Ready Player One (a movie review post)

First, I have not read Ready Player One.
I've thought about reading it for a while, now, because, evidently, it made a big splash in certain circles. It's one of those books that I would read for the sake of seeing what the big deal is as opposed to having any real interest in the genre or the subject matter. HOWEVER...
After seeing the movie, I have lost all desire to read the book.
And that is a failing on the part of the movie. If an adaptation is good, it will give you a desire to seek out the source material, and this movie killed the desire I already had in reading the book.

Well, Ernest Cline probably played a part in that, too. I heard an interview with him where he goes on and on, basically, about how great he is and how original his novel is and how no one had ever done anything like that before...
Wait a minute! Original? Does he actually think his idea about a virtual world is original? Because that's what he said.
But, maybe, he comes from an alternate Earth where Snow Crash and the Otherland series and a plethora of other novels were never written so he thought he was first. Except I'm sure that's not the case. He's just one of those guys who is full of himself. Maybe it was because his book was a smash hit, but, honestly, he's probably been like that his whole life.

The lacklusterness of the movie didn't do anything to convince me otherwise.

Yes, I just called the movie "lackluster," which is not to say that it wasn't full of luster. It's shiny and sparkly and full of sheen. It is, after all, Spielberg, and the man knows how to make a movie. So, if you just want to wallow in the visual extravagance of it all, this movie will do it for you. It's like a reflecting pool.

Which is to say that it's shallow.
Shallow as heck.
It has one message: People spend too much time online.
It has one message, and the movie isn't really subtle about its presentation of it: People spend too much time online.
It has one message that they are so worried you won't get that they slap you in the face with it at the end of the movie: Get the fuck off your computer a couple of days a week!
Okay, so they're not quite that aggressive with it, but it's close. It is a PG-13 movie, after all.

Part of the draw for me for seeing the movie was the supposed 80s pop culture theme. I mean, I grew up in the 80s so, of course, that was a draw. The problem, then, is that this is just not true. Which is not to say that the movie doesn't have 80s pop culture references; the protagonist does, after all, drive a DeLorean. But it's misleading to say that the movie is a tribute to the 80s. Actually, that's an outright lie. It's not the 80s that the movie is a tribute to but pop culture itself. Sure, the 80s gets plenty of screen time, but the movie opens with a nod to Minecraft and soon follows with a twister reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz, neither of which have anything to do with the 80s. The Atari and D&D references are more appropriately attributed to the 70s.

There's nothing wrong with all of the other pop culture references -- I think it's better, in fact -- I just find the misrepresentation, mostly on the part of viewers from what I can tell, to be interesting. Maybe people seeing the movie are missing the non-80s references? Or, maybe, because there are a lot of video game references, they have no context at all for getting those? Or maybe they're placing other references they're familiar with into the 80s because that's when they became familiar with said reference. Like Willy Wonka, also from the 70s. I don't know.

People are weird.

To be clear, it's not a bad movie. The movie is thoroughly enjoyable in a cotton candy kind of way. It's visually exciting and won't tax your brain by giving you any thoughts or asking you to figure anything out. It's also totally forgettable, which I find unfortunate. Like cotton candy, it's going to melt in your mouth before you ever get a chance to swallow; I just find myself preferring things with more substance these days. Or all of my days, actually, I suppose.

No stand out performances, either. They're all adequate, but no one worth mentioning, not even Simon Pegg, though he's as enjoyable as ever.

Clone Wars -- "Bounty" (Ep. 4.20)

-- Who we are never changes; who we think we are does.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]

Asajj Ventress is alone and on the run after Dooku's second or more attempt to have her killed. Trying to both survive and lay low, she ends up in Boba Fett's gang of bounty hunters. Despite his young age (and lack of Mandalorian armor), Fett is already in charge. Both Bossk and Dengar are in the gang.

This episode has ninjas. Or close enough.

And Simon Pegg does the voice of Dengar.

As opposed to the previous arc, which included a lot of bounty hunters who were fairly superfluous to what was going on, each member of Fett's team has a place and a use. They didn't feel like mere window dressing. As such, this was a really good episode. We get to see them all in action and see some of their personalities. It probably helps that we already have some familiarity to Bossk and Dengar, and it's nice that they are not just standing around in the background.

It's a good episode. Part of an arc, yet able to stand on its own. We get to see more of Fett's evolution, which is interesting. I hope they some day do a solo Fett movie but, until then, it's nice to have his background explored somewhat in Clone Wars.

