Welcome to the Fall Season

It’s September, time for the weather to get cooler, the leaves to turn colors, and the big tv networks to release all their new fall shows. This week saw the introduction of a whole new slate of series attempting to grab a chunk of the viewing audience numbers.

“High-concept” seems to be the watchword for developing new tv shows lately, and I watched the premieres of three new high-concept series, all of them from NBC: Blindspot, Heroes Reborn, and The Player.

Since I wrote this five weeks ago and never got around to posting it, I'm not going to warn you about spoilers. If you haven't watched these shows yet and are planning to, it's your problem if you don't stop reading.

Blindspot on Monday evening aroused a certain amount of resentment in me. Its premise is very similar to the sadly short-lived 2002 Fox series John Doe. In John Doe, a nude man with an unusual symbol branded on his chest falls into Puget Sound. Although he’s unable to remember any personal information about himself, he proves able to speak numerous languages fluently, hack computers, play the stock market successfully, and remember all sorts of obscure facts. He starts helping the Seattle police solve crimes, all the while being pursued by a mysterious organization with apparently nefarious plans for him.

Now look at what happens in the first episode of Blindspot: A large duffle bag is found in New York City’s Times Square. Inside is a nude woman, her body covered in tattoos. She has no memory of personal details. Tattooed prominently on her back is the name of an FBI agent. As the FBI investigate this “Jane Doe” she reveals she’s able to speak and read Chinese, including an obscure dialect, and that she has skills that would make her eligible to be a Navy SEAL. She helps them stop a terrorist plot to blow up a national landmark – a plot which is bizarrely indicated by one of Jane’s tattoos. Meanwhile her progress is observed by a mysterious bearded man, who murders a man who might have been able to provide some information about who Jane Doe is and what happened to her.

After I got over the initial irritation of Blindspot’s plot seeming so familiar to me (I really enjoyed John Doe and was very disappointed when it was canceled), I made an effort to look at this show objectively. Like far too many new tv shows, it tried to give the viewer too much information all at once. I miss the days when new shows often had two-hour season premieres to allow them to provide all the character and premise introduction gradually. Blindspot raced through this at a breakneck pace, throwing stock characters and situations at the audience one after another. One hopes that all of the standard FBI characters will get some development that makes them interesting in subsequent episodes.

The show’s best feature was the presence of Jamie Alexander as Jane Doe. Her performance was great, nicely touching on how frightened and confused Jane was when she realized she couldn’t remember anything about herself, not even her favorite foods, and that someone had covered her body with tattoos possibly without her consent. The performance of Sullivan Stapleton as FBI agent Kurt Weller wasn’t bad either. I’ll probably watch again, just to see if they develop anything interesting about the mysterious bearded man. But I expect my disbelief will struggle to remain suspended as the characters leap to conclusions without evidence and Jane conveniently manifests whatever special skill or knowledge is necessary to resolve that week’s conflict. I hope I’m wrong, though, and the show gets over these typical flaws of pilots to make something better of itself.

My second new series pilot this week was Heroes Reborn, the 13-episode miniseries sequel to the 2006-2010 Heroes series. I have to confess that I never finished watching Heroes, and I don’t know what happened at the conclusion of that series. I enjoyed the first two seasons of it but found the third season disappointing. But I liked what I saw of it enough to be excited by the thought of a sequel, particularly since it features some of the best characters from the original series.

Heroes Reborn starts a few years in our past, in a world where people with superpowers, known as “Evos”, actually exist and their recent appearance has caused some social upheaval. Noah Bennett (aka HRG, 'Horn Rimmed Glasses'), former representative of the nefarious Primatech and adoptive father of the nearly invulnerable Claire Bennett, is now living an ordinary life as a car salesman. He believes his daughter was killed in a terrorist attack for which Mohinder Suresh (another character from the original series) has supposedly claimed responsibility. Suddenly Bennett is contacted by a man who claims to have information about the terrorist attack, which leads Bennett to a disturbing encounter with his old friend, the memory-manipulating Haitian.

In the meantime, the audience is introduced to a new group of “Evos”. Most Evos are in hiding, as they are blamed for the terrorist attack and many of them have been arrested or killed. As Heroes did, the show introduces the new cast one at a time, skipping back and forth between their stories and that of the non-powered Bennett and his new companion. The powers in the original series were interesting and handled in a fairly original way, and that holds true for Heroes Reborn as well. One of the first characters introduced is Tommy, a teenage boy on the run with his mother. Tommy narrowly misses being killed by a duo of assassins who are dedicated to eliminating all Evos as vengeance for the death of their son in the terrorist event. A mysterious man who carries a briefcase full of pennies helps Tom avoid being caught by law enforcement, as well as preventing him from being exposed after he unwisely allows some schoolmates see him using his power. The other two main plots besides Tommy’s and Bennett’s are those of a Japanese girl named Miko Otomo, and Carlos Gutierrez, a decorated veteran. Miko is an Evo, while Carlos is not, but his brother and nephew are Evos.

