Recently I went to a bank to deposit some cash. I counted what I thought was a certain number of bills and wrote the number of bills I thought I was holding down on my deposit slip. I waited in line, then handed the bills to the teller, who counted them and told me I had given her one bill more than what I had intended to deposit. I very gratefully took the extra bill back and as I did I reflected for a moment on how good it felt to have someone treat me with honesty and decency.
I can be a very petty person, even when it isn't obvious to other people. There have been occasions in my life when I would give back change (though never anything as big as a five hundred peso bill), or give up my seat on the bus, or donate blood, or perform other small acts of kindness and for the briefest moment wonder about my cosmic reward, or, in other words, wonder what was in it for me, albeit after the fact. I can honestly say that I do not entertain these thoughts very often when I perform these acts, but they are there, as embarrassed as I am to admit their existence.
And because I am, or can sometimes be, a petty person, I found myself almost immediately humbled and shamed by this woman's no-nonsense act of decency. If she were of the same mindset as many, many corrupt individuals who pollute this country, she could have easily kept quiet, pretended that all was well, and then kept the extra P500 bill I had inadvertently handed her. I would not have known until probably much later, at which time I would have absolutely no way to prove my claim. She was actually nine months pregnant; goodness knows she could have used the money. The only thing that stood in her way of pocketing my money really, was an innate sense of responsibility. When she called my attention to the extra bill she did not hesitate, thereby making it clear that she never even so much as contemplated doing anything other than the right thing.
At the end of the day, THIS is the reward, mine and everyone else's, for being honest and forthcoming with each other: a society where no one screws other people over, where everyone gives everyone else his due, and no one gets ahead by stepping on other people's heads. Strictly speaking, we don't "get" anything for being the decent people we're supposed to be in the first place, but if it means a society where we don't have to worry every other minute about getting shafted, then that is reward enough, as far as I'm concerned.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Weeding Out an Anachronism
With social media demigod-cum-tour guide Carlos Celdran having been convicted for violating Article 133 of the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines titled "offending religious feelings," and having been sentenced to a jail term ranging from two months to a year, there has been a lot of talk on the social media-sphere, talk about what horrible people the local clergy are, talk about whether or not Celdran deserved it, and talk about how ridiculous and antiquated the law is.
I'm particularly interested in the last bit, because it reflects an overall trend in criminal law nowadays, what with discussions on the de-criminalization of libel also making waves lately. People can post diatribe after diatribe against the church for pursuing its case against Celdran (whatever their pretensions to the contrary) but at the end of the day, the law was there for them to invoke.
For me the bottom line is this: the RPC is in dire need of a thorough overhaul. The reasons why could cover an entire series of blog posts, or even a book, but I'm nowhere near scholarly enough to devote the energy needed for that sort of enterprise.
Now, the option is definitely on the table to have the provision of the law declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and there seems to be every indication that this is the tack Celdran's lawyer, Marlon Manuel, intends to take.
My idea, which may be a little more radical (though I know I'm not alone), is that Celdran should do the time.
My theory is that there are few things that could more effectively hit home the absurdity of the notion of doing prison time for an offense that 1) can easily be settled by mediation and 2) may well have been overtaken by no less than the Constitution, than the image of someone actually doing the time. Celdran's picture in a Manila jail cell, wearing his Jose Rizal outfit and a wry smile, is virtually iconic in social media circles and one could argue it stirred up so much outrage that it helped the Reproductive Health Bill become the Reproductive Health Law. If such an image could help create a law, then it's reasonable to believe that a whole string of such images could help tear a provision of law out of the statute books to which it no longer belongs. If Celdran dropped his appeal and served his prison sentence it would be legally correct (as the law is valid until found unconstitutional), but morally abhorrent.
The media coverage of Celdran's trip to New Bilibid alone would be a circus, and in the age of social media and the internet he would probably be the first celebrity since Robin Padilla to have protracted media exposure while in prison. Padilla shot a movie during his abbreviated sentence in Bilibid (for illegal possession of firearms) back in the 1990s; Celdran's supporters would probably hold both an actual and online vigil and a social-media based countdown of his term. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Celdran got his own year-long reality show while on the inside. He could share Filipino culture with the prisoners and be one of the boys, assuming he doesn't become anyone's "wife" while he's there.
But then, if he suffered while in our notoriously hellish, septic prison system, the effect on the public psyche would be all the more profound. All the time he'd be in there, without even opening his mouth he would be declaring to the world: "I'm in here because someone insisted on implementing an archaic law that punishes hurting people's feeling with a prison sentence." That's the kind of imagery that would stick to the public consciousness for a long time. What better way, after all, to show the excess of the penalty than by actually enduring it?
If that doesn't get this batch of legislators scrambling to revisit the RPC and all of its forgotten antiquities (e.g. "dueling") then at least it will be on the minds of the next batch of legislators after this year's elections. If absolutely nothing else, Celdran could most likely get a presidential pardon.
Maybe, if the attempts to invalidate portions of the Cybercrime Law don't pan out, indignant citizens whose internet posts fall within the purview of the law can march to prison for "cyberlibel" as well, as prisoners of conscience. Just a thought.
I'm particularly interested in the last bit, because it reflects an overall trend in criminal law nowadays, what with discussions on the de-criminalization of libel also making waves lately. People can post diatribe after diatribe against the church for pursuing its case against Celdran (whatever their pretensions to the contrary) but at the end of the day, the law was there for them to invoke.
For me the bottom line is this: the RPC is in dire need of a thorough overhaul. The reasons why could cover an entire series of blog posts, or even a book, but I'm nowhere near scholarly enough to devote the energy needed for that sort of enterprise.
Now, the option is definitely on the table to have the provision of the law declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and there seems to be every indication that this is the tack Celdran's lawyer, Marlon Manuel, intends to take.
My idea, which may be a little more radical (though I know I'm not alone), is that Celdran should do the time.
My theory is that there are few things that could more effectively hit home the absurdity of the notion of doing prison time for an offense that 1) can easily be settled by mediation and 2) may well have been overtaken by no less than the Constitution, than the image of someone actually doing the time. Celdran's picture in a Manila jail cell, wearing his Jose Rizal outfit and a wry smile, is virtually iconic in social media circles and one could argue it stirred up so much outrage that it helped the Reproductive Health Bill become the Reproductive Health Law. If such an image could help create a law, then it's reasonable to believe that a whole string of such images could help tear a provision of law out of the statute books to which it no longer belongs. If Celdran dropped his appeal and served his prison sentence it would be legally correct (as the law is valid until found unconstitutional), but morally abhorrent.
The media coverage of Celdran's trip to New Bilibid alone would be a circus, and in the age of social media and the internet he would probably be the first celebrity since Robin Padilla to have protracted media exposure while in prison. Padilla shot a movie during his abbreviated sentence in Bilibid (for illegal possession of firearms) back in the 1990s; Celdran's supporters would probably hold both an actual and online vigil and a social-media based countdown of his term. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Celdran got his own year-long reality show while on the inside. He could share Filipino culture with the prisoners and be one of the boys, assuming he doesn't become anyone's "wife" while he's there.
But then, if he suffered while in our notoriously hellish, septic prison system, the effect on the public psyche would be all the more profound. All the time he'd be in there, without even opening his mouth he would be declaring to the world: "I'm in here because someone insisted on implementing an archaic law that punishes hurting people's feeling with a prison sentence." That's the kind of imagery that would stick to the public consciousness for a long time. What better way, after all, to show the excess of the penalty than by actually enduring it?
If that doesn't get this batch of legislators scrambling to revisit the RPC and all of its forgotten antiquities (e.g. "dueling") then at least it will be on the minds of the next batch of legislators after this year's elections. If absolutely nothing else, Celdran could most likely get a presidential pardon.
Maybe, if the attempts to invalidate portions of the Cybercrime Law don't pan out, indignant citizens whose internet posts fall within the purview of the law can march to prison for "cyberlibel" as well, as prisoners of conscience. Just a thought.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Microcosm
This blog has remained inactive for months, despite the fact that on numerous occasions I have sat down to draft numerous posts about issues burning the headlines. Still, I could not think of anything to say that had not been said quite exhaustively elsewhere and so, discouraged, I would abandon the posts and do other things. I no longer review movies here, whether it's to heap praise or scorn upon them; for that I now have Jim's Film Ramblings. I no longer review comic books or ruminate on TV shows here; I have Jim's Pop Culture Window for that.
To what, then, should I devote this blog?
Well, this blog is called "The Tantrum" and as it so happens, there are a lot of things wrong with society today, and a lot of tantrums waiting to be thrown.
I'd rather not write about things like the RH law or the Cybercrime law because that's pretty much being done to death elsewhere, by people whose actual job it is to write about these things.
No, my little diatribe will be about something with which many residents of Quezon City are no doubt familiar: the flyover on Commonwealth Avenue across Tandang Sora.
By way of a little background, Commonwealth Road is a major traffic artery which connects Novaliches, Fairview and several other communities in between to the rest of Quezon City. It starts at the Quezon City Elliptical Road and ends somewhere in Novaliches. At its very widest, Commonwealth Road is eighteen lanes wide, with each side having nine full-sized car lanes. It is reportedly the widest road in the Philippines. The flyover that traverses Tandang Sora is four lanes wide, in contrast, with two lanes on either side.
Every morning throughout the working days of the week I drive along Commonwealth on my way to work and on my way to take my son to school, and whenever I am about a kilometer or so away from the flyover crossing Tandang Sora, I see the two innermost lanes of the road backed up with cars. As I draw closer to Tandang Sora, I see a much larger swarm of cars veering left from the next two innermost lanes of Commonwealth and converging on the two innermost lanes, many of them cutting or trying their hardest to cut in front of the line of cars already positioned in the two innermost lanes. By the time I am a few dozen meters away from the foot of the flyover, the number of lanes containing cars trying to cut into the innermost lanes has doubled, with four lanes full of cars trying their very damnedest to bulldoze their way into the two innermost lanes, and with many of them succeeding at the expense of the people way in the back who actually opted to use the innermost lanes in the first place, as they should be doing. There are traffic aides near the foot of the flyover who attempt to control the chaos, and indeed there are even concrete barriers a few meters away to prevent the most abrupt possible cutting into the flyover lanes, but there is precious little any of these people or physical obstacles can do against such an overwhelming tide of selfishness and stupidity.
