Okay. So, you’ve had your idea. You’ve painstakingly assembled your first draft. And if you’re clever, you’ve done a cursory edit or two in order to catch the little mistakes that happen when you start a conversation on one day and then finish it the next, or because you had a couple of drinks to spur the creative process, or because your spell check doesn’t flag it when you write “are” instead of “ate.” Simple stuff like that.
Now we reach the hard part… you have to show it to people.
Here’s my process. I doubt it’s everyone’s because if every creative person followed the same process that would just be freaky weird.
Step One: the trusted few
As I discussed last time, sending the first draft out is a slightly harrowing prospect, because I can never tell how well it turned out. But it takes less than a minute after emailing the script out for me to go from “Oh man, what if it’s awful” to “Why haven’t they told me what you think?” Like a switch flicks in my head from “panic” to “desperate need for feedback.”
Sadly, it turns out the other people in your life aren’t hollow simulations who only come to life when you need things from them. They’re actual people with their own dramas and commitments, so there can be a leeettle bit of a wait at this point, and I have yet to figure out a way around it, since I doubt I’m going to get decent feedback if my readers are reading the script begrudgingly. Also people take a weird amount of offense when you sabotage their lives so they have more time for your stuff.
Still, there’s an inherent eagerness to start talking about the script with people properly. This is something that’s been in my head for weeks, probably months. I want to be able to talk about these characters, what they go through, why I’ve had relatively obscure Beatles songs stuck in my head for two weeks. If it’s a comedy, I want to know what they found funny. Does the story hold up? Do they care? I need to know all of these things.
And from there, it’s back to work.
Step Two: time to fix it up
It would be amazing if everyone I sent a new script to came back and said “This is great, I can’t think of anything wrong with it.” But that never, never happens. Okay twice. Almost twice. But that’s okay. The entire point of the close group the first draft goes to is that they will be honest with you/me about the script. And as good as it might feel to hear people say nice things about something you wrote, the way the script improves is when they tell you what didn’t work and why.
The greatest purpose of a first draft is simply to exist. Defeat the blank page and get the story down in some form. Fixing it from there might not be a breeze, but at least you have a framework in place. Build on your strengths, and eliminate your weaknesses, and I don’t know, you guys, this paragraph is starting to descend into obvious cliches, so I’m-a… I’m-a move on.
So there came a time, after Christmas and into the first days of January, when I found myself in kind of a bad place. Always feeling run-down, ill, and completely unable to maintain a positive mood for more than a couple of minutes.
It has been seven years since I’ve had THAT little fun at a New Year’s Eve party.
I think I know what the problem was. See, right at the beginning of this rough patch, I ran out of synthroid, the pill I take to replenish the thyroid hormones that my immune system targets when it could be taking less than four god damn months to get over a cough sorry, sorry, digressed a bit there… anyway, it’s the pill I take every morning so that I have anything approaching a metabolism. I’d had to switch to my hoard of older, lower dose pills while I went through the process of getting a re-up from my physician.
Ugh. See what I did there? I could have just said “I was under-medicated,” but instead I spent an entire paragraph making sure you knew this was a physical ailment, not mental. I don’t know if it was out of fear that people would assume I suffer from depression (which is a crap fear to have, that should be less embarrassing than needing to take pills for my cholesterol), or from not wanting to be one of those people faking a mental illness or disability to get attention or justify crap behaviour (“It’s not my fault, it’s my self-diagnosed Asperger’s”), but… you know what? On January 28th we’re having a conversation about this. But for now I’m moving on.
Getting out of a place
Right around the time I returned to a proper dose of synthroid, I also decided that it was time to stop looking without for solutions to my bad headspace, and look within. It was time to double down on the thing that always made me feel, well, if not always happy, per se, at least satisfied. Writing. Creating. Storytelling. So I threw myself into whatever writing project I could find. I blogged about movies, Oscar-bait or Hobbit-based. I finished a first draft of a short one-act play for a possible anthology show. I took a stab at a skeleton of an outline for a screenplay my Writers’ Circle co-writer and I want to do this year. I felt… calm. Fulfilled. Myself again. Ready to let go of some of the anxieties and bad thoughts that had been dragging me down. Not all of them, no, it was a three small writing projects, let’s not ask them to work miracles, but still, a start.
Of course, then my projects all hit the usual wall: the wall of needing someone else’s input. The short play was done (for now), I’d gotten as far as I could on the outline without input from my co-writer, and I was back to blogging about old plays. I wanted more. Writing, creating, this was my way out, and I wasn’t ready to stop, sit back, and play Assassin’s Creed until it was time to do a new draft of something.
I needed a new project. And, yes, sure, there are some ongoing projects I could have been paying attention to, at least I think there are, I haven’t checked in a lot lately, but… something got into my head.
The Spark
An old idea. One I’d cast aside a long time ago, but found that there were aspects I didn’t hate. Sure, nearly a decade ago, I couldn’t pull it off, certainly not for the stage. This wouldn’t be a dust-off or a quick polish job. This would be, if anything, only slightly less drastic than the process that turned Jade Monkey into Tyler and Selena. And it would be easy to look at everything else I’m doing, stage, internet, and possibly screen, and say… why bother? Leave it in the past. Move on to the next thing. But first, as we established, all of my “next things” are waiting on workshops, other feedback, or meetings with partners. And second…
There was one scene. One scene that I felt should have been the turning point. Where the protagonist finds his first taste of redemption, where the character I wanted to be the Kaylee-from-Firefly of the cast (the sweet one whose affection for the main character tells us we can like said character as well) is rewarded at long last. And in my first attempt… it failed. It failed as purely and utterly as everything else I tried to do with that story.
And that started to stick in my craw a little.
I didn’t want this scene to be awful. I thought there was potential for a moment of beauty here. A moment where the joy of the characters could seep through to the audience. And maybe I’m wrong, maybe that moment’s impossible, but damn it, I could get closer to it than this. And I wanted to at least try to see it realized.
And that notion lingered. How this moment could be improved. It grew from a “what if” into one of those things, where the only way to exorcise the idea from my mind was to write it down. So I decided… take a crack at it. Write that one scene. See how it turns out. And if you think it’s closer to the effect you wanted… keep going.
That was a few days back. I’m still at it.
Friends old and new
There is something… liberating about this project, for the simple reason that I’m not writing it for anything. It’s not a stage play. Scorpio Theatre needs not worry or care about it. It’s written to be filmed, but I haven’t picked a medium. If it’s not too long, maybe it’s a movie. If it keeps stretching, maybe it’s a series. I don’t know and it doesn’t yet matter. I’m just… writing it until I feel it’s written. There’s miles to go and mountains to climb before it’s even worth thinking about rolling cameras. Couldn’t begin to afford it now, have other things I want to do first if we start convincing people to give us money to make things. I’m writing it for the joy. For the rush. For the indescribable way the characters become like friends, and the pleasure of spending time in their world.
That’s when writing stops being a chore and becomes a passion. As, one by one, the cast becomes people I like, that I care about, that I want to see triumph. Well, after I’m done being awful to them in the name of the story. First things first.
It’s been a good feeling. Good enough that I’m not even sweating the fact that eventually I’ll be done, and will have to deal with wanting to do something with it, yet being largely unable to. Or the fact that despite throwing out every word of the first draft and starting over on a white piece of paper, there might be enough flaws in the basic premise that it can’t be saved. I’ll cross those bridges when I come to them.
For now, it’s just nice to be tinkering away, spending time with friends old and new, hoping that nobody thinks the amount of time I’m spending at home with my computer and DVDs is a bad sign and threatens an intervention.
Thought a “here’s the writing projects taking all of my time” post would be a better than a “here’s why there hasn’t been a blog in three weeks” post, which has been my usual approach.
“Then I know what I must do. It’s just… I’m afraid to do it.”
-Frodo Baggins
Been a while since the last time I did one of these, hasn’t it? Yeah, well, there’s a reason. Because the last time I talked about Quarter Century, and the play after that… I’ve been putting it off and putting it off, because to continue this series meant re-reading what some claim was the worst thing I ever wrote. And man but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that. But there’s no point in doing this if I start holding back no, so here we are. Yesterday, I cracked open a script called Quest for the first time in nearly eight years.
Are you ready for your nostalgic look at past works to get real? Because today we’re talking about failure. Pure, unadulterated failure. Sure, I had bad things to say about Illuminati in Love, because who wouldn’t, and yes, I had to resort to a speed round to sum up everything that was bad about The Course of True Love and the Curse of the Jade Monkey (why is the title so god damned long), but here’s the thing… every script I’ve written about so far?
They all got staged.
Hell, some of them got staged twice. I not only decided Jade Monkey was worth a second go, I took it to a Fringe festival. But not this one. This one never made it past the first workshop, and frankly shouldn’t have made it that far, but my first-draft readers broke out the kid gloves and I learned of my folly too late.
Let’s get into it.
What’s it about?
“WE NEED YOU TO DO THE THING, AVERAGE GUY. ONLY YOU CAN DO THE THING.” -mentor figure, every goddamn movie
–Lindsay Ellis
21st century con man Tobias Rose and his partner in crime Freddy Hale steal from the wrong people, and get dragged into the final struggle of a Tolkien-esque war between good and evil, one in which both sides have begun to fade as wonder and magic were worn away by science and reason.
Almost TOO dignified this time around…
After stealing both the MacGuffin gem (it’s actual name, the Gem of Anarra, wasn’t less silly, so let’s call it what it was) and a fairy who’s been imprisoned in a PDA (remember those? They used to be a thing!), Tobias’ colleague and occasional lover Pauline is killed under mysterious circumstances, and when Tobias tries to find out who killed her and why, he ends up crossing paths with the trapped fairy’s friends: two sorcerers (Victor and Natasha), and the last of the elves (Ellianna), who are trying to stop the Adversary (basically Sauron from Lord of the Rings, and equally unseen) from regaining his lost power and drowning the world in a new style of dark magic, one fed not by wonder but by fear and cynicism.
