Brandon Sanderson has officially impressed me. I just finished Warbreaker, which I grabbed because the library had it sitting on their new book shelf. I said, “Oh, that’s the guy that’s finishing the Wheel of Time series, and does Writing Excuses (my favorite writing podcast).” And the inside cover blurb actually looked interesting, in a genre where very little catches my eye anymore.
Honestly, it wasn’t the most impressive or enthralling piece of fiction I’ve ever read, but it was good. I never had the urge to put it down and go do something else. The magic premise, BioChroma, was fascinating, and one I’m tempted to steal from. And he managed to successfully fool me into thinking the good guys were the bad guys and vice versa, which I enjoyed. I’ve seen funnier snark…but not much funnier, and not in the adult genre. YA tends to have more snark, and characters who snip at each other. Sanderson’s snark is sophisticated (which you won’t really find in YA), and I like that.
I picked up his debut, Elantris, from the library the other day, and also I finally got my hands on a copy of The Gathering Storm, which is the next Wheel of Time book. I’ll be reading those over the next couple of days.
Shades is coming along…slowly. Last night I went through the whole second draft, formatting it to send to my critique group. Well, of course, I can’t go through my writing without editing, and thus it took a lot longer than it should have. But I made some good changes…mostly tightening scenes, making them as clear as I can. I’ve been a little stuck at my current spot because I’m about to introduce Scisaxar as a character for the first time, and I really don’t know him very well.
The problem is, I haven’t found a way to relate Scisaxar directly to Raphel, or even to Saeli. He’s still drifting around on the periphery of my main characters, and is thus distant to me. Yuril is much easier to write now because she’s had some stage time, and she’s in love with Raphel. I don’t know how Scisaxar feels about Raphel, or Saeli, or any of the main characters. I’m going to drop him into the scene just after Yuril breaks Raphel’s fingers, and I know that Scisaxar is going to be pissed that Yuril has been blasting holes in his Temple. We’ll start with that, and see where he takes it.
Another thing that I’ve been pondering, and something that might help me with Scisaxar’s character, is that I’ve been trying to determine what the “inciting incident” between the two gods was. Why do they hate each other? What started the war in the first place?
Things I know: 1) On a much deeper level, the war has to do with Yuril’s and Scisaxar’s frustration over the Oath. They pit their followers against each other when in truth, both of them would prefer a direct confrontation. It frustrates them to have to work through mortals, and thus each blames the other even more for forcing them to sacrifice followers. This leads them both to be cruel and distant with their peoples. Cruel, because they don’t understand the source of their anger, and thus they take it out on their people. Distant, because they cannot afford to get emotionally attached to people they are sending out to die for them.
2) Both gods helped curse the Midplains. Raphel is right about that. What Raphel doesn’t know is that they did it as a desperate measure, to stop a certain secret society of people. These were the original gray mages, who knew how to build inter-world portals, who could summon both light and dark angelics, and who were delving into angelic and spirit lore that would have been better left alone. These experiments actually drew the attention of the Keeper of the Oath, who paid a short visit to Verre just before the Cursing. Well, that scared the you-know-what out of Yuril and Scisaxar. The Cursing was both a desperate measure and a panic reaction, and was perhaps overdone.
Now, I have a choice to make. Was the Cursing itself the two gods’ inciting incident, leading them to go to war for more than a hundred years…or did the disagreement start before that, and the gods temporarily put it aside for the Cursing?
If the Cursing was the inciting incident, then the resulting war is genuine. Both gods think that the other handled their part of the Cursing badly, or they blame the other for having to do such a thing, or whatever. They have a legitimate, relatively recent grievance against one another. However, if the gods put aside their conflict temporarily for the Cursing, then the resulting war would have to be a farce. In fact, it’s even possible that the gods were never truly at war in the first place, and their “hatred” is a cover-up to keep the world from discovering the truth.
I honestly like the second option better, because it makes the ending to Shades more plausible. Having Saeli single-handedly convince two gods who genuinely hate each other to stop a war they’ve been at for over a hundred years seems unlikely. But if their conflict isn’t real, her job is much easier. However, it dangerously reduces any empathy one might have for these gods…because that means they’ve been sacrificing their followers for a lie. It makes it look like Raphel was right about them, which will make it difficult for the readers to empathize with them towards the end. It works for the overall story of Verre, because the gods really were preventing something that would be ultimately worse than a hundred year war. But Raphel doesn’t know that, and Saeli doesn’t know that, and so the gods are, to them, going to look like monsters. And the only way I can prove that they aren’t monsters is to reveal a whole lot of information and backstory that I don’t want to cover in this trilogy. That’s what the sequel is for.
Perhaps the war began as a farce, but then got personal for the gods. Scisaxar is winning, after all, when the story opens. Maybe he started to press his military advantage and broke the unspoken understanding between him and Yuril. But why would he do that? I have to pull this back to the Cursing somehow. He would have to have some sort of grudge, if not against Yuril herself, then against her followers. Several possibilities present themselves. The most obvious is that Yuril attracts more followers and Scisaxar is jealous. Or he honestly feels that her followers are degenerates, and despises/feels sorry for them. Or they did something that got a lot of his people killed. No, that’s too general. They did something that got one certain person that Scisaxar really cared about killed. That would be a very strong motivation for wanting to win a farcical war.
Ah, an idea. Scisaxar loved a pre-Cursing gray mage, one of the ones in the thick of the angel experiments. The gods decided, together, that the order of gray mages had to be destroyed and the knowledge buried. They devised the Curse between them and set it loose on the Midplains. Afraid for his love, Scisaxar pursued her and pursued her, and finally brought her around to his point of view. He made her a White Mantle, and thus thought she’d be protected. Then, while the Curse was still spreading, she and a whole mess of her cohorts got caught by Cowls. Both gods’ followers had orders to kill or convert any gray mage. Scisaxar’s love refused to become a Cowl, so they killed her. Scisaxar demanded retribution, but Yuril refused, saying that even though the girl had repented of what she’d done, she still had the knowledge. The knowledge had to die. Scisaxar’s grief leaked into the still-spreading Curse, and it devoured the land as well. Once they contained it, followers from both sides were shocked and confused over why the gods would do such a thing. Yuril suggested that they stage a war, and let each side blame the other. The true reason for the Cursing would surely be buried. Scisaxar, afraid of losing all his followers, agreed. The war began, both as a farce and as revenge, on the white god’s part.
