Marvel – Diabolical Plots

ESSAY: Tadashi Hamada’s Legacy

written by David Steffen

This is an essay contemplating the Marvel/Disney movie Big Hero 6 (reviewed here), an excellent animated superhero mystery comedy with one of my favorite characters of all time: Baymax, the inflatable healthcare companion android who gets (improbably) recruited to be part of a superhero team by teenage genius Hiro Hamada. I have posted previous essays about Big Hero 6: Is Baymax Really Compassionate? and The Betrayal of Hiro Hamada. This will include spoilers for the movie, do go see it if you get the chance!

Baymax, one of the main characters of Big Hero 6, is a robot built by Tadashi Hamada, designed to be a healthcare companion. From Baymax’s tone of voice, health scanners, medical database, to his easily sanitized soft and non-threatening exterior and gentle way of moving, everything about Baymax’s design is meant to make him good at this one purpose. Baymax is a prototype that Tadashi intends to change the world by making it easier to provide general healthcare services–a robot like this could compress in the corner of an apartment building or a school and provide health services on demand, or be a long-term and compassionate caretaker for people who would otherwise not be able to live on their own due to age or disability.

Tadashi is still young at the beginning of the movie (maybe 18 or 20 years old?), and enrolled at what his brother Hiro calls “nerd school” for advanced students which seems to be focused on practical applications of cutting edge technology. Tadashi is so surrounded by advanced students with big ideas that even with the invention of Baymax, Tadashi doesn’t stand above his classmates.

Tadashi dies a young and tragic death, apparently before he took his plans for Baymax to the next level to try doing beta testing and eventually find a way to finance broader production, and with the destruction of the school where it was produced it seems unlikely that anyone else has the information to produce any more. Except Hiro. After Tadashi’s death, Hiro discovers the Baymax prototype, and much of the rest of the movie revolves around the connection between the two–Baymax tries to help Hiro recover from the death of his brother, and when suspicious details start to arise Hiro uses Baymax’s compassion and willingness to help to start a technology-powered superhero team with him as the inventor and strategic leader. He reinvents Baymax from the slow and gentle balloon animal he is, to a powerhouse with (removable) armor.

I can understand why Hiro feels a connection with Baymax. Baymax is amazing, and compassionate, and funny. I want him to be my friend, too. And it certainly makes a great movie. But… I can’t help thinking about how Tadashi left behind everything that Hiro would’ve needed to finish the incredible humanitarian legacy that Tadashi had started, that was part of Tadashi’s original design, and all part of why Baymax is so amazing (his empathy and compassion are part of his medical programming, even though they also make him a great friend). Hiro never even seems to consider this possibility, focusing only on himself and on his own needs, and selfishly keeping Baymax to himself, and even reinventing him as a combat robot when starting from scratch with a new robot would honestly make more sense–the inflatable body alone is a major combat liability.

He could have helped finish his brother’s vision of a world where healthcare could be available to everyone (not that there wouldn’t be downsides to it as well, mostly involving job losses in the healthcare industry, as happens in any industry when robot labor becomes a possibility), but something like this could make healthcare available to everyone universally–and not just in developed countries, Baymaxes could go to famine-stricken countries and could perhaps help develop solutions to famine and other major issues that cause health problems. I don’t know how much a Baymax costs to build but I’m guessing the R&D involved to make the first one far outstrips the cost of making one based on existing blueprints.

Instead Baymax is an individual, making a difference where he can in his home city. And I love Baymax, but it makes me sad to think that he has not been able to fulfill the purpose he was designed for. And I think it would make Baymax sad too, he wants nothing more than to help, and he could help so many more people that way.

Is Baymax Really Compassionate?

written by David Steffen

Note before you read any further that this article will definitely include spoilers for the Marvel/Disney movie Big Hero 6, so stop now if you don’t want it spoiled. If you haven’t seen the movie, I would recommend it! (it was reviewed here previously) It is one of my favorites–fun, funny, flashy, action-packed, and with an overall very likeable cast of characters. The most likeable character in the story is the topic of this essay: Baymax.

Summary

Baymax, in his own words, is a “personal healthcare companion.” He is a prototype designed by Tadashi Hamada, a resident of San Fransokyo, who died tragically young in a building explosion before he could do more than private experiments on the prototype.

After his death, Tadashi’s brother Hiro finds the robot in their shared bedroom and Baymax with his medical skills discovers that Hiro is grieving and attempts to help him, by connecting him with his and Tadashi’s mutual friends from a college of advanced technology, and by helping him find the person responsible for Tadashi’s death.

Baymax develops more and more of a superhero-persona as Hiro tries to reinvent him as a powerful superheroic juggernaut with martial arts powers, jets, and projectile fists. Baymax goes along with this on the thin premise that this is all part of Hiro’s treatment to prevent depression and largely goes along with whatever Hiro wants until Hiro asks too much and asks Baymax to take a human life and Baymax refuses. Blinded by grief, Hiro removes Baymax’s nurse chip and the rest of Hiro’s friends narrowly prevent Baymax from killing while he is not himself. This is a major turning point in the movie as Baymax draws a personal boundary and refuses to let Hiro cross it, not allowing Hiro to access his programming chips again afterward. But in the end Baymax forgives him and they join forces again to win the day, and Baymax even gives what can be considered a selfless act to save Hiro’s life (while also doing his best to prolong himself).

Question

Throughout all of this, Baymax is very empathetic, funny, sweet, and helpful. Hiro’s well-being is his primary concern, as much of his actions in the movie are justified by helping Hiro find closure, as well as combating depression with adrenaline rushes. Baymax’s programming is focused around caring for others and it shows in the way he nurtures his team, including acting as a flotation device when the whole group drives a car into water, and then helping them warm up by generating his own heat.

There’s no question that Baymax is likeable. But, is he likeable because he can’t possibly be otherwise? Is he simply a product of his nature? He was designed to act as a nurturer and healer, does that mean that he is actually compassionate, that he is a good person?

He certainly is a nurturer and healer in effect–he never harms a human being in the film, and others are often in better health or better mood because of him. Even when he’s not directly working in a clearly healthcare-related way, his attempts to empathize bring him closer to the people who surround him. In one scene, as he is watching fireworks with Hiro, Hiro has his legs extended in front of him and swings his feet back and forth in an idle motion, and Baymax imitates him in a show of connecting with him.

But, deep inside, is Baymax really compassionate? Or is it merely that he can’t help but take compassionate actions? Does Baymax feel anything or is he just a process of his programming?

I think there is some evidence that Baymax goes outside of his programming in the course of his film. In particular, the fact that he is so easily convinced to take Hiro on dangerous actions, to a degree that I don’t think is fully plausible if healthcare is his only concern. I think that if that were true, then Baymax, instead of giving in to almost all of Hiro’s demands, would be questioning Hiro’s increasingly risky behavior and whether it signals some kind of mental condition that needs treatment for the safety of himself and others.

