Honestly, reviewing a decade is about as arbitrary as celebrating the end of a month or voting. Proper holidays and eras are marked by actual important events, interesting folk tales, or at least battles with orcs. All this decade nonsense is merely a byproduct of our number system. There's no cosmic significance, it's just the swapping of a digit.
That said, people put a lot of stock into it. In the U.S. at least, each decade is associated with a particular movement or aesthetic, even if it is a little forced. The sixties are remembered for the hippies, peace and love and LSD. What people forget is that it all took place in the last couple of years of that decade. But to be fair, if you remembered the movement during the seventies -- a decade marked by disco of all things -- it would be the tale of a massive cultural hangover, of failure, selling out and buying in.
But what the hell, right? Here we are, at the end of a decade that my own generation had a strong hand in shaping. If the twenties are represented by flappers and gangsters, the fightin' greatest generation belongs to the forties, and the eighties are slick wall street types, then there is little doubt that these aughts of ours will be remembered for the hipsters. And that's pretty depressing.
Here's the story, just in case the rock you were trapped under was larger than mine. Evidently, all those American Psycho assholes from cheerier economic times cut back on the cocaine long enough to raise some kids and put money away for them. This is called a trust fund, and it had to be explained to me because I am a poor boy from Appalachia and I do not understand such things. Naturally, these horrible little brats grew up into insufferable pricks with disposable funds and bad attitudes. They all moved to Brooklyn so they could hate each other more efficiently and for some reason this became the new hotness. Thanks to them, the rest of us will seem like total dipshits when future generations research the aughts via their Wikipedia brain implants. The end.
Of course that's not entirely accurate, and certainly doesn't do justice to the actual artists, musicians, and whathaveyous who laid the groundwork for the subculture in the first place. I'm simply taking the long view. I assume the scene looks different from a Williamsburg art gallery than it does from where I'm standing, but I'm standing here, and you can't have it both ways. The fact of the matter is that whether or not there are legit roots, the legacy will be idiotic fashion, bad beer, worse drugs, and ennui.
I must note that I honestly don't think the hipsters themselves are to blame for most of this. The pace of our society is such that the phases most subcultures go through happened to this one more or less at the same time. The whole thing was packaged for mass consumption before it even got the chance to define itself, burn out, and become the object of scorn in an organic fashion. Hipsterdom was exported simultaneously as a glamourous lifestyle and a stinging insult to its practitioners. The label itself is caustic, yet it can be applied to just about anyone in their twenties during the aughts if you look hard enough. Clothing, taste in music, choice of hangout, anything can identify you as a member, but there is no unifying philosophy, no community, no camaraderie to gain, only derision. It's almost as if the hipster subculture was created in a lab, the result of some nefarious scheme to devise the best possible social scene to stifle and slander an entire generation of young people.
It is somewhat unfair to come down too hard on a group characterized by a compulsive yearning for the authentic, even if the result was being unable to appreciate anything at all. Just look at what the the larger culture offered up this decade. It was a parade of mediocrity -- a decade of revamps, throwbacks, and revivals. Somebody somewhere crunched the numbers and decided that it just didn't add up to invest in new ideas when re-packaging old stuff guaranteed returns. Music artists made careers out of organizing the work of their forbears. Hollywood saw fit to defile just about every great comic book ever written and raked in an obscene amount doing it. Practically every decade this century has its music featured in themed dance parties at least once each week.
There was good stuff in there. This is a culture of such impressive excess that even niche art can sometimes get a chance. It was difficult to take heart from these small victories, though. Just ask a fan of Arrested Development or Firefly. Fresh, challenging stuff had to fight to survive in a market flooded with dime-a-dozen reality television shows and an endless stream of half-hearted movie remakes and sequels.
It's ironic. Our artistic culture these last ten years became a watered-down facade while at the same time the usually shadowy power apparatus came clean in unprecedented ways.
Make no mistake, our government has never been shy about using violence to forward the agendas of the economic institutions pulling the strings. After Vietnam though, they usually tried to hide that sort of thing -- private contractor assassins, special forces, propaganda, you name it. Failing that, they at least had to sell it really well. After September 11 -- that would be the one in 2001 in case you forgot -- they didn't really need to bother. All they have to do now is point at a country, mumble something about freedom and the founding fathers, maybe shed a single mournful tear and BOO-YA -- instant righteous war with a group of people who don't stand a chance.
The charade is now so paper-thin only the willingly ignorant can pretend it's there at all. Take Iraq, the war they tried to excuse on the basis of protecting folks from weapons of mass destruction and later as a humanitarian mission to free the Iraqi people from an oppressive regime. It all makes sense, provided you ignore the fact that North Korea had a far more viable nuclear program with a far crazier leader's finger on the button, and the fact that there are regimes in less oil-rich parts of the world that make Saddam Hussein look like George Fucking Washington. The military-industrial complex must perpetuate itself, and everyone needs to get on board or shut the hell up. Flower that up and amend the constitution, because that's how it works now.
Here in the U.S., the decade was presided over by George W. Bush, a man who has made great strides for the incredibly ignorant and unreasonably ambitious demographic. While I'm fairly certain he had very little to do with actual policy, his administration gave us endless wars, curtailed our rights, invaded our privacy, bombed the shit out of all kinds of people who didn't deserve it and cemented the swaggering, slack-jawed cowboy image the rest of the world has always had of anyone born on this part of the land mass. Naturally, after eight years, there was a bit of a backlash from all that. In 2008, the American people took the unprecedented step of electing someone who vowed to make war with furrowed brow as opposed to the throbbing erection of his predecessor. If there really were personifications for the decades, even the hippies would give us a swirly and take our lunch money.
If you too were disappointed that the armed conflict issue was settled by a vote between "war" and "more war," then I hope you weren't expecting great strides in the area of economic justice, because it wasn't even on the table. And by "not on the table," I mean of course such issues were swept from the metaphoric table, in the heat of passion, in order to create a space upon which the wealthy and powerful could make sweet sweet love to one another.
Imagine for a second that you get the chance to explain the recent financial meltdown to someone in the nineties through time travel or something. "You have to watch out for the investment banks and financial services industry on Wall Street," you'll say. "I know everyone's doing well now, but they've found a way to more or less artificially inflate their profits due to lack of oversight and regulatory loopholes. The problem is that the whole system is built upon the gamble that the housing market is never going to decline. But it will! When it does, all these old and reliable financial institutions will start falling like flies."
"Wow," your apprehensive listener will say, "that sounds serious. But how is that such a big deal? This is capitalism. Aren't they supposed to fail if they make a bad gamble?"
"That's the worst part," you'll elaborate while accentuating the story with bombastic gestures. "In the dead of night, government officials who used to work for Wall Street firms meet with the owners and executives and arrange to give them billions of dollars to keep them afloat with almost no strings attached. Over the next year or so, the economy will go into a tailspin, and this bailout system will expand."
"Uh... okay," your listener will edge away, but you'll grab them by the shoulders and lean in, eyes all crazy.
"The people responsible for the crisis get off without even a slap on the wrist. In fact, they all get huge bonuses. The stock market rebounds, but unemployment stays at record highs. Even though the whole idea of bailing them out was to avoid financial collapse, we give money to the people and institutions who caused it and let them do as they please with it. It's a disaster!"
"Oh," they'll say. "Wait here while I call the president," But they'll lie to you and call security instead, and you'll spend the rest of your life in a padded room mumbling about collateralized debt obligations and swatting at the ephemeral pixie bankers that harass you day and night.
No sane society would have allowed this to happen in the first place, but when things came to head in late 2008, the powers that supposedly represent us not only failed to dismantle this impenetrable and destructive system, but more or less gave the perpetrators license to continue indefinitely, comfortable with the knowledge that the government will bail them out if anything else goes wrong. As I write this, there is no substantive financial regulation being put in place or even really discussed, and an attempt to reform health care has morphed into a huge giveaway to the insurance companies who are responsible for that problem in the first place.
And every night you can turn on the television to watch tongue-in-cheek populist pundits scream and cry about any perceived -- and they are all perceived -- instance of resistance to our glorious "capitalist" system. The word itself has been reduced to meaninglessness. It has become a system completely unconcerned with long-term sustainability or any consideration for the society that supports it. It wears the trappings, but the merit-based system to which people refer died long ago and what rose in its place was something new. It no longer pretends to be more than a naked racket and so I feel it requires a new name, just for the sake of intellectual honesty.
When your children come of age, and you take them by the hand to go down to the local Wal-Mart to be implanted with the mandated computer chips to track corporate loyalty, brand preference, and hereditary debt to the banking overlords, you can tell them about the aughts and how a very clever person on the internet started calling it crapitalism.
While it wasn't invented during this decade, it's fair to say that the last ten years were when we figured out how we would make use of the internet. It is the technological tool with the greatest potential for the empowerment of small groups and individuals, and the societal element that will likely define our civilization until its collapse. Of course, we use it primarily to more efficiently scam one another, but this should come as no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention to the nature of the modern homo sapien.
To be fair, this is likely going to be the next decade's battle. Those who want to free information, grow communities, and subvert the old order are not likely to strike a deal with the forces who want to use the internet to cram advertisements in your face before they stomp on it -- at least not any time soon. The aughts were the years we used to experiment with it. We now have an understanding of its potential -- for creation and destruction, freedom and control -- and we can start to imagine just what we can do with it, and what we ought to avoid.
Previous generations imagined flying cars and laser guns by now. Fortunately for science fiction writers, technology seldom plays out exactly as expected. When this decade began, I never imagined I'd bother to own a cellular phone. It seemed to be quite an expense for such a small convenience. However, as I write this, I have in my pocket a device that can communicate with satellites to determine my exact location. Maybe it's not as exciting to everyone as it is to me, but we are living the science fiction of ten years ago.
So far we are not doing very well with it, I have to say. While this decade has seen the exploration of Mars, the mapping of the human genome, and the construction of a device intended to smash reality into its constituent parts, we have also been forced to witness the nastier side of advancement. We've seen the rejection of reason in favor of a soothing fairy tale to explain where we come from. We've seen people cry over the definition of the word "planet." We've had to watch our media and elected officials quibble over the extent of climate change while completely failing to address the thousands of other examples of how humanity is destroying the Earth.
Putting aside the question of whether or not a technological solution to our problems is possible or even desirable, it is a goal I can at least understand. We aren't even trying for some kind of Star Trek future anymore. When space-faring alien life forms visit our bleak world centuries from now they will conclude that we were a petty, violent people who had the means to avoid destruction but were too busy applying all our effort into the accumulation of personal wealth. I'd always hoped we were capable of more than that.
It's frustrating because we have the awareness to see just how oppressive and wasteful and foul our society has become, but we ignore it. We have the tools to tear down and replace the obsolete power structures that tell us how to live, but we forsake them. I still think we are a species with the ingenuity and gumption to learn from our mistakes and come up with something new and better, but we just aren't trying.
Apparently there isn't even a consensus on what to call this decade. I think "the aughts" is the perfect name for ten years we utterly squandered. Ten years in which the curtains were pulled back and we caught a glimpse of exactly how things work, but we decided to keep chatting with the giant flaming head.
In ten years, we'll declare another arbitrary milestone. While the most recent one left much to be desired, and that can be somewhat depressing, we always have the next one. Maybe the tens will be the decade we get worked up and do something. I wonder what that review will be like.
Personally, I want to write it in bullet holes. I want to write it in fire on the White House lawn. I'll write it in morse code, clinking my shackles together in the hope that someone can hear it. I want to write it with brainwaves that ride superelectrons straight into your cerebrum. I want to scratch it into the wall of a ruined building with what's left of my fingernails. I want to write the story of how we got it right or the story of how we went down in flames. I don't care as long as it's not the story of how we sat on our hands for ten more years.
If I don't write it, then I hope I die well -- or it's because I'm too busy having sex on the fucking moon.
District 9
J.J. Abrams needs to find a deep, dark cave. He needs to crawl inside that cave and when he has found the lowest chamber, a place as far as possible from a camera or script or Hollywood budget he must sit in the dark, alone, and think about what he has done. Maybe we'll slap him with a rolled-up newspaper or something first.
Star Trek, despite its many mistakes and inconsistencies, is a franchise that is literally awash with good ideas. It has exploration, war, intrigue, social and political commentary, ruminations not just on what it means to be human, or even humanoid, but on what it means to be alive -- even if you're a silicon-based rock-eating slug. It has a sense of wonder, hope for the future. It has bad episodes, bad movies, hell, it has bad series, but it has a brain. It has -- if you'll allow me to get metaphysical -- a soul.
Or at least it did until Abrams got his hands on it. Whether it was due to ham-handed idiocy or cold-hearted calculation, he stripped all the nuance and brains from Star Trek, flashed it up and made it just like every other boring sci-fi/action movie out there. Way to go.
You see, what Abrams doesn't get, and what District 9's Neill Blomkamp does is that sci-fi isn't just about lasers and spaceships.
To be clear, there ain't nothing wrong with lasers and spaceships.
However, good science fiction is about the society that uses the lasers and spaceships. You don't imagine technological and social advances because they look cool, you do it to create a unique lens through which to view human nature.
District 9's story is centered around two million alien refugees who become stranded on our planet when their mothership breaks down floating above Johannesburg, South Africa. Starving and desperate, they are brought to the surface and eventually forced into the apartheid-style slum for which the film is named.
Shuffled into the middle of this is our human protagonist, Wikus van der Merwe. He's a dorky bureaucrat who finds himself in a position of authority just when the shit hits the fan.
The film is structured beautifully. The documentary-style framing allows Blomkamp to give us the exposition in a coherent manner without wasting to much time on it. Lots of other movies would be so in love with themselves they'd feel the need to waste twenty or thirty minutes just watching the mothership appear. District 9 has no time for such trivialities, however, and assumes we get it after a tight expository montage.
One of the film's biggest strengths is this frugal approach -- likely due to the fact that District 9 is an expansion of Blomkamp's 2005 short film Alive in Joburg. There is a small central cast of characters, and few gratuitous action sequences.
Do not mistake that sentence to mean that this film is not a balls out, heavy metal, face-peelingly violent ride, because it absolutely is. What makes it so good is that all that action actually matters. You know the characters so well and you are so intimately aware of the stakes that the action sucks you in like you're a part of it. I'm having trouble remembering many sci-fi films that had me this invested in the action since Star Wars.
The setting is so compelling because of its willingness to make us uncomfortable. It revels in how petty, conniving, self-serving and short-sighted people can be while deftly avoiding -- save maybe one or two brief incidents -- James Bond villain-style evil. We're dragged screaming through a sequence of little atrocities that never seem far-fetched, and are all the more horrific as a result.
Most importantly, however, District 9 is fresh. It towers above the wasteland of shitty remakes, revamps, sequels and adaptations. It was made because an artist had a story to tell, not because name recognition sells tickets. For that reason alone, you ought to see this film. Just as I have begged you to cease giving money to those who merely exhume the past in the hopes of getting upwards of nine dollars out of you because you can't resist nostalgia, I must now entreat you to support honest and heartfelt artistic expression.
Go see District 9.
Star Trek, despite its many mistakes and inconsistencies, is a franchise that is literally awash with good ideas. It has exploration, war, intrigue, social and political commentary, ruminations not just on what it means to be human, or even humanoid, but on what it means to be alive -- even if you're a silicon-based rock-eating slug. It has a sense of wonder, hope for the future. It has bad episodes, bad movies, hell, it has bad series, but it has a brain. It has -- if you'll allow me to get metaphysical -- a soul.
Or at least it did until Abrams got his hands on it. Whether it was due to ham-handed idiocy or cold-hearted calculation, he stripped all the nuance and brains from Star Trek, flashed it up and made it just like every other boring sci-fi/action movie out there. Way to go.
You see, what Abrams doesn't get, and what District 9's Neill Blomkamp does is that sci-fi isn't just about lasers and spaceships.
To be clear, there ain't nothing wrong with lasers and spaceships.
However, good science fiction is about the society that uses the lasers and spaceships. You don't imagine technological and social advances because they look cool, you do it to create a unique lens through which to view human nature.
District 9's story is centered around two million alien refugees who become stranded on our planet when their mothership breaks down floating above Johannesburg, South Africa. Starving and desperate, they are brought to the surface and eventually forced into the apartheid-style slum for which the film is named.
Shuffled into the middle of this is our human protagonist, Wikus van der Merwe. He's a dorky bureaucrat who finds himself in a position of authority just when the shit hits the fan.
The film is structured beautifully. The documentary-style framing allows Blomkamp to give us the exposition in a coherent manner without wasting to much time on it. Lots of other movies would be so in love with themselves they'd feel the need to waste twenty or thirty minutes just watching the mothership appear. District 9 has no time for such trivialities, however, and assumes we get it after a tight expository montage.
One of the film's biggest strengths is this frugal approach -- likely due to the fact that District 9 is an expansion of Blomkamp's 2005 short film Alive in Joburg. There is a small central cast of characters, and few gratuitous action sequences.
Do not mistake that sentence to mean that this film is not a balls out, heavy metal, face-peelingly violent ride, because it absolutely is. What makes it so good is that all that action actually matters. You know the characters so well and you are so intimately aware of the stakes that the action sucks you in like you're a part of it. I'm having trouble remembering many sci-fi films that had me this invested in the action since Star Wars.
