"Getting" Ready For Ready Player One

The film adaptation of Ready Player One looks good because The Iron Giant guest-stars in it as a replacement for Ultraman. What this means is that certain sequences won't happen exactly as they did in the book, yet we'll get an improvement on what was in the text. There's a logical explanation for why the Iron Giant would appear as a replacement - he was name-dropped in the book - but I think that character's presence has a greater resonance among audiences than Ultraman, so it's a trade-up. That doesn't mean a contemporary appearance in a mainstream American film by a Japanese kaiju character directed by Steven Spielberg wouldn't have been awesome...it's just...one step closer to Warner Brothers green-lighting The Iron Giant Returns/Iron Giant Comes Back/Iron Giant Vs. Mecha-Godzilla or whatever title a sequel to The Iron Giant would have. And yes, it looks like Mecha-Godzilla won't be appearing in the film, either, for similar copyright reasons. To my mind, it sounds similar to when Pixar was barred from including Barbie from the first Toy Story, but then she appears in the sequels when that film became a phenomenon.

I had read the Ready Player One novel last Fall, just after seeing the first trailer for the film. I didn't write a review because I didn't think it was a big deal..it was okay and fun to read in a lot of places. I was impressed with Ernest Cline's prose being readable...a fault I find with a lot of trendy novels is that the prose is very clumsy...but I'm a picky reader; I could never get through any Stephen King, Stuart Woods, Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Michael Critchton, etc.. - books by authors that appear on shelves at supermarkets, airports, bus stations, train stations, drug stores, discount stores. I've read books 3-7 of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter And... and I guess ..And The Cursed Child counts as the 8th installment, but I never thought she wrote action scenes well..and have no desire to check out those faux-pseudononymous mystery novels "by Robert Galbraith" she's written. Incidentally, "Robert Galbraith" is a much-easier to spell name than Commonran...Comeonman...Comoreram...CalmacalmacalmacalmacalmaChameleon Strike when you're just trying to recall it casually...my interest is too...casually vacant to look it up proper.

Back to the book. The paperback edition I had read was the precursor to the new edition released, which uses one of the movie posters as the cover. It's the same as the one I had, with the narrow shape and easier-to-read-but-still-not-large-print format. I figured Spielberg wasn't planning on reanacting the plot to Wargames or scenes where we would just watch characters play old arcade/PC games. The movie suggests we're getting a mix of The Maze Runner with It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, with a Who Framed Roger Rabbit dose of spectacle...

If I could just go on a tangent for a moment..the thing with Roger Rabbit is that, as good as it was, whenever it's shown on TV reruns lately, I find that without the late Bob Hoskins as Eddie Valiant, the whole movie could've just fallen apart. One key casting decision. With him there, you believe everything that's happening. Eddie's the most-challenging character any actor could play in a movie like that. People like to act nostalgic about Space Jam, but the only reason that worked (and it was no Roger Rabbit) was
because everyone involved was awake, alert and working together. Nobody was sleepwalking, nobody was bored; Ivan Reitman didn't just stamp his name on it, Bill Murray wasn't bored & had fun, Michael Jordan was Michael Jordan, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck were Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.

I had just seen The Maze Runner: The Death Cure. Having never read the books, I was surprised that it ended with Thomas losing both his best friend and his girl. Theresa's death was spectacularly done, but I wouldn't have minded seeing her survive - if this were an episode of Talespin, Baloo would've flown that plane in a loop-de-loop into the collapsing building to follow her descent...so Theresa would be shown falling..into the cargo hold of the plane - which kinda looked like a military-grade version of the Sea Duck, in point of fact - so instead of Giancarlo Esposito going "Guys! I can't keep this plane hovering longer!" or whatever he said, Baloo would've been like "Hang on, li'l britches!! Ol' Papa Bear's got a trick up his sleave! Pelican Dive - don't fail me now!!" Baloo was pretty badass on that show. And I think I saw Matt Smith do a similar trick to rescue Alex Kingston in a Doctor Who episode..it's not a new trick. Jerry Bruckheimer or Michael Bay would've had it happen, though it probably would've been with Thomas inexplicably finding the strength and skill to take control of the plane and rescue Theresa..who would've been wearing a tank top & micro-miniskirt with high heels...played by Alexandra Daddario (yeah, I saw her in San Andreas). As it is, we're left with a hero who has lost his damsel and his squire, so he just gets to..be around and..chill out on an island...maybe he'll take up fishing...or look for pirate gold.