Every morning I see this spectacle. I see a less extreme, but similarly annoying version of it at night, but in the morning it is simply atrocious.
Every time I see it, I think to myself that if everyone simply used the innermost lanes to begin with, traffic along that flyover would proceed quite smoothly. The problem arises when one, then two, then dozens of motorists feel they can't be bothered to wait in line and decide to cut in front. Sure, there is an issue with the flyover being a bit of an anachronism; at the time it was constructed, Commonwealth Avenue was probably roughly half its current width, and it was a huge convenience.
Now, however, it is patently absurd to see cars from five or six lanes jostling for position on two lanes. This happens every day. The worst part is that many of the rude drivers prevail at the expense of the ones who actually followed the rules. The cars that actually make it to the flyover actually travel rather quickly, even though the struggle to get there can take anywhere from five to fifteen extra minutes compared to waiting for the ninety-second stoplight below it. The drivers of the cars on the bottom are apparently too important to be held up by the stoplight, so they cut in front of the people who bothered to get in line. Every morning, it's the same thing, without fail.
This traffic situation is a microcosm of what is truly wrong with the people in this country.
This is the attitude that permeates the psyches of everyone from manual laborers to white-collar workers to so-called public servants. What is well and truly wrong with our society doesn't have anything to do with who's in public office at any given time.
"I'm more important than you are, so it's my divine right to cut in front of you."
"I'm more important than you are, so I'm going to cheat on my exams."
"I'm more important than you are, so I will screw you at work for my own convenience."
"I'm more important than you are, so it's my right to steal millions of pesos from your taxes."
"I'm more important than you are, so it's my right to have you gunned down like an animal in the streets, or shot and buried in a jungle, or abducted by the military, never to be seen again."
So many evil acts stem from the same impulse that prompts motorists to cut in front of their fellow motorists; pure and simple selfishness. The only difference is that unlike the thieves and murderers, the motorists on Commonwealth flaunt their acute sense of self-importance in broad daylight.
The solution is simple, really; punish selfishness, at least on Commonwealth Avenue.
If history is any indication, in a few years' time, nobody will really give a damn about Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo going to jail or Renato Corona being kicked out of the Supreme Court; given our ridiculously short memories probably the only thing that will really remain in people's consciousness will be the politics of it all. I'm fairly sure none of the errant motorists on Commonwealth think that what happened to Corona or GMA could ever happen to them, because they're just motorists, after all.
Bringing the law and its enforcement down to the ground level, however, will be another story altogether. By punishing the rude "Commonwealth choppers," whether through fines or the inconvenience of having to recover their driver's licenses from City Hall, one could leave a lasting impression on motorists. Punish lawbreakers even with minor penalties, and people will start obeying laws. If implemented consistently and diligently, such punishment could really change things in the long run.
A good example of this can likewise be found on Commonwealth Avenue itself. When the government imposed a 60 kilometer-per-hour speed limit on Commonwealth a few years back, owing to the frequent occurrence of fatal road accidents, things actually changed for the better. Even before I moved to the area, I had been consistently driving up and down Commonwealth in the years since the speed limit was imposed, and I have observed that things have gotten genuinely better. The vast majority of motorists actually manage to keep their speed below 60kph, and not just because of the traffic. I think it's because people are actually afraid of being caught (which leads me to assume that violators have been apprehended).
Traffic rules are not a bad idea. They can save lives. Also, if people can only divorce themselves from the mindsets that push them to violate traffic in the first place, they can save souls as well.
(By the way, it would probably also help if they widened the flyover, though I'm no engineer and don't know how they would do that).
To what, then, should I devote this blog?
Well, this blog is called "The Tantrum" and as it so happens, there are a lot of things wrong with society today, and a lot of tantrums waiting to be thrown.
I'd rather not write about things like the RH law or the Cybercrime law because that's pretty much being done to death elsewhere, by people whose actual job it is to write about these things.
No, my little diatribe will be about something with which many residents of Quezon City are no doubt familiar: the flyover on Commonwealth Avenue across Tandang Sora.
By way of a little background, Commonwealth Road is a major traffic artery which connects Novaliches, Fairview and several other communities in between to the rest of Quezon City. It starts at the Quezon City Elliptical Road and ends somewhere in Novaliches. At its very widest, Commonwealth Road is eighteen lanes wide, with each side having nine full-sized car lanes. It is reportedly the widest road in the Philippines. The flyover that traverses Tandang Sora is four lanes wide, in contrast, with two lanes on either side.
Every morning throughout the working days of the week I drive along Commonwealth on my way to work and on my way to take my son to school, and whenever I am about a kilometer or so away from the flyover crossing Tandang Sora, I see the two innermost lanes of the road backed up with cars. As I draw closer to Tandang Sora, I see a much larger swarm of cars veering left from the next two innermost lanes of Commonwealth and converging on the two innermost lanes, many of them cutting or trying their hardest to cut in front of the line of cars already positioned in the two innermost lanes. By the time I am a few dozen meters away from the foot of the flyover, the number of lanes containing cars trying to cut into the innermost lanes has doubled, with four lanes full of cars trying their very damnedest to bulldoze their way into the two innermost lanes, and with many of them succeeding at the expense of the people way in the back who actually opted to use the innermost lanes in the first place, as they should be doing. There are traffic aides near the foot of the flyover who attempt to control the chaos, and indeed there are even concrete barriers a few meters away to prevent the most abrupt possible cutting into the flyover lanes, but there is precious little any of these people or physical obstacles can do against such an overwhelming tide of selfishness and stupidity.
Every morning I see this spectacle. I see a less extreme, but similarly annoying version of it at night, but in the morning it is simply atrocious.
Every time I see it, I think to myself that if everyone simply used the innermost lanes to begin with, traffic along that flyover would proceed quite smoothly. The problem arises when one, then two, then dozens of motorists feel they can't be bothered to wait in line and decide to cut in front. Sure, there is an issue with the flyover being a bit of an anachronism; at the time it was constructed, Commonwealth Avenue was probably roughly half its current width, and it was a huge convenience.
Now, however, it is patently absurd to see cars from five or six lanes jostling for position on two lanes. This happens every day. The worst part is that many of the rude drivers prevail at the expense of the ones who actually followed the rules. The cars that actually make it to the flyover actually travel rather quickly, even though the struggle to get there can take anywhere from five to fifteen extra minutes compared to waiting for the ninety-second stoplight below it. The drivers of the cars on the bottom are apparently too important to be held up by the stoplight, so they cut in front of the people who bothered to get in line. Every morning, it's the same thing, without fail.
This traffic situation is a microcosm of what is truly wrong with the people in this country.
This is the attitude that permeates the psyches of everyone from manual laborers to white-collar workers to so-called public servants. What is well and truly wrong with our society doesn't have anything to do with who's in public office at any given time.
"I'm more important than you are, so it's my divine right to cut in front of you."
"I'm more important than you are, so I'm going to cheat on my exams."
"I'm more important than you are, so I will screw you at work for my own convenience."
"I'm more important than you are, so it's my right to steal millions of pesos from your taxes."
"I'm more important than you are, so it's my right to have you gunned down like an animal in the streets, or shot and buried in a jungle, or abducted by the military, never to be seen again."
So many evil acts stem from the same impulse that prompts motorists to cut in front of their fellow motorists; pure and simple selfishness. The only difference is that unlike the thieves and murderers, the motorists on Commonwealth flaunt their acute sense of self-importance in broad daylight.
The solution is simple, really; punish selfishness, at least on Commonwealth Avenue.
If history is any indication, in a few years' time, nobody will really give a damn about Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo going to jail or Renato Corona being kicked out of the Supreme Court; given our ridiculously short memories probably the only thing that will really remain in people's consciousness will be the politics of it all. I'm fairly sure none of the errant motorists on Commonwealth think that what happened to Corona or GMA could ever happen to them, because they're just motorists, after all.
Bringing the law and its enforcement down to the ground level, however, will be another story altogether. By punishing the rude "Commonwealth choppers," whether through fines or the inconvenience of having to recover their driver's licenses from City Hall, one could leave a lasting impression on motorists. Punish lawbreakers even with minor penalties, and people will start obeying laws. If implemented consistently and diligently, such punishment could really change things in the long run.
A good example of this can likewise be found on Commonwealth Avenue itself. When the government imposed a 60 kilometer-per-hour speed limit on Commonwealth a few years back, owing to the frequent occurrence of fatal road accidents, things actually changed for the better. Even before I moved to the area, I had been consistently driving up and down Commonwealth in the years since the speed limit was imposed, and I have observed that things have gotten genuinely better. The vast majority of motorists actually manage to keep their speed below 60kph, and not just because of the traffic. I think it's because people are actually afraid of being caught (which leads me to assume that violators have been apprehended).
Traffic rules are not a bad idea. They can save lives. Also, if people can only divorce themselves from the mindsets that push them to violate traffic in the first place, they can save souls as well.
(By the way, it would probably also help if they widened the flyover, though I'm no engineer and don't know how they would do that).
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Of Bratpackers and Top Gunners
Today I saw a twenty-plus year old chestnut screen on HBO, the sequel to the 1988 sleeper hit Young Guns, titled, simply enough, Young Guns II and starring Emilio Estevez as the infamous Billy the Kid with several other rising stars of the era such as Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Phillips as his co-stars. I was reminded of my youth, then, and of a lot of the actors I grew up with from the 80s through the 90s, and wondered where a lot of them are.
Many young actors from the 80s have managed to endure. Sutherland has certainly left his mark on Hollywood, if not necessarily with his body of work on the big screen (which is already fairly considerable) then certainly with television hits such as 24 and more recently Touch. Charlie Sheen, brother of Estevez and 80s staple since the breakout success of Oliver Stone's Platoon, was, up until his bizarre meltdown a year or two ago the highest paid actor in television for his work on Two and a Half Men, and of course Tom Cruise, whose career was made by Tony Scott's Top Gun in 1986, apart from a brief dip in his career a few years back, has remained easily one of the most bankable movie stars in the world. So a lot of kids/ young actors from the 80s have done pretty well for themselves.
But then, what happened to the other guys?
