Hooked on a Feeling.

Originally I wasn't planning to see The Guardians of the Galaxy: I sort of felt that I'd filled my quota for comic book movies this summer, they're not the first gen Guardians that I'm familiar with, and even then, to a certain extent the Guardians were B-side heroes in the Marvel universe (no offense).

However, the movie hit with a box office bang, so I succumbed to curiousity, recruited a couple of willing co-workers, and headed off to the Scotiabank Theatre earlier this week to see it in 3-D with full Dolby 7.2 Surround Sound.

Guardians is a lot of fun - it's got a quirky, entertaining script, Chris Pratt is a great casting choice for alien abductee turned outlaw Peter Quill (who desperately wants people to refer to him as Starlord but doesn't have much luck with it), Drax the Destroyer was surprisingly funny, Groot and Rocket were better than I expected, and overall, I felt that it almost lived up to the hype.

However, it's not perfect. The plot is more than a bit dodgy, the romantic relationship between Quill and Gamora, the female assassin played by Zoe Saldana, seemed to come from nowhere, and both Saldana and Karen Gillan, who plays Gamora's sister Nebula, are hugely underutilized, both as actresses and characters.

All that aside, the movie made me feel like a genius:  it appears that in some ways, I accurately predicted the next five years of Marvel Comics movies a full two years ago, when Thanos the mad Titan made his post-credit appearance in The Avengers. 

After the movie, I tried to explain the significance of Guardians to my two co-workers Glen and Terry over a pint, but ran into a minor problem.

I think that it's fairly clearly established at this point that I'm a geek.* As such, for me, Guardians of the Galaxy was filled with hints, references, foreshadowing and Easter Eggs.  To my educated eye, it's not so much a movie as a huge teaser for Avengers 3 - and yes, I realize that the second Avengers movie isn't even out yet.

Glen and Terry, although admirable people in their own right, completely lack the background for any of that. (Apparently they spent their childhoods enjoying fresh air and sports, that sort of thing.) Because of that, I actually felt a bit cautious in asking what they'd thought about the movie, I wasn't sure how much sense it would have made without some kind of back story. They both cheerfully announced that they'd really enjoyed the movie, but I couldn't help but be aware of how much they were missing.

As an analogy, imagine going to see a movie about D-Day with two people who had never heard of World War II.  D-Day certainly stands on its own as a significant event, filled with drama, excitement, sacrifice, and so forth, and as such would probably be accessible to people who skipped History class in high school.

But think of all of the depth that they'd be missing  - they wouldn't know anything about Hitler, the National Socialist movement, the Holocaust, Neville Chamberlain, Dunkirk, the Battle of the Bulge, Pearl Harbor, or Hiroshima, just for starters. (Not to mention the Cold War and the Iron Curtain.)

Taking that as a comparison, Glen and Terry don't know about the Kree, what the Nova Corps should really look like, Supremor, Captain Mar-vell, Jack Kirby's Celestials, Thanos' romance with Death, the possibility of the Skrull Empire showing up (or the Shi'ar, for that matter), the history of the Infinity Gauntlet (seen briefly in the first Thor movie), the other Infinity Stones (seen all over the place if you know where to look), the sad semi-suicidal life (and death - or not) of Adam Warlock, the Watcher, Eros/Starfox, Moondragon, the Magus, Pip the Troll, Gamora's death (or not), and how Spider-Man saves the galaxy.

Not to mention the identity of Peter Quill's father.

I did my best to explain some of this to Glen, and then asked him if he thought that he would retain any of the information until the third Avengers movie comes out.

"Sid," he replied, "I don't think that I'll ever forget this conversation, but I know that I'm gonna try really, really hard."

 - Sid

*Anyone who is reading this who hasn't figured that out, maybe you should go to the first posting and start reading, I'll wait. 

How long have you had your ticket to China?

"It's about time..."

Idris, The Doctor's Wife.

Patience does not come easily to me. In spite of that, I'm very used to waiting for things - I learned how to wait in the hard schools of hitch-hiking and film processing, where impatience gets you nothing but high blood pressure - but there's no philosophic background to it, I wait because I have to wait.

That being said, let's talk about the manner in which the BBC has been trying my hard-earned patience for a year and a half.

The new season of Doctor Who will start next Saturday, on August 23rd, 2014.  The final episode of the seventh reboot season of Doctor Who aired on May 18th of 2013, followed on November 23rd by the 50th Anniversary episode - yes, six months later.  The Christmas episode was shown on, you guessed it, December 25th, 2013, and introduced the new Doctor, Peter Capaldi*, in a brief post-regeneration sequence.

In other words, over a 16 month time span, they only managed to broadcast TWO episodes, an average of one every eight months.

I realize that these things take time to put together, but I have to think that there must have been some way to better allocate the available time.  Surely it cannot have been a surprise to discover that you were expected to continue producing episodes? Regardless, we're here now.  I sincerely hope that the new season, with the new Doctor - and apparently a new approach to the show - will have been worth the wait.