Although all this jumping around from character to character and plot element to plot element was a feature of the original series, it feels a little more choppy and random in Heroes Reborn. Miko especially lacks any character development that would make me interested in her arc. She and her new friend Ren Shimosawa are reminiscent of the relationship between Hiro Nakamura and his friend Ando in Heroes, and that’s not just because all of those characters are Japanese. But while Hiro was a charming character who had an existing relationship with friend and coworker Ando, Miko and Ren don’t really have any reason to be together except through their connection to an online game called Evernow. Miko also isn’t nearly as appealing a character as Hiro. I’m hopeful that as the miniseries develops she’ll become more interesting. Her power is certainly original. Carlos also lacks some of the appeal that made the characters in the original series watchable. He’s too good-looking, and his presentation as a hero who doesn’t feel like a hero seemed forced. Perhaps his growing relationship with his nephew in the wake of sudden tragedy will make that work better as the series progresses. As with Blindspot, I’ll watch Heroes Reborn again, but I’m a bit worried that the cast from the original series will overshadow the new characters.

My third series premier this week was The Player. I hadn’t originally intended to watch it, but it aired immediately after Heroes Reborn and I left the tv channel on NBC while it ran. You might think that a series about an amnesiac woman whose tattoos predict crimes is pretty high-concept, but somehow The Player’s premise feels even more high-concept than Blindspot. The promo ads for the series looked like they were advertising the latest Hollywood action movie starring Jason Statham. Series protagonist Alex Kane (an action-movie hero name if ever there was) is a former FBI agent turned Las Vegas security consultant. Someone breaks into his estranged wife’s apartment while he’s there and murders her, leaving no evidence, and despite being ex-FBI Kane does a lot of things that make him look guilty. Fortunately he has the obligatory friend on the Vegas police force who doesn’t believe Kane did it. Then he gets an offer he can’t refuse: a mysterious man played by Wesley Snipes approaches him and tells him that he works for an organization that has figured out how to predict crimes. They know that the Middle Eastern billionaire Kane was working for is about to be the subject of a kidnapping. The murder of Kane’s ex was just to get Kane out of the way. Snipes’ character, who calls himself Mr. Johnson, offers to give Kane information unavailable to anyone else if Kane will act for Johnson’s organization. Seeking revenge for his wife’s murder, Kane agrees.

Sounds like a contrived action movie plot, right? The difference is the reason for Johnson’s organization. They have huge financial and information resources, but it’s not in the service of Evil Government Big Brother, or of the Good Guys – it’s just a form of entertainment for some people who are so rich they can’t figure out anything better to do with their money than gamble with it. Someone, somewhere, is literally betting on whether Kane will succeed or fail. There are hints that Johnson’s assistant Cassandra, who acts as Kane’s informant, may have known Kane’s ex-wife and may also be trying to subvert the intent of the “game” in which Kane has agreed to participate. She seems to genuinely want Kane to solve the crimes and stay alive, while Johnson appears to be interested only in satisfying the entertainment needs of his multi-billionaire backers. To give Kane more reason to stick with the game, he’s told that it’s a lifetime commitment. He’s also given a more personal cause to keep working for Johnson: he has evidence that his wife isn’t really dead.

Aside from feeling like I was watching a Bond-style action movie, I was a little disappointed that the hero of this story was a blond white guy, and Cassandra is a pretty blond Brit. The only people of color in this story were Wesley Snipes as Mr. Johnson and the black cop who is Kane’s friend – who will obviously have the thankless task of constantly believing Kane is good no matter what he does in future episodes, since of course Kane can’t tell anyone about the organization he’s working for and no one would believe him anyway. I couldn’t help wondering why Wesley Snipes couldn’t play the lead instead. Hollywood evidently still thinks that white audiences won’t watch a serious show with a non-white main lead.

The Player had a bit of a Matrix feel as well, with Cassandra feeding Kane information the same way that Tank fed info to Neo and Trinity in the first Matrix film. At one point Kane needs to activate the fire alarm system in a hotel without actually starting a fire, and Cassandra tells him the code to enter to set off the alarm. I think I’d actually like it better if Cassandra’s interaction with Kane was more limited and he had to figure out how to achieve his goals without her assistance. This one probably won’t get a second viewing from me. It was just too derivative of every action movie I’ve ever seen, although it was interesting to see all those action tropes playing out on the small screen.