Anthony Edwards, known to Gen Xers (I wonder if anyone even remembers that term anymore) mainly as Top Gun's doomed Goose, had a bit of a career boost throughout much of the 90s as Dr. Mark Greene on television's ER, sporting a few more wrinkles and a lot less hair. It's not so much a mystery what happened to him as it is a disappointment that he kind of dropped out of circulation after that show, which arguably launched the career of his co-star, George Clooney.
Val Kilmer, who post-Top Gun donned Batman's cowl for Batman Forever in 1995 and who was on the big screen as recently as 2005's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang together with Robert Downey, Jr. That film wasn't a box-office hit but it was apparently well-enough regarded that it seems to have landed Black the directing gig for the next Iron Man movie, and I for one couldn't help but wonder why Kilmer didn't really stay in the game after that. He's kind of let himself go; the last time I saw him he was as fat as Santa Claus, though that could have just been some method acting I wasn't aware of at the time.
Meg Ryan, whose appearance in Top Gun was limited, went on to basically be America's sweetheart all throughout the nineties, so her fall from grace was particularly saddening if I may be honest. I hate the double standard of audiences that has allowed Russell Crowe to rebound from his tryst with Ryan eleven years ago but which seems to have all but destroyed her image. I wish Ryan would enjoy a breakout hit, one that more than a handful of people actually watch. She's not exactly awards-caliber talent (though she did try her hand at drama, albeit unsuccessfully), but even in her later efforts, in my humble opinion, she still remains eminently watchable. In terms of looks it must be said she's aged pretty well, so at least she's got that going for her.
The fate of the Brat Packers, a cadre of young actors whose heyday was in the 1980s with John Hughes films like The Breakfast Club and Joel Schumacher's St. Elmo's Fire, is a little harder to lament considering that neither of these films (nor any other of the Brat Pack films) was quite the pop-culture phenomenon that Top Gun was, and considering that many of them have worked quite steadily like Rob Lowe featuring prominently in Brothers and Sisters and Judd Nelson. Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy have pretty much fallen by the wayside, with Ringwald in particular registering a notable cameo in Not Another Teen Movie which was a sendup of just about every teen movie done in the last twenty years, including the ones in which she appeared...and little else.
Estevez himself has, after his success in the 80s and 90s, pretty much settled into the background. Perhaps it's preferable to going nuts like his brother did, but I still wish he'd show up every now and then, especially considering his dad Martin Sheen (Ramon Estevez in real life) has been keeping pretty busy. Sheen will be showing up as a reincarnated Uncle Ben in July's reboot The Amazing Spider-Man. All things considered, given that he's pushing fifty Estevez could actually play that role, or roles like it, by now.
For me, to see all of these actors I grew up with fade away until they show up in an E! special or on some reality show sometimes makes me wonder if they wouldn't have been somehow better off going out in a blaze of glory a la Heath Ledger. I suppose that, as is the case with rock bands, not every act can transcend more than one or two generations, but it would have been nice to see at least a few more of these guys go the distance.
Friday, April 13, 2012
The Walking Dead: Who's Next?
Hands-down, one of the best things about the fact that the TV series The Walking Dead has deviated substantially from its source material, namely the comic books by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Aldard, is how much uncertainty it throws into the picture. Two full seasons in, and only a handful of people who have met their maker in the comics have kicked the proverbial bucket here. More significantly, their deaths on the small screen varied considerably from the deaths they met on the printed page.
(Mild possible spoilers)
Although one of the deaths in season one of the series was, as it was in the comics, a relatively early one, another character, one who lasted all of six issues in the comics was able to make it all the way to the penultimate episode of season 2, as major character who underwent a fairly rich storyarc, at that. Conversely, a character who lasted for nearly five years of the comic book's publication bowed out relatively early. Another twist in the storytelling is that one character who is actually still alive in the long-running comics died in a rather climactic fashion in the TV series. And then, of course, there's the fact that one of the show's most interesting characters, Daryl Dixon, is exclusive to the TV show, as is his brother, leaving audiences completely in the dark as to what his fate might be.
The producers and writers of the TV show have laid down a marker of sorts, declaring that while they by and large respect the canon of the comics, they intend to strike out on their own path. This is gratifying as it means that even people who've followed the comics are left guessing as to who may die next, which adds quite a bit of a thrill to the proceedings. What's the point of a horror-themed series, after all, when the characters aren't in the peril of their lives?
For those who have followed the series since its birth on the printed page, Kirkman's work still stands head and shoulders above its small screen counterpart due to his purity of vision. As owner of the book, Kirkman isn't influenced by things like ratings or the bottom line. The thing is, a straight adaptation, as is the case with most works that go from the page to the screen, big or small, would never have worked. Recognizing this, the brilliant Frank Darabont, who was primarily responsible for bringing the series to the screen, came up with something truly special.
In its somewhat brief first season, the TV show, thanks largely to the efforts of Darabont, was easily on parallel with the comics in terms of truly gripping narrative. Darabont took Kirkman's and Moore's first six issues and absolutely ran with them, faithfully incorporating scenes and characters from the original comics, expanding sequences, creating whole new ones, and finally throwing in a couple of curve balls for good measure. I for one am pretty sure things like the survival of a character whose time should have been up, and the introduction of the Center for Disease Control story angle, to name but a few of the innovations, no doubt even shook complacent fanboys of the comics out of their comfort zone. Of course, it helped that Greg Nicotero's superlative prosthetic work far, far outstripped Moore's and Aldard's artwork in terms of visual impact, and that from a cast and crew perspective, everything was pitch perfect.
Though things fell flat in the second season, which stretched out quite a bit longer than the first, and which, while still retaining much of that blend of character development, suspense and terror that has drawn me to this show like a moth to a burning lamp, lost quite a bit of its edge, the crew bounced back in the end with some really kick-ass final episodes. The show did seem to be a bit diminished with the loss of its primary shepherd Darabont, but given how strongly the writers and directors came back at the end of season 2, I'm inclined to think that the series will hit the ground running when Season 3 premieres in October.
(Mild possible spoilers)
Although one of the deaths in season one of the series was, as it was in the comics, a relatively early one, another character, one who lasted all of six issues in the comics was able to make it all the way to the penultimate episode of season 2, as major character who underwent a fairly rich storyarc, at that. Conversely, a character who lasted for nearly five years of the comic book's publication bowed out relatively early. Another twist in the storytelling is that one character who is actually still alive in the long-running comics died in a rather climactic fashion in the TV series. And then, of course, there's the fact that one of the show's most interesting characters, Daryl Dixon, is exclusive to the TV show, as is his brother, leaving audiences completely in the dark as to what his fate might be.
The producers and writers of the TV show have laid down a marker of sorts, declaring that while they by and large respect the canon of the comics, they intend to strike out on their own path. This is gratifying as it means that even people who've followed the comics are left guessing as to who may die next, which adds quite a bit of a thrill to the proceedings. What's the point of a horror-themed series, after all, when the characters aren't in the peril of their lives?
For those who have followed the series since its birth on the printed page, Kirkman's work still stands head and shoulders above its small screen counterpart due to his purity of vision. As owner of the book, Kirkman isn't influenced by things like ratings or the bottom line. The thing is, a straight adaptation, as is the case with most works that go from the page to the screen, big or small, would never have worked. Recognizing this, the brilliant Frank Darabont, who was primarily responsible for bringing the series to the screen, came up with something truly special.
In its somewhat brief first season, the TV show, thanks largely to the efforts of Darabont, was easily on parallel with the comics in terms of truly gripping narrative. Darabont took Kirkman's and Moore's first six issues and absolutely ran with them, faithfully incorporating scenes and characters from the original comics, expanding sequences, creating whole new ones, and finally throwing in a couple of curve balls for good measure. I for one am pretty sure things like the survival of a character whose time should have been up, and the introduction of the Center for Disease Control story angle, to name but a few of the innovations, no doubt even shook complacent fanboys of the comics out of their comfort zone. Of course, it helped that Greg Nicotero's superlative prosthetic work far, far outstripped Moore's and Aldard's artwork in terms of visual impact, and that from a cast and crew perspective, everything was pitch perfect.
Though things fell flat in the second season, which stretched out quite a bit longer than the first, and which, while still retaining much of that blend of character development, suspense and terror that has drawn me to this show like a moth to a burning lamp, lost quite a bit of its edge, the crew bounced back in the end with some really kick-ass final episodes. The show did seem to be a bit diminished with the loss of its primary shepherd Darabont, but given how strongly the writers and directors came back at the end of season 2, I'm inclined to think that the series will hit the ground running when Season 3 premieres in October.
Monday, April 09, 2012
Topsy-Turvy
After over a quarter of a century of collecting comic books, today I finally did something I've never done before; I picked up a comic book after having seen its adaptation, in particular the enormously popular cable TV series The Walking Dead. I had ever and always followed a comic book from the page to the screen, usually the big one, and it was only because of how compelling I found the live-action television version of TWD that I actually found myself going in the other direction for a change. I figured the best place to start was the very beginning, and so I got hold of Volume I, "Days Gone Bye" in which writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore introduce the world to the world of the walking dead.
I won't review the comic book compilation here, as it is an eight-year-old publication and I don't as a rule review something that's been out that long, especially something as popular as this particular book, but now having at least seen some of the comic books on which the TV series was based I have to say my overall experience of TWD is now that much richer. Given that Moore only ever illustrated the first six issues of the series, and that his work is reportedly a lot better-looking than that of his successor, current series artist Charlie Aldard, it seems I now have the cream of the crop, at least in terms of art.
Now, as blasphemous as this may sound to devotees of the comic book, what Frank Darabont did with the first season of the show, which was by and large an expansion of the first six issues, amounted to a narrative tour de force, as a result of which that season actually played better than the first six issues of the series read. There were a lot of tweaks made to the TV series that added dimension to the story and the characters; the expansion of Shane's character was a pretty significant departure from the comic book, as was the introduction of the Dixon brothers, particularly the certified badass Daryl (Norman Reedus), who remains unique to the show and who was, in fact, created by Darabont and not Kirkman.
