I Love Time Travel - Part 6 - Lost, "The Constant"

I love ya, Penny!

I loved this show so much that I was just happy I gave myself an excuse to watch this episode again. If you have never seen it, a lot of this will not make any sense, and it will spoil a few things for you.  It is regarded by fans and critics as the best episode of the entire series.  It is also my favorite episode.

May I just muse a bit about the show itself?  If you passed altogether or gave up on Lost, I just want to express how retroactive criticism does not apply.  The thrust of the show was the anticipation and speculation from week to week and season to season.  This show existed before binge-watching was a thing, and for those people it most likely lost a bit of luster.  It is my favorite show of all time, and even with its faults it’s still better than anything I will ever see.  There must be a reason other shows are trying to reproduce its success. 

“The Constant”, for my observation, is a very unique approach to time travel.  In an episode of the second season, “Flashes Before Your Eyes”, we get a taste of Lost as sci-fi, and that the character of Desmond Hume (my favorite) can become unstuck in time (a la Slaughterhouse-Five).  There is no machine.  There are no controls or a plan or initial stakes.  An event on the island propels the Desmond we know into a version of his former self, off the island.  It is years before the events we have seen, and this character’s flashback is guided by the present-day Desmond.

Got it?

In the past, he sees his girlfriend and life before the island.  During his stay he is visited by someone we do not yet know, who knows of him and his future.  His trajectory is changed, because he asked to make a decision he may not have made without interference.  The writers liked the idea of free will playing a part, and Desmond’s flaw is a tragic fear of commitment.  Nice.  Solid.  But as a standalone episode, we didn’t know what to think.  “The Constant”, however is a different animal.  A separate event propels Desmond back in time, but now he flips back and forth between 1996 and 2004.  His 1996 self is in the action with the island people, and the 2004 Desmond is back in 2004.

It is consciousness time travel.  It has been done before, like Peggy Sue Got Married or a number of Twilight Zone episodes.  It is the answer to a party question:  “If you could go back in time in your former body, would you change anything?”  There are no physics at work and there is no travel to speak of; this is simply about the humanity of the proposition itself.  The traveler is not an outsider looking on past events.  He is there, controlling his younger body and making minute and sometimes drastic alterations to his future.  In Lost, the question of whether or not this would work at all is also up for debate.

Desmond tracks down Daniel, who he knows from the island in 2004.   He is a physicist who recognizes Desmond’s plight and utters those words that put my stomach in knots: “You can’t change the future.”  Oh yeah?   The crux of the story is much more human and insanely sweet.  It is about Desmond and Penny reuniting in the past so they can reunite again in 2004…before Desmond dies from the trauma of all this flipping back and forth through time. 

I believe the writers backed themselves into a corner leaving their choice for how time travel works in a logical limbo.  Either you can change things or you can’t.  In a later episode, (I’ll tackle that another time), the assumption changes.  As a viewer, I think it would have been better to know the construct even if the characters were unsure.  Accepting the fate of events simply because you scientifically believe how it will all work out is at best illogical, and at worst, unclear.  I will add that most of these questions are answered to a degree.  Whether or not you like the answers…well…

            Although “The Constant” is in a pretty weak season 4 overall, it encapsulates what made the show so great to watch. Especially the final scene.  (Tears, kids…tears.) If you can make it to this one, the reason behind such dedicated fandom for Lost will be obvious.

Watching The Hobbit While Still Paying Bills

My son and what appears to be the real Sauron at the Portland Comic-Con.

I just wrote a few paragraphs a week ago about how the nerd and art community can embrace sports if they just got their noses out of the air.  Another aspect of this seems to be popping up more and more out there.  Some adults are strident in their lack of acceptance toward anything in the culture merely childlike; even if it is aimed at an ‘all-ages’ crowd.  So silly.

I think I understand the point.  We have entered into a new era of extended adolescence.  Adulthood and responsibility have been pushed back at least ten years, and the American twenty-something is more of a big kid finding his way through life, rather than a young upstart at the bottom an organizational ladder.  Every trend has a pushback.  I get it.  This is a larger point outside of TV, movies, books, and games, to be sure.  All I will add is that life expectancies are rising with this generation and could continue past the age of 100.  Everyone will live longer, so what’s another ten years of fucking around, really?  Why are some people in such a hurry to acquire debt, responsibility and worry?  It’ll happen eventually.  It’s the American way.

This pushback exists outside of the political world and lies squarely in the cultural world.  It has been twenty years of “pull your damn pants up” and beltless kids still let their business hang out.  The cranky adult needs to shake his fist at something, so he’ll be damned if he’s gonna take part in any fantasy-wizard-vampire-dystopian-dragon crap that’s for kids.  I didn’t see that because I’m not nine-years-old.  I don’t read kids’ books.  I have better things to do, I’m an adult.

Shove it.  Really.

