In Which Trish Tries to Reassess "Cars" and Wonders if She Even Wants a Fourth "Jurassic Park"

I have been seeing an unusual sentiment lately that you've probably also already seen around the Internet wherever animation is discussed: "This might be the first year I ever voluntarily skipped a PIXAR film." "I love PIXAR, but I can't see myself paying to watch this." "I'll go, but once the short and the 'Brave' trailer are over, I'm out." "Why the hell are we not getting an 'Incredibles' sequel instead of this?" The film in question, this summer's annual PIXAR entry, is "Cars 2".

Admittedly, "Cars 2" has quite a lot going against it. It's explicitly been made as a moneymaker, even though PIXAR *really* doesn't need one. And also, well, it's a continuation of "Cars".

It's fairly common knowledge among animation fans that "Cars" is widely considered the "least best" PIXAR film. Fans have a hard time finding good things to say about it for a number of reasons I'll get to. It had been a while since I watched it, so I decided to revisit it and try to give it a fair reassessment. Maybe the movie was better than most people thought?

I fell asleep halfway through.

If you've read the Chronological Disney Animated Canon from a few years back, you know that (a) I don't sleep through animated films under normal circumstances and (b) when I do, it generally means that they are pretty bad ("Home on the Range" is a notable example). But being the nice person I am, I watched the rest the next morning.

I still don't like "Cars". But having watched the movie again, I have a better understanding of why I and most other PIXAR fans don't like "Cars":

First off, it's very definitely a film for little kids. PIXAR has made it's name by making movies for everyone. Moms and dads, boys and girls, dogs and cats, adults and children - every other PIXAR film appeals not just to the whole family but to that coveted demographic: everyone. But "Cars" is aimed squarely at the Matchbox/Tonka/Micro Machines set. There were scenes in the film where I couldn't help but think, "This is kind of stupid, but I'm sure a four-year-old would find it funny."

That said, there are also weird little moments that only an adult fully versed in car culture would appreciate. Racing stars have vocal cameos. There's an underlying nostalgia for old-fashioned cross-country road trips. Every vehicle is exhaustively researched to the point where they make the right sounds. For me, whose heart belongs to her fellow organic life forms and who does not get car culture at all, it was like peering into a window on an alternate universe, where I didn't understand the language or anything. (Though it is unspeakably reassuring to know that even when PIXAR swings and misses, they're still going to research their asses off. Therefore, I am foaming at the mouth with anticipation for the Celtic mythology-based "Brave".)
"Cars" was bookended by "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles" on one end and "Ratatouille" and "WALL-E" on the other in the PIXAR chronology. These titles, and the fact that almost everyone has a hard time with the "but 'Cars' was made for children, chill out" argument, shows you what kind of reputation the studio had at the time. And in comparison to these films, "Cars" can't help but feel like an also-ran.

But the one thing that really bugged me during the film is also the one thing that gets brought up again and again as I was reading other people's reviews: The world of "Cars" is not very well constructed. As in, it makes no damn sense, and the more you're forced to think about it, the further you're sucked out of the story.

The characters in "Cars" are talking cars, and as I said, it appears as though most of the research and development for the film went into making them as realistic as possible. It's too bad, then, that almost no thought went into issues like, if they're cars, how -and why- did they build the houses? No, even better, how did they build the tire lugnut screwdriver thing since nothing in this world appears to have appendages with fine motor control? If everything is a car/plane/whatever, even the insects, why is the Dinoco logo still a tyrannosaur? Why is the Ferrari logo still a horse? Where did the fuel come from anyway? What in the world is even in "organic fuel"? Why are there military vehicles? Was there a car war? If (and granted this is from the "Cars 2" trailers but it's worth mentioning here) the Popemobile is indeed Catholic, what in the world kind of religion do these cars have? What would the Order of Mass in a car church look like? Why are they growing lettuce?

It's not just that this is the only PIXAR film completely lacking in the human element. It's worse because everything seems built by and for humans who are never seen, none of this is ever acknowledged, and the viewer's mind can't help but jump to some weird conclusions (my favorites being that this is a cheery distant sequel to "Maximum Overdrive" or a pro-machine propaganda film from the world of the Matrix). It reminded me more of something out of one of the not-good Dreamworks movies really. In "Shark Tale" (aka, the one where Will Smith is a fish and he quotes other movies and it is allegedly hilarious), the world was populated by fish and yet their city looked exactly like New York and they had a car wash and other human things a fish would have no need for. Say what you will about the movie I reviewed earlier this week, but at least "Legend of the Guardians" put some thought into what kind of castle owls would live in and what their tools and armor would have to look like.