The setting is so compelling because of its willingness to make us uncomfortable. It revels in how petty, conniving, self-serving and short-sighted people can be while deftly avoiding -- save maybe one or two brief incidents -- James Bond villain-style evil. We're dragged screaming through a sequence of little atrocities that never seem far-fetched, and are all the more horrific as a result.
Most importantly, however, District 9 is fresh. It towers above the wasteland of shitty remakes, revamps, sequels and adaptations. It was made because an artist had a story to tell, not because name recognition sells tickets. For that reason alone, you ought to see this film. Just as I have begged you to cease giving money to those who merely exhume the past in the hopes of getting upwards of nine dollars out of you because you can't resist nostalgia, I must now entreat you to support honest and heartfelt artistic expression.
Go see District 9.
Output: Opinion
I assure you, weekly heavy-handed social commentary wasn't actually part of the plan at first.
Today I sat down to hammer out another current events-inspired column because I had established that as my default plan whenever I had failed to observe something current about which to write a media review article. I realized, however, that I only have so many of those in me.
You know, another one of those "this is what happened, this is why that's bullshit, this is why my political views are superior" articles. At first, I was being cute -- treating a serious topic the same way one would an arts and entertainment- style review. I thought it was clever, at least.
The thing is, I can't do that anymore.
Oh, it was fun while it lasted, my weekly seditious screed-writing session, and my views have not changed, but I'm not comfortable with the level of repetition I foresee if this continues. This is why I wouldn't consider myself a political writer of any kind, nor would I pursue a career as such. It strikes me now just how effective a tool the labyrinthine mess of the modern political bureaucracy really is. It compartmentalizes our rage and concern, gives it to us in pieces, obscures the larger picture by over-analyzing every detail of one specific issue until the news cycle replaces it with something else. Whether purposeful conspiracy, happy coincidence, or some combination thereof, the power structure gives us our medicine and the media adds some sugar to help it go down a little easier. Writing my reactionary political columns, I allowed myself to be a small part of that.
I started this project because I wasn't writing. I caught myself killing time with hours of video games and really bad comics and it made me depressed. Also, I had recently quit smoking cigarettes and I needed something to do with my hands. The point is, it was always an exercise more than anything else. Now, however, I feel the urge to create rather than react. Output: Opinion successfully roused me from the doldrums and gave my vocabulary and fingers a much-needed workout. However, I've decided it's time to branch out. I haven't written so much as a short story in quite some time.
This is not the end for Output: Opinion, only the end of its rigid schedule. This is also not the end of publishing online for me, but a change of format and content. I want to thank my handful of regular readers, my friends who offer criticism and editorial skills.
All, what? Three of you...
See you next time.
Today I sat down to hammer out another current events-inspired column because I had established that as my default plan whenever I had failed to observe something current about which to write a media review article. I realized, however, that I only have so many of those in me.
You know, another one of those "this is what happened, this is why that's bullshit, this is why my political views are superior" articles. At first, I was being cute -- treating a serious topic the same way one would an arts and entertainment- style review. I thought it was clever, at least.
The thing is, I can't do that anymore.
Oh, it was fun while it lasted, my weekly seditious screed-writing session, and my views have not changed, but I'm not comfortable with the level of repetition I foresee if this continues. This is why I wouldn't consider myself a political writer of any kind, nor would I pursue a career as such. It strikes me now just how effective a tool the labyrinthine mess of the modern political bureaucracy really is. It compartmentalizes our rage and concern, gives it to us in pieces, obscures the larger picture by over-analyzing every detail of one specific issue until the news cycle replaces it with something else. Whether purposeful conspiracy, happy coincidence, or some combination thereof, the power structure gives us our medicine and the media adds some sugar to help it go down a little easier. Writing my reactionary political columns, I allowed myself to be a small part of that.
I started this project because I wasn't writing. I caught myself killing time with hours of video games and really bad comics and it made me depressed. Also, I had recently quit smoking cigarettes and I needed something to do with my hands. The point is, it was always an exercise more than anything else. Now, however, I feel the urge to create rather than react. Output: Opinion successfully roused me from the doldrums and gave my vocabulary and fingers a much-needed workout. However, I've decided it's time to branch out. I haven't written so much as a short story in quite some time.
This is not the end for Output: Opinion, only the end of its rigid schedule. This is also not the end of publishing online for me, but a change of format and content. I want to thank my handful of regular readers, my friends who offer criticism and editorial skills.
All, what? Three of you...
See you next time.
Secret Invasion
I must confess I like the big crossovers. It's a guilty pleasure I indulge only occasionally, because I'd much rather curl up with a handful of trade paperbacks than wait the months and years it takes the major comics industry to shamble through a story arc. I realize it's the folks who buy the weeklies who keep the whole thing going, but I'm not going to bend over backwards to support the medium while those who are actually creating the stuff act like it's still the golden age.
Maybe it all made sense way back in the day when it was just Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and a Gutenberg, but this is the post Al Gore era, and we've got some fairly sophisticated technology that is not really being utilized by Marvel and the others.
Come on, guys. Haven't you heard of webcomics? It's embarrassing to watch your multi-million dollar operations struggle to match the output of one dude in a basement with Adobe Creative Suite and a stolen wireless signal.
I didn't grow up with a favorite series or publisher. It was later in life, reading DC's Kingdom Come and its fat, inbred cousins on the Marvel side -- Earth X, Paradise X, and Universe X -- that I was introduced to the world of the ludicrously complicated serialized comic book universe. While the former sparked very little interest, for some reason Marvel's complex milieu was weirdly compelling, and I set out to explore further. I think one should be awarded a master's degree in the Marvel Universe if you manage to complete the X Series and have any idea what the hell happened. I didn't want to see all that research go to waste.
Obviously I didn't read everything, but I ended up taking in all the crossovers and most of the major stories involving the X-Men between Grant Morrison's New X-Men (which began in 2001) and the more recent Secret Invasion (which ended January of this year). After mentioning that last one, I feel I have to revise the statement I made earlier.
I like the idea of big crossovers.
The reason I prefer Marvel is that DC's characters are almost all loners. Most of them acquired their powers through accident or determination, and most of them are just different versions of the tired old superhero double life meme. Now, I wasn't around when X-Men began, so it could have been different before, but Marvel's characters are more likely to be part of a community of some kind. They don't observe the world from orbit, thinking important thoughts and punching monsters, they're part of the world. They influence society and society influences them.
In theory, the Marvel universe is well-suited for crossover stories. Indeed, some very entertaining titles were spawned in this current crossover-heavy era. House of M was good, but I feel obligated to state that I probably enjoy alternate universe stories and the X-Men series more than average. Brian Michael Bendis even went so far as to retcon crossovers into Marvel's history with New Avengers Illuminati. In this limited series, it is revealed that the leaders of various superhuman communities had been meeting in secret for decades, pulling the strings behind the scenes. I recommend it highly.
It's clear that Bendis has quite an affinity for crime, conspiracy, and mystery storytelling because he's been setting up -- or at least has convinced everyone that he has -- the Secret Invasion plot since 2004's Secret War at least. He sends Nick Fury underground and hints that something is rotten, at any rate.
I enjoyed Civil War for the most part. I especially admired the willingness it showed to introduce a world-shattering event and not simply reset everything after it was over. However, you can start to see problems with the crossover-reliant system. While the big-budget limited series is typically put together by a talented writer with above-average art and they're given authority to play with the entire setting, it starts to strain under the weight of Marvel's bloated continuity.
Not only is the central storyline burdened with at least nodding to each and every title and character, but all those other little stories get steamrolled at the same time. I've read a few of the sideline titles that were released during Civil War and you can almost hear the conversation between Joe Quesada and the less important writers in which they're instructed to change the backdrop of their comics for six months.
Don't get me started on World War Hulk.
One shining beacon of awesome in this mess takes place directly prior to the events of Secret Invasion, and that is the New Avengers series written by Bendis and penciled by Leinil Francis Yu. This one is still ongoing, but I'm talking specifically about the period between the two crossovers. After the civil war ends, a secret Avengers group is formed by the few remaining heroes who are still willing to resist registration. Led by Luke Cage, they are all traditionally loners. They don't trust each other, but they have no one left to rely upon. Bendis expertly captures the tension and isolation they experience, and Yu's pencils are unique -- gritty and stylized without descending into Chris Bachalo-esque undecipherable madness.
Last year all the drama, the conspiracies, the role-reversals, and mysteries culminated in Secret Invasion -- an infuriating cop-out that not only sucked as a stand-alone, but went back in time to inject stupid into the good stuff that happened before.
As it turns out, the interesting conflicts and power dynamics of the last decade or se were not the result of Marvel trying to add some depth to their world and characters, but were engineered by the shape-shifting Skrulls, now re-worked as religious space zealots.
What gives, Marvel? Did you go back on your stupid pills? I was interested for a while there. I thought maybe you wanted to, I don't know, actually explore the consequences of a world full of super-beings rather than just invent monsters and punch them while destroying a few blocks of Manhattan month after month after month?
I'll try to be brief. After the events of Civil War, Tony Stark is made director of S.H.I.E.L.D. He also helps to establish a nationwide superhero police force with a team in every state and a brand new all-registered Avengers in charge. While Luke Cage's Secret Avengers are in Japan fighting The Hand, they kill Electra. To their surprise, she was a Skrull agent. It turns out they had been operating in secret for some time to destabilize Earth's defenses -- especially the super-powered variety-- by infiltrating and compromising S.H.I.E.L.D., the Fifty State Initiative and basically everything else.
Over the course of the series, half the major characters are revealed as Skrulls and betray the others. Both Avengers teams are sidelined in the Savage Land when the invasion begins, and the second-stringers are easily overrun by armies of Skrulls outfitted with the stolen powers of Earth's heroes. (un)Fortunately, the Avengers get back into the game and save the day with the help of a new Captain Marvel, a new Captain America, a resurfaced Nick Fury, and a resurrected Thor.
Sadly, it was all a big, flashy reset button. This is exactly why I was hesitant to read the long-running, big name comics for so long. The stakes are set so low, it's impossible to take anything seriously. It's the same old bait-and-switch routine of the old Batman TV series. At the end of every other episode, Batman would be in some kind of deadly trap from which he would easily escape the following week. Bendis was just working the long con.
Look at the House of M series. The Scarlet Witch, completely insane and fresh from murdering her husband and half of her teammates, changes the entire world into one created by the hopes and dreams of her family and friends. Magneto rules a rather peaceful and progressive world in which mutants are dominant and humans are dying out. It was a fresh take on the old eyepatch-wearing, obviously terrible alternate universe theme which I enjoyed immensely.
Civil War was good because it put the characters into a moral quandary the likes of which is seldom seen in mainstream comics. The conflict over registration forced the characters to reflect upon their perceived roles in the power structure. We got to see which characters would stick to their convictions even if it meant sacrificing friends, family, and reputation.
Aside from a rather half-hearted attempt to discuss religious extremism, Secret Invasion does not go farther than "aliens bad, humans good" in the philosophy department. The previous crossovers were interesting because they subverted my expectations, but by Secret Invasion the Marvel universe got scared and ran back into the warm, comforting embrace of its half-century-old conventions.
It's possible I've set the bar too high. I let a few outliers adjust my expectations for a medium that is renowned for pulling this kind of crap year after boring, unimaginative year. I guess the real issue is whether it was worth all the effort. I read through a lot of garbage to discover the titles I actually liked. In the end I suppose it was worthwhile, but for the next ten years' worth of material, I think I'll let someone else do the heavy lifting. Any takers?
Maybe it all made sense way back in the day when it was just Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and a Gutenberg, but this is the post Al Gore era, and we've got some fairly sophisticated technology that is not really being utilized by Marvel and the others.
Come on, guys. Haven't you heard of webcomics? It's embarrassing to watch your multi-million dollar operations struggle to match the output of one dude in a basement with Adobe Creative Suite and a stolen wireless signal.
I didn't grow up with a favorite series or publisher. It was later in life, reading DC's Kingdom Come and its fat, inbred cousins on the Marvel side -- Earth X, Paradise X, and Universe X -- that I was introduced to the world of the ludicrously complicated serialized comic book universe. While the former sparked very little interest, for some reason Marvel's complex milieu was weirdly compelling, and I set out to explore further. I think one should be awarded a master's degree in the Marvel Universe if you manage to complete the X Series and have any idea what the hell happened. I didn't want to see all that research go to waste.
Obviously I didn't read everything, but I ended up taking in all the crossovers and most of the major stories involving the X-Men between Grant Morrison's New X-Men (which began in 2001) and the more recent Secret Invasion (which ended January of this year). After mentioning that last one, I feel I have to revise the statement I made earlier.
I like the idea of big crossovers.
The reason I prefer Marvel is that DC's characters are almost all loners. Most of them acquired their powers through accident or determination, and most of them are just different versions of the tired old superhero double life meme. Now, I wasn't around when X-Men began, so it could have been different before, but Marvel's characters are more likely to be part of a community of some kind. They don't observe the world from orbit, thinking important thoughts and punching monsters, they're part of the world. They influence society and society influences them.
In theory, the Marvel universe is well-suited for crossover stories. Indeed, some very entertaining titles were spawned in this current crossover-heavy era. House of M was good, but I feel obligated to state that I probably enjoy alternate universe stories and the X-Men series more than average. Brian Michael Bendis even went so far as to retcon crossovers into Marvel's history with New Avengers Illuminati. In this limited series, it is revealed that the leaders of various superhuman communities had been meeting in secret for decades, pulling the strings behind the scenes. I recommend it highly.
It's clear that Bendis has quite an affinity for crime, conspiracy, and mystery storytelling because he's been setting up -- or at least has convinced everyone that he has -- the Secret Invasion plot since 2004's Secret War at least. He sends Nick Fury underground and hints that something is rotten, at any rate.
I enjoyed Civil War for the most part. I especially admired the willingness it showed to introduce a world-shattering event and not simply reset everything after it was over. However, you can start to see problems with the crossover-reliant system. While the big-budget limited series is typically put together by a talented writer with above-average art and they're given authority to play with the entire setting, it starts to strain under the weight of Marvel's bloated continuity.
Not only is the central storyline burdened with at least nodding to each and every title and character, but all those other little stories get steamrolled at the same time. I've read a few of the sideline titles that were released during Civil War and you can almost hear the conversation between Joe Quesada and the less important writers in which they're instructed to change the backdrop of their comics for six months.
Don't get me started on World War Hulk.
One shining beacon of awesome in this mess takes place directly prior to the events of Secret Invasion, and that is the New Avengers series written by Bendis and penciled by Leinil Francis Yu. This one is still ongoing, but I'm talking specifically about the period between the two crossovers. After the civil war ends, a secret Avengers group is formed by the few remaining heroes who are still willing to resist registration. Led by Luke Cage, they are all traditionally loners. They don't trust each other, but they have no one left to rely upon. Bendis expertly captures the tension and isolation they experience, and Yu's pencils are unique -- gritty and stylized without descending into Chris Bachalo-esque undecipherable madness.
Last year all the drama, the conspiracies, the role-reversals, and mysteries culminated in Secret Invasion -- an infuriating cop-out that not only sucked as a stand-alone, but went back in time to inject stupid into the good stuff that happened before.
As it turns out, the interesting conflicts and power dynamics of the last decade or se were not the result of Marvel trying to add some depth to their world and characters, but were engineered by the shape-shifting Skrulls, now re-worked as religious space zealots.
What gives, Marvel? Did you go back on your stupid pills? I was interested for a while there. I thought maybe you wanted to, I don't know, actually explore the consequences of a world full of super-beings rather than just invent monsters and punch them while destroying a few blocks of Manhattan month after month after month?
I'll try to be brief. After the events of Civil War, Tony Stark is made director of S.H.I.E.L.D. He also helps to establish a nationwide superhero police force with a team in every state and a brand new all-registered Avengers in charge. While Luke Cage's Secret Avengers are in Japan fighting The Hand, they kill Electra. To their surprise, she was a Skrull agent. It turns out they had been operating in secret for some time to destabilize Earth's defenses -- especially the super-powered variety-- by infiltrating and compromising S.H.I.E.L.D., the Fifty State Initiative and basically everything else.
Over the course of the series, half the major characters are revealed as Skrulls and betray the others. Both Avengers teams are sidelined in the Savage Land when the invasion begins, and the second-stringers are easily overrun by armies of Skrulls outfitted with the stolen powers of Earth's heroes. (un)Fortunately, the Avengers get back into the game and save the day with the help of a new Captain Marvel, a new Captain America, a resurfaced Nick Fury, and a resurrected Thor.
Sadly, it was all a big, flashy reset button. This is exactly why I was hesitant to read the long-running, big name comics for so long. The stakes are set so low, it's impossible to take anything seriously. It's the same old bait-and-switch routine of the old Batman TV series. At the end of every other episode, Batman would be in some kind of deadly trap from which he would easily escape the following week. Bendis was just working the long con.
