Uncategorized

Closing the gate again

So they’ve cancelled Stargate Atlantis.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I still very much enjoy the show, but on the other hand, I don’t think it’s done anything too novel or different in quite some time. Then again — have I run out of other hands already? — you could maybe argue that the show has never done anything terribly novel — and that neither did its parent show, Stargate SG-1, when it was on the air. Stargate is sometimes criticized for just recycling familiar science fiction tropes, and I do think there’s plenty of validity to those criticisms. But I also think the fun of the show is in the intelligence, humor and overall polish they bring to those tropes. Maybe it’s not the single most innovative franchise, but it’s exciting and fun and full of nice character moments.

Although, seriously, they should have made better use of Amanda Tapping the one season she was on the show. I never really thought the character was a good fit for the position they put her in, but once they had, they really didn’t try. Why no Carter-centric episode, for instance? And the way they wrote out Torri Higginson was, at best, unfortunate.

And I’m also not so sure how I feel about wrapping up the series with a DVD movie. That’s had mixed results for SG-1. (I enjoyed both Ark of Truth and Continuum, but they were both just decent episodes wrapped up in movie-length clothing.)

So basically what I’m saying is: I’m surprised and disappointed by the news, but not too surprised and not exactly heartbroken.

Ripples of Ripley

John Scalzi on Ellen Ripley and the rise of strong female characters:

Yes, it’s a little perverse to note that success of a character template by pointing out examples of other filmmakers doing it badly. But on the other hand, it’s also nice to know that at this point in time, science fiction audiences not only don’t have a problem with strong, problem-solving lead female characters, they’ve come to expect them to be that way — and they know when such a character is being done badly.

I’m reminded of Cherie M. Priest’s earlier thoughts on the character — namely that what makes her special is that she isn’t special; “she’s just some woman who happens to be on board when the shit hits the fan.”

I’m also reminded of something I wrote back in October, when discussing this soon-afterwards-canceled Bionic Woman remake. I asked:

Can we please move past the idea that girl power, female empowerment, begins and ends with a girl who can kick somebody’s ass? This is what made Buffy the Vampire Slayer initially so intriguing: she was a victim who could turn the tables on her assailant, who was a reversal of the helpless cheerleader of so many bad horror movies. But even more important were Buffy’s mental and emotional strengths, which she often possessed because she was a woman, not in spite of the fact. To make a character strong or fast “for a girl” — which is what I’m afraid Bionic Woman is sometimes doing — is to sort of miss the point. The climactic fight scene between Michelle Ryan and Katee Sackhoff in the pilot episode, for instance, feels less like a clash between two strong and complex characters, and more like a rain-soaked cat-fight.

Now I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but there are fundamental limits to (as one commenter on Scalzi’s column calls it) the “HGWKKF,” or “Hot Girl Who Knows Kung Fu.” I think Buffy was always most interesting when it directly confronted those limits and dug deeper into the source of Buffy’s real strength — not just her ability to land a punch or spin a kick. Being the “chosen one” by itself isn’t all that interesting, after all; it has the potential to make you less powerful, not more — because you’re the agent of someone else’s power, someone else’s choice. Buffy was at its best when it acknowledged this fact, when it demonstrated that her true strength wasn’t bestowed from without, but rather came from within. (The third season episode “Helpless,” which as it happens I re-watched just this week, is a terrific example of this.)

And yet I think the type of female hero represented by Buffy — and by Ripley and Sarah Connor — remains unfortunately rare. There’s a handful of other examples in the comments to Scalzi’s column — I’d probably include Aeryn Sun on the list and, outside of genre, Veronica Mars — but by this point strong female characters should really be the norm.

The old college try

Is it just me, or is the Beloit College Mindset List sort of genuinely stupid? Not the idea behind it — which is basically, “let’s make everyone over 18 feel really old,” which I guess has its place — or even some of its cultural observations, but in the overall execution, its awkward phrasings, and its general failure to be anything like actually funny.

I was much more taken aback by Mike Sterling‘s observation that Neil Gaiman’s “Dream Hunters came out ten years ago, apparently. How old does that make you feel?” Surely that couldn’t be right…but damn, it is. It’s one thing to realize the cultural artifacts of your childhood are now old; it’s quite another to realize the things that seem like they happened just yesterday actually happened a decade ago.

Thoughts, links

  • Chris Sims on the Joker:

    From the start, he’s an amazing visual, and it’s a complete inversion of the classic hero and villain formula. Batman was inspired as much by Count Dracula and the Shadow as he was heroes like Zorro, with a costume designed to frighten, but he’s still the good guy. The one in the bright colors with the big smile who does magic tricks… that’s the one you need to watch out for.

  • And speak of the devil — “The devil! The devil!” — here’s the Joker as Ronald McDonald. Why so serious? You want fries with that?
  • Question: is AOL really still “a leading ISP” anywhere outside of The New York Times crossword puzzle? I know it’s a handy three-letter word, but c’mon, Will Shortz, move with the times.
  • The AV Club interviews the director of Star Wars: Clone Wars “about making George Lucas’ world cartoonish.” Doesn’t sound like too hard a job to me, frankly.
  • In fact, the best, it seems, that can be said for Star Wars: The Clone Wars is what Tasha Robinson says here — that “it’s better than an unimportant filler plot arc in an already-completed story has any right to be,” but that that’s not saying much.
  • Seriously, if you’re going to send out simultaneous story submissions — against what’s expressly written in the guidelines — at least send them as separate e-mails. I’m going to chalk this one up to inexperience.

Nondescript

Jane Espenson on character introductions:

I know you see the difference. The second description is highly physical. In fact, it uses visual characteristics to try to convey things about the character. This is a very good way to quickly convey character in, say, a novel, but it’s not especially helpful in a script.

Actually, I think I’d extend that and say it’s significantly worse in a novel. I think she’s absolutely right that “if you describe that character too precisely [in a script], you frustrate everyone during production, and you tip off any reader of a spec to your inexperience.” But I also think that, if you throw in any physical descriptions, in any writing, they need to matter. They can’t be there in place of characterization. It’s much better to get me inside a character’s head than to tell me what color the hair is on top of it. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve read that lead off with a string of physical descriptions — hair-color, age, height, weight, etc. — but that tell the reader absolutely nothing about the characters who have them.

I’m of the opinion that you don’t tell readers anything they don’t need to know; and you only tell them what they do need to know when they need to know it.