So unless the reviews are spectacular, I doubt I'll be rushing to see "Cars 2". Speaking of sequels, last week, /Film reported that "Jurassic Park 4" just flat out refuses to die. The discussion under this report became quite lively and I had to join in. I apologize, but I'm going to be That Person on the Internet and repost some of my thoughts about the possibility of a fourth "Jurassic Park" movie.

The big one is, "Why?"

Could you even make a "Jurassic Park" movie in the 2010s? We've learned (and here I am going to use a very scientific term) a metric sh_t-ton more about the signature dinosaurs in "JP" since even the third movie, and at this point things like naked coelurosaurs would look stupid. Furthermore, you can't really do anything with the reoccurring human characters, nor can you really introduce new ones, without it feeling really forced. (And anyway, who cares about the humans in a "Jurassic Park" movie? :)

So you would either have to do a massive retcon, or come up with an excuse as to why the velociraptors don't look like velociraptors, or go for broke and do something totally insane like the anthropomorphic dinosaur soldier hero squad idea that was floating around a while back.

Or -and call me crazy- maybe come up with a totally new and different prehistoric animal franchise?

About the only thing that might make sense at this point would be a prequel. In the novels, there's a lot of implied (and not) backstory which could fuel a good "JP" prequel. All from memory, since it's been a while: A better explanation of the lysine contingency. The genetic engineers being asked to make the real live goddamn non-avian dinosaurs look and act more like what people "expect" (in the late 80's remember). Alan Grant being called in the middle of the night with the question "seriously, what would a baby Miasaura eat?" since the Park scientists have no zookeepers among them and have *no* experience with animals. Struggles with adapting the animals to modern diseases and parasites. And of course they could show exactly how the Park scientists learned how unruly the pterosaurs and maniraptors are...

And this was my favorite idea until a poster named Jonas came up with:

"They should set it in a distant future when humanity is extinct and the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park have populated the Earth and evolved to talk and make an amusement park where they can interact with real flesh and blood HUMANS recreated from genetic information preserved in fossilized rolled up gym socks: HOLOCENE PARK!"

Oh sweet Raptor Jesus, I need this movie yesterday (although the title really ought to be "Neogene Park", heh). The whole thing writes itself and I shall repeat my off-the-cuff dialogue for prosperity:

Dinosauroid!Alan Grant - "Well, perhaps humans are more closely related to our modern Rabbucks than to ancient reptiles. Look at the mammary glands, just like a Rabbuck's! Perhaps they even had hair like a Rabbuck!"

Dinosauroid!Annoying Child - "THAT doesn't look very scary! More like a fifteen pygostyle tall PARASHREW!!!"

Dinosauroid!Alan Grant - "A Parashrew. Well, imagine you're in the late Holocene. You see this fifteen pygostyle tall parashrew walking towards you, rather ungainly since it's hind legs are so absurdly long and it's skull is so monstrously large. But suddenly, you are attacked! *WSSHT!!!* By the other six billion humans that you didn't even know were there. And when they kill you, they kill with this: a gun. Point is, you will be stripped bare, have your bones and organs torn out, be cut into little pieces, and set on fire when they start to EAT you. So next time, show a little respect, hm?"

Dinosauroid!Annoying Child - 😨

(Later...)

Dinosauroid!Ellie Satler - "Gosh, Alan, if you wanted to scare the kid you could have just jumped up and screamed while flashing your talons at him."

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Sketch of the Day!



Ducks and Chickadees...

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Other Person's Art of the Day!

I'm going to link to this piece by concept artist Jake Parker. It's his take on Lightning McQueen and, honestly, it is glorious because it pretty much sums up my thoughts and feelings RE: "Cars".

Inside Lightning McQueen

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Ridiculously Important Addendum!

Guess who almost forgot to remind everyone that "Futurama" returns tonight at ten?

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Even MORE Ridiculously Important Addendum!

So... this post prompted a rebuttal from Scott at the Coherent Lighthouse. You should read it. (If only because it is so far the very first rebuttal I've prompted from *anything* I've written on this blog. Yeah...)

I feel a little silly that I could potentially get into an argument on the Internet over "Cars" of all things. Also, more importantly, I guarantee my response to Scott's post was exactly what he was probably doing while reading mine: Nodding politely while drumming his nails and thinking, "Yeah, but..." So, I am going to respectfully agree to disagree here.