Author's note: It's the end of October now and I'm still watching Blindspot and Heroes Reborn, and still not watching The Player. Perhaps I'll write some reviews of each series individually to follow up on this intro.

Movie Review - Conan the Destroyer

Conan the Destroyer (1984)
Directed by: Richard Fleischer
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Grace Jones, Mako, Olivia d'Abo, Sara Douglas, Tracey Walter, Wilt Chamberlain

This film has been vilified by plenty of critics and reviewers, as well as thoroughly skewered in this blog by a friend of mine. I won't deny that it has plenty of flaws in plotting and casting. But i still have a certain fondness for Conan the Destroyer.

As I said, I don't deny that it has flaws. The biggest flaws in my opinion are the casting. I don't know why they didn't ask Gerry Lopez to come back as Subotai, but replacing him with the comedy-relief thief Malak played by Tracey Walter wasn't a good idea. It's no wonder that Queen Jehnna offers him the job of court fool at the end of the movie. But Conan doesn't need a fool. He needs a boon companion who's good at sneaking around and disabling traps, and maybe at throwing knives or using a bow. I don't know why Conan doesn't leave him with the horses when he asks to be left behind. Except for showing his companions where to get into Shadizar through the back way, he does nothing else of use.

Wilt Chamberlain isn't too great as Bombaata, either, nor is Olivia d'Abo as Jehnna. But they are more than made up for by the presence of Grace Jones and the return of Mako as Akiro.

Grace Jones makes this movie for me. I based one of my first tabletop RPG characters on Zula. One of my favorite moments in the film occurs in Zula's first scene. As Conan approaches her while she is tethered and being harassed by angry villagers, she turns to look at him with an expression of such resentment, clearly expecting him to be another of her tormentors. When Conan slices through the rope around her ankle and sets her free, her expression turns to one of such glee. Later in the film she stabs an enemy to death with her spear and expresses that same fierce glee. It's delightful.

Mako if delightful too, as the wizard. It's a bit sad that he first appears as dinner for a tribe of cannibals, which seems a rather ignominious introduction for him. But he's redeemed by having the great scene in which he does wizard battle with another wizard.  He's also the one who figures out what Sara Douglas's Queen Taramis is really up to, and how to defeat Dagoth. He also gets a great little scene at the end when the newly-crowned Queen Jehnna asks him to become her new vizier and he looks back to Conan for approval.

Speaking of Sara Douglas, she's pretty good too, as Taramis. And she gets some fabulous costumes. Which leads me to the next thing I like about this film: the aesthetic design. Both Conan films, and even Red Sonja (which I may write about in a separate review) do well in demonstrating that the world in which their characters live is an ancient one, full of vast ruins, mysterious magic, and age-old cults. It is a bit underpopulated - Shadizar doesn't have enough citizens to really feel like a big city - but at least it doesn't feel like a world that was just invented for the movie.

Although the movie doesn't make much sense in places, particularly the wizard Toth-Amon capturing Jehnna (why?) and turning into an ape-man to fight Conan in person (again, why?), I always find it fun to watch and evocative of its Hyborean setting. It makes me want to play in a RPG with that type of setting, so I can recreate Zula as my character.

Why I Like the Changing Face of the Doctor

I've mentioned before that I'm a big fan of Doctor Who. I've been a fan for over 20 years. I met my husband and most of my friends because I am a fan of Doctor Who, so the series has had a big impact on my life. One of the things I like most about the series, aside from it being science fiction and quintessentially British, is the fact that the actor who plays the Doctor changes fairly regularly. That's a troubling issue for some fans, who become so attached to the current actor that they have trouble adapting to the changes. I've heard of fans who stop watching when a Doctor changes. But the change is what I look forward to, no matter how much I'm enjoying the actor who's currently in the role.

When I was a girl, my family regularly watched the television series Gunsmoke. It was a family tradition. For those not familiar with this series, it was a Western genre series that ran in the US from 1955 to 1975. In that respect it has similarities with the long-running Doctor Who. But for the entire run of the series, the lead character was Marshall Matt Dillon, the marshall of Dodge City, Kansas. The series was also on radio for nine years prior to being adapted for television, and the main character of the radio serial was also Marshall Matt Dillon, though portrayed by a different actor.

Marshall Dillon never retired - at least not permanently. He wasn't killed by some random outlaw, though he came close a few times. He remained the marshall of Dodge City for 20 years. The town doctor was also played by the same actor for the same length of time. During the majority of the tv series run, the Long Branch Saloon was run by Miss Kitty, who was a romantic interest for Dillon. They never married, and never seemed to progress their relationship beyond close friendship.

