When the Whales Walked - Dec 23

It so happened that I came across Dougal Dixon’s book, ‘When the Whales Walked’. It is a book for children, with little text but plenty of illustrations, and it talked about evolution. Again, it is a book for children, with little text, but plenty of illustrations, but as it usually happens with Mr. Dixon, the text there could have used some work.

What are the problems of WWW? Firstly, an overly basic reduction of the terms. What is evolution in child-friendly terms? There is a population of fuzzy (or fluffy) woobies, where all look the same. Eventually, a mountain range rises up and splits the wooby population into two. One population eventually ends up living in a savanna, where it evolves longer legs to further and faster cool down in the warm climate, and also to better attract mates with the coloration of their legs. The second population ends up living in a tundra, where it evolves shorter legs to preserve more of its’ body heat, and also tusks or claws designed to scratch out worms and other invertebrates in the harsh and hard tundra soil, upon which it feeds. As enough time passes the two wooby populations change enough so to become two different species instead of a single one, the end.

Sounds simple, right? Team Dixon tried to go one further, by reducing the population by just one. Namely, there is a single new island in the sea, with a single food source – some sort of shrimp. Some sea birds can survive on it, but only those that can eat shrimp. Those who cannot leave or die, with the remnant eventually forming a new species. Straightforward? Yes, but also unrealistic. In real life, there is never a single food source in a new place, such as a new volcanic island in the sea. (To those people in Indonesia who died in the tsunami – our hearts go out to you). There are always several, (even now, with human overfishing and environment pollution), and there are always several bird species on any island. To reduce them to a single one is too much, too absurdedly much.

Secondly, there is the use of the word ‘mutation’. Broadly speaking, ‘mutation’ means ‘transformation’, ‘change’, but due to various modern mass media influences, (especially Marvel and DC comics, movies and TV/online series), these days it is usually associated with a physical change – say, male birds, such as the fowl, sprouting new features, such as tails and head crests, or male elephants keeping their tusks, while the females – not so much. (Female Asian elephants usually lack them). In reality, however, evolutionary changes can mean not only physical changes, but also behavioral ones – i.e., sea otters learning how to use rocks to smash shellfish and sea urchins, Galapagos woodpecker finch using cactus spines to catch grubs, or Homo Erectus, a human ancestor, learning how to utilize fire.

…Okay, true, at least 90% of the WWW book is dedicated to the various animals evolving into new species by acquiring new physical traits – i.e., whales going from the Indohyus, an animal more similar to the modern mouse deer, to the modern species, such as the blue whale. Fair enough, but even that has went somewhat wonky, at least once: when the book talked about crocodile evolution raising a suggestion that once upon a time, (in the Triassic), crocodiles were very different animals and even warm-blooded – unlike today, when they are cold-blooded. This is an interesting topic, so let us elaborate on it.

Firstly, the crocodiles belong to the archosaur family, which also includes pterosaurs, non-avian dinosaurs, and birds. Kudos to WWW for uniqueness by pointedly not mentioning non-avian dinosaurs, BTW – you do not often find this approach in a paleontology book, especially one for the children.

Secondly, modern crocodiles and their cousins are only distantly related to the Mesozoic species that are featured in WWW and similar books. ‘The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life’, which featured prehistoric animals that were chosen to appear in the currently defunct ‘Impossible Pictures’, ‘Walking with…’ series. Among them were four extinct cousins of the modern crocodiles: Proterosuchus, Postosuchus, Metriorhynchus and Sarcosuchus. All four of them were different from each other, and while at least one of them – Sarcosuchus, (which also appeared in WWW), was physically similar to the modern crocodiles, ‘Guide’ made it a point to say that the modern crocodiles, caimans and alligators were only distantly related to their extinct cousins, which is true – if you put a modern species, say the saltwater crocodile, next to one of their Triassic cousins, you’ll get two different animals.

But what does their Triassic cousins look like? Postosuchus, Saurosuchus, Carnufex and co. looked like a cross between a modern crocodile and a mammal: they walked on all four legs, and those legs were directly beneath their bodies, as they are in mammals and archosaurs, (including birds), not splayed to their sides, as they are in lizards or tortoises, or even modern crocodiles. That is because they are only distantly related to them, and may be actually more closely related to the ancestors of the dinosaurs proper instead.

