I also stumbled across this interview with M Night Shyamalan, who is directing what will hopefully be the first of three Avatar live action films. Shyamalan has an awfully inconsistent track record with his films so far, veering between brilliant and mind-numbing. But I get the sense from the interview that he genuinely gets what Avatar is really about, so I find that a hopeful sign.
If you’re a person who laments the decline of the Saturday morning kids cartoon genre, then you should really check out Avatar: The Last Airbender. It may not currently be on TV (we’ve not been getting up early), but it’s available on DVD and it’s properly brilliant; beautifully animated and very well written for kids’ entertainment. M Night Shyamalan is currently in pre-production adapting the cartoon into a movie trilogy, so now is really the time to get yourself familiar with it…
“Buddhist and Hindu philosophies run through the stuff,” he [Shyamalan] continues. “When I realised that is what it was, it really drew me as the template for putting storytelling on a new level. There is a kind of thread that connects Star Wars and The Matrix – the first one. That same thread is in this story, about a forgotten belief system, or the illusion of the world now.”
One of the few pages left on my site that I hadn’t incorporated into WordPress (until now) was Ask Kosh. It dates back to about 1997 and is one of just a few pages that remains from my original site. It used to be its own self contained mini-site, with half a dozen pages of ancillary nonsense attached to it. I’ve stripped it down to just a single page, which I think will be enough to satisfy whatever interest remains in cryptic ol’ Kosh. Ask Kosh was a big hit back when Babylon 5 was still running new episodes - it even made a top 10 list in Total TV magazine.
I’m a few years late to the party, but last night, while searching for something totally unrelated, I accidentally discovered (and then watched) To Serve All My Days. It’s an episode in the fan produced series Star Trek - Phase II. It continues the original series, with fans playing the roles of the original cast. I have to say it was actually not bad. The fact that longtime Star Trek writer D.C. Fontana penned the script and that Walter Koenig reprised his role as a Chekov probably didn’t hurt. In this episode Chekov undergoes rapid aging, which is a convenient solution to Koening being 40 years older now than when he first played Chekov (but he’s not as old as he looks in the picture here! That’s all makeup). I was particularly impressed with how they ended the episode - it was a touching and unexpected conclusion.
The acting overall was amateurish, but not cringe inducing - no worse than some other sci-fi series that have been on TV (I’m thinking of shows like Andromeda and the 1st year of Babylon 5). I enjoyed James Calwey who played Kirk - he often seemed barely able to contain his glee, hamming up Kirk just like Shatner did. There were only two cast members I found distracting: Ben Tolpin Jeff Quinn as Spock, not because of his acting, but because of the horrific makeup/headgear he was wearing, and Charles Root as Scotty, also not because of his acting, but because he looks almost exactly like Dan Akroyd (I kept expecting him to break out into a Blues Brothers routine at any moment).
The sets for the ship were particularly impressive - they were indistinguishable from the original 1960s sets. In terms of special effects, a big thing the show has going for it is the natural point of comparison is the original series, so the bar is set low. Like the original series, they have folks leaping onto their faces and things falling from the ceiling to provide the impression of a space battle. Unlike the original series, they use cheesy CGI instead of cheesy models for the space scenes. One advantage this gives the new series, however, is the ability to do some sophisticated maneuvering of ships during the battle scenes, so that was fun to watch.
A while back I confessed to my renewed interest in comics. Iron Man was my favorite when I first started reading comics in high school. Tony Stark is Iron Man, and he’s essentially the Batman of the Marvel universe: a billionaire industrialist with no superpowers, he becomes a superhero by means of his own ingenuity and limitless resources (refreshingly though, he doesn’t have Bruce Wayne’s brooding, morbid personality). What impressed me at the time was the bold and unconventional plot the series had going in the 80s:
The cover of Iron Man 182, when Tony Stark hits bottom as an alcoholic
…a ruthless rival, Obadiah Stane, manipulates him [Stark] emotionally into a serious relapse into alcoholism. As a result, Stark loses control of Stark International, becomes a homeless vagrant and gives up his armored identity to Rhodes, who becomes the new Iron Man for a lengthy period of time. Eventually, Stark recovers and starts a new company, Circuits Maximus. While Stark concentrates on new technological designs, Rhodes continues to act as Iron Man but steadily grows more aggressive and paranoid…
That kind of storytelling has become more common as the audience for comics has matured, but it definitely stood out in the 80s. I was amazed to see issue after issue with the main character as a homeless man. It wasn’t just a “social issue of the day” storyline that the writers dispensed with in a couple months. They didn’t shy away from the ugliness of alcoholism, as Stark inexorably lost his company, his fortune, and his friends.