There is plenty of time and room for all of these things.  I feel for those stiffs out there who can’t find that imaginative spark inside that enjoys superheroes or Katniss Everdeen.  It says something special about a grown-up that knows a handful of good Italian wines, where to find the perfect coq au vin, and also embraces Frank Miller.  Food, as I write about it now, is an apt metaphor.  We are so lucky to have an abundance of fun and enjoyable items at our American cultural smorgasbord.  There is equal weight in a plate of fried chicken and osso bucco.   It should be just as acceptable to sample biscuits with red-eye gravy and chateaubriand.  

Now I’m hungry.

There is also the problem of limiting possibilities. Our minds are meant to expand and absorb new experiences and pastimes. To resist this is an attitude as old as humanity itself, and it has its place.  But the reason it always crumbles in the face of reality is that it neglects to consider the changes in society.  You can’t shut your eyes on imagination of any kind.  That’s just crazy.  Science benefits from science fiction. Stories, even fantastical ones, bring people together and explore the human experience. How much lore out there that used to be for kids and the sci-fi fantasy crowd is now also aimed at adults?  Would you call Neil Gaiman a kid’s author?  Stephen King?  Not for a second.  But all the ingredients are there: Monsters, magic, epic struggles, possessed cars… So why is JK Rowling strictly kids’ stuff? 

Chock it up to self-importance.  Try and convince me that following baseball isn’t as childish as The Hobbit.  Sports are just games created to pass the time. We watch them on TV and enjoy the competition. In that grand scheme of things is it really that different than holding a controller and blasting zombies?  (If you were a real pro you could do both at the same time!) You are sitting in your home enjoying yourself.  Lose the attitude.

Finally, I am always in favor of accepting more, not less.  Yeah, some of these quasi-adult activities weird me out.  Cosplay is the strangest pastime I’ve seen in a while. But if I’m honest, I wish I had the balls to dress up like Bib Fortuna and have a good time.  LAN parties and Larping may seem dorky to your average polo-wearing stiff out there, but truthfully these guys have more friends than I do.  Please explain why golf is acceptable and D&D is not.  Narrow views of what adulthood should mean to all people are thankfully falling by the wayside.  This is okay.  We will change, grow, adapt. 

We should avoid pissing on each other’s hobbies. As long as no one is getting hurt, have fun.  

I Love Time Travel - Part 5 - The Terminator

Oh no you didn't!

There is confusing time travel, there are loops and single strings and causality… and then there are the Terminator movies.  It is not that the science of time travel that is hard to grasp in these action movies, it just keeps changing.  The rules are switched from movie to movie and sometimes within the same movie.  People don’t watch these movies for the sic-fi, they want to see shit blow up.  As they should.  That’s what I did.  Looking at them through the scope of time travel lore, they are just…off.

For these purposes I’ll only discuss The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day.  (Truthfully, I never saw the third one all the way through and the fourth one was an unwatchable heap of shit.)  But the first two are the best two and that’s all I need. 

The premise is simple.  The future is a hellscape created by Skynet, an artificial intelligence that humanity created.  Skynet nearly wipes out humanity.  There are few remaining warriors, including the leader, John Connor.  Skynet somehow figures out time travel and sends a Terminator robot back to kill the mother of John Connor, who lives in the eighties and is kind of a whiner in the first film.  Simple.  It was based on an episode of The Outer Limits, written by Harlan Ellison.  It is sci-fi at its purest, although it is enveloped in a high-octane action rampage with Schwarzenegger killing everything.

So, Skynet puts this in motion and future Connor sends a trusted soldier back to protect his young mother.  Fine.  I’m assuming Skynet had access to birth records and knew approximately where Sarah Connor would be.  They are betting on single string time travel, where the future can be changed by altering the past.  But the reality is, the soldier and Sarah Connor get their 80’s grooves on and unknowingly create John Connor.  So Connor’s soldier buddy is his dad.  So it’s not a single string.  It’s a loop.  But if it’s a loop, wouldn’t Skynet know about that, too?  If it’s all preordained, would it not know about the failure of the terminator to kill Sarah Connor, the fact that the date of conception was pretty much the same day or so they sent the terminator back, or that maybe it would have been easier to kill John’s grandma?  I know.  It’s just a movie.  And, and 80’s movie at that.

Judgment Day takes what we’ve learned already about this world of Skynet, time travel, and murder robots and flips it around even more.  John is a young teen now and Sarah is scarred by her knowledge of the inevitable future of catastrophe and lack of humans.  She also is a single mom, and she has told her son that one day he will have to send his own father, a man roughly his age, back to create John and then quickly die.  So John is fucked up.

Here is where sequels screw with time travel.  I realize this was a massive (and really cool) sequel and it was an excuse to get more money and use some sweet new effects.  But, as far as this story goes, the time travel gets twisted again.  Skynet sends a new Terminator after John as a boy.  Future John has now reprogrammed an old Terminator to guard young John and sends him back in time.  Cool premise; the villain from the first movie is now essentially the hero.  Action ensues.  Remember this is a time loop, as established in the first film.  Skynet would know all about this, one would assume, because the second terminator also fails to kill John.

