Tor.com

Thu Aug 9, 2018 10:00am 52 comments 6 Favorites [+]

With the announcement that Sir Patrick Stewart will be reprising his signature role of Jean-Luc Picard for a planned Star Trek television series on the CBS AllAccess streaming service, speculation has run rampant about what that series could possibly be. Will he return to the Enterprise, or will the series be set planet-side? Will Picard join the admiralty, or will he be retired to his vineyard? Will he lead Star Fleet Academy—a series idea I’ve seen suggested for twenty years—or lead Picard’s 11, where Jean-Luc gets the gang back together to rob the heck out of the Ferengi?

There’s so much speculation because we know so little about the show at this point, just that Stewart is playing Picard and that it’s set 20 years after Nemesis. And yet, that’s enough to get me excited because it means the franchise is doing something it hasn’t done in 15 years: it’s moving the story forward.

Comics

Paper Girls is Good and You Should Read It

Tue Aug 7, 2018 11:00am 5 comments 1 Favorite [+]

When Paper Girls debuted in the halcyon days of 2015, it was justly well received, earning high praise from reviewers, a Hugo nomination for best Graphic Story, and a couple of Eisner awards. However, a lot of the praise for the first volume was based on promise. The story of four 12-year-old paper delivery girls in 1988 caught in the crossfire of a temporal war threw a lot of balls into the air—enough that it made sense to question whether writer Brian K. Vaughan, illustrator Cliff Chiang, colorist Matthew Wilson, and letterer and designer Jared K. Fletcher would be able to catch them all.

Three years, twenty-two issues, and four volumes later, I’m happy to report that they caught them with aplomb, while deftly throwing in two more balls, an apple, and a chainsaw. (End juggling metaphor.)

Teen Titans

Titans Exposes Everything Wrong with DC’s Gritty, Boring Approach to Live Action

Tue Jul 24, 2018 11:00am 43 comments 9 Favorites [+]

The trailer for Titans, the first series exclusively on the new DC Universe streaming service, dropped last week to… less than positive reviews. Nothing about the trailer—not lead Raven, not Senegalese Starfire, not the Dove cameo, not the conspicuous lack of Cyborg—made more noise than ten seconds of Robin saying “F**k Batman” and killing a bunch of dudes. It’s intentionally shocking, a bold declaration that this is something new and edgy, nothing like the Teen Titans you grew up with. These are superheroes for adults.

The problem is, it’s exactly like the Teen Titans I grew up with. It’s not that “a gritty take,” as the official synopsis describes the series, isn’t faithful to the comics. It’s that it’s faithful to New Teen Titans and The Dark Knight Returns, comics that are over 30 years old, literally older than most of the cast. The new series looks dated. The whole trailer has the desaturated tones, melodramatic dialogue, and low production values of a circa-2000 WB drama, like it should be the lead-in for Birds of Prey.

zombies

How iZombie Became a Show About the Birth of a Minority Subculture

Fri Jul 13, 2018 10:00am 28 comments 5 Favorites [+]

Zombie stories are about dehumanization, about what makes an entire population less than human and a threat to civilization itself, whether that’s racism (Night of the Living Dead) or consumerism (Dawn of the Dead), apathy (Shaun of the Dead) or rage (28 Days Later). The CW’s iZombie, on the other hand, is more interested in how zombies get their humanity back.

The show is very clear on the cause of zombification: trauma. Like her predecessor Veronica Mars—the titular protagonist of another mystery show by series creator Rob Thomas—Liv Moore (yes, that’s her name, the show loves puns) survives a violent assault and finds herself disconnected and numb afterwards, withdrawing from her family and friends and subject to mood swings and violent outbursts: all classic symptoms of trauma. She also turns chalk white and needs to eat a brain a week to stay sane, so the metaphor only extends so far. Still… like Veronica before her, Liv finds purpose by solving crimes, using her skills as a medical examiner and ability to experience the memories of the people she eats.

television

The Divine (Situation) Comedy: How The Good Place Is Making TV Better, Smarter, and More Interesting

Fri Jun 29, 2018 10:30am 7 comments 14 Favorites [+]

If you haven’t seen it, NBC’s The Good Place is a (Hugo-nominated) fantasy sit-com about Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), a morally mediocre (at best) woman who dies and finds herself in a sort-of heaven called the Good Place. Figuring that someone somehow made a cosmic mistake, Eleanor tries to learn how to be good before the Good Place’s architect Michael (Ted Danson) finds out and sends her to the Bad Place.

(If you have seen it, you’ll notice this article does its level best to avoid spoiling the wilder twists, but if you know, then you know.)

Marvel Cinematic Universe

How Daddy Issues Drive the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Wed Jun 13, 2018 11:00am 33 comments 7 Favorites [+]

From the moment Tony Stark put on power armor to slug it out with Obadiah Stane for control of Arc Reactor technology, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been about a generational struggle against Bad Dads for the fate of the world.

Each movie is the story of men (mostly) realizing that they can no longer rely on their fathers (or uncles, or other surrogate father figures) to fix their problems for them, and now must use their own sense of morality and ethics to decide what to do with the great power they possess.

