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Ta-metru_defender

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  1. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 044: In Defense of Fan-Fiction
     
    I’ve written my share of fan fiction. Be it about Star Wars, Bionicle adventures, or Mega Man stories; trust me: I’ve written my fanfics. Thing is, that was years ago. I’ve hardly done anything remotely fan fictiony (be it an animation or a piece of writing) in years.
     
    I guess I grew out of it; I wanted to make my own worlds and not lean on someone else’s work as a basis. I wanted my stories to be mine and independent. Of course, I still read the Star Wars Expanded Universe, where science fiction writers have their go at continuing or adding stories to the Star Wars ‘verse. Sure, it’s official fan fiction but it’s cool stories, yeah?
     
    Arguably the best writer for the Expanded Universe is Timothy Zahn. His Heir To The Empire Trilogy is not only a fantastic piece of fiction, but it legitimately feels like a Star Wars story. It doesn’t seem like a random piece of science fiction with Star Wars elements but rather like another movie. It has the same feeling of adventure and space opera, and, best of all, the characters actually sound like the characters. They act like them and speak like them; Zahn wonderfully captures the essence of the main characters. He also introduces new characters as well as a new villain; his trilogy is a whole new story while staying true to the originals.
     
    So yes, I’m using Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars novels as the epitome of fan fiction. Granted, they get approved and vetted by the bigwigs at LucasFilm, but at their heart they’re pretty much fan fiction. And dang good ones.
     
    See, it’s easy to get fan fiction wrong. You could write a story that sounds like just another story with characters from some franchise tacked on. Taking nuanced characters and stereotyping them isn’t good writing. Changing the way the world works for the sake of your story, well, can be done right, but often winds up feeling unnecessary. Look, worlds need rules, so if you’re playing in someone else’s world, play by their rules lest you wind up making your own world. If your fan fiction hardly seems like it’s a part of the world, might as well make your own, yeah?
     
    One of the main reasons I stopped writing fan fiction was ‘cuz, well, it wasn’t my own world. Anything I wrote would only be well received by people of the fandom. It wasn’t accesible and all that. More so, it felt lazy. I wasn’t making my own characters, I wasn’t doing my own world building. So I stopped.
     
    Thing is, fan fiction (if done right) can be a challenge. You’re playing in someone else’s world; with someone else’s characters. Are you up to being able to capture both the world and the characters? TV writers do the same thing: they didn’t come up with the world but it’s their job to write the episodes. It’s a challenge, no doubt to fit your writing style and dialogue to another. For all the flak fan fiction gets, it can be a remarkable writing exercise. It’s also useful if you want to just get started writing something and don’t want to have to do all the research and all normally required. So yeah, if you’re lazy and just want to write, fan fiction is a valid outlet.
    Why am I writing a post about fan fiction? Simple, I’m starting work on an Uncharted one. Yeah, I know; I’m a nerd who needs justification. I want to write an adventure story, so why not use one of my favorite video games? I’m doing historical research and really want the challenge of trying to capture the spirit of the story and characters.
     
    So yeah. Fan fiction.
     
    Writer’s Note: Apologies again for another shorter/lackluster post; I’m now in Morocco on a school trip. Yes. That is my excuse. Again. Now let me go get shawarma.
  2. Ta-metru_defender

    Spain Day Six

    By Ta-metru_defender,

    I feel like I should have mentioned this earlier.
     
    For my January term I, and a group from Gallatin at NYU, are off to Spain and Morocco for a couple weeks. We just arrived in Cordoba today after spending the last few days in Madrid (and one in Toledo!). So I guess here are some quick highlights:

    Sometimes it seems like Spain has a vendetta against free public wifi
    Walking around Madrid is loads of fun
    Having epic group meals are fantastic; especially when your university is paying for both the food and wine.
    El Prado is a really cool museum as far as art museums go.
    Found a Canary Island restaurant (El Escaldon); ate there. Barraquito is a wonderful desert.
    I love the Spanish style of eating out; ordering tapas and sharing and talking for an hour.
    Also: sidra is nice.
    I haven't used my Spanish in years; it's so much fun to use it again.
    I realize that I understand some slang thanks to playing the original Uncharted in Spanish.
    Toledo is freaking awesome man.
    No really, it is.
    I had to fight the impulse to start climbing around/inside buildings
    I swear if we'd pushed that one block in a secret passage way would open
    Maybe we had to pull a candle holder
    Hitting up a bar at 12am and hanging out for two hours drinking cidra talking rubbish is one of my new favorite things
    Went to the royal palace in Madrid. Touched a lot of stuff, because you gotta feel history, man. I frequently heard "¡No toca!"
    Heard a cover of "Violet Hill" in a square played on a pair of cimbalons. Yeah, I had to look up the instrument
    I haven't been to El Corte Ingles since I was in the Canary Islands (bought a pair of Visorak there in '05)
    Cordoba makes me want to run and climb on everything
    I think I'm going to write an Uncharted fanfic set in Spain.

    So there's my adventure so far. Man, I haven't been to Europe since... 2009? Haven't been to Africa since 2005, so I'm looking forward to Morocco too.
     
