Phantom Reflections

Changes and a New Site

I’ve been away from the blog for a couple of days because I’ve been busy launching a new site. It’s called Real Honest Film (www.realhonestfilm.com). I figured I’ve been meandering a lot on Phantom Reflections. Originally I talked about books and science fiction stuff. Then I expanded to cycling, films, television, politics, and a whole host of other unrelated topics.

Real Honest Film will be the place where I will move most of my film and TV industry posts. There will be plenty of genre stuff, and even a few things on books, although I’ll probably talk more about that here on this site. Also look for all my cycling and other sports related ramblings to stay here.

In addition you can now access this blog via the PhantomReflections.com URL. The old address will continue to work, but now it will be a lot easier to remember.

Feel free to check out Real Honest Film and add it to your feed if you’d like.

HALO 3 Proves that Science Fiction Rules All

Link: Microsoft: 'Halo 3' nets biggest day in entertaiment history | Tech news blog - CNET News.com
The HALO series of video games have spawned best selling paperbacks and generated rumors of a movie. Well here's why:

Halo 3, the much-anticipated Xbox 360 game that launched Tuesday, set the all-time record for most revenue earned in a single day by any entertainment property, Microsoft said Wednesday.

The company said that Halo 3, the third and final episode in the hugely popular franchise, netted $170 million in sales in the U.S. in its first day.

Do you understand the significance? Most studios would do anything to make $170 million in just one day. When they say "entertainment property" they mean that HALO 3 earned more in a single swipe than any book, movie, song, album, picture, newspaper or magazine in history...ever!

And the best news is that it's all rooted in science fiction. Look at the TV dial, the top grossing movies, and all the video games out there. Genre dominates and science fiction is at the base of it all.

I really hope that Hollywood studios takes notice. The HALO movie has been put on hold, but after this they'd be insane not to green light the thing. Find $100 million somewhere and get it done. It will make its money back in mere moments. It's such a slam dunk.

And if I see the word "fluke" associated anywhere with the success of HALO I'm gonna freak. It's a triumphant and empowering series, which is why so many people love it.

So, genre fans, it's a day to smile. An SF based video game has pwned every single other piece of media anything in the history of anything. And that's something to celebrate.

A ‘Tron’ Sequel is in the Works

In the seeming never ending sea of remakes, re-dos, do-overs, re-imaginings, and wholesale takeover of anything nostalgic, it seems that 1982’s Tron has been selected for something a little different. They are actually planning to leave the original alone and simply do a sequel. [via The Hollywood Reporter]

TORONTO -- Commercial director Joseph Kosinski is in final negotiations to develop and direct "Tron," described as "the next chapter" of Disney's 1982 cult classic. Sean Bailey is producing via the Live Planet banner, as is Steven Lisberger, who co-wrote and directed the original film.

Kosinski, who last month signed on to helm the remake of "Logan's Run" for Warner Bros. Pictures, will oversee the visual development of the project and have input on the script, which is being written by "Lost" scribes Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. Story details are being kept secret.

This sounds like it might kick some major butt. Not only is Kosinksi a big fan of Tron, but he’s also working with those who were involved in the first film. That means the sequel will remain true to its roots. What a brilliant idea! I’m looking forward to this one.

G.I. Joe: More Childhood Memories Wrecked

I think just about every boy over the last sixty odd years played with G.I. Joe. The “Real American Hero” was a staple in the toy box of just about everyone I knew. As with anything nostalgic these days, a movie is in the works. I fondly remember the cartoons and the comic books. I was intrigued, until I read this [via Foxnews.com]:

Say it ain't so, G.I. Joe.

The popular all-American comic-book military man and action figure dating back to the 1940s is undergoing a significant transformation for the Paramount Pictures-distributed "G.I. Joe" film, which begins production in February and is scheduled for release in summer 2009.

No longer will G.I. Joe be a U.S. Special Forces soldier, the "Real American Hero" who, in his glory days, single-handedly won World War II.