These questions have often crossed my mind since I watched this movie, and more and more I have come to the conclusion that: it doesn’t matter. When we deal with our fellow human beings, we can’t see into their minds, we can only judge a person by their words and their actions. Baymax is no different. Or, if he is different, he’s simply easier to judge as having a compassionate effect because it’s easier to take his actions as not having ulterior motives since we know what he was designed for.

MOVIE REVIEW: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

written by David Steffen

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a 2018 animated superhero movie from Marvel Studios.

Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) looks up to Spider-Man even though his policeman father (Brian Tyree Henry) hates him. His uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali) takes him to an abandoned subway station to make some graffiti, and he’s bitten by a radioactive spider there. He starts to manifest his spider powers the next day in an embarrassing encounter with the new girl Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld).

While searching for the abandoned subway station again, he stumbles across Spider-Man (Chris Pine) fighting to stop an alternate reality gateway made by Spider-Man’s nemesis Wilson Fisk (Liev Schreiber) (aka the Kingpin). Not long after Miles meets another Spider-Man (Jake Johnson), and he’s not the only one.

The animation in this movie is gorgeous, capturing the comic book style and feel and using comic book styling for emphasis and fun. The plot is weird and action-packed and full of twists and turns. The writing is superb, the voice-acting is great, the humor is perfect. It’s the first animated Spider-Man feature film, and the first one starring the Miles Morales Spider-Man character.

Highly recommended, watch it, you won’t regret it.

MOVIE REVIEW: Ant-Man and the Wasp

written by David Steffen

Ant-Man and the Wasp is a 2018 superhero movie based on the Marvel comics characters of the same names, and is a sequel to the 2015 movie Ant-Man, and also sort of a sequel to the 2016 movie Captain America: Civil War. After the events of Captain America: Civil War Scott Lang aka Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) was put on house arrest for…something he did in that movie which this movie does not exactly make clear (and I haven’t seen Civil War, so, go look it up yourself if you want to know). His daughter from his previous marriage can visit him there, so he spends most of his time making new games to play with her.

At the end of the Ant-Man movie, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) as Ant-Man succeeded in shrinking down to the quantum realm and returning, which the inventor of the shrinking suit Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) had thought impossible. Pym had spent decades trying, because his wife Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) had shrunk down into the quantum realm thirty years ago and he had thought her lost until Scott succeeded. For the last two years while Scott was on house arrest, Pym and his daughter Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) have been researching this further, and they have invented a quantum tunnel that will let a person go to the quantum realm and back again. The moment they open the tunnel for the first time Scott has a dream about Janet Van Dyne, and they see that as a sign that Scott has a connection with her from his trip into the quantum realm. But before they can take advantage of that connection, a phase-shifting person in a mask steals Pym’s laboratory that has been shrunken to the size of a roller suitcase and disappears. Hope dons her mother’s Wasp costume for the first time and joins Scott as Ant-Man in the fight.

This movie is, in the spirit of the first movie, a comedy as much as an action superhero movie. I loved getting to see the Wasp, I felt like Hope’s character was underutilized in Ant-Man. Paul Rudd’s comedy delivery makes much of the movie, and makes a great counterpoint to the on-screen gravity that Douglas provides. It’s a great movie for kids , generally lighthearted and fun, and even when they’re facing up against bad guys the bad guys get arrested rather than dying.

One thing that felt like an off-note to me was the after-credits scene, which was very dark in tone if not explicit enough in meaning to be really bothersome for children. Apparently it ties into another Marvel movie that I haven’t seen because it did not make much sense, and I felt like ending on that tone and without any explanation was a mistake for what was otherwise an enjoyable light movie.

Ray Bradbury Finalists Review 2017

written by David Steffen

The Ray Bradbury Award is given out every year with the Nebula Awards but is not a Nebula Award in itself. Like the Nebula Awards, the final ballot and the eventual winner are decided by votes from members of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (which despite the name has an international membership).

I like to use the award every year as a sampler of well-loved science fiction and fantasy movies from the previous year. I have been very happy with this tactic, and this year is no exception.

Not included in this review is a nominated episode of The Good Place, because I don’t seek out individual episodes of TV shows for these reviews. Also not included is Get Out because I haven’t managed to get hold of rentals yet (I’m hoping to rent it this week before the voting deadline, but I’m not sure if I’ll write up a review in time).

1. The Shape of Water (Screenplay by Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor)

Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins) is a mute, lonely woman working as a janitor in a top secret government facility in Baltimore in the 1960s. Generally ignored by the scientists and military men doing their work there, she witnesses the arrival of a strange man-shaped fish-like creature that was captured in South America. She witnesses atrocities committed upon it in the name of science and in the name of the Cold War to get ahead of Russia, and she risks everything to be kind to the creature, offering it food and teaching it sign language in secret. The connection becomes friendship becomes love, and she must make very hard decisions.

This was a superb film and I can see why it won the Oscar. I was skeptical from the early discussion of it that they would be able to sell a romance with a fish-man without it turning out corny or unbelievable, but they did a great job expressing the appeal between the two characters, and selling us on why Elisa is willing to risk everything for him. It’s certainly not romance-only, there is a lot of drama and action in there as well, and between everything there were moments where I caught myself holding my breath, or gasping aloud. Excellent film, well done. Guillermo del Toro continues do make incredible movies, and I always look forward to seeing his next.

2. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Written by Rian Johnson)

The latest in the Star Wars series, the second since Lucas handed the rights over to Disney, Episode VIII continues where The Force Awakens left off, with Rey (Daisy Ridley) finding Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to seek her Jedi training. Rey finds the The rest of the weakening New Republic led by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) is trying to hold itself together against the rising force of the First Order led by Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) as the young Darth Vader wannabe. Finn (John Boyega), carrying the beacon that Rey will track to return, tries to leave the threatened Republic fleet, but is brought back by Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), a loyal maintenance worker. Together they concoct a crazy plan, something which is in no short supply with hotshot pilot Dameron (Oscar Isaac) Poe also trying to save the New Republic.

Opinions on this movie seem to be very polarized–either loved it or hated. I loved it. I thought there was more humor in this one than on average in the series, and the humor was played off well. Much of the series was built on making some really stupid one in a million strategies and having everything work out perfectly, I felt like this movie made a nod to that tradition but made it so that the results of hare-brained strategies weren’t guaranteed, which I thought raised the tension as well as being a good basis for humor. The diverse cast continues to be exciting and wonderful–as a woman Jedi main character, Finn continues to be likable and impressive, and the introduction of Rose Tico as a competent likeable maintenance worker contributing just as much as any of the rest of the cast. The interaction between Rey and Luke was a great source of tension and humor in the movie, and we find out about the history between Luke and Kylo Ren. Lots of great visual moments, great tension, fun movie. I look forward to seeing Episode IX to round out the trilogy of trilogies.