    Anyway. I need to go. More exploring and adventuring awaits.
  3. Ta-metru_defender

    Old Made New

    By Ta-metru_defender,

    Essays, Not Rants! #043: Old Made New
     
    So y’know how Les Misérables came out over Christmas? Of course you do: your neighbor’s been singing it incessantly since (which song? All of them, duh). While musicals are nothing new, Les Misérables was special because they recorded the actors singing live on set and added the orchestration in post-production. Usually, the songs are recorded beforehand and lip-synched to during filming. The route Les Mis took allowed them to try the songs several different ways on set. The result is a fantastic musical and a radical breakthrough in the production process.
     
    Only, well, it’s been done before. Several times, in fact. A quick wikipedia check reveals that some early talkies as well as a couple movies I’ve never seen used it. So why the hullabaloo?
     
    Well, when was the last time a massive musical people were this excited about came out? It seems almost as if musicals fell out of fashion a while back and suddenly we have this daringly massive new one (based on a stage production based on a book) coming out. People are excited. And rightfully so, it’s a great movie, one that might remind us that musicals are viable films. Even though Les Mis really didn’t revolutionize anything, the film has an impact and will now be the one people think of with regards to recording the songs live.
     
    Quick! Think of a comicbook/superhero movie before X-Men came out in 2000! Besides Tim Burton’s Batman and Superman and the sequels. Unless you cheated and used wikipedia, none should really come to mind. Sure, there were quite a handful of rather lousy b-movies that came out, but no one really cared about them. Then along came X-Men and Spider-Man and suddenly superhero movies mattered. Well, not immediately, but look at the movies coming out now.
    Within the span of a little over a decade superhero movies went from being absolute rubbish (Batman & Robin) to a viable economic investment (Spider-Man 2) to a legitimate dramatic form of storytelling (The Dark Knight) to an incredibly enjoyable piece of cinema (The Avengers). Was superhero movies a new idea? Nope: the first Captain America serial came out in 1944. But it took proof that it was worth it to give us this new slew of movies. Which I’m certainly not complaining about.
     
    We like to clamber over movies as being new and revolutionary for pioneering old techniques. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s not a big deal, and I’m not saying it isn’t revolutionary. Just because something’s been done to death and cast off as being a waste of time (see: Batman & Robin) doesn’t mean it can’t be done differently (Batman Begins). Good reboots are this: old things made new, done right. We can complain all we want about a lack of originality, but Star Trek and Captain America: The First Avenger are the movies we want to see.
     
    So go see Les Misérables, go enjoy a superhero movie. Never mind it’s not entirely new or revolutionary; they’re trying on old hats, enjoying something new.
     
    And who knows; maybe Les Mis will spark a new offering of cinematic musicals.
     
     
    Writer’s Note: Apologies for the shorter/lackluster post; I’m in Spain on a school trip. Yes. That is my excuse. Now let me go get tapas.
  6. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants 040: Villain Protagonists
     
    I’m gonna preface this essay (that’s not a rant) by outright saying that I love Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. One of the many things that makes it so wonderful, though, is its deconstruction of its villain protagonist.
     
    But I’ll get to that in a bit.
     
    Villain protagonists are fun. Whether it’s light like someone with his Freeze Ray trying to impress Bad Horse or as dark as trying to pull off a successful suicide bombing, there’s something to be said for when we find ourselves cheering for the bad guy.
     
    Roald Dahl did it in one of his short stories. “Genesis and Catastrophe” is about a child’s birth. The child’s sickly, pretty much immediately derided by his father and so on. He’s the underdog, basically. You want that kid to live. And succeed, and win. And then you find out that kid was Hitler.
    That’s right you were cheering on everyone’s favorite personification of evil. Roald Dahl set up his story so you’d want him to win until you realize you were rooting for Hitler to be delivered into caring hands. You monster.
     
    Equally horribly fun is Four Lions and the titular four wannabe jihadists. The protagonists are four English Muslims who want to, well, do the jihad thing. So we’re watching four men who figure a man’s gotta do what and man’s gotta do as they attempt to blow themselves up (and several others with them). Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be a laughing manner, but Four Lions is a comedy and as such it’s hilarious. It never slows down quite enough for us to really think about the repercussions of the actions and does take a somewhat tragic tone towards the end. Point is, though, we’re cheering for, well, terrorists. There’s a hint of tragedy, but it gets buried in the humor.
     
    So villain protagonists are a fun twist. How exactly does Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog deconstruct that?
     
    Dr. Horrible (or Billy as he’s also known) isn’t actually evil. Sorta. The first time we see him he’s practicing his evil laugh. He wants to impress Bad Horse. But there’s this girl too, Penny, who he also wants to impress and woo. He’s layered, torn between being Dr. Horrible and Billy. His nemesis, the superhero Captain Hammer, thwarts both plans. Dr. Horrible wants a brand new day where he can both be accepted into the Evil League of Evil and win Penny.
     
