ThunderPeel2001

Books, books, books...

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Just finished Hamlet. Get this: I thought it was pretty good. The thing with the pirates was dumb, though.

So, was Hamlet a vengeful, selfish brat? Too good for this sinful earth? A stoic, calculating genius? A lunatic? He seemed like a rather ordinary individual, thrown into events too taxing on his moral code to react reasonably to them.

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Interesting! Strange that you should consider that "nerd-pandering", when really it was just a character who happened to be a woman. She wasn't a dominatrix in a sexy BDSM outfit (see The Matrix, Terminator 3, etc.). She was just a woman.

It's especially interesting to me because your description of Serenity is precisely why I avoided Buffy for so long. I presumed the whole idea of the show was for teenage males to drool over watching Sarah Michelle Gellar kick-ass in skimpy outfits... When it turned out to almost be the exact opposite of that (it was actually about her as a person and the stuff she went through), I was shocked to say the least.

Still, thanks for explaining that.

She's not "just a woman." If it were a male character of otherwise similar qualities, I would feel precisely the same way--and indeed I often do about a lot of fantasy and sci-fi stuff, usually the kind of stuff that spans a dozen books in a series, which is (among various other reasons) why I've pretty much entirely stopped reading and watching most sci-fi and fantasy.

It's one reason I don't find superheroes interesting, and elves who are described as killing forty guys effortlessly with a sword, or whatever. There are a million examples. I just find that stuff too ridiculous to enjoy. The main exception is video games, but in those cases what I enjoy about controlling a powerful character (which is almost every character in every video game) is the mechanics involved, and rarely the fiction. It's one reason a game like STALKER speaks to me so strongly, I think; your character in that game, while ultimately still endowed with the trump card of being in the hands of the player, is for the most part on the same playing field as all the other characters in his situation.

It's not a hard and fast rule to me. I love, for example, the Indiana Jones movies (the first two anyway), even though Indiana Jones is clearly superhuman relative to all the Nazis or whomever. But it's the context that's important, and it's a very different context. I'm still not into most action movies.

I don't want to imply this is the only thing I didn't like about Serenity and Firefly. I really can't stand the writing and general cadence of speech. That seems to have been discussed earlier in this thread though.

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So, was Hamlet a vengeful, selfish brat? Too good for this sinful earth? A stoic, calculating genius? A lunatic? He seemed like a rather ordinary individual, thrown into events too taxing on his moral code to react reasonably to them

I'm going to echo something I said yesterday: give Shakespeare his due. There is a reason he is considered to be the single greatest writer in western history. Read up on any analysis. Harold Bloom's are usually interesting.

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She's not "just a woman." If it were a male character of otherwise similar qualities, I would feel precisely the same way--and indeed I often do about a lot of fantasy and sci-fi stuff, usually the kind of stuff that spans a dozen books in a series, which is (among various other reasons) why I've pretty much entirely stopped reading and watching most sci-fi and fantasy.

It's one reason I don't find superheroes interesting, and elves who are described as killing forty guys effortlessly with a sword, or whatever. There are a million examples. I just find that stuff too ridiculous to enjoy. The main exception is video games, but in those cases what I enjoy about controlling a powerful character (which is almost every character in every video game) is the mechanics involved, and rarely the fiction. It's one reason a game like STALKER speaks to me so strongly, I think; your character in that game, while ultimately still endowed with the trump card of being in the hands of the player, is for the most part on the same playing field as all the other characters in his situation.

It's not a hard and fast rule to me. I love, for example, the Indiana Jones movies (the first two anyway), even though Indiana Jones is clearly superhuman relative to all the Nazis or whomever. But it's the context that's important, and it's a very different context. I'm still not into most action movies.

I don't want to imply this is the only thing I didn't like about Serenity and Firefly. I really can't stand the writing and general cadence of speech. That seems to have been discussed earlier in this thread though.