(Even though I really really REALLY want to re-emphasize that the "it's just a kid's movie, chill out" argument is hard to swallow since I and practically every animation fan in the world expect so much more from PIXAR and... OK, Trish just breathe...)

Never Mind "Terra Nova", Let's Watch Dinosaur Children's Shows!

So there is a show called "Terra Nova" coming to Fox sometime next year. You love dinosaurs, I love dinosaurs, we all love dinosaurs, so you might have heard of it. We know exactly this much about it:

1) It involves Steven Spielberg.
2) There's at least one dinosaur in it.
2.5) But don't call it "'Lost' with dinosaurs".
3) The plot has something to do with some humans from the future traveling through time to live in the Mesozoic era. Apparently the Earth is dying in the future and so people go back to the past to set right what once went wrong.

Now, call me cynical but it occurs to me that the plan to send humans back to pre-human times in a bid to fix the ecological catastrophes humans have caused in the future is... flawed. What if it just gives us another seventy-million years to eff things up?

(Light-bulb goes *ping!*)

Oh my God -- here's my bet on how this series will end. The humans settle in about a thousand years or so from the end of the Cretaceous, and it turns out that (wait for it) Natalie Portman was a swan the whole time! Also, that time-traveling humans contributed to the K-T extinction.

Also, I will wager you that whatever the plot actually is, the dinosaurs will still look like they did in the "Jurassic Park" movies. I am ready to say I will wear a frilly tutu or something equally silly all day long, with all the inconveniences that implies, if we see just one feather.

Sketch of The Day, right in the middle of the post!



Yeah. But never mind "Terra Nova" for now. Are there any shows on TV involving dinosaurs we could watch right now? Well, yes there are.

The first series is the one I have the least to say about, for ill and for good. It's called "Dino Dan" and it airs on Nick Jr. It is - and this is the intriguing part - made with the cooperation of the venerable Royal Tyrell Museum. You can bet your hindquarters the dinosaurs on the show are going to be as accurate as possible given the production date.

And the limitations of the animation budget. The dinosaurs are CGI creations (we will be seeing a lot of this) and the animation can get a little wonky. It's nice that the Compsognathus has feathers, but it also looks like he stuck his toe in an electrical socket. .

The premise behind the show is that Dan Henderson (awesome) is a kid who loves animals and knows an awful lot about them. And he sees dinosaurs where others don't. Aside from teaching the audience about Ornithodirans of all kinds, the show informs it's young audience that everyone loves small children who are insufferable know-it-alls total nerds. Interesting.

"Dino Dan" is at least far better than our second dinosaur-involving children's show. Then again, most things are. Currently airing in an early-morning death slot on The Hub, "DinoSapien" is a British/Canadian co-production. And it is *weird*. And I don't mean the fun kind of weird.

The plot: A girl goes to a dinosaur-themed summer camp in the woods and meets the titular creature, named Eno. Eno looks like what would have happened if E.T. had an illicit affair with Dougal Dixon's Dinosauroid (seen at the 2:00 mark). He is, all told, an odd-looking protagonist for a kid's show. On the one hand, I like that they aren't afraid to let Eno enter the uncanny valley (I can't help but think we'd have a horrific instinctual reaction to an actual flesh-and-blood anthropomorphic animal-person; I base this theory on the comments under those Orangina ads), but a part of me wishes he'd been allowed to be a little cuter.

He's supposed to be a kind of Dromeosaur, and he sports a few feathers but is otherwise naked. And he has really strange hands. He at least is a little more believable than the Diggers, which are another kind of dinosaur lurking around the campground. I have no idea what's going on with them.

The show itself is very reminiscent -for ill and for good- of the live-action sci-fi series from Nickelodeon in the early '90s. You're going to see a lot of bad animation and annoying children. I was beginning to feel very distraught over this project...

But then...

Oh, but then...

Let us now watch "Dinosaur Train". Indeed, let us watch "Dinosaur Train: every day. Because it might be the greatest and best kids' animated series with dinosaurs in it and should maybe even have a spot on my DVR in-between "My Little Pony" and "The Walking Dead" (someday, my prince will come ). But I am getting ahead of myself.

