"Orphan Black" and Genre

In my ongoing attempt to catch up to several years ago in pop culture, I’ve finally begun watching Orphan Black. As of the halfway point of my watch, it’s an amazing series, and I wanted to write something about it to reflect on my love for it, even if it was brief.

And there are a million things I could write about. There’s the brilliant acting of Tatiana Maslany, who can effortlessly play a variety of distinct and interesting characters with such skill that you can not only identify them by body language alone, you can identify when it's one character impersonating another. There’s the incredible supporting cast, taking well-written parts and turning them into an entire immersive world. There’s the brilliant cinematography and soundtrack, which are brilliant in setting an unsettling yet magnetic scene.

But I wanted to focus on just one aspect, to keep it more focused. Specifically, I want to look at the transition from season one to season two, and how the writers do a great job of transitioning the genre to accommodate the growing show. 

Like several shows in recent memory, Orphan Black is a mythology-intensive science-fiction drama, highly dependent on a mystery built around its sci-fi hook. However, in many shows like this*, there’s a central issue: when you build a season around a central mystery, you’re going to have to answer it. Once you do that, how do you move on? How can you create that excitement again?

*I’m gonna try not to single out Heroes, but it really is representative of most of these issues, so feel free to substitute that in if you need a specific example.

In an interesting maneuver, series creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett decide to not try. Season 1 is a mystery thriller through-and-through, even frequently crossing into the police procedural genre as Sarah Manning tries to investigate the various mysteries. The show explodes out of the gate, with the first scene setting up the central question that will drive the rest of the season. From there, it's starts to play like a murder mystery; who is committing the string of murders, a general "what's the motive", and related questions.

By season two, all of those general questions are answered, so rather than come up with a new mystery to propel the show forward, it takes a different approach. Determining the murder and motives in season one served to build up the show's mythology, so they shift to exploring that instead. There's no obvious central question driving the plot forward, like the "Who was Beth Childs?" or "Who is the killer?" or "Who is or isn't a spy?" that drove the first season. Instead, it's a much more abstract "What's going on?", or "What is everyone's end game?" It gives the season the feel of a conspiracy thriller.

And once you notice that, you begin to notice all the other shifts that subtly occurred to make that work. For instance, Sarah is still the main focus of the show. However, the rest of the clones start to take over more and more prominent roles in the storyline.  Alison’s impending mental collapse finally comes to pass; Cosima gets her own conflict that centers on her and not how it affects Sarah; and it’s no coincidence that Helena alone deals with the Proletheans, the shadowy cult that had been plaguing all of the clones for the entire show, for the entire back half of the season. The other characters stories are finally no longer leaning on Sarah’s.

As a result of this, it feels like the writers are laying all of their cards on the table, to put it one way. Most mysteries don’t linger. In season one, we spent episodes wondering who was murdering the clones, what they wanted, who they worked for, what happened to Beth Childs, and so on. In season two, it’s rare for any “mystery” to last more than an episode. We find out a character thought dead is alive, and they turn up by the end of next episode. We see Sarah go to a mysterious stranger from her past for help, and know what his deal is within a scene or two. Siobhán disappears mysteriously in the first episode, and by the end of the episode, we’ve ruled out the predominant theory about it; by the next episode, we know more or less everything about it (as well as just about everything she knows about the circumstances as well).

The questions, compared to those in the first season, feel tangential, and more towards fleshing out our existing understanding of the status quo rather than building it up from scratch. The tension doesn’t come from finding out what’s going on, it comes from watching something happen and seeing how the characters, both good and bad, respond to it while trying to out-maneuver the other side in real time. For instance, in the last example I gave, we find out get a look into Siobhán’s actions that Sarah doesn't, so we know her motivations (well, we have a decent idea at least); the tension comes from Sarah’s uncertainties on the matter and whether she can piece everything together. Watching these interactions, and seeing the Clone Club try and stay ahead of the big, scary Dyad corporation or the Prolethean cult, or whatever other parties are out there, is what gives it a lot of the “conspiracy thriller” vibe.

I look forward to seeing if they continue with this new approach in my watch of season 3, or if they decide to branch out in a different direction yet again. 

