newnumber6 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
newnumber6) wrote2007-12-04 09:32 am
newnumber6) wrote2007-12-04 09:32 am
Found Money, Zombies, and Heroes
So yesterday was one of those days that make me wonder if I'm not secretly in control of the universe on a subconscious level. Why? Because I found $20 on the sidewalk. That's not all, you see, because earlier in the week my brother found $20 (and separately in another incident, $10), and he mentioned it yesterday so while I was walking to work I was thinking to myself, "man, wouldn't it be cool to find $20", and then on the way home, there it was. This was similar to another time when I was thinking about how I once found some bus tickets on the ground, and how cool that would have been, and then later that day I spot like 5 of them on the ground. But then my rational skepticism kicked in, and reminded me that I was just remembering the hits and discounting the misses, since I _often_ think about how cool it would be to find money or bus tickets or something else cool on the sidewalk. That's part of the reason I always look down when I'm not reading. Well, technically I'm looking down when I'm reading too, but my attention's more on the book and an almost subconscious scanning of the environment to make sure I don't step on anything or walk into traffic. Anyway, more specifically, when I found the $20, I didn't just think about how cool it would be to find the $20, but also about it being cool if I found bus tickets, and when I found bus tickets, I also almost certainly thought about how cool it would be to find a $20, since that's the way my mind works. So really the only 'spooky coincidence' was that I found valuable stuff at all, which isn't that spooky, since it happens from time to time to most people. And of course, most compelling of all, no matter how many times I've thought about how it might be cool, in the course of my travels, to encounter a girl and somehow strike up a conversation that leads to some sort of continued association, that never happens, so clearly I am not in control of the universe outside of my own head (and often not even that much). Ah well, it was fun to imagine for a moment. And it was certainly nice to find the $20, and if the universe _is_ listening to me, I really think it needs to happen more often, like every day or so. This time, I used it undramatically to buy toilet paper (on sale), sirloin tip roast (on sale), and a bag of chips (buffalo wings/blue cheese) to watch Heroes with, and that took care of most of it. Then again, on the other hand, since I was planning to buy everything but the chips already, I'm still up almost $20.
Speaking of, Heroes was last night. The first of the big TV show droughts. No spoilers here, but it did feel a bit rushed with plotlines seemingly being dropped (there was originally supposed to be one more ep in the volume but they hastily rewrote when the strike seemed unavoidable, so at least there'd be a conclusion to it), and just a weakness overall. I love Heroes conceptually, but I do think they need to make a few changes in writers and maybe directors, because it's not as good as last year and there are really some dumb plotting bits that need to be smoothed out. Particularly (this is not so much spoilery for the last episode, but a problem that's been recurring throughout this season, and contains some spoilers of that) something needs to be done about Peter. He really, really either needs to be killed, turned into a full-fledged villain, lose his powers permanently, reset-to-zero (still being able to sponge powers but having lost all the ones he previously acquired), or my preferred scenario, go back to only being able to use powers while near the person who has them. Because it's clear the writers have no idea how to put him into stories with all the powers he has now, without making him look like an idiot... and not just any idiot, but an idiot of such monumental idiocy that there really was an evolutionary imperative in the theme of the show, he _needs_ to die for the betterment of the species. How many millions of people have shouted at the screen this season, "Dude, just read his mind!" or "Dude, you know how to X, use that power!". As hoary and lame as the amnesia plot is, at least that let him not know what he was capable of for a time, which helped, but not much and not for long.
I'd really like to see him to back to be a range-restricted power mimic. There are relatively easy ways to do this... have HRG, for example, need to use him to take out another powerful hero, but not want him to do things like reading his mind to find out why, (although it's clear Peter would never consider that even if wiped out by a clue-by-four), and have either the Haitian or another new Hero with some kind of telepathic powers to do some sort of psychic surgery on him that forces him to wipe a power from his mind after he gets far enough away from the user. Then the HRG (or whoever) can play on Peter's sympathies, make up an explanation for why his powers went wonky (or leave it a mystery and just show up earnestly looking for help after it's been long enough to not look suspicious, and use him without fear of him going wild with some new power he's never seen before). Even when that plot runs out, the tweaking to his powers stays. This would allow Peter to be badass in certain situations, but completely helpless in others, which is what the character really needs in order to be worked into plots as anything but a villain.
On an unrelated plot, I really think the show needs to cut down/end the 'visits to/visions of the future' to drive plots. It can be a tool to gather information, but I really don't want to see any more 'undiscovered Isaac Mendez paintings that reveal a catastrophe/character's murder that must be averted' (or it happens exactly as described, but there's an OMG shocking twist!). Good writers don't need to rely on one trick constantly applied.