3. Logan (Screenplay by Scott Frank, James Mangold, and Michael Green)

In 2020, Logan (Hugh Jackman) is in hiding in Mexico with an ailing Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and the albino mutant Caliban (Stephen Merchant) who can track the whereabouts of other mutants. Something is wrong with Logan–his healing factor should allow him to live basically forever without aging, but he is aging, and he cannot bounce back like he used to. He drives a limo to make ends meet, and spends much of his time in a drunken haze. Charles has been having seizures that, combined with his psychic abilities, are paralyzing not just for him but for everyone within hundreds of feet from him, but the medication makes him confused and agitated. As if they don’t have enough problems, they soon end up having a rebellious girl (Dafne Keen) without a name dumped on their doorstep, pursued by a militant group tasked with capturing her however they can. The girl reminds Logan of himself in more ways than one–she has the healing factor, adamantium-plated skeleton, and arm-claws, and when cornered she fights like an animal, a formidable fighter despite her small size. Logan, Charles, and the girl flee their refuge, following the scant rumors of a safe place for mutants in Canada.

Many of the other movies in the X-Men universe would be easily described as “fun” even when the consequences of the conflicts therein are catastrophic. This movie is much more of a dark post-apocalyptic feeling film. Everything starts out badly and only gets worse. Logan, who we’re used to being the picture of health, and too stubborn to die, is ailing and has clearly had suicidal thoughts. It’s hard to see him that way, and it’s hard to see Charles in such a sad condition as well, and that’s all before the mysterious girl brings a world of trouble into their lives. The fight scenes in the movie are fast and brutal and don’t cut away from the killing like they have in previous movies–you see the consequences of those adamantium claws. The ending was satisfying, and fit with the rest of the movie, but given the stakes and the desperate always fighting for that last grip on life tone of the whole film, it gets very dark, very quickly, and rarely surfaces from that. It’s not a movie to watch if you’re looking for a feel-good light film, but I thought it was a solid entry in the X-Men series, most notable for how different it is from the rest of the series.

4. Wonder Woman (Screenplay by Allan Heinberg)

Diana (Gal Godot) is raised as the only girl among women on the secret isle of (apparently immortal?) Amazons, formed from clay by her mother and given life by Zeus. They have been tasked with protecting the world from Ares who has long been determined to corrupt and destroy humanity, but their island is so masked from the outside world that they know nothing of the world outside until an American pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crashes his plane near the island and she saves him from drowning. He tells the Amazons of the raging globe-spanning war going on, and Diana sets out with him into the world to find Ares and stop him from destroying the world with his war.

They’ve been talking about making a Wonder Woman movie for quite a while, and it always seemed to crumble before getting much of anywhere, so it’s great to see this finally hit the big screen, and looking great. Wonder Woman is an old enough comic that it does run the risk of looking corny, but the writers and actors did a great job of making it fit the modern aesthetic without losing its roots. I loved Gal Godot in this, as one who is both formidable but often naive because she’s never been out in the world, she doesn’t know the world’s current customs, and she has literally never met a man before. She makes allies through her tough and straightforward nature, and heads straight into a war zone to meet her destiny, and you can’t get much more big hero than that. It was a great movie, great to see an action movie with a woman as lead, and I look forward to future Wonder Woman movies.

Hugo Review: Graphic Story Finalists

written by David Steffen

The final category I’m reviewing in the Hugo Award review series for this year, this is for the graphic story category. I like graphic stories, but I tend to not do a very good job keeping up with them, so I use this category as a chance to get a sampling from some popular stories.

Also on the ballot in this category is Paper Girls Volume 1 by Image, which I simply didn’t find the time to read.

1. The Vision, Volume 1: Little Worse Than A Man, written by Tom King, illustrated by Gabriel Hernandez Walta (Marvel)

The Vision is a synthezoid, a sort of android that is constructed of human flesh and human memories, created by Ultron but ultimately turning on his creator and eventually joining the Avengers team. He has various powers, including the ability to control his own body density to either phase through objects or become a dense weapon, he also has a laser in his forehead, and the computing capacity of a machine. Before the start of this comic, in a manner which is never really explained as far as I could tell in this comic, the Vision has died and resurrected, and in the aftermath of trying to work through his own death he has created several offshoots of himself to act as a wife, a son, and a daughter, and the four of them have moved into a house in the suburbs. Vision is trying to understand what it is to be human by filling the role here, (while simultaneously acting as a member of the Avengers).

I loved this comic, had a lot of the sort of appeal that Spock or Data have in analyzing what makes humans human, but with an extra unpredictable element–Vision’s various selves are not always mentally stable, especially under the stress of trying to fit in to suburban life where they are obviously different. This comic has a lot of interesting things to say about the human condition, while being both very dark at times and very funny, particularly when the Vision is mansplaining how to be human to Virginia who generally comes across as more human than he is. I rarely keep up with ongoing comics, but I’d like to keep up with this one.

2. Ms. Marvel, Volume 5: Super Famous, written by G. Willow Wilson, illustrated by Takeshi Miyazawa (Marvel)

Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel is struggling to keep up with school, family, and being a member of the Avengers team all simultaneously. She wants it all, and she’s sure she can manage it somehow. She is experiencing a rough patch with her best friend and love interest Bruno, who has started dating someone else, and a new real estate developer is moving into Jersey City and is using the Ms. Marvel image without her permission to promote their company.

I still really love this Ms. Marvel comic. It doesn’t take itself too seriously even while it has major stakes. Lots of weird, fun action, often caused by her inventor friend Bruno who is often more clever than he knows what to do with. Lots of fun, and it makes me want to catch up on the backlog of what I missed between Volume 1 and Volume 5.

3. Black Panther, Volume 1: A Nation Under Our Feet, written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, illustrated by Brian Stelfreeze (Marvel)

T’Challa is the king of Wakanda, a super-technologically advanced African nation. T’Challa is the Black Panther, who dons a panther suit to protect his country. But unrest is stirring in Wakanda, not everyone feels that T’Challa is doing the best for their people.

I don’t know if this new revamping of Black Panther is typical of the past iterations of the comic, but this felt more like a science fictional political drama rather than a fun actiony romp (not that there’s not action, but it’s more mixed than other comics). So I had to adjust my expectations as I headed into this one, as well as getting familiar with characters I’d never read before. Good story, solid political and personal stories in a time of rising civil war.

4. Saga, Volume 6, illustrated by Fiona Staples, written by Brian K. Vaughan, lettered by Fonografiks (Image)

Continuing the action space opera story of previous sagas: before this story star-crossed wife and husband Alana and Marko on the run from those who want to kill them, have been separated from their daughter Hazel (if you read previous volumes she started out the series as a baby but she’s early school age now). Her parents are criminals and Hazel manages to hide her tiny wings that mark her as an outcast, a half-breed that would be shunned by both sides of the war her parents originated from. Alana and Marko must rescue Hazel.

I think I’ve missed about half of the volumes in the series so far, so that made it hard to keep track of who all the characters are and what their relationships are with each other. I like the atypical story of parenting a small child in a space opera world, and if nothing else I enjoy the weird design of the creatures that are often mixtures of humanoid and not-humanoid. Overall I’d say… it’s not the easiest series to skip half the volumes of. Also, there are unexpected and rather random nudity (including full frontal), so just keep that in mind if you read them on your phone at lunch at work like I do.

