By Sean Tuohy and Daniel Ford
Editor’s note: Believe it or not, this post started after I alerted Sean that “Ghostbusters II” was on VH1 the other day. Somehow our conversation devolved into trading one-liners back and forth for several hours. Feel free to add your own in the comments section or tweet us @WritersBone. Keep writing!—Daniel Ford
From "The Twilight Zone"
The Boneyard features the best of the Writer’s Bone crew's daily email chain. Yes, we broadened the definition of “best” to make this happen.
Daniel Ford: Sean and I talked about some of our favorite reads for an upcoming podcast and included:
So what's better? Sci-fi books or movies? What makes a good sci-fi read/film? What makes a bad one?
Oh, and maybe you've seen the new "Star Wars" trailer...
Dave Pezza: First off, "sci-fi" as a genre has really degraded to series specific mini-universes, which I find rather boring and way too repetitive. So I don't have much for you. Star Wars extended universe novels aren't very good. I'm sorry that's not the answer you want, but they are only cool for the novelty of reading about “Star Wars” characters outside of the confines of Lucas' movies. It's the truth, and it's coming from a huge “Star Wars” nerd!
Then you have stuff like Ender's Game or The Hunger Games series, which classify more under Young Adult. And Young Adult novels should be read by young adults...
So what's left: One offs that don't get much attention. I was recently given a copy of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I haven't read it yet. Sooooo can't really talk about that one. I would argue that 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 are sci-fi (really the whole old school dystopian novel is really sci-fi), but I have only read the former. Good sci-fi is dying; blame lack of imagination and science's shitty way of explaining everything and nothing at the same time. All we have now are shitty pseudo fantasy books like Game of Thrones that fail at emulating a genre that has already been and always will be dominated by Tolkien lore, an author who all but invented that genre. No, I take that back, he did invent the genre.
Matt DiVenere: I think Dave forgot to say something at the end: "Boom, roasted."
Ernie Smith (founder of the awesome newsletter Tedium and website Short Form Blog): I live for horrible sci-fi on "Mystery Science Theater 3000."
Daniel: I actually agree with you on a lot of these points. Sean actually asked me what those Star Wars books were about and I stammered for a bit and then said, "Oh yeah, they aren't good."
The other thing is that all of these sci-fi series are a time investment. How many Star Wars EU books are there? A billion. The Dune series is long. The Hunger Games is a trilogy, but I'm not wasting my time with three books while I'm rooting for all the kids to be murdered in book one.
That's why Sean and I liked The Martian so much. It was one book, the science wasn't outlandish, and it was explained in a way that didn't make you feel like you were back in an eighth grade biology class. And it was one of the funniest books I've read in a long time.
So, why the intense passion when it comes to sci-fi? Is the millennial generation stuck in a perpetual childhood? Or do people just latch on to these series to escape their otherwise bleak and pointless realities?
Dave: Well, Daniel, let's be honest about this generation; they are lazy. Now before you all give me the "our parent’s generation had it so much easier," argument, which certainly has its merits and roots in reality, it doesn't change the fact that our generation is lazy and media saturated. We don't read newspapers; we read news tweets or news feeds. We tend to ignore context and gulp text. We don't pine for childhood; we digest and consider our books and stories at the level of a child. We need plot up front, characters who we can recognize as good or bad a chapter in. We don't want to understand the science behind something, just what it results in. The old school allure of science fiction were the questions how? And why? How does warp drive work and why is it important to travel through space to seek out new life and new civilizations. Now we ask questions of so what? Okay, so what's the plot of “Star Trek,” what happens? “Star Trek,” “Star Wars,” and most sci-fi has never, ever been plot driven. Because plot is hard to get right, because plot is largely synthetic. Real events rarely ever follow and interesting or climatic story arch. And when you are writing a synthetic story in a synthetic time with synthetic science, something needs to feel real.
Sci-fi now faces its toughest obstacle: an audience that already thinks it has all the answers to the questions sci-fi would try to ask. Look at my favorite sci-fi media of all time (and really the gold standard): "The Twilight Zone." This series had zero plot. Zero! Each episode was unconnected and was presented as a vignette. It challenged the watcher to consider if things incredibly were different, making us consider how we would react, forcing us to think about how our morals and assumptions could or would exist if there really was a gremlin tearing apart the outside of the plane, if an atomic bomb really did destroy the whole world and left just you and your books... and your broken pair of glasses.
