TV Review: Roughnecks Starship Troopers Chronicles

Ask not what your late '90's CGI military SF series can do for YOU...

Engaged in the obsessive goal of reading and watching everything Robert Heinlein spawned (even peripherally), I was excited to find "Roughnecks Starship Troopers Chronicles" on DVD at the used bookstore Wee Book Inn. And I finally finished watching it today, only 15 years late to the battlefront. One season with a gluttonous 36 episodes- not counting a whopping FOUR clip shows. Sweet Christmas, talk about overkill!

Entrenched in day 43 of the Interstellar Bug War, the space marines of SICON have seized and maintained a firm hold on Uncanny Valley. Seen here is psi-talented trooper Carl Jenkins, overcome with childlike glee...

Oh, my mistake, that's a Cybernetic Humanoid Assault System, or CHAS. This robot character was featured in the best episode of the series- "Of Flesh and Steel", making the ultimate sacrifice for the salvation of all Non-Bug-Kind...

No, sorry, right the first time. THIS is CHAS. That dead-eyed hobgoblin up there was Carl, all right.

Stiff, wooden, creatures from hell (and their foes, the bugs of Klendathu) battle across simulated ice, "water", jungle, and desert with all the sex and violence available to the impressionable North American youth of 1999 at 6 AM on a Saturday.

But, to its credit, this series is actually the first Starship Troopers product to fulfill my twisted desire for chronological completeness by finally mentioning that (in this flat little dimension at least) Rico and chums signed up to stomp arachnids in 2078. If only this trivia made the series better. O.K., so the campaigns have their moments... usually taken word-for-word from the first movie.

Wee Book will get this one back... if they are unwary enough to take it! Final Score from best to worst: ST the movie, ST: Invasion, ST the book, ST3, ST2, and, in fairness, I haven't found the eighties era anime adaptation yet, but it CAN'T possibly be worse than ST2.

The best I can say is that all the folks behind this forgettable, humourless toon were probably killing themselves making so much with so little. "Reboot" had it beat all hollow, but for someone with helmet-mounted nostalgia goggles on, it's probably fine... in teeny, tiny, firefry-sized doses.

My Waning Interest in Falling Skies

I tried, you guys. I did.

What's worse, I just read a great blog from Renaissance Dork. Read it, won't you? He's good!

I particularly liked the idea of negative reviews being no fun to read in the long term. As he put it: Nobody FORCED me to get a degree in geekology which I use merely to write scathing complaint dumps!

That said, I'm only watching 'Falling Skies' anymore because it happens to be on and has more lasers than General Hospital. When my wife cancels Superchannel I won't miss it. It's not as exciting as 'The Walking Dead' or 'Battleglum Galacticglum', which it resembles.

I only tend to perk up when the aliens are on screen or stomping about in their robotsuits. I should really be rooting for the poor humans- but I'm just not feeling them. Why does this look more like a subdued gun nut camping trip than the Apocalypse? A lotta stuff still looks intact and a lotta people still look clean and well fed. If all the real military has died, and all life is at stake, why aren't MORE people taking the initiative to become soldiers? I'm not sure a rebel militia would put up with hundreds of non-contributing leeches for SIX MONTHS. I like to think of myself as a pacifist, but STILL... you have to adapt!

Particularly jarring for me was adopting the leader of a rape gang of murderous thugs... and letting him be the cook on his first day! I want to believe in second chances, but REALLY? Put a bullet in this guy and let's get back to choking down the canned beans. So sorry, very sad, but NOW is not the time.

So I guess it provokes a reaction: frustration. What's it all about? Are we supposed to be rooting for the alien child enslavers? Or the bible thumpers who torture their prisoners? I know I'm supposed to like Pretty Widow Doctor and Pretty Widower Professor, but the only human I liked so far was Steven Weber, and he's dead already.

Aw, what the hell do I know? It's back next season.

Wild Wild Waste

I was warned away. I didn't heed.

And why should I? It's a comic book movie. I LIKE those, y'know?

JONAH HEX (2010) is quite terrible. Let's be extra fair here: I'm not a fan of the comic anyway. Unless scarred cowboy bounty hunter is paired up with 'time-traveling' and 'outer-space' I tend to think he's just the Punisher with spurs. (To be clear, I'm not a fan of the Punisher.)

That said, I've only read Jimmy Palmiotti's Jonah Hex, which was good storytelling in a genre that rarely wows me.

So while we're accumulating a little perspective on who I am, I'll add that I enjoyed the Wild Wild West movie, Pushing Daisies, and The Crow (somewhat). Mush those three things together, however, remove all sense of logic and all sense of humor, paste in Jonah Hex and you've got yourself a box office flop!

SPOILERS (like you care)

What horse would stand for side-mounted machine guns? AND not get immediately shot in the head when he inevitably starts bucking?

What person talking to John Malkovich's Quentin Turnbull character could fail to burst out laughing when his cowboy hat comes off and their eyes are drawn to that lustrous, curly... oh, what luck, here's a picture:

Now that's the face of a terrorista!

(Because casual mass-murdering revenant Hex, of course, is our hero. Don't forget now.)

Cringe at the tame but unappealing bedroom scene with a prostitute- that horrible face! Don't know how Hex could stand it. Of course, they've bonded over the fact that they're both drunks, mutterers, and dead inside, so awww!

Bored with the cotton gin, Eli Whitney apparently built a superweapon from cannonballs and the lost Pallantir of Sauron. How can Will Arnett be a part of this masterpiece and be given no jokes?

Soulless. Overburdened with effects, gimmicks, and exploding plot cul de sacs. Paint-by-numbers vengeance fantasy. And if that's what you like, it's all here.

The hell would I know? I still like Howard the Duck.

Toon Review: Spaceballs- The Animated Series

Yes.

Yes, there was.

And, unfortunately, I spent

A) $9.95 and

B) 88 minutes on

this senseless, cash-grabbing cartoon-astrophe.

"Spaceballs: The Animated Series" had 15 episodes in 2008 on G4 before its not-abrupt-enough cancellation.

O.K., O.K. so this was my fault, too. I LOVE cartoons. I LOVE 'Spaceballs: The Movie'. I have inordinate (but still platonic) affection for Lord Melvinius Q. Brooks.

NEVER. THE. LESS.

Do not make my mistake. Save yourselves. This is nearly unendurable, and I saw it just DAYS after Rob Zombie's "The Haunted World of El Superbeasto" (not for the timid and not on trial here.)

The four episodes on the DVD pictured here (yes, only 4 out of 15, thanks, marketing department- for making me feel cheated as a complete-ist and as a sentient being) are a continuity-free mess.

Stale jokes, tepid parody, and weak sauce animation made me long for "Tripping The Rift".

See here for some brave youngsters putting themselves on the line to review one for you.

I get a glimmer of how disappointed SO MANY fans were with the Star Wars prequels: I can't be thirteen again and see Spaceballs for the first time. Barf, wangs, poop, and boobs are admittedly hilarious, but shovel under them and I can't find anything ELSE.

(And I'm a PARTICULAR fan of boobs most of the time. ALL the time.)

Too senile for kids and too juvenile for... well, everybody.

And the worst part?

I am SUCH a sucker for punishment I STILL feel like this review is unfair if I don't see the other eleven episodes.