    Now, in a normal story this is the part where the villain would reform and save the day and get the girl (see Megamind). But not in this deconstruction.
     
    So they say everyone’s a hero, but Billy isn’t. He’s the villain of the story, that’s the hand he was dealt. He just happens to be the main character. As Captain Hammer continues to interfere with Billy’s hopes of being evil and winning Penny, he finds himself slipping further and further towards being an actual villainous villain. At first he never wanted to hurt anyone but as the musical enters its third act, he’s both ready and willing.
     
    And well, without spoiling it (seriously, it’s on Netflix. Go watch it now), Billy gets inducted into the Evil League of Evil. But it comes at the cost of his other dream. He commits to one side but, as the end of the final song “Everything You Ever” suggests, he might not be completely sold.
     
    What makes Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog so darn compelling is that we’re watching a good guy play the bad guy’s role. He’s nice, he’s caring; it’s the ‘hero’ that’s the good-for-nothing reprobate. Our expectations are turned on the head as we cheer on Dr. Horrible and we see what happens when he succeeds. Unlike Four Lions where they succeed and that’s it or Megamind where he reforms or “Genesis and Catastrophe” where we know he goes on to do evil; in Dr. Horrible we see the cost of Dr. Horrible’s success on his psyche. He won, but lost himself.
     
    Villains like the Joker or Count Rugen are such fun since they’re just so evil. They aren’t lovable in the protagonist sort of way, heck, they’re hardly sympathetic. It’s the sympathetic villains we like for a protagonist, but Dr. Horrible is one of the few where we actually see the consequences of his actions. In this one we see what it actually means to be a villain protagonist.
     
    And it’s an amazing musical.
     
    Also: buy my book In Transit! Support my education!
  7. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 039: Final Exam: The Hobbit
     
    It’s finals time at NYU. Folks are churning out essays and cramming a semester of information in their heads. So here I’ll be doing something different (but not really): let’s look at The Hobbit.
     
    I saw The Hobbit’s midnight showing at the IMAX here. It was good, clearly. Perfect, nah, not quite. Not Return of the King, but then what is? So where’d The Hobbit go right and where’d it go wrong?’
     
    Right off the bat, it’s a great adaption. It went right for the heart of the story, then built up a proper body around it. What was the book about? Bilbo Baggins going on an adventure with thirteen dwarves and a wizard to reclaim a lost kingdom, fight a dragon, a war, and all that. The quest is still there.
    Gandalf’s adventure in Mirkwood and Dol Guldur has been fleshed out some (fitting, as Gandalf’s references to the Necromancer weren’t included in the film adaption of The Fellowship of the Ring). All this serves to give the story more weight. See, now the slaying of Smaug is doubly important due to the risk of Sauron having him on his side. The follow up to the amazing Lord of the Rings Trilogy is now an epic too.
     
    More than that, though, they built on the characters. Bilbo and Thorin especially have really strong arcs, expanding on Tokien’s work. We get Bilbo growing out of being a comfortable, boring Hobbit to the adventurer we all know him as. We see it when he’s taunting the troll, as he slowly grows confident throughout the movie, and ultimately in his actions in the tree at the end. Similarly, we see Thorin’s slow and begrudging acceptance of the hobbit into their company. The core arc of An Unexpected Journey is Bilbo’s growth and gradual adoption both of and by the dwarves. It’s crucial that this happens, due to events that happen later in the book. We absolutely need to have an attachment to these characters and their bond, else later events will have little impact.
     
    Where The Hobbit does fail, however, is in its pacing. Yes, there were plenty of burritos being thrown around, but sometimes there seemed to be a few too many. An example would be the scene with the stone giants. We’ve just left Rivendell and are about to have the run in with Gollum and the goblins in the Misty Mountains. At this point, we don’t need another burrito. There are no character moments (besides Thorin helping Bilbo back up, which could easily be added to another sequence) nor any plot development vital to the scene.
    Overall the film could have been tightened to keep the necessities without feeling draggy. Perhaps most of these issues are due to the film being stretched out into three films rather than just two. Adding bits here and being reluctant to cut others yields a movie that feels a lot like setup (rather than the essentially self-contained epics that was each entry in The Lord of the Rings).
     
    The Hobbit, like The Lord of the Rings before it, once again has a point to be made and makes it quietly but effectively. It’s about being wiling to step out of your comfort zone, it’s about finding home, and, pointedly, what exactly constitutes courage. It’s not heavy handed, it feels natural and it works. Also makes for good Facebook/Twitter/tumblr post material.
     
    But The Hobbit is not The Lord of the Rings. It’s very different both in tone and in nature. Same world, sure, but The Hangover and Saving Private Ryan are both set in The Real World and are both sixty years apart too. Point is: The Hobbit is a wonderful, if imperfect, movie. Go see, but don’t expect The Fellowship of the Ring.
     
    Oh, and for the record, the riddles in the dark scene stands out as an amazing example of both special effects and storytelling, up to and including Biblo taking pity on Gollum. Beautiful.
     
    Editors note: Will this ‘Final Exam’ post be repeated in the future? Who knows. But seeing as Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness both come out around the time I have my next bout of finals...
     