We don't think like this anymore. And that might be why we don't have a space program or that the biggest achievements in science are in web based consumerism.
Food for thought. All I know is that I'm picking up The Martian, because it sounds cool as shit!
Daniel: Slow clap.
You're right. Characters are what drive any fiction worth reading, and even more so in sci-fi. There has to be a huge helping of humanity in all of these crazy world for any readers to give a damn. But since our generation tends to be more superficial, action takes the place of true narrative. In books/movies like “Star Wars” and “Star Trek,” you're not invested in it because you like the plot (I mean, “A New Hope” is essentially a spaghetti western). It's because the characters reveal something about you and humanity in general that makes you keep watching and rooting for/against them. It's still a broken world, just like ours, but with lightsabers and Force choke holds.
Which leads me to ask another question: Do you think the pendulum swings back to where there's more literary-based, honest, character-driven fiction that's not serialized, or does the fact that these turds make boatloads of money mean that we're stuck in this trend for some time to come?
Dave: Well, I think the answer to your final question is yes; I do think this turn could happen in the near future, but I don't think it will be because of any clear distinction between good literature, sci-fi or not, or serial pop bullshit. The industrial will change because big publishers cannot compete with the sheer volume and inexpensiveness of the self- and pseudo-self-publishing trends. Amazon and other helpers of self-publishing are turning out books, serial or not, whatever they can get their hands on. Yea this gives you a lot of shit, but just as much shit that big-time publishers used to take chances on, and Amazon is doing it for a fraction of the cost and thrice the profit.
So that leaves us with publishers doing their homework again and putting out untested authors with untested fiction. It's not the best, but it's better than the last few years. Yea, we'll still get a Stephen King novel a year, James Patterson's NYPD 1-8, and dog feces like Fifty Shades of Gray, but at least we can sift through and find The Martian, Green on Blue, or Redeployment. Simply because publishers can't afford to not publish these books. If one hits they make their money, but if they don't and Amazon hits with it, publishers will lose more than they would having it flop.
Maybe The Martian will inspire a second coming for sci-fi. Maybe we'll finally grow out of vampires and zombies and poorly written fantasy. We'll just have to keep searching and finding the good ones.
Here’s what some of our social media followers had to say about what makes a good sci-fi read:
John D. Moore: For me, I like one that is believable to some degree. I like good science and some history. Stories set underneath the oceans, near the ice caps, or in the rain forest generally get me.
Rick Vincent: It’s about imagination and reading something unique, yet, as John says doesn't take too far a leap with believability. Science fiction that doesn't stretch science too far (or is well explained how) is more interesting to me. I would love it if someone post the five must-read sci-fi books. I've read Asimov, Bradbury, Vonnegut (if you call Slaughterhouse V sci-fi), and am now reading Le Guin.
Deborah Wall McGraw: Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars series and his 40 Days Of Rain series are wonderful. The science holds up over the years and yet there is the future to imagine. I am kind of tired of the stories where the future is horrible, though I still think 1984 is amazing.
To add to the discussion, comment below, weigh in on our Facebook page, or tweet us @WritersBone.
For posts from The Boneyard, check out our full archive.
A celebration of Harrison Ford's badassery.
By Daniel Ford
What better way to cheer Harrison Ford up as he convalesces from an injury he sustained on the set of the new “Star Wars” film (which I’m sure was the result of kicking ass on the deck of the Millennium Falcon) than to round up 10 scenes that define his movie badassery.
Feel free to share your favorite Harrison Ford moments in the comment section or tweet us @WritersBone.
Okay, don’t call you Junior. So sorry. Continue killing Nazis.
An asshole to the end. Perfect line for Han Solo’s character. He very well could not survive this. Those could be his last words. “I know.” What a dick. I love it.
Ford delivers this line with all the earnestness and truth his character has. That’s what makes Tommy Lee Jones’ “I don’t care” all the more withering and heartbreaking. I’d jump off the dam after that exchange for sure.
