Some stuff to post so I have stuff to post.

[newnumber6]

This week I finally got that photo scanner I won. Don't have any use for it, but it was free. I also went to the bookstore, but I didn't find any new books that tickled my fancy. But I did buy a used copy of Left 4 Dead. Unfortunately, my free X-Box Live subscription ran out, so I can only play single player, but I think I'll be renewing it soonish.. but I might as well get some solo practice, first, so I don't suck in multiplayer. (My aim isn't the greatest, particularly in high pressure situations... though it would probably help if I didn't have to always be the one leading the way or the AI characters wouldn't go anywhere).

Edit: Oh, and sometime this week I had either a dream or a theme (semi-conscious speculation) involving a video game company producing two completely different games that could still somehow be multiplayered together to create a completely different experience. Like, say, Grand Theft Auto and a D&D style fantasy game, that you could play online into a game where a dimensional rift opens connecting the modern era to the fantasy universe, and you have criminals stealing cars dealing with or running away from rampaging hordes of demons, or a 'one person against a zombie apocalypse' game and a sports game turning into a zombie outbreak at a sports arena where the players fight with baseball bats, etc.

I imagine in real life it'd require both games to be built on the same Engine (and of course, designed to interface multiplayer in this way, but that should go without saying), and so the actual applications would be very limited, but it would kind of be interesting if somebody tried it (or probably already have and I'm just not aware of it).

Anyway, let's move on to Book Foo.

Finished: Singularity Sky, by Charles Stross (reread)
Started: Iron Sunrise, by Charles Stross (reread)

Rereads, so don't have a lot to say. Some of the weakenesses in Singularity sky pop out a bit more on a read, but it's still a pretty good initial concept.

Finished: Patriarch's Hope, by David Feintuch (reread)
Started and finished: Children of Hope, by David Feintuch (reread)
Started: To Your Scattered Bodies Go... (Riverworld, Book One), by Philip Jose Farmer (reread)

That's the end of the Seafort Saga, at least the published one. David Feintuch passed away a few years ago, and though supposedly he'd completed (at least the first draft) of a final volume, Galahad's Hope, there's, to my knowledge, no word on any publication date or plans. Both were fairly good, not quite as good as the early ones, but the last did show a bit of promise for the future, and for the first time creating a viewpoint character other than Nick Seafort that was appealing (if a bit more unbalanced). Like I said, it's a pretty strange series and I can't even account for why I like it, but I do.

On to more visual media... the reason I'm rereading the first of the Riverworld books again is because I just recently watched the Riverworld miniseries. Not the one from a couple years back, Sci-Fi did a remake of it. And... it kinda sucked even more. And I'm not a purist for the books. I recognize that while Philip Jose Farmer created one of the best story concepts ever, his actual story was lacking. I don't even mind if they toss out every character and come up with a new cast to explore the concept. What I do mind is if you replace everything with LAME.

The sins of this adapation are many. I do have to point out that they're not all the writer/producer's fault though... I read an interview where he said that the Sci-Fi channel had very specific requirements, one of which was a modern American viewpoint character (another that Mark Twain appear right off the bat).

Anyway, let's start with the lead.
I like Tamoh Penniket (even if I probably spelled his name incorrectly). However, I don't think he was doing his best work. In this, he was bland. I think the absolute biggest problem this adaption had is that you took this bland, newly made American viewpoint character, and made his antagonist... Richard Francis Burton (one of the primary heroes of the Riverworld books). Every time Richard Burton appeared on screen, I was thinking, "Why aren't we following THIS GUY? He's so much cooler!" (aside from the fact that he's inexplicably a villain here). I don't even think it's the love of the book influencing me so much as the prospects of such a dynamic character with a different point of view from having grown up in a different era, and played by Peter Wingfield, who is just made of awesome even if he's not "traditional leading man" material. I so wanted to see Peter Wingfield as the star of this.

We're supposed to feel for Tamoh's character (I'll just call him Tamoh since I don't care to look up the character name)'s past, but aside from a few flashbacks to the exact same two events (his death and a photojournalist assignment). His quest is pretty weak (more on that later), and he just never pops off the page as a character who has any personality other than "I must do what I'm going to do because I'm the good guy and it's in the script."

