Tag: SciFi

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Yeah sure, Heroes X-Men blah blah blah, but wait, there’s more. I’m getting a distinct vibe from the latest episode that has less to do with mutants than with good TV. This makes me very happy, all the more because I didn’t pick up on it until the third-to-last ep of the season. Of course, that could be just a lack of recent J. Michael Straczynski in my life.

Warning: the remainder of this post contains spoilers for Heroes through episode 1.21 “The Hard Part.” Also, if you haven’t seen Babylon 5 and Memento, or at least have some working knowledge of the two, you probably won’t be able to make head or tail of it. (God knows I can’t, and I wrote the darn thing.) The more background, the better. Continue reading →

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I was browsing the DVD releases at Target this weekend, and saw the box for Bring it On: All or Nothing. I did a double-take, because right there on the cover was Claire Bennet from Heroes:

Bring it On: All or Nothing DVD cover Claire Bennet

Yes, shortly before Hayden Panettiere played a cheerleader with super-powers on Heroes, she played a cheerleader in a direct-to-video sequel to Bring it On. The uniform is even the same color scheme!

She’s probably safe from being typecast, though. She’s done quite a bit of work, and something tells me Claire isn’t going to be cheering—or particularly cheerful, for that matter—anytime soon.

Edit: Forgot to mention, the Heroes Wiki is was a fascinating and addictive site.

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I grew up with Star Wars. It was the key fandom of my childhood. I don’t remember discovering Star Wars because I did so before I could really form long-term memories. I started reading the novels when Heir to the Empire came out, and the Dark Empire and Tales of the Jedi comics. I was thrilled to see the special editions in theaters after nearly 15 years, even though some of the changes, like Greedo firing first and the way that you restored the Jabba scene,* didn’t make sense.

And while I’ve lost some interest over time—the novels and comics have gotten so complex that I wouldn’t have time to keep up with them if I wanted to, and the prequels were less engaging than the original series—I stayed on board for the entire prequel trilogy. Grumbling at times, but enjoying them nonetheless.

When you announced that only the special editions would be available on videotape, I was disappointed, because I liked both versions. When you announced that the films would be changed again for the DVDs, I was disappointed for the same reason. But I bought the DVDs, and (mostly) enjoyed them.

So when you announced that the original versions of the original trilogy would be available on DVD, I was thrilled! Continue reading →

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I’ve been working my way through the classic Universal Frankenstein movies, some of which I’m sure I’ve seen before, and some of which I’m sure I haven’t. Of course, they get filtered through having read the book at least three times and having watched Young Frankenstein many times.

Last weekend I watched Bride of Frankenstein. It’s a good movie, but the framing sequence bugs me. In it, Lord Byron is telling Mary Shelley how much he enjoyed her tale of horror, and proceeds to revisit the high points in the 1935 version of “Previously, in Frankenstein…” Unfortunately, just about everything he mentions wasn’t in her book! (Neither the 1818 or 1831 versions.) He then bemoans that it should have ended so abruptly, at which point she says something like, “Ended? That wasn’t the end at all!” and proceeds to tell Percy Shelley and Lord Byron the tale of, well, the next movie.

All this, despite the fact that the movies clearly take place in the 20th century, though they at least went to the effort to dress Byron and the Shelleys in period costumes.

On one hand, it’s a nifty conceit, made somehow more appropriate by casting the same actress, Elsa Lanchester, as both Mary Shelley and the Bride.

On the other hand, it’s emblematic of Hollywood’s mixed demand and contempt for original source material and its authors. This is the industry that brought us both Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, trading on the author’s name as a claim of authenticity while still taking things in their own direction. (To be fair, both movies made efforts to include aspects of the original stories that are usually left out. And MSF followed quite well until about 5 minutes before the end, at which point it took a 90° turn and flew off into another movie entirely.)

Neil Gaiman says it best in his short story, “The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories” (in Smoke and Mirrors):

She managed a pitying look, of the kind that only people who know that books are, at best, properties on which films can be loosely based, can bestow on the rest of us.

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Apparently Stargate: SG-1 has been canceled after 10 seasons. I wasn’t a fan, but you’ve got to admit, 10 seasons is a serious accomplishment. But I found one remark interesting:

Ironically, this is the first year since Season Four that plans were already in place, both creatively and in signed actor contracts, for another year. The show has lived on year-to-year since moving to SCI FI, with the writers forced to write a possible series finale every year — only to find the show renewed once again.

A space-based show on the Sci-Fi Channel, used to planning one year at a time, has finally decided to plan two years, only to find themselves cut off halfway through. Starring (among others) Ben Browder and Claudia Black. It sounds oddly familiar. Where could I possibly have heard something like this before?

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The Blood KnightSorry I haven’t posted much here lately. The main reason is that I’ve been re-reading Greg Keyes’ Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series before picking up The Blood Knight. (I’ve also been spending time at the Comic Bloc Forums discussing the Flash relaunch.)

Re-reading The Briar King and The Charnel Prince both followed the same pattern: I read half of the book over the course of the week, then finished it on the weekend. I started the new book, The Blood Knight on Saturday morning and basically spent the weekend on the couch reading. About ¾ of the way in I realized acutely that, no matter how fast I read it, there would still be one book left when I finished.

It’s funny, when I first read The Briar King I didn’t like it much. I think mainly I was expecting something less steeped in medieval Europe (based on The Waterborn and The Blackgod). I picked up The Charnel Prince anyway, and liked it much better, and quite enjoyed The Briar King when I reread it.

One thing that’s unusual about this series is that there’s no Merlin figure. No Gandalf to show up in the first few chapters and explain what the Ring is, who wants it, and what has to be done with it. No Moiraine to explain who the Forsaken are, and what it means to be the Dragon Reborn. All the characters are pretty much figuring things out as they go. And they make mistakes—pretty nasty ones in some cases.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that Greg Keyes and Neil Gaiman are the only authors whose work I will buy in hardcover, sight unseen. Looking at Keyes’ website, I realized that I actually own a copy of every book he’s published. There aren’t too many authors I can say that about.

Only 1½ years until The Born Queen…