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shadowkatBeing in a cranky mood for some reason motivates me to post about the oddest items, items bound to get me into trouble. But since Work restricted my access to LJ during the day - I can read responses emailed to me, but I can't respond until I get home, by which time I no longer seem to care...so the days of bitchy wars on my lj may well be over.
Cranky mood also tend to bring out the dry wit and snark in me, a trait that I definitely inherited from my father's side of the family.
1. The Great or rather not so Great Beatles Break-Up.
I have to admit I never understood the issue here. It seemed obvious to me. The lads grew bored with their collaboration and drifted in different directions. All you have to do is listen to The White Album Documentary - which they all mention loving, but none of them worked together or even in the same room during most of the making of that album. They created their own songs - when they got together they fought over them - so they agreed to do record the songs separately. Makes for a very weird album. The difference between the Beatles and the Stones, Nirvana, The Doors, The Who, Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, The Talking Heads, Mazzy Star, Doobie Brothers, The Bee Gees, The Zombies, etc...is that the Beatles had four great, okay three great singers/songwriters/musicians in their own rights, who could do a solo album or start a whole new band and still be successful. Add to that not only were these three's music compatible, but their personalities weren't. The Who had maybe one or two people...Rodger Daltry and Pete Townsend. Pink Floyd...Roger Waters and
whoever was the front man who I can't remember the name of. The Doors? Morrison was mostly it. Nivirana - dead after Kurt Cobain. But the Beatles...when John Lennon died, we had Wings and George Harrison and Paul McCartney...
I can see why they broke up. They lived too closely for far too long, in each others hip pockets...and with little privacy. And worked really hard without much of a break from formative teens - twenties. They also achieved success far too quickly. Not rocket science people.
2. Angle the Series vs. Buffy.
Reading Mark Watches or rather skipping all the Angel reviews...I've realized that I was never that into Angel. It's a personal thing. Keep in mind I'd seen prior to Angel's airing various shows and series that were incredibly similar in both structure and theme. There was Brimstone, Millenium, Forever Knight, The Kindred, to name a few. Also American Gothic - although that admittedly is hardly comparable. It wasn't a new concept. Nor was Angel himself for that matter. I knew his arc before it was shown. I knew where he'd end up. I knew the backstory. I was bored before the pilot aired. But I had hope that it would be different. It was and it really wasn't. That's the pitfall of reading or watching too many things in one genre. Binge watching not recommended.
Buffy on the other hand was different from start to finish and never ceased to surprise me. Granted not always in a good way. But it did surprise me. As did the characters, specifically Spike and Willow. This again was largely personal. Certain characters resonate with you, certain characters don't. We don't always know exactly why. It is what it is.
I also liked the character of Buffy better than Angel. So sue me. I still do. And I liked Spike more. Never understood the people who preferred Angel or Cordy for that matter, who it should be noted includes my brother. But hey, my brother also loves Titantic and thinks Ang Lee's the Hulk is the best movie. So there's no accounting for taste. (Says the woman who has been reading crappy romance novels for the past six months and actually enjoyed 50 Shades of Grey...so hmmm. Never mind.)
3. Star Trek vs. Doctor Who vs. Star Wars...
* Doctor Who - I only know the RT Davies and Moffat Whoeverse and I'm sorry there's not enough there to compete with Star Trek. Trek is just broader and more positive and less culture centric (which is odd, because Trek is quite American, but the Brits outdid us with Doctor Who - an Englishman who is a genius and saves England then the rest of the world.) They have a saying...the difference between American tourists and British tourists is Americans care that people don't like them, the Brits don't. Doctor Who sort of typifies that view. (I can't comment on the Doctor Who episodes I never saw).
It should also be noted...that while I do love Moffat's Who...I didn't like RT Davies.
I don't quite understand why people do. It took me forever to figure out the appeal of Doctor Who...it did not happen in fact until I saw the episode Blink. I think my problem was Rose didn't interest me as a character. If you don't like Rose Tyler...that sort of kills the first two seasons of Doctor Who right there. And...if you weren't into the Ten/Rose romance...ditto. Davies Who...also seemed to be very religious or anti-religious and very...melodramatic. Less witty and clever. I prefer Who witty and clever.