That’s very vague, and I can probably tweak it. But it could have a number of ramifications. One, Scisaxar is going to hold a severe grudge against Cowls, and against Yuril for letting them do what they did. It’s not really her fault; Yuril probably wouldn’t have sanctioned killing the girl, but the Cowls didn’t ask beforehand. Scisaxar is going to make sure his own people follow a strict hierarchy that leads directly to him, and he’s going to make sure they never act outside of his jurisdiction. He’s going to be jealous that Yuril manages to attract more followers, but at the same time, he’s not going to take any pains to make himself likable. Something like how a grieving widower would feel about a sibling who gets a lot of attention…jealous, but unwilling to compete. That jealousy is going to be manifested specifically in how he feels about the Raphel problem…because he can see that Yuril loves Raphel the way he loved ____. But Scisaxar’s also the one who will be suffering the most remorse over the Cursing, because he essentially screwed it up. He’ll possibly be the one who is more willing to listen to Saeli in the end.
So the war is both a farce, and personal, but more personal on Scisaxar’s end. Scisaxar’s pain amuses Yuril, but she doesn’t allow herself to think about it too deeply…lest she be reminded of how she really feels about Raphel. And worse, Raphel is exactly the kind of Cowl the white god hates, because he’s a wild card. He does what he wants, and the gods can go screw themselves. It was those kind of Cowls who killed Scisaxar’s love. He’ll hate Raphel, and hate that a Cowl managed to steal yet another follower away from him (first Kaladan, then Saeli), and he’ll hate Yuril for wanting to spare Raphel, and he’ll hate that were the tides turned, he would do exactly the same thing as his sister. No wonder the gods have to abandon the scene…neither of them can act. Their hands are tied by their pasts, and by the Oath. And we’re back to the Oath again.
I think I have a handle on the white god now. Enough to start writing him, anyway.
Wow. Scisaxar is walking into this conflict with some seriously complicated crap in his past.
Tags: authors, books, GMC, Reviews, Scisaxar, Shades, Yuril
Posted by nightphoenix on Feb 23, 2010 in
Daily,
Movie Mondays Yeah, yeah, I know it’s Tuesday. Deal.
The hubby and I saw The Lightning Thief last Friday. Now I know what Debra Dixon was talking about, that you’ll never be able to watch a movie again without picking it apart. Gah. I was GMCing all the characters AND trying to determine where the hero was on the hero’s journey at any particular moment. (Well, that movie was classic hero’s journey, so…that wasn’t really hard.) It was an enjoyable movie…I liked it. I have to say that now, because I’m fixing to tear it apart. 
I also need to say that I have not read the Percy Jackson books yet, although I probably will now. So this is just my thoughts on the movie alone.
First of all, my general reaction is that I no longer really like this kind of story.
There are essentially two kinds of hero. There are “safe” heros, the Percy Jacksons. Kids like these heroes, because they are generally nobodies who discover that they are somebodies, and despite their initial reluctance and bumbling around, they end up saving the world and everyone goes home safe. (And as this story is geared tower a middle school audience, I’m not saying this is a bad thing.) These heroes walk through hell, and come out the other side changed, but mostly unscathed, and with the quest item in hand. They get themselves into perilous situations left and right, but in the end, they win the battle without losing anyone or anything really important to them. The friend in danger always gets rescued, and anyone left behind somehow makes it out alive. Good and evil are clean cut, for the most part, and when the hero is given a choice, it is clear which choice he should make.
Then there are heroes like Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. These are the ones who have to scratch and claw their way to what they want, who must struggle for every inch of ground they gain in both their inner and outer battles. They win, but at a very high cost. They get themselves into perilous situations, and get out, but each one takes away a little piece of something that they can’t get back. They walk into hell with five comrades, and stagger out with their last living comrade on their shoulders, his life bleeding away…and then they discover that they left the item that can save the world back in the tunnel. So now they have to choose between saving their last friend’s life, or saving the world…and then they have to live with the knowledge that they could have saved that friend’s life. The hero must pick between a bad situation and a worse one…and he doesn’t always know which is which.
I would have left Percy’s mother with Hades, or killed her off in the end. But that’s because I like the latter kind of hero better, as a writer. I like victory to carry a price tag, the higher the better. Percy Jackson didn’t really emerge from his conflict a changed person…a little more mature, and aware of his parentage, perhaps, but still pretty much the same guy. Also, I find that it bothers me when a hero is able to instantaneously master powers and skills that take everyone else years to learn. Especially when it’s clear that the hero isn’t a prodigy or a genius. Prodigy I can deal with: Aang was a prodigy. But even when he was faced with mastering all four elements in a matter of months (when it normally takes years), he had trouble. Earthbending gave him trouble. Firebending was a disaster the first time he tried it. And he never really did master the Avatar state!
Percy Jackson learned how to use a sword competently in a matter of hours, it would seem (and yeah, I know they compress time for movies, but still)…and after partaking of some of Daddy’s superpowers, he was able to whoop the butt of a girl who’d been training her entire life. And only because Poseidon is a bigger and badder god than Athena…nothing to do with the hero’s own merit or whatnot. If I’d been writing the story, Percy would have lost that battle, and learned a lesson from it.
What else. I was really liking the way the story modernized many of the Greek myths, showing how things like Medusa and the Lotus Eaters had evolved over the centuries. Even the underworld had a modern “feel” to it, and both Hades and Persephone would not have looked out of place on the streets of NYC. But then, when they finally got to Mount Olympus and the gods’ court, the ancient Greek dress and the armour and the decor just killed it for me. I wanted to see that in a modern context as well…being transported back to ancient Greece was jarring. It made the whole scene feel irrelevant, and almost cheesy. The hubby made a good suggestion, though: that perhaps the Greek gods have wrapped themselves in the trappings of their “golden age”, when men still worshiped them and they were a force in the world…and that they are unwilling or unable to let that age go. I’ll buy that; it’s a good theory. I wish the story had made that clear, however.
Ah: one major myth fail in the movie. The heroes travel to the underworld and meet Persephone, Hades’ wife, who is clearly unhappy with her lot. That’s fine. The problem is, this story is supposed to take place in midsummer. The movie is one big countdown to the summer solstice. If you know the story of Persephone, you know that because she partook of the food of the underworld, she has to stay there for half the year; the other half she spends with her mother, Demeter, and the world prospers. While Persephone is in the underworld with Hades, Demeter grieves, and that’s why we have winter. Thus, Persephone would not have even been in the underworld during the summer! The story could have just as easily taken place over the winter solstice, if they had to have a solstice…so I just don’t get how that detail slipped by everyone.
One last major thing: they screwed up the major antagonist’s GMC, and thereby spoiled any chance of three-dimensionality in his character. First of all, I knew who the lightning thief was almost from the moment we met him onscreen…which was satisfying at the time, but totally ruined the “big reveal” moment towards the end. And then, lightning bolt in hand, they had him give this totally cliche villain speech…and that’s where the mistake was. (Forgive me if I don’t get the quotes exactly right…I’ve only seen the movie once, and several days ago now.)
“Why did you steal the bolt?” Percy Jackson asks.