Initially, when this series was announced, people were skeptical. It was hard not to be when all we had was a title. Muses Ryan Roe of the great Muppet fan site "Tough Pigs", "they (must have) arrived at the idea of Dinosaur Train after rejecting Space Bulldozers, Kittens Eating at McDonald’s, Cupcakes Playing Drums, and Dead Bugs with Moustaches." And then... the show premiered.

I am not going to get to wordy here. People, there is an episode with Therizinosaurs doing Tai-chi. There are Therizinosaurs and they are in a cartoon for kids AND THEY ARE DOING MARTIAL ARTS AND THIS IS AWESOME!!! Also, they have feathers. Matter of fact, minor theropod characters are more likely to have them then to prance around naked. Nerd glee!

Addendum: More, and far more detailed, reasons you need to let your kids watch "Dinosaur Train" over at DinoGoss

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Feederwatch Friday!

Sharp-shinned Hawk 1
Rock Pigeon 4
Downy Woodpecker 1
Black-capped Chickadee 2
Tufted Titmouse 1
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
Northern Cardinal 1
House Sparrow 25

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Festive Things of the Day!

Speaking of Muppets, those of you in the New York City area (specifically, Brooklyn) can attend the Muppet Vault Christmas event this coming Sunday! Nobody made Christmas specials like the Muppets, and the Tough Pigs gang will be showing some of their favorite lost classics. Perhaps they will include this crazy thing?

And if you are in North Conway, New Hampshire, you can do what my cousin and I did this July and visit the Christmas Loft. Granted, visiting this place during Christmas isn't going to have the same impact, but even so it... it is something to see, I can promise you that.

AND there is, finally, a new Homestar Runner Decemberween episode!

Triceratops lives! -or- Why the mainstream press makes me cry.

WARNING: Uncharacteristic vitriol and some naughty language ahead.

Consider this another episode of Things I Need to Catch Up On Because They Happened During Don Bluth Month.



So around the middle of July, my wonderful regular reader/commenter Zach Miller posted this article on his blog: Toroceratops. I suggest you read it and his other two posts on the subject before we go on.

My reaction was, essentially, "Huh. So John "T. rex was an obligate scavenger" Horner proposed that Torosaurus is actually just a really, really old Triceratops and therefore all Torosaur fossils should be renamed Triceratops? That's... interesting, I guess. I, like most of the commenters, will buy it if we ever find an unmistakable transitional 'Toroceratops' skull."

And then I pretty much forgot about it.

Until I was well into the Don Bluth reviews and learned, via FARK.com, that the mainstream press had got a hold on this story. Ladies and gentlemen, the poor former (maybe) Torosaurus is unwittingly at the center of a fine demonstration of every single thing I cannot f***ing stand about the way the mainstream press reports on science, animals, nature, and... f*** it, everything.

Choice headlines:

"The Triceratops Never Existed!" - Yes it did. It's Torosaurus who would be getting the name change. Please learn how scientific nomenclature works. Also, changing an animal's name doesn't magically make it disappear. Seriously, WTF?

"Triceratops 'never really existed but was just a young version of another dinosaur'" - Same points as above, and just who the hell are they quoting? Honestly, this might be my favorite of the reports because you've got that headline and then, buried deep within the body text of the report itself: "All torosaurus specimens will now be reclassified as triceratops, the scientists said."

"Morph-osaurs: How shape-shifting dinosaurs deceived us" -
1) Christ in a hot rod, I didn't pass five MTELs to see an affix used as a verb in a newspaper.
2) I don't know if this offends me more as an armchair paleontologist or as a sci-fi fantasy fan (by those "physically changing as you age" standards, aren't we all shapeshifting?) But at least it prompted this stupid thing which is hopefully funny:



Rest assured, dear readers, that the "nonexistence" and "shapeshifting" (I seriously couldn't type that without cringing) of dear old Triceratops has been highly exaggerated. But you wouldn't know from these articles. They have utterly failed to understand how scientific nomenclature works, have happily reported this theory -which many have called into question- as a universally accepted fact, and seem to be of the opinion that Triceratops (who doesn't give a sh*t what name us puny humans call it by anyway) has somehow vanished from the fossil record altogether.

I need a cold drink. 

Edit: See also this.


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Art of the Day: On a much, much happier note, joy and rapture! The Art Evolved Pop Culture Gallery is up!

Other Person's Art of the Day: Also, Gregory S. Paul's Dinosaur Coffee Table Book on Blurb Want... so... much... (Cries at lack of money.)

Don Bluth Month: Out with a whimper - Thoughts on "Bartok the Magnificent!"

