More of 6 Consumes Entertainment and then Talks About It
Okay, let's start off with Jumper. I saw it, and I was, expectedly, very disappointed. Significant spoilers behind cut, both for the book and the movie, to some degree comparing and pointing out the differences.
Okay, the chief difference is the main character, David, is thoroughly unsympathetic in this movie. Hayden Christianssen doesn't help, since he doesn't really inject much depth into the role and feels like he's sleepwalking through most of it. I actually wish they would have stuck with the "young Davy" actor, he was more convincing..
In the book, like the movie, Davy, when he develops his powers, does rob a bank. Except in the book, he did it out of some level of desperation, having run away and not having any money and not being able to get a job without ID (falsely believing he would need to involve his abusive father if he wanted to get some). So he robs one bank and lives off the million or so dollars he gets from it. In the movie, it's clear he's robbed _several_ banks, and although they say he left apologetic notes, he doesn't seem to care much about it, or anything else. He uses his powers exclusively for his own benefit, whereas in the book he got in a fair bit of trouble because he used it to help a woman who was being abused (like his mother was before she left, and like he was before he ran away) - with the abuser being a cop who decided to start to look into him after the incident. Moreover, throughout the book he was a genuinely sympathetic character, whereas here he's at best unconcerned about anybody other than himself and (at times) his love interest - even when people are dying during a jump fight, he actually does outright dickish things like teleporting a minor bully into the inside of a bank vault (rather than somewhere inconvenient that he could eventually work his way around to getting away from).
Let's go to Jumping itself. In the book, it's instant, silent (save sometimes strange effects if he's going from areas of different atmospheric pressure). In the movie, it's some weird explosive event that causes everything around him to shake and drags nearby things with him... at least sometimes it does. At other times, it seems to be completely without effect. It wouldn't be so bad if they just stuck with one or the other, but they didn't even bother to be consistent about how it worked.
In the book, also, Davy was, as far as anyone could tell, unique. There was no other Jumper in the book, nor was there a secret EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL organiation devoted to killing them. This is important because it makes up one of the worst parts of the movie. It's Davy versus evil, and the only reason you root for Davy is because despite being a bit of a smug, selfish jerk, he's at least not cartoonishly evil. Not just cartoonishly evil, STUPID cartoonishly evil. So stupid that, instead of doing a smart thing and monitoring people who may be connected to a Jumper, their MO is to kill anyone the Jumper is close to. In the book, Davy eventually gets the attention of and faces off against the NSA and other parts of the US government, but it's because of sheer panic because first they think he's an agent for an unknown government (because in his effort to chase terrorists, he gets in and out of countries in ways they can't trace despite them knowing he's there), and then, because he screws up and panics and teleports right in front of them, that he might be some kind of alien or using technology. But, at its heart, although the panic of what he might represent caused them to do unethical things, fundamentally they were good people doing their jobs (and the conclusion to that plot comes from that, not to mention a great scene where after he's been using his powers to harrass the government to get them to release Millie from custody. He kidnaps an official and makes a demand to that effect, and the response is, "The United States government does not negotiate with terrorists.").
They cut the whole angle of Davy running away from his problems, and later his attempts to get revenge on people who've wronged him taking him to a dark path and becoming something of an abuser like his father (albeit in a different way), and learning to put his past behind him without running away from it, which to me was the whole theme of the book. It's not "Hey, isn't teleporting cool, except if someone decides you're evil and irresponsible for having super powers and tries to kill you". It's "Even if you can teleport anywhere, it doesn't mean running away from your problems is the best answer, and even though you can get revenge it doesn't mean it's always right"
The love interest angle was also poorly handled. Because they didn't have the time to convincingly put together a relationship, they fell back on the old cliche of having had Davy and Millie be friends when they were kids who had some sort of attraction going on, and then. Because there's certainly no reason for them to be together otherwise and they have zero chemistry.
Speaking of Hollywood hackish writing, in the movie, David's mother is secretly a member of the evil organization devoted to killing them, but is willing to help him out of a tough spot once or twice (though the end of the movie suggests that it won't be a permanent arrangement). Gah, it's just so hackneyed it's painful to watch.
The movie doesn't even follow its own logic really... they suggest that jumpers can't jump when they're being electrocuted, so the climax is, while he's being electrocuted... to jump away a whole section of a building. You know, if he _could_ jump when he was being electrocuted, it would have been a lot easier to just jump away. Or they could have made it (again) more like the book, and have certain types of _restraints_ preventing a jump, which could, theoretically, be negated it he was able to jump away whatever was restraining him along with him.
