July 6, 2014

An Open Letter to Michael Bay From a Humble Fanboy:

By The Sector M

[My blog has been on semi-hiatus the last few months as I finish up on one novel and begin another. This Fourth of July weekend I saw Transformers: Age of Extinction, which prompted me to reopen my blog for this letter.]

Dear Mr. Bay,

First off, let me congratulate you on an incredible opening weekend for your recent film, Transformers: Age of Extinction. In less than a week, the movie has made over $128 million dollars. I’d say you’re on target to shatter all manner of box office records and sit astride the top-earning slot of this year’s summer blockbuster season.

Which is why we’ve really got to talk.

Now, this isn’t an angry letter. No, sir. Anger implies a burning rage, and a fiery lack of rational understanding. No, after watching TF:AOE, I’m cold. Oh so cold.

Before I get into the nuts and bolts of this letter, I must first make an admission: Your movies are my guilty pleasure. Say what you will about their plot, story, and intrinsic artistic value – your visuals are spectacular. You constantly push the envelope of movie-making technology to produce films that are breathtaking. No one can make explosions looks as beautiful as you on screen. I mean that. Truly.

But…

I can say without hesitation, and greatest conviction, that TF:AOE is your worst film to date. Perhaps my criticisms (to follow) are better suited to one of the other Executive Producers of the film, or perhaps the screenwriter, or indeed anyone involved with the movie’s creative direction, but seeing as how you are the Director, the proverbial Captain of this ship, the responsibility is ultimately yours.

Simply put, I’m a fan of Transformers, and have been since my childhood. I could elaborate on the various expressions of this fandom, but in the interests of brevity let me say that it will be hard for you to find a person who loves this property more than I do. When I heard back in 2006 that you were helming the first Transformers film, I was cautiously optimistic about it. You are, after all, on the short-list of action directors capable of turning out a blockbuster of this magnitude. Since my first brush with your take on the franchise, however, there have been some trouble spots.

I suffered through Bumblebee urinating on John Turturro in the first installment. I gritted my teeth in the second movie as we saw that Devastator was anatomically correct. I even kept my composure during the barren cinematic landscape of Dark of the Moon. And yet, call me sentimental, but there were shining moments in that trilogy that gave me hope, that kept bringing me back into the theatre in 2009 and 2011, like an abusive relationship that hurts you again and again, but that you cannot quite bring yourself to break off.

After seeing TF:AOE, I’m afraid my little fanboy heart cannot stand it anymore. It’s just been broken too many times, and most recently by you. (Spoilers Ahead! You have been warned.) I do not enjoy seeing characters from previous movies, even CGI ones, brutally murdered while on their knees, begging for their lives, and decrying, “Wait! What are you doing — I’m one of your friends!” Nor do I appreciate characters who have proven themselves competent in the past suddenly losing their temper, acting like spoiled children, and endangering themselves and the lives of others in the process. The same goes for the amount of collateral damage and indiscriminate destruction that so-called “Autobots” wreaked in Bejing. But the butcher’s bill of misfires made here, every plothole covered with glorious, glorious special effects, the casual and unending objectification of women, the uncomfortable racial and cultural stereotypes, the tissue-thin depth of the characters – all of it – pales before the final straw that broke the back of my fandom. (I mean, all those tropes are at least part of your regular schtick, right?)

The final sin, the place this movie went that the others at their worst avoided, is Optimus Prime. You turned him into an angry, embittered maniac who is as ineffectual as a warrior as he is a leader. He kills people, humans, in this movie. It’s bad enough that I had to see Superman snap General Zod’s neck in Man of Steel, but now Optimus Prime, paragon of wisdom and virtue, just executes a guy. No attempt to have him answer for his crimes, or see that justice is done, just point and fire with as much emotional response to the killing as a mafia hitman (meaning no disrespect to any mafia hitmen who might read this). After that, it came as no surprise that his final coup d’grace was stabbing the bad guy in the back.

But it’s worse than even that. What really drives white-hot pokers into my soul is that Optimus gives up on us. Despite all his talk in the original trilogy that “freedom is the right of all sentient beings” and that “they are a young race, capable of great compassion” he is more than willing to turn his back on us when we are, as the name of the movie implies, facing extinction, and Mark Wahlberg has to give Optimus the pep talk about why he should continue to fight, not the other way around. There is a direct quote from the end of Dark of the Moon, spoken by Prime: “There will be days when we lose faith, days when our allies turn against us, but the day will never come when we forsake the planet and its peoples.” What happened to that Prime? Can we get him back in the next movie?

In casting him in this light, this movie did what I thought was an impossibility…it made me hate Optimus Prime. Me. I realize that you don’t know me, or the deep significance that this character holds for me, but let us just say that I still tear up a bit when I see Optimus die in the 1986 animated movie. Scarred for life, I was. Prime may very well be my favorite character in all of fiction, and I despised him by the end of this movie. That, Mr. Bay, I can never forgive.

Let me take a step back at this point, breathe and count to ten. There, better now. Allow me to throw a few facts your way. At the time of this writing, TF:AOE has earned itself 17% on Rotten Tomatoes. That is on par with Showgirls (also at 17%), which is widely regarded as one of the worst movies ever made. This movie ranks lower than the huge disaster Battleship, which was a blatant rip-off of the Transformers movie franchise, as well as your own distinctive visual style. By comparison, it sits at 34%. Battleship! You’ve been outdone by one of your weakest imitators.

Good God, man…Battleship!

The disconnect between the quality of the story and its undeniable commercial success worldwide tells me that you have labored to produce the cinematic equivalent of Twilight, the book not the movie. Perhaps that doesn’t matter to you. Perhaps you’re content, even satisfied, with how TF:AOE came out. Or perhaps it was just a job and/or an enormous payday to you. I can’t speak for your reasoning, but I can tell you that I’m embarrassed for you. There is more heart and soul in the merest fraction of your Lionel Richie video documentary (a fine musician and artist, I hasten to add) than can be found in the entirety of this soulless (sparkless?), joyless movie.