“Why else?” the thief says. “For power. The gods have ruled long enough; I think it’s time for the second generation to take over.”
No, no, no. G=/=M. Power is not a motivation. It is a goal. Something (motivation) has to drive a person to seek power (goal). Not to mention that the whole I-want-power thing really did not jibe with the rest of Luke’s character. Luke’s inner struggle is that his father, Hermes, abandoned him, as all the gods must abandon their mortal children, and that just never sits well with him. He’s the sympathetic voice for all the lost demi-god kids in this world. “We’ve all got Daddy complexes, don’t we?” he asks at an earlier point in the movie. This is how that scene should have gone:
“Why did you steal the bolt?” Percy Jackson asks.
“Because I want to watch the gods destroy themselves in this war they’re going to start,” the thief says. “Why should we care? They abandoned us; they never needed us. So I say, we don’t need them!”
Now Percy Jackson has something in common with the villain: both have been abandoned by their fathers. Luke might even press the point and try to sway Percy to his side: “Why are you helping them? They don’t care about anything but themselves.” Percy’s choice about whether to return the bolt to Zeus is suddenly a whole lot less obvious, and the conflict is a whole lot more interesting. And Luke becomes a much deeper, more human character.
But…that’s not how they did it. Oh well. Maybe the book does a better job. But overall, an enjoyable movie.
Tags: GMC, movies, Reviews
Posted by nightphoenix on Feb 13, 2010 in
Fiction (and Nonfiction) Fridays My mother and I spent a good chunk of yesterday cleaning the entire apartment, which left me completely exhausted. I took a nap before dinner, and then after we ate, I laid back down. After about two hours of this, the hubby and I decided to just go on to bed…so we did. Which is why I did not update yesterday.
So…I picked up another vampire book from the library the other day. Too bad our libraries don’t seem to carry any of the newer YA fantasy books that I’d like to read, but oh well. The book I picked up was Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz. which is apparently the first in a series. It was not a bad book…but all the same, I didn’t think it was all that good, either.
The first thing I noticed after the first few pages was that the POV tends to wander from head to head several times per scene, and it’s not always clear whose head you are supposed to be in. One person will enter the scene, and begin talking to another person. You start reading about how Person #2 is internally reacting to Person #1, and at some point you realize that you are now in Person #2’s head. Then Person #3 joins the conversation, and now we start hearing what THEY are thinking. Now I had been informed, in no uncertain terms, by several different sources, that this is one of those things that you Don’t Do in Fiction. Period. After reading a book where it is done, I can understand why they tell you not to do it. It’s confusing. I don’t like having to backtrack in a story because the POV swapped from one person to another and I didn’t realize it. Seriously. Scene breaks! Don’t head-hop.
The story also took a long time to get going. About 65 pages into the book, and the only real significant thing that has happened is that a girl has been found dead. We’ve had a paragraph of description for every main character, and several dedicated to various locations around NYC. These did a pretty good job of painting the ritzy, upper-upper class culture that these characters live in, but they really didn’t create a mood, or add to the tension. And there were a lot of them.
Okay, and I know this is part of that subculture, but it irritates me when I have to hear all about the characters’ wardrobes every few pages. Also, the characters’ descriptions are never anything like how real people would describe themselves. They read like character bios from the inside cover of a manga. For example:
“Schuyler was startlingly pretty, with a sweet, heart-shaped face; a perfectly upturned nose; and soft, milky skin- but there was something almost insubstantial about her beauty. She looked like a Dresden doll in witch’s clothing. Kids at the Duchesne School thought she dressed like a bag lady. It didn’t help that she was painfully shy and kept to herself, because then they just thought she was stuck-up, which she wasn’t. She was just quiet.”
Just before this, we were in Schuyler’s head as she made a comment. Then we had a paragraph of description of what she was wearing. Followed by the above. Are we still in Schuyler’s head? I dunno, because I don’t think most people would describe themselves as “startlingly pretty”, call their own face “sweet”, and describe their own complexion as “milky”. (Unless, of course, they were completely stuck-up. But we’re told she isn’t). The last two sentences are the only ones that sound like they could have come out of Schuyler’s head…as a lot of teenagers see themselves as shy, and think that the world perceives them as stuck-up because they don’t talk to people. I believe that. I don’t buy the rest. Sorry.
And of course, it being a vampire book, we have to have the “big reveal” moment, when the main character discovers that 1) vampires are real and 2) she is one. (Actually, two of the main characters have to face this transition.) As far as reveals go, this one falls pretty flat. I mean, you the reader know that the two main girls are vampires long before they themselves figure it out. (If you’ve read the inside cover, you know before the story opens). So all of the shock, and disbelief, and denial that the characters go through when they figure it out rings false, or falls flat. This is one of the big problems with writing a vampire book right now, especially when the main characters of the story don’t know they are vampires. With so many vampire books on the market right now, it’s hard to believe that any intelligent youth embroiled in a vampire story would fail to realize that they are, in fact, in a vampire story. Such a reveal requires the characters to live in a world in which the current market of young adult vampire literature does not exist. Having the characters react with disbelief and shock makes them look idiotic instead of realistic. This is not the author’s fault, but it is something that could have been handled a little better.
Overall, I’m not all that enthused with this story…not enough to read the next book in the series. (Even the House of Night books were more interesting than this one, and I have enough issues with HoN to fill a whole other entry). I think, if I am going to explore any more current vampire books, I will pick either the Vampire Academy series or the Vampire Diaries series (which inspired Twilight, if I remember right).
Tags: books, Reviews, vampires
Posted by nightphoenix on Dec 22, 2009 in
Movie Mondays Saw the movie Avatar on Saturday night. I suppose I could go on for hours, googly-eyed, about the special effects and the world and pretty, pretty stuff…but I think the movie critic community has beaten me to it. Never mind the CG; we all know it’s new and state-of-the-art and whatnot. The world Pandora itself was awesome, simply from a worldbuilding point of view. (At first I was a bit irritated that they called the world something loaded like “Pandora”, but in the context of the story and the creatures that live on that world, it actually makes a kind of sense. “Unobtanium”, on the other hand…ah, no. Too cheesy. Fail.).
It was a cognizant, consistent world, where every creature, no matter how bizarre, made biological sense and looked like it had a place in the ecosystem. Most of the oddities of Pandora ran consistently across the gamut of species, like bio-luminescence, nostrils on the chest, two sets of limbs in front and one in the back, and of course, the string of filaments that allowed them all to connect with each other and with the plants. Seriously, I am convinced within myself that the movie plot did not do justice to that world…you could do so much more with a place like that. I actually hope they do.
