Today’s Star Wars news/rumor: I’d watch it

I’m 95% sure it’s total bullshit and the whole obsession with this 1313 crap continues to make me roll my eyes, but I would totally watch this completely-out-of-left-field Star Wars animated series.

Even if the title does make me think of Robert Downey Jr. in a wig… Or is that Restoration?

Particularly because I love the idea of Luke dropping out to adopt a Preacher-style persona, I admit. Total weakness for that archetype. (Admission: Dune Messiah and Children of Dune are my favorite Dune.)

The whole aspect where Han and Leia aren’t together? (Or at least, not married?) Riots would ensue. But I do love the idea of it being a near-complete 180 from the established post-Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe, but still drawing in EU elements. (Mara Jade? Not out of the question.)

Again: It’s probably bullshit and I can already smell the flame wars coming either way: EU fans are an easily-panicked bunch these days. But I’d watch it in a hot second, even if the character designs were The Clone Wars/Thunderbirds-style fug.

Star Wars, Entertainment Weekly, and the reality of the mainstream

Entertainment Weekly’s Geoff Boucher has been one of the more respected names in geek news – he was the founder of the LAT’s Hero Complex blog – and I’m rather sad that he’s the one who fell down on the job when it came to EW’s The Star Wars feature.

Not the last time you’ll see Star Wars on EW’s cover.

But, alas, that’s journalism for you. Writers screw up, pieces are poorly copy edited – or not at all – and mistakes happen. (Remember “two or three films” a year?) I’ve been around – both professionally and as a blogger – too long to not be pragmatic about it. I can tell you, sometimes? Errors happen. Big ones. Even with editors and copy editors – and you’re lucky to have a copy editor, even at the big guys. And chances are, even if you have these people, they may be reading dozens of stories throughout the day, sometimes dozens an hour. Dozens.

I’m certainly not denying that Randy Stradley has every reason to be angry at the tone of the article in regards to the Marvel issue. That does seem to be Boucher* editorializing, given how very not fatalistic Randy and Dark Horse have been approaching the issue.

* Or someone… Given comments I’ve seen from ex-EW people, could it have happened elsewhere down the line? I doubt we’ll ever know for sure.

Still… I’m not lighting any torches: This isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. I’m just disappointed.

But no, Lucasfilm is probably not going to stop giving Entertainment Weekly exclusives over this. (Nor are they going to give a major scoop to any amateur blogger or a fan site, for reasons I’ll get to.) They might not be the powerhouse they once were, but EW is still one of the biggest mainstream pop culture news sources out there.

LFL likes to spread the love – just off the top of my head, I can think of big announcements that have gone through USA Today and IGN. USA Today is the very definition of mainstream, but getting any coverage out on any of the big guys is a boon, pure and simple. Publishing online may give them all the space in the world, but that doesn’t mean they can hire more writers, or give a mere handful of people enough time to cover everything properly. Sure, they’ll all write about director or actor rumors, but the smaller stuff, like books and comics? That’s harder to get out to the mainstream.

Because one thing a lot of hardcore fans seem to forget: They’re not targeting us. We’ll find this stuff on any podunk website or message board or Facebook page, and they know it. We’ll all post about it. But you know who reads us – from TFN on down? Other hardcore fans.

What outlets like EW and USAT (and even, to some extent, sites like Gawker’s io9) reach is the mainstream. Geeks who like Star Wars but aren’t watching fansites for it. The casual fans who only read one or two entertainment news sites – or maybe only read Entertainment Weekly when it shows up in their mailbox. That’s where most of the money is. And that’s why they’ll keep getting scoops – fuckups or no fuckups. Because they have the eyeballs.

Unpunctual movie reviews: The final (hopefully) Twilight movie

You know its fucking name.

Why do I keep watching the Twilight movies? I know they’ll be at least an hour too long thanks to all the lingering shots of lingering glances intended to delight a target audience I am old enough to have given birth to. Yet for some reason I actually look forward to watching them, only to remember at about ten minutes in how overwhelmingly tedious they are.

This is, I heard beforehand, finally the story where Kristen Stewart is allowed to actually play Bella having fun. The one where Bella gets to scream! (And shout, and let it all out… Sorry, earworm.) And rip people’s heads off! And also fake-out ending full of bloodshed that makes the teenagers scream in the rage that only superfan teenagers can scream!

All that does happen, but mostly we just learn that only American and British vampires get to dress in clothes that don’t scream ethnic and cultural stereotypes.