Now, I write these words in the knowledge that you will likely never read them. In truth, this is more a catharsis for me than a critique for you. But assuming you do read this, and you’ve made it this far, I might as well go the whole nine yards. To that end, allow me to illustrate for you what it was like to sit through all three hours of this movie, in a convenient bullet-point format:

  • This movie was akin to sitting in the basement of a Porta Potty, looking up, while it is being used on an unseasonably warm State Fair Day
  • Watching this movie weakened my faith in humanity, when it had previously survived the onslaughts of Jersey Shore, Toddlers and Tiaras, and Honey Boo Boo
  • Seeing this movie made me feel like how a trash dump full of zombies and old socks smells
  • It was tantamount to seeing a school bus full of puppies fall into a volcano, when the volcano also eats souls
  • Exactly like watching the worst movie I’ve ever seen, where cherished characters from my childhood are criminally misunderstood, with staggering amounts of unnecessary scenes, plot holes Optimus himself could drive through, worn-out clichés, placeholder dialogue, and amateur-hour characterization, making me wonder how something so singularly god-awful was ever released in the first place

And while we are on the subject, allow me to elaborate the things I would rather do than watch this movie ever again:

  • Watch Star Wars: Attack of Clones twelve straight times, back-to-back, including all the footage of Jar-Jar from the entire prequel trilogy
  • Take college algebra again.
  • Throw a punch at Mike Tyson, before or after insulting his significant other
  • Die. Just die
  • Awaken Great Cthulhu from his dark and terrible slumber. (Though, to be honest, any of the Great Old Ones would suffice in His place)

Okay, so I’m taking a few liberties here, but again – catharsis, remember? Despite the fact that I must part ways with you for the crimes of this movie, let me leave you with this thought.

I want to help you.

While I understand that these movies are most definitely not made with the fans of Transformers in mind, perhaps I can save you some whining from heartbroken souls such as myself in the future. Story is cheap. It’s words on a page. With a $210 million dollar budget, the story of a movie like this has to be the cheapest part of your production costs, and the easiest to change. Again, your special effects are incredible, to the point that I can see the minute details of Hound’s bushy beard. Why can’t that level of detail, thought, and attention go into the base story itself? Honestly, as a fan, is that too much to ask?

So, I am offering my services to you, Mr. Bay. Next time you go to visit the Transformers universe, call me. You need someone on your team who loves this franchise, since it is clear from this offering you are lacking such a someone. I will be stupidly happy (like a live-action role-player at a renaissance festival) to help you avoid making another movie like this one, and you will find that my fee will be a paltry, practically insignificant sum next to whatever you’re paying your screenwriter.

Just food for thought.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

-Matt Carson

P.S. – Despite all of this, I enjoyed your cameo in Mystery Men.

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November 7, 2013

Why I Love The Doctor

By The Sector M

I’ve heard it said that being a geek means never having to say you’re sorry for loving something. Good thing, because this blog post is all about why I love the Doctor in Doctor Who.  If you’re a Whovian already, this post is likely just shooting fish in a barrel, but I will tell you why I love the show and the character of the Doctor in particular.

For those of you who are not necessarily fans of the show, here is a peek into that particular fandom.  It’s true that Whovians occupy a strange niche of the overall sci-fi genre. You can see them at conventions with their scarves, long coats or bow-ties, often waving around sonic screwdrivers with every photo-op.  Or maybe it’s just a T-shirt with a blue box on it or the words “Don’t Blink.”

Regardless of what they look like, these folks are linked together by a single television series that first debuted in 1963. The central character of that show is the Doctor (BTW, his last name is NOT ‘Who’), and is one of the most compelling and enduring characters in all of science fiction. Here’s why I love him:

50 Years Creates a Legend

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Yeah, baby, yeah!

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the show.  With more than 200 episodes in its continuity, not to mention novels, video games, comics and radio plays, the Doctor has been on a lot of adventures. This gives him a body of past accomplishments that practically dwarfs any other sci-fi character. Doctor Who is, after all, the longest running sci-fi TV show of all time.

Even in the current series, there are references and throwbacks to things which happened at the very beginning of the series.  By this point in the storyline, the Doctor has achieved a nearly unrivalled heroic status. I mean, if you can boast that you’ve saved the Universe or the Earth more times than Kirk or Picard, and possibly as many times as Superman, I’d say you have some bragging rights.

His Heart (Both of Them)

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With all my heart.

The Doctor has lived over 900 years.  He’s fought evil forces and saved quadrillions of innocent lives. While some of his travels can be lighthearted, there are times when the Doctor is deadly serious, and must champion existence itself.  It is the force of his convictions and his almost unimaginable capacity for compassion and mercy that drive him. There are so many times in the series where he could have chosen the easy path and just walked away.  But he doesn’t.

The Doctor stands and fights, most of the time without weapons, and with only the help of his trusty sonic screwdriver and the companions at his side.  Yet, when the smoke clears, the Doctor is triumphant even against the most impossible odds. While he can’t always save everyone around him (the body count in Doctor Who can get pretty high), the Doctor finds a way − always.  He never runs out of hope. His hearts, much like his beloved TARDIS, have to be bigger on the inside, like a super-reversed Grinch.

His Mind Is His Greatest Weapon

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What he said.

Perhaps the thing I love about this character the most is that his mind is the most awesome weapon in his arsenal.  The Doctor is almost always able to outthink and outmaneuver his enemies, even if they initially get the drop on him. He has that uncanny knack for using the opposition’s strength against them.  So, the greater the force arrayed against him, the more dangerous he becomes.

In an age of brute-force action heroes, who are more concerned with kicking down doors and mowing down anything that moves, the Doctor presents us with a daring and compelling alternative.  He uses violence as a last resort, rather than leading with it. I think that this peace-loving mindset makes the storylines in Doctor Who that much more interesting and rich. (And this is coming from a guy who writes military science fiction!)

An Unbroken String of Great Performances

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One man, eleven faces.

At the time of this writing, there have been 11 men who have played the Doctor in the main story (sorry, Peter Cushing and John Hurt!). If you ask a proper Whovian who the worst Doctor of the lot was, they might have a hard time answering. We all have our favorites, which can naturally eclipse some of the other incarnations of that most famous of Time Lords.