That's not to say I don't like RT Davies writing generally - I rather liked Torchwood.
Liked Torchwood better than Doctor Who actually and loved Children of Earth. So it's just Davies Who that didn't quite work for me, with the exception of three to four episodes.
* Trek is multi-faceted with spin-offs galore and the characters actually change. We don't just have one guy bopping about the universe. Also the writer was interested in politics and culture and created his own world - basing it on ours, and making fun of ours.
And yes, I was the weird person who loved Star Trek Voyager. Kate Mulgrew - fan, dating all the way back to Ryan's Hope. So I loved Kathryn Janeway. I also like Robert Duncan McNeil's not so nice/bad boy pilot and Torres - the half-klingnon/half-human.
DS9 oddly did nothing for me. I think it may be because I was watching Babylon 5 at the same time, and in KC they were literally opposite each other. So I watched DS9 in reruns or at weird times. Then I couldn't find it. And when I found it again, it had become so serialized...that it was hard to figure out what happened. But I think the biggest reason is - it got into religious mythology and that sort of thing bores me in dramas. I've noticed a pattern emerging on that - Angel the Series got into the whole religious mythology bit with the PTB and I got annoyed and antsy, BSG did it (ditto), Lost (ditto),
RT Davies Doctor Who (ditto) and even Whedon with Firefly and Dollhouse and the comics (and I got annoyed). I don't mind when it is subtle, but when it gets preachy and obvious my own educational background rears it's ugly head. I don't buy the Campbellian view, which many of these writers pushed, because that's the popular one. Also...the Judeo-Christian Mythos entwined with Egyptian/Greek gets old. (Religion/Myth/Meaning minor...who was interested in the Mother Goddess religions and Celt/Babylonian/Druidic/Eastern views).
The problem with a lot of Western Culture Sci-Fi and Religion - is it's all about Daddy Issues or a Personalized Male God. If a Female God is shown - she's Kali, a devourer.
OR Lilith. The male anima, he can't handle. This bugs me. Which is why I struggle with most of these writers. It's also why I prefer Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek...oddly it was the least that way.
* Wars...was fun, and interesting, but it doesn't go far enough...too focused on war and daddy issues. There's potential there, but we never see it truly played with. The strength of Trek and Who over Wars is they are tv series and collaborations, with more than one creator and writer, not just one guy. Wars was all Lucas. While Trek was Moore, Roddenberry, Braga, and various others. And Doctor Who...even more than that. A story takes on a life of its own when others are allowed to play with it. It becomes like the Velveteen Rabbit...the more we play with it, the more dog-eared and ratty and multi-faceted, the more real it is. Not that Star Wars doesn't feel real...but not as present somehow as Spock, Picard, Janeway, Major Kira, and Doctor Who and Doctor Song. Also it was very male. Women were second. Very much a boy's coming of age story.
4. Whedon vs. Sorkin vs. Ron Moore vs. Moffat vs. Roddenberry...
Where are the lady writers, damn it! Jane Espenson needs to do something more than write episodes for other peoples series. And Shondra Rhimes just is not cutting it. Lena Denham reminds me too much of Judd Apatow for her own good. Amy Pallindino-Sherman feels like a weak version of Sorkin. I'm starting to miss Diane English.
Anyhoo...
*Whedon is delightfully quippy and self-deprecating with Big Emotions, but loses track of his plot...or gets lost in his own plot.
* Moore is delightfully dark, angsty, complex and not a bad plotter - as long as he isn't allowed to get preachy and go more than a season...then he begins to ramble incoherently at the stars.
* Sorkin is the best at gun-shot dialogue and a tight plotter, but can get caught up in his own angry liberal rantings - he likes to scream I'm mad as hell a bit too loudly. (I tend to think of Aaron Sorkin as the liberal version of David Mamet)
*Moffat is the tighest plotter of the bunch not to mention twistiest, but often loses his characters not to mention audience and theme in the labrythine plots.