Look at the House of M series. The Scarlet Witch, completely insane and fresh from murdering her husband and half of her teammates, changes the entire world into one created by the hopes and dreams of her family and friends. Magneto rules a rather peaceful and progressive world in which mutants are dominant and humans are dying out. It was a fresh take on the old eyepatch-wearing, obviously terrible alternate universe theme which I enjoyed immensely.
Civil War was good because it put the characters into a moral quandary the likes of which is seldom seen in mainstream comics. The conflict over registration forced the characters to reflect upon their perceived roles in the power structure. We got to see which characters would stick to their convictions even if it meant sacrificing friends, family, and reputation.
Aside from a rather half-hearted attempt to discuss religious extremism, Secret Invasion does not go farther than "aliens bad, humans good" in the philosophy department. The previous crossovers were interesting because they subverted my expectations, but by Secret Invasion the Marvel universe got scared and ran back into the warm, comforting embrace of its half-century-old conventions.
It's possible I've set the bar too high. I let a few outliers adjust my expectations for a medium that is renowned for pulling this kind of crap year after boring, unimaginative year. I guess the real issue is whether it was worth all the effort. I read through a lot of garbage to discover the titles I actually liked. In the end I suppose it was worthwhile, but for the next ten years' worth of material, I think I'll let someone else do the heavy lifting. Any takers?
Nuclear Weapons
I don't care where you are on the political spectrum, listen up. Whoever "they" are, they do not hate us for our freedom. They do not hate us for our fast food, our rock and roll music, or our apple pie. They hate us because of our insipid yet casual hegemonic behavior with regard to everyone else.
This week, The Democratic People's Republic of North Korea conducted an underground test of a nuclear weapon which may have yielded up to 20 kilotons -- the rough equivalent of the nuclear bombs dropped at the end of World War II.
Naturally, this action has been almost unanimously condemned by the international community with practically identical rhetoric. It's the same old jeopardizing-peace-and-stability routine. I won't bore you with the details, because I'm sure you've heard it all before.
In fact, we've been going through this for years now with North Korea and others and I'd just like to stop for a moment and ask why. Why bother? I don't actually think North Korea is going to try to nuke the White House or even deploy their weapons against their neighbors. They don't want to use them, they just want to sit at the big kid's table.
Would that be so bad? The way I see it, North Korea could use the geopolitical equivalent of a hug right now. It was the Cold War, people. They bet on the wrong horse and now they're scared and alone in a world full of enemies. Of course they want nuclear weapons, because the way they see it, that's their only path to legitimacy.
Well, now they have them. We could continue to pretend we can force them to unlearn their creation, or we can face reality and focus on how to keep them in their silos. What's the best way to keep them in their silos? Stop antagonizing North Korea.
Am I saying we should sanction the proliferation of nuclear weapons? Fuck no. I'm just trying to point out that our skewed perception of the issue is going to preclude reaching any kind of resolution everyone can live with, and our sanctimonious attitude is only going to foster more resentment.
We use terms like "rogue state," and assign them to the Axis of Evil. We treat them like comic book villains because that's a lot easier than trying to understand where they're coming from, or -- even worse -- acknowledging our own role in the situation.
After all, they're only playing the game we created.
When we invented the atom bomb, we could not drop those motherfuckers fast enough. Now here we are, the only country ever to use nuclear weapons on another and we're on top of the world -- we were at least. We tell ourselves it's because we're somehow better, that we're capable and responsible enough to have them. What they see in places like North Korea and Iran is rather different.
Whoever has the bombs makes the rules.
They see a juvenile club, complete with decoder rings and "No Girls Allowed" sign. They watch us invade sovereign states without provocation while insisting they are the dangerous ones. They see us sign nonproliferation treaties and then turn a blind eye when our friends want to break the rules.
This is the primary reason we will never be free of terrorist cells, violent religious zealots, and dick-waving contests with other countries.
Just to be clear, I think governance on the country/state level in general is madness, I don't care if its a benevolent democracy or an iron-fisted authoritarian situation. Far be it for me to try and tell you how all how to talk between your crazy selves. Where I come from, however, if you patronize and belittle everyone around you, you're not allowed to act surprised when they resent you for it.
This week, The Democratic People's Republic of North Korea conducted an underground test of a nuclear weapon which may have yielded up to 20 kilotons -- the rough equivalent of the nuclear bombs dropped at the end of World War II.
Naturally, this action has been almost unanimously condemned by the international community with practically identical rhetoric. It's the same old jeopardizing-peace-and-stability routine. I won't bore you with the details, because I'm sure you've heard it all before.
In fact, we've been going through this for years now with North Korea and others and I'd just like to stop for a moment and ask why. Why bother? I don't actually think North Korea is going to try to nuke the White House or even deploy their weapons against their neighbors. They don't want to use them, they just want to sit at the big kid's table.
Would that be so bad? The way I see it, North Korea could use the geopolitical equivalent of a hug right now. It was the Cold War, people. They bet on the wrong horse and now they're scared and alone in a world full of enemies. Of course they want nuclear weapons, because the way they see it, that's their only path to legitimacy.
Well, now they have them. We could continue to pretend we can force them to unlearn their creation, or we can face reality and focus on how to keep them in their silos. What's the best way to keep them in their silos? Stop antagonizing North Korea.
Am I saying we should sanction the proliferation of nuclear weapons? Fuck no. I'm just trying to point out that our skewed perception of the issue is going to preclude reaching any kind of resolution everyone can live with, and our sanctimonious attitude is only going to foster more resentment.
We use terms like "rogue state," and assign them to the Axis of Evil. We treat them like comic book villains because that's a lot easier than trying to understand where they're coming from, or -- even worse -- acknowledging our own role in the situation.
After all, they're only playing the game we created.
When we invented the atom bomb, we could not drop those motherfuckers fast enough. Now here we are, the only country ever to use nuclear weapons on another and we're on top of the world -- we were at least. We tell ourselves it's because we're somehow better, that we're capable and responsible enough to have them. What they see in places like North Korea and Iran is rather different.
Whoever has the bombs makes the rules.
They see a juvenile club, complete with decoder rings and "No Girls Allowed" sign. They watch us invade sovereign states without provocation while insisting they are the dangerous ones. They see us sign nonproliferation treaties and then turn a blind eye when our friends want to break the rules.
This is the primary reason we will never be free of terrorist cells, violent religious zealots, and dick-waving contests with other countries.
Just to be clear, I think governance on the country/state level in general is madness, I don't care if its a benevolent democracy or an iron-fisted authoritarian situation. Far be it for me to try and tell you how all how to talk between your crazy selves. Where I come from, however, if you patronize and belittle everyone around you, you're not allowed to act surprised when they resent you for it.
State Sovereignty
Imagine my surprise. I'm watching clips from Fox News posted to the media watchdog websites I typically peruse with my morning coffee and I see the likes of Glen Beck and Sean Hannity calling for dissent, secession and revolution. Unsurprisingly, it didn't take long for conservatives of all kinds to take up the banner of anti-establishment once they were ousted from positions of power.
And I have to give them credit. If nothing else, the right wing of the American political spectrum is a worthy adversary. During the Bush administration, the Democratic party basically rolled over and did as it was told, but now, riding high and full of energy from President Obama's landslide victory, they still can't manage to get anything done.
The Republicans under Bush and Cheney took full advantage of the nation's fear and anger to realize a seriously heinous agenda and when anyone complained, they more or less just told them to shut up. But they went too far. They screwed the pooch and now many of their pasty, bloated Republican faces no longer spew their xenophobic nonsense in the halls of power. They are not, however, taking it laying down, and this revolution is being televised.
Just like their favorite political party, the Fox News folks have made the astonishing transition from nationalist patriots to anti-authority rabble rousers. The whole charade has some traction with the more extreme elements of the party, but it's off to a rocky start. They repeat -- without irony -- the same rhetoric of the left-minded protesters they mocked for the last eight years. Not to mention they accidentally associated their first big protest event with the taste of scrotum.
I'd like to take a moment to ask you to visualize this role-reversal. Imagine Rush Limbaugh in anarchist riot black with a face full of pepper spray, Sean Hannity wrestled to the ground pleading, "don't taze me, bro!" to no avail. I want you to picture Glen Beck doing his fake weeping routine not for an audience, but for a judge about to send him away for conspiracy.
It's hard to do, right? That's because these guys are full of shit.
This is hardly breaking news, I know. The right is hilariously bad at this whole opposition thing and it shows. There is, however, one realistic and interesting point floating around in the whole mess; state sovereignty. It's a real shame this idea is starting to gain momentum now and with this gang of jackasses because it will likely be dismissed as the blatant power play that it is.
So before it is flushed down the toilet next week when Fox's precious hysteria reserves are committed to some other scandal, I'd like to take a moment to examine it from a perspective other than that of the paranoid conservative flash-in-the-pan populist.
You know, the paranoid anarchist perspective.
Fortunately, since I am not an elected representative nor am I a major media figure, I don't have to go through the rote platitudes required whenever one wants to criticize an aspect of our governance. You know, the "This is a great nation. I love my country, but..." nonsense. I care about our government as much as my last bowel movement, but here's how we might actually make it work.
As an anarchist, I believe that the most effective and least oppressive form of society is small -- the size of a band or tribe. Although customs and rules will vary from group to group, they ought to be voluntary gatherings of individuals. I think that organization on this level is far fairer to people than the bloated, faceless entities which currently control our lives, whose only real purpose is to gain more power which they use to justify their continued existence.
As a realist, I understand that this notion of being part of a large group, having support at high echelons, and generally not being forced to worry about some things is comforting to most people. I also realize that our culture has done a thorough job of convincing most people that if we consider decentralizing our government today, the bombs will fall tomorrow and there will be radioactive zombies by next Monday.
What I'm proposing is something far more gradual. Although I'd rather see a more drastic shift, why don't we start allowing the states more authority? That's right. I propose we try something out that lets you keep your big government that protects you from the communist space aliens.
You will immediately see a lifting of a great deal of the apathy that so characterizes our political system, It's easy to feel small and insignificant when all the real action is taking place in an arena as large as the entire country, but on the state level, one person can influence the system in far more profound ways.
It might even make a dent in the rampant corruption and nepotism we tolerate in our power structure for some reason. If the most powerful positions are many and have smaller constituencies, lobbyists and special interests of all kinds will have more trouble keeping them all in line. Aided by a more personal relationship to their voters, independent and third party candidates will have an easier time surmounting the challenges presented by the funding and support networks fielded by the major political parties. Even if the system is abused, it will be far easier to throw a wrench into it when there are so many parts.
It would give us all the chance to put our ideas to the test without subjecting everyone else to them. Life as a social experiment. Isn't that at all tempting? People and prosperity will find their way to those places with good, working ideas. We will be able to see what works and what doesn't, re-work it, try again. if something is a total failure, well we've still got a support system there because we didn't dismantle the federal government entirely. Not yet anyway.
Keep in mind that this is not what is being suggested by the windbags I mentioned before. They're posturing, bluffing, using wedge issues and tough talk to try to regain some of their lost influence. They are not interested in any kind of social experiment because their white asses are kept plump by the system as it is. They just want their guy back on the throne.
I'll be honest, I think this proposal will ultimately lead people to question this new apparatus of authority, to perhaps break it down even further, but even if I'm wrong, it will still have a positive impact on what I think is the biggest problem we face right now, the diffused responsibility for our actions.
The burdens of intolerance, of a lack of consideration for our environment, of overpopulation, of concentrated wealth, of dubious sustainability... It's hard not to look at these as abstract problems. They're too huge. "Someone should save the condor," "someone should save the Everglades", "someone should do something about degrading topsoil." If we can empower people in the way that I am proposing, we can change the way we approach these problems.
You can protect and cherish the natural wonders in your own back yard. You can do something about sustainability and inequity in your own community. That seems considerably more effective than electing someone else to congress, doesn't it?
And I have to give them credit. If nothing else, the right wing of the American political spectrum is a worthy adversary. During the Bush administration, the Democratic party basically rolled over and did as it was told, but now, riding high and full of energy from President Obama's landslide victory, they still can't manage to get anything done.
The Republicans under Bush and Cheney took full advantage of the nation's fear and anger to realize a seriously heinous agenda and when anyone complained, they more or less just told them to shut up. But they went too far. They screwed the pooch and now many of their pasty, bloated Republican faces no longer spew their xenophobic nonsense in the halls of power. They are not, however, taking it laying down, and this revolution is being televised.
Just like their favorite political party, the Fox News folks have made the astonishing transition from nationalist patriots to anti-authority rabble rousers. The whole charade has some traction with the more extreme elements of the party, but it's off to a rocky start. They repeat -- without irony -- the same rhetoric of the left-minded protesters they mocked for the last eight years. Not to mention they accidentally associated their first big protest event with the taste of scrotum.
I'd like to take a moment to ask you to visualize this role-reversal. Imagine Rush Limbaugh in anarchist riot black with a face full of pepper spray, Sean Hannity wrestled to the ground pleading, "don't taze me, bro!" to no avail. I want you to picture Glen Beck doing his fake weeping routine not for an audience, but for a judge about to send him away for conspiracy.
It's hard to do, right? That's because these guys are full of shit.
This is hardly breaking news, I know. The right is hilariously bad at this whole opposition thing and it shows. There is, however, one realistic and interesting point floating around in the whole mess; state sovereignty. It's a real shame this idea is starting to gain momentum now and with this gang of jackasses because it will likely be dismissed as the blatant power play that it is.
So before it is flushed down the toilet next week when Fox's precious hysteria reserves are committed to some other scandal, I'd like to take a moment to examine it from a perspective other than that of the paranoid conservative flash-in-the-pan populist.
You know, the paranoid anarchist perspective.
Fortunately, since I am not an elected representative nor am I a major media figure, I don't have to go through the rote platitudes required whenever one wants to criticize an aspect of our governance. You know, the "This is a great nation. I love my country, but..." nonsense. I care about our government as much as my last bowel movement, but here's how we might actually make it work.
As an anarchist, I believe that the most effective and least oppressive form of society is small -- the size of a band or tribe. Although customs and rules will vary from group to group, they ought to be voluntary gatherings of individuals. I think that organization on this level is far fairer to people than the bloated, faceless entities which currently control our lives, whose only real purpose is to gain more power which they use to justify their continued existence.
As a realist, I understand that this notion of being part of a large group, having support at high echelons, and generally not being forced to worry about some things is comforting to most people. I also realize that our culture has done a thorough job of convincing most people that if we consider decentralizing our government today, the bombs will fall tomorrow and there will be radioactive zombies by next Monday.
What I'm proposing is something far more gradual. Although I'd rather see a more drastic shift, why don't we start allowing the states more authority? That's right. I propose we try something out that lets you keep your big government that protects you from the communist space aliens.
You will immediately see a lifting of a great deal of the apathy that so characterizes our political system, It's easy to feel small and insignificant when all the real action is taking place in an arena as large as the entire country, but on the state level, one person can influence the system in far more profound ways.
It might even make a dent in the rampant corruption and nepotism we tolerate in our power structure for some reason. If the most powerful positions are many and have smaller constituencies, lobbyists and special interests of all kinds will have more trouble keeping them all in line. Aided by a more personal relationship to their voters, independent and third party candidates will have an easier time surmounting the challenges presented by the funding and support networks fielded by the major political parties. Even if the system is abused, it will be far easier to throw a wrench into it when there are so many parts.
It would give us all the chance to put our ideas to the test without subjecting everyone else to them. Life as a social experiment. Isn't that at all tempting? People and prosperity will find their way to those places with good, working ideas. We will be able to see what works and what doesn't, re-work it, try again. if something is a total failure, well we've still got a support system there because we didn't dismantle the federal government entirely. Not yet anyway.
Keep in mind that this is not what is being suggested by the windbags I mentioned before. They're posturing, bluffing, using wedge issues and tough talk to try to regain some of their lost influence. They are not interested in any kind of social experiment because their white asses are kept plump by the system as it is. They just want their guy back on the throne.
I'll be honest, I think this proposal will ultimately lead people to question this new apparatus of authority, to perhaps break it down even further, but even if I'm wrong, it will still have a positive impact on what I think is the biggest problem we face right now, the diffused responsibility for our actions.
The burdens of intolerance, of a lack of consideration for our environment, of overpopulation, of concentrated wealth, of dubious sustainability... It's hard not to look at these as abstract problems. They're too huge. "Someone should save the condor," "someone should save the Everglades", "someone should do something about degrading topsoil." If we can empower people in the way that I am proposing, we can change the way we approach these problems.
You can protect and cherish the natural wonders in your own back yard. You can do something about sustainability and inequity in your own community. That seems considerably more effective than electing someone else to congress, doesn't it?
Professional Sports
I'm going to try very hard to keep my elitism in my pants as I write this week's article. I would like to state for the record that I was not raised in an idyllic moon colony where entertainment has evolved beyond your simple earth contests. What follows is merely an opinion. I hope I don't offend too many people with this review, but if I do I guess I don't really care. You see, I like to drink beer, scream obscenities in public and stumble through the streets destroying property as much as the next guy. I simply do not feel the need to associate this behavior exclusively with the arbitrary success or failure of the nearest gang of inarticulate, color-coordinated, bum-slapping douchebags.