The thing is, though that Darabont, with the power of Hollywood and the talent of make-up demi-god Greg Nicotero, as well as a dedicated cast, crew and team of directors and writers (including Kirkman himself) at his disposal, had a distinct advantage over Kirkman, who only had artist Moore to help him establish mood. More importantly, though, it was Kirkman and Moore who blazed the trail with this extraordinary work; without their work there would have been no show to watch. The whole notion of a zombie apocalypse being played out as compelling human drama rather than some camped-up kitsch is something that was firmly established by Kirkman and Moore in these first six issues, and, I imagine, throughout the series, long before the TV show ever came into being.
With the TV series on season break until the fall, which is nearly six months away, I now have plenty of time to catch up on the comic books I've missed, which span five years worth of stories. With any luck I'll be able to pick up at least three or four more collected editions before the series makes its return in September. It really was a new thing for me to actually be introduced to a comic book through its adaptation, but it's a new experience I most enthusiastically welcome. The show, and the comic books that inspired it, are fantastic.
I won't review the comic book compilation here, as it is an eight-year-old publication and I don't as a rule review something that's been out that long, especially something as popular as this particular book, but now having at least seen some of the comic books on which the TV series was based I have to say my overall experience of TWD is now that much richer. Given that Moore only ever illustrated the first six issues of the series, and that his work is reportedly a lot better-looking than that of his successor, current series artist Charlie Aldard, it seems I now have the cream of the crop, at least in terms of art.
Now, as blasphemous as this may sound to devotees of the comic book, what Frank Darabont did with the first season of the show, which was by and large an expansion of the first six issues, amounted to a narrative tour de force, as a result of which that season actually played better than the first six issues of the series read. There were a lot of tweaks made to the TV series that added dimension to the story and the characters; the expansion of Shane's character was a pretty significant departure from the comic book, as was the introduction of the Dixon brothers, particularly the certified badass Daryl (Norman Reedus), who remains unique to the show and who was, in fact, created by Darabont and not Kirkman.
The thing is, though that Darabont, with the power of Hollywood and the talent of make-up demi-god Greg Nicotero, as well as a dedicated cast, crew and team of directors and writers (including Kirkman himself) at his disposal, had a distinct advantage over Kirkman, who only had artist Moore to help him establish mood. More importantly, though, it was Kirkman and Moore who blazed the trail with this extraordinary work; without their work there would have been no show to watch. The whole notion of a zombie apocalypse being played out as compelling human drama rather than some camped-up kitsch is something that was firmly established by Kirkman and Moore in these first six issues, and, I imagine, throughout the series, long before the TV show ever came into being.
With the TV series on season break until the fall, which is nearly six months away, I now have plenty of time to catch up on the comic books I've missed, which span five years worth of stories. With any luck I'll be able to pick up at least three or four more collected editions before the series makes its return in September. It really was a new thing for me to actually be introduced to a comic book through its adaptation, but it's a new experience I most enthusiastically welcome. The show, and the comic books that inspired it, are fantastic.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Old Comics
While I no longer regularly collect comic books, I still duck into comic stores every now and then to see what might tickle my fancy. While I still by current or recent comic books, whether in single-issue or trade paperback format, for some reason I find myself increasingly drawn to some older comic books, like John Byrne's Fantastic Four or his all-too-brief nine issue stint on Captain America with Roger Stern, or even Walt Simonson's run on Thor (though I haven't bought any of this last one yet). I wouldn't mind getting a hold of that compilation of Alan Moore/Alan Davis Captain Britain stories either, or of a paperback of Byrne's Superman: Man of Steel miniseries, to name a few.
In terms of craft, it certainly wouldn't be fair to say that the older product trumps the new (though some of Byrne's FF issues, at least in terms of their artwork, might go some way towards making that point), as there are a lot of new comics out there that are well-written and illustrated, but I think what really sets these older issues apart is how, even as recently as the 1980s, pure they seemed to be in that they weren't written with film adaptations in mind, even though by that time many of them were already the subject of popular merchandise like pajamas and toys. Sure, the stories weren't always that imaginative and the dialogue and artwork were often embarrassingly dated (like some of the Stern/Byrne Cap stories, which prominently featured bell-bottom pants and some decidedly bushy 70's hairdos), but there was something really special about how, in many if not most of these old stories, the creators of these books do not come across as self-conscious. Even from their scripts and story beats, a number of today's comic book creators seem eternally conscious of the fact that Hollywood execs may or may not scan their pages for movie or TV ideas, or how brutal legions of internet fanboys may be if what they read is not to their liking. If there were agendas back then, or if the authors were intent on achieving the 1970s or 1980s equivalent of "breaking the internet in half," it didn't really show. A lot of current writers, like Ed Brubaker, Mark Waid, or on a good day, Brian Bendis, seem intent on telling good stories, but so many of today's storytellers, event guys who've written stuff I like, like Dan Slott or Mark Millar, are so fond of referencing pop-culture, or even the fact that comic-book characters are so firmly ensconced in pop-culture these days, that it's nauseating.
Like the saying goes, they don't make comics like they used to...
In terms of craft, it certainly wouldn't be fair to say that the older product trumps the new (though some of Byrne's FF issues, at least in terms of their artwork, might go some way towards making that point), as there are a lot of new comics out there that are well-written and illustrated, but I think what really sets these older issues apart is how, even as recently as the 1980s, pure they seemed to be in that they weren't written with film adaptations in mind, even though by that time many of them were already the subject of popular merchandise like pajamas and toys. Sure, the stories weren't always that imaginative and the dialogue and artwork were often embarrassingly dated (like some of the Stern/Byrne Cap stories, which prominently featured bell-bottom pants and some decidedly bushy 70's hairdos), but there was something really special about how, in many if not most of these old stories, the creators of these books do not come across as self-conscious. Even from their scripts and story beats, a number of today's comic book creators seem eternally conscious of the fact that Hollywood execs may or may not scan their pages for movie or TV ideas, or how brutal legions of internet fanboys may be if what they read is not to their liking. If there were agendas back then, or if the authors were intent on achieving the 1970s or 1980s equivalent of "breaking the internet in half," it didn't really show. A lot of current writers, like Ed Brubaker, Mark Waid, or on a good day, Brian Bendis, seem intent on telling good stories, but so many of today's storytellers, event guys who've written stuff I like, like Dan Slott or Mark Millar, are so fond of referencing pop-culture, or even the fact that comic-book characters are so firmly ensconced in pop-culture these days, that it's nauseating.
Like the saying goes, they don't make comics like they used to...
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Why Ultimate Spider-Man's Being Half-Black, Half Latino is No Big Deal
Not having grown up in a multi-cultural society I have had the good fortune of never having experienced racism firsthand, though of course I've heard and read about it. I don't feel qualified, as a result, to join the chorus of people yelling "racist" at all of the fanboys objecting to the fact that Marvel Comics has replaced "Ultimate" Peter Parker, also known as Spider-Man, or one of the at least three versions of the character they are currently publishing, with a young teenager who happens to be half African-American, half Puerto Rican. To be honest, I don't feel qualified to join the conversation at all, even though on a purely intellectual level I can grasp the concept of what is racist and what is not.
As someone who's read comic books for most of my life, though, I do feel qualified to defend Marvel Comics' creative decision, regardless of whether or not they appreciate the gesture.
The "Ultimate" Marvel line was conceived around eleven or twelve years ago when Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada assumed control over Marvel Comics as a solution to the fact that over the last forty years, the universe created by Stan Lee and his various collaborator/artists had gotten so bogged down in continuity issues accumulated over time that the original magic of the characters and books had dissipated or at least become severely diluted. The idea was to recapture what originally made the various titles special when they came out in the 60s, but this time without all the baggage, and with a "modern" twist.
The result worked at first; Peter Parker, a twenty-something married man in the "regular" Marvel Universe was a teenager again, stripped of all of the added flab of decades of stories, many of them shoddy, that had come with his going from teen to adult over a nearly-forty-year period. Teams like the Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four, all of which had been turned inside-out and upside-down by decades of different stories as well as bad editorial decisions, and periodic status quo shakeups were restored to their purest, nascent states.
The problem with serialized fiction in which the characters' adventures continue indefinitely is that while there is a beginning, there is rarely a middle or an end to these characters and their development, and while the Ultimate line was created to replicate the early years of Marvel but with a twist, it would, as the years went on, gradually start to find itself saddled with its own continuity and history issues.
Not only that, but because of the success of the "Ultimate" line, the powers-that-be at Marvel wanted to transplant its "real-world" vibe into the main line of comics, and as a result the line's writers, Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar were placed on books like The Avengers and Spider-Man, and for better or worse, the mainstream Marvel Universe, after a fashion, did start to resemble its "Ultimate" counterpart in terms of the tone of storytelling, particularly during the Civil War event engineered by Marvel, with Mark Millar's seven-part miniseries at the forefront.
Marvel then became a victim of its own success. Having successfully "updated" the mainstream Marvel Universe to be more like its "ultimate" counterpart, Marvel effectively rendered the "ultimate" line obsolete, and as a result the "ultimate" books' sales began to drop.
Now, one thing Marvel could have done would have been to let the line "lie fallow" to use an agricultural term, and revisit it some other time with new stories and ideas, but seeing as how it's in the business of selling comic books, its editorial made the decision to shake things up, first by killing off a whole slew of characters in a line-wide event entitled "Ultimatum." Casualties of this little "holocaust" included several members of the Ultimate versions of the X-Men and the Avengers, and as a result the Ultimate version of the Fantastic Four broke up, with Reed Richards apparently becoming a bad guy. The comic books were then relaunched with new #1 issues and some tweaks to the creative teams.
There was a momentary spike in sales, but even with the relaunch the titles didn't sell nearly as well as they did in their heydays, and sales dropped right back to earth in fairly short order.
It made sense that they would, even though major characters like Wolverine, Cyclops, Magneto and a couple of Avengers had been killed off, most of the audience whose interest in comics had been piqued by the Ultimate line had either jumped over to the mainstream, "616" Marvel Universe. After all, in the time that had lapsed since the launch of the Ultimate universe, Spider-Man's marriage to Mary Jane had been retroactively annulled (and not in the legal sense) the Avengers had become "cool" again thanks to an infusion of new members that included Spider-Man and Wolverine, and the X-men...well, thanks to a bunch of gimmicks like "M day" and a presumably talented slew of writers, had managed to win much of its audience back. There was nothing in the Ultimate line of comic books that people couldn't see by reading the main line of Marvel Comics.