The point I make in describing Gunsmoke is that it never substantially changed. Every week one could rely on seeing the same familiar faces doing the same things. Marshall Dillon tracked down the bad guys. Doc Adams bandaged gunshot wounds and provided comic relief moments of banter with deputy Festus Haggen. Miss Kitty provided expository dialogue opportunities and worried about the marshall if he got hurt. The characters never grew, they never pursued new opportunities. The town never changed in size or population makeup. The only major changes that ever occured happened in the late 1980s, when the series was revived in the form of several tv-movies.

Doctor Who also has elements that never change. It's always about the Doctor, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey who travels through time and space in a vehicle that looks like a 1960s British police telephone booth. He's usually accompanied by a young human woman who acts as his platonic companion and a surrogate for the audience. They get into trouble and usually end up saving the day. But every few years the Doctor's companion will change. Sometimes he has more than one traveling companion. Occasionally his companions are males, or the companion might not be originally from Earth. He's even had a few companions who weren't human. Now and again he doesn't have a companion at all for a short period of time.

More importantly, the Doctor himself changes. Typically every three or four years the actor portraying him departs and is replaced by someone else, who is deliberately chosen because he looks entirely different from his predecessor. He may be significantly older or younger, taller or shorter, have a different hair color, speak with a different accent. This new actor is under no obligation to play the role in the same way as the previous performer; in fact, it's encouraged for him to bring new facets to the part. The Doctor may suddenly manifest new talents, skills or interests that he never previously demonstrated. It's possible that in the future the Doctor may even change race or gender. And yet, the audience is expected to accept this new actor as the same person.

The production team also changes periodically, and each new team changes the tone of the series somewhat. Gunsmoke probably had changes in the production team as well, but although some of the more racist and misogynistic elements softened as the series moved into the 1970s, the essential elements never changed. The new producers weren't permitted to have Matt Dillon die or retire, he wasn't allowed to marry Miss Kitty or any other woman. The setting didn't move from Dodge City to some other location. People in Dodge City didn't start buying cars and the town wasn't electrified. The series really didn't acknowledge the passage of time - or the aging of the actors.

Doctor Who has changed with the times more than Gunsmoke ever did. The Doctor has lost his entire species. He's fallen in love with - and lost - one of his companions. In the earlier days of the series he didn't try to change history, but in more recent episodes he's made obvious and significant changes to historical events. He's backtracked over his own timestream. He's encountered his previous and future selves. He's even reached the end of his own lifespan. Some of this malleability is a function of this being a science fiction series about a time traveler, but some of it is also the willingness of the producing network to allow more flexibility, and of the audience to be more accepting of change.

It's this malleability that I like about the series, and the character. I don't want to watch another Gunsmoke populated by essentially static characters. I look forward to seeing what the new actor does with the role, how the actor interacts with new companion characters, what direction the new producers will take the show. Doctor Who has now been on television screens for 30 years. Imagine what sort of programme it would be if it was still what it was when it began in 1963. It would still feature the Doctor as a somewhat irascible old man, perhaps still traveling with his granddaughter and two London schoolteachers. If the series production team hadn't been willing to accept drastic change when original star William Hartnell decided to step down, we'd probably be experiencing what viewers of soap operas often see when an actor leaves and a new person is brought in to play the same role - the actor will still resemble the previous actor, still play the part the same basic way. Each replacement actor for the Doctor would have been another older man, trying to play the Doctor as the same irritable and imperious character. I probably wouldn't be watching Doctor Who any longer if that was the type of series it was. I would have lost interest long ago.

I can understand the desire for beloved entertainments to be changeless, to consistently bring us that familiar character and setting we enjoy. Our lives are full of so much change that it's comforting to know some things don't change. But I firmly believe that if Doctor Who didn't change, it wouldn't have managed to become the longest-running dramatic series in television history. I challenge those viewers who have a hard time accepting when the Doctor changes to realize that this is an essential element of the series, without which it wouldn't be the show that you liked. Give the new Doctor a chance. You might grow to like him even more than you did the previous one.

MOVIE REVIEW: Snowpiercer

Snowpiercer (2013)
Directed by: Bong Joon-ho
Starring: Chris Evans, John Hurt, Ed Harris

Several months ago I saw the limited-release film Snowpiercer. I’ve read that the limited-release situation was due to the distributing studio’s confusion about what to do with it. I can understand to a certain extend why the studio didn't know how to market it: it's a Korean-American joint production, produced primarily in the Czech Republic, based on a French graphic novel. It has elements of dystopian science fiction, and some action scenes, but it's not really a sci-fi film or an action film. Many parts of it reminded me of the sort of surreal, quirky films produced by Terry Gilliam - which is ironic when you realize that the character portrayed by John Hurt is named Gilliam.

