**note: The featured image is not the official cover. I Googled some fantasy stuff and made it in like 5 minutes. Looks kinda cool, though. . .***
Hello there, everyone! It has come to my attention that I have, as of this year’s past six and a half months, written only FIVE articles to post on here. I do mean to write more, but a certain DEBUT NOVEL seems to be taking up all my time. (Like, seriously, all my time!) To not disappear completely, I’ll write something here and tell you how the whole editing process is going.
Editing! . . .yay . . .
Over the past couple weeks (or months…or years?), I have made massive headway on my revisions to the original text, which was written for National Novel Writing Month 2010. That’s right, I wrote 50,000 words in twenty-something days, which means that pretty much all the original text is unusable. What’s that quote? “Marry in haste, repent at leisure”? The writing equivalent would not doubt be “Write in haste, re-write the whole fucking thing at leisure”. In addition to writing a like Cheetah on catnip, I really had no idea what the in-world setting was. I was just flying by the seat of my pants. The world mostly wouldn’t be established until the second book which (which I wrote the next year),which meant that I had to go back and FIX everything. You’d never guess, but if you’re backstory changes, so does a lot of your current story. (Like, everything. . .)
As of two nights ago, I finished my first pass of the entire novel. Well, what I mean to say is that I reached the end of the original text. I still have to go back and add in some SEVEN new little scenes which are either new or are complete re-writes. But that shan’t take long. I’ve contractually obligated myself to have a final, printed, double-spaced, and bound copy of the draft by the end of this month. If I fail to do so, I owe my roommate twenty bucks. (8 bottles of Charles Shaw wine…) After that, it’ll be onto the second pass, where I’ll read the whole damn thing AGAIN, but this time off the printed page.
Hopefully with less edits.
After fixing the second pass, then it’s off to a couple pre-determined beta readers, which’ll be very exciting, for instead of just rambling about the book to friends, they’ll actually get to read it and see how it is. It’ll be good to finally have some objective eyes looking at it, too.
If there’s one thing I have learned about editing/revising a previous work, it’s that it’s an IMMENSE amount of work. Sometimes even more work than actually doing the initial writing itself. I feel like I went into this process with the domestic-care-metaphor assumptions of straightening up a room. Just a little messy. Straighten this up, straighten this out, right? Well, as I started cleaning, I soon realized I was gonna have to build a whole fucking addition to the house. And then I realized that my house wasn’t just a simple one, but three separate ones, and I need to plan and build bridges between them that were structurally sound and wouldn’t crumble under their own weight. The amount of work, to be completely honest, kind of blindsided me.
In order to help me with the crazy task of planning the set-ups, pay-offs, and callbacks of an estimated 180,000-word trilogy, I wrote a long, detailed summary of all three books. The super-summary itself turned out to be some 6,000 words. And that’s not including the some 70-year chronology I included, that detailed the backstory of the entire thing and all the characters since birth and. . .hey, what are you doing with that straight jacket?
J.R.R. Tolkien is known for saying that The Lord of Rings, the massive sequel to the shorter The Hobbit, “grew in the telling”. While I’ve always let my stories and music/all creative stuff take a somewhat organic route to forming (because I am a creative hippie), I had no idea that the novel I started writing for fun in November 2010 would EXPLODE to be a full-fledged trilogy with a long backstory. But the most interesting thing about that fact is that the story CAN’T be anything else. If it wanted to be a short, simple story, then it would be. The story’s really calling the shots here, I’m just writing it all down. I feel like the story itself knows what is best for it, and all I can do is obey its commands.
“Write a new introduction for the company’s arrival to Falkenbir, or else!”
This practice of obeying the creative work reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, this one from Rammstein’s lead guitarist Richard Kruspe. Here he’s talking about music, but I think it works for any type of creative work: “You are part of a machinery, and the music lets you know where it wants to go, which direction it wants to take. . .It is the case that when you have a song, it lets you know if the song should be stately, aggressive or rhythmic – whatever. It always tells you, and when you recognize that, when you are sensitized to this and recognize this, you can’t do anything wrong. We [Rammstein] got this wrong in the beginning. We thought we should try to press into a certain direction. You can’t do that. You can only follow.”
And follow, indeed! Even if it means re-routing your entire story and writing thousands of words of new material (which also means throwing away thousands of words of old material), you gotta listen to your story so it can be the best it can be. I probably should have been writing in “A Distant Horn” while writing this, but oh well, this was a nice, and most welcome, break.
Oh yeah, and the book is about a perilous quest to find a great warrior that can defeat a ancient, super-evil Lich. Didn’t think I had mentioned that yet.
Hello everyone, just checking in here with some news about my upcoming self-published debut novel, “A Distant Horn”. Don’t worry, I am still planning to release it on November 1st, although my progress with the editing is going a lot slower (repeat: A LOT SLOWER) than I earlier anticipated. That’s all right, though. I was pretty good in college about spending entire days in the library or the editing bay to meet fast-approaching deadlines. So far with this project, I haven’t had to do anything like that, but have been showing it a bit more attention lately (instead of giving it to those pesky music projects).
As of now, I am some 29,000 words into my first pass of the edit, which is pretty much half way. If I want to do ANOTHER PASS (which my perfectionist self DOES want to do, ugh), then I am 25 percent done with just doing passes before handing it off to my trusty editor friend, who’ll hopefully point out all the typos and none of the plot holes. 25 percent, yikes.
I bet you probably guessed this already, but let me tell you, editing a book is no easy task. Each of my James Bond Countdown articles averages around 2,500-3,000 words, despite my best efforts to cut them down (just love those movies, I guess). Those roughly take me half a day to edit, clean up, and come up with pictures. While I won’t have to find pictures for “A Distant Horn,” it’s around 57,000 words, which means it’s like TWENTY James Bond articles, which is a HUGE amount of work. For some reason I thought editing a book was going to be easy. Just fix a thing here, fix a sentence there. Oh, but wait, I forgot, I CHANGED THE ENTIRE BACKSTORY. Oops!