Superhero Fun on a Shoestring Budget: Caper

[Fightin' crime don't pay my bills…]

Wed Mar 26, 2014 3:00pm 6 comments Favorite This

What if Pepper Potts had designed the Iron Man suit, and Tony Stark had just stolen the credit? What if, after stealing the suit back, a penniless Pepper had to move into a crappy apartment with her friends Thor, Superman, and Wonder Woman? And what if, to pay the rent, and maybe a little bit for revenge, the super powered roommates decided to rob Tony for all he’s worth?

That, in a nutshell, is the premise of Caper, Geek and Sundry’s web series created by Amy Berg and Mike Sizemore. Berg was a writer on Eureka and Leverage, and tonally Caper feels like a mash-up of those two shows. It’s a light, poppy take on a sci fi world filled with complicated, diverse people, but built on an engine of righteous outrage that drives the Robin Hood antics of Leverage and, well, the entire superhero genre.

“And So the Legend Begins”—Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood

Fri Jan 3, 2014 12:00pm 46 comments 3 Favorites [+]

I wanted to like Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood so much more than I did.

There are so many elements of the movie that I think are really clever, especially how Scott uses actual historical events to create a new plot for the familiar characters. Gone are tropes like the archery contest, dueling Little John on a bridge, wooing Marian from afar, and a climactic jail break.

In their place is the story of Robin Longstride, an archer returning from the Crusades, who impersonates a dead knight in the hopes of a free trip to England and maybe a small payday. But Robin impersonates the wrong knight, Sir Robert of Loxley, bringing him face to face with the new King John. Things get more complicated when, taking a page from The Return of Martin Guerre, Loxley’s father convinces Robin to continue the charade so that Loxley’s widow, Marian, can retain her lands. Now Robin, a thief at heart, finds himself responsible for a town, and in conflict with the local tax collector, the Sheriff of Nottingham.

That sounds like a pretty good Robin Hood plot, yeah? Unfortunately, it’s only the B plot. Because the A plot is “The Shockingly Bloody History of the Magna Carta, Oh And Also There Is Robin Hood.”

Series: Rewatching Robin Hood on Tor.com

Rewatching Robin Hood

“Funny Guy! Fun-ny Guy!”—Robin Hood: Men in Tights

Thu Jan 2, 2014 10:00am 14 comments Favorite This

On top of being a brilliant parody of other Robin Hood movies, specifically skewering Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Mel Brooks’s Robin Hood: Men in Tights works pretty decently as a Robin Hood story on its own. The mugging for the camera, anachronisms, and meta-humor about being a Mel Brooks movie remove the story from the specific setting of late 12th century England and make it speak to the experience of its contemporary audience. And the meta-textual satire recalls the spirit of the festival plays which popularized and developed the Robin Hood myths, where Robin would directly encourage the audience to boo the Sheriff and help him hide.

Series: Rewatching Robin Hood on Tor.com

Rewatching Robin Hood

“It’s Dull, You Twit. It Will Hurt More!”—Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

Wed Jan 1, 2014 11:00am 36 comments 1 Favorite [+]

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is a terrible movie. Much, much worse than you remember.

Most of the fault lies at Kevin Costner’s feet (and we’ll get to his lackluster performance in a moment), but the whole production is a splotchy mess. It’s nonsensical when it’s not racist, and that’s only when it’s not dull as dishwater—which, granted, is most of the time. All of the actors (with one shining exception) are utterly without charm. There are far too many subplots that don’t go anywhere. And everything is performed with an early 90s earnestness that ends up being super dour.

Series: Rewatching Robin Hood on Tor.com

Rewatching Robin Hood

“Those Impudent Musical Peasants!”—Disney’s Robin Hood

Tue Dec 31, 2013 11:00am 25 comments Favorite This

Disney’s Robin Hood (1973) is the Robin Hood myth at its most mythic. It has the simplest plot (Robin robs and humiliates John so badly that eventually John throws all of Robin’s friends in jail, leading Robin and Little John to stage an epic jailbreak/heist). It’s divorced from historical context, indeed it is divorced from human characters entirely. The Disney version is Robin Hood as fairy tale: John is a lion who taxes his subjects simply because he loves money, and Robin Hood is a clever fox that robs and gives to the poor, because, well, because that’s what Robin Hood does.

Series: Rewatching Robin Hood on Tor.com

Rewatching Robin Hood

“Our Young Saxon Cockerel Here”—The Adventures of Robin Hood

Mon Dec 30, 2013 11:00am 15 comments Favorite This

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb saying 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood is the iconic version of the Robin Hood mythos. Even 75 years later, if you imagine Robin Hood in your head, you’re probably thinking of a tall, thin man with a goatee, wearing a felt, feathered cap, bright green doublet and tights, laughing haughtily at authority (Or you’re thinking of a fox wearing basically the same clothes, and we’ll get to him next).

And if you think of the archetypal Robin Hood adventures—the quarterstaff fight with Little John; the archery contest; the climactic sword fight on the castle stairs—they’re all in this movie. But for all that it set the ideal of what a Robin Hood story is, The Adventures of Robin Hood has some complicated nuances that really reflect its creation.

Series: Rewatching Robin Hood on Tor.com

Rewatching Robin Hood

Rewatching Robin Hood: The Drinking Game

Mon Dec 30, 2013 11:00am 4 comments Favorite This

There are certain things you expect from any Robin Hood movie, and what’s great about this game is that it works for any version of Robin Hood.

Trust me, I’ve checked.

[Bullseye!]

Series: Rewatching Robin Hood on Tor.com

Rewatching Robin Hood