Supernatural: 9×20 “Bloodlines” – TV Review

Alright.  Let’s talk Supernatural.  “Bloodlines”.  It aired.  Spin-off imminent.

I went into the episode with an open mind, and I came out of it with mixed feelings.

I love the idea of inter-ruling monster families.  “The Godfather with fangs”, as Dean colorfully put it.  However, the more I watched, the more I couldn’t help but see just another “Vampire Diaries” or “The Originals” or any of the other high-angst series the CW is famous for producing.

I’m getting slightly ahead of myself.  The one worry I had going into this week’s Supernatural episode, knowing it was the backdoor pilot, was that the network would make the same mistake almost every spin-off makes: they wouldn’t pinpoint what actually made the original series so popular.  Supernatural isn’t about the monsters.  It’s not about the action.  It’s about two brothers and their shitty, shitty lives, and sticking with them through all their worst moments, watching them fight the good fight, is what fans love about the show.  I did not get the impression this was understood in creating “Bloodlines”.

Needless to say, my worries were not allayed by the end of the episode.  They started out good.  Hunter being born.  Remember Uncle Bobby’s message, kids: “Every Hunter starts somewhere”.  Ennis has his tragic initiation into the world of Hunting, and off we go.  Main character #2 is Shapeshifter David.  He’s essentially Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker.  There.  Said it.  Now try not to see it, if you can.  He’s back in town due to his brother’s murder.  Sam and Dean show up.  They do their FBI thing, tell Ennis to just ignore everything (like that’ll happen), and go off to do their own thing.  Ennis and David meet up, and the exposition was…is there a word that means both “bland” and “poorly written”?  Ennis explains “I know the bare basics: monsters and Hunters”, so of course David concludes this is foundation enough to reveal the entire secret life of the city to a complete stranger: “Monsters rule everything.”  In fact, he goes so far as to explain specifics!  Specifics, to a guy he doesn’t even know he’ll meet again!  I was a bit disappointed in the writers for not finding a better way to impart this information to the audience.  The 2nd half of the episode involves four guys off to rescue a girl who could apparently free herself anytime she really wanted (more on that in a sec).  One thing I did approve of was Ennis shooting the bad guy without hestitation.  Obviously I’m not advocating violence, but it was rather unique against how stories normally handle such interactions.

Speaking of unique…Ennis’s fiancee dying as a catalyst for this story?  Not unique.  In fact, while an apparently appropriate beginning for a Hunter, it was still rather cliche.  No more so than the Romeo and Juli-werewolf storyline they put into motion between David and Violet, however.  Gag.  Me.  Now.  These were the parts that, to me, screamed of CW’s normal fare for series.

It seems Bloodlines intends to follow in Supernatural’s footsteps in terms of how it treats female characters.  First we have Margo, basically evil and power hungry.  Then we have Violet, powerful but not quite a match for any of the male characters around her.  Then we have Tamara, the dead love interest.  So essentially all females are again regulated to either strong and evil, good but weak, or dead.  I’m none too happy about this.  This isn’t just a “Bloodlines” problem.  I’m looking at you, too, Supernatural.

The episode ends with Ennis like this:

…and no real persuasive arguments for why this series is worth my time other than its relation to Supernatural.

It seemed potentially interesting, just not terribly impressive.  I don’t know.  Maybe I just have unrealistically high expectations of backdoor pilots at this point thanks to Arrow, who rocked the SHIT out of their backdoor pilot for Barry Allen.

Your move, Bloodlines.  MAKE ME CARE.

Ender’s Game – Film Review

Ender’s Game.

In a word? Disappointing.

Rather than a screen adaptation of the story, the screenplay is simply a collection of some of the more important scenes from the book with nothing tying them together. It watches almost like reading someone’s journal. The Special Effects were great, but apparently that and the set designs used up all of their budget and left them with nothing to hire any extras. Instead of a bustling battle school, whatever army Ender is currently assigned to is essentially the only group of kids attending the school.

The interactions all felt extremely forced, though I expect this is an unfortunate by-product of the bad script. Bean isn’t really Ender’s Shadow anymore. He’s now just “one of the team”. Petra’s not the only awesome tough girl. Now she’s that one girl that obviously has to flirt with Ender in almost every scene. At least for me, the general vibe between Ender and his team was “Hey Ender. The script said we’re friends, so here I am!”

Hoping to see Peter and Valentine’s awesome rise to power via pseudonyms? Leave those plans at the door! Except for family dinner right at the beginning of the book, they’re almost non-existent. Like I said, if you’re not directly affecting Ender, you cease to exist. But speaking of characters, I am going to give a shout-out for Bonzo. I thought he was characterized really well. Definitely the best-match character from book to film.

