I had a lot of problems with the latest Tron movie, so many that I wasn't able to articulate them in a post of my own (and ended up instead writing about how I accidentally got in a fight with someone I care about whilst trying to articulate said problems).
But Chris the Cynic has solved that with his own post on how the movie could have solve a lot of those problems with an expanded cast (more women, more people of color, more effeminate men who aren't villains, etc.) and a stronger world-building basis over a long-running TV series. For the fanficcers in the audience, I recommend this; and even if you're not into fanfic fixes, there's a lot here in terms of, well, problems in the movie that Ana wanted to like because it was pretty. (Probably that needs to be a snappy acronym.)
RECOMMENDS! Whatcha up to these days?
27 comments:
Have you seen the recent Tron: Uprising TV series? It has... maybe 2 of those three solutions. Though not especially ground-breaking interpretations of them.
I think TRON: Legacy is like Twilight. To salvage it, you'd have to make something completely different in every way.
What I been up to? I'm finishing the editing on the last 2/3 of a story. Then I'll submit part 2 to my writers' group for critique (part 3 will be next month, part 1 was last month, and a big hit with the WG crowd).
As far as TV goes, I am SO getting into "Young Justice". I have a L.U.S.T for the dark-skinned Aqualad (who is LOGICAL and CALM and NOT a "Beast") and for the light-skinned Superboy (who is HEADSTRONG and IMPULSIVE and NOT stereotypical Know All White Man). In addition to that, I'm LOVING how many dark skinned, FEMALE characters there are (for example, Bumblebee) and how the women's costumes are kind of modified so that it's not so hypersexualized.
I'm thinking about doing blog posts. But I kind of came onto the scene late and I'm just barely learning the characters' names, situations, etc. Does anyone know where I could watch the cartoon online without causing a virus on my computer...?
As far as books go, I'm EATING UP your Pulchritude, Ana. Rosella is, err...interesting. *giggles* And I'm still in love with the phrase "breathtakingly dull". *giggles happily as I continue reading*
But, would it be technology impossible and/or infringe on your copyright if I can somehow safe your book to my jumpdrive so I can take it to school and read it between classes? Things are slowing down a bit more, and so I think I'll have more time...
Go right ahead! It's released under a Creative Commons copyright that allows you to copy it wherever you want, share it, etc. as long as you don't alter the contents. :)
*squeals* Bless you, Ana!! Bless you!!!! :D :D :D
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D
Can I just say that I love you for using that license. I know a lot of people who post things (not usually book-length things, but images and stuff) online, and don't care how they're copied, but couldn't be bothered to license them properly. And that does, inevitably, cause problems down the line.
And sometimes you get the opposite, such as people blindly using CC licenses without knowing what they mean, and then being surprised when people copy their stuff. Kate Harding was bitten by that once.
And then there's people who release their blog under "the creative commons license". There's more than one, people, and they do different things!
Sorry. I've recently taken to reading debian-legal, so at the moment I'm even more license geeky than I usually am.
TRiG.
Thank you! I put a lot of thought and research into it, and it's worked really well for me so far. You're right that it's complicated, though.
Seconding this suggestion. Although I was initially skeptical of the cartoon--it looked too different from the original comic book (which I loved with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns) in ways which didn't appeal to me--it has easily become everything I'd like in the modern super-hero comic book. Unfortunately, Amarie, I don´t know any way of catching up. When did you start.
As for stuff I've done this week, I finished a review of my videogame sacrificial goat (i.e.: a game which I vow to attack for the rest of my existence) Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia , which despite doing some awesome things (super-fun gameplay! The first Castlevania to feature a woman as its sole protagonist in ten years!) I find unloveable due to its stupid, stupid story and its stupid stupid sexist message--in effect, it thinks its heroic to take away's women's agency in order to protect them from themselves.
And when it comes to things others have written, Kelly Thompson latest She Has No Head! column, "This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things", explores comic book companies' claims that modern day superheroines' bodies represent a female physical ideal, and how it stacks up to reality as shown in the Olympics (Content Note: References to body policing).
So, I should probably reread that just so I know what you're all looking at.
Thanks, Ana.
Oooh. I have previously heard good things about Young Justice. I think I will definitely check it out and show it to the kids. We need something to watch as a family while we wait for Legend of Korra to come back on.
And that Kelly Thompson post sounds great. Off to read.
I keep meaning to write a loooong article about the history of the Free Software movement, Wikipedia, Creative Commons, copyright law, patent law, copyleft vs permissive licences, the Open Source movement, the GNU Project, Debian, Mozilla, Iceweasel and a bunch of other stuff (debian-legal has recently declared that the GNU FDL doesn't meet the DFSG*, which is absolutely fascinating), and I might even get around to it one day. I have sketched out a rough outline. But that was months ago.
TRiG.
* Why do the Debian Free Software Guidelines exist separately from the FSF's Four Freedoms? Because the Four Freedoms were not initially well publicised, so Debian felt the need to create their own guidelines. The DFSG was then used as the basis for the OSI's Open Source Definition. Interestingly**, though, the Debian project is in many ways stricter than the FSF, while the OSI is less strict.