So here's the last feature-length Don Bluth movie ever released (in some markets [I have been informed that others got it before "Titan A.E."] and last feature to date; let's be optimistic here). Let's pause for a minute or two and let that sink in.

Depressed? Yeah, so am I. It's hard to imagine a quieter whimper to go out on. But that's not the only reason why "Bartok" is a very strange animal.

Records disagree as to whether it's the last feature Don Bluth ever made. It certainly is the last most of us ever heard of him. Whenever it was made, Fox shoved it onto DVD after "Titan" imploded at the box office. (Currently, it can only be found as a special feature on the two-disk edition of "Anastasia", a fact I learned just in time by chance.) You might not be a Don Bluth fan, but you do have to agree that it is very sad to see someone like him go out like a fart in the wind.

This is supposedly a sequel to "Anastasia". As such, it barely qualifies. The only things connecting this film and it's predecessor are one character and the country it is set in.

And that leads to the sauropod in the room I mentioned a long while back: All those gorram sequels. It must suck in ways none of us can imagine to make all these beloved movies and then not be able to say what the studios who own the rights to said movies can and cannot do with them. And so we live in a world where there are, at last count, fourteen "Land Before Time" movies. (For the record, there are about ten "Halloween" movies. I mention them because that is possibly the only other movie whose reputation has been so badly ruined by it's own not-original-director-involving sequels. It took years for the original "Halloween" to be appreciated.)

So this is why "Bartok" is one of the strangest movies I've watched during this project: Of all the Bluth-derived sequels, this is the ONE movie sequel he directed.

"Better" is a subjective word. I can't rightly say if this is indeed "better" than any of the sequels Bluth was not involved with. But I can pretty much guarantee that if it isn't better, it is at least *stranger* than any other sequel to a Don Bluth film.

It feels more like one of the Dark Age Disney movies than any Don Bluth film. There were a lot of scenes and characters that gave me bad "Sword in the Stone" flashbacks. There were other scenes that felt like something out of "Dragon's Lair: Time Warp". In all, the whole movie is very confusing and, at times, damn creepy in a way that's hard to explain (ie, the big, perverted-looking dragon who shows up at the end.)

Thus ends Don Bluth Month.

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Art of the Day?



.......

There are times when I am sad that illustrators and writers don't get a lot of attention.

But if the unintentionally hilarious/sad Famous Comic Book Creators trading cards made in 1992 and recently dug up by the Comics Alliance blog are the alternative, then I'm not so sad. Don't get me wrong, they are a great idea. A well-done set of trading cards highlighting genre artists and writers could be wonderful; maybe even a game a la "Authors".
The Comic Book Creators cards are... well, the *backs* of them are pretty cool, with brief biographies and lists of their works. But those photographs! What were they thinking!
Their photos for the three (just three!?!) female writers/artists are just... *tragic*.

That Todd MacFarlane photo though...

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Sketch of the day!
In-between having my sister take pictures of me being awesome (I was inspired by Todd MacFarlane), I drew this Velociraptor, who is also being awesome:

In Which we finally discuss the CGI Coyote in the Room

That is to say, I'm finally going to say something about "The Looney Tunes Show" and the new Wile E. Coyote shorts. Here's information about both series, via the wonderful /Film:

"Last time Warner Bros. tried to reinvent the classic Looney Tunes stable of characters, the result was a disaster. The 'Loonatics Unleashed' featured absurd 'extreme' versions of the characters that were booed off television within two years.

"Now WB is trying again with a new cartoon series and a set of 3D shorts that will play in theaters. Why would you even think about having confidence in this new approach? Because the studio is going back to the basics... Three new Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote shorts have been approved and three more are in development. The 3D shorts will debut in front of 'Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore' at the end of July. (Great. So now we have to go see that.)

"Then the new 'The Looney Tunes Show', a 26-episode half-hour series, will appear on Cartoon Network this fall. There Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck will be 'odd-couple roommates in a contemporary cul-de-sac' with neighbors Yosemite Sam, Tweety Bird, Sylvester, Marvin the Martian and Porky Pig."

This is pretty much all we know for now.  Eh....... Could be worse. Not digging the "Bugs Bunny living in a suburban house" thing (that should have stayed in the comic books), but it could be worse.
Speaking of worse, that Fully-Rendered 3D CGI Wile E. Coyote.  Ugh.  It reminds me of this wonderful essay (with a follow-up here) written by Will Finn addressing the fact that not every computer animated character has to be almost-realistic. 