I certainly don’t begrudge Michael Sheen his paycheck or his unapologetic scenery chewing, but every time he appeared on screen I wished I had chosen an Underworld movie instead, because while Underworld movies aren’t exactly high art either, at least actual stuff happens in them for more than ten minutes a pop.

Oh, and Jacob totally isn’t a pedo! He’s just uncanny-valleysexual.

Unpunctual movie review: The Perks of Being A Wallflower

I was right smack in the middle of the demographic for The Perks of Being A Wallflower when the book was released in 1999, but I never read it. Or even heard of it. Good job, MTV.

I’m actually reading it now, because I liked the movie and I figure I ought to, being I was a teen in the ’90s and all. It’s… Okay? One of those rare books that just feel redundant after the movie. (Given the book’s author wrote and directed the movie, it’s not that shocking.)

Some called it a modern John Hughes movie, which I can see. (It does lack the full range of Hughes, but humor is what Easy A is for, I suppose.)

For being set in the early 90′s there wasn’t much that really pegged it in the era. (Aside from well, pretty much everything about Mae Whitman’s character.) This isn’t a quibble per say: I think it’s something that will probably work in the film’s favor in the long run – although isn’t at least some of the fun of Hughes eyeballing the outfits and being horrified by what Molly Ringwald did to Annie Potts’ adorable vintage dress in Pretty in Pink?

Actual quibble: Don’t expect me to believe kids who perform Rocky Horror on a regular basis don’t know a David Bowie song when they hear it, even in the days before you could Google lyrics.

TV’s house of the undying: Thoughts on Veronica Mars and The Clone Wars

I watched Veronica Mars live, and I’ve been intermittently watching the reruns over the last few months since they oh-so-conveniently air just when I get home from work, just when I am in need something mildly comforting that’s not news. So naturally I donated to the Kickstarter. It’s my first Kickstarter donation ever (sorry, RoboCop) and may very well be my last.

I know there are issues with the concept: I honestly don’t care. I never expected there to be more Veronica Mars, but if I can be a part of that, I don’t mind giving up a little cash. It’s not like Kristen Bell snuck up on me in an alley and threatened me with a taser. (Adorably!)

Now, I’m not one of those people who will go to any lengths to get a show back. I never mailed anything weird and random to a studio exec. Shows get canceled, and sometimes it’s sad, but eventually you will get over it. Such was Veronica Mars. I was sad. But I moved on. I enjoyed rediscovering the reruns, thinking there would never be any more, and that was fine.

Generally, I don’t mind things ending. I don’t need every little plot hole filled in. The show didn’t end on an upbeat note, but neither did it end abruptly. It got three full seasons, which is about as good as you can expect for a cult show that never set the ratings on fire.

(And yeah, as many imperfections as the second and third seasons of the show had, as ill-conceived as the rape plot(s) may have been, hey: At least it didn’t go out like Gilmore Girls. Yeouch.)

Now. The Clone Wars.

I don’t really have a personal connection to Clone Wars. It may be Star Wars, but it was never my Star Wars. I’m about a dozen times more broken up over the death of Google Reader, which I use almost hourly, than I will ever be over a cartoon I only watched a handful of times.

But I did watch the last episode, and I actually think it was a quite fitting end for the show: I mean, we all saw Revenge of The Sith, we all know where that war is going. Without specifics, it was the happiest ending fandom was going to get for that time period. Yes, it left questions unanswered, but very few questions in Star Wars go unanswered forever.

(Perhaps one of the most frustrating things in Star Wars fandom for me is how fans are never willing to let sleeping dogs lie. ‘We’ HAVE to know EVERYTHING about EVERYONE and we have to know it NOW. ‘We’ need to know the backstory of every single stupid alien in the cantina, even the ones who are technically no longer there. ‘We’ have to write an exhaustive Wookieepedia entry for every character that shows up on screen. A Wolfman is never just a Wolfman. It’s exhausting.)

But. I admit I look upon the efforts to ‘save’ the show with a healthy dose of skepticism. (Which, to be fair, I do with all ‘save my show’ campaigns.) I’m not saying I think this one is worthless – Lucasfilm’s statement was very vague, and fan outcry may mean a higher profile for the leftover episodes, or even show that there really is enough interest to sustain another series or wrap-up movie – but I don’t think Disney is going to change their mind on The Clone Wars. It’s over for all intents and purposes. I do feel bad for the cast and crew, who always come across as fabulous people and fans themselves, but they’re all very talented, work in an industry that does this regularly and I’m sure will all land on their feet. (And keep getting invited to cons, if there was any question.)

I mean, five seasons, for a very expensive (about $2M an episode – that’s $44/46M a season) animated show? That’s an excellent run. It’s more episodes than the greatest cartoons of my adolescence.