Please tell me what is wrong with my brain!

Send your opinions care of Mel Brooks, Daphne Zuniga, and Joan Rivers busily making a funny movie twenty-six years ago.

The Unspeakable & You

He shares my birthday, my misguided misanthropy, and my fascination with weird, alien creatures.

Nearly one hundred years ago, H.P. Lovecraft began writing his macabre fictions. (Click on that link if you want to see S.T. Joshi gush about his mad scribblings.)

Last week, I finished slogging (shoggoth-ing?) though a batch of them in "The Call of Cthulhu and other Weird Stories". (A worthy book club pick from the worthy Dr. Teeth.)

I am most weary of Cyclopean architecture, adjective laden second-hand reports, and dead gods that stink of fish.

The back cover review from Stephen King declares saucy H.P. "unsurpassed" in twentieth century horror. Lovecraft was surpassed by plenty! Edgar Burroughs and C.L. Moore to name contemporaries I have read. Stephen King and Neil Gaiman to name his (superior) disciples of the creepy. Sour grapes, you say? No doubt about it. I simply couldn't find many juicy thrills in these tales.

Influential? Absolutely. Bookmonkey is quite fond of him, as many are, and I am fond of Bookmonkey, so I don't want to get caught up in a rant.

I think what frightened me most was the worry that the man might infect me from beyond the grave with his clinical, paranoid, hateful attitudes to his fellow hu-mons.

Do ALL unendurable creatures from beyond walk hand in hand with the 'degenerate, mongrel races'?

I don't suppose (upon discovering one is not of PURE white blood) you could maybe... I dunno, NOT set yourself on fire?

I was glad to have read a classic I've heard so much about. I now get an even bigger kick out of the song "The Innsmouth Look" by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets. Miscegenation!

For me, probably thanks to Star Trek, the unknown is to be desired, not rooted out.
Integration spells L-O-V-E.

Don't get your advice on outsiders from a shut-in, no matter how scholarly.

Cthulhu was pretty cool, though. This April 2, give him a big hug on his deathday!

TV REVIEW: The Cape

I've been languishing in vile illness all week and what didn't make me feel better was the pilot for NBC's 'The Cape'.

I cannot recall a superhero pilot I hated SO much, SO fast. Mindless drivel. Really dumb. It moves so slowly that 2 hours felt like 9. Keep in mind I still watch 'Smallville'(!)

First, I don't like most hundred-year old pulp heroes anyway: from the era when having super-powers meant owning a GUN! And a MASK!

Our brave hero has the powers of 2 carnys and a cape that can do 37 things. (Get caught in a revolving door, get caught in a jet engine... the list probably goes on.)

The performances were fine, slightly over the top but that's for the best. Because the writing was dog vomit. (SPOILERS.)

The terrorist villain Chess frames our hero Vince 'the only good cop in Palm City' by tightly affixing the Chess mask to his head and sending him out to be framed and exploded on camera. Clever move, right? All blame deflected forever... so WHY does the villain continue to dress as Chess? Wouldn't that ruin the whole point of the frame-up?

And why are we meant to trust the carny folk Vince falls in with so quickly? They go from literally threatening to CUT HIS HEAD OFF and dump him in the desert to training him in the Carny Arts in about 20 seconds. The hell?

Finally, and no offense to Cameron the Terminator/River Tam, but the computer genius girl Oracle (sorry, ORWELL) looks pretty foolish fighting the French poisoner Cain.

Not physically, I'm sure the point of the scene was to show us how bad-ass Orwell is: it's that she shouldn't have been goaded into the kitchen to fight this knob in the first place!

Sigh.

2011 will see the end of 'Stargate Universe', but I have a feeling crap like 'The Cape' will run for 10 years.

In the words of Edna Mode: NO CAPES!

Stodgy or Sanctimonius... WHICH SHALL IT BE?

In April 1927, sci-fi writer Herbert Wells lambasted 'Metropolis' in this review.

He begins by saying he doesn't think it would be 'possible to make a sillier film'.

Ten years later, he made a movie himself, and proved that ANYTHING is possible!

Wells calls Lang's movie 'thin bunkum', 'old-fashioned balderdash' and 'sentimentalizing make-believe' which 'ruins the market for any better film along these lines'.

Which brings me to 'Things To Come' (1936).  And not in a good way.  

It certainly IS devoid of sentiment- that is to say, it is a plodding morass of wretched tedium where I was hard pressed to find ANY emotion I could identify with save the obvious notion that 'war is bad'.

The film covers 100 years (and feels like it, too) in an hour and a half.  

The first half hour introduces us to stilted conversations and warbling hymns as the London Blitz comes to Everytown a year late in 1940 and global war stays until the mid-sixties.  This is followed by the Wandering Sickness (ie zombie plague, only more boring) that kills half of the world.  

In the second half hour, we discover 1970 is the year smug, fetish-clad English airmen sweep in from the scientifically advanced and benevolent dictatorship of Basra and 'Peace Gas' the backward savages of Everytown into submission.  The leader of these douchebags we're meant to be applauding is John Cabal, seen here looking sensible and not at all silly in his personal plane and Wondrous Ice Cream Scoop Hat.

The airmen of "Wings Over the World", "World Communication", "The Government of Common Sense" (or whatever it is they're actually called) crush the feeble locals and their horse-drawn motorcars and rusty biplanes.  Having made the world safe for dictatorship, they set up AN EIGHT DAMN MINUTE MUSICAL SALUTE to industry and efficiency: welding, strip-mining, and science-ing up a storm!  This "soon" culminates with the image of a 40 foot long automated toilet plunger assembling a building because...

It's 2036!  Spindly moving sidewalks NOT AT ALL CRIBBED from Metropolis!  Creepy stone lady statues NOT AT ALL CRIBBED... never mind!  Cuddly little helicopters!  SO CUTE!

We're told man has "conquered nature and built A GREAT WHITE WORLD."  Oh, dear. That's an unfortunate couple of phrases.  And, yeah, it sure is WHITE.  

The conflict now is between an odd, loud craftsman who fears space travel will FORCE(?) humanity to live in awful, nasty, old outer space, and the strident, speechifying descendants of Cabal who are chomping at the bit to fire their lovely suicidal kids out of a GIANT GUN pointed at the moon, never to rest until all of space and time are conquered.  A fey and orderly riot breaks out and may or may not be resolved somehow.

WELLS WROTE 'THE TIME MACHINE'!  And 'The Invisible Man'.  And 'War of The Worlds'. And 'The First Men in the Moon'.  This guy FOUNDED twentieth century science fiction!  WHAT HAPPENED HERE?

My theory is he tried SO hard to make the opposite of 'Metropolis' he forgot that logical, meticulous extrapolation and scientific accuracy are fine and dandy, but a film audience really wants to have some FUN with their Message Flakes.

The Hugos: Lord of Light

The last Zelazny review I did was not complimentary.  Read it here!

Of course, I was overheated and sick to my stomach then.  On this; a soothing grey, cool, fall day I can't possibly be as crotchety.  Too bad!

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny won the 1968 Hugo award for best novel.  It neither left any great impression on me nor inspired my ire. It just was. 