By killing and replacing Peter Parker with another Spider-Man, was finally able to effectively convey the message to their readers that they had tried to make with all of their shock-value deaths in "Ultimatum:" in the Ultimate universe, ANYTHING can happen.
What definitely annoys about the widespread reaction to the switch is the fact that before the decision was made, sales of the Ultimate Spider-Man title had been dropping like a stone. Fewer and fewer people cared about the line or that particular iteration of the character, who had arguably become superfluous now that "616" Peter Parker was "young" again by virtue of being a swinging single. Had Peter Parker not been killed, readers would have continued to bail out until there would be simply no justifying the existence of the comic book.
Besides, the Ultimate line, the way I see it, was always intended to be a venue for experimentation, for attempts to tell stories involving Marvel's beloved characters which could not, by editorial mandate, be told given the constraints of the "616" universe. Here, Cap could be a right-wing borderline fascist. Here, Thor could be a smelly hippy mistaken for a paranoid schizophrenic. Here, Hulk could actually kill people when on a rampage, whether or not they were bad guys. Here, Black Widow could be a murderous double agent, and Wolverine could actually want to kill Cyclops, and vice versa. The Ultimate has always existed just beyond the boundaries of what was possible in the regular Marvel Universe. Some of the ideas were good, and some bad, but to me it's to Marvel's credit that they allow these tweaks to happen.
And so I think that Miles Morales' introduction as the new Spider-Man is in line with the spirit of some of the first "ultimate" stories in that it puts a new spin on an old favorite. Some people may like it and others may not, and if it's the latter then Marvel will certainly go back to the drawing board, but casual fans who don't read the "Ultimate" line and who are complaining about Morales' race should either read the "Ultimate" comic books to understand the spirit in which this kind of story is told or should just shut the heck up and stop exposing themselves for the closet racists that many of them probably are. Not only that, but the people who are familiar with the "Ultimate Spider-Man" line and who abandoned it only to complain about the switch should really be ashamed of themselves; they're the ones who put Ultimate Peter Parker in his grave, not any "PC" agenda of editorial.
Finally, having read and enjoyed the first two issues of this title, I find it consistent with the experience I had when reading Mark Millar's and Bryan Hitch's "Ultimates" for the first time, in that what was old became new again, and I'm willing to give this direction a try.
As someone who's read comic books for most of my life, though, I do feel qualified to defend Marvel Comics' creative decision, regardless of whether or not they appreciate the gesture.
The "Ultimate" Marvel line was conceived around eleven or twelve years ago when Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada assumed control over Marvel Comics as a solution to the fact that over the last forty years, the universe created by Stan Lee and his various collaborator/artists had gotten so bogged down in continuity issues accumulated over time that the original magic of the characters and books had dissipated or at least become severely diluted. The idea was to recapture what originally made the various titles special when they came out in the 60s, but this time without all the baggage, and with a "modern" twist.
The result worked at first; Peter Parker, a twenty-something married man in the "regular" Marvel Universe was a teenager again, stripped of all of the added flab of decades of stories, many of them shoddy, that had come with his going from teen to adult over a nearly-forty-year period. Teams like the Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four, all of which had been turned inside-out and upside-down by decades of different stories as well as bad editorial decisions, and periodic status quo shakeups were restored to their purest, nascent states.
The problem with serialized fiction in which the characters' adventures continue indefinitely is that while there is a beginning, there is rarely a middle or an end to these characters and their development, and while the Ultimate line was created to replicate the early years of Marvel but with a twist, it would, as the years went on, gradually start to find itself saddled with its own continuity and history issues.
Not only that, but because of the success of the "Ultimate" line, the powers-that-be at Marvel wanted to transplant its "real-world" vibe into the main line of comics, and as a result the line's writers, Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar were placed on books like The Avengers and Spider-Man, and for better or worse, the mainstream Marvel Universe, after a fashion, did start to resemble its "Ultimate" counterpart in terms of the tone of storytelling, particularly during the Civil War event engineered by Marvel, with Mark Millar's seven-part miniseries at the forefront.
Marvel then became a victim of its own success. Having successfully "updated" the mainstream Marvel Universe to be more like its "ultimate" counterpart, Marvel effectively rendered the "ultimate" line obsolete, and as a result the "ultimate" books' sales began to drop.
Now, one thing Marvel could have done would have been to let the line "lie fallow" to use an agricultural term, and revisit it some other time with new stories and ideas, but seeing as how it's in the business of selling comic books, its editorial made the decision to shake things up, first by killing off a whole slew of characters in a line-wide event entitled "Ultimatum." Casualties of this little "holocaust" included several members of the Ultimate versions of the X-Men and the Avengers, and as a result the Ultimate version of the Fantastic Four broke up, with Reed Richards apparently becoming a bad guy. The comic books were then relaunched with new #1 issues and some tweaks to the creative teams.
There was a momentary spike in sales, but even with the relaunch the titles didn't sell nearly as well as they did in their heydays, and sales dropped right back to earth in fairly short order.
It made sense that they would, even though major characters like Wolverine, Cyclops, Magneto and a couple of Avengers had been killed off, most of the audience whose interest in comics had been piqued by the Ultimate line had either jumped over to the mainstream, "616" Marvel Universe. After all, in the time that had lapsed since the launch of the Ultimate universe, Spider-Man's marriage to Mary Jane had been retroactively annulled (and not in the legal sense) the Avengers had become "cool" again thanks to an infusion of new members that included Spider-Man and Wolverine, and the X-men...well, thanks to a bunch of gimmicks like "M day" and a presumably talented slew of writers, had managed to win much of its audience back. There was nothing in the Ultimate line of comic books that people couldn't see by reading the main line of Marvel Comics.
By killing and replacing Peter Parker with another Spider-Man, was finally able to effectively convey the message to their readers that they had tried to make with all of their shock-value deaths in "Ultimatum:" in the Ultimate universe, ANYTHING can happen.
What definitely annoys about the widespread reaction to the switch is the fact that before the decision was made, sales of the Ultimate Spider-Man title had been dropping like a stone. Fewer and fewer people cared about the line or that particular iteration of the character, who had arguably become superfluous now that "616" Peter Parker was "young" again by virtue of being a swinging single. Had Peter Parker not been killed, readers would have continued to bail out until there would be simply no justifying the existence of the comic book.
Besides, the Ultimate line, the way I see it, was always intended to be a venue for experimentation, for attempts to tell stories involving Marvel's beloved characters which could not, by editorial mandate, be told given the constraints of the "616" universe. Here, Cap could be a right-wing borderline fascist. Here, Thor could be a smelly hippy mistaken for a paranoid schizophrenic. Here, Hulk could actually kill people when on a rampage, whether or not they were bad guys. Here, Black Widow could be a murderous double agent, and Wolverine could actually want to kill Cyclops, and vice versa. The Ultimate has always existed just beyond the boundaries of what was possible in the regular Marvel Universe. Some of the ideas were good, and some bad, but to me it's to Marvel's credit that they allow these tweaks to happen.
And so I think that Miles Morales' introduction as the new Spider-Man is in line with the spirit of some of the first "ultimate" stories in that it puts a new spin on an old favorite. Some people may like it and others may not, and if it's the latter then Marvel will certainly go back to the drawing board, but casual fans who don't read the "Ultimate" line and who are complaining about Morales' race should either read the "Ultimate" comic books to understand the spirit in which this kind of story is told or should just shut the heck up and stop exposing themselves for the closet racists that many of them probably are. Not only that, but the people who are familiar with the "Ultimate Spider-Man" line and who abandoned it only to complain about the switch should really be ashamed of themselves; they're the ones who put Ultimate Peter Parker in his grave, not any "PC" agenda of editorial.
Finally, having read and enjoyed the first two issues of this title, I find it consistent with the experience I had when reading Mark Millar's and Bryan Hitch's "Ultimates" for the first time, in that what was old became new again, and I'm willing to give this direction a try.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Toy Stories
A proud tradition of franchise movies dating back to Star Wars, if not even earlier, is the sale of film-related merchandise, in particular toys.
I remember the Star Wars toys of the 80s, even though I didn't own a whole lot of them (I may have owned a small, Kenner-manufactured Tie Fighter at one point but I'm not even sure). But I have seen a fair share of Star Wars related merchandise, and back then it looked really good, and boy, did it make a lot of money.
The tradition has been carried on by some filmmakers and their toy-tie-in partners; within the last decade, toys and merchandise from the first Cars film and its spinoffs made something like eight BILLION dollars, an obscenely large amount of money by almost anyone's standards, which by itself justified the making of a sequel, Cars 2, probably better than any box-office figures ever could. So Disney has continued the Star Wars tradition. Of course, with its myriad of new Hasbro action figures and vehicles Clone Wars Lego sets, one could say that the makers of Star Wars themselves are continuing the Star Wars tradition.
Curiously, though, apart from Disney and Lucasfilm, there appears to have been a lot of dropping of the ball in terms of selling movie-related toys lately.
Now, I don't collect movie-themed toys (or action figures in general) but I remain a fan of toys, and I certainly admire well-made ones, which is why I'm a little disappointed that a lot of the movie-related toys I see around are not that well-made, and in some cases, not made at all.
The latest X-Men film, X-Men: First Class, for example, has had almost no licensed toy products to speak of save a line of Minimates, an oddity considering that every X-Men film that came before it had a comprehensive toy line up, with figures and vehicles. Heck, X-Men 2 even had a tie-up with a manufacturer of die-cast model cars to produce the Mazda RX-8 that appeared in it.
The Thor toys were just crappy, which is disappointing considering the meticulous detail poured in the the Marvel Legends toys, even the ones produced after Marvel entered into a deal with Hasbro for all of its toys (which Marvel used to produce themselves through their "Toy Biz" company). The toys are small and lacking in detail. Ironically, for the Green Lantern toys, Mattel followed the Marvel strategy of marketing a set of different action figures with the parts of a much bigger figure enclosed among the individual figures. Of course, considering GL was a box-office flop, this strategy did not amount to much, but at least they were aggressive with their toys, even marketing Hot Wheels cars with GL branding. But Thor, a successful movie, made a whole bunch of toys that kids may or may not buy, but which, I feel, are not likely to be terribly attractive to collectors, now or in the future.
