I had a chance to watch the all-new Star Trek tonight and am proud to say that this movie is one of the best big screen adaptations of the original TV series (from the '60's).
Yes, I realize there were movies made with the original cast, (duh), but to me they all seemed a bit out of "phase" with the dynamics of the original show (Wrath of Khan not withstanding). Maybe it was Kirk's hair weave or those constrictive uniforms, but they just didn't seem to capture the same magic. The interactions seems to be a parody of what was created on the small screen.
This totally new cast of old favorites does an excellent job of recapturing the original character dynamics and interaction which made the original series go beyond being just another sci-fi tv show. The real trick for the cast was for them to play these iconic characters, (Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty et al), without digressing into merely doing impressions of the original actors.
I feel Kirk (Chris Pine) was played with the mandatory reckless abandon, (but seems to get punched out way to much), Spock (Zack Quinto) was sufficiently serious while wrestling with his human emotions, McCoy (Carl Urban) was a wonderful incarnation of a young angry person who will one day be known affectionately as bones and Scotty (Simon Pegg) captured that playful genius that you can't help but love. The majority of the rest of the standard crew are all accounted for, except Nurse Chapel....who is only mentioned by name, but not seen. I was pleasantly surprised to see Eric Bana playing the Romulan, Nero!
You will find the writers of the story used this time traveling saga to create an environment where they don't have to rewatch the entire 40+ year history of the franchise when creating future story lines. It is a brilliantly crafted piece of writing that effectively frees them from stepping on any trekkie's toes in the future if they veer from continuity.
The special effects were wonderful and the two-plus hours zoomed by so fast, I was wanting more...always a good sign. Just for good measure there is the mandatory appearance by an original Star Trek hand....but you're just going to have to see it for yourself, I won't spoil it for you here!
Star Trek, definitely rates a solid A and after this weekend's box office I would guess it won't be too long till the sequel is announced. This movie should be suitable for most children above 10, but there is a smattering of curse words...all used for humorous effect.
R.J. Luedke
http://www.headpress.info/
Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Friday, February 06, 2009
Explaining the Graphic Novel
As someone who is out there in the media and bookstore trenches, attempting to explain to people who didn't grow up reading graphic novels (or comics, or manga) what exactly they are, I think I've developed an explanation that I think helps make better sense of the whole conversation and if you're a fan of the format...could help to better explain it to someone who may not yet be familiar with it.
For many years now, literary critics, book reviewers and pseudo-intellectual bloggers have been pondering the graphic novel and where it fits into...or even if it fits into...serious discussion about literature.
Here's a current example of this kind of discussion, (by journalist Seth Sommerfeld for the online Gonzaga Bulletin), which is typically created for those who might new to the medium, by those who are vaguely familiar with it. Usually these kind of Graphic Novel 101 pieces, involves invoking one or more of the works that everyone knows since they have been successfully developed into other mediums, (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, the upcoming Watchmen, 300, Sin City etc...). Within this competent piece, Sommerfeld restates the stock answer to the question, what is a graphic novel? "A graphic novel is a book-length comic. Everything one would expect in a traditional novel is present, they just happen to add illustrations to correspond with the story."
While much of that is indeed true, (and for the purposes of discloser...I've used a version of this explanation myself in interviews), I've grown to feel that much of that description is not only too simplistic, but just plain out and out misguided. First of all, what he's explaining here, is more akin to an illustrated novel, which adds illustrations every few pages or chapters, that "correspond with the story," and help flesh out the look of the characters for the reader. With a graphic novel, the illustrations don't just add to the story, they are integral to it. Ask anyone who's spent significant time reading or purchasing graphic novels (or comics) and more often then not, their buying decisions are based upon the artist (or art team), rather than the writer. There are exceptions of course, (Neil Gaimen, Alan Moore, Frank Miller to name a few), but typically if the art does not appeal to the reader he might as well be reading a novel (no pun intended)!
You see, when you break it down, a graphic novel is much closer in structure to the format of a screen play, than it is a novel. While you may find some GN authors who write their "scripts" similar to a novel outline, you find a greater majority create a document that looks and reads very much like a screenplay. This is because the creation of a graphic novel parallels the developmental course of a screenplay, more so than a novel.
With a novel you have the writer and then the editor (or team of editors) who help craft the story into a marketable form. But as far as the foundation of the story goes, (the creation of the characters, their descriptions, the settings, the mood), unless there is a ghost writer involved, the writer is the sole person responsible for the creation and vision of the work and he gets the lion share of the credit (not to mention the royalties).
