Bourne Again...

So the Bourne Legacy is making it's way out to the physical and digital media as we speak.
I never really touched on it when it first showed up, I don't remember why I was distracted at the time, but I do recall that I was.  I think it was mostly because it was out at the same time as The Avengers, which stole quite a few hours of my time in the theater, and more at home on my media player.

The Bourne Series is a series of growing mysteries about the loss of identity and how the 'agent's' that get it stripped away and rebuilt from are still MORE than the training that they have.  It's got great Spy craft moments and drama, terrific characters.  Restarting all of that with new characters in Legacy is a huge challenge.  The loss of Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass seemed to interrupt the flow of the series, but Tony Gilroy really tries to pick up the baton and run with it as well as the previous team did.

Jeremy Renner has the new 'Legacy' role to step into, and that's really what the movie is all about.  The fallout from Bourne's quest for identity.  The exposure of the two programs, Treadstone and Blackbriar, leads to somebody from his former organization liquidating every program that could be exposed.  This brings us to our new protagonist Aaron Cross (Renner). As one of the 'assets' in this program he is on borrowed time.  But to make things worse, all of these assets are, to a certain extent chemically enhanced.  These enhancements make the assets faster, stronger, and more resilient than normal, but they also have a mental component.

One of the criticism's I heard about this picture when the film initially came out was that the movie felt like a 'fetch' quest in a video game.  I can understand that comparison, and there's even some truth to it, but what got me about it was there's an aspect of 'Flowers for Algernon' to this film that would be terrifying, especially considering that the ability to think clearly is only one of the things keeping Cross alive.

[Spoilers (Highlight to view)]


Cross was barely able to pass his entrance exam to join the Army before getting into the program.  Now he's capable of advance tactical thinking, and mentally very sharp.  The idea of your mind slipping away leading to you losing the only chance you have to stay alive?  That's some serious motivation.  

[/end Spoilers]

All in all, the movie falls short of the standards set by the drama and characters of the previous Bourne films, but that doesn't take away that the movie itself is really solid.  If viewed independently?  It'll stand up well.  If you're comparing it to the previous Bourne films, it's not going to be as strong.
Ed Norton makes a strong showing as the villan in this piece, and Renner's Cross is a solid protagonist... their motivations are never really in question, Cross wants to live and everything is based on that, Norton needs to eliminate the last piece of exposure his superiors could be exposed to.

In the end, all I can really say is that I really enjoyed the film, not as much as the previous ones, but it was entirely worth the time to explore where they decided to go with Ludlum's original series.

NANOWRIMO Day 29..

So here we are at the end of November and NANOWRIMO is almost done.  How'd I do?  Pretty good if I do say so myself.  While I didn't have my 50k words set to go when they opened up finalization on Monday, I did manage to get there today.  I'm pretty proud of myself to be honest.  Now I just need to keep up the writing habit.  Now you may be asking where my story is at...and the funny thing is it's just getting started.

When I started this project my impulse when I first started writing was to go with a series of short stories all in a collective world to try and establish this environment that I wanted to write in.  Then I actually started writing the Characters, and the environment, and some of the events going on and I discovered that it wasn't going to be a series of short stories...unless I decided to make them all 100 pages.

So I now have a story I'm really enjoying writing, and want to re-visit.  But I'm feeling like writing something else for a bit.  And I feel like I can justify working on something else now that I don't have the finish of NANO looming.

Honestly I'm just looking forward to writing some more stuff.  I don't know if I'll ever manage enough material to publish or anything, but the fact that I finally feel like I got past my internal editor?  That's feeling like a step in the right direction.

I'm thinking I could use a bit more structure on my next big writing project though instead of letting the story grow on it's own like this one did.  I'll need to revisit some old writing lessons about plotlines, character development and stuff like that.  A fantastic writer named Frea O'Scanlin (at least that's what she's told me to call her), pointed out some web based lessons on Creative Writing by Brandon Sanderson.  I'm likely going to be spending the next week watching those and seeing what I can build with his advice.  Between him and Michael Stackpoles 'The Secrets' a wonderful podcast and newsletter all about writing, I think I'll be able to do some more to develop this habit into something more.

