Blog 2013

Formulaic Entertainment

Posted on by Robert V Aldrich

As many of you may know, I am an appreciator of animation; both cartoons and animated series.  I’ll discuss the difference in a future post, perhaps, but today I wanted to mention a trend I’ve noticed.

I’ve been watching a lot of 1980s cartoons recently, and not the mainstays like Transformers and GI Joe.  I’ve just finished up Starcom and I’m starting into Visionaries.  From there, I’ve got half a dozen series planned.  But I can already tell a major difference between these shows (and their siblings of the era) and modern cartoons.

I’ve been introduced in the last year or so to Ben10 and a few other shows.  I have yet to look at modern remakes like the new Thundercats series (I tried watching the new Voltron series and, while I hope I just tuned into the single worst episode of the series, I found it unwatchable after even five minutes).  But what I’ve been noticing is how different the shows are from their 1980s predecessors.  This is hardly a surprise, but I’ve spent some time trying to hammer down just what is so different.

We seem to have roughly six to seven eras of shows we’re dealing with, each era being approximately 5 years in length.  We’ve got the post-cable deregulation/non-quite-Japanimation invasion (Transformers, GI Joe, MASK, Visionaries, Starcom, others) and then we have what I am momentarily calling the post-Transformers the Movie era.  This is the last few years of the 1980s and maybe the first year or two of the 1990s.  Transformers and GI Joe are probably the best examples of this because it is with these shows that you see such a clear change in the nature and writing of the show (compare season 1 of Transformers to season 3; compare episode 10 of GI Joe to episode 100; they’re almost totally different shows).
After that, you get into the 1990s which I am currently calling the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Knock-off era, where cast size dropped.  You went from the, what?, 200 members of GI Joe to the team of 4-5 core characters for each show.  Superheroic powers began to replace more reality-based limitations.  But then, probably around 1996, you saw the second-wave Japanese invasion.  Sailor Moon and Ronin Warriors led this charge and it affected the shows around them.
And then you get into the 2000s, which may or may not be able to break up into two distinctive eras of television (probably divided between either the Adult Swim/Toonami influence or Avatar: Last Airbender).  And then you have the current era; the 2010s.

It’s interesting to juxtapose something like Ben10 (especially the most recent incarnation, Ben10 Omniverse) with a show like Visionaries.  Art-style, cast, music, world-building, everything’s so very different.  The fact that the shows are separated by almost 30 years doesn’t begin to explain why they are structurally so different.
Much like comparing Judas Priest to Godsmack, the evolution of art is always a fun thing to witness, especially when it’s the art styles within the same genre and medium.

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Blog 2013

God of War vs Game of Thrones

Posted on by Robert V Aldrich

A tweet can start a war, make no mistake.

Since I follow anime anthropologist and geek-academia god Charles Dunbar (and boy, you really should be too), I saw his retweet of the postulate by @TheifofHearts that “Game of Thrones is a mature fantasy, not because of the sex and violence.  God of War is not a mature fantasy even if it features those.”
This sparked a discussion between the living embodiment of geek knowledge and myself, about that.  Specifically, I asserted the opposite was true: God of War is the more-mature fantasy than Game of Thrones.

Before we begin, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page about what we’re talking about.  Game of Thrones is a television series based off the Song of Ice and Fire book series by George R R Martin.  The story revolves around political intrigue over supreme command of the lands of Westeros and Essos, while also confronting the invasion of winter and all the evils that come with it.
God of War is a video game series very loosely based off Greek mythology and follows a Spartan Warrior who is repeatedly tricked and betrayed, and subsequently seeks revenge for the skullduggery.

So, both stories are fantasy series that contain rather egregious amounts of violence and sex/nudity.  So why is one story ‘more mature’ than the other?

Now, key to this discussion is the vernacular which we should iron out, and specifically what ‘mature’ means and does not mean.  For the purposes of this discussion, we will be distinguishing between adult and mature.  This is a critical distinction to be made, like ‘dangerous’ versus ‘harmful’.  The two terms can be used interchangeably, but in this context (or at least the context of this essay), we’re going to define ‘adult’ as ‘excessive’.  An adult film is one geared towards hyper-emphasizing some element.  Not merely sex (though that is often where the term ‘adult film’ is applied); an adult topic or substance is looking to take something out of proportion, whether for analysis or consideration (like satire and metaphor) or just to get overloaded by it.  An adult product is meant, in essence, for those looking to damage themselves because they are extravagant and extraordinary over the regular world.

Mature, on the other hand, is at the heart of this discussion.  Maturity is about confronting one’s own reality.  It is, in essence, ‘concerning real-world constructs’.  The difference between a show meant for children and a show meant for adults is how much of the real world and its consequences are presented.  It is the evolved and higher sensibilities that come from experience and knowledge/wisdom.  It is about facing reality directly.

