Dear Infinity Ward

Modern Warfare 2, the sequel to the incomparably popular Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, dropped this week. If you know that this happened, I assume you own the game and have played it through at least once. It's a hell of a game. If you follow me on twitter, you may have seen my mini review.

I have just finished Modern Warfare 2. I cannot even cope with how effing amazing this game is.

Infinity Ward has not only revolutionized gameplay, but has more effectively humanized war than any film I've seen in recent memory.

Fast paced episodic storytelling, an epic and intricate plot, emotional punches you weren't expecting, and examination of the morality of...

...war as well as the psychology of war mongers make this game a step forward even beyond that of COD4.

I love this game. The storyline, gameplay, characters, sound, graphics, voice acting- top to bottom, the game is astounding. It is riveting and exciting. Love it. Infinity Ward deserves their accolades. And then you get to the online play, the thing that made COD4 one of the best selling, most replayed, and least discounted games of ever. They have also improved upon this, now with seemingly endless unlockable titles; emblems; customizable perks; your own accolades at the end of every round; and the ingenious host-forwarding, so when your game goes wonky, it pauses and resumes it for you on a more stable host. Brilliant.

But they eliminated party chat from all small team games.


At first, I was merely disappointed, and only slightly. So, if I wanted to play with friends in regular team deathmatch or domination, we'd have to endure the endless, reedy cries of "I'm gonna rape you, you fag" from the occasional hyper-active twelve year old, or withstand the awful crackly droning from the guy who's playing hip hop way too loudly in the background. I could manage these. You can mute individual microphones, so, fine. No party chat. I don't even use my mic unless I'm playing with pals, anyway.

And then I actually started to play. PATRIOT15, fellow NYU alum and faithful COD buddy, accompanied me into a realm I had not visited for eight months or more- that of the Game Chat. And at first, it was fine. The occasional, "Dude, you know you sound like a girl" which is easily enough replied to with "Actually, I am one," followed by the "Oh, cool", and then that's the end of it. Some then feel the need to make extremely juvenile, mostly-giggled out sexist comments and ask offensive questions, but it peters out fairly quickly.

Until this douche bag rolled on up into our lobby. About two seconds into the game, I commented to Drew that I loved the 'Companion Crate' id tag, since it's a play on another one of my very favorite games, Portal. It went unremarked upon. A little later into the game, douchebag (who sounds about 15), makes a comment about shooting a 'n--ger', to which the black guy in the room does not take kindly. Douchey replies he can say whatever the hell he wants. I say "Maybe so, but that's really unnecessary."

Well, forget the blacks, because now he has a vagina to lash out at. He's probably had more contact with black people in whatever whitebread farming community he lives in than he has female genitalia. I know this, because he immediately questions me:

"Are you a dyke? Do you like to lick things?" And persisted with (watered down for our sensitive reading audience): "I bet you're all loose down there. Except you don't take dick so you're probably not," and "Women shouldn't be allowed to vote. [Five second pause] Women shouldn't be allowed to vote. Women shouldn't be allowed to buy Xbox games. Women shouldn't allowed to vote. I'm just saying the truth."

Stupidly, I fired back a few good insults of my own. I say this was stupid because he did not understand any of them. My subtle returns and rebuttals, which are usually highly effective in undermining and shutting up the sophomoric idiots on Xbox Live who can at least appreciate a girl who can talk as much trash as they can, and can sometimes even respect that I am a hell of a lot smarter than them, were wasted on this particular piece of juvenile, misogynistic, rapist-in-training trash. I reported him in the middle of the game for sexual harassment and abusive language- please understand that this went on for a good seven or ten minutes, and I have written only the most bland and vanilla of it here, and that it was non stop, barely a pause for breath, once he realized there was a girl in the room- as did PATRIOT15. I told Patriot, not having realized he was busy doing the same thing I was, that I just "Reported my first complaint! That's so exciting!"

Surly and somber, douchey began proclaiming, "I can make complaints too, dyke. That you're tampering with the game. Cheating dyke." etc, and so on. I encouraged him to do so, seeing as there was absolutely no evidence I had tampered with or cheated during the round, and in fact had been killed twice as many times as I myself had scored since I'd stood still in the middle of an active game like a fish in a barrel while I'd posted my report.

I then muted him, and his guffawing lackey who would snicker and repeat "dyke" like a drunk parrot, and continued on in the game. But this instance opened my eyes to what is, officially for me, now, a problem.

So now, an open letter.

Dear Infinity Ward:

Please release a patch or fix that will allow users to utilize party chat in all modes of online gameplay, if only for the sake of your female fans. We shelled out the money for the game, we stayed up all night and missed half a day of work playing it, we write and read reviews and buy MW2 caps for our avatars on the XBox Live marketplace.

Out of respect for us, since, sadly, the majority of the people who play your game online have none, give us back party chat so we can enjoy the wonderful evolution of the online play without being told how unwelcome, ugly, stupid, and useless for anything other than degrading sexual acts we are. Please give us back party chat so we can have tactical conversation with the friends we're playing with, without having to hear how we have no right to be there, no right to play; so we don't have to hear, out of the mouths of sexist, bitter virgins who have clocked months worth of their lives in game time that we are socially defunct and sexually wrong, somehow, for playing.

I would really appreciate it.

Sincerely,

Amanda

P.S. To all the gentlemen bloggers who use words like 'cunt' and 'whore' when taking shots at women in business or the media, there is a reason we don't respond well to that and chastise you for it. It's because, frequently, we know you're not limpdick misogynistic trash. But when you resort to those words for female targets, it makes you sound like you are.



The comments and discussion generated by this post were extremely satisfying, and may be seen here

Star Wars For the New Generation, Feminine Mystique, and The Land Before Time [originally posted at ATF]

Okay, who remembers where we were? That’s right, we were sitting down with the CEO and the Editorial Lead of Starlight Runner Entertainment, Mr. Jeff Gomez and Ms. Caitlin Burns, respectively, and they were telling us about how smart, creative geeks are forging new worlds in media for some of the biggest properties on the scene! In this installment, there will be more of that, as well as an insider’s take on some of the themes of Jim Cameron’s upcoming Avatar, and a geek out over animated dinosaurs.Of particular interest to us here at All Things Fangirl, however, is the deep investment on behalf of Starlight Runner’s creative heads in the development of balanced and exciting media that remembers and represents the ladies—and the little girls.