…Dinosaur phylogeny is confusing by itself; there are three main groups – theropods, sauropodomorphs and ornitishchia – aka the meat-eaters, the long-necked plant-eaters, and every other species. As a rule, the carnivores and the long-necked herbivores form one main dinosaur group – the lizard-hipped dinosaurs while the other dinosaurs form the second – the bird-hipped. Now, however, there is a suggestion that the carnivorous dinosaurs were more closely related to the bird-hipped herbivores, while the long-necked herbivores more closely related to the initial species, such as staurikosaurus, herrerosaurus, eoraptor and etc. It is a mess, and so far, there is no final verdict on it – and the same goes regarding whether or not dinosaurs were warm-blooded. Birds are, of course, while the crocodiles are not. Yes, the American alligator can handle cold temperatures, including cold snaps, which allows it to move further north in North America than its’ main rival, the American crocodile can. (Yes, there are two different species of the crocodilian reptiles in the modern North America). However, it is still very much cold-blooded, and it is not really related to birds either. (Aka the modern dinosaurs). Even the scientists who use alligators and crocodiles for models for dinosaur behavior do not deny that these reptiles are not real dinosaurs either, not literally.

In other news, as far as scientists are concerned, that when it comes to the archosaur family tree, the crocodiles derived first, followed by the pterosaurs, and finally the avian/non-avian dinosaur split. This means that the whatever evolutionary factors allowed some dinosaurs, (primarily birds), to become warm-blooded as the mammals are, (and mammals are a completely separate branch of the tree of life, BTW), never appeared in crocodiles, especially the modern species, but ditto for the extinct ones. The Triassic was marked, in the end, by a mass extinction, but it was not due to an Ice Age, but to a volcanic eruption instead and a prolonged drought, oxygen level loss, etc. Unlike the birds (and their ancestors) that appeared during the Cretaceous, neither crocodiles nor their ancestors had to deal with cold temperatures when they were evolving per se, and as such, they never did. This is why in the modern times crocodiles are restricted to the tropics, while the birds are not. They are warm-blooded, (as were their ancestors, apparently), while the crocodiles never were. To call the ancestral crocodiles ‘warm-blooded’ is doubly wrong. However…

However, aside from this gaffe, and the previously mentioned two mistakes, WWW is a good book for children. It tries to be both entertaining and educational and it does a good job at succeeding. True, the stories go all over the place, but so did R. Kipling’s ‘Just-So-Stories’, and they work well enough to become a classic in their own right, (cough Mowgli cough). Who knows, maybe one day WWW or one of its book fellows will become a classic in its’ own right. We will just have to wait and see.

This is it for now; see you all soon.

PS: And to all of you, a Happy Christmas for tomorrow

M: ALOTJ - Dec 17

Now, a brief word about ‘Mowgli: A Legend of the Jungle’, because real life…doesn’t exactly suck, but sometimes? It rather does, regardless of any details. What about M: ALOTJ then?

The crux point here is not the presence of Tabaqui the hyena – in the original novels it was a jackal. Yes, a jackal is very different from a hyena, but this is creative license to you – even in the original novels, Tabaqui was a minor character, and he got killed…behind the scenes by Grey Brother, one of original Mowgli’s original wolf cohorts. Kipling did not even show that scene, Grey Brother mentioned to Mowgli (and in ‘Mowgli’, I suppose), because the latter was worried, that Tabaqui would tip Shere Khan off about Mowgli’s trap. To that Grey Brother implied that “Oh, don’t worry, I found Tabaqui earlier today and broke his back, so he’s dead now, don’t worry about him’. The end of the jackal/hyena/period. Not that Shere Khan’s death was much more dignified – in the canon, Mowgli trampled him to death with a buffalo herd, (something that was homage in Disney’s Mowgli remake – remember it?), the end of the tiger.

Yes, in the original novels Shere Khan wasn’t really scaring anyone in the jungle – they hated, despised, and reviled him; eating people was against the Jungle Law, (Kipling even included this statement in one of Mowgli’s poems) and it just asking for trouble – sooner or later colored people would come, and white people would come, and there’d be fire, elephants, torches, firearms – this is where Lockwood can come it, probably.

There are British character in the ‘Jungle Book’ – both novels, actually. The thing is that those stories are not Mowgli stories; in ‘Mowgli’ proper, the British exist somewhere behind the scenes, in a good way, but kind of…nebulous. ‘Mowgli’ stories are about India, its’ animals and people – no British are required, thank you very much. In the ‘Mowgli’ movies, of course, the situation can be very different; the British can play a prominent role, and Shere Khan is always someone to be feared… as, say, Megatron from the ‘Transformers’ franchise is. That is Western prejudice, pure and simple!

And Serkis did precisely that, (though not with Shere Khan’s character) – he presented the Western prejudice in the other, earlier Mowgli movies. Lockwood acts as a typical macho man, defending the weak, (whether they asked him or not), but caring only about strength and solving everything only through strength and violence. Mowgli – in the canon – had the smarts too – which brings us to the dholes.