I stopped reading comics after high school, and then started again last year with Civil War, and the new Iron Man series. I was astonished to learn that the original Iron Man series was canceled in 1996, after a 28 year run. That was the year Marvel went into bankruptcy due to mismanagement. I also learned that the current series is actually the fourth, following two ill-fated attempts to revive it. Iron Man was one of many titles that suffered as Marvel’s top talent left the company.
The new series is great - one of the best titles Marvel has going right now. Both the character and plot development are intricate and engaging. What’s annoying though is the distortion of Stark’s character when he makes appearances in other series. In Civil War he becomes almost unrecognizable, portrayed as a brutal fascist, willing to violate any and all ethical principals to force total compliance with the superhuman registration act. And in the otherwise fantastic Ultimates, where he always seems to have a martini in hand and a woman on his arm.
Unfortunately, he’s a self-caricature in the new movie trailer as well (available in hi res for Quicktime, or low res at YouTube). I was looking forward to when it became available online last week, but my heart sank as I watched it. The problem is that they turn Stark into an overgrown frat boy with a passion for things that go boom. He thinks it’s cool when a reporter refers to him as a “merchant of death,” and in a speech to some troops he proclaims he prefers weapons you have to use only once, as opposed to ones you don’t have to use at all. Compare that to the more faithful portrayal of his character in the current comic series. This is from an interview he’s having with a Michael Moore-like filmmaker, after the interviewer takes him to task for designing hi-tech landmines and “seedpod,” a daisy-cutter style bomb:
An interview with Tony Stark, from issue 1 of the 4th Iron Man series
Judging by the trailer, it seems likely you’re not going to get thoughtful dialog like that in the movie. Also, I have to admit while watching the trailer I went from just a sinking heart to an audible groan when my ears picked up the droning bass line of Black Sabbath’s Iron Man in the soundtrack. Being hit over the head with early 70s heavy metal is more than enough to take me out of the moment of the film. I can only hope that the song is just in the trailer and not the actual film.
I don’t understand how Marvel makes its decisions when bringing a comic series to the big screen. The flagship series Spider-man deservedly got top notch talent, substantial financial backing, and careful attention to the portrayal of the characters. So did the much more obscure series Blade. But then another flagship series, Fantastic Four, was made into not one, but two mediocre films that were far more cartoonish than the actual comic. Unfortunately, it looks like Iron Man is also getting the cartoonish treatment, just with a better cast.
Kai and Maria made shrinky dinks of Kai’s favorite Avatar characters, Aang and Zuko
I’m writing this post at Kai’s request. Tonight he and Maria made Shrinky Dink versions of Kai’s favorite characters from the Nickelodeon show Avatar: The Last Airbender. Maria sketched them and Kai colored them in. Kai is very proud of their work. (They’re not actually Shrinky Dinks though. We made them from the lids of take out sushi containers. You can use #6 plastic just like Shrinky Dinks).
I have to admit Avatar has become a guilty pleasure of mine. The target demographic is 6-11 year olds, but I think it’s actually more sophisticated than a lot of shows intended for adults. The world created for the show is rich in detail, and draws on a wide range of Eastern religions and history to shape its many cultural and supernatural aspects. As an example, the final episode of the second season revolves around Aang (a young boy, who is the main character) having to clear his seven chakras as a step in achieving his potential as the Avatar. I didn’t know much of anything about chakras going into it, but I looked it up afterwards, and it seemed like they actually made a reasonably faithful adaptation of the concept for the show.
What impresses me the most though is the quality of the show’s martial arts animation. Most animation I’ve seen comes up short when it comes to intricate physical movement, but Avatar doesn’t. What’s particularly impressive is that the animators bring to life the distinct styles used by characters from each of the show’s four nations: “The creators use Tai Chi for waterbending, Hung Gar for earthbending (although Toph employs a Chu Gar Southern Praying Mantis style), Northern Shaolin for firebending, and Ba Gua for airbending.”