    Also: buy my book In Transit! Support my education!
  8. Ta-metru_defender
    My wall thinks so:
     
     

     
     
    But nah, it was epic. Perfect? No, not quite (I'll get to that), but certainly epic. I like how they're bringing in Dol Guldur and all.
    Also they made each dwarf distinct, even if they do get rushed over a lot.
     
    So what'd I change? Pacing, mostly. Take a critical hand and cut away. The stone giant battle while really cool, was unnecessary and slowed it down. Same with Radagast's introduction, could have cut a few minutes off of that too. Just bits here and there to improve the pacing.
     
    Oh, and the Into Darkness preview kicked all kinds of awesome.
     
  9. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants 038: Throwing Burritos
     
    One of my courses this semester at NYU is one on Science Fiction. In this particular class we had read and were discussing Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? One of us commented about how Rachael pushing the goat off the building reminded him of that scene in Anchorman where Baxter gets punted off the bridge. The discussion continued, and someone mentioned that in Anchorman, Baxter gets punted off the bridge because Ron throws a burrito at a biker; so what was the proverbial burrito thrown that made Rachael defenestrate that goat? Not just what was her motivation, but what interaction with Deckard ticked her off enough (if she indeed was ticked off)? Our homework was to begin work on our short stories, getting to the point where we throw this proverbial burrito.
     
    So what exactly is throwing the burrito? It’s a catalyst for a sequence of events. Not necessarily the catalyst, but one nonetheless.
     
    Like when Pippin knocks over the bucket in Moria in The Fellowship of the Ring. Because of that we get the chase through the mines and Gandalf’s duel with the Balrog. Sending the bucket clamoring down the well sets up the entire act.
     
    A good story will often have many burritos being thrown around. Take Metal Gear Solid. The initial burrito is when Snake gets involuntarily reinstated to neutralize the terrorist threat at Shadow Moses. He gets another burrito thrown at him when he realizes that there is a nuclear-capable Metal Gear that the terrorists intend to use. Oh, and the terrorists are ex-special forces. And Snake’s old friend is now a cyborg ninja. And the villain’s his brother. And Snake’s got a virus in him.
    You don’t get all these reveals at once: it takes several hours of gameplay. Each burrito is progressively thrown at the player in a way that rather than being overwhelmed, we find ourselves being drawn further and further in to the story. Metal Gear Solid steadily throws burritos at you, each one setting up another conflict or another reveal. We need these burritos to keep us invested. And it works: Metal Gear Solid is a fantastically paced/structured story that you can’t stop playing. Even when it’s 1am and you have work in the morning.
     
    But there’s a point where there are just too many burritos flying around. The third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, At World’s End, has a lot of burritos flying around. We have three, maybe four protagonists each with their own crazy gambits. Barbossa double crosses Jack to get the Pearl back because Jack figured the pirate king should be Elizabeth who double crossed Sao Feng (only she didn’t mean to) who double crossed Will who in turn double crossed Jack. Sort of. It seems like every few minutes we get another burrito thrown at us inspiring yet another sequence of events. And some of these burritos hardly add anything to the plot. It winds up hectic and it’s terribly easy to get lost in the chaos.
    Alternately you could get lost in the fun which still yields a plenty enjoyable movie, so, y’know, there’s that.
     
    Sometimes, the best stories have almost no burritos. Lost In Translation is a beautiful movie that progresses slowly and steadily. The burritos were thrown before hand (Bob took an advertising gig, Charlotte followed her husband to Tokyo). The whole thing’s been set in motion; there’re no big reveals or twists, no accelerations. We’re just watching life happen.
     
    Call it pacing or structure; it’s vital. Don’t throw enough burritos and the audience starts checking their watches. Throw too many burritos and you lose the audience. The story just has to have the right serving size.
     
    Or you could always just eat that burrito.
     
     
    Also: buy my book In Transit!
  11. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 037: In Defense of Science Fiction
     
    You ever caught yourself explaining the conceit of a piece of science fiction and, halfway through, realize how stupid it sounds? No matter how cool it is, it just sounds silly on its way out of your mouth?
     
    Compare these two ideas:
    • A group of kids make a movie and wind up learning about life and moving on in this coming of age film.
    • A mysterious alien appears in small-town Ohio giving a group of kids the adventure of a lifetime.
     
    The former sounds like a movie that’ll become this award winning, tearjerking, instant classic. The other one sounds more like a popcorn flick with little value beyond entertainment. Thing is; they’re the same movie: Super 8. It is a film about a group of kids making a movie, and they do go on an adventure, and they do learn about life and moving on and letting go and all. And yeah, there’s an alien too, but the alien is a plot device. The alien provides an external catalyst that creates the tensions of the story. Without it, Super 8 wouldn’t have worked the way it did.
     
