Finished reading Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card today. This is my second time reading this book – I read the rest of the series more or less as they came out the first time around, but not sure if i’ll get to that this time. But wanted to reread this again as I found a short story ‘prequel’ (Mazer In Prison) recently in the Federations anthology and reminded me what a good book this is.

it’s also kind of funny because if you walk around with this book in your hand (was reading it on the bus yesterday afternoon) people will always speak up and say what a good book it is – even though those speaking don’t usually look like sci-fi fans – last time it was some old women touting it when they saw me in downtown Salt Lake City carrying the book (where I lived then). Kinda weird.

The book holds up well on a second read – despite being a person who likes to reread books, lately I have noticed on re-reads things I didn’t earlier (Heinlein’s Friday being a noteworthy example – far too many descriptions of eating huge meals in far too much detail – last time I checked, this was sci-fi, not Food Network?) that lower the book’s interest for me somewhat. Here, not so. While I still sometimes get annoyed about the ‘kids language’ used from time to time in the book – it is a book about a little kid being turned into a star-fleet commanding killer, after all – otherwise the writing works well at getting inside Ender’s head as well as a few key other players around him (not all, to be sure – but that’s what at least some of the later books try to do). I think his inner struggle between what he knows they are doing to him vs. how he regrets a lot of it by the end of the book could have been made stronger, but again, he’s a little kid and likely couldn’t have completely understood it at that stage anyway.

And while this book is about space opera to a degree – it’s much, much more about the way humans use one another to achieve their own ends (for better or worse, in positive, neutral or negative ways). Peter, Ender’s older brother, certainly represents both ends of the spectrum on this point, depending how you look at him and what part of the book you are reading. And how you look at him through Ender’s perspective.

In a nutshell, Ender is a gifted child who takes many of the qualities of his older (also gifted) brother and is trained to maximize them for the purposes of fighting an interstellar war – essentially commanding the fleet by remote control. The book mostly covers his experiences and development in Battle School and how he is trained ultimately to think he can only rely on himself, while the rest of humanity may have to ultimately rely on him for survival. His sister enters the scene early on, then later, acting somewhat as his conscience as his humanity is in many ways removed by his military training over time.

Highly recommended, if you like military-style sci-fi. Certainly influential in its own way, but harder to duplicate (IMHO) than say, Starship Troopers, which lately seems to have spawned many series of military sci-fi on its own (or taken together with The Forever War). I think it’s fairly certain that any book post-Ender that tries to have children fighting remote-control space battles, coupled with themes of ‘growing up too soon’ or ‘lost/never had a childhood’ – would be deemed derivative and a copy fairly soon after it appeared.

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it’s that time of year again – The 4th NW Pinball and Gameroom Show is upon us, bigger and badder than ever!

link here. Hope to see you there!

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new promo video for the show. Also, the site has been updated – the excitement begins!!!!!

http://nwpinballshow.com/

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So recently I remembered an old X-Files episode written by William Gibson (of cyberpunk fame) and Tom Maddox – Kill Switch. You can watch the whole thing on Vimeo here. Rather than spoil the plot (wikipedia linked earlier will do that if you read it), i will simply say this is an engaging and taut story definitely ahead of its time (originally broadcast on Feb 15, 1998). If you ever worry about Cold War technology, Skynet or the like, you should like this a lot.

Last night, I watched the second, later Gibson episode – First Person Shooter. This one aired on Freb 27, 2000 and did well ratings wise, even winning two Emmys. But while it’s well made, I found it fairly predictable (helps having the vantage point of watching it almost 11 years after broadcast :)) – and overly melodramatic. This episode is very similar in plot to a certain 1993 first-person shooter videogame we’re all familiar with (because it all but started the whole genre) but in some ways, less interesting. I’ve never been a huge fan of shooter videogames to begin with, so that may have biased my take too, not sure. This episode was in the Seventh Season of The X-Files, in case you want to rent it to watch.

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watched the original TRON last night. Given how recently we saw the sequel, it was good to go back to the original for comparisons.