Also, halfway through the movie, Sarah gets the idea that Skynet could be stopped.  Maybe they could keep it from existing at all.  So, they find the lead scientist who gets it off the ground and attempt to kill him in order to change the future.  Okay, so is it now single string again?   Can you alter the future even if you know what it will be?  Also, doesn’t she consider that killing the scientist = killing Skynet = killing time travel = making John never exist? But, we also learn that is the remnants of the original terminator from the first film that that served as the foundation for the technology of Skynet.  So is it a loop again?

  At the end, the old Terminator, after disposing of the newer model, destroys himself to wipe out all remaining future tech, thereby eliminating the impetus for Skynet.  So it was a single string movie after all.  You can change the future.  Except, there are two more sequels.  All that didn’t matter.  Ugh.  I give up. Watch for the explosions, try to ignore the story.  Actually, that is good advice for most action movies.

Hey, Nerds: You Can Love Fantasy Football, Too

I’d like to begin with my central premise:  The world of sports and the world of nerdy things are not mutually exclusive.  Feigning ignorance to the world and overall attraction of sports because the jocks were dicks to you in high school is a waste of time.  I love Star Wars, Harry Potter, Spider-Man, Kurt Vonnegut, and the Seattle Seahawks.  Try not to judge a thing by the crowd you assume embraces it.  There’s plenty of room for all of these distractions.

One in ten Americans played fantasy football in 2013.  That’s over 30 million people.  Friends, families and co-workers get in on this every year and the numbers are increasing. It’s easy to see how football fans get wrapped up it in it.  The game reinforces a love of football and it raises the stakes of almost every game of the year.  But how is fantasy football pulling in new converts?  How does this seemingly strange activity have participants that have no idea who Adrian Peterson is, or that Los Angeles doesn't even have a team?

I have a few ideas.

It injects a mild jolt of competition in your life.  Non-sports fans usually are turned off by competition.  Personally, I have very little competitiveness outside of a Trivial Pursuit board.  Football is an outlet for people like me who need to scratch that little itch, but are hesitant to get in anyone’s face.  Fantasy football usually arranges individual leagues into teams, so you play each other like actual teams.  You might not ever sit down and play one-on-one basketball with your asshole brother-in-law, but through fantasy, you can whip his ass.  Hell, you can do the same with your grandma if she’s an old coot.

It takes luck, chance, and a smidgen of skill.  You do not have to know anything about football to play.  If you can count, then you can succeed at the game.  What occurs in the actual world of NFL football dictates what happens to your score each week.  Some things are unforeseeable; in fact, most things are.  You have every bit of chance as the so called ‘experts’ out there who claim they know all there is to know.  Pick your players by the numbers they put up last year, and if you get stuck, choose by favorite name, whether or not you think they’re cute, or if you like the team color scheme. It’s up to you.

You get to name things.  I love this part.  I am the league manager for my league and I’m thinking about setting a rule that I will not accept any boring team names.  I don’t want to see Bob’s Vikings, or the Portland Squad, or any of that bland unimaginative bullshit.  My last two leagues were My Hip Hurts and Monster Truck Force, and my last two teams were I Shouldn’t Have Had The Tuna and Gimme The Fife. Have fun with it.

It builds camaraderie.  You build closer friendships through games.  It’s the truth.  Whether you win or lose or you are competitive freak, you learn new facets of your connections with your friends and family.  That goes for field hockey and Scrabble, too, but this is on the computer. Fantasy football gives you all psychological benefits of team sports, without all the exercise and turf toe. 

It makes shitty games more interesting. You could be stuck in a part of the county where the local teams are just garbage.  I live on the west coast, and that was indeed the case until very recently.  So, if you have to watch games where the actual outcome means very little, the players in the game might be on you fantasy team.  It gives you a sense of pride when one of your guys has a career day, and a sense of absolute disgust when they blow it.  Well, you can always trade his sorry ass if you want.

It’s only four months long.  A baseball regular season is from late March to September before a month of playoffs and is 162 games long. An 82-game regular season in basketball lasts from November until about April before about 8 more weeks of playoffs.  There are only 16 games of pro football in 17 weeks from September to December. The commitment is minimal in comparison. 

The next time you get invited by that dude at work, or your cousin calls in August and asks to fill a slot before the draft, give it a shot.  I guarantee you’ll have some fun and you might realize what all the fuss is about.  Unless of course your league manager stipulates that the person who comes in last place has to get a tattoo, like these animals. 

Out There and Dying Horrible Deaths

Monday

It all started three weeks ago.  Wait, it started last April.  No, actually it started two years before that.  Okay, technically it began 26 years ago.  But I don’t want to go back that far.