With a graphic novel, you still start with the writer (and also most likely an editor) to craft the story into a usable form. But from that point, the progress of the work will veer into the direction of what happens with a screenplay. With a GN script, the writer is responsible for pointing out what is taking place not only in each scene, but on each page of the scene and depending how they work, sometimes in each individual frame within that page.* With some exceptions when a graphic novel script is completed, it then goes to an artist (some times one person, sometimes a team of people) who take the script and break it down into layouts based upon the descriptions in the script; then pencil illustrations are done; then fully inked renderings are created from these illustrations; and then (in some cases) fully colored-painted artwork. In that case the writer of the script is closer in definition to the writer of a screenplay, since this is the basis on which to total presentation is built. The penciler, inker and colorist (sometimes all the same person) are akin to the cinematographer, director of photography, casting director and director...in that what the writer has indicated in the script, is now translated through their eyes onto the page. The process then comes full circle as the words are then added to the artwork, to create a whole that is now much greater then the sum of it's parts.
So unlike most novels, graphic novels are the result of the vision of more than one person (unless of course you work like me with Eyewitness...actively involved on almost every level). And like movies the final appearance of a graphic novel, can drastically deviate from the original story as envisioned by the writer in his script...because after all, we all visualize a bit differently. How many times have you read a good novel and had a real solid visual image of what a character looked like (based upon the writer's description) only to have him/her look dramatically different on film. That's similar to the impact that a casting director has on a screenplay and/or your pencil artist has on a graphic novel.
Now, when you have one person who is not only the writer, but also the artist and editor of a GN project, you have what could be related to in the world of cinema, as an indy film...one that is driven by the creative vision of one man who not only writes the screenplay, but is also director and cinematographer...rather than an ensemble cast of participants.
So the next time you hear someone trying to talk down graphic novels, because as a literary form, they do not adhere to the basic tenets and accepted practices of a prose novel, politely correct them, that graphic novels are more closely related to movies than they are novels, (which is why they are so easily adapted to that format, since a lot of the work of the director, cinematographer and director of photography has already been done), and so should be judged accordingly! You'll not only most likely "smack down" a literary snob, but you'll sound darned prolific doing it!
Robert James Luedke
Author and Illustrator
http://www.headpress.info/
*There are basically two different formats most GN writers work in...the Marvel Style and Full Script. Peter David, in his seminal work, Writing for Comics, explains it this way, "In the Marvel Style, (Made popular by industry icon, Stan Lee), the story is presented in a general manner , like a short story written in present tense. It includes some, but not necessarily all, dialog and gives the artist much latitude in how he visually paces the story. Once the artwork is done, the writer then scripts the story, adding dialogue, captions and sound effects. When you write in full script, you're telling the artist everything that's going to be on the page...how you want it framed, at what angle, what's in the background, what's the character's expressions, where are their hands...by their side or in their pocket, what's the weather like, etc..."
For many years now, literary critics, book reviewers and pseudo-intellectual bloggers have been pondering the graphic novel and where it fits into...or even if it fits into...serious discussion about literature.
Here's a current example of this kind of discussion, (by journalist Seth Sommerfeld for the online Gonzaga Bulletin), which is typically created for those who might new to the medium, by those who are vaguely familiar with it. Usually these kind of Graphic Novel 101 pieces, involves invoking one or more of the works that everyone knows since they have been successfully developed into other mediums, (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, the upcoming Watchmen, 300, Sin City etc...). Within this competent piece, Sommerfeld restates the stock answer to the question, what is a graphic novel? "A graphic novel is a book-length comic. Everything one would expect in a traditional novel is present, they just happen to add illustrations to correspond with the story."
While much of that is indeed true, (and for the purposes of discloser...I've used a version of this explanation myself in interviews), I've grown to feel that much of that description is not only too simplistic, but just plain out and out misguided. First of all, what he's explaining here, is more akin to an illustrated novel, which adds illustrations every few pages or chapters, that "correspond with the story," and help flesh out the look of the characters for the reader. With a graphic novel, the illustrations don't just add to the story, they are integral to it. Ask anyone who's spent significant time reading or purchasing graphic novels (or comics) and more often then not, their buying decisions are based upon the artist (or art team), rather than the writer. There are exceptions of course, (Neil Gaimen, Alan Moore, Frank Miller to name a few), but typically if the art does not appeal to the reader he might as well be reading a novel (no pun intended)!