The work is fine in itself, but a lot of times when I have free time now, I want to do absolutely nothing at all. After your day job, you don’t really want to come home to that unfinished riff or that unedited chapter, that has been waiting there all day with an expectant look because you didn’t work on it YESTERDAY, either. Sometimes you just wanna cook your sweet potato and watch “Frasier” all night, you know what I’m saying? And despite my temporary disinterest in doing this work, I know that I HAVE TO if I want the end result to be as good as it can. It’s like being your own boss, but the only worker is you, and lazy, and doesn’t wanna do anything.
I’ll start editing after this episo. . .season, I swear.
So the clock is ticking for “A Distant Horn”. I have 175 days until my projected release of the book (thank goodness I didn’t make any more promises this year). Will I be able to make it? All I have to do is finish the first pass, do the second pass, draw up the map nicely, give it off to an editor, go over it again, make sure everything is perfect, then hand it off to my graphic designer friend, get a cover from the artist (is he still in the USA?), make the pdf, order a couple proofs to see if its good and then publish it. TOO EASY!
Thank goodness I at least have the first draft of the map, which I decided to draw up at work over the course of a couple days. Marion, the crazy, fantastic world in which “A Distant Horn” and it’s two sequels (DON’T EVEN WANNA THINK ABOUT THOSE ATM!) was finally being realized. It’ll have to be re-drawn on the computer, of course (hire someone to do that?), but I think it’s a pretty nice first draft. Check it out and stay tuned!
***Originally posted on my old blog on June 23, 2011***
***This article contains massive spoilers for both of the Star Wars: Force Unleashed games, as well as the movies “The Matrix” and “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle”. Read on at your own discretion!***
I know it’s a bit late to be writing this, seeing as this game was released seven months ago, but hey, it’s Saturday night and I have a glass full of wine, so let’s get to it!
You might not know this, but there is a lot of crap bearing the Star Wars name. I’m not saying that EVERYTHING that isn’t one of the original three films are crap, I’m just saying eighty percent of it is. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised with 2008’s video game “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed”, the Star Wars version God of War and every game that tried to rip it off. Despite following cliched action game conventions (press X over and over! Hurry!), “The Force Unleashed” explored a time in the Star Wars mythos not yet properly visited and delighted us with a decent story.
While on one of his Jedi-killing missions, Vader stumblies upon a little kid, Galen Marek, who he senses is strong in the Force. Years later, this kid has been molded into the ultimate weapon, Vader’s secret apprentice. During the course of the game, Galen falls in love with his new hot-ass pilot, Juno Eclipse, gets trained by a Jedi, kills some people, gets some two cents about the the dark side, and eventually has a change of heart, turning from bad to good.
“The Force Unleashed”‘s story is full of drama AND humor, creating that fun action/adventure spirit of the old films that a lot of take-themselves-too-seriously Star Wars materials are missing (the prequels, anyone?). At the end of the game, Galen has sacrificed his life to save his friends and the Rebelllion. In honor of the fallen warrior, the Rebels decide to use his family’s crest as the Rebel symbol. Cool beans.
After finishing “The Force Unleashed”, I didn’t really expect a sequel, but hey, this is Star Wars.
So how do you make a sequel with the main character dead at the end of the first one? That’s right, you bring them back to life, or at least claim they were never dead. I’ll allow this once in a series, because hey, at the end of “The Force Unleashed”, we weren’t sure about Starkiller’s fate. He could be alive. So Lucasfilm did the right thing and decided to bring back our favorite hero.
They just did it in the stupidest way possible.
“Here goes Nothing. . .”
In “The Force Unleashed II”, the player takes control of Starkiller’s “renegade clone”. Wait, what? Apparently in the seven months after the first game, Vader has made a trip to Kamino and started making clones of Starkiller. (Does this sound dumb to anyone else?). All right, so he’s a clone. . .not the original Starkiller.
So, before we even really start playing, we learn that this Clone has been having visions: a burning forest, a woman’s voice; all memories of the previous Starkiller. What? Can a clone have memories of the host? Does this make ANY sense to anyone? Then Clone Starkiller is told to kill some training bots, that soon assume the skins of Rebel troopers. One of the bots turns into Juno Eclipse, the original Starkiller’s foxy love interest. The Clone stops when he reaches her, unable to kill her, realizing that he, what, loves her? Isn’t he a clone? How does he know who she is? This is stupid.
Vader then explains to us that the super-accelerated cloning-technique is unstable, and that all previous Starkiller prototypes have gone bonkers in a matter of months. (Oh my god this is SO DUMB). Seeing another vision of Vader stabbing the old Starkiller on the death star, the Clone escapes Kamino in Vader’s TIE Defender. Vader gives a disappointed sigh of relief.
All right, so I’m just wondering. . .is anyone else confused at this point about the Clone? I mean, can clones have the memories of their hosts? So Starkiller really is dead? So I’m not really playing as THE Starkiller? This is dumb.
All right, so the Clone has escaped and is flying around space and the game switches to the planet Cato Nemoidia, which is actually a pretty sweet-ass-looking planet. Props to the design team, really. On this planet, a warrior is seen killing all these creatures in an arena, much to the crowd’s displeasure. This warrior is revealed to be Rahm Kota. The Baron of Cato Nemoidia (I guess), is watching the spectacle when he is told Vader is approaching the planet.
Seriously, Cato Nemoidia is cool
So the Baron goes to see Lord Vader, and is surprised to see, well, not Lord Vader, but Clone Starkiller. The following exchange starts:
Baron: I was expecting Lord Vader. . . Clone Starkiller: The Jedi, where is he?