    Not only that, but the alien in Super 8 essentially serves as the manifestation of one of the main themes of the film: understanding. The creature is an empath, able to feel emotions and see it through their eyes. Joe, the protagonist, has been unable to let go of his dead mother. It’s in the alien that he finds a sort of understanding and comes to terms with it and is, at last, able to let go and move on. We get a clear embodiment of the theme that doesn’t feel forced. It simply wouldn’t work in ‘normal’ fiction. The whole chain of events also has Joe develop from a pushover to the guy who’s doing his best to save the girl.
     
    Further more, the effects of the alien’s arrival causes the two fathers in the story to step up and be dads. Their animosity (due to one being the cause of the death of the other’s wife) is put aside when they have to go after their kids.
     
    Would it have been workable without an alien or other science fiction tropes? Possibly. Thing is, a different catalyst like a military invasion or even a serial killer would lend the movie unnecessary weight and implications. The alien allows the movie to focus in on the topics of forgiveness and letting go, without being bogged down by other themes.
     
    One of the many races in the universe of Mass Effect are the quarians. They’re a nomadic race that, a long time ago, created a ‘race’ of AI machines called the geth. The geth rebelled against the creators, forcing the quarians to be the nomads they are. They’re based in massive ships, sending their young adults out on pilgrimages to find things useful for their Migrant Fleet. Furthermore, they wear full bodysuits due to having an exceptionally weak immune system.
     
    Right, I know, it sounds kinda silly. Wandering aliens in spacesuits because of weak immune systems and all that.
    But it creates such a wonderful way to look at issues. The quarians are ostracized from the galactic society as a whole due to their faceless nature and that most of the ones seen are only trying to find something to benefit their fleet. The Mass Effect games explores this idea as well as the idea of being excluded from your own race with the quarian character of Tali’Zorah. She’s a wanderer from a wandering people; a young woman who wants not only to do right by her people but right by the galaxy as well. In her we have a tension born of ostracism from both others and home.
     
    Even if it’s subconscious, it makes us think about the idea of belonging and loyalties, of understanding and racism. Due to it’s scifi setting, Mass Effect doesn’t make it overt with words like “Jew” or “African-American” or anything like that; instead we’re giving an almost parableian look at the idea. Normal fiction would run the risk of sounding preachy or patronizing; in Mass Effect it comes with the setting.
     
    Science fiction has been described as a way to run social commentary or satirize situations, something it does very well. The setting is also capable of providing catalysts for fantastic character driven stories (or adventures as the case may be). It’s such a shame that so often the very idea of science fiction gets ridiculed due to the simple fact that it is not reality.
     
    There are some stories that can only be really told with a gap from reality; to say that the themes or points of these stories are somehow less due to them being ‘unrealistic’ is unfair.
     
    And c’mon: science fiction has friggin’ spaceships!
     
     
    Also: buy my book In Transit! It’s not science fiction, but one day you’ll be able to buy some!
  12. Ta-metru_defender
    Perks of being an NYU student? $5 tickets to see the opera Aida at the Met.
     
    Yeah.
     




     
     
     
    It was really cool. And in Italian. But cool. Reeaaal cool.
     

    +12 Culture!


     
    And yeah, of course we suited up.
     
     
     




    (this photo was taken while we were lining up for a proper one, figured it deserved to be spiffed up)


  13. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 036: Protagonists And Such
     
    Call him the main character, the lead, the hero, the player character; most every good story has a protagonist. He (or she) is the person we follow. Either because they provide the viewpoint and let us into the world or because they’re out on a grand quest. A lot of stories rise and fall based on the protagonist (or lack thereof).
     
    The lack of a protagonist in The Phantom Menace is one of its shortcomings. Obi-Wan would make a great one, only he winds up playing second fiddle to…well, everyone for much of the film (and sits out all of Tatooine). What about Anakin? He doesn’t get introduced until Tatooine and has no character arc (what’s his motivation?) beyond being the kid who wins the podrace and blows up the droid control ship. Heck, he hardly does jack on Coruscant.
    Padme, then! Only she doesn’t do much of anything (besides the senate thing) and her duplicity as to who’s actually her and who’s a handmaiden hamper our getting into her as a main character.
    Fine! Qui-Gon! He’s awesome, he gets the plot moving, he can be the protagonist, right? Only no. He plays the mentor archetype, the one who guides the protagonist along. Qui-Gon is a static character who guides the plot, but has no personal investment. Plus, at the climax, the duel with Darth Maul is (sad to say) completely irrelevant to the plot.
    Basically: there’s no protagonist in The Phantom Menace, no one for us to root for besides the umbrella of “the good guys”. It hampers our investment in the story. It worked for The Empire Strikes Back because we already had our investment in Luke and Han from A New Hope, but in the latter Luke was unquestionably our viewpoint character and protagonist. Menace has no such luck.
     
    Not to say having a clear protagonist means we’ve got a good story on our hands. Let’s look at Twilight (having read a lousy book makes for good examples). Bella is unquestionably the protagonist, but she lacks anything that makes us care. She has no motivation past getting Edward to fall in love with her. She’s boring and has little characterization/use besides being an avatar for the reader. If the protagonist has no proper characterization, arc, or motivation it becomes hard to get invested.
     