A dhole is a species of wild dog that is only distantly related to such animals as grey wolves, jackals and domestic dogs. It is a representative of a much-older lineage, and it has no close, immediate relatives. Like many other dog species, (including grey wolves and bush dogs), it hunts in packs and as such, it is formidable. It was also the biggest villain in the original ‘Jungle Books’ – Mowgli had to team up with his wolf pack, Kaa, and a few other jungle animals to defeat the invading dhole pack, or as they were called there – ‘the red wolves’. I think, because it has been a while since I read the novels and so far, almost none of the movies showed the dhole story line. Apparently, Disney did play with it in one of its TV cartoon series – one that was actually based on Kipling’s ‘Jungle Book’ novels, but that was a long time ago as well. Anything else?

M: ALOTJ does not have the dhole storyline either, instead we have Mowgli dealing with both Lockwood and Shere Khan, the former because he had killed Mowgli’s wolf friend, Bhoot.

…Bhoot, or bhut, is a ghost in India’s mythology, and a nasty one. Here, Serkis did not do anything really radical either – in the original novels, Mother Wolf actually had a name – Raksha or Rakshasa, which is a demon in India’s mythology - again. Herein lies M: ALOTJ’s problem. Serkis’ version is actually closer to the original novels, especially in the atmosphere – by modern standards, Kipling’s novels, including his YA novels like ‘Mowgli’ – are not very politically correct or child-friendly at all. Neither is Serkis’ movie, but…

But the sad fact is that movies, mass media, are products for sale, abiding the laws of supply and demand as well as anything else. After the 2016’s ‘Mowgli’ version there wasn’t much of a demand for another ‘Mowgli’ version, so it wasn’t very much demanded, and now that it is released, it still isn’t much demanded, and people are comparing it to 2016’s adaptation and are finding it to be more to their liking. Kipling himself isn’t much in demand by contemporary readers and audience any more, Disney itself took a gamble back in 2016 with its’ remake – and yes, it paid off. Serkis’, well, did not. His twist on the story was the semi-evil Englishman; he possibly stands for something metaphorical, but people do not really care. They are upset that this movie is not child-friendly, and it is their call, and they are right. It is not. Serkis might not have been wrong by showing a ‘Mowgli’ that is not really for children, (Kipling’s novels are not really classified by modern standards easily), but this is not what the audiences demand, and in the end, it is their call. They made it. M: ALOTJ is not the success of 2016’s remake. We can move on.

…This is it for now, see you all soon!

Testament of Loki - Dec 13

To continue the topic about 2018’s novels, let us…not make a stink like a mink, (cough, I thought this was funny), but talk about… ‘The Testament of Loki’, for a change. Written by Joanne Harris, this…actually has nothing to do with Disney, MCU, or Riordan, at least not too much.

What is this novel? It is a sequel to an earlier ‘The Gospel of Loki’ novel. That one was yet another retelling of the Norse myths, just one done from the point of view of Loki, from the beginning to Ragnarok. That is it, really, as far as fantasy novels go, this is as basic as you can get; whereas the Greco-Roman myths never had a proper conclusion, they have sort of faded away by the time of Christ, the Norse myths actually did: the Ragnarok would come, the old world and practically everyone will die – good, bad and ugly – and there will be some sort of a new age, a new world, and everything and everyone will be new. The end, and has vague echoing similarity with both monotheism – Judaism, Christianity, even Islam – and dualism, such as Zoroastrianism. Jolly good, but then we get ‘The Testament of Loki’, and this is where the novels change.

On one hand, ‘Testament’ is a YA novel, not unlike those of Riordan or J-Ro. In the first half of ‘Testament’, Loki escapes the afterlife via a video game of all things, takes over a body of a teenage girl and eventually helps her come to grips with her identity, fix her life, find her backbone, etc. – a not too different story from the other YA novels, even the LJ trilogy that became briefly popular during the summer of 2018 due to the movie made from the first novel. Now, of course, those books can be found in various stores, offered at a discount, but this is how the glory of the world passes.

And on the other hand, ‘Testament’ in the second half is Loki hopping all over dimensions, doing his best to stay ahead from Odin, Gullveig-Heid, Mimir, and even Thor – and he succeeds as he gets to be reborn as a new person at the novel’s end. Here, the tone of ‘Testament’ shifts from a typical YA to something more along the lines of Neil Geiman, with some Lovecraft thrown in, purposefully or not. In the second half, ‘Testament’ becomes one crazy ride of a novel, (on Sleipnir, no less!), and the only thing spoiling it is Loki’s…no, not so much narcissism, as his complete lack of understanding when he should fall silent and not make it all about him.