** I sometimes get the impression that my idea of what counts as interesting or fascinating may not match everyone else's. I wonder why.
An expanded, diverse cast and good world-building could solve problems in nearly every story that's ever been made, but that's just my love of Loads and Loads of Characters coming in.
I am seemingly a hair's breadth from finishing the tenth chapter of my Colossal Fanfiction Project I Will Never Finish In My Lifetime! The count on the total project is now over 75,000 words, stunningly enough. I haven't even barely begun the story yet.
My actual novel novel? Stalled out. Bleh. As long as I'm putting words down every single day for something, though...
Well, I finally got inspired, I suppose, to write my own experience in the Depression Diaries, about the other side of the "comparing yourself to others" coin. (Content Note: Depression and Societal Insensitivity)
I write a bit about the Chick-fil-A flap, but a lot of other people did it better and more cohesively, so I'm not linking that one.
I like books released under Creative Commons - it's how I read Little Brother and knew I wanted to read more of Cory Doctorow. (I'll get to Pulchritude eventually, honest!)
As for Tron: Legacy, the Darker and Edgier style for it just didn't work for me, and they sorry of left behind the original Space Paranoids thing, too. I do like it as a TV series in the way chris the cynic presents it, though, with more focus on the ensemble rather than the main cast.
And I'm reading Amarie, who is wonderful and posting a bit again while tackling difficult courses, taking on the beginnings of Fifty Shares Of Grey.
This week, well I just reread the post Ana recommends and then went through it fixing typographical errors, some more interesting than others. For example instead of unbrainwashed I had unbrain unwashed. Not even sure what that would mean. A dirty not-brain?
On the topic of things other than the recomends post, let's see.
I wrote about the fact that eating enough seems to be really vital to having energy, which makes perfect sense but, "Am I starving myself?" isn't a question I ever expected to ask.
I needed something vaguely uplifiting so I wrote things I like about the movie Sahara, interestingly, to me at least, I think that reading that gives you a pretty good idea of the problems of Sahara too.
I have this recurring thing where an idea for a story where someone presenting as male transitions into the female she actually is, and she happens to be a lesbian pops into my head, I think another one of those, and then realize that I've never gotten around to writing any of them down. The reason is a lack of knowledge, but it never seems to be in the area I'd expect one to expect. So, anyway, I talked about that, list a few such story ideas, and give mildly detailed descriptions of three such story ideas.
On the Deus Ex front I tackled the character creation screen using it to talk about differences within the design team, the way resource management pervades the game, and the fact that if a character has a set in stone code name and a player chosen real name, those two names should, by default, be different.
On the .hack//Sign front I wanted to write a post covering the end of episode 3 meeting in its entirety, but a hanging plant across the room crashed to the ground in the middle of the post so I had less time than I would have liked and cut it short. So instead we have the gathering of the participants, what Bear wanted from the Crimson Knights, and me praising CC Corp for their respect of player confidentiality.
My birthday didn't go well, so I propose we all try again later. And on that subject, but something I've been thinking about for years, why have just one birthday? I use a couple of methods to argue that my birthday is on different dates.
I would love to read that.
I'm applying Unfuck Your Habitat principles to my writing. No more looking at the 'big picture' (ie, This character lives in Cherry County, Nebraka, I don't know anything about Nebraska, must learn All the Things About Cherry County! Zomg, a six hour drive is a hundred hour walk, not happening, so my other character needs to know how to hotwire things, Google hotwiring... er, maybe not.) I am now going from Point A to Point B, rather than Point A to Point AZ4.
Also unfucking my house, one flat surface at a time. The buffet is clear for the first time in six months and has stayed that way for over a week. (The buffet is my house's landing strip, this is an accomplishment.)
I'm also knooking* an elvish leaves dishcloth. It's my first knitted lace and something of an adventure since knooking is an eensy bit different than knitting with certain specific stitches like PSSO.
*Knooking is knitting with a crochet hook and a safety line: it's quicker for me, possibly because I learned to crochet before I learned to knit.
Oh, Tron: Legacy. For one brief moment I thought the movie might be good: The moment where our protagonist was saved by the woman, who seemed like, I dunno, some sort of awesome replacement for Tron.
Then it turned out she was yet another Faux Action Girl, heavily laced with Damsel in Distress. I pretty much gave up on that movie then.
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As for what I've been doing? I have been writing the script for a 24-part youtube horror series! I'm more than a third of the way through. I really hope it'll be good and scary enough, as I'm going to put it in the Slenderman Mythos.
Hey, everyone! Thanks for the perspective on Young Justice. Umm…I *think* I started around the episode where, err…ehhh…Queen Bee was threatening Mrs. Martian/Megan with exposure at the end?
At least, I think…*MEGA BLUSH*
And to Lonespark specifically…
KORRA AND MAKO FOREEEEEEVAAAAAAAAAAR!!!!!!!!!!!!
…But I demand a happy ending for Asami, as well. If Brian and Michael just carelessly pair her off with Bolin or don’t give her a happy ending at all, I’m going to be madder than Firelord Ozai when thirteen-year-old Zuko dares to speak up in the war room. D:<
Seriously.
