My answer? Yes it did, but in two ways.
First, D&D was definitely an influence on creative people and writers. That’s a given.
However, D&D also inspired other RPGs, which then inspired writing further. D&D also inspired other inspirers as it were.
Frankly, I want to see more on this. I think there’s a huge amount of things to explore in looking how the RPG and RPG like gaming scenes inspired fiction.
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.
The 1980s were a time of excesses. While Oliver Stone’s Wall Street was a reflection, not the cause, one line summed up the corporate mentality; “[G]reed, for a lack of a better word, is good.”* Or, as Newhart‘s Larry, Darryl, and Darryl put it, “Anything for a buck.” Conservative governments in the US, the UK, and Canada embarked on deregulating and privatizing anything possible, regardless of the impact. During this time, the archetypical Cyberpunk novel, William Gibson’s Neuromancer was published, followed two years later by Walter Jon Williams’ Hardwired, both taking a hard look at the rise of corporate power and what it meant to the workers and the outsiders.
As the decade began to wrap up in 1987, the movie Robocop hit theatres. The film was billed as a science-fiction action movie, set in the near future. Detroit was bankrupt and was being bought out by Omni Consumer Products. The Detroit Police Department had been privatized, bought by OCP who turned the department into a profit centre through underfunding. OCP has a project in the works to replace the officers in the field with robots; in fact, there are two competing projects. The first is a fully automated law enforcement unit, the ED-209. The second is Robocop. However, the Robocop project requires a human base to be augmented.
Enter Alex Murphy, police officer, family man. Murphy worked on the police as a patrol officer on the dangerous streets of Old Detroit. How dangerous were the streets? Body armour was part of the patrol uniform. Murphy and his new partner, Anne Lewis, respond to a call that led to the chase of Clarence Boddicker, the leader of a criminal gang handling a bit of everything, including cocaine dealing. Murphy and Lewis separated, giving Boddicker the opportunity to kill Murphy brutally.
Lewis discovers Murphy, barely alive. OCP takes over Murphy’s trip to the hospital, leading to Alex being declared dead and a clause in his work contract getting invoked. Bob Morton then takes possession of Murphy, wanting to use him for the Robocop project. The ED-209, championed by OCP VP Dick Jones, had a setback during initial testing, leading to the shooting death of an intern after the prototype failed to recognize the intern had dropped his gun. Morton reveals the new Alex Murphy, Robocop.
Robocop, along with being a violent science-fiction action movie, was a satire of the politics and culture of the 80s. Underfunded police forces, privatization, high level corporate drug use, corporate politics, dangerous streets, anything and everything that hit the news, TV series, or feature films. Yet, today, Detroit is bankrupt and the average police officer on patrol is wearing body armour. While it wasn’t meant to be predictive, Robocop foresaw the rise of corporate power and the militarization of police services.
With the risk aversion in Hollywood studios and the appetite of foreign markets for known franchises, it was almost inevitable that Robocop was remade for 2014. With the original movie having had two sequels, a TV series, a video game, a pinball game, and even a cartoon**, the character of Robocop is a known figure. Over-the-top action transcends language. Robocop was ideal for a remake.
The new Robocop saw a few changes right away, mainly because of cultural and political changes during the intervening twenty-seven years. While Detroit wasn’t mentioned as being bankrupt nor being owned by OCP***, the city was still a dangerous place to live. Murphy became a detective instead of patrolman, as did his partner, Jack Murphy.
The movie begins with The Novak Element, a cable news program with high tech flash that wouldn’t be out of place on Fox or CNN. Pat Novak, played by Samuel L. Jackson, goes on a rant on how drones, being used for peacekeeping in American-occupied Tehran, can’t be used for law enforcement thanks to a popular law passed by Congress. Omnicorp, a division of OCP, is seeing hundreds of millions in unrealized sales, and a plan gets hatched to turn popular opinion against the Act. Raymond Sellars, CEO of Omnicorp, finds a loophole that lets him get his wedge; drones aren’t allowed, but a machine with a man inside isn’t covered. All he needs is a suitable candidate.
Meanwhile, Detectives Alex Murphy and Jack Lewis have been on the trail of Antoine Vallon, gang leader with fingers in a number of rackets, including selling guns from the Detroit Police Department’s evidence lockers. Hampering the investigation is the possibility that Vallon has several police detectives on his payroll. Murphy and Lewis arrange a meeting with Vallon, but have their covers blown. Lewis is shot and wounded during the firefight while Vallon escapes. Vallon later arranges for a bomb to be placed in Murphy’s car. The explosion all but kills Alex.
