Author Archives: Bob Evans

Movie Review: 300 II: Hellenic Boogaloo

So this morning, after losing the requisite hour of sleep the time regulatory gods, my sweetie-wife and I went to the local cinema to take in a movie. My sweetie-wife wanted to see 300: Rise of an Empire, the sequel to 300, a highly stylized retelling of the Spartan stand against the Persian Empire at Thermopylae. Now if you have seen 300, based on 300-rise-of-an-empire-poster1 Frank Miller’s graphic novel, then you know it wildly took liberties with the history and the culture of the Spartans. 300: The Rise of an Empire is true to the Hollywood tradition of a sequel being less intelligent and less well made of a film that the one it is following.

In this movie the physical are more at odds with reality, the characters as even more two-dimensional, and the story is much thinner. This is truly a film that should be shown to aspiring writing, both screenplay and prose, as an example of what not to do.

I had forgotten my watch at home so I am unable to tell you when the story starts, as the movie is front loaded with what looks to be at first a prologue, but turns out to be long tedious minutes of exposition. I am not taking about 3 or 5 minutes, I am talking about 10, 20 maybe more. When the story does start, it often stalls again for more exposition. At one point they literally give you a flashback to the opening of the movie as though you may have forgotten what happened a mere 60 minutes earlier.

This movie also is a prime example of everything that is wrong with digital effect as they are used today. While digital artists can create anything that can be visualized, that does not mean that everything that can be visualized should be created. In this film there are many shots of ships at sea, moving up and over large waves, throwing spray, and the characters aboard these vessels at standing stock still. Often these are not, or at least do not appear to be, digital doubles for the actors, but rather the actors standing in from of a green screen, lacking any realistic motion at all. In one battle the seas are so heavy that vast waves more than thirty feet high loom and present themselves as oceanic hills. Of course in reality ships if the era would be in serious danger of foundering during a storm like that, but in this movie they maneuver and attack with ease.

There is the now standard, falling damage doesn’t apply, digital stunt work, and the impossible animals. (Seriously the lend-lease with Mordor and Persia must still be in effect because the Persian war elephant or more like Oliphants, looming larger an than real land animal.)

My sweetie-wife noted that several times throughout the presentation I suppressed laughter. I assure it was not due to the filmmakers intent to impart humor. In fact this is a fairly humorless movie, and that studious effort to be meaningful and utterly failing is one of the many sources of mirth.

This movie is MST3K ready, right out of the box.

Political Rant Ahead – You are warned.

invasion bullshit

This particularly idiotic piece of tripe has been floating around on facebook and has been shared by people who really ought to know better. Clearly the crux of the idea is that there is no difference between US military interventions and Russian ones.

But even if you set aside the moronic call for equivalence this thing is still one of the most rock stupid things I have seen on facebook and mind you that take a level of stupid not usually seen outside of a Michael Bay movie.

So, 22 invasions in 20 years for an average of 1.1 invasion per year. That’s some busy armies, but of course these yokels can’t even do basic arithmetic. 20 years ago was 1994, yup we’re all well into the 21^st century now. Below is the list of invasions given to support the idiocy.

(1) Grenada (1983-1984), (2) Bolivia (1986; ), (3) Virgin Islands (1989), (4) Liberia (1990; 1997; 2003), (5) Saudi Arabia (1990-1991), (6) Kuwait (1991), (7) Somalia (1992-1994; 2006), (8) Bosnia (1993-), (9) Zaire (Congo) (1996-1997), (10) Albania (1997), (11) Sudan (1998), (12) Afghanistan (1998; 2001-), (13) Yemen (2000; 2002-), (14) Macedonia (2001), (15) Colombia (2002-), (16) Pakistan (2005-), (17) Syria (2008; 2011-), (18) Uganda (2011), (18) Mali (2013), (19) Niger (2013), (20) Yugoslavia (1919; 1946; 1992-1994; 1999), (21) Iraq (1958; 1963; 1990-1991; 1990-2003; 1998; 2003-2011) (22) Angola (1976-1992)

Now let’s strike out everything that is before 1994.

Wow we’re already down to 12, just because the people who made the meme can not count. Then there is the concept that any US force on foreign soil constitute an ‘invasion.’ That itself is a horrible twisting of the language, by that metric they missed the US Invasion of Great Briton in 1942. Also included here are not simply military invasion but joint policing actions done in concert and with the cooperation of the host government. Again ignoring if these action are wise or foolish, I pretty think a core concept to ‘invade’ is being opposed by local government. So let’s strike out those where we partnered with the regional government.