…Yeah, good luck with that – whether it’s Marvel or not, Loki always makes it about him; in A: IW movie, he dies, supposedly. Cough. He already ‘died’ in various films, including the ‘Thor: Dark World’ movie, so good luck with that as well. Loki has to keep on moving, even if it is just his mouth, because otherwise? He just might stop existing and explode/die/etc. However, in ‘Testament’, this attitude of the Trickster becomes exhausting, and people may stop rooting for him and just wait for the novel to end, which it does, as Loki had tricked everyone, outmaneuvered everyone, and gets to be reborn as a new person in a new world, where he gets a much expected break from activity, because even he as a baby cannot move around much, (well, not at first). Somehow, despite his, and his author’s, best intentions, the readers are not rooting from him as much as they did in the beginning of ‘Testament’ anymore. Ms. Harris, who had created this version of Loki, might have succeeded a bit too well in making him into an anti-hero, and as such, he is hard to root for in the novel’s end.

Oh, and the YA human characters of ‘Testament’? Yes, they get largely abandoned/dismissed by the second part of the novel, which decreases the novel’s impact on one hand, and on the other makes ‘Testament’ almost into two novels – one that is Loki’s adventure among the modern YA Americans, and the other which is Loki doing Odin’s bidding and rebuilding the old world, building a new one from scratch, etc. Yes, this is not unlike Ms. Cervantes ‘Storm Runner’ novel, which is also really two novels stitched into one, and we have discussed Ms. Cervantes’ ‘Storm Runner’ and their relationship with Mr. Riordan and his PJ-verse the last time. Now let’s just admit that ‘Storm Runner’, (and ‘Aru Shah’) is supposed to expand the PJ-verse and bring new literary life into it; whether they succeeded is another story – ‘Aru Shah’ feels completely unrelated to PJ-verse, while ‘Storm Runner’ feels like a weird imitation of the original, and it is not even so very flattering. ‘Testament’, on the other hand-

…On the other hand, Ms. Harris was never a part of Mr. Riordan’s PJ-verse; ‘Gospel’ was a simple retelling of the Norse myths, while ‘Testament’ is a more experimental piece, (which is mostly successful, too). ‘Gospel’ was an alternative to PJ-verse’s ‘Magnus’ subsection, and while it was never as successful as PJ-verse novels, it still worked. So has ‘Testament’ – because it cruised the coattails of its’ predecessor and because it dips its’ toe enough into the YA waters to swim in the wake of passing of HP novels, and PJ-verse novels, and similar novels; what will happen when Ms. Harris decides to write a sequel to ‘Testament’ is another story.

Of course, this in itself is an open question; Patricia Briggs’ novels – Mercedes Thompson and co. – are even more successful and popular than Ms. Harris’ books are, (about Loki and otherwise), but lately Ms. Briggs seems to have gone onto a downswing: lately there are no new novels by her, which is strange, since the last ones were some of the best. Of course, maybe she just does not want to write books anymore, for whatever reasons – in real life she owns a ranch, (or something along those lines), and doesn’t need income from books; she possibly writes (wrote) MT and co. novels for entertainment, and if she doesn’t want to write, she won’t. The end for MT and her universe. Anything else?

…Yes, there is a rumor that a new MT novel is coming in May 2019, but we will have to wait and see if anything comes out of it. For the moment, MT novels are on a hiatus…but we got plenty of other novels, including ‘The Testament of Loki’, to fill in the gap in the meanwhile.

This is it for this time. See you all soon!

Rick Riordan and co. - Dec 12

Now what, you make ask, in regards to our last talk concerning Disney and TLK, about Rick Riordan? While his fellow R-author, J-Ro, is busy with her ‘Fantastic Beasts’ movies, what does he do?

Well, he has written an anthology set in the world of Magnus Chase, about the 9 worlds. And?

And, sadly, it is no cat’s meow, but rather a tangled bag. As I said, it is an anthology, and…

There is Odin’s story, as he tries to figure out what the Valkyries are up, and who is the leader that they need. It comes across as comic relief, with little content beyond humor. When Riordan does humor, it is good and light…but perhaps slightly too light.

Then there is the story of Samirah’s boyfriend/fiancé/etc., Amir. Sabirah and Alex have to rescue him from a necromancer and a pair of evil pants. (Seriously!) So?

