Bunch-o-links: Art and Entertainment
on October 28th, 2009Our good pal J. Michael Straczynski is either the #1 scribe in Hollywood or very close to it. Details on this and JMS’s other films at Variety. Lots of other films. When does he sleep?
Jerry Bruckheimer is plotting a civil war at Disney, tapping J. Michael Straczynski to adapt 2K Games’ “Shattered Union.”…In the game, states secede from the U.S. and form their own governments that wage a civil war against each other after Washington, D.C., is wiped out in a nuclear blast and chaos ravages the nation.
At Topless Robot, James Cameron’s Avatar film looks suspiciously close to a 1959 Poul Anderson novella.
Now, is Cameron ripping off this Poul Anderson book? I say FUCK AND YES. Maybe Cameron forgot he read it, or he heard about the story second-hand and doesn’t realize how much he’s stealing, but this kind of shit can’t be coincidence.
An interesting article on a new biography of Ayn Rand, made far more interesting by the comments section. Leftists and Objectivists go at each other. Spectator sport, bring popcorn.
1. If those who act according to the tenets of some ethical theory are, by and large, morally repulsive, then that theory is false.
2. Those who think and act according to Objectivist tenets are, by and large, morally repulsive (narcissistic, contemptuous, egoistic).
3. Therefore, Objectivism is false.Nothing ad hominem about that.
Then we should all be leftists because Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, and Kim Jung Il are moral giants.
…I’d like to think that I have the exotic machismo of Castro, the happy-go-lucky charm of Marshal Tito, and the “Byron-esque” self-reflection of Mussolini.
Popcorn. I like mine with lots of butter and extra salt.
Alas, popular science fiction artist Don Punchatz, dead at 73.
Interesting note about his studio work method:
One of them, the comic artist and painter Gary Panter, said the studio worked like a Renaissance workshop. “Don did the initial line art, which was passed to a line of assistants with varying degrees of expertise,” Mr. Panter explained in an e-mail message. “The least skilled (that would be me) painted flat colors; next came basic rendering of values in transparent washes of acrylic paint to indicate form and refine the surface detail; often the art was overlaid with a unifying color airbrushed over the entire illustration; then Don finished the illustration with a final level of highlighting and precise calligraphic brushwork, Rapidograph or fine knife scratches.”
re: Avatar
Wow. Just… wow. I have purposely not been looking at it hoping that it would live up to the “new and fresh” hype. Now that I see it… Jeez. Just the synopsis alone tells me 50′s. And Poul Anderson? Oh no one will EVER notice this, it’s not like he’s a big name or anything…
Hi Desk. Sup, Head. Ready? Let’s get this over with…
I have a vague memory of reading that book when I was a kid.
Plot similarities could be coincidental, but dang, from that synopsis it does look bad.
Considering the lawsuit Harlan Ellison had against him, you’d think James Cameron would be more careful.
The double-standards against people of different opinions is both amusing and pathetic. Sure, bash the Objectivists but if they say anything about you, then that is horrible. I usually ascribe to John Stuart Mill’s opinion on liberty – how the many should not silence the few nor the few silence the many.
I don’t mind getting into discussions with people; just can’t deal with the “my way is the only way” types.
RE: The leftist-objectivist schism, I hope you won’t mind if I post something here that I first posted at PeterDavid.net in response to the assertion that “There are no calm, sane, rational conservatives.”
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(The individuals referred to below are frequent posters at PeterDavid.net. “David the Bold” is *not* Peter David, by the way — not trying to be condescending, but the Web is Home of the Misunderstanding.)
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“I think it’s irrational in the extreme to believe that one side of the ideological spectrum has a lock on rationality, morality, or any other virture. While I disagree passionately with some of ‘David the Bold’s’ ideas, he presents as someone who is quite rational.
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“(I can’t know for sure what he’s like away from the keyboard, of course. But if I had to bet money I’d place my bet on him being a stable and mentally healthy individual.)
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“There’s no reason why people of different political persuasions can’t learn to respect each other. I’m quite the lefty in many respects. Yet I have lived for the last eight years with a woman who holds many conservative views, although she’s moved to the left on issues like healthcare. (God forbid that people mix-and-match ideas from different points on the political spectrum! The End Is Near!) Bill Mulligan is quite the conservative in many respects, yet he is one of my closest friends.
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“The trick is to acknowledge that we’re all limited, we’re all flawed, and we’re all doing the best we can in a reality that throws more at us than our minds our equipped to handle. We’re all coming to conclusions about the world that are probably tenuous at best in the greater scheme of things.
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“Mind you, I’m not abandoning my liberal principles because, tenuous as they may be in the larger scheme, they still strike me as the best conclusions to draw on the basis of what I know. I’m guessing ‘David the Bold’ feels the same way about his conservative principles. So, as much as he and I disagree, we share at least that much in common.
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“Besides, the ‘us vs. them’ approach to political discourse is intellectually lazy. It substitutes regurgitated talking points and ad hominem attacks for real thought.”
Ah, yes, let me re-post the whole thing… including where I substituted the word “our” for “are,” casting into doubt my literacy. Time to quit while I’m behind and go to bed.
Me likey. Thanks for posting that.