    Look, a work doesn’t have to be high art to have a protagonist. Rod, from Hot Rod, is an example of a great protagonist. Does he have characterization? He’s a delusional, hubristic wannabe stuntman, so yes. His arc is to get the girl and save his stepfather’s life so he can kick his rear. Why? Because he wants his stepfather to respect him. Yes, Hot Rod is a (hilarious) stupid film, but there’s a clear protagonist. It works! The Princess Bride has Westley and Buttercup as protagonists and Fezzik and Inigo as deuteragonists. Escape from New York has Snake Plisskin, Final Fantasy VII has Cloud, Chuck has Chuck.
     
    But what about ensembles? Shows like Firefly, How I Met Your Mother, and Lost; who’s the actual protagonist? That’s the beauty of tv, supporting characters can all get their spot in the limelight. An episode like “Ariel” has Simon as one of the primary protagonists, or “The Constant” has Desmond as its protagonist. Several protagonists are far easier in an episodic serial.
     
    Now the big question. The Avengers. It’s got seven main characters (Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Loki). Who’s the protagonist?
    They all are. Each one has their character arc and/or motivations (Loki wants to go home, Iron Man grows into a hero, Hawkeye wants to make up for what he did, etc). With or without the prior movies, each protagonist is set up in The Avengers and winds up as a realized character. You can call any one of them the lead (well, maybe not Hawkeye [it’s workable, but definitely a bit of a stretch]), and the movie still works. You can have multiple protagonists, so long as they’re actually protagonists and not a cast of supporting characters.
     
    It feels like it’s the obvious thing. Stories need not just a protagonist, but a good one. Motivations, characterization, an arc and all that. A good protagonist can help even a mediocre plot. Somewhat, anyway. Y’kinda need the whole lot to tell a good story.
     
    But you already knew that.
     
     
    Also: buy my book In Transit! Each story has a clear protagonist!
  15. Ta-metru_defender
    Because once upon a time the kid visited a ship when it was berthed in Ireland. And that ship, though it was not my ship, was the successor to my ship. By the transitive property of ships, that makes him cool. Real cool.
     
    He's also a neat guy who does a good job of living life and not dying. Which, really, is harder than it sounds. Take it from me.
     
    And because he posts entries like this.
     
    *raises glass*
  16. Ta-metru_defender

    Red Pill

    By Ta-metru_defender,

    Essays, Not Rants! 035: Red Pill

    So y’know how there’ll be this story but there’s this one break from reality? The one thing that makes this world just a little different from the normal one? It’s pretty much the foundation of the story; the one pill that the audience has to swallow to make the whole story digestible.
     
    If we can believe that ‘reality’ is really just a virtual construct and the real real world is a dystopian post-apocalyptic wasteland ruled by machines, The Matrix makes perfect sense. Since the world is virtual, running on walls and dodging bullets seems natural. Like Neo, we’ve gotta swallow that red pill and enter this world.
     
    Or Harry Potter where there’s a secret society of wizards and witches and other magical people living right under our Muggle noses. If we can believe that, then the Ministry of Magic, Centaurs, and all the rest fit right in.
     
    An audience’s willing suspension of disbelief is vital to a story. If they don’t buy it, they won’t invest. A lack of investment means they won’t care about it. And that’s terrible.
     
    So how do audiences swallow this pill?
     
    Well, a little bit of grounding helps a lot. Iron Man establishes Tony Stark as being a genius within the first fifteen-odd minutes of the film. With that in mind, it’s not hard to believe that he could build an Arc Reactor and a suit of powered armor in a cave with a box of scraps. It’s been established that he’s outrageously intelligent, so we buy it. When we see his garage/workshop we see that he has a couple of robot assistants with a limited amount of AI. Though this (and Jarvis, and his holographic workspace) is well beyond 2008 technology, we accept it because not only of how intelligent Tony is, but with the lack of focus he gives it. It’s simply there, it’s part of his world. Since it’s normal for him, it’s normal for us.
     
    There is a limit, of course. In Iron Man 2 they filmed a scene where the Tony and Pepper’s jet flew in the upper atmosphere, where gravity no longer affected them. It’s no big deal for them. Ultimately, Jon Favreau and crew chose to cut the scene as it wound up being just too much. Introducing the idea of a jet essentially going into space would have been one piece of tech too much in a movie with AI and powered armor. It would have shattered the suspension of disbelief. There’s a limit to how much you can give the audience.
     
    The Mass Effect games’ fantastic technology is all explained by the titular mass effect. It’s a fairly basic concept (currents applied to the mysterious Element Zero will either increase or decrease an object’s mass) that allows for faster than light travel, artificial gravity, and all that. Add some mysterious ancient technology and bam! Humanity joins the galactic community and gets caught up to speed with the other races.
     
    It’s not another world (like Star Wars) or flung way in the future (Halo, Firefly, or Star Trek), but it’s believable because of the simple technological conceit they present. Furthermore, the idea of mass effects is not only exhaustively fleshed out in the game’s databank (encyclopedia) but is internally consistent. It has its limits: mass effect fields can do a lot but they aren’t magic. All this keeps it believable.
     