While at first Tobias only cares about finding and killing Pauline’s murderer… well, that and getting enough money to pay off a debt to a mobster… Freddy’s nagging and a recurring hallucination of Pauline that acts as his conscience drive him to use his con artist skills to aid Ellianna and company. Also he thinks Ellianna is pretty cute, because why not at this point.
Also the bad guys are all orcs. Or rather, are all descended from orcs, but distantly enough that they’re basically just mob goons: strong and dumb.
So why’d that happen?
“Not with ten thousand men could you do this. It is folly.”
-Boromir
A few reasons. The fairy trapped in the palm pilot was from a dream I had. The fairy was stuck inside the PDA, but since I’d rescued her from her captors, she was willing to try and help me hook up with her friend the elf, but did advise this was a bad idea due to the elf’s baggage. For good or ill (mostly the latter), this all ended up in the play.
As to the rest… in late 2001 and early 2002, I could watch whatever I wanted at Westhills theatre for free. But there wasn’t much playing. So what I ended up doing was rewatching two movies over and over: Fellowship of the Ring and Ocean’s 11. As such, a sketch idea wormed its way into my mind: what if instead of Gandalf the Grey, the Fellowship of the Ring was led by Danny Ocean? While it soon became clear Ocean’s Fellowship wasn’t going to be worth writing down, I guess the notion got stuck in my head, and a few years of loving con man movies later… this happened.
How’d it turn out?
“You folded with a focus and intensity normally seen only in successes.”
-Ray Smuckles
Short answer is “not well.”
For a long time now, I’ve held this one up as a cautionary tale. At the workshop, it was generally agreed to be one of the worst things I’d done (and wasn’t that fun to hear in a group setting), but until then? I had no idea I’d gotten it that wrong.
But I see now. Time, distance, and practice have shown me why Quest failed so utterly.
For starters, it’s like 90% exposition. Ninety percent. That is not okay. Alright, that percentage is a rough estimate at best, but the fact is, people spend more time standing around talking about the premise and the world and what’s been happening than actually doing anything. For something that’s trying to blend Lord of the Rings Ocean’s 11, there is barely any action and staggeringly little charm.
And despite all this exposition, nothing is developed. Why are Tobias and Freddy so close partners? If Tobias is already willing to move on and flirt with Ellianna, how could Pauline’s death have affected him so deeply that he’s imagining her talking to him? We know what the Adversary’s plans are, but do the good guys have their own plan, or is “stopping the bad guy” really the sum of their ambition? I don’t know, and I wrote this bloody thing!
The “curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal” moment happens during the traitor’s second scene. We have just met this person, how could we possibly have anything invested in whether or not they’re a traitor? In fact, it’s hard to get invested in anyone. They show up, have a stock set of characteristics (Victor’s sarcastic. Really reaching new heights there, Young Me), three of them have a token sad story from their past which end up just being more chunks of exposition in a story drowning in them… I don’t think a potential audience was ever given a concrete reason to care about Tobias, or have any investment at all in what he does. And since he’s driving the story, that is a problem.
The plot is surprisingly barren and moves way too fast. Thirty minutes after finding out magic is real, Tobias knows how to break a seemingly unbreakable curse, with no more explanation than a quick joke about “There’s always a cheap knock-off in Chinatown.”
Somebody at the workshop said “You need a comic relief character.” I said “I thought I had one.” Tells you how funny Freddy ended up.
Everything interesting happens offstage, and is described to the audience so we can quickly move to our next burst of exposition. The final con to defeat the Adversary and win the day is full of holes. Tobais is only the smartest person in the room because everyone else is so reliably stupid.
It is a failure on every level. The world building is sloppy, the characters are cobbled together and uninteresting, it’s a story about the end of the world yet doesn’t feel like it has any stakes, everything, everything, is told rather than shown… and I misused an apostrophe on page 13. It is an eternal reminder that no matter how much I’ve learned, no matter how much I grow, it is still possible to utterly and completely shit the bed.
And yet… and yet now that I’ve cracked it back open, I kind of want to save it.
Would you stage it again?
“You lost today, kid. But that doesn’t mean you have to like it.”
-Fedora, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Or in this case, “Would you allow it to see the light of day,” and the answer remains no, absolutely not, not like this. Like I said, I kind of want to save it, but there isn’t enough in this script that works to build a second draft. The fact is, when the first readers were trying to softball their responses, they were right: this story does not work as a stage play. There’s so much exposition, backstory on the world, its rules, and the characters that’s needed for it to make sense, but right now it’s all happening instead of actually developing the characters, the story, or the stakes. Right now everything interesting happens offstage because it all felt too hard to do in live theatre.
Maybe the story can work. Or at least elements of it. The ancient war of light and dark stuck in an era where magic is dying, a la Flight of Dragons or Carnivale, could have some legs. I might have to lose the elves and the orcs/orc descendents, though, not sure how well that played. Well, definitely the orcs. That did not work at all.
Tobias would need to have some actual charm. Ellianna would need a personality. Freddy’s comic relief would have to actually be funny. The haunted-by-imaginary-Pauline thing has to go, because the idea that anyone might see that as anything but a knock-off of Gaius Baltar from Battlestar Galactica was a pipe dream. But more than anything, to not be terrible, this story would need to have more room to breathe. Time to develop. Time to earn the audience’s interest. And a stage play ain’t gonna get it done. A novel, maybe. A TV series? Definitely.
Sadly, I have at least two other series I want to see exist in some form, and they’re both higher priorities.
One of which starts in a few weeks. For the curious.
Which means the notion of how this story could be told well will just have to lurk around the back of my head for a while. Which is how I got into this mess in the first place.
Repeated theme alert
Man and woman cannot be friends: Not sure if I should include this one, since Tobias and Ellianna were never what you’d call “friends,” but their end-of-play hook up is just SUPER tacked-on and brutally unearned.
Something something pop culture reference: The Pauline thing wasn’t actually stolen from Battlestar Galactica. It was stolen from Garth Ennis’ 1997 Unknown Soldiergraphic novel miniseries, in which the lead character is thrown into a globe-trotting conspiracy centred around nigh-mythological black ops agent Codename Unknown Soldier because a pretty co-worker smiled at him, and was almost immediately killed. He then hallucinates her talking to him throughout the story. Not… not sure that makes it better.
Something something pop culture reference part two, Secret of the Ooze: Someone refers to the age of magic as being an age of “nobility and cruelty.” That’s an homage to a similar monologue that opens the first episode of Carnivale. “Before the beginning, after the great war between Heaven and Hell, God created the Earth and gave dominion over it to the crafty ape he called man. And to each generation was born a creature of light and a creature of darkness. And great armies clashed by night in the ancient war between good and evil. There was magic then, nobility, and unimaginable cruelty. And so it was until the day that a false sun exploded over Trinity, and man forever traded away wonder for reason.” That monologue shaped a lot of my vision for the world of this story, and the decline of magic.
“Let’s swap backstories for fifteen minutes like that’s not pacing Kryptonite!”This describes more of the script than it doesn’t.
Next time… from my worst first draft to my best, as I experiment with full-on farce.
I don’t deal well with not being able to fix things. Problems affecting me or someone close to me that I can’t personally address weigh on me something terrible. Right now it’s internet shenanigans, plumbing issues (is that who fixes garburators? Plumbers? I don’t even know), technical problems on Ye Olde Webseries, stalled career issues, all hitting a general sense of malaise.
What I’d love is something great to happen to counter-act all of this, but since that doesn’t seem to be on the horizon, instead I’m going to talk about movies I’ve seen recently, something that’ll be happening more and more as we head towards Oscar night.
In no particular order…
BIRDMAN or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance
The story of a Hollywood actor, best known for the superhero movies he did 25 years ago, trying to revitalize his career by writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway play. You’ve probably heard about it, since it stars Michael Keaton, who as you may recall had some superhero experience himself 25 years back, before there were three or four superhero movies a year to choose from.
There are so many fascinating things to pick apart here. There’s the fact that, despite taking place over several weeks, virtually the entire movie is shot as though it were a single take. There are the brilliant performances from Keaton, Edward Norton as his supporting actor who’s brilliant onstage but a nightmare to work with, Emma Stone as Keaton’s estranged daughter, and more. There’s the way it attacks Hollywood stars for thinking of live theatre as a holiday gig they can do between films, yet has a repugnant character make that argument so that they can also attack Broadway for thinking they’re above it.
They are not.
Plus the fact that I’m still not entirely certain what happened in the final minutes, where the line is drawn between Keaton’s growing delusions and reality, though I can’t really go into that without spoiling stuff, so… just watch it. Watch it so we can talk about it.
The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies
A year back I wrote about some of the challenges of adapting the Hobbit into film. And yes, at the time, I stood by some of Peter Jackson’s choices, including adding female characters, showing what Gandalf was up to instead of having him pop in and out of the story almost at random, and having the dwarfs be a little less helpless. But there is one choice made that I can’t support, and that is where the Desolation of Smaug ended and Battle of Five Armies begins. Ending the second movie where they did, with Smaug about to attack Lake Town, was stupid. Because that isn’t an ending. The action beat enters its second phase, and they roll credits. That’s bad narrative so matter how you slice it.
That said, once you get past the fact that Battle of Five Armies starts with what should have been the last 15 minutes of Desolation of Smaug, the actual Battle of Five Armies is worth watching. If you disagree with any of the choices made to pad out the fairly simple story of the book into three movies, this won’t bring you around, but the brinksmanship between gold-mad Thorin and the lurking armies of elves and men who feel they’re owed a piece of the hoard is well done, and when the orcs roll up, Jackson proves he still has some gas in his “epic battle” tank.