The plot was formula. Dances with Wolves, The Last Samuri; how many “going native” stories exist out there now? Can’t do too many variations on that theme. It was also a definite action flick; lots of battles and plot moving and running around, not much introspection and character development. (Okay, admittedly, it was a kickass action movie, but it’s still not my favorite genre). Cardboard classics: the hard-bitten military man; the corrupt, weaselly capitalist; the nerdy but purehearted scientists; the classic (and flagrantly FALSE) stereotype of the noble savage. I particularly hate it when enemies have no depth, no particular reason for what they do. I want to know why. I want to know what drives them to act like that.
But it had moments. The flying scenes were awesome. Every time the natives got rallied, those were stirring moments. The whole Pandora-kicking-butt part at the end was awesome, even if one could see it coming a mile off. Both Narnia and LOTR had moments like this: Gandalf rushing down the mountainside with Eomer and his men, the Narnians charging at the Witch’s forces, etc. I think brave charges and last stands stir something very primal in the human spirit…and that’s something that’s very hard to mimic in writing.
Of course, the ending of Avatar made me raise an eyebrow because I thought to myself, “Oh sure, you’ve scared Earth away for now, but they’ll be back. You’ve humiliated them. What are you going to do when they return with the REALLY big guns, the nukes, the weapons that could probably blast your whole planet apart?”
Also, I know the tribes were all at peace, and probably somewhat connected via Eywa’s roots…but still, I thought Jake’s character convinced them to join forces just a little bit too easily. Even if he was flying a whatchamacallit. The tribal people were too idealized, too much of the “noble savage” stereotype, to really be a real people. Honestly, they were probably the least believable aspect of Pandora. They weren’t different enough, and let’s face it…human enough for me to buy them. There was no unique Na’vi culture…it was just a mish-mash of Native American, African, and other native cultures, without all the blood and feuds and not-so-noble stuff that those people have in their history. Watching the avatars play basketball was more real, in a sense, than watching the natives hold arms and sway around the Tree of Souls.
I walked away from Avatar with the same sense I get after riding a roller coaster: a great ride, but ultimately, now I go on with my life like nothing happened. Eeeh…I appreciate a ride, but I feel like fiction ought to do more than that, you know? Maybe that’s just me.
Tags: movies, Reviews
Posted by nightphoenix on Dec 6, 2009 in
Movie Mondays Well, the hubby and I finally went to see New Moon…only about two weeks past the hype. First of all, whoever they have directing these movies definitely knows how to capture the general mood of the books, which I appreciate. Even with movies like Narnia and LOTR, there was an initial period where I had to adjust my memories of the book to fit what I was seeing on the screen. When I watched Twilight, and again when I watched New Moon, the world and the mood left me in no doubt I was in the wet, dreary, mysterious Twilight version of Forks, WA.
I chuckled for most of the movie, honestly. Partially because there were a lot of roll-your-eyes cheese moments, but also because of the people watching the movie. Seriously, when Jacob’s character pulled off his shirt for the first time, there was a collective “Oooh…” from half the female audience in the theater. It was hilarious. Teenagers. Oi.
Bella and Charlie had a few deadpan moments that were absolutely great, and there were a few other snarky moments I enjoyed. They nailed Jacob and the wolves, and not just because of the abundance of pectoral muscles (though, I must admit, those were pretty impressive). Overall, the movie stayed pretty true to the book; they might have left a few things out, but they didn’t add much and they really didn’t change anything major (that I noticed).
Okay, on to the things I didn’t like. Two words: Robert Pattinson. Maybe he’s the only one they found who could even remotely pull off Edward Cullen, but gods, he’s just not carrying that character at all. First problem: visually, he’s not all that attractive to me. He’s thin, kind of hairy, and he has that really square jaw that I’ve just never liked on guys. Not Edward Cullen beautiful at all. I may be biased, but if I’m not even remotely attracted to the guy, I have a hard time empathizing with Bella’s obsession with him. Really, there were points during the movie where I was thinking, “Dude, Bella, why are you pining over the freaky skinny guy who left you when you’ve got a very hot Indian right there who worships the ground you walk on??”
You know, on a similar note, I don’t think the actress playing Rosalie is nearly drop-dead gorgeous enough for the role, either. Maybe I just have a peculiar taste in people.
Edward Cullen has a sort of magnetic charisma in the books that Pattinson isn’t pulling off onscreen, IMO. His attempts to seem mysterious or sexy come off as either cheesy, dorky, or just plain pathetic. (I’m thinking the Shakespeare reciting scene here, for those who’ve seen the movie). You know, where they slow down his walk and try to make his entrances look all “whoa, hot guy coming through”…trust me, I wasn’t sighing; I was cringing. He’s not carrying the part, and every attempt to make him seem sexier than he is just falls flat. I’m almost embarrassed for the guy, but then all the girls are staring at him like he’s the most delectable thing they’ve ever seen. The contrast is so bad it completely breaks me out of the story. In fact, I think I cringed every time Pattinson came onscreen and opened his mouth.
Jacob…I could understand being attracted to him, although he’s a little buff for my personal taste, and his teeth were unnaturally white. Oh, and trust me, nobody in the theater moaned with delirium when Edward took his shirt off. It was a whole lot more like, “Eh…someone cover him up, now, please?”
Unfortunately for me, Cullen is the crux of the story, and the whole movie suffers when I can’t stand the hero.
Okay, what else. Bella’s nightmares were absurd. They didn’t look like nightmares at all, really; it looked more like someone was using the Cruciatus Curse on her. Really, screaming in pain just because your boyfriend ran off? That’s a little bit too over the top, even for teenaged angst.
Also, I wished they’d made the vampire eyes a little more subtle. I think it was worse, this movie. The Cullens’ yellow ones weren’t so bad (except Alice’s, sometimes), but the Volturi were just like, how do they move around in normal human society at all? It wasn’t the red irises, really; it was the way they kind of seemed to pop out of the sockets, like all vampires are slightly bug-eyed or something. And there was none of the shading to indicate thirst level. On an amusing note, the hubby did not recognize Dakota Fanning as Jane. I wonder if I would have, had I not known in advance to expect her in that role?
Overall, not a bad movie. Any plot fails or character flaws are probably the result of the source material, not the moviemakers. Except for Pattinson. Epic fail on getting Edward Cullen right.
Tags: movies, Reviews, vampires
Posted by nightphoenix on Nov 24, 2009 in
Fiction (and Nonfiction) Fridays Must Love Dragons: by Stephanie Rowe
Wow. I saved this one for last because I thought it had the greatest potential to be really, really cutesy or just plain bad. Well, it was neither. I think it trumps Industrial Magic as my favorite so far, in that it was very good and it actually stayed within the bounds of what I would call paranormal romance. The heroine was saucy and interesting; I particularly enjoyed her voice.
