Steve Austin vs. Bigfoot

Ah...Sweet nostalgia.

John Lasseter, 2D, and Glendalienism

Anne Thompson at the Hollywood Reporter, until tomorrow when she takes over Variety.com, has a link to a very good New York Times story about the future of Disney animation. The Times story is simultaneously informative about the "business" while highlighting the narrow-sighted ignorance of East Coast bias. As Kate at Fishbowl LA points out, New Yorkers don't often have the familiarity one would expect. Sometimes I think New Yorkers shouldn't be allowed to write about Los Angeles.

Below is the comment I wrote about the article, which mentions that Disney Animation is going to have offices in Glendale.

Overall, this is a very good article, which gives me yet another reason to love living in Glendale. It's great being a Glendalien.

On a side note though, it continually amazes me how articles point to 2002's Treasure Planet and its failure as a symptom of how audiences lost interest in 2D animation. Rarely is it mentioned that 2002's Lilo and Stitch was a significant success for the studio. It cost less to make ($80 million to over $120 million) and made considerably more in the box office ($145 million domestic to $38.1 domestic). Lilo and Stitch was not only 2D, but it featured beautiful watercolor background paintings. It was a true 2D experience, where Treasure Planet was more 2-1/2D with more computer modeling etc.

What is often lost in analysis is how Treasure Planet suffers from what I call, Titan A.E. syndrome (a 2000 box office flop). This syndrome is a combination of two things. First, forgetting just who the audience is for a typical (i.e. non-ultra-vi film as Alex might say) American animated film. Second, is the lack of a well written/conveyed narrative. Pixar films work because they are well written. Treasure Planet may have been Treasure Island, but it made the protagonist a whiner and added "extreme" sports elements in an attempt to attract 12-14 year old boys.

Rule #1 in animation/comics/entertainment is "if you want 12-14 year old boys to desire your product, make it for 18 year olds." Atlantis, which featured awe-inspiring designs by Mike Mignola, was a flop for the same reason. 12-14 year old boys want to watch Full Metal Alchemist, Heavy Metal, and Samurai Champloo, they don't want Treasure Planet or its ilk.

Pixar's movies tried to appeal to all audiences, either through humor, nostalgia, or pathos. The nostalgia of the collector (and its dark side) are a wonderful part of Toy Story 2. The pathos of "Kitty!" at the end of Monsters Inc. is heartbreaking, and the humorous adaptation of The Magnificent Seven/Seven Samurai that is A Bug's Life is wonderful.

It is the writing and quality that bring people to the theater again and again. I can only think of one well written animated film that failed and that was released with almost no fanfare, Iron Giant.

A Quick Glance Around the Geek-o-Sphere

According to Board Game News, Twilight Creations' Zombie Town has cleared customs and is ready to ship.

Twilight Creations is a company with a seemingly singular obsession with Zombies. I own quite a few of their games and am especially fond of When Darkness Comes which combines Board game quickness with some Roleplaying elements.

Steve Meretzky has an article up on what we can learn from board games.

The article is reminiscent of some of the comments in Steven Johnson's Everything Bad is Good for You and John Derbyshire's surprised comments regarding Age of Empires. I love it when curmudgeons find value in "pop" things.

Variety's Tom McLean gets ready for New York Comic Con. He also points out that "Graphic Novels" are the most popular format in the medium.

I don't always like the use of the term "graphic novel" to describe collections of the periodicals. To me Blankets was a graphic novel, Identity Crisis (DC Comics) is a collection of periodicals (a "trade" if you will), so is Watchmen for that matter.

SciFiChick has a list of SciFI "One Hit Wonders."

I may not agree that all of these are wonders, but it is a good list of thirteen shows that never got past season one.

In Tanzania a Bat Demon is blamed for sexual assaults.

Can I really add anything to that? Go Zotzilaha!

Evil Dead: The Musical

How the hell did I miss this?!

Robocop vs. Terminator

Buck, over at No Blasters, has embedded an awesome Robocop vs. Terminator video and provided links to two follow up vids.

Oprah: Huckster or Dupe?

Brian Lowry, television critic over at Variety, discusses Oprah Winfrey's inclusion of psychics, self-help gurus, and other snake oil salesmen in today's column. Mr. Lowry attacks the soft, approving, and non-critical way that Oprah treats theses guests. He is essentially arguing that, given the high esteem with which people view her, she should be skeptical of those who offer her audience "pat answers" to potentially difficult problems.

