Random Thought

Despite it's very questionable politics I am still a fan of Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers". Why? Because it involves killing arachnids!

Casablanca

On May 1 Madeleine LeBeau, the last living cast member of the film Casablanca, died at the age of 92.

Casablanca is, in my opinion, the greatest movie ever made.  Most Anglophone film buffs put it in the top three along with The Godfather and Citizen Kane.  There are many elements to why it is a great film including Michael Curtiz's direction, the script with it's snappy, witty dialog, and of course the stellar performances by Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.  And I'm pretty much a sucker for anything that has Claude Rains in it.

But what really made the film for me were the performances by the supporting actors like Madeleine LeBeau.  In Casablanca she plays Yvonne, Rick's embittered ex-girlfriend who takes up with a German officer.  It's a small role but one that has great emotional punch because during the famous Marseillaise scene she cries out "Vive le France! Vive la democracie!"

She provides that extra oomph that makes an already emotional scene even better.  And it is more believable coming from her than possibly some other actress because LeBeau was a wartime refugee.

Casablanca is a story of men and women trying to cope during the horrors of World War 2.  Many of the supporting actors in it like LeBeau and her then husband Marcel Dalio, who played Emil the croupier, had fled Nazi occupied Europe for the safety of the United States.  It is the verisimilitude of these and other genuine refugees in the small parts of this film that provided it with that little extra something that more than made up for the occasional plot hole.

Buckaroo Banzai versus the Television Executives

The big news today in the geek-o-sphere are the reports that Kevin Smith is in the process of creating an Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai television series.

I meet this news with no small amount of trepidation.  I am a very old school fan of Buckaroo Banzai.  I was a fan of Buckaroo Banzai before the movie came out.  Not many people remember that Earl Mac Rauch's novelization of his script actually hit the bookstores about six months before the film did.  And I got a copy and read it several times before the film debuted.  Needless to say, it helped make sense of the movie too.

So the thought of a BB television series fills me with both dread and excitement.  On one hand it looks like it's going to be written and produced by Kevin Smith and he is the ubergeek's ubergeek.  If anyone will treat the original material in a way that fans will appreciate it is him.  On the other hand a lot of it is going to depend on which network or cable channel pics it up.  Heaven forfend the Fox Network gets their dirty little paws on it.  The subject matter is so bizarre they will no doubt treat it in such a manner that Firefly winds up looking like Gunsmoke.  And while things have been improving over at SyFy, I still don't trust them to treat original material well  I guess time will tell.

I do like Smith's idea of essentially remaking the film so that it is the story arc of the first season.  When you read the book there are a lot of ideas and subplots that didn't make it into the film that could easily fill out a whole season.  Though I am sad for whoever they cast as Rawhide.  Talk about doomed by canon.  Also the fact that Smith himself wants to play John Bigbooté (Bigboot-TAY!) is a bit worrisome.

And I really like his idea of doing the non-existent Against The World Crime League sequel for season two, if they get that far.  Again Rauch's novelization goes into a fair amount of detail about the WCL and it's leader Hanoi Xan that were not necessary for the film but are a great source of ideas for television episodes.

I think in the end I am cautiously optimistic.  Kevin Smith is a fan and he knows how to appeal to fans.  Buckaroo Banzai is a franchise with an already built in fan base.  The TV series could probably be made on a relatively constrained budget for genre TV since the original film was done on a shoe string and the fans won't expect the most cutting edge special effects.  In fact the cheesiness is part of the charm.

So I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and wait for an explanation of why that watermelon is there.

Why yes, I do still exist.

You may have noticed that I haven't posted in six months.  Or more likely you haven't noticed because it's not like I had a lot of followers before things tailed off.

At any rate, I'm back.  I hope.

I had a bad case of depression over the winter but I think I've finally kicked it.  I won't go into too much detail save that I was always tired and there never seemed anything worth writing about.

Also when I started this blog my original intent was to try and write at least one post a day even though I knew that I was tempermentally unsuited to that goal and I quickly found myself running out of things to write about.  From now on while I will try and post more often, I am not going to hold myself to any sort of artificial goal.  If I have something on my mind I want to post about, great.  If not, that's fine too.

So what am I up to now that I've crawled out of my cave?  Well I am getting active in science fiction fandom again.  The mess that was the latest Hugo nominations list was part of it.  (A fuller rant on that subject will be forthcoming.)  I'm going to be at BayCon in San Mateo at the end of May if anyone wants to meet up.