There’s really only one other thing to say here, and that’s to address one more novel vs. movies complaint: that we spend basically an entire movie (again, once the rightful end of the last movie is done) on something that lasts less than a page in the book. Well, to this I say something that will likely bring the wrath of my Tolkien fan friends down on me…
There are things that Tolkien wrote that needed to be changed.
Arwen needed a bigger part in the Lord of the Rings movies because if you want audiences to care about her relationship with Aragorn she can’t just be a background decoration like in the books, and by the same token, the Battle of Five Armies can’t really be the quick little epilogue that it was in the book.
In the book it’s this quick little skirmish in which the elves, dwarfs, and men are forced to team up against the attacking goblins to teach a lesson about the futility of war and lust for gold. It’s quickly skimmed over because the lesson is more important than the details. But the problem with that, you see, is that several of the dwarfs die in the battle, even in the book. Either the Battle of Five Armies is this little epilogue to the larger story not worth expanding, or it’s how several main characters die, but it cannot be both.
So the Battle of Five Armies doesn’t justify turning one short children’s book into three lengthy movies, but it does justify spending two hours on the battle itself, and makes it worth watching. Well, except that scene where the Mirkwood elf king tells Legolas that he should find this ranger going by the name of Strider. Come on, man. We KNOW. We GET it. There was no need for that.
Anyhoo, since it’s Oscar season, time to talk about some Inspirational Biopics™.
The Theory of Everything
Not necessarily representative of the movie
One night, at a party at Cambridge, a girl named Jane meets a boy named Stephen. They hit it off, and Stephen pursues her, but their relationship hits a few snags: she’s a devout Christian, and he’s a brilliant physicist with an annoying habit of trying to disprove the need for God. Oh, also he has a debilitating neural disease that’s slowly shutting down his body.
The Theory of Everything, while a biopic about Stephen Hawking, is not about Hawking’s work in physics. Well, it is a little. That’s a big enough part of his life that you can’t really skip over it. But the heart of the movie is the relationship between Stephen and Jane: the religious debate that divides them, the debilitating illness that makes their lives harder and harder. And Jane’s growing friendship with church choir director Jonathon, who might be a perfect match if she weren’t already married.
Eddie Redmayne does an excellent job portraying Stephen’s long, slow slide into a weirdly non-lethal case of ALS, conveying his emotions even after he’s lost the power of speech. The movie really makes you feel for both Stephen and Jane, and the sense that however much they love each other, the marriage eventually becomes something neither of them ever signed on for.
The one thing I would have liked that wasn’t there is a potential debate between atheist Stephen and spiritual Jane on the topic that no one except John Stewart seemed to be asking… when Stephen was diagnosed, his life expectancy was two years. That was over half a century ago, he’s still going, and nobody knows why. Stephen’s always been too busy an not interested enough to look into it. Maybe his religious wife never asked the question in real life, but I’d have liked to have seen that moment.
On the other hand, probably wouldn’t have advanced the story much and would have been cut. Oh well.
The Imitation Game
Switching now from the British physicist biopic to the British mathematician biopic. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing, who broke Nazi Germany’s unbreakable Enigma code, shortening World War II by two years (historians estimate) and saving millions of lives, then had his life destroyed by his own government when he was outed as a homosexual. Uplifting!
There are flashbacks to his childhood, and flash forwards to the police inquiry that outed him, but the main focus of the movie is Turing’s quest to beat Enigma not through conventional codebreaking, as the rest of his team and employers wish he would, but by building a machine capable of beating the code. In essence, Turing won the second world war by inventing computers. Or by making a substantial breakthrough in computer technology if you hate drama.
The film paints Turing as a perpetual outsider, loathed by his colleagues. Not because he was secretly gay, but because he was what we’d now recognize as on the autism spectrum (obviously I cannot verify if that’s true, but that’s clearly what the movie claims). Clueless at social nuance but brilliant at puzzles, he struggles just as hard to win over his co-workers as he does to build his machine and make it work.
Benedict Cumberbatch is going to give Eddie Redmayne a run for his money in the best actor category, I can tell you that. Although there are still other biopics in play, so who knows who’ll be on top? Could even be Steve Carell.
STEVE CARELL is in a movie, wearing a FAKE NOSE, and it’s not a comedy but a serious Oscar contender. What happened to the world.
Ready for your biopics to get less inspirational?
Unbroken
Theoretically, Unbroken is an inspirational biopic about the triumph of the human spirit. I say “theoretically” because the only word of that I actually agree with is “biopic.” Well, and “is,” I guess.
See that trailer I posted up above? Watch it and you’ve basically seen the whole movie. Louis Zamperini uses track and field to stay out of trouble as a kid, competes in the 1936 Berlin Olympics (setting a record for fastest lap but not winning a medal), enlists in the air force, crashes at sea, spends a month and a half in a lifeboat, is captured by the Japanese, and has a pretty crap time of it. And manages two or three acts of defiance and resilience, most of which are in the trailer. Takes a beating from fellow prisoners to protect other prisoners, lifts a heavy piece of wood until his tormentor is sad, and thus is Unbroken or whatever.
And the end result is Just. So. Boring.
Seriously, you hit a point of diminishing returns on “Wow, he endured a lot,” and that point happens before he even reaches the POW camp. The lifeboat gets dull. The cruelty of the head of his POW camp gets old in a hurry. But my real issue? All the other big biopics this year are about people who did something. Martin Luther King Jr., Alan Turing, Stephen Hawking, even the guy from Foxcatcher was trying to do something of note. Louis Zamperini just endured something. He didn’t inspire his fellow prisoners to keep hope (in the end they all march quite willingly to their almost certain death, only to be saved by a US plane flying overhead causing the guards to decide executing their prisoners might not be as good an idea as they’d been told), he didn’t escape, his only accomplishment was not dying. A lot of people in the same camps managed to not die. Only one of them got a movie.
The spiritual journey Zamperini went on after the war, which led him to forgive his captors (the worst of which escaped war crime charges due to an amnesty offered by the US to smooth US/Japan relations) might have made the story worthwhile, but all we eventually got was “This guy had a crap three years but didn’t whine about it much, isn’t that inspiring.”
No. It wasn’t.
So feel free to skip this one and watch Big Hero Six instead. I like Big Hero Six.
Next time… a probable return to old plays, as there’s some relevance to my current goings-on.
“I didn’t want to start writing something of my own because to do that I’d have to start writing something. I love writing but hate starting. The page is awfully white and it says, ‘You may have fooled some of the people some of the time but those days are over, giftless. I’m not your agent and I’m not your mommy, I’m a white piece of paper, you wanna dance with me?’ and I really, really don’t. I don’t want any trouble. I’ll go peaceable-like.”
-Aaron Sorkin
A long time ago, longer now than it seems, in a place you’ve probably seen in your dreams–damn it. One day I will be able to say “A long time ago” without lapsing into Nightmare Before Christmas. Just not today.
Right, anyway, about seven months back, I said I was going to talk about the playwriting process as I began to work my way through my newest script. I did this despite knowing that first drafts take time and that I had a busy summer ahead of me. And that’s why we’re only now getting to part two.
Because a first draft is hard, you guys. Super hard. Especially since I’ve never really mastered outlines.
The trick with outlines
An outline is a decent idea. Helps you prep and organize your story. Figure out what the important story beats are, how to get to them, what they accomplish. A scene-by-scene breakdown that gives you the shape of your story and lets you plan out how to tell it.
See, I know this, I know all of this, and yet when it comes to starting a new script I throw all of that knowledge away and choose to just wing that mother every time. Every time.
And sometimes it’s a much worse idea than others. I got to the intermission of Jade Monkey and found I had no Earthly idea what to do in act two. And god DAMN but that is apparent if you actually read it. In a more recent script, an entire character got added because I realized that only one of the existing cast could be in the next scene, and he was going to need someone to talk to. And the new character may have become my favourite in that script, but… I begin to wonder if maybe that script was less… positively received than I thought at the time. But that’s another thing.
Anyway, outlines are good, outlines work. Especially if you’re co-authoring something. Lethargic Lad was extensively outlined so that Munsi and I could work on separate scenes while still writing the same play. My next co-written project will be the same. But here’s why I think I’ve never mastered them in my solo efforts.
“Is it because you’re lazy and impatient?” I hear you asking, and fine, yes, you could paint it that way, but… last time I talked about how before I commit to writing an idea, I bounce it around in my head. Let the characters take shape. Figure out what the key scenes I’m going to want to see are. Well, by the time I’ve done that, it’s like I can hear the character’s voices in my head, and the only way to shut them up is to write down everything they’re saying. And I tend to want to dive right into that rather than spend time on what feels like busy work.
Hell, half the time I DO try to write an outline, I end up filling it with swaths of dialogue anyway. Wait. Wait. Hang on. That doesn’t sound like a problem. That sounds like what I should do every time, doesn’t it… except, well, no, there is a catch. See, I have found in the past that when I write a chunk of dialogue out of sequence, it’s not always easy fitting it in later.
Take my latest, for example. One of the first things I wrote was a joke about a possible (and terrible) new name for the event management company at the center of the story. For obvious reasons, the joke had to go towards the end of the play, so throughout the process of cranking out the first draft I had this block of lines waiting to be sewn in. And by the time I reached that part of the script, the characterization of two of the leads had shifted, one of the other characters had a different name and was no longer onstage for that scene. I managed to salvage the joke, but it still took some work.
In fact, a lot of things had changed.