But what I really want to talk about here is what the movie made me think about. This is going to require a lot of spoilers, so if you don't want the plot elements spoiled for you, stop reading now.

SPOILERS

The basic premise of the film is that to combat global warming, a chemical is released into the upper atmosphere to cool the planet. The technique works all too well, and the entire world is engulfed in a severe ice age that apparently destroys all life. To preserve humanity from extinction, a huge train is developed that can carry thousands of people on a globe-spanning track, smashing its way through ice and snow like a locomotive icebreaker. It runs on a sort of perpetual motion engine so it doesn't need to stop for fuel, and has an enclosed ecosystem to provide all the necessities for the passengers.

The passengers on the train are divided into two classes: those in the front who live in luxury dining on a wide variety of foodstuffs, and those in the rear who live in crowded and horrible conditions, eating only protein bars provided to them by the people in the front. A small group of the rear passengers decide to stage a revolt and take over control of the train. They are led, reluctantly, by Curtis (Chris Evans), who gets a great deal of advice from Gilliam (John Hurt). Curtis's devoted follower is a younger man named Edgar.

In the first third of the film we see armed guards from the front of the train come to count the rear passengers, and then take away some of their children, ostensibly for medical examination. When the father of one boy resists, he's punished by having one of his arms put outside the train until it freezes, then the arm is smashed with a sledgehammer. A few scenes later we see a number of older men who are missing limbs, including Gilliam, and I assumed that they must have been subjected to the same type of punishment.

In the last third of the film, Curtis and his band of rebels have made their way to the front of the train, but only Curtis and two others are left: Namgoong Minsu and his daughter Yona. Namgoong is the man who designed the security gates that separate the train cars. Curtis wants Namgoong to open the last door into the front car of the train, where Curtis will find the train's creator and ruler, Wilford (Ed Harris). While trying to persuade Namgoong to open the last gate, Curtis tells him a story about what happened at the rear of the train when people first boarded seventeen years earlier. The people from the front sent armed men to take all the supplies from the passengers in the rear, leaving a thousand people without food or water. The rear passengers finally resorted to cannibalism to survive. One day when a group of men had killed a woman so they could eat her baby, an old man cut off his own arm so they could eat that instead. The old man was Gilliam. The baby was Edgar, and Curtis was one of the killers.

This scene exposes so many elements of the plot that it's a challenge to describe them all now. First, it reveals Curtis's motivation for revolting against Wilford: he isn't a selfless messiah leading his people to salvation, he's a man with a terrible guilt and shame trying to expiate his sins. This also reveals why he defers so much to Gilliam: Gilliam's sacrifice changed his life. In an earlier scene it is shown that Curtis has a large scar on his right arm, but the cause isn't explained. As Curtis tells Namgoong his story, he reveals that he had attempted but failed to cut off his own arm in imitation of Gilliam's sacrifice. Curtis's story also explains why he is so attached to Edgar, and why it's obviously torture for him to choose when Edgar is taken hostage by the front guards and Curtis must decide whether to rescue Edgar or take advantage of an open gate that will let him get closer to the front of the train.

It wasn't until after I left the theater that I started thinking about the other things Curtis's story exposes about the organization of the train. Clearly, since the armed men from the front took the rear passengers' supplies, the train wasn't originally meant to carry so many people. The passengers at the rear were either allowed to board the train in a last-minute act of compassion, or - this is what I think is more likely - they forced their way onto the train. Wilford and his people must have made a decision to let the rear passengers starve in order to save resources for themselves. When the rear passengers turned to cannibalism and Wilford realized they weren't all going to die, efforts were made to develop the protein bars to feed the extra mouths. The train's carefully designed ecosystem couldn't support producing more of the food items that the people at the front were eating, so they devised a plan in which another source of protein was used for the rear passengers. But the train couldn't be made any bigger, and rather than integrate the rear passengers with the rest of the population, which would probably have caused shortages and conflicts for everyone, the unwelcome additions were left to live in what limited space was available.

As Wilford reveals to Curtis when they finally meet, the entire revolt was engineered as a way to reduce the train's surplus population. Curtis has been Gilliam's patsy all along, his guilt and shame used against him to manipulate him into leading a rebellion that would result in the planned deaths of 74% of his friends and companions from the back of the train. Curtis only sees Wilford's decisions as cruel and inhumane, because he's blinded by his own emotions. He doesn't recognize how torturous these choices must have been for Wilford - just as torturous as his own decision to abandon Edgar so he could get through the gate to the next car, or his final decision to destroy the train in order to set everyone free.