Well, the problem is that when Riordan was designing his Magnus characters, he was trying to go for political acumen. In an excerpt from one of his proper Magnus novels, Sabirah flies from her meeting with Magnus as ‘a super Muslima’. Sigh. When Riordan was writing down those lines, he was probably thinking about this joke: ‘What do you call a Muslim woman who flies a plane? A pilot’. This sort of American/Canadian humor was supposed to ease interracial tensions in the North American communities. Here is a hint: it did not work. For as long as there is freedom of opinion, there will be North Americans who will not trust Muslims, and there will be Muslims who will reciprocate in kind, if not up the ante. The governments of Canada and USA as well as their Middle Eastern counterparts can, and should do their best to counter the rise of such negative feelings, but some groan- and cringe-worthy jokes should not be a part of the counter, for they are not helping anyone.

…As for Samirah and Alex’s stories, they are set in Jotunheim and Muspelheim; the latter gets an especially bad rep because apparently Riordan considers it to be sort of a Norse Hell, while Asgard’s Heaven. This not so, not exactly – when it came to life after death, the Norse had only two destinations: Asgard, and Hel. Asgard was the destination of all of those heroic warriors that fell in battle; Hel was where everyone else ended up at, regardless of their lifestyle during, well, their lifetime. Norse pagan values had nothing in common with Christian; the Norse were among the last of the Europeans to convert to Christianity, and Muspelheim was no Hell, but rather the embodiment of the destructive aspect of fire, period. The exact details are unknown, but as their myth of Ragnarok shows, the Norse believed that their world – actually, their entire universe – would be destroyed by fire and ice, but especially fire, as embodied by Muspelheim and its’ king, the first giant Surt or Surtur (Surtr). He would inspire Tolkien’s balrogs, which, in turn, would inspire Marvel’s version of Surtur, (as seen in the ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ movie) – but Muspelheim was no Hell.

In the ‘9 worlds’ anthology, Alex is the one who went down there, where he defeated and embarrassed Surtur, and-

And the thing is that Alex is the gender-fluid character of Riordan’s multiverse. That is very commendable, the problem is that gender-fluid people aren’t very overt and you don’t see them very often in real life, and if you do, you may not realize it, especially during a Canadian winter, when all people, regardless of their gender, tend to dress in thick and warm clothing, preferring practicality over gender-specific clothing. If they speak, it is another thing – to hear a man speak in a woman’s voice and vice versa can be startling and surprising, but again, these are not occurrences that happen very often in one’s life.

So, where does Alex fit into this?  In ‘9 worlds’ he is depicted as…a boy, with nothing specifically gender-fluid about him. In real life, this is not a problem – a person with sexually alternative lifestyle can look as regular or irregular as they want; in Riordan’s books, where Alex is a representative of sexual minorities this depiction feels like a letdown instead.

Speaking of sexual minorities, what is going on with Hearthstone and Blitzen? (Aside from the fact that Hearthstone got depicted as a variant Draco Malfoy for his part). Hearthstone in particular got to rescue Inga the Huldra (a Norse nature spirit, sort of intermediate between a rusalka and a troll) in a very old fashioned way in a very old fashioned story – the rescue of a damsel, (here from a troll, mostly). Couldn’t Riordan design a better adventure for the elf? Blitzen in particular got to rescue Thor from an evil (eviller?) dwarf named Andvari instead…

…Yes, in my opinion, those are the same symptoms that are developed further in Riordan’s Apollo series – either Riordan or Disney, (who is sponsoring Riordan or whatever) had had enough of political correctness, progress and etc., and are just trying to write regular YA novels without much sexual minorities, racial minorities and such similar political progressives. Samirah, (getting back to her), went to Jotunheim to check on an egg of a magical oversized chicken and had to outmaneuver a giant; to Helheim went TJ, who had to restrain Garm the Norse hell hound, and both of those adventures were ok, but kind of underwhelming, restricted. Riordan had some good ideas in ‘9 worlds’ the anthology, (the last ones are Halfborn in Vanaheim and Molly in Niflheim, built along similar lines as Samirah and TJ’s adventures), but due to the specifics of ‘9 worlds’ they never got fully developed, remaining more of a disappointment instead…

But then – on topic of Riordan – is Jennifer Cervantes’ ‘The Storm Runner’ novel. Just like Roshani Chokshi’s ‘Aru Shah and the End of Time’ novel, this is a novel that is associated with Mr. Riordan and his universe and is built on the same lines that his YA novels are built: a teen – or a preteen – discovers that one of their parents is a god and hijinks follow. The two novels are different – Chokshi’s ‘Aru Shah’ is very dialogue heavy and description heavy and while it has some references to Riordan, it has some Rowling references as well and comes across as somewhat silly. It is good for a laugh, but its’ humor is kind of immature, and in general Ms. Chokshi just tries to hard to shoehorn her YA novel as a teenage/pre-teenage girl read.