WGA is still on strike. 100% support for the writers here. I'd like to briefly rant about two things I keep seeing popping up on people who are down on the writers (and I realize that most people on my flist are rightly supporting the writers or haven't commented at all, but I see it on message and comment boards a fair bit, and I feel like ranting here rather than there):
1) All these writers suck nowadays anyway, TV is so lame I can't watch it, they don't deserve to get paid what they get.
2) Writers are greedy, they make too much money already, and now they want more? And what's this with residuals, they should just do a job and get paid and have that be the end of it like people who do costuming and set design.
My responses, cut.
1) Leaving aside for a moment whether or not they deserve to get paid as much as they do, much (I suspect most) of the reason for TV and movies sucking comes down not to the writers, but to the studios. It's the studios who want to make things for the broadest possible audience, in order to maximize their profits, and so they appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator. I suspect most writers would be happier writing their own vision and appealing to less people, but there are producers and executives who give notes about what is or isn't acceptable, and they're the ones who sign the paychecks and have the contracts that say "you do what we say or you don't work on it at all". Supporting the writers on the strike may not help this problem (it's kind of built into the system) but it's no reason to speak out against the writers rather than the studios.
2) Residuals are kind of like being paid partly in stock. Some companies might go that way, some companies don't. They started presumably because they were (at least somewhat) win-win for both sides. The writers take less up front with the promise that if something they write become awesomely successful, they'll win big. The studios don't have to pay every writer a much higher salary, when most new tv shows produced in a given year tank. You might quite rationally quibble on amounts, but the basic policy was in place for a reason.
Enter the Internet, and the ability to post shows on there. It's not covered by any contract. They don't have to pay residuals. They might not only be able to make money off it there (though advertising), but they can raise awareness and audience for the new episodes of the show and get more money that way. But writers don't (generally speaking) get paid more for slightly higher ratings on a new episode. They get paid for rebroadcasts. So it only seems fair they get paid for the rebroadcasts whether they're on TV or on the internet. So, with the studio's current proposals of not paying for internet broadcasts they deem 'promotional' even if they make ad money off it (or paying a token fee for unlimited use), the studios are actually suggesting paying the writers _less_. Because before, unless a program _totally_ tanked, you could usually count on them rerunning a good proportion of the episodes, and the writers involved get their residuals. Now, it's become easier for the studios to _not_ rerun old episodes for the most part, and just post them online. Not just for the marginal shows, but for successful ones too. And it'll only get worse. Unless they're willing to pay the writers enough more to compensate for that loss of revenue, it's a pay _cut_. It's like a company saying, "okay, your deal says you get $30,000 a year, and stock options which may be worth between nothing and a million dollars (averaging somewhere around $20,000/year), and a retirement fund" and then suddenly changing the deal to "Okay, you get $30,000 a year, plus a $1,000 Xmas bonus!" That amounts to a pay cut. A big one. And it's not as though the studios are losing money and have to tighten their belts, they're still expected to earn a fair bit more, it's a blatant cash grab. To me, it seems that the writers aren't just fighting for more money, they're fighting to keep what they have.
And there is a reason why writers get the residuals, while many others working in the industry do not. In their writing for the studio, they're giving up something which they would otherwise be guaranteed, under copyright laws, to have full control over and deserve a fair chunk of any profits of for over a hundred years after they produce it. Most other salary or other positions are not. That hundred years of control and profits that would have been the writer's, goes to the studios, in return for distribution and the materials needed to use that work (the script) to produce another work which might produce a lot of profit. If they don't want to pay a fair amount for the script (either in _much_ higher up front pay for _every_ writer, or in residuals and a share of the action for successful works), the CEOs should feel free to write their own scripts, which is exactly what is the WGA's position by striking. Presumably nothing stops the CEO of NBC from writing a script and getting it produced (except people of conscience who would refuse to work on it in sympathy to the union, but you can always find people without conscience, or if not, act in it yourself, too). Why don't they? Because without the cooperation of talented people, it'll suck, and everybody knows it. The writers need the studios (to get their work produced and out there), but the studios need the writers more.
Anyway, rant over.
Today/Last night I had another cool zombie apocalypse dream. They're still shambling around in my subconscious, I guess. This one involved the Marvel Zombies, at least at the start. I can't remember much of it now, but I think the idea was that zombies if they hadn't fed in a while go into hibernation until something wakes them up. And a team of people (including superheroes from another dimension) stumbled onto a pit full of dead bodies, and investigated. One of them was Spider-Man and somebody pulled up his mask to see his identity.. and this point it was revealed it was actually zombie spider-man, and he screamed and woke up and bit the guy trying to see his identity, and the other marvel zombies woke up, using their powers to quickly zombify all the people in the pit. It was actually quite dramatic as I recall, with cool uses of powers. Anyway, from there it sort of morphed into a more traditional dumb-zombie movie with shamblers and people holed up and trying to get out and about, and then after that it morphed again into a situation where zombies only craved flesh during the night... during the day they shambled around still, but wouldn't attack unless provoked. The only problem was they were all converging on the mall we needed to go to to get supplies, and 'provoked' was defined very loosely, including 'bumping into one'. *shrug*. Still was a rather cool dream. It may have actually been several dreams with slight wakefulness periods between them. I think I also dreamt I woke up and told people online about the dream, but that doesn't really count.
