Category: Culture

Toy Story 3 – Pixar = ???

Now that Disney drove off Pixar with their heavy-handed negotiating tactics, they have decided to exercise their right to make additional sequels in the Toy Story series. Pixar will not be involved.

TOY STORY 3, COMING UP.

My money is that it won’t live up to its two precedessors. Steve Greydanus and I have discussed the intrinsic difficulties in making a third film that would live up to the first two, and it’s not clear that the characters have within them another story as powerful as the two they’ve already given us (though I have an idea for one that might come close). Without Pixar in the picture, I don’t have confidence in Disney’s ability to come remotely close.

AUTHOR: “My Characters Made Me Do It!”

Down yonder a reader writes concerning the absence of a much-needed equivalent to Han Solo in the current Star Wars films:

A lot of authors would say that there isn’t one of "those figures"
in the new films because there wasn’t one of "those figures" around
where they were being filmed. They might say their characters are not
placed there by the author like ingredients in a soup, they simply
portray the story as it exists in their head. Luke n’ em’ ran into Han
at the point in time that they did, cause they did. Obi wan and Anakin
didn’t run into one of those, so we didn’t see them do it.

They aren’t made-to-order circumstances, and companies. So, perhaps
they might be reasons that you don’t enjoy them as much, but they would
agrue that you can’t really call them flaws in the story. I am sure
there are some people who were annoyed by Han, and would even argue to
Lucas that he was a distraction. To them he would also reply…" He
annoyed the characters too, but I can’t remove him. How could I? He was
there!"

I appreciate the thought, and writers do sometimes talk about their characters controlling the story.

But . . .

I iz onenna them thar writer fellers.

An’ I don’ buy it.

Whether I’m doing fiction or non-fiction, I am fully in control of what I’m writing. Sure, sometimes one gets to a point in the writing where it just seems to "flow," without deliberate effort, but this happens (when it happens) after one starts the writing, not when one is pre-planning and deciding what elements need to go into the mix.

It isn’t the case that a writer sees the whole story in his head and has to write it down. Stories almost invariably come into one’s mind a piece at a time (in fact, agonizingly slowly), and one can and must control the mix of elements needed to make the story effective for the audience.

In fact, the ability to do this is an essential part of making the transition from an amateur writer to a professional writer. Amateurs are too wrapped up in their ideas to be willing to sacrifice them for the sake of the overall work, and their work suffers as a result. They also often feel so passionate about their material that they can’t see what’s working and what’s not from a reader’s point of view.

To get to the point of writing on a professional level (I don’t mean publishing a few stories or articles here and there; I mean being able to place pieces consisently and frequently such that you can make a living at this) you have to get a feel for the reader’s point of view (which is not the same as your own) and you have to be willing to control and shape the piece to what will work for the reader rather than simply wallowing in your own "artistic expression." Too many writers have gotten stuck at the "I am an artiste!" level and never gotten to the point of doing work that is actually . . . well . . . good.

It is true that writers sometimes talk about things "writing themselves," which just means that they had a very easy time writing a piece. They also sometimes speak of characters demanding to do or say things in a story, but what this means is that they have lived with a character for so long in their head that they have a very clear idea about what the character would do or say in a particular situation–or what would be really good for the character to do or say.

For example, in the fourth season of Babylon 5, Joe Straczynski had an episode ("The Long Night") in which the mad emperor Cartagia needed to be offed for the good of Centauri Prime. He originally planned to have Londo Mollari do it, which was the expected, predictable thing. Then when he came to write the scene he realized that it would be much better for Londo’s timid, bumbling assistant Vir to accidentally kill Cartagia.

So that’s what he wrote.

He later said that the character Vir stepped up and demanded to do this, but that is just a metaphor for having a sudden flash of inspiration about what would be the best use of character based on his long familiarity with the characters of Londo and Vir (who he had been writing for at least four to six years by this point).

This is a wholly different subject than should there be a Londo or a Vir in the story. How would dropping characters like these into the mix affect the show? How would it add to or take away from the mood and the dramatic possibilities of the story? Those are very different questions than what the characters do once you add them to the mix and write them for so long that you have an instinctive feel for what they would do.

So writers do–particularly with things like television shows and motion pictures–focus consciously on the mix of characters and how they combine to create an overall emotional experience for the audience.

The "My characters made me do it!" defense may work on the level of particular scenes written with long-established characters (including scenes that have plot points in them), but it doesn’t go to the question of whether a writer lets a particular character into the story.

This would seem to be the case particularly for George Lucas, who makes movies like children working with PlayDough. He starts shaping a movie in a kind of loose way, then tweaks and pokes and prods it, adding material, snipping material, even coming up with new material in the editing process. An examination of the prehistory of his shooting scripts reveals that he dramatically changed both the characters and the story as he went along. He did not have the overall story worked out in his head from the beginning, and he is quite capable of making major changes if he thinks they are needed.

