Clarke is a fine replacement as Sarah Connor, though Jai Courtney fails as the rebooted Kyle Reese. Things blow up, terminators get crushed and I didn’t care. It’s fun in a way that Terminator 4 was not, but also forgettable. I enjoyed it while watching, but can’t think of any reason to see it again.

 

#7 Jurassic World

They’ve rebuilt Jurassic Park and to keep attendance high, they’ve genetically designed a super dinosaur. A generically evil military guy is drooling over the raptors as a new weapon, because, wow, is he stupid. Some kids get lost, the big dino escapes, the nasty corporate lady must become good, and Chris Pratt, the raptor whisperer, saves a few folks.

My list continues with another film that wasn’t all that great. Jurassic World is stupid on an epic scale. Not a single decision made by a character makes sense. Everyone is an idiot. Luckily the film isn’t based on sense. In a movie like Ex Machina, that needs to be smart, being stupid, which it is, is fatal. For Jurassic World, it weakens the film, but it still gets by as dino porn. It has big monsters and they eat people. Then people run around, and then there’s some more people-eating. As a reboot/retread, I’ve seen worse.

 

#6 Mad Max: Fury Road

Furiosa leads an escape of the sex-slaves of an insane warlord in an apocalyptic, sandy future. Her escape is simply a very long car chase one way, and then back again. End of film. Oh, and there’s a guy named Max there for no reason.

I enjoyed the vehicular combat in The Road Warrior and Thunderdome, so I was going to enjoy this. I didn’t really need those chases extended till they became the entire movie. There is no plot here. None. There’s some dialog, but Max is not a big talker. Fury Road functions purely on punk outfits, people acting insane, and quick moving cars. The world is nonsensical (how is the water hoarded, and is that really a good way to distribute it?), so best to enjoy it for the look and leave your brain off. Tom Hardy does nothing with Max, but Charlize Theron is excellent, as is usually the case with her.

 

#5 Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Luke Skywalker finds a droid with an important message inside. After a slaughter that upsets him, he boards the Millennium Falcon with a team that includes a rogue, an elderly mentor, and a Wookie. Luke gains insight from a small, wise creature and begins his journey to become a Jedi Knight. They are hunted by a masked, evil Sith Lord with a strange personal connection to the team and a fascist army of stormtroopers. Somehow, they must destroy the Death Star before it blows up the planets of the Republic.

Now, change “Luke” to “Rey,” change the masculine pronouns to feminine, and rename the Death Star.

Star Wars 7 is a construction more than a film, made up of pieces from the other six films (mainly the original three). It’s all homage and repeats. It’s well done, though lacking in WOW moments. The actors do better than under Lucas’s care, and so do the characters. It supplies exactly what the audience asked for. I don’t believe art involves supplying just what an audience asks for. That’s the job of hucksters and conmen. This is the finest movie you are likely to see that demonstrates the emptiness of the blockbuster business. It’s fun, hollow, corporate fun. It would have never created a legend, but it can live off of one.

 

#4 Ant-Man

Super scientist and ex-Ant-Man, Hank Pym, recruits cat burglar Scott Lang to become the new Ant-Man in order to stop yet another scientist/industrialist from selling shrinking tech to terrorists. And Hank’s daughter, Hope van Dyne, she
she
um
well, she’s there too.

The action is a lot of fun, and they manage to make shrinking and ant-friendship into powers you can take seriously. The same can’t be said for everyone’s plans. Pym’s initial trick to pick up Lang is just silly. The evil guy’s plot to sell shrinking suits (instead of the really useful shrinking gun) to terrorists is stupid, but the ringer is the ridiculous and completely unnecessary plan by our heroes. Pym could have driven by and tossed a shrink bomb out of his car window—done. Stupid plans are part of the MCU, but this film dwells on them. In other films, the eye-rolling plans are hidden with action or by our hero not knowing what’s going on, but Ant-Man is all about the plan.

Then there is the whole problem with The Wasp. If you don’t think you can sell a female-led superhero film, then don’t make it so obvious this should have been one.

(Full review)

 

#3 The Martian

Assumed dead, an astronaut is left behind on Mars when his crewmates make an emergency launch. He attempts to survive as NASA works on a way to rescue him.

As this is a slow, survival film that could be about a guy on a lost island, it should be dull. Why isn’t it? Sharp dialog. Multifaceted Characters. Real emotion, The Martian is way better than it has any right to be. In a year of films where I just didn’t care, I cared. Story-wise, it isn’t much. But then it is never about story, but how you tell it. They told it well.