General thoughts: Characterization was excellent. They even made Satan into an interesting and complex guy (oh yeah, did I mention that Satan was a character in this story? Haha.). The story used a unique twist on the relationship between dragons and dragonslayers, and though it really only existed to heighten the sexual tension between the two main characters, it was a fun idea. The plot was fast paced and fun…never a boring moment that I recall. The characters were snarky and none of them take themselves too seriously, which seems to happen a lot in the romance genre.
Relationships: Finally, a book that has a nice balance of romance and sex that is detailed enough, but not over the top or gross. There were two sex scenes, but the first one was so fast and brief that it almost doesn’t count (which was, plot-wise, actually the point. Neither of the characters were altogether cognizant when it happened.) Unlike Hidden Currents, the guy does not get an erection every time he looks at the heroine…the two actually struggle with their attraction to each other in a realistic manner.
Bones of Faerie: by Janni Lee Simner
Short, enjoyable YA novel. The premise is that there was a terrible war between Faerie and the human world, and both lands are scarred. In the human world, trees and plants eat people, crops moan and struggle when they are picked, and magic kills. Parts of Faerie have been blasted by nuclear weapons. The story is about a girl who lives in a village where anyone born with magic is cast out to die. She discovers that she has magic, and she goes on an adventure to find her mother, who disappeared. Definitely illustrates the dangerous aspects of Faerie, which many YA novels do nowadays, but it also shows the flip side of the coin, and suggests the damage we could do to their world with our weapons. That was the most interesting part to me.
The Midnighters Trilogy: by Scott Westerfeld
I actually finished this a few weeks back, and really enjoyed it. The premise was fascinating, and the level of detail in the world was actually making me jealous. Basically in this little town in Oklahoma, time stops at midnight, and there is a “secret hour” squished into the instant between midnight and just after. People that are born close enough to exactly midnight can experience this secret time, and they all have special abilities that only work during midnight (well, some work all the time, but are only really useful during the midnight hour).
The characters are all interesting and differentiated, but not quite as memorable as the cast of Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy, IMO. He commits a minor writer’s sin by having a Jess and a Dess in the same story, but the two are so different that I never get them mixed up. Westerfeld always impresses me with his ability to cover so much ground in so few words. At the end of one of his trilogies, you feel like you’ve experienced a story that should have taken more than three relatively short books to tell. (That’s something I really want to learn how to do). The other thing that he does that I really like is that his stories never end completely happily. At the end of the Midnighters trilogy, one of the characters ends up stuck permanently in the midnight hour, and another has had his mind altered. All the characters lose something, but in the end they all come to terms with it.
Peeps: by Scott Westerfeld
Probably one of the most original vampire stories I’ve read, other than The Society of S by Susan Hubbard. Vampirism in Peeps is caused by a parasite that does strange things to people’s bodies and minds. The story starts with Cal, who has the disease but is only a “carrier”, someone who can spread the parasite but doesn’t have all the symptoms (like insanity). He’s trying to track down everyone he infected (before he knew he had it), and in the process they all learn the true purpose of this parasite. I like the way he writes teenagers so that they are convincingly teenish, but aren’t annoying.
That’s all I’m doing tonight, as my fingers are getting tired.
Tags: books, Reviews
I finished Industrial Magic, and I still agree with my previous post. Urban fantasy, not paranormal romance. Good, though. I’m definitely going to track down the first one.
I also finished:
Hidden Currents: by Christine Feehan
This seems to be part of a series of unrelated books all dealing with the same characters: the Drake sisters. All the sisters are varying degrees of psychic. This story was about the youngest one, seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, who gets to carry on the legacy and have seven (!) girls of her own.
General thoughts: The conceit was interesting, but I think this particular story failed on several levels. It begins with the girl getting captured by this really depraved mega-millionaire, who trades sex slaves on the black market. She is badly abused by this guy, sexually, physically, psychically (oh yeah, the guy’s a psychic, too). Okay, now I understand this sort of abuse really happens, and I think I’m a reasonably sympathetic person who gets appropriately outraged when I hear about it. However, it’s just not something I want to see in a romance novel. Stories like this are supposed to be, first and foremost, entertainment. Abuse does not entertain me. I don’t want to read about it in my free time, thank you.
So then, the girl, Elle, is rescued about three or four chapters into the story (which, by the way, makes the entire back cover blurb completely misleading), by the love of her life (whom she’d given up on) and her sisters’ boyfriends. The entire rest of the story is given over to her recovering from abuse, and rekindling her romance with her guy, Jackson. I hate to say it, but this author has obviously never read accounts or interviewed anyone who had actually been abused. Elle has little panic attacks, in the beginning. By the middle of the book, she’s happily having sex with Jackson and really shows little other sign of trauma other than being a little nervous in crowds. Bullshit. It should have been weeks, months, before she could bear another man to touch her. Hold her. Let alone have sex with her. You just don’t get over that kind of abuse that easily. Epic fail in the realistic catagory.
The story was just interesting enough to keep me reading, but really, not all that memorable. Everything the characters devised pretty much worked, which should never be the case. Elle’s setbacks are almost inconsequentially small, and are quickly fixed. Example: the climax. The sisters’ guys devise a way to defeat the millionaire villain. They execute said plan. Said plan goes over without a hitch. The villain is defeated. Boring, boring, boring! Most of the writing was given over to Jackson reassuring Elle that he really loved her, how he’d never leave, how he’d never let her abuser find her, etc. Elle also did a fair bit of that, too; she’s not going to give up, she believed in the two of them, blah blah blah. Yeah, characters need that, but it really did get old after the twentieth time or so.
Relationships: The book was too erotic for my taste, plain and simple. I finished it, but I did a lot of skimming, honestly. I guess people must like it, though, because there’s an awful lot of it on the market. I can read a sex scene, but seriously, 8 pages devoted to a blow job? *gagging noises* There were, again, a lot of body parts. I’m a grown married woman, so I’m quite familiar with what the parts do. I care more about the emotions of the characters. Also, and this is a personal peeve of mine, but I really hate it when a penis is referred to as a “cock”. It’s just…vulgar, to me. I cringe every time I read it. Let’s just say that I did a lot of cringing while reading this book. I suppose “member” or some other clever metaphor (spear? sword? let’s not go there) isn’t much better. I say, why name it at all? We know it’s there, we know what it’s doing. I’d rather read about how the characters feel inside.
Another problem was that the sex was too idealized for my liking. Even in the Gardella Vampire Chronicles, the author, along with describing the normal sensations, didn’t forget to mention when the heroine’s hair pins were digging into her head, or a bedpost poking her back, or the coldness of the floor. In this book, there’s none of that. The scenes have a setting, but the setting exists solely for atmosphere…it doesn’t actually interact with the characters at all (at least, not after they are getting it on). Even if I was having the greatest sex of my life, I think I’d still at least notice being bent back on a piano. In reality, I think that would be majorly uncomfortable.