5. Monstress, Volume 1: Awakening, written by Marjorie Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda (Image)

The story takes place in a matriarchal continent torn by war between the arcanics (magical creatures that sometimes can pass for human but often have differences like extra limbs or tails or eyes), and the Cumea who butcher the arcanics to fuel their own powers. Maika Halfwolf is a one-armed arcanic who passes for a human who is a mission of revenge, who has a power dwelling inside her that even she doesn’t understand.

There’s some heavy lifting here to get a grasp of the world, though there are occasional “tutorial” sections that give some more detailed background. I liked the conflict between Maika and the power inside her that she struggles to control, but some of the broader political stuff I had trouble following at times. Creepy and horrific imagery at times, and I think it will be a good story, though I seem to be a little slow on picking it up.

Interview: Jonathan Maberry

interviewed by Carl Slaughter

JONATHAN MABERRY is one of the most versatile and prolific writers in the speculative fiction. His specialty is horror, but he also writes fantasy and science fiction, as well as mystery, thriller, western, and humor. He has 5 wins and many nominations for the Bram Stoker Award, wins/nominations for other genres and encyclopedic nonfiction, and recognition from writer and librarian associations. His first novel was in competition with one of Stephen King’s novels for the Bram Stoker Award. Several of his projects are in development with Hollywood. He has worked with Marvel and other major comic book companies. He has consulted/hosted for Disney, ABC, and The History Channel. He has written several series, most notably the Joe Ledger international thriller sci fi series and the Rot & Ruin young adult horror series. His has edited several anthologies, most notably an X-Files series. He has participated in a multitude of writer conferences and workshops, most notably Write Your Novel in Nine Months, Act Like a Writer, and Revise & Sell. He writes/speaks as an expert on the cannonal background and cultural phenomenon of the horror genre. He is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, Horror Writers Association, International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers Association, International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, and Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators . He is a contributing editor of the ITW’s The Big Chill newsletter. He is a cofounder of The Liars Club writer network. His novelization of the Wolfman film – starring Anthony Hopkins, Hugo Weaving, Emily Blunt, and Benicio del Toro – reached #35 on the New York Times bestseller list. Not surprisingly, Publishers Weekly featured him on the cover.

Jonathan Maberry’s full bio. Jonathan Maberry on Amazon. Jonathan Maberry on Good Reads. Jonathan Maberry’s website. Liars Club writer advice page.

CARL SLAUGHTER: WHICH OF YOUR NOVELS IS BEING ADAPTED BY HOLLYWOOD?

JONATHAN MABERRY: I’m fortunate to have several of my projects in development for film and television. My Joe Ledger thrillers are being developed by Lone Tree Entertainment and Vintage Picture Company as a possible series of movies, likely beginning with Extinction Machine, the 5th in the series. And my vampire apocalypse series, V-Wars, is headed to TV, with a brilliant script by former Dexter head writer, Tim Schlattmann. Several other properties, including Rot & Ruin, The Pine Deep Trilogy, and others, are being discussed.

CARL SLAUGHTER: HOW LONG AND HOW HARD IS THE JOURNEY TO THE SCREEN?

JONATHAN MABERRY: Like most writers I’ve coasted the edges of the Hollywood experience for years. There are some frustrations, of course, but that’s part of the game. For example, back on 2007 I co-created a show for ABC-Disney called On the Slab, which was a horror-sci fi-fantasy news program. Disney paid us to develop it and write a series bible and sample script; and then there was a change of management in the department that purchased it. Suddenly the project was orphaned and therefore dead in the water. Another time producer Michael DeLuca (Blade, Magnolia) optioned the first Joe Ledger novel, Patient Zero, on behalf of Sony, who in turn took it to ABC, who hired Emmy Award-winning TV writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach (Lost) to write a pilot. Then after we’d gone a long way toward seeing it launch they decided instead to focus on the reboot of Charlie’s Angels, which flubbed badly. That’s Hollywood. I don’t take this stuff personally, though. And I never lost my optimism.

CARL SLAUGHTER: WHAT ARE THE ROUTES TO TAKE AND NOT TAKE?

JONATHAN MABERRY: It’s important to focus on presenting a positive brand and to turn out quality products. Being a prima donna doesn’t help you get in through the door. Being someone people can and want to work with is a big plus. Patience is also very, very important.

CARL SLAUGHTER: HOW MUCH CONTROL AND INVOLVEMENT DO YOU HAVE IN THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS?

JONATHAN MABERRY: For most Hollywood projects the author has little input. I have a lot of friends who have had books optioned and developed, like Charlaine Harris (True Blood), Isaac Marion (Warm Bodies), Mike Mignola (Hellboy), and others. And although they dig what’s been done with their work –at least for the most part—they are often observing from a distance. That said, I own half of the V-Wars property, sharing ownership with IDW Publishing, so I will probably have a little more input there. And I’ve become friends with the producers who optioned Joe Ledger, and as a result they’ve invited me to participate in creative discussions.

CARL SLAUGHTER: WHO DO YOU SEE CAST IN WHICH ROLES?

JONATHAN MABERRY: My dream casting for my characters changes on a daily basis.

CARL SLAUGHTER: HOW INVOLVED HAVE YOU BEEN IN DEVELOPING THE CHARACTERS AND PLOTS OF WHICH MARVEL PROJECTS?

JONATHAN MABERRY: With Marvel my creative involvement varies. On projects like Marvel Zombies Return, the world was already created and I was asked to join a writing team along with Seth Grahame-Smith (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), Fred Van Lente (Cowboys and Aliens) and David Wellington (Monster Island). We each had one issue to write and could pitch our own story, but that story had to fit into the overall five-issue arc.

With Black Panther, I was asked by Marvel’s editor-in-chief Axel Alonso, to come in and take over the book from Reggie Hudlin (producer of Django Unchained) who was leaving. I had to finish a few of Reggie’s storylines and then tie them into my own story arc, which I further developed into the DoomWar limited series.

Everything else I did for Marvel was entirely based on original pitches, including Captain America: Hail Hydra, Klaws of the Panther, Punisher: Naked Kills, and my series, Marvel Universe vs The Punisher, vs Wolverine and vs The Avengers.

I moved on from Marvel because I wanted to write horror comics and focus entirely on my original characters.

CARL SLAUGHTER: HOW BIG OF A FISH ARE DARK HORSE AND IDW IN HOW BIG OF A POND?

JONATHAN MABERRY: Dark Horse and IDW are blowing up. If Marvel and DC are the top tier, then Dark Horse, IDW, and Image are the next level. They also deal with a lot of licensed products. Dark Horse has Aliens and others. IDW has Transformers, X-Files, GI Joe and many more. And, of course, Image has The Walking Dead.

CARL SLAUGHTER: WHAT TYPE OF RELATIONSHIP DO YOU HAVE WITH THEM?

JONATHAN MABERRY: I had a lot of fun working with Dark Horse, but I only really pitched that one idea to them.

