This post was originally published in Watch The Skies November 2021 edition.
Maya and the Three
Cabra Kan
From the Netflix description: A spirited princess with the heart of a warrior embarks on a mission to fulfill an ancient prophecy and save humanity from the wrath of vengeful gods.
I have always enjoyed stories of the magical and fantastic. Swords, sorcery, prophecies and epic battles get my attention every time. This new cartoon series Maya and the Three checks all those boxes. The art is beautiful. The story has excellent pace even with short episodes. There are deep emotions, epic battles and moments of true humor. I had no intention of doing the classic Netflix binge, and then sat there and devoured the whole series.
One of the best parts of this show is the reality of the characters. There are indiscretions (read – cheating on your spouse), emotional confrontations, and genuine repercussions from all the fighting and battles. Nobody comes out of this story unscathed. Without giving away specifics, not everyone makes it to the end of the series.
To paraphrase one particular character, “There’s a word for folks that always do heroic things…”
“Heroes?”
“Dead.”
Netflix lists this show as a children’s cartoon, but I believe this is definitely aimed at a middle year student level. That is not to say this traditional coming of age story can’t be watched by adults. It indeed should be watched by adults. In fact, my hope is that enough people watch it to keep the studio in a mindset where they will produce more and more stories like this. You should be watching Maya and the Three.
Many years ago I wrote up a post here about this bonkers concept for creating a Dune movie that I’d caught wind of on the net. I went and found the documentary and consumed it. I was enthusiastic about the concept at the time.
In the intervening time it has been pointed out that the creator of this concept brought out some very problematic things about how he created his art. Creating art using rape is NOT acceptable. It is probably a very good thing that his vision never actually made it all the way to the point of filming.
All that being said, I would still love to see the mythical book that was created to showcase the concept for this film adaptation. With all the attention being given to Dune again, one of the ultra rare books has popped up and will be sold at auction.
IF I had the money, I suspect I would have gotten in on the bidding, just for the chance to check out some of the artwork inhabiting that book. Maybe someday they’ll market a digital version and we’ll get a chance to peek at the art from some masterful creators.
Star Wars is a cultural phenomenon. It has become part of the culture of media. The first film hit screens more than forty years ago. Lately the franchise has come under new ownership. These new owners have pushed forward with many, many new works in the universe of Star Wars. There’s a lot out there, even for fans. I have considered myself a fan for a very long time. I was exactly the right age when the first movie hit theaters. I scrambled to get action figures and play sets as a kid and spent seemingly endless hours pushing my imagination out to all the various places in the Star Wars universe. The movies are deeply entrenched in my personal nostalgia along with all the entwined media. I can effectively say that I’ve ‘always’ been a fan.
I’m also a fan that just doesn’t want or need to devour the seemingly unending supply of hot off the presses Star Wars stuff. Maybe I’ve outgrown certain aspects of the story telling. Maybe the abundance of available material has taken the shine off the whole thing. I could just be tired of seeing the same old thing. This ennui is at the very root of this recommendation.
Star Wars, only done as anime. Imagine taking a team of amazing story tellers and artists from an anime studio and saying, “Go – play in our universe. Make something great”. That is precisely what they’ve done. Now streaming on Disney+ (because I think they own everything?) Star Wars Visions gives us seven all original stories in the same galaxy, using the same background and the same legendary ‘Force’. The stories vary in style, but never lack in beauty. The art is amazing. The stories are fresh. The look of it all is straight up anime. They’re short, so you can sneak them in between other things, or you can easily binge them. I would suggest one at a time, to give each the attention it should have. I think this may even be a way to draw new fans in; fans that might not have given a tired old franchise a chance otherwise. You should be watching Visions.
This was originally published in the Watch The Skies fanzine, September 2021 issue.
What If…
When I’ve worked on my recommendations for this little column each month I’ve tried to find things that are bent toward the (potential) interests of this group, but also slightly off the beaten path. These things might not be your preference, but should certainly be worthy of consideration. I’ve tried not to go for the obvious, splashy things out there.
This month is a break in that trend. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is pervasive in pop culture. The series of movies and shows that have the common, unifying thread of a group of comic book super heroes has been with us for a solid decade now. The story lines, the characters, the massive tent pole films that seep into all the nooks and crannies of the genre are familiar. Perhaps they are familiar to the point of apathy. The MCU could be running the very serious risk of over saturation with the sheer number of films and shows it’s dumping forth for mass consumption. The omnipresent super hero genre has kept me away, until now.