This was written in the two or three days that lead up to my first time doing stand up in a very, very long time.  The truth is I don’t really know the last time I did it.  Since then I’ve been a teacher, a work-from-home dad, an office drone, and a field inspector out here in Oregon. I’ve written a billion essays, a couple books, some poetry and short stories and I put out a podcast for four years.  I obviously have something to say and I haven’t quite found the right way to say it.

Or, I found the right way a couple decades ago.  I did a few open mics in the early 90’s with moderate success.  I like performing and I have no qualms about cutting my veins open in front of a bunch of strangers for laughs.  I love the entertainment value and the art form.  But, most of the time in between was spent raising my three kids; an experience that was worth the time, effort, sacrifice, and a life spent mostly quiet and indoors.  There’s not a lot of heckling while performing the duties as a dad.  Until the kids hit about 17.

But if you’ve performed and you had even a mild bit of success, there is an infection that burrows inside you.  There is something that calls you back over and over, no matter how much you try to bury it or turn your back on it. I had no major urges for a very long time.  I think it was around 2005 or so, when the voices became louder in the background.  There was a bit of second comedy boom; more specials and CD’s and bigger names were touring and creating podcasts.  Soon, I was a big comedy fan again, like when I was in high school.  It wasn’t long before I jotted down my first bits in years.

I used them for my podcast, which basically has a listenership of less than 8 people. I wrote and wrote and pushed myself to keep trying.  Though I never got any traction, I still had the material.

So why did I not perform in the interim?  Just do it for a goof?  I could knock out 10,000 words in the post about all the internal and sometimes external crap I went through, but I would prefer to be more succinct and refreshingly discreet for a change. The truth is, I think I loved it too much.  It was the only career path I ever thought of before becoming a new dad.  It was a dream floating in the back of my mind for years.  I imagined financial success and fame.  That is a success in the entertainment world, I assumed.  It was only after a smidge of therapy and a control on my high blood pressure that I realized that it is a ridiculous waste of your energy and perceived talents to chase after fame.  I could blame the culture, but I know it was me.  For me, to do comedy was to go all in.  I couldn’t go all in…I was married with three kids.  You can’t travel around the country and go out every night when there are kids at home.  I chose them over my career, and I’d make that same choice every time. I loved it all.

But now the kids are big.  They have their own lives.  And I still have the itch.

I couldn’t reconcile why I should go back.  I have other interests in the world.  I’ve never had a passion for any job I’ve had, until very recently.  My life was open to new chapters and explorations and all that inspirational hokum.  I could jump right in.  Turns out, I needed a reason.  I needed a reason that wasn’t some Pollyanna, American Idol self-delusion about stardom. 

My friend Andy (yes, you get some credit) was in town for business last year and we talked about all manner of silliness and life-altering insights, and eventually one conversation boiled down to stand-up. I need to go.  Like me, he had boyhood dreams of rock stardom; but he still enjoys playing music live as a part of 249 different bands in Atlanta.  He still gets on stage because it’s a damn good time.

So I made a decision to go for my birthday in June.  But something happened.  I was ready with a set and some clothes to change into after work.  An outsider may say I chickened out.  What actually happened was that I refused to go.  I needed to let go of that fact that this activity, this passion, was all I had outside of my family.  So I went home.  I am bigger than this thing that I like to do.

Months later, I get laid off again.  Money trouble, desperation, a sense of failure.  I immediately get back into therapy to sort out what I need to do.  “Why not do something you love?” soon became the theme.  I can work and provide and do something I love.  The kids are older and they, quite frankly, don’t give a shit what I do with my spare time.  The Mrs. understands I’m a weirdo who needs laughs.   But that question remained:  Why do this?  What is the motivation if it is not for a career?  I would love to do it in either scenario, so performing for the pure love of it really isn’t good enough for me.

I got it.  I’ll do it to get better.

I am in complete control of every aspect of this rationale.  The amount of work I put into it, the length of time, the quality and the overall judgment of my performance is all up to me.  It is what I needed to go forward.

So, in two days, no more just writing about it. 

Most people do not understand the urge to do comedy.  It is crazy.  There are people who willingly engage in an act everyone else tries to avoid their entire lives. It’s not really a respected art form; and there is always a very good chance the crowd will be filled with a few drunken pricks.  I’m banking on Portland. It is so much nicer out here.  The vibe, as much as I can interpret from my perspective, is very supportive and accepting.  I think it will be a great place to feel around and try to figure out what works for me up there.

I’m nervous.  The nerves come from taking action.  If I went back in time and I got to tell myself two words, they would be “take action”.  (Maybe they would be “invest Apple”)  This is the crux of my problem.  The last fifteen years of effort was done from my chair.  I was persistent, but my efforts only went so far.  I stayed indoors, in my slippers, with the Mrs. and my kids. I was not involved with the world Out There.

It’s not performance anxiety.  It’s people anxiety.