I live in a city where people go completely loopy over this stuff. As I've stated elsewhere, I am not well-traveled. While I don't know for sure, it can't be like this everywhere. Even when our teams are down on their luck, they can rely upon a powerful groundswell of nostalgia to keep the seat to ass ratio favorable. I have to assume that if your local team is some awful cannon fodder outfit that never wins and never has, then you have fewer face-paintingly insane devotees to the sport in general.
Not here, though. The local teams' games are always the chief social and cultural events citywide. We were having an economic meltdown before it was fashionable, our infrastructure is crumbling, every year the public transportation system gets worse and costs more, and our elected officials always exist somewhere on a slider between corrupt and inept. We should be out in the streets tearing shit up, but we only ever do it when a local team wins the whatever bowl.
Anti-establishment pontificating aside, the reason I'm writing this and the reason for the me versus them mentality you've likely detected is the way people treat the pastime compared to other hobbies. People assume I'm a sports fan. If there's a game taking place, I have to justify doing anything other than watching it. Clearly I'm not watching it for a reason and the reason is that I don't give two shits, but if I say this, people look at me like I just teabagged the pope.
Since I don't really care what others think about me, this wouldn't stick in my craw if society as a whole didn't see fit to judge everyone and everything else so harshly.
In our society, there exists a casual contempt for countless subcultures, clubs, and hobbies. While nowhere near as vile as the economic stratification, racism, and homophobia we struggle against, I believe they are all different heads on the hydra we never can seem to slay. It's an idea that has been with us longer than the written word. It is the conviction that, for one's own way of life to be valid, everyone else must be forced to live that way as well. Everyone -- from the early surplus farmers to the crusaders to football hooligans -- is guilty of this.
I am an adult, and have surrounded myself with people who are supportive and similarly inclined as far as interests go. But what about the kid living in Pigskin, Alabama? This hypothetical child could end up a violin virtuoso or perhaps has ideas for really bizarre performance art or maybe even harbors a harmless but unusual sexual fantasy that, if repressed, will cause a buildup of anxiety destined to culminate in some sort of clock tower incident. I'm not saying this kid can't be a quarterback or a cheerleader, but that's the direction society will insist upon.
I do not believe we need to create a world without spectator sports, but I am arguing for a world in which we support a more diverse range of cultural and artistic pursuits. I envision a world in which youngsters won't have to choose between art and acceptance, fantasy and friendship, science fiction and a social life.
That was heavy-handed. Where was I? Oh yeah, the review.
The professional sports model seems to consist of vast amounts of banality punctuated only occasionally by the extraordinary. Evidently, lots of people will watch for years waiting for one of those rare moments of wonder. To be fair, however, some people play World of Warcraft, which is designed to render the bare minimum of entertainment for their gaming dollar.
I only really enjoy those sports moments that undermine the normal structure of the game in question. I watched a runner yell, "I got it!" to disrupt the catching of an easy infield fly. That was awesome. I also enjoy hockey fights although they sometimes seem staged.
I just can't get into the passivity of the whole thing. I also seldom watch television and sometimes have trouble sitting still for a feature-length film. I mean no disrespect. If you're into it, that's cool by me.
But here's the problem; lots of fans feel the same way I do. An insane amount of thought and effort goes into the headgear, the face paint, the pseudo-spiritual rituals, and the awful -- and I mean really awful, cover your ears awful, dig a hole in the ground and bury your head awful -- songs on local radio stations. There's so much out there it's mind-boggling. I'll bet you could make enough selling one team's paraphernalia you could kick back for the off-season just like the overpaid meatheads whose names appear on your merchandise.
All this time and money is spent to try and influence something beyond your control. It is a subconscious rejection of the passive nature of the pastime. It's this disconnect between the effort that goes in and the actual entertainment value that turns me away from sports.
A few years ago, our team won the uber bowl for the first time since the age of yore. Obviously, I grabbed a camera and made my way to the college neighborhood to watch the riots. It was mildly amusing. They flipped some cars, burned a sandwich shop's awning, and tried for twenty minutes to smash open an uprooted parking meter. By the time I left -- around the time the riot moved in the direction of my tiny compact car -- I just felt sad. These kids didn't riot because their team had won, not really. Deep down inside they wanted to riot and the team's victory provided an excuse to do so.
It struck me as a monumental waste of potential. A release valve, a spillway, a clock tower that could have been a concert hall.
I live in a city where people go completely loopy over this stuff. As I've stated elsewhere, I am not well-traveled. While I don't know for sure, it can't be like this everywhere. Even when our teams are down on their luck, they can rely upon a powerful groundswell of nostalgia to keep the seat to ass ratio favorable. I have to assume that if your local team is some awful cannon fodder outfit that never wins and never has, then you have fewer face-paintingly insane devotees to the sport in general.
Not here, though. The local teams' games are always the chief social and cultural events citywide. We were having an economic meltdown before it was fashionable, our infrastructure is crumbling, every year the public transportation system gets worse and costs more, and our elected officials always exist somewhere on a slider between corrupt and inept. We should be out in the streets tearing shit up, but we only ever do it when a local team wins the whatever bowl.
Anti-establishment pontificating aside, the reason I'm writing this and the reason for the me versus them mentality you've likely detected is the way people treat the pastime compared to other hobbies. People assume I'm a sports fan. If there's a game taking place, I have to justify doing anything other than watching it. Clearly I'm not watching it for a reason and the reason is that I don't give two shits, but if I say this, people look at me like I just teabagged the pope.
Since I don't really care what others think about me, this wouldn't stick in my craw if society as a whole didn't see fit to judge everyone and everything else so harshly.
In our society, there exists a casual contempt for countless subcultures, clubs, and hobbies. While nowhere near as vile as the economic stratification, racism, and homophobia we struggle against, I believe they are all different heads on the hydra we never can seem to slay. It's an idea that has been with us longer than the written word. It is the conviction that, for one's own way of life to be valid, everyone else must be forced to live that way as well. Everyone -- from the early surplus farmers to the crusaders to football hooligans -- is guilty of this.
I am an adult, and have surrounded myself with people who are supportive and similarly inclined as far as interests go. But what about the kid living in Pigskin, Alabama? This hypothetical child could end up a violin virtuoso or perhaps has ideas for really bizarre performance art or maybe even harbors a harmless but unusual sexual fantasy that, if repressed, will cause a buildup of anxiety destined to culminate in some sort of clock tower incident. I'm not saying this kid can't be a quarterback or a cheerleader, but that's the direction society will insist upon.
I do not believe we need to create a world without spectator sports, but I am arguing for a world in which we support a more diverse range of cultural and artistic pursuits. I envision a world in which youngsters won't have to choose between art and acceptance, fantasy and friendship, science fiction and a social life.
That was heavy-handed. Where was I? Oh yeah, the review.
The professional sports model seems to consist of vast amounts of banality punctuated only occasionally by the extraordinary. Evidently, lots of people will watch for years waiting for one of those rare moments of wonder. To be fair, however, some people play World of Warcraft, which is designed to render the bare minimum of entertainment for their gaming dollar.
I only really enjoy those sports moments that undermine the normal structure of the game in question. I watched a runner yell, "I got it!" to disrupt the catching of an easy infield fly. That was awesome. I also enjoy hockey fights although they sometimes seem staged.
I just can't get into the passivity of the whole thing. I also seldom watch television and sometimes have trouble sitting still for a feature-length film. I mean no disrespect. If you're into it, that's cool by me.
But here's the problem; lots of fans feel the same way I do. An insane amount of thought and effort goes into the headgear, the face paint, the pseudo-spiritual rituals, and the awful -- and I mean really awful, cover your ears awful, dig a hole in the ground and bury your head awful -- songs on local radio stations. There's so much out there it's mind-boggling. I'll bet you could make enough selling one team's paraphernalia you could kick back for the off-season just like the overpaid meatheads whose names appear on your merchandise.
All this time and money is spent to try and influence something beyond your control. It is a subconscious rejection of the passive nature of the pastime. It's this disconnect between the effort that goes in and the actual entertainment value that turns me away from sports.
A few years ago, our team won the uber bowl for the first time since the age of yore. Obviously, I grabbed a camera and made my way to the college neighborhood to watch the riots. It was mildly amusing. They flipped some cars, burned a sandwich shop's awning, and tried for twenty minutes to smash open an uprooted parking meter. By the time I left -- around the time the riot moved in the direction of my tiny compact car -- I just felt sad. These kids didn't riot because their team had won, not really. Deep down inside they wanted to riot and the team's victory provided an excuse to do so.
It struck me as a monumental waste of potential. A release valve, a spillway, a clock tower that could have been a concert hall.
It's still pretty amazing when you think about it. Despite the scams and ubiquitous solicitation, the stalkers and the predators and the fact that it provides a forum for some truly despicable elements of society, the internet is a technological and cultural marvel.
Far be it for me to render an opinion on the whole thing. Last year, I checked the website of an anarchist organization for updates about the Republican National Convention protests, and not just because I share their viewpoint, but because they had better information than any corporate news outlet. To be fair, as I was doing so I'm sure some depraved piece of human garbage was using Myspace to attempt to lure some poor, unsuspecting young person into a terrible rendezvous.
Hey, all I'm saying is that it's impressive.
Chances are, if you use the internet, you probably spend a lot of time on a social networking website. These rose out of the old html-based chat rooms, message boards, and later blogs, refining the internet's capacity for communication by streamlining the process. This is what the smart people were doing back then while the rest of us were using the internet to discuss whether the Galactic Empire could defeat the United Federation of Planets in a war -- I mean, uh... looking at porn.
Each successive wave of this phenomenon has taken the wild, untapped potential of the internet and harnessed it, making it more and more accessible -- or, if you taught yourself html years ago thinking it would give you some incredible edge and feel like being a jerk about it, dumbed it down for the masses.
In any case, I was certainly not surprised at the more recent emergence of Twitter. While it certainly has some comedic and subversive potential, at its heart, it's nothing more than a list of the inane thoughts your acquaintances are presently having.
Although there seems to be some speculation that it will eventually be overshadowed by Twitter, I for one believe Facebook will be with us for some time. Something very much like it will be, at any rate. The reason for this is that Facebook has just the right combination of accessibility and control. And unlike Myspace, a wrong move won't saddle you with nine thousand viruses or -- even worse -- an unscheduled sample of the newest album from some fourteen year old's atrocious whatever-core band.
If you have a blog, or even a Myspace page, you are going to be judged by your content. Whether it's travel writing, food blogging, or just profile customization, you must create something for the whole thing to be worthwhile. On Facebook, there is so little in the way of creativity that the bar has been lowered almost to the ground. You just have to be yourself.
What are your favorite books? Cool. What bands do you like? That's awesome. Me, too. It's like making drunken small talk with everyone on the internet.
Facebook also cleverly dodged a fair amount of controversy by starting out as a service exclusively directed at college kids. Apparently, If high school seniors have an outlet to encourage and document drinking, screwing, and making bad decisions it's a menace to society. If college freshmen do it, it's an industry.
It's a lucrative industry at that. A relatively small staff can operate something like Facebook. And although it may help to show the ladies what a sensitive and smart dude you are, all that info you put into your profile to make yourself seem interesting can help them zero in on the right kind of advertising to show you. Facebook made around three hundred million last year.
We're living in the world that was depicted in science fiction written earlier in our lives. I grew up in a fairly rural, off-the-map sort of place. If you told my younger self that one day I'd write articles that could be transmitted nigh-instantaneously all over the world, I'd think it was fantasy. It's astonishing that this has taken place in such a short period of time, but it's also astonishing to see how we've used this technology.
I expect I would have imagined the internet as a great liberating force. A world in which everyone is given a voice and ideas can be exchanged freely with little interference from authority sounds like a utopia. Instead, it's often used to reduce us to lists, statistics, marketing demographics. I certainly would have believed that this technology could be used for evil, but I never thought we'd willingly do so much of the work.
It's still impressive, but where do we go from here?
Far be it for me to render an opinion on the whole thing. Last year, I checked the website of an anarchist organization for updates about the Republican National Convention protests, and not just because I share their viewpoint, but because they had better information than any corporate news outlet. To be fair, as I was doing so I'm sure some depraved piece of human garbage was using Myspace to attempt to lure some poor, unsuspecting young person into a terrible rendezvous.
Hey, all I'm saying is that it's impressive.
Chances are, if you use the internet, you probably spend a lot of time on a social networking website. These rose out of the old html-based chat rooms, message boards, and later blogs, refining the internet's capacity for communication by streamlining the process. This is what the smart people were doing back then while the rest of us were using the internet to discuss whether the Galactic Empire could defeat the United Federation of Planets in a war -- I mean, uh... looking at porn.
Each successive wave of this phenomenon has taken the wild, untapped potential of the internet and harnessed it, making it more and more accessible -- or, if you taught yourself html years ago thinking it would give you some incredible edge and feel like being a jerk about it, dumbed it down for the masses.
In any case, I was certainly not surprised at the more recent emergence of Twitter. While it certainly has some comedic and subversive potential, at its heart, it's nothing more than a list of the inane thoughts your acquaintances are presently having.
Although there seems to be some speculation that it will eventually be overshadowed by Twitter, I for one believe Facebook will be with us for some time. Something very much like it will be, at any rate. The reason for this is that Facebook has just the right combination of accessibility and control. And unlike Myspace, a wrong move won't saddle you with nine thousand viruses or -- even worse -- an unscheduled sample of the newest album from some fourteen year old's atrocious whatever-core band.
If you have a blog, or even a Myspace page, you are going to be judged by your content. Whether it's travel writing, food blogging, or just profile customization, you must create something for the whole thing to be worthwhile. On Facebook, there is so little in the way of creativity that the bar has been lowered almost to the ground. You just have to be yourself.
What are your favorite books? Cool. What bands do you like? That's awesome. Me, too. It's like making drunken small talk with everyone on the internet.
Facebook also cleverly dodged a fair amount of controversy by starting out as a service exclusively directed at college kids. Apparently, If high school seniors have an outlet to encourage and document drinking, screwing, and making bad decisions it's a menace to society. If college freshmen do it, it's an industry.
It's a lucrative industry at that. A relatively small staff can operate something like Facebook. And although it may help to show the ladies what a sensitive and smart dude you are, all that info you put into your profile to make yourself seem interesting can help them zero in on the right kind of advertising to show you. Facebook made around three hundred million last year.
We're living in the world that was depicted in science fiction written earlier in our lives. I grew up in a fairly rural, off-the-map sort of place. If you told my younger self that one day I'd write articles that could be transmitted nigh-instantaneously all over the world, I'd think it was fantasy. It's astonishing that this has taken place in such a short period of time, but it's also astonishing to see how we've used this technology.
I expect I would have imagined the internet as a great liberating force. A world in which everyone is given a voice and ideas can be exchanged freely with little interference from authority sounds like a utopia. Instead, it's often used to reduce us to lists, statistics, marketing demographics. I certainly would have believed that this technology could be used for evil, but I never thought we'd willingly do so much of the work.
It's still impressive, but where do we go from here?
Star Trek
I've decided not to review the upcoming latest -- and most likely final -- title in the Star Trek franchise. It wouldn't be difficult. I'm sure I'd start by making cheap jokes at J.J. Abrams's expense. After that, I'd move into some examples of how the film fails to appropriately acknowledge the themes that were so important to the series interspersed with bouts of misty-eyed nostalgia from my days as a young nerd. Finally, I'd look at the big picture, castigating Hollywood and the media in general for failing yet again to come up with anything new.
Thing is, I already wrote that, only it was about Watchmen.
So, in the spirit of that Watchmen review, I am going to eschew the obligatory evisceration of a film which will undoubtedly suck a big hairy one and instead attempt to be constructive. I shall ignore the fact that Star Trek is being put it in the hands of a talentless, self-important hack in a desperate attempt to squeeze a few more dollars out of it, and devote this week to eulogizing my beloved series by remembering the good times in a little essay I'd like to call
"Why Deep Space Nine was better than The Next Generation."
Do not take this as a condemnation of TNG. It was my introduction to the series, and I recall being mesmerized by its optimism and imagination. The thing is, Star Trek is a perfect example of just how much can be learned about a culture by observing the stories they tell. The Cold War-inspired Original Series was the adventures of a Federation at conflict with other major powers, trying to do the right thing but also fighting to survive. The Next Generation sees their transformation from a regional power to a sort of United Nations. They're the biggest kid on the block, full of good intentions and the will to spread their enlightened way of life to the rest of the galaxy.
The Berlin Wall fell before I could understand what that meant and I grew wary of the idealistic, hegemonic mentality of the post-Cold War United States as I got older. The Star Trek series from those eras shared the same attitudes, that anything was possible with a can-do spirit and the right mentality.
DS9, on the other hand, was aware that things are never that simple. It was a Star Trek show that didn't shy away from gray areas. It didn't set out to knock the Federation's high ideals, but it was willing to put them to the test. Not the aggressive rival test or the space monster test, but the moral ambiguity test.