The house of mouse has an animated show based around the stories of these well known super heroes called “What If…” that gets directly to the heart of the science fiction and fantasy genre. The title of the show is the very essence of what makes SF/F great. The best stories always ask that question. What if? Can we go back and change things? How would that have worked out if one tiny thing changed (butterfly effect anyone)? It’s a terrific mental exercise. The MCU has now combined that concept with stunning artwork to make a series of short animations. These stories give us the characters we’ve come to know viewed in very different lights. Asking the simple question “What if…” and following through with things like having the Ravagers pick up T’Challa rather than Peter Quill or having a serial killer remove Avengers before they start their journey to being a hero.
Yes, viewing these episodes does actually work out better if you’ve seen and / or are familiar with the films that have been put out in the long series from Marvel. The stories are short (averaging about a half hour each) and only give us glimpses of what might have been. It’s those glimpses that make it work. The animation is at exactly the level you’d expect from a world leader. There’s a lot of great stuff in there. This series is definitely one you should be watching.
The Dungeons and Dragons movie has wrapped up filming. Now I suspect they’re moving on to the ‘zillions of special effects bits that need to be created in order to make a world of fantasy come to life. Got the news from this article: https://gizmodo.com/the-dungeons-and-dragons-film-has-wrapped-production-1847535005 I’ve written about this before, but I think the author of this article sums up my fears in a single phrase,
“…but with the caliber of people involved, maybe this one will turn out to be watchable.”
Why is it so difficult to make a fantasy story on film that is both a good story and NOT some variation of King Arthur (there are at least 15 variations / versions I can come up with)? There’s so much good material out there. Let’s hope for a real fantasy boom. Think Avengers quality. I’d love to see so much more variety. Give me a wizard that is NOT Gandalf or Merlin. Please.
This was originally published in Watch The Skies fanzine, August 2021 issue.
Nestflix
It’s the dog days of summer. The doldrums. Media is scattered far and wide but people aren’t focused on sitting down and watching whatever they can scrounge. Folks are squeezing in one more beach trip or working hard at getting ready for back to school time. Reruns and re-watching old movies is the kind of relaxing thing that can fill gaps between all this summer activity. But when you do the re-watching, do you notice the world inside the world? Do you catch the shows that are on the screens in the background?
This is not a true “what to watch” in the sense that these shows don’t actually exist, except in an alternate world. When you’re going back to an old Futurama episode, do you recall anything about “The Scary Door”? How could you miss a show with a description like this;
“You are entering the vicinity of an area adjacent to a location. The kind of place where there might be a monster, or some kind of weird mirror. These are just examples; it could also be something much better. Prepare to enter: The Scary Door.”
There is a fun site out there that lists more than four hundred of these magical shows inside shows. Have you noticed a show within a show? Do you have a favorite? When you get a few minutes head on over to the Nestflix site and check out this crazy collection.
This was originally published in Watch The Skies Fanzine, July 2021 issue.
The Vast of Night – Amazon
Pick a night. Pick a slow night. Wait until it’s quiet out. Turn out the lights. Get cozy and flip this movie on. The Vast of Night is a small film that’s big on catching you at just the right time. There are bright, glaring action movies and soft filtered romances beside the raucous comedies. This movie pulls you back to the fifties in the American southwest. The story follows two people from the little New Mexico town of Cayuga as they track down a mysterious noise and more mysterious radio station callers. It’s the kind of town where everyone knows everyone else… until they dig a little deeper.
From the Amazon description:
“In the twilight of the 1950s, on one fateful night in New Mexico, a young, winsome switchboard operator Fay (Sierra McCormick) and charismatic radio DJ Everett (Jake Horowitz) discover a strange audio frequency that could change their small town and the future forever. Dropped phone calls, AM radio signals, secret reels of tape forgotten in a library, switchboards, crossed patchlines and an anonymous phone call lead Fay and Everett on a scavenger hunt toward the unknown.”
This is definitely a movie that is all about the mood. It is quiet. It moves a little slow at the start. Give it a chance. As the story rolls, the speed and the tension build. If you take your time you will get to a place where you’ll be out staring up into the night. There are small things, inconsequential to the success of the story if you allow yourself to go along for the ride. Coming in at an hour and a half it’s definitely worth the time to catch up with the folks in this small town.
I watched the trailer for this movie as soon as it came out. It reminded me of Independence Day with Will Smith. A big budget blowing up aliens show for the fourth of July holiday. I was down with this plan – in principle. Then I watched the trailer again. From the trailer alone, I started to have doubts. Nevermind I thought, I’ll just wait and see. I put it out of my mind and forged ahead with the other things in my life.
Then, suddenly, it was the July fourth holiday weekend. I was crazy busy doing all sorts of things. I had an odd window of time and started just scrolling the screen to see what was out there and saw the big splashy things for this movie.