No argument from me, but Lowry doesn't discuss Larry King's obsession with both psychics and space aliens. No one can deny Larry King's influence, he dominates his particular niche, yet Lowry doesn't use his interviews as a comparison. King, too, presents people like Sylvia Brown with little to no critical analysis. When King did have James Randi on in 2001, Randi challenged Brown to prove her abilities. Since 2001, Brown has been back on Larry King Live. To my knowledge, James Randi has not. Even though Sylvia Brown has never followed through on her promise to prove her abilities.

Why do those who are in trusted media positions so readily embrace people who are taking advantage of other peoples sorrow? Is Oprah, or for that matter Larry King, a huckster or a dupe?

Preparing for 300

When it comes to historical dramas, one often wonders what the thoughts of scholars of a particular subject think about films depicting that subject. When watching a film about the Crusades, one wants to know what medieval scholars think about the film as a whole product.

No one expects historical dramas to be perfectly accurate, but one does expect them to capture the feel of the times and to be compelling stories. There are exceptions to the above statement, especially with regard to biblical films where some people do expect perfect accuracy, but by and large the audience wants to know that a film is entertaining and not a mockery of the era it is representing. Let me give what I think are two good examples. Kingdom of Heaven has many historical inaccuracies, but the more I watch the film, the more I am drawn in by the sense of the film and its imagery. The film genuinely transports me away from the present and into a faux version of the Crusades. Timeline has an almost opposite effect. As much as I enjoyed Crichton's book which provided the foundation for the movie version, I dislike the movie more each time I view it. Sadly, I have seen this film around six times because I have friends who enjoy the movie, and friendship is more important than agreeing whether a film is good or not. For me, Timeline's problem is that the film completely ignores the underlying argument of the book, chiefly that the "Dark Ages" weren't anywhere near as dark as the Renaissance claimed it to be. Every time I see Timeline, I keep asking myself, "Where did the $80 million go?"

Next month sees the opening of Frank Miller's 300 on the big screen. The Battle of Thermopylae has been one of my favorite subjects to read about/watch for a long time. My first exposure to the famous battle was Rudolph Maté's 1962 classic, The 300 Spartans. I saw it at a tender young age when I was cutting my teeth on all kinds of Sword and Sandal films, most of which had some kind of supernatural element. The 300 Spartans was different. The heroes didn't win the day, they died heroically. I have watched the film numerous times since and, while it does seem dated, it inspires me every time. I guess you can't go too wrong as long as you include the "big lines" from Herodotus.



I am excited about Frank Miller's version. The graphic novel was good, though there was significant artistic license. The previews look beautiful and Gerard Butler, who was the best thing about Timeline, looks to be a very good Leonidas. Being excited, I did what I usually do and surfed the internet searching for speculation by scholars familiar with the subject. I was pleasantly surprised to find more than mere speculation. Frank Miller, and film director Zack Snyder, gave classical scholar Victor Davis Hanson a preview screening. Both claim to be big fans of VDH, a fandom which includes me.

In an interview with Rebecca Murray, Zack and Frank were quoted as saying:

Zack Snyder: He’s a frickin genius. He’s a Greek historian and we showed him the movie because I wanted him to write a forward to the Making Of book. I was a little nervous to be honest, because I wasn’t sure how he’d react. And Kurt Johnstad who he and I worked on the screenplay together, he actually also is a huge fan of Victor Davis Hanson. He went up to show him the movie at his house.

Frank Miller: I mean, jumping back to Victor Davis Hanson, it was right in the middle of maybe our first conversation that Zack brought his name up, not realizing that he was citing my favorite non-fiction writer in the whole universe.

When I read these words, my excitement increased. But it was upon reading Victor Davis Hanson's review of 300 that the film went from "must see" to "will murder to see." VDH gives the film a glowing review over at his site (though it should be noted that the graphic novel is being released by Dark Horse and not Black Horse). He states in the summary of his review, "most importantly, 300 preserves the spirit of the Thermopylae story. The Spartans, quoting lines known from Herodotus and themes from the lyric poets, profess unswerving loyalty to a free Greece. They will never kow-tow to the Persians, preferring to die on their feet than live on their knees."

I can't wait.