It might not be the story you intended
Turns out a lot of things got thrown out in the process. When I’d finally finished a draft, I went back and looked at the character notes I’d included in my “Dramatis Personnae” page, and was stunned about how much stuff I’d decided was important back in summer that I’d just straight-up forgotten about over the next few months. The bride was going to be a fellow event planner who couldn’t shut her work-brain off for her own wedding. The groom was going to be in a panic about everything being perfect. Neither of those things happened, and frankly, there just wasn’t time. The script isn’t that short as it is. If I included every little twist and complication I’d dreamt up in the early planning stages, this thing would’ve ended up three hours long. And I’m trying to cut back on three hour plays.
If the creative juices are going, if the characters are coming alive, the story might go in directions you hadn’t anticipated. Entire subplots have sprung up in plays because characters evolved in a way I hadn’t expected, or to put it another way, because when it came time to actually write the scene, suddenly new twists arrived that seemed too good to pass up.
You can plan and plan, but it’s in the first draft that the characters come to life and your story is truly born. It’s in writing the thing that you learn what the thing is, or at least what it could be.
But it’s a slog
In most cases, it also takes a great long time to do.
Edits are easy. I’ll cover that later, but the fact is you have a complete story to work with. Even if you’re tossing out whole sections, like I did with The Spy Who Left Me, at least there’s a framework. It’s easier to change something than create it, easier to polish a character’s voice than imagine it.
The first draft… there’s days or even weeks when no matter how much I think I’ve figured out about the script to come, I’m drawing a complete blank on the scene I’m actually working on. When a night of writing ultimately ends up being less than a page, then off to bed in defeat.
And then sometimes, like, say, August and September, when I was in rehearsal or on the web series set basically every day for six weeks, I can’t really work on the script at all. So when I come back to it, I need to reread the whole thing to get back into the groove.
Or so I tell myself. I’ve lost more than one night of writing to re-reading and tweaking everything I’ve already done, and I can’t honestly say that it was necessary every time. But sometimes when I just don’t feel like I have any new lines in the tank, a refresher does help me get back into everyone’s head a push forward. Even if it is just for a page.
And of course there are nights where I’ll poke away at the script for hours, barely making progress, when suddenly somewhere around midnight everything clicks and I’m hammering out pages like crazy while thinking “I really do need to get to bed, but I just have to finish this sequence.” One night I actually had to get back out of bed after a half hour because the scene was still playing out in my brain and I needed to get it down as soon as possible.
Turns out there’s a reason for that. As you get tired, the part of your brain that takes in and filters new information begins to shut down in preparation for sleep, leaving the other parts of your brain to fire away unimpeded. Your frontal lobe stops providing distractions or poo-pooing your ideas, and so the ideas begin to flow.
Which means that, and if you know me at all you know this is not a sentence I take any joy in saying, my colleague Ben is right: write drunk, edit sober. A few whiskeys have the same effect as approaching the sleep portion of your circadian cycle. And so, on this last draft, I gave that a try as I entered the home stretch of the first draft. And by “home stretch” I mean “last half or so.” Possibly “last two thirds.” I mentioned how busy I’d been last summer, right?
The waiting game sucks, let’s play Hungry Hungry Hippos
And then comes the hard part. The draft is done, and there’s nothing left but the dreaded “showing it to people I trust so they can tell me what they think.”
I never know if a first draft is any good. Never. It is an absolute mystery. As I’ll soon cover, in 2007 I wrote two scripts back to back: one was the worst first draft I’d ever done, and was immediately discarded, and the other was the best first draft I’d ever written and could practically have been staged as-was. But at the time, I could not have predicted either outcome. I thought the bad script had potential, and naturally was lacking a little in self-confidence when that one tanked and I started showing around the better one. Are the characters good? Do the jokes work? Is the story interesting? I cannot tell. The part of my brain capable of figuring these things out shuts down when faced with my own work and just throws up a test pattern saying “Well it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
And so I find those select few that I can trust for honest and useful feedback, send the script to them, and wait for them to find time to read it. Which… can take a while. And that can become frustrating, since my brain flicks from “Oh god, what if they think it’s horrible” to “I have to know what they think” the second I click “send” on the email.
Next time in this series (with hopefully less of a lull in between): the script is done, time to beat it with hammers until it’s good.
So I finally, after an uncharacteristically long period, have caught up on the eight series of Doctor Who. Which got me thinking thoughts about the Doctor, his companions, their various relationships, and why I’m drawn to some more than others. And what that says.
The early days
In the beginning (of the new series, I have not the time, inclination, or frankly knowledge to go through all of the first eight Doctors’ companions), there was Nine and Rose. The Doctor had just left the endless horrors of the Time War, had just regenerated after wiping out both his own people and the Daleks (he thinks) to end the war while some of time and space was still standing. After years of being alone, a soldier in the war, not even the Doctor as far as he was concerned, something in his new head (possibly a subconscious recollection of the events of Day of the Doctor) told him it was okay to be the Doctor again. Okay to try and connect with people once more. Okay to travel with a companion again. Rose turns to the Doctor for adventure, for a life that a a simple shopgirl could never have, and the Doctor… the Doctor heals. His rage passes. His compassion regrows. And when he’s put in a familiar position at the end of the first series… wipe out the Daleks at the expense of the population of Earth… he refuses. And not long after that, he becomes a literally new man: a warmer, kinder, faster to smile man.
It’s a good story, a solid beginning, but a hard relationship to connect with. After all, how many of us have freshly returned from a war in which we were forced to commit genocide? I haven’t. I feel most of you haven’t either. I suspect it would have made the news. Well, some of the news.
Rose and Ten? Now that’s a different story. Ten was always less cold than Nine, faster to embrace people, even in his lowest moments. And not too hard on the eyes, either. How could Rose not fall in love with the dashing superhero her companion had become? And the Doctor was starting to fall for her as well, but refusing to acknowledge it since a relationship between a 20-year-old human and a 900-year-old Time Lord is… problematic.
Again, not something I really relate to. Even if I do occasionally have feelings for someone younger (not 900 years younger, but when you’re not an ageless god a decade-and-change age gap can feel just as difficult), those feelings are rarely, if ever, returned, so the age thing doesn’t really come into play.
Rose left, breaking not just the Doctor’s heart(s), but hearts all throughout the fandom.
Quickest way to break a Ten/Rose shipper
And in came Martha Jones to replace her. Now, the Doctor thought he was just doing what he always does when he meets someone interesting, clever, and capable (cute and female also seems to be a plus): offer to show her all of time and space, to save him from running alone.
But what he was actually doing, even if he didn’t realize it, was trying to fill the void left by Rose. Martha, despite being more clever, more useful, and never once tearing a hole in time with her daddy issues, was never more than a replacement Rose to the Doctor, and as she fell in love with him, she was forced to admit that was no way to live, and that she had to move on.
More relatable, sure. Not necessarily to me… well, okay, sure, even I’ve been oblivious to someone else having feelings for me, so I get the Doctor’s side there…
Donna Noble just wanted a greater life than she’d come to expect she was capable of living. She wanted to wander the stars with the Doctor forever, just as friends. Strictly friends. She may well be the best of the Tennant companions, and certainly has the most heartbreaking conclusion, and, yeah, I’ve had friendships with women where we spent an odd amount of time assuring people we weren’t a couple, but where I really began to feel drawn to the Doctor/Companion relationship was…
Amy Pond
The dawn of the Moffat/Matt Smith era had my attention by making the new companion a cute Scottish redhead in a miniskirt, I’ll admit that. But here’s what Amy and Eleven is to me.
Amy Pond was the first face the Eleventh Doctor saw. The first person he met after a prolonged period of self-isolation. Sure, Ten still had his way with people, but he refused to take on companions. All the losses he’d faced, including losing Donna and Rose (again) in one day, were too much. He couldn’t take it anymore. The Doctor who loved and embraced people more than most couldn’t stand to be around them long term. But Amy came to him right as he regenerated into a new man, a man who shared Ten’s love of common people but not always his charm.
Eleven’s more awkward, as we see in his stubborn belief that bow ties and fezzes are cool. And despite being played by the youngest actor ever to take the role, more than most he carried the full weight of his nine (later twelve) centuries of life. An old soul with a young face.
The Doctor and Amy aren’t in love. Amy might be a little hot for him in the beginning, something the Doctor (rightfully) suspects has more to do with an all-too-real reaction to intense and dangerous circumstances–see, the brain releases dopamine, which is also involved in infatuation, and–anyway. Amy loves the Doctor, sure, but she’s in love with Rory. Much as the Doctor is actually falling for River Song rather than Amy. But just because they’re not in love doesn’t make what they have less special. Amy’s not the woman the Doctor loves, or at least not the woman he marries, but she’s important. For centuries, she’s the most important person in his life, the person he can never stop running to.
Why wouldn’t I fall for that relationship? This was 2010/2011. In 2010 and 2011, I was as close as I’d ever been to… well, her. Younger, like Amy. Someone I cared for dearly, like Amy. But not someone I was likely to ever be able to date. But we were close all the same. Very close, those years.
So why wouldn’t I connect to this era? To the Doctor whose charms were muted by an awkward nerdinesss, who was great with a speech but terrible with emotions, and whose best friend was girl he’d always love but never kiss? Why wouldn’t I want that relationship to make sense?
But like Amy, a day came when she disappeared forever.
And like the Doctor… I shut myself off for a while. Because the loss hurt too much to want to feel like that again.
Clara Oswald
For the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, the BBC put out a series of prints: the silhouetted profiles of the first 11 Doctors, and in their profile, key friends and foes from each Doctor’s run. For Patrick Troughton, Jamie and the Brigadier. For Tom Baker, Romana and K-9. And for Matt Smith, Amy, Rory, and River.
Not Clara.