It is my assertion that what passes for maturity in Game of Thrones is a veil of civility, primarily based around a status quo that is to be as closely maintained as possible while still allowing for advantageous advancement of a select few characters.  It is quiet machinations and careful subtlety.  It is maneuvering others to achieve goals.
But a byproduct of this is that these characters also don’t, well, do anything.  By incessantly relying on civility and the veil of reason, the various characters and even whole states in Game of Thrones don’t handle their affairs; they lead others to handle matters, to the point where a vast network of favors and movements occur to facilitate the generation of more favors and more debts.  And what was begun as a social contract turns into a web of deceit and constant deception, to the point where most every character is committed to getting as much for themselves as possible while trying to avoid getting one’s hands dirty and to make sure blame always fall elsewhere.

It is upon this view that I believe God of War to be more mature than Game of Thrones because, simply, the titular character Kratos handles his business himself.  He doesn’t look to make backroom alliances so that someone else can deal with a problem; he deals with it.  He confronts reality.
When you think of a child in trouble, what do you imagine?  Odds are, it’s of that child crying to someone else (maybe a parent) to deal with a problem that they cannot.  It is the reliance on an external force to make problems go away.  And that is just about all that goes on in Game of Thrones: incessant politicking to avoid getting one’s hands dirty.  That isn’t a depiction of maturity; it’s a depiction of childishness.
To handle one’s affairs honestly and directly, and with minimal input and aid from others, is the essence of maturity.  To be able to do for yourself.  Few scenes in Game of Thrones depict this, and it is upon this construct that God of War is built.

Both series are excessive and exaggerated, and are at their heart escapist fantasies, but God of War is honest in one thing: Kratos handles his own problems directly.  Game of Thrones is almost a nonstop litany of backstabbing and conniving to have as many others do as much for you as you can manage, while doing as little as possible yourself.  That is not an adult; this is a selfish child who is expending his energy to convince others to solve his problem for him.

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Blog 2013

Life sucks and that’s a good thing

Posted on by Robert V Aldrich

Golf celebrity David Feherty once compared Depression to having an immune deficiency for your brain.  And if you’re anything like me – or the 1 in 6 Americans, or the 1 in 50 world-wide – that deals with Depression, you can probably appreciate that description.

Depression isn’t an affliction, it isn’t a mood: it’s a condition.  It’s one with no clear marker, one with no clear symptom, but a very vivid and unrelenting effect.

Many people who don’t understand Depression – including many of its sufferers – is that one aspect that can drive the spiral of affliction is guilt.  Guilt for being depressed.  Guilt for not enjoying such a wonderful life and wonderful world.  It’s a more common observance than you might think.  Dante famously said in The Inferno “There is no greater torment than to recall, in times of misery, times of great happiness“.  That’s the essence of this guilt; to see beauty before you and to be able to do nothing with it.
I had that experience yesterday.  Living in the southeastern United States (in the dubiously great state of North Carolina) and after an unpleasant and snow-lacking winter, I was treated to warm weather and bright sunny skies.  Sadly, I was also treated to a very serious bout of debilitating Depression brought on by (among other personal triggers of mine) sleep-deprivation due to – you guessed it! – Daylight Savings Time.  And the guilt for looking at a beautiful day and realizing that you can’t enjoy it is just devastating.

But to my millions of brothers and sisters out there with Depression – true, blue, real and clinical Depression – I want to remind you that life isn’t just beautiful; life also sucks!!! 🙂

We shouldn’t feel guilty about missing out on a sunny day, because there are so many other problems in the world that we can fixate on to feel bad about.  We shouldn’t feel guilty because we’ve got good health (if we’re fortunate enough too) because healthcare costs are so astronomical, it wouldn’t matter if we did because we couldn’t afford to do anything about them.  Life sucks!  🙂

Why the smiley face?  Because life sucking is critical in reminding ourselves that life isn’t some great and grand party that we’re summarily missing out on because we’re ‘broken’.  Life is a myriad of experiences – some good, some bad, and some bland – and if we remember that, then we can break the cycle of guilt.  We can get away from being depressed about being depressed and just be depressed.  Because if we’re depressed about being depressed, we’re fighting against our depression and ourselves.  But if we can get rid of the guilt, then all we have to deal with is the Depression itself and we become an ally, an aid, in that struggle, not a hindrance.

Depression is an ugly, nefarious affliction, one that doesn’t play by the rules most other illnesses operate with.  And so we, the afflicted and those who look after/over/out for the afflicted, must remember to not get tangled up in our own measures to deal with and address it.

So remember, life sucks, every bit as it is beautiful.  Don’t feel bad because you’re missing out on the beauty because just as there’s always something awful about life, there will always be something beautiful about it too.  And in time, you realize that there’s actually more beauty than suck.  But you aren’t missing out on the beauty because that would suggest there’s a finite amount of it.  There isn’t.  There’s so much beauty in the world, it can never and will never run out.  So don’t feel guilty because you can’t enjoy it right now.  Take care of yourself and get back on your emotional feet.  Enjoy it when you can, not when you feel like you should but can’t.