WAIT, HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE. How the fuck did this CLONE GUY know 1) WHO Rahm Kota was and 2) know WHERE he was? THAT MAKES NO SENSE. So, all we know is that a Clone of a guy somehow knows everything about his host and somehow knows where his old buddy is? Who wrote this fucking crap?
Starkiller makes it to the arena after some fights and meets up with Kota, saying, “you can sit this one out, General.” (How did he know he was a general?) After a huge fight and action sequence, Clone Starkiller and Rahm Kota escape the planet in Rahm’s (Original Starkiller’s) ship.
On the ship, Clone Starkiller goes looking for his old pilot girlfriend. He is vastly disappointed when she is not there. Rahm then explains that he doesn’t know where she is either, stating that the Rebel fleet is scattered throughout the galaxy (registered trademark of Star Wars) and that he’s lost contact. Trying to turn the conversation back to positive, Rahm suggests that this Clone rally the troops and make a big strike against the Empire. This is when the clone says:
Clone: I’m not Starkiller. I. . .I’m a clone. I was born in a vat, to take his place. Rahm: (laughs) Is that what Vader told you? Clone: Yes Rahm: I, I, I don’t believe it, no one can clone Jedi, it’s never been done.
O__O Are you fucking serious right now with this shit? Why can’t you clone Jedi? WHY CAN’T YOU CLONE JEDI? GIVE ME A REASON!
This is quickly forgotten and then blah, blah, Clone Starkiller tells Rahm he needs a place to think things over and meditate. Rahm gets all flustered, saying “We’re at war and you want a quiet place to think? The Alliance will be destroyed while you’re wandering the forests of Kashyyyk or exploring the caves of Dagobah. You’ll let the galaxy die to go find yourself?”
Alright, now I got a little problem with this. As much as I hate random name-dropping in Star Wars materials, mentioning Dagobah just seems excessively dumb. Yoda went there because it’s obscure and no one’s supposed to know about it. So why the fuck does Rahm know about it? Good job, Yoda, fucking idiot.
Uhh. . .what?
This scene gets even worse. Rahm leaves in a huff because the Clone needs some space to think. After Rahm leaves the cockpit, the Clone goes “Dagobah. . .” and then sets a course. Are you fucking serious? “Dagobah. . .hmm. . .” Like, seriously? He says it in the way you say “Chili fries. . .hmmm” after someone says “Chili fries or onion rings both sound good.” So if Rahm had never mentioned Dagobah, Clone Starkiller would never have gone there? THAT IS SO DUMB. This is called BAD WRITING.
On Kamino, Vader makes a deal with Boba Fett to find Juno and bring her to him. Vader thinks that once he has her, Clone Starkiller will follow. Alright, that MAKES SENSE at least. While I’m usually pissed off with BOBA FETT BEING IN STAR WARS EVERYTHING, this didn’t bug me. At this time period in the Star Wars timeline, Boba Fett is an up and coming bounty hunter making a name for himself, so his inclusion in this story makes sense. Cool beans, I guess.
Clone Starkiller arrives on Dagobah and whatever. During this level, you hop around some trees and then you get a cutscene. You approach a cave and encounter YODA, who talks in that doesn’t-sound-anything-like-Yoda-Clone-Wars-cartoon voice. Starkiller enters the cave next to Yoda and sees some visions. The only important one is of him seeing Juno getting attacked on her ship. Realizing he must go to help Juno, he leaves the swamp planet of Dagobah. . . .and that’s all we get of Dagobah in the whole game. . .
Now, let me ask you, why would you shoe-horn in a 1) planet and 2) trademark character to use for LIKE TWO SECONDS? Clone Starkiller could have seen that vision of Juno anywhere, not on some random planet he went to off a random mention by his friend. What the fuck? It is so frustrating to see narrative suffer just so they can include these little things that will make fans jittery with excitement. And what the fuck? If this kid’s a Jedi, and Yoda’s a master, and HE MET HIM, why didn’t Yoda just train Clone Starkiller instead of waiting for Luke? This is so stupid!
Alright, so with this information in tow, Clone Starkiller takes his ship and goes to find Juno’s ship (WHICH HE SAID EARLIER THEY COULDN’T FIND). Starkiller is surprised to Juno’s ship is not yet under attack. Rahm Kota (who is all of the sudden there again) explains that “a powerful glimpse of the future like you experienced is rarely wrong. And if that comes to pass, you’ll be glad you picked me up on Malastare”. *shaking head* Who the fuck says “Glad you picked me up on Malastare?” Oh, it’s so we know how he suddenly came into the story again. This is also known as BAD WRITING. Why didn’t Rahm just go to Dagobah with Starkiller? URGGH!
So, Rahm and Clone Starkiller get aboard the ship to try and save Juno, and instead of getting on the intercom and saying “I’M A FUCKING JEDI AND I SAW A VISION OF THIS PLACE BEING ATTACKED!”, they don’t do shit. Then, the ship really DOES come under attack. Good job, idiots! In the ensuing battle, Clone Starkiller fails to save Juno, who is taken away by Boba Fett, and is bummed out about it.
Alright, stay with me people, I know, it’s getting pretty grueling. After their failed rescue of Juno, Clone Starkiller, Rahm and the others decided to attack Kamino to destroy the Cloning facilities and save Juno. The Empire is expecting them (of course) and a battle ensues with the Empire kicking Rebel ass.
Now, what follows is actually something I liked in the game. Even though this story is STUPID AS HELL, one could appreciate the following scene. During the battle, the main Rebel ship takes so much damage that it crashes toward the planet, which Clone Starkiller uses to ride to the planet below. A video of this is pasted below:
You have to admit that’s pretty cool.