My relationship with IDW is much bigger and covers several product and formats. I did the Rot & Ruin: Warrior Smart graphic novel, which was a one-off; but my deepest involvement is with V-Wars and The X-Files. The V-Wars project began as a series of shared-world prose anthologies. I’d write a large framing story and then invite other writers in to do individual stories. The third volume, V-Wars: Night Terrors, just debuted. I also did a run of comics which have been collected into graphic novels as V-Wars: Crimson Queen and V-Wars: All of Us Monsters. The V-Wars TV series is in development and on Feb 15 we launch a board game, V-Wars: A Game of Blood and Betrayal, with insane rules written by legendary award-winning game designer Rob Daviau.

I did Bad Blood for Dark Horse, with brilliant art by Tyler Crook, and two books so far for IDW –both of which are based on my novels, Rot & Ruin and V-Wars. However these are not straight adaptations of my novels but instead new stories set in those worlds.

CARL SLAUGHTER: X-FILES MADE A COMEBACK WITH A MINISERIES THAT STARTED AIRING IN JANUARY 2016. FOX MADE AN ANNOUNCEMENT IN MARCH 2015. YOU EDITED AN X-FILES ANTHOLOGY THAT CAME OUT IN JULY 2015. DID FOX COMMISSION THAT PROJECT?

JONATHAN MABERRY: I’m editing a series of X-Files anthologies. The first, The X-Files: Trust No One sold out its initial print run in record time. The second, The X-Files: The Truth is Out There, debuts February 16, and The X-Files: Conspiracy Theories is in development. The idea was cooked up by Ted Adams, CEO of IDW Publishing, and he asked me to come aboard as editor. Initially it was planned as a single anthology, but I talked him –and FOX, who holds the license—to let me do at least three. This was something we started working on before Chris Carter announced that he was doing a new series of the show.

CARL SLAUGHTER: JOE LEDGER SEEMS TO BE SHERLOCK HOLMES, JAMES BOND, RAMBO, INDIANA JONES, AND VAN HELSING ALL ROLLED INTO ONE. IS THERE ANYTHING HE CAN’T DO, ISN’T CUT OUT TO DO, DESPISES DOING, REFUSES TO DO?

JONATHAN MABERRY: Joe is actually based on several real-life Special Ops guys I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. They are a remarkable breed, and they need to be capable of extraordinary things in order to do what they do. They aren’t like other people. They have high intelligence, good language skills, amazing coordination, and they are deeply trained in a variety of skills. There’s nothing Joe Ledger does that these elite special operators can’t –or don’t—do.

CARL SLAUGHTER: WHAT ARE HIS WEAKNESSES?

JONATHAN MABERRY: If Joe has a weakness, it’s the same thing as his strength: he is not motivated by politics but is instead a humanist. That means he gets hurt a lot, but it also means that he is damned hard to stop when he is doing what he feels is right.

CARL SLAUGHTER: HOW IMPORTANT ARE HIS TEAMMATES / PARTNERS AND HIS INTERACTION WITH THEM? OR IS HE PRETTY MUCH THE STAR OF THE SHOW?

JONATHAN MABERRY: The team dynamic is what makes the Ledger series work. Although Joe Ledger is often alone for large sections of each book, his team always matters in getting the job done. That team includes the administrative genius of Mr. Church and Aunt Sallie, the tech skills of Bug and Dr. Hu, and the men and women of Joe’s field teams, notably Top and Bunny –his right and left hands. Without them, Joe would have died a long time ago; and with them he is a far more interesting character to write and, I’m told, to read.

CARL SLAUGHTER: YOUR 8TH JOE LEDGER NOVEL IS COMING OUT IN APRIL 2016. HOW LONG WILL THE JOE LEDGER SERIES CONTINUE?

JONATHAN MABERRY: I have no plans to stop the Ledger series anytime soon. In fact I just sat down today to begin writing the 9th Ledger book, Dogs of War, and we have two cool projects coming up that support the series. The first is The Joe Ledger Companion, which is a nonfiction book that takes readers behind the scenes of Ledger and his world. It’s being written by Mari Adkins and Preston Halcomb, and I’ll be contributing to it as well. And then there’s Joe Ledger: Unstoppable, an anthology of all-original short stories about Ledger being written by wonderful A-list writers including Scott Sigler, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Steve Alten, Weston Ochse, Mira Grant, Jon McGoran, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Joe McKinney, Jeremy Robinson, Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon, Dana Fredsti, James A. Moore, James Ray Tuck, Larry Correia and others. That will be out in 2017.

CARL SLAUGHTER: WHAT’S THE EXPLANATION FOR THE VAMPIRE / ZOMBIE WAVE? WHY NOT GHOSTS, OR WEREWOLVES OR MERMAIDS OR UNICORNS OR DRAGONS?

JONATHAN MABERRY: People will always love monsters, but zombies and vampires have a very special appeal to writers and readers. Zombies are a blank canvas; they represent a massive shared catastrophe which impacts the lives of every character in equal measures. The characters have their lives, their hopes and dreams, their protections and resources, all stripped away and must struggle for survival while at the same time trying to discover who they truly are. One introduced, the zombies become immediately less important that their effect on the lives of the human characters, and therefore the true focus on these stories is about people in crisis. That is an endlessly renewable creative canvas.

Vampires, on the other hand, represent a variety of other metaphorical problems: rape, abuse in all its forms, jealousy, fears of sickness, dreams of immortality, forbidden love, and so on. The vampire stories were once straight horror but now they’ve either become romances or they are a kind of super hero tale, much like the myths and legends of gods and demigods. Again, there are a lot of stories you can tell with that model.

CARL SLAUGHTER: WHAT ARE THE VARIOUS HORROR SUBGENRES?

JONATHAN MABERRY: Horror is a genre of fiction that has dozens and dozens of variations, including Gothic, body horror, suspense, psychological horror, ghost stories, religious horror, existential horror, monster stories, zombies, vampires, folkloric horror, extreme horror, paranormal romance, urban fantasy, dark fantasy, science fiction horror, and so on.

CARL SLAUGHTER: WHICH ARE THE MOST POPULAR?

JONATHAN MABERRY: Groups like the Horror Writers Association has awarded its coveted Bram Stoker Award to books as diverse as Thomas Harris’ crime thriller Silence of the Lambs to Stephen King’s subtle Lisey’s Story to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, to Joe McKinney’s brutal zombie thriller Flesh Eaters.

CARL SLAUGHTER: WHICH ARE YOUR SPECIALTIES?

JONATHAN MABERRY: Most of what I write tends to be hug on the scaffolding of the thriller, which is a model applicable to virtually any genre. I love the race against time to prevent something dreadful from happening. But I’ve also written in a variety of sub-genres in both long and short fiction and often go cross-genre.