I’m really glad that I read the book prior to seeing the film, but it’s a lose-lose situation. I read it, and was then disappointed by the lack of emotion and storytelling in the film, but if I hadn’t read it, it would have been nearly impossible to understand what was happening in the film.

As I feared from the trailers, the movie was more concerned with the effects than with the meat of the story. You didn’t really see any part of Ender’s trials and tribulations (though considering he completed school, battle school, and command school in just over a month, I suppose it’s to be expected). Not the isolation imposed on him at battle school. Not Ender having to face all his friends in the fights. Not Ender flipping his shit at command school from the stress of constant fighting. The only stress you really see from him is the end game (I don’t want to spoil if you don’t know the story), and even that, again, felt somewhat forced.

If you really want to see this film, I highly recommend waiting for it to come out on TV. I didn’t have to pay full price for the film, and I was still disappointed in the cost of the movie.

Sadly, Ender’s Game suffered the same fate as many books that cover a significant amount of “travel” time. A movie wasn’t the right format for a book that covers YEARS of someone’s life. When is the entertainment industry going to see the value of the mini-series?! Film-like production coupled with TV-like time. For some stories, it’s necessary.

READY PLAYER ONE – Book Review

I posted up my normal post-read review on GoodReads, but I figured I might as well move it over to the blog as well, and add to it a little.  I was recommended this book by a friend at work.  I was in the middle of a book at the time, and then House of Hades came out, and all other books cease to exist for me once a new Percy Jackson book comes out.  (They’re like my own personal book crack.)  Finally got around to READY PLAYER ONE.  Once I did, it was an excellent continuation of the fantastic books I’d just finished reading.  So without further ado…

READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline

Excellent, excellent read!  I was already recommending it to people before I’d even finished it.

Set in the near future, the world is not so great.
Energy crisis.  Food crisis.  Evil corporation that wants to control everything.  You know, the basics.

But so you essentially have this kid:

…who logs into an immersive version of the Internet, and wanders around as this guy:

(Except not quite so leveled up.)

As luck would have it, a chance lesson in Latin class (stay in school, kids!) gives him the key to solving the first riddle on the quest to find the ultimate video game Easter Egg: billions of dollars and absolute control over the game and its future.

From that point on, it’s Wade/Parzival against the world.  Both of them.  He has all the best kind of rivals: his best friend, his love interest, and of course the necessary Evil, Inc (pretty much Agent Smith of Matrix infamy).

The characterizations were all wildly fun, as was the world building being done by the author.  I was extremely impressed with the references.  This book is chock full of them, but they’re all well rounded.  Every fandom gets a shout-out, from video games to movies to anime to book to bands.  I was a little worried that I wouldn’t get most of the references throughout the book, because I wasn’t alive for the majority of the 80s, but it turned out to not be a problem.  The book does a really good job of explaining out references you needed to know.  Also nice, the book didn’t explain too much of a reference.  Everything was Goldilocks: juuuust right.  The story was a genuinely good adventure, and one of the truest examples of a “page-turner” I’ve read in recent years.

Beneath the surface that is the story, there lies some incredibly interesting topics.  If you spend most of your time in a VR, is your real-world or VR personality the real you?  What does it mean to be friends, and how well can you really know someone?  What does it mean to connect with people?  Moral, integrity, emotion.  The value of online anonymity.  Whether or not it should be the current or incoming generation that gets to dictate how the world changes.  There’s a little bit of everything in this book.

Do yourself a favor and read this book.  I can’t promise you won’t regret it, but I’ll be really surprised if you do.

Life, at last!

Greetings to one and all!
I’ve decided to start a blog.  See, I love movies.  For awhile now I’ve been telling myself “You love movies, and you really let yourself be absorbed into them.  Plus you keep saying you’re going to get back into writing.  Why not indulge both things and start a movie blog?”  And so I saw Tangled, and I thought about starting a blog.  And I saw The Hunger Games, and I thought about starting a blog.  And I saw Wreak-It Ralph, and I thought about starting a blog.  Tonight, I just saw Rise of the Guardians, and I thought about starting a blog, but this time I decided to just DO IT.  Put my money where my mouth is!

Movies are really wonderful, don’t you think?  Like books, they have that magical quality to transport you.  I love them.  Now, I’m going to write about more than movies in this blog.  I’ll write about movies, books, TV shows, my adventures in baking, and also about life.  Primarily though, for now, I’m going to write about movies.  I hope I’m able to share something meaningful, but even if I can’t, I can at least provide a short break in your day.
See you around!