My splendid co-worker Carlos, a lover of fine myth and religion could do it better justice than I.  In words borrowed from my excellent co-worker Ron: I found it too lofty, too cerebral.  I also could not find a character to like, though it DOES have a groovy concept:

What if a bunch of future assholes with future asshole science subjugated a planet and pretended to be gods?  Then one of them tries to be less assy for a awhile.  

He's called Sam, he's the protagonist, and Jack Kirby thought he'd look like this in his 1979 concept sketches for the proposed 'Lord of Light' movie:

But not even Jack Kirby could make me care about Sam's exploits: although they'll probably try again to make this movie someday.  A big damn effects-stravaganza.  

Like 'Clash of the Titans' but with Hindu gods instead.  Maybe it's just my lack of knowledge of religion, but I didn't find me any of the juicy stuff I likes in that there paper dvd.  Yes, back stabbing, betrayal, fornication, battles to the death, reincarnation via brain downloading... it's all very well.  

It just seemed very dry to me. 

And unlike Clone High's Gandhi, I don't like my humping dry.  

When I read LofL I had already read the (written later) Dune books of Brian Herbert with their humans-using-science-to-be-titans and really enjoyed those a lot more.  So there's no accounting for taste.

I gave LofL "ok" as a rating at goodreads.com, 2 stars out of  possible 5.  You can read some of the 5 of 5 reviews on that link or ask DoctorTeeth about Zelazny.

You know, the SAME year Zelazny wrote 'Damnation Alley'?  

It had the benefit of being shorter, cooler, and successfully made into a decent movie with George Peppard, the TRUE definition of any book's intrinsic value!

Go watch THAT.  It has giant scorpions.  So does 'Clash of the Titans', and 'Dune: The Machine Crusade', come to think of it...

Maybe SCORPIONS are the definition of intrinsic value!

   

Time to Ditch Chuck

Or was that chuck Ditch? Nope, there's no TV show called Ditch. Maybe next year.

What am I jabbering about, you ask? This time last year I was looking forward to season 3 of Chuck, a clever little spy-show parody with an attractive and amusing cast.

And at the time, that seemed reasonable.

Yeah, I'm done with that now.

Instead of an untrained, inept but loveable not-a-spy who has no chance with the spy-girl, we have a trained, deadly but difficult to like spy who has, in fact, already GOT the spy-girl. And his wacky secret identity boring life is no more, so mad dog spy Casey has to get a real job cause Chuck has the mad dog spy job. Right? There's not much comedy or drama, and no romantic tension or clever parody left. It's just a so-so spy show these days. I'm not even sure the incomparable Scott Bakula can peak my interest any longer. I'm sad to admit it.

But it got a fourth season!

Better Off Ted? Cancelled.

V? Renewed.

Pushing Daisies? Cancelled.

Chuck? Renewed.

Dogs and Cats? Living together.

Am I complaining too much? Good!

Read a book!

I hate Glee! I don't see its appeal at all!

So spoke Community's Jeff Winger, weeping from his efforts to enjoy Glee, the Fox musical-comedy-drama mega-hit. As usual, I laughed very hard during Community, with complete sympathy and affection for its splendid cast of zany misfits. But THAT line made me laugh till I cried. Because I completely agreed with Jeff.

I TRIED. I tried so bloody hard. I really wanted to like this show. Know some things about me first, they might be relevant: I'm a guy. I'm straight. And I ADORE musicals, comedies, and musical comedies. It's just GLEE I can't abide.

I think it's called 'Glee' because 'Despicable Me' was already taken. Not very Gleeful. Try Hateful, hollow, and horrifying.

Executive producer and show-runner Ryan Murphy told Rolling Stone '[Glee is] four acts of darkness and two acts of sweetness'. Did my PVR cut off the last two acts? Where was the sweetness? I think he means the wearyingly repetitive slushies-thrown-in-faces gag. Slushies are sweet, right? I think Murphy may have some trouble identifying sweetness: these characters are too deeply cynical to be high-schoolers. And why are they so unattractive? I know, I know, subjective impressions of physical appearance aside: the men are doe-eyed, 'aw, shucks' goofball victims or total douche-hats, and the women are manipulative, evil shrews or crazier than shit-house rats. It's off-putting! I'd rather hang out with Sil from 'Species' than any girl on Glee. Who WAS I supposed to identify with or, god forbid, LIKE?

Now, to be fair, I remember the emotions were real-esque once when the gay kid's dad subverted my expectations by not freaking when his son came out. That actually seemed like a GENUINE moment of human feeling. And I'm told that when Will's horrible wife revealed she wasn't pregnant and had been stringing him along his reaction was VERY realistic, with shades of domestic abuse. Well, coin a phrase, duh! Screw a guy over in the most primitive possible way and watch the laughs keep on comin'!

It turns out people don't like discovering they've been lied to. Take me, for instance. Glee's pilot sold me on a premise: high school schlubs make good in glee club. Yay! Sounds like fine fare, musical comedy fun. I RAVED about that pilot. I looked FORWARD to it. I ENCOURAGED people to check it out when it returned. Then I let it slap my face for 10 episodes until I gave up.

There was no character development. No plot. Just miserable, auto-tuned, stereotypes unable to connect with my life experiences as an uncaring universe heaps torment and humiliation upon them. Whee!

'Glee' pretends to care about humanity, the pain of growing up, and the blight of high school, but I cannot feel its tacky happy endings. "Freaks and Geeks" was painful to watch, too, but at least it seemed more honest. I actually cared about THOSE characters and when bad things happened to them, I felt bad for them. That's how drama's supposed to work. I think. Or is there some way to loathe everything the characters stand for and just enjoy the juiciness as they stab each other?
It worries me how many viewers are probably doing just that. Glee oozes with all the shallow, soul-soiling unpleasantness of reality TV only somebody HAD TO MAKE THIS UP!

I know you love it. Plenty of people that I love, love 'Glee'. And now NPH and Joss Whedon are going to be stopping by, too. I LOVE THEM!

Sigh. I really wish I could start believin' again.

But I have the feeling Glee will continue to leave me as cold as a slushy and as heartless at that new ass-banjo Jesse St. James. Here's hoping!