Also, Ventress may not be quite as mercenary as she would like to think.

Into Whatness?

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a very busy weekend. On the tail end of everything that had been going on, Sunday night we went to see Star Trek Into Darkness. That was a drama in-and-of-itself. Initially, we'd planned to go see it on Friday night, but something came up on Friday night that I "needed" to do (there will be a post on that later), so we were going to do it Saturday. Of course, that was the plan before we pushed my daughter's sleepover party to this past weekend rather than the prior weekend, so Saturday got knocked off. That left Sunday, and my wife didn't want to do Sunday after the weekend we were having. She just didn't want to add that to the end of everything.

The suggestion, then, was that I take my oldest son to go see it and that would be that. My younger son has an ingrained opposition to Trek because of his love of Star Wars, so he had stated that he didn't want to go. My daughter wanted to go only because it was "going;" she had no real desire to see the movie. "Going" is always better than "staying" in her book. So the idea was that I would take the oldest to the afternoon matinee.

BUT there were complications. To start, he had gone off to spend the night with someone to avoid my daughter's sleepover, and he neglected to arrange for a ride home. There are two things to that: 1. We told him due to all of the stuff on during the weekend, we would not be available to transport him, so he had to arrange his own transportation. 2. My wife let him know very explicitly that she didn't want him gone all day because of his lack of planning. She wanted him home at a reasonably early hour on Sunday. Well, he failed to take care of that stuff. He called around 2:00 p.m. to let us know that he still had no ride home, a call I had been anticipating. At that point, I told him that we (he and I) were going to Star Trek... unless he didn't make it home, in which case, he would miss out. I figured that would put a fire under his butt. [It did. he dragged himself in the door somewhere around 3:30 (although, technically, he's missed the showtime I'd planned on).] The other complication was that I was just dead tired after all of the girls left and had needed a nap (which I barely got), so I hadn't been ready, yet, for the 3ish showtime, anyway.

Here's where it gets interesting:
So my oldest son walked in the door just as I was getting ready to leave to pick up my younger son from the work party he was at for the musical he's in at school (see why we weren't available to drive the oldest anywhere? Besides, if he wanted to, he could take some steps in getting his driver's license, but he's balking at that). My wife said to me as I was walking out that door, "You should see if he wants to go with y'all."
My response: "But he said he does not want to go."
"Just ask him anyway."
So I did. His response (once I picked him up (covered in paint (including a hand print on the leg of his pants from a girl (which would embarrass him to no end if he knew I was printing this))): "Sure, I have nothing better to do."

Okay, so, now, it was just us guys going to the movie. When it was just the older boy and me, my daughter had decided to stay home because she was have a water balloon fight in the park (this after all the water activities at the end-of-season league party); however, when she found out, upon coming in to refill the water pump, that both boys were going, she immediately changed her mind about the movie. Now, this was a problem. Not that she wanted to go but because now everyone was going but my wife who is the only one in our household that really identifies as a Trek fan. So I had to talk her into it, which wasn't as hard as all that after all; I just said, "Look, everyone else is going, but you're the one that really wants to see this, so you should just come, too." So she did. And she was glad of it.

As for the movie... well, let's start at the title.

What's the deal with meaningless titles? They annoy me. The title has no more to do with the movie than it could have to many movies. Like The Empire Strikes Back could have been called Into Darkness, and it would have held more meaning to the actual movie than this one. I get that it sounds cool, but, seriously, the title (of anything) ought to relate to the thing that's being titled in more than some vague way.

Past that, though, the movie was pretty awesome. Abrams  knows how to bring the action and keep you tense and on the edge of your seat. And, hey, there was no red matter, this time, so double plus good. Without giving anything away, I loved best the role reversal of Spock and Kirk. That was pretty awesome.

I have only two negatives (other than the title) at this point:
1. I do not want to see "old Spock" pop up in every movie as their tiny "god in a box." I get that the fans love seeing Nimoy (I do; I get it), but, from a story perspective, it's gonna get old if they always contact him when they're in trouble.
2. As much as I love Simon Pegg and love Simon Pegg as Scotty, he is the one character that doesn't quite feel right. he has moments where he feels like Scotty but, most of the time, the character seems off target. I don't blame this on Pegg, as he has no control over the writers having him do things that are not "Scottyish."

Speaking of the characters, I still love Karl Urban the most. Man, he could be DeForest Kelley. I swear, I can't tell the difference; he's just like watching the original Bones at work. And they gave him the line! Well, not the line but a the line: "I'm a doctor not a..." It was awesome.