Just look at the primary adversaries from TNG. You have the Romulans -- easily the most interesting -- they used to be Vulcans, but they rejected their logic-centered philosophy when it arose and left to start their own civilization. They have an interesting history, but they're constantly portrayed as scheming back-stabbers -- as a species. This attitude persists even into DS9, but they get somewhat more exposure there.
Then we have the Borg, an enemy with which you cannot negotiate, knows only conquest, and eradicates the free will of the vanquished. Do you see what I mean when I say TNG is afraid of moral ambiguity?
Finally, there is Q. I never liked Q. Q the omnipotent space-jerk who comes out of nowhere to pester the crew whenever the show's writers couldn't think of a good space-time anomaly that week.
While there's nothing inherently wrong with any of these individually, when you add them together and account for the one-shot monsters you've basically described the whole series.
Starfleet prevails, nothing changes, roll credits.
That's why DS9 is the more engaging story. The adversaries don't swarm out of Mordor. They are rational humanoid beings with recognizable emotions. TNG never really takes the time to explore the complex political and cultural terrain of the Star Trek universe, but Deep Space Nine is immersed in it. The characters find themselves in conflict with familiar faces, old allies, and even their own people.
Even the Dominion is characterized better than the major adversaries of the previous shows. The Founders are ancient and powerful, but paranoid and xenophobic, insulating themselves from the outside world with their followers. You get the impression that there exists some alien logic behind their evil.
I appreciate the work that went into adapting the Star Trek setting from TOS to TNG. The technology level increases such that we are invited to imagine a society that is no longer limited by the scarcity of resources -- a society that is forced to re-think such ingrained concepts as labor, ownership, and value. That's why it's such a shame that neither series gives us a very good impression of just what that society looks like. They tell us it's a paradise, but I always wanted to see more of it.
In TNG, confined to a single starship, it starts to feel boring and sterile. DS9, at least, has the good sense to take characters raised in the perfect world of the Federation and drop them on the edge of civilization, way out of their element. We don't get to see the society, but we do get to see its values clash with others in the cultural free-for-all of the station.
Star Trek has never been consistent, but I would like to mention that over five television series and ten films I don't think the series has fluctuated all that much -- given the expansive time frame, anyway. Look at Star Wars, that franchise shit in its own bed and slept there like it was goose down by the fourth film. Star Trek made mistakes, but they were usually creative enough to bounce back. Star Wars made mistakes and then rode that train all the way to stupid town.
So farewell, Star Trek. You will be missed. I promise to remember you the way you were when you were good, before Voyager, before the upcoming, certainly garbage film.
Captain Sisko punching Q, over and over, forever.
Thing is, I already wrote that, only it was about Watchmen.
So, in the spirit of that Watchmen review, I am going to eschew the obligatory evisceration of a film which will undoubtedly suck a big hairy one and instead attempt to be constructive. I shall ignore the fact that Star Trek is being put it in the hands of a talentless, self-important hack in a desperate attempt to squeeze a few more dollars out of it, and devote this week to eulogizing my beloved series by remembering the good times in a little essay I'd like to call
"Why Deep Space Nine was better than The Next Generation."
Do not take this as a condemnation of TNG. It was my introduction to the series, and I recall being mesmerized by its optimism and imagination. The thing is, Star Trek is a perfect example of just how much can be learned about a culture by observing the stories they tell. The Cold War-inspired Original Series was the adventures of a Federation at conflict with other major powers, trying to do the right thing but also fighting to survive. The Next Generation sees their transformation from a regional power to a sort of United Nations. They're the biggest kid on the block, full of good intentions and the will to spread their enlightened way of life to the rest of the galaxy.
The Berlin Wall fell before I could understand what that meant and I grew wary of the idealistic, hegemonic mentality of the post-Cold War United States as I got older. The Star Trek series from those eras shared the same attitudes, that anything was possible with a can-do spirit and the right mentality.
DS9, on the other hand, was aware that things are never that simple. It was a Star Trek show that didn't shy away from gray areas. It didn't set out to knock the Federation's high ideals, but it was willing to put them to the test. Not the aggressive rival test or the space monster test, but the moral ambiguity test.
Just look at the primary adversaries from TNG. You have the Romulans -- easily the most interesting -- they used to be Vulcans, but they rejected their logic-centered philosophy when it arose and left to start their own civilization. They have an interesting history, but they're constantly portrayed as scheming back-stabbers -- as a species. This attitude persists even into DS9, but they get somewhat more exposure there.
Then we have the Borg, an enemy with which you cannot negotiate, knows only conquest, and eradicates the free will of the vanquished. Do you see what I mean when I say TNG is afraid of moral ambiguity?
Finally, there is Q. I never liked Q. Q the omnipotent space-jerk who comes out of nowhere to pester the crew whenever the show's writers couldn't think of a good space-time anomaly that week.
While there's nothing inherently wrong with any of these individually, when you add them together and account for the one-shot monsters you've basically described the whole series.
Starfleet prevails, nothing changes, roll credits.
That's why DS9 is the more engaging story. The adversaries don't swarm out of Mordor. They are rational humanoid beings with recognizable emotions. TNG never really takes the time to explore the complex political and cultural terrain of the Star Trek universe, but Deep Space Nine is immersed in it. The characters find themselves in conflict with familiar faces, old allies, and even their own people.
Even the Dominion is characterized better than the major adversaries of the previous shows. The Founders are ancient and powerful, but paranoid and xenophobic, insulating themselves from the outside world with their followers. You get the impression that there exists some alien logic behind their evil.
I appreciate the work that went into adapting the Star Trek setting from TOS to TNG. The technology level increases such that we are invited to imagine a society that is no longer limited by the scarcity of resources -- a society that is forced to re-think such ingrained concepts as labor, ownership, and value. That's why it's such a shame that neither series gives us a very good impression of just what that society looks like. They tell us it's a paradise, but I always wanted to see more of it.
In TNG, confined to a single starship, it starts to feel boring and sterile. DS9, at least, has the good sense to take characters raised in the perfect world of the Federation and drop them on the edge of civilization, way out of their element. We don't get to see the society, but we do get to see its values clash with others in the cultural free-for-all of the station.
Star Trek has never been consistent, but I would like to mention that over five television series and ten films I don't think the series has fluctuated all that much -- given the expansive time frame, anyway. Look at Star Wars, that franchise shit in its own bed and slept there like it was goose down by the fourth film. Star Trek made mistakes, but they were usually creative enough to bounce back. Star Wars made mistakes and then rode that train all the way to stupid town.
So farewell, Star Trek. You will be missed. I promise to remember you the way you were when you were good, before Voyager, before the upcoming, certainly garbage film.
Captain Sisko punching Q, over and over, forever.
Civilization Revolution
Aside from providing a satisfying outlet for my megalomania, I think the biggest strength of Sid Meier's Civilization series is how well the games balance their massive amount of material. They're so rich and varied that no two people have the same experience.
I'm not saying this format is the pinnacle of gaming or anything. There is a place for the chaotic, fast-paced action game as well, it's a matter of personal preference. The point is that as long as we're talking about the extremely complex and consequently extraordinarily time-consuming simulation/strategy games, I don't think any series has done it better than Civilization.
Although I know others disagree with me, I think that the fourth installment really is the best thus far. Each edition introduced new layers of complexity to the format, but it was always integrated logically. A game of Civ IV, even on the biggest map on epic length, is manageable. This is the great success of the franchise. They manage to fill it to the brim with choices, but they stop just short of overflowing.
Sadly, no one can resist all those console gaming dollars, so Meier and Firaxis watered-down the concept and shoved it into a format that is far from friendly to the strategy genre. The result is Civilization Revolution, a sad shadow of the game I love.
I played the Xbox 360 demos for both Halo Wars and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. I was actually going to review them along with the new Civ game, but all I would be able to muster in the way of commentary would be placing my hand over my mouth to generate farting sounds while I bash my own forehead with a claw hammer. Seeing as how that is neither pleasant nor easily translated into blog format, I decided against it.
What the hell happened to PC gaming? I've never been able to keep up with computer technology. It's expensive and time-consuming. I have never owned a machine capable of playing the newest PC titles, and I don't have one that can today. That's what console gaming is for, in my opinion. It is suited for action and spectacle because with a few exceptions (screw you, N64 expansion pack), you buy the console, and you can play all the games associated with that console.
On the PC, you need to constantly be aware of the specifications of games, and you will be required to upgrade your hardware to keep up with new releases. This is not usually the case with strategy games. They are graphically simpler than top of the line action games, but they rely upon the more adaptable control options the PC provides. Thus, I've found it useful to get my action and adventure on the console and my strategy on PC, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
You can see where this is going. Hardcore gamers insist that first-person shooters need to use mouse and keyboard controls to compete at high levels. Maybe they're right. I don't actually care. Strategy games, on the other hand, rely upon the mouse and keyboard to function at all. No dual analog setup is precise enough to manage all the settlements, units, and minutiae that make a good strategy title. The crossover must, therefore, choose between complexity and playability. Of course, in a perfect world, they'd choose not to make these abominations in the first place.
Civilization Revolution comes out a little better than the train wrecks I mentioned earlier because its turn-based system and grid map are a little better suited for console controls. Rather than wrangling of a mass of blobs you assume are infantry, you select a unit and move it from one territory to another. What ends up a complete disaster elsewhere is reduced to a simple mess.
Congratulations, I guess.
The real problem comes with the other adaptation Civilization had to make in order to become a console title. I'm talking about the target audience. Now this is where I'd usually make generalized disparaging comments about the intelligence level of a group of people. However, I won't do that today because Civilization Revolution beat me to it.
It's Baby's First Civilization. It's short and it's simple and I can't help but wonder why they bothered. Ostensibly, to introduce the series to new players. That's all well and good in theory, but there's absolutely no reason it needs to be a simple as it is. They don't even trust console gamers to adjust the game speed or world size. On top of that, while the player has a few different victory conditions, there are essentially two games you can play: You can either conquer the world or defend yourself until you build your way to one of the other victory conditions. Oh, and if you thought you'd try a balanced game that relies on culture and diplomacy instead of war, you'd better think again. Even on low difficulty settings, the AI opponents are so aggressive you will have to appease their outrageous demands every turn lest you provoke a war.
So, it's an introduction to a series that boasts superbly-balanced micromanagement, a plethora of viable strategies, and loads of customization options? And it's doing this by removing all that good stuff from the game?
Yeah, that'll work.
I'm not saying this format is the pinnacle of gaming or anything. There is a place for the chaotic, fast-paced action game as well, it's a matter of personal preference. The point is that as long as we're talking about the extremely complex and consequently extraordinarily time-consuming simulation/strategy games, I don't think any series has done it better than Civilization.
Although I know others disagree with me, I think that the fourth installment really is the best thus far. Each edition introduced new layers of complexity to the format, but it was always integrated logically. A game of Civ IV, even on the biggest map on epic length, is manageable. This is the great success of the franchise. They manage to fill it to the brim with choices, but they stop just short of overflowing.
Sadly, no one can resist all those console gaming dollars, so Meier and Firaxis watered-down the concept and shoved it into a format that is far from friendly to the strategy genre. The result is Civilization Revolution, a sad shadow of the game I love.
I played the Xbox 360 demos for both Halo Wars and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. I was actually going to review them along with the new Civ game, but all I would be able to muster in the way of commentary would be placing my hand over my mouth to generate farting sounds while I bash my own forehead with a claw hammer. Seeing as how that is neither pleasant nor easily translated into blog format, I decided against it.
What the hell happened to PC gaming? I've never been able to keep up with computer technology. It's expensive and time-consuming. I have never owned a machine capable of playing the newest PC titles, and I don't have one that can today. That's what console gaming is for, in my opinion. It is suited for action and spectacle because with a few exceptions (screw you, N64 expansion pack), you buy the console, and you can play all the games associated with that console.
On the PC, you need to constantly be aware of the specifications of games, and you will be required to upgrade your hardware to keep up with new releases. This is not usually the case with strategy games. They are graphically simpler than top of the line action games, but they rely upon the more adaptable control options the PC provides. Thus, I've found it useful to get my action and adventure on the console and my strategy on PC, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
You can see where this is going. Hardcore gamers insist that first-person shooters need to use mouse and keyboard controls to compete at high levels. Maybe they're right. I don't actually care. Strategy games, on the other hand, rely upon the mouse and keyboard to function at all. No dual analog setup is precise enough to manage all the settlements, units, and minutiae that make a good strategy title. The crossover must, therefore, choose between complexity and playability. Of course, in a perfect world, they'd choose not to make these abominations in the first place.
Civilization Revolution comes out a little better than the train wrecks I mentioned earlier because its turn-based system and grid map are a little better suited for console controls. Rather than wrangling of a mass of blobs you assume are infantry, you select a unit and move it from one territory to another. What ends up a complete disaster elsewhere is reduced to a simple mess.
Congratulations, I guess.
The real problem comes with the other adaptation Civilization had to make in order to become a console title. I'm talking about the target audience. Now this is where I'd usually make generalized disparaging comments about the intelligence level of a group of people. However, I won't do that today because Civilization Revolution beat me to it.
It's Baby's First Civilization. It's short and it's simple and I can't help but wonder why they bothered. Ostensibly, to introduce the series to new players. That's all well and good in theory, but there's absolutely no reason it needs to be a simple as it is. They don't even trust console gamers to adjust the game speed or world size. On top of that, while the player has a few different victory conditions, there are essentially two games you can play: You can either conquer the world or defend yourself until you build your way to one of the other victory conditions. Oh, and if you thought you'd try a balanced game that relies on culture and diplomacy instead of war, you'd better think again. Even on low difficulty settings, the AI opponents are so aggressive you will have to appease their outrageous demands every turn lest you provoke a war.
So, it's an introduction to a series that boasts superbly-balanced micromanagement, a plethora of viable strategies, and loads of customization options? And it's doing this by removing all that good stuff from the game?
Yeah, that'll work.
The Financial Crisis
As you may have heard, last week Somali pirates attempted to capture a merchant vessel registered in the United States. Unable to maintain control of the container ship, they absconded in a lifeboat with the captain as a prisoner. In the end, the pirates were all killed or captured and the captain was freed.
Few in the US ever really thought about Somali piracy before this incident. As usual, the news services dedicated lots of time to tearful reunions, masturbatory whooping, and self-righteous fulminations on the scourge of piracy. Obviously, they failed to spend much time on the context. Piracy is a major source of income for communities in the depressed and forgotten coastal areas of northern Somalia. The public probably has an image of flamboyantly dressed, dashing ne'er-do-wells taking what they want while they bathe in rum and generally enjoy themselves. This is fantasy. The region is known for ethnic strife, poverty, and war, and the lack of a stable government means they have no representation on the global stage. The pirates not only bring goods and currency into the area, but act as a makeshift militia and sometime advocacy organization.
In the last several months, Wall Street investment banks and other financial institutions attempted to justify losing billions of dollars by betting on an inflated housing market and bad debt. Unable to maintain the confidence of investors, they went belly-up and were forced to seek assistance from the government. Deemed too big to fail, most of them received the capital they required to survive.
Few in the US ever really thought about these underhanded business practices before the sudden collapse of Bear Stearns. The media then boned up and informed us about hedge funds and subprime mortgages and credit default swaps while they entertained us with outraged politicians and really, really awkward congressional hearings. However, I feel that no one ever adequately explained why we needed to prop up these failing institutions. There is an entire class which lives by buying promises and selling dreams and they exist in a nether-world between our elected officials' complicity and their ignorance. As a whole, the public is trained to imagine Beyond Thunderdome whenever anyone suggests a little creative destruction. This is fantasy. The system does not function to maintain fairness, it exists to turn the toil, suffering, and hardship of the many into the yachts, cocaine, and Dom Pérignon of the few.
To begin the parade of tortured metaphors which I think are extremely clever and am forced to use because they put a linguistic spin on what is essentially a math problem and math make me head hurt, I'd like you to imagine an ancient city in the desert, lost to history. Within this ruin, it is said, lies the knowledge of the ancients. We know it's there, we just can't find it because it's buried under the sand.
One day a massive sandstorm sweeps through and in its wake, the ancient city of special truths is revealed. Well, that's what the crisis has done. We all knew -- or at least those of us who cared enough to think about it knew -- that our culture was rotten, our institutions corrupt, and our way of life unsustainable. It was easy not to think about it because... you know, Xbox.
This time, we're looking right at it. It's not happening to faceless foreigners or baby seals now. There is no logic, no foundation, no real and honest value to the society we've created and we can no longer deny or ignore this simple fact.
But we will.
The bulk of the outrage has already been deftly deflected by our political institutions. The Republicans blame the Democrats, The Democrats blame the Republicans, and Glenn Beck blames his last tie to reality, cuts it, and drifts off into the ether on a updraft of xenophobic bald eagle farts.
The anger that remains cannot be used constructively. It belongs to the paranoid extremists. Those who recognized something was wrong, but found it far easier to name it Black, Jew, or Mexican. They have their own part to play in this sad drama. They become the figureheads for all who would step out of line. Every tragedy they perpetrate associates dissent with atrocity and further insulates the system.
Don't murder unless you're got a good publicist.