A couple of weeks after I saw the film, I ran across an article asserting that Snowpiercer’s plot contains elements of Gnosticism.  I find the author’s arguments pretty compelling, although I’m not certain the Gnostic influence was a conscious decision on the part of the screenwriter or director. As author Hughes points out, this type of story is also told in other films, like The Matrix and The Truman Show.

Although it may be a challenge to suspend one's disbelief that a train could keep running in such harsh conditions, or that it could support an entire population of people for seventeen years, the social and emotional messages the movie sends overcome the peculiarity of that plot conceit. Snowpiercer made me think, and for that reason, it's a movie worth seeing. And by the way, if you think Chris Evans is just Captain America, this film will make you think again. If I hadn't known he was in this movie before I went to the theater, I might not have recognized him.

BOOK REVIEW: Bitter Night

Title: Bitter Night (Horngate Witches series, book 1)
Author: Diana Pharaoh Francis

I've seen Diana Pharoah Francis at several sf&f conventions in recent years, and found her a good speaker on panels about the craft and business of writing. While listening to her speak about urban fantasy a few days ago, I decided it was time I read one of her books. During the panel, I logged on to Amazon and downloaded the Kindle edition of Bitter Night.

Although Bitter Night doesn't fit the description of urban fantasy given by one of the other panelists because it lacks a detective element, I would classify it as fitting in the urban fantasy genre. It's set in the present day, but features magic and magical creatures. Francis has designed an interesting magic system for her world. In her setting, powerful witches form covens with less powerful witches and claim territories. Each witch has a cadre of magic-enhanced bodyguards. These bodyguards are divided into two groups: Shadowblades, who are vulnerable to sunlight and can only work at night; and Sunspears, who are vulnerable to darkness and can only serve during the day. Each unit of Shadowblades and Sunspears has one person designated the Prime, who commands the rest of the unit. All of the Shadowblades and Sunspears are magically bonded to their witch by compulsion spells, but they must willingly accept the bond.

The main protagonist of Bitter Night is Max, Shadowblade Prime to a witch named Giselle whose territory is centered in Montana. But unlike most Shadowblades and Sunspears, Max hates her witch and constantly thinks about killing Giselle. It's revealed early in the story that Max believes Giselle tricked her into accepting their magical bond, and consequently she thinks of herself as enslaved to Giselle rather than as the witch's willing servant. It quickly became obvious to me that Max's conviction was completely wrong and her obsession with getting revenge on Giselle was foolish. But of course the character doesn't have the benefit of the reader's perspective.

Max is an unusually powerful and tough Shadowblade, her fierceness and strength fueled by her resentment toward Giselle. Other characters seem able to sense this power in her and are attracted to it. I'm beginning to wonder if Max has some magical talent of her own that will be explored in later books. She's also unwilling to recognize just how devoted her Shadowblades are to her, or how much she means to Giselle. In this she reminds me somewhat of Jim Butcher's urban fantasy hero Harry Dresden, who never realizes just how powerful and frightening he is to other people.

Francis provides a lot of conflict and danger for Max to face. Max's world is about to experience a magical apocalypse. The Guardians, god-like beings to whom the witches owe fealty, have decided that humans have depleted too much of the world's magic and it's time to clean house. Max goes through the tortures of the damned - literally - to protect Horngate and Giselle not only from a rival witch but from the Guardians themselves. There's a lot of exciting cinematic action in the story. Max is like an action movie hero, endlessly suffering injuries that would cripple or kill an ordinary person. At least she has her magical enhancements to explain her ability to withstand horrific wounds and keep fighting.

While overall I enjoyed the novel and read it quickly - always a good sign - there were some elements I found a little disappointing. Max encounters another Shadowblade Prime, Alexander, who instantly finds her attractive. When given the opportunity to leave the witch to whom he's bonded and follow Max, he hardly hesitates. Of course he's an extremely attractive man, which smacked a little too much of a romance novel for my taste. The Guardians also have servants referred to as angels, which when described sound an awful lot like anime characters. The two angels who appear in Bitter Night are both defined as masculine and physically muscular, and they wear the sort of clothes I would expect to see such characters wearing in an anime series. It would have been nice if the angels had seemed less human. But I suppose to a certain extent Francis is playing to an audience that enjoys supernatural romance, so the men have to be attractive even if they aren't human.

Despite the drawbacks I've described, I found Bitter Night an enjoyable read and am looking forward to reading the next novel in the series.