Among the categories in which I’ve written we have vampires/American Gothic (Ghost Road Blues and its sequels), ghost stories (the short story “Property Condemned”), paranormal mystery (“Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Greenbrier Ghost”), psychological horror (“Doctor Nine”), serial killer (“Saint John”), horror movie adaptations (The Wolfman), zombie apocalypse (Dead of Night andFall of Night), urban fantasy (“Mystic”), paranormal mystery (“Like Part of the Family”), dark fantasy (“We All Make Sacrifices”), weird western (“Son of the Devil”), historical ghost story (“Red Tears”), epic fantasy (“The Damned One Hundred”), Lovecraftian horror (“Dream a Little Dream of Me”), science fiction horror (Patient Zero andAssassin’s Code), weird science thriller (The Dragon Factory, Code Zero), post-apocalyptic existential horror (“The Wind Through the Fence”), Alt-History Steampunk horror (Ghostwalkers: A Deadlands Novel), post-apocalyptic zombie horror for teens (Rot &Ruin), folkloric horror (“Cooked”), historical horror comedy (“Pegleg and Paddy Save the World”), and so on.

Do I have a favorite? No, not really. I’m most in love with whatever genre or sub-genre I’m writing at the moment.

CARL SLAUGHTER: HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU TAKEN HOME THE BRAM STOKER AWARDS? HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU BEEN NOMINATED? HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU NOT BEEN NOMINATED?

JONATHAN MABERRY: I’ve been fortunate to win five Bram Stoker Awards. I won Best First Novel for Ghost Road Blues, then shared a win for nonfiction with David Kramer for a book on the paranormal we wrote called The Cryptopedia; after that I won two back-to-back Stokers for Young Adult novels for books two and three of the Rot & Ruin series (Dust & Decay and Flesh & Bone); and more recently picked up on for Graphic Novel for Bad Blood. As for how many times I’ve been nominated…I’m not really sure. Maybe ten or twelve times.

CARL SLAUGHTER: WHERE’S THE STIFFEST COMPETITION?

JONATHAN MABERRY: Every year there is such amazing horror writing being published, and often by close friends. It’s odd –but also fun—to be nominated alongside people you like and whose work you respect. That way, no matter who wins…it’s a party.

My first time out, however, I was up against Stephen King. Ghost Road Blues had been nominated for both Best First Novel and Novel of the Year. I won the Best First but King took Novel of the Year for his wonderful book, Lisey’s Story. If you have to lose…there is zero shame in losing to Stephen King.

CARL SLAUGHTER: YOU’VE BEEN CRANKING OUT 2 OR 3 NOVELS A YEAR FOR THE LAST 6 YEARS. PLUS COMICS, SHORT STORIES, ANTHOLOGIES, NONFICTION BOOKS AND ARTICLES, WORKSHOPS, BLOGS, BROADCASTS AND WEBCASTS, DOCUMENTARIES, PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION LEADERSHIP. WHAT’S YOUR SECRET? DO YOU HAVE A DOZEN CLONES? AN ARMY OF ANDROIDS? A GENE THAT OPTS YOUR BODY OUT OF SLEEP?

JONATHAN MABERRY: I was trained as a journalist and that doesn’t encourage one to be a slowpoke. Some of my professors were very aggressive and had us cranking out a couple of thousand words in the space of a few hours. After college I was a magazine feature writer part time, but even though I was working day jobs (variously –bodyguard, bouncer, jujutsu instructor, college teacher, graphic artist), I wrote over twelve hundred articles and at least three thousand reviews and columns. And I wrote more than a dozen textbooks and nonfiction books on subjects ranging from a history of competitive sparring to the folklore of supernatural predators.

When I switched to fiction a little over ten years ago I brought that same work ethic with me. I like the fast lane. Not everyone does. I have friends who prefer to write a book every couple of years. That’s not for me. I put it in high gear and keep my foot on the gas. And I write my best stuff under tight deadlines.

The last two years I’ve written four to six books per year, plus comics and a slew of short stories. I just signed an agreement last week to add a fourth book to this year’s slate, and there’s a possibility I’ll do a fifth.

Nowadays writing is my full time job. I write, on average, eight hours a day, and usually log about four thousand words. Between novels, comics, short stories and novellas I write about a million and a quarter words for publication per year.

That wasn’t how fast I started, of course. My first novel took years to write and revise. I got faster as I studied my own process and worked to improve my habits and deepen my understanding of the writing craft. It’s fun, though. And writing so many projects means that I’m always exploring new creative areas. I write for adults and teens, and I write in a variety of genre including thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, horror, Steampunk, alt-history, weird science, action, westerns, mysteries and more. I am never bored.

CARL SLAUGHTER: WHAT WORKSHOPS, ADVICE COLUMNS, BLOGS, WEBSITES, AND BOOKS DO YOU RECOMMEND FOR WRITERS?

JONATHAN MABERRY: I always advise new writers to attend writers conferences. The classes are useful and the networking is golden. The only writing book I ever recommend, however, is Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass. It’s brilliant and incredibly useful, either for helping you feel your way through the plot or revising a draft.

CARL SLAUGHTER: ANY ADVICE TO ASPIRING SPECULATIVE WRITERS?

JONATHAN MABERRY: There are several important things to know about becoming successful as a writer. Things I wish I’d known earlier in my career.

First –be very good at what you do. Having a natural gift for storytelling is great, but you need to learn the elements of craft. That includes figurative and descriptive language, pace, voice, tense, plot and structure, good dialogue, and many other skills. Good writers are always learning, always improving.

Second –learn the difference between ‘writing’ and ‘publishing’. Writing is an art, it’s a conversation between the writer and the reader. Publishing is a business whose sole concern is to sell copies of art. Publishing looks for those books that are likely to sell well. There is absolutely no obligation for anyone in publishing to buy and publish a book totally on the basis of it being well written. It has to be something they can sell. A smart writer learns how to take their best writing and find the best way to present it to the publishing world, and then to support it via social media once it’s out.

Third –you are more important than what you write. A writer is a ‘brand’. That brand will, ideally, generate many works –books, short stories, etc. Each work should be written with as much passion, skill, love, and intelligence as possible, but when it’s done, the writer moves on to the next project. And the next.

Fourth –finish everything you start. Most writers fail because they don’t finish things. Be different.

Fifth –don’t try to be perfect. First drafts, in particular, are often terrible. Clunky, badly-written, awkward, filled with plot holes and wooden dialogue. Who cares? All a first draft needs to have in order to be perfect is completeness. It is revision that makes it better, and makes it good enough to sell. So, don’t beat up on yourself if your early drafts are bad. Everyone’s early drafts are bad. Everyone.

Carl Slaughter is a man of the world. For the last decade, he has traveled the globe as an ESL teacher in 17 countries on 3 continents, collecting souvenir paintings from China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and Egypt, as well as dresses from Egypt, and masks from Kenya, along the way. He spends a ridiculous amount of time and an alarming amount of money in bookstores. He has a large ESL book review website, an exhaustive FAQ about teaching English in China, and a collection of 75 English language newspapers from 15 countries.

Review of Hugo Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form 2015

written by David Steffen

All of the nominees for this Hugo category this year were also nominees for the Ray Bradbury Award that goes with the Nebulas, which I reviewed over here. At the time, Interstellar wasn’t available to rent yet, so I didn’t review that. So, these are all repeats of that previous set of reviews, except Interstellar which I’ve watched since then.