I hope anyhow.  Hope your days are as full as you want them to be.  With all the joy and good fortune you can find.
Til later

NANOWRIMO Day 8

So...I've been hard at work...well hardly AT WORK but I've been trying to put some serious time in on writing my novel each day.  And coming from a REALLY rough start it's starting to shape itself into a story that I'm pretty excited about.  I keep finding myself focusing on a mantra for myself "Just keep writing into the next scene.  Just keep writing into the next scene."  And it feels like it's working pretty well.  As long as I manage to find some time each day to go somewhere I'm NOT comfortable and just sit down and WRITE for a while I manage to get some really solid material out.

I mean, I'm at 16000 words today.  Of my story.  And each day I look at it and find some more material to keep going on.  Granted most of the time I have to force myself away from my computer to not go back and EDIT bits and pieces.  (NO, bad Jonny.  Editing is for December.)  But if I can keep at this pace for EACH DAY.  Just manage 2000 words a day, maybe a few more, I'll have my 50,000 well before the end of the month.  I love that idea.  Having a good chunk of a novel finished before the end of a month.

Now, I just need to cement this as a habit for EVERY day and then I'll be making some serious progress.

Blitzing Badguys...in Borderlands 2.

Another day, another posting.  I really should be working on some original fiction of my own, but I'm having a hard time shutting off my internal editor to get more material out instead of going BACK to the stuff I've written.  It's much more challenging than you'd think.
Still, I've got ideas popping up anytime I'm doing ANYTHING else.  I really need to start keeping better notes.  Anyone know good ways to take them while in the shower?  My paper keeps getting soggy.
Anyway, onto the title material.
I loved the original Borderlands.  It was ridiculously easy to jump in and play, fun to barrel around in the zones with your friends and kill stuff.  It played a lot like Diablo in many ways, huge amounts of loot with varied looks and some really interesting variations in play.
Borderlands 2?  More of the same, all the great gunplay, all the ridiculous comedy.  The game plays like the craziest sci-fi western ever.  And all the guns?  There really doesn't seem to be ANY end to them.  Even the ones you get from quest drops see MASSIVE variation.  It's really quite impressive.
While the single player is the best way to get to all the great comedy in the story, but what really makes the game fun is the multiplayer.  Nothing is quite so much fun as running around the wilds of Pandora with your 3 friends blasting every Psycho, Bandit, Marauder and Elite out there.  It's bloody, fast, quick and fun.  All the things that we were looking for in a sequel.
Gotta say, the ability to sit down with a buddy in his basement and rock out blasting away at bad guys. It's very therapeutic for ANY kinds of stress.  Though I'm sure that getting a couple thousand more words done in my NANOWRIMO journal will work just as well.

Happy Halloween! And NANOWRIMO is here! AHHHHH!

It's been a while since I've put ANYTHING up here.  I know, I'm disappointed in me too... There really aren't any good reasons for it other than me losing my drive to put my random thoughts up.  Anyhow, I've got something new and a little terrifying going on in my life for the next 30 days or so.  Let's see if I can manage to get something up here every day?
So, for those of you wondering what the heck I'm blathering on about THIS time... NANOWRIMO is NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth.  I've only heard about it this last year or so, and when I did...Well, the idea both Thrilled and Terrified me.  So here's the thing.  You sign up for it online at http://www.nanowrimo.org/; get your profile set and then over the course of November you write a 50,000 word novel.  Now, I've managed some lengthy treatises on stuff before...but I've never actually got that many words conveying a single theme out.  Now what makes this interesting is that anywhere folks are doing this, they get together an hang out at Write ins.  This is basically taking peer pressure and making it work FOR you.  Sitting in a room with a bunch of folks typing away while you're NOT writing your novel?  A little intimidating.  Then there's the forums which have folks tossing ideas around and there's word wars between different people trying to get the most material out...it's all kinda crazy.  And I'm making myself a part of it.
It's a weird notion just making it about the word count and not about the quality...but I know one of my biggest issues for Myself?  Is turning off the inner editor.  It's always clicking away back there and making me worry about what I'm doing wrong.  For this, I've locked him in a box, stuck him in a vault and hid him behind some dusty old memories of yesteryear with a big sign saying "DO NOT OPEN TIL DECEMBER".
I don't know what will show up here over the course of the next month...I'm fairly sure at some point it's just going to be me writing MUST KEEP TYPING over and over again.  Or not.  Who can say?
That's where I'm starting with this.  I'm typing up my thoughts and putting them out into the ether.  Hopefully I'll have something fun that I've thought of later on but I'm really not sure.  Hope anybody who sees this actually DID have a Happy Halloween, and that the start of your November is bright.  Mine is looking Wordy.