Alex’s wife, Clara, is approached by Omnicorp to keep him alive. There’s not much after the blast and the fourth-degree burns, but Omnicorp and its division Omni Life have made strides with cybernetic technology. Murphy is rebuilt, augmented, and turned into Robocop. The movie takes the time to cover Murphy’s transformation from barely-living to cyborg law enforcement officer. The conflict between Murphy and Omnicorp also grows; to the corporation, Murphy is product.
The original Robocop was known for its satire and for being over-the-top violent, almost getting an X-rating from the violence. At the same time, the movie had its moments of humour, despite the grimness of the setting. In the new version, the satire is still around, but it hits closer to home. Drone use by law enforcement is a hot issue, and today’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicles aren’t the combat model EM-208 and ED-209 robots of the movie, just remotely piloted aircraft missiles. Likewise, corporate influence on government is a concern; Omnicorp’s manipulation of public opinion and rules-lawyering is a little too close for comfort. Whether that’s a plus or a minus is up to the individual viewer; satire is a way to get a message across but does need a deft hand.
One big difference between the two movies is the level of violence. As mentioned above, the original movie was violent and brutal, setting a mark for other movies of what could and couldn’t be done and still stay R-rated. The remake, however, went for a PG-13 rating. PG-13 hits the sweet spot for blockbusters; it allows younger audiences in to watch the movie while signalling that it isn’t sanitized. An R-movie prevents viewers under seventeen in, losing a major market. To get a PG-13 rating, though, the level of violence had to be toned down. Robocop’s primary pistol is a variable-setting taser instead of a beefed-up machine pistol. The amount of blood and gore shown is minimal; there is no one getting doused in toxic waste then splattered across the the front of a step van like in the original. To make up, the fighting became more personal. Murphy isn’t showing off his shooting skills; he’s hunting down his own killers, defending himself, or fighting the combat drones.
As its own movie, the Robocop remake holds up well. It’s a science-fiction action movie that reflects its time. As a remake, that reflection creates a few problems. It’s not the almost cartoonishly violent movie that the original was. Nor does it take the theme of what it means to be human. Instead, the remake looks at the human spirit, what keeps a man going despite everything that has happened to him. It also looks at the degree of leniency that corporations enjoy today, something the original just scratched the surface of. The remake is Robocop, but it’s the Robocop of the new millenium, not of the 80s.
Next week, a look at methdology used when writing Lost in Translation.
* It was lost on people championing the line that the character who said it, Gordon Gekko, was indicted in the film for insider trading.
** The 80s were known for seeing R-rated movies getting cartoons. See also, Rambo.
*** A deleted scene from the remake does have the CEO of Omnicorp making an offer to the mayor of Detroit to buy the police department.
This post originally appeared at The Oak Wheel on June 3rd, 2014.
“Craphound had wicked yard-sale karma, for a rotten, filthy alien bastard. He was too good at panning out the single grain of gold in a raging river of uselessness for me not to like him— respect him, anyway. But then he found the cowboy trunk. It was two months’ rent to me and nothing but some squirrelly alien kitsch-fetish to Craphound.” Craphound, by Cory Doctorow.
The following First Contact scenarios can be used with humans on either side of the encounter. Don’t discount the possibility humans being the relatively more advanced civilization making contact, or both being at about the same level. Most of them can be combined with several others (consider how “missionary work” could be added to “information/signals only”). (more…)
It’s said that a writer should write what he knows*. For Scott Adams, a contract at Pacific Bell was an inspiration. The result, Dilbert, was picked up by United Media Syndicates. While the artwork was simplistic, the situations hit home with working readers. Adams based the characters on people he met on his contract. Dilbert is an amalgam of the engineers Adams worked with, while Alice and Wally were based on specific people. Alice was modelled on the lone woman engineer at the firm who felt she had to out-perform the men in all areas**. Wally, that model of corporate laziness, was based on an engineer at PacBell who couldn’t be fired after making a major mistake but was told he’d never be promoted; the engineer turned his intellect towards doing the least amount of work possible.
The strip focused on the day-to-day life of working at an unnamed tech firm and introduced a few terms into the English language. Anyone who has spent time in a large enough company has run into a Pointy-Haired Boss, or PHB, who has absolutely no understanding of what his people or even his department does. When Dilbert isn’t working, he spends his time with Dogbert, a dog with all of Dilbert’s intelligence and none of his morality. Dogbert gets to be the cynical part of Dilbert, saying what Dilbert would only think while abusing people for fun and profit. Meanwhile, Ratbert often represents the general public being abused by Dogbert.