Ultimatum will Stand the Test of Time... At Sucking

Ugh. O.K. So, I'm not the first to read it, dislike it, or review it. I wouldn't even have read it this week if not for Linkara, who is planning to do a (probably) much funnier video critique quite soon. But it wasted MY time, and in turn I will waste yours.
Ultimatum by Jeph Leob and David Finch is a crossover event touted as the "end" of the Ultimate Universe, a Marvel comic superhero world originally invented as a 'hot, young, trophy wife universe' for every hypothetical reader who wanted to read superhero comics (thanks to seeing the movie versions) but didn't have the time or balls to read 40 years of continuity. The Ultimate X-Men did well for a while, so did the Ultimate Spider-Man. (I'm proud to own all of U.S-M, Brian Bendis is a fine writer) But, all good things and stuff, so, ergo... this happened.
'Ultimatum' is very well drawn and deeply stupid. Spoliers now.
It's a senseless orgy of death and destruction, serving primarily to kill dozens of knock-off versions of superheros I mostly didn't care about one way or the other. Which, doubtless, is why it sold so well. And, doubtlessly, was exactly what the editors had asked for.
Magneto drowns millions in an instant, disaster covers the face of the earth, resulting in mayhem, explosions, eviserations, and so forth. Sounds fun, right?
But, what's it all in aid of, exactly? What are we left with? What can we take home?
Knock-Off Ben Grimm kills one culprit, Knock-Off Dr. Doom, in cold blood. Damn. Was that ever dumb. I was thinking not AN HOUR before reading this that mainstream superheroes like the Fantastic Four and Superman have so MUCH power that if they ever allowed themselves to kill they would become instantly unsympathetic.
And it's true. How do I like Ultimate Thing now? Ben's meant to be the idol of millions, not Wolverine. I'm personally baffled why Wolverine is anyone's idol. But... oh, that's it. His butt. Girls and some guys like his rump.
Pursuant to the notion that crossing the line to killer is death for my interest in a superhero character, if Ultimate Cyclops was going to blow Magneto's head off anyway, why bother explaining the secret origin of mutants to him?
Also, and I must ask this, what is ANYONE'S motive here?
Why does Ultimate Blob eat Ultimate Wasp? Was there no smashed-up deli within reach? The character wasn't a cannibal previously. The disaster is only HOURS old!
Why does Ultimate Hank blow himself up? Granted, it couldn't happen to a bigger douchebag, but suicide should have a motive, right?
And Ultimate Dormammu squeezes Ultimate Doctor Strange until his head pops like a zit. While grisly, the scene made so little impact on the plot that I had to turn the pages back to remember who got killed that way. And all I have left is the mystery of WHY.
Because it just amounts to a cavalcade of Killporn. It's like a death checklist where the only imagination goes into the shock value. 'How should we snuff Dazzler?' and so forth.
Jeph Loeb is better than this, I swear. He's no Heinlein, but he's better than this. As my friend Ron put it: he probably just held his nose and took the paycheck.
Bad as 'All-Star Batman'? You bet.
Bad as 'Countdown'? Nope. At least this didn't mess with the 'real' continuity, right?
I'm grasping for a silver lining in this cloud. No, no that's a death wave. My mistake.

The Gorn Blinks! HE BLINKS!

I have been a nerd for a very long time. Face of Boe long. I am beginning to worry that one day I will no longer have the ability to be surprised or impressed by science fiction. That, in essence, I have seen all there is to see.
The V-make didn't grab me. I don't have much patience with Smallville. Dollhouse, Lost, Fringe and Heroes barely seem to qualify as science fiction. I think the Stargate has dialed out as much as it can for now and my beloved Doctor Who isn't on again till Christmas... it seems like 100 Trillion years away!
Thank the near-sighted geek gods-among-men and their tiny light pens over at CBS back in 2005! Thank them as I do for Star Trek: Remastered, now airing on the Space Channel.
For 3 minutes each weekday, I can watch new special effects inserted into the old Star Trek! And isn't that what man has dreamt of since first he ventured blinking from his cave?
Now, when the Enterprise warps back in time around the sun, you SEE the thing.
Each strange new world IS looking a little strange, and a LOT less like Basketball (a peaceful planet).
Fleets of ships aren't just in the dialogue and the imagination, landing gear retracts on shuttlecraft, space cities stretch to the horizon instead of the edge of the matte painting.
Is this what's known as Gilding the Lily? I mean, Star Trek was, let's face it, just fine the way it was. If the stories were good (and they usually were), then who needs new-fangled FX?
ME, BITCHES!!!
(Breathe, Mike, breathe, just breathe. Where's my medication? )
I love what Lucas did to Star Wars. Jar Jar and Greedo shooting first and everything. Well, shooting at the same time was actually my favorite. Why? Because it's FUN! New effects are PART of the fun, but mostly it's SEEING SOMETHING NEW!
What I mean to say is, if I can still get jazzed when a 40 year old rubbery lizard blinks at me in a brand new way from his 40 year old show, then the V-make should've been a whole lot better, and IT HAS NO EXCUSE. You have budget, decades of experience & hindsight, and you are literally making something SOMEBODY ALREADY MADE! Why is it so damn slow? Not to mention irrelevant, tedious, and shallow. Why has nobody stated what the Vs are after, and most importantly, EAT THE DAMN GUINEA PIGS OR GET OFF THE SCREEN!
Oh, it's not me that's jaded, brother. Not yet!

Nerd-A-Long: The Romulan War

I finished reading Star Trek: Enterprise: The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing by Michael A. Martin this weekend. Therefore, you should expect a post from Gushy McFanboy. But I just can't muster one.
From the unwieldy title there are three colons, perhaps appropriate to the length of, and patience required to, digest this work.
From the first year of this decade I had looked forward to what the TV series Enterprise might tell me about the enigmatic Earth-Romulan War. The conflict hinted at since 1966's Star Trek episode Balance of Terror had been a topic of much ballyhoo among the nerdlingers of my high school crowd.
When was it? Who was involved? Where did it take place?
This novel answers many of these questions. But with very little in the way of thrills along the way.
It does not have a beginning, per se. I guess you need to have read Martin's 'Kobiyashi Maru'.
It does not have an end, per se. The Romulan War, fans have long believed, lasted four years and this novel covers only summer 2155 to 2156. Although it is rather long and dry, so you might not say 'ONLY' by the end of it.
Again, 'Kobiyashi Maru' may have covered this, but why on God's Grey Earth would ANYONE recruit Trip Tucker as a covert agent? I love Trip, don't get me wrong. But why go to the trouble of faking his death, surgically altering him into a Romulan and inserting his butt behind enemy lines? Weren't there any number of Vulcans or at least TRAINED SOCIOLOGISTS or any one of a million people NOT needed in the war SHIPBUILDING effort? Or, as my friend Kirk suggested, a linguist like Hoshi? With Trip's accent and natural gift for languages he must surely have been noticed seconds into his visit to the capital city of Romulus, strolling down Dartha Avenue snapping holophotos, grinning at everyone, and asking in loud American English whether anyone had any grilled catfish.
And somehow Travis Mayweather survives three starship crashes in this book but anyone with the last name Stiles is apparently under a Romulan curse! Three Stileses are killed in this, the first year of the war. One can only conclude that in Romulan (or Rihannsu, as the case may be) Stiles is the most insulting thing you can say to a guy.
It is not a bad book. I must stress this. Trekkies like myself, especially with a touch of OCD, will not be able to stop appreciating the sheer volume of planet and character name-checks from the various TV series, alien society continuity, series cameo appearances, and date-by-date run down of the progress of interstellar war. With front-line journalists and behind the scenes political intrigue, it seemed like any minute it was going to get exciting.
And I must admit, I loved the character of the 18th Dalai Lama. She seemed to be the only one in the book thinking rationally. But she's only on three pages.
I really, really, REALLY wanted to love this book.
At least I have the Star Wars: The Clone Wars cartoon. When THAT seems simplistic and repetitive I can comfort myself with the 'pchoo-pchoo' sounds and brightly flashing lights.