In the politically correct new millennium, G.I. Joe bears no resemblance to the original.

Instead of appealing to a built-in audience, again a studio has decided to re-imagine something from my childhood. G.I. Joe has a history dating back to the forties. That’s a long time—a very long time. Think about the generations of kids that grew up with G.I. Joe. I’m sure they would have lined up with their kids and grandkids, or even great-grandkids and taken them to see the upcoming film. Now, I’m not so sure.

UPDATE 9/9: The more I think about this, the angrier I get. The whole point of taking something nostalgic and making a movie out of it is to somehow guarantee a minimal box office take based upon the already established audience for that character, product, or franchise. By completely throwing out sixty years of G.I. Joe history, the filmmakers have negated their whole reason for doing the film.

Case in point: Grindhouse tried to capitalize on the nostalgia of the old grindhouse-style theaters that many baby-boomer and early GenXers grew up with. But instead of working with established grindhouse theaters across the country, the studio blew off their requests for premiers and special events to promote the film, instead banking on suburban multiplexes. Well, we all know what happened.

I want to scream this from the highest mountain. If a filmmaker intends to remake, redo, or reimagine in the hopes of guaranteeing a minimal take, he should not alienate the base to whom he is trying to attract. This is a major screwup on the part of the studio and it could mean real disaster at the box office. Although it's not too late to change course. From what I heard the script isn't close to being done yet. If I were them I'd stay true to G.I. Joe and his history. Maybe then the writers and filmmakers will become "Real American Box Office Heroes."

Does Literary SF Have A Self-Confidence Problem?

One of the biggest topics of discussion, whether it be around the blogosphere, in magazines, or at conventions, is the decline in readership of science fiction. Mind you that the public’s dislike for SF is solely limited to the printed page. Media SF is the king of all genres in movies, TV, and video games. Science fiction related programming rules and shows like Heroes and Lost have seeped into all aspects of popular culture.

Now it is true that reading is down across the board. Booksellers and publishers lament declining sales quarter after quarter and continue to look for the reasons why. Some say under funded schools, which is a crock since we now spend more per student than we ever have in the history of the country. Anyway, when did school inspire anybody to read anyhow? A Tale of Two Cities, The Jungle, and The Scarlet Letter had my friends and I running from books faster than a zebra from a pack of hungry lions. School taught me how to deal with boredom for several hours a day and allowed me to develop a healthy disdain for authority. What got me to read was my own curiosity and my parents—not school, not some government program, just a young man’s curiosity and thirst for discovery. Other pointy-headed intellectuals blame video games for the demise of reading. If that’s the case can someone please explain to me the massive success of the Halo media-tie-in novels? When a new one comes out, like Ghosts of the Onyx, it hits the bestseller list almost immediately. If video games hurt reading the opposite would be the case. Just tell the anti-video game Nazi’s that they just got pwned!

Well then, what about TV and movies? Both have been around for over half a century during the time when readership remained strong, so that argument is moot. And we can’t forget all the other stuff that gets blamed like the Internet, smoking, french fries, and red meat. I guarantee you can find some paper by some doctor somewhere that indicts all four.

The excuses are many, but if you think back to how you began reading it was probably some parent, relative, or friend who handed you a book and started you on your way. Yes, it could have been a teacher, but most of us had some literary loving role model in our lives that got us to read. Parents that read are more likely to have kids that read. That’s a fact. The same is true about literary science fiction. Most of us started reading SF either from a pre-existing love of the genre cultivated from movies and TV, or by someone close to us who we trusted enough to take his or her advice.

If you are anyway involved in the discussion about the state of literary science fiction, you no doubt assume that SF is disproportionately affected by the decline in reading. I think the only crisis for literary SF is its identity crisis. If you ask four people about the definition of modern science fiction you will probably get six different answers. One person’s SF is another’s Fantasy. Others will say if it can’t be proved in a lab then it’s not SF. Yet another might mention Star Wars and then an all out brawl would ensue. When trying to recruit new readers it’s a real problem when the genre is almost indefinable.