Tuesday

I’ve rehearsed my set, which I already had committed to memory last year.  I’ve done it 2 or 3 times to myself, and I plan on doing it 2 or 3 more.  It’s a lot different when you are up there, to be sure.  I think I’ll take a cheat sheet with me, with a few words to help.

Open mics work like this:  Portland has a bunch and there is at least one every night.  You have to sign up or make contact with the host until the slots are full.  The slots and amount of stage time you get vary.  Tomorrow, there are three to choose from, and the times are designed so some people can hit all three in the same night.  To increase my chances of a spot, I will sign up for the first two.  I have to message the host at midnight on Facebook for the second show and I have to show up in person if I want a slot at the early show.  No guarantees.

My goal today is to try and relax.  On top of this insane activity, I am still waiting to hear about a few jobs.  There is a lot of foot tapping and face rubbing.  I guess a walk, some chores, a little TV or a movie, and some video game time could eat up some time, right?

There are times when I when I wished I idolized doctors or architects instead of comedians.

***

Every cell in my body is screaming at me to stay home and never think about stand-up comedy ever again.  The physical reaction is like a panic attack, something with which I am unfortunately familiar.  My mind is racing for an excuse not to go.  This is crazy; you’re old.  You don’t have to prove anything to anyone.  Nobody knows what you are up to…you could just quietly concede and enjoy a hot chocolate at home instead. I caught myself wishing something crappy would happen so I would be too bummed out to go downtown tomorrow night.  

The truth is, nothing will happen other than a few minutes of bits and hopefully a handful of laughs.  I can only imagine the sensation I’ll feel when I’m done.  Not the exhilaration, but the relief and the relaxation of my shoulders and back.  This truly is nuts.

Wednesday

Confidence has crept in alongside a feeling of numbness.  It’s that acceptance of fear that comes from a full day of letting the fear have its way.  It sucks, it’s uncomfortable, then it subsides. What’s left is…well…not fear.  I’m not sure what is left because I rarely experience this in my life.  I’m happy about this.  I want this.

There is a chance I might not even get a spot tonight.  There’s enough comics and open mikers out there; things get busy.  I’d like to get this one under my belt.  It doesn’t feel real yet.  That’s also a problem with leaving the comfort zone.  Since there is a lack of familiarity, you feel as if you’re in a movie about someone else.

Okay.  Long enough. I got seven hours to kill until I head out.  See you tomorrow.

Thursday

Did it.

If there is any lesson to be learned when attempting something new and scary, it is this:  Try not to make a big deal out of it.  I went, I made it, I got three minutes.  I was a bit nervous, but I kept up my good cheer for the evening and it helped a lot.  I remembered that this is supposed to be fun.  If anything, the actual three minutes of stage time will be remembered matter-of-factly.

I hit traffic on the way to Portland, as expected.  I needed to get there by 7pm for the sign-up.  I wasn’t sure how long the line would be, and I know there are limited spots.  I parked a block or so away from the lounge, and had trouble finding the place on foot.  (Thanks, smartphone.)  It is a small bar with a nicely sized stage.  There was group of people hovering over in front of the bar.  I just stood behind them.  I signed in, as number 14.

It should be mentioned that the main reason I am doing this is to meet people.  I suck socially, I don’t make friends and I don’t know how to talk to people.  So, as usual, I took a table away from all the other comics in the back corner of the room.  A few had notebooks out, scratching and rewriting bits.  I had my set memorized, but I carried a cheat sheet in case I froze.  It read: “Deer. Summer.  Cops.  Band.”  I timed it out at four minutes, but I would soon learn that the sets were to be 3 minutes, so I dumped “Cops.”

Besides 20-22 comics there were about 4 or 5 regular patrons.  This was not the big Tuesday open mic night; this was earlier on Wednesday and the place was pretty bare.  That meant most jokes were getting nothing at all.  In fact, only 2 performers really got anything close to a laugh.  The rest of us DIED A HORRIBLE DEATH. I did my set to barely a giggle; I may have received something when I reacted to that.  But I wasn’t saddened by it, no one was.  That is the deal.  You eat shit a lot.

I have a bunch of observations, but I’ll save them for something else.  I didn’t stay home and use excuses.  I made the hurdle.  Now is the time to face another challenge and see what I can do.

Now what?

I Love Time Travel - Part 4 - Los Cronocrimenes

Lets’ talk Spanish, low-budget time travel, shall we?

The translation of the title of this 2007 movie from Spain is Time Crimes, which, face it, sounds dumber than Los Cronocrimenes. This film has a lot of things I truly don’t like about time travel in movies.  It is clearly a loop story, and in the end, I’m not sure all the loose ends are tied up.  However, it was made with a budget of less than $3 million, probably equaling the budget for Emma Watson’s hair in one Harry Potter movie.  I had to check it out.