And d’aaww! Silver, thank you SO much for the compliments and patience! ^ ^
I love Chris's idea for Tron Legacy, the TV show. I can't think of anything terribly useful to say about it though.
Because I'm up to my neck in moving boxes and really not looking forward to a week of work and moving, even though I'm looking forward to being moved to my new, larger apartment. The getting there, though.... Augh.
Eeeeehhhhh, I was disappointed by the Korra/Mako pairing. My biggest hope for that series was that both Korra and Bolin would learn to accept that sometimes the object of one's crush isn't interested. I realize it was too much to hope for that Korra would end the series unpaired, but the indications of romantic!chemistry! when she met handsome young Iroh raised my hopes that she'd extricate herself from the messy love-triangle-with-two-brothers scenario and let Mako and Asami be happy together.
Also, from the above mentioned Kelly Thompson column on female superhero depictions, this tumblr of non-supermodel superwomen seemed worthy of note: http://theresthedoorspaceman.tumblr.com/
Sittin' over here with the Korrasami 'shippers...
For whatever reason the Bolin/Iroh contingent has a good amount of good fic in my LJ circles.
I am reading Amarie, too! I realized I could have been for a while and wasn't because of my Dreamwidth settings. D'oh!
I think TRON: Legacy is like Twilight. To salvage it, you'd have to make something completely different in every way.
I, obviously, don't.
I think Tron Legacy suffers more from what it doesn't do than what it does do. Which means that unlike Twilight I think its problems could, mostly, be solved by adding to it rather than taking away from it.
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Firedrake pointed out problems with Quorra as "the only female character" and the way said only female character is presented. I'd argue that there are actually two female characters in the movie* the other being evil blonde woman.
That's a severe problem in the movie, but it's a problem because they are the only female characters. If they, unchanged, are surrounded by a diverse cast of female characters then the problems they create are changed by that. Because suddenly evil blonde woman stops being evil blonde woman. Now she's one of several evil women, who run a range of hair-colors, and one of several blonde women, who span a range of on the good to evil spectrum.
Quorra, similarly, I don't see as being so problematic in herself, it's just that she's the only (non-evil) female character. And that changes things. Dramatically. Even what Anthony Rosa says about her is only so much of a problem because there's a lack of actual Actiony female characters who hold their own.
If you have those then Quorra is just the character who happened to get severely injured in a fight against immortal foes and later on happened to sacrifice herself (getting caught rather than the expected killed) so the others wouldn't be caught.
If you have the resistance exist outside of Flynn's non-plan and three characters trying to get an audience with Zuse, then that changes things because now the normal people rather than the special people are being shown, and (if done right) making a difference.
Stopping Clu from invading earth is a big deal, but for those in the city it's definitely not the only deal. Showing their story without changing the story surrounding Clu suddenly makes it so it's not just about the elites and yet deals with the problem that the movie had on that front (the movie was about the triumvirate, the last of her kind, and the creator's son) without changing what's already in the movie, just adding to it.
And so forth.
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* There are more female actors but only two of the people portrayed are actually characters, even if those characters fall into problematic stereotypes.
You know, knowing that at least one other person would find that interesting/useful might actually motivate me to write it. Probably not this month, though. This month is a bit frantic.
TRiG.
I, too, would be interested in your writing on the subject of the evolution of free software licenses and other related things, TRiG. When you have time.
I think my preferred ship for Korra, if I must choose one, would be Korra/Bo Lin. Y'know, the one the canon explicitly says isn't happening? Mostly because I see Bo Lin as the grounding influence for Korra, which she sorely needs.
Of course, I would also be quite happy if both Korra and Asami could come to an agreement in how they will share Mako and they could have a happy poly relationship instead of a drama-fueled love triangle. Asami doesn't seem to be the type that wants to share, though, and I worry that she's going to have an inferiority complex drive her to do something very stupid in the next season.
Ooh, and Pema and Chief Bei-Fong need to talk through their issues and unrequited love regarding Tenzin, or that's going to be a source of discontent, too.
Why yes, I have Thoughts about this series.
I kind of hope Mako meets someone else and moves away. I am just tired of him and the relationship and it sucks, because there are a lot of things I like about Mako and his past and his role as big brother and how the brothers fit into society, as benders without much privilege.
Well, I dunno. Lin Bei-Fong and Tenzin used to actually be a couple. But that ended when Pema entered the scene.
(Line that I still love: "I'm surprised she arrest Pema." "Oh, she tried.")
I think that what happened in the season kind of was Tenzin and Lin talking through their issues, though, which was nice to see. They acted like mature adults, kind of became friends again, and sometimes that's all you need. A person doesn't have to start liking the person who stole their lover, but that person can still come to terms with the ex-lover, and maybe even still be friends, assuming that it wasn't something cruel done to the person, and just the lover moving on.
It seemed like a great thing to me. They acted like, shock shock, adults. It was nice.
That's my take on it, too. Although I would love to see more interaction between Lin and the girls.
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