Oh, and I'm thinking of doing a DC companion piece for the icon I'm using. But I need ideas, both for what to say and who to use. I've got the Batman one settled (he writers on his livejournal, then gives an example in typical batman gritty style, ending with MY PARENTS ARE DEAD!), but I don't really want to just have the exact same jokes as the Marvel one with different faces, so need ideas for other ones. Feel free to comment.
Edit: Because I just found it. Spider-Man: One More Day. Either you know the rumors and have an opinion, or don't and should ignore this. But as bad signs go? The writer (JMS) himself saying he considered taking his name off the last two issues of One More Day is a pretty bad one.
Speaking of, Heroes was last night. The first of the big TV show droughts. No spoilers here, but it did feel a bit rushed with plotlines seemingly being dropped (there was originally supposed to be one more ep in the volume but they hastily rewrote when the strike seemed unavoidable, so at least there'd be a conclusion to it), and just a weakness overall. I love Heroes conceptually, but I do think they need to make a few changes in writers and maybe directors, because it's not as good as last year and there are really some dumb plotting bits that need to be smoothed out. Particularly (this is not so much spoilery for the last episode, but a problem that's been recurring throughout this season, and contains some spoilers of that) something needs to be done about Peter. He really, really either needs to be killed, turned into a full-fledged villain, lose his powers permanently, reset-to-zero (still being able to sponge powers but having lost all the ones he previously acquired), or my preferred scenario, go back to only being able to use powers while near the person who has them. Because it's clear the writers have no idea how to put him into stories with all the powers he has now, without making him look like an idiot... and not just any idiot, but an idiot of such monumental idiocy that there really was an evolutionary imperative in the theme of the show, he _needs_ to die for the betterment of the species. How many millions of people have shouted at the screen this season, "Dude, just read his mind!" or "Dude, you know how to X, use that power!". As hoary and lame as the amnesia plot is, at least that let him not know what he was capable of for a time, which helped, but not much and not for long.
I'd really like to see him to back to be a range-restricted power mimic. There are relatively easy ways to do this... have HRG, for example, need to use him to take out another powerful hero, but not want him to do things like reading his mind to find out why, (although it's clear Peter would never consider that even if wiped out by a clue-by-four), and have either the Haitian or another new Hero with some kind of telepathic powers to do some sort of psychic surgery on him that forces him to wipe a power from his mind after he gets far enough away from the user. Then the HRG (or whoever) can play on Peter's sympathies, make up an explanation for why his powers went wonky (or leave it a mystery and just show up earnestly looking for help after it's been long enough to not look suspicious, and use him without fear of him going wild with some new power he's never seen before). Even when that plot runs out, the tweaking to his powers stays. This would allow Peter to be badass in certain situations, but completely helpless in others, which is what the character really needs in order to be worked into plots as anything but a villain.
On an unrelated plot, I really think the show needs to cut down/end the 'visits to/visions of the future' to drive plots. It can be a tool to gather information, but I really don't want to see any more 'undiscovered Isaac Mendez paintings that reveal a catastrophe/character's murder that must be averted' (or it happens exactly as described, but there's an OMG shocking twist!). Good writers don't need to rely on one trick constantly applied.
WGA is still on strike. 100% support for the writers here. I'd like to briefly rant about two things I keep seeing popping up on people who are down on the writers (and I realize that most people on my flist are rightly supporting the writers or haven't commented at all, but I see it on message and comment boards a fair bit, and I feel like ranting here rather than there):
1) All these writers suck nowadays anyway, TV is so lame I can't watch it, they don't deserve to get paid what they get.
2) Writers are greedy, they make too much money already, and now they want more? And what's this with residuals, they should just do a job and get paid and have that be the end of it like people who do costuming and set design.
My responses, cut.
1) Leaving aside for a moment whether or not they deserve to get paid as much as they do, much (I suspect most) of the reason for TV and movies sucking comes down not to the writers, but to the studios. It's the studios who want to make things for the broadest possible audience, in order to maximize their profits, and so they appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator. I suspect most writers would be happier writing their own vision and appealing to less people, but there are producers and executives who give notes about what is or isn't acceptable, and they're the ones who sign the paychecks and have the contracts that say "you do what we say or you don't work on it at all". Supporting the writers on the strike may not help this problem (it's kind of built into the system) but it's no reason to speak out against the writers rather than the studios.