In fairness, Clara was new. By the time the Matt Smith print came out, she’d been in one episode, went by Oswin, and died at the end.
But eventually a time came when Clara not being on the poster made sense. Because she wouldn’t belong in Matt Smith’s profile. She’d belong in Capaldi’s.
Peter Capaldi’s 12th Doctor is a harder, colder Doctor. And yet Clara has become the most important person in his life, in a way she never was before his last regeneration. Because after 900 years of defending Trenzalore from his worst foes… the Doctor is afraid of himself. Of what he might be. A Dalek sees into his soul, and finds only hatred. Ex-soldier Danny Pink immediately recognizes him not just as a fellow soldier (something the 12th Doctor despises), but even worse, as an officer (possible, we only know what the Doctor did at the very end of the Time War). Clara… Clara is his lifeline. He can believe that he’s a good man if Clara can believe it, even a little, and when she begins to doubt, it crushes him. But no matter what, he still has her back.
Even towards the end. Clara turns on him, betrays him, tries to threaten him into breaking time itself for selfish purposes… and is then shocked to find he’s still willing to do the impossible to help her. He sums it up with one question:
“Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?”
And man, I dig that. That says so much about several key friendships I have or have had. The people I would do anything for. And yeah, a few of them would do anything right back, but… there are definitely a few Claras out there. The people who make me believe I matter because I matter to them. And so even if they hurt me from time to time, I still find myself willing to walk through fire for them.
Because sometimes you love someone you can’t be in love with. But that’s okay. That’s good. Even when they don’t feel the same. Because while that might hurt… as Amy Pond said, it’s kind of a good hurt.
Thanks for bearing with me. If you did. Something more fun and less introspective next time, yeah?
So, hi. Been about a month. That’s… that’s my bad right there. Allow me to explain.
I’ve been too busy writing to write a blog.
“Hm,” I would think to myself. “It’s been a while since my last blog post. Maybe I should–”
And around this point my freelance tech writing gig would drop me an email, needing two to five hours of work done. Which is totally fine because I likes me that paycheck. Well, that direct deposit. The money. You get me.
Now, that’s not every day… if it were every day, I’d have earned enough to hide in Australia for the winter… or at least bug out to Mexico for a few weeks. But there have been other things. Let’s take a stroll and catch up on all things Danny, shall we?
No, come on, don’t leave, I’ll attempt to be funny and stuff…
New play? Check!
I have also been hammering away more earnestly at my latest play script. Which has been… odd. The past year I’ve been branching out into other media, like the impending web series and some… not-yet-successful TV projects. Returning to playwriting after all that feels almost odd. Like visiting an old friend who’s look has changed completely. Plus I decided to take on something extra challenging: a farce. A genre based on precision mishaps and carefully choreographed chaos, all of which is meant to end up maximally hilarious.
So if it isn’t funny, that’s the ballgame.
It probably is. Probably. My last farce was, something we’ll be looking at when Danny Writes Plays resumes. And we’ll talk about this one more when I use it as an excuse to get back to the Writing a Play series I was pondering back before the first draft took six months to finish.
See? Two series I should be continuing. And I’m on it, I’m on it.
Web series? Coming along!
Few things have occupied more of my attention in recent months than Writers’ Circle: the Series, an adaptation of one of my older (but not old enough to have hit the blog yet) scripts. Principal photography is complete(ish). Post production is underway. And you can get all the latest news on our brand-new website, www.writerscircleseries.com.
Coming soon. You’re gonna love it. OR ELSE.
Creating this show has been incredibly rewarding, and has involved some people who already were or have now become my favourite people on Earth. Well, my favourite people who aren’t Karen Gillan.
Some day, Pond… some day… (painting by Alice X. Zhang)
Anyway… I imagine this, too, is something we can discuss later. And repeatedly, since I’ll be ranting about it constantly come January.
Geek news round-up!
Since my last posts were all about the surge in geek news, I guess I should touch on some things. Or more accurately, I guess I’m going to. Here goes. Keeping it brief.
Agents of SHIELD: They did all that I asked. They picked up the pace. The kept the higher stakes. Ward is still interesting. If anything, they’re wrapping up stories too fast. Sadly, their ratings have not recovered, so just when they’ve finally become interesting, they may face cancellation. They lose viewers if they’re off the air for a week, and are about to go on a two-month (at least) hiatus. If their tie-in show, Agent Carter, isn’t a big enough hit to maintain viewer interest and avoid the hiatus ratings dip… well, it gets ugly. Fingers crossed for you, Agent Coulson. Which is not something I’d have said a year ago, after that misstep that was The Well.
Flash: Stay the course, gang, you’re doing super. I am especially a fan of their Captain Cold. He was note-perfect. Not insane, not manic, not out to destroy the world… just a stone-cold (they avoid puns as best they can but there’s no getting around that one) career thief who sees the arrival of Central City’s super-fast guardian as a sign he needs to up his game with stolen weapons. If the rest of the Rogues are this well done, I’m happy as can be.
Marvel’s big announcement: Well, they shut me up about Civil War. And shut up everyone who was pointing out that Sony and now DC both had female-led (and POC-led in DC’s case) movies in the pipeline, and yet nothing from Marvel about rumoured Black Panther or Captain Marvel movies. Here they both come. What struck me as odd about the big announcement? It’s like they were saving all of this for San Diego Comic-con, instead of stealing some of Age of Ultron’s thunder by discussing what comes next. But Warner Bros. forced their hand with their big announcement, so Marvel threw their own Hall H panel-style event so they could have a room full of screaming fans while they laid out Phase Three instead of a room full of Time Warner shareholders. Which, really… is kind of a baller move. So I’ll give it to them.
The DC slate: I’m at a point where nothing DC has announced between now and 2020 has me more excited than Suicide Squad. A group of villains brought together for a high-risk Dirty Dozen-style mission? From the guy who wrote Training Day? I’ll take that, thanks ever so. But what I would like is an official announcement as to cast. Rumours and reports have Jai Courtney (who was pretty good in the underseen and underestimated Jack Reacher) as Deadshot, Margot Robbie (Wolf of Wall Street) as Harley Quinn, Will Smith (the hell?) as Captain Boomerang (the HELL?), Tom Hardy as their boss, Rick Flagg… and also Jesse Eisenberg reprising Lex Luthor and, most surprisingly, Jared Leto as the new Joker.
Now this raises many questions. Is the writer/director being pressured to include more A-list villains? Lex is an odd choice for the Suicide Squad, let alone the Joker. Would the Joker be part of the Squad, or just a cameo to establish Harley Quinn and get him in place for future Batman movies? Will Smith’s one of the last truly bankable stars, what’s he doing playing Captain freaking Boomerang? And I’d love to tackle those questions, or talk about the sometimes wonderfully awkward and strained relationship between Lex Luthor and the Joker, but…
None of this is confirmed. Not a single WB executive or actor’s publicist has said that any of this is official. Not to the best of my knowledge, and I think we all know that my knowledge is… well, as good as anyone with zero industry connections but lots of time and internet on his hands can be. So… average? Around there?
I can’t speculate on how Zach Snyder’s going to do with the Justice League until I see how Batman V. Superman turns out. I have nothing new to say on Wonder Woman until a script is actually written. And I want to be excited for Suicide Squad, but I need to see Fury (same writer/director, similar set-up) and get some official casting news first.
I was going to take a break from geek media this week. I really, really was. Even started a different post yesterday. And then… well, and then this happened. In short, Marvel announced that Captain America 3 will feature Tony Stark, and will kick off (or possibly be) an adaptation of their 2006 event miniseries, Civil War.
Let me sum that up for you. After a group of superpowered youngsters trying to launch a reality series attacked a group of super villains in Stanford, Connecticut, leading to a massive explosion next to a school, the US government decides that maybe all these super heroes shouldn’t be running around unregulated and passes a law requiring anyone with powers to register their identity and powers.
I know, right? After a national tragedy the US government attempts to pass laws restricting the thing that made that tragedy possible. What kooky impossible scenario will those comic writers come up with next?
Anyhoo, Tony Stark leads the pro-registration charge, feeling that this law is both necessary and inevitable. Captain America isn’t sure about this, seeing it as encroaching on the liberties of his friends and allies, and when he’s informed by SHIELD that he either rounds up all of his friends who don’t register or gets shot full of tranq darts and thrown in a cell right about now, he goes on the run and forms the resistance.
Since the book was called “Civil War,” I think you can guess where things go from there.
You can see why Marvel Studios might be eager to bring this Captain America/Iron Man slugfest to the big screen, since despite its many flaws and frequent shipping delays it remains one of the biggest Marvel events of the last 10 years (not that the recent ones are anything to brag about, but still). And you know what? I’m not even going to speculate that they decided to do a movie about Iron Man and Captain America fighting because DC is doing a movie featuring Batman and Superman squaring off. Gonna give Marvel the benefit of the doubt here, and say that either this was already the plan when Batman V. Superman was announced, or they honestly don’t give two shits about what Warner Brothers and DC are up to, because why would they need to?
But maybe they should have given this one a little more thought. Because there are some real problems in trying to adapt it.
Here’s some examples.
Need actual armies for a war
The comic Civil War featured two entire armies of super heroes going at it. Dozens of A and B list characters at war in the streets while dozens more C and D list characters got rounded up by Iron Man’s forces. And as a reminder, one of the key issues involved divulging their secret identities to the government.
Right now, the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe has eight super heroes.
Eight.
Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Falcon, and War Machine/Iron Patriot. Three of them don’t even have powers, and not a single damned one of them has a secret identity. Hell, three of them were government employees until SHIELD shut down, and one of them works for the military!
But that’s not entirely fair. Between now and May of 2016 that number will go up a bit. Between Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, and the launch of Daredevil on Netflix, they’ll be up to… let’s see… 12 super heroes. And one, maybe two secret identities.