Also, I’m a sucker for serialized epics with intricate plots. Each season of the show is presented as a book, with each episode being a chapter. The third season trailer below shows some of the maturing of the characters. Like a lot of shows these days, the main characters are kids, but unlike most others, they don’t behave unrealistically (setting aside their magical powers, of course). I also credit the writers for not shying away from how fast the characters are forced to grow up, given their situation. The Aang we see in the third season trailer seems a long way from the goofy kid he was in the first season.
Given the intensity of the trailer, I’m curious to see if the show loses any of the humor that nicely balanced the action and dramatic elements of the previous seasons. I imagine that writing humor gets harder as a story like this moves forward and the stakes just keep getting higher. But maybe that’s why I’m not a fiction writer . My bet is that they’ll pull it off.
A few months ago I started reading comic books again, for the first time since I was a teenager. The thing that got me to walk into a comic book store for the first time in twenty years was an NPR interview with a couple guys from Marvel comics, touting their 7-issue Civil War series. The premise is essentially a non-tongue in check version of The Incredibles backstory: the people have grown tired of the often massive collateral damage that results from super-powered vigilantism. But instead of The Incredibles solution of forcing all of them to retire from the superhero business, the Congress passes a law requiring them to register with the US government as “persons of mass destruction” and to start taking orders from S.H.I.E.L.D. (a fictional counter-terrorism/intelligence agency). The Registration Act is framed as a civil liberties issue, and it splits the superhero community down the middle. Iron Man leads the registered superheroes, and their first job is to arrest those who refuse to register, which is a group led by (wait for it….) Captain America.
This sounded like a potentially interesting political allegory for our times, so I decided to check it out. I have to say it’s a pretty good read, and I’ve gotten sucked into several of the tie-in stories to regular Marvel titles. One thing that’s clearly changed since I was reading comics in the 80s is the sophistication of the stories - the target audience is adults now (in our local comics store, there’s a very small section for the comics aimed at kids under 12, and the rest of the store is for the big kids). What holds the Civil War series back from being really great though is that the premise just doesn’t hold water: by no stretch of the imagination is being a superhero a “civil right.” There’s no constitutional right to vigilantism, let alone super-powered vigilantism. Having said that, the quality of the artwork and the overall storytelling goes a long way towards making up for this flawed premise.
The Spider-Man Civil War side story is even better than the Civil War series itself. In a major change for the character, Peter Parker reveals his identity as Spider Man and comes out as a supporter of the Registration Act. But he is deeply conflicted about his choice. The current writer for The Amazing Spider-Man is J. Michael Straczynski, creator of one of my favorite TV series, Babylon 5. He does what good writers do - he gets you in Peter’s head and gets you to identify with his struggle. Here’s an example - this scene takes place shortly after Captain America loses his shield in a scuffle with Spider-Man:
Spider Man, after a confrontation with Captain America
Spider Man, after a confrontation with Captain America
For me, the one Marvel series that really outshines the others is Ultimates 2. Marvel has created a whole series of “Ultimate” titles (Ultimate Spider Man, Ultimate Fantastic Four, etc.) which they use to tell stories without being tied to the decades of history the characters have accumulated in their regular series’. This universe has much fewer superheroes in it, and is much closer to the real world (e.g. George Bush is President, we’re at war in Iraq, etc.). The Ultimates 2 series is a re-working of the Avengers. It’s much grittier, realistic, and overtly political than any comic I’ve seen before. The Ultimates team is controlled through S.H.I.E.L.D., and is used only for domestic law enforcement. But then Captain America is used to rescue some hostages in Iraq, and so the trip down the slippery slope begins. Not much later the whole team is used to perform a pre-emptive strike on one of the “Axis of Evil” countries. Here’s a snippet of a conversation between Tony Stark (Iron Man) and the imprisoned Thor after the attack (the writers have brilliantly re-cast Thor as a sort of Earth First/Greenpeace left-wing activist):
Tony Stark (Iron Man) visiting Thor in prison - from the series Ultimates 2
Stark: “And when did I become one of the bad guys?” Thor: “Around the same time you took part in that pre-emptive strike against a Third-World country”
At the same time, an alliance of Middle East and Third World nations, with covert assistance from China, are planning to use their own superheroes for an assault on America. But before they strike, they infiltrate the Ultimates with a spy, and take most of the team down one by one: Thor is framed for getting his powers from stolen high tech weaponry (nobody really bought his whole “God of Thunder” story to begin with), Hawkeye is captured and his family murdered, and Captain America is framed for doing it. Bruce Banner is put on trial for a deadly rampage by the Hulk, and then secretly executed. With most of the Ultimates out of comission, “The Liberators” attack is swift and successful, including the capture of the President and control of the US’ nuclear arsenal. This situation effectively deters the Europeans and their superheroes from intervening. The leader of the attack videotapes the final moments of the assault, announcing at the end “the Great Satan has been liberated.”