Public Enemies DVD: The Bored & The Bland

Making a trio out of my two posts this week, one Superman themed, one Batman themed, here's one for BOTH. Back in 2003, Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness started a spectacular comic with a simple premise- get the World's Finest back together in a buddy-superhero comic for the 21st century. The resulting first six issues became the trade collection Superman/Batman: Public Enemies.
And is it very good.
I am not here to bash it.
Jeph Loeb may have written for Smallville but he also wrote Teen Wolf, Red Hulk, and S/B, so we're going to forgive him (by we I mean me, and by extension, you).
I am here primarily to bash (and not very hard mind you, I'm very tired) Superman/Batman: Public Enemies The Animated Movie.
Anyone who read my post/freakout over 'Green Lantern: First Flight' will know- I am not a patient man-child. I rushed out and bought it... and I felt ripped off.
I can't believe I did it again! I held off a month, but I went and bought this one, too.
Sight unseen.
I mean, it's based on a comic I really liked! It's from DC Animated universe producer Bruce Timm, and stars Tim Daly, Kevin Conroy, Clancy Brown, and CCH Pounder in their DCAU roles! That's gonna be worth it, right?
It's in the eye of the beholder, buuut... not exactly.
I dug the music. It's bombastic, exciting, great stuff. This is also a VERY well animated movie. They clearly worked their Korean fingers and computers down to the bone... and wires.
This is an action-packed movie.
But I am a very picky monkey.
I've watched it twice, re-read the source matierial, and I would say my biggest difficulty is
that Stan Berkowitz is given a writing credit.
Perhaps I would buy... editor? I mean, the plot is a pared-down version of the comic, the visuals and characters are from the comic, and when the dialogue is only occasionally memorable it is ONLY when it is a DIRECT QUOTE from the comic.
One of my favorite inspired gimmicks in the comic is the internal monologues of Bats (done in somber blue) and Supes (done in sunny yellow). They are buds, but they leave a lot unspoken, and what impressed me most was what Jeph figured they were thinking about each other- the good and bad, the misgivings and the gratefulness. Essentially the WHY of their friendship.
Totally excised! I was expecting at the very least a voice-over here and there to express that stuff... but as my pal Ron (who came up with this blog title, by the by) pointed out- the first thing to get cut in an action movie is the thinky stuff, the motivation, the chattery bits.
Damn you, Berkowitz! You did the same 'writing' on Darwyn Cooke's Justice League: New Frontier adaptation. That is- cutting stuff out and moving things around slightly, presumably so Cooke and Loeb didn't need to be paid as much??
It's not even Berk's fault. He worked on the 94 Spidey cartoon, Supes and Bats animated, Justice League, Legion of Superheroes, etc., etc.- and they ARE all very passable episodes. Run-of-the-mill stuff. Average stuff I didn't have to shell out 22 bucks for!
I really wanted to say good things about the voice cast: they do a credible job with nothing memorable to say. I REALLY wanted to like the supporting cast: Power Girl, Starfire, Black Lightning, CAPTAIN MARVEL for Shazam's sake!
But, for example, John C. McGinley, great actor, plays Metallo: HE ONLY HAS 3 LINES!
Since the Metallo-may-have-killed-the-Waynes sub-plot was excised along with the time-travel sub-plot, the Apokolips sub-plot, the motivations of the heroes Luthor has co-opted, Lois' interview, and dozens of minor characters it... (sigh) it all seems so trimmed that there's nothing left.
You just can't cut that much plot from a six-issue comic book!
On the flip side Black Lightning actually has 6 MORE words than he did in the comic. Instead of "ON IT!" he now shouts "I think I can put up a forcefield!" I didn't know that was Jefferson's power, but thanks for playing, LeVar Burton!
When Superman asks Captain Marvel "Would Solomon have gone to work for Luthor?" we are forced to remember that Billy a) WASN'T with Luthor in the comic and b) Would only work for Luthor if he had the Worm with the Mind of Hitler living in his ear! Geez! And just for the subtitle people: Captain Marvel does not say 'Shizam!'.
Don't worry about it. He's only been a cultural icon for almost a century.
Lastly, Allison Mack as Power Girl. Sweet Mosby. (Sigh) Look, I've got nothing against Smallville's Chloe. She has done the ABSOLUTE BEST WORK a human can do when asked to look small and sad for TEN YEARS!
Why would you make Power Girl, the most brassy, gutsy, bombastic, BIG (yes, those, too) supergal of the DC realm into a mopey indecisive milksop? They actually had to ADD dialogue to make her seem more fretful and cautious. In the comic, she takes absolutely ZERO convincing to quit drug-addled, purple-armor clad President Luthor for our daring duo.
Would YOU need convincing?
Seriously.
This dialogue- when Luthor snarls "I'm the president!" Supes 'quips' "Consider yourself (pause)"
My wife and I look at each other and chorus:
"...Impeached!" Punch.
Very Schwarzenegger.
This is not an awful movie. It is, however, mercilessly uninspired and unworthy of the source material, which, let's face it, was a popcorn comic in the first place.
Somehow I will find the strength to go on.
Mostly by looking forward to next week- my self-imposed Legion of Super-Heroes Klordny Week festival!!!

Captain Complainy: Not Gay Enough for Smallville

Brace yourselves, people. A show I really care about is on its deathbed and I'm just lashing out at everything today! Lashing out at things that don't deserve to live.
Why are there TEN SEASONS OF SMALLVILLE?!!!
Or when I asked myself another way, HOW many episodes have I enjoyed? In TEN YEARS?
How many were GOOD for me?
There were some cool tornado effects at the end of a first season of lacklustre meteor-freak of the week.
"Rosetta" is season two had, oh, around 5 minutes of sweetness when Dr. Virgil Swan tells Clark his origin. Finally! Krypton! Space! So, can we stop saying 'green meteor rock' now?

Also, damn. Thank you for 5 minutes with an Actor. I almost forgot what they were like. (with apologies to Michael Rosenbaum, John Schneider, Annette O'Toole, and John Glover)
Thanks again, Season 3 for "Perry" as it featured a heck of a great effects shot of a thrown tractor, and a heck of a great guy, Michael McKean. This guy needs to thank God for a sexy wife (see: Annette O'Toole).
Also, I have a sexy wife. Just sayin'.
Season Four offered about 6 seconds of really keen effects of Bart Allen running. And about 70 thousand hours of who gives-a-crap with the witchy Teagues.
And is it wrong that in all of Season 5, an ENTIRE season with everything it had to offer, all I can recall with fondness was Lois' shower scene?Thanks, Erica Durance.
Also, I have a sexy wife. Gotta cover my ass here.
Seriously. And Brainiac stands for Brain Inter Active Construct? Jay-sus, Mary, and Rao, WHY the HELL did they make that into an acronym? And HOW could it spell something in ENGLISH? I CAN'T believe I still get angry about this, but Kryptonian wing-dings... Earth letters... I type it into my head computer and it just keeps spewing nonsense! Brainiac is either an alien proper name or an alien title of veneration depending on which comic you look at, and making it an acronym is JUST CRACK-BRAINED!
Oh, Angry Tangents, where would I be without you?
Writing something of value myself?
Nah. Too lazy.
Season 6 had a redeeming factor besides Mack and Durance.
Season 6 had Green Arrow, and depite the 'cool' sunglasses and hoodie, (why do they shy away from capes, domino masks, and tights? Criminey!) Justin Hartley has the capacity to seem like a superhero.
Season... oh, why do I give a crap? It just goes on and on! Every year as more limbs are shot off (Pa Kent, Ma Kent, Lionel, Lex) this show still can't be stopped from shambling onward. At least Lana used to be there to drag the whole proceedings to a grinding halt in her bitter morass of self-pity... Wait, I meant Thank Krypto, Streaky, Beppo and all the Super-Pets up there in the sky that she's gone.
I keep lapsing into sighs whenever I think about this show. If only I was gay... I think it might better help me tolerate Tom Welling and his emo plodding through year after uneventful year. A block of wood in a red shirt and blue pants (or, nowadays, a Punisher costume???), delivering dull as dishwater dialogue, meaningless mutterings, about 5 seconds of something action-y or special-effecty, then more foot-shuffling and mumbling under a contemporary 'heart-felt' montage. Generally on the subject: 'I wish I wasn't so handsome and god-like. With all these powers and abilities and general splendidness I could have any woman... or man on the globe. I'd better not crack a smile or wear bright colors or do anything fun. People might start to think I was Superman.
And yet Defying Gravity GOT ONE MEASLY SEASON.
Screw you, TV!
I'm just mad, TV, you know I'd never leave you.