Still not quite enough for a war, is it? Yes, they could introduce a wave of new super heroes through Agents of SHIELD… but will they? Will they really? They’ve shown no interest in doing that so far, and Agents of SHIELD might not last past this season if their ratings keep sliding. Which is a shame, because unlike this time last year, they really don’t deserve to be cancelled.
But it doesn’t really matter how many C-list heroes Agents of SHIELD introduces. There will still be some glaring absences.
They can’t do half the story
Here’s some key plot points from Civil War that the movies can’t realistically use.
Spider-Man unmasks. The one big jaw-drop moment of Civil War was Spider-Man revealing his identity on public television, because Iron Man said he had to. There is some rumbling that Sony and Marvel might be nearing an agreement regarding Spider-Man, which would allow Marvel to use Spider-Man in their team-up movies, but Peter Parker had been Tony Stark’s right-hand man for months prior to Civil War in the comics. Tony Stark had become his friend, boss, and mentor, and that’s how he convinced Peter to unmask at all. Even if Marvel and Sony figure this out, they’re not going to be able to establish that bond between Age of Ultron and Captain America V. Iron Man: Dusk of Shwarma. Not unless they do some serious rewrites to Ant-Man.
Tony Stark builds a super human prison in the Negative Zone. As part of the overall theme of “Tony Stark embodies the worst elements of the Bush administration, but we pretend it’s okay that he won for some reason,” Tony Stark built a prison to lock up all the unregistered super heroes in something called the Negative Zone. No, you don’t know what that is. Nor do the majority of the people who watch Marvel movies. So I can’t see them fitting it in. And odds are Fox is going to claim they own it, because it’s linked to the Fantastic Four. Hey, that reminds me…
The Fantastic Four split up. Mr. Fantastic was on Tony’s side from day one, but Invisible Woman and Human Torch sided with the resistance and the Thing decided to emigrate (he didn’t get far). Aside from Cap and Iron Man being at each other’s throats, the Civil War splitting up Marvel’s first family was one of the big emotional beats. And since Fox would rather release a Fantastic Four movie they seem weirdly ashamed to talk about than give the rights back to Marvel, kiss that plot point goodbye. Why did Susan leave Reed? Well, it had something to do with…
That clone of Thor that killed a fellow hero. Iron Man’s side accidentally drew first blood when their cyborg clone of Thor went a little nuts and killed Goliath, a fourth-string Giant Man knock-off. The only reason they had a clone of Thor is that the real Thor had been missing for quite a while, as Marvel had taken the character off the bench for a few years. So even if cyborg clones were something the Cinematic Universe did… and I guess there’s no reason it couldn’t be… why would they have a clone of Thor when the real Thor is right there? Unless he dies at the end of Age of Ultron or something–holy shit are they going to kill Thor in Age of Ultron? It would explain why they aren’t even talking about a third Thor movie…
The Punisher joins Cap but Cap doesn’t know how he feels about that. Doesn’t sound like much of a plot point, but that is literally all that happened of note in issue five. Civil War spent three issues treading water and then crammed all the plot into one big fight scene in issue seven. But anyway, Marvel does own the Punisher again, but they’re not doing anything with him. Unless he turns up on Daredevil (he should), nobody in the Cinematic Universe knows or cares who the Punisher is, so this would be even less of a plot point than it was in the books.
So, yeah. Can’t do any of that. Well, maybe the Thor clone. And the problem is…
There’s not much plot left
Once you’ve taken out Spider-Man unmasking, the Thor clone killing Goliath, the Fantastic Four breaking up, the Negative Zone prison, Spider-Man switching sides, and the X-Men not giving a fuck, there’s barely any plot left. All you really have is Iron Man fights Captain America until the Real Heroes of 9/11 tackle Captain America and shame him into surrendering.
No, I’m not kidding. Yes, it was that ham-fisted.
And is that really a whole movie? Is it?
Seriously, Civil War was the second most underwritten Marvel event in recent memory (the most underwritten was Secret Invasion, but that’s a whole other rant). Seven perpetually delayed issues with four issues’ worth of story and a hackneyed ending in which Iron Man happily sails a helicarrier into the sunset because normal people didn’t seem to mind all that terrible stuff he did, so it must have been okay. It set up interesting stories, as the Avengers were split into two teams, one team being anti-registration fugitives, and it led to the death of Captain America, but Civil War itself was all sizzle, no steak.
But when did Hollywood start minding that.
Moving along.
The actual plot doesn’t make any sense with the cinematic Avengers
So two things have to happen for this story to get going. Tony Stark has to support a government bill clamping down on super heroes, and Captain America has to oppose it. And both of those things have some problems through the lens of the Cinematic Universe.
Why, why I ask you, would the Tony Stark of the movies go along with this? It makes no sense. No sense at all. This isn’t the comic book Tony Stark who was Secretary of Defense until Scarlet Witch got him fired (yes, that’s basically what happened). This the movie Tony Stark, who basically flipped off a Senate committee while declaring he’d “privatized world peace.” The Tony Stark who, upon joining up with everyone on the SHIELD helicarrier in Avengers, spent as much time trying to figure out what SHIELD was up to as Loki. The Tony Stark who, we’re told, founded his own private spy agency in the wake of SHIELD’s collapse in The Winter Solider.
This is a Tony Stark who gives zero fucks about what the government thinks is best. Unless something in Age of Ultron happens to seriously change his perspective… and yes, I admit that it could… this Tony Stark seems completely unlikely to start chasing down Bruce Banner or Steve Rogers because some senator or general asks him to.
And then there’s Captain America. Cap opposed the registration act because of its violation of civil liberties, especially the “round up everyone who doesn’t give us their secret identity” part. But with no real secret identities in play, what’s driving this act? One theory I’ve heard is the whole “Your powers are too dangerous to be unregulated” angle.
Okay, I was just kidding around in the intro, but everyone sees how this then becomes about gun control, right? And Captain America would be the figure leading the charge against gun control. That’s… problematic. Captain America is always used as the face of what’s morally right in Marvel projects. Maybe it’s because I’m not from a flyover state, but given all the mass shootings that keep happening in the US, having their moral center on the other side of this issue is… well, it’s uncomfortable.
They’re going to make this movie. It’s going to be a hit, especially if rumours that Cap 3 is slowly becoming Avengers 2.5 are true. But it’ll have to be a HUGE hit to pay for all the additional cast it needs. And I thought that somebody should be bringing up all the ways in which trying to make this story work on screen is flawed.
It is, as Hardison from Leverage often said, the Age of the Geek. And nothing drives that point home like the massive surge in superhero properties being adapted to the big and small screens. There are those in the media questioning whether the market’s getting saturated, but my opinion remains largely unchanged:
I’m pretty much okay with it.
The two largest players in the superhero market, Marvel and DC, are developing two very different tactics to exploit this.
Marvel, as anyone in western society is now aware, has the Marvel cinematic universe, a series of interconnected films that range from “kind of okay” to “amazing” in terms of quality, but “acceptable” to “massive hit” in terms of box office. After Guardians of the Galaxy became the year’s biggest success story (beating out Captain America, the X-Men, Spider-Man, and the Transformers) despite having no A or even B list characters, Marvel Studios is seen as pretty much bulletproof at the box office. They’re also trying to expand into television, but Agents of SHIELD’s so-so reception and slow-bleed ratings mean it’s come the closest to being their first failure, it remains to be seen how Agent Carter will do at midseason, and their Netflix series are still at least a year away.
DC, on the other hand, is swiftly moving to dominate the television landscape. Arrow is into its third season, and now has a spinoff in the Flash; Gotham has opened strong on Fox; Constantine and iZombie are still on the way; and deals are in the works to bring the Titans and Supergirl to TV next year. If even half these projects achieve Arrow-level success (the first step towards Smallville-level success, something I am defining here exclusively by its ten-year run and not how warranted said run was), DC will be dominating the TV market. On the other hand, they haven’t had a movie that’s an unqualified success since 2008. Since The Dark Knight, they’ve managed “moderate hits that aren’t fondly remembered” (The Dark Knight Rises, Man of Steel) and “outright failures,” (Green Lantern, Jonah Hex), with their next big movie raising a few concerns.
But who’s dominating which medium isn’t what I wanted to talk about. No, it’s clear that both companies want a piece of all the pies. The difference in tactics comes down to how their various properties are interacting. Marvel and DC have taken different paths here, with Marvel bringing all of their film and TV projects into one shared universe, while DC has built a Chinese wall in between film and television, and with their shows already spread across three networks (five by next year if everything goes forward), that looks to get worse before it gets better.
So let’s take a look at each strategy. See how they stack up.
Pro for Marvel: Everything is connected!
Well, everything except Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four. You know, the A-list properties.
This is slightly harder to describe than I thought. Let’s try a story.
There’s a moment in Batman Forever when Bruce Wayne asks newly orphaned Dick Grayson what he’s going to do next. “The circus must be halfway to Metropolis by now,” he says. And so excited was Young Me in that moment, that quick little reference to Superman’s home city, that I barely even noticed how wooden Val Kilmer’s delivery was, and briefly forgot how ridiculous this movie was in general. And this is something Marvel movies manage each and every time. They are filled with references to each other and Easter eggs pointing elsewhere in Marvel lore.
And if one quick reference to Metropolis can brighten Batman Forever, imagine what that can do for movies that are actually fun, like Iron Man or Captain America. Or, to a lesser extent, Thor. And when all the various characters get to interact in one movie? Well, The Avengers happens. A massive success that everyone loves. Yes, okay, getting Joss Whedon to write and direct it certainly helped. Just throwing all the characters into one movie and hoping it works out isn’t a recipe for The Avengers, it’s a recipe for the largely reviled third X-Men movie.