May the Fourth Be With You

Today is May 4, Star Wars Day.  My Facebook and Twitter feeds are full of people commenting on their affection for the Star Wars films (and plenty of people dismissing the three prequel films).  All of this discussion has reminded me of my affection for the original trilogy, especially the very first film (first in terms of release date, not continuity chronology).

I was 17 years old when Star Wars -- A New Hope was released. I first saw it in a theater in another town, with a church youth group.  I was awed, amazed and thrilled by the special effects.  I had never seen anything quite like it, as cliched as it is to say that.  Here were gorgeous spacecraft unlike any I had ever seen before.  Here were robots that looked like they could really exist.  Here were aliens that looked like aliens instead of people.  And of course, being about Luke Skywalker's age myself, I felt an emotional connection to the young hero.  I didn't know about 'Mary Sue' characters in those days, and I didn't find Luke's whining nearly as annoying as I do now.

I didn't know how Luke, Leia, Han and Chewbacca would escape from the garbage compactor.  When Darth Vader killed Ob-Wan I was crushed.  When Luke found that his aunt and uncle had been slain I felt his despair.  When Luke's X-wing made its run down the channel to the exhaust port, I recall that I was gripping the arms of my theater seat the way I would have gripped the sides of an amusement park thrill ride.  This was one of the most exciting, engrossing movies I had ever seen.

I was in love with this movie.  After it made its way to the new twin theater in my home town, I went to see it three more times.on my own.  I purchased the soundtrack on 8-track cassette and listened to it repeatedly as I awaited the release of the second film, wearing headphones in my darkened bedroom or college dorm room as I replayed my memories of the movie in my mind.

Years later, when VHS videotapes became available, I purchased copies of all three of the films and watched them repeatedly.  I never watched The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi as many times as I viewed A New Hope, but I had affection for all of them, an affection that mellowed with time but never completely waned.  I was eager for George Lucas to produce the promised additional films.  Like millions of other fans, I waited decades for him to fulfill that promise.

By the time Lucas finally did follow through and produce more Star Wars films, some of my initial enthusiasm had faded.  I had seen what happened when someone came back to a beloved saga years later.  It wasn't the same.  The Star Trek films had shown me that.  Still, when The Phantom Menace was released, I went to see it with high hopes.  I wasn't as disappointed as many fans of the original trilogy.  I've always been pragmatic about changes to the story.  Twenty-five years had passed, after all.  It was no surprise that George Lucas had changed his mind about some of the details of the universe and characters he had created.  But I came away feeling a bit dissatisfied.  I didn't despise Jar-Jar Binks, but I thought the character was unnecessary.  Why not just let C3PO resume his comedy relief role from the original films, instead of introducing a new character?  I was unimpressed with young Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker. He wasn't a good actor, and Lucas' script had made him too young, so that his later obsessive affection for Padme Amidala was a bit repellent.  I found myself wishing that The Phantom Menace had been a film about Qui-Gon Jinn and young Obi-Wan Kenobi rather than about Anakin.

The next two films continued the trend of making me wish that George Lucas had chosen to make different stories.  Anakin didn't become any more appealing or sympathetic when he was played by Hayden Christiansen.  The once strong and clever Padme became a helpless victim to be pitied when she fell in love with Anakin (I don't object to May-December romance, but Anakin was made to seem like a stalker and it was unconvincing that an 8-year-old boy would become romantically attracted to a teenaged girl).  I wanted to see more of Obi-Wan's story, and more detailed development of Anakin's turn to the Dark Side.  There was just something missing from these movies, something that failed to take me back to the thrill of watching A New Hope over and over when I was younger.  Perhaps no film would have brought me the same emotions that I felt when I watched that film for the first time at age 17, but it would have be nice if the prequels had come a bit closer to that goal.

It's recently been revealed that since Lucas sold the Star Wars property to Disney and JJ Abrams was named to take the reins of a new film series, at least one of the new films will feature the original cast.  Much as I'm happy to see Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford together again, I feel a bit of trepidation about returning to those characters after so many years.  The actors are all in their sixties now, and while I think people over thirty deserve more leading roles in films, I'm uncertain where the story will go. After so many years the characters should have grown and changed.  Will they be allowed to do that, or will the script (and the audience) expect them to behave the same way they did nearly 40 years ago?  If they are allowed to be older people who have lived full lives between the end of Return of the Jedi and the beginning of the first new film, what kind of story will the movie tell?

Despite my concerns, I know that my undying affection for that amazing little movie I saw when I was 17 will make me go to see the new film, at least the first one.  As long as Disney and Abrams treat those beloved characters with respect, I will likely see whatever they care to produce. It's Star Wars, after all.