Jeff Gomez, CEO and Geek Dad: One of the things that is actually a fairly common thread in everything that we do, and this reaches back for me to my work previous to Starlight Runner: When I was in the comic book and videogame industry, we were often bought properties where the goal of the client is, “We want this to explode around the world, huge audience, help us make that happen.” And then you look at the property and it’s almost entirely from a male sensibility. That’s a problem. We were brought Hot Wheels. We examined the essence of the brand, we interviewed with Mattel and had talked about it at length and we started developing a bible, a kind of description of this universe—

Caitlin Burns, Editorial Lead and Geek Mom of one and ¼: It outlines canon and all the details of canon—

JG: —The storylines, the characters and so forth, and we naturally started putting female characters into the stories. There was some resistance to our doing this, but we insisted. There was going to be hours and hours of entertainment based on this franchise, and we couldn’t imagine telling this massive story without significant female characters—even though this was a property for boys. It took some doing, but we got what we wanted.

Jeff and Caitlin’s daughters, both of whom are unreasonably adorable and bound to be either ginormous geeks or intensely dedicated jocks/cheerleaders when they’re older, provide the creative directors of Starlight Runner with yet another perspective to consider, to degrees they otherwise might not.

JG: One thing that I’m kind of re-geeking on is introducing my daughter, six years old, to the StarWars movies. She came home with the question that I’ve been waiting for all my life: “How did the Clone Wars start?” Because the cartoon is on the air and of course her friends at school are talking about it, and she doesn’t know. And I said, well, you know, there was a queen, Amidala, that this all kind of rotates around, and she goes, “Really?” And I said, “Let me show you!” We started watching the films. And to look at the films from the perspective of a child, first of all, and from the perspective of a child who is gravitating not to young Anakin but Padme, and watching her progress through the films trying to contend with the decisions Padme’s making, particularly about this “Ani” guy, who seems a little shifty, well it was fascinating. So when Anakin comes back form murdering all the Sand-People and he tells Padme what he’d done, I ask my daughter, “Well, what do you think? I mean, was it okay for him to do that? He killed women and children Sand-People.” And [my daughter] goes, “Well…” She’s trying to side with Amidala, who kind of overlooks this horrid massacre for the sake of her romance with Anakin. So my girl is like, “Well, if it was my mother, I’d have killed them all too.”

The force is strong with this one.

JG: But then I go, what do you make of Senator Palpatine? And she goes, “I don’t know about him, every time he promises Padme that he’s gonna fix her planet, he never does.” There’s no follow-through. So the forbidden movie is number three, because three is the game changer. Her friends aren’t allowed to watch number three. Because to a generation of children, Anakin Skywalker is a hero, they love him. And parents are funny, they’re not letting the kids watch that third film. They’ll let them see everything up to the Clone Wars. Now the animated series is airing, and there are rumors in the school yard starting to spread about something bad that happens to Ani.

CB: Is Darth Vader the new Santa Claus? I’ll tell you, though, I have a daughter who is two. I’ve been going back and trying to watch the movies I remember absolutely adoring, with her, as a kid. I cannot get through them without breaking into tears. First ten minutes of The Land Before Time? I’m done. I’m looking at these, and I’m thinking to myself, you know, strictly speaking there’s a lot harsher stuff going on in children’s movies than people want to give them credit for. And I loved The Land Before Time, I really did, just as an example, but it’s really tough stuff. I mean, I couldn’t even get to the point where the crises began. I was just like—Littlefoot! And he loves his mom!

EC: The scene where he’s like, in the foot print? With his tree star?

JG: (laughs)

CB: (sad noise)

EC: And it’s just like—I can’t handle it.

CB: But at the same time, there’s something wonderful about the fact that, looking back on it, people have always asked kids to process some really hard facts in storytelling, and you know, it’s going to be interesting to watch my own daughter going through and asking fantastic questions like Jeff’s daughter is asking. A big question for me, because I’m really into the Disney Fairies property and personally, I think Tinkerbell is a really cool movie. I like that there is more gender parity in that than in most other girl’s movies than I’ve seen. Fairies are judged on their talents, they are friends with both male and female fairies, they’re really neat, they’re all doing things they love, and being supported by a community doing that for a greater purpose. It’s a really fantastic movie, I’m glad my daughter likes it. But at the same time…what’s gonna happen? If you read Peter Pan you know that Tink is kind of the only one left. Will Disney address the great question of what happened to the fairies? I suspect Disney will probably not address that, but I know—I’m reading Peter Pan with my daughter. And she’s gonna ask me that question, what’s gonna happen next? Also, Dot and the Kangaroo is fantastic—

EC: Oh my God, you have that?

CB: I have the three DVDs that are released. Dot and the Kangaroo, Dot and the Bunny and Dot and the Whale are the three that are out in America. There are another six in the series, I think. I really wanna see the Dot and the Kangaroo series re-released.

EC: Because that’s on my list of “Shit I Watched When I Was A Kid That Messed Me Up In The Head.” And like, it’s Dot and the Kangaroo, The Last Unicorn, Unico and the Island of Magic…

CB: I definitely forgot how condescending the kangaroo was, but at the same time she’s been through a lot. The songs are great…

EC: BUNYIP. Song. Messed me up. I would have to run to the top of my staircase, and my mom would have to wait for it to be over and call me down.

CB: Oh yeah. There were bunyips, in the closet. That door had to remain closed. But at the same time, it’s a fascinating piece of cultural anthropology that’s woven into the fabric of Dot and the Kangaroo.

[Geeky giggling while Jeff looks on, bemused…]

CB: I also have to do a lot more looking at it—is she going to want to sit through the MuppetMovie? And she likes muppets, but she doesn’t have the endurance, at two, to sit through TheMuppet Movie. So I have a DVD collection of movies I want to watch with her, but she’s not old enough!

JG: I had to sneak Poltergeist, with my daughter. But boy was it cool, watching it with her.“Look at that kid getting sucked into the television!”

CB: Well, that would teach her to stand away from the TV. Geek girls in recent years have been blessed with the likes of Joss Whedon and Brian K Vaughn, heavy hitters that produce works with strong, realistic female leads. We are also finally seeing female teams on comics, like Kathryn Immonen and Sara Pichelli on Marvel’s Runaways or, finally, the first ever female writer to helm Wonder Woman, Gail Simone. However, in the world of fantasy and science fiction, and most noticeably in the marketing of those worlds, there regularly seems to be a lack of consideration for us girls.

CB: I find myself a lot more interested in the relationship of media to girls. There aren’t a whole lot of franchises for girls out there that have strength of narrative. I mean you see Barbie, who has narrative, but there’s not the same through line. She’s a fascinating character, because she’s had a million jobs and is so loaded, but she doesn’t have a storyline.

JG: Well, she’s an anthology character. And that’s okay, but it doesn’t give you something to hold on to over the long haul in terms of a narrative through line. Barbie is often proactive but still more often locked up in a tower somewhere needing to be rescued. So it’s a big concern of ours. Given our own resources and our own future, we want to do something about it.