And you know, if the prequel era becomes a closed canon, and the sequel era becomes off-limits, we’re probably going to see a ton of books and comics that explore the fates of everyone left standing by the show anyway. Patience. We’ve all been here before.

The basement ceiling: Louie’s final frontier

Every couple days there is a huge racket in the basement.

My basement is divided into two parts: The laundry room and the ‘rec room.’ The rec room is technically furnished, in an early 50′s kind of way. (Wood paneling, laminate flooring. Lovely. Not.) It has (had) a solid ceiling, a ceiling which is currently full of holes because we rewired the place before I moved in and that was the only way to get to the outlets in, oh, half the house.

Murder basement!
And a vent for some reason.

The eventual plan is to put in a better drop ceiling of some sort, paint/replace the paneling and set it up as an office/library/maybe guestroom. But for now, it’s just storage space and/or kitty playroom.

Louie made it to one of the window ledges a few weeks ago, and has since been obsessed with the holes in the ceiling.

The basement also has a couple piles of random boxes and such from when I moved in.

You see where this is going? Yup, Louie jumps on the boxes trying to get to the ceiling. On top of one of the boxes was a milk crate filled with CD cases. What happened? Yeah, you guessed it. The next time it was an empty box, but it still made a clatter.

I don’t know how Louie hasn’t gotten hurt. He’s not as young as he used to be, but he’s still an excellent jumper. He’s clever and extremely stubborn. This is a cat I have seen try to climb tile walls. (Yeah, I said clever, but he’s not exactly smart.) HE WANTS TO GO TO THERE.

Currently, there are no boxes piled higher than three feet. The milk crate is in a secure location. It’s been a few days since I heard a clatter. Will it hold? Will I have to shut it off and thus make him newly obsessed with the whole room? Who knows…

Hugo, of course, could not care less, but Hugo can’t even figure out how to get behind the drapes if there’s not an obvious gap.

Four easy New Years resolutions for tweeters

Because I’m all about the Twitter, I guess. Are you not completely unshocked?

1. Click through a link before commenting on the tweet. This is a big pet peeve of mine (particularly when I’m running the work Twitter) and the thing is it’s not that hard.

2. Cut back on the passive-aggressive statements. This is something I’ve been doing lately, because I’ve run into a few serial offenders and fuck is that crap annoying.

3. Improve your grammar! It matters. Even if it is ‘just a tweet.’

4. Don’t be afraid to unfollow people! If folks are starting to tweet a lot about stuff you don’t care about or otherwise annoy you (see #2,) it’s best to let just them loose.

Your nostalgia is not my nostalgia

I don’t think there’s any more obvious sign of the generation gap than seeing all these people freaking the hell out over the whole Girl Meets World thing. Yeah, I remember Boy Meets World, but I guess it debuted not long after I aged out of the TGIF demo. Of course, I can’t muster the least bit of nostalgia for the TGIF lineup of my own day – Perfect Strangers? Full House? Family Matters? Just the Ten of Us? Step by Step? Maybe Dinosaurs?

(Now, if it had been Fred Savage and The Wonder Years… Yeah, no. I doubt that brand of maudlin has aged very well.)

Unpunctual movie review: Percy Jackson

I’ve always been a fan of Greek mythology, so I knew this movie was probably not a good choice. But there it was, all shiny, and basically the trainwreck syndrome made me do it.

It actually wasn’t quite as bad as I feared, although I feel for Sean Bean and Kevin McKidd, both of whom deserve better. (And poor, poor Pierce Brosnan, who wasn’t even given to option of looking anything but ridiculous.)

But Camp Halfblood? I can write off some of the other stuff as just portals, but why is the damn camp in America? Has it always been there? Just ’cause? And you named it Camp Halfblood? That’s like if J.K. Rowling had just called Hogwarts ‘Wizard Boarding School.’ Jesus, Riordan.

Some of the bits were clever in a dumb kid movie type of way, although you’d think the kids in the movie – who actually know the myths – would be able to spot Medusa and the Lotus eaters in a split second.

But alas, the only real highlight here is the Olympian stunt-casting. Sigh.

Unpunctual movie review: Julie & Julia

Julia is wonderful, of course.

Julie, on the other hand… I remember a lot of the reviews saying how her parts weren’t as engaging, which I won’t bother to dispute. (They are.) But I actually ended up finding her Julia obsession disturbing… Yes, it’s a movie and that’s the plot but I really wanted Julie to take a breather from Julia, because her obsession came across as near-psychotic at times.

And really, freaking out about a blog deadline? Honey, it’s a blog.