I think our leaders have convinced most of the rest of us that we can return to the America of yore. The 1950s post war America. Picket fences, cars with outrageous fins, and unlimited growth. We believe that if we elect the right person or give our money to the right corporations, we can be that society again. We want to be guiltless like we were -- pastel colors, living in the suburbs, cigarette smoking guiltless.
That cannot happen. The tangible work of our global economy is now done elsewhere and the United States has become the world's country club. We're all either swimming in the pool or we're cleaning it. With the poor countries who make our junk modernizing and our own institutions crumbling, the "service economy" I remember my middle school social studies textbooks proudly touting is revealed as the circle jerk that it is.
I have an idea. Why don't we try to actually be the inventive, hard-working people we claim we are and come up with something better? And I'm not talking about putting our noses to the same old grindstone and making more widgets. The events of the economic crisis have made it pretty clear that when the shit goes down, the real perpetrators get parachutes while the rest of us will be lucky to receive a backpack filled with kitchen utensils and good comedic timing. We need to treat this as an opportunity to turn a critical eye to the inner workings of our economic system while they are laid bare. We should use this as a learning experience and take steps to make our way of life sustainable and sane.
Unfortunately, it's an opportunity we seem hell-bent on squandering. We'll probably just move the debt around, consolidate some corporations, and sweep the mess under the rug. Then the next time the market sneezes, we'll go through the whole thing all over again.
I'm not saying the Somali pirates are nice guys, because I'm sure they're not. They are, however, smart enough to know when the deck is stacked and inventive enough to change the game in response. The hedge funds and investment banks took advantage of their status and legal limbo the enrich themselves and now they're blackmailing us with economic collapse if we don't give them more. How about that? Our financial institutions are starting to look more like pirates than actual pirates.
They used to hang pirates, did they not?
Few in the US ever really thought about Somali piracy before this incident. As usual, the news services dedicated lots of time to tearful reunions, masturbatory whooping, and self-righteous fulminations on the scourge of piracy. Obviously, they failed to spend much time on the context. Piracy is a major source of income for communities in the depressed and forgotten coastal areas of northern Somalia. The public probably has an image of flamboyantly dressed, dashing ne'er-do-wells taking what they want while they bathe in rum and generally enjoy themselves. This is fantasy. The region is known for ethnic strife, poverty, and war, and the lack of a stable government means they have no representation on the global stage. The pirates not only bring goods and currency into the area, but act as a makeshift militia and sometime advocacy organization.
In the last several months, Wall Street investment banks and other financial institutions attempted to justify losing billions of dollars by betting on an inflated housing market and bad debt. Unable to maintain the confidence of investors, they went belly-up and were forced to seek assistance from the government. Deemed too big to fail, most of them received the capital they required to survive.
Few in the US ever really thought about these underhanded business practices before the sudden collapse of Bear Stearns. The media then boned up and informed us about hedge funds and subprime mortgages and credit default swaps while they entertained us with outraged politicians and really, really awkward congressional hearings. However, I feel that no one ever adequately explained why we needed to prop up these failing institutions. There is an entire class which lives by buying promises and selling dreams and they exist in a nether-world between our elected officials' complicity and their ignorance. As a whole, the public is trained to imagine Beyond Thunderdome whenever anyone suggests a little creative destruction. This is fantasy. The system does not function to maintain fairness, it exists to turn the toil, suffering, and hardship of the many into the yachts, cocaine, and Dom Pérignon of the few.
To begin the parade of tortured metaphors which I think are extremely clever and am forced to use because they put a linguistic spin on what is essentially a math problem and math make me head hurt, I'd like you to imagine an ancient city in the desert, lost to history. Within this ruin, it is said, lies the knowledge of the ancients. We know it's there, we just can't find it because it's buried under the sand.
One day a massive sandstorm sweeps through and in its wake, the ancient city of special truths is revealed. Well, that's what the crisis has done. We all knew -- or at least those of us who cared enough to think about it knew -- that our culture was rotten, our institutions corrupt, and our way of life unsustainable. It was easy not to think about it because... you know, Xbox.
This time, we're looking right at it. It's not happening to faceless foreigners or baby seals now. There is no logic, no foundation, no real and honest value to the society we've created and we can no longer deny or ignore this simple fact.
But we will.
The bulk of the outrage has already been deftly deflected by our political institutions. The Republicans blame the Democrats, The Democrats blame the Republicans, and Glenn Beck blames his last tie to reality, cuts it, and drifts off into the ether on a updraft of xenophobic bald eagle farts.
The anger that remains cannot be used constructively. It belongs to the paranoid extremists. Those who recognized something was wrong, but found it far easier to name it Black, Jew, or Mexican. They have their own part to play in this sad drama. They become the figureheads for all who would step out of line. Every tragedy they perpetrate associates dissent with atrocity and further insulates the system.
Don't murder unless you're got a good publicist.
I think our leaders have convinced most of the rest of us that we can return to the America of yore. The 1950s post war America. Picket fences, cars with outrageous fins, and unlimited growth. We believe that if we elect the right person or give our money to the right corporations, we can be that society again. We want to be guiltless like we were -- pastel colors, living in the suburbs, cigarette smoking guiltless.
That cannot happen. The tangible work of our global economy is now done elsewhere and the United States has become the world's country club. We're all either swimming in the pool or we're cleaning it. With the poor countries who make our junk modernizing and our own institutions crumbling, the "service economy" I remember my middle school social studies textbooks proudly touting is revealed as the circle jerk that it is.
I have an idea. Why don't we try to actually be the inventive, hard-working people we claim we are and come up with something better? And I'm not talking about putting our noses to the same old grindstone and making more widgets. The events of the economic crisis have made it pretty clear that when the shit goes down, the real perpetrators get parachutes while the rest of us will be lucky to receive a backpack filled with kitchen utensils and good comedic timing. We need to treat this as an opportunity to turn a critical eye to the inner workings of our economic system while they are laid bare. We should use this as a learning experience and take steps to make our way of life sustainable and sane.
Unfortunately, it's an opportunity we seem hell-bent on squandering. We'll probably just move the debt around, consolidate some corporations, and sweep the mess under the rug. Then the next time the market sneezes, we'll go through the whole thing all over again.
I'm not saying the Somali pirates are nice guys, because I'm sure they're not. They are, however, smart enough to know when the deck is stacked and inventive enough to change the game in response. The hedge funds and investment banks took advantage of their status and legal limbo the enrich themselves and now they're blackmailing us with economic collapse if we don't give them more. How about that? Our financial institutions are starting to look more like pirates than actual pirates.
They used to hang pirates, did they not?
Dollhouse
I want to trust you again, Joss Whedon. I really do.
I'm no fan of serial fiction in general, and televised serial fiction in particular. I don't feel that the format is incapable of producing anything good, far from it. I see it as a high-risk venture. With a book or a film, the artist can present a coherent work, and say, "Here is my vision. Take it or leave it," Not so with a television show. You must please the viewers enough to keep them watching, feed the advertisers good ratings, and perform well enough to prevent the network dumping you for some dime-a-dozen reality show that might carry more market share.
Generally speaking, this is not an environment that is conducive to artistic expression. And you should know this better than anyone at this point, Joss.
I'm not saying that a shorter format is always better. I actually like the idea of taking your time with a story, slowly unraveling the mysteries while simultaneously just basking in the universe for a while. I think science fiction and fantasy are uniquely suited to the format, because if it's done right, there are hours of enjoyment to be had from just being there. When that feeling of wonder is supported by interesting characters and a compelling story, it's a beautiful thing indeed. Unfortunately, most shows just follow the same old recipe. Take a manageable number of young people, add a few apartments, sprinkle with sexual tension and boil... ad nauseam.
But that's not how you approach televised fiction, Joss. And that's why I've started Dollhouse against my better judgment.
Speaking of judgment, what the hell were you thinking going back to Fox? You already know that the average Fox viewer is an inbred, slack-jawed simpleton just looking for some titillation while NASCAR is on a commercial break, flipping back and forth compulsively, pausing only to wipe the crumbs of Cheetos and paint chips from his unkempt beard. You also know that the average Fox executive is a slimy weasel with too much hair product who has probably calculated the street value of his grandmother and wouldn't recognize a heartfelt attempt at artistic expression if it beat him to death with his own nine iron.
So what gives? You have amnesia? Are you toying with us? It is all part of an elaborate revenge scheme to get back inside their corporate headquarters so you can find the Fox exec who axed Firefly and beat him to death with his own nine iron?
Can I help?
Dollhouse is fun because it's not a wonderland based on magic or spaceships, but on the excesses of the rich and powerful. It's a cyberpunk TV show, and just typing those words in the same sentence makes me happy. I believe it's an under-utilized genre considering its potential.
For those who have not seen it, the show revolves around the titular organization, which is more or less a stable of young men and women who spend their days working out, eating right, and doing yoga in a childlike state of mind. Then, whenever one of the aforementioned rich and powerful clients needs their services, the dolls are implanted with a false personality for the duration of the job. They can be contracted for everything from a romantic encounter or a hostage situation, but they are given memories and skill set appropriate for the scenario. As soon as it's over, they return to the dollhouse, and their minds are erased.
Echo, played by Eliza Dushku, is the show's main character. She is the dollhouse's most sought-after agent, or "active" as they call them. Meanwhile, Tahmoh Penikett plays Paul Ballard, an FBI agent out to prove the dollhouse exists even though everyone thinks he's crazy. Of course, there's a big conspiracy and a mysterious and murderous "alpha doll" running around somewhere.
This is where the trouble usually starts. A series like Dollhouse needs to have a long-term plan that makes at least some sense. Unlike those shows that follow the "young people in an apartment" format, the setting is as important a feature as any character or four year long unrequited love plotline. The setting is going to evolve and change, and that's when things can go crazy.
This happens with your shows almost as a rule, Joss. Take Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example. I liked the show, but when you look back on the major story arcs, they wouldn't fit together if it weren't for the common characters. I think the best shows have stories which rise organically out of the history, not the "monster of the season" stuff that happens in Buffy.
Do we need to sit down and re-watch season four?
Allow me to illustrate my point. Take The Wire. I think it's the best example of televised serial fiction ever and one of the reasons for this is that although each season has a different theme and an altered cast of central characters, nothing comes at you out of the blue. The events of one season lead into the events of the next. That change brings with it all new perspectives and new situations but there's a logic to the ebb and flow of the show's focus. Maybe you think that's unfair because HBO seems to give its series more leeway than the networks do. How about the much-maligned Star Trek Deep Space Nine? I set it above the rest of Trek because there is a strong sense of continuity over the course of the series that comes from the evolving political and cultural atmosphere in the galaxy. One thing leads to another, you see?
So far things do look good, Joss. As always, I find myself immediately absorbed in your world, because you set the scene so well. I also find the information dynamic fascinating. In most episodes, the key events are experienced by the dolls, while the other characters have a second-hand understanding of what has taken place. We the viewers get to keep that information, but the dolls' memories are erased (or blocked, at least) by the end. However, there are also characters with a deeper understanding of the history, and so the viewer is situated somewhere in between. It's a satisfying feeling and it can provide loads of storytelling options down the road.
It's not going to be easy, though. I'm rooting for you, but I'm not betting the farm. Even if Dollhouse does avoid problematic narrative detours, we both know it will have to survive the rigors of the major broadcast television gauntlet. Firefly is proof that you can do everything right and still fail. Lovable characters, unique concept, spaceships, gunfights, beautiful women, spaceships... Apparently the average viewer can't handle all that brainy junk. They'd rather watch insufferable people shriek at one another about their bullshit problems. I don't mean to sound too elitist, but I do have history on my side here. Your ideas deserve better than that.
I'm ready to give this another try, Joss, but remember I've had my heart broken before. We need to take it slow. I'll see you next Friday.
I'm no fan of serial fiction in general, and televised serial fiction in particular. I don't feel that the format is incapable of producing anything good, far from it. I see it as a high-risk venture. With a book or a film, the artist can present a coherent work, and say, "Here is my vision. Take it or leave it," Not so with a television show. You must please the viewers enough to keep them watching, feed the advertisers good ratings, and perform well enough to prevent the network dumping you for some dime-a-dozen reality show that might carry more market share.
Generally speaking, this is not an environment that is conducive to artistic expression. And you should know this better than anyone at this point, Joss.
I'm not saying that a shorter format is always better. I actually like the idea of taking your time with a story, slowly unraveling the mysteries while simultaneously just basking in the universe for a while. I think science fiction and fantasy are uniquely suited to the format, because if it's done right, there are hours of enjoyment to be had from just being there. When that feeling of wonder is supported by interesting characters and a compelling story, it's a beautiful thing indeed. Unfortunately, most shows just follow the same old recipe. Take a manageable number of young people, add a few apartments, sprinkle with sexual tension and boil... ad nauseam.
But that's not how you approach televised fiction, Joss. And that's why I've started Dollhouse against my better judgment.
Speaking of judgment, what the hell were you thinking going back to Fox? You already know that the average Fox viewer is an inbred, slack-jawed simpleton just looking for some titillation while NASCAR is on a commercial break, flipping back and forth compulsively, pausing only to wipe the crumbs of Cheetos and paint chips from his unkempt beard. You also know that the average Fox executive is a slimy weasel with too much hair product who has probably calculated the street value of his grandmother and wouldn't recognize a heartfelt attempt at artistic expression if it beat him to death with his own nine iron.
So what gives? You have amnesia? Are you toying with us? It is all part of an elaborate revenge scheme to get back inside their corporate headquarters so you can find the Fox exec who axed Firefly and beat him to death with his own nine iron?
Can I help?
Dollhouse is fun because it's not a wonderland based on magic or spaceships, but on the excesses of the rich and powerful. It's a cyberpunk TV show, and just typing those words in the same sentence makes me happy. I believe it's an under-utilized genre considering its potential.
For those who have not seen it, the show revolves around the titular organization, which is more or less a stable of young men and women who spend their days working out, eating right, and doing yoga in a childlike state of mind. Then, whenever one of the aforementioned rich and powerful clients needs their services, the dolls are implanted with a false personality for the duration of the job. They can be contracted for everything from a romantic encounter or a hostage situation, but they are given memories and skill set appropriate for the scenario. As soon as it's over, they return to the dollhouse, and their minds are erased.
Echo, played by Eliza Dushku, is the show's main character. She is the dollhouse's most sought-after agent, or "active" as they call them. Meanwhile, Tahmoh Penikett plays Paul Ballard, an FBI agent out to prove the dollhouse exists even though everyone thinks he's crazy. Of course, there's a big conspiracy and a mysterious and murderous "alpha doll" running around somewhere.
This is where the trouble usually starts. A series like Dollhouse needs to have a long-term plan that makes at least some sense. Unlike those shows that follow the "young people in an apartment" format, the setting is as important a feature as any character or four year long unrequited love plotline. The setting is going to evolve and change, and that's when things can go crazy.
This happens with your shows almost as a rule, Joss. Take Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example. I liked the show, but when you look back on the major story arcs, they wouldn't fit together if it weren't for the common characters. I think the best shows have stories which rise organically out of the history, not the "monster of the season" stuff that happens in Buffy.
Do we need to sit down and re-watch season four?
Allow me to illustrate my point. Take The Wire. I think it's the best example of televised serial fiction ever and one of the reasons for this is that although each season has a different theme and an altered cast of central characters, nothing comes at you out of the blue. The events of one season lead into the events of the next. That change brings with it all new perspectives and new situations but there's a logic to the ebb and flow of the show's focus. Maybe you think that's unfair because HBO seems to give its series more leeway than the networks do. How about the much-maligned Star Trek Deep Space Nine? I set it above the rest of Trek because there is a strong sense of continuity over the course of the series that comes from the evolving political and cultural atmosphere in the galaxy. One thing leads to another, you see?
So far things do look good, Joss. As always, I find myself immediately absorbed in your world, because you set the scene so well. I also find the information dynamic fascinating. In most episodes, the key events are experienced by the dolls, while the other characters have a second-hand understanding of what has taken place. We the viewers get to keep that information, but the dolls' memories are erased (or blocked, at least) by the end. However, there are also characters with a deeper understanding of the history, and so the viewer is situated somewhere in between. It's a satisfying feeling and it can provide loads of storytelling options down the road.
It's not going to be easy, though. I'm rooting for you, but I'm not betting the farm. Even if Dollhouse does avoid problematic narrative detours, we both know it will have to survive the rigors of the major broadcast television gauntlet. Firefly is proof that you can do everything right and still fail. Lovable characters, unique concept, spaceships, gunfights, beautiful women, spaceships... Apparently the average viewer can't handle all that brainy junk. They'd rather watch insufferable people shriek at one another about their bullshit problems. I don't mean to sound too elitist, but I do have history on my side here. Your ideas deserve better than that.
I'm ready to give this another try, Joss, but remember I've had my heart broken before. We need to take it slow. I'll see you next Friday.
The Vader Project
I feel somewhat out of my element here. My only visual art credentials are my self-taught semi-proficiency with Adobe's Creative Suite and a single art history lecture class which was roughly equal parts napping and schooling. I recognize I am something of a pretender in such matters, but it's no worse than the city of Pittsburgh claiming Andy Warhol who got the hell out of here after college and created essentially all his work in New York. Although, it is understandable considering every other famous Pittsburgher was an industrialist shitbag.
