That essay has always gotten mixed feelings from me. I agree with the main point, but I still very much enjoyed Star Trek Into Darkness as a kinetic thriller despite all its problems. And, in general, I love convoluted plots with lots of twists. Retroactive's general plot was very much inspired by such things. I tried to make the focus the character(s), of course, and we've already hashed out my various successes and failures on that front.
I think, on some level, the Mike and the Bryan are in the same boat I'm in. We want to have fun with that convoluted stuff, and we intellectually know that character is important and so try to do something with that. However, it all comes down to how well we've internalized that sense of character- or how innately talented we are at grasping character. I won't weigh in on my own ability on that score, but the Mike and the Bryan don't seem to have that sense by themselves. (Honestly, I don't think they're that good at the slick fun, either. LoK's action scenes and twists have left me cold. They're not on the level of JJ Abrams' Star Trek.) The Mike and the Bryan are dependent on other writers, on other idea people, on actors and storyboarders and all of it.
Which, of course, comes back to that graph. Convolution and character can go together, but it takes work, and awareness.
I just wish the advertising would stop lying and say this is THE story of Ursa. Personally, I feel better having figured out that there never was a THE story. It's like permission to indulge in headcanon.
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Date: 2014-02-01 04:07 am (UTC)I think, on some level, the Mike and the Bryan are in the same boat I'm in. We want to have fun with that convoluted stuff, and we intellectually know that character is important and so try to do something with that. However, it all comes down to how well we've internalized that sense of character- or how innately talented we are at grasping character. I won't weigh in on my own ability on that score, but the Mike and the Bryan don't seem to have that sense by themselves. (Honestly, I don't think they're that good at the slick fun, either. LoK's action scenes and twists have left me cold. They're not on the level of JJ Abrams' Star Trek.) The Mike and the Bryan are dependent on other writers, on other idea people, on actors and storyboarders and all of it.
Which, of course, comes back to that graph. Convolution and character can go together, but it takes work, and awareness.
I just wish the advertising would stop lying and say this is THE story of Ursa. Personally, I feel better having figured out that there never was a THE story. It's like permission to indulge in headcanon.