I've been getting back into painting historical miniatures again.  This time World War One naval minis in the 1:2400 scale.  I'm starting off with the British and German ships that fought the Battle of Dogger Bank in 1915.

Here is the HMS Lion.  I'm not entirely happy with it as I think I painted the yellow teak deck too gold of a shade but for a first try in a very long time, it's not bad.  The nickel is there for a size comparison.

I'm doing a fair amount of board and role-playing gaming.  I'm sure this will provide plenty of subjects for posts going forward.

And with the US presidential campaign entering the general election phase you can expect a fair amount of politics from me.  You've been warned.

That's if for now.  Until I return, please enjoy the Anonymous Orange (tm) that I received in the mail earlier this week.

New Star Trek! New Star Trek?

Yes, I am actually crawling out of my hole to post again.  Of course given today's news how could I not?

I case you've been living under a rock this morning the big news news in geekdom is the official announcement of a brand new Star Trek series premiering in January 2017.

On the surface I can certainly understand why folks are all aflutter.  But what do we know about it at this time?  Not a whole lot.

It's being produced by Alex Kurtzmann who co-wrote the J.J. Abrams' reboot films.  Unlike many people I rather liked Abrams' take on the Federation.  Yes it has issues but then so does the old Roddenberry / Paramount continuity.  The only thing press release tells about the series itself is:

The brand-new Star Trek will introduce new characters seeking imaginative new worlds and new civilizations, while exploring the dramatic contemporary themes that have been a signature of the franchise since its inception in 1966.

That's not a lot to go on.

Many people are working under the assumption that since Kurtzmann is the show runner it's going to be in the Abrams-verse.  But that's making a big leap on not a lot of information.  In fact because it is going to be a CBS series it more strongly points to being tied in to the old continuity since CBS owns those rights but not the new one's.

There has been some serious talk in the past year (including from Michael Dorn himself) of a Captain Worf series. I could certainly see that happening as it will allow for the introduction of a ship full of new characters led by an old and beloved one from two previous series.  If they go back to the classic TOS and Next Gen formula of a starship crew exploring the universe without any of the other hooks from the other series it could be a very good idea.

But now I am also speculating without data.  Or Data, for that matter.

The thing I find most disturbing about the whole project is the thing the press release discusses the most, namely that after the premier episode the program is going to be on CBS's pay streaming site.  Aside from the fact that I didn't know that CBS had a site I'm not sure how good of a strategy this is for them.  I can see their logic, create a new show with a built in fan-base, but it on-line and count the money as it rolls in.  That's good for them in theory but until I know and see more, I am going to be very leery about paying six dollars a month just to watch a new Trek series.

A Quick Note On "The Force Awakens" Trailer

Yes, yes, I know I said I would be posting more and I haven't.  I'm sorry.  It's not been depression but rather just too much work to do at the office.  Plus when I get home the last thing I want to do is stare at a computer screen.

That said, having now watched the trailer for "The Force Awakens" for the fifth or sixth time and thinking back to the earlier ones, I've got to say that I am very pleased that none of them actually give away anything related to the plot. They manage to hit all the emotional high notes but we are still going to go in to the theatre and be surprised at what we see. Given how much is usually given away in movie trailers nowadays I really appreciate this.

The trailer itself is incredibly squee worthy.  The effects look great and are more practical than CGI. It's great to see Leia and Han together.  And we get to see a little more of this film's heavy Kylo Ren.  It's very interesting that they have essentially been holding Luke in reserve through all three trailers though.  As I said they are not giving away any plot points but it would be nice to see more of him than a mechanical hand.

Now all I have to do is get through the next two months with what's left of my sanity intact.

I aten't dead

(With apologies to Granny Weatherwax)

In case you haven't noticed I haven't posted much - okay, at all -  for a couple months.  I've been dealing with some personal issues including a minor outbreak of depression and I've just had a hard time motivating myself.  I even passed on commenting on the actual Hugo Awards this year.

Part of it has been being totally swamped at work, part has been family health issues and part has just been a general sense of malaise with the world.  There's a cartoon that periodically pops up on Facebook (and of course I now can't find a copy) where a woman is speaking to a man and says, "My desire to stay informed about the world is conflicting with my desire to stay sane."  That about sums up how I've been feeling about current events lately.

Fortunately I have lots of good friends who are willing to be there for me when I am down and I am finally working my way out of the black pit of despair.

I think I'm mostly over it now and will start posting more geeky goodness in the near future.