Where are the Freelancers?

Every time I plug a new game into any gaming system, I hope to find something new or interesting... Something that will engage me while entertaining me.  It's rare that you find one that can handle all those options... and the ones that have been appearing (though more frequent these days) are still exceptionally rare.  I've been yearning for my Wing Commander days back on my old Amiga and felt compelled to give the recently updated Dark Star One: Broken Alliance a try.  

It may be recollections of rose-colored glasses... but those games were still far superior to the one that I've been playing.  DS1 is, at it's core, a space sim, with some upgrade elements tacked on to make it slightly different from it's contemporaries and little bits of trade tacked on to keep up to par.  Still, even with it's HD upgrade.. it doesn't manage to hold up to games from 2003 specifically Freelancer... which in my last experience is one of the best space-sims I've ever played.  DS1's story felt very cobbled together using a great deal of inspiration from Freelancer, but without the inventive starship design that was developed for the different factions and cultures.  All in all the game is a weak diversion while waiting for the next generation of good space sims to show up. 

That madman in his magnificent blue box...

The first couple episodes of the new season of Doctor Who have aired over here at long last... and once again, Steven Moffat (currently considered one of the best episode writers the series had) is making his mark on the Doctor's Mythos.  He's made fun new villains and found a distinctive new way to mess with his audience using his distinctive sense of fun and silliness.   

Most folks have "their" Doctor.   The one who caught their attention and riveted them to his episodic stories when they were younger.  Moffat is no different.  Check out his Time Crash mini episode from the Children in Need special he did for the BBC.  It's a brilliant piece of work by David Tennant (our previous Doctor incarnation) that touches on many of the things that make the character unique and wonderful.  It also serves to show WHY so many of the good Doctor's fans were disappointed when Mr. Tennant hung up his Tardis key (though with the way things work in the Doctor's world, we could run into him again).

For me Tom Baker is most frequently the one that came to mind pre- 2005 series resurrection. Though his successors "The Caves of Androzani" remains one of my favorite episodes of Doctor Who to date.

The most interesting thing we saw when the Doctor made his return was the change in his nature... before he was the ancient traveller looking for things and friends to keep him busy while plunging though the extra-dimensions that we know are there... but he can see and feel.  With his return he was an old soldier... lost and alone... the last survivor of a race that no longer is, and struggling to find something to hang on to.  

The Doctor's first seasons (at least the new ones from 2005-2009) are now easily accessible via Netflix, and have some fantastic storytelling, almost all of which is self contained in each episode though Russel T. Davies "the Doctor as Messiah" tends to get a little heavy handed in the episodes that he writes. 

Steven Moffat (the Doctor's current showrunner) has some of his BEST work in these series.  Including Blink, a exceptional piece of television that only actually involves the Doctor tangentially. There are many things to expect from a show like Doctor Who... but the one that I enjoy the most is the un-adulterated creativity that pours into each of them.  While I love the classics of Doctor Who dearly... I there is nothing that I can recommend more than the new series.  It's fun, scary, brilliant, and shining and while it's regular cast is small even the guests for each individual episode work their utmost to make it an excellent viewing experience for everyone.