The Strategy for Adapting a Live-Action Pokémon Movie

Rumors have been swirling around Nintendo wanting to adapt their franchises to movies, and one of the first franchises attached to this news was none other than Pokémon. I’m not sure what to think of this news yet; it’s exciting to see something that were such a large part of both my formative years and my life as a whole getting a big adaptation, but there’s so much room for things to grow horribly wrong. And unlike, say, comic book movies, which have sort of always just been a part of my life since I was young, this will mark totally new ground.

So, since the news broke, I’ve been thinking: what could a Pokémon movie look like? How can you adapt something like that to a movie? And almost as importantly, what exactly is it that made me like Pokémon? Because that last question especially will be important in adapting the work into a new medium for a larger audience.

With that in mind, I’d like to propose my hypothetical list of dos and don’ts for adapting Pokémon to the silver screen.

Music Monday: Summer Playlist

I had a lot of fun making a playlist for the last Music Monday, so I want to try it again. This time, in celebration of the Memorial Day weekend, I want to focus on Summer Songs. And I’m not referring to how people will label certain pop songs “the song of the summer”, I’m talking about songs that feel explicitly summery (although there can be overlap, depending on the song I guess, although I don’t include any of that overlap here). I have no idea if other people think of songs as “Summer Songs”, but I definitely do. And for whatever reason, none of the other seasons get that sort of label in my head.

My most basic definition has been a sort of tautological “songs that sound good during summer”, something you would listen to sitting by the pool, or driving around with the windows down on a hot day, or just enjoying warm evenings.

I’ve just tried reverse engineer what qualities make me think that, but there hasn’t been any one factor that’s consistent among them.*  There have been a few qualities I’ve noticed though, including things like strong basslines; a light and almost airy feel (although not all are explicitly; explicit references to summer, heat, relaxing/wasting time, and youth; high synth or guitar parts, mostly as rhythm instruments but sometimes with lead riffs; and big, easy-to-sing-along-to choruses as well as frequent use of non-words (like “ohs”, for example) to the same end.

*Other than “I have memories of listening to them over the summer”, but that’s a big chicken-and-egg question. Did I listen to them over the summer because I thought they sounded summery? Or did I decide they sounded summery because I remember listening to them over the summer? Not all of them came out during the summer, for what it’s worth, so I think that leads me to think it’s the first, but I can’t be sure either way.

Now that I got that way-too-academic breakdown, here’s the playlist:

Music Monday: Pick-Me-Up Playlist

I wanted to try something different for this Music Monday. I’ve been wanting to write about music for a while, but no song has inspired me enough to write a could hundred words on it. In any case, it was kind of a gray, cold, rainy, and all-around miserable weekend, and I needed something to cheer me up, so I started listening to some music to perk up my mood. I just kept going with songs until I decided to just make a playlist and share it, with some words about that. Maybe by just chipping in a few words about each one, I’ll feel more inspired. Either way, it’ll let me share music I love, which is always a plus.

  

Some Thoughts on X-Men, Both New and Astonishing

In my continuing quest to read old comics that I probably should have read years ago, I recently wrapped up my reading of Grant Morrison’s early-2000s run on New X-Men. This was preceded by my run-though of Joss Whedon’s stretch on Astonishing X-Men, which originally immediately followed Morrison’s work*, and the combined effect left me wanting to talk about them.

*Yeah, I kind of read them backwards, but it wasn’t really that much of a problem.

I don’t want to straight-up compare them and say which one is better, as they’re both fantastic works in their own right, and I love them in very different ways (I’ll try and explain that in a bit). Some comparison between them is inevitable, though.  In any case, the most succinct way I would compare them is: I like the scope of Morrison’s ideas more, but I think Whedon better reached the potential of his ideas.

The best starting place I can think of in this comparison is in characters the two introduced. Actually, both writers introduced numerous of characters; let’s narrow the scope to just the heroes (this discussion will have spoilers for a decade-plus-old set of comics, so fair warning):

Runaways vs. Runaways: Comparing the Newest Run to the Original

I’ve talked about it here before, but I just want to say it outright: Runaways is easily one of my favorite comics of all-time. I might even go as far as to say it’s #1 on my list, if I put more meticulous thought into those sorts of things.