Ah. I see what you're saying now. Of course, she was flawed, too... she had serious disabilities, but I get you're point. If you don't like things like that, then you've got to avoid sci-fi... Even a show like Firefly which is renowned for being almost "anti" sci-fi. (No lasers, no discussions about technology, just people and their lives.)

Die Hard is a great example of "one man versus the world" done really well.

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"anti" sci-fi. (No lasers, no discussions about technology, just people and their lives.)

Ugh, see to me that isn't 'anti-scifi'; it is either social scifi or very hard sci-fi, depending.

It kind of pisses me off that on screen at least, scifi has become synonymous with space opera and sci-fantasy. Viewers don't even know what real science fiction encompasses (CSI for starters).

(but yes Firefly was noted for being 'harder' science than most space opera)

I like Weadon in general; mostly the dialogue that doesn't take itself too seriously. Having said that Serenity failed to live up to Firefly for me. Waif-fu River was one reason for that.

I totally agree with Chris on superheroes though. I like comics and graphic novels, but I find superhero comics abominable (with rare exceptions like 1602.)

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Ugh, see to me that isn't 'anti-scifi'; it is either social scifi or very hard sci-fi, depending.

It kind of pisses me off that on screen at least, scifi has become synonymous with space opera and sci-fantasy. Viewers don't even know what real science fiction encompasses (CSI for starters).

(but yes Firefly was noted for being 'harder' science than most space opera)

I like Weadon in general; mostly the dialogue that doesn't take itself too seriously. Having said that Serenity failed to live up to Firefly for me. Waif-fu River was one reason for that.

I totally agree with Chris on superheroes though. I like comics and graphic novels, but I find superhero comics abominable (with rare exceptions like 1602.)

I gave crap examples. Sci-fi is generally about SCIence and technology. Star Trek, for example, doesn't fall into space opera or sci-fantasy, but it's often about the technology more than the people. Firefly (and Battlestar Galactica, to some degree) made a conscious effort to try and ignore the technology. These were people first, who just happened to be in the future.

A typical storyline in Firefly would involve a "job" going bad and someone on the crew betraying someone. A typical storyline on Star Trek would involve meeting new alien intelligence. Quite a change in focus, I think.

That was what I was attempting to say, anyway.

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I gave crap examples. Sci-fi is generally about SCIence and technology. Star Trek, for example, doesn't fall into space opera or sci-fantasy, but it's often about the technology more than the people. Firefly (and Battlestar Galactica, to some degree) made a conscious effort to try and ignore the technology. These were people first, who just happened to be in the future.

A typical storyline in Firefly would involve a "job" going bad and someone on the crew betraying someone. A typical storyline on Star Trek would involve meeting new alien intelligence. Quite a change in focus, I think.

That was what I was attempting to say, anyway.

I guess that's part of what I don't like about it as well. If it's not really about being in space or being about technology, why does it take place in spaceships on space?

One reason I love Moon (for example) so much is because it IS about technology and space and so on--while ALSO being a very human story. I don't like sci-fi that's just about spaceships and lasers, but if it's going to all take place on spaceships and other planets in outer space and stuff, I feel like it should be about that somehow.

I love the old Star Wars movies because they feel to me like they have this entire unique aesthetic all their own that utterly demands the setting; the new Star Wars movies, and Firefly, don't feel like that at all to me (I'm not claiming Firefly is equivalent to the new Star Wars movies in other respects).

Moon and Star Wars fall on radically different parts of the sci-fi spectrum, but I love them both, because to me they both justify pretty much everything about themselves.

If Firefly is really "just people and their lives," would it stand up if it were just in a normal place and not sci-fi? Would people have watched that show? To be fair, I'm sure the people who enjoy it would say yes, but it definitely doesn't for me, at least not what I saw of it.

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I guess that's part of what I don't like about it as well. If it's not really about being in space or being about technology, why does it take place in spaceships on space?