You see, when you break it down, a graphic novel is much closer in structure to the format of a screen play, than it is a novel. While you may find some GN authors who write their "scripts" similar to a novel outline, you find a greater majority create a document that looks and reads very much like a screenplay. This is because the creation of a graphic novel parallels the developmental course of a screenplay, more so than a novel.
With a novel you have the writer and then the editor (or team of editors) who help craft the story into a marketable form. But as far as the foundation of the story goes, (the creation of the characters, their descriptions, the settings, the mood), unless there is a ghost writer involved, the writer is the sole person responsible for the creation and vision of the work and he gets the lion share of the credit (not to mention the royalties).
With a graphic novel, you still start with the writer (and also most likely an editor) to craft the story into a usable form. But from that point, the progress of the work will veer into the direction of what happens with a screenplay. With a GN script, the writer is responsible for pointing out what is taking place not only in each scene, but on each page of the scene and depending how they work, sometimes in each individual frame within that page.* With some exceptions when a graphic novel script is completed, it then goes to an artist (some times one person, sometimes a team of people) who take the script and break it down into layouts based upon the descriptions in the script; then pencil illustrations are done; then fully inked renderings are created from these illustrations; and then (in some cases) fully colored-painted artwork. In that case the writer of the script is closer in definition to the writer of a screenplay, since this is the basis on which to total presentation is built. The penciler, inker and colorist (sometimes all the same person) are akin to the cinematographer, director of photography, casting director and director...in that what the writer has indicated in the script, is now translated through their eyes onto the page. The process then comes full circle as the words are then added to the artwork, to create a whole that is now much greater then the sum of it's parts.
So unlike most novels, graphic novels are the result of the vision of more than one person (unless of course you work like me with Eyewitness...actively involved on almost every level). And like movies the final appearance of a graphic novel, can drastically deviate from the original story as envisioned by the writer in his script...because after all, we all visualize a bit differently. How many times have you read a good novel and had a real solid visual image of what a character looked like (based upon the writer's description) only to have him/her look dramatically different on film. That's similar to the impact that a casting director has on a screenplay and/or your pencil artist has on a graphic novel.
Now, when you have one person who is not only the writer, but also the artist and editor of a GN project, you have what could be related to in the world of cinema, as an indy film...one that is driven by the creative vision of one man who not only writes the screenplay, but is also director and cinematographer...rather than an ensemble cast of participants.
So the next time you hear someone trying to talk down graphic novels, because as a literary form, they do not adhere to the basic tenets and accepted practices of a prose novel, politely correct them, that graphic novels are more closely related to movies than they are novels, (which is why they are so easily adapted to that format, since a lot of the work of the director, cinematographer and director of photography has already been done), and so should be judged accordingly! You'll not only most likely "smack down" a literary snob, but you'll sound darned prolific doing it!
Robert James Luedke
Author and Illustrator
http://www.headpress.info/
*There are basically two different formats most GN writers work in...the Marvel Style and Full Script. Peter David, in his seminal work, Writing for Comics, explains it this way, "In the Marvel Style, (Made popular by industry icon, Stan Lee), the story is presented in a general manner , like a short story written in present tense. It includes some, but not necessarily all, dialog and gives the artist much latitude in how he visually paces the story. Once the artwork is done, the writer then scripts the story, adding dialogue, captions and sound effects. When you write in full script, you're telling the artist everything that's going to be on the page...how you want it framed, at what angle, what's in the background, what's the character's expressions, where are their hands...by their side or in their pocket, what's the weather like, etc..."
Monday, September 15, 2008
Robert Luedke Featured ReaderViews
Award winning writer/illustrator Robert James Luedke's third volume of the Eye Witness graphic novel series...Rise of the Apostle....is featured this month on the Readersview Homepage:
http://www.readerviews.com/
Readersview reviews appear regularly on amazon.com, on USA Today, Reuters, Fox News, Fox Business, and NBC. They also appear in newspapers such as Austin American Statesman in Austin, Texas, Chicago Sun-Times, Courier Times (suburbs of Chicago), The Beacon Times,Journal-News in Hamilton, Ohio, and The Herald News and on many online websites and blogs as well as city sites such as ClickOnDetroit and Click2Houston. TV stations such as WESH, WCVBTV/DT5, NEWS4Jax, WXII12, KETV, KITV, WISN, WMUR, and WJAC also use our reviews.