Zachary Quinto comes in a close second to Urban on pulling off the channeling of the original character. Of course, he has had the privilege of actually working with Nimoy, so he wouldn't have an excuse to not be able to pull it off.

And, well, then there's Benedict Cumberbatch who was a perfect match to the rest of the cast. Mostly, it's the voice. But he seems to be able to play any kind of role he wants to play (see War Horse and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to understand what I mean by that).

And that's really about all I can say about the movie without giving stuff away, and I don't want to do that. As someone who is not really a Star Trek fan, I loved the movie. I do know that there are Trek fans out there that don't like what Abrams is doing, but, really, I'm not quite sure I get that, because he's really captured the heart of the original series with how closely they've managed to get the characters to their originals. It's actually enough that it makes me want to go back and watch those old episodes, and how much more successful can you be than that?

Tribble!

The A to Z of Fiction to Reality: Zero Gravity and Zombies!

Well, I'm going with an easy one for "Z." Really, "Z" just proved to be the hardest letter to find something for. I even had "Q" and "X" from the very beginning, but "Y" and "Z"? Hours of digging... hours! And I never found any one satisfactory item for this last letter... but I'm going to give you zombies, so lay off.

No, not zombies in space; although, that could be interesting. They wouldn't need to worry about decompression, you know, being already dead and sort of decompressed already, so that could make things interesting. Okay, someone go write that book, because I'm not going to do it.

Anyway...

We're heading back to Jules Verne land. As a complete aside, I'm astounded at how often the same few names come up over and over again in this series: Verne, Wells, Asimov, even Gibson. I didn't plan it that way, but you end up back at the same visionary minds time and again. Heck, da Vinci even pops up several times, and he didn't write! Not that he didn't write... oh, never mind!

So! Jules Verne... He really kick started this whole zero gravity  thing by making space weightless. I bet you didn't know that, did you? Before Verne, space was not weightless. All planets and moons had the same gravity as Earth and everything. But Verne made space weightless and all of that changed. You do know I'm kidding, right? Some of you people are just SO literal!

There was Verne and, then, there was Wells, and they both had these trips to the moon and space having no gravity, and we found out that it was true! And, then, all space sci-fi had weightlessness, of course, and that presented issues... like, how do you drink from a cup when there's no gravity to hold the liquid in? And, over time, sci-fi authors identified many of these things that would be issues and addressed them in various novels and short stories, and some of these things have worked their way into reality. And, no, I'm not going to do any kind of exhaustive list or anything. Sorry. It's the last day, and I'm just not doing it.

However, I am going to point out one of the things I find interesting. Moving from place to place in a space ship or space station presents some problems. At the moment, they're not huge problems, because our vehicles and things are still fairly small, but, still, NASA wanted a way for astronauts to be able to walk around, and one of the first things they experimented with was magnetism. Why magnetism? I'm gonna just say that it's a safe bet that that came to mind as early as it did because that's the method so many sci-fi authors used to enable people to walk around in space ships: magnetic boots. But NASA found they didn't really work. Sure, they kept you from floating around, but, if they made the magnets strong enough to hold you in place, that's exactly what they did; they held you in place. Forget about walking.

Looking through references to older science fiction literature, I found a lot about magnets. Magnetic tables, magnetic cups, magnetic everything... Of course, all of this was written before electronics, especially computers, were really a thing. At this point, magnetic anything is entirely out of the question. Oops! Set that magnetic cup down too close to the computer and erased the landing instructions! Darn! Hate when that happens! Still... it's all a very interesting progression, especially when you look to see how sci-fi changed to accommodate reality afterwards and how those changes affected future developments in the space program. And, hey, they're still working on that artificial gravity stuff, so, if that ever actually works, that's entirely from sci-fi. No matter how it happens, I think. And all of that may also lead to anti-gravity...

At any rate, if we ever do decide to get off of our butts and really explore the solar system, it will be interesting to see what other ways sci-fi informs reality. It's about time we had miners out there in the asteroid belt! Speaking of miners... I just saw an article about how James Cameron and a bunch of other billionaires have founded a company to explore the possibilities of mining the asteroid belt. Yeah, they are doing that now. Not the mining part, but they expect to be within the next 20 years. So... yeah...

And now... zombies...

And, man, I just really don't want to do this. I have a philosophical difference with zombies, but I've talked about that before, and I've talked about talking about that before, so I'm really not going to get into it. Let's just say that "I don't believe in zombies" and leave it at that. But I did the whole cyborg menace, so, I guess, I'm being fair. Even though cyborgs are actually real and zombies are not, more people believe in zombies, which gives them the same kind of realism as learning to speak Klingon, and we all know about that, now, don't we?