Captain America: The First Avenger was another disappointment; despite all of the cool, visually striking retro-futuristic vehicles that appear in the film, the only vehicles that show up in toy stores are crappy G.I.Joe knockoff jeeps, motorbikes and APCs, NONE of which actually APPEAR in the movie! Where's Red Skull's awesome six-wheeled car? The giant bomber that was central to the movie's climax? Hell, where's Cap's Harley and the Hydra agents' bikes? Nowhere to be found. At least Hot Toys is coming up with an amazing looking 1/6 doll of Captain America, but that's only for hardcore collectors who have money to burn. Kids and casual collectors are less fortunate.
Marvel has a diecast partner in Maisto, and when it comes to missing opportunities for toy tie-ins, they appear to have a history of it.
Maisto makes diecast cars and motorcycles, with the former being as big as 1/18 scale and the latter being as big as 1/12 scale or maybe even 1/6 scale. They make, among many other things, the Audi R8 or the car driven by Tony Stark in Iron Man.
For all of that, though, they never bothered to make an "Iron Man"-themed or packaged car even though the car has, since the 2008 film, been widely identified with Iron Man. Instead they come up with some shitty, generic vehicles with the Iron Man logo printed on their body work. Considering how prominently featured the Audi R8 was in both Iron Man films, Maisto and Marvel, whether it was because of their lawyers or marketing people, missed on a huge opportunity to sell some toys.
With Captain America Marvel and Maisto failed yet again to make the most of a great opportunity to sell some toys. Sure, there is a well-conceived line of WWII planes with Captain America logos on them, so at least it trumps Hasbro's ridiculous "G.I. Joe" style vehicles, but Maisto/Marvel still goofed in a big way. In terms of sponsorship, legendary motorcycle manufacturer Harley Davidson is to Cap what Audi was to Iron Man, and because Maisto makes toy Harley Davidsons in varying scales, it represented a great marketing and sales opportunity for everyone concerned, an opportunity they appear to have missed completely.
But that's not the worst "toy story" of the year for me.
One of the big announcements regarding Transformers: Dark of the Moon, when it went into production last year was that it would feature as one of its characters a Ferrari 458. This, like the Cars films, is a movie franchise that exists mainly to sell toys, especially considering that it was based on an already-existing toy line. Michael Bay HIMSELF announced that a Ferrari 458 would be joining the Autobots, so the car was written into the script.
The movie has come out and is, in fact, slowly on its way out of theaters, and the Ferrari made its appearance, but to date, not a single Ferrari Transformers toy has shown up on shelves. It's rumored to show up later this year or early next year, but what's the point of releasing a toy so long after the release of the movie? Whether it's an issue with the lawyers of Mattel (who holds the Ferrari license), or General Motors (whose vehicles are the most prominent in the Transformers franchise), the makers of Transformers fumbled big time in terms of an opportunity to sell what will, if it EVER comes out, most likely be a very popular toy. Ferraris sell, in real life and in toy versions, which is why Mattel shelled out huge amounts of money to lock up the license to make Ferrari toys. If Paramount/Hasbro planned to make a Ferrari Transformer toy, they should have moved Heaven and Earth to do so in time for the film's release. That they didn't speaks very poorly of their marketing strategy.
In this economy it is perhaps understandable that people don't go the extra mile to make toys the way Kenner used to for Star Wars and the way a juggernaut like Mattel would for Cars, but as someone who appreciates toys, whether it's the actual craftsmanship or even just the cool packaging, I can't help but be disappointed by the lackadaisical attitude of some of the makers of today's movie-related toys; it's almost as if they just rush whatever they can shove onto shelves in time for the movie's release instead of taking the time and effort to make and market toys of Star Wars level quality. A shame, really.
I remember the Star Wars toys of the 80s, even though I didn't own a whole lot of them (I may have owned a small, Kenner-manufactured Tie Fighter at one point but I'm not even sure). But I have seen a fair share of Star Wars related merchandise, and back then it looked really good, and boy, did it make a lot of money.
The tradition has been carried on by some filmmakers and their toy-tie-in partners; within the last decade, toys and merchandise from the first Cars film and its spinoffs made something like eight BILLION dollars, an obscenely large amount of money by almost anyone's standards, which by itself justified the making of a sequel, Cars 2, probably better than any box-office figures ever could. So Disney has continued the Star Wars tradition. Of course, with its myriad of new Hasbro action figures and vehicles Clone Wars Lego sets, one could say that the makers of Star Wars themselves are continuing the Star Wars tradition.
Curiously, though, apart from Disney and Lucasfilm, there appears to have been a lot of dropping of the ball in terms of selling movie-related toys lately.
Now, I don't collect movie-themed toys (or action figures in general) but I remain a fan of toys, and I certainly admire well-made ones, which is why I'm a little disappointed that a lot of the movie-related toys I see around are not that well-made, and in some cases, not made at all.
The latest X-Men film, X-Men: First Class, for example, has had almost no licensed toy products to speak of save a line of Minimates, an oddity considering that every X-Men film that came before it had a comprehensive toy line up, with figures and vehicles. Heck, X-Men 2 even had a tie-up with a manufacturer of die-cast model cars to produce the Mazda RX-8 that appeared in it.
The Thor toys were just crappy, which is disappointing considering the meticulous detail poured in the the Marvel Legends toys, even the ones produced after Marvel entered into a deal with Hasbro for all of its toys (which Marvel used to produce themselves through their "Toy Biz" company). The toys are small and lacking in detail. Ironically, for the Green Lantern toys, Mattel followed the Marvel strategy of marketing a set of different action figures with the parts of a much bigger figure enclosed among the individual figures. Of course, considering GL was a box-office flop, this strategy did not amount to much, but at least they were aggressive with their toys, even marketing Hot Wheels cars with GL branding. But Thor, a successful movie, made a whole bunch of toys that kids may or may not buy, but which, I feel, are not likely to be terribly attractive to collectors, now or in the future.
Captain America: The First Avenger was another disappointment; despite all of the cool, visually striking retro-futuristic vehicles that appear in the film, the only vehicles that show up in toy stores are crappy G.I.Joe knockoff jeeps, motorbikes and APCs, NONE of which actually APPEAR in the movie! Where's Red Skull's awesome six-wheeled car? The giant bomber that was central to the movie's climax? Hell, where's Cap's Harley and the Hydra agents' bikes? Nowhere to be found. At least Hot Toys is coming up with an amazing looking 1/6 doll of Captain America, but that's only for hardcore collectors who have money to burn. Kids and casual collectors are less fortunate.
Marvel has a diecast partner in Maisto, and when it comes to missing opportunities for toy tie-ins, they appear to have a history of it.
Maisto makes diecast cars and motorcycles, with the former being as big as 1/18 scale and the latter being as big as 1/12 scale or maybe even 1/6 scale. They make, among many other things, the Audi R8 or the car driven by Tony Stark in Iron Man.
For all of that, though, they never bothered to make an "Iron Man"-themed or packaged car even though the car has, since the 2008 film, been widely identified with Iron Man. Instead they come up with some shitty, generic vehicles with the Iron Man logo printed on their body work. Considering how prominently featured the Audi R8 was in both Iron Man films, Maisto and Marvel, whether it was because of their lawyers or marketing people, missed on a huge opportunity to sell some toys.
With Captain America Marvel and Maisto failed yet again to make the most of a great opportunity to sell some toys. Sure, there is a well-conceived line of WWII planes with Captain America logos on them, so at least it trumps Hasbro's ridiculous "G.I. Joe" style vehicles, but Maisto/Marvel still goofed in a big way. In terms of sponsorship, legendary motorcycle manufacturer Harley Davidson is to Cap what Audi was to Iron Man, and because Maisto makes toy Harley Davidsons in varying scales, it represented a great marketing and sales opportunity for everyone concerned, an opportunity they appear to have missed completely.
But that's not the worst "toy story" of the year for me.
One of the big announcements regarding Transformers: Dark of the Moon, when it went into production last year was that it would feature as one of its characters a Ferrari 458. This, like the Cars films, is a movie franchise that exists mainly to sell toys, especially considering that it was based on an already-existing toy line. Michael Bay HIMSELF announced that a Ferrari 458 would be joining the Autobots, so the car was written into the script.
The movie has come out and is, in fact, slowly on its way out of theaters, and the Ferrari made its appearance, but to date, not a single Ferrari Transformers toy has shown up on shelves. It's rumored to show up later this year or early next year, but what's the point of releasing a toy so long after the release of the movie? Whether it's an issue with the lawyers of Mattel (who holds the Ferrari license), or General Motors (whose vehicles are the most prominent in the Transformers franchise), the makers of Transformers fumbled big time in terms of an opportunity to sell what will, if it EVER comes out, most likely be a very popular toy. Ferraris sell, in real life and in toy versions, which is why Mattel shelled out huge amounts of money to lock up the license to make Ferrari toys. If Paramount/Hasbro planned to make a Ferrari Transformer toy, they should have moved Heaven and Earth to do so in time for the film's release. That they didn't speaks very poorly of their marketing strategy.
In this economy it is perhaps understandable that people don't go the extra mile to make toys the way Kenner used to for Star Wars and the way a juggernaut like Mattel would for Cars, but as someone who appreciates toys, whether it's the actual craftsmanship or even just the cool packaging, I can't help but be disappointed by the lackadaisical attitude of some of the makers of today's movie-related toys; it's almost as if they just rush whatever they can shove onto shelves in time for the movie's release instead of taking the time and effort to make and market toys of Star Wars level quality. A shame, really.
Sunday, August 07, 2011
Hey Catholic Church, Are We Really Gonna Do This Again?
Five years ago, the Catholic Church railed against the evil known as the film adaptation of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. They called for a boycott by all the faithful of the film, which ended up grossing three quarters of a billion dollars at the global box-office despite almost uniformly bad reviews. In short, in spite of their exhortations, and quite possibly because of them, people went to see the movie, possibly because they wanted to see why so many people were kicking up such a fuss.
Nowadays, the local Catholic Church of the Philippines is again foaming at the mouth over somebody's art exhibit, which they claim is blasphemous. After somewhat heated protests and an act of vandalism by unidentified persons on the exhibit, its curator has agreed to close it down for security reasons.