Here’s the cool part…even the weakest versions of the Doctor are still incredibly well played on screen. Each actor brought something to the role that stood out from his peers.  From William Hartnell’s First Doctor to Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor, the performances have been outstanding from start to finish. Even when the sets and special effects were not all that stellar, each Doctor was still uniquely brilliant. No pressure, Peter Capaldi. Your Twelfth Doctor has some pretty big shoes to fill.

He’s Universally Applicable to…Everything

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Anyone surprised? Anyone?

With a ship that can travel to any point in time and space, the Doctor could quite literally show up anywhere.  There have been some limited crossovers with other series (mostly in comics and novels), but it would not be out of character for a blue box to just materialize in just about any other sci-fi universe or continuity. Believe it or not, there is a comic book storyline where the Eleventh Doctor teams up with Jean-luc Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D to fight a bunch of Borg/Cybermen hybrids. Yeah, my geek is showing.

But even within the confines of the show, we see the Doctor meet historical figures from Shakespeare to Madame de Pompadour. Whether he lands in Victorian England (which he does quite a bit), Renaissance Italy or Pompeii, there really is no storyline − past or present − that the Doctor couldn’t participate in. He just sort of goes with everything, and it’s glorious. The adventure possibilities are truly limitless.

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So there you have it, folks. In broad strokes, those are the reasons why this author loves the Doctor. If you are a science-fiction fan of any stripe, and haven’t watched this show, I can’t recommend Doctor Who enough to you.  In my opinion, the Doctor is one of the cornerstones of sci-fi, and is well worth discovering for yourself if you haven’t already. Who knows, you might just find yourself cruising ThinkGeek for a TARDIS mug or Dalek ice cube tray.

Allons-y!

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October 18, 2013

What The−? Minority Report

By The Sector M

This is a new segment on the Sector M blog, one where I take a subject matter (usually something to do with sci-fi, movies, comics, etc.) and explore what’s wrong with it. This will usually be something that should have been a slam dunk, but somehow didn’t live up to its own hype or potential. For our first time out, I’ve chosen the 2002 movie, Minority Report.

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Note: Not “Manos”: The Hands of Fate.

This was a ‘tent pole’ big-budget blockbuster with Tom Cruise playing the lead character and directed by Steven Spielberg. It was (loosely) based off of Philip K. Dick’s short story of the same name. Set in 2054, Cruise’s character, John Anderton, is a cop who specializes in “PreCrime.” In this future, the crime of murder has all but been eliminated by the presence of “PreCogs,” who are psychics who can see into the future.

When a murder is about to happen, Anderton’s squad receives an image of the crime from the PreCogs before it happens. They have only a short time to find out where the crime takes place based on the vision, get to the scene of the crime, and stop it before it happens. Everything is going okay until Anderton receives a vision of himself shooting a man in cold blood. Since you are guilty of crimes before you commit them in this world, Anderton is now on the run from the law and out to try to prove his innocence.

Here’s what’s wrong with it:

The Billiard Balls

So, when a PreCrime is reported, the first thing to show up at the police station is not the recorded psychic vision itself, but one laser-cut wooden sphere inscribed with the victim’s name on it and another with the perpetrator’s name. They make a reference that the unique wood grain of each ball makes it virtually impossible to duplicate or fake.

balldo0

Plot point, plot point!

The problem with it is not that this seems like a pretty weird way of handling things, but it brings up a question in my mind – how do they get that information? From the initial scene, it seems like the psychic vision is the only information that the cops have to go on. They have to look for landmarks and clues within that vision to find out where the crime will happen, yet the PreCogs apparently also transmit the name of the victim-to-be on a separate channel. If the PreCogs can know a victim’s name, and the name of the would-be criminal, why don’t they also know the victim’s address?

The Countdown Timer

This is a cautionary tale of using time-travel elements in sci-fi, and how they can go wrong in a hurry. So, when a PreCrime vision comes in, there is a timer attached to it, counting down to the time of the murder. Like the name on the sphere, it’s never clear how they get this information, but there it is. The problem is that crimes of passion have a much shorter time span than a crime that is premeditated.

minority_report_interface1

Um, say that again?

On the surface that might seem intuitive; someone who decides to kill on the spot gets a smaller window than someone who plans it out. It is, however, utter non-sense. You are looking into the future. Even if it was a seemingly random string of events or emotional states that lead up to the crime, even if it was an on-the-spot decision, the outcome is already part of the time stream. The intentions behind the crime are irrelevant.

The Eye Transplant

Anderton is on the run and realizes that too many places have retinal scanners that could identify him. His solution? Get an eye transplant from a less-than-reputable street doctor. It makes sense − change your eyes so they can’t track you. It also shows off both the seedy underground nature of the world as well as the ease with which such an operation can be accomplished. Yep, we’re in the future, all right.

Once complete, Tom Cruise walks into The Gap and it scans his eyes. The holographic store greeter calls out, “Hello, Mr. Yakamoto! Welcome back to the Gap!” That tells us that the dark eyes that Tom Cruise has from then on were not cloned or grown, but taken from another person who apparently also shops at The Gap.

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War of the Worlds meets Gulliver’s Travels.

Sure, it solves the basic problem of being tracked, but if it comes from another person, who has an existing profile in the system, won’t that be noticed pretty quickly by the Big Brother security systems in place? Tom Cruise may be many things, but he doesn’t look Japanese. Someone’s bound to notice.

Psychic Camera Angles

Towards the end of the film it is revealed that (Spoiler Alert) Max Von Sydow is the bad guy. Not only that, but he has been killing people in his way for some time now. How can he do this given that the PreCogs’ whole job is to report murders before they happen?

Simple, he takes his victims to the site of a previous would-be murder witnessed by the PreCogs and kills them in the very same way. That way it looks like the psychic vision of the murder is merely an echo of one they’ve had in the past. It’s dismissed out of hand and everyone goes about their business.

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The ripples, man…it’s all about the ripples.

