Joss Whedon Is My Captain... Captain Tight Pants, That Is
Highlight of my week so far has been sitting down with my good buddy, Rusty, on Tuesday for an all-day Firefly marathon. Joined intermittently by a robotic dog, a unit of quantum information, and one spicy, ricy chicken, thrilling heroics raged across "our" television screen almost from AM to AM.
One thing that I know from watching all of this scifi goodness that I had forgotten was how good the dialogue is. This is something that everyone is commenting on, it seems, but, hey, what the heck, it a bandwagon that's worth jumpin' on. I hope and plan on writing, someday (hopefully fiction), so this is something that I want to do well. I would love to give examples, but that would take me until... well, a long time. Just go here and read scripts. I'll leave the stayin' up late to you.
Another thing is that it demonstrates something that I find fascinating in storytelling of this type. For a story to be interesting, thrilling, and whatnot, you don't necessarilly have to go out of your way to make it some grand and epic adventure. What you can have is a simple collection of "ordinary" people [everyone's normal, everyone's special, really, though --Ed.] born out of their times and scenarios. The world one inhabits is almost always epic, though. Ours is. So, rather than doing like what many accuse George Lucas of doing with his Star Wars Prequel trilogy, and trying to make your core story epic in and of itself. Like Chris Hanel said, it's not something that you can manufacture. It's something that the original Star Wars got right. It's something that Firefly gets better. So, it seems that the ordinary is born from the extraordinary.
In fact, I might be able to learn from this. You see, I love to make up worlds; it's storylines that I have trouble with. Now, stories are all about characters, so, as we see from what we just learned what I need to do is, after creating a world, I need to go looking for the ordinary in all that extraordinary. Yes, it's late and I'm freewriting, so that's about as good as my writing gets at this time of night.
Also, on the topic of my own stories, one thing that I've always been dissapointed with is that I want to write my stories in book form (due in no small part to my love of autonomy) but I draw a large part of my inspiration from television shows and movies. If only there was some kind of intermediate between the two.
*sigh* It's late, and the dancing sugar plums have taken the form of Firefly: Season 2... That's me fantasizing, folks... Who else would have loved to see an episode with Bruce Campbell guest starring? Yeah, I've had him on the brain, too. I'm waiting for the library to loan me his autobiography. And, here, check out his website; he's a cool guy.
Also, on another FIrefly related note, there was one moment where I really connected with Malcolm Reynolds. In the very last scene of Out Of Gas, we flashes back to the first time he ever sees the ship that would become Serenity. Just, the feel of that scene really encompassed how I feel sometimes. I don't want to get a "job" job. I don't want to punch a timeclock. I want to be free, flying where I may. There just seems to be a shortage of terraformed planets and moons for me to set down on. Oh, well...
One last thing... to my future wife... we're naming our son Jayne, okay? he won't get picked on... He'll stand up to the man! Give him what for!
Ooh, and one more last thing: Who else wants to see The Brothers Grimm? One thing that I love is Heath Ledger's look (mostly because I'm all for breaking away from the modern day ideal of men who manage to be loaded with testosterone yet free of body hair). The first person that I thought of when i saw him was Johnny Depp. As in Pirate Johnny, not Wonka Johnny (and, no, I have not seen that movie yet); one thing that amazes me about Mr. Depp is how he looks completely different with facial hair. But, I digress. Because you're all reading my free-writing, you fools!
When I first saw the trailer for this movie I had a less than enthusiastic reaction ("meh" I believe was my wording) but I'm getting a bit more jazzed about it [watched the full trailer while adding the links --Ed.]. Not quite as much as Serenity. Or as King Kong. But it's getting there. It's up there with Lion, Witch, And Wardrobe.
Ah, heck, I'm goin' to bed. Catch y'all later. Freewriting means not having to wrap up any thesis in some sort of conclusion. Happy dance!
One thing that I know from watching all of this scifi goodness that I had forgotten was how good the dialogue is. This is something that everyone is commenting on, it seems, but, hey, what the heck, it a bandwagon that's worth jumpin' on. I hope and plan on writing, someday (hopefully fiction), so this is something that I want to do well. I would love to give examples, but that would take me until... well, a long time. Just go here and read scripts. I'll leave the stayin' up late to you.
Another thing is that it demonstrates something that I find fascinating in storytelling of this type. For a story to be interesting, thrilling, and whatnot, you don't necessarilly have to go out of your way to make it some grand and epic adventure. What you can have is a simple collection of "ordinary" people [everyone's normal, everyone's special, really, though --Ed.] born out of their times and scenarios. The world one inhabits is almost always epic, though. Ours is. So, rather than doing like what many accuse George Lucas of doing with his Star Wars Prequel trilogy, and trying to make your core story epic in and of itself. Like Chris Hanel said, it's not something that you can manufacture. It's something that the original Star Wars got right. It's something that Firefly gets better. So, it seems that the ordinary is born from the extraordinary.
In fact, I might be able to learn from this. You see, I love to make up worlds; it's storylines that I have trouble with. Now, stories are all about characters, so, as we see from what we just learned what I need to do is, after creating a world, I need to go looking for the ordinary in all that extraordinary. Yes, it's late and I'm freewriting, so that's about as good as my writing gets at this time of night.
Also, on the topic of my own stories, one thing that I've always been dissapointed with is that I want to write my stories in book form (due in no small part to my love of autonomy) but I draw a large part of my inspiration from television shows and movies. If only there was some kind of intermediate between the two.
*sigh* It's late, and the dancing sugar plums have taken the form of Firefly: Season 2... That's me fantasizing, folks... Who else would have loved to see an episode with Bruce Campbell guest starring? Yeah, I've had him on the brain, too. I'm waiting for the library to loan me his autobiography. And, here, check out his website; he's a cool guy.
Also, on another FIrefly related note, there was one moment where I really connected with Malcolm Reynolds. In the very last scene of Out Of Gas, we flashes back to the first time he ever sees the ship that would become Serenity. Just, the feel of that scene really encompassed how I feel sometimes. I don't want to get a "job" job. I don't want to punch a timeclock. I want to be free, flying where I may. There just seems to be a shortage of terraformed planets and moons for me to set down on. Oh, well...
One last thing... to my future wife... we're naming our son Jayne, okay? he won't get picked on... He'll stand up to the man! Give him what for!
Ooh, and one more last thing: Who else wants to see The Brothers Grimm? One thing that I love is Heath Ledger's look (mostly because I'm all for breaking away from the modern day ideal of men who manage to be loaded with testosterone yet free of body hair). The first person that I thought of when i saw him was Johnny Depp. As in Pirate Johnny, not Wonka Johnny (and, no, I have not seen that movie yet); one thing that amazes me about Mr. Depp is how he looks completely different with facial hair. But, I digress. Because you're all reading my free-writing, you fools!
When I first saw the trailer for this movie I had a less than enthusiastic reaction ("meh" I believe was my wording) but I'm getting a bit more jazzed about it [watched the full trailer while adding the links --Ed.]. Not quite as much as Serenity. Or as King Kong. But it's getting there. It's up there with Lion, Witch, And Wardrobe.
Ah, heck, I'm goin' to bed. Catch y'all later. Freewriting means not having to wrap up any thesis in some sort of conclusion. Happy dance!
posted by Jeff at 2:13 AM
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