Captain Complainy: Kirby Equals Unsexy

I'm reading "Was Superman A Spy?" by Brian Cronin, a collection of legends about the comics industry from his blog 'Comics Should Be Good'. I came across the one about how in the 70's DC comics hired artistic legend Jack Kirby away from Marvel amid great brouhaha and fanfare, then proceeded to advertise and crow and count their money because they had Kirby as an artist!
Then they went and PASTED other artists' illustrations of Superman's face over Kirby's faces to match the 'house style'.
I've gotta say, I'm deeply conflicted on this one. Morally? I vehemently object to hiring and praising a guy to his face for his ground-breaking NEW LOOK and then re-doing his art to look like the regular stuff. That's low, brother. However... Aesthetically? I'll just have to say it, I'm in complete agreement.
Kirby's Supes is on the left, and Al Plastino's Curt Swan-style Supes is on the right. Maybe it's just me, but Kirby's Superman's face looks like a squashed toad. As do most of his male AND female characters. Creepy bug-eyed men and women with wide, weird maws.
I'm dead serious. Why are Kirby's Reed Richards and his Thor always shouting things toward the reader with outstretched arms and a grimace of what appears to be constipation?
I first realized this while staring at a 'pin-up' Kirby did of Sue Storm (Richards). It just didn't DO IT for me, you know?
The man drew a HELL of a good monster. He drew SQUAJILLIONS of good monsters.
Thing, Hulk, Mole Man, Mole Man's horrifying underground armies, every screaming ugly weird-ass troll and freaky-deaky nightmare for over a decade at Marvel was probably his doing. And let's not forget Etrigan, Darkseid, Granny Goodness, Desaad and every other creepy thing the darkness ever congealed over at DC.
AND his regular, ordinary, down-to-earth HUMAN people look like toads! I'm slightly ashamed of my own stomach-knotting jealousy, but they do, they DO look like toads!
I KNOW Jack was the King! I KNOW he inspired a generation of artists! But look at one of the guys he inspired for a moment. John Byrne. An example of a student whose skills surpassed his teacher in his very earliest years, at least in certain areas.
This is how John Byrne draws Sue Richards of the Fantastic Four.
And this is how Kirby draws the same woman.
OH! I'm kidding! Too soon!
I hear you baying for my blood. 'How dare you denigrate Mighty Kirby? Pistols at dawn on planet Apokalips, sir! My Female Furies shall disembowel you!'
Well, I say, bring it. Your Kirby Furies against my Frank Cho Furies and we'll JUST SEE whose are sexiest in the cold light of day!
(Or something else threatening that makes more sense.)
Look, the last thing I wanna do is crap on Kirby. The man was an Art Master whose shoes I'm not worthy to shit in. Is his art dynamic? Hells, yeah. Was he prolific? NOBODY could match his output. Did he work himself to death in relative obscurity and revolutionize an industry that gave him (while alive) little credit? I venture YES. He worked his butt off for a pittance, an early grave and just oodles of post-death accolades from everybody who ever read him. Were his drawings of women (or men) sexy? I venture NO.
I also have to assume he wasn't trying to be. The beauty of his work is in the STRAIN and the PAIN, the eye-bags, the veins-a-poppin', the bared tooth and claw, the bristly beards, the calloused hands, the wailing mouths, the sunken, haunted eyes. The dark side of humanity.
Assuming that's what you think is beautiful.
If I stared at stuff like that all the time, I'd never get any sleep!
So... very... tired.

Captain Complainy, Away!