Ms. Cervantes and her novel are different; it is more mature, edgier, and it feels like two novels stitched into one – her own novel about acceptance, (here the differences are physical deficiencies rather than sexual or racial minorities), including Mesoamerican mythology, and a Riordan-imitation novel, also regarding Mesoamerican mythology. To compound matters further, she used Riordan’s ‘Lightning Thief’ novel for plot and plot points, with variations; i.e. it is not the hero’s mother who gets taken to the underworld, but his dog, (so the entire novel takes on a very weird tinge), Grover the satyr’s role is taken over by Zane’s – the titular character’s – wrestler-wannabe uncle, and the entire novel begins to feel like an imitation of the aforementioned ‘Lightning Thief’, with the injected story of team Zane confronting a pair of selfish twins, (Jordan and Bird). They are supposed to help Zane save the world from the god of death, Ah-Puch, (whose name serves as a recipient for some jokes that again come across as immature rather than funny), but just eat-up Zane’s time and pad-up Ms. Cervantes’ novel instead. While both novels promise sequels in spring and autumn of 2019, it is anyone’s guess as to whether this will happen.

And where’s Rick Riordan in all of this? He is the one writing the introductions to those novels. Why? Probably to show that both Ms. Chokshi and Ms. Cervantes have his stamp of approval and are a part of ‘his’ universe rather than independent works. Ms. Cervantes’ novel comes off as a professional imitation of ‘the Lightning Thief; it is professionally distorted – dog as opposed to mother, the issue of appearances, (good vs. ugly, inside vs. outside), but still, is it flattering? …And on the other hand, we have Ms. Chokshi’s ‘Aru Shah’, which succeeds – as an amateur – where Ms. Cervantes’ professionalism fails: ‘Aru Shah’ is a completely independent novel that has nothing to do with Mr. Riordan’s works as such Ms. Chokshi may have had to insert some concrete references to Mr. Riordan’s works, however oblique they were; as a consequence, they stick like sore thumbs in her novel.

Therefore, this is the current stage of Mr. Riordan’s input into the Western literature: the Apollo series, (that feels as if it is on hiatus while Mr. Riordan and co. hammer out the kinks), a couple of anthologies, (‘9 worlds’ and a ‘Kane Chronicles’ one that feels like a mix between an anthology and an activity book…with a throwaway to a semi-bisexual Setne, a villain – ouch!), and the above-mentioned novels of Ms. Chokshi, (an independent work, basically), and of Ms. Cervantes, (an on the nose imitation of ‘Lightning Thief’). Not something to be proud about, one suspects.

…And then there is J-Ro, who is not doing so hot either. Yes, by now she has three illustrated novels (re-editions, with Jim Kay), as opposed to Riordan’s only one, (Chad Rocco), but they all are selling the same way – badly. There is the release of the ‘Crimes of Grindelwald’ script released in a book form, but it is going the same way as ‘Cursed Child’ did – badly. Regardless of the movies’ success, and of the fact that ‘HPGF’ is being remade into a concert, the sun is setting upon J-Ro, as it does upon Rick Riordan.

…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!

Dynasties - Dec 11

Obligatory disclaimer: sometimes life sucks, but right now? It is more tolerable. Let us move on?

‘The Gifted’ are on a hiatus until January 1, 2019. This is a doubtful move by the TV show in question; they tried this strategy back with their S1, and it wasn’t really successful, in regards to the numbers; right now, S2 is longer – 16 episodes vs. 13, but they already played about 55% of them, 9 out of 16, so it’s anyone’s guess as to how they will arrange the last 7. What is next?

DC’s ‘Elseworlds’ ‘Arrowverse’ special was aired this and last week, and it works. It introduced a new villain – the Monitor – and eventually Super-Girl, the Martian Manhunter, and the rest of their people will need to battle an evil Super-Man. Very exciting! However, there are plenty of people discussing this story arc, no doubt, so let us talk about something else.

…No, it is not the excitement of breeding the various breeds of goldfish, or domestic turkeys, or whatever. I am sure that it is very exciting from the inside, but again, not the topic I want to discuss now – rather, it is yet another TV show that went down lately: BBC’s ‘Dynasties’.

No, it is not a yet another GoT rip-off, well, not really. Rather, it was yet another David Attenborough’s special – a five-part series about various animals around the world.