It's with this mindset that I'm more charitable towards Ready Player One's Art3mis hooking up with Wade/Parzival in the end, as if she were the real prize...though all that money is nice...there's been criticism about the casting of Art3mis. Cline made a point of describing Art3mis as looking Reubenesque...in other words...curvaceous, full-figured...hips that don't lie...with junk in the trunk. The only actress that came to mind as I read the book was Demi Lovato, who's embraced having a curvaceous, fit-and-thick figure and makes wardrobe choices that match Art3mis fan art on the web. Casting-wise, that's the only one I had..and cash-strapped Johnny Depp as Halliday, seeimg as how the movie trailer makes the Willy Wonka connection between the two characters obvious..and Depp has bills to pay...Tim Burton isn't going to make Charlie and The Great Glass Elavator (though I wish that was the Wonka movie he had made with Depp instead of the unnecessary remake)..in fact, they could just make Great Glass Elevator without Burton and Depp would still be up for it..a job is a job is a job..he's available...I wouldn't mind a 6th Jack Sparrow movie, but I might be in the minority with that opinion...stopwaitcomeback.

#WomanCrushWednesday: Demi Lovato

4 Doctor Who Novels: "Beautiful Chaos" by Gary Russell, "The Coming of The Terraphiles" by Michael Moorcock, "Dead of Winter" by James Goss, "The Crawling Terror" by Mike Tucker

Four Doctor Who novels. Three featured boilerplate storylines, though one purportedly had an original idea, only it's author wrote it on a whim, resulting in boilerplate execution. As such, I felt all four books deserved to be written up in a single review..with good quotes for your viewing pleasure, of course. Onward...

Beautiful Chaos by Gary Russell: Among Doctor Who villains, the Mandragora Helix - a malevolent, sentient constellation with mind-controlling abilities - is not unlike the Great Intelligence from "The Snowmen" and "The Bells of St. John", and his/it's scheme has the same m.o. to it. The big difference is the Doctor and companion highlighted. The Tenth Doctor  is more fun to read about than The Eleventh Doctor, but Donna Noble, in retrospect, has nothing interesting to say..I don't think she ever did; her whole "arc" consists of her becoming better-educated/worldly via her travels with the Doctor before receiving a "Flowers For Algernon"-style I.Q. boost that allowed her to save the universe and serve as deux ex machina ( by typing, very fast, nonsensical technobabble onto a random computer keyboard ), before having to give it all up and become "Uneducated Get-To-The-Toe Donna" again ( this is certainly no Clara Oswald )..Thankfully, Gary Russell has her granddad Wilfred play a larger role here. The subplot about Wilfred's girlfriend coping with Alzheimer's is clearly trying too hard to echo Russell T. Davies' faux-TV style sentimentality, and Mandragora has more in common with The Wire from " The Idiot's Lantern " in it's ineffectiveness as a compelling villain, plus I don't recall Donna's mother really regarding the Doctor with contempt onscreen, so that bit seemed phony, but the Tenth Doctor characterization is just right, so it made the book a breeze to read. The book balances between fanfic and potboiler - Average.