Enjoying beauty when you can and when you want to adds to the beauty of the world.

So be good to yourself. 🙂

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Blog 2013

The Best 1980s Music

Posted on by Robert V Aldrich

We remember 80s cartoons like Transformers and GI Joe because they were excellent.

There is more to this love of these shows, however, than mere nostalgia and the love of something that was loved when we were kids in the happier days of yore.  Going back to look at 1980s cartoons with a wider view of more than just the handful of classics that are widely remembered will turn up shows that really were not very good.  Case in point: Pole Position

Some shows, however, upon closer inspection, are even better today than we remember.  Case in point: Voltron, Defender of the Universe

While not quite one of the giants of the era, it was and is spoken of in the same breath as Thundercats and Rainbow Brite, a second-tier icon that was the Grimm to Transformers’ Supernatural.  A a reworked Japanese sci-fi series about a team of robot lions that formed into a giant warrior, Voltron had all the strengths one would expect (and likely recall) from the 1980s era cartoons, as well as many of its weaknesses.  But what it did have that many of its peers did not was an extremely unique and distinctive score.  Listen to three distinctive tracks from the Voltron Score by John Petersen

The Witch

Castle of Lions

Rushing

These are not casual, throw-away tracks.  These are musically distinctive, incorporating sounds and instrumentation that were (and still are) unlike other scores found on television.  The instrumentation of the Voltron score, as well as the compositions themselves, was vividly new and unlike anything else, helping to create a very tangible uniqueness to the show.  But these tracks were the backdrop against which the show occurred.  The true masterpiece of the show’s music lies in its epic theme (ironically best demonstrated by the show’s closing music).

The other music of the score is interesting and unique and unlike anything else.  This track, however, is epic.  It defines epic.  It captures the essence of the over-the-top heroism this show is about.  This track can, and should be, mentioned musically in the same vein as Star Wars and Indiana Jones, two classics by music master John Williams who (when Voltron was being produced) was producing his most memorable work.

Voltron is a show with plenty of flaws, but flaws that are often balanced out or superceded by its strengths.  But an often unnoticed strength is the incredibly vivid and distinctive music that accompanied each episode.  A listener cannot mistake a track from Voltron for any other show of the era, or any other show period.

1980s cartoons had some truly innovative elements at play, and had inspiration to work from.  The success of Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica (just to name a few possible influences) had established an artistic credibility for this genre of entertainment.  The result was a professional field that was willing to experiment and try new things in this genre.  Some shows like Transformers and Robotech would produce some truly excellent and unique scores.  But none would compare to Voltron as far as being truly unique and immediately recognizeable, which would only aid in the survivability of the series in the minds of its fans.

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Blog 2013

Exercise Recommendations

Posted on by Robert V Aldrich

For those of you who don’t know, I’m an exercise buff.  I really enjoy talking about training methodologies.  I like learning about new approaches to training.  I read exercise science lab reports like they’re porn.

I studied for a while to become a personal trainer but eventually disregarded it as a career because the field is just too corrupt.  I’m not saying that every employee at your local gym will sabotage your health to keep you coming back to buy more and more personal training services, but I will say I met more of those types than not.  Especially at the most golden gyms of them all.

I’ve given several workshops at conventions, talking about fitness (usually in a context pertaining to aspiring cosplayers).  And afterwards, many people will ask for recommendations about where to start with exercise.  Most people think a successful program involves a combination of jogging and bodybuilding-style weightlifting.  And in my semi-professional opinion, that’s a mistake.

The simplest exercise recommendations are the best, and the most direct are the easiest to implement.  So, to that end, the single best exercise tool that I would recommend is the kettlebell.  They’re like cannonballs with handles.  They usually run about $1.5 to $2 per pound, but they’re an excellent investment and are probably the single best fitness tool out there.
As for the single best exercise program, it likewise should be a simple one.  And one that leaves no, or next-to-no, guesswork.  So, my answer to ‘where should I start’ is usually something like this:

Step One: Go to DragonDoor.com and buy Enter The Kettlebell.
Step Two: Read Enter The Kettlebell from front to back.
Step Three: Begin doing the Program Minimum.

I could go on and on about why kettlebells are a supremely beneficial exercise tool, and method really, but the book will do that for me.  EtK (as it’s often known) is quite simply the single best one-stop-shop exercise program there is.  The programs take extremely little time and yet return great results.  They are extremely safe and exceptionally easy to follow (unless the directions in the book are patently ignored).  And best of all, the cost-of-equipment is comparatively nominal.  EtK isn’t perfect for everybody or everything, but it’s more than adequate for anyone.  And as a starting-off point in exercise