Kelson Reviews Stuff - Page 43

Starborn is one of three series BOOM! Studios launched in 2010 with ideas by the master of Marvel storytelling, Stan Lee himself. This one comes with an intriguing premise: Benjamin Warner is an unpublished writer, who has been building a science-fiction world ever since he was a child. He finally sent off his first novel to a publisher…and suddenly discovers that what he thought was science-fiction — not to mention all in his head — is in fact very real. And because of what he knows, it wants him dead.

The first issue is mostly exposition, but there’s enough action at the beginning (in the sci-fi setting) and at the end (in reality) to keep things moving. Some elements seem a bit too familiar for someone who’s read a lot of science fiction, but there’s enough going on…and enough left unexplained…to be intriguing. The art style doesn’t really grab me, but I do like the contrast presented between the sci-fi elements and the ordinary world. It may grow on me.

Verdict: Definitely worth a look! I’d like to know more about the world, and the lead character’s role in it, as well as where the story might go.

CBR has a preview of the book.

Starborn #1
Concept by Stan Lee
Written by Chris Roberson
Art by Khary Randolph

Update: The series ran for 12 issues. I don’t remember how far I got or why I stopped reading it.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a fun, funny mash-up of movie, comic book and video game sensibilities. The story combines a romantic comedy with a fighting video game, and the film just runs full-tilt with the idea.

Every new relationship comes with baggage. In this case, the baggage happens to be Ramona Flowers’ seven evil exes, who all want to fight Scott Pilgrim if he’s going to date her. Fights are staged like video games, with “X vs Y” captions, physics-defying moves and special powers, and defeated opponents transforming into coins. Caption boxes provide extra information. Flashbacks are illustrated in comic-strip form.

Its biggest flaw, IMO, is that it tries so hard to fit all the battles into one movie that it forgets to slow down and show us that Scott and Ramona actually like each other (most of the time). There’s no real sense of time, and it feels like the whole thing could happen in a week. So when the supporting cast starts asking Scott whether being with Ramona is really worth all the effort, it’s a good question, one that makes the ultimate ending a bit less satisfying than the one in the original graphic novels.

The original comics tell the story over six volumes, which take place over roughly a year. Obviously side characters are developed a lot more. More importantly for the lead story, Ramona is developed a lot more, and you get to see the two of them dealing with an actual relationship, rather than simply “You’re hot, wanna go out?” “Oh, okay.” You get much more of a sense that the fights mean something. The later volumes also focus heavily on people growing up and growing apart, something which there really isn’t time for in the movie.

They also make it clear that Scott isn’t as great as he thinks he is. He does have the potential to become the next evil ex, after all.

The movie is great fun. If you liked it, I absolutely recommend picking up the graphic novels. If you liked the idea, but not the execution, or if you can’t stand Michael Cera (I know that’s a consideration for some people, and I had my doubts when I heard that he’d been cast in the role), I recommend picking up the first volume or two to give it a try.

Update

The 2023 cartoon Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is even better. It benefits from more time (eight episodes vs. one movie), an infinite effects budget, and hindsight, and manages to tell a different, but closely related story while somehow being both wackier and more introspective.

Also, I wasn’t doing star ratings when I wrote this up for my blog back in 2010, but I’m retroactively giving it 4 stars.

Interesting Links

A fan tracked down the real-life locations in Toronto that Brian Lee O’Malley used as reference, then took photos to match them up with the comic panels. It reminds me of a story that O’Malley told at Comic-Con last(?) year about the movie production. They tried to use actual locations when possible, and at one point went to film a scene with a particular phone booth, only to find it had been torn out. They rebuilt the phone booth for the scene!

My Friday at Comic-Con included stumbling into O’Malley’s signing, spotting cosplay and window art, and completely missing the “Scott Pilgrim Experience.” (Though I did eventually pick up some “stuff.”)

The movie trailer recreated with panels from the original comics.

Scott Pilgrim Versus The Unfortunate Tendency To Review The Audience – If you don’t like the movie, that’s fine…but is it really necessary to insult the people who do like it?

Author Seanan McGuire explains why movies’ financial success matters to fans: Since Scott Pilgrim failed at the box office, similar movies aren’t going to be funded for quite a while. I’ve actually been meaning to write up something similar, but haven’t gotten around to it.

Years later, author John Scalzi describes why the movie is a perennial comfort watch, and goes into just how much of a mess all the characters are and how well it fits the mode of life in your 20s, still trying to figure out who you are, never mind who you want to be.

We went out to see Kooza last Thursday (January 21) during a lightning storm, (which was a bit of a story by itself).

The show was impressive. I think this is the sixth Cirque du Soleil show I’ve seen and they’ve all been good. A few acts did look kind of familiar, like the guy balancing on a 20-foot-tall tower of chairs (we’d seen a similar act at the OC Fair last summer), but even those acts maintained the “how the heck do they do that?!” factor. A contortionist act reminded me of someone’s idea back in the early 1990s, never realized as far as I know, to get contortionists to play non-humanoid aliens on science-fiction shows. (These days, you can just use CGI to portray any body structure you want.)

The centerpiece of the show was sort of a giant double human hamster wheel. Two mesh wheels, each with a diameter of perhaps 1½ times the height of the performers, are attached to either end of a scaffolding, which is then suspended from the ceiling so that the entire structure can rotate. Then two performers proceed to run and jump inside the wheels as the whole thing spins around in the air…and then they start running around the outside of the wheels! According to the Cirque website, it’s called the Wheel of Death.

The clowns seemed more prominent in this show than in the others I’ve seen, to the point where they basically had two MC characters: one serious, one comedic.

Oddly enough, the show features a rainstorm. There was enough fake thunder and lightning that we probably didn’t recognize the real thing a few times!

This should have been a great movie. Epic story, all-star cast…but it was intensely boring. 16 years later, I barely remember a thing about it other than being bored out of my skull, but the boredom itself left that much of an impression.

So bad that the group of friends I was with started heckling the movie, and the rest of the audience joined in. Of course, that means we found something fun about it, so it probably doesn’t count. (Similarly, I rather enjoyed Van Helsing as a comedy, even though it doesn’t seem to have been intended as one.)