Let’s also cross off where there has been principally air power used. Invade does mean attack; the two are not synonyms. I would argue invade means a ground effort to control territory.

As you can see the list grows thin. This listing also also conflates the purposes for invasion. The Balkan campaign, whether waged well or badly, was in response to genocide.

Yes we invaded Afghanistan after they refused to surrender the murderous criminals who killed thousands of civilians in an act of terrorism.

Iraq? A stupid, war of offensive we had no business starting that I never supported. It was a colossal blunder and forever stained how nation’s honor. More than anything else that act lead to my decision to turn against the GOP.

Also let us not forget that the international community pretty much flipped out over the invasion of Iraq. It was not sanctioned by the United Nations, it was condemned by foe and ally alike, and it created diplomatic rifts that still have not been healed. So the very premise, along with the facts, of this pice of garbage is wrong,

That said, I am saddened that people with smarts enough to read could fall for this poorly constructed, one sided, incompetent propaganda. If you shared this on your wall you have really lost points for pointing at anyone else and calling them ignorant,

Movie review Cockneys vs Zombies

No Sunday Night Movie this week, too tired to make it through any film and I watched part of Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.

So instead I have a mini review for you of a film I watched view Netflix streaming Saturday afternoon with a couple of friends and my sweetie-wife; Cockneys vs Zombies.

You have to pity someone wanting to making a zombie film these days. The vein was never very thick and it has been throughly mined. We have seen Zombie at Night, at Dawn, in the cockneys-vs-zombies-poster Day, Nazi Zombies, fast zombies, indestructible zombies, Zombies on a boat, zombies on a plane, Zombies on an island, Zombies in Spain pretending it was the Uk, rom-com zombies, Romeo and Juliet zombies, Sex-slave zombies, and pet zombies, so it’s getting pretty hard to find a new angle on the genre.

This film builds its humor on when the lower class, and stereotypical seen as criminal, London east-enders, Cockneys face the Zombie a apocalypse. The plot is barebones, a group of cockney youths are pulling a bank robbery to have the funds to keep their grand dad and his pals in the east-end when the pensioner home is demolished. Thanks to greedy and archeologically ignorant construction workers, the zombie plague is loosed on modern London, specifically the east-end. Both the youths and the pensioners fight the zombies, as the the crisis worsens.

Like Shawn of the Dead this si player for laughs, but more regional that rom-com. It is bloody and it is graphic as one should expect from a zombie film, but it is funny and touching, and has more than a touch of satire.

I recommend it.

Despite the Rain, a pleasant day

The rain showers moving through the area nixed our plans, but the sweetie-wife and I still had a nice, relaxed and pleasant day.

A few games of Dominion played on line.

A nice lunch out at Oggi’s Pizza and Brewery.

A little shopping.

And an evening home with episode 10 of season three Game of Thrones.

Tomorrow back to the grind and the waiting to see what transpires from my interview.

Damn you Marvel Studios

Thanks to the Guardian of The Galaxy trailer,

this song has been stuck in my head.

The Transformative Power of Writing

It is well known that literature possesses the ability to transform the reader. The list if powerful works that often have deep and lasting effect upon people is nearly endless. 1984 has awoken many a person to the dangers of an all powerful state, To Kill a Mockingbird has opened hearts to the evils of racism, Atlas Shrugged has inspired countless people and scores of politicians.

However what I am talking about today is an effect I discovered and is less spoken about, the effect the act of writing can have upon the author.

We tend to think of the writing process in a manner that more closely resembles dictation than the groping in the dark process of discovery I have found it to be. In my experience author do not sit down and just put the words on paper their themes and intention perfectly thought-out and clear. Rather from author I have know and have spoken with there is often a process of figuring out what it was about the subject that fascinated them and in the discovery they uncover truths and insights previously unknown to them.

I know I personally went through a transformation from a single element in one of my unpublished novels.

IN the book the United States has fallen into not a dystopia, but it has strangled itself on a political philosophy that is obsessive on matters of categories for people versus individuals. There is a movement to ‘restore’ the previous system of government and it funds itself with piracy and theft. This militia movement sees the government that, while elected and not a dictatorship, is illegitimate because it fails to reflect their voice. They see themselves as oppressed.