EC: I did a sit down with Bruce Timm and the gang who just put out the Wonder Woman animated movie, which is rated PG-13. It’s awesome that it exists, but it’s not necessarily accessible to girls who right now have things aimed at them more along the lines of Hannah Montana. And High School Musical.

CB: Something that has been very interesting and controversial is that Mattel is releasing a new, older Dora the Explorer. And it’s possible the story they’re going to be telling… Dora is not necessarily going to be exploring the mall. At the same time, if you look at the Dora franchise’s track record, you look at their consumer products, within the first twenty pages of searching for Dora the Explorer on Amazon.com you won’t find a compass. You won’t find a map. You won’t find binoculars, you won’t find things Dora actually carries on her in the animated series.

JG: You’ll find Princess Dora.

CB: You’ll find Princess Dora, you’ll find Princess Adventure Dora. You’ll find washing machines, kitchens…it’s a question that you have to ask [with] young girls and young children in general,[they] are playing less with a DVD or a doll and are playing more with an intellectual property. So playing Dora could mean going onto your Leapfrog and learning something with Dora or it could mean watching a video. But the question is, looking at the whole brand, what is the message that’s being sent. And while Dora’s initial thrust was very interesting, very engaging as a parent, you then have to ask the question, well, what is the rest of it saying, too? And that’s something we have to look at when we’re looking at properties to make sure the themes and messages are being carried forth effectively. And there wouldn’t be as much controversy about this new Dora if the parents didn’t feel somewhat let down by the consumer products.

JG: A lot of what we do here is sit down and correct lopsidedness. Let’s look at the work of James Cameron. Always a very strong female character in his work. No one can forget Ellen Ripley. And what we try to take care to remember in all of this is that there is going to be the temptation to look at Avatar and think guns and think monsters and military paraphernalia, as you see in lots of Cameron films, but there is also this very, very powerful feminine mystique to the film, and feminine power that needs to be remembered in order to make all the spin-offs and ancillary content as powerful as the experience of watching the film is going to be. So part of our job as kind of franchise stewards is to defend and protect those notions. Another thing that we have to keep in mind, that’s worked really well for us, is remembering that the Millennial generation, that’s just coming into power right now, everyone born from basically Star Wars forward, that they’re looking at the world in a slightly different way, this kind of Post-Post 9-11, the Obama thing, where we want our heroes to be powerful but we also want them to think, that we can’t run rough shod over our enemies—

CB: Or that there are consequences to running rough-shod over our enemies. It’s less black and white, for Millennials. There has to be more of an exploration of the full story, of the meanings and consequences for every action taken.

JG: Yes, and I’ve been wondering about the distinctions between some of the movies that have come out recently that have been big hits and something like Watchmen, which is kind of from a darker sensibility. The Millennials don’t seem to be connecting en masse to Watchmen as they did to Iron Man or even Dark Knight. So these are things we have to be careful of and inform our clients about. You know, if you go this way—it can be artistically full of integrity and really really well done—but you might lose some of your audience. So gauge what you’re gonna do based on that possibility. Keeping our fingers in the zeitgeist and monitoring everything is a big part of what we do here.

We would like to extend our sincerest thanks for the time Jeff and Caitlin took out of their considerably madcap schedules to talk with us, and are greatly looking forward to their continued expansion, both of their own company and of the worlds in their capable hands. We are also jealous as hell that they actually get paid to do this, I mean are you serious? Whatever. Fine. They’re nice people, so it’s okay. Check out http://www.starlightrunner.com to keep up with Starlight Runner’s latest doings, and follow Jeff on the tweeter at @Jeff_Gomez and Caitlin at @Caitlin_Burns.

Starlight Runner Part 1 [originally posted at ATF]

The months leading up to the release of The Dark Knight were busy ones. There were codes to decrypt and websites to search, and clown posses and cakes and all sorts of varied components to be experienced before the movie ever hit the big screen. Before anyone knew what True Blood was, there were ads for the beverage on every bus stop in New York. Online, you can book flights on an airline that doesn’t exist, or read the press kit for the Tagruato Corporation, or their subsidiary company, Slusho! In the realm of marketing, it’s become something that fans expect: Products and experiences not necessarily directly connected to the work that spawned them. Viral campaigns to immerse them in the world of the property before it’s even in their hands. Worlds, as the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has shown us, require skilled architects and great bookkeeping skills to create. So when a movie needs to expand its world beyond the edge of the screen, where does one go?

Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the highly anticipated upcoming Avatar all went to StarlightRunner. So: What is a Starlight Runner?

Jeff Gomez, President and Uber-Geek: A Starlight Runner is the kind of friend you can call at any time. It’s corny, it came from when I used to publish a magazine called Gateways and I had a column called The Cosmic Streetcorner—it was a magazine for kids, really, and I used to write about how we can be inspired by stories and apply what we learn from stories to our everyday lives. One of the subjects was friendship, things like that... Some of our clients used to think our name referred to a Broadway musical.

They’re not, though. They’re so much cooler than that. Starlight Runner creates transmedia, of which advertising (including the fun, viral stuff) is a part but hardly the whole. The company doesn’t just find new ways to expose people to product—they find new ways to make that product. When Mattel brought them Hot Wheels, Starlight Runner produced a story that started in comics, continued on the web and in video games and climaxed as an animated feature. The what of transmedia is fascinating. Here, have a breakdown, from the master plan man himself, Jeff Gomez:

The 8 defining characteristics of a transmedia production (by Jeff Gomez):
1) Content is originated by one or a very few visionaries
2) Cross-media rollout is planned early in the life of the franchise
3) Content is distributed to three or more media platforms
4) Content is unique, adheres to platform-specific strengths, and is not
repurposed from one platform to the next
5) Content is based on a single vision for the story world
6) Concerted effort is made to avoid fractures and schisms
7) Effort is vertical across company, third parties and licensees
8) Rollout features audience participatory elements, including:
- Web portal
- Social networking
- Story-guided user-generated content

But in our discussion we were more focused on the who and how in the hell. There are clues to the ‘who’s’ ( I feel like Dr. Suess. …Okay, it’s done) around their spacious Union Square office. A “Powersaw to the People” Dexter promotional poster, action figures, comics and manga and an Xbox 360...

JG: That’s an electromagnetic disruptor hanging from the ceiling, in case there are people with psychic powers coming to menace us.

Clearly, these people don’t *@&%! around. There is a comforting, permeating sense of geekiness.

Caitlin Burns, Editorial Lead: One of our prerequisites for working here is being a fan of things. It helps the process to be able to get really engaged and talk to other people who are fans and be able to communicate on that level, because to really understand the universe of a story, and work within it, you have to like it a little bit!