*Roddenberry knew how to world-build and build a mythology, with multiple cultures. He also knew how to tell allegorical tales, and confront moral and political issues. In some ways he was similar to Rod Serling. But on the downside...sometimes the writing got lost in the world-building.
My favorite? Probably Whedon even though I have an overwhelming urge to kick him in the balls. More than once. You don't want to know why. Because you may want to do it too or not as the case may be.
Although I admittedly have a fondness for Moffat's maze plot structure...a man after my own heart.
Yet, Roddenberry's vision is the only one I can say I shared. He dealt with religion in a way that was not annoyingly Campbell. He didn't focus on the heroes journey and he did challenge protagonist privilege...in episodes such as Khan. His sci-fi was by far the best from a philosophical angle in my opinion.
Okay I'm out of steam now. Good thing. Tired. My brain wears out faster than it used to.
Probably due to lack of sleep.
[Disclaimer: No writers or fans were hurt or maimed or killed at any point during the writing of the above opinions. Well, not so far.]
Cranky mood also tend to bring out the dry wit and snark in me, a trait that I definitely inherited from my father's side of the family.
1. The Great or rather not so Great Beatles Break-Up.
I have to admit I never understood the issue here. It seemed obvious to me. The lads grew bored with their collaboration and drifted in different directions. All you have to do is listen to The White Album Documentary - which they all mention loving, but none of them worked together or even in the same room during most of the making of that album. They created their own songs - when they got together they fought over them - so they agreed to do record the songs separately. Makes for a very weird album. The difference between the Beatles and the Stones, Nirvana, The Doors, The Who, Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, The Talking Heads, Mazzy Star, Doobie Brothers, The Bee Gees, The Zombies, etc...is that the Beatles had four great, okay three great singers/songwriters/musicians in their own rights, who could do a solo album or start a whole new band and still be successful. Add to that not only were these three's music compatible, but their personalities weren't. The Who had maybe one or two people...Rodger Daltry and Pete Townsend. Pink Floyd...Roger Waters and
whoever was the front man who I can't remember the name of. The Doors? Morrison was mostly it. Nivirana - dead after Kurt Cobain. But the Beatles...when John Lennon died, we had Wings and George Harrison and Paul McCartney...
I can see why they broke up. They lived too closely for far too long, in each others hip pockets...and with little privacy. And worked really hard without much of a break from formative teens - twenties. They also achieved success far too quickly. Not rocket science people.
2. Angle the Series vs. Buffy.
Reading Mark Watches or rather skipping all the Angel reviews...I've realized that I was never that into Angel. It's a personal thing. Keep in mind I'd seen prior to Angel's airing various shows and series that were incredibly similar in both structure and theme. There was Brimstone, Millenium, Forever Knight, The Kindred, to name a few. Also American Gothic - although that admittedly is hardly comparable. It wasn't a new concept. Nor was Angel himself for that matter. I knew his arc before it was shown. I knew where he'd end up. I knew the backstory. I was bored before the pilot aired. But I had hope that it would be different. It was and it really wasn't. That's the pitfall of reading or watching too many things in one genre. Binge watching not recommended.
Buffy on the other hand was different from start to finish and never ceased to surprise me. Granted not always in a good way. But it did surprise me. As did the characters, specifically Spike and Willow. This again was largely personal. Certain characters resonate with you, certain characters don't. We don't always know exactly why. It is what it is.
I also liked the character of Buffy better than Angel. So sue me. I still do. And I liked Spike more. Never understood the people who preferred Angel or Cordy for that matter, who it should be noted includes my brother. But hey, my brother also loves Titantic and thinks Ang Lee's the Hulk is the best movie. So there's no accounting for taste. (Says the woman who has been reading crappy romance novels for the past six months and actually enjoyed 50 Shades of Grey...so hmmm. Never mind.)