The other characters are similarly unimpressive, although it gets a tiny bit better in the second part. Mostly, Tamoh gets resurrected with people who died around him. Okay in concept, but it makes them fairly dull. The only person from the past he befriends right away is a 13th century samurai woman from Japan, who, aside from a few pithy asian wise sayings is pretty much just an average modern woman who kicks ass with a sword. (However, to its credit, which I didn't realize when writing this the first time, the character is a REAL example of a female samurai... I still think that she wasn't portrayed as being any different than a modern character except that she knows how to use swords). What I want out of the Riverworld concept is people who are out of their comfort zones and adapting, clashes of different values of people from different times. We got a little better later with Sam's crew (Sam Clemens, an Italian prostitute, and a Muslim soldier who was just a cab driver before Riverworld), but even then they barely scratched the surface.

Characters aside, we got the 'two sides of aliens who are sworn not to interfere directly choosing champions for their respective points of view' hammered into us, and I'd just rather have left it much more subtle. Have the main character helped by one of them, but don't send him directly on a mission when he has no reason to do so, and don't make it all for the love of a good bland woman. (I don't object to "I must search the river to find my true love" as a motivation for a character, but as the motivation for the series/movie, at least a RIVERWORLD series/movie, it's sorely lacking).

Coincidences pile up on coincidences. Tamoh meets Richard Burton because Burton approaches a blonde woman and calls out Tamoh's girlfriend's name before realizing it's not her. Egad, that's writing so clumsy it makes my teeth hurt (that's not a clumsy metaphor, either, it's an accurate, though exaggerated, description of what I feel when I experience really really clumsy writing, it's like one end of my jaw wants to curl up and it's deeply uncomfortable). People who should be nowhere near each other encounter each other by accident. The odds of randomly encountering any particular person on the River, assuming you haven't been set up to do so, are several billion to one, but it happens several times in the movie alone.

There are a lot of minor issues that I think hurt the adaptation, but on their own are forgiveable:
1) in almost every shot, the Riverworld looked more like Huge-Gaping-Lakeworld. I mean come on! Okay, this is a pretty petty one, they're limited by the places they can shoot.
2) While I don't mind everyone speaking English (for TV purposes it's pretty important, and like one of the characters said, it might make sense for aliens to rewire everyone to speak a common language), I do mind that they did the same thing as the last adaptation: instead of having everybody wake up at once, they have people arrive on the Riverworld years after everyone else. I know they want to get to the action quickly, but it lessens the magic of it... the magic idea is (almost) everybody wakes up on the banks of a 20 million mile river on the same day. It also makes the problem of Extremely Convenient Meetings even worse. One guy arrives five years before the rest of the group... the first day they arrive, he runs into them! Tamoh runs into his old friend who's also been there years and has been looking for him... captured by the same group! I mean, at least if they all woke up at the same time, you could allow for a little coincidence, but just randomly meeting all the people you might be looking for is weak.
3) Clothes. Everyone has clothes. Now, again, it's TV, I don't expect a couple days of nudity like in the books, but it just seems out of place when everybody is wearing period costumes. I suppose I actually could dig it if they made it clear that the costumes are just alien material that LOOKS like whatever the person wore when they died (as best they can remember it), but is a reproduction that's all made out of the same material. But soldiers showing up in armor and modern people in t-shirts just seems unfair.


Now that we've had two failing gos at the Riverworld concept, I bet we won't get any more attempts at a Riverworld series or pilot for a couple years. But if we did, here are some thoughts on what I'd like to see:

1) Somebody dynamic and interesting in the lead role, both acting, and more importantly, character. Somebody famous, perhaps. However, NOT A MODERN DAY CHARACTER. Somebody historical. It doesn't have to be Richard Burton, but he's a good choice.
2) For the other characters, a nice mix of people from different times. One modern character, maybe two at the most, but they're the second banana on the team. I'd like to see a Caveman as one of them, to give them a little alien-ness, both in look (there are some caveman-looking actors), and attitudes (no problems killing, etc). Monat's optional. Female characters, if not historically interesting as a warrior (Joan of Arc or the like), should either be modern (I could see one of the modern day people being a soldier) or LEARN to be kickass, rather than just starting out that way. I should note that this is not because I believe women of any era couldn't be regularly kick-ass, but when shows try to CREATE such a character out of history, it always seems to ring false, like they're trying too hard. Better to use either actual historical characters, or modern ones, or like I said, have the awesomeness develop over time (again, the samurai woman in this mini is acceptable in that regard, since she's a real character, but I would have liked to see a bit more of a culture clash, since even a female samurai of medieval japan still grew up in medieval Japan).
3) NO SAM CLEMENS/MARK TWAIN. At least not until Season 2.

