(no subject)

[shadowkat]

1. Four episodes into S6 Game of Thrones, and wow, it's really good. Much better than the last three seasons, I can see why it leads the Emmy's with the most nominations this year. Added plus? The female characters rule in this season. Each episode kicks ass, and it's not quite as bleak as the previous seasons or as violent. Oh, it's still violent, just slightly less so.

And the big character death this season worked and explained so much. The Bran story arc is much better than the books (it was sort of slow in the books and didn't go anywhere), and the Iron Islands story arc is moving at fair clip.

The kick-ass heroines? Sansa, Cersei, Margary, the gal with Bran, Brienne, Danerys, Aysha, and Arya.
The men are sort of following them around, tails between their legs. It's rather funny.

Also LittleFinger or Lord Baelish - gets his ass handed to him by Sansa. About bloody time.

Oh, this is a satisfying season. So happy I didn't give up on it. After last season, I was about to.

2. New TV shows?

I think there's only a handful of genre shows popping up this season. Two on syfy, and two on regular broadcast networks. Mainly the CW and NBC. Most seem to be dealing with time travel, which I'm not a fan of. Or apocalypse, which I'm growing tired of. Where's a good space opera when you need one?

Comments

[atpo-onm.livejournal.com]

Where's a good space opera when you need one?

Considering how much more accepted science fiction is today (both television and film) than it was even 20 years ago, and considering the wealth of written works by any number of talented authors since the 60's, I keep hoping that someone somewhere-- and hopefully more than just someone-- will realize how much possibility exists for bringing those works to a wider audience.

Some films or TV series based on books that I'd love to see would be:

--- Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Dispossessed", a fascinating study of anarchy* as a "governing" principle of human society. This novel evolved from the idea LeGuin had when she wrote her short story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas", a tale more relevant than ever considering the current ugly political situation evolving here and elsewhere in the globe.

*Not that anarchy. Anarchy as in Bob Dylan's famous line, "To live outside the law, you must be honest."

--- A Twilight Zone / Outer Limits kind of series based on the short stories in Harlan Ellison's collection of other writers, "Dangerous Visions".

--- Philip Jose Farmer's "Riverworld" novels-- to my mind, one of the most innovative visions of an afterlife ever penned.

--- Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" trilogy, or considering the corporate sector's current fascination with artificial intelligence, updates of his many robot stories.

Yes, these are all old, but they're classics of the genre for a reason, although not to 99.5% of the general public, all the more reason to revisit them. I have no objection to later works, but I think it's long past the time, especially with how seamless modern special effects are, and the visual world-building they allow, to bring more thoughtful, not merely action-based stories of any age to the attention of the greater public.

BTW, if I had to pick one of the above as the first choice, I'd go with Farmer's Riverworld, preferably as a series of theatrical films, but even as a TV series if it was handled carefully.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think Syfy tried to do a Riverworld mini-series once. It sucked, but they tried. I know, I tried to watch it and thought about reading the books.

Oh, I'm right - they did do a movie of Riverworld in 2003 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverworld_(2003_film)). It's not my imagination. It was a pilot for a series that was never fully produced and just aired as a movie on Syfy in 2003.

You can even watch it on Amazon Prime - go HERE (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1419950/) for details.

It sucked. I can see why it didn't take off. I couldn't get past the first fifteen minutes.

Sci-fi apparently is hard for people to do well. Not sure why. I think it's because the better film-makers/screen-writers think it is beneath them or don't have the interest? People such as Vince Gilligan -- who for some strange reason is obsessed with bleak hyper-realism series about low-life criminals. Or Joss Whedon -- who is obsessed with superhero comics and horror. Or Shondra Rhimes -- who is obsessed with prime time soap operas.

The novelists aren't good screen-writers. They don't think visually. You can sort of tell, because there's a lot of abstract thought in there, but not a lot of great dialogue or cinematographic visuals. A lot of Sci-Fi unfortunately ends up being more about "the ideas" and "the world-building" then about character relationships, character developement and action. Which may make a nice speculative novel or narrative to read, but not a good film or television serial. It's too obsessed with the details of the world.

Fantasy in some respects lends itself to television and screen-writing better, because it's less thematic oriented and more character driven in some respects. Take Lord of the Rings vs. Foundation Trilogy. Can you remember the character's personalities from Foundation or just the concepts? In Lord of the Rings - you think of the characters, not the concepts.

I think that's the problem with a lot of Sci-Fi. Not all Sci-Fi, but the more literary, acclaimed stuff tends to be more idea or theme centric than character centric. It's my frustration with the genre, because I prefer character driven stories over plot or theme centric stories, and sci-fi is often more plot/theme driven, with a heavy emphasis on the world or universe. I remember in creative writing courses being advised not to write sci-fi, because too often the writer will focus on everything but their characters, and the characters will feel a bit stock or one-dimensional as a result.

(Of course I'm ignoring that advice at the moment and writing two different sci-fi novels - with complex worlds and characters, along with definitive themes about war, the results of biological warfare, corporate manipulation, and genetic engineering. I'm more a cultural/biological/engineering l sci-fi writer than a technology/quantum physics sci-fi writer. One requires less math than the other.)