The very first (recorded) zombie walk was all the way back in 2001. In California. It was successful enough that they had one again the next year, and it is now an annual event in Sacramento. So, yeah, not just in CA, but in the capitol of CA. The idea caught on fairly rapidly, kind of like a zombie disease, and these things happen all over the world now. Guinness has a place in its records, now, for Zombie Walks. The largest one record was in Mexico in November of 2011 with nearly 10,000 zombies in attendance. Amazing!

Movies and TV and books... zombies are everywhere. I do appreciate Shaun of the Dead, though, and think Simon Pegg is brilliant. Like I said, I don't believe in zombies despite the fact that they do seem to be all over the place and people have actual survival plans in the event of the coming zombie apocalypse, but, maybe, it will be a shame if that apocalypse never happens. Well... at least, they'll be ready for the cyborgs!

Simon Pegg is brilliant!

Okay, folks it's time for another pop culture post, so strap on your special hats and pour a bowl of milk. Remember, pop culture always stays crunchy!
[Just as a note: my oldest son's pop culture hat looks like this:

Really, it does, but that has nothing to do with this post. And that's not my son in the picture, just his hat, but Adam, there, is already all over the web, so I'm sure he won't mind being in my little blog any more than he minds being in anyone else's. Not to say that he doesn't mind. He might. But I won't add to it, I'm sure, one way or the other.]

There hasn't been much time for movies in the last year or so. Or money. My kids will tell you about it if you mention the fact that they missed Rango and a whole slew of other movies they wanted to see. However, my wife and I did manage to make it to Paul, last weekend. We went with some sci-fi buddies of ours; otherwise, we might have gone to see something more "respectable." Actually, if we hadn't run into this other couple, we wouldn't have gone to see anything, as it was one of those "wow, we haven't seen each other in ages, let's go to a movie and sit in the dark and not talk!" kind of things. heh
But, hey, we did get invited to a party out of it.

Anyway...

So we went to see Paul. It's hilarious. Frequently, I laughed first and loudest. I think the movie was made just for me. However, the people sitting in front of us, what looked like a grandmother and her teenage grandson, didn't find the movie anywhere near as funny. I almost felt bad. Almost. If you like science fiction, especially Star Wars, you want to see this movie.

I'm not going to say anything about the plot, though. That's how I went into it. I knew it was Simon Pegg and it had something to do with a CG alien. But that was enough for me. It's pretty much enough for me to just see Pegg's name on something. It's like he (and Nick Frost, his writing partner and co-star) is pop culture. But, please, don't pour milk on him. I'm not thinking he'd appreciate it. Look, here's an example:
You MUST watch this if you like Star Wars
I will say one thing about the movie, it starts off at the San Diego Comic Con; alas, I've never been. >sob<

But it's not just Paul. It's also Shaun of the Dead. And Hot Fuzz. And it's Spaced. That was British television series he did. Yeah, I know; you've never heard of it, but that's kind of where it all starts. The beginnings of his pop culture brilliance. Go watch it. Right now. I'll wait. Okay, not really, but you can come back later. The blog will still be here. Probably.

Seriously, Simon Pegg makes movies out of the things that my friends and I used to joke about, and he's brilliant at it. Paul is under performing a bit at the box office, but don't let that stop you from going to see it. If you're a sci-fi fan, that is. If you're not, you're not going to get the movie at all. I think the lack of performance has more to do with the title than anything else. It doesn't scream what it's about like Shaun of the Dead. But the title is part of the joke. Paul. E. T. Simple. It fails to grab the imagination, though, so, unless you're actually looking for Simon Pegg vehicles, you're likely to miss it.

Which brings us to the writing section of our post: titles. The all important title. I one bought a horrible book because of the brilliance of its title. I'll even tell you which book: Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. That is an incredible title. I wish I'd thought of it. I bought the book. One of the very few books I haven't finished. But a brilliant title. Last time I bought a book based on its title, too. Yep, learned my lesson. Both of them. Don't judge a book by its cover (title). And have a good cover (title).

Okay, yeah, maybe I didn't learn that lesson well enough, because the cover of my book sucks, but that's more to do with the fact that I haven't been able to afford any cool artwork for it, yet, than that I'm satisfied with it. One piece at a time...

Anyway, go see Paul. It's not deep, but it is a good time!