The worst thing about the movie is that every time I read the book I thought about how cool it would be if it was adapted to a movie. And now that can't happen, because it's already been ruined for that. Why did they have to try and Hollywood it up? I mean you can adapt it and change things, even change many of the things they changed (adding multiple jumpers and people who hunt them) without turning it into total crap, mostly by giving people realistic motivations and getting people who can act. They did it wrong, and in doing so prevented anybody else from the ability to do it right. Even the sections they took 100% from the book are ruined because the context makes the line/scene cheap and too 'attempted clever'.
I suppose I should if nothing else at least be happy that the writer of the novel probably got some decent money because of the film, which he deserves after giving me so much enjoyment for it. I just wish somebody better was able to handle it, someone who'd reflect better on the original author's work.
In short, the same old story, loved the book, hated the movie.
Second, let's go for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Good episode on the whole, except for one BIG, obvious science flub (unless I'm mistaken, but I don't think I am) which really detracted things for me. (not major spoilers, but some for the recent ep)
Okay, there's a scene where John's uncle, Kyle's brother, is stabilized, but the doctor says he needs blood. The Summernator says, "Sarah's O negative, the universal donor", and the doctor says, that's good, but he also needs at least 3 units of blood of his own type. So far I'm not sure about that - I've read things that suggest that although O-neg is the universal donor, they prefer to give you blood of your own type if possible. So that might all be fine up to this point. The next line is what screws it (I thought for a bit I misheard it, but I rewatched the ep and they confirmed it):
"He's got an extremely rare blood type. AB-. Only half of one percent of the population has it."
John Connor says, "Test me!"
Doctor says: "It's extremely unlikely that you have it. The odds are.."
Me: The odds are astronomical, because BLOOD TYPES DON'T WORK THAT WAY. Blood types are inherited, and both parents determine what you are. If you are type AB-, that means that one of your parents is type A (or AB, giving you the A part), and one of your parents is type B (or type AB, but giving you the B part). If Sarah Connor is your mother, and she's type O, you CANNOT BE type AB, short of a freak genetic mutation (which is so improbable that the doc should have said, "Hey, dude, it's impossible, if your mom's type O, then you can only be O, A, or B).)
This is fairly basic science. Sure, the average person might not know it, but it's the kind of thing that can be easily fact-checked, especially if you looked up blood enough to know the rarity of AB- blood. The thing is, the scene would have worked perfectly if they just said, "He's B-, which is fairly rare, only 1.5% of the population has it" John _could_ be type B-, if his father was. Perhaps it would even work better, because type AB- can receive blood from type O-, type A-, or type B-, or type AB-. Type B- can only receive blood from O- and B-, despite the type being slightly more common.
I know I should be forgiving, but when there's a show I like getting basic science wrong it annoys me. Otherwise the episode was okay.
Now let's move onto Stargate Atlantis, "Kindred". Minor spoilers, but I'm not going too in depth.
Started off a little rough, with both a dream sequence starting and everyone somewhat doubting it despite evidence of telepathy before, and worse, another "excessive Ego Rodney" moment. That moment didn't work for me. Yes, he's got an ego, but this time it seemed way over the top for attempted comedic effect and ruined what otherwise might have been a nice moment. If he had included it as a mix tape with other great composers and thinkers it wouldn't have been so bad, but I have trouble with the idea even Rodney would think it was a good gift to say, "Hey, I recorded myself talking about myself for hours, here so your baby could listen to it in the womb." (This wasn't a problem with the Letters From Pegasus episode where they did a riff on the same thing, because there at least he was recording for posterity, as opposed to a thoughtful gift to a friend).
But after the rough parts it started to pick up with an interesting part with some potentially cool ramifications. Of course, I wasn't surprised at the ending, having heard about it already, and really, I'll have to see how they deal with it before I can judge.
And we'll wrap it up with some two-for-one Book Foo...
Finished: Woken Furies, by Richard K. Morgan
Started: The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman (reread)
Thoughts behind cut, non-spoilery. This is the third and, so far, last of the Takeshi Kovacs books, set in a universe where people's minds are backed up with machines in their spines, and where you can be 'sleeved' into new bodies on a regular basis if you have the money or connections. In this one, Takeshi returns home. I thought on the whole, it was more entertaining than the second book, although it did falter a bit towards the end. Still, there were a number of cool ideas here and it expands the idea of flexible identities even more. I kind of hope he revisits either the character or even just the universe at a later date. I'd read it.
Finished: Otherland, Vol 1, by Tad Williams
Started: Jumper, by Steven Gould (reread, to get the taste of the movie out of my head)
I'm not going to cut my thoughts to keep this short: It was interesting enough that I'm going to read the next book in the series, and probably the rest of it unless it starts to suck fast.