In form the universe and the story I myself felt a sympathy for this militia movement, and a principle character is a devote supporter. In the course of the story an agent from a truly dictatorial power is introduced, working with the militia for a common goal. To writ scenes from this agent’s POV I had to crawl into the agent’s , understand the world from his perspective, including his feeling about the militia. Stepping into his shoes I saw these pirates as spoiled children. Yeah their cause was losing at the ballot box, but they had a ballot box. They’re response to losing was to throw a tantrum because they weren’t getting their way.

Fine enough I wrote that out and it deepened the agent’s character, however I found that my own view of some political movements in the real world had changed.

Here in the United States we have tremendous freedoms, and despite this there are those that the moment they lose a contest start throwing about the charges of tyranny and despotism. Now I can see so clearly the spoiled children that they are. If you have the freedom to, in utter safety, call the President a despot and a tyrant, then his really isn’t one. All around the world people are dying for the freedoms people here treat so lightly. I have never gone back to a restricted view and it is because the act of writing has changed me and it will continue to change me.

Original Series Klingons, Commies or NAZIs?

As the title informs you I will only be speaking about the Klingons as they appeared in the original Star Trek series, not he later retconed aliens that were introduced in the Motion Picture and later elements of the franchise.

Star Trek arrived during an interesting period in entertainment history, by being produced in the later 60’s the series was influenced by and could be seen as a metaphor for both World War II and The Cold War. The writers, directors and producers of the series Kor,_2266 counted among their number several World War II veterans while the Cold War, now well under way, underpinned everyday life and provided an atmosphere of dread under the treat of global nuclear war. It is natural for people to look on the Klingons of the original series as a metaphor for either the NAZIs or the Communists, but which is a better fit?

Now first I am not putting forth a proposition as to what was in the creators heads when they crafted Star Trek’s original bad guys, but rather just an exercise about which brutal ideology best matches what we know of the Klingons.

There are of course a number of areas of overlap between the deadly forces of Communism and National Socialism. Both were brutal dictatorships, both murdered on a Kang vast scale, both were ruthlessly expansionistic, both were extremely militaristic, both engaged in suppression of dissidents, both crushed the individual under the power of the state.

All of these elements would seem to apply to the Klingon Empire, both this complicates the issues. However it is important to recognize that National Socialism and Communism however similar in many area are not the same thing, so perhaps by finding key differences between the two and apply them to what we know or can extrapolate from the Klingons we can determine the best match.

Communism did not recognize the right to own property. All property belonged to the state, while Nazism recognized private property in a fairly recognizable state, corporations, Kahless and the like. From the original series we have no data about the Klingon economic models and systems, so we can’t use this as a point of differentiation.

Communism believed in an inevitable march of history; that peoples and cultures inexorably moved through certain developmental stages, in the same sequence, and that the end results would be the stateless commune. Nazism believed in the survival of the fittest on both a racial and a cultural, which were really one and the same for them, stage. They thought that it was the natural order for the strongest culture to dominate and subjugate the ‘weaker.’

Ah here we have a bit of a match with the original series Klingons. They clearly believed that if they were stronger is was natural and right for they to rule. They did not argue their dominance from destiny, but from ability.

Communism was a very delusion and distorted view of mass teamwork. That everyone person, if given an equal share would pull equally hard for the greater good and that want and greed would die away. It was group oriented, but in a fanciful belief that people would become happy and prosperous in a share and share-alike fantasy. Nazism saw the individual as only a cog in a machine to support the state, and the race which defined the state. Every man and woman had a duty to the state and that duty overrode all individual consideration. There was no utopian fantasy of universal brotherhood, only the importance of the state over the individual. This matches up quite nicely with Commander Kor’s speech to Kirk in ‘Mission of Mercy’ just before his men burst in to, once again, arrest the Captain.

The final point of divergence is the spread of ideology.

The communists could be though of a evangelicals. It was not enough to conquer territory, to claim resources, to amass power, they also had a burning need to convert. They desires that not only did subjugate peoples bend knees to their power, but adopted their view and Koloth vision of the future. Like the Inquisition before them the Communists could brook no heretics. The Nazis weren’t interested in that at all. Because of the racial components of their belief system, they saw the world as a conflict between themselves and everyone else. They never expressed an argument that their system was better for everyone, they never tried to convince Kirk or the Organians that they should convert, but rather brute force to take was enough and all they required was subservience.

To me this makes it clear, for the Original Series Star Trek, the Klingons were much more like Nazis than communists.

Thoughts on hysterical arguments

I don’t mean arguments that intent or by accident become terribly humorous, but rather arguments that are expressed in terms of hysteria, usually by overt and terribly applied hyperbole.