And I guess there’s only so many ways to elaborate on “pleasure washed through his/her body” without getting redundant. Really, really redundant.
In other news, I’ve started a 1500 word short story that I might also submit to Writer’s Digest. This is a different contest than the one I sent the Smell of November to, and the possible cash prizes are higher. I had known about the contest, but wasn’t going to bother with it because I didn’t have any good ideas. I had read on Westerfeld’s blog about the concept of a “dialogue spine”, and how you can punch out the bare bones of a story using only two characters talking to each other. Then I remembered the hubby and I tossing around the idea of what it would be like to be a blind vampire. Then I listened to End Transmission by AFI, and I had my character: a blind vampire who is tired of what he is, and wants to die.
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Shades is coming along. Saeli has her Mantle now, and knows she’s a cleric. Trying to decide how to get her to that party without too many extraneous words.
Tags: ideas, Reviews, revisions, vampires
Posted by nightphoenix on Nov 11, 2009 in
Fiction (and Nonfiction) Fridays,
Writing And why I need to be careful of blithely assigning such a label to ANY of my stories. Seriously.
I decided that if I’m going to write a paranormal romance, I ought to read a few paranormal romances, so that 1. I can see what’s out there and 2. I learn how it’s done (and how it’s done badly). Since I’m completely unfamiliar with the romance genre as a whole, what I’ve been doing is going to the local library and scanning the romance shelves for anything labeled “paranormal”. (Thank goodness most of the lines label the type of romance it is; otherwise, I’d be really lost.) When I spot one, I pull it out and glance over the back cover. If it looks moderately interesting, I grab it. Otherwise, I put it back. Now, I admit this is not the best nor the most efficient method of choosing reading material, but it does give me a broad spectrum of choice. So far, I’ve checked out about ten books, started five, and finished…two. Although I think I may actually finish the one I’m currently on, so that will make three.
Let me be clear. I’ve never liked the romance genre as a whole. If the book is not so erotic that I’d be embarrassed to be in the same room with it, it’s so sweet and romantic that my teeth start aching. Flawless heroines and perfect heartthrobs turn me off a story…well, anything that throbs turns me off, really. *clears throat* Also, over the years I’ve realized that I’m not a huge fan of happy endings. Total happy endings, that is, where everything is tied up so nice and neat that the story might as well have not happened at all. Or where the main character completely reverses all the adjectives trailing after them: poor, ugly, inhibited, etc. and lives happily ever after. Ouch. Pass the Orijel, please, the sweetness is killing me.
I recognize that not all romance is that bad. (As I intend to write a couple of novels that fall under that label, it is probably best that I develop at least a passing tolerance for the genre). Undoubtably, there are gems scattered amidst the crap. Unfortunately for me, I’m still in the process of picking through the crap. Here’s what I’ve found so far:
The Gardella Vampire Chronicles: by Colleen Gleason
There are four of these (at least…if she’s released another one, I don’t know about it yet). The library didn’t have the first one, so I began at the second. Strike One: the books in the series are not numbered, so if you don’t know anything about the story, you don’t have a clue which book falls where in the series. I checked out the three that the library had, and was able to piece together the order in which they should be read by making inferences from the back cover blurbs. (In one book, the heroine goes to Rome and one of the heroes is missing. In another book, she is in Rome, and the missing hero has turned up. In another, she is back from Rome, and both heroes are now present and accounted for. Inference.) Turns out, the library didn’t have Book 1, so I started at (what I assumed to be) 2. On a positive note, there is so much backtracking and referencing in each book that it’s not necessary to have read the previous books to understand what is going on in the current story.
General thoughts: On the whole, these really weren’t all that badly done. I got most of the way through books 2 and 3, and finished 4. The fourth was the most interesting, IMO…the other two didn’t hold my interest quite as well. The vampires were traditionally depicted (undead, stake through the heart kills, sunlight kills, holy water burns, damned souls, fangs, etc.). The series was a lot like Buffy the Vampire Slayer set in Victorian London, which means the heroine does a lot of carrying stakes in her garters and bodice, hiding them in her hair, and dealing with the hassle of skirts. There are a lot of vampire slaying scenes, and the action was done well.
Relationships in the book: The heroine actually has two love interests, at least from the outset of book 2. (Apparently in book 1, she had an admirer and eventually a husband that knew nothing of her vampire slaying activities, but then he got turned into a vampire and she had to slay him. I haven’t actually read the first book…that’s all backstory gathered from the books I did read.) One of Victoria’s admirers makes no secret of his affection, and keeps trying to coax her into his bed. (Happily, she usually refuses, but then we inevitably have to hear about how tempted she is, and how sexy he is, for the next few paragraphs). The other guy refuses to admit to himself that he’s in love with her, and is a much darker character in general. I actually like him better, and I think Victoria ends up choosing him in the end.
Gleason’s sex scenes are a lot more erotic than I’d be comfortable writing, but of all the paranormal romance titles I’ve read so far, they are the most well written. (That may not be saying much). They advance the plot. Body part descriptions are kept to a minimum. They actually have somewhat of a dramatic arc. My chief complaint is that the author is overfond of the word “slick”. Tongues are slick. Sweat is slick. Other things are slick, most of which I don’t care to describe here. “Slick”, to me, is not a romantic or even a sensual term. It’s just…gross. It throws me out of the scene, usually with an “eww”.
Changling: by Yasmine Galenorn
Yet another one where the library only had the second book in a series. Although from the back cover, it’s not entirely clear that it’s a series…and again, it’s not necessary to have read the first book to understand this one.
General thoughts: I liked this one for what it was. The worldbuilding aspect was interesting, thankfully, because a lot of the story was devoted to explaining how the world worked. Sometimes this got annoyingly obvious; characters did a lot of sitting around explaining to each other things that you KNOW they already know. The three sisters were well characterized, if a little too much at times. I could tell that the author was fond of them. There were some great one-liners.
Relationships in the book: Eh. The author functions on the “fact” that faeries are not monogamous beings, and therefore the sisters, being half-fae, are going to have lots of love interests. Well, okay, but when characters act a certain way just because “it’s in their genes/blood”, it comes across as unconvincing. The middle sister, who is the point-of-view character in this one, has a human boyfriend: Chase, but she becomes very attracted to the hot Were-puma, Zach, during the course of the book. This causes her no end of guilt, but apparently not enough to prevent her from having sex with the guy at the end. And then, to top off the unconvincingness, she tells Zach that he’s great and all, but she’s really in love with her human boyfriend. While she and Zach are having sex, mind. Oh, but Were-puma is okay with that, he understands, he can deal with a one-time romp. I was doing a whole lot of WTF’s at this point.