3. Star Trek vs. Doctor Who vs. Star Wars...
* Doctor Who - I only know the RT Davies and Moffat Whoeverse and I'm sorry there's not enough there to compete with Star Trek. Trek is just broader and more positive and less culture centric (which is odd, because Trek is quite American, but the Brits outdid us with Doctor Who - an Englishman who is a genius and saves England then the rest of the world.) They have a saying...the difference between American tourists and British tourists is Americans care that people don't like them, the Brits don't. Doctor Who sort of typifies that view. (I can't comment on the Doctor Who episodes I never saw).
It should also be noted...that while I do love Moffat's Who...I didn't like RT Davies.
I don't quite understand why people do. It took me forever to figure out the appeal of Doctor Who...it did not happen in fact until I saw the episode Blink. I think my problem was Rose didn't interest me as a character. If you don't like Rose Tyler...that sort of kills the first two seasons of Doctor Who right there. And...if you weren't into the Ten/Rose romance...ditto. Davies Who...also seemed to be very religious or anti-religious and very...melodramatic. Less witty and clever. I prefer Who witty and clever.
That's not to say I don't like RT Davies writing generally - I rather liked Torchwood.
Liked Torchwood better than Doctor Who actually and loved Children of Earth. So it's just Davies Who that didn't quite work for me, with the exception of three to four episodes.
* Trek is multi-faceted with spin-offs galore and the characters actually change. We don't just have one guy bopping about the universe. Also the writer was interested in politics and culture and created his own world - basing it on ours, and making fun of ours.
And yes, I was the weird person who loved Star Trek Voyager. Kate Mulgrew - fan, dating all the way back to Ryan's Hope. So I loved Kathryn Janeway. I also like Robert Duncan McNeil's not so nice/bad boy pilot and Torres - the half-klingnon/half-human.
DS9 oddly did nothing for me. I think it may be because I was watching Babylon 5 at the same time, and in KC they were literally opposite each other. So I watched DS9 in reruns or at weird times. Then I couldn't find it. And when I found it again, it had become so serialized...that it was hard to figure out what happened. But I think the biggest reason is - it got into religious mythology and that sort of thing bores me in dramas. I've noticed a pattern emerging on that - Angel the Series got into the whole religious mythology bit with the PTB and I got annoyed and antsy, BSG did it (ditto), Lost (ditto),
RT Davies Doctor Who (ditto) and even Whedon with Firefly and Dollhouse and the comics (and I got annoyed). I don't mind when it is subtle, but when it gets preachy and obvious my own educational background rears it's ugly head. I don't buy the Campbellian view, which many of these writers pushed, because that's the popular one. Also...the Judeo-Christian Mythos entwined with Egyptian/Greek gets old. (Religion/Myth/Meaning minor...who was interested in the Mother Goddess religions and Celt/Babylonian/Druidic/Eastern views).
The problem with a lot of Western Culture Sci-Fi and Religion - is it's all about Daddy Issues or a Personalized Male God. If a Female God is shown - she's Kali, a devourer.
OR Lilith. The male anima, he can't handle. This bugs me. Which is why I struggle with most of these writers. It's also why I prefer Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek...oddly it was the least that way.
* Wars...was fun, and interesting, but it doesn't go far enough...too focused on war and daddy issues. There's potential there, but we never see it truly played with. The strength of Trek and Who over Wars is they are tv series and collaborations, with more than one creator and writer, not just one guy. Wars was all Lucas. While Trek was Moore, Roddenberry, Braga, and various others. And Doctor Who...even more than that. A story takes on a life of its own when others are allowed to play with it. It becomes like the Velveteen Rabbit...the more we play with it, the more dog-eared and ratty and multi-faceted, the more real it is. Not that Star Wars doesn't feel real...but not as present somehow as Spock, Picard, Janeway, Major Kira, and Doctor Who and Doctor Song. Also it was very male. Women were second. Very much a boy's coming of age story.
4. Whedon vs. Sorkin vs. Ron Moore vs. Moffat vs. Roddenberry...
Where are the lady writers, damn it! Jane Espenson needs to do something more than write episodes for other peoples series. And Shondra Rhimes just is not cutting it. Lena Denham reminds me too much of Judd Apatow for her own good. Amy Pallindino-Sherman feels like a weak version of Sorkin. I'm starting to miss Diane English.