The popularity of the comic strip comes from readers being able to, if not empathize with Dilbert, recognize similar situations in their own lives. Even if they’re not engineers, readers have dealt with PHBs, evil heads of human resources, and lazy co-workers. Dogbert says what many people think but can’t vocalize at work if they want to stay employed. The strip is meant for an adult audience, readers who are or have been in the work force, though people at tech firms get a bit more out of the situations.
In 1999, Scott Adams teamed up with Larry Charles, showrunner for Seinfeld, to create a TV series A live-action series was considered but the ultimate decision was to go with an animated Dilbert. The show aired on the former UPN, now part of The CW Network and lasted two seasons. The animated series had a head start on how the characters would look, thanks to the comic strip, but had a few other concerns to deal with. The first was mouths. In the strip, Dilbert, Dogbert, and Catbert, the evil head of HR, had no mouths. Facial expressions and, for the animals, wagging tails were enough to convey emotions. Word bubbles made it clear who was speaking. In an animated series, though, people expect to hear the characters speak and know which one was speaking through mouth movements. The decision was made to add the mouth when Dilbert, Dogbert, and Catbert were speaking, with the mouth disappearing when they were silent.
The other concern also comes from the characters speaking. Readers would have an idea of what the characters sound like. Even Adams stated as much in one of the DVD extras. The casting search needed to find actors who were, well, not that manly*** and, in Dogbert’s case, would sound like the voice came from a small, egg-shaped, cynical dog. The search resulted with Daniel Stern as Dilbert and Chris Elliot as Dogbert, both of whom fit the characters well.
The series brought in as many of the supporting cast as possible, though Bob the Dinosaur wound up with just a cameo despite appearing in the opening credits. Ted the Generic Guy was replaced in importance by Loud Howard; Howard’s schitck, being loud, was easier to do with an audio track. The episodes tended to focus on Dilbert’s office life, as he dealt with annoyances from Marketing down to the trolls in Accounting, but did highlight his home life and go to Elbonia. All the elements of the comic strip were in the show.
Helping to keep the the series close to the feel of the comic strip was Scott Adams’ involvement. He was listed as a producer and wrote or co-wrote several episodes. Being on UPN also helped; the network needed viewers and wasn’t willing to drive away existing fans by adding a love affair between Alice and Dilbert. The animation allowed Adams to experiment away from the three-panel format of the strip, giving him a chance to try out stories that would take weeks or even months in newspapers. The animation also let the scripts bend and ignore physics as needed.
Dilbert the series lasted two seasons on UPN. While it did well for UPN at first, the schedulers managed to channel the PHB in the second season and placed the show after Shasta McNasty, a series about a three-man rap band whose label goes bust when the band moves to LA. The audience for Shasta was unlike the audience for Dilbert, leading to the end of both shows.
As an adaptation, the animated Dilbert kept the feel of the comic strip. Adams and Charles worked to make sure that the voices fit the characters. The episodes had the mix of whimsy and cynicism found in the comic, and, ignoring the look of the computer equipment, are timeless****. Respect for the fans of the comic could be seen throughout the series.
Next week, Robocop.
* To a degree, it’s true, but it might be better to say that a writer needs to know about what her writes. Otherwise, all that would ever be published are autobiographies and coming of age stories, and that would get dull.
** Sadly, a state of affairs common in engineering due to the heavily male-dominated field.
*** Except for Alice, really.
**** “The Return” is funnier today thanks to the proliferation of online shopping. “Ethics” predated the Diebold voting machines and served as a predictor of the inevitable.
This post originally appeared at The Oak Wheel on June 19th, 2014.
Say what you want about the unfettered spring of creativity, but I find that there’s a lot to be said for being mechanical and thorough at some parts of the operation.
The best example of this might be the Better Novel Project, which is taking a very deliberative approach to writing a blockbuster novel. What’s one of the things that you could point to as an indicator of runaway success? A film based on the book. Which books have been the most consistent at turning into films— and successful films, at that? YA novels. And of these, you wouldn’t go wrong with holding up Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games as series that enjoyed great commercial success both in print and on the big screen.
The Mary Sue is there to get you informed about Sailor Moon before what is doubtlessly going to be an insanely popular relaunch, with part two of their series.
It’s odd, I’m paying attention to this more because I want to know what’s going to happen than I actually have any interest in the show.
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.
Last week, I looked at the mess that was Super Mario Bros. That adaptation, along with those for Double Dragon and Street Fighter, cemented the idea that movies based on video games will suck. Mortal Kombat, released in 1995, did reduce the stigma of the video game movie by being both entertaining and a decent adaptation of the Mortal Kombat video game, but quality is still not guarenteed. Still, licensing for movies still happens, even if the concept of the game isn’t easily adapted.