1) I missed the nuance of ‘clu’ in the original until this time. You may remember early on when Flynn is trying to hack the MCP (before he goes ‘into’ the computer himself) he has a tank running around with a program that looks like him – that’s Clu – seen far more prominently in the sequel of course. Sadly the ‘loose bit‘ seen here (and a bit later) didn’t make the sequel….

2) LIked the far more prevalent Recognizers here. In the sequel, they basically get one scene early on, and that’s kinda it. Here they are much more a part of the plot, including when Flynn steals one and flies it (not entirely successfully) to the I/O tower to meet Tron and Yori. The Recognizers for me are one of the definitive icons from TRON, and I wish they had done far more with them in the sequel , doh!

3) They make far more effort to tie together the computer world, the human world, and the relationship between the two here. Which of course ends up as background in the sequel, but if they hadn’t done it the sequel would be extremely confusing (rather than just sort of).

4) The plot holds together decently – there are some slow spots, yes – but on balance, it sets up the villain(s) well and then provides several good guys to battle them in various ways (although not really explaining what the MCP ultimately wanted to ‘do’ once it infiltrated all the computers in the human world – wait for the rise of/fight Skynet? :))

5) I am still amazed at the lameness of the critics slamming this movie in their reviews of the sequel. It is patently obvious most of them never watched it, or were too young for the original (and then never watched it priot to the new one), and/or simply don’t get it, period. Yes, many ideas from this movie have been done later and arguably better in other ways, but TRON showed the way and visually has a style all its own (doesn’t hurt having Syd Mead and other renowned artists/conceptual designers setting a pretty high bar, either).

This movie is not Citizen Kane – and perhaps by today’s standards it looks kind of dated – kerewin commented more than once on the ‘lame special effects’ – which I have to counter with ‘dated’ – they aren’t lame! And maybe you had to grow up at that time during the earlier ‘rise of the computer’ in our daily lives vs. now. But seen vs. much of what has come later – and especially how lame at least half of the vaunted Star Wars movies have been and the third Matrix movie, etc. – there’s certainly plenty of room out there for an alternate vision. Viva TRON!

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Watched the anime Vexille (note: major spoilers in the Wikipedia link!) tonight, post-skiing. Vexille, named after one of the main characters, tracks the story of a completely isolated (diplomatically, physically and technologically) Japan; a malevolent plot courtesy of the internationally known Daiwa Corporation (makers of all kinds of advanced androids and robot tech); and the US Navy S.W.O.R.D. commando team sent to infiltrate Japan to figure out what’s going on after breaking up a secret meeting in the Colorado mountains. This show is kind of a mixed bag, however, for the following reasons:

1) The animation, done by the same team that did Appleseed, is good. I still think, however, that Appleseed was considerably more dazzling overall in appearance than this movie. Sometimes the visuals are very stunning, and other times they seem like the animated intro’s to a PS2 game or something (the ones you always skip past by hitting ‘X’ repeatedly so you can get to playing the actual game?). Also, in some ways this movie’s look seems to directly mimic Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in a number of scenes also.

2) There are parallels in the plot between Vexille and Appleseed too – I won’t reveal them to avoid spoiling it, but on the bright side, this movie doesn’t have the heroine shouting ‘Briareos!’ over and over again like Appleseed does.

3) The Jags (metal-seeking ‘worm whirlwinds’ in the Japanese wastelands) are obviously a Dune sandworm ripoff, plain and simple.

4) The characters (excepting possibly Maria) aren’t really developed well, if at all – they are pretty flat and one-dimensional.

5) Finally, one of the last battles between Vexille and Kisaragi (Daiwa Corp’s resident mad scientist) is pretty unbelievable.

Wikipedia references other reviews that call out Vexille for going over ground already covered by Ghost in the Shell – I agree with that in some ways, but Vexille put a reverse twist on the whole ‘man vs. machine’ debate (central to many of these similar anime) which had potential but became fairly formulaic in the end, not unlike the recently reviewed Sky Crawlers. The quest for better anime goes on!