Since this is a lesser-known film, I’ll try not to spoil it for everyone.  But here goes:  Hector is a married man in his house in the countryside.  He sits in a chair in his backyard and witnesses a naked woman in the nearby woods.  A man appears to attack her.  Hector investigates. Throughout his day, he discovers that a neighborhood home is also a lab with a bizarre container that serves as a time machine.

I don’t think I should go any further.

The film takes place in the Spanish countryside and stays there.  I may have counted only four or five characters total in the entire film.  The time machine is barely that; more of a whirlpool bath (Hot tub?) with a cover.  Those elements are the all that are used to carry this interesting and compelling piece of indie sci-fi to its conclusion. Editing, limited dialogue, and smart scripting propel the action.  The filmmakers managed to keep the story more of a mystery than a discussion of time travel and changing one’s past. In fact, Hector misunderstands his plight and usually makes the wrong decisions. Los Cronocrimenes is also creepy.  The film is shot from Hector’s POV in several scenes with jarring effect.

This is time travel as more thriller or traditional horror.  The time loop is essential to the plot, although my problem of free will crept into my head as I watched.  Remember, in the time loop world, if you see a future version of yourself jump off the Belaggio in Vegas, and then when you are faced with the same event, you have no choice but to jump.  There is no turning around and quitting.  There is no going downstairs, hitting the buffet and eating crab legs all night.  You gotsta die.

So the time travel in Los Cronocrimenes isn’t my cup of tea, but what they accomplished in this genre was impressive.  The science is truly more secondary to the evolution of Hector throughout the film.  It reminded of The Twilight Zone. The protagonist has no overt moral bent; he’s just a normal man in a normal situation.  He is not asking for trouble, but he immediately becomes ensnarled in circumstances he barely understands.  Hector doesn’t try to do the right thing; he has no idea what to do to get him out of his situation. He doesn’t have Doc Brown or a chief science officer or a TARDIS to guide him. Lead characters in time travel movies eventually embrace the mission.  Hector is a reluctant participant throughout.

The film highlights the essential ingredients of time travel.  This is a confusing, frightening situation under which normal people would most likely make incorrect assumptions and dumb decisions.  We have only had fiction to explore this hypothetical circumstance and it is the duty of the writer to explore each one of these stories in some unique way.  No one is sure what would happen.  No one is exactly sure whether it could happen at all.  This is one area of science fiction where theory and imagination have free reign, until there is proof of a genuine flux capacitor or a magical phone booth.  Los Cronocrimenes is a reminder that no matter how it occurs, the results would most likely be an abhorrent mess.

Time travel without all the bells and whistles.  I watched it on Netflix and had a good time. 

The End Is Meh!

         Not this one, though.  This ending was far from meh.         

It goes against my better judgment, but there are spoilers contained within.  Happy?

Every year now, we TV watchers must watch another one of our favorite series come to an end.  Most of the time, we have fair warning.  A date is set, and we know the story is winding down and the characters we love will cease to exist.  It is the life of any story.  It has to end.

So why do the finales of so many TV shows suck?

First, an argument can be made that they don’t suck.  Some people are comfortable with a show going on ad infinitum and no matter what the ending, they would never be satisfied. I understand that.  It may seem a little old-fashioned.  No too long ago shows went on until no one watched them.  They were cash cows and despite the characters going stale and every storyline wrung completely dry, they marched on.  But that’s not the case now.  Shows are diverse and smart and appeal to different audiences, not just anyone watching TV at 9 pm.  Even us lunkheads on our couches are more savvy.  We've watched a lot and our expectations are very high.

            My belief is, a few rare stories on TV that are wrapped up well, and even fewer are near perfect. Most series finales are just bad or uninspiring.  It is the nature of the imperfect beast of television and streaming shows, both cable and broadcast.

            For some reason, the first show I heard discussed in this way was The X Files.  It was a landmark sci-fi show, but the end was so sloppy and poorly thought out nerds were in an uproar.  I usually fell on the side of the creators rather than the complainers.  But even I felt slighted by the ending.  Scully gives up her baby to what, continue to work as a doctor?  What the hell? This was what showrunners at Lost said clearly they had in mind when they made their finale.  But it didn’t quite happen that way.

            Let me be clear: THEY WERE NOT DEAD THE WHOLE TIME.  Why this has been the popular interpretation is beyond me.  The flash-forwards in the last season were of some post-death neither-world where all the castaways eventually meet and move on to the next world.  I know, it was kinda corny.

 All of the events that happened on and off the island, the time travel, the island moving, Kate’s stupid toy plane, and Desmond in the hatch…that all happened.  The writers just needed a way to bring all the previously killed-off characters back.  It wasn't even the imagined neither-world that threw me.  It was the pointlessness of killing off the last slew of characters. (I’ll stop now.) Lost was plotted well, with mysteries and red herrings and surprises, and when the ending didn't work it was a surprise.  In the end, it was a TV show, and the medium just has inherent flaws.