With the march of technology, what once cost thousands to millions to make can now be done at home on a computer with inexpensive or even open source software. Digital cameras are now standard on cell phones, smart or otherwise. Editing software allows budding film makers to create their blockbuster. Sure, they may not have the budget for extensive sets and A-list actors, but creativity can get the film makers around those problems. Today’s technology allows anyone to try to make a film. Even Spielberg and Lucas had to start somewhere and, today, it’s far easier to get started.
This week’s focus is on The Four Players by PolarisGo, a group that creates short films based on video games. With The Four Players, they went for a gritty background for four iconic characters. Each part is short, no more than five minutes each, and is available on PolarisGo’s YouTube channel. Go take a look, then come back.
Without names being dropped during each video, it’s easy to tell which Mario character is the focus. The videos use the iconic colours for Mario and Luigi, even if they’re not wearing the traditional coveralls at first. Mario is still a plumber and still Italian-American. He still wears the cheesy mustache. Luigi is tall and lanky. The Princess is still in distress. Toad is still a mushroom. In fact, Toad being a mushroom puts his video ahead of the official adaptation, even with Mojo Nixon doing what he can with what he was given.
The cast and crew have put their own spin on the video game. At the same time, the videos do fit into the world of Mario. Mario punches a block made of bricks, something not seen in the movie. Likewise, the Chain Chomps that threaten the Princess and the power-up mushrooms Mario and Luigi use appear in the videos but not Super Mario Bros. Toad gets a bag full of Bob-ombs. Guarding and menacing the Princess are recognizable Koopa Troopas, which were called Goombas in the movie.
At this point, it is obvious that PolarisGo put more effort into keeping to the spirit of the Super Mario Bros. video game in four short videos that the creators of the movie had. Steve said it best when he pointed out the movie “went out of its way to be wrong.” Meanwhile, a low budget fan production managed to portray Mario as seen in the game while still putting a dark twist on it and still giving the audience a ray of hope. The Four Players channels the essence of Mario and builds on top instead of replacing.
The videos do show why now is a great time to be a geek. A creative group willing to put time and effort can put together a video based on a favorite work and be seen by other fans. The gear needed to film and the software to edit is within reach of most groups. Game peripherals can easily be adapted for filming; a steering wheel controller can be turned into a steady-cam for far less than the cost of the steady-cam. Getting the final product out for the world to see just requires a webpage and a YouTube channel. We’re long past the 500-channel future of the 80s and 90s.
Next week, the June round-up of remake news.
Well I doubt any of us need Sailor Moon explained to us. But if you ever need to give someone an overview, The Mary Sue is putting together a series explaining it all.
Now as a creative type, I’m following this pretty closely. The relaunch is a huge thing of a beloved franchise, it’s supposedly following the manga closer (which will make it fresher), and it seems that the American audience is even more receptive to the magical girl genre. This could be insanely huge.
Also if it’s huge (figure it will be) I’m thinking . . .
It’ll play into Hollywood’s unoriginality. They will jump on this.
I expect more attention to the magical girl genre in the US. Again.
It could be surprisingly mainstream as the seeds are there.
What do you think?
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.
First, Disney Characters Done Warrior Style. Admittedly some already are, but seriously, this is a collection of family friendly badassery, and Ursula has electric eels as weapons. Which, if you think about it, really would be what Fighting Game Ursula would use. Actually, it sounds like something cartoon Ursula would use.
On the other hand, the kids-of-villains live series Descendants . . . doesn’t look as promising. Jafar, really, you could have raised your kid better.
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.
[Normally I do Worldbuilding advice here, but when my friend Scott did an analysis of Super Mario Brothers films, I wanted to put in my own two cents on why the film was awful. Because I care. And because the film was bad. Previously posted at Muse Hack.]
I did not see the Super Mario Brothers film until Riffftrax released it. I had heard it was terrible. I know some people still remember it fondly, especially for the late and truly great Bob Hoskins’ performance, but agree the film wasn’t good. So my first encounter with it was with the talented Rifftrax comedians giving their take, which was mainly wall-to-wall sarcasm with intermittent horror at shirtless John Leguzamo.
At the end I could really only say that despite the truly marvelous commentary, this was one of the worst films I’ve seen. If you know anything about me, you know that is a terrifying statement.
I mean I’ve watched some seriously bad films without commentary. I’m not sure I could handle this one without sarcastic assistance. I can’t imagine the braveness of my friend Scott who viewed it raw for his analysis.
But this got me thinking – why was my reaction so visceral? What was going on in my head? Why would I rather watch, say “Plan 9” (which is bad, but there’s much worse) than this?
So, oddly, inspired by this debacle of a film, I began asking why it was so bad, and what I found surprised me.
Let’s go ask: what makes a film bad? (more…)