“This is what happens when your ambitions outstrip your capabilities” - from the series Ultimates 2
The Liberators’ Leader: “This is what happens when your ambitions outstrip your capabilities”
Tony Stark narrowly survives an assassination attempt, and with the other surviving Ultimates members, they begin to organize a counter-offensive. That’s where the story stands at issue 10 of this 13 issue series - I don’t want to give away anything beyond that. Issue 12 just came out. You might have a hard time finding the earliest issues, but I think most comic shops would have it back to issue 9, which isn’t a bad place to pick it up, as that’s when the attack on the US happens. Issue 12 is just one giant battle though, so I wouldn’t recommend starting there, as you’ll have no idea what’s going on (the series tends to have 2 or 3 dialog-heavy issues, followed by a non-stop action issue).
UPDATE: The series is now available in hardcover. Here’s the Amazon link: The Ultimates 2
I’d like to expand on my point yesterday about the relevance of science fiction. But bear with me as it will take a while for me to get to my point. Along the way I’ll make points about other things.
The pace of technological change is every-increasing, and, just as an example, one area where it’s going to have a huge impact over the next quarter century is the labor market. Both the top and the bottom of the workforce are going to be squeezed.
The Top: there’s already a lot of buzz about high-tech jobs (like mine!) being outsourced to India, South Africa, etc. Politically, this poses a fundamental problem for the arguments previously used in favor of free trade. The idea (but not neccessarily the reality) always was that the manual labor and low-tech jobs got pushed to less-developed countries overseas, while the advanced capitalist countries continued to improve and expand the range of products, technologies, and jobs they created. So the new wrench in this argument is that plenty of countries now have workforces that are just as well educated and offer the same set of skills as the US workforce, and they’re available at a fraction of the cost. Ultimately the only jobs that will be “safe” - anywhere in the world - are the ones that require direct personal interaction, localized skills, or simply being physically present: doctors, janitors, real estate agents, cooks, construction workers, etc. But wait…many of those will get squeezed too…
The Bottom: I was just reading up on the current state of robotic technology. The current projection is that within the next 10 years or so we’ll have robots with reasonably good vision and manual dexterity. We already have robots that are pretty good at factory line work, vacuuming floors, cutting grass, etc. What does that mean? It means that once they’re mass-produced, say goodbye to migrant farm worker jobs, janitorial jobs, burger-flipping jobs, lawn mowing jobs, etc.
While this dynamic at the low-skill end of the scale is nothing new - remember the story of John Henry? - this is different because it’s going to happen at a faster pace and with a broader scope than ever before. At the same time, the high-skill jobs are spreading to numerous countries where costs and wages are lower. The US will not be able to sustain the quantity or the wages of those jobs within its borders.
So who has a safe job? The low-skill jobs will be automated. The high-skill jobs - other than those that require highly specialized skills or physically being in a particular place - will be outsourced (or have their wages reduced). It turns out that many doctors may not even fall into the “safe” category: the British now ship cataract surgery patients to India and back - even with the travel expenses it’s still a fraction of the cost of doing it in England. In the long run, so the free-trade argument goes, the countries where the jobs get outsourced will bring their living standards up to ours (assuming no environmental catastrophes due to the massive resource extraction and pollution that would entail, but that’s another story), and then there’s no need to keep outsourcing. But as John Maynard Keynes famously said “in the long run we’re all dead.”