The Warlord’s Daughter: by Susan Grant
I’m not going to be nice here. I only got a few chapters into this one before putting it down in disgust. The heroine is the classic sheltered innocent, her perfect beauty marred only by her glasses and her tendency to be clumsy. It’s like the author knew she had to give this girl some imperfection, and chose the most superficial things she could think of. The hero is the classic hot, muscly bad boy who got kicked around by his sadistic father growing up. Now he’s all grown up, and people think he’s bad, but he’s really the good guy. (Seriously, the guy even goes on for several paragraphs about why he works out all the time. Sure, dude. Why don’t you save the psychological melodrama and just flex those muscles for the camera?).
The hero and heroine encounter each other and there’s that instant connection. “Oh, look, there’s someone who understands my pain! *swoon*” I got as far as the guy deciding that he’s going to find and marry this girl. It was like, there was never any doubt that the two of them were going to get together in the end, so why did it take them an entire book to do it? Ugh. I just don’t like stories like this. They are far too predictable. Any tension or delay in the relationship generated by the story is annoying, not intriguing, because you know they’re gonna end up romping in the sheets in the last chapter. I even checked to make sure.
Into the Shadow: by Christina Dodd
I’m only about four chapters into this one, and I’m seriously considering not going any further. There’s a long prologue where you are introduced to a slightly disturbed and disturbing hero character who tends to scare the crap out of everyone he meets. Then, in chapter 1, you have a long, explicit, and completely unnecessary sex scene between a heroine you met two paragraphs ago, and a guy you assume is the scary hero guy you met in the last chapter. Also, there are lots of body parts, including one penis (which I hear is a no-no), and some of those parts are doing things that I really don’t think real parts do. Seriously. The sex serves no purpose. The heroine doesn’t even know this guy…he’s just some random person that comes into her tent at night to have sex. I mean really, do you really expect me to have any respect for this woman? And then you find out that the guy really wants the girl to leave the area, which immediately makes me wonder why he’s fucking her every night.
Not a good start. I’m not even sure if I care about the story at this point.
Industrial Magic: by Kelley Armstrong
I’m about half way through this one, and so far, I think it’s the best one I’ve read. I’d honestly label this as more of an urban fantasy than a paranormal romance. The characters are believable, the world is interesting but not over-explained as it is in Changling, and the story itself is interesting. Sex is minimal and completely off-screen, and the two main characters are already in a committed relationship. Again, this is the second book in a series, and I may actually go back and read the first one.
When I’ve read more, I’ll do more reviews.
Tags: books, Reviews
Posted by nightphoenix on Oct 29, 2009 in
Creative,
Song of the Day So, first order of business today: the Hanson concert was awesome!
Okay, so having to stand in a tiny spot in a huge crowd for 6+ hours straight after walking a mile barefoot wasn’t quite so fun. (There were three bloody opening acts. Have you ever had your feet cramp from standing for too long? Yeah…). But they made it worth it in the end.
This concert reminded me of why, out of all the bands I really like, Hanson remains the only group that inspires me. Maybe it’s because they’re my age…I dunno. Doesn’t really matter. I watch them play onstage and I can see how much they love what they do. (And how much their fans love them).
Most bands have a mix of hardcore fans, lukewarm fans, oh-I-heard-them-on-the-radio-once fans, and people dragged to the show by other fans. Hanson only ever really had lovers and haters, at least in the public sphere. To an extent, this is still true, although I think most of the haters have long since given up. They are no longer the huge sensation they were in 1997, so the fans they have now are the ones that still believed in their music even after they dropped out of the spotlight. (And their fans are not all female…I saw more than a few guys rocking out Saturday night). There’s no way in hell you’re going to drag a ho-hum person to a Hanson concert.
Their shows are amazing because nobody that doesn’t LOVE the band is going to be there.
Other concerts I’ve been to, the band plays to you, to entertain you, and it’s an enjoyable experience. There are moments when something magical happens, and the energy of the band and the audience are absolutely in sync…where the band is playing better and harder than they could ever do alone because they’re feeding off the crowd’s energy, and everyone in the crowd gets pumped from the music and forgets that they’ve been on their feet for 6 hours and that they’re exhausted. But it’s moments. The rest of the time you’re kind of just listening, or singing, and generally enjoying yourself. (Or, if you happen to be in the middle of a mosh pit, you’re busy trying not to get drop-kicked).
Saturday night the band and the crowd were plugged into each other the whole time. It was all kinds of intense. There was so much energy in that place that when I walked out of there, I was neither tired nor hungry (though I was so sore I could barely walk). Actually, I didn’t even wake up hungry the next morning, despite the fact that I hadn’t eaten anything since midday before. Residual energy? I dunno.
Interestingly, I walked out of there wanting to write, because that’s my passion. Just from a two hour glimpse of those three guys living theirs. It made me start thinking about creativity, and art, and the connection between those who make the art and those who appreciate it. There is an interesting paradox that happens when your work is admired, and when it starts affecting and changing other people’s lives. It’s still yours, but to an extent, it belongs to the fans, too.
Listening to Hanson playing live last night, I was aware of this sense of ownership. To the extent that I loved each song, I owned that song in that moment. It was mine. I cannot take it from them, but they cannot keep it from me…nor would they want to. Anyone who creates art wants, on some level, for other people to own it, to make it theirs. Artists are idea whores. We willingly, eagerly, offer up our passion and our souls to the world, and we love it when our ideas get owned. (Note: Owned, not stolen. There’s a difference.) Every artist wants to make art that changes people. In the same vein, I would argue that Twilight no longer belongs exclusively to Stephanie Meyer, or Harry Potter to J. K. Rowling, or Middle Earth to Tolkien. Edward and Harry and Gandalf live in the hearts of every person who has been touched by these characters.
Believe it or not, the book Atlas Shrugged is riddled with this very idea, and I think it’s one of the few things that Ayn Rand hit dead on. The players in that story are seen as selfish bastards by the rest of the world, seemingly because they refuse to share their ideas, their intellect, their passion with the rest of the world. But they willingly share these things with each other, and it has to do with the difference between thievery and ownership. The world wanted to take what Rearden and John Galt and D’Anconia and Dagny offered, but they didn’t want to own it. They didn’t want to understand it.
Anyone can steal an idea. But to own an idea, you have to be worthy of it. I’ve never respected the really rabid fans of any popular phenomenon…you know, the ones who spend all their time following a band’s tour bus around the country, or spend all their money on paraphernalia, or talk about nothing else. Those to whom a touch of a famous person’s hand, a picture, an autograph, or a rare collectible becomes the currency by which they measure their worth. I say that the way you become worthy of something you love is to use it to fuel your own passions. You will never truly appreciate another person’s creation until you become a creator. I love Hanson’s music. How do I know? Because I want to write stories to that music. I don’t have to have every damn piece of music they’ve ever written to get it. Their passion fuels mine.
