Follow me, don't follow me
So, I got a lovely request to send a vid in for Connexions con, and after talking with the person who asked, we figured I should send one of my MCU vids. And I can't decide--if you were me, which vid would you send:
Shelter - this has the advantage of being a teamy Cap family vid with bonus slash hints, and there really aren't, sadly, a lot of team vids for CA: Winter Soldier.
Orange Crush - I'm kind of most inclined to send this, because I think it might play well in a con audience and it's never really showed at a con (I used it as an example to talk about pacing in a panel last year at VVC, but that's the only time it's been "live"), and it's kinda actiony, but it's not necessarily a slash vid per se.
Sorrow - this is definitely very slashy, but it's also sad, everyone says, and makes people's hearts hurt. Not that there's anything wrong with that in a con, but it is definitely a factor.
Anyway, I need to make a decision soon, so if you have an opinion (especially if you've ever been to Connexions), I'd love to hear it.
Over in her journal, Dorinda was talking about finishing the audio book to The Martian, which I just finished in ebook form last week. I was SO PROUD of myself--it was the second fiction book in a row I'd finished that wasn't work, wasn't a friend's, that I read just for pleasure, something I haven't done since 2007-8 or so. I lost my ability to focus on books that weren't work, and since most of the fiction I read for work is terrible, it's made it even harder to read anything that isn't fic or something I HAVE TO. And she says a lot of things about how I felt about The Martian, and the problems I had with it, and I commented with my opinion. Apparently I have very strong opinions about it!
And weirdly coincidentally, I was talking with belmanoir about it last night, and about how I'd just watched Apollo 13 again and it pointed up one of the issues I had with The Martian and the XKCD cartoon about it. In the cartoon, he has one of his figures saying that The Martian was basically the book for people who thought the whole of Apollo 13 should have been about the scientists and engineers in mission control. And I laughed, because yeah, I suppose it is, but also that's one of its biggest flaws for me, that it's just a wall of sciencey stuff and Andy Weir is not a good enough writer to do anything resembling characterization--which, I mean, that's not necessarily what he wanted to do when writing the book, but you do have to try to bring people along on your story. It's a cracking good story idea, no doubt.
But what I really wanted to say is that one of the things that makes all that engineer science stuff so fucking exhilirating and engaging is that it's done by great actors and a good director. Take, for instance, the scene where they think they've found a solution to how to power things back up, and they might be able to bring the Apollo 13 crew home. Ken Mattingly (played by Gary Sinise) and John Aaron (Loren Dean) are arguing about the amps they're using and throwing around all this jargon, and it's just such an intense and wonderful scene because they think they've found it, they think they have a solution, but Aaron points out, "You're telling me what you need, and I'm telling you what we have!" and they have to go back to the drawing board, feeling hopeless and miserable. They're exhausted and frayed. And we feel that, just like we've felt the fear all the engineers have had since the explosion, every step of the way, or we've felt Gene Kranz's determination and anger because Ed Harris is so amazing.
So I'm really excited about the movie version of The Martian in a way I couldn't be about the book. Because what made that stuff so indelible in Apollo 13 that I don't think the XKCD guy got (since he's a science nerd) wasn't the recitation of facts and numbers, it was these actors bringing alive the facts, the director creating CHARACTERS we feel for and want to see succeed. I think a skilled writer could do that on the page, but Weir isn't that writer, and while the folks who loved all that were happy with the book, it's not what I read for. Seeing the trailer, though, and the little preview movie where Matt Damon as Mark Watney is making a little introductory movie, I can see that a skilled director working with amazing fucking actors is going to take that unfleshed-out part of the story and turn it into something as engaging as Apollo 13 was. I've watched those previews now quite a few times, while I was reading the book, and I'm super psyched about the movie. SO PSYCHED. And not just because Sebastian Stan plays Chris Beck!
Ridley Scott's been disappointing or enraging me a lot lately (do not start me on Prometheus or his comments about white actors in Exodus), but this is the kind of movie that's so totally in his wheelhouse, and I'm hopeful that he's going to bring out all the good ideas about the book and the characters that I don't think were always successful on the page. (Also, the version I read was I guess the original self-published version, and jesus was that one of the worst, messiest things I've ever looked at. I don't know how much polish the publisher who picked it up gave it, but I hope it was a lot.) I liked Mark Watney and I liked many of the other characters, but they were never fully human for me, and I think Ridley will make them so much more so. When you've got actors like Matt Damon and Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jessica Chastain and Sean Bean (and my sweeties, Sebastian and Donald Glover), you're ahead of the game right there.