You can't really say that CGI!Wile E. isn't photo-realistic like, say, the characters in "Avatar" are. He is still recognizably based on the wonderfully expressive Chuck Jones character design we all fell in love with. Yet, for some dang reason, every damn strand of canine fur and scale of skin on his cold nose has to be fully rendered in ludicrous detail. Why? Just... why?

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Sketch of the Day! My Crack Pairing! Let me show you it!



Speaking of Crack Pairings, I kinda wish I was a projectionist right now. Because if I was, I would swap out the last reel of "Sex and the City 2" for the last reel of "Splice". I'd be fired on the spot for doing this, but I would regret nothing! Nothing!

Reasons Why the New "Clash of the Titans" Bothers Me.

I have not seen the new "Clash of the Titans". I will admit this up front. Honestly, I don't really want to see the new "Clash of the Titans". But this stupid movie has inadvertently brought up some things that bother me:

1) It turns out some people will take any CGI, even the not-so-good CGI in "Clash", over the Ray Harryhausen stop-motion in the original. This makes me unspeakably sad. So I went to the library and got An Animated Life to read.  This is a big, huge book I've salivated over for a while, so I was elated that they had it. I'll review it soon.

2) The 3-D in "Clash" was added as an afterthought. This fact has been wildly reported. It was thought that people wouldn't pay extra for crappy 3-D... but guess what?

3) This plot point. (Deftly illustrated by the wonderful Coelasquid [naughty language warning], who has done an entire series of comics based of ridiculous things in "Clash".)

4) But I think the thing that bugs me more than anything about this remake of "Clash of the Titans" is this: Of all the things they changed from the original "Clash of the Titans", couldn't they have swapped the Kraken out for, I dunno, some scary sea monster out of ***GREEK*** Mythology?!? It isn't like they don't have a surplus of them.

In other movies I have no interest in seeing news, I am sincerely disappointed that the movie entitled "Furry Vengeance" is NOT about "Secret of N.I.M.H." fans out for justice, as the title would suggest. Because I would watch the hell out of that movie and so would you. Admit it.
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Sketch of the day! How about some happy after all that uncharacteristic vitriol.

Yaaaaaaay!!!

In which I feel bad for not telling more people to watch "Dollhouse"

Warning: some Nerd Rage ahead.
Tonight marks the end of Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse", a series that flew under the radar of nearly anyone who'd like it best. We've had a lot of excellent speculative fiction television series the past few years and this could have easily turned into a classic. Admittedly, the first five episodes or so were slow, slow, slow and it took several months for the show to find it's voice, but once it did (round about Episode ten I'd say), it did what only the ballsiest speculative fiction does: It explored every last disturbing implication of it's fantastic premise. Sadly, Whedon only had a few episodes, mostly in the second season, to fully explore that premise without having to keep the advertisers and network happy.
The history of this series has been... interesting to say the least. Executive Meddling (take a shot) plagued the first half of the first season, but then Joss was allowed to do his own thing for the second half. Certainly, all the while the traumatic experience of Fox's treatment of "Firefly" was hanging over his head. So he came up with an episode called "Epitaph 1" that could act as an ending for the series as a whole *or* a good cliffhanger for the first season if the series miraculously didn't get canceled. Sure enough, the series miraculously did not get canceled -- but Fox decided not to air "Epitaph 1", opting to end the season on a comparatively cheerier note. So the second season went ahead business as usual as if that episode never existed.
And then Fox decided to cancel "Dollhouse" anyway. That's hubris for you.
So in the past month's worth of episodes or so, Joss Whedon has been doing an excellent job of building towards the events portrayed in "Epitaph 1" so that he can use it as the first half of a two-part final episode arc. 
Which would be awesome, except Fox *still* isn't going to air it, so good luck understanding what's going on in the series finale.


By the way, "Dollhouse" gets canceled and yet Seth MacFarlane is apparently getting a fourth Illustrated Radio series. Oh yeah, I went there.
Dammit, is it February 2nd yet?

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In happier news, it is Draw a Dinosaur Day! I am probably drawing one right now and will post it here when I'm finished! Until then, here's the Singing Tyrannosaurus:

EDIT: The Singing Tyrannosaurus stays but here is the link to my entry in the Draw A Dinosaur Day pool. I submitted today's Sketchbook page.