I'm not a film expert, and I know you have a lot more knowledge and experience than me with regards to film (and maybe movies), but this really strikes me as a super strange view. Aren't most films/books/games really about something not directly and explicitly related to the setting? I'm pretty sure you don't believe everything should take place in weird abstract space that need to explicitly reference the core sentiment of the film, so I'm curious to hear how you feel a film's setting has to be justified in such a direct way.

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Well, the setting allows for lots of interesting things happen: A mixed group of people from different backgrounds forced to live and work in close-quarters creates interesting conflict and storylines. A space-ship is a perfect place to set such a thing, as it's really this ragbag of people against the world.

M*A*S*H was a similar idea, but in a more depressing and "realistic" environment.

Setting it in the future also allows cool things to happen that couldn't happen if it was set in present day New York, or on a ranch in Montana. I'm sure there are other settings, but "the future" does make it easier to have battles (literal and metaphorical) with an "evil" corporation/government, for example.

Chris, I'm sure you can acknowledge that characters are less the focus in Star Trek. In Star Trek, the characters are there to interact with new technology and ideas. I.e. They essentially play the part of the audience, asking questions and probing the possibilities of science and technology. I'll bet there aren't episodes where the major plotline involve someone getting over a relationship, or coming to terms with an event from their past.

Battlestar Galactica also attempted to make the show more character orientated than usual TV sci-fi and, yes, many of those stories could have been told in a present day military academy... but you have more opportunities if you set it in your own universe.

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In Star Trek, the characters are there to interact with new technology and ideas. I.e. They essentially play the part of the audience, asking questions and probing the possibilities of science and technology.

See, this is why, on the whole, I don't like Star Trek all that much. It has this focus on technology but none of it is even slightly based on real science, or even basic scientific approach. the writers flick through textbooks until they find a word they like the sound of. even internally the consistency is horrible. Massive plot holes, contradictions and false logic. It tries to be all about the science and technology but it has zero respect for either. In most cases the writing would be improved threefold by 20 minutes spent doing research into whatever they choose the waffle about. For me Star Trek is sci-fantasy just as much as Star Wars is, so divorced from reality is it.

Sorry, pet peeve. It's something I really wish they had fixed in the movie reboot. It's just lazy-ness.

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See, this is why, on the whole, I don't like Star Trek all that much. It has this focus on technology but none of it is even slightly based on real science, or even basic scientific approach. the writers flick through textbooks until they find a word they like the sound of. even internally the consistency is horrible. Massive plot holes, contradictions and false logic. It tries to be all about the science and technology but it has zero respect for either. In most cases the writing would be improved threefold by 20 minutes spent doing research into whatever they choose the waffle about. For me Star Trek is sci-fantasy just as much as Star Wars is, so divorced from reality is it.

Sorry, pet peeve. It's something I really wish they had fixed in the movie reboot. It's just lazy-ness.

Are you saying Tribbles aren't real? ;(

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I've only really seen the original Star Trek series (and only for the first time shortly before the new movie came out) but I liked it a lot. It felt like it was about ideas to me. It reminded me of the Ray Bradbury kind of sci-fi, which uses a loosely-grounded sci-fi setting to explore concepts and questions. Obviously not every episode was gold, but in general I thought the goal of the show was really laudable.

I don't really think stories about people's relationships are particularly interesting unless there's genuine subtext there. Star Trek has a lot of relationships between the characters, but because it doesn't have a lot to really say on a deep level about those relationships, it doesn't make them the central focus. It uses them to provide consistent context and give the viewer people to relate to.

It's the reason I don't watch soap operas, which are just about nothing other than characters' relationships. As a comparison, one of my favorite recent movies was A Serious Man. In terms of pure plot, it's pretty much nothing but interpersonal relationships and personal struggles--but there is some heavy shit to think about in that film. It's only about the characters insofar as it is about the themes, truths, and questions that underpin them.