1. Edge of Tomorrow, Screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie and Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Earth is under attack from an alien force known only as mimics, viciously deadly enemies that humans have only one battle against. Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) works in PR for the US military and has been ordered to the frontier of the war in France. The general in charge of the war effort orders Cage to go to the front lines to cover the war. When Cage attempts to blackmail his way out of the mission, he is taken under arrest and dropped at the front with the claim that he had tried to go AWOL and so is quickly forced into service, given only the most passing training in the mechsuits that are standard issue, and dropped into battle with everyone else. This area was supposed to be fairly quiet, but the battle here is intense. Cage manages to kill one of the mimics, but dies in the act, only to wake up earlier in the day when he’d woken on the base in handcuffs after the general had him arrested. He dies again, and again, and again. No one else has any memory of reliving the day except for Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), the super-soldier nicknamed “Full Metal Bitch” after she wreaked havoc against the mimics in the only battle against the mimics that the humans have won. She confides that she had won that battle because she had gone through the same thing he had–as long as he dies he will always restart at the same time and place.

I avoided this movie in theaters, because I haven’t really gone to any Tom Cruise movies since he kindof went publicly nuts. But I rented this one since it was nominated. I thought Tom Cruise was back to old form in it, and even if you don’t like it, well you get to see him die literally dozens of times. I thought Emily Blunt was especially good in her role as Rita, powerful but still affected by the PTSD of dying over and over and seeing so many die around her over. The looping-after-death element makes for a cool dynamic when well-plotted and when placed against large enough obstacles, which was well done here. Good spec FX, good casting all around, solidly entertaining.

2. Interstellar, screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, directed by Christopher Nolan (Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, Legendary Pictures, Lynda Obst Productions, Syncopy)

Widespread crop blight has put the world’s food supply in jeopardy, and the sustainability of life on earth is in serious question. Much of the population is focused on farming efforts, pushing back against the inevitable as the Midwest turns back into a dust bowl. Cooper (Matthew McConaghey) is a widowed farmer living with his father-in-law, son, and daughter. His daughter Murphy believes she has a poltergeist in her room that knocks her books from her shelf, and though Cooper doesn’t believe in ghosts, he encourages her to measure and record the things she sees. They find that there are binary coordinates coded into waves of gravity–they follow those coordinates and find a top secret research facility led by Dr. John Brand (Michael Caine). A wormhole has opened up near Saturn that opens to an unknown location in another galaxy, and they have been working in secret to colonize any inhabitable planets they may find on the other end of the wormhole. Some people have already been sent through to scout, and some information has been relayed which suggests some of the planets might be inhabitable. They recruit Cooper to pilot the mission. He reluctantly agrees, for the sake of saving his family, even though he will miss his children growing up while he is gone. He goes on the mission with two others, Dr. Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway) and two other scientists, as well as two repurposed military robots, TARS and CASE. While Cooper and the others continue on their mission, Dr. Brand and the other scientists on Earth try to solve the remaining problems necessary for the colonization effort to be successful if Cooper and the others can find a habitable planet.

I was skeptical of Matthew McConaghey, because I haven’t seen him in a lot of things that I thought he was particularly good in, but this was probably the best acting I’ve seen from him–I thought he was very convincing. The casting all around was very good, no complaints there. I thought as the movie progressed that the convenient reveal of the wormhole was kind of a deus ex machina in terms of this universe, not in terms of the movie, since it appears early in the movie. It’s clear that the people in the movie in general are of no better preparation for the end of humanity than we are in our world, but in their world a convenient solution shows up right when it’s needed. This ends up making some sense later on, but it kind of had me skeptical as well.

The robots were kind of weird. I like robots, don’t get me wrong, but they were rectangular prisms that usually seemed to be too awkward to be threatening military units, though they did show their mobility and abilities better later in the movie. I was often distracted by the weird design, though, when I was supposed to be paying attention to other things.

There are a lot of good, convincing special effects, tense moments, a lot of good emotional tension with family’s split by the tension and especially with Cooper fighting so hard to succeed at his mission–even if he can never see his family again he is fighting for their survival. This is a major theme in the movie, used to good effect, the discussion of of how family love like that, while we generally think of it as positive, can make you consider only your personal relationships over the fate of humanity, choosing personal connections over the survival of the species.

3. The Lego Movie, Screenplay by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Emmett Brickowski is just a regular guy, pretty much the poster child for averageness in a world of Legos. He does everything exactly the way he’s supposed to do, but no one pays much attention to him. He meets a strange woman name WyldStyle who tells him he is the subject of a prophecy, the most interesting person in the world and the one who will save everyone from President Business who rules over all of Brickburg. WyldStyle is a master builder, a rare class of lego person who can take random Lego parts and turn them into a variety of imaginative things. She is part of an organized rebellion of master builders, and Emmett joins them in their fight.

I enjoyed this story thoroughly from beginning to end. The voice acting is great all around (particularly that of Chris Pratt as Emmett, Nick Offerson as Metal Beard, Will Arnett as Batman, and Liam Neeson as Good Cop/Bad Cop). Lots of fun, weird imagination, and as they see out of the worlds they travel and into the real world there’s actually a relatable real life story tied into it. Great stuff all around.

4. Guardians of the Galaxy, Written by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)

I hadn’t heard of this Marvel franchise until this movie came out, one of the more obscure ones. In 1988 a young Peter Quill is abducted by aliens by a band of space pirates and is raised as one of them. In the present day he has his own ship and has grown up to be a bounty hunter (Starlord by name), taking whatever odd jobs he can find for money. After taking what seems to be a pretty straightforward job to find and deliver an orb, he’s suddenly the focus of attention from the assassin Gamora as well as the bounty hunters Groot (a tree person) and Rocket (a one-of-a-kind genetically modified raccoon) who are all after the orb. In the scuffle for the orb, they are all arrested and locked in a prison. Gamora tells them of her adoptive father Thanos who wants the orb for nefarious plans. They decide their only chance of escape is to work together, with help from another prisoner Drax the Destroyer, and stop Thanos.

Solidly fun, another Chris Pratt work, probably my favorite role that I have seen him in. Great casting all around, with Bradley Cooper memorably voicing Rocket. Action-packed, solidly fun popcorn movie. Lots of memorable lines, memorable fights, really no complaints all around.

5. Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Screenplay by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)

Two years after the Battle of New York (depicted in The Avengers), Captain Steve Rogers aka Captain America (Chris Evans) is working for Nick Fury at SHIELD, and trying to adjust to modern society. SHIELD is on the brink of completing one of its most ambitious projects, a set of three helicarriers that fly in low orbit and link to a network of spy satellites that are meant to find and kill threats to society all over the globe. Not long before the project comes to fruition, Nick Fury is hit with a large scale and no-holds-barred attack led by a mysterious assassin known only as the Winter Soldier. Despite all of Fury’s security measures, he barely escapes with his life to warn Rogers that SHIELD is compromised. Rogers works together with Natalia Romanoff aka the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) to get to the bottom of it.