Well, it’s a good thing that whatever extra-sensory organ the PreCogs use to see into the future always uses the same camera angles, huh? It would be pretty embarrassing if you went through all that trouble to stage a murder and then the vision showed your face in a close-up rather than see you from fifty feet away.

There is No Minority Report

So, Anderton sets out to prove his innocence. He seeks out Dr. Iris Hineman, one of the original pioneers of the PreCog program, to see if there’s been some mistake. He finds her and she seems like some sort of crazy and weirdly flirtatious Professor Sprout from Harry Potter. She tells him that the strongest of the three PreCogs occasionally sees an alternate outcome of a PreCrime. These are called “Minority Reports.”

The reports are immediately buried, however. Determinism is what drives this PreCog program in the first place. If it became known that there was a possibility of an outcome other what the PreCogs saw in their visions, it would undermine the entire system. Every person convicted under that law system might have been innocent since they were stopped before they could commit the act. So, Anderton pins his hopes on finding the Minority Report to prove he won’t commit the crime, going even so far as to break into the PreCog facility and kidnapping the lead psychic.

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So…he’s actually guilty, then?

In the end, however, Anderton does actually the kill the guy, in exactly the same circumstances as seen in the original vision. There are extenuating circumstances, of course, but he still pulls the trigger and commits the crime anyway. There was no Minority Report.

Aside from that being the name of the friggin’ movie, doesn’t it strike anyone as odd that Anderton was framed and railroaded to commit this crime? How does one even go about setting someone up to kill a total stranger like that? The cause for him to go on the run, and ultimately kill this stranger, was the vision of him committing the crime in the first place. So, the effect becomes the cause that becomes the effect that becomes the cause. Paradox much?

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Minority Report wasn’t a total loss, however. There were some cool sci-fi and action elements in this movie. It had many of the marks of Steven Spielberg’s skillful direction in it. Unfortunately, much of the good stuff was overshadowed by the underlying flaws in the story.

It always amazes me when an expensive, effects-driven movie like this comes out. So much money was spent making the magnetic cars and holographic interfaces come to life, but it seems that parts of the overall story were not considered much at all. That’s a shame. The script and story are probably the easiest and cheapest things to change in a movie of this scope. When I see such a magnificent failure, all I can say is…what the−?

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2 Comments | posted in Uncategorized, What The--?

October 8, 2013

Continuity in Sci-Fi

By The Sector M

In this author’s opinion, continuity is the glue that holds a sci-fi universe or series together. When I speak of ‘continuity’ in this sense, I’m not talking about whether an actor looks the same from one shot to another, or that the level of someone’s drink doesn’t fluctuate between scenes. No, I’m talking about a storyline that keeps itself internally consistent.  I’m a super stickler for that kind of thing. Why?

Science fiction already requires some help to suspend the reader or viewer’s disbelief. We’ve got aliens, flying cars, faster-than-light travel and all that good stuff we don’t have running around in real life. When the boundaries of that continuity are smooth and seamless, it makes it a heck of a lot easier to swallow the concept of Klingons, lightsabers and giant robots.

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This is one of the largest cranes in the world.
Sometimes even this isn’t enough to suspend my disbelief.

But when the continuity is sloppy or inconsistent, when the established rules of that universe are lazily ignored, the cracks show through in a hurry. It reminds us that we’re not peering off into some other distant time and place, but rather that we’re looking at a bunch of actors standing around on a set made of plastic and wood. Sci-fi movies, novels, TV shows, and comic books all desperately need a solid continuity just as a given. It’s the foundation on which the story is built. Build a house on a faulty foundation, and well, you get the idea.

So, here are three examples from sci-fi where the continuity frayed with varying degrees of consequences. Here we go…

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

First off, I love this movie. James Cameron is my favorite action director, hands down, and I think this movie is some of his finest work. His stories tend to be pretty well thought out, which is why this continuity slip irks me. In the first Terminator movie, Kyle Reese tells Sarah Connor that time travel is only possible due to ‘a field generated by a living organism.’ This explains why Kyle arrives in 1984 wearing only his birthday suit  with no futuristic equipment like plasma pulse-rifles, etc. The Terminator itself is a machine, but its endoskeleton is covered with actual living tissue, so that explains that, right?

In T2, however, the T-1000 comes through just fine. Even though it appears to be a man (and still arrives naked), its entire body is actually made of a liquid metal (a mimetic polyalloy if you want to get technical). There’s nothing organic about it, at least nothing that’s ever revealed to the audience. So, how exactly did it travel through time?

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If I can shapechange into anything, why was I naked when I arrived?

Granted, we get all of our information about time travel from Kyle, who admits he doesn’t ‘know tech stuff,’ but it still causes a wrinkle. Even if it doesn’t destroy the movie for me (and it doesn’t), it still reminds me that someone wasn’t paying attention to their own canon.

Battlestar Galactica “Hero”

This episode of the reimagined Galactica series is from the notoriously wobbly Season 3. I’m not sure what happened to this show. It went from being some of the best sci-fi I have ever seen on television to a show that was almost painful to watch near the end. Season 3 was really where the continuity of the show wore thin, and this episode pretty much sums it up for me.

If you haven’t seen it, let me explain: So, Admiral Adama (Edward James Olmos) is being awarded a medal for his years of meritorious military service. Adama, however, harbors a secret that’s been tearing him up inside. We get a flashback to when he commanded the Battlestar Valkyrie a year before the 13 Colonies of Cobol were destroyed. It turns out that he may have been the one who inadvertently touched off the war with the Cylons (or so he suspects), which resulted in billions of deaths. So, being awarded a medal for heroism cuts him like a knife. It is full of angst and regret, moving background music, and it’s exquisitely acted by a veteran cast.

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Wait, where was I again?

So what’s the problem? Well, it had been established previously that Adama had been in command of the Galactica for several years leading up to the outbreak of war. So how could he have been on the mission with the Valkyrie, when he was already firmly stationed on Galactica? Whoops! Someone needed to keep track of their timeline a little better, huh? It undermined the entire episode, and quite frankly, the show would have been better off as a whole if it had been left out.