Although, in the interest of full accuracy, series creator Brian K. Vaughn’s run was the part I’m referring to when I speak that highly of it. Joss Whedon’s follow-up story is close enough in quality that I don’t mind much. Everything after Whedon is where it gets rough, which is why I was a little hesitant when Marvel announced they’d be bringing the series back in 2015 under a new writer, Noelle Stevenson. The main series was essentially batting .500 on writers.

And then they announced that the return would be a part of the Battleworlds* stories, and that most of the cast would be unrelated to the original group. Could it recapture that original Runaways charm when it was a bunch of newbies dealing with a Dr. Doom-led Sky High-like institution instead of kids on the lam from supervillain parents? Could the characters recapture the likability of Nico, Victor, and the rest of the group**?

*For those not in the know, this was part of Marvel’s Secret Wars even. Long story short, the Marvel multiverse went through a weird “cosmic reshuffling”-type of event, with the end result being the company gave writers free reign to make stories up using whatever alternate universe characters or settings they could imagine.

**It seems we won’t be getting any more of the original team, either, which is a shame. But even worse is how most of the cast is under-utilized at the moment. Right now, I believe it’s basically just Nico on A-Force in the larger Marvel Universe. Victor showing up as a glorified cameo in the first issue of Nick Spencer’s Ant-Man: Second Chance Man is one of the greatest disappointments I’ve had, and in what is otherwise a great story. Maybe the inevitable next Young Avengers reboot could take some of them on?

I initially didn’t think I’d read it, but good word of mouth and my curiosity led to me picking up the trade paperback. Noelle Stevenson absolutely nails the tone, and even with the new cast, setting, and entire universe, it feels like a natural extension of the original story. There were even times where I forgot as I was reading it that it wasn’t related to the previous Runaways stories. It’s easy to get caught up in Stevenson’s brisk, fun pacing and artist Sanford Greene’s inviting stylized look.

This feels like the platonic idea of the concept of a spiritual successor. Stevenson does a great job of recapturing the youthful energy and rebellious spirit of the original with a similarly memorable cast, all while pushing her premise in unique ways. In fact, it feels like in every way that Stevenson could zig the way the original did, she zagged. Whereas the original Runaways were united in their home life, these ones are bound together by the other major setting for young-adult-based fiction, school. Where the originals were tightly bound and close together, this one is immediately split, with members staying behind or splitting up. Where the original group had treachery below the surface, this one makes it obvious right away.

The best distinction, though, comes with the choice of antagonist. The new version eschews the original’s kids vs. parents aesthetic not just by setting the conflict in a school, but by then making Valeria von Doom, Dr. Doom’s supergenius six-year-old, the acting headmaster and foil to the team. The villains are all just like the heroes, going through their own growth parallel to the heroes.

There are some differences between the two, and in the end, the original is still the best. Stevenson resists the short-hand of making the new team correspond directly to the old team, which is admirable and makes for a more interesting lead, but also means that she needs to set up even more characters*, as well as the much-stranger alternate universe the story takes place in. None of the characters quite get the focus the original sextet (or their later add-ons), and although they are still just as fun to watch bounce off each other, it still doesn’t feel like enough. Most of this can be blamed on the constraints of the larger event it took place in; the new team got four issues to the original’s eighteen (before its renewal). The new series needs one whole issue of setting everything up before it can get to the shocking twist in the second that forces the team in motion, something the original series could pull right away since it was on a fundamentally more recognizable Earth.

*There is some short-hand involved in Stevenson’s characterizations: all of the characters are versions of existing Marvel characters. But given that the main cast is a dozen-strong, that’s definitely understandable.

And really, that’s probably the greatest tragedy of the new series. I know I complained earlier about how the original Runaways would probably never get another series, but this team’s universe literally doesn’t exist anymore. Their story wrapped up (on a “the adventure continues!” sort of note, so sort of open-ended), but it felt like an amazing appetizer to a meal that won’t ever be arriving. There’s a great imaginativeness at play here that I wish could have been explored more, and I hope that Marvel can one day find some way to bring it back (although I wouldn’t hold my breath on that). All the same, I’ll take the brief brilliance in Volume 4 here over the drawn-out-but-wildly-inconsistent (at best) volume 3.

Super Smash Marvel 4: What Would the Newest Super Smash Marvel Game's Roster Look Like?