JG: There has to be at least one torchbearer for every property that we work with amongst our staff. We have to love it in some way or else we’re doing it a disservice, and we’re doing the clients a disservice… I think most of us here, when we were very young, we somehow intuited that we were different from other kids. [Wry laughter.] When you’re looking at things slightly differently than the way your peers are looking at it, and you’re falling in love with things that your peers don’t really understand there’s this inclination to go deeper and deeper into the mythologies that we love. But I think what also creates a commonality here on the staff was that at some point in time each of us made the decision that we would not become isolated from the rest of the world, that we wanted to reach out and connect with people, and so the trick that I had to face was: How do you stay connected to this fantasy environment, these wonderful worlds that I was learning about from Tolkien and all these authors, and Star Wars and so forth, but at the same time stay connected to the popular culture and sensibilities, so that I could have friends who were cool. So I could date girls.

EC: How was the concept of world building appropriated to do more with the property than just create the property itself?

JG: Learning that balance was what made us able to work with our clients who are major companies and need for their fantasy stories to be told to global audiences. The link between geekdom and mass culture was a little keystone that we collectively found here at Starlight Runner. So it wasn’t a great leap for us to jump from Pirates of the Caribbean to Coca-Cola. It’s not a big jump to start with Prince of Persia and end up with Dexter, or a die cast metal toy car and turn that into a giant racing universe. We’re forming that bridge and geek culture, you know, has become…hot.

CB: So much of what companies are trying to do today is figure out how to make use of different platforms, different media, to tell their stories. Monetize what is already there. And what we do automatically as fans is we go in and we look at the deep meaning of the work. We look at the universe; we like to know the details, we like to know the settings. And there are so many stories that can be told within a rich fantasy universe, a rich sci-fi universe, even a really rich dramatic universe like with Dexter, where you only have a sort of quiet, realistic setting. But it has enough emotional resonance, themes that you can look at it and say, “Huh, I wonder what’s going on there,” while we’re following this story. What we posit, and what we’ve been pretty successful in getting across so far, is that instead of just taking one story and repurposing it for each platform, you can tell a number of stories. There are a million avenues into a single property. And transmedia is a fantastic tool for any franchise that’s looking to expand itself into those fields, because it doesn’t bore the fan or the audience and it expands the storyline instead of simply doing the same thing over and over.

EC: Any favorite campaigns so far?

JG: We have a lot of properties that meet us with different kinds of challenges. There are a few that I think transcend everything and are truly favorites.

CB: For me, the first one that I worked on was Pirates of the Caribbean, and I got really into that really fast, because not only is it a really fantastic property, [but] I was just whole hog into studying the history of piracy, and Jerry Bruckheimer and that whole crew are so interested in that actual time period, in going in and finding what really was going on and weaving that into the fantasy universe. So for me personally that turned into a blog about piracy (thepirateologistgeneral.blogspot.com), and it’s been very topical with the Gulf of Aden and the Straight of Malacca. There have been some pretty fascinating contemporary pirate stories.

JG: Now that I can look back on it, Halo was really fascinating, because it challenged me to my limits. A lot of our job is to kind of work with our clients to get them to appreciate the beauty and the spectacle of their own intellectual properties so they can best extend it into all these media platforms.

CB: Halo is a fascinating property as well because there is such a vibrant fan base, and each of the different companies involved with the franchise interact with the fan base a different way. Everyone we talked to there had a slightly different opinion about the universe. But finding those through lines was amazing.

EC: Are there certain types of properties that come in that are more resistant or less understanding of certain platforms you want to bring the property to?

CB: Companies are definitely becoming savvier to the idea of transmedia, and more so than just cross platform repurposing. But you’ll always find points where you have to evangelize what you’re talking about. I think as it enters the consciousness of more people in the industry, and it’s definitely a huge deal, new media, web media, a lot of people will use the word “transmedia” but not necessarily know it’s underlying meaning. In every case you have to explain your story, and when you’re dealing with transmedia, each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses. When you’re presenting a story like that you pretty much have to explain why you’re doing it the way you want to do it. Some groups are more receptive and some are less. People are looking for new ways to tell stories, people are looking for new ways to purpose things onto the internet, onto cell phones... So as a fan, or as a young creator, being able to explain to someone why you’re putting it on a cell phone, or being able to tailor it to a web series, or an alternate reality game, to explain to a group why you’re doing that is an essential skill, and if you can do it, you’re going to get work.

JG: A lot of our clients are also so big that they have their own favorite distribution channels. We adhere to the demands that they have and help to advise based on the set of platforms that are most appropriate to the property.

EC: How much of your artistic work is done in house?

CB: It depends on the company, really. It depends on who we’re contracted with. Some of them have seemingly endless resources and the best creatives money can by, internally. Others are more accustomed to licensing out. What we do for the most part is we have a core staff and then we have a much wider pool of freelancers who we draw from, depending. We do a lot of original work here, a lot of it is based on questions that come up when we’re writing the canon. How would we present this? And often times something we write in the canon will be brought back to us and they’ll say, well, how would you present this? And from there we can pick it up and run with it, and we’ve had great chances to do that in the past, and it’s fantastic amounts of fun.

JG: So if production is necessary, or animation, we’ll go out of house and get a crew or animation team to work with us, but for the most part what we do is develop the work, building a universe and conceiving how it will be implemented across these platforms. It’s a great treat once in a while to actually move into production.

CB: Often times we serve as kind of editors, because a lot of the mediums out there don’t have a formal editing process the way publishing does, so you don’t have a creative voice between the producer and distributor. We’ll come in and do the check work, we’ll look at it against the continuity, and we’ll make suggestions and often times those have been heard with, I think, really nice results.

EC: With the sudden flux in popularity of genre properties, is there a kind of property you’d want to work on that you haven’t yet?

CB: We have a lot of original stuff that Jeff has been working on for a long time that I’d love to get the chance to work on. He has some great original properties that we haven’t wanted to take the chance on until we could do them in as broad a spectrum as possible to do them justice.

JG: We don’t want to just go out and get a movie made of our idea or concept or story, we want these things to be implemented with transmedia, and in order to be very convincing about that we wanted to build a track record working with these wonderful properties and great clients to show people that we do know what we’re doing and that it can be really, really cool. Especially something designed from scratch, to be implemented across these platforms. So that’s one thing we really wanna do. The other is I’d love to work on a project that had a physical component, like theme parks, real estate, a resort. An exhibition of some kind where there’s interactive components, that you can walk through, and so forth.

CB: I used to throw events with all sorts of very theatrical settings, and costumes and storylines, but you don’t see it as much connected to properties. I know True Blood did a series of parties around the world, but at the same time those were not executed with the degree of spectacle that you might be able to gain, and they were only in, I think, five cities. Whereas the ability to get an audience out to somewhere that’s not New York City, where there’s not a party every night would be fantastic. I’d love to take the show on the road.

EC: What are you geeking out over now?