The best part is that Ford allegedly improvised this scene because he had caught the flu and half-jokingly asked Spielberg if he could just shoot the guy. I would say that turned out well for us all.
It takes a real badass to stop someone without a weapon. All Ford does is point a finger and “it’s over.” So maybe he’s got a few witnesses/human shields behind him helping his cause, but still.
You know what weapon is Harrison Ford’s best ally? The truth.
Anyone else still have nightmares about Ford playing the creepy villain in this movie? Good, glad I’m not the only one. *shivers*
“Morning Glory” is an underrated movie in my book. The best part of this scene is his complete and utter distain for Rachel McAdams character and what she represents. Ford fully inhabits his old-man crustiness. He is also carrying a shotgun the entire time. Brilliant. He also makes a frittata later in the movie, has lunch with Dick Cheney, and spars with Diane Keaton.
Have you noticed Ford’s body of work includes some of the most re-watchable movies of all time? How many times have you seen this scene? How many times have you cheered? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
The best “son of a bitch” of all time. I listen to this several times a day.
For posts from The Boneyard, check out our full archive.
Superman's true right-hand man.
By Sean Tuohy and Daniel Ford
Kids don’t want to be Alfred when they grow up. They want to be Batman. Why aspire to be Chewbacca when you can be the much less hairy Han Solo who gets to kiss one of only two women in the entire galaxy?
It’s fucking tough being the sidekick.
You arguably do all the hero’s dirty work and get none of the glory or reward. How good of a detective is Batman without his butler and Barbara Gordon’s computer know-how? If Superman is a god, than why does he bother keeping Lois and Jimmy around? Because they need help like everyone else.
Here are a bunch of sidekicks Sean and Daniel came up with that they feel need more recognition. Feel free to share your own underrated sidekicks in the comments section or tweet us @WritersBone.
Einstein was loyal, he allowed himself to be put in the time machine, and when Marty and Doc were attacked, he warned them about it.
Alfred Pennyworth has been the gold standard for loyal sidekicks. However, while he was still Bruce Wayne/Batman’s steadfast butler in “Batman: The Animated Series,” he was also a huge dick. He had a snide comment for everything Bruce Wayne said. He was going to do his duty and take care of his lunatic charge, but he was going to be good and snarky while doing it! (Sean add fact about Joker)
One could argue that Barbara Gordon is more valuable than Alfred, and certainly more badass. She starts out as Batgirl, gets shot through the spine by the Joker in "The Killing Joke," and then becomes Batman’s savvy computer/code breaker goddess Oracle. Image with caption
Barbara Gordon would get up from this moment and continue being a badass sidekick. Robin...not so much.
Before he became a superhero in the most recent films, John McClane needed a lot of help to defeat the bad guys. In the first two films, it was the dad from “Family Matters” who carried McClane over the finish line. “Die Hard With a Vengeance” featured Samuel L Jackson as a sidekick that started out viscerally hating the hero.
Chewie is another loyal lieutenant to a colossal, reckless prick. He suffers a ton of insults (“walking carpet”—fuck you, Leia) while keeping his friends safe largely through others fear he’ll rip their arms off. Chewbacca reuniting with Han in “Return of the Jedi” is a real tearjerker moment.
Winston Zeddemore wasn’t part of the original “Ghostbusters” trio and didn’t completely buy into what Peter, Ray, and Egon were doing. However, he earned his paycheck and delivered some classic lines in the process. He also provided everyone with the answer to the question,“Are you a god?”
Not only did April O’Neil buy the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a bunch of pizza and let them hang out at her apartment, but she was also a hard news journalist that looked smashing in a yellow trench coat. She also got kidnapped a lot so the green guys would have something to do. You’re welcome, fellas.
Jonathan Mardukas is a weasel, but at least he’s a helpful one. Robert De Niro’s bounty hunter would be in even more trouble without Charles Grodin’s quick-thinking character. Plus, there might not be a funnier exchange in the movie than this one (and that is saying something):
Mardukas: “You seen any suspicious characters around here?”
Creepy regular at the bar: “Nope.”