However, hell hath no fury like an artist whose work has been stolen or appropriated by someone else. That’s because when someone steals an idea, all they really want is the fame, or admiration, or appreciation that goes with it. They don’t understand the idea itself…in fact, sometimes a thief can be downright afraid of the idea he or she has stolen, because deep down, they know they aren’t worthy of it. I take ideas from other artists all the time…but I use them to create other ideas, and I make them my own, and I gladly own up to where the original idea came from. I have no reason NOT to, because I know my work is equally as worthy as the source. They own it because they created it, I own it because I’ve made it mine. I hope my ideas are good enough that others will own what I’ve made someday, and make it theirs.
It’s funny, I’ll go to a concert like this and, like any fangirl, I hope to get the chance to meet the band personally. I had plenty of chances Saturday. Before every concert, Hanson organizes a barefoot walk to provide shoes, through TOMS, and other aid for people in Africa. For every person who takes the walk, they donate a dollar to the cause. And yes, Hanson participates…they are out there, in the sun, the rain, the snow, whatever, walking with their fans. It’s a really awesome thing they do.
http://www.hanson.net
http://www.takethewalk.net
So I had the shot to go up and say hey to one of them…but when it came down to it, I just…couldn’t. (Okay, so the bleeding toe and the 90 degree weather and the fact that everyone was walking really fast didn’t help). I start feeling like, what am I going to say to them that’s more interesting or noteworthy than what anyone else might say? A lot of that is natural shyness, but the other part is the one that wants to be able to say, “Hey, I just got a book published, and I used a song of yours as inspiration…” Not to brag, but just to have some tangible evidence of the oft expressed sentiment: “You guys inspire me.” Any fan can say that. I want it to be true.
I’m starting to believe that this is what I truly liked about Ayn Rand’s work…she understood this concept, if nothing else. (She might not have thought about it in such terms, but she got it.)
Tags: Hanson, Reviews
Posted by nightphoenix on Aug 11, 2009 in
Movie Mondays Last Friday night, the hubby and I watched The Knowing. Here it is Tuesday, and I’m finally getting around to writing down my thoughts. Efficient, Nightphoenix. Very efficient. Oh well.
I had seen previews for this movie in the theaters, and thought it looked mildly interesting. Only somehow it didn’t seem to stay in the theater very long, and we missed the window. I kind of forgot about it until the hubby’s parents lent the DVD to us.
The hubby said that doomsday movies are overdone, and I tend to agree with him. There are only so many ways you can destroy the world, or almost destroy the world. All the plausible ones (and most of the implausible ones, for that matter) have been explored in film. Plus, everybody already knows the ending before they walk into the theater. The notable doomsday movies are only notable because of some other element within them. Independence Day worked because Will Smith and Jeff Goldbloom carried it. Armageddon, Deep Impact, and similar movies fly because the romantic subplot is interesting enough. Etc.
The Knowing was good for what it was. I have yet to see a Nicholas Cage movie I really dislike, however, so I may be a little biased. The title plays on your expectations, which I appreciated. You think that it’s about “knowing” about these major disasters ahead of time, and it is, but on a deeper level it’s also about “knowing” there’s a purpose to everything that happens. The interpersonal plot was done pretty well. I wish they had devoted a little more time to Abby’s character, because in that scene where the kids are taken away, she seems less like a character and more like a prop. I didn’t care about her the way I cared about Caleb.
This must be a result of having a child of my own, but the moment in the movie where I was the most tense was when the two adults went into that creepy house at night and left the kids sleeping in the car. Alone. With the creepy, still-as-yet ambivalent “whisperers” out there somewhere. I was so worried about those children that I could barely concentrate on what the adults were doing. I’m not sure if that’s what was intended, since what they were doing in the house was kind of important.
I did enjoy the EE = Everyone Else reveal, on the underside of the bed. That was a delightfully creepy moment.
My major problem with this movie is that I ended up disagreeing with the basic premise: aliens foresaw every horrible human event, and our eventual demise, and warned select people so that some of us could be taken to another world and the human race would survive. I can buy the idea that a human might be able to predict the future. I can even buy the idea that an alien could predict the future, and would care enough to intervene. But it would have to be because the alien is sensitive on that level, not simply because he’s an alien. No amount of superior technology can predict future events (especially since a large number of the events predicted, like 9/11, were not caused by natural disasters, but by human free will…what technology can possibly foresee that?)
When it first became obvious that there were aliens involved in the movie, and in the number puzzle, I assumed at first that the aliens were causing all these disasters. I just have a hard time accepting that they could have known about the tragedies unless they were behind them. My credulity was seriously strained when they weren’t. Another human being might be sensitive enough to pick what Osama Bin Laden was planning before 9/11 out of the ether and make a prediction, but an alien? Pick out the time, the place, the number of people who would die? That suggests a familiarity and intimacy with us and our thought patterns that I’m not convinced was there.
It seemed like these aliens could see the future simply by virtue of being aliens. I think maybe you were supposed to assume that they were psychic, since they could “whisper” and stuff, but really, the movie just made them plain creepy. Alien. I was not made to feel they could see the future because they were psychic…I was made to feel they could see it because they were more advanced than us and thus they just “knew” these things. The difference is perhaps minimal, but it did bother me.
Plus, only the last few disasters had anything to do with the solar flare, and that last event. Why would the aliens even bother warning the girl in the beginning about the other disasters, if it was all in preparation for the final one?
I would have been more convinced if the aliens had actually been angels or something like that. The move had them playing that role anyway…why not just make them what they’re pretending to be? Are the producers afraid that angels aren’t “culture and religion-neutral” enough, and aliens are? Does it HAVE to be aliens?? They are so cliche.
The movie also had the problem of a lot of doomsday stories. After the characters discover that the whole planet is in danger, and that there’s nothing that can be done, and that time is running out…then what? The excitement comes from the characters being presented with a problem and then going about trying to solve it. However, in this particular doomsday flick, once the tension of figuring out when and how everyone is going to die is over, the excitement grinds to a halt. Since the characters can do nothing to actually stop the doomsday, someone much more powerful has to save them, or everyone has to die. The storyline practically demands a Deus Ex Machina or a totally depressing ending, neither of which is very satisfying. (Actually, The Knowing employed both types of ending. The children are saved by the powerful, benevolent aliens, and everyone else dies. It still wasn’t completely satisfying.)
Overall, it wasn’t a bad movie. But I think I must be one of those people that are easily amused. I’ve liked a number of movies that the critics have torn to pieces.
I can enjoy a mediocre story for what it is, if it’s entertaining enough. (I just don’t want to write them 
)
Tags: movies, Reviews