I recently made my way to Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol Museum to view The Vader Project, which will be there until May 3. The gist is that replica props of Darth's helmet were given to a host of "some of today’s hottest underground and pop surrealist painters, artists and designers," In other words, the people you're not familiar with because you're not cool enough. I'm not sure how strict the guidelines were, but they seem to have been, "take this and do your thing with it."
Seeing as how I am a card-carrying member of the open-ended definition of art club (depending on what you mean by "card," of course), and a certified head above the exosphere science fiction nerd, I obviously wanted to make sure I had a look at this one. As would be expected, the results varied widely, but I was not disappointed.
If I may take a moment to perhaps unfairly pigeonhole the pieces in the exhibit, there seem to be two major schools of thought concerning the project: Some artists attempted to re-imagine or re-create the helmet using different materials, and replacing or adding components, while others used it as a weirdly-shaped canvas to paint on. Now I'm not coming down on the second school, because some of these were very good, but I feel like those from column A were more effective on the whole.
A lot of the blame for this falls on the gallery space itself. Almost all the helmets were perched atop black columns at about eye level. They were lined up in rows, all facing the same direction with a taped-off rectangle around the each row. Believe me when I say I understand the need to create a border between the art and the viewer in this case in particular. I wanted to wear some of these so badly I had to slap my own hand away. However, those helmets which displayed some sort of diorama or painted image could not be viewed in their entirety unless they were fortunate enough to occupy the end spots.
Most of them, however, must be viewed twice. You observe the front of twenty or so, and then walk along the next aisle to view the back of them. I haven't the slightest idea as to whether or not the artists were informed of how the pieces would be displayed, but I doubt it. Now, I understand that space can be at a premium in galleries, especially for a traveling exhibit like The Vader Project. I just felt an unfortunate disconnect between the art and the presentation. Someone dropped the ball when Flickr is outdoing The Andy Warhol Museum in some of these cases.
That's precisely why I felt the more effective helmets were those that attempted to transform the object or take it out of its recognized context. Not only do I find that to be a better approach to what is, essentially, a sculpture gallery, but they also suffered less from the unfortunate layout of the exhibit. In these cases, more of the item's overall effect is preserved while merely viewing the front.
Despite the formatting issues, I still enjoyed the exhibit. Sometimes, the most interesting art can result from imposing unusual boundaries. The Vader Project is, at its heart, an exploration of that concept. You could say there was a scatter shot mentality to the project, but that's not a drawback in this case, where each piece is less a magnum opus and more an immediate, visceral, gut-level reaction to the subject matter. Artist and icon colliding.
That's my opinion, anyway. I'm just a guy who photoshops robots.
I recently made my way to Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol Museum to view The Vader Project, which will be there until May 3. The gist is that replica props of Darth's helmet were given to a host of "some of today’s hottest underground and pop surrealist painters, artists and designers," In other words, the people you're not familiar with because you're not cool enough. I'm not sure how strict the guidelines were, but they seem to have been, "take this and do your thing with it."
Seeing as how I am a card-carrying member of the open-ended definition of art club (depending on what you mean by "card," of course), and a certified head above the exosphere science fiction nerd, I obviously wanted to make sure I had a look at this one. As would be expected, the results varied widely, but I was not disappointed.
If I may take a moment to perhaps unfairly pigeonhole the pieces in the exhibit, there seem to be two major schools of thought concerning the project: Some artists attempted to re-imagine or re-create the helmet using different materials, and replacing or adding components, while others used it as a weirdly-shaped canvas to paint on. Now I'm not coming down on the second school, because some of these were very good, but I feel like those from column A were more effective on the whole.
A lot of the blame for this falls on the gallery space itself. Almost all the helmets were perched atop black columns at about eye level. They were lined up in rows, all facing the same direction with a taped-off rectangle around the each row. Believe me when I say I understand the need to create a border between the art and the viewer in this case in particular. I wanted to wear some of these so badly I had to slap my own hand away. However, those helmets which displayed some sort of diorama or painted image could not be viewed in their entirety unless they were fortunate enough to occupy the end spots.
Most of them, however, must be viewed twice. You observe the front of twenty or so, and then walk along the next aisle to view the back of them. I haven't the slightest idea as to whether or not the artists were informed of how the pieces would be displayed, but I doubt it. Now, I understand that space can be at a premium in galleries, especially for a traveling exhibit like The Vader Project. I just felt an unfortunate disconnect between the art and the presentation. Someone dropped the ball when Flickr is outdoing The Andy Warhol Museum in some of these cases.
That's precisely why I felt the more effective helmets were those that attempted to transform the object or take it out of its recognized context. Not only do I find that to be a better approach to what is, essentially, a sculpture gallery, but they also suffered less from the unfortunate layout of the exhibit. In these cases, more of the item's overall effect is preserved while merely viewing the front.
Despite the formatting issues, I still enjoyed the exhibit. Sometimes, the most interesting art can result from imposing unusual boundaries. The Vader Project is, at its heart, an exploration of that concept. You could say there was a scatter shot mentality to the project, but that's not a drawback in this case, where each piece is less a magnum opus and more an immediate, visceral, gut-level reaction to the subject matter. Artist and icon colliding.
That's my opinion, anyway. I'm just a guy who photoshops robots.
Battlestar Galactica, Reimagined Series
It's easy to play the curmudgeonly critic who hates everything besides sitting in a dark room staring at a blank wall. It's a simple matter to fill these commentaries with pop culture jokes and the occasional scatological wisecrack when you have little respect for the subject material. Today, however, I have to play the optimist. I'm forced to contradict my own screeds against serialized fiction and repackaging existing stories. I also have to account for the many, many mistakes made during the series because despite all of that, I still loved Battlestar Galactica.
And I like to think I hold myself to a higher standard, so I can't just say, "Yeah, it had problems, but it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside."
I truly think Battlestar is the best science fiction television series of its generation. Now before you ask, I have not seen Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate Special Victims Unit or anything other than the original movie. I am aware that they are extremely popular among their devotees, but it's just not my flavor of Kool-Aid. And do we really need another story about humanity discovering the toys left behind by ancient, mysteriously vanished benevolent builder aliens?
Yes, yes. I was really into Firefly as well, but we can't just assume it would have continued to be great because it died so young. Come on, if it had lasted as many seasons as Angel or Buffy, that's more than enough time for it to spiral into Joss Whedon's trademark convoluted madness. They never should have trusted Fox, anyway.
Star Trek is not so cut and dry. However, the later series, which is to say, those that could more accurately be considered part of Battlestar's generation, are the weakest. Although it is tempting to take a rose-tinted look back since J. J. Abrams is poised to murder the franchise once and for all, that would not be honest.
In a way, I think Battlestar is as much a response to Star Trek as it is to its original incarnation. Star Trek attempts to imagine us at our best. Humanity is brought back from the brink of devastation by an outside force and actually learns from the experience. They try, even if they don't always succeed, to use technology and influence responsibly. They are the honorable and compassionate people we wish we could be. No matter how jaded I become as I get older, there will always be a part of me yearning for that future, impossibly bright and heartbreakingly distant.
Battlestar Galactica is about human nature as well, but it's nowhere near as confident. I'm inclined to agree that when and if we get spaceships and travel to other stars, we will still be the same violent, petty, conniving douchebags we are now.
It's part of what makes Battlestar so gripping, even when the plot has gone momentarily off the rails. The characters have emotions and motivations that we can recognize, even if their situation is extreme and unfamiliar. So often these grand space operas leave the human element behind as if only one-dimensional characters can break the speed of light. It's a spaceship than can wink out of existence and reappear light-years away, but inside it's gunmetal gray and manually operated doors that make a satisfying clank when they close. It's clear that a lot of thought went into this aspect of the show. Galactica initially escapes destruction because its systems are outdated. The characters communicate using handsets with coiled cords and garbled radio messages. They use bullets and missiles and flight suits. This aesthetic serves the show well, highlighting its unique approach. The alien and the familiar together.
In fact, when Battlestar Galactica gets it wrong, it's usually when things become a little too familiar. Science fiction is about imagining the future in order to make observations about the present, but the best SF does it with subtlety and style. Parts of the finale have this problem, but it was the New Caprica debacle that really made me cringe. They stretched and strained plotlines and characters in order to jump up and down and say, "Ooh, ooh! Look at us, We're topical!" I certainly would have advised against doing this at all, but they could have at least made their allegory a little more complex. These episodes were so bad, they had to be the result of either incompetence or contempt for their audience. Either way, they let CNN's coverage of the Iraq War write half of the scripts, and I was glad when it finally ended.
The whole exercise was pointless, anyway. They had more than enough time to address their pet theme of studying social structures in a states of extreme turmoil. This was the hook responsible for getting me on board at the outset. I found the relationship between the civilian government and the military chain of command the most compelling thing about the show. They had to gauge their commitment to their way of life next to their chances for survival. It's this kind of thinking that SF is all about. It's not just, "wouldn't it be cool if...?" but "what does this do to their society?"
It makes me wonder why the weird, not really explained, kind of tacked-on spiritual stuff needed to be there at all. They had a mostly believable "religion = science + a long time" sort of thing going on until the last season when everything went crazy and I don't think they got away with it. Characters have visions, characters disappear and reappear. Explanations were not given, but I think we all trusted that they were pending. Notoriously, the song All Along the Watchtower popped up as a plot device. It coincided with revelations about Earth and cylons and it seemed a little out there, but I assumed it would all make sense eventually. Instead, they hemmed and hawed and gave a couple of half-hearted attempts, but nothing felt convincing.
In the end, in lieu of an explanation for all that, we got a ridiculous and completely redundant scene in which some sort of higher power is mentioned by characters who may or may not exist and then... What? Roll credits? Are you kidding me?
It's clear the writers had their hands in too many pies, and I'll tell you why. The moment Laura Roslin wrote the number of survivors on the whiteboard in Colonial One, they were declaring loudly that the show was going to be about mortality. Indeed, this is a major theme throughout the show and is executed well. The few surviving humans cling to life in the black void fighting enemies who have the ability to resurrect. It was an emotional tool that I for one responded to, but it's hard to take it seriously with all the wishy-washy supernatural stuff going on as well. They tried to hedge their bets by tacking on a bunch of weird shit assuming at least some of it will end up being deep and moving.
It's a shame they felt the need to do that because all that death and danger creates some seriously tense action to go with the existentialism. Until they felt the need to undermine it in the later seasons, it was one of the show's biggest assets. There is an attack. Some escape, some stay and fight. Some lives are risked to try and save the species as a whole. When they're doing it right, it puts you on the edge of your seat because it's crystal clear just what is at stake every time they launch Vipers.
Speaking as the kind of mega-nerd who doodled space ships on his notebooks in school when he should have been paying attention, I like to think about Battlestar Galactica in terms of the titular vessel herself. She's solid, built with the understanding that she was going to get shot at. A lot. Her armor was pocked and scorched and falling off in places from all the damage she sustained, but by the end she was still intact, if just barely. The series was assaulted by ham-fisted and unnecessary allegory, a flippant and ultimately confusing approach to the supernatural, scheduling weirdness and a writer's strike, but I feel it was constructed well enough to survive.
I do not regret being on board.
And I like to think I hold myself to a higher standard, so I can't just say, "Yeah, it had problems, but it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside."
I truly think Battlestar is the best science fiction television series of its generation. Now before you ask, I have not seen Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate Special Victims Unit or anything other than the original movie. I am aware that they are extremely popular among their devotees, but it's just not my flavor of Kool-Aid. And do we really need another story about humanity discovering the toys left behind by ancient, mysteriously vanished benevolent builder aliens?
Yes, yes. I was really into Firefly as well, but we can't just assume it would have continued to be great because it died so young. Come on, if it had lasted as many seasons as Angel or Buffy, that's more than enough time for it to spiral into Joss Whedon's trademark convoluted madness. They never should have trusted Fox, anyway.
Star Trek is not so cut and dry. However, the later series, which is to say, those that could more accurately be considered part of Battlestar's generation, are the weakest. Although it is tempting to take a rose-tinted look back since J. J. Abrams is poised to murder the franchise once and for all, that would not be honest.
In a way, I think Battlestar is as much a response to Star Trek as it is to its original incarnation. Star Trek attempts to imagine us at our best. Humanity is brought back from the brink of devastation by an outside force and actually learns from the experience. They try, even if they don't always succeed, to use technology and influence responsibly. They are the honorable and compassionate people we wish we could be. No matter how jaded I become as I get older, there will always be a part of me yearning for that future, impossibly bright and heartbreakingly distant.
Battlestar Galactica is about human nature as well, but it's nowhere near as confident. I'm inclined to agree that when and if we get spaceships and travel to other stars, we will still be the same violent, petty, conniving douchebags we are now.
It's part of what makes Battlestar so gripping, even when the plot has gone momentarily off the rails. The characters have emotions and motivations that we can recognize, even if their situation is extreme and unfamiliar. So often these grand space operas leave the human element behind as if only one-dimensional characters can break the speed of light. It's a spaceship than can wink out of existence and reappear light-years away, but inside it's gunmetal gray and manually operated doors that make a satisfying clank when they close. It's clear that a lot of thought went into this aspect of the show. Galactica initially escapes destruction because its systems are outdated. The characters communicate using handsets with coiled cords and garbled radio messages. They use bullets and missiles and flight suits. This aesthetic serves the show well, highlighting its unique approach. The alien and the familiar together.
In fact, when Battlestar Galactica gets it wrong, it's usually when things become a little too familiar. Science fiction is about imagining the future in order to make observations about the present, but the best SF does it with subtlety and style. Parts of the finale have this problem, but it was the New Caprica debacle that really made me cringe. They stretched and strained plotlines and characters in order to jump up and down and say, "Ooh, ooh! Look at us, We're topical!" I certainly would have advised against doing this at all, but they could have at least made their allegory a little more complex. These episodes were so bad, they had to be the result of either incompetence or contempt for their audience. Either way, they let CNN's coverage of the Iraq War write half of the scripts, and I was glad when it finally ended.
The whole exercise was pointless, anyway. They had more than enough time to address their pet theme of studying social structures in a states of extreme turmoil. This was the hook responsible for getting me on board at the outset. I found the relationship between the civilian government and the military chain of command the most compelling thing about the show. They had to gauge their commitment to their way of life next to their chances for survival. It's this kind of thinking that SF is all about. It's not just, "wouldn't it be cool if...?" but "what does this do to their society?"
It makes me wonder why the weird, not really explained, kind of tacked-on spiritual stuff needed to be there at all. They had a mostly believable "religion = science + a long time" sort of thing going on until the last season when everything went crazy and I don't think they got away with it. Characters have visions, characters disappear and reappear. Explanations were not given, but I think we all trusted that they were pending. Notoriously, the song All Along the Watchtower popped up as a plot device. It coincided with revelations about Earth and cylons and it seemed a little out there, but I assumed it would all make sense eventually. Instead, they hemmed and hawed and gave a couple of half-hearted attempts, but nothing felt convincing.
In the end, in lieu of an explanation for all that, we got a ridiculous and completely redundant scene in which some sort of higher power is mentioned by characters who may or may not exist and then... What? Roll credits? Are you kidding me?
It's clear the writers had their hands in too many pies, and I'll tell you why. The moment Laura Roslin wrote the number of survivors on the whiteboard in Colonial One, they were declaring loudly that the show was going to be about mortality. Indeed, this is a major theme throughout the show and is executed well. The few surviving humans cling to life in the black void fighting enemies who have the ability to resurrect. It was an emotional tool that I for one responded to, but it's hard to take it seriously with all the wishy-washy supernatural stuff going on as well. They tried to hedge their bets by tacking on a bunch of weird shit assuming at least some of it will end up being deep and moving.
It's a shame they felt the need to do that because all that death and danger creates some seriously tense action to go with the existentialism. Until they felt the need to undermine it in the later seasons, it was one of the show's biggest assets. There is an attack. Some escape, some stay and fight. Some lives are risked to try and save the species as a whole. When they're doing it right, it puts you on the edge of your seat because it's crystal clear just what is at stake every time they launch Vipers.
Speaking as the kind of mega-nerd who doodled space ships on his notebooks in school when he should have been paying attention, I like to think about Battlestar Galactica in terms of the titular vessel herself. She's solid, built with the understanding that she was going to get shot at. A lot. Her armor was pocked and scorched and falling off in places from all the damage she sustained, but by the end she was still intact, if just barely. The series was assaulted by ham-fisted and unnecessary allegory, a flippant and ultimately confusing approach to the supernatural, scheduling weirdness and a writer's strike, but I feel it was constructed well enough to survive.
I do not regret being on board.
Spore
I delayed playing this game for so long not because I thought it would be bad, but because I feared it might actually live up to its grandiose aspirations. The whole PC god game/strategy/simulation style of gaming usually gets me into a lot of trouble. I sit down to play a few turns of Civilization and then barely manage to pull myself away sixteen hours later because my weak human body requires food and water on occasion. It got so bad I had to force myself to quit playing that one, and they don't make a patch for that. From the beginning, Spore looked to be right up my alley, so I hesitated. But I can only resist something like that for so long.