The “ideal” idea behind technological improvement is to make people’s lives easier: to automate the boring stuff (washing machines), get us places faster (cars and planes), etc. The “sinister” idea is to make people irrelevant, except as consumers. But if they can’t work, how can they consume? One outcome is that we all live lives of leisure while the machines do the work. Another possible outcome is a deeply polarized and stratified society, with a small enriched ruling class, and everyone else in grinding poverty. A third, and probably most likely outcome, is at least limited protectionism, such as exists in Japan and France. This will happen as the pain wrought in trying to reach the “long run” I just described will be deemed too high a price to pay for low prices. At least some “inefficient” sectors of the economy will be protected, depending on the political strength of those sectors.
I should say, of course, that I could be proven wrong. When major advances happen - such as the spread of the Internet - it usually triggers a boom, as you end up with a whole new area of the economy that needs to be populated with workers. A continuous series of such booms could continue to sustain a middle class through these changes. Historically, they only happen a couple times per century though, and when the booms end there is is considerable upheaval, such as the .com crash.
Another, positive possibility is that “the long run” ends up happening in the short run: global markets grow at a pace roughly equal to the global spread of jobs. That is, outsourcing to say, India, would lead to growing demand for those same services within India, wages would go up there, and then there’s no longer a cost-basis for outsourcing. But I haven’t seen any evidence pointing to that outcome.
So what does this have to do with science fiction? Well, it seems that you have to turn to science fiction to find any kind of discussion of these kinds of futuristic concerns. I’m not saying that science fiction is about economics. I am saying that it gives you a window into thinking about the future. All the old sci-fi stories about the role of robots in society may be relevant sooner that you think. When ideas that were once only in the realm of science fiction are thrust upon society, we are generally ill-prepared to tackle them. For example, advances such as cloning don’t seem to get any kind of really thoughtful public discussion. Only fear-mongering on one side, and complacency on the other. So how we end up absorbing these changes into our society ends up being driven pretty much by whatever way the wind blows. So a little movie like Robot Stories, which illustrates the impact of technology through very personal tales, is one way to get people to start thinking about these issues.
The other day I heard an interview with the director of the new low-budget sci-fi film Robot Stories. Here’s the web site: http://www.robotstories.net/ - unfortunately it doesn’t look like it’s going to make it to Philly. The film consists of 4 short stories. I’m most keen to see the last of the four “Clay”. It’s about an aging sculptor, trying to finish his final work, but his body is falling apart on him. In this story, people can have their consciousness scanned and uploaded, and that’s what old folks and the dying do, so they can live on. Once uploaded, they can merge with all the knowledge and experience of others who have been uploaded, and they live in a sort of digital nirvana. So his kids and his already-dead-and-scanned wife are gently telling him, “Dad, it’s time to upload.” I gather the story focuses on his internal struggle between fulfilling his families wishes, the innate desire to live on, and trying to retain an important aspect of his humanity: his mortality.
To me this is what good science fiction is all about. It’s not about big budgets and battles in space. It’s about understanding our own humanity, and providing some kind of moral framework for understanding where we, as a society, may be headed. Through the use of plot devices not available in other kinds of story telling (e.g. another one of the stories in the film is about a couple that’s required to adopt a robot baby before they will be given a real baby), science fiction can offer a fresh perspective on what it means to be human.
This is why I’ve been a fan of Philip K. Dick for so long (the movies Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report were based on his stories). He was writing these kinds of stories in the 50s, long before anyone else was. (And long before we were hit over the head with Data in Star Trek). If you’re looking for a good read, I’d recommend his novels VALIS and and Time Out of Joint . BTW, the short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” is what they based “Total Recall” on. I like the short story title better, but I suppose that’s too many words for the title of a Hollywood movie
I had to watch the 10 hour Lord of the Rings trilogy in order to learn that even the smallest person can save the world. Well last night I learned the same lesson in 25 minutes, watching Horton Hears a Who. “A person’s a person, no matter how small,” and it’s the smallest of all that ends up saving all the Whos in Whoville.
. My bet is that they’ll pull it off.