Now it’s time for the final duel with Vader. While going into the battle, Clone Starkiller hears visions of Rahm calling him a puppett and Juno calling him a “monster.” Trudging through such visions, Clone Starkiller finally meets Vader and fights him. The fight goes on for ever and ever, and blah blah blah, it comes to the point where Vader is choking Juno with the Force, telling Clone Starkiller to turn to the dark side. Anakin, I mean, Clone Starkiller, bows down to Vader to save his woman’s life, dropping a lightsaber near her. Vader instructs Clone-boy to do a whole bunch of evil shit, lest his woman die. While Vader says all this, Juno grabs the wayward lightsaber, ignites it, and attacks Vader. She misses him because he’s STANDING RIGHT THERE. Vader, not one to suffer fools, force pushes her away onto an electrified platform. Thinking she’s dead, Clone Starkiller attacks Vader again (god this is exhausting). Clone Starkiller defeats Vader, and just as he’s about to kill him, Rahm comes running up, yelling “Wait!”
Fucking A. Rahm suggests that they don’t kill Vader, not yet, not until he’s given the Empire’s secrets. How fucking dumb are these fucking characters? They lead a full-scale attack on a planet, end up destroying all the enemies and getting the leader, and they don’t kill him? The war could be over now! RRRRR!
Just kill him! He’s RIGHT THERE!
Anyway, Clone Starkiller wants to kill Vader anyway. Rahm then says that Vader is the only one who knows if the real Starkiller really survived or not, and for this reason he should be kept alive? So, the real Starkiller might be alive? What the fuck?! So you might have the real Starkiller AND a Clone with all the same feelings and thoughts and past as him? What if the real Starkiller comes back and wants Juno? What about the Clone? Would they clone Juno for him, too? Would their be some sort of fan-fiction-esque threesome. Fucking A.
Ok. . .so. . .now, as with any Jedi game, there are two endings. I’ll go over the “light side” ending first, because it’s slightly less stupid of the two. In this ending, Clone Starkiller lets Vader be captured instead of killed. Vader is detained in a ship and is to be brought to some Rebel HQ for questioning. Princess Leia’s hologram digs this idea. After talking some shit to the enslaved Vader, Clone Starkiller and Juno go off in their ship, but not without Boba Fett following them! OMG! Fucking A. . .just stop.
Alright, I’m fucking tired now. Here’s the dark side ending, which you recieve if you choose to kill Vader: Clone Starkiller raises up his lightsaber to strike down Vader, only to have his chest pierced by a cloaked figure’s red saber. Rahm, angry this cloaked bro has slain a friend of his, rushes the man, but is eventually thrown off the Kamino-platform to the waters below.
As Clone Starkiller lay dying, Vader and the hooded figure come up to him. Vader says “I lied when I told you the cloning process had been perfected.” This is when the hooded figure pulls back his hood to reveal himself as. . .ANOTHER FUCKIN’ CLONE OF STARKILLER, just an evil one. . .
. . .that’s it, I’m going to bed. I’ll continue the rest of this tomorrow. . .fuck this.
Alright, I’m back and refreshed. I know that the dark side ending is not the canon ending, but how many times are we going to use a Clone as a plot device? This is beginning to feel a bit like “Mission: Impossible II”, when everyone was wearing those facemasks, sneaking around and getting things done. So the dark side ending includes perhaps the original Starkiller, then kills the Clone Starkiller, and features a dark side Clone Starkiller. Based on how many clones there are up in this shit, I wouldn’t be surprised if Vader actually wasn’t captured. Instead it’s another Starkiller Clone inside his costume!
What’s perhaps worse than this shitty, SHORT story is the novelization, of which I purchased the hardcover because I was so excited about the story. As you could guess, I was disappointed. Since “The Force Unleashed II” novelization would be like fifty pages, the author added in a whole bunch of FILLER CRAP that wasn’t featured or mentioned in the game at all. Needing to flesh out the story, the book includes a huge battle on Mon Calamari, featuring (of course) a new general named Admiral Ackbar. Knock it off with the cameos, just, please.
Arcs
All clones and hosts and cameos aside, let’s take a look at the FU2’s story and see how it fails in the most fundamental way possible. I don’t know if I am blind, but I don’t think our Clone Starkiller goes through any kind of arc. In “A New Hope”, Luke went from being a little farmboy to believing in himself and destroying the Death Star. In “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle”, Harold went from being nervous about asking Maria out, to actually asking her out at the end of the film. In “The Matrix”, Neo went from being a weak computer guy to believing in himself and becomming the One. See? Characters need to CHANGE. “The Force Unleashed”s end was Galen choosing to 1) become good and 2) sacrifice his life for a greater cause. So where’s the arc in FU2? The Clone goes from being a clone and having no identity to. . .realizing it’s ok he’s a clone? This is stupid. No arc means not interesting, at least I always thought so.
A Better Take on the Story, Mayhap
Alright, I’ve been on full attack since the beginning of this article, so I’m going to provide you with my ideas about how the story could have been improved. First off, don’t make me play as a clone. Since I’ve never been a clone of anything, I can’t identify with the character. How do we, as gamers, identify with a clone of someone we liked in the last game, because the clone, although a clone, IS NOT the original person. Does that make sense? For example, what if Luke had died at the end of “A New Hope” and the one in “The Empire Strikes Back” was a clone, you think the story would have as much punch when it came to the self-searching and the ultimate revelation at Cloud City? So yea, get rid of the clone, and while we’re at it, get rid of all the clones. It’s a lame plot device that is too sci-fi for Star Wars’ space-fantasy.
Secondly, if you’re going to feature Boba Fett and Yoda in your story, you better fucking use them. I’ve said this before, but I am so tired of the random cameos that serve no purpose to the narrative. Can anyone support the arguement that this narrative did not suffer do to Clone Starkiller running off and having to see Yoda?