This was one of my least favorite Marvel movies in the recent years of the franchise, which almost always produces movies I enjoy. There was certainly a lot going on, but the movie was quite long and it seemed like the fight scenes were drawn out way way too long, as if the director thought the movie needed to be padded. Neither the fight scenes nor the non-fight scenes did a lot to hold my attention. It might just be because I’m more interested in the superheroes with more fun powers instead of just the shield. For me the highlight of the movie was the platonic friendship between Rogers and Romanoff–a fun dynamic there.

Ray Bradbury Award Nominees 2015

written by David Steffen

The Ray Bradbury Award is not a Nebula, but nominations and voting and announcement are all tied up with the Nebula Awards, so its easy to bundle it in. The Ray Bradbury award is for science fiction and fantasy movies and is voted on by the members of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. There is often some overlap with the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form but because of the difference in the voting groups this one seems to veer a bit more toward movies that are heavy on craft while the Hugo tends to lean toward fun popcorn movies.

I tried to watch all the movies before the Nebula voting deadline on end of day March 31st, but I acquire them by renting from Redbox and the release date on Redbox for one of the nominees (Interstellar) isn’t until March 31st. So that’s not enough time in my schedule to rent the movie and watch it. I’ll watch that movie later and give it a separate review.

1. Edge of Tomorrow, Screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie and Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth (Warner Bros. Pictures)

2. The Lego Movie, Screenplay by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller (Warner Bros. Pictures)

3. Guardians of the Galaxy, Written by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)

4. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. & Armando Bo (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

The actor Riggan Thompson (Michael Keaton) is best known in his role as Birdman in multiple films in the early 90s, one of the earliest widely successful superhero franchises, but after that he has fallen into obscurity, not finding many widely acclaimed roles (sound familiar?). He is taking his chance, putting everything on the line for one final chance at popularity again by writing and acting in a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s Short Story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”. The play is produced by his friend and lawyer Jake (Zach Galifianakis), stars Riggan’s girlfriend (Andrea Riseborough) and first-time Broadway actress Lesley (Naomi Watts). His daughter, fresh out of rehab, is his assistant. After an accident takes out the other actor, Ralph, Riggan replaces him at the last minute with talented but unpredictable Mike Shiner (Edward Norton). Opening night is fast approaching, there are two preview nights to get through before that, and Broadway’s toughest critic has it out for the production. To make it all worse, Riggan hears Birdman in his head, voicing the thoughts he doesn’t dare voice.

Generally I liked it. Riggan was relatable, flaws and all. The casting was solid (Emma Stone in particular I have yet to see play a role unconvincingly). The situation was full of all kinds of tension. Even though I generally don’t know a lot of things about filmmaking, I did notice that many of the scenes would’ve been very challenging because there were very long uncut segments which often included an actor walking from one room of the theater to another and then having a conversation–Sometimes they pass through a dark area that would’ve allowed a quick film cut, but there would still be very long segments that would be challenging to complete without making any mistake. This movie did win the Oscar for Best Picture in 2014. I found it very interesting that it got the Ray Bradbury nomination too, often there’s not a lot of overlap because the two awards. In the end I thought it was great in a lot of ways, but as I often find with more artsy films, I thought that it didn’t really tie everything together very well in the end–there were a lot of components that while adding flavor, in retrospect seemed to just add length to the movie that it didn’t need. We at least find out how the main thread of “how did the premier go?” happens, but there are a lot of momentous moments that seem to start their own major subplot and then are never mentioned again.

5. Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Screenplay by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)

We Are Multiple Man

written by David Steffen

What superpower would you choose? Most classical superpowers are awesome for combat, but not all that practical in day-to-day activities. Super strength? Guess who’s going to get asked to help everyone move. Fireballs–handy in limited context, maybe, but modern life doesn’t require a lot of fire-lighting on a day to day basis. Metal claws–wouldn’t need to hold pocket knives but you could never get through airport security.

For my everyday life, I would definitely pick the power of Jamie Madsen, aka Multiple Man. Jamie has the ability to create perfect duplicates of himself, each of which is intelligent and has free will. There’s some limit to the amount of how much he can split, but the limit is quite high–something like 50 when he was in X-Factor and more as he masters his power.

Just think of how much you could get get done! If you have kids, you wouldn’t need daycare. Not only that, but if you have four kids, you could have one of you to watch EACH of your kids to give them personalized attention so watching four kids wouldn’t even be stressful. While you do that, you could also work to bring in money. Or more than one job simultaneously. Another one of you could head out to get groceries. Another one could be off taking vocational training. Or learning to paint. Or going on vacation. That’s only ten–you’d still have another 40 to go if you wanted to. Then at the end of the day, bring all of yourselves back to dinner, merge them all together again, and have a nice dinner with your family, reintegrating all the memories together as you spent all day one-on-one with ALL of your kids and got all the chores done (and went on vacation to unwind). That would be the coolest thing ever.

Unfortunately, I think I’m a little too old to expect sudden onset superpowers.

But that got me to thinking–just an ordinary human being has something kind of like that. Of course you don’t have multiple bodies, but more of a multiplicity of mind. Have you ever gotten together for a social gathering where you have people from work and neighbors and family members, and you find it awkward as you don’t know how to behave among them all together? In a very real way, that’s because you are a different person at work than you are with your family than you are with your neighbors, and the awkwardness comes because those different people don’t know how to integrate.

Everyone does this. They’re a different person when they’re being a father, or a son, or a brother, or at work, or as a customer at a store, or whatever. It’s not a result of dishonesty, but of compartmentalization–the traits that fit into that social group or environment dominate in that group.

So we’re all superpowered, really. The human mind is an amazing thing. Maybe as amazing, in its own way, as being able to spawn up to 50 bodies. Though, if someone knows how to make that happen, I’m in.

Based somewhat on Codex post:

I find it interesting (and sometimes disconcerting) how the human mind can compartmentalize or facetize and approach each differing circumstance or situation in such a different way so that in a way you’re a completely different person.

Engineer David is not Dad David. Writer David is not Engineer David. Grinder-Admin David is not Gamer David. Dad David is not Husband David (though those two are of course more closely related genealogically than some of the others). We all wear many hats. Some of us, like my good friend Bartholemew Cubbins, wear entirely too many hats and sometimes find it difficult to remove them or to pick the one appropriate for the occasion.

When I’m wearing any of those hats, I can of course remember wearing the other hats, and I can remember what I was thinking when I was wearing those other hats and what was important to me and what was frustrating me and what drove me. But at the same time, those other Davids can seem completely foreign (until I become them again). It can all work out if they tag team when they’re supposed to, if the more unsocial Davids can be kept away from people.

I can see how that kind of mental adaptability can be a survival trait that comes out of natural selection. I can also see how mental health problems including anxiety disorders can arise when something in this three ring circus of mental and social arrangements gets out of whack.

–This aside brought to you by Woolgathering-Philosopher David when Engineer David is supposed to be in charge, because that’s how he rolls
(To be clear: not saying I have an anxiety disorder, not crying for help, my mind is wandering and I decided I wanted to put the words somewhere)

Use the metaphor of Multiple Man and my musings that it would be awesome to be able to split into different bodies to be able to get everything done, but how it’s amazing how we can already kind of do that in a mental fashion.