2) Residuals are kind of like being paid partly in stock. Some companies might go that way, some companies don't. They started presumably because they were (at least somewhat) win-win for both sides. The writers take less up front with the promise that if something they write become awesomely successful, they'll win big. The studios don't have to pay every writer a much higher salary, when most new tv shows produced in a given year tank. You might quite rationally quibble on amounts, but the basic policy was in place for a reason.
Enter the Internet, and the ability to post shows on there. It's not covered by any contract. They don't have to pay residuals. They might not only be able to make money off it there (though advertising), but they can raise awareness and audience for the new episodes of the show and get more money that way. But writers don't (generally speaking) get paid more for slightly higher ratings on a new episode. They get paid for rebroadcasts. So it only seems fair they get paid for the rebroadcasts whether they're on TV or on the internet. So, with the studio's current proposals of not paying for internet broadcasts they deem 'promotional' even if they make ad money off it (or paying a token fee for unlimited use), the studios are actually suggesting paying the writers _less_. Because before, unless a program _totally_ tanked, you could usually count on them rerunning a good proportion of the episodes, and the writers involved get their residuals. Now, it's become easier for the studios to _not_ rerun old episodes for the most part, and just post them online. Not just for the marginal shows, but for successful ones too. And it'll only get worse. Unless they're willing to pay the writers enough more to compensate for that loss of revenue, it's a pay _cut_. It's like a company saying, "okay, your deal says you get $30,000 a year, and stock options which may be worth between nothing and a million dollars (averaging somewhere around $20,000/year), and a retirement fund" and then suddenly changing the deal to "Okay, you get $30,000 a year, plus a $1,000 Xmas bonus!" That amounts to a pay cut. A big one. And it's not as though the studios are losing money and have to tighten their belts, they're still expected to earn a fair bit more, it's a blatant cash grab. To me, it seems that the writers aren't just fighting for more money, they're fighting to keep what they have.
And there is a reason why writers get the residuals, while many others working in the industry do not. In their writing for the studio, they're giving up something which they would otherwise be guaranteed, under copyright laws, to have full control over and deserve a fair chunk of any profits of for over a hundred years after they produce it. Most other salary or other positions are not. That hundred years of control and profits that would have been the writer's, goes to the studios, in return for distribution and the materials needed to use that work (the script) to produce another work which might produce a lot of profit. If they don't want to pay a fair amount for the script (either in _much_ higher up front pay for _every_ writer, or in residuals and a share of the action for successful works), the CEOs should feel free to write their own scripts, which is exactly what is the WGA's position by striking. Presumably nothing stops the CEO of NBC from writing a script and getting it produced (except people of conscience who would refuse to work on it in sympathy to the union, but you can always find people without conscience, or if not, act in it yourself, too). Why don't they? Because without the cooperation of talented people, it'll suck, and everybody knows it. The writers need the studios (to get their work produced and out there), but the studios need the writers more.
Anyway, rant over.
Today/Last night I had another cool zombie apocalypse dream. They're still shambling around in my subconscious, I guess. This one involved the Marvel Zombies, at least at the start. I can't remember much of it now, but I think the idea was that zombies if they hadn't fed in a while go into hibernation until something wakes them up. And a team of people (including superheroes from another dimension) stumbled onto a pit full of dead bodies, and investigated. One of them was Spider-Man and somebody pulled up his mask to see his identity.. and this point it was revealed it was actually zombie spider-man, and he screamed and woke up and bit the guy trying to see his identity, and the other marvel zombies woke up, using their powers to quickly zombify all the people in the pit. It was actually quite dramatic as I recall, with cool uses of powers. Anyway, from there it sort of morphed into a more traditional dumb-zombie movie with shamblers and people holed up and trying to get out and about, and then after that it morphed again into a situation where zombies only craved flesh during the night... during the day they shambled around still, but wouldn't attack unless provoked. The only problem was they were all converging on the mall we needed to go to to get supplies, and 'provoked' was defined very loosely, including 'bumping into one'. *shrug*. Still was a rather cool dream. It may have actually been several dreams with slight wakefulness periods between them. I think I also dreamt I woke up and told people online about the dream, but that doesn't really count.
Oh, and I'm thinking of doing a DC companion piece for the icon I'm using. But I need ideas, both for what to say and who to use. I've got the Batman one settled (he writers on his livejournal, then gives an example in typical batman gritty style, ending with MY PARENTS ARE DEAD!), but I don't really want to just have the exact same jokes as the Marvel one with different faces, so need ideas for other ones. Feel free to comment.
Edit: Because I just found it. Spider-Man: One More Day. Either you know the rumors and have an opinion, or don't and should ignore this. But as bad signs go? The writer (JMS) himself saying he considered taking his name off the last two issues of One More Day is a pretty bad one.