“OH! That’s right!” and I dove right in. No hesitation, no selection paralysis for me. Aliens and blowing stuff up. I’m IN! I really wanted to be super into this. I wanted to be excited. I was hoping there’d be this new alien action thing that would be a new go to. I watched. I waited to be moved. I wanted to just get into it and somehow it didn’t happen. This movie was no Independence Day. It wanted to be, but it missed the mark.
I still watch Independence Day from time to time. It actually holds up well enough considering that it’s 25 years old. There’s something to the movie that is just fun to watch. There’s an odd combination of crazy global scale mashed together with these smaller, human scale stories. People just getting together and working toward solving a problem because that’s what we would do ~ at least in a more positive time.
Tomorrow Warsays it’s a global scale conflict but it doesn’t show us a global scale conflict. The only city we actually see is Miami, or more correctly what is left of Miami. The people in this movie don’t band together for the good of the human race, they’re drafted. Literally forced to fight. No options, here’s a meager selection of gear, no training and GO!
The characters don’t have a chance to gel. There should be relationships, there should be bonding there should be… something. Our protagonist spends part of the movie actively working against one of his relationships. Secondary characters that should be given the chance to rise up and have a greater role are relegated to smaller parts that round out the “we need more people” bit, but don’t develop. I often complain about movie studios feeling like they need to force romance into movies. There is certainly no forced romance in this film. The problem is that the relationship they want us to focus on… just gets weird. I won’t spoil it, but I didn’t get it. When I was supposed to be feeling things I was bored.
I wanted more of something and got very little of anything. I may watch it again, just to try to catch stuff I missed? I don’t know. Maybe if we watch it enough they’ll fund another alien movie? Sigh. It could have been more. Maybe I’ll watch Independence Day again instead.
IF you’re into huge spoilers and want a break down of ALL the things that don’t make sense, check out the Pitch Meeting:
This was originally published in Watch The Skies Fanzine, June 2021
Oxygen
Oxygen is an intense little movie about a woman who wakes up with no memory of who she is or why she’s locked inside an automated pod. It wouldn’t be such a dilemma, except the level of oxygen in her single, tiny room is slowly running out. She needs to solve the puzzle of who she is, why she’s there and what she can do to fix her situation before she runs out of air to breathe.
This is a tense movie. The actress (Melanie Laurent) plays the main character. She’s stuck in this tiny pod. She doesn’t remember why. She doesn’t remember who she is. She’s got no place to go. This leaves all our focus on her as she runs through a monumental list of emotions. It’s a testament to this actor’s abilities that she can carry the whole thing off. There’s no scenery other than the pod. There’s barely any space for movement. You feel for her. You breathe with her.
Slowly, over the course of the movie memories and flashbacks give us tidbits. We rebuild all the various parts of a memory right along with the character. This is a smart lady. She figures out various ways to come at the problem even when one avenue or another runs up against a wall. She shifts and wiggles and carries the whole movie.
Were there things that didn’t work? Yes. There were one or two very small, very nit-picky things that I caught while I was along for the ride. I could very easily chalk them up to suspension of disbelief. This is a well done film that I don’t think is getting the attention it should. A locked room mystery that fits in the science fiction category. It’s a rare thing, but when it’s done well it’s a wonderful, terrible, memorable thing. This is definitely a film you should be watching!
Just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s good. I’ve had that thought rolling around among the remaining marbles in my head lately. Doesn’t help that I had another birthday, pushing ME into the “just because he’s old…” category.
I see this in my day job. In architectural design we are frequently called on to save work that is 50 or more years old. It’s important to retain a sense of history, but often times there simply isn’t anything worth saving. I have seen entire walls on the verge of collapse due to shoddy workmanship from the past that has finally pushed that final limit and begun the process of failing. Blocks crack, steel rusts away, bricks bulge, forming something that looks more like a wave than a wall. We can’t ‘save’ it. Maybe we can remake it and allow it to blend in with the other remaining parts. It takes study and careful consideration.
Nostalgia can dominate rational thought in this process. If the building in question has “always been there” from your point of view, there is an attachment formed by familiarity. The same is true of the written word. There have been some older genre books I’ve gone back to. I devoured them when I was a kid. I have these hazy visions and half baked plot memories that fill me with feelings of adventure and inspiration. Then I go back, dig out the old paperbacks and start to read. Nostalgia is often best if allowed to remain as that fuzzy picture. Most of the stories I’ve gone back to based strictly on warm feelings from my youth have been… less than the memory that brought me back to them. A couple of books have been absolute stinkers that lead me to wonder what I was thinking. Of course I was probably a preteen when reading them for the first time and had a… less discriminating palette. I think that’s a good way to phrase it (as opposed to, it didn’t matter if it was shitty, I grabbed every one I could get my grubby little hands on). Sometimes context of when books were written matters, sometimes it doesn’t. I found there are some who agree with the assessment that old isn’t necessarily good as well. I have a copy of this book, and based on this review I won’t be picking it up again soon. I love the cover art… I’ll let that story fade away on the back of the shelf.