Star Trek: Enterprise

My first example was pretty minor.  My second was pretty bad…but the last is one of the worst offenders I can think of – Star Trek: Enterprise.  Not just one episode, nor even one season, but the entire series from start to finish.  It’s one of the most glaring continuity errors in science fiction history. Why is that?

The series takes place in the timeline well before Kirk and Spock, serving as a prequel to the other Star Treks. The Enterprise in this Star Trek series is touted as the first human-manned ship to leave our solar system. In fact, that’s a major part of the show’s pilot episode. For her time, she’s supposed to be the most advanced starship ever built by human hands, and is supposed to have started the legend that later starships named Enterprise would build upon. James T. Kirk, John Harriman, Rachel Garrett and Jean-Luc Picard all stand upon its shoulders, right?

Enterprise_legacy

Nope, not there.

So why is there no mention of it before this series? Wouldn’t a ship occupying that singular place in human history be mentioned before that somewhere? Well, in the conference room aboard Picard’s Enterprise-D, you can see the outlines of past ships bearing that name. There’s a string of ships from the aircraft carrier, to Kirk’s original ship, then the A, the B, and up through D.

So where is the Enterprise-NX in all of that? It’s suspiciously absent from the lineup. That’s because the showrunners made her up on the spot without much consideration for what history had already been established for the show. They could have chosen any other name for the ship and been okay. The Valiant, the Constellation, the Good Ship Lollipop, S.S. Minnow – anything, and it would have worked out just fine. But no, they just had to go and name her Enterprise, didn’t they?

And this show ran for 5 seasons.

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Braaaaaaaaggggaaaaaa!

Yeah, that was pretty much what I thought, too.

So, is all of this needless nitpicking by a fan who should really find something else to do with his time? Probably. I’ll admit that I speculate and ponder things like this quite a bit, and when there’s a mistake, I generally find it.

It’s not for the purpose of harping on it, to point fingers at the creators/authors and say, “Ha Ha!” like Nelson from the Simpsons. No, it’s because when I want to immerse myself in sci-fi, I want to believe on some level that what I’m reading or seeing could exist out there somewhere in the past, present or future, and share in that discovery or adventure. A consistent continuity allows me to do that; a faulty one reminds me that I’m just some poor schlub with a Netflix account.

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2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sci-fi Stuff, Uncategorized

September 26, 2013

Backwards Compatible – Part 5: All Stop

By The Sector M

After an incredible start, I settled into getting the characters on the move towards their goal. While there were stopovers on their journey, with a short action sequence on the planet Phoebus, I was already planning the book’s first major combat sequence. It was going to involve both the spacer/Navy types aboard the Hornet and the Marines doing what they do best. Everybody needed to have a moment where they did their part.

There were a few things I wanted out of this extended combat scene besides just some Michael Bay-esque ‘splosions. First, I wanted the main character, Coeur D’Esprit, to go up against someone who was as good or better than she was. In the previous books, Coeur’s plans and strategies always seemed to work exactly the way she wanted them to, and it seemed that her enemies were never truly up to the challenge. Since I was at the helm this time, I wanted her to go up against someone competent. To me, the true test of a military commander is when their best-laid plans completely unravel and they have to come up with something else on the fly.

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I love it when a plan comes together…and then goes horribly, horribly wrong.

Second, I wanted the aftermath of the battle to tear the team apart. I wanted it to be a Pyrrhic victory which left the characters with more questions than answers and more mental scars than physical ones. There needed to be a little dissension in the ranks, some internal strife, and this sequence was going to pry those cracks in the team wide open.

The result was the assault on the Lambda-3 asteroid base. The Hornet, which is a converted trade ship, must duel it out in space with a mysterious warship while the Marines confront enemy forces inside the asteroid itself.  My chapters tend to be about 20-30 pages, on average. This sequence, found in Chapter 7, was originally 96 pages. Even when I broke it up into two chapters, those two are still the longest of the book.

I managed to hit all the points I wanted to achieve. We had the Ithklur Marines disobeying orders and abandoning comrades in the field. We had Coeur freeze up when it seemed that she had been outfoxed by her opponent. Everyone is stunned when it is revealed who the enemy actually is (if you haven’t read it, I won’t spoil it for you). This becomes a central factor in the disintegration of the most important romantic relationship in the book, Dropkick and Snapshot.

So, mission accomplished.  The characters won, but aren’t exactly happy about it. I briefly left the crew of the Hornet and picked up on another storyline for a chapter. Things had become pretty intense, so it was necessary to have a ‘cooling off’ period.

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What he said.

When I came back to the main characters, things had gone from bad to worse. Trusts have been broken. People are isolating themselves and dealing with their own mental demons. The good doctor, Orit Takagawa (remember her from the Prologue?) is tending to a Hiver patient. The alien had been horribly treated and tortured by its captors. It likely possesses information that would be vital to the Reformation Coalition, but now it may never regain consciousness.

As she sits in bedside vigil over the Hiver, she is strongly reminded of the loss of her friend, Cicero, a loss that carries with it a crippling emotional impact. During this scene, I wrote this line:

“For several moments she grappled with untangling the knot of emotions that swirled around her head like a galaxy of pain.”

The next line after that is simply the sound effect of : “Bleep, Bleep.” Orit’s instruments are letting her know her patient is waking up.

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We even have the machine that goes ping!

About seven months separated those two lines. As soon as I finished the ‘galaxy of pain’ line, I was hit by perhaps the worst case of writer’s block I’ve ever had. I suddenly looked up and thought to myself, “Now what?” I tried moving forward dozens of times, but something just wasn’t right. Nothing worked to my satisfaction. I would sit there at my desk, hands on the keyboard, and it felt like I was trying to push through a brick wall.

After months of trying and failing to push the story forward, I resolved that the best thing to do was to move forward with the Hiver waking up. There had been a whole other interlude I kept trying to put in there before that happened, but apparently my muse wasn’t having any of it.

Looking back, it seems like I probably should have arrived at that solution a heck of a lot sooner. Live and learn, right? Even today, when I happen to read that scene, I always draw a line in the margins between those two lines to remind me of the vast time gap there, what caused it, and how I overcame it.

Next up, “Enter the Fox.”