Why couldn’t just have a story about the Original Starkiller who has lost his memory? I know that memory loss is another cliched story device, but hey, at least it’s better than CLONING. This way, we could still connect with the character of Starkiller (because it IS him) and want him to remember who he was. This would also explain how he lost his powers and how he must learn them again. (Instead of having a clone learning them all over again.)
For example, the game could start with the body of Starkiller in a Bacta Tank on a Star Destroyer, on the way to Kamino to be cloned. Then, to Vader’s surprise, the ship is attacked by Rebels. During the attack, Starkiller could awaken and not know where he is. Vader, sensing his old apprentice is awake, hunts him down throughout the ship. General Rahm Kota could be leading the attack, and he is stunned when he sees Starkiller alive. Starkiller does not recognize him. Thrown off by the surprise, Rahm Kota and the Rebels could fail the mission and have to retreat, but with Starkiller in tow.
Starkiller could be brought back to the Rebels main base or whatever and introduced to all his old friends. He does not remember anyone, not even Juno. The Rebels and friends could tell Starkiller he was once a Jedi, although he has flashes of pain and utter destruction. He also remembers a black clad, helmeted figure.
To jog his memory, Starkiller is sent on some missions with the Rebels. Each time, Starkiller could 1) level up and 2) remember a bit more about his past.
In an attempt to draw Starkiller back, Vader hires Boba Fett to get Juno Eclipse and Rahm Kota. Since Boba is the best damn bounty hunter in the galaxy, he quickly finds them. This could open up some opportunities for some levels. Rescuing two friends on two different planets. Let’s say that Rahm Kota gets taken to PLANET 1, which I’m calling Rammfania. Here, Starkiller could learn some more powers (level up) and save Rahm. Before they escape though, Vader would confront his old apprentice. Starkiller could recognize the black clad figure as the one in his memories. See, he’s slowly starting to change.
By this point, Starkiller remembers a bit more, but not Juno and not Vader’s betrayal. Rahm and the Rebels go on a mission to rescue Juno. It is here, at the end of the game, when things look most grim for our heroes, when he finally remembers all: Vader’s betrayal, his destructive past, his love of Juno. He then takes the fight to Vader with full force. At the end of their inevitable duel, Vader can give him a choice to join the dark side, which the player can either refuse or accept. The dark side ending inclues, I don’t know, Starkiller killing everyone and being evil, and the good side ending would include him rescuing and loving Juno (like all Star Wars video-game alternate endings).
I’m not saying what I spit out above would be the BEST sequel to “The Force Unleashed”, but it sure seems a lot better than the contrived, stupid, clone-happy one that really exists.
In Conclusion
So, what else is there left to say? “The Force Unleashed II” was a truly wasted opportunity for something great. It’s hard to write a sequel after a character is presumed dead, but bringing them back in a believable way is what writing is all about. Maybe it’s because they thought they could make money without a good story. Maybe it was written by people who love clones. Maybe it’s because one of the top development guys left three months before the game’s release. Who knows, really?
Although there’s been some rumors of an “axed” “Force Unleashed III”, I have no doubt that Starkiller will return. I can only guess that in this sequel, there will be the Clone of Starkiller, the original Starkiller who never died, and the dark side Starkiller from the dark side ending, who, although not seen in the good side ending, is still considered canon. Seeing the Original Starkiller and his Clone counterpart team up against a dark side clone would be quite disastrous and heartbreaking.
Good thing “A New Hope”, “The Empire Strikes Back”, and “Return of the Jedi” are still good.
***This article contains a lot of Youtube links, I would recommend loading them up on Youtube so you’re not loading many at once and slowing down your connection and computer. Maybe I just have a slow computer, I don’t know, but I thought I’d give you the head’s up. ~Sincerely, Rammfan518***
I don’t know if I’ve ever got into this on the blog, but I a fan of Lady Gaga. Not a huge fan, but about as big a fan a metalhead can get. While I am destined to get tons of shit for this from devout metallers and haters of “gay” music, you can’t deny that Gaga is a damn talented singer, songwriter, pianist, and stage performer. I mean, I think we can all appreciate her extravagant and complex live shows. And in an industry where popstars lip-sync songs that were written for them, it’s nice to see an artist who legitimately sings song she has written or co-written.
Alright, so now that my short little Gaga praise is over, let me get to the issue at hand. My friend sent me a link to Gaga’s newest song “Born this Way” a couple months ago. I like the song; it has a good dance beat, some fun singing part, and a nice little message for all those who feel lame. I had never heard Madonna’s “Express Yourself”, but he said “Born This Way” reminded him of it. The two songs are down below for your listening pleasure:
Born This Way:
Express Yourself:
Originally, I didn’t think they sounded all too similar. I went back to my life of pasta cooking, scriptwriting, and wine drinking. While in line for a show’s studio audience, I was eavesdropping on some people talking about “Born this Way” and one said “I don’t like it, it sounds too much like ‘Express Yourself'”. After the taping, I came home and listened to the two songs again. It’s been a couple weeks since then and I can honestly say that I still don’t think they sound similar.
I mean, sure, they are similar. They’re both pop songs that might have similar tempo and song structure, but it’s absolutely daft to call “Born this Way” a rip-off. They don’t even sound the same!
Britney Spears was accused of stealing recently as well. In her new song “Hold it against me”, she uses the line “If I said I want your body now, would you hold it against me?” The Bellamy Brothers claimed this was a rip off of their 1979 song titled “If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body, Would You Hold It Against Me?” and went through all this stuff saying they felt a little ripped off. A little ripped off? I don’t know about you but I always heard this a cheesy pick up line: “Hey, if I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?” What do the Bellamy Brothers expect? Did they make up this pick-up line? Can you copyright a pick-up line? Can you blame someone for writing a song thirty-two years later that has the same pun?