Okay, the chief difference is the main character, David, is thoroughly unsympathetic in this movie. Hayden Christianssen doesn't help, since he doesn't really inject much depth into the role and feels like he's sleepwalking through most of it. I actually wish they would have stuck with the "young Davy" actor, he was more convincing..
In the book, like the movie, Davy, when he develops his powers, does rob a bank. Except in the book, he did it out of some level of desperation, having run away and not having any money and not being able to get a job without ID (falsely believing he would need to involve his abusive father if he wanted to get some). So he robs one bank and lives off the million or so dollars he gets from it. In the movie, it's clear he's robbed _several_ banks, and although they say he left apologetic notes, he doesn't seem to care much about it, or anything else. He uses his powers exclusively for his own benefit, whereas in the book he got in a fair bit of trouble because he used it to help a woman who was being abused (like his mother was before she left, and like he was before he ran away) - with the abuser being a cop who decided to start to look into him after the incident. Moreover, throughout the book he was a genuinely sympathetic character, whereas here he's at best unconcerned about anybody other than himself and (at times) his love interest - even when people are dying during a jump fight, he actually does outright dickish things like teleporting a minor bully into the inside of a bank vault (rather than somewhere inconvenient that he could eventually work his way around to getting away from).
Let's go to Jumping itself. In the book, it's instant, silent (save sometimes strange effects if he's going from areas of different atmospheric pressure). In the movie, it's some weird explosive event that causes everything around him to shake and drags nearby things with him... at least sometimes it does. At other times, it seems to be completely without effect. It wouldn't be so bad if they just stuck with one or the other, but they didn't even bother to be consistent about how it worked.
In the book, also, Davy was, as far as anyone could tell, unique. There was no other Jumper in the book, nor was there a secret EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL organiation devoted to killing them. This is important because it makes up one of the worst parts of the movie. It's Davy versus evil, and the only reason you root for Davy is because despite being a bit of a smug, selfish jerk, he's at least not cartoonishly evil. Not just cartoonishly evil, STUPID cartoonishly evil. So stupid that, instead of doing a smart thing and monitoring people who may be connected to a Jumper, their MO is to kill anyone the Jumper is close to. In the book, Davy eventually gets the attention of and faces off against the NSA and other parts of the US government, but it's because of sheer panic because first they think he's an agent for an unknown government (because in his effort to chase terrorists, he gets in and out of countries in ways they can't trace despite them knowing he's there), and then, because he screws up and panics and teleports right in front of them, that he might be some kind of alien or using technology. But, at its heart, although the panic of what he might represent caused them to do unethical things, fundamentally they were good people doing their jobs (and the conclusion to that plot comes from that, not to mention a great scene where after he's been using his powers to harrass the government to get them to release Millie from custody. He kidnaps an official and makes a demand to that effect, and the response is, "The United States government does not negotiate with terrorists.").
They cut the whole angle of Davy running away from his problems, and later his attempts to get revenge on people who've wronged him taking him to a dark path and becoming something of an abuser like his father (albeit in a different way), and learning to put his past behind him without running away from it, which to me was the whole theme of the book. It's not "Hey, isn't teleporting cool, except if someone decides you're evil and irresponsible for having super powers and tries to kill you". It's "Even if you can teleport anywhere, it doesn't mean running away from your problems is the best answer, and even though you can get revenge it doesn't mean it's always right"
The love interest angle was also poorly handled. Because they didn't have the time to convincingly put together a relationship, they fell back on the old cliche of having had Davy and Millie be friends when they were kids who had some sort of attraction going on, and then. Because there's certainly no reason for them to be together otherwise and they have zero chemistry.
Speaking of Hollywood hackish writing, in the movie, David's mother is secretly a member of the evil organization devoted to killing them, but is willing to help him out of a tough spot once or twice (though the end of the movie suggests that it won't be a permanent arrangement). Gah, it's just so hackneyed it's painful to watch.
The movie doesn't even follow its own logic really... they suggest that jumpers can't jump when they're being electrocuted, so the climax is, while he's being electrocuted... to jump away a whole section of a building. You know, if he _could_ jump when he was being electrocuted, it would have been a lot easier to just jump away. Or they could have made it (again) more like the book, and have certain types of _restraints_ preventing a jump, which could, theoretically, be negated it he was able to jump away whatever was restraining him along with him.