I came late to the 'party' known as 'All-Star Batman and Robin' by Frank Miller and Jim Lee. So everyone on the interwebs has already heard this rant, probably 4 years ago. God willing, this comic is still on hiatus. DO NOT READ IT. Now, that said, I should point out that I couldn't STOP reading it once I started in on the trade. I found that dark place in myself that cannot stop staring at a terrible train wreck. There is nothing wrong with Jim Lee's art, I'll say that first. Some perfectly acceptable fanservice here. The rest of it is designed to make people like me, who just BARELY tolerate Batman in the first place, go absolutely nuts.
You know my favorite Batman? Diedrich Bader's just-this-side of ENJOYING HIS LIFE Batman in the 'Batman the Brave and the Bold' cartoon. It happens to be my favorite currently airing cartoon.
Frank Miller's 'Goddamn Batman' is THAT Batman's polar opposite. I should mention for anyone lucky enough to have avoided it that that's what Miller's psycho cop-killing Batman calls himself. "I love being the goddamn Batman!' he chortles. Soon it's what all the other characters start calling him as well. Goddamn Batman. Like the Spectacular Spider-Man. It should probably have just been the title of the comic so readers like me would know what to expect.
And I should have known! After all, I sat through the bizarre, tonally confused and just plain awful piece of unwatchable garbage called 'The Spirit'. Watch it with a friend if you have to, because you'll NEED to mock it to survive it.
In the overwrought world of the Goddamn Batman, 12 year-old orphan Dick Grayson is abducted by a nutjob who refers to him as brat, snot, etc., slaps him around, starves him in a cave, and brings him tied up villains to torture. The nutcase? G.D. Batman himself. Alfred feeds the kid out of pity. And brought me to the second item that had me snorting with derision (I'll get to the first in a second, it's about 'Wonder Woman'). Proto-Robin hears the butler speak and thinks to himself 'English Accent. Upper class. Probably South Kensington.'
Where in the holy hell is a traumatized 12 year old AMERICAN boy getting this kind of insight? He's got no detective training. He's living on rats in a cave. How, I beg you, is he supposed to be able to tell a South Kensington accent from his own butt?
Everyone in this comic is insane. I know, I know, that might not seem like anything other than business as usual in fair Gotham, but trust me, it's MUCH worse than usual.
And why does everyone, from the G.D. Batman to Commissioner Gordon to the rapist-murder Joker INSIST on referring to Gotham city as a woman? A whore, a mother, bladda-bladda-blather-blah! 'My city is a woman who NEEDS me.' For the last time: CITIES AREN'T GIRLS! The Spirit was the last time I put up with that sort of thing. These inner monologues are cuckoo-nutty fruit loops! I half expect the G.D. Batman to start tongue-kissing brick walls and humping rain gutters.
As a fine example of the kind of loving attitude the comic shows to women: Black Canary is a vigilante loony-tune bartender who apparently just decided to Flip Out one day, crippling the men who taunt and proposition her, then just as quickly falling down under G.D. Batman ON THE DOCK where they meet FOR THE FIRST TIME for some kissage.
Oh, but she's not as badly distorted as the G.D. Wonder Woman! The first words out of HER mouth in this comic, I shit you not: 'Out of my way, Sperm Bank.'
It took 3 pages for me to determine that this was meant to BE Wonder Woman and not someone dressed as Wonder Woman. I couldn't believe this cold, openly unapologetic, murderous creature was supposed to be Diana!
But she's hanging with a lunkheaded Superman and a Green Lantern who G.D. Batman refers to as 'retarded'- and they bear this assesment out! For the purposes of this story, a child abusing crankcase has to look like the best option out there, so by default Supes and Hal become muscle-bound and brain-damaged.
Case in point: Hal is defeated and nearly murdered by G.D. Bats and G.D. Robin (for some insane reason I can't expound on here) because they painted themselves and their entire surroundings yellow, then taunted Green Lantern with lemonade. 'Damn you and your lemonade!' declares Hal. It's one of the most surreal scenes I've seen this side of the Silver Age.
All-Star Batman, in my colleague Ron's terms, is only just possibly enjoyable as 'conscious self-parody' He added: 'There isn't a grain of salt big enough to take with this. It's appalling.'
It's as though the excellent All-Star Superman by Morrison and Quitely had to have a terrible sucky yang to its delightful yin.
Which brings me back to my problems with Batman generally. The reason why I own NO solo Batman comics and have SUCH a hard time liking the character. It's because there's a Miller G.D. Batman out there for every 'The Choice' by Dennis O'Neil. Which I read last week in a collection called Robin the Teen Wonder.
'The Choice' is a perfectly glorious orgin story for Robin, mostly because it is straightforward and sensible. The story of Bruce and Dick's first encounter is played as an ADOPTION, not an ABDUCTION. It is a recruitment into a FAMILY, not into some mad war. And I believed in O'Neil's characters as PEOPLE, not as foaming-mad caricatures.
There's room for every interpretation, of course, but SERIOUSLY! The reader should WANT to be a billionaire genius scientist with mad skills and plenty of friends and dates and cars and freaking jets and boats and jet-boats. I, probably fortunately, don't know ANYONE who genuinely wants to be an unshaven, child-beating sadist dancing in and out of psychosis who will always be miserable day or night for the rest of eternity because his parents are dead.
Plenty of escapist fantasy BEGINS with 'My parents are dead, whatever fantastic things will I GET up to now?' It's sick, I know. But that's the way the fantasy goes: an imaginary escape from the constraints placed on us by our parents. Reality is never so simple. But, and I hate to harp on this- superhero comics are not supposed to BE real, only SEEM real. You must FOOL me, the reader, into believing in your writing and your implausible realm!
Because for me personally, good superhero comics come down to either morality or escapism. Usually both. This story has neither. Not only would I not want to trade places with the G.D. Batman or his pitiable protege, I think I'll have to escape from Frank Miller himself in the future.
And if the realization came to me four years too late it's only because I didn't read any warning blogs! Heed my words! Save yourselves! And, if possible, save me too!
Damn you and your lemonade!

When all seems lost in the war of light, don't look to Green Lantern: First Flight