Yes I am looking right at you when I say that, Zach Snyder. DO NOT SCREW UP THE JUSTICE LEAGUE, I AM NOT 20 ANYMORE, I MIGHT NOT GET A SECOND ONE IF YOU SCREW THIS UP.
Ahem.
That said, the interconnected Marvel Universe is also a demonstrable cash cow. Not only was the Avengers a massive success, every single movie since then has enjoyed a bump. Iron Man 3, Thor: the Dark World, and Captain America: the Winter Soldier all out-grossed their predecessors (something not every superhero franchise has been able to say lately), and Guardians of the Galaxy rode the Marvel name to box office supremacy.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is working so well that everyone wants a piece of the action. Warner Bros./DC is trying to bolt right to the big money by fast tracking Justice League instead of spending the time/capital on individual franchises. Despite the demonstrable diminishing returns on their current Spider-Man plans, Sony is trying to build their own cinematic universe off Spider-Man and his various… villains? That’s the plan? Really? That is going to crash and burn so hard… Fox is rejuvenating the X-Men (and releasing a Fantastic Four movie they seem weirdly reluctant to talk about), and Universal is trying to get into the game by making a connected universe out of Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolfman, and Frankenstein. Which could work…
…or it could not.
Spoiler: he was an archangel the whole time. There was no need for that.
On the other side of the fence…
Con for DC: Everything is in a silo
Meanwhile, everything DC is doing is compartmentalized. There’s the new cinematic universe they launched with Man of Steel, and are trying to kickstart into full Marvel mode through Batman V. Superman: Cameos of Justice. Then there’s what’s known as the “Arrowverse,” the CW TV universe that started with Arrow and has expanded into the Flash. Constantine’s off on his own on NBC, and Gotham isn’t tying into anything.
Nor should it, really. I mean, they snuck in a Queen Consolidated Easter egg in the second episode, but really this show should take place at least a decade before Oliver’s fateful voyage on the Queen’s Gambit, 15 years before his return to Starling City.
So no, Stephen Amell’s Arrow and Grant Gustin’s Flash will not be joining Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot and the rest of the BvS cameos in the Justice League movie. Nor will John Constantine be swaggering into Starling or Central Cities. Which is a little sad in its own right, but there’s a bigger problem.
Have separate continuities if you want. DC is often built around the idea of a multiverse anyway. It’s the fact the characters from one continuity seemingly can’t appear in any of the others for fear of confusing the audience or whatever that’s killing us.
Smallville was banned from having Batman or Bruce Wayne appear. They brought in Green Arrow, Flash/Impulse (long story), Cyborg, Hawkman, Aquaman, Black Canary, the Legion of Superheroes, even Booster Gold… but never Batman, because they didn’t want to mess with the films. And now Batman, Superman, and their respective cities are verboten to the Arrowverse. Reportedly, the producers of Flash were told to cut a Luthorcorp Easter egg from the pilot, and it remains to be seen what sort of crackdown on Bat-verse references is going to spill out of Gotham being on the Fox network.
There is some small hope that it might be less stupid going forwards. The president of the CW network teased the possibility of Arrow crossing over with the proposed Titans series heading for TNT. And Supergirl will share a showrunner with Arrow and Flash (besides the ever-present Geoff Johns), and its network, CBS, is from a corporate perspective the CW’s older, more successful brother, both of them being owned by Warner Brothers, owners of DC Comics. So there’s some talk that Supergirl might not necessarily stand alone like Gotham or Constantine.
Except how would either of those even work? Arrow has had zero mentions of Batman, Gotham, Wayne Enterprises, anything (the leaked pilot of the Flash does, but it remains to be seen if that lasts until broadcast). How do you have a Titans show, starring Batman’s ex-sidekick Nightwing, cross over to a show where Batman doesn’t exist? Moreover, there are no aliens in the Arrowverse. They just introduced superpowers on the Flash, but neither series is currently touching aliens. So how do you have Starfire? And if there’s no Superman in the Arrowverse, does it even make sense to have Supergirl?
And it doesn’t even have to be like this. When Superman Returns came out, Smallville was still on the air. Whatever prevented Superman Returns from being the franchise launcher they hoped, people being confused by the multiple Clark Kents wasn’t it. And the producers of Gotham certainly aren’t planning to pack up and call it a day when Batman V. Superman opens partway through what they hope to be their second season. And their animation division keeps cranking out product regardless of what the characters are doing in live action.
Marvel can’t have Spider-Man or the X-Men turn up in the Avengers because they sold the film rights in order to keep the doors open after the comic crash in the 90s. Warner Bros. doesn’t have that excuse, yet they act like that anyway. And it’s maddening sometimes.
However.
Con for Marvel: Everything’s connected, but nobody’s talking
The Marvel cinematic universe has introduced film and TV audiences to a nitpick comic fans have known and traded for years: “Why wouldn’t [x-character] call [y-character] for help?”
Happens all the time. “Superman could have stopped the riot in Arkham Asylum in five seconds. Why not call him?” Or, one I asked recently, “Captain America is the head of SHIELD, why is he letting a crooked weapons developer and the general in her pocket push Iron Man around like this?”
And while answers exist (Batman is able to protect Gotham because the criminals are afraid of him, not because they’re afraid that he’ll tell on them to Superman if they’re too mean), the single greatest argument against this nitpick is “He was busy, read his book.” Of course Captain America couldn’t bail out Iron Man, he’s been going through hell with the Red Skull. Of course Wonder Woman couldn’t come to Gotham, she’s been dealing with civil war on Olympus for months. Of course Green Lantern hasn’t been around to help the Justice League, shit is falling apart out in space.
The movies don’t have that. Avengers movies aside, we check in with Tony Stark or Captain America once every two years. Less than that for the Hulk. So we don’t have any idea what they’re doing between movies. So here’s a quick list of questions that arise when everyone’s movie is connected but nobody appears in each other’s movies because Robert Downey Jr. isn’t free. (Some spoilers for The Winter Solider and Iron Man 3)
Tony Stark’s house gets blown up by terrorists, after which said terrorists kidnap The President of the United States off of Air Force One, and nobody thinks that maybe SHIELD should get involved? Captain America has nothing to say about any of this?
Captain America has to bring down three heavily armed helicarriers in the Winter Solider, and for backup he brings Black Widow and some guy he met while jogging? This doesn’t seem like something that Tony Stark, the guy who helped design the helicarriers, or Bruce Banner, the unstoppable rage monster, might be useful for?
Actually forget them. Where the hell is Hawkeye? Black Widow finds out SHIELD is compromised and Clint Barton wasn’t her first phone call? They were partners! She joined the Avengers to help out Hawkeye for gods’ sake, and when their mutual employer turns on her, she doesn’t even try to get word to him? He even has experience bringing down helicarriers! Managed it with two fucking arrows!
And where the bloody hell is Thor since his last movie? He left Asgard at the end of the Dark World to hang out with Jane, and since then… what? Just bumming around Europe? “Pagan anarchists” (oy…) got their hands on an Asgardian weapon, an Asgardian criminal was on a rampage in the southern US, and Captain America was being hunted for treason, and Thor just doesn’t give a shit.
Everyone knows Coulson’s alive again, right? I mean, that’s got to be clear by now. He wasn’t exactly keeping his head down in the first season of Agents of SHIELD, and now he’s being publicly hunted by the US government. I have to believe Tony Stark would have noticed he’s not dead by now.
Swear to god, if they open the second Avengers movie with the team hanging out together and the implication that they’re in regular contact, fans would be within their rights to riot.
But that aside, there’s another problem with the Cinematic Universe’s approach.
Pro to DC: no one is beholden to anyone
The greatest flaw of Agents of SHIELD’s first season is that they didn’t have an interesting plot or an engaging villain for 15 episodes. Their money storyline involved the Hydra revelation from Winter Soldier, so they couldn’t really kick that off until after Winter Soldier had opened: eight months and sixteen episodes into the season. As a result, and I’ve said this before but it bears repeating, they hemorrhaged viewers and good will and only barely squeaked out a renewal thanks to corporate synergy making low ratings acceptable. The fact that they did nothing but spin their wheels up until that point is a whole other conversation, but the fact is their first season’s stories were beholden to the Winter Soldier’s release date. It remains to be seen what impact Age of Ultron will have, but for their sake, I hope it’s “none,” or at least “none until the third season” (if there is one, given that their second episode this season tied their series low point).
The Arrowverse doesn’t have that problem.
The Arrowverse can do whatever the hell it wants to do. We’re not going to connect to the Justice League movie? Fine, we’ll build our own Justice League with the Atom and Firestorm. Can’t use Batman? Fine, but we’ll borrow whichever of his villains you aren’t using. Ra’s Al Ghul’s available now, right?
In a strictly narrative context, they don’t have to hold anything back until the next movie opens. They’re not beholden to Zach Snyder’s plans. They can crossover as much or as little as they like, and when finale season rolls around, I imagine both Flash and the Arrow will be a little too busy with their own problems to come bail each other out.
Likewise, Gotham is free to play around. They won’t have to stick to someone else’s vision of Batman or the Penguin’s journeys. I doubt they’ll get too experimental, but they have some breathing room.
So while not being connected to the movies or several of the other series can be frustrating, it’s also the reason Arrow is thriving while Agents of SHIELD fizzled.
Also, nobody ever has to ask where Superman was during the Starling City earthquake.
Wrapping up
So the two strategies have their strengths and weaknesses. Linking all the movies works like gangbusters (a few narrative holes aside), but letting TV shows do their own thing seems to be working out better than chaining them to a movie release schedule.