The difficulty is that he seemingly hasn’t realized the mood problem created by the absence of a Han Solo equivalent.

AUTHOR: "My Characters Made Me Do It!"

Down yonder a reader writes concerning the absence of a much-needed equivalent to Han Solo in the current Star Wars films:

A lot of authors would say that there isn’t one of "those figures"

in the new films because there wasn’t one of "those figures" around

where they were being filmed. They might say their characters are not

placed there by the author like ingredients in a soup, they simply

portray the story as it exists in their head. Luke n’ em’ ran into Han

at the point in time that they did, cause they did. Obi wan and Anakin

didn’t run into one of those, so we didn’t see them do it.

They aren’t made-to-order circumstances, and companies. So, perhaps

they might be reasons that you don’t enjoy them as much, but they would

agrue that you can’t really call them flaws in the story. I am sure

there are some people who were annoyed by Han, and would even argue to

Lucas that he was a distraction. To them he would also reply…" He

annoyed the characters too, but I can’t remove him. How could I? He was

there!"

I appreciate the thought, and writers do sometimes talk about their characters controlling the story.

But . . .

I iz onenna them thar writer fellers.

An’ I don’ buy it.

Whether I’m doing fiction or non-fiction, I am fully in control of what I’m writing. Sure, sometimes one gets to a point in the writing where it just seems to "flow," without deliberate effort, but this happens (when it happens) after one starts the writing, not when one is pre-planning and deciding what elements need to go into the mix.

It isn’t the case that a writer sees the whole story in his head and has to write it down. Stories almost invariably come into one’s mind a piece at a time (in fact, agonizingly slowly), and one can and must control the mix of elements needed to make the story effective for the audience.

In fact, the ability to do this is an essential part of making the transition from an amateur writer to a professional writer. Amateurs are too wrapped up in their ideas to be willing to sacrifice them for the sake of the overall work, and their work suffers as a result. They also often feel so passionate about their material that they can’t see what’s working and what’s not from a reader’s point of view.

To get to the point of writing on a professional level (I don’t mean publishing a few stories or articles here and there; I mean being able to place pieces consisently and frequently such that you can make a living at this) you have to get a feel for the reader’s point of view (which is not the same as your own) and you have to be willing to control and shape the piece to what will work for the reader rather than simply wallowing in your own "artistic expression." Too many writers have gotten stuck at the "I am an artiste!" level and never gotten to the point of doing work that is actually . . . well . . . good.

It is true that writers sometimes talk about things "writing themselves," which just means that they had a very easy time writing a piece. They also sometimes speak of characters demanding to do or say things in a story, but what this means is that they have lived with a character for so long in their head that they have a very clear idea about what the character would do or say in a particular situation–or what would be really good for the character to do or say.

For example, in the fourth season of Babylon 5, Joe Straczynski had an episode ("The Long Night") in which the mad emperor Cartagia needed to be offed for the good of Centauri Prime. He originally planned to have Londo Mollari do it, which was the expected, predictable thing. Then when he came to write the scene he realized that it would be much better for Londo’s timid, bumbling assistant Vir to accidentally kill Cartagia.

So that’s what he wrote.

He later said that the character Vir stepped up and demanded to do this, but that is just a metaphor for having a sudden flash of inspiration about what would be the best use of character based on his long familiarity with the characters of Londo and Vir (who he had been writing for at least four to six years by this point).

This is a wholly different subject than should there be a Londo or a Vir in the story. How would dropping characters like these into the mix affect the show? How would it add to or take away from the mood and the dramatic possibilities of the story? Those are very different questions than what the characters do once you add them to the mix and write them for so long that you have an instinctive feel for what they would do.

So writers do–particularly with things like television shows and motion pictures–focus consciously on the mix of characters and how they combine to create an overall emotional experience for the audience.

The "My characters made me do it!" defense may work on the level of particular scenes written with long-established characters (including scenes that have plot points in them), but it doesn’t go to the question of whether a writer lets a particular character into the story.

This would seem to be the case particularly for George Lucas, who makes movies like children working with PlayDough. He starts shaping a movie in a kind of loose way, then tweaks and pokes and prods it, adding material, snipping material, even coming up with new material in the editing process. An examination of the prehistory of his shooting scripts reveals that he dramatically changed both the characters and the story as he went along. He did not have the overall story worked out in his head from the beginning, and he is quite capable of making major changes if he thinks they are needed.

The difficulty is that he seemingly hasn’t realized the mood problem created by the absence of a Han Solo equivalent.

EARTH TO LUCAS: “Less Is More”

I really want to like the new Star Wars films. And I do, but not near as much as I’d like to like them. The second of the new films was, in fact, much better than the first, but the flaws in the films are all too obvious to me. (The flaws in the original trilogy are also obvious.)

One major flaw in the current trilogy is that there is no equivalent to Han Solo. Han was an irreverent, skeptical, selfish smart-aleck whose presence helped keep the first trilogy from bogging down with everybody on screen taking the Jedi so seriously and going around acting so grave and noble. Subtract a Han figure from the first trilogy and everybody ends up taking themselves waaay too seriously.