And, who knows, perhaps it will even be shown on a regular schedule.

 - Sid

* Mr. Capaldi's eyes also made a brief appearance in the 50th Anniversary special.

Updates.

Every now and then I go back and read old entries here. Sometimes it's to find a reference that I want to e-mail to someone, and sometimes when I'm doing cardio at the gym I re-read some postings just for fun, to see what I was thinking about four years ago or what have you.

As a result, I decided that there were some old and not-so-old postings that needed following up in one way or another, so this somewhat lengthy posting is dedicated to updates, finishing touches, and I told you so's.


I hate to say I told you so, but: Part 1.

On which note, to get the ball rolling:  Amazing Spider-Man 2, Gwen Stacy.  Yeah, well...again, not a surprise that Gwen won't be around for the third movie, and I'm pleased that they decided to stick with canon on this one, especially given all the weird changes they're playing with Peter Parker's parents.
 
I hate to say I told you so, but: Part 2.
Almost Human, one season, cancelled.  Now, as with Firefly, the fact that the network confused things by showing episodes out of sequence didn't help, but still, perhaps just a bad idea from the word go.  Better luck next time, J.J.
 
Admittedly, a lucky bastard, though.
Speaking of luck and J.J. Abrams, I am sorry to announce that I did not win the coveted opportunity to appear in the next Star Wars movie.  The winner of the prize was one D.C. Barns, of Denver, Colorado.  Bastard.

However, the OMAZE Star Wars Force for Change campaign appears to have been a complete success, raising over $4.26 million dollars for UNICEF, with Walt Disney kicking in an additional million.  And I did receive the t-shirt that I was promised as an incentive for my contribution, although I have the feeling that there's still a poster print out there that hasn't shown up yet.

Of particular note is the label on the t-shirt, which along with size, washing instructions and so forth, suggests that there may be other advantages to owning the shirt.

On a personal note.

I continue to crush on Amanda Palmer, even if she does apparently draw her eyebrows freehand.  I strongly recommend her TED talk, which, in a way, is about the future.


It would make me curious, too.
Regarding the whole "time-machine-kill-Hitler" thing, imagine how it would look from the other side of the table:

By Winston Rowntree, Virus Comix

Not to mention sex, violence, and zombies - sort of.
To my complete surprise, the Expanse series, by composite author James S. A. Corey, is being adapted as a series by the Syfy network.  The series, now on its fourth volume, will get its star power (no pun intended) from actor Thomas Jane.

I gather that they're hoping to get the same sort of success that The Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead have enjoyed, but to be honest, Syfy does not have a great record for adaptations, and to be equally honest, as much as I've enjoyed the books, I'm not sure that The Expanse has an equivalent weight of narrative when compared to the other two series.

My advice?  Peter Hamilton's The Reality Dysfunction:  six books, which occupy seven inches of shelf space as paperbacks, presenting a rich, complex and nuanced future environment, filled with interesting characters, mysterious aliens, exotic locations - and, unlike The Game of Thrones, the damn thing is complete, so you don't have to worry about the author dying in an untimely manner before he finishes the last book.
 
Better safe than sorry, but still.

With each flight test, we are progressively closer to our target of starting commercial service in 2014.

Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides

Virgin Galactic has been predicting the commencement of its commercial space service since 2009.  I realize that they want it to be safe, but if I'd given them a $200,000 advance payment for my flight, I'd probably be ready to ask for my money back by this point.
 
Obvious foreshadowing?
The Ebola pandemic continues to grow in Africa, a passenger on an airplane was discovered to be suffering from the disease half-way through a flight to North America (and could easily have infected the entire flight crew that had to clean up after him), and infected patients have been flown to the continental United States for treatment, where, of course, they will be completely quarantined with absolutely no chance of passing on the disease.

Seriously, if this was the start of a movie, you'd be sucking air through your teeth, shaking your head, and saying, "Oooo, this is NOT going to end well...."
 
I wouldn't have said no to Beyoncé, either.

The contentious role of Wonder Woman in the new Batman-Superman movie has been awarded to Israeli actress/model Gal Gadot. I haven't seen Ms. Gadot in any of her previous screen appearances and can't comment either way regarding her dramatic abilities, but I'm a little disappointed, simply because I was hoping for a more innovative casting decision - especially given the amount of discussion that the question has generated in the comics community.

You know who I would have liked to see as the new Wonder Woman?  MMA fighter Gina Carano.  Yes, I realize that she hasn't had a lot of acting experience to date, but I think it would be an interesting idea to give the role of the Amazon warrior to someone with a proven ability to seriously kick butt in the real world.
 
While we're on the topic.
WHY IS HER COSTUME NOT IN COLOUR, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!  Seriously, is that how it's going to look in the movie?
 
Speaking of warrior women...

And, to finish things off, a shot of my co-worker Christi, AKA Her Ladyship Anika Styfe, at the SCA Tournament of Armies.  I was hoping for an archery shot (so to speak) but it's the thought that counts.

- Sid