I won't go into the whole debate on Freedom of Expression, which to my knowledge is being much more eloquently articulated elsewhere, but I will point out how ironic it is that to get the exhibit closed down the people against it, many of them dyed-in-the-wool Catholics, turned to Imelda Marcos, widow of Ferdinand Marcos, who needs no introduction to anyone familiar with Philippine history, and in particular the atrocities performed during the martial law years. It's ironic that it while the Catholic church helped remove the Marcoses from power because of their heinous and decidedly un-Christian treatment of the Filipino people, Catholic adherents (and, I think, even some priests) turned to Imelda for help regarding the perceived desecration of Christianity, like some kind of white knight. To those who think politics makes strange bedfellows, I give you this oddity.
It's even more ironic that while the early Christians, including most of Christ's twelve apostles, were martyred in some of the most spectacularly brutal ways imaginable (with one saint even being sawed in half while alive), members of today's Catholic Church is apparently in the business of creating martyrs by siccing ex-dictator's widows on people who make them angry.
The thing is, though, that by bullying the curators of the exhibit into shutting it down, as they once bullied the MTRCB to give The Da Vinci Code an "R" rating, the Church and the fundamentalists ranting beside them have done nothing but drum up publicity for a person who, based on what I've seen, is little more than a hack trying to get attention. The DVC has been described by some as a lousy movie based on a lousy book, but people who would otherwise have been completely indifferent to it ended up watching it because of all of the noise.
I have no love for people who use shock value to promote themselves or their work and this person is no exception, but I think the people that person offended went about handling their wounded feelings incorrectly; to put it another way, they fell for the bait, hook, line and sinker.
This artist, whom I will not name as I have no interest in promoting this person one way or another, is an individual of dubious talent who, thanks to strident protestations, is now a champion for all those who despise the church, and will live on in infamy or fame depending on one's inclinations. I'm pretty sure that outside of the people inclined to attend such exhibits, the average juan remained blissfully unaware of the existence of that person or exhibit until both were trumpeted in the media thanks to the Church.
Fortunately, in a country with very short-term memory this person will soon be forgotten, but had the usual gang just managed to keep their cool, perhaps there would be even less for people to remember.
This is not a victory for the fundamentalists and priests and whoever thinks they've struck a blow for their faith; it's a victory for shock value and the artists willing to have themselves figuratively martyred to get their fifteen minutes in the spotlight.
Nowadays, the local Catholic Church of the Philippines is again foaming at the mouth over somebody's art exhibit, which they claim is blasphemous. After somewhat heated protests and an act of vandalism by unidentified persons on the exhibit, its curator has agreed to close it down for security reasons.
I won't go into the whole debate on Freedom of Expression, which to my knowledge is being much more eloquently articulated elsewhere, but I will point out how ironic it is that to get the exhibit closed down the people against it, many of them dyed-in-the-wool Catholics, turned to Imelda Marcos, widow of Ferdinand Marcos, who needs no introduction to anyone familiar with Philippine history, and in particular the atrocities performed during the martial law years. It's ironic that it while the Catholic church helped remove the Marcoses from power because of their heinous and decidedly un-Christian treatment of the Filipino people, Catholic adherents (and, I think, even some priests) turned to Imelda for help regarding the perceived desecration of Christianity, like some kind of white knight. To those who think politics makes strange bedfellows, I give you this oddity.
It's even more ironic that while the early Christians, including most of Christ's twelve apostles, were martyred in some of the most spectacularly brutal ways imaginable (with one saint even being sawed in half while alive), members of today's Catholic Church is apparently in the business of creating martyrs by siccing ex-dictator's widows on people who make them angry.
The thing is, though, that by bullying the curators of the exhibit into shutting it down, as they once bullied the MTRCB to give The Da Vinci Code an "R" rating, the Church and the fundamentalists ranting beside them have done nothing but drum up publicity for a person who, based on what I've seen, is little more than a hack trying to get attention. The DVC has been described by some as a lousy movie based on a lousy book, but people who would otherwise have been completely indifferent to it ended up watching it because of all of the noise.
I have no love for people who use shock value to promote themselves or their work and this person is no exception, but I think the people that person offended went about handling their wounded feelings incorrectly; to put it another way, they fell for the bait, hook, line and sinker.
This artist, whom I will not name as I have no interest in promoting this person one way or another, is an individual of dubious talent who, thanks to strident protestations, is now a champion for all those who despise the church, and will live on in infamy or fame depending on one's inclinations. I'm pretty sure that outside of the people inclined to attend such exhibits, the average juan remained blissfully unaware of the existence of that person or exhibit until both were trumpeted in the media thanks to the Church.
Fortunately, in a country with very short-term memory this person will soon be forgotten, but had the usual gang just managed to keep their cool, perhaps there would be even less for people to remember.
This is not a victory for the fundamentalists and priests and whoever thinks they've struck a blow for their faith; it's a victory for shock value and the artists willing to have themselves figuratively martyred to get their fifteen minutes in the spotlight.
Thursday, June 02, 2011
On Things Fragile and Eternal
I am hardly what one would call a Neil Gaiman connoisseur. I don't think I've read any of the collections of Sandman comic books (graphic novel sounds consummately pretentious), and if I have I'm fairly sure I haven't read them all the way through; I think I've only read the second Death miniseries in its entirety, and I haven't read any of his novels.
I have read Stardust, and was disappointed to find out that it wasn't a comic book but rather a heavily-illustrated novel, and his only two works (so far) for Marvel Comics, the Marvel: 1602 hardcover, and his seven-issue Eternals miniseries, the latter of which I doggedly collected in individual issue format for nine months on account not only of Gaiman's intriguing writing but also on John Romita Jr.'s sterling artwork. I enjoyed Stardust but actually liked Matthew Vaughn's film adaptation nine years later even more. I liked 1602 for its novelty and decidedly different take on the Marvel Universe. Finally, I liked The Eternals too but found it seriously flawed, largely on account of the fact that from the very beginning it was designed to whet readers' appetites for the adventures of the Eternals set in the Marvel Universe more than it was to tell its own, complete story. Left to his own devices, Gaiman could have given so much more than he did, even though what he came up with was already quite formidable.
Now that I'm reading Fragile Things, though, I'm coming to see whole new side of Gaiman's work, one I barely glimpsed in the prose of Stardust, which has not only increased my already considerable respect for him as a writer but has whetted my appetite for more of his work. I won't give a blow-by-blow review of the short stories contained in the book, but I will say that I enjoy the voices Gaiman gives to his characters, and the worlds he takes me to, some of which may actually exist in my own. He's not much one for the "twist ending" though there are a few of them in the stories, particularly the ghost stories, but the charm is more in how he takes me to the point where he turns the tables on me, such that even if the twist may be predictable in the end, I've enjoyed myself so much that it doesn't matter.
Fragile Things is one of those rare things I've not had the pleasure of reading in a while; one of those books that I read sloooowly (and I'm a slow reader to begin with) because I'm in no hurry for my reading experience to end.
I have read Stardust, and was disappointed to find out that it wasn't a comic book but rather a heavily-illustrated novel, and his only two works (so far) for Marvel Comics, the Marvel: 1602 hardcover, and his seven-issue Eternals miniseries, the latter of which I doggedly collected in individual issue format for nine months on account not only of Gaiman's intriguing writing but also on John Romita Jr.'s sterling artwork. I enjoyed Stardust but actually liked Matthew Vaughn's film adaptation nine years later even more. I liked 1602 for its novelty and decidedly different take on the Marvel Universe. Finally, I liked The Eternals too but found it seriously flawed, largely on account of the fact that from the very beginning it was designed to whet readers' appetites for the adventures of the Eternals set in the Marvel Universe more than it was to tell its own, complete story. Left to his own devices, Gaiman could have given so much more than he did, even though what he came up with was already quite formidable.
Now that I'm reading Fragile Things, though, I'm coming to see whole new side of Gaiman's work, one I barely glimpsed in the prose of Stardust, which has not only increased my already considerable respect for him as a writer but has whetted my appetite for more of his work. I won't give a blow-by-blow review of the short stories contained in the book, but I will say that I enjoy the voices Gaiman gives to his characters, and the worlds he takes me to, some of which may actually exist in my own. He's not much one for the "twist ending" though there are a few of them in the stories, particularly the ghost stories, but the charm is more in how he takes me to the point where he turns the tables on me, such that even if the twist may be predictable in the end, I've enjoyed myself so much that it doesn't matter.
Fragile Things is one of those rare things I've not had the pleasure of reading in a while; one of those books that I read sloooowly (and I'm a slow reader to begin with) because I'm in no hurry for my reading experience to end.
Monday, May 23, 2011
A Different World
I'll be direct: I'm one of the millions of people who thinks Rebecca Black's Friday is complete and utter shit. Like the folks behind Glee, though I cannot deny that, for the moment at least, Black is now part of the global pop-culture landscape, all thanks to a little thing called youtube.
This little piece isn't really about Black: it's about how making so much of pop culture available for online viewing free of charge has really had game-changing effects. Justin Bieber was discovered thanks to youtube. A whole new generation of kids has discovered Michael Bolton thanks to his participation in Lonely Island's "Jack Sparrow" single. Some films (the ones whose distributors have not yet managed to find and remove all copies of them from youtube), have found whole new audiences, as have songs and performances. Suddenly, to paraphrase Julia Roberts, anyone with a digital camera and internet access can be a cinematographer, and suddenly, getting noticed by people is no longer a matter who you know but a matter of what you know how to do, i.e. upload videos of yourself.
I find the possibilities endlessly interesting.
This little piece isn't really about Black: it's about how making so much of pop culture available for online viewing free of charge has really had game-changing effects. Justin Bieber was discovered thanks to youtube. A whole new generation of kids has discovered Michael Bolton thanks to his participation in Lonely Island's "Jack Sparrow" single. Some films (the ones whose distributors have not yet managed to find and remove all copies of them from youtube), have found whole new audiences, as have songs and performances. Suddenly, to paraphrase Julia Roberts, anyone with a digital camera and internet access can be a cinematographer, and suddenly, getting noticed by people is no longer a matter who you know but a matter of what you know how to do, i.e. upload videos of yourself.