 

#2 Avengers: Age of Ultron

Tony Stark’s need to find a way to defend the Earth leads to the creation of Ultron, an artificial intelligence more attuned to destroying the planet. The entire Avengers team, along with a few newcomers and SHIELD agents are needed to stop this threat.

Joss Whedon works his ensemble magic again, crafting an extravaganza that’s really a character piece. Each line counts and each character has his moment.

Sure, this second Avengers outing doesn’t rival the first, but then that’s a high bar. The action is a bit much (quite a bit—I’d have exchanged fifteen minutes of crowd saving and building breaking for a couple more group discussions) and a few of the characters are slipping into their clichĂ©s (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, I’m looking at you). No problem. There’s lots of heart, lots of wit, and fabulous new characters to take up the slack. Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Vision are exactly what the franchise needed, and I’d be content with an entirely new Avengers team as long as several of these new characters are a part of it.

 

#1 Nothing

Even grading on a curve, nothing this year deserves to be called “The Best.” My top film of the year is 3rd on my ratings of the twelve MCU movies. My 4th is 12th on that same MCU list. My 5th ranks 4th among Star Wars films, and 7th in terms of the most interesting of that series.  All of the films on my best list are part of a series except The Martian, and none of them are the top of their series. That’s pathetic. Only The Martian isn’t at least slightly embarrassing. There’s been rough years before, but I can’t think of any significantly below this one. Perhaps what is worse than the failures is the lack of imagination. Sequel after sequel and nothing new or fresh or interesting in even one of them. What wasn’t just more of the same due to being part of a series was more of the same due to copying what had been done in unrelated films. Movies below my top 10, like Vice, Infini, and Pixels (those last two on my worst list) are part of that second group. Gee, I wonder if the filmmakers of Vice, a film about a luxury resort where you can play out your fantasies with robots until a robot becomes self-motivated, ever saw Westworld? At least Jupiter Ascending failed relatively on its own—though it did fail. Ex Machina wasn’t part of a series and didn’t steal directly from another film, which sadly is a big deal this year. Too bad it went over well-tread AI tropes, and functioned by having incredibly stupid characters doing incredibly stupid things (key cards? No weapons? Girls being so mysterious?). Not a good year. So, unless I uncover some hidden SF gem, this year goes without a #1.

 Lists, Thoughts

FosteronFilm’s 7 Worst SF Films of 2015

Dec 222015
  December 22, 2015

It’s that time of year again to choose the best, and the worst of the year. I’m starting with the worst. Why 7? Because the year isn’t over yet, and there are a few films I haven’t seen yet (though I doubt The Hunger Games 4 will make either my top or bottom list if the past episodes are anything to go by). I’m using “science fiction” in a very broad sense. If the film pretends to be SF, it is. I’d planned to make a “genre” list as I have in the past, but there’s a good number of fantasy films I haven’t seen yet, and the ones I have didn’t make either my top or bottom list. Fantasy is very middle of the road this year. So, counting down the worst of the worst, starting with #7:

 

#7 Self/less

A stereotypically nasty businessman is given a chance to extend his life by transferring his consciousness to a lab grown body. When he discovers the body wasn’t grown, but has a past which includes a wife and child, he becomes guilty, and the secret company decides he needs to die.

This action film, that could have been rewritten without the science fiction elements, plays like a first draft spec script. Guns get fired. Cars crash. It’s not horrible. It is simply completely forgettable. Nothing about this film will be remembered in a year. It isn’t worth the effort to avoid. Ben Kingsley, who’s demonstrated he’ll be in anything if paid is again there for the paycheck, while Ryan Reynalds demonstrates, again, that he ought to be good in genre films, but somehow isn’t.

 

 #6 Tomorrowland

A teen genius, a robot girl, and a cynical ex-inventor travel to a parallel universe to save ours.

A corporate created kids’ film that should have been a family film, Tomorrowland has some interesting ideas but they were wasted. The main character is irrelevant. The movie could have been about the robot and older man, but then it should have been rewritten before even getting to that point. This is a movie that needed magic and adventure and it came up empty. Miscasting of Clooney didn’t help matters.

 

 #5 Jupiter Ascending

A maid learns she’s the genetic duplicate of the dead matriarch of a powerful galactic family (sure
) that owns the Earth. Their wealth is build on harvesting humans for a youth tonic and every member has a scheme for using the maid. But she has a protector in the form of a wingless, man-wolf, soldier, hoverboard pro (OK
). Do man-wolfs usually have wings? Seems so.