So then you have the other pundits saying that, without a doubt, science fiction is dead. The party is over. Everything has been invented and that’s all. Elvis has left the building. I think this is a fascinating thought. If everything has been invented then where the heck is the 3G iPhone? Huh? I’m sorry, but I think this is a silly argument and has no basis for fact. It’s just the defeatists coming out of the woodwork to smash the party. If this is truly the case then every scientist in the world should be out of work right now, MIT should shut its doors, and we can stop funding math and science in schools. If everything we can create is already created then we’re done. Let’s have a big party and take a break. Great job humanity! Sound silly? You bet. It’s illogical.

Could it be as simple as modern SF sucks? Has the genre become cynical and so self-obsessed that it’s a turn-off to those who aren’t already converts? Has SF turned into the home for anti-technology, anti-human zealots who believe all that reason begets is somehow immoral and evil? If this is the case, if the self-doubt within the genre has produced works unapproachable either in language or content then that would explain the reluctance of mainstream audiences to embrace it. In the laws of attraction, the confident become the Alphas—they get the girl, win the contract, and close the deals. If SF is not confident in itself, if it’s not confident in the science that is its base, how can it survive as a genre? And how can we as science fiction fans sing its praises to others while it loafs around looking for its identity?

The greatest gift of SF is a sense of wonder. No matter the tone, subject matter, or scope of a science fiction novel, it is its sense of wonder that makes it special. The idea that we can create things that would sometimes inspire, sometimes horrify is the core to what makes SF great. But it is the story and the sense of wonder that make up science fiction. The question is if we have lost this in the quest to define SF? Have we thought too much about what can be done in a lab and extrapolated over generations that the sense of wonder has been squeezed out of modern science fiction? Have we forgot things like story and character and the relation between us now and the characters then? Has the intellectual exercise of defining science fiction and its future in fact destroyed it?

For good or for bad, the debate about science fiction and its future will continue. It will probably continue well past this generation. But science fiction is not dead, and it never will be because humans have an innate curiosity that cannot be quenched. We desire to look forward and see what’s around the bend and science fiction can give us this unlike any other genre in the bookstore. So we will blog, debate, and have more panels at the conventions. In the end it’s more important to create the stories, build the characters, and instill a sense of wonder page after page. That is the legacy of science fiction, and if that legacy is preserved the genre will continue.

It’s not a matter of Mundane SF versus Hard SF versus Space Opera. It’s about the basic elements of science fiction remaining as that which defines it—story and sense of wonder. If we lose sight of those two things in the battle for the heart and soul of SF, then the genre will fall. If we continue to embrace those two things as the elements of what makes SF utterly fantastic, then there isn’t a problem, and getting new folks to pick up a book may be easier than we think. Science fiction should get its confidence from its storytelling and the sense of wonder that has gripped countless generations. Then, just as the Alpha wolf, science fiction will take it’s rightful place as the leader of the pack.

HALO 3: New Trailer from 2007 E3

 Have you purchased a new game console yet? I haven't. I still use my original XBOX and PS2. I have no intention of getting the Wii. It's not my cup of tea. Cutesie characters and campy graphics may be nice for some, but I like meat with my veggies.

I'm a huge fan of HALO, especially HALO 2. I did nothing for four days when that game came out in the fall of 2004. To date, it remains one of my favorite games for the immersive story, great music, and terrific graphics.

Bungie and Microsoft showed a new trailer for the upcoming HALO 3 that will be only available on the XBOX 360. It looks like I'm about to make a purchase. Check out this video. It is further proof why science fiction and fantasy rule the world of video games.

HALO 3: Live Action Trailer from E3 2007

 Bungie and Microsoft have been trying to get a HALO movie off the ground. It's been in and out of turnaround a couple of times now. I'm thinking the success of TRANFORMERS may help bring it back to life. This summer Hollywood learned that sequels don't necessarily equate to box office success. CGI films like TRANSFORMERS and 300 produced huge numbers, and they weren't sequels. I'm hoping that someone will put up the cash for a HALO movie.