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Well, the day finally arrived, and we saw TRON: Legacy tonight. Given that there’s already quite a few reviews out there (here, here, here, here and here for starters), I will add my two cents as well.

First, the good:

1) Music and effects are great. The look and feel of ‘the grid’ is as unique as ever (just like it was the first time around in 1982) and Daft Punk provide a great soundtrack. They apparently even got a cameo as the DJ’s in the nightclub where Sam Flynn and Quorra go to meet the mysterious ‘Zeus’ (who turns out to be a semi-albino Willy Wonka sans top hat, but I still liked him anyway). The light-cycle scenes are very cool, again, just like last time, and it was great to see the Recognizers get their moments in the sun again too (although they aren’t really as ‘malevolent’ as in the last film).

2) Jeff Bridges generally is good, although they don’t really give him enough to do IMHO. Yes, he’s the central character (in more ways than one) but barring the opening narration, we don’t see near enough inside his head – and that’s a real missed opportunity. And Bruce Boxleitner is even more in the same boat, given that he’s a sideman as before, despite being the namesake of the two movies (Tron).

On to what didn’t work as well:

1) On the one hand, I give them props for not making the movie into one action scene after another (a la the second and third Matrix movies) at the expense of storyline and character development. Despite what some of the reviewers above may think – the original TRON really tried – if you are paying attention while watching it, and had the benefit of growing up back then – to really imagine what it would be like to ‘live inside a computer’, and came up with a unique vision of that, which has influenced a LOT of movies since, the most obvious being The Matrix but there are plenty others.

But in attempting to get inside the characters more, you have give the audience more to go on. There is a scene where Sam talks to Quorra about Flynn’s book collection – but they don’t explain why she likes the books or thinks they are important? By the same token, yes, Clu (Flynn’s self-created perfectionist computer doppelganger) is Flynn’s opposite number (in misdirected megalomania) but even so, he’s never ‘evil’ the way the MCP and Dillinger were in the original. In that movie the MCP ultimately is calling the shots in BOTH the digital and human worlds at one point? The villains here just don’t compare in that respect.

2) Flynn’s hideout brings back a lot of Blade Runner (an original TRON contemporary, it was two years later, flopped about as badly at the time and since has influenced everyone else to an equal if not greater degree) in its look and feel to me. And the scene where Flynn, Quorra and Sam are eating dinner is reminiscent of near the end of 2001 where Discovery astronaut Dave Bowman is eating dinner/rapidly aging in the Louis XIV dining room – all that white on white.

3) As discussed with fellow moviegoers after seeing it, the big ‘Clu rally’ scene where he reveals his plans is right out of Lord of the Rings, with Christopher Lee rallying the Orcs and monsters to attack as they stamp their weapons and yell (not like this type of scene doesn’t happen at least once or twice in each LOTR movie, for that matter :)).

And this brings up my continual point about supervillains – why? When General Zod and his buddies kicked everyone’s ass in short order in Superman II, they were then seen lounging around the White House with nothing to do? They had already beaten all the lame humans, taken over the US (and of course by implication the world – helps when you make the movies in Hollywood that you can imply that) and are bored out of their gourds until Superman shows up to give them something to do?

So what was Clu going to do if he managed to pull an ‘Agent Smith’ and get back to the ‘real world’? Smith was similar – what was he planning on doing? After killing Neo and turning everyone in The Matrix into duplicates of himself, then what? Here there is lip service paid to Clu/Flynn’s vision of ‘perfecting the system’ – but they don’t really explain what that means or why it ultimately ‘twisted’ Clu in the end?

4) The scene of Flynn talking to Clu (near the end) about where things went wrong – I hate to point this out, but it really smacks of Keanu confronting Patrick Swayze at the end of Point Break, with the speech and how ‘Bodie’ can’t be caged, etc. – that movie is cornball from the word go (despite otherwise being great entertainment) – but if you agree with my point (and you may not), it makes Flynn’s self-confrontation somewhat less effective.