    So we have movies with basic conceits: cursed treasure exists in Pirates of the Caribbean, the zombie apocalypse finally happened in Zombieland, Back to the Future asks you to believe that if you hit 88 miles per hour you will see some serious …stuff, in Up we believe a house can fly. It’s that doorway into the world.
     
    Of course, like all things, it’s not set in stone. Sometimes you can just say the Earth was demolished for a hyperspace bypass and if you make it fun enough we’ll play along. Because sometimes the only rules you really need is the rule of of fun; so you can have Scott Pilgrim do battle with the psychic-powered vegan or Westley and Buttercup fight a Rodent of Unusual Size. These movies are fun, serious logic need not apply.
     
    Unless, y'know, you break one of the rules you’ve already set up in your world. Then bam goes our suspension of disbelief.
  17. Ta-metru_defender
    "Hey, wanna take over one of the study rooms and get some homework done?"
     
    "Yeah, sounds good."
     
    "Man, I've got Astronomy, Creative Writing, and a mess of reading to get through."
     
    "Try French philosophy."
     
    "Touche. Alright: Reading time!"
     
    One Hour Later...
     



     
    Because that cartoon is so much cooler than analytical papers.
     
    And probably more intelligent.
  20. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 033: And I Feel Fine
     
    I live in New York City. Also, last week New York City and much of the US’ East Coast was hit by a hurricane. Power went out, plumbing failed in the higher floors of NYU’s dorms (that is: mine), and classes were cancelled.
     
    Of course, I find this all terribly exciting: this sort of event is what pop-culture has been training me for for years!
     
    See, we love post-apocalyptic scenarios. What could be cooler than banding together with a group of friends and fighting your way through zombies/nature/killer tomatoes/zombies/triffids/aliens? It’s become the new unspoken American dream. Never mind that chances are you’d be one of the zombies/unnamed dead, you want to do this.
     
    Understand the specifics here. I’m referring to movies that take place after the end, not during. So movies like 2012, or Cloverfield, or The Day After Tomorrow, or heck, most any Roland Emmerich movie need not apply. Neither am I talking about the really tragic/serious post-apocalyptic movie. This isn’t The Book of Eli or The Matrix. Or ones where civilization has come back (The Chrysladids or The Hunger Games). This is where the world has ended and, well, people are surviving.
     
    One thing eerily familiar about an emptyish NYC was those images from I Am Legend (which actually is a really tragic/serious post-apocalyptic movie...I know, hush). Granted, there was significantly more life in my NYC than in Robert Neville’s, but the idea of emptiness remains. Neville’s Manhattan is empty and deserted and he, as the survivor, has full run of the place. And really, who wouldn’t want to hunt (deer) in Times Square or play golf off of the Intrepid? Solitude and vampiric zombies aside, it’s a fun life. Well, maybe fun is a bit of a strong word, but it certainly has a few perks
     
    Unless you’re Tallahassee in Zombieland, in which case the whole dang apocalypse is a gleeful rush. After the zombie outbreak, Tallahassee found his true calling: zombie killing. And really, in this world where many of our pastimes include shooting stuff (virtually, anyway), it would be fun to be able to do that in real life too, no? This isn’t psychotic (necessarily), it’s just another hobby you can pursue after the end of the world.
    The skittish Columbus gets in on it too. By the end of Zombieland he’s developed into something more of a hero. Why/how? The end of the world (and potential fun and games and adventure within) gave him the opportunity. Sure, it mayn’t have been his precise dream, but it’s something that would never have happened ordinarily.
     
    So what am I getting at? Post-apocalyptic scenarios are wish fulfillment. There’s a reason zombie movies are so popular: it’s that chance to be a hero and fight your way out of something! The dull structure of normalcy has crumbled and you can finally use your wits to survive until help comes (if it does, anyway). You can jaywalk down main streets and go speeding around suburbs; it’s anarchy and you and your ragtag band of survivors are the only ones who aren’t shambling around looking for brains.
     
    Like a lot of people, I love a good post-apocalyptic story. John Wyndham was one of my favorite authors growing up, Zombieland was one of the first movies I added to my nascent BluRay collection. Because hey, it’s a pleasant little fantasy. Sure, it’s naive to think that you’ll be the survivor, but in that slim chance that you are, it’ll be fun. Besides the whole trying-not-to-die-and-just-wanting-a-darn-shower thing.
     
    The power’s been restored to most of Manhattan now. Classes start again on Monday and life returns to normal. Traffic lights work again and all that. The momentary post-apocalyptic scenario’s over. It was fun. But until the end of the world as we know it where zombies/nature/killer tomatoes/zombies/triffids/aliens walk the earth (if at all), I guess we’ll have to keep these daydreams to books, movies, and tv.
     
