And to about a dozen other sources of inspiration.
Expressing criticism directly...
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
JMS may have had multiple influences for his work on B5, but LOTR is very clearly and very obviously the main influence.
I can imagine that JJ has heard constructive criticism from his colleagues in "the industry". What that criticism entailed is unknown, and there are no guarantees that his colleagues agree with some poster's complaints about the Star Trek movies. Indeed for all we know Lucas, Spielberg, and Michael Bay had a big lunch with JJ and talked him into using lens flares. 
At a book signing of Nicholas Meyer's memoir, during a Q&A, I asked him if he was annoyed at severe the plot changes made from his The Seven Per-Cent Solution novel to the movie adaptation (on which he also had sole screenwriting credit). To my mind, the movie plot was so obviously inferior that it could only have resulted from producers making him dumb his own book down.
To my surprise, however, he said he'd made the changes voluntarily, due to his being dissatisfied with the book. And here I thought I was charging to his rescue!
To my surprise, however, he said he'd made the changes voluntarily, due to his being dissatisfied with the book. And here I thought I was charging to his rescue!
I was on the DC Comics message boards shortly after that point in Green Lantern comics, that bit were every one is coming back from the dead, hardly specific Guy, Day of Judgement, where Hal Jordan runs out of steam during the last fight with the big bad (Asmodel?) and in his most desperate hour of need, the souls (given physical forms by Hal's ring) of all the Green Lanterns he'd murdered in Emerald Twilight leap out of his ring and say "Don't worry Hal, we know you just had a bad day and we forgive you for the small genocide that obliterated the corps and left our grief stricken families motherless and fatherless, so we're going to shoulder your burden and win out this one for you, because you're greatest, we love you, even if you bludgeoned us to death or near death and then took our rings so that we would explode to death well before we'd freeze to death in the vacuum of space. You're super awesome and you never have to feel guilty about being murderous psycho fuck every again because we all, all of us individually and collectively, forgive you entirely."
A hundred dead Green Lanterns (3600?) emerged from his ring with individual combat styles and personalties, each with the wallop of Green Lantern with hir own power ring instead of each of them having a 100th the resources of one ring since they were all drawing from Hal's magic ring simultaneously?
Fuck.
So I write in the DC Message Boards that Hal must have had a schizophrenic wish fulfilment break, as his mind has obviously shattered into a hundred people that is reflected from his FRACTURED/BROKEN psyche's need to be forgiven from the all-consuming guilt that is damning him, but if they were all him, then Hal forgave himself because he's a prick.
(Or words to that effect.)
Hours later Geoff Johns, the author of the book, tells me that I am wrong. Those were dead souls of the murdered Green Lantern Corps and that they did forgive Jordan because yes he had just had one bad day.
(I just realized that "one bad day" is the Jokers excuse too, from Killing Joke.)
I should take from this that I am wrong and Geoff is right, but I don't.
Johns' CRUSADE in the following years to unwrong every blemish in Hal Jordan's character has been ####ing embarrassing.
Jordan didn't kill anyone in Emerald Twilight. He left everyone in forcefield bubbles. Everyone lived.
The 13 year old child he was fucking, was not thirteen at all because her planet spun on it's axis half as fast as Earth, so she had always been 26.
There was a magic ghost called Parallax inside the Central power Battery that possessed Hal Jordan and made his do all the awful things Jordan did when he was the universe destroying bad guy Parallax.
Drunk driving charges and prison sentence... GONE!
Hal Jordan apologists, really get my goat.
Not to mention that Batman is considered being a jerk becuase he still has problems with the crap Hal did.
When was that?
My mind draws back to Green Lantern 100 - 106 "Emerald Knights" where young Hal travels forward in time to play with Poochie. Batman took Kyle to one side and told him to watch Jordan carefully because he is a ####ing liability.
That was (literally?) 4 universes ago.
My mind draws back to Green Lantern 100 - 106 "Emerald Knights" where young Hal travels forward in time to play with Poochie. Batman took Kyle to one side and told him to watch Jordan carefully because he is a ####ing liability.
That was (literally?) 4 universes ago.
Wait, he did what now? A superhero was doing that to a child? And DC let it go to print?
A 13 year old (probably younger when she first showed up.) Green Lantern named Arisa immediately and quickly fell in love with Hal Jordan and she spent years (our time) throwing herself at Hal Jordan who was thirtysomething and pushing 40 if you believe those white temples he had in the 90s.
Eventually Arisa used her ring to force her body to "grow up".
Immediately upon seeing this little girl now in the body of a 22 year old, but still with the mind of a 13 year old, although the writer will probably argue that the ring had given her the maturity of a 22 year old, which is another kettle of fish entirely, Hal locks lips with her and they moved in together to play house.
Am I being judgy?
Eventually Arisa used her ring to force her body to "grow up".
Immediately upon seeing this little girl now in the body of a 22 year old, but still with the mind of a 13 year old, although the writer will probably argue that the ring had given her the maturity of a 22 year old, which is another kettle of fish entirely, Hal locks lips with her and they moved in together to play house.
Am I being judgy?
It looks like they drew inspiration from Robert Heinlein novels.....if one gets my meaning.
The answer is: who cares? Most producers make the shows they want and for themselves generally. They have only their creative standards to follow, its only on shows like Trek with fans that get overly invested and possessive where they perceive to have some ownership in the show that feel the need to be listened to. If there was a producer who listened to half the crap fans say I'd lose respect for them creatively.
RAMA
RAMA
Of course he has. What a ridiculous proposition, that he has been somehow insulated from the inevitable and unending criticism that the director or writer of a reboot would face.
Or, hell, any director of any film. Or writer. Or boom-mike operator.
Criticism and nay-saying is part of everyone's life. There is literally zero chance that JJ Abrams has escaped such sentiments over his long and successful career.
They make the stuff, we consume the stuff. Don't like it? Don't consume it or make your own stuff for others.
This isn't rocket surgery.
I've never understood the fan entitlement about such things, myself. It never occurred to me to chase down Moffat on Twitter and yell at him for casting Peter Capaldi or allowing such an atonal mess for a theme song. I'll bitch and moan here, but why take it to the source? He doesn't owe me anything, not even the time for me to phrase my complaints in a 'civil' manner.
It's really not just shows like Trek - it's a lot of shows across all different genres. And usually when the fans don't get pissed off at changes they disagree with it's a sign that their interest in the show isn't really that strong. That's the difference between shows that can become real classics and shows that are really just pure entertainment and nothing more (not that there's necessarily anything wrong with being pure entertainment).
How much chatter a franchise generates is a good barometer for how big your audience is (the mindshare). If their complains escalate beyond a certain point, they'll cease to follow the show anymore and the chatter goes away completely. Then you know you've got nothing to work with anymore.
No, it's really not. The internet has created an echo chamber where a few thousand fans look pretty much the same as a few million.
Yeah, I guarantee the vast majority of people who saw the new Star Trek films have never (and will never) set foot in an online forum. People with enough interest to post online about a show/film are a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the overall audience.
NCIS tops out just over 20 million viewers an episode (and that's just first run episodes). I've done a little searching for fan communities online; they seem pretty small to me. Yet, there it is, the #1 show in the Nielsen ratings.
My point being, if online chatter was a better barometer for how large your audience is than the Nielsen ratings, we'd be talking about the ninth season of Jericho right now.
Good one.