Lucas has said that the new trilogy is much more like what he envisioned the first trilogy, but he didn’t have the tech (or the money) to make it the way he saw it.

Not everything Lucas says in this regard is true. He makes it sound as if the story of all six movies was clear in his mind when he made the first, and that patently isn’t true–at least if you read the original scripts (also available in an easier-to-use book form). Lucas had all kinds of stuff in the originals that indicate his vision of the story changed in midstream–repeatedly. Yet the original series ended up clicking in a way no previous movie trilogy had.

Despite the alterations to the plot, I think that Lucas is telling the truth when he says he originally imagined a much more lush, detail-rich universe for the original trilogy, yet for budgetary (and non-budgetary) reasons, he ended up cutting it way back.

As the years have passed, he has now begun adding back the missing detail, in the "Special Edition" of the original films that was released in theaters, in the Extra-Special Super Chocolate Fudgy Edition that has now been released on DVD, and most notably in the films of the current trilogy.

As he’s added more detail, fans of the original series have been complaining, and loudly.

There are some circumstances in which adding detail hurts a work of art, situations in which less is more.

That’s the message fans of the original Star Wars movies have been sending to Lucas, but he doesn’t seem to have gotten the message.

HERE’S ONE OF THE MOST INSIGHTFUL ANALYSES OF THE PROBLEM THAT I’VE READ.

EARTH TO LUCAS: "Less Is More"

I really want to like the new Star Wars films. And I do, but not near as much as I’d like to like them. The second of the new films was, in fact, much better than the first, but the flaws in the films are all too obvious to me. (The flaws in the original trilogy are also obvious.)

One major flaw in the current trilogy is that there is no equivalent to Han Solo. Han was an irreverent, skeptical, selfish smart-aleck whose presence helped keep the first trilogy from bogging down with everybody on screen taking the Jedi so seriously and going around acting so grave and noble. Subtract a Han figure from the first trilogy and everybody ends up taking themselves waaay too seriously.

Lucas has said that the new trilogy is much more like what he envisioned the first trilogy, but he didn’t have the tech (or the money) to make it the way he saw it.

Not everything Lucas says in this regard is true. He makes it sound as if the story of all six movies was clear in his mind when he made the first, and that patently isn’t true–at least if you read the original scripts (also available in an easier-to-use book form). Lucas had all kinds of stuff in the originals that indicate his vision of the story changed in midstream–repeatedly. Yet the original series ended up clicking in a way no previous movie trilogy had.

Despite the alterations to the plot, I think that Lucas is telling the truth when he says he originally imagined a much more lush, detail-rich universe for the original trilogy, yet for budgetary (and non-budgetary) reasons, he ended up cutting it way back.

As the years have passed, he has now begun adding back the missing detail, in the "Special Edition" of the original films that was released in theaters, in the Extra-Special Super Chocolate Fudgy Edition that has now been released on DVD, and most notably in the films of the current trilogy.

As he’s added more detail, fans of the original series have been complaining, and loudly.

There are some circumstances in which adding detail hurts a work of art, situations in which less is more.

That’s the message fans of the original Star Wars movies have been sending to Lucas, but he doesn’t seem to have gotten the message.

HERE’S ONE OF THE MOST INSIGHTFUL ANALYSES OF THE PROBLEM THAT I’VE READ.

Wormhole Physics

A reader writes:

I have a question that popped into my head while watching the Sci-Fi Monday marathon.

If all energy/data is one-way in a worm hole, how is it possible for an off-world team to communicate with the SGC?

Please don’t underestimate that a reasonably mature ____ year old man, who evidently doesn’t have enough things on his mind, is asking. Please don’t tell my wife!

Will do! (Or perhaps that should be, “Won’t do!”)

Happy to oblige on this question. Here’s the answer:

When a body made of matter approaches the event horizon of an active wormhole, it is instantaneously translated into patterns of energy that can only travel one way (whichever way the wormhole is flowing, to or from a particular stargate). Trying to force matter through a wormhole the wrong way results in it being disintegrated (as normal) but the resulting patterned energy stream can’t flow backwards through the wormhole and so it is never reintegrated.

(Also, wormholes normally only transmit bodies in their entirety, not parts of them, so you can pull a partially-disintegrated object back out of a stargate and have it reintegrated. It’s only when the object wholly goes within the event horizon that it is transmitted along the wormhole–assuming that it has entered the “transmitting” end of the wormhole.)

This is what happens with matter, but ordinary energy (i.e., not energy that is matter patterend by the stargate for transmission) isn’t affected by the one-way rule that applies to converted matter. As a result, normal E/M energy can travel two-ways through a wormhole, as when the M.A.L.P. communicates with Stargate Command by radio.

Got it?

MORE INFO FROM DR. SAMANTHA CARTER ON WORMHOLE PHYSICS.