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Feederwatch Friday!
Sharp-shinned Hawk 1 (Just hung out in the neighbor's lilacs. Chickadees were not one bit happy about this.)
Rock Pigeon 4
Mourning Dove 2
Downy Woodpecker 1
Black-capped Chickadee 2
White-breasted Nuthatch 2
House Sparrow 25

Another scary storm on Monday, this time of the soggier variety thanks to unseasonable warmth. I could hardly see the birds, much less count them.
But count them I did. For the science!

Comicon Comicon Comicon!!!

This weekend! Yay!!! More information in this previous post.

This PSA of sorts was created for a different convention, but the safety tips within are still relevant:

Last Feederwatch Friday Ever
I have to say, participating in Project Feederwatch was fun. I'd absolutely consider doing it again.
Right now, in the backyard, there's more shipping out there than in a message board run by "Avatar" fangirls.
Fun fact: Woodpeckers are cute but they fight dirty.

Raise your hand if you've got "Never Gonna Give You Up" in your head after yesterday.

On Fraggles and Apprehension

Well my beloved Tetrapod Zoology blog has informed me that the "flipper photos" that so captured my eight-year old imagination back in this special (note the bad-ass Phil Tippet stop-motion animation) are fakie-fake-fakes. Wah.

I'm going to come right on out and say that "Fraggle Rock" is the greatest television program for young people ever created. (I know, I know, "Sesame Street" was there first but I'm considering the rewatchability factor here.)

There is a film on the way, which you may have heard of. Reaction from the Muppet fandom has been markedly mixed thus far, though it is hard to blame them as the initial announcement happened in 2005. There have, naturally, been many rumors in all that time. Some of them have been intriguing: Frank Zappa's son Ahmet is involved somehow, as are several original cast members. Some of them have been deeply, deeply troubling: the Fraggles are apparently going to be CGI for no good gorram reason. Try to sit through this clip from "Sid the Science Kid" ("Uncanny Valley - The Musical!") to understand why this is a bad, bad idea.

There is also a spin-off series starring the Doozers coming in the autumn. Sure as heck never saw that coming.

Here's the thing. Honestly, I'd rather have the Season Four/Five DVD box set. Please? Soon? Within the next three years, maybe?

The obligatory "ZOMG they actually made a _Watchmen_ movie and it actually came out within our lifetimes!?!" Post.

Happy Chuck Norris Day! As usual, art first. As always, click for the big version. This is Viserion from the "Song of Ice and Fire and Please Finish The Last Book Before my Dad Goes Bananas K Thnx" -um- trilogy. Meaning, of course, there's four of them. Like the earlier painting of Safira, he begs the question, I know this is a portrait of someone else's character, but is it still called fanart if (to my Dad's dismay incidentally) you tried to read the books and didn't like them?
Never mind that now. I really like the flatter look here. It's different.

Here Be Vague Spoilers! Also, rambling. Lots and lots of rambling.

Well.
I haven't seen the movie yet. Not at the time of writing anyway (last Friday). I've heard a lot of word-of-mouth of course. You probably have too, even if you never heard of the book before and really don't care one way or the other. It's been pretty inescapable.
And the thing is, honestly, I think I'd rather just read The Watchmen again. This'd be the fifth time, I think. I am sure there are still details I've missed on the previous go-rounds. This book is dense and intense and it still boggles me that a film actually exists now. (All that said, if my friends wanted to get a group together and see the movie, I wouldn't say "No".)
But the fact that I really have a craving to read the book actually worries me. I had that feeling before. I felt it strongest a couple of years ago when the "Golden Compass" movie came out. I went into the attic and read the whole trilogy in a couple of days - still one of the most intense reading experiences I've ever had. Thus, according to the reviews, I skipped seeing that most dreaded of film adaptations: the kind where the filmmakers just completely fail to get the book.
I realize that I'm starting to sound like One Of Those. The kind of fan that will b*tch about even the slightest little changes. ("Wahhh Wolverine is too tall WTF!") I'm not really One Of Those (usually), it's just that reading is SO important to me. Little changes irk me ("Prisoner of Azkaban" is easily the best "Harry Potter" movie, but would it have killed them to put in a quick line of dialogue to explain the significance of the deer?) But I can deal. It's big, "they just didn't get it" changes that stoke my Nerd Rage.
Let me put it this way: The fact that the long in development limbo "Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy" film wound up entering this world as a fun-for-the-whole-family Disney movie still makes me deeply sad in a way that's damn hard to put into words.
Mind you this applies mostly to movies where I read the book first. "Secret of N.I.M.H." is my favorite movie. (Um, I'm not One Of Those either. Ok, all my characters are animals, so technically I am -- but I'm not into the weird stuff!) It's the movie that made me want to learn how to draw and animate. But is it a good adaptation of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of N.I.M.H.? Hell no! Likewise, Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is a better, closer adaptation of Roald "Most Impossibly Hard Name to Have to Try and Spell" Dahl's original, printed page Charlie -- but "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" is a much better movie.
Really, my feelings on book-to-film adaptations are very ambiguous, even contradictory. But generally, if you alter the story ("Let's turn the whole epic 'Pheonix Saga' into a fourty minute long subplot in an already crammed movie!") or the characters (poor Deadpool) to the point where it's clear you didn't understand the source material at all, I will probably wind up hating your adaptation.