To get the buzz going, Microsoft and Bungie unveiled a live-action trailer for their upcoming title HALO 3. It looks fantastic! It has less to do with the upcoming game and more to do with showing just how awesome a HALO movie would look. See for yourself. And yes, that is a spacecraft floating past the sun. Coolness...

2007 Hugo Ballot: What It Means

It came in the mail donning that retro Supergirl postage stamp. It had my name spelled right, which was nice. The logo for Nippon 2007, with its Kilroyish artwork, peered out at me from the return address label.

I am, of course, talking about the Hugo Nomination Ballot for 2007. It is my first. I've never voted for a Hugo before and am feeling a little giddy about filling it out. If you look at the numbers, a mere 600 or so voters determined who won the Hugo Awards in Anaheim this past August. That's not very many even when you take into account the thousands that do have memberships to WorldCon.

It's a sad state of affairs that such a small number can determine such an important award. It's true that the SFWA's Nebula Award probably has similarly small voting blocks, but the Nebula is a professional trade award given by a professional trade organization. The Hugo, on the other hand, is a fan award and the fact that only about 600 fans care enough to nominate and vote doesn't bode well for pushing SF into the mainstream.

But, you say, the Hugo is not a mainstream award. In fact fandom is as far from the mainstream as garlic ice cream. This is true, and it is also true that the members of the fan community who vote for the Hugo Awards are more discerning and knowledgeable about the past year's slate of SF offerings than anyone else. Yet not every hardcore fan is able to attend WorldCon. This year it will be held in Yokohama, Japan. I've been to Japan before and it's as expensive as you've heard. If you think New York and San Francisco are expensive, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

So most fans in the U.S. and other places around the world will not be able to attend this year and thusly not purchase a WorldCon membership keeping them from voting for the Hugo Awards. In fact, this is the case every year wherever WorldCon is held, as travel costs and time away from jobs always keeps people away.

Year after year, the bulk of the fan community is kept out of the Nebula voting loop. Sure, there are numerous other awards, but in SF the Hugos and the Nebulas rule the roost. Only SFWA members can vote for the Nebulas (and that's fine), but if the Hugo is truly the fan award of note, then there has to be a way to get more fans to vote for it.

Now stop! I'm not in any way implying that the Hugo Awards aren't legitimate. They are, and everybody who has won absolutely deserves the recognition, and this can be further illustrated by the winners having received further accolades from the Nebulas and other mainstream awards (New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Booksense, Emmy, Oscar...you get my point). I am only lamenting the fact that a fan award has so few fans voting for it.

The simple solution is to find a way to open up the voting to the ENTIRE fan community -- or anyone who cares about science fiction, whether they identify themselves as a fan or not (no costume required). With the plethora of media SF offerings like HEROES, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, and JERICHO that are reaching out and being accepted by a mainstream audience, to SF media-tie-in novels like HALO: GHOSTS OF ONYX hitting number two on the bestseller list, we are at a crossroads where we are expanding the fan community by leaps and bounds. Many don't know that they're fans, but they see stuff that they like, and guess what -- we like it too!

So how do we treat this year's Hugo ballot? What do we do with it? What do I do with it? For those of us privileged enough to have one, use it. Vote for your favorite stuff over the past year. Relish in the fact that your voice will be heard, but also understand the responsibility. Don't be flippant and vote for VAMPIRE BUNNIES IN SPACE. No, my friends, we have people depending on us. Since you and I are the small percentage of the fan community that can vote, we must think carefully about what we put down on the ballot. We are the voices of SF, whether we like it or not. Through our choices we will influence who walks up on stage in August. Moreover, the winners of this year's Hugo Awards will illustrate to the world and the rest of the fan community what we consider to be exceptional SF.