A movie is a multi-month project that involves a lot of people yet follows one script.  The same participants are there from Day One to wrap-up.  A book is written by one person with a singular vision for sometimes years to get the ending just right.  There are so many factors that can ruin even the best idea for a TV show that it is a miracle there’s ever been anything watchable in fifty years.  Actor contracts, changing writing staffs, strikes, sponsorship requests, sweeps, network notes, and a million other things try to ruin the tiniest bit of art anyone tries to squeeze through the turd sandwich of modern TV.

Here are a few things that don’t need to happen to make a good ending.

You don’t need to invite everyone back for one last hurrah. 

As with Lost, there is a template for finales out there that believes it’s a cool idea to incorporate characters that left the show in previous seasons.  It is kinda cool, but the limits that are put on a story are pretty noticeable.  Basically, you need to fold in a heaven, hell, or a series of Dickensian ghost scenes.  You could fold in flashbacks, but, instead, how about slowly closing the book on the story itself?  People die.  We know.

The finale should never again involve someone who chooses to move away, then at the last minute, decides to stay.

Friends, Frasier, and Sex and the City all went out like this within months of each other.  The scene at an airport or bursting through the door at the last minute is as trite as accidentally making two dates on prom night.  There is life after the first big kiss or first reconciliation.  Show a little of life as a couple. Show life settled down and dealing with new obstacles.  Besides, with modern airport security, all of the romance of this scene has been chucked in the trash along with your bottle of hand lotion.

A non-ending is a non-ending.  Either end it or fade out.

This is for the Sopranos approach.  Enough time has passed on this landmark show to admit that it had a shitty ending.  Some call it an artistic choice, others call it gutless.  If someone deserves a comeuppance, give it to them.  Breaking Bad did not fail in that regard.  The best drama ever ended perfectly, with Walter White accepting his fate. A fade out on a story is just that: life goes on sometimes. There is a next day at work, or a bunch of new people you have to meet. That in itself is a powerful statement.  I think of The Office, 30 Rock, Cheers, Six Feet Under, and The West Wing.

Also, use the entire final season to wrap things up.  Why just have 12 hours of padding for one special hour of tears and goodbyes?  Stretch that shit out.

There is no need to “finish where we started”.  Life really isn't cyclical, why should stories be?

Breaking Bad had a single pivotal event occur in the final season at the original spot where Walt and Jesse first cooked their product. It was a nod to the first season, and that’s all it was.  My family enjoyed watching the TV show Chuck, that had four fun seasons and a final fifth that literally stripped away all that was accomplished in the first four.  The lead characters lost everything, one came down with amnesia, friends’ ties severed and our hero was exactly where he started in the pilot.  Yay, that’s fun.  We watch stories specifically for the changes in character.  We also don’t watch comedies to get bummed out. (Except for the finale of Roseanne, which was a commentary of sitcoms themselves. Very surprising and well done. Find that.)

On a personal note, I can still have fondness for a series that went out with a splat.  One crappy final episode doesn't diminish the entire series en masse. It just sets up a bit of a sour aftertaste. 

I Love Time Travel - Part 3 - Star Trek (2009)

Brooding young firebrand and Beastie Boys fan, James T Kirk.

I am not a Trekkie. My mother watched repeats of the original Star Trek when I was little and back then, if there weren’t any lightsabers, it was not worth my time.  Now the show is a giant franchise and a universe filled with stories and aliens and Shatner’s toupees.  But when I heard JJ Abrams would take the helm of one of these movies back in 2009, I was intrigued.  Alias, Lost and now outer space.  I’m in.

A lot of die-hards did not like this movie and I don’t care.  It worked for me.  But I’m not here to compare Kirks and Spocks and Vulcan love.  I want to talk about one of the most ingenious cheats in time travel fiction ever.

So, if you are familiar with this project, Abrams was not a Trekkie either.  He used this as a basis to reboot the stale movie franchise into a new series of summer blockbusters.  I was excited about the movie, but I understood that this franchise, out of all the franchises, had the most entrenched group of hardcore nerdlings who would never be happy with anything Abrams put onscreen.

A quick tangent:  I believe that this modern diehard fandom phenomenon is both ridiculous and sweet.  It is ridiculous because established characters always go through a change through the years.  Societal impact, opinions change, writers take different angles, actors age out of roles, someone eventually creates a cool Batmobile. Star Trek is a little different because the foundation was a TV show, instead of a comic book.  Comic book fans have an understanding that different hands and minds shepherd storylines as the years pass and different studios take turns transforming them into billions at the box office. But TV is not as fluid, especially a show from the 1960’s that was on less than three seasons.

But I do believe intense fandom for fictional worlds is sweet in one specific way.  Star Trek, and for a while, Star Wars, were left up to the fans to fill in the gaps.  There were companion universe books, etc., but most of us were left with our imaginations to find out what happened to Luke after Darth Vader was dead.  Or in this case, what happened to Spock after he died and came back again.  There was enough time to fantasize and use our imaginations to create our own fan fiction. That’s why there are always complainers out there when something beloved hits the screen.  The movie can’t possibly improve on the stories we created for ourselves.