Which brings us, finally, to Squidgate.

The rumor making the rounds in Internet-land for the past few months is that the producers of the "Watchmen" movie have changed the ending. Somehow. Nobody seems to agree how. But it's different.
Note that the book's ending was one of the very few "shocking twist" endings that actually shocked me. You could have slapped me. It's heartbreaking and astonishing and ballsy and... damn. I'm not going to describe it. I don't want to ruin it for you. Suffice it to say, however, it is a horrifying atrocity in which a squid is involved (sort of).
Now I was going to go on an even longer ramble on how, if one of the rumored changes is true, it would completely alter the tone of the story at large. And, worse yet, it would also be a sad reminder of -really- how little executives think of us stupid viewers and what we can handle seeing onscreen. In a fantastic fiction film set in an alternate history crawling with costumed heroes and this one guy who can bend the forces of nature to his will. Yeah. >:(
This website beat me to it.
Wah. <:( Man, that was probably the worst post I've made so far. But I'd be remiss if I didn't include this perfect parody:

Hey I forgot Feederwatch Friday last week. As per usual, nothing interesting happened... but the birds are starting to sing...

Nerd Rage and Further Worst Cartoon Thoughts

I saw the following in Friday's paper and... I HAVE to share because... it's pretty astonishing:
Thank you, Gatehouse News Service Guy! Thank you for sharing your condescending thoughts on an art form you clearly have not bothered to learn anything new about since you were scarfing Frosted Flakes in front of "Maia the Bee".

So anyway, as of right now, both "Worst Cartoon" polls have been tallied and winners have been chosen. "Worst Cartoons Ever" has picked "Rubik the Amazing Cube". "Rubik" is notorious online because it is the best artifact of a time period in the late-70's/early-80's when you could make a cartoon about anything. It looked like this:


Meanwhile, the unfortunately-named Topless Robot blog's winner for worst cartoon episode ever is a particularly angsty episode of "The Littles": Now, really, I shouldn't worry too much about these choices because they're each all part of a silly contest and it was all really just a few people's opinions right? Yet, it sticks in my craw because, honestly, get past the nature of the title character and "Rubik" isn't all that different from every damn "The Adventures Of Some Kids and their Pet Walking Talking Deus ex Machina" cartoon of the era. And the worst I can say about "the Littles" ("Here Come the Littles"is available on DVD so I just added it to the top of my Netflix queue to check and see if my nostalgia filter is strong with this film) is that the first ten seconds of the main titles are what the Uncanny Valley looks like. Anyway, being an animation fan means that I have seen worse. Far, far worse. (And hell, those are just from within my lifetime.) Just off the top of my head: The 60's Looney Tunes, like this not-Chuck-Jones-involving Wile E. Coyote short. Any and all of the various "This is where 'The Simpsons' ended for me" episodes. (For the record, mine is "Lisa the Skeptic". Great idea for "The X-Files" but damned bizarre for "The Simpsons".) The various prime-time series that sprang up in the wake of "The Simpsons", of which "Capitol Critters" is probably the most astonishing. A whooooole lot of series from Hannah-Barbera (how many times can you recycle the basic idea behind "Scooby Doo" anyway?), Filmation, and Ruby-Spears. More than a few cartoons based upon real people, such as "Pro Stars". "Fraidy Cat", "Caillou", "Dino Squad", "Father of the Pride", "The Mighty Ducks", "Free Willy", "Mega Babies", "Loonatics". All the DTV rip-offs of other movies. And a lot that I have nicely repressed. The only real problem is trying to decide what the biggest waste of celluloid I've ever seen is. Let us wash off the nerd rage and awful cartoons with this little slice of happy: