Dr. Phil's Dreamwidth Journal

What A Coincidence

Yesterday we went to see Hugo in 3D. So what were the odds that we'd see movie trailers aimed at kids and/or in 3D?

Why YES -- these are all coming in 3D.

So... how about The Pirates? From the animators of Chicken Run and Wallace and Grommit. Please? I haven't laughed so hard during a trailer EVER!

The next trailer was Yet Another Pirate Opening. But we've seen this before, it's for Spielberg's Tintin. Looks like fun. But I am waiting to hear from someone who is a longtime Tintin fan, preferably from Europe, as to whether they've captured this right. Americans by and large have never taken to Tintin.

The Lorax -- Oh thank god that it's not a Dr. Seusss live-action movie with Jim Carrey or Mike Myers. Having said that, the animated artwork looks good, but I got no hint of Dr. Seuss-ish dialogue.

Revise, Revise, Revise

Beauty and the Beast in 3D makes a January return. Automatic Cash Machine, but sadly it looks a little dated. Disney is capable of screwing things up, so we'll pass.

It's been a few years since George Lucas has messed with us, so no surprise that Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is getting the 3D treatment. I'm sure many will ban this. But given the popularity of the Star Wars merchandise -- Star Wars LEGO I'm looking at you -- it makes tremendous sense to introduce the youngsters to Star Wars on the big screen. And despite Jar-Jar Who Shall Not Be Named, compared to Episode III, Episode I has some great scenes. And the 3D-ization clips we saw looked good. I'd expect Lucas to technically tweak this right.

15 April 1912 + 100 Years

Titanic. After Avatar, does anyone question James Cameron's technical understanding of 3D? Obviously it's been years since Dr. Phil has seen one of his favoritest movies on the big screen. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it the many times I saw it first-run. And it'll be a century since the sinking. Will there be midnight showings designed to mark the 2:20am sinking? (evil grin)

I am so there. (swoon)

Have They Got This Now?

At Celebration Theatre, they were using a different 3D projection system. Certainly Hugo looked outstanding. And the two big retro converted films have heavy CGI use, which may facilitate the 3D conversion process. So I haven't given up on 3D if done right by competent filmmakers. But if this flight of movies tanks, I think Hollywood will rethink 3D as a cash conversion process.

Dr. Phil

Thank You, Sue!

Sue Hill from Michigan Tech posted this link on Facebook: My Little Pony for Geeks. There are FIFTY, count 'em, FIFTY My Little Ponies, done up as Stormtroopers, Princess Leia (bikini and white robe), Han Solo in Carbonite, Tron, Edward Scissorshands, Kill Bill, Alien, Spock, Klingons, Freddie Kruger, Borg, Wonder Woman, "Pony Stark" -- just one impressive list of geek standards in art form. Which just happened to be made from My Little Ponies.

Enjoy!

Dr. Phil

If you aren't reading The World SF News Blog or its LJ feed at world_sf, then you're missing an interesting window into non-Western, or perhaps even more-so, non-American SF/F. Today there was a nice piece on World Building in a Hot Climate by Anil Menon.

Just a little over a week ago I was reading my PHYS-2070 science literacy papers and was reflecting on the world building of Frank Herbert's Dune. When we write SF, we often want to write about "the other". That might be other technology, other species, other philosophies -- and other worlds. Too often what we see in SF is generic Central Casting planets, with perfectly temperate shirt sleeve weather and homogenous populations. Yes Star Trek, I'm looking at you. (grin) At least Star Wars made an attempt to go from desert to jungle to ice planet. When I reviewed James Cameron's Avatar, I commented on the here-again / gone-again nature of the "hellish" conditions of Pandora:

If I had one complaint, it's that you tend to forget that Pandora is described as sort of a Hell -- and though every once in a while you see a shimmer of air as a human goes through an airlock into the world of Pandora, you don't always remember the oppressive heat. And even that isn't a huge complaint. Why? Because for the Na'vi it's home. They're comfortable in it. It's not like taking an Eskimo and throwing them into the Amazon rainforest for them. Just those puny fragile humans.

So what I end up with is both a complaint on consistency and the realization that for the Na'vi what we're describing is "normal". World building. But whose world?

In Menon's piece on world_sf, there is this startling admission: "What we often find in Indian SF is world-reusing, not world-building."

How many of us are guilty of that? To me, I think one of the problems of having mega-successful SF like Star Trek and Star Wars means that it is too easy to have a mental image from the movies as your stock footage in your mind. And even when you do come up with your own world building, you can either succumb to the shorthand of describing it to someone as "like Star Trek or Star Wars" or having someone accuse you of doing it that way. But not if you really embrace your world building and come up with something well defined and definitely "the other". (grin)

Anyway, check out the article, because I'm riffing on just one small aspect of the piece, and also world_sf. You know, you don't have to actually leave this planet or this time to find something which is truly of "the other".

Dr. Phil

Twilight Of The Sparkly Midnight New Moon

Say what you will about Stephenie Meyer and her Twilight books, but they are popular. And the two movies? Huge.

To give you some idea, let's point out that the Grand Rapids area biggest line this week was not at the Barnes & Noble bookstore at Woodland Mall. No, we're talking about the midnight showings for Twilight: New Moon.

Long considered the staple of SF/F and Star Wars and Star Trek geeks, the midnight showings locally were taken over by a largely female crowd of all ages. Only a teen phenomenon? Oh, puh-leese. Pictures on the local news and in the Grand Rapids Press showed many middle-aged women who were not all mothers chaperoning their teens or pre-teens.

When Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace opened on 19 May 1999, Studio 28 had a midnight showing in Theatre 1, then had it running in 3 other theatres for the first 24 hours. Fast forward to 2009 and while Studio 28 is gone, the same chain's Celebration North mulitiplex opened New Moon in all 17 non-IMAX theatres at midnight -- over 3500 seats -- and sold out. Systemwide, they sold something like 14,200 midnight tickets, exceeded only by one of the Harry Potter's at 14,600 (and Celebration North opened it in 14 theatres at midnight).

While some of this is marketing and choosing to open extra theatres and offer more seats for the midnight showings, one needs to point out another set of interesting factoids about West Michigan: (1) this was on a school night and (2) with (most?) West Michigan schools on trimesters, final exams start like on Friday. And still the teens contributed to the surge.

The Inevitable Complaints

Last Sunday, I showed up for part of a 10am panel at WindyCon 36 on "Rowling and Meyer" and what young readers are reading. J.K. Rowling's writing poor and predictable? Stephenie Meyer can't write either and her vampires aren't (sniff) canonical? Does not seem to be hurting the sales, folks. Even the NPR news quiz show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me on Saturday tried to argue that all these Twilight fans are going to be unprepared to go up against real vampires. (grin)

Look, I haven't read any of the Twilight novels or seen the movies. And I know some people who have and their heads didn't explode -- some of them really like them. But they are successful and I won't begrudge either writer, stars or studio their success. Did I mention that Mister Werewolf in New Moon is a local boy from Michigan? (grin) While not all these readers and moviegoers are going to become lifelong SF/F fans of all genres, there will be some who go on to read more books and see more movies.

A rising tide raises all boats. Wrestling a tsunami is a little harder. (grin)

Dr. Phil