CB: I’m a big Battlestar Galactica fan, I watched it every week and I’m really looking forward to their movies in production, and seeing what becomes of Caprica.

JG: Wait ‘til you see Avatar. It’s going to be absolutely breathtaking.

CB: We got to see some of the early designs, and they blew my mind. And Jeff’s gotten to see more recent stuff… and I can’t even imagine what would be cooler than what I saw.

JG: We’re fans of Zoe Saldana, who appears in two of our projects. She stars in the original Pirates of the Caribbean, and she is Uhura in Star Trek. She will be the female lead in Avatar.

CB: I’ve actually been geeking out about Gears of War lately. Something that’s interesting about videogames—a lot of them have fantastic novels associated with them. Halo was very successful with its novel series. When the novels aren’t simply retelling stories you’ve seen in the video game, they provide a lot of depth. I played Gears of War, and then I read Gears of War: Aspho Fields, which goes back and forth between the two game stories and provides a lot of backstory. I was amazed at the experience I then had with Gears of War 2, because it made the stakes so much higher for me. It really gave layers that you wouldn’t see otherwise. Another novel just came out at the beginning of the month. There are things you can do with video games and accompanying novels. It’s not something that’s often tapped into, expanding the storyline of a video game. I’m starting the Mass Effect novels next, because I got really into Mass Effect.

EC: Star Trek and X-Men/Marvel have novels, but for some reason videogames and novel reading crowds aren’t necessarily associated.

JG: What’s cool about these new video game novels is that they’re in canon. Most Star Trek novels ‘don’t count’, they’re not part of the official continuity of the universe. The Halo novels and I assume the GoW novels take place in the game.

CB: Don’t get me wrong, I love playing video games. There are some conceits that the storytelling in a video game has for game play, and I understand that, but there’s such potential to work in and around the medium that people are beginning to pick up on and they’ll be really exciting.

Stay tuned for part two, wherein more geekdom is discussed, as well as the state of children's geekery and some of the problems facing today's young geek girls!

What a Ho [originally posted at ATF]

As per usual my "movie review" is going to have some sort of cultural freak out in the middle of it, so buckle up, friends. This won't be long, but let’s jump into some Body talk.

The box office numbers are supporting the haters’ stance that Jennifer’s Body sucks. Now, everyone with the slightest shred of self awareness knows that if they think this without having seen it, they’re judging this movie based on two things: Juno, which is a different movie, and Megan Fox, who has been damned by some of the most exploitative non-porn roles to come down the cinematic pike in recent years, and has not yet backed up that persona with what the public feels is a requisite amount of talent or humility to make it palatable. If you hate patter, banter or stylized reality, yeah, you probably hate Diablo Cody. If you hate whorish things, like The Office’s Angela, you hate Megan Fox. So you, hater, are probably filled with loathing all the way to your creamy center at the mere concept of Jennifer’s Body. And I don’t blame you.

The thing is, Jennifer’s Body is neither Diablo Cody nor Megan Fox. It includes distillations of them that delightfully warp the realities of both, but the movie isn’t about them. It’s about the painfully familiar and horribly toxic Best Friend relationship, something every single woman or girl I have ever met knows intimately, the horror of which is give physical form on screen. This movie, similar to The Descent, I thought, is a horror movie for girls.



There has been endless bitching about the continued fetishizing of Megan Fox, and in regards to films like Transformers and even How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, I’ve done my totally reasonable, fair share. You have to understand: As a pretty average female, it offends every fiber of my being that Megan Fox exists to set the imaginary bar that much higher and make girls like me, girls like most of us, feel like absolute shit. We’ve got a right to hate, with the fiery passion of a thousand red hot burning suns, this archetype, who is literally worth nothing but sex. There are certain quotes I could happily pull from their context that have Megan Fox declaring this to be the case, herself. She’s commodified to within an inch of her life, and as far as Hollywood and the tabloid press are concerned, that price tag is set by her looks and her looks alone.

Exactly like a high school it girl.

So the casting is perfect, to start. Amanda Seyfried is a wonderfully talented comedian, adorable but, when not made up and dressed well, when she looks like a normal person and is stood next to Megan Fox who… does not… she fits her role perfectly. People have complained that Seyfried is who they went for as the ‘plain Jane’, but she’s not supposed to be a ‘plain Jane’, she supposed to be a high school girl. Everyone gets relegated to roles they aren’t in high school. Needy is smart, quirky, and sexual. She has an adorable boyfriend. So people getting pissed at that casting are just projecting. Sorry.

The horror in the film is well done. I almost said excellent, but I‘m trying to be true to the film, which was very good, but not great. However, it‘s my knee jerk reaction to all the vicious hating and, I think, deeply prejudiced reviews of this movie to be more ardent in my support of it. It‘s a movie with faults, it could have been better, but that doesn‘t mean it‘s not good, and it doesn‘t mean it‘s not valuable and important to the genre. It’s violent, it’s bloody, it’s multitudes less graphic and sexualized than what comes out in most slasher movies, and it is largely a slave to the emotional state of the characters involved. Several reviews I’d read had condemned it for being falsely-feminist, and they’re wrong. I can see why, with the long shot of Jennifer swimming naked through a clear, placid lake, they would snap back and accuse the film of being anti-feminist while purporting to be otherwise. I say again: They’re wrong. There is less sex in Jennifer’s Body than the majority of horror films released in any given year, and what there is is a) mostly verbalized, in which case there’s less sex in Jennifer’s Body than in 90% of all movies released in a given year (at least recently), and b) when it’s shown it’s addressed with humor and taste. Jennifer doesn’t actually have sex in the film. Not once. Needy does, for four minutes, with her boyfriend. Sex plays a role, just not the one typical to the genre.

False feminism is saying a movie has strong women because they’re playing military personnel, and then having those military personnel raped by mutants in California mountains. Hills Have Eyes, I’m looking at you. Again. I really hate you.

io9 made a wonderful point about the lesbian kiss sequence, which is that when threatened, Jennifer relies on the one tool in her possession, her “overpowering sexuality”, which Needy- who is partly in love with Jennifer and partly hates Jennifer and has always, always needed Jennifer, and who has previously had an intimate relationship with Jennifer in their tween fumblings before they entered the world of Having-Physical-Relationships-With-Boys- gives in to for half a minute before freaking out and SPOILER promptly kicking Jennifer out of her room END SPOILER. Again, there is the surface titillation, the almost pre-requisite non-lesbian Girls Kissing moment, but it’s not there for your arousal, it’s there for Needy’s journey and Jennifer’s floundering power-play. More so than any chick flick I have seen, this movie is for girls. Male participation is optional.