While we’re on the subject of similar song titles, do you know how many freaking German bands have a song called “Ohne Dich” (which translates to the sorrowful “without you”)? Just on a quick Youtube search I found there are songs titled such from the following bands: Rammstein, Selig, Eisbrecher, Zeraphine, Blutengel, Staubkind, Daygun, Christina Stürmer, Hirbod ft. Cecco, and die Arzte. Looking up just a random song title “I miss you”, there’s a song from Blink 182, Aaliyah, Miley Cryrus, Basshunter, Incubus, Avril Lavigne, Klymaxx, Harold Melvin And The Bluenotes, Simple Plan, and Aaron Hall. (Rolling Stones decided to be original and title their song “Miss You”). So see?
Anyway, back to Gaga. Her next single “Judas” came under fire as well, mostly from Christian killjoys, but also from fans of the dance-pop singer Lori Lux, who claimed “Judas” is a huge rip-off of her song “Wannabe”. Here are the two songs below:
Judas
Loli Lux – Wannabe
Sure, both songs have that “doo-doo-do-do-dododo” thing going on, but can we really call Judas a rip-off? I guess Lori Lux was upset because “Judas” uses the same “hook” as her song. While the hooks are the same, NOTHING ELSE about them is similar in the slightest. I get it, but come on. “Judas” reminded me mostly of the songs from Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumping” album, curiously enough and this song “Mary, Mary”:
Mary, Mary
Now that I think about it, “Wannabe” sounds a little “Mary, Mary” as well! Let’s not also forget that we can claim the techno-y bridge of “Judas” being similar to that club song at the beginning of the film “Blade.” It’s VERY similar, but if you say people can’t make “ripped off” music, then there can be no new music ever again.
Here is another example of Lady Gaga emulating another band’s style (yes, emulating).
Eh, Eh (Nothing Else to Say)
Ace of Base – Don’t turn around
For those of you who only think it’s pop music being emulated or “ripped off” around the world, take a look at some of these similar-sounding songs.
The Cure and Wir Sind Helden
If you don’t know who The Cure is, you have either never gone outside or made a break-up mixed tape. Wir Sind Helden is a German pop band. You can’t deny that these songs sound similar, but did Wir Sind Helden reißen The Cure auf?
The Cure – “Just Like Heaven”
Wir Sind Helden – “The Geek(Shall Inherit)”
Rammstein and Ruoska
Rammstein, in addition to being the best band in the world, is a German industrial metal band, who kind of paved the way for machiney-metal in the late nineties and have continued to be metal giants in the past decade. Ruoska is a small Finnish industrial band. These songs have similar riffs, but did Ruoska rip off Rammstein?
Laichzeit
Ruoska – Alasin
Finntoll and Svartby
Finntroll just also happens to be one of the best bands in the world and is one of the big bands in the whole “folk metal” genre scene (if there is a scene). They have no doubt influenced an innumerable amount of other folk wanting to make metal with flutes and accordions. One such band from Russia, Svartby, is obviously highly influenced by Finntroll (even choosing to sing is Swedish), but did Svartby rip off Finntroll’s “Skogens Hämnd” with their song “Flygt Över Somnigt Land?”
Finntroll – Skogens Hämnd
Svartby – Flygt Över Somnigt Land
When does flattering imitation become rip-off? And where’s the cut off?
Tom Petty and Red Hot Chili Peppers and Blur:
Now let’s take a look at this one. Tom Petty is an old singer guitarist who, in 1993, came out with the catchy tune “Last Dance with Mary Jane”. Blur, the guys who sing the “woo hoo!” song, came out with their song “Country House” in 1995. In 2005, The Red Hot Chili Peppers released the album “Stadium Arcadium” (a name I’ve always hated for some reason) that featured the song “Dani California”. Listen to the openings of all three songs.
Tom Petty – Last Dance with Mary Jane
Blur – Country House
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Dani California
See? This sort of thing happens a lot.
In Conclusion:
I definitely would not call myself a musician, but I have been known by some to make my own music. When I started messing around with Guitar Pro and a bright yellow and green children’s keyboard back in 2008, I didn’t know where to start. I don’t think anyone who starts something creative does. So what do you do? You imitate the bands you’re familiar with.
I’m not going to lie and say that some of my first songs weren’t desperate attempts to be someone else’s songs. Turisas’ “One More” opens with a minute-long violin intro, followed by a nice drum beat with some guitar. My song “Hei” tried to do the same thing. Yet this is “stealing”. When making little metal songs in my room, I would say “Oh, alright, this is how a Rammstein song is structured” and then observe, re-do, and eventually learn how music works. So yea, my song might have a riff, then a verse, then a riff like many of Rammstein’s early songs, but these songs of mine aren’t rip-offs, and even Rammstein and Turisas had to get inspiration from some other band to start them off.
It happens with everything creative. It’s no different than a movie director using a shot that they saw in someone else’s movie, or a writer writing in the same style as their favorite author. Why do you think so many young filmmakers make Star Wars fan films? And those kids that made a shot-for-shot remake of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”? Everyone borrows and steals from everyone else.
Now don’t get me wrong, there are some instances when songs or song-parts are stolen (I’m looking at you, Vanilla Ice), but for the most part, there is no way in hell (the one we’re all going to after listening to Judas, apparently) you could monitor all this music and make sure it’s rip-off or influence-free. Everything, EVERYTHING, comes from something else. Star Wars was a mix of Flash Gordon and Kurosawa’s “The Hidden Fortress”. The Lord of the Rings novels were a mix of Norse sagas and Tolkien’s own invented languages. And even Tolkien’s languages were based off Finnish and Welsh! “Lion King” borrows from “Hamlet”, which is believe to be inspired by earlier legends of kings and sons such as “Hrólfs saga kraka” and the story of Brutus.