Movie Review: 47 Ronin

47 Ronin (2013)
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Hiroyuki Sanada

When I first saw a trailer for 47 Ronin, I can't say I was super-excited to see the film.  It seemed to me like a movie to see in a matinee rather than pay full price.  Ultimately I didn't see it in a theatre at all.  After having seen it, I now realize that I was completely misled by the trailers.

What the trailers led me to believe I would be seeing was a film in which Keanu Reeves plays a "chosen one" who leads the titular 47 ronin in an epic battle to save feudal Japan from demoniic forces.  But that is not what happens in the film

SPOILER ALERT:  For the remainder of this review I will be discussing the film's plot.  If you haven't seen this film and you want to see it without spoilers, please stop reading now.

This film is not really about Keanu Reeves' character, Kai the half-breed.  It starts out making you think that's what it's about, and the trailers certainly make Kai appear to be the hero, but he's not.  The film begins by showing you Kai's life, but it gives you no opportunity to really get to know him.  You feel sympathy, but not empathy.  Then about a third of the way into the film, the story stops following Kai and starts devoting most of its attention to the ex-samurai Oishi (Hiiroyuki Sanada, Helix, Onmyoji).

Kai and Oishi then join forces to become the film's heroes.  They are not trying to save their world from demons, although there are some otherworldly forces at work.  Their lord was killed by the lord of a neighboring province, who is about to marry the dead lord's daughter.  Kai, Oishi and the other ronin want to rescue the girl and take revenge.  The revenge part of the tale is familiar territory for anyone who has seen some Japanese samurai flicks.  Here it's been populated with some supernatural elements and the somewhat forced inclusion of Reeves.

After Kai and Oishi decide to go and save the girl, there are a more supernatural scenes, including a sudden infodump about Kai's past that seems rather out of place.  Then they gather the rest of their lord's former samurai, now all declared ronin by decree of the shogun,  and go to storm the evil lord's castle in a fairly exciting series of fight scenes.  Kai gets to fight the witch who has been carrying out most of the evil lord's misdeeds, so he can personally save the girl, with whom he's naturally in love.  Sadly that love story is very poorly developed and it's hard to take it seriously.  But someone working on this film must have seen a few samurai movies, because it suddenly swerves back to a more familiar style for this type of film by having a tragic conclusion.  The shogun does not waive punishment for the ronins' transgressions.  Their reward isn't happily ever after, it's to be allowed to honorably commit seppuku instead of being hanged as common criminals.

The first flaw I saw immediately was some bad scriptwriting. The screenwriters needed to learn an adage that many fiction writers have heard over and over:  Show, don't tell.  The film starts out with a lengthy voiceover telling us about Kai's past.  It would have been a much better film if the filmmaker's had filmed that infodump as scenes instead.  It would have integrated Kai into the story better and perhaps made him a character you could empathize with.  Later on in the film when one of the ronin is mortally wounded in an ambush and before he dies he apologizes to Kai for having throne stones at him when they were younger.  If we had seen a brief scene of that character as a child throwing stones at the younger Kai, we would have felt something when the character died, and we would have perhaps been moved by Kai's response to the man's apology.

The second major disappointment comes after Lord Asano dies and Oishi and the other samurai are declared ronin.  Oishi is thrown in a dungeon.  Then we see a title: "One year later."  We learn through later exposition that while Oishi was languishing in prison supposedly having his spirit broken, Kai has been sold into slavery to the Europeans and has been used in a sort of gladiatorial sport that has turned him into a mindless killing machine.  Why couldn't we see any of that onscreen?  A few minutes of Oishi in prison, suffering and trying to maintain his dignity, a few minutes of Kai being forced to fight for his life.  That's all we needed.  I would have much preferred that to scenes of the villain Lord Kira and his witch posturing together.  It would also have been good to see what motivation the witch had for helping Kira steal Lord Asano's territory.  But Kira and the witch were presented as villains who were villains only because the film declared them so.

This article gives some possible explanation as to why the film turned out such an awkward mish-mash.  Sadly someone involved apparently thought that American audiences wouldn't know anything about samurai and wouldn't go to see a movie that didn't have a recognizable American actor in it.  I don't think Keanu Reeves is as terrible an actor as some people do, and I don't think he ruined this film.  He just wasn't given enough to do, and the movie couldn't decide if he was the hero or if the ronin were.

Despite the flaws I described above, the film isn't completely without merit.  The magical effects are quite appealing. Hiroyuki Sanada is excellent at Oishi.  Keanu has a couple of good moments throughout the film. The costumes, while not historically accurate, are quite lovely, especially all the armor.    Even while I was complaining about the narrative awkwardness, I kept feeling there was a kernel of a better movie trying to escape.  It's too bad that studio interference prevented that kernel from sprouting and growing.