It is absolutely imperative that a change be made. More fans need to get in the loop for the Hugo Awards, especially now as we see Media SF expanding while Literary SF contracts. Getting more new and established fans in the voting process will not only solidify the importance of the Hugo, but hopefully provide balance across the genre, tempting media folks to pick up a book and the literary crowd to buy a TV. Awards tempt people to buy books, check out DVDs, and even slap down a few bucks to see a movie. Awards mean something, and a fan award like the Hugo should mean the world -- and it does.

But the world is changing. We have new fans, and new outlets for SF in the changing world of books and media. Now is the time to change the Hugo voting process, and change it in a way that we can get as many members of the fan community to participate as is possible. We have a chance to scream out in one voice as to what we think to be great. Let's make our voice louder -- expand the Hugo voting.

Counterpoint: Why Do People Not Read Science Fiction?

Link: Why Do People Not Read Science Fiction? Reading from only one side of the brain by Carol Pinchefsky - Intergalactic Medicine Show
Thanks to SF Signal’s SF Tidbits for 12/27, I was linked to Carol Pinchefsky’s article at The Intergalactic Medicine Show titled Why Do People Not Read Science Fiction? Reading from only one side of the brain. You may think from the title that she somehow lambastes non-SF readers. This is far from the case. It’s a very intelligent, well thought out, and well-researched look into why SF accounts for a miniscule 6% (her numbers rounded from 6.4% per the Romance Writers of America - others say 5%) of the book market. But since this is the blogosphere I would like to add some counterpoint to her assertions.

First, Carol gave a handful of non-SF readers short stories to try to entice them to read a science fiction novel. Short stories are tough...and they’re short. When trying to introduce big concepts that are otherwise foreign to a new reader it’s hard to give them something of 4,000 or so words. Even in the best short reads it’s difficult to fully develop a concept in a way that would be accessible to new genre initiates. To be really honest, I don’t read all that many short stories -- novellas, okay, but a short story has to be really darn good to take the reader somewhere in just a few words. And please don’t get me started on “Flash Fiction.”

I would retry the experiment and give a few avid readers a short SF novella to enjoy -- don’t ask me which one. A novella has a better time pulling in the reader, developing characters, and allowing immersion through a familiarity that grows over dozens of pages. To Carol’s point further down in the article, SF takes a certain kind of concentration and introduction that I don’t think any short story can accomplish. In order to enjoy a genre short story you must be a genre fan. There are certain assumptions made within the subtext in order to get the word count way down. I do agree with Carol that readers do need context when diving into a new genre. That’s exactly why I believe short stories are terrible for converting new SF followers. Short stories may be fine little vignettes for the hard-core fan, but not a newbie.

I also don’t agree that readers run screaming away from challenging material -- and it depends on the definition of “challenging.” Let’s take the case of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. (Yeah, I read it...okay.) It’s not challenging from a strange literary standpoint, but the entire concept of the book challenges much of the religious and social conventions of the western world that were born out of Christianity. The novel caused an uproar that continues to this day. It also sold umpteen million copies all around the globe and made Dan Brown a household name. If it’s challenging and controversial readers will buy, publishers will market, and the media talking heads will flap their jowls until every last copy disappears from the shelves -- then they print more and do it all again.

This then goes to the argument that modern SF is challenging in all the wrong ways -- that it only speaks to 6% of the market and will never go beyond that because it has found it’s comfortable little niche. Avid SF readers, reviewers, magazines, and SF organizations, whether they say it or not, all expect the same thing. They look back to Dangerous Visions and compare all modern faire to that benchmark, scoffing at flavors that harken back to an earlier, brighter time when science and technology were considered marvelous achievements of the human experience. Now both, along with their human stewards, are seen as a plague upon the earth. It’s the apocalypse, global warming, corporate engineered super-plagues, and oversexed robots with swords all the time. Maybe 94% of the population doesn’t want to read that. Maybe they want some hope. Maybe they want to look at the future with some sort of optimism that it will be around for their children and grandchildren. Maybe the SF world has lost the hope and faith in itself. Maybe it’s time for a new Dangerous Visions...like Powerful Future Visions.