For those of you who are still skeptical, just watch the video below to learn that there really is nothing new under the sun:
***Originally posted April 4, 2011 on my old blog.***
***This article contains spoilers. If you are wary of these, I suggest seeing the film first before reading. I suggest drinking a bottle of wine before reading as well, but hey, whatever. ~ Sincerely, Rammfan518***
It’s April, which means it’s Scriptfrenzy, which means I should be trying to write a 100 page script in 30 days, and have no fucking idea why I am typing this stupid review instead of working on my screenplay. Oh well, who cares?
Before I dive into talking about Sucker Punch, let’s just talk a little about Zack Synder and why I LOVED this guy. His directorial debut, the 2004 remake of “Dawn of the Dead”, was amazing. At a time when zombies WEREN’T EVERYWHERE and the weren’t the COMEDIC DEVICE USED FOR EVERYTHING, I thought it was a pretty original and sweet. I even considered it my favorite zombie film of all time before I saw Tommy Wirkola’s “Død snø (Dead Snow)” and it blew my sokker off. Anyway, I still love 2004’s “Dawn of the Dead”, but I was excited for his next film even more.
Then he made “Watchmen”. Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t HATE “Watchmen”, I just didn’t really like it. I’m not a huge comic book fan, nor was I a huge fan of the graphic novel when I was given the opportunity to read it after seeing the film. I don’t really like politics, either, and Watchmen was about politics and superheroes and what the fuck was that thing on Mars? And that fucking blue guy talking all stupid all the time?
Seriously, wtf is this?
Alright, so maybe I didn’t really like Watchmen (all 75, 000 hours of it). I did like Rorschach and his two best lines: “Men get arrested. Dogs get put down!” and “None of you seem to understand. I’m not locked in here with you. You’re locked in here with ME!” Awesome stuff, but the rest was MEHHHHH.
Alright, so even though I didn’t like “Watchmen” hardly at all, I didn’t cast away Blake Snyder and was still looking forward to his next project. I heard about “Sucker Punch” a while back, and when seeing the posters of some girls shooting shit, I thought “alright, cool.” It looked like a Zack Snyder movie and looked very stylish, and knowing that it was his original idea was even more interesting. Alright, cool!
And then I saw the movie. . .
“Sucker Punch” takes place in 194. . .uh. . .something and is about a girl who. . .uh. . .alright, let me try this again. Sometime in the 40s, this girl Babydoll is. . .damn it, let me look up the synopsis for this shit. (. . .) Alright, so I guess it actually takes place in the 1960s (whatever), and in the beginning, the main character, Baby Doll, is committed to a mental institution after an incident involving I think rape and murder. Babydoll’s stepfather bribes the BAD GUY WITH THE MUSTACHE to lobotomize her so she can’t spill the beans about what really happened or claim her deceased mother’s fortune (or something). Alright, some deceit goin’ on here, alright, cool. . .
The lobotomy guy is coming in five days, and in those five days, Baby Doll slips into a fantasy world where she is a new ho coming in to a brothel (wait, what?). Hank’s lawyer from Californication: Season 4 is their dancing instructor Madam Gorski and has a Russian(?) accent. Baby Doll meets four other females at this brothel and is told that her virginity will be sold to someone known as the “High Roller” at the end of the week.
Madam Gorski makes Baby Doll do an erotic dance, and when she does, she escapes to a fantasy world, arriving in a snowy, feudal Japan. It is here that she meets an old dude who tells her she can escape if she gets five items: a map, fire, a knife, something I can’t remember, and the last one is unknown, but will have to be a sacrifice (IT’S BABYDOLL, DUH!). After learning this, she fights three big Samurai guys for no reason (and in slow-motion!) and then. . .she’s back in the dance studio in the imaginary brothel. So. . .every time she dances, she goes into some fantasy world. . .ok. . .I get it.
Baby Doll tells her brothel-friends to join in on the quest for these objects, and they promptly all agree to help out. So. . the girls set out to get the other items, and each time Baby Doll’s dances are the gateway to whatever fantasy land they have to inhabit. This part is, well, it’s not really that cool, but I mean, to get the fire, they have to cut a baby dragon’s throat and take the crystals within, to get the map, they have to . . fight Nazis? and to get the knife they have to. . defuse a bomb on a train? Alright, well, the fire one makes sense I guess.
So anyway, the girls go through these “scenarios” to steal these things from certain people, i.e. Jon has the map, Paul has the knife, George has the bagel, and Ringo has the keys to Shining Time Station, and so on. Alright, so. . .the bad guy with the mustache finds out the girls are trying to do this and ends up shooting two or three of them and then. . .I don’t even fucking know, Baby Doll sacrifices herself for one of her friends so she can escape or whatever.
Right as Baby Doll sacrifices herself, we switch out of the fantastical brothel and back into the 1960’s boring mental institution. So. . Baby Doll gets lobotomized and yea. . .The ending scene is of the friend Baby Doll saved getting on a bus to somewhere and it drives off in the distance. Alright. . .
So. . .what’s there to say about “Sucker Punch”. . .? Well, it’s stupid. I’m not sure if I understood the story right, but as I understand it, we have an institutionalized girl who’s about to be lobotomized. In her mind, she has this imaginary brothel and these imaginary friends, who, when trying steal something, enter into yet another imaginary world.