The worst thing about the movie is that every time I read the book I thought about how cool it would be if it was adapted to a movie. And now that can't happen, because it's already been ruined for that. Why did they have to try and Hollywood it up? I mean you can adapt it and change things, even change many of the things they changed (adding multiple jumpers and people who hunt them) without turning it into total crap, mostly by giving people realistic motivations and getting people who can act. They did it wrong, and in doing so prevented anybody else from the ability to do it right. Even the sections they took 100% from the book are ruined because the context makes the line/scene cheap and too 'attempted clever'.
I suppose I should if nothing else at least be happy that the writer of the novel probably got some decent money because of the film, which he deserves after giving me so much enjoyment for it. I just wish somebody better was able to handle it, someone who'd reflect better on the original author's work.
In short, the same old story, loved the book, hated the movie.
Second, let's go for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Good episode on the whole, except for one BIG, obvious science flub (unless I'm mistaken, but I don't think I am) which really detracted things for me. (not major spoilers, but some for the recent ep)
Okay, there's a scene where John's uncle, Kyle's brother, is stabilized, but the doctor says he needs blood. The Summernator says, "Sarah's O negative, the universal donor", and the doctor says, that's good, but he also needs at least 3 units of blood of his own type. So far I'm not sure about that - I've read things that suggest that although O-neg is the universal donor, they prefer to give you blood of your own type if possible. So that might all be fine up to this point. The next line is what screws it (I thought for a bit I misheard it, but I rewatched the ep and they confirmed it):
"He's got an extremely rare blood type. AB-. Only half of one percent of the population has it."
John Connor says, "Test me!"
Doctor says: "It's extremely unlikely that you have it. The odds are.."
Me: The odds are astronomical, because BLOOD TYPES DON'T WORK THAT WAY. Blood types are inherited, and both parents determine what you are. If you are type AB-, that means that one of your parents is type A (or AB, giving you the A part), and one of your parents is type B (or type AB, but giving you the B part). If Sarah Connor is your mother, and she's type O, you CANNOT BE type AB, short of a freak genetic mutation (which is so improbable that the doc should have said, "Hey, dude, it's impossible, if your mom's type O, then you can only be O, A, or B).)
This is fairly basic science. Sure, the average person might not know it, but it's the kind of thing that can be easily fact-checked, especially if you looked up blood enough to know the rarity of AB- blood. The thing is, the scene would have worked perfectly if they just said, "He's B-, which is fairly rare, only 1.5% of the population has it" John _could_ be type B-, if his father was. Perhaps it would even work better, because type AB- can receive blood from type O-, type A-, or type B-, or type AB-. Type B- can only receive blood from O- and B-, despite the type being slightly more common.
I know I should be forgiving, but when there's a show I like getting basic science wrong it annoys me. Otherwise the episode was okay.
Now let's move onto Stargate Atlantis, "Kindred". Minor spoilers, but I'm not going too in depth.
Started off a little rough, with both a dream sequence starting and everyone somewhat doubting it despite evidence of telepathy before, and worse, another "excessive Ego Rodney" moment. That moment didn't work for me. Yes, he's got an ego, but this time it seemed way over the top for attempted comedic effect and ruined what otherwise might have been a nice moment. If he had included it as a mix tape with other great composers and thinkers it wouldn't have been so bad, but I have trouble with the idea even Rodney would think it was a good gift to say, "Hey, I recorded myself talking about myself for hours, here so your baby could listen to it in the womb." (This wasn't a problem with the Letters From Pegasus episode where they did a riff on the same thing, because there at least he was recording for posterity, as opposed to a thoughtful gift to a friend).
But after the rough parts it started to pick up with an interesting part with some potentially cool ramifications. Of course, I wasn't surprised at the ending, having heard about it already, and really, I'll have to see how they deal with it before I can judge.
And we'll wrap it up with some two-for-one Book Foo...
Finished: Woken Furies, by Richard K. Morgan
Started: The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman (reread)
Thoughts behind cut, non-spoilery. This is the third and, so far, last of the Takeshi Kovacs books, set in a universe where people's minds are backed up with machines in their spines, and where you can be 'sleeved' into new bodies on a regular basis if you have the money or connections. In this one, Takeshi returns home. I thought on the whole, it was more entertaining than the second book, although it did falter a bit towards the end. Still, there were a number of cool ideas here and it expands the idea of flexible identities even more. I kind of hope he revisits either the character or even just the universe at a later date. I'd read it.
Finished: Otherland, Vol 1, by Tad Williams
Started: Jumper, by Steven Gould (reread, to get the taste of the movie out of my head)
I'm not going to cut my thoughts to keep this short: It was interesting enough that I'm going to read the next book in the series, and probably the rest of it unless it starts to suck fast.