[Check out the Backwards Mask on Kindle.]

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August 27, 2013

Madness? THIS IS…ATHENS!

By The Sector M

It’s no secret − I’m a nerd as well as a geek. It’s not all about Optimus Prime and marathons of Doctor Who episodes…no, no! For a guy who spends an inordinate amount of time contemplating worlds other than our own, I do have an interest in real-life stuff. Take history, for example. I’ve been a history buff since I was very young. In fact, I can pretty much trace what initially sparked my interest in the subject down to one incident.

I was born in Athens, a small town out in the piney woods of East Texas. One Sunday morning when I was about four or five, I was sitting in church, listening to the story of the Apostle Paul’s famous sermon on the Areopagus, or the Hill of Ares, in Athens, Greece.

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Tonight we dine at Mazzio’s!

Not realizing that there were, in fact, many cities with that name, my mind lit up with the possibilities. I was sitting on the lap of my godmother, or “Nanny,” and the conversation went something like this:

Me: So, Paul went to Athens?

Nanny: Yes, that’s right.

Me:  Wow! I didn’t know he came here. Athens is that old?

Nanny: (With a knowing smile) No, honey, he went to Athens, Greece.

Me: You mean there’s more than one?

Nanny:  Yes.

Me:  (Processing this new information) So…why did they name their city after us?

Nanny: (Another knowing smile) They didn’t. We named our city after them.

It was a whole new world for me. There was another Athens that I had never even heard of before, and it was apparently so cool and awesome that we were merely a reflection of it. It planted the seed of curiosity. I wanted to know just what this ‘super’ Athens had done to warrant such a thing. It made me want to know about them.

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Wait, what are you doing? Stop singing!

As soon as I could, I started reading about Greece. Democracy, theatre, philosophy and the Socratic Method, astronomy, sculpture, marathons, the Olympics, the foundations of the Roman alphabet, classical architecture (most notably the Parthenon), strides forward in mathematics and music, the Hippocratic Oath of Doctors, concepts of social justice, civic duty and community, epic poetry, military strategy, and on, and on. The Greeks either gave us those things outright, or made huge leaps in existing fields. Athens played a big part in all of that.

Makes me proud to be an Athenian. Of a sort…

So, big surprise, that era of history is one my favorites.  I just can’t read enough about it. Western civilization owes much to the ancient Greeks. So remember that next time you play Stratego, eat a gyro, or bust out your copy of Clash of the Titans.

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Tragic.

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August 17, 2013

Backwards Compatible – Part 4: Cave Aculem

By The Sector M

So, there I was…with the idea for a novel burning in my brain. Unlike the dozens of other concepts I had come up with and discarded previously, this one satisfied all the conditions of the existing universe, the previous two novels, and was a story that made me excited.  The starship central to the story was the RCS Hornet, which carried the Latin motto: “Cave Aculem.” Beware the sting. Too late, I had already been bitten by the bug. I couldn’t wait to get started.

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Okay, hum the Mission Impossible theme. Ready? Go!

I had a three-day weekend coming up, so I cleared my schedule so I could concentrate on lighting the fuse on this thing. I sat down at my keyboard and let loose. The opening scene with August Delpero and his ex-wife, Dr. Orit Takagawa, flowed from my fingers.

In it, Delpero is the former CEO of a megacorporation, imprisoned for his attempted genocide on the Reformation Coalition’s alien benefactors, the Hivers. Orit has come to visit in the hopes of sorting out her complicated feelings surrounding him. She loved him, truly loved him, but Delpero used her as an unwitting pawn in his scheme, which resulted both in their divorce and the agonizing death of her Hiver friend, Cicero.

I was almost to the point where something unexpected happens when my phone rang. It was a friend of mine who needed help moving out of her apartment. She had until midnight the next day to be out. Even though I was on fire at the keyboard, I stopped in mid-sentence and went to help her move. Being Texas, it was boiling hot, of course, with near 100% humidity. We worked until almost 3:00 in the morning, but finally we got the last load out. Whew…

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African or European?

Even though I had lost a day, I didn’t let that deter me. During the routine of carrying boxes down two flights of stairs and up three, my mind was still chomping at the bit to get on with the story. I got up early the next day and picked up right where I had left off. Pretty soon the epilogue was done and I was on to Chapter 1. There I introduced the two main characters and gave them their marching orders. Before they can get to it, however, they receive a frantic message from Orit telling them about that unexpected turn of events at the prison.

This kicked off the first action sequence of the book, so my pace increased. I was constantly blasting the first Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack, particularly “Will and Elizabeth” and “He’s a Pirate.” To this day when I look at those sections, those are the songs that go through my head.

In all, I wrote more than 20,000 words in two days, which is approaching ‘ludicrous speed’ for a slowpoke like me. It was rough to be sure, but the emotion that I wanted was there. It just all sort of clicked.

So, just like that I had the prologue and the first two chapters on file. A naïve part of me believed that this level of speed and productivity might endure, or that it would be smooth sailing from there on out.

Silly, silly me.

Little did I know that soon after I would hit a creative brick wall.

[Check out The Backwards Mask on Kindle.]

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Iceberg, dead ahead!

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August 9, 2013

What I Miss About The ’80s

By The Sector M

Okay, let me just lay it on the line here — my favorite decade is and was the ’80s. Pink legwarmers and parachute pants may be a bit dated now, but there’s a kind of zeitgeist about that time that really resonates with me. There are so many things we had in the ’80s that seem sadly extinct today, or at least not nearly as rad as back then.

Like what, you ask? Well, as it happens, I’ve put together a short list of things I miss most about those days.  Funny how that works, eh?

1.) Street Toughs

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You know, back when MTV actually showed music videos.

Bonnie Tyler asks, “Where have all the good men gone, and where all the gods? Where’s the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?”  That’s an excellent question, Bonnie. I sense a distinct lack of street toughs these days, too. It seemed like in the ’80s that the bandana-clad denizens of the streets were the coolest, most loyal people you could ever hope to meet.  Sure, you might have to demonstrate your street cred or ‘heart’ to them with an impromptu dance-off, or blistering guitar solo, but once you were in good with them, you had nothing to fear.  Luckiest were those street toughs who managed to impress the even rarer street goddess, who had short black hair, wore fingerless gloves, and either a suit jacket with padded shoulders and the sleeves rolled up or lots of really bright eye shadow (maybe both).