Now. . .this is fine, I guess, but if this whole brothel world is imaginary, and Baby Doll’s friends imaginary as well, then why they fuck would I care about them or whether they complete their tasks? If all these characters are in Baby Doll’s mind and their escape is too, then what are the fucking stakes? If I made a movie about my daydreams, and in one of them Eva Green and I are about to be killed by a beast, would you really care? Because what’s the danger if it’s just a dream? No matter what happens to me and Eva, the REAL me is still waiting in line at the DMV, spacing out in L.A. traffic, or jerking it to Finntroll’s Nifelvind album (wait, what?) I guess what I am trying to say here is that with imaginary characters, none of the shit that happens is important. Alright, cool, they get fire and a knife, but some die. . .Baby Doll is still just sitting in her cell in the 60s, not doing anything. How dumb!
This girl looks just like a girl made me <!–3 a couple years ago. . .this movie sucks more and more. . haha
But the dumb part about this is in the end, one of Baby Doll’s friends escapes the asylum. But are her friends really in the asylum or just in the brothel fantasy? So, did she get away in real life or just in Baby Doll’s brain? I’m so confused! (Maybe I wasn’t paying attention, I don’t know). It makes no sense.
Another thing that’s stupid is just the reasoning behind going into these little missions to getting the things they need. So, they need a map from the guy with the mustache’s room, so that translates to them having to get a map from some zombie/orc/Nazi guys in the trenches of World War I or II. . .but why? Why is that?
:/
When they go to get the fire, they have to infiltrate an Orc- ridden castle in order cut a baby dragon’s throat open and retrieve the crystals from inside. While this is a pretty cool scene (pretty much the only scene I like from the movie), what does a castle and Orcs have to do with retrieving fire? And thirdly, what does having to get a knife have to do with a train and diffusing a bomb? I don’t get it!
I believe it was the before-insane George Lucas who said that action scenes are only effective if we care about the people in them. When Indiana Jones is about to get his head squashed, we give a shit because we LIKE Indy. Not only do we not care for girls of “Sucker Punch”, but the action scenes are ridiculously out of context. Not to mention that their self-contained-ness only makes them more of a difference from the rest of the movie and each other. I mean. . .what’s the fucking point? They’re just random.
I know there’re probably a lot of people out there on IMDb saying “Its like Zack Snyder onl y wanted to mak these acshun seens and so he rote a movie jus to do em“, but I have to say I agree. I honestly don’t see these action scenes as anything but old ideas pulled from the huge 3×5 card idea pile, also known as the “I’ve always wanted to do” pile. I’ve always wanted to do a fight with big Samurai, I’ve always wanted to do a Zombie-Nazi type thing, I’ve always wanted to do a scene with a dragon and castle, I’ve always wanted to do an idea with a train. So what does Mr. Snyder do? He creates a plot centered around the fact that “anything goes” and everything can be disconnected from things that came before it. That way, random scenes make sense, right? Well, My. Synder, I like to write to, and I have an idea to have a Viking kill demons in the forest and I have the idea for someone to make a joke about watching “Return of the Jedi” with the sound off, but I’m not going to go and put them in same movie.
And if you wanted to include all these scenes, a Samurai battle, a trench fight, a castle battle, and a train bomb defusing, then why didn’t you just make it so that all these scenes can fit into some crazy world where all that stuff is normal? How about Baby Doll and her buddies have to get all these ingredients to a secret elixir that can, I dunno, do something important, and they go around and gather all the shit? I mean, why even have the 1960s shit? Oh well, whatever, I’m unemployed and he’s just released his fourth feature, so what do I know?
Oh, I totally forgot he directed that Owl movie. . .well I didn’t see that shit.
Anyway, moving on. . .may I note that I found the slow-motion so FUCKING ANNOYING. I mean, it works sometimes, but JESUS, every time ANYTHING happens, it’s in slow-mo. Good gracious. . .sparingly, bro, sparingly. And speaking of annoying shit, what was with all the music? What was with that slow version of the Eurythmic’s “Sweet Dreams”. It was worse that Marilyn Manson’s cover. (And speaking of Marilyn Manson covers, they suck too. All he does is turn down the tempo and then sing it in a creepy voice. RRR!!)
Alright, one last thing before I finish this shit and bust out the two-buck-chuck in the fridge. (Can I walk to fridge, or will I have to kill a ravenous Snorlax on the Eiffel Tower to get my wine?) The ending line was fuckin’ cheesy as hell. So, Baby Doll’s friend (the one who gets away at the end) has been narrating the movie the whole time, and she has this to say as the bus rides away in the sunset:
Who honors those we love for the very life we live? Who sends monsters to kill us. And at the same time, things that will never die. Who teaches us whats real, and how to laugh at lies. Who decides why we live, and what we’ll die to defend. Who trains us, and who holds the key to set us free. (cut to black) It’s you. You have all the weapons you need. Now fight! (credits begin)
That’s so fucking dumb! First off, that doesn’t even make sense. What the hell is she talking about? And since when did this movie become about ME fighting or doing anything? I’m not related to this story at all. And what weapons is she talking about? And what am I fighting against! I don’t get it! And as for cheesy inspirations for fighting, I’ll stick to Turisas, thank you very much.
Oh well, I think that about wraps this shit up. As I always do with these long ones, I set out to write a short one, but then it explodes and consumes my whole evening. At least it’s a Tuesday night and not a Friday night. . .Anyway, in short, “Sucker Punch” was disappointing and made no sense. So, what does this mean for me and Zack? Is he still one of my favorite directors? Were perhaps “Dawn of the Dead” and “300” the only movies of his I will enjoy? Considering that his next movie is the new Superman reboot, I’m going to say yes. I mean, why Superman? Superman’s stupid. Batman is way cooler.
Alright, so. . .watch “Sucker Punch” or not if you want. Leave comments down below, I love positive and negative ones, so write away. God knows I already have.
I just found out Zack Snyder lives in Pasadena, which is really close to me. Let’s meet up Zack and talk about “Sucker Punch”, I want some things explained, please?
Oh well fuck it whatever, back to writing my Scriptfrenzy script. I hope my story at least makes sense.
Casey Poma 