The Coming of The Terraphiles by Michael Moorcock: The hype/backstory behind this book is more interesting than what we got...I recall that the original plan was for Moorcock to introduce a new status quo for Captain Jack Harkness as commander of a ship that traveled through a route between alternate universes and have him meet the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond for the first time, but the launch of Torchwood: Miracle Day likely derailed that idea, so he has the Doctor & Amy meet a new incarnation of his character, Jerry Cornelius, instead, and introduce his take on the application of parallel universes in Fantasy-Adventure fiction...sounds intriguing...but what we got was a potted, rambling, shaggy dog mess. Eleven and Amy weren't really complete characters at the time Moorcock was writing this, so they read like complete ciphers, here; he would've been better off using the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith, although BBC Books was still shy about relaunching a line of Past Doctor Adventures in the wake of the new series until the novelization of Shada in 2012. The strongest passage in the book has nothing to do with any high-concept stuff: it's a P.G. Wodehouse-esque pastiche with a Bertie Wooster-like character attempting (i.e., failing) to steal a ghastly hat and clumsily take credit when it disappears. Everything else feels like it was just Moorcock typing away unconsciously...lots of incoherent nonsensical descriptions of ships encountering ships and traveling through spatial matter...I do remember THIS book was hyped up just as much as it's faded away into obscurity. - Pure Drivel **

Dead of Winter by James Goss: Of the four books featured in this post, this novel had the strongest character work, featuring character development we didn't get from the show, because the writers became increasingly preoccupied/distracted with hashing out River Song's paradoxical backstory. Her absence from this book allows Goss to offer insight on the relationship between The Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory that confirms suspicions  ( that Rory and Eleven tolerate eachother's presence to keep Amy happy, while Amy sees her husband as consolation for the unattainable and forever enigmatic Doctor, who seems to be trying to recreate the relationship the Tenth Doctor had with Rose Tyler, but frustrated that Amy would have feelings for someone else* ) and plays on expectations with a brief amnesia/role-reversal subplot for the trio. The main story - about a seaside clinic ridded with doppelgangers - is given some snap by Goss's decision to used a mixed 1st-person narrative; most of the characters featured narrate several chapters in rotation. Never dull, though lacking surprise, I was disappointed that the scene depicted on the cover does not occur in the book...an attractive zombie woman wielding the Doctor's sonic screwdriver sounds epic to me. - Not bad

The Crawling Terror by Mike Tucker: The author probably noticed the nod to Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor when Peter Capaldi's initial costume for the Twelfth Doctor was revealed, so he fashioned an adventure fitting the Third for Twelve. Giant bugs are ubiquitous in two of the 3rd Doctor's best-known stories ( The Green Death, Planet of The Spiders ), along with misguided wealthy British meglomaniacs delving into mad science abundant during that era. Technically, I thought this the best-written book of the four in this post - the suspense is genuine, the atmosphere has the right mix horror and sci-fi/adventure, and the Twelfth Doctor & Clara are depicted right, so it felt authentic, and the pace is just right for an adventure about English villagers possessed by colonies of giant aliens resembling Earth insects. It risks bad taste by putting a baby in danger in one scene before coping out. Clara gets her mind swapped with the leader of the alien spider bugs, so we get more "Evil Clara", which is fun. The only drawback is a personal one: giant alien bugs aren't an appealing menace to me; I picked this up because I had already read the other two novels featuring 12, but it is a well-written adventure - I would've preferred alien foxes or mummies..if Paul Magrs can have the Eighth Doctor encounter alien dogs..plus, I liked the passage about wild foxes in the village being regarded like wild raccoons...and then Tucker drops a suggestion/hint about a possible rejected idea that he might recycle someday: UNIT soldiers fighting robots emerging from a volcano in the Canary Islands...a sequel to The Fires of Pompeii ?!! Mike Tucker! - when Moffat finally gets around to answering the question of why The Twelfth Doctor chose to look like the same man his Tenth incarnation met in Pompeii, may we PLEASE see THAT story?
- Okay

*That last bit about 11 wanting his own Rose Tyler for a companion was my pet theory; once Billie Piper left, Tennant's Doctor became increasingly angst-ridden and melancholy, which soured the acting chemistry the actor had with his later co-stars; perhaps Moffat was trying to casually recreate the same dynamic with his launch as showrunner?...

**I'm keeping this one - I'll try it again some other day...it's like they say: "Some books are just for having."

WHO Are You? Who? Who? Who? Who?