2.) Uber-Quotable Movies

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Oh yeah, that’s who I’m gonna call.

The ’80s were replete with dialogue that was either so incredibly memorable or so over-the-top ridiculous that it left an impression long after seeing it in the theatre or watching it on VHS. These are the movies that work their way into your everyday lexicon, the ones you find yourself reciting without even realizing it. While movies before and after this time still have plenty of pithy one-liners, the ’80s seems (to me, at least) to have the greatest concentration of movies with start-to-finish quotability. Here are my favorite examples:

Big Trouble in Little China, Ghostbusters, Top Gun, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Princess Bride, E.T: The Extra Terrestrial., Airplane!, Back to the Future, Aliens, Terminator, Empire Strikes Back, Labyrinth, The Lost Boys, Say Anything, ¡Three Amigos!, Clue, Spaceballs, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, The Goonies, Dirty Dancing, Adventures in Babysitting, Legend, The Breakfast Club, Bladerunner…and on…and on…

3.) Toy/Cartoon Tie-Ins

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Heeeey, wait a second…

In this author’s humble opinion, this was the single greatest decade for toys, especially those that had a strategically timed 30-minute commercial playing either before school or just after it. Voltron, Thundercats, Silverhawks, M.A.S.K., Masters of the Universe, Visionaries, G.I. Joe and, of course, my favorite…The Transformers.  These were the cartoons that were the stuff of modern morality plays, teaching us to do what was right, be true to ourselves, and stay in school.  They certainly weren’t a ploy to get us to buy more toys, no siree! I mean, if some of the most beloved characters from my childhood were just part of a massive marketing machine to move colored pieces of plastic off the shelves of the local Kmart, that would just be…sad.

4.) Mall Arcades

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That’s more like it.

Arcades in the mall these days are total weak sauce. They might have a DDR knock-off, a multi-player racing game, and perhaps that rip-off toy grabber thingie — a far cry from the legendary arcades of yore. As a kid, the local Red Baron Arcade (Later Aladdin’s Castle and Tilt) was the place to go. The air was filled with a cacophony of overlapping, now-familiar video game sounds from Pac-Man, Tron, Galaga, Donkey Kong, Sinistar, Dragon’s Lair and the like. The colorful cabinets and 8-bit graphics were mesmerizing to my young mind. It all came together to create an atmosphere of fun the likes of which I have not seen since. To this day, building an ’80s-style arcade is one of my dreams.  Should I ever gain the means to do so, it will be Flynn’s Arcade all over again. Oh yeah…

5.) British New Wave

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Nagle artwork meets Duran Duran…it doesn’t get more ’80s than that.

This was the time of the ‘Second British Invasion.’ Where The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and The Moody Blues had crossed the pond in the ’60s, the ’80s were undeniably the time of Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, The Cure, The Petshop Boys, Tears For Fears, Dead or Alive, Howard Jones, A Flock of Seagulls, The Human League, and so many more. If you could mix a pop beat with some synth keyboard effects, and then have a male singer with an English accent sing over the top of it, you were golden.  Even though it can be hard to differentiate Level 42 from the Thompson Twins at times, there was just something about those bands that seemed to capture the fresh, optimistic spirit of the ’80s. There were a few hold-out bands who took this sound into the early ’90s (Cause and Effect comes to mind), but the fire of this genre largely died out with the decade itself.

Man, I miss the ’80s more than I realized. *Sniff, sniff.*

I really could use a hug right now…or maybe I just need to go play The Legend of Zelda again.

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August 2, 2013

My Pre-Writing Ritual

By The Sector M

Authors are a strange lot. Sure, some may be completely normal-looking on the outside, but there’s something about a person who’s willing to spend hours upon hours plinking away on a keyboard (or writing with pen and paper) that makes them…eccentric. Yes, eccentric. That’s a polite way of putting it.

I’m no exception. In fact, I revel in the knowledge that I’m just a little off. Always have been, always will be. Let me give you an example of the madness to my method. What follows is the ritual I go through before a writing session.

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Brace Yourself – Weirdness is Coming.

1.) The Encounter Suit

Do you know someone (or are someone) who has a game-day jersey, lucky hat or something similar? You know, it’s that article of clothing that can magically make the difference between victory and defeat for a favorite team? Well, I have a similar deal with what I put on before I settle in at my keyboard.

I’ve been known to wear pajama pants when I’m writing, the really eye-blistering plaid kind that look like golf pants gone horribly wrong. Or, it could be jeans or cargos, just so long as they’re comfortable. The real focal point of the garb, however, is the shirt. Most often it’s a printed T-shirt from a band, movie, TV show or something else that I really enjoy. It could be themed after Superman, House Baratheon, or the Official Stirlingites – just so long as it’s a physical representation of something that inspires me.

At times I even don what I refer to as my lumberjack shirt. It’s a black, beige and brick-red plaid shirt with a corduroy collar (yes, you heard that right) that I wear unbuttoned like a labcoat.  It’s a hideous throw-back to the coffee house culture of the 90s, but it also happens to be one of the most comfortable and durable shirts I’ve ever owned. It is, however, quite warm, so it doesn’t come out as much in the warmer months of Texas.

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Remember, you’re never fully dressed without a smile.

Once I’m properly attired, I look sufficiently bizarre to ensure that I spend my time writing and don’t pop out to the grocery store. Although, even in that state, I’m sure I could get away with a trip to Walmart.

2.) Downstairs Pre-flight Checklist

Once I’m ‘in garb,’ it’s time to get all my stuff together for the trip up to my office upstairs. I may grab a light snack just to tide me over or something for an in-flight treat. Generally this takes the form of sliced apples, bananas and perhaps even a few of those individually wrapped wheels of cheese. If I have any reference books downstairs that I might need, I gather them up as well.