Movies fit this category more than anything else. I’ve been trying to formulate a way to describe the feeling of not seeing new things in movies in such a way to still allow space for various media pieces to become my “new favorite”. It’s easy to throw haymakers at Hollywierd for never making anything new. We’re scheduled to get a 5th Indiana Jones movie! Indiana Jones and the quest for prune juice? We’re getting another Dune movie… that looks exactly the same as the last one with updated special effects. We’re getting sequels and “movie universe continuations” and all sorts of things that just don’t excite me. Theaters have lots of issues, but I think the single biggest one is making people excited enough about an actual film (without giving the entire thing away in the trailer ~ but that’s another rant) to balance against the terribleness of actually going and being forced to deal with an increasingly rotten set of theater goers. Another remake? Unlikely.
That brings me to the movie remake – or reboot? – that I really want to talk about. Highlander. The original movie from 1986 evokes that sense of nostalgia. There are so many aspects of this movie worthy of discussion. The concept is fascinating, but limited. An unknown number of immortal men that can only die if they are decapitated. These men battle through time attempting to become the final, remaining immortal that will claim some ultimate prize. I suspect the part film makers hate is that has a built in end point. Eventually, “there can be only one”, and that’s the best place for the film to stop. It didn’t stop them before of course. They welded on or cobbled together an additional four sequels and two television series. I will carry forth the belief that as far as Highlander films, there can be only one and not discuss the others.
The concept works. There are also the characters. Over the top, wildly costumed and speaking forth with accents that absolutely do NOT match anything of where they’re supposed to be from. These men know the goal, learn ways to survive and form bonds that pass beyond normal human life spans. Those who are prone to evil deeds do not hold back – in particular the Kurgan is a monster (and one of my favorite villains). The action works. Sword fights, car chases (sort of) and training montages. The score of the film by Queen has become legendary. It is this mashed together thing that somehow becomes more than any single part of it described on its own. Some minor aspects are showing their age, but given that the movie is 35 years old now that’s to be expected.
Do I want to see another version of this film?
It’s a difficult question. I love the original. I remember (and can quote) almost all of the main characters clearly. I’d hate if they did to this movie what they did to that movie series they called “The Hobbit”. Hate. Lots of hate for that hobbit mess.
I’d be willing to watch the movie. I’m not saying I’m enthusiastic about the idea, but I’d be willing to watch the movie. There are some important things that need to be addressed if this new version is going to happen.
The concept has a limit in terms of film. Unless it’s going to attempt to become something like the MCU (and everyone seems to want to cash in on the Marvel concept). Winning the main goal at the end of the first film is NOT the way to build a franchise. Does the film need to be a franchise? Is there any such thing as a stand alone film anymore? I don’t see many stand alone films in the land of genre these days. If it’s going to be more than one, give us enough of an ending that it can be thought of as a film, but don’t give us the ultimate prize only to try to backpedal on that later.
Don’t try to copy the musical score. Queen was a magical choice that somehow worked. Trying to capture that same spirit and falling short (and you will fall short against the Queen soundtrack) will detract from the movie. Make the music different and unique to this story.
Keep the villain a villain. There are bad guys trying to win the prize. They can’t die. They will think long term and they will be completely willing to do awful things to people who aren’t immortal. They would have died soon anyway, right? Keep that. It’s not going to be easy to equal what has gone before. Please, for the love of all that is holy to anyone, DO NOT turn this into one of those weak ‘but they were just misunderstood’ lame ass bad guy bits. Those are the worst. I’ll walk out.
Update the action and the special effects – but don’t rely on the special effects. Computers can do amazing things, but aging well is not one of them ~ particularly in the realm of visual effects. It’s easy to see the old effects with a modern eye. Do as much of this in a practical way as possible. Don’t go over the top. Over the top doesn’t blend well with a good story.
In the end – keep a good story as the main goal. What would I love to see in a remake? Show me an immortal warrior who is able to fight, but also understands that the world continues to move and evolve. A man who is so alone, but remembers so deeply and so clearly that he drags us with him, willing or not. There’s a moment in the original that shows this off amazingly well. IF they can give me this feeling along with effective action, a believable villain and amazing sound and visuals I’ll love it. See if you agree here:
A man out of time
Do I think they’ll get there? I don’t know. Cautiously hopeful is all we get for right now. There’s only one way to find out. Let’s hope for the best on this one.