With three down and only one more to go, we’re almost through with the Super Smash Marvel series. There’s plenty left to go, though, with our biggest roster expansion ever in the fourth game.

Super Smash Bros 4 was released just over a year ago, in late 2014. 4 added more characters to the series than any other game, starting with 51 characters (12 more than were in Super Smash Bros Brawl); then, through downloadable content, the game added seven more characters (the last two of which, Bayonetta and Corryn from the Fire Emblem series, were announced just last week). Meanwhile, in the Marvel world, the comics were gearing up towards the huge Secret Wars event while the studio was moving from the unexpected success of Guardians of the Galaxy to their biggest release yet in Avengers 2 (meanwhile over at Fox Studios, the X-Men had just had their own huge release in the form of Days of Future Past). This is where we pick up our Smash Marvel series.

Super Smash Marvel Brawl: What Would the Third Super Smash Marvel Game's Roster Look Like?

We’re halfway through with the Smash Marvel series, so we might as well finish it off. In case you need to get caught up, here’s the original, and here’s the sequel.

First, the context we’ll be dealing with. In real life, Super Smash Bros Brawl in early 2008, the same year that the first Iron Man movie was released kickstarting the Marvel Cinematic Universe. My suspicion is that this would have had a small impact on the roster, but a definite one. I imagine there would be some extra consideration given to characters expected to be movie leads in the near future, as a way to help build them up (it also helps we’re starting to go a little deeper into the Marvel character list; without this, it might be a little harder to differentiate who would get preference). It’s also worth noting that, with a seven-year gap between games, there was actually time for new characters to be created and popularized in between installments, unlike between the first two.

Also, Smash Bros Brawl was where Nintendo began introducing third party characters to their roster, starting with Sonic the Hedgehog and Snake. I really struggled what to do with this information. In the end, I decided to ignore it, because there’s just not a particularly satisfying direct comparison, and there are still so many Marvel characters to choose from.

If you’re interested, though, I had a few attempts at mirroring this move. My first thought was to copy it literally, with other comic companies’ characters appearing. However, while that would be somewhat manageable for the two slots we’d need here, we’d be pushing it come the next installment. We’d need four (or five, depending on how well I kept my “no cutting characters” rule) different comics companies represented, and while we could do this* (say, Batman from DC, Spawn from Image, X-O Manowar from Valiant Comics, Hellboy from Dark Horse Comics, and Scott Pilgrim from Oni Press, for one set), no configuration feels like it has the same impact as “Sonic, Pac-Man, and Megaman” does. If you truly wanted to get characters that most people would know and not small cameos for hardcore comics geeks, you’d be better off sticking with to just picking DC characters; Justice League vs the Avengers gets a lot closer to that “Sonic vs. Mario” feel I’m aiming for. But again, you’d eventually be giving five to six slots out of about fifty just to DC characters to guest-star in what is ostensibly a Marvel fighting game. At that point, it feels like you might as well just make a straight-up “Marvel vs. DC” fighting game. And I thought about letting Marvel borrow other characters from within Disney, but they weren’t purchased until 2009 (and Star Wars, the Disney franchise that could most readily lend characters to this concept, wasn’t purchased until 2012). If you’d like, though, feel free to use any of those scenarios as the basis to your roster if these explanations aren’t doing it for you. 

Anyway, Smash Bros Brawl had 39 different playable characters (although several were combined into single characters, there were 39 distinct movesets). Of the 18 new characters (5 characters were cut from Melee), we had a good-character-to-evil-character breakdown of approximately 15:3 (I’m counting Wolf, King Dedede, and Wario, although I feel like you could argue with the status of the last two as well as Meta Knight). The gender makeup (which I’ve roughly matched so far as well) was 14 to 3 to 1 (ROB is a robot, so I guess genderless? Plus the Pokemon, which could be either, although I suppose all of the new additions have gender ratios that skew male, so summing those odds up probably comes out below 3…this is more complicated than I hoped). And lastly, one franchise (Pokemon) added four characters, but three of them were combined into one, plus they lost two representatives from the last game… These breakdowns seem to get more complicated with each game. I’ll try to keep each franchise to two representatives max, since there are so many mitigating factors there, although maybe there is a franchise that can justify four new representatives.