Well, not really – the lion and the wild dog came from the African savanna, and the chimpanzee – the common chimpanzee, not the bonobo – is living right next door to them in the African jungle, so it’s not much of a stretch, (some chimpanzee populations actually venture into the savanna, but unlike the human ancestors they still give its’ predators – lions, wild dogs, leopards, hyenas, etc. – a wide berth. They have not mastered fire either, though they still have tools. Technically, that is not a big issue: humanity had mastered fire only at the Homo Erectus/Homo Ergaster level, so chimpanzees have some time yet… unless humanity drives them to extinction first.

Now, this brings us back to the ‘Dynasties’ proper – they, this TV series, was about conservation of wildlife, especially the last episode, about the Bengal tigers. …Yes, according to some data, there are only two species/subspecies of tigers – the island tiger, (the Sumatran tiger), and the mainland tiger, a single species/subspecies, from India to Siberia, but I am not so sure that that P.O.V. is correct; and I reckon that this last, tiger episode was the weakest among the entire series. That is not surprising, many of American, (Western, actually), books, TV series, etc., the conclusion is often the weakest chain in the link. However…

There are rumors that clouds are gathering over Sir David himself. If that is so, then it sucks, because Sir David had been one of the best people that had ever come from the British soil, and his TV series, specials, nature documentaries, etc., were some of the best that had ever come to TV and the Internet. However, it is always possible that times are moving on, and Sir David is being left behind. This sucks, a whole lot, but real life sucks as a rule. Period.

Back with the ‘Dynasties’ proper, one of the weaker aspects it was the composition. As it was said before, the lion and the wild dog are almost two sides of the same coin, the chimpanzee is their neighbour, (a stretch, but not so much), but then we have the tiger, and the penguin.

The emperor penguin is the odd beast out. It is an Antarctic fowl among tropical beasts, but hey – everyone loves penguins, and the ‘Dynasties’ TV crew did their best to sell those flightless birds – and they did. However, the tigers? They were the weakest, and the most intense. ‘Dynasties’ did their best at selling the tigers at their most vulnerable, that it worked…and it was too much. Somehow, if the penguin episode felt like the odd one out, then the tiger episode felt like the weakest. Sorry, but them’s the breaks.

…Yes, the public perception mattered – the tiger and the lion have two very different reputations in the eyes of the public, especially Western public. Why this is, so is a difficult question, so we will not talk about right now. Moreover, it is not the point – the point is that ‘Dynasties’ have fumbled the ball at their last tiger episode, and that’s that. The series is over, (there is no signs of a sequel), so we have to live with that, and we can. Whether Sir David, (who may have his own real life problems), can, is another story.

Speaking of the other stories, there is the remark of ‘The Lion King’ looming in the future. Influenced by the remake of the ‘Jungle Book’, TLK is coming on strong, but-

But while TJB was written by Rudyard Kipling, who didn’t care for political correctness (especially by the contemporary standards) and who tried to include some real life wildlife facts in his books, (initially, TJB was a duology), TLK was, or is, ‘Hamlet’.

No, seriously, by now it is openly admitted that TLK was a remake of ‘Hamlet’, which was never big on real life wildlife, but on many other things. If you google it, you can find plenty of essays and discussions on it, in particular whether ‘Hamlet’ was a Catholic or a Protestant play, in regards to the ghost, because Catholic and Protestant branches of Christianity have two different opinions of ghosts in relation to, well, Christianity and the Bible, and that is important, because it leads to the question as to whether or not the Ghost was a genuine ghost, or an evil spirit who sold Hamlet a load of baloney, and that leads to the question as to whether or not Hamlet was honestly righting a wrong, or just killing many people for the sake of revenge. The truth being is that regardless of the veracity of the Ghost’s info, Hamlet overreached himself; if he had killed Claudius in private, while the other man was praying (and failing) in private, then the play would’ve taken a very different turn; instead, in reality, we had Hamlet killed Claudius as he wanted to – in front of many people, with a large proportion of them also dying. Hamlet did not care about Denmark or its’ people – he just wanted revenge for his father, which, for him, was the righting of the wrong. Bully for him, really.

TLK, on the other hand, tried to be more derived, and as a result on one hand, it isn’t realistic from wildlife’s point of view – since the 1990s, plenty of wildlife scientists pointed out that real life lions and hyenas don’t behave as they do in the initial TLK movie, and on the other? There is at least one theory that equates Zazu with Polonius, the crooked counsellor from ‘Hamlet’, suggesting that he had been conspiring with Scar to get rid of Mufasa and Simba from the start. It is an interesting theory, especially since the original Polonius is not so straightforward a character himself, so it will be interesting to see as to how Disney’s remake of the TLK will come out.