In terms of TV, same goes for Mad Men. It's all just people interacting, but that show serves as an amazing microcosm of a dying strain of American culture in the 60s, a strain that is largely absent from historical discussion that tends to focus (understandably) on parallel issues with civil rights, anti-war protests, and so on.

I think there's a certain vein of current indie film that falls prey to the "characters and relationships equal substance" line. They have all kinds of characters and relationships, but they don't genuinely illuminate anything.

That's just the general feeling I got from Firefly--that I could spend episode after episode watching these people fly around in space and talk to each other and probably shoot some guys or whatever, but that ultimately it wouldn't really leave me with anything. I could be wrong, but I already wasn't enjoying the dialogue or basic trappings of the show, so it would have been a really hard sell for me to keep going.

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It felt like it was about ideas to me. It reminded me of the Ray Bradbury kind of sci-fi, which uses a loosely-grounded sci-fi setting to explore concepts and questions.

I can relate to this. I find nothing to interest me in most things sci-fi, yet absolutely love stuff like Moon or Sunshine or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan or Lem's Solaris.

Space can be an amazing setting to explore everyday themes in, because you can turn everything to eleven if you need to. In my opinion, Solaris is a perfect example of this sort of thing done really well.

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Chris, what you're describing to me is just the difference between poor characterisation and good characterisation. Characters, generally speaking, are the most important thing to any story.

Star Trek's characterisation was pathetic, so be blunt (I don't think anyone could argue with that, at least for the original series, but if I've offended someone, I'll add: IMHO). There was no depth, nothing interesting about their interactions, hardly anything "real life" to relate to, but... that's not why people were watching and enjoying it. (I think they tried to add more in TNG, but it was still secondary to exploring scientific/fantastic ideas.)

Something like The Wire, Alan Moore's writings, or even Shakespeare, are all about the characters. The plot helps things move along, but it's not essential. Watchmen has a pretty terrible plot in the original comic (and not much better in the film), but what makes it worthwhile is the relatable, believable characters. We undergo their journey, we relate to their pain and struggles, and we learn about ourselves in the process.

A Serious Man is a great example of this, as you pointed out. I left that movie thinking about my own life and the things I worry about, and how pointless that might be.

A film with a gripping plot can be intellectually satisfying, but I think it also becomes boring on repeated viewings very quickly. (I cite Christopher Nolan's recent films, which are amazing on many levels, but if you're not in the right mood for them can be a real chore to re-watch... at least in my experience.)

Stories with less believable, rounded and complicated characters, (like Star Trek, soap operas, action movies, and er, porn) are generally seen at the lower end of the "art" spectrum... and I agree with that assessment. I don't learn anything about myself or my life by watching a building explode or learning about the societal structure of The Borg. (I'm sure there are exceptions in all these genres, of course.)

An immediate exception that leaps to mind, though, is Kubrick. He is on record talking about how he disliked it when Hollywood movies put scenes in to manipulate the audience into liking characters (he used the example of a ball-breaking, drill sergeant being shown in his office, alone, crying -- see, he's got a soft side!). It's an interesting point, but for many people he went too far in the opposite direction. 2001: A Space Odyssey, in particular, is seen as a very cold and unrelatable film... but it's also considered a masterpiece, because it excels so much in other areas.

(Note: Generally speaking this impersonal nature of sci-fi is why most (not all, obviously) women say they don't like watching it, and claim it's childish. "Who cares about things that don't relate to real life?", is the attitude I've repeatedly heard. Firefly (and to some extent, BSG) are noted for being more popular with women than your normal sci-fi, because they try to deal with that issue.)

Of course, as with 2001, "hard" sci-fi can open our minds to genuinely new and interesting ideas, despite the fact that the characters are non-existent.