Wow, apparently I really do have strong feelings about this. ;-)
Shelter - this has the advantage of being a teamy Cap family vid with bonus slash hints, and there really aren't, sadly, a lot of team vids for CA: Winter Soldier.
Orange Crush - I'm kind of most inclined to send this, because I think it might play well in a con audience and it's never really showed at a con (I used it as an example to talk about pacing in a panel last year at VVC, but that's the only time it's been "live"), and it's kinda actiony, but it's not necessarily a slash vid per se.
Sorrow - this is definitely very slashy, but it's also sad, everyone says, and makes people's hearts hurt. Not that there's anything wrong with that in a con, but it is definitely a factor.
Anyway, I need to make a decision soon, so if you have an opinion (especially if you've ever been to Connexions), I'd love to hear it.
Over in her journal, Dorinda was talking about finishing the audio book to The Martian, which I just finished in ebook form last week. I was SO PROUD of myself--it was the second fiction book in a row I'd finished that wasn't work, wasn't a friend's, that I read just for pleasure, something I haven't done since 2007-8 or so. I lost my ability to focus on books that weren't work, and since most of the fiction I read for work is terrible, it's made it even harder to read anything that isn't fic or something I HAVE TO. And she says a lot of things about how I felt about The Martian, and the problems I had with it, and I commented with my opinion. Apparently I have very strong opinions about it!
And weirdly coincidentally, I was talking with belmanoir about it last night, and about how I'd just watched Apollo 13 again and it pointed up one of the issues I had with The Martian and the XKCD cartoon about it. In the cartoon, he has one of his figures saying that The Martian was basically the book for people who thought the whole of Apollo 13 should have been about the scientists and engineers in mission control. And I laughed, because yeah, I suppose it is, but also that's one of its biggest flaws for me, that it's just a wall of sciencey stuff and Andy Weir is not a good enough writer to do anything resembling characterization--which, I mean, that's not necessarily what he wanted to do when writing the book, but you do have to try to bring people along on your story. It's a cracking good story idea, no doubt.
But what I really wanted to say is that one of the things that makes all that engineer science stuff so fucking exhilirating and engaging is that it's done by great actors and a good director. Take, for instance, the scene where they think they've found a solution to how to power things back up, and they might be able to bring the Apollo 13 crew home. Ken Mattingly (played by Gary Sinise) and John Aaron (Loren Dean) are arguing about the amps they're using and throwing around all this jargon, and it's just such an intense and wonderful scene because they think they've found it, they think they have a solution, but Aaron points out, "You're telling me what you need, and I'm telling you what we have!" and they have to go back to the drawing board, feeling hopeless and miserable. They're exhausted and frayed. And we feel that, just like we've felt the fear all the engineers have had since the explosion, every step of the way, or we've felt Gene Kranz's determination and anger because Ed Harris is so amazing.
So I'm really excited about the movie version of The Martian in a way I couldn't be about the book. Because what made that stuff so indelible in Apollo 13 that I don't think the XKCD guy got (since he's a science nerd) wasn't the recitation of facts and numbers, it was these actors bringing alive the facts, the director creating CHARACTERS we feel for and want to see succeed. I think a skilled writer could do that on the page, but Weir isn't that writer, and while the folks who loved all that were happy with the book, it's not what I read for. Seeing the trailer, though, and the little preview movie where Matt Damon as Mark Watney is making a little introductory movie, I can see that a skilled director working with amazing fucking actors is going to take that unfleshed-out part of the story and turn it into something as engaging as Apollo 13 was. I've watched those previews now quite a few times, while I was reading the book, and I'm super psyched about the movie. SO PSYCHED. And not just because Sebastian Stan plays Chris Beck!
Ridley Scott's been disappointing or enraging me a lot lately (do not start me on Prometheus or his comments about white actors in Exodus), but this is the kind of movie that's so totally in his wheelhouse, and I'm hopeful that he's going to bring out all the good ideas about the book and the characters that I don't think were always successful on the page. (Also, the version I read was I guess the original self-published version, and jesus was that one of the worst, messiest things I've ever looked at. I don't know how much polish the publisher who picked it up gave it, but I hope it was a lot.) I liked Mark Watney and I liked many of the other characters, but they were never fully human for me, and I think Ridley will make them so much more so. When you've got actors like Matt Damon and Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jessica Chastain and Sean Bean (and my sweeties, Sebastian and Donald Glover), you're ahead of the game right there.
Wow, apparently I really do have strong feelings about this. ;-)