5) The son of the original movie’s Dillinger/bad guy is wasted here – they have but one scene with him (played by an uncredited Cillian Murphy, making the waste DOUBLE because he’s always such a great bad guy) – I was half-expecting a weird twist where it is shown that Dillinger’s son is ultimately behind Clu’s betrayal, not Flynn’s vision of perfection. And then it might have made some weird attempt by a ‘revived’ MCP worth trying in turn? In any case, it could have been very cool.

6) In an earlier post, I noted an article where apparently the Pixar guys were brought in to discuss plot and character with the director and writers. Not sure if it did any good here, or whether they actually took the suggestions and used them? To me, if someone like Brad Bird is giving you free advice on a movie – you TAKE it! It would be like being a newbie actor and having Dustin Hoffman, De Niro or similar in a bit part but on the set for a week or two – I’d be hitting them up or trying to learn by osmosis, hello? Just sayin’.

7) Yet another movie where the 3D is largely ‘meh’. I really don’t think it adds much of anything – you’re already in a huge screen, big sounds, special effects. etc. – it’s not like this is the Star Trek holodeck where you’re ‘in’ the action directly or something – I think the whole 3D thing is eventually going to go the way of the original Cinerama process, if more slowly.

8 ) It’s weird how much of the last 20 minutes or so of this movie are nearly identical to the first one. They have a big getaway on the Solar Sailor; the Recognizers and bad guys chase them; they get to the portal and have a big shootout. Here there is a bit of speeching at the expense of action (in the first one, Sark turns into a ‘giant’ (with the help of the MCP) and is about to crush Tron permanently when Flynn hacks the portal and ‘ends’ the MCP for good). If only the speech had told us more…..

Ultimately for a sequel like TRON, this is a good question to ask – how much of the original movie do you pay homage to while (trying, anyway) to craft a new story? Or do you? The recent Incredible Hulk movies (having seen none of them) were all but back to back remakes (notwithstanding the 70s TV series) within 5 years of one another?

All in all, I’m glad I saw it, but like so many movies (e.g. parts of Matrix 2 and most of Matrix 3, among others) – there’s a lot of missed opportunities here. It was definitely better than Avatar though, although it may have cost even more to make ($237M for Avatar vs. an est. $300M for TL)?

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less than a week now – getting stoked!

Seattle Cinerama

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This past summer, a (nerdy) classic from the past was finally released on DVD – the complete ’87-’88 TV series of Max Headroom.

In complete disclosure – I only caught a few episodes of this the first time around but remembered how it was fairly cutting edge, so was curious to watch it again. In most ways, it still holds up, really. The challenge of course for highly technical, future-predicting shows like this (and say, movies like 2001 and Blade Runner) is that they will just get it wrong, or that they are too much a product of their time and that ends up biasing their predictions considerably, or that many things we take for granted in looking back simply didn’t exist at all – hence fairly impossible to predict them. Of course that last statement ignores 100+ years of science-fiction starting with Jules Vernes and HG Wells – but this is my blog, so blah! And neither of them was working for Max at the time, anyway :).

On the cool side – this show either takes for granted or predicts many things that are far more prevalent in today’s society, to wit:

– the even greater income/lifestyle division between haves and have-nots (the ‘fringe’ depicted in nearly every episode where the ‘rabble’ of society don’t do much beyond sit in their shantytowns and watch crappy TV, is reminiscent of Gibson’s cyberpunk Sprawl Trilogy of the same era);

– the ability to track nearly anything/everything via satellites and computer monitoring – Theora monitors and assists Edison from Network 23’s HQ while hacking any computer system they need to – the animated views and her constant directions/descriptions to Edison also predate The Matrix by about 20+ years too for that matter;

– government information control, censorship and the notion of ‘pay to play’ – certainly the first two have been with us since Orwell and earlier, but Max Headroom put a new spin on it in a more Huxley vein – the information consumed daily by most viewers is mostly ‘infotainment’ done to beat the other networks for ratings above all else;

– along the lines of the point just made, the dumbing down of broadcast content with malevolent purposes behind it (anyone ever watch Fox “News”?);