If I was going to go with ideals, I think I'd pick the cast to be : Richard Burton (lead), Kazz (the caveman), Peter Frigate (author, modern day secondary viewpoint character), new character, female soldier from modern day (or maybe even near future, just to establish the future's still open for a bit), Ada Lovelace (because Alice in Wonderland's been done in the first movie and I don't think really works as well as Philip Jose Farmer'd hoped... I have to admit I don't know a lot about Ada lovelace, but I've always been interested and would enjoy seeing her there), maybe Monat if we're going to keep that level of plot (but again, maybe just meet him in Season 2), and maybe a child character like Gwenafara from the books, at least for a while. Also maybe a negative historical figure who can be on the road to redemption.

Most of the rules of the Riverworld apply, with perhaps some concessions to television. Metals are rare, but probably exist more plentifully than in the books (so a meteor doesn't have to be the only source of metal).

We open on resurrection day, establish the rules, but quickly we advance at least a year or two, maybe even 5 to allow nations and such to form and everybody to be generally familiar with what's going on. The group takes to the seas... if we don't advance the time they do it right away, if we do, maybe it's to escape an invasion force). There are HINTs of the alien involvement maybe, but it's not a key part of the plot. The plot is surviving the river, meeting different cultures and mixes of cultures and famous people, many of them who've set up despotic governments. Likewise, the Dark Tower is the eventual quest, but we don't get near it for several years, it's just an excuse to keep travelling and keep encountering different people, some meeting people they knew and love, some meeting people they admire, etc.

Maybe about halfway into the season once everybody's getting to be relatively friendly, the characters DIE in an attack or something. They wake up separated, in two groups, or two main groups, with a few solo actors. Carry on two or more parallel stories as they work to find each other. Maybe Richard Burton is mostly solo and travels the suicide express a while. You can perhaps establish a rule that if you die in roughly the same time and place you resurrect roughly at the same time and place (but the two groups died at very different times, say one in the initial attack on the boat, and the second group in a slave camp later, and Richard burton escaping for a few days on his own before dying and resurrecting on his own) but at a random, far distant part of the river. Knowing that Richard Burton is trying to find the source of the river, one or both the other groups meet up with Samuel Clemens in his fabulous riverboat for Season 2, since he's going in the same direction.


Quite liked Doctor Who this week, Vincent and the Doctor. Sure a bit cliche in a couple ways nad the monster was somewhat lame (could have been done much better), but the overall effect was quite good. One of the better episodes of the season.

Also checked out another British TV show, called Misfits. About a group of criminals, sentenced to community service, who get struck by lightning in a strange storm and each develop super powers. It's not bad so far, although one character (the 'chav') being really hard to understand. A bit cheesy at parts, and the characters haven't yet really fully endeared themselves to me, but they have more than I thought they would. I'll probably give it the full 6 episodes.

Comments

[st-aurafina.livejournal.com]

I gave Misfits the miss because I heard there was a female character whose power was to make men want her - how are they handling that? If it's carefully handled and less exploitative than it sounds, I might consider giving it go after all - because the premise is so something I would enjoy otherwise.

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

Well, I've only seen the one episode, so she's only just discovered it, when one of the characters touched her and then all of a sudden wanted to have sex with her RIGHT THIS SECOND, went back to normal when he let go, tried again, and then another person tried just to verify that's what was happening. Since then she'd tried to avoid being touched. So it's a bit too early to say how they're handling it, but yeah, it's my least interesting aspect of the show so far, they could have chosen a better power, but we'll see.

[karenjeane.livejournal.com]

I couldn't even get past the Richard Francis Burton-as-villain thing (since in real life he was the most brazen, swashbuckling person ever and just - ugh)... kudos for actually watching the series.

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

I was watching it mostly hoping they'd try to pull a fast one on us and turn out that Burton was actually on the right side all along (or at least, that he had a point of view that was at least debatably correct), instead of "I MUST DESTROY THE RIVERWORLD CAUSE IT'S ALL A SHAM."

[locker-monster.livejournal.com]

I played a lot of L4D on my own and it is indeed no fun leading the AIs everywhere. When I got to L4D2, my sister commented she could tell I played a lot of single player because I would run ahead a lot from the group. And really, your aim doesn't matter when a Tank is coming at you or you've got a horde on top of you. Just shoot like crazy until nothing is attacking you anymore. If you hit a team member, well, that's what health packs are for. :-)