Case in point, the necklace moment. A trinket that holds no power other than what it represents to the girls, the act of its removal shocks Jennifer out of her attack, and undoes her. A BFF necklace. They probably got them at Claire’s. When they were ten. But in the world of the film, it is a mystical amulet, as powerful as the knife used in Jennifer’s murder or the words spoken over her before the act. Most of the men I’ve heard talk about the film mention that moment in particular as being cringe-worthy and corny, and most of all bizarre. I have not yet spoken to a girl for whom that scene did not resonate, didn’t hit something deep in them. Even if you never had one of those necklaces, you know what it means, the way you know what BFF can mean. A best friend is frequently not a ‘best friend’. They’re someone you’re tied to, through whatever events, and remain tied to, for whatever reason. When you’re friends with someone long enough, someone you don’t really necessarily like, but who you’ve nonetheless spent that much time with, your relationship becomes about domination and submission, finding, testing and expanding your boundaries, exerting your will and desires over someone else. This all sounds very dark, but it can be as basic as using someone to make you look better at a club (as Needy describes at the beginning of the movie), or using someone as nothing but a sounding board for you to talk about your life, your needs, your self about, completely disregarding and not caring about the other person’s life or what they have to say. Someone to keep around to assert yourself over. Find me a girl who hasn’t been on either end of this, and I’ll show you a robot or an alien.

Jennifer’s Body is a pretty good movie. It’s sure as hell a fun movie. I’m shocked that the possibility of spectacle, given Fox’s almost bipolar media presence, wasn’t enough to draw the MTV crowd and the US Weekly readers. For all the accusations of hyper-hip-speak and grotesque sexuality (which it IS, on PURPOSE, for a REASON- LITERALLY grotesque), the most shameful aspect of Jennifer’s Body so far is the unwillingness of the audience to meet it half way.

If you want to read another really interesting positive, female perspective, head over to ScarletScribe's review.

It's like The War of the Worlds, but on Twitter, with Puff Daddy [originally posted at ATF]

Everyone knows how easy it is to look like an ass on the internet. Because we've all done it. It's essentially impossible to use a public and primarily anonymous forum to make sarcastic comments or respond to other peoples' conversations, and walk away without ever coming across as one. But today, Diddy wins.

I'm calling GODS ARMY TO ATTENTION!! #GODISHERE #GODISHERE #GODISHERE let the devil know the fight he's in for! Retweet all day! Make GOD #1

This as posted by @iamdiddy, in response to the fact that #luciferiscoming was a trending topic on twitter. Followed shortly by his righteous, triumphant cry of:

LOOK AT THE TRENDING TOPICS! #GODISHERE THE DEVIL IS A LIAR!!! LETS GOOOO!

Now what Mr. Diddy is apparently unaware of is the fact that #luciferiscoming is in fact a reference to the events of tonight's Supernatural premier, which YOU SHOULD ALL BE WATCHING (and not talking to me about because I can't watch it because I'm not caught up yet).

Now, if Mr. Combs had spent the fifteen seconds it would have taken for him to actually click the hashtag, he would have seen it attached to tweets like this one:

NickiStyx: #luciferiscoming to #supernatural tonight, but #InKripkeWeTrust so Sam and Dean r guna be alright!

Oooor this one:

wtristan: JARED PADALECKI JARED PADALECKI PADALICIOUSSSS #luciferiscoming #inkripkewetrust #Supernatural #luciferiscoming #inkripkewetrust LMFAO

Both of which are toward the top of the exponentially lengthening search result page. For those who don't know, Jared Padalecki is not a minister of Satan, though he does frequently incite women to lust, and to take the Lord's name in vain, as in the phrase "God damn, Jared Padalecki is one tall drink of sex. Water. Sex water. You know what I mean, stop looking at me like that." No, no. Jared's just an actor on a little show called Supernatural. In fact he and his on-screen brother Jensen Ackles are soldiers of the light! Fighting the good fight against the evil things that go bump in the night!

So, just to make it official, since it is my authority alone to proclaim it such and speak on behalf of the WHOLE INTERNET-

Puff Daddy just lost the internet. FAIL.


And the rest of your post here

To Walk A Mile In Someone Else's Weaponized Mecha Shoes

This is going to be a review of Neill Blomkamp's District 9. Eventually. I'm going to assume you have seen the movie. There will be spoilers. Eventually. The first part is about the build up to the release that's what she said so the spoilers won't be for a while. Okay, carry on.

I have not had the love affair with D9, in the months leading up to its release, that so many have had. When I first saw the trailer, I was of course excited- to be even teased with a glimpse of a movie that looked so raw and real, that was science fiction, that was about something gave my nerdy little heart a thrill. It's been such a rarity. To find these types of works I have mostly had to look back, and while I have a love of doing so, of watching and reading old and older science and speculative fiction, it felt like a jolt of promise. I looked forward to it.

Then there was the IGN fiasco. I learned of the District 9 contest through io9. It was stunning and disappointing, to say the least, that an exciting opportunity like the one presented by IGN was open only to males aged 18-24. The fact that they then created a seperate, but equal, contest for women just added insult to injury, and I found my excitement for the movie suddenly diminished. I had been happily participating in the viral campaign, had signed up both with the MNU (which I now feel bad about, I admit, I swear I tendered my resignation as soon as I left the theater, I swear) and to George the Alien's blog and newsletter. The depth of the world that the film had created was fascinating and rewarding, the use of Aliens to explore themes of humanity- a common trope but one worthy of revisiting, I feel, in fact necessary to revisit- had drawn me in and suddenly I felt expelled.

Now, I understand fully that no one who made the film had anything to do with creating the contest or its rules, but that wasn't the point. Someone down the line should have been aware and responsible enough to say, "Hey, this thing we're doing, you know it's completely disenfranchising an entire gender, right? Which isn't really in keeping with the point of the movie. Right?"

Right? Well, apparently not. At Comic Con, surrounded by FOR HUMANS ONLY signs and staying in a hotel with a large white armored car parked outside, I sadly found my enthusiasm tempered by feelings of resentment. I wasn't welcome. The signs may as well have said FOR BOYS ONLY. A little corner of the convention that would otherwise have been just so cool was now the He-Man Woman-Hater's Club, and I was annoyed. I had other things to focus on, though. Other really super awesome things.

Like Kick Ass. So I made due.

The result of this sense of alienation, however, was that I stopped following the movie in the weeks before opening. I saw no footage, I read no blogs. And when the movie was released, I avoided reviews. I didn't want to see it with anyone else's impressions of it in my mind. Happily distanced enough from the online community's D9 fervor, I went to see the movie with the expectation of being told an important story, well, and the expectation that the movie would actually meet that first expectation.

Which it did.