For more information about the groundbreaking Eye Witness Christian-based graphic novel series or Robert Luedke, visit our homepage at:
http://www.headpress.info/
http://www.readerviews.com/
Readersview reviews appear regularly on amazon.com, on USA Today, Reuters, Fox News, Fox Business, and NBC. They also appear in newspapers such as Austin American Statesman in Austin, Texas, Chicago Sun-Times, Courier Times (suburbs of Chicago), The Beacon Times,Journal-News in Hamilton, Ohio, and The Herald News and on many online websites and blogs as well as city sites such as ClickOnDetroit and Click2Houston. TV stations such as WESH, WCVBTV/DT5, NEWS4Jax, WXII12, KETV, KITV, WISN, WMUR, and WJAC also use our reviews.
For more information about the groundbreaking Eye Witness Christian-based graphic novel series or Robert Luedke, visit our homepage at:
http://www.headpress.info/
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Will Indiana Jones catch on with Young People?
Saw the 4th installment of Indiana Jones (Crystal Skull: http://www.indianajones.com/site/index.html) this last weekend. Was it an enjoyable two hours? Yes. Did it have enought action to satisfy fans of A/A? Absolutely. But will it acheive mega-money heights with the movie ticket buying public? Maybe!
This movie is more about nostalgia than breaking any new ground. For those of us who grew up with the Indiana Jones franchise, it's almost like a pleasant trip down memory lane, as the movie drops in characters (whether in the movie or hinted at in dialog and/or in images litered throughout the backgrounds....if your quick enough to spot them) or plot elements, from the previous movies. It's almost like this movie set out not only to be a new episode, but also a homage to Indy (as well as its storied creators...re: Spielberg and Lucas).
Speaking of which...once again, though the movie is entertaining and action packed, when you step back and put it in the context of how it rates with either of these movie legends' best works, it might fall tremendously short (especially in Spielberg's award winning case)....mainly since it really doesn't do anything to break any new ground (movie making wise) and really rehashed a number of situations and themes from the movies in this series made decades ago.
But coming back around to my main point....will this type of movie making nostalgia catch on with the main demographic for this type of film (the teen to twenty something audience)? My son, who is 19, didn't go see the film this week, (and trust me he sees every big film the weekend...sometimes the night....it opens). He opted to go see Iron Man a second time. when I asked him why, he said, "Dad, that just doesn't look interesting to me, since I really don't know the character and feel I'll just be lost." Will other young people feel the same way? All I know is, the joy I felt when Indy saw Marion for the first time in this film and that big smile crossed her face, (re: Karen Allen, resprising her role of Indy's lost love from the first movie), I wondered to myself, whether this was meant to be just a sort of in-joke for all us baby-boomers and/or indy fan-boys (or girls)?
We'll see if I'm right after the big 4 day memorial day weekend? And that of course the ticket sales will then answer the question of whether Shia Lebeouf (or as I call him just to annoy my daughter...la-boof), is destined to become the heir to the Indiana Jones franchise?
Bob Luedke
www.headpress.info
This movie is more about nostalgia than breaking any new ground. For those of us who grew up with the Indiana Jones franchise, it's almost like a pleasant trip down memory lane, as the movie drops in characters (whether in the movie or hinted at in dialog and/or in images litered throughout the backgrounds....if your quick enough to spot them) or plot elements, from the previous movies. It's almost like this movie set out not only to be a new episode, but also a homage to Indy (as well as its storied creators...re: Spielberg and Lucas).
Speaking of which...once again, though the movie is entertaining and action packed, when you step back and put it in the context of how it rates with either of these movie legends' best works, it might fall tremendously short (especially in Spielberg's award winning case)....mainly since it really doesn't do anything to break any new ground (movie making wise) and really rehashed a number of situations and themes from the movies in this series made decades ago.
But coming back around to my main point....will this type of movie making nostalgia catch on with the main demographic for this type of film (the teen to twenty something audience)? My son, who is 19, didn't go see the film this week, (and trust me he sees every big film the weekend...sometimes the night....it opens). He opted to go see Iron Man a second time. when I asked him why, he said, "Dad, that just doesn't look interesting to me, since I really don't know the character and feel I'll just be lost." Will other young people feel the same way? All I know is, the joy I felt when Indy saw Marion for the first time in this film and that big smile crossed her face, (re: Karen Allen, resprising her role of Indy's lost love from the first movie), I wondered to myself, whether this was meant to be just a sort of in-joke for all us baby-boomers and/or indy fan-boys (or girls)?
We'll see if I'm right after the big 4 day memorial day weekend? And that of course the ticket sales will then answer the question of whether Shia Lebeouf (or as I call him just to annoy my daughter...la-boof), is destined to become the heir to the Indiana Jones franchise?
Bob Luedke
www.headpress.info
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