About That Blade Runner Sequel...

My blog posts wouldn't be lengthy if I could write about Blade Runner 2049 by writing, "I thought it was very good. It was better than the first one." But that's the short answer.

Publisher Random House does a clever thing with paperback editions of Philip K. Dick's Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep?: they offer an edition with the Blade Runner movie title and the true title in parentheses. For a long time, this edition's cover featured artwork patterned after the film adaptation, even a later edition with art by Star Wars poster artist Drew Stuzan, to coincide with the DVD release of the last and "official" re-release of the film. The joke here is that the book is...and I might be generous...30% of the movie. The film noir tropes and  atmosphere is nowhere to be found in the book; the Rick Deckard of the book is more like George Jetson than Philip Marlowe. And the cover has been revised to coincide with the release of the sequel...I don't like what they came up with. I would've preferred they used the movie poster, instead...or commission Struzan to whip up something. For my money, the best cover art I saw was a fanmade mockup I found online (see the second photo layout below) with Scrappy the robot owl (yes, his name is 'Scrappy' in the book) and the pyramid.

Apparently, it took a month for 2049 to break even, likely because they were so secretive about the plot that nobody could talk about it in interviews leading up to the release...that usually means it's a turkey, so that was a serious mistake. Who is Deckard's kid? That mystery could've been good-enough bait, since Ryan Gosling and Sylvia Hoeks seemed like red herrings for mostof the film. Ana de Armas' prominent presence on the movie poster seems like another red herring clue; it's only by watching the film that you learn she's not going to be Deckard's daughter...although I thought she was fantastic as Joi, Gosling's sentient hologram virtual assistant/girlfriend; Gosling and Armas have a nice chemistry that's more convincing than Harrison Ford and Sean Young in the original..there's more of a heart in this one...the fact that people debate online the nature Joi's extistince means that both actors deserve credit making believe in them as complete characters. Complete is a good word for this movie. The original always seemed improvised; this sequel has more focus on what it wants to do. Whereas it's much longer than the first, 2049 seems much simpler. I was more intrigued/interested in what was happening. I get that the original film is pretty iconic, but thestory of how it got made is more interesting than what they produced..And Rick Deckard is only interesting within that film..in my humble opinion..in that early scene where he's at the sushi bar.

The Replicants aren't robots/androids in the traditional sense; they're more like genetically modified organisms. These GMO-bots are flesh and blood, with internal organs and are man-made, yet they can be snobbish towards holograms (it's lightly hinted Joi might represent a potential evolution in a subset of artificial intelligence that hints at a class system among all forms of manufactured life...this, and a rebellion among Replicants against their manufacturer, the Wallace Corporation, seem like ideas for possible sequels).

So how was Harrison Ford in this? There's a reference to Ben Gunn from Treasure Island with 2049's take on Deckard. He's become this grumpy hermit, living in a deserted Las Vegas resort/hotel, keeping bees (perhaps a nod to Sherlock Holmes' retirement - becoming a beekeeper on a farm in English countryside). And he has a dog - possibly a replicant, since the future of Blade Runner is in a world where all animals are extinct and are either GMO replicants or nuts & bolts androids...that would include the bees. I kinda wish the Vegas had lasted longer, since there's a kind of peace to it. Does this sequel answer Blade Runner's oldest mystery? Well...this franchise isn't flexible enough to allow for the existence of cyborgs, or entertain the idea that Deckard is an older-model Replicant...one that probably has a lower threshold of endurance..he's just there, like an Easter Egg, really. An extended Easter Egg. Actually, Edward James Olmos' cameo was like a standard Easter Egg..he even does an origami sheep!

I imagine if this film had done better in the box office, we would've had another origami paper sculpture, but I'm trying to guess what it could be...a tortoise? A wolf (there's a recurring reference to 'Peter and The Wolf' whenever Joi makes her entrances and exits)? How about an owl?

Frigates In A Star Wars Novel..

A Frigate is a type of warship. It is also an ubiquitous word applied by authors of Star Wars tie-in novels...I don't believe this word has ever been spoken by any of the characters in the Star Wars films. While it is an accurate word to use...it doesn't sound like the language of characters from the movies..Star Wars characters travel in "ships" and "shuttles" or "shuttlecraft" and "vessels" - not frigates.

...