South Africa is a volatile, deeply complicated place to set any story, let alone one about Apartheid. Upon hearing that the film was set in Johannesburg, I was skeptical. Did the filmmakers think the audience would be unable to draw the intended parallels if the movie were set elsewhere? If the battle against the evil of prejudice is universal, couldn't it have been set anywhere, and the same parallels have been drawn?

Perhaps, but having see it, I am convinced that South Africa was the best choice of backdrop for this story, because prejudice is universal. Even those who have been so horribly degraded, abused, and repressed by a ruling crowd will do the same to a group they are afraid of or find inferior. The movie also offers an intimate connection with a city many are unfamiliar with, a gift to the audience from Blomkamp, who is of course a native.

The use of docu-style interviews and 'news' footage cleverly cements the world as fact for the viewer. The set up is quick, effective, and engrossing. By the time the camera deviates from its role as a character, representing the POV of the cameraman being dragged along, the audience no longer requires the buffer. We are the witnesses, now, we don't need someone else holding the camera for us. This transition for the viewer I found to be particularly well handled by Blomkamp, an organic and unobtrusive shift.

When Wikus leaves the labs, we leave the world of surveillance videos and hand-held cameras, although periodically through the rest of the action we are given glimpses through these eyes, because when Wikus leaves the lab he is our hero, where before he was a documentary subject.

The use of Wikus as our everyman is as conflicting and intelligent a choice as I've seen since Friedkin's hero Richard Chance in To Live and Die in LA. Wikus is not particularly likable. He's a bit wheedling, weak. He's a bit of a coward, and he doesn't display any impressive levels of intellect. He's middle management. And as if that weren't uninspiring enough, he's a racist. Sure, he's essentially harmless. He's trying to get through a job he has thanks to his father in law. He loves his wife. He's not a bad guy, but he sure as shit doesn't inspire much confidence, either in his superiors or the audience.

Yet you feel for Wikus. Intellectually, you know the type. He's only as racist as everybody else, he has no special malice in him. When he is forced to pull the trigger on the 'Praun' in the weapons-testing lab, he becomes us- sure, he can be racist. I mean, they're giant bugs. But he's not evil. When it's staring him the face, when he's been victimized, he knows the difference between good and evil. Being pejorative is one thing. Being physically violent is another. Yet even then Wikus doesn't bridge the two as being complimentary aspects of the same wrong.

The movie is a thick and saddening sedentary of wrongs, set down by all groups from all corners, that have built upon each other until they form what appears to be an insurmountable bedrock upon which the story is built.

Admirably, Blomkamp allows Wikus, one of our two protagonists, to remain a racist coward until the eleventh hour. After everything Wikus and 'Christopher Johnson' go through in the MNU's basement, you would think that camaraderie would be cemented. It isn't. The instant Wikus's expectations are betrayed, that the conditions of the deal change, he flies off the handle and makes a very bad move. The best that can be argued of his actions is that his rage does transcend racism. Specieism. Specism. However you'd like to put it. The violence he enacts has nothing to do with prejudice and everything to do with panic and anger- it is deplorable, but for different reasons than his actions before were deplorable. So that's progress, right?

The escalating action (which is badass like woah wtf and easy to follow holy cow) leads us to a moment that I, personally, hope desperately for in essentially every movie I've ever seen: The moment the hero takes up the responsibility of his role by sitting down in his single-pilot operated mobile suit, emerges from the wreckage, and kicks some ass. Blomkamp gave me this. He gave it to me and then took it the fuck away.

Wikus turns around and uses his ridiculously powerful, one of a kind mecha to run away, abandoning 'Christopher Johnson', abandoning his only chance at being saved from the infection that's transforming his body. The bastard turns and runs, and we are...

Maybe not mad. But disappointed. Has Wikus learned nothing? Has he really not found his balls, after everything? One selfish cowardly act after another leading to this supreme let down. We feel betrayed, because as impossible as the situation would be, we all hope that if it were us- as Wikus is us- we would step up.

Which he then does, spectacularly. Another transition that earns Blompkamp kudos is the progression of the film from clever social commentary to action flick. Given the inherent violence of the situation to begin with, the all out fracas that fills the last quarter of the movie feels natural. Violence begets violence. As the stakes for the players raise and their wants become increasingly overlapping and intertwined, the level of the violence, it stands to reason, escalates.

Then at the end, we're put back where we were at the beginning, in those same roles. When the shockwave from the mothership's thrusters roll through the city of Johannesburg, shattering every pane of glass it shudders, we are incrimentally pulled away, and away, and away, back to a distance where we see events through tv cameras and interviews. We're physically back to where we were, but we are fundamentally changed for having gotten so close that the way we see what we're shown, now, is different.

Well met, District 9.

There is then, of course, the matter of the button. We know, if the aliens are at all a more honorable people than we, that 'Christopher Johnson' will be back in three years. He promised. We do not know in what force he will arrive. We do not know if the aliens have a capacity for forgiveness great enough to rival what has been done to them. We do not know if 'Christopher Johnson' will survive the journey, either- the retelling may be left to his son.

What we do know is, Wikus now lives among the aliens, weeding through a consumer society's offal to find scraps with which to construct small, beautiful tokens, promises of his own to his wife.

It is with this final image that two things happen: The movie ends, and everyone in the audience says, to the person next to them, "Sequel." To which I say:

Please, no. That's all right, thank you. Not necessary. I have come up with so many scenarios in my head in the twenty four hours since I saw the movie, that a sequel holds very little potential but to be disappointing. Particularly for movie so well stylized and carefully constructed, a sequel will have many more opportunities to be bad than good. Can it be done, and well? Sure. I have faith in the creative team that, should they decide to make a sequel, it would be done with the same conviction and creativity as District 9. Hopefully that won't be for a while, though, if ever.

So, I would recommend seeing it. It's pretty damn good. It has a lot to say, and it says it well, in a way that is engaging and speaks to the most, and least, human parts of us.

Second Act Trouble [originally posted at All Things Fangirl]

With the leaking of the Iron Man 2 trailer, premiered at this year's San Diego Comic Con, my thoughts have turned rapturously toward said film's release. Even with the questionable audio and drastic contrast of the image quality, I was filled with a sudden rush of anticipatory glee- the return of Tony Stark to the silver screen, manic and insulated and beautiful, the further blooming of the newly planted seed that is the Avengers movie, a brand new Rhodey for a brand new day. I was lucky enough to see the footage in all its glory at the event itself and then speak to the cast, director and producer, but seeing it again broadcast in all its tinny, fuzzy glory on youtube has renewed what may only be described as my fervent lust-

Yes. I said it. My fervent. Lust.

-for this movie.

It is, however, tempered. How, one may ask, could anything so powerful as a fervent lust!!! be in any way tempered? And furthermore, after that court room scene alone, what concerns could I possibly be harboring?

Well, I'll tell you.