Yesterday I had so much apparently unfounded confidence in this direct-to-DVD first animated outing devoted to Green Lantern that I bought it for $17 at HMV Kingsway and rushed my wife home to make her watch it with me. Total disinterest from her was no surprise, but I found myself wondering what went wrong that it also failed to impress ME. Apart from some questions about Sinestro's motives and some jokes, my wife only had this to say: I like my cartoons funnier. And while this story can't be a comedy, it was lacking in heart and feeling and emotion of ANY kind.
This review is 100% spoiler, so watch it first if you gotta, but if you're a die-hard fan you may be sorely disappointed. Or, if you're like me, you'll consider a career as a bile-spewing rage-fueled RED Lantern.
I'll say on a positive note first: these are pretty, well-animated pictures, splendid action sequences, and a very talented voice cast, all kicked in the ass by writing that made me want to tear Alan Burnett's writing hands off. Character development? What characters? he seems to be asking.
To begin: it was half correct to truncate the origin story and rush Hal into space as quick as you can: origin stories can be MURDEROUSLY dull. However, I think along the way he forgot to give Hal a motive or back-story. He's a pilot, yes, but that's all we find out about him. Along comes Abin Sur, the well-known poor slob Lantern who dies to give Hal his magic crime-fighting ring. This story has been told over and over for decades and this may be the worst version of it yet.
Why? No matter what, you should LIKE Abin and Hal, and they gave me no reason to. Because the dialouge NEVER indicates the criterion the ring uses to choose this mighty hero. Nobody says one of 4 key words: honesty, bravery, willpower, or imagination. I would have accepted ANY of these or all, as all have a history and all are true: a Green Lantern NEEDS these qualities. Abin says the Guardians will be along to explain it all to Hal, so I was patient: the GUARDIANS will explain later, just go with it.
Alas, long time readers may not recognize the Guardians when they show up, except that as the only blue bald old guys around they MUST be the Guardians of Oa, the bosses of these space cops.
They instantly explain nothing, and express at length an anti-human prejudice never before seen in the GLCorps, and for obvious reasons never previously expressed by the Guardians.
I'll try to explain: as 5 billion year old wise dudes, the Guardians are as far beyond prejudice as is possible for a living thing. They do not hate based on race. They do not say 'like hell' because they are beyond primitive religion. If anything, they reject emotion. They have no reason to doubt a human more than a Korugarian or a Bolovaxian because to a Guardian they are all like tiny children.
If you absolutely must waste time introducing some widespread anti-human prejudice into a Corps that never had it before, you HAVE to give such comments to someone like Salaak, with a history of distaste for humans. The viewer must not instantly hate the Guardians.
In the words of Tom Lehrer, 'There are those among us who do not like their fellow men and I say to you that I HATE people like that!'
Double the value of your movie with this introductory dialouge by me, free of charge:
Salaak mutters to Arisia 'Humans. Hunh. We'll NEVER get the smell out."
Guardian 1: Jordan of Earth. The ring Abin Sur bestowed on you will only operate for those with great strength of will. A Green Lantern is chosen above all else for his ability to withstand fear and for his total honesty.
Hal: Really? That's... stupid.
Guardian 1: (sighs at the others) You see?
Guardian 2: He's honest.
Guardian 3: (eyes flashing in a threatening manner) And brave. Foolishly so.
Ganthet: Leave it to us to determine what is wise, very young Lantern.
(Followed by some GODDAMN training!)
And scene.
Perhaps in keeping with their attitude, THESE Guardians make no attempt to train Hal, thus cleverly negating the need for Kilowog in the story, as he is the drill sergeant type. Not even a training montage?
No, they throw him into the field with Sinestro, who quickly demonstrates that he is a bad'un by beating on a bouncer and making a druggie o.d.
It should be noted that back home on Korugar, Sinestro is a Hitler-like figure of dread and awe to his people, but rather that show us THAT as in some comics, we've got a small man frustrated by his job rather than an obsessive despot. This smallifying was used in the FF live action movie on Dr. Doom, too. It's not impressive to make villains pettier! Why give us an alien Dirty Harry when the character was born as an evil purple Mao?
So, no proud tour of his 'orderly' but enslaved homeworld, no trial when Hal reports him to the Guardians, just back alley brawls with generic looking squidheads (beautifully animated, mind you), and framing Hal for his misdeeds. (Another dishonest act. See, Sinestro should be honest and brave and possesses great will and imagination- and also be a murdering control freak. He doesn't HIDE his actions- he'd be proud of them! He'd see the Guardians banishing him as a betrayal of his great work as a kill-a-ma-jig.)
I must credit the voice actor that Sinestro achieves any measure of viewer interest whatsoever.
And speaking of voice actors, let's just say that if you have John 'F-ing' Laroqette and he's only got, like, two lines as an unsympathetic Tomar-Re you've wasted a fine talent. Micheal Madsen is a good actor, too, he's famous for playing bad-ass punks who hate authority. So why wasn't he cast as Kanjar Ro the pirate? Why not give community-minded, voice of conformity and authority, gruff-but-softhearted, team-player, family man Kilowog of the comics to Kurtwood Smith or John Laroqette, as you had them on hand? I guess with this dialouge it wouldn't have mattered much- what we learn about Kilowog in this movie is he hates humans, apologizes insincerely, and is a 'comedy' glutton. This Kilowog-looking character whines his way though the least convincing 'Thanks for saving my life, you're a brave and bold Green Lantern, Hal' possible. Stupid.
No new viewer would understand what fans LIKE about Kilowog. In the comics he's Hal's tough big brother, the Thing to his Human Torch, a gruff but inspiring instructor, an awesome buddy you wish you had at your side in a fight... and a giant pig man.
Tricia Helfer is fine as a Boodika re-imagined visually as willowy Kryssma and helping Sinestro be a jerk for no clear reason. So Hal kills her- as he would NOT BLOODY LIKELY do in the comics.
I guess when GL's aren't selected for honesty or bravery you can get a bunch of bad apples like this. Except Ch'p, who isn't bad per se but managed to be annoying in just one sentence. For good or ill, that's all they gave him.
Why couldn't we see the Corps from the comics that WELCOMED Hal and give the audience a reason to LIKE these people?
Oh, and when Sinestro is NOT tried and NOT banished to Qward he goes there anyway. And Qward, unlike the comics, is in Sector 325 instead of Sector -1 of the Antimatter Universe. Why is this significant to anyone but a geek? Well, it isn't. But to a geek, this sounds like you've changed "Sinestro fought his way out of hell with a yellow ring cast from pure fear" to "Sinestro wandered down to the local pawn shop and got a yellow costume and a yellow ring and does bad things with a big yellow beach ball or something"
Then he attacks the Green Lantern Corps BY HIMSELF. And bests dozens of Lanterns, kills MANY more offscreen, and then beats TEN GUARDIANS- BY HIMSELF. But once Hal o.d.s on the so-called 'green element' or some crap, he beats Sinestro up and wins. But I've stopped caring over an hour ago.
That's it. What's the green element, I hear you asking? Oh, in the comics it's the living will of life itself. And the yellow? In the comics it's the manifestation of all fear in the universe.
In the movie? Well, it's two bastards apparently fighting over whether the colour green is more kick-ass than the colour yellow.
Somewhere while trimming this script the heart got trimmed out.
Joyless, with no sense of wonder or fun.
One and a half stars out of four, because the animators and actors deserve better.
The Daffy Duck cartoon 'The Green Loontern", though a parody, is actually more in keeping with the spirit of the GL comics in my opinion. Apparently, if you bought the two-disc version of this movie you can watch THAT little nugget of delight instead. In fact, I want to do that right now, for the sake of my soul.
So, to sum up: violent, pointless, meandering, heartless, well-animated, well-voiced, written so badly I look back with fondness on the empty-headed 'Superman:Doomsday'.
And I'm looking forward to 'Superman/Batman: Public Enemies' because surely they won't be able to ruin that one... will they?
Maybe I shouldn't buy it on the first day next time.

Raging Bullpen

I'm in the midst of the concert performances of Randy Mueller's "Dream King". It seems to be going o.k. I include here the text of a letter I e-mailed to the fine folks at Marvel comics' Spider office. As one who knows me might imagine, it's full of complainy. Enjoy. Or not.

Hiya, Mike McDevitt here.
This is my second letter to a comic. Because of fine writers and artists, an emphasis on sci-fi and comedy, and another factor, Marvel remains a cut above the competition in my view. Don't lose 'em! You see, I'm not sure I can take this lately. Millar's Reed Richards a fascist only McDuffie could redeem? David's writing a She-Hulk without a sense of humor? Strazynski's Spider-Man regressing instead of growing? A Spidey who deals with the devil? HEROES DON'T LET THE DEVIL WIN, GODDAMMIT! The Other & One More Day storylines (brilliantly written tales of love and death), left the bitter taste of Cop-Out which smacks of a DC-style reboot. I don't want another Heroes Reborn, do you?
C'mon! Pete without scars, experiences, and all that pesky True Love holding him back? F@#% THAT S***! I don't want young, single, seventies Spidey! Ultimate Spider-Man is top-notch for the young and young-at-heart. Ditto Marvel Adventures for the younger still. Let the Ultimate Universe be the trophy wife, and let the good ol' Marvel U KEEP GROWING UP! BE BRAVE. Be the first mainstream comic with heroes turning 30...40...50! Tell the titanic tale of Pete Parker's Prostate! Maybe not. But you limit the scope of your medium pandering only to the young and emotionally retarded. JMS tripled sales? But how? My guess is some of us liked the maturing Spidey. Pete had a birthday in one of those issues. It was a gem. It moved me and I faced my own 30th better after it. By behaving like an adult, Spidey helped ME in MY REAL LIFE.
I get it. I do. You hit a dilemma: young's been done and old won't sell. Steve Wacker's "old men in capes with girlfriends and permanent smiles" [I meant the DC superheroes. Mike 2009] are looking more appealing all the time because I'M HEADED THERE MYSELF. Except the cape...so far. The moral seems to be if being honest about who you are and having a family is too difficult, you should trade them away. Become a closeted, lawbreaking, layabout mooching off your aunt! That's the opposite of the Peter I want to admire and emulate. Still, Slott convinced me to stop baying for Aunt May's blood by having her working to be heroic. I enjoy it when (as in Hudlin's 'Wild Blue Yonder') May can save the day just by talking. It IS better for May and MJ not to revolve only around Pete. Still, we played "MJ and Pete break up" before and I hate it. Fix it. They should be together. Successful comic marriages are SO DAMN RARE.
Oh, hell, I can't stay mad at you guys! I'm buying anything Slott writes, aren't I? That McNiven draws good, too. And give PAD & JMS & BMB big kisses from me! Eye poke whoever up there thinks your characters shouldn't KEEP GROWING. (Except that 'Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius' which is pleasantly timeless, and that delightful 'Wolverine' who inspires all those shut-ins and nutcases.)
MAKE MINE MARVEL!
[Probably for good reason, Marvel never published it. But I stand by it still. Mike 2009]