– identity theft and the ramifications of becoming a ‘nobody’ despite needing a real identity to survive in modern society. Here the entity responsible is a computer/AI, however, not simply computer ‘burglars’ as typically seen today, but the problem is remarkably the same;

– a TV courtroom where justice seems largely arbitrary and (again) done for ratings – not to discover truth;

– corporate sponsorship and ultimate control over broadcast content. This has been a problem since there was advertising, radio, TV, magazines, etc. so Max hardly predicted it – BUT – the extreme examples of it seen here in at least three different episodes demonstrate the extent to which corporations may seek to effectively take the law into their own hands when given the opportunity (or in the absence of rules/laws otherwise);

– TV-based elections where the outcomes are unpredictable and in some cases, suspect or simply a means to an end for the behind the scenes players (here TV networks of course, but remember that election of 2000? {sarcasm} Certainly there was no ‘purpose’ behind the Supreme Court’s ruling there, no sir! {end sarcasm})

It’s true that despite Edison’s constant use of on-the-spot reporting and communication over videocam – today’s cam would be a heck of a lot smaller, possibly very miniature and unnoticed by the casual observer. Theora’s computer also owes a bit to Terry Gilliam’s Brazil when you see her typing on it (think ancient manual typewriter connected to a modern computer terminal, just like they had all over the place in Brazil as a style cue). The animation used is more than a bit dated – but then again, Fry’s (also known as Mecca for nerds) still uses a DOS-based inventory and point-of-sales system, so if it works, why mess with success?

Now it’s also true that in some cases, the **idea** behind the episode is the revolutionary part – the execution is sometimes left wanting. While the main characters (Edison, Murray and Theora) are generally believable – most of the ‘executives’ at Network 23 are little more than talking heads with pretty inane dialogue. This was a recurring gripe of mine with Babylon 5 – while the concepts and ideas were pretty cool – seeing Bruce Boxleitner yell ‘get the hell out of our galaxy’ to the Shadow aliens was pretty cornball when you watched it. Oh Tron, what a wicked web we weave. 🙂

Charles Rocket (RIP) does a great star turn in the first episode as the head of Network 23 – then reappears as a rival network villain in three later episodes. And Morgan Sheppard is great as Blank Reg of Big Time TV – despite looking like the oldest punk in existence the way they have him made up (all but Johnny Rotten’s dad in appearance).

On some of the predictions they got wrong – Well, TV networks do not control the earth (despite Fox’s best efforts at same – which may abate somewhat when Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes kick the bucket); Most of Earth’s population does not live in a burned-out slum – yet; We don’t spend all our time watching TV (that’s what the Internet is for, after all :)); and we don’t have ‘body banks’ with people roaming the streets, kidnapping you for organs (or do we?).

But what about Max Headroom himself? He was effectively a computer copy of Edison Carter, the crusading reporter and central character of the series. There are episodes (certainly the first of course) where Max is directly involved in the plot – there are also several episodes where he is largely window dressing and only makes a few sporadic quips or jokes here and there between the main action of that particular story. I’m not sure if they intended that, or if it simply worked out that way in trying to come up with enough cutting edge stories without having Max kind of lampooning things midstream. It would have been neat to see them explore more of Max’s personality in depth – they hint at it from time to time but usually veer away back to the main story involving Edison and the other main characters in most episodes, unfortunately.

The entire series is only 14 episodes – on the DVD there is one that never aired in the US but did later in AU. So it’s not like sitting down to watch the entire run of even the original Star Trek (79 episodes) – they were really just getting started when the show ended. There is also a bonus DVD included in the set with writer/producer and cast interviews. Unfortunately the star of the show, Matt Frewer, is not among them – but you can see at least one interview with him on YouTube if you look.

All in all, this series is definitely worth checking out – more so if you are a nerdy or sci-fi enthusiast. Max, we hardly knew ye.

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Saw these tonight, makes the wait until December even harder!!!!

Tron: Legacy Is Officially Going To Be Really, Really Good
‘Tron: Legacy’ exclusive: Disney looks to Pixar for help; hires screenwriters Michael Arndt and Brad Bird to beef up script

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