How far the The Wachowskis have fallen: Channing Tatum in wolf ears on a hover board; Mila Kunis spending two hours playing damsel in distress and being more worried about her outfit than the fate of the world; Eddit Redmayne overacting such that any proper society would repossess his Academy Award. Don’t worry about the story; they didn’t. It’s very pretty. The pretty doesn’t make up for the poor acting, nonsensical plot, or annoying characters, but its enough to put it a few notches away from worst of the year.

 

 #4 Infini

A rescue team teleports to a deep space outpost to stop a deadly cargo aimed at Earth and to rescue the lone survivor. They just have to avoid dying from the cold and from whatever pathogen drove the last rescue team insane.

Remember Event Horizon? Remember how it was pretty good, but copied too much from Alien? If not, watch Event Horizon. Or better, watch Alien. Infini is what you get if you set out to make a copy of a copy, and run out of script and money halfway through. It looks good, and the acting is passable, but all we end up with is crazy people who like to talk and walk down mysterious corridors. It had potential, and I still had hope—though fading hope—an hour in, and then they just give up. Suspense, mystery, and action fades away, replaced by crazy people chatting. I doubt if you could save this, but cutting twenty minutes would be a step in the right direction.

 

 #3 Insurgent

In an post-apocalyptic dystopian city, citizens are split into five rigid sects. A divergent girl (doesn’t fit into a single group) and her combat-trainer boyfriend are on the run after the first film. The evil, nasty, bad, naughty smart people want to capture her for a secret weapon.

Insurgent, the sequel to the clichĂ©-ridden, anti-intellectual, but well-structured young adult film, Divergent, drops the “well-structured” part, and gives us dreams and tantrums. Lots of dreams. If you like your films filled with events that turn out neither to be real nor matter, this is the film for you. There’s ten minutes of story, pointless grousing, and dreams. If you’ve seen the first film, and want to see the upcoming third one, have someone spend a few minutes explaining the very little you need to know from this one. Then go watch something else.

 

#2 Fantastic Four

A soft spoken young genius with no charisma is brought onto a dimension jumping project. He, Doctor Doom, his abused buddy, and the son of the project leader experiment with
  Wait. Isn’t Sue Storm one of the fantastic four? But she isn’t part of the 4 that try out the experiment? Huh. OK. So, the experiment goes wrong and gives them super powers, which they don’t do much with.

On the bright side, the pre-release word on this film was so bad that I was not disappointed. It’s as bad as you’ve heard, but no worse. The characters have no chemistry, no interesting dialog, and I wouldn’t have cared if that experiment had killed them all. The superhero part of the film doesn’t start for an hour and doesn’t go anywhere. And to strip away an possible enjoyment, the movie is tinted an ugly green.  The best thing I can say about this film is that the actors would be good
in something else.

 

#1 Pixels

Aliens attack using weapons that look and act like old arcade games. Adam Sandler, playing the same guy he always does, must save the day with his old time video game skills, because that isn’t stupid in any way.

Could a good movie have made from this premise? No, but a better one. If they’d let the not-very-funny moments come from the weak story, it could have been watchable. Instead it’s filled with horrible jokes that could have been extracted from ten other Adam Sandler films. Sandler spits out his low level quips, and they are never funny and usually unpleasant. When Kevin James is the sophisticated one in your film, you’re in trouble. Peter Dinklage deserves better, although you’d never know from his performance.

 

 Lists, Thoughts

So–I Wrote a Book

Dec 182015
  December 18, 2015

Hey, remember that whole Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies/Hugo thing? Well, I wrote a book about. Why? Because a battle about books needs a book. Blogs are fine. Everyone likes blogs. But a blog isn’t a book. And since all the real writers were writing their short stories and novels, I stepped in.

So, Puppies, Hugos, and doom–lots of doom.

 Thoughts

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Nov 232015
 
3,5 reels

Star Wars 7 is a construction more than a film, made up of pieces from the other six films (mainly the original three and primarily A New Hope). It’s all homages and repeats. It’s well done, with every aspect meticulously crafted. We may have seen it all before, but the new paint looks good. The actors do better than under Lucas’s care, and so do the characters. It supplies exactly what the audience asked for. I don’t believe art involves supplying just what an audience asks for. That’s the job of hucksters and conmen. This is the finest movie you are likely to see that demonstrates the emptiness of the blockbuster business. It’s a bullseye on a low target. It’s hollow corporate fun. It would have never created a legend, but it can live off of one.

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