The rest of what Carol speaks of, besides the social aspects (that’s another show), I fully agree with. SF is a taste acquired in youth, sports fans don’t understand why genetic mutation can’t make their cheesy popcorn last longer, and that people are reading SF now anyway without actually knowing it (I mention this fact in my article SF Should Take It’s Cue From Drug Dealers and Terrorists...here’s the link).

Yet this all leaves us just where we started. 94% of the book world will pass us by in favor of just about anything else, and that just burns my shorts. We talk, blog, have panels, talk some more, blog violently, and sometimes drown our sorrows in an episode of Battlestar Galactica (or Dr. Who), but at the end of the day we have moved nowhere. As you read this post another SF leaning independent bookstore has closed, a magazine has reduced its print run or shut down, and a school has turned another potential SF reader away from books by requiring such glorious classics as The Scarlet Letter and The Jungle, leaving him or her with a learned distaste for the printed page.

So what do we do? Instead of ending on a sour note, I want to offer some ideas. By doing just a few of these things, I think we can increase our percentage of readers.

First, there needs to be many many more gateway and young-adult titles. Hard and Mundane SF may be nice for the 6%ers, but Space Opera, Science Fantasy, and good old SF Adventure novels that appeal to a wide audience (especially kids) is imperative to get readers from media tie-in novels to other science fiction offerings. HALO: Ghosts of the Onyx by Eric Nylund is a media tie-in novel from a video game series. The book was the #2 paperback in the country a few weeks ago. The readership is there. We just need to bring them over, and if that means giving away YA and gateway titles to schools we need to do that. The investment will go a long way to increasing SF readership for the future. This could also mean that media tie-in publishers team with boutique SF houses to bundle books together, creating the glorious two-for-one that budget strapped readers love.

Second, the Media SF and Literary SF worlds need to band together. Science fiction is dominant in video games, TV, and at the movies. Literary SF imprints could work with upcoming movie releases to distribute free or advanced copies of titles at movie premiers. These books should have similar subject matter to the film, allowing the audience to transition to a similar world and thus get their “fix” after a supposed successful screening. Novellas would be best, as they are cheaper to print and also quicker to read. But a progressive SF house could team with Hollywood to coordinate say a book about time travel with a big time travel movie release. The same could be done in a modified way with TV...and there are a bunch of SF shows on TV now or in development.

Third, and most important, we need more triumphant and empowering novels that look toward the future with hope. We need novels that make you cheer filled with heroic characters that make you want to buy a ticket on Virgin Galactic. We need to stop looking at the future as this dark black hole of doom and celebrate our achievements and what is to come. We need to get people excited about science and all its wonder. People want hope -- the hope for a brighter tomorrow. Let’s give them that hope. We can do it. We did it before and we can do it again.

I have said it before: SF is a genre that teaches, inspires, and entertains like none else. The media world has proven this, but they also sell the vision of a bright tomorrow. Maybe if we seed the shelves of our bookstores with SF titles that do the same, we may begin to see a renaissance -- a renaissance that goes beyond the New Wave and Dangerous Visions. For if we wish to get the other 94% of readers to pick up a science fiction novel, we need to give them a reason to do so. People look to many different things to give them hope for a better tomorrow. Maybe if we show through SF that, if we work together, we can create a bright future and bring about that better tomorrow. Humanity has the power to do this, and science is one of the major implements to help take us there. If we give them hope, give them heroes, and make them cheer, I bet we could change the face of science fiction publishing and grow SF readership to a point where 6% becomes a distant memory. And I think that’s a future we all hope for.

Today's Time Waster: Death Star Designer

Link: Star Wars: Lethal Alliance - Death Star Designer
Every SF site has been buzzing about this thing and I'd thought I would post the link. If you intend to get any work done today, just forget about it. It's Friday before a big holiday weekend. If your boss made you show up to the office, boot up this site, forward the phone to voicemail, and spend the next several hours trying to design the perfect Imperial superweapon.