That’s when I reach for my cobalt blue U.S.S. Constitution mug, which I bought when I went to go see Old Ironsides in Boston.  I fill it with something hot to drink, either hot chocolate or Earl Grey (the drink of choice for all the best French starship captains!).  I then stir the drink with my TuxedoSam spoon from Yogurtland.  Don’t ask me why I do that; it is simply the way of things.  Iced drinks can sometimes replace this in the mug during the Summer months.

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Onwards and upwards, Mr. Carson. Carry on.

If it sounds like I’m packing for a journey, you’re not far off. My writing sessions run about 3 to 5 hours at a stretch, so I need to make sure that I have everything I’ll need along the way. This is a non-stop flight.

So, once I have all that, I’m ready to make the walk upstairs – balancing all this stuff. I use that slow progression to mentally prepare myself for the scenes I’m about to write. I play them out across the movie screen in my head, trying to get inside the hearts and minds of the characters.

At this point I’m almost ready.

3.) Taking My Station

My office is sometimes known as “The Museum of Matt.” It has a host of my model ships, my reference library and a bunch of toys that somehow survived my childhood mixed in with the new ones I’ve picked up along the way. On my desk alone I have such things as: a model of the DeLorean from Back to the Future, a replica of the famous Egyptian sphinx, the Adam West-era Batmobile and a Warthog from Halo manned by the robots from Real Steel. (Long story). On one side of my monitor I have my autographed copy of Lindsey Stirling’s self-titled album. On the other side, I have my Masterpiece Optimus Prime holding up the Matrix of Leadership.

So, I set everything I’m carrying down on my desk, and I close the door. If you’ve read Stephen King’s On Writing, you’ll recognize the significance of that last act. Unless the house catches fire or there’s an alien invasion, the next few hours will be spent in service to the story. Closing the door is a symbolic gesture as well as a practical one.

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You’ve got the touch! You’ve got the power!

I sit down and boot up my computer, then remove anything in my line of sight that doesn’t need to be there. Bill stubs, printouts, past edits – all of that goes away. When I’m nicely settled in, I switch on a brass banker’s lamp. Aside from the light from the monitor, this will be the only light in the office. Like closing the door, pulling the lamp chain is a signal that I’m getting down to the business.

Next, I pull up my playlists and select some appropriate music for what I’m about to write. The lists have names such as “Fleet Action”, “Loss and Sorrow”, “Heroes in Uniform” and so on. Sometimes it’s a single song that really calls to me. Just like a movie soundtrack, my musical selection sets the mood for the emotional states I will attempt to capture.

I take a few minutes to let the music soak in while I continue to visualize the scenes to come. At this point, I’ve taken my station as surely as Sulu sits at the helm or Uhura at the comm panel of the Enterprise. Everything’s in place.

My hands settle on the keyboard. It’s time to write.

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Epilogue:

Do I follow this regimen each and every time I sit down to write? No, of course not. Sometimes there isn’t time to do it all. I’ve found, however, that the closer I get to what I’ve described here, the better and more productive the results. I don’t know why it works, but it does.

I’m not sure what, exactly, this says about me, but I’d like to think it means that I’m a sentimentalist  in my heart of hearts, that I like to surround myself from every angle with those things which hold special significance to me. At that moment, when I’m in my own little microcosm, I can more easily enter the worlds of my imagination.

I guess I’m just weird that way.

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What a strange person.

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July 12, 2013

Backwards Compatible – Part 3: Like Getting Punched By Batman

By The Sector M

A quick note before we begin…

Normally I try to keep things upbeat and positive here. This time around, I’m going to offer some criticism, which could be taken as negative. Understand that these are just my personal opinions, and that they are stated here to show you where I picked up on The Backwards Mask. If you are a fan of Paul Brunette’s novels (or are Paul himself), you might want to skip this one.

Still with me? Okay, let’s continue.

I admit that I found the first two novels of the New Era trilogy rather ‘meh.’  Game-based fiction is notoriously hit or miss. To me, game-based fiction should not just be a shallow commercial for the game world it represents as much as a good story that just so happens to take place in that setting. I mean, you can find some of the best and worst examples of game-based fiction in the Dragonlance setting alone. The core books (Chronicles and Legends) are brilliant, and some of my all-time favorites. Outside of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman? Well…

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Results may vary.

So, the first book of the TNE trilogy, The Death of Wisdom, seemed a bit bland, along with the characters and story. There were moments that were really engaging, but they were few and far between. It was not the worst thing I had ever read (far from it), but it was largely on the forgettable side. The premise of the book seemed like it should be far weightier than it came across. They were talking about the possible collapse of the Reformation Coalition, one of the only beacons of human civilization left in an otherwise dark and twisted universe. The characters just seemed rather nonchalant about the whole deal.

The next book, To Dream of Chaos, was better than the first one. It still left much to be desired in my opinion, but the characters seemed much more alive.  Most of the things that bothered me about this book were those staples of the setting itself (more on that later). There were some strange curveballs in there that left me scratching my head in places, but on the whole it was a improvement. It unfortunately left off on a mild cliffhanger.

not-impressed-mcKayla

What do you think of the story so far, McKayla?

That’s where I stepped in.

As I stated in Part 2, I had no idea where the story was supposed to go from there. I had some ideas, sure, but nothing unified. It was a just a loose mosaic of vignettes and scenes in my head. I knew that the third installment really needed to up the ante, and bring together the struggles of the first and second volumes. While I couldn’t change the characters, or their names, I could try to make them my own. The same went for the story. It had to be one that interested me or else it would never hold the reader’s interest. I pondered this during my months of research into the setting, and my endless re-readings of the first two novels.

I remember when I finally had my “Eureka!” moment. I had created, and discarded, a dozen ideas of how I could do justice to the story, of how it all might work. Apparently my subconscious had been chewing away at the problems I faced, because when the story came to me, it was all at once. Zowie! It was as though the Adam West Batman had finally knocked some sense into me.

batman-tv-show-pow

Holy bolt of unforeseen lucidity, Batman!

There was the story, all laid out in front of me in a strange moment of clarity. Now all I had to do was get it on paper.

Should be simple, right?

[Check out the Backwards Mask on Kindle.]

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