(Giant aside: Many believe Nolan's Batman franchise is the key progenitor of the new comic book movie genre, and I wouldn't fight them on it, but I'm not talking about comic books, strictly. There are many comics that are not, in fact, about superheros, and it is in fact the superhero, and in particular the Marvel superhero (as I am a Marvel fangirl through and through), that Iron Man, I feel, has done the most for.)

Bringing a cast like Jon Favreau did to Iron Man took a film that would have been cool and amusing and fun and made it awesome. Sheer geek-out brilliant awesome. Everything up until the well-done but admittedly uninspired showdown finale and everything after it set up a world in which I could actually believe in superheros. I Believe in Tony Stark. The world was complete enough and was filled with characters whole enough that I didn't question the validity or likelihood of the events taking place. I bought it lock stock and barrel. The science, given my essentially non-existent background in its principles, seemed sound to me. And now here comes the sequel. MOAR TONY STARK. I am excited to my toes, but I am wary, even with Favreau at the helm, of some sequel proclivities detracting from what could be a great franchise.

There are certain tag lines and buzz words that go hand in hand with sequels, particularly sequels to blockbusters, and particularly sequels to blockbuster action flicks. As far as I'm concerned, Iron Man raised the standard and severely dented the mold for superhero movies in much the same way Spider-Man 2 did. Things like "bigger and better". You hear that a lot: "We know that if we want this to work, we have to make it bigger and better than the first one." Typically, this means the sequel is longer and predictable, as it essentially follows the same basic plot patterns as the first film, just with more. The greatest and most damaging symptom of the Bigger and Better belief in superhero movies is the presence of multiple villains.

Burton made it work with Batman Returns, but since then, I am hard pressed to think of a single movie where the sudden and seemingly arbitrary inclusion of multiple villains has worked toward the ultimate success of the film. I understand how the Joker and Two Face feed each other and Batman's crisis in Dark Knight, but I still found the handling of both plots and both characters unwieldy. Frankly, when you have the Joker, you don't need anyone else. I loved Eckhart's performance and, given the tragic events that followed the filming of the movie, it is ultimately a blessing for the franchise that they did introduce and cultivate a second villain, but I don't think the movie needed two.

In Iron Man 2 we have the traditional and, for my part, traditionally worrying introduction of a new slew of characters. We are re-establishing Rhodey; we are meeting the Black Widow; and we have two villains. One is our powerhouse, our physical threat to the hero, and the other is our non-combatant back up. Intelligently on Favreau's part, they are not exclusively these roles: Whiplash doesn't have minions doing his work for him. He is himself a genius inventor. His suit is his own creation. He is dangerous and capable. Justin Hammer is not a nerdy weakling, his is a savvy business man and an arms dealer. He has the support of the government, which our hero does not. Iron Man has the unique characteristic of being hounded by villains who do not merely hate him as a symbol and want him to die, but seek to replace him in the world. Tony/Iron Man stand for many things. He's not an anomaly or aberration like the Hulk or the X-Men that people want to use or eradicate. His abilities and positions are coveted, and it's this drive to dethrone the king, so to speak, that has motivated his nemeses so far.

However, even with the inherently more complicated relation between the villains and our hero, the sequel is still facing a trap that I have every faith it could escape, but for the fact that the first film did not. The requisite showdown between Iron Man and Iron Monger was fun to watch, but a bit too long given the fact that we knew what was going to happen: Tony doesn't die, Pepper doesn't die, Iron Monger loses. It's a given going into it, so the length of the sequence was undeserved. It's the least interesting part of the film. Now in the sequel, Favreau faces a looming pattern: Instead of one hero against one villain in an epic showdown, the outcome of which we all know, he will have one hero and one new hero/sidekick versus one big bad villain and one slightly smaller bad villain in an even moar epic showdown.

At least, this is what the traditional progression of superhero movies would have us anticipate. Knowing that the production team built the largest green screen ever constructed for a three day shoot that we may only assume relates to this epic showdown, while cool to know, does little to assuage my fears. Once again, we will have a guy in a suit versus a guy in a suit, which made sense for the first film, but I didn't especially want in the second. Much more interesting is the personal and human clash between Stark and Vanko. Two brilliant creators whose backgrounds couldn't more different: the resentment and hatred, the guilt and self loathing bred by their situations. That's drama. If I want to see dudes in suits fighting I can watch G.I. Joe. Apparently. Which I now plan to because that movie sounds epic in its unabashed popcorn awesomeness. So.

Two villains, though cleverly constructed to be highly complimentary as well as individually threatening. Could go either way. Suit versus suit verus suit (War Machine = Wild Card)- not terribly exciting as a concept, but hopefully will go more one way than the other. Moving on.

Black Widow is a character almost as old as Captain America. Her canon is massive and complicated. A huge part of what makes up her character is the appropriating of her life by the Communist party, a very real threat to the world Cap and Iron Man were originally created to champion, but an incongruous and outdated concept for a film set in the present, even a skewed one. She was a product of the Cold War who defected to the side of the Good Guys. When I asked ScarJo if she could tell us what entity or mitigating factor had replaced the influence of Communism in her character's life, the answer was essentially that she couldn't, and the impression I got was that this was so because she didn't actually know. They don't have room enough to delve into where the Black Widow comes from and who she is, in this movie. Understandable, but slightly frustrating: For this film, she will probably fill the role of Ass Kicking Eye Candy in a way that Pepper cannot, both because she is a non-combatant and because she's just not that kind of gal. Tony is too messed up to be forging new emotional connections, especially when the only ones he has have become dead or strained- Obediah, Rhodey, and Pepper were the total of his family, and two of them are gone. Given her nature as an unknown quantity, Natasha will not be stepping into any such role. Another distraction- hopefully just for Tony, though, and not for us.

It is actually my hope that Kate Mara's presence in the film will be as that of Bethany Cabe, and that we'll get to see Tony finding even just the end of that life line. Although I wouldn't object to a Janet Van Dyne cameo, either. WHERE MY GIRLS AT. Sigh. Jenny Baird as Ms. Marvel, any day now, Marvel. Come on, let's make it happen.

Anyway.

The greatest sequels are not the ones with more villains, more sidekicks, more fight scenes. Empire, Godfather Part II, The Road Warrior, Terminator 2, Spider-Man 2- these movies aren't about more of the physical components that made up the first movie, they're about a continuation of the themes and character development that caused their predecessor to strike a chord with audiences. It is my fervent hope (to accompany my still ever so fervent lust, yup, still lusting all over the show) that Favreau will make this happen for Iron Man 2- that he will successfully expand Tony's world without weighing it down with unnecessary tropes and 'requisite' complications. And also that he will make an HD version of the SDCC Iron Man 2 trailer available on iTunes so that I can watch it every night before bed time amen.