     
    Also: buy my book In Transit!
  21. Ta-metru_defender
    Day Five. Still waiting for power on our floor, but we're comfortable in our scavenging. The flights of stairs are slowly wearing on us.
    My ragtag band of survivors have decided to venture downtown.
    No sign of strange alien monsters


     
    I took a warm shower this morning at the NYU gym near my dorm. And hey, I will take communal showers if it means warm water.
    One of my ragtag band of survivors was called home to Philly, so I walked her halfway to Penn Station (or at least to where there were working traffic lights).
     
    Down to four, we once again headed to Weinstein for food. But wait! Courtesy of funding from JetBlue, a trio of foodtrucks were offering free food. Which is a particularly wonderful sort of food.
     
    Armed with shawarma (mine), waffles, and dumplings, we charged up at Weinstein then headed downtown.
     
    Now, this is where the damage is still felt. Where power is still being restored and civilization is still yet to return. These streets are empty. SoHo is deserted.
     
     
     




     
    Empty.
     
    Chinatown had a bit more life and further downtown there were some people sightseeing and people cleaning up. We decided to really go all I Am Legend on this and hit up the South Street Seaport. So we did, looked around, admired the Brooklyn Bridge and all.
     

     
    Sightseeing done, we trekked back uptown to campus for dinner and a stand up comedy show NYU had orgainized for us.
     
    But the real delight came when we finally made our way back to the dorms.
     
    The lights were on.
  22. Ta-metru_defender
    Day 4. Most of the residents of the building fled yesterday when the generator ran out of gas. Emergency power is back now, but the building is deserted. We survivors have found power and plumbing in the deserted floors beneath us. This is a luxury.
    Once more we are setting out in search of food and potential entertainment in the mysterious land known as 'Uptown'.
    Weather remains chilly, no sign of wolves.


     
    I'm really in survival mode now. My backpack has my laptop, a surge protector, and chargers for my phone and laptop in it. I've also got a pair of Field Dressings I kept from the army and a few other bits and pieces. On my belt I have my flashlight and SOG powerlock knife (both from the army). Also been wearing my boots. Man, this is the time all the army stuff comes in handy.
     
    We've begun scavenging. Sort of. The floors below ours (13th floor, man) have water (7th) or limited electricity (10th). We've been taking advantage of the latter to charge and the former to well, enjoying plumbing. Those floors are deserted so it's fair game. It's all I Am Legend up in here.
     
    My ragtag band of survivors decided to make a trek uptown. Suddenly we were surrounded by working traffic lights, lit stores, friggin' civilization.
     
    We made our way to Times Square and ate a wonderful, hot, cooked, proper, wonderful meal at a Ruby Tuesday's. Talked rubbish, chilled, and eventually headed back downtown to our dorms and NYU's campus.
     
    There's some soirée thing going on in Bobst Library, but we're just sitting around and chilling. Maybe tomorrow we'll explore more. For now, well, we can relax.
     
    Hmm.
     
    One of my professors wants us to email her our papers that were due on Monday. About that...
  23. Ta-metru_defender
    Day 3. Still no water or power on our floor. My ragtag band of survivors and I intend to head out in search of food and/or epic adventure. If we had power our movie marathon would be The Day After Tomorrow, I Am Legend, and Cloverfield in keeping with the spirit.
    Currently no sign of zombies.
    Or roommate.


     
     
    Slept good last night. In bed early, woke up late. Quite wonderful.
     
    Raymond and I headed down to Weinstein for lunch: the food was hot and wonderful. Washed up and sat around and charged our gear at the sockets for a while before heading back to our dorm.
     
    As it happens, the generator had run out of gas. The emergency lights and fire detectors were down. Worst of all, the wifi was gone. My ragtag band of survivors assembled and decided to head out. For adventure.
     
    We went to the East River Park, through Alphabet City. We passed a generator set up with a bunch of power strips on a table. There was a sign that said "Charge your phones for free. Be courteous. It'll all be over soon." The flooding in Avenue C and beyond had receded (to our relief and mild dismay) and the river looked calm.
     
    On our way back we passed by a Japanese restaurant (Rai Rai Ken) and a man came out motioning us towards the store and saying food.
     
    Free food.
     
    Another man came out with a tray with five plates of noodles and shrimp! We each took one (and a pair of chopsticks) and thanked him profusely. The food was good. So good. Never mind that hot food was hard to come by, it was good. We are going back when life returns to normal.
     
    But man. Funny how disasters work, huh?
     
    And since I've been posting a picture a day, here's me and my mad skills on a swing in the East River Park Playground:
     




  24. Ta-metru_defender
    My ragtag band of survivors and I headed to the Kimmel building for food an laptop/phone charging. On the way we passed Washington Square Park.'
     
    Well. Wow.
     



     
    On our way back we found an open pizza store and feasted like kings. Tonight will involve poker and sacrificing someone's laptop battery for a movie.
     
    Tomorrow the ragtag band of survivors will head out into the wild.
  25. Ta-metru_defender
    Last night, the power went out.




    Shortly thereafter the Freedom Tower went out.
     
    In our dorm we have no power, no water, but we do have wifi.
     
    Planning on venturing to other NYU buildings today for charging and food.
     
    And exploration. Because this is the closest I'm coming to a post-apocalyptic scenario with an internet connection.
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