Anyhoo...
*Whedon is delightfully quippy and self-deprecating with Big Emotions, but loses track of his plot...or gets lost in his own plot.
* Moore is delightfully dark, angsty, complex and not a bad plotter - as long as he isn't allowed to get preachy and go more than a season...then he begins to ramble incoherently at the stars.
* Sorkin is the best at gun-shot dialogue and a tight plotter, but can get caught up in his own angry liberal rantings - he likes to scream I'm mad as hell a bit too loudly. (I tend to think of Aaron Sorkin as the liberal version of David Mamet)
*Moffat is the tighest plotter of the bunch not to mention twistiest, but often loses his characters not to mention audience and theme in the labrythine plots.
*Roddenberry knew how to world-build and build a mythology, with multiple cultures. He also knew how to tell allegorical tales, and confront moral and political issues. In some ways he was similar to Rod Serling. But on the downside...sometimes the writing got lost in the world-building.
My favorite? Probably Whedon even though I have an overwhelming urge to kick him in the balls. More than once. You don't want to know why. Because you may want to do it too or not as the case may be.
Although I admittedly have a fondness for Moffat's maze plot structure...a man after my own heart.
Yet, Roddenberry's vision is the only one I can say I shared. He dealt with religion in a way that was not annoyingly Campbell. He didn't focus on the heroes journey and he did challenge protagonist privilege...in episodes such as Khan. His sci-fi was by far the best from a philosophical angle in my opinion.
Okay I'm out of steam now. Good thing. Tired. My brain wears out faster than it used to.
Probably due to lack of sleep.
[Disclaimer: No writers or fans were hurt or maimed or killed at any point during the writing of the above opinions. Well, not so far.]
no subject
Date: 2012-06-27 02:53 am (UTC)Oooh, maybe that is what happened to me too... I never got into DS9 either, when theoretically it should have hit all my buttons.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-27 10:07 pm (UTC)The problem was that Bab 5 started first and was on a better channel. Also, the guy who wrote Bab 5 intended it for Star Trek. He pitched it to Star Trek's show-runners. But they said, no, it doesn't fit with Roddenberry's universe. So he developed the show himself. Then DS9 came out. And he got pissed. I vaguely remember reading about the scandal. How the writer of Bab 5 claimed the show-runners of DS9 stole his ideas. He didn't win. But I was highly sympathetic.
The other problem was DS9 got into the religious bit...which grates on my nerves. Not helped when my brother kept pointing out to me how racist DS9 was in depicting the political conflicts in the Middle East. (I don't remember my brother's precise arguments...but it did influence me at the time.)
no subject
Date: 2012-06-27 03:05 am (UTC)Because honestly, Cordy's a great character, but in all honesty, she's far from unique. In fact, she's pretty much a cliché, popular girl down on her luck becomes the heart of the group and then supports her man... It's the same kind of character you can pretty much find in dozens of other shows.
Compared to that, Buffy's character stands out as unique. A female character struggling for her humanity, who closes off emotionally, and let's the men in her group be the heart.
Even Willow whom I can stand has more character development than Cordelia does. And is far less cliché in it.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-27 10:17 pm (UTC)Because honestly, Cordy's a great character, but in all honesty, she's far from unique. In fact, she's pretty much a cliché, popular girl down on her luck becomes the heart of the group and then supports her man... It's the same kind of character you can pretty much find in dozens of other shows.
Quite true. This was actually the problem with Angel. It wasn't unique. It was sort of boilerplate noir detective series. Dexter which borrows from a similar trope is actually more interesting and more unique, as is Being Human, both changed things up a bit or created an interesting twist. The writers didn't really take any risks on Angel until S4 and S5 when Whedon got more involved.
Which may explain why the only two seasons I liked were 4 and 5. 1-3 were pretty typical of the trope. 4 and 5 were innovative.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-28 04:35 pm (UTC)Esp considering how it shows Spike living up to his promise to buffy, with no hope for reward, since Buffy is dead an he's not in on the ressurection plans