Creator Will Wright's previous work is in the same general category as a lot of other games I enjoy, but I was never really sucked in by any of it. I have always been terrible at SimCity. My population centers were so mismanaged they ended up looking like faithful re-imaginings of The Wire viewed from some sort of dirigible. I do appreciate a game that assumes I'm not an idiot, but I'm a little too obsessive-compulsive for that much micromanagement. I simply cannot deal with the ubiquitous background noise of guilt about a housing block without adequate fire safety or an increasing pollution issue or one of the million other things I'm doing wrong. Naturally, I run out of money trying to keep everyone happy and have to squeeze the poor residents to fill my coffers (there are only about four people not living in squalor at this point). This makes me feel even worse. Eventually, I remember that it's a game and I should be having fun, and I go do something else.
Wright's other major title, The Sims, is a game that is really impressive in a pointless sort of way. You can take it at face value, but then you're essentially just playing Normal Life: The Game. You can instead do what everyone else does, which is to assume the persona of an evil god with powers oddly limited by the family's bank account, and set about ruining these digital beings' lives. This is immeasurably more satisfying than unleashing catastrophes to punish your lazy citizens in SimCity. They're not much more than dots. In The Sims, you can be as sadistic as the game will let you, and it is surprisingly accommodating. I know this was not what Wright had intended, but what did he expect from a market so saturated in testosterone?
However, it turns out there is an upper limit to the enjoyment which can be derived from utterly destroying Mortimer Goth's life by, I don't know, driving his wife into the arms of the neighborhood bachelor, forcing social services to take his daughter away, turning his home into a fetid nightmare covered in rotting food, and selling any useful appliances until he cries himself to sleep every night in the middle of the road, face-down in a puddle of his own urine. What's cool is that the game is so well-equipped that such nonsense is possible. The building and editing tools are both powerful and intuitive. I have always felt the series is to be commended for that, even if the subject matter is somewhat vanilla.
Spore, I think, was intended to be the ultimate god game; a simulation in five distinct chapters representing steps on the path of life from single-celled organism to space-faring civilization. It is built upon the Maxis tradition that video games can be about creation and management, not just running, jumping, and murder. It also takes considerable inspiration from other sorts of games which share little besides a common camera angle. The game has a real-time strategy section and Sid Meier's Civilization series is clearly the foundation for the entire later portion. The creature phase, on the other hand, reminded me of that old SNES game EVO. I loved that game.
The player's responsibilities and goals change considerably as their species and culture becomes more complex . Each of Spore's eras is essentially a different game, although after your first run through, you are free to skip ahead. You must, however, deny yourself access to powers earned for completing the earlier segments.
The cell stage is a relatively simple 2D combat game in which your tiny organism must swim about in the tide pool and find food. Along the way, you'll pick up new body parts, mostly defense or mobility-related, and apply them to your body by mating, thus giving birth to the next, more advanced generation. I have to admit, I didn't expect much from this part, but it's constructed very well. Every part has a function, but they don't just add to your creature's statistics, the positioning and application has a lot to do with their utility. It's rather complex, and I expected it would just be something I'd rush through on my way to the creature phase they're so very proud of. Eventually, as you eat algae and/or other simple creatures, your species grows a tiny brain and climbs up out of the water. A little too soon, in my opinion. This phase could have been twice as long.
You've probably seen at least one preview of the creature stage. It was the game's biggest selling point, something they started showing off years before they even had an expected release date.
To be perfectly honest, this phase was painful to experience.
The design tool is impressive. No, to be fair, it's an incredible achievement. I created a gaggle of ridiculous animals, but no matter what I did, it managed to convincingly animate the poor things. That is why it's such a shame that the actual gameplay is so boring. I was expecting something dynamic, a unique ecosystem every game. What I got was each species huddled around their own little nest waiting for my creature to show up and either entertain or devour them. I would have liked to have a little more direct control over my creatures' movements, but I accept that may have been a necessary sacrifice if the builder was going to work properly. However, there is no excuse for how static the world is. They've had much of this in place for years now. I know. I saw the videos. It just seems like they finished the creature builder and then knocked off to go have a cold one instead of thinking about the application. It's stifled and repetitive and no one seemed to notice. I'm not expecting some outlandishly complex functioning ecology. The simple, cutesy aesthetic gives them considerable latitude, but I don't get the feeling they were even trying to make it interesting. It's sloppy.
Eventually you sing and dance or kill and eat your way to to sentience. Your creatures discover fire and tools, they get together and form a small tribe. The goal here is to establish your tribe as the dominant culture in the region. You can do this by giving the other tribes gifts and playing music for them until they become your ally. You can also steal their food, kill their warriors, and raze their village. As with the creature phase, you can tailor your strategy to suit the situation, make nice with the axe-wielding berserkers and slaughter the peaceful musicians. When you make the jump from creature to tribe, your choices don't affect too much. It grants your culture access to different powers, but friendly herbivores are perfectly able to take up arms and conquer their neighbors as a tribe. However, the results of the tribal phase determine a lot about your first city in the subsequent one and the game is pretty picky about whether or not you were opportunistic enough to qualify for the middle ground award. The tribal phase is adequate, if simple.
The civilization phase is a mess. Maybe I'm spoiled by my years of playing Meier's series, but Spore's take is so horribly managed I almost quit playing before I got to space.
Okay, that's a lie. Skipping the space phase was never on the table for me, but still.
I thought the idea was for the gameplay itself to become more advanced as the player's species grew in intelligence and complexity. The reality is just tedium. It's like Civilization with all the good stuff like city management and technological advancement cut out, leaving only the grind and repetition. What scant variation this era offers isn't available unless you conquer the right cities. I think it would have been a better idea to allow military, cultural, and economic vehicles from the start, and instead add another layer of strategy based upon which category your cities are in. Instead, you have exactly as many tactics available as you have different cities, with a maximum of three.
It gets worse. Despite the severely limited complexity, it still manages to bungle the presentation of the information you need with an over-burdened clusterfuck of a heads-up display. Bright blue and white flashing buttons clutter the screen at all times. It's as if they'd heard of strategy games, but had never actually seen one in action. Before I played Spore, I was worried they would simply rip off Civilization, and now I wish they had.
Finally, it's time to go into space. After you establish your world government based on religion, greed, or bloodshed, your society will be ready to spread their disgust for others throughout the galaxy. You'll first design a spaceship using essentially the same builder tool you used to create your creatures, and it's still very good. You also used it to clothe them in the tribal phase and design buildings and vehicles in the civilization phase, but you almost never see any of that in action and it comes off as just a periodic reminder that even though you're not always having fun, the game is not without its accomplishments.
This is where things finally get interesting. The game gives you the freedom to fly around and visit other stars. A successful space empire uses all the different societal tools. You can focus on colonization and trade, or you can fight and conquer. There is also a terra-forming game wherein you settle alien worlds, give them atmosphere, and create a functioning ecosystem. This makes your colonies larger and more profitable. It is sort of fun but it suffers from issues similar to those of the creature phase. It's rigid. Everything plays out according to some simple gauges. If the planet has room for only one predator, placing another will cause the newcomers to die off. They should at least fight it out, right?
The chief success of the space phase, and one of the big strengths of the game as a whole is how tactile it all is. They really did a marvelous job with the builder program. There is considerable depth to it, and yet someone with little experience with gaming in general can learn how to use it in minutes.
There is a similar philosophy at work in the control mechanism of the space phase. It feels very hands-on because it takes the floating third-person view Spore shares with all the games that inspired it and attaches the player's avatar, the ship they created. Every weapon and tool is a piece of equipment on board. It pulls the player into the action in a way that I've never seen in a strategy or simulation.
There is a catch, of course. The final phase of the game involves many details which require quite a lot of attention. This is good to a certain extent, but I wish the player's increasing level of technology opened up some optional tools to help streamline and automate some of the more tedious aspects of managing a space empire.
It's not easy to put all that together. Spore is an ambitious project that overextended itself a bit. At some points I was really impressed with what they have achieved, while just as often I was furious at those segments which felt rushed or incomplete.
Should you play Spore? The short answer is yes. It is equal parts groundbreaking and derivative, visceral and monotonous, but there is nothing quite like it. I feel comfortable recommending it for the sheer spectacle, but I don't think they got it quite right yet. This is probably good. I don't know if I would have been able to stop playing long enough to write this if they had.
It's hard to have faith in this industry sometimes. If these companies spent more time designing than on marketing and hype, we could really start elevating gaming as an art form. I have even less faith in EA, but I always thought Wright and his people were really interested in pushing the limits of electronic entertainment and I still do. Spore isn't bad, it's just incomplete.
It's an awkward lurch in the right direction.
Creator Will Wright's previous work is in the same general category as a lot of other games I enjoy, but I was never really sucked in by any of it. I have always been terrible at SimCity. My population centers were so mismanaged they ended up looking like faithful re-imaginings of The Wire viewed from some sort of dirigible. I do appreciate a game that assumes I'm not an idiot, but I'm a little too obsessive-compulsive for that much micromanagement. I simply cannot deal with the ubiquitous background noise of guilt about a housing block without adequate fire safety or an increasing pollution issue or one of the million other things I'm doing wrong. Naturally, I run out of money trying to keep everyone happy and have to squeeze the poor residents to fill my coffers (there are only about four people not living in squalor at this point). This makes me feel even worse. Eventually, I remember that it's a game and I should be having fun, and I go do something else.
Wright's other major title, The Sims, is a game that is really impressive in a pointless sort of way. You can take it at face value, but then you're essentially just playing Normal Life: The Game. You can instead do what everyone else does, which is to assume the persona of an evil god with powers oddly limited by the family's bank account, and set about ruining these digital beings' lives. This is immeasurably more satisfying than unleashing catastrophes to punish your lazy citizens in SimCity. They're not much more than dots. In The Sims, you can be as sadistic as the game will let you, and it is surprisingly accommodating. I know this was not what Wright had intended, but what did he expect from a market so saturated in testosterone?
However, it turns out there is an upper limit to the enjoyment which can be derived from utterly destroying Mortimer Goth's life by, I don't know, driving his wife into the arms of the neighborhood bachelor, forcing social services to take his daughter away, turning his home into a fetid nightmare covered in rotting food, and selling any useful appliances until he cries himself to sleep every night in the middle of the road, face-down in a puddle of his own urine. What's cool is that the game is so well-equipped that such nonsense is possible. The building and editing tools are both powerful and intuitive. I have always felt the series is to be commended for that, even if the subject matter is somewhat vanilla.
Spore, I think, was intended to be the ultimate god game; a simulation in five distinct chapters representing steps on the path of life from single-celled organism to space-faring civilization. It is built upon the Maxis tradition that video games can be about creation and management, not just running, jumping, and murder. It also takes considerable inspiration from other sorts of games which share little besides a common camera angle. The game has a real-time strategy section and Sid Meier's Civilization series is clearly the foundation for the entire later portion. The creature phase, on the other hand, reminded me of that old SNES game EVO. I loved that game.
The player's responsibilities and goals change considerably as their species and culture becomes more complex . Each of Spore's eras is essentially a different game, although after your first run through, you are free to skip ahead. You must, however, deny yourself access to powers earned for completing the earlier segments.
The cell stage is a relatively simple 2D combat game in which your tiny organism must swim about in the tide pool and find food. Along the way, you'll pick up new body parts, mostly defense or mobility-related, and apply them to your body by mating, thus giving birth to the next, more advanced generation. I have to admit, I didn't expect much from this part, but it's constructed very well. Every part has a function, but they don't just add to your creature's statistics, the positioning and application has a lot to do with their utility. It's rather complex, and I expected it would just be something I'd rush through on my way to the creature phase they're so very proud of. Eventually, as you eat algae and/or other simple creatures, your species grows a tiny brain and climbs up out of the water. A little too soon, in my opinion. This phase could have been twice as long.
You've probably seen at least one preview of the creature stage. It was the game's biggest selling point, something they started showing off years before they even had an expected release date.
To be perfectly honest, this phase was painful to experience.
The design tool is impressive. No, to be fair, it's an incredible achievement. I created a gaggle of ridiculous animals, but no matter what I did, it managed to convincingly animate the poor things. That is why it's such a shame that the actual gameplay is so boring. I was expecting something dynamic, a unique ecosystem every game. What I got was each species huddled around their own little nest waiting for my creature to show up and either entertain or devour them. I would have liked to have a little more direct control over my creatures' movements, but I accept that may have been a necessary sacrifice if the builder was going to work properly. However, there is no excuse for how static the world is. They've had much of this in place for years now. I know. I saw the videos. It just seems like they finished the creature builder and then knocked off to go have a cold one instead of thinking about the application. It's stifled and repetitive and no one seemed to notice. I'm not expecting some outlandishly complex functioning ecology. The simple, cutesy aesthetic gives them considerable latitude, but I don't get the feeling they were even trying to make it interesting. It's sloppy.
Eventually you sing and dance or kill and eat your way to to sentience. Your creatures discover fire and tools, they get together and form a small tribe. The goal here is to establish your tribe as the dominant culture in the region. You can do this by giving the other tribes gifts and playing music for them until they become your ally. You can also steal their food, kill their warriors, and raze their village. As with the creature phase, you can tailor your strategy to suit the situation, make nice with the axe-wielding berserkers and slaughter the peaceful musicians. When you make the jump from creature to tribe, your choices don't affect too much. It grants your culture access to different powers, but friendly herbivores are perfectly able to take up arms and conquer their neighbors as a tribe. However, the results of the tribal phase determine a lot about your first city in the subsequent one and the game is pretty picky about whether or not you were opportunistic enough to qualify for the middle ground award. The tribal phase is adequate, if simple.
The civilization phase is a mess. Maybe I'm spoiled by my years of playing Meier's series, but Spore's take is so horribly managed I almost quit playing before I got to space.
Okay, that's a lie. Skipping the space phase was never on the table for me, but still.
I thought the idea was for the gameplay itself to become more advanced as the player's species grew in intelligence and complexity. The reality is just tedium. It's like Civilization with all the good stuff like city management and technological advancement cut out, leaving only the grind and repetition. What scant variation this era offers isn't available unless you conquer the right cities. I think it would have been a better idea to allow military, cultural, and economic vehicles from the start, and instead add another layer of strategy based upon which category your cities are in. Instead, you have exactly as many tactics available as you have different cities, with a maximum of three.
It gets worse. Despite the severely limited complexity, it still manages to bungle the presentation of the information you need with an over-burdened clusterfuck of a heads-up display. Bright blue and white flashing buttons clutter the screen at all times. It's as if they'd heard of strategy games, but had never actually seen one in action. Before I played Spore, I was worried they would simply rip off Civilization, and now I wish they had.
Finally, it's time to go into space. After you establish your world government based on religion, greed, or bloodshed, your society will be ready to spread their disgust for others throughout the galaxy. You'll first design a spaceship using essentially the same builder tool you used to create your creatures, and it's still very good. You also used it to clothe them in the tribal phase and design buildings and vehicles in the civilization phase, but you almost never see any of that in action and it comes off as just a periodic reminder that even though you're not always having fun, the game is not without its accomplishments.
This is where things finally get interesting. The game gives you the freedom to fly around and visit other stars. A successful space empire uses all the different societal tools. You can focus on colonization and trade, or you can fight and conquer. There is also a terra-forming game wherein you settle alien worlds, give them atmosphere, and create a functioning ecosystem. This makes your colonies larger and more profitable. It is sort of fun but it suffers from issues similar to those of the creature phase. It's rigid. Everything plays out according to some simple gauges. If the planet has room for only one predator, placing another will cause the newcomers to die off. They should at least fight it out, right?
The chief success of the space phase, and one of the big strengths of the game as a whole is how tactile it all is. They really did a marvelous job with the builder program. There is considerable depth to it, and yet someone with little experience with gaming in general can learn how to use it in minutes.
There is a similar philosophy at work in the control mechanism of the space phase. It feels very hands-on because it takes the floating third-person view Spore shares with all the games that inspired it and attaches the player's avatar, the ship they created. Every weapon and tool is a piece of equipment on board. It pulls the player into the action in a way that I've never seen in a strategy or simulation.
There is a catch, of course. The final phase of the game involves many details which require quite a lot of attention. This is good to a certain extent, but I wish the player's increasing level of technology opened up some optional tools to help streamline and automate some of the more tedious aspects of managing a space empire.
It's not easy to put all that together. Spore is an ambitious project that overextended itself a bit. At some points I was really impressed with what they have achieved, while just as often I was furious at those segments which felt rushed or incomplete.
Should you play Spore? The short answer is yes. It is equal parts groundbreaking and derivative, visceral and monotonous, but there is nothing quite like it. I feel comfortable recommending it for the sheer spectacle, but I don't think they got it quite right yet. This is probably good. I don't know if I would have been able to stop playing long enough to write this if they had.
It's hard to have faith in this industry sometimes. If these companies spent more time designing than on marketing and hype, we could really start elevating gaming as an art form. I have even less faith in EA, but I always thought Wright and his people were really interested in pushing the limits of electronic entertainment and I still do. Spore isn't bad, it's just incomplete.
It's an awkward lurch in the right direction.
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