Mardukas: “Do you live around here?”
Any sidekick that eats this much has to be included on any list Sean and Daniel come up with. The Kid also ends up taking Dick Tracy’s name which is a nice touch.
Daniel is an unabashed fan of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” He couldn’t pick just one from Buffy’s self-proclaimed “Scooby gang,” so we’re making him include this video to shame him.
This pair is arguably the most symbiotic duo in movie history. Butch’s quips and bullets wouldn’t be so biting without Sundance’s dry responses, and Sundance wouldn’t jump off the cliff without Butch. It’s the rare case of the two heroes also being perfect sidekicks.
Superman really needed that extra boost of confidence right before he saved Lois Lane.
For posts from The Boneyard, check out our full archive.
The Boneyard will feature the best of Daniel and Sean’s daily email chain twice a week. Yes, we broadened the definition of “best” to make this happen.
Sean: I forgot to show this to you. It's Max Landis, John Landis' son, talking about Superman. It’s really well made:
Daniel: I remember the Booster Gold part from reading the book. "You look fucked." Hilarious.
And yeah, I also remember reading the part where Doomsday watches the wrestling match on television as a kid and thinking it was the greatest thing ever. I had chills. Knowing what was going to happen, I thought, wow Superman is so fucked. And the beating he gets in the city is awesome. It makes the recent Superman movie look like a sandbox fight between toddlers. Every time he talked to Lois, he looked worse and worse.
Superman dying and the world figuring out what to do after that was a cool concept. But the four Supermen were lame. Except for maybe the Cyborg because he made you think he was the real deal for a while there. I wanted Superboy to fall into a lake of Kryptonite immediately right after sucking off Darkseid and Lex Luthor at the same time. I still hate that character.
Also lame: the Guardian. He might be one of the stiffer characters I had no idea existed. That's right, no one cares about him. What is he trying to be a British newspaper (God, that's a terrible joke)?
And Mandy Moore could be 400 pounds and chain-smoking cigar-smoking babies and I would still have her on my celebrity list.
I just read the video description. I totally forgot the part where Pa Kent has a heart attack and goes to heaven. And that's the start of Superman coming back. That storyline came out of someone's brain. And then was green-lit by another brain who thought it was a good idea. Stuff that Aaron Sorkin writes on bathroom walls would be better than that idea. Hell, stuff that you write on bathroom walls to attract older men would have more brainpower behind it than that storyline.
Sean: The Death of Superman sent ripples through the pop culture landscape when it happened. But I agree that Superboy is a dick and just useless. However, the image of him falling in to a green lake of Kryptonite with fresh cum still coating his mouth is pretty funny.
What were your thoughts on the last Superman movie?
To me, Superman will always be the 1978 version. That sums up everything about the comic book and the Superman world. It was a near-perfect comic book movie.
It took me a couple of minutes to get the Guardian joke...it was...good...
I agree about Mandy Moore. She could punch me in the face, belittle me as a man, and then slap my momma, but if her bed was open to me I'd be cool with it.
Someone who cared more about money then about story created the post-Death of Superman storylines.
"Wait, we killed him? Shit, he made us mad money. Bring him back!"
"But sir, we can't just bring Superman back. He's dead."
"BRING HIM BACK!"
Daniel: Superman I and Superman II are perfect movies, never mind comic book movies. Comic book movies have become way too involved and too dark. After The Dark Knight, comic book movies are kind of a drag. It works for Batman because brooding and pining are things intrinsic to that character. I don't need to see a depressed bunch of Avengers, or a melancholy, tortured Iron Man, or a Superman trying to find himself. I get that you need to make these guys somewhat relatable, but knock it off with so many special effects. It only works when it adds to the story. To me, the effects in Superman II are way more believable than anything now. It just looked right.