Do I want to see Titans and Supergirl cross over with Arrow and Flash? Damn right I do. Am I afraid that the Flash won’t be in the Justice League? Damn skippy I am. But am I glad that they’re getting to tell their own stories on their own terms? You’d better believe it.
An extremely hectic weekend means this is coming a couple of days late, but here we go.
And so we come to the end of my look at upcoming comic book TV shows, what they should avoid, and how they can set themselves apart. My only regret? I seem to have done them in no particular order. Not even broadcast order, since Gotham’s pilot comes the day before Agents of SHIELD’s premiere.
But that’s neither here nor there. Ladies and gentlemen, readers of all ages… Mr. John Constantine.
Simplest costume of everyone we’ve covered, also kind of the best.
Coming in late October (sensibly close to Halloween), Constantine is based on the DC/Vertigo (DC’s mature readers line) comic Hellblazer, and oddly not on the current DC comic Constantine. Well, they both star the same guy, but since the TV show isn’t about to cross over with the Justice League anytime soon, it’s clearly more based on Hellblazer.
John Constantine is a surly, somewhat amoral magician and conman who, to his frequent annoyance, is one of the few people capable of keeping demons and/or monsters at bay and defending the Earth. He’s been lurking around the comics for three decades, first as a supporting character to Swamp Thing, then as the star of his own comic (the longest running in Vertigo history), and currently as a rogue mystic in the main DC continuity, star of his own book and one of the few consistent faces in the occult super team Justice League Dark.
There was also a movie starring Keanu Reeves but we needn’t discuss that.
And now he’s coming to television. And I’d like him to stay there for a while, so here’s what I see as ways for him to do that.
Challenge: Don’t just be a crime procedural with demons
I get it, Constantine. Procedurals are popular. From the CSIs to the NCIS’s to Castle and Bones and the Hawaii Five-0 team. They’re comfortable and don’t challenge the viewer. But trying to mimic them is where everything started to go wrong for Agents of SHIELD. They sold themselves as Marvel movies come to television, and then delivered NCIS: Fringe Division. Only less cool than the tie-in the Fringe implies.
Not that the procedural format is easy to avoid. Many, many shows I like still require a certain amount of “case of the week.” Most of them US basic cable dramadies: Burn Notice, White Collar, Leverage, mismatched pairs/teams solving problems while, and this is the important part, dealing with some larger plot in bits and pieces.
Now from the trailer, it looks like this is happening. Something sinister is hinted to be on the horizon, and Constantine is right at the center of it. That’s good. That’s a good start. But what’s going to separate you from the bland procedurals is what you do with this. The Mentalist and early Agents of SHIELD had larger plots as well: the Mentalist was hunting Red John, the serial killer who murdered his family, and Agents of SHIELD had its weekly hints about Coulson.
But they didn’t go anywhere.
I gave up on the Mentalist when it was clear that they would never truly make any progress in catching Red John until the show was over, and that stretching this plot out was practically giving Red John magic powers. Seriously, he kidnapped a medium that the Mentalist (no, I cannot be bothered to look up his name right now) liked, then somehow convinced her that she was dead, haunting the Earth, and could only be contacted by seance.
Even if you DO believe in hypnotism this feels like a stretch.
I already discussed what Agents of SHIELD did wrong for its first dozen episodes, so let’s move on.
The key is to use procedural, case of the week elements and build something bigger, darker, and more sinister. Look at Hannibal. It dressed itself up as a crime procedural that happened to be darker than most, and used that to create a visually gorgeous masterpiece unlike anything on television. Your key move here? World building. The magical world of DC, and Vertigo before it, is a rich and complex place filled with rival magicians, demons, gods, and cults. There is so much you can do with all that.
Oh, yes, also don’t forget that your lead character is a lying, scheming, con artist whose saving grave is that he happens to target the bad guys more often than the good. You might not be able to show him smoking on screen (for serious, NBC? That’s just–wow), but don’t lose sight of any of that.
Opportunity: I mentioned world building, right?
Remember all those rival magicians and whatnot I just mentioned? Well, good news: nobody else doing DC stuff on television or in movies is using them. Well, none of them except Shazam, but that lot barely count. Gotham and Arrow aren’t even touching magic, none of the magical characters are on Zach Snyder’s Justice League radar, you can go to town here.
Good first steps I’ve seen involve sneaking the Helmet of Fate into an early episode, opening a door for Doctor Fate to return to television (following a two episode stint on Smallville). Jim Corrigan has been cast, which presumably will lead to an appearance by his alter ego The Spectre, the personification of the wrath of God. And if the success of Arrow and sharp drop in ratings for early Agents of SHIELD teach us anything, it’s that audiences do eat this stuff up. Building your show’s universe with characters from the comics is a trickier path for you, since the magical characters lack the recognition of Deadshot, Deathstroke, and the Flash, but there’s still some great potential here. I’ve discussed this in the past, but here’s my wishlist, complete with casting suggestions. Hey, Arrow keeps casting people I like in their show, and they’re doing pretty well for themselves.
1, The Phantom Stranger
Proper spooky.
Phantom Stranger has been lurking around magical events in the DC universe for a while now. He’s a mysterious entity, who appears when he’s needed, and typically assists other heroes in overcoming something big and mystical. In the current continuity, they’ve made it pretty clear that he’s Judas Iscariot, cursed to wander the Earth as a stranger to all while running odd jobs for God as punishment for his betrayal. I mean, they never say the names “Judas” or “Jesus,” but it’s still really clear. That said, I’d advise skipping that while you’re on network TV.
He works for this show because he exists between the forces of Heaven and Hell. Neither angel nor demon, he’s exactly the sort of ominous ally Constantine might need while he’s trying to work the two factions against each other (side note: please have him work Heaven and Hell against each other, that just seems obvious).
Casting suggestion: Idris Elba. The thing the Phantom Stranger needs most is gravitas. It’s got to be clear that if he’s here, something serious is about to go down. And the more imposing he is, the more fun it’ll be when Constantine doesn’t give a fuck about how imposing he is. And if there’s one thing Idris Elba can seriously bring to the table, it’s power and gravitas.
2. Swamp Thing
Proper swampy.
As I said above, Constantine and Swamp Thing go way back. And when you’re ready to move beyond angels, demons, and ghosts (which you should), Swamp Thing opens doors to the elemental realms. He’s the guardian of the Green, the force that links all plant life. And this frequently puts him at odds with humanity. Admit it, it’d be fun watching John have to match wits with a plant monster. If I have to explain further I’m not sure we can be friends. I mean, do I have to draw you a diagram here? He’s Groot with an expanded vocabulary.
Casting suggestion: Ron Perlman or Clancy Brown. Hellboy or the Kurgan. Even before you put the prosthetics on, they’ve got the size, the gruff demeanor, and the deep, booming voice needed to bring Swampy to sinister yet slightly lovable life.
3. Eclipso
Proper… I got nothing, sorry.
Post-90s Eclipso is a textbook attempt to redeem a silver age concept that was a little ridiculous. Originally a super villain that only came out during eclipses, Eclipso was re-invented in the 90s as a god of vengeance who had gone rogue and was imprisoned in a black diamond. If you hold the black diamond (or a fragment thereof) and feel rage, Eclipso will either possess you (if you want to harm the object of your rage yourself) or manifest as a construct (if you want the object of your rage harmed but not by you), take your vengeance, and then just go nuts on the world in general. Well, as long as he stays out of direct sunlight.
Constantine’s an exorcist. Eclipso would make for a hell of a recurring nemesis.
Casting suggestion: Robert Englund. Eclipso is cruel, vicious, and fancies himself as having a wicked sense of humour, so who better than Freddy Krueger?
4. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, ZATANNA.
Proper. Just proper.
Zatanna is the most powerful sorceress in the DC universe. She can basically make anything happen just by saying it backwards. She’s put in some time with the Justice League, primarily back in the late 70s/early 80s, but typically works solo. Like Dr. Fate, she’s no stranger to television, having popped by Smallville a couple of times, but she’d fit in much better here.
In any continuity, Constantine and Zatanna have history. Former lovers turned occasional allies, even if the alliance is sometimes reluctant on Zatanna’s side (he is, as I have implied, not the easiest guy to get along with). In current comics, she’s also his surrogate conscience. She pushes him to do the right thing, when it’s often clear the wrong thing suits him better. It’s even implied that she used magic to try and alter his personality to be more heroic, because noble though she tries to be, sometimes she’s willing to cross lines other Justice Leaguers wouldn’t. Which caused some problems during the classic story Identity Crisis that I don’t have time to go into.
She’s an ideal addition to Constantine’s supporting cast. She is the ideal addition to Constantine’s supporting cast. And if she’s popular, which how would she not be… maybe a spin-off would be in order? And if that happens, I know a writer you could get for relatively cheap to work on it. (Hint… it’s me. Me over here. This guy.)
Casting suggestion: Sarah Jones. She’s taken a couple of swings at television already (as the FBI agent tasked with hunting down time-displaced criminals in Alcatraz and the morally shady count room manager for the Savoy casino in Vegas), but nothing that’s lasted past a season. But she’s got a great intensity and a habit of outshining more famous co-stars like Sam Neill or Dennis Quaid. She needs a hit like I need Zatanna in this show. And then on her own show. Which you could hire someone else to run, if you needed to… Bryan Fuller’s probably too busy between Hannibal and American Gods, isn’t he? Damn it, why can’t he just write everything…
And that’s the lot. Well, okay, there’s also Agent Carter and iZombie, but they’re not until mid-season and I do not have much to say about them. And Supergirl and Titans haven’t been officially picked up yet (although Supergirl’s super close–I apologize for the wording, I see now that was the wrong thing to do). So we’ll call that a wrap.
Next time… other stuff. It’s been a busy day, I’ll figure that out later.