Now on to JJ Abrams McCheaterhead.

I poke fun out of awe.  I thought it was a brilliant choice in the new incarnation to include a time travel element.  Quickly: a slighted Romulan chases an aged Spock through a wormhole, traveling back through time to both alter the lives of Kirk and Spock.  The actions of this new time travel variable eventually alter the course of the Starfleet universe as everyone ever knew it. 

The James Kirk of yesterday is not only younger, at the beginning of his career and played by a different actor, but his motivations and personality have forever been altered.  Spock’s home planet is destroyed.  Now we have a conflicted and bitter Spock. Most of these reboot experiments involve some rejiggering of the source material.  That is understood.  But using time travel as a means to accomplish that goal is purely unique and diabolically clever.

Hey!  Need to reboot a franchise but are sure to piss off the die-hard fans?  Start from scratch and build your own universe!  If they disagree with character motivations and storyline changes: Hey man, that was the other timeline.  Whatever Kirk and Spock did in the previous incarnations is essentially moot.  That was a different reality. 

Surely this pissed people off.  I loved it.  Those are fun movies.  (I probably wouldn’t have brought back Khan, though...)  Time travel served as a set-up for an entire franchise, even though the stories aren’t about time travel.  I thought it was a slick move.

It's Your Own Damn Fault

Bruce Willis is a ghost.  So there.

I wrote a small stand-up bit about a year ago.  It wasn’t much.  I just thought: “You know why we never heard so much about spoiler alerts years ago?  Because people used to have fucking lives.”

Something has always burrowed under my skin about spoiler alerts, and our need to express them.  I understand it begin as a courtesy, with which I fully agree. I am about to reveal important details about a movie, book, TV show, sporting event or whatever entertainment relies on surprise.  If you don’t want to know, I will refrain, or reword my statement so the experience won’t be ruined.  I like that type of thing.  I like when people are nice, because I’m not a monster.

Somehow the spoiler alert as morphed into something else.  It’s not a courtesy anymore, it’s a mandate. It is required for nearly all aspects of your daily life, for media stretching back to daguerreotypes and Victorian literature.  Half of the enjoyment of watching a TV show that is airing new episodes is discussing them with friends and family.  Right?  We have to find a way to make this communal somehow?  Why are we putting so many restrictions to the full enjoyment of all this stuff we spend so much time watching?

First of all, for many of us, knowing the ending of a story actually increases our enjoyment.  I am one of these people.  I have anxiety.  It mostly ruins everything in life, but it does heighten the enjoyment of plot and suspense.  At certain times, the excitement can be distracting, and I find myself wanting a movie to move faster. I skip pages in a novel.  I've checked the internet for spoilers. The ending of a story or cliffhangers of an episode are important elements of the whole, but it is not the whole.  If your pleasure depends on only surprises happening at the end of a movie, your name is M. Night Shamaylan, and your movies suck.

I don’t seek out spoilers often, but when I have it is to quell my anxiety.  I never share what I've learned.  It’s tough for me to truly buy that something is irrevocably ruined if you know the end.  But I get it.  That’s me.

Also, there seems to be no set rules on what’s the length of time that needs to elapse before a spoiler alert is no longer necessary.  Do I have to gauge the room if I talk about Harry Potter?  The Godfather?  Lost?  What is a reasonable amount of time for these people?  How about this:  If it is culturally significant and more than a week has passed, it’s your own damn fault. 

Maybe that’s the rub.  Somehow, in the last decade or so, the responsibility has shifted to other people.  My guess is once cell phone users began to yell at people around them to quiet down because they, themselves were in a conversation, the wires became crossed.  Pop culture has transformed actual life into a Facebook page or a comment thread.  I still believe in a reasonable politeness, but let me be clear:  It is your fault if you do not know.  It is not the rest of the world’s responsibility to monitor your ignorance.

My wife and I are a season behind on Game of Thrones.  We don’t have HBO and we are content waiting to stream or rent DVD’s.  I saw the news of the major “Red Wedding” episode all over the entertainment news media weeks ago , and significant plot points were revealed.  You now what?  It’s my fault.  The story is going on and I am behind.  The world is farther ahead in this storybook and they have a lot more knowledge and things to talk about.  Tough shit.  I’m behind and now I know some stuff.   I don’t freak out.  And, more notably, I’ll still watch the show.

Years ago, particularly in the 1960’s, movie trailers were pretty long.  They revealed much of the plot and pivotal scenes were shown often.  A movie-goer could glean the entire film from a two-minute preview.  You know what happened?  They still went to the movies in droves. 

It didn't matter.  They had more important things to consider in their lives. Luckily, all our problems are now solved and we can fritter our time intentionally divulging to each other that Kevin Spacey was Keyser Soze all along.