The BBC is going to announce who will replace Matt Smith in the role of The Doctor in Doctor Who today. Officially, the new arrival will be the twelfth actor to play the Time Lord, making him, or her  "The 12th Doctor". Your friendly South London bookie will tell you that Peter Capaldi & Daniel Rigby are the odds-on favorites believed to get the role; both are virtually unknown in the U.S., but in Britain they are better-known than Smith when he got the part. Some people think Benedict Cumberbatch might get it, since Sherlock and Doctor Who don't appear to pose scheduling conflicts (they're both BBC programs;  he could do both) and Steven Moffat runs both shows.

The truth is NOBODY KNOWS. They did a really good job of keeping it a secret - so good, that the announcement is planned to be simulcast on BBCAmerica today at 2pm.

I'm certain about two things: the new doctor will probably stick around for three, four years, tops...there's never talk of pay raises or "points on the back end" for any of these actors when their likeness adorns merchandise that makes a lot of money for the BBC - the only reason why Tom Baker is the only actor to have played the part the longest (seven years) might be because he had co-written a script for a feature film titled Doctor Who Meets Scratchman that was almost fast-tracked into production but was grounded by a lack of financing...and...Tom was forced out by enemies he'd made with his ego. Anyway, the point is, only the Beeb makes the money. No contract negotiations or producer credits or other American showbiz dealspeak; I'm sure David Tennant didn't leave to do that remake of Fright Night; he had become THE most popular incarnation of the Doctor, rivaling Tom & his scarf with his own pinstripe blue suit & eyeglasses. It's no secret that the Matt Smith years are often regarded as "Tennant jr." or Doctor Who Babies.

There's always talk about whether an American version of the series will be made ... doubtful. Two reasons: the ratings would need to average 20 million every week (it averages around 10 million on a good day, 15 on a better day, 8 or 5 at bad times - good for the CW, you might say, but only if the budget was at rock-bottom - Supernatural / Vampire Diaries , dim-lighting, walking-around-shrubs-in-a-studio-lot-at-Burbank bottom). The one time Who saw 20 million was in 1979, when an idustrial strike shut down the only other network in Britain and people who would rather watch the soap opera Coronation Street on ITV were watching part 2 of "City of Death" instead. Low-wattage potboiler detective shows like New Tricks get the same ratings as Doctor Who, which means us yankees would be hoping the U.S. incarnation could do as well as Castle. Another reason? It's too British! Americanize it and you get something we've seen before here: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Back To The Future, Sliders, Angel, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Tru Calling, Dollhouse...even The Ghost Whisperer..with it's mushy, pious, sometimes condescending sentimentality.

The other certainty? Hard core fans are on pins and needles in anticipation...arranging live tweets and recording their reactions as it happens on YouTube, Vine, Skype, Instagram, Keek, etc...

Oh, and  another certainty...there will be plenty of merchandise with the 12th Doctor..and his/her costume - the real dealbreaker that will gauge his/her popularity and appeal...is still a secret.

Oh...one other certainty.. Jenna Coleman is still in the show, whether "graduating" into The Doctor ( as many fans, including myself, are inclined to think could happen, because of the nature of the current, wonky storyline - that Clara co-exists within the Doctor's lifespan and is dependant on him to stay alive - I think), but also, she's the new Sci-Fi Babe/"It" girl - a title held by alumni such as Eliza Dushku, Jessica Alba, Charisma Carpenter, Jeri Ryan, etc...I suppose she might turn up on the cover of Maxim soon. For now, we're settling for photoshopped pictures of her in vinyl catsuits...

Update: Peter Capaldi IS the new Doctor...and people are already debating if his age and appearance will send female viewers running the opposite direction. Those in support of the decision call him a "silver fox", all opposed recall his track record of playing only  foulmouthed  bastards - Malcolm Tucker of "The Thick of It" in particular. The irony here is I recall Matt Smith fell under the same scrutiny and people already miss him. So that means all IS right with the world. We've got a new Doctor Who. Cheers. :)