Firefly wasn't necessarily Shakespeare or anything, but it was successful at doing one thing: Creating believable, complicated, well rounded characters, and putting them in a sci-fi setting. I love both these things (and witty dialogue in the vein of Wilder, etc.) so I was in my element... but if you don't like the characters, then I imagine you'd hate it.

Edited by ThunderPeel2001

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That's just the general feeling I got from Firefly--that I could spend episode after episode watching these people fly around in space and talk to each other and probably shoot some guys or whatever, but that ultimately it wouldn't really leave me with anything. I could be wrong, but I already wasn't enjoying the dialogue or basic trappings of the show, so it would have been a really hard sell for me to keep going.

Ah that's interesting. I personally think fIrefly does have that kind of depth, that keeps you wandering and trying to decode a character. Most notably Mal - we never really learn if he is a Tarnished Nice Guy, or a thorough cynic with some softer foibles. The question at the heart of the show is: how broken a man is he? It's never answered. Some other characters have similar questions, to lesser extents.

anyway we've turned the boo thread into a screen thread. Doh.

Most recently finished book was Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, By Steve Johnson. It was inspiring and interesting, but ended a bit limp. I'll try and write more about it when I have more time.

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Just started reading Out of the Silent Planet, which is unusual for me, but so far it's awesome.

It's really an awesome fantasy scifi theme that I pretty much forgot about since I was a kid.

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Follow the Joss Whedon discussion: We're over, Chris Remo! (Not to imply you're a woman or anything. :grin:)

x-yHSaP0Dyg

Man, The Wise Man's Fear is fantastic so far.

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Oh yes, I agree. How far are you in so far?

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I stopped on page 200 when my insomnia finally stopped being a bastard. I've been taking it pretty slowly, savoring the fact that we won't get part three for another five years. :(

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I'm about a third of the way in and loving it, but the five year thing you just mentioned made my heart cry, Orvidos. I've been trying not to think about it.

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I'm about a third of the way in and loving it, but the five year thing you just mentioned made my heart cry, Orvidos. I've been trying not to think about it.

Until a few years ago, all the books I read in a series were completed. Then I picked up Scott Lynch's "The Gentleman Bastard" series, just before the second book was released. Of seven. :violin:

Then, "The Name of the Wind", one of the best books I've ever read. Part one of three. :(

And finally, "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George R.R. Martin. Book four of until he dies, probably.

Wheel of Time doesn't count because Wheel of Time.

FMReadingL.

(Why do I get this niggling memory that quotes are not what's used for novels? Damned 8th grade English.)

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I actually know what you mean, I had sort of grown used to reading whole series in one go, but as time passes it's getting less and less common. Maybe I've just read most of the good completed works of sci-fi and fantasy now, so I'm not going to find too many more that are already done and dusted.

On the up swing, there are quite a few series, and authors in general, that I'm enjoying when they do produce a book. So that's a positive thought - there are books worth reading being written still.

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Read Gabriel Garcia Marquez' A Hundred Years of Solitude recently. Absolutely beautiful prose, and I can't remember the last time I read a book with this many characters in it that all felt like real, living human beings with stories to tell.

(Why do I get this niggling memory that quotes are not what's used for novels? Damned 8th grade English.)

Quotes are generally used for short stories and poems, like "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Larger works typically go in Italics, like Love in the Time of Cholera.

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Quotes are generally used for short stories and poems, like "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Larger works typically go in Italics, like Love in the Time of Cholera.

Danke. Not a huge issue, but it's been bothering me.

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I'm only able to read very lightweight books at the minute, because I'm reading them in short commute bursts. So I had to give up Book Of Dave by Will Self and am now reading the Alien novelisations by Alan Dean Foster. My mum also gave me Fragment, because it's billed as 'Lost meets Jurassic Park'. Should be pretty crappy sub-Crichton stuff, but readable in 5 minute chunks.

Any recommendations for a better quality of snack-reading? I would try to get into Robert Rankin or Pratchett, but there's so much there and I hate just diving into the middle of a series.

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