Take the Star Wars prequels. They are awful because of hammy writing, horrible acting performances, and overdone special effects. Guess what? The originals had some pretty hammy writing, so-so acting, but special effects that looked real. Maybe we go back to puppets, I don't know. But look at the lightsaber fights back then and the ones in the prequels. Maybe it’s a reaction to our shortened attention spans, but the lightsaber fights in the originals were full of dialogue, actual swordplay, and happened for a reason. The prequel fights were all flash. At the end of Attack of the Clones (hold me Sean like you did at the lake on Naboo), Count Dooku and Anakin have a lightsaber fight that at one point looks like it is just flashing red and blue lights in front of their faces. Worst. Fight. Ever. My younger brother and I had better choreography in the backyard with Wiffle ball bats wrapped in varying shades of electrical tape.
The Yoda versus the Emperor fight is cool in Episode III because it takes some time to develop. And someone should have really offed Yoda early on and everything probably would have ended up fine. Boy, did that green little shit drop the ball. How about you stop writing for fortune cookie manufacturers and start cutting people's hands off.
Sean: I agreed on that those two movies stand the test of time. It's everything you want in a story. They are so well made. The Dark Knight did the same thing to comic book movies that Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns did to comic books. Both were dark and brooding stories that pushed the limits of their medium. But because they did so well, everyone else started copying him and then it got boring. Frank Miller has said that he wishes he had never done that to his comic book. He feels as if it ruined a lot of great stories.
One comic book I wish they would do is Green Arrow: The Long Bow Hunters. That is a great story line. Oliver Queen loses his riches, moves to another city with his girl, and starts fighting crime his way. Fantastic. It's the right mix of dark and comic. But since the Green Arrow is not a big enough star in the comic world, they won't do it. I will say this; the television show Arrow is not bad. It's far from the best, but its good.
A New Hope still looks amazing. The movie built such a powerful world that it will never look bad. The new ones are done in front of green screen, so I know it’s more of a cartoon. Puppets will always seem real to me. Maybe it’s a kid thing, I don't know, but they will.
Jurassic Park! I feel that movie still stands the test of time as well. The T-Rex attacking the parked cars, the raptors running amok in the kitchen, and the ending scenes still look great. I could watch those over and over again.
Daniel: I remember seeing Jurassic Park in the theater. Mind-blowing. That flick and Apollo 13 were two of my favorite early movie going experiences growing up. I had a Jurassic Park action figure set. I turned my backyard into a Jurassic Park-like set up with some friends of mine from around the neighborhood.
Are kids doing any of that stuff today? We spent hours out there running around like idiots. It was glorious. It's all animated now right? They all hang out on World of Warcraft right? How do you think you'd be different if you were a kid right now as opposed to back then?
Sean: I vividly remember watching Jurassic Park in the theaters. I hid under my seat when during the raptor scenes. I was so scared and excited at the same time. I had never seen anything like it before and from then on I was in to movies.
My backyard was Jurassic Park, The Road Warrior, and the battlefield for my soldiers and tanks. The backyard and the carpet were places that I turned into new worlds and landscapes.
I'm not sure about your question. I don't see kids outside as much as I used to. We spent hours on our bikes riding around and playing in backyards. The outside world is visited daily by sitting in front of a computer screen of some kind.
Would I be different? Um…maybe...no, I think my parents would have pushed the outside time. I was a fat kid so they were always pushing me outside. "Go out and run or you'll have a heart attack when you are 14!"
How about you? Would you be an outdoor kid or no?
Daniel: I think I would still have been a baseball guy no matter what, so that would have pushed me outside. I am glad Sega didn't have as much of a pull keeping me and my brother indoors as the newer games do for kids. Don't get me wrong, we played a lot of NHL '96, but that was after being outside all day.
Sadly, it's a safety thing too. All these shootings make parents keep their kids inside and safe as possible. There was some report recently that said kids were actually connecting and socializing more with each other through the Internet and social media. The fear was that kids were losing social skills because of all this tech. It turns out that kids are using them more to interact since they have limited ability to hang out with the kids around them. It's not that they necessarily want to be on everything all day, it's just that it's the only place they can be kids without a SWAT team surrounding them. Kind of wild.
Moral of the story: adults ruin childhoods.
Sean: Sega was king for a while. It was hard not to stay inside.
Adults do ruin childhoods, but kids can be massive jerks. I am still reeling from stuff that other kids said to me...15 years ago. I never had an adult make fun of me so badly I had to go home and cry.
For posts from The Boneyard, check out our full archive.