Finally, in summer 2019 the second ‘Godzilla’ movie is coming out. Here, he is facing off with King Ghidorah, and as someone said, ‘what is a king against a god’? King Ghidorah is taller than Godzilla is in this incarnation, but a good amount of his size are his wings, and tails, and necks with heads – he’s tall, not big, so Godzilla has a good chance in a straightforward face-off that we were shown in this trailer.

In other news, in one of the original ‘Godzilla’ movies, the titular character teams up with Rodan and Mothra to defeat King Ghidorah, and this trailer shows precisely those other two kaiju – or titans, in this particular incarnation. Maybe they will work together in the summer 2019 movie too, we will have to see. Of course, the big question is where’s King Kong in all of this, for so far, we have seen no sign of him, but again, we will may learn more about all of this in the future.

Well, this is it for now – see you all in the future!

The Gifted: gaMe changer - Dec 4

The obligatory disclaimer: sometimes real life sucks, and sometimes it does not. Yay, really. Now onto ‘the Gifted’.

…This week’s episode was called the ‘gaMe changer’, and it certainly lived up to its’ name. The Inner Circle has destroyed the control center for the mutants’ control collars, and now many mutants are free. With the ‘regular’ society already inflamed and divided on the mutant issue, Reeva’s plan for taking over USA is beginning to take shape and it is a workable one, too. Whether she will be able to keep the United States once she captures them, is another story, and, moreover, one that we will get to see later, after the winter break, (technically speaking). For now, more new mutant characters will be appearing on the show; whether they will stay, or go, as Rebecca did, is another story.

…Rebecca got killed off in this week’s episode, incidentally. Judging by S1, no return from the dead for her; ‘the Gifted’ are not like AoS in that fashion. (With AC, there is not enough material to make a statement). This brings us to Daredevil, or rather – to ‘Daredevil’, who got cancelled at the end of last month.

Is this noteworthy? Well, yes – ‘Reverie’ might have also gotten cancelled during November 2018, (albeit in the beginning, rather than the end), but ‘Daredevil’ lasted longer – for 3 seasons rather than 1, and it was much more exciting, proportionally speaking, than ‘Reverie’ had been. ‘Reverie’ was not a bad show, but it was very heavily influenced by AoS on one hand, and kind of… not exactly insipid, but certainly lackluster on the other. ‘Reverie’ got cancelled with a whimper; the exit of ‘Daredevil’ was more noticeable.

Yes, in part this is because ‘Iron Fist’ and ‘Luke Cage’ were cancelled earlier in November 2018 too; with only JJ still up for grabs on one hand, and with ‘The Defenders’ proper being the weakest of Marvel/Netflix shows, things aren’t looking up for the Defenders team. However, that is acceptable: right now, the most popular theory is that with Disney establishing its’ own version of Netflix/Amazon/Hulu/etc., and as such, it is no longer too interested in cooperating with Netflix proper. (And maybe its’ counterparts as well).

Of course, until Netflix’s copyright for the Defenders’ team run out, Disney will have to tread carefully here, to prevent any conflicts back in the real world. It is already in a bad place regarding its’ other takeover, of SW, so it does not really need to add any of its’ Marvel properties into the mix. With Sony, (regarding its’ universe of Marvel characters or Earth-TRN688), making its’ boundaries clear and established, it might be Netflix’s turn next – or it and Disney might do something completely different, who knows?..

Back to ‘the Gifted’? So far, it is still going strong, with the ‘gaMe changer’ trying to go for something epic, as the Inner Circle releases captured and subdued mutants, the rest of the Strucker family destroying anti-mutant research, and John, from the Mutant Underground, getting captured by Jace and his Purifiers.

Well, technically, the Purifiers’ are not Jace’s, but are more of a free-ranging secret society, like the Freemasons or the Illuminati, but Jace is shown to be taking charge of them lately. Again, it is a question of just how big the Purifiers are, as a movement, but we’ll probably see more of them in the future episodes; right now, John got captured by probably no more than three or four of them, including Jace. Of course, John’s strategy had been to run at their jeep and hold it in place, until he got exhausted, but John has been in a bad place lately, as he and Clarice constantly fought lately, and Marcos was more of a comic relief than anything else.

Pause. This brings us to the fact that by now episodes of ‘the Gifted’ got somewhat, well, disassembled into separate plotlines; Jace capturing John at the end of ‘gaMe changer’ is really the first sign that they are coming together again, and maybe we’ll get something more along the lines of ‘the Gifted’ S1 in the next episode…

And this is it, for now. See you all soon!