I get a lot of political discussions with my friends and family. (Almost never with anyone else because it’s too volatile a subject to broach with people I don’t know well.) It doesn’t matter if it comes from the left or from the right, I am often treated to some wildly over the top hyperbole about the evils of the enemy.

Bush is a fascist.

Obama is a communist.

You know the drill. These arguments can really bug me because they show such an utter disregard for the truth and for the language. In the early 90’s Rush Limbaugh used to say quite a bit on his show that ‘words mean things.’ Oh that is something I can get behind very strongly. The first casualty in any heated political argument seem to be the English language. (I assume it true for other languages, but as I speak and read no other, I’ll stick with English.)

Something else that has occurred to me recently is that the more hyperbole that is used, the more it strikes me that someone is panicking about their position. That this feels like the rearguard action of a collapsing front. It not only is unpersuasive it makes your argument feel weaker, no matter the truth that may lay under your position.

This little rant by myself won’t change a thing. No one I know uses the hyperbole as a conscious tactic, and as such they will continue to lob them like errant grenades, but I wanted to get my thoughts out there.

The State of My Writing

Well even though I have ignored my blog way too much last year, things are looking up for 2014.

The great desert produced by my sudden lack of a day job became lush when I was employed again, and even working 50 hours or more a week I am producing a lot of words for my novel-in-progress.

The Latest version of this military SF adventure story is now north of 96 thousand words and it’s looking to land in the area of 115 to 120. Then there will be revision, edits, and the beta read. the last two books have not survived their beat readers, we will see about this one.

After that I plan two novels as self-publishing experiments.

First up will be Vulcan’s Forge, a science-fiction noir in the tradition of The Maltese Falcon and Double Indemnity. It’s destined for self publishing because I expect it to be quite small as books go, around 50 to 60 thousand words. Unless you are an established star, publishers are generally not interested in such slim volumes.

Then will be my ‘screw you I writing it anyway book,’ currently titled The Illusion. It will be my foray into dystopic fiction. I looking at self-pub on this one because it will be, by far, my bleakest story. It would make an excellent French film from the 70s. It is unlikely to go to beat read as I am very sure that many of my usual beta readers would hate the book on political grounds. This will be a political book, but that doesn’t mean you should read too much of my personal views from the text. I can tell you this though it will never ever win a Prometheus award.

Personal Moral Standard and Public Accommodation

With the furor in the new and on the net over Arizona’s SB 1062, ‘Turn away the gay’ bill, there has been a lot of talk, discussion, argument, and name calling over the issue of people who run businesses and want to have those business conform to their personal moral standards. So, here I am wading into the minefield with my own idiosyncratic ideas.

First off, let’s take as a given that forcing someone to act in a manner directly opposed to their deeply held moral map is a touchy proposition and one that should be handled with deft care and an eye to personal freedom. Few among us would consent if the government forced up to kill a puppy to get out tax returns.

That said I do think there is a qualitative difference between your personal actions and the actions of a business, even if it is a business that you own. Your business is not you. A business does not have a deeply held moral map, it is an artificial construction not a person.

So how would I cleave this knot?

Let’s look at businesses and their owners in terms of how the assets are different in terms of protection.

Subject A as a private person decides to host a free carnival for the neighborhood. There is a spill of a slick oily mess, and though warned about it, Subject A does nothing. When a person slips, falls, and breaks their neck from this danger, Subject A is in danger from a civil suit, a civil suit that take everything Subject A owns, cash, stocks, their home, in restitution for the damages to the person with the broken neck. Subject A and their assets are fully at risk for their action and fully responsible for their actions.

Subject B form a business, an LLC or some other artificial construction for the purpose of throwing their neighborhood carnival. They too have a slippery oily mess, they too are warned, and they too do nothing. The person falls, breaks their necks and the business is at rick of lawsuit. The lawsuit can take everything the business owns as part of a damages award, but the business owner has their personal assets protected, but the shield that is the artificial construct the ‘business.’

Any lawyers among you will see that this is a gross simplification by a layman, but the concept is clear, Subject A was operating entirely from the personal sphere, while Subject B was operating from the public one. Subject B utilized laws passed to protect and shield business owners, putting distance between their business and their personal property.

In my opinion, and what I think should be legal opinion as well, any business that utilizes the public sphere, LLC laws, incorporation, and so on are ineligible to claim personal moral codes and restrictions. They are not their owners and by taking advantage of public laws in their benefits they surrender any claim for discriminatory practices.

Robert Mitchell Evans

Literary Saboteur