I find the possibilities endlessly interesting.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Patriotic Porsche
Taken at the House of Representatives.
Wait...considering that Porsche is a German brand, maybe it isn't patriotic of it to pose next to the Philippine flag? Oh well...
(Maybe next time I'll try taking a pic at Malacanang)...
Two More Posts to Go...
Random thought for this post: I'm willing to bet that a great many of the people against the RH Bill haven't even read it, and granting that the same can be said of its proponents, I'm willing to bet that the number of anti-RH people who haven't read the bill is significantly greater than the number of pro-RH people who haven't read it.
Three More Posts to Go...
Random thought for this post: the City of Manila deserves more trees and attempts to preserve its landmarks.
March to 300
I am taking a few moments' break from writing legal pleadings; this post and the next four serve no other purpose than to make sure my blog gets up to 300 posts. My brain doesn't have the capacity for anything else right now.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
One of the Stupidest Remakes Ever
I grew up knowing very little about the 1984 film Red Dawn, other than the fact that it was an action film which starred Patrick Swayze. Lately, I learned that it's been remade by famed stunt director Dan Bradley (who worked on the last two Bourne movies, the last two Spider-Man movies, and the last Indiana Jones and James Bond movies) with star of the upcoming Thor adaptation, Aussie up-and-comer Chris Hemsworth, in the Swayze role. I still didn't know anything about the plot, though.
Thanks, however, to cracked.com, a site which I happened to "like" on Facebook (because it really is pretty darned funny) I now know its basic premise: it's about a bunch of high school kids who stage an armed resistance against a Soviet-led communist army which has successfully occupied the United States of America. In view of perestroika, a remake of this film set in the present day would obviously be ridiculous, but that has apparently not stopped studio execs over at the floundering MGM studios from trying, by replacing the USSR with, of all things, China. When I read that China would be the new heavy, I found myself flabbergasted and thinking "are they kidding me?"
In this day and age, where almost everything is made in China and where even people who have professed to live and die by Maoist principles are criticizing China's capitalist tendencies, picking a fight with China by making a movie about their invasion of the United States of America is profoundly stupid. What compounds this is that this film comes barely two years after the United States had just about the most hated man in the world as its president. I mean, Marvel studios was afraid to give the title "Captain America," to the film adaptation of the superhero comic of the same name because the image of the United States the world over is downright awful. This doesn't strike me as the same impulse that prompted the remake of The Karate Kid, which, after all, was set in China. Sure, it's about riding high on love for the 80s, but I'm thinking it's a different kind of love.
This strikes me as an effort by the suits at MGM to revisit a simpler time, when communists were evil and the American way was, well the way. Part of me imagines that this film may have been done with tongue planted firmly in cheek, but the rest of me really doesn't think this film is worth writing an overly long-winded blog post about, so I'll stop here, but in this day and age it astounds me that someone would be idiotic enough to pick a fight with the Chinese.
Thanks, however, to cracked.com, a site which I happened to "like" on Facebook (because it really is pretty darned funny) I now know its basic premise: it's about a bunch of high school kids who stage an armed resistance against a Soviet-led communist army which has successfully occupied the United States of America. In view of perestroika, a remake of this film set in the present day would obviously be ridiculous, but that has apparently not stopped studio execs over at the floundering MGM studios from trying, by replacing the USSR with, of all things, China. When I read that China would be the new heavy, I found myself flabbergasted and thinking "are they kidding me?"
In this day and age, where almost everything is made in China and where even people who have professed to live and die by Maoist principles are criticizing China's capitalist tendencies, picking a fight with China by making a movie about their invasion of the United States of America is profoundly stupid. What compounds this is that this film comes barely two years after the United States had just about the most hated man in the world as its president. I mean, Marvel studios was afraid to give the title "Captain America," to the film adaptation of the superhero comic of the same name because the image of the United States the world over is downright awful. This doesn't strike me as the same impulse that prompted the remake of The Karate Kid, which, after all, was set in China. Sure, it's about riding high on love for the 80s, but I'm thinking it's a different kind of love.
This strikes me as an effort by the suits at MGM to revisit a simpler time, when communists were evil and the American way was, well the way. Part of me imagines that this film may have been done with tongue planted firmly in cheek, but the rest of me really doesn't think this film is worth writing an overly long-winded blog post about, so I'll stop here, but in this day and age it astounds me that someone would be idiotic enough to pick a fight with the Chinese.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Well Kudos to Facebook, But What Does This Mean?
I have yet to see The Social Network, though I've read a number of the glowing reviews and have found myself impressed by the trailer. In short, I certainly want to see it.
What makes this compelling to write about, for me anyway, is that while the internet has, in the strictest sense, literally been around for forty years, the social networking phenomenon in any form remotely recognizable as related to what we have now has only been around for the last ten or fifteen years at the very most. I didn't think we'd have a movie about it, at least not a biographical one, quite so soon.
It figures Facebook would be the one to make the big leap first. As an FB user, I think everything that came before it basically just pales in comparison in terms of sheer user-friendliness. That may be a good or a bad thing, but the point is that whereas Friendster, Myspace, Multiply or even the lesser known sites like Tubely seemed to have reached their limit in terms of public interest, with Friendster (which seems to have been mainly a hit in the Philippines) having peaked a few years back and with Myspace having been effectively supplanted by FB as the "in" social network among Americans, FB just seems to be getting bigger and bigger. And it's the only network that's had a movie made about it.
No wonder a lot of sites tie up with FB, even Twitter which I really don't care much for; it's kind of a matter of survival, I would think. Facebook, and social networking in general, has been effectively woven into the social fabric.
Now, this has gotten me thinking.
I can't help but wonder: with so much of our lives online, from our journals to our picture albums, what happens if the whole thing, one day, just up and crashes? I mean it's so much more convenient to chuck our pictures into cyberspace than actually stock up on photo albums, and to type down our thoughts (like I'm doing right now) than to actually write stuff down in a journal. Books, comic books, music albums are all available online for download into our handheld appliances, many of which have set expiry dates.
I've been telling my wife for years that we have to start putting our pictures into albums. Back when we first got married, we used to do just that, but since we got started on digital pictures, it's all been about saving stuff onto a CD or onto a hard drive. Considering we've had our hard-drives reformatted more than once, that's a kind of risky proposition, really. I'm talking about really wonderful memories here, like our family's trip to Bohol and Cebu three years ago. Sure, photoalbums can get lost in fire and flood, but to my digital storage media is a lot more fickle because God only knows how long photobucket will be around or what virus could take gmail out.
There's something more, though, and it's not about being resistant to technology. There's a warmth, dare I say it, to sitting with one's family around an old album, as opposed to just admiring something on a screen and clicking "like." It's great for sharing these precious recollections with people one cannot see everyday, but when a family such as mine doesn't have any pictures more recent than 2004, the time to start investing in some photo albums has definitely come.
What makes this compelling to write about, for me anyway, is that while the internet has, in the strictest sense, literally been around for forty years, the social networking phenomenon in any form remotely recognizable as related to what we have now has only been around for the last ten or fifteen years at the very most. I didn't think we'd have a movie about it, at least not a biographical one, quite so soon.
It figures Facebook would be the one to make the big leap first. As an FB user, I think everything that came before it basically just pales in comparison in terms of sheer user-friendliness. That may be a good or a bad thing, but the point is that whereas Friendster, Myspace, Multiply or even the lesser known sites like Tubely seemed to have reached their limit in terms of public interest, with Friendster (which seems to have been mainly a hit in the Philippines) having peaked a few years back and with Myspace having been effectively supplanted by FB as the "in" social network among Americans, FB just seems to be getting bigger and bigger. And it's the only network that's had a movie made about it.
No wonder a lot of sites tie up with FB, even Twitter which I really don't care much for; it's kind of a matter of survival, I would think. Facebook, and social networking in general, has been effectively woven into the social fabric.
Now, this has gotten me thinking.
I can't help but wonder: with so much of our lives online, from our journals to our picture albums, what happens if the whole thing, one day, just up and crashes? I mean it's so much more convenient to chuck our pictures into cyberspace than actually stock up on photo albums, and to type down our thoughts (like I'm doing right now) than to actually write stuff down in a journal. Books, comic books, music albums are all available online for download into our handheld appliances, many of which have set expiry dates.
I've been telling my wife for years that we have to start putting our pictures into albums. Back when we first got married, we used to do just that, but since we got started on digital pictures, it's all been about saving stuff onto a CD or onto a hard drive. Considering we've had our hard-drives reformatted more than once, that's a kind of risky proposition, really. I'm talking about really wonderful memories here, like our family's trip to Bohol and Cebu three years ago. Sure, photoalbums can get lost in fire and flood, but to my digital storage media is a lot more fickle because God only knows how long photobucket will be around or what virus could take gmail out.
There's something more, though, and it's not about being resistant to technology. There's a warmth, dare I say it, to sitting with one's family around an old album, as opposed to just admiring something on a screen and clicking "like." It's great for sharing these precious recollections with people one cannot see everyday, but when a family such as mine doesn't have any pictures more recent than 2004, the time to start investing in some photo albums has definitely come.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Thanks for Nothing Blogger.com
I've been maintaining this site since around 2004 and have nearly 300 posts to my name, not counting the ones I've deleted for one reason or another, and I've decided after months and months of posts that received no comments and probably minimal viewing that I'm simply not going to contribute to this blog anymore.
I can live with people ignoring this blog because that's just the way of things, but the fact that for every new post I've been putting up for the past several months I get visited at least twice by a Chinese spammer offering me either porn or a personal ads just goes to show how little regard you have for your subscribers. Sure, this is a free service but does that really mean we are entitled to next to no respect?
Anyway, I'm taking my blog posts over to multiply, where people actually read and comment on them, and where I don't experience spam because their filters actually work.
Thanks for nothing assholes.
I can live with people ignoring this blog because that's just the way of things, but the fact that for every new post I've been putting up for the past several months I get visited at least twice by a Chinese spammer offering me either porn or a personal ads just goes to show how little regard you have for your subscribers. Sure, this is a free service but does that really mean we are entitled to next to no respect?
Anyway, I'm taking my blog posts over to multiply, where people actually read and comment on them, and where I don't experience spam because their filters actually work.
Thanks for nothing assholes.
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