When the books I own don't send me, I try to figure out what happened. Kevin Hearne's Star Wars: Heir To The Jedi has an interesting narrative hook - an adventure told in the first person by Luke Skywalker - but I didn't believe for a second that Luke would use the word "frigate" at all..he never used that word in the films, why the change? It's strange storytelling hiccups like that which make it feel like I'm reading something that was cranked out under a deadline, as opposed to something with more care, but sci-fi and fantasy novels are not often known for conscientious craftsmanship, they're more about concepts. This is actually the 2nd SW novel ever to try 1st-person narration  ( I, Jedi by Michael Stackpole was the other ), so there's a painful lack of innovation. What's worse is that Luke is separated from the core SW supporting cast, so Hearne has no one for Luke to play off from the films; if the "payoff" was to show how Luke learned telekinesis  ( pulling his lightsaber out of the snow as he did during The Empire Strikes Back - one of the neat tricks he accomplishes in the series, mostly overshadowed by the popularity of Han Solo's swagger ), then it's a very myopic payoff.

There are nice moments, though, so, yes, I can offer a good quote.

"Star Wars: Kenobi" by John Jackson Miller

I wish John Jackson Miller had not pegged Kenobi as a Western from the get-go with his introduction at the start of the novel. The tale works incredibly well simply as a Star Wars story and needed no added novelty to draw readers in. It is a well-written epic in minature about Obi Wan Kenobi's early days living in exile as a hermit on Tattooine, encountering more danger than he thought he would. So if you paid no mind to Miller's words, you have a good chance of enjoying a new adventure that didn't echo any Clint Eastwood/Jimmy Stewart westerns...or episodes of Samurai Jack, for that matter.

This is also the first Star Wars novel I saw with the "Legends" tag when it debuted on paperback, which notes the decision by Disney-Lucasfilm to create a new, official continuity that will ignore the novels published before A New Dawn and let them slowly go out of print once the new line is established. I had commented on this development in an earlier post titled, "Luke Skywalker's Nightmare..Or Ours?"..so I can keep this post from going off on a tangent and reccomend you check that out first or continue reading my review of Kenobi. Or continue onward. :)

In retrospect, the most interesting part of Kenobi is how Miller reconciles the two different portrayals of the character with this new adventure. The 1st half of the novel depicts an Obi Wan not unlike the relatively aloof, Merlin-esque "wizard" Ben Kenobi, played by Sir Alec Guinness, as well as recreating the atmosphere of Tunisa shown in A New Hope. The 2nd half, with it's busy spaceports and alien creatures and floating anti-gravity hovercraft speeding across the desert, recall the manic energy of better moments offered by the prequel film trilogy.

So, yes, this is a good book, but I probably had more fun imagining the casting if it was adapted into a film. I imagined Charlize Theron as the heroine, Annileen Calwell, alongside Gerard Butler as the shady Orrin Gault ( a character who resembles a darker take on Owen Lars, Luke's Uncle, from A New Hope )...And why stop there? If this story had been adapted by George Lucas in the 80s, I could imagine Audrey Hepburn as Annileen ( inspired by her playing Maid Marion in Robin & Marion ...and a photo of her in a cowboy hat from 1958 ), Gregory Peck as Orrin  ( while best-known and beloved today for playing Atticus Finch in "To Kill A Mockingbird", Peck was more convincing at playing bastards , as he did in the camp western, "Duel In The Sun" ) , and, if Alec Guinness should refuse, Nicol Williamson as Ben.

Onto the highlight reel! :)

Luke Skywalker's Nightmare...or Ours?

I don't believe we'll see a new Star Wars film from Walt Disney Pictures in 2015...it's too soon - that date is just to get us, the fans, all abuzz with excitement.  That photo of the cast assembling for the first reading of the script assured us that Luke, Leia & Han are back, albeit looking ready to collect their social security checks in a galaxy far, far away...and that few women exist within that universe...and Andy Serkis is there, perhaps in person or in a motion-capture suit.

But there was another announcement...buried within...that gave Star Wars fans a case of the blues...

They're ignoring the books.

The new trilogy is going to start fresh and ignore the continuity created by the long-running series of Star Wars novels - most of which were set after Return of The Jedi  but many are set before that and in different eras of the series. This decision is clearly meant to make the new films accessible to audiences who love Star Wars,  but don't follow the books closely,  or at all.

It just seems so...ironic. We have a genre of feature films based on trashy "young adult" romance novels...what's wrong with adapting Star Wars novels into films? The only answer I can give to that question is not entirely satisfactory: the filmmakers do not feel obligated to adapt what were essentially tie-in merchandise to fulfill a demand for new adventures. None of the James Bond novels written by John Gardner or Raymond Benson were adapted into films by Eon productions after they ran out of Ian Fleming material to adapt (and they really dipped their pens into that well long after it went dry) , and some of those books were better than the original stories written for the screen.

It's not clear if we should also infer that none of the characters introduced in the novels will appear, either.  I was imagining Dana Delany as Luke's wife, Mara Jade Skywalker, but I couldn't picture anyone as the Jedi kids, who became adults as the series progressed: Jacen,  Jaina & Anakin Solo (I know he was killed off, but whatever) and Ben Skywalker. Maybe J.J. Abrahams and Lawrence Kasdan were upset about Chewbacca getting killed off in Vector Prime and were like, "Oh, hell no!!"  and that became their excuse to ignore it. Who knows? Or maybe the decision to turn Jacen Solo into a villain who gets killed in a final duel with his sister, Jaina, after killing Mara Jade in Sacrifice?  Who knows? Or maybe it's that there are only four or five novels that are highly regarded? * Who knows?

There is precedent: there were only two instances where the films used material from the novels: the name of the planet Coruscant and the name of the speeder bikes that appeared in Return of The Jedi: "Swoops". That is all.

With that kind of track record,  maybe Luke's sweet tooth for cups of hot chocolate will find a way in the new movies...

*I'm not a fan of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy, but a lot of fans love it. I remember enjoying Steve Perry's Shadows of The Empire. The only novels I still own are Star by Star and The Unifying Force, from the New Jedi Order  series...it's all imaginary stuff...from long, long ago...coming soon to a used bookstore or Goodwill/Salvation Army store near you.

Happy Thanks-for-Giving on Thanksgiving! (Part 2 of 2)

This concluding installment is going to read like a turducken, that infamous turkey stuffed with boneless duck and chicken meat - if you're set to have one this Thanksgiving, you might find it dry, tough and tender at the same time...reminds me of the books I read...

Few people know how to handle a turkey without looking like Lupo the Butcher,  so I found a psuedo-helpful instruction guide presented by a familiar face from the past, (Bob Hope!) along with some more wacky turkey day-related festivities, including a turkey made from a Lego Star Wars Imperial AT-AT (can you imagine how easy it would be if a real Thanksgiving dinner made/shaped like Lego bricks? You wouldn't carve it, you would just gently pull the slices apart! ).

In funnybook land, Batman, Superman,  Power Girl and The Huntress make perfect turduckens. I noticed that Scott Snyder has found a way to sidestep present-day continuity by tinkering with Batman's past in Zero Year & Dark City, while his Superman Unchained is shaggy dog turducken that's taken forever to cook. Meanwhile, Power Girl & The Huntress have had their Silver Age origins reinstated, with Modern Age twists - they were the Supergirl  and Robin of Earth 2, which means PG is Superman's Other Secret Weapon (inside joke) and Huntress, in an interesting retcon, was always Helena Wayne. That means that all of her appearances as Helena Bertinelli over the last 26 years or so were in actuality featuring the daughter of Batman & Catwoman of Earth2 living on Earth1, masquerading as the daughter of a slain mob boss(!), working as a schoolteacher by day, falling in and falling out with "uncle" Batman & his "family", becoming Batgirl during No Man's Land, joining the Justice League during the Grant Morrison era,  hooking up with The Question (both in comics and in Justice League Unlimited) and becoming a regular in Birds of Prey. I actually  find this retcon pretty neat, since the "Batman & Catwoman's daughter" hook is still iconic - there's just one problem: it's been two years now; all the loose ends implied by the retcon haven't been addressed yet! Obviously, storylines like Cry For Blood and Huntress: Year One are left hanging in the air, but I don't think it matters - Helena Bertinelli's characterization was rarely consistent and varied with whoever was writing for her: Joey Cavalieri portrayed as mature, but inexperienced;  Chuck Dixon cast her as a "bad girl" action hero, often standing-in as gritty version of Batgirl among Batman's sidekicks; Grant Morrison had fun with her rapport with Batman; Greg Rucka focused on her neuroses; Jeph Loeb & Jim Lee focused on her sex appeal; Gail Simone might have been the first writer who tried to find the rationale behind the inconsistencies; Geoff Johns toyed with reviving the Earth2 incarnation.   Finally, Paul Levitz, who created the character,  resumed writing new stories about her and brought her back and ... held down the figurative "reset" button just a little bit with an identity reveal.

So that's it. I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. Remember to tuck your fingertips inward while chopping and slicing food - you'll thank me later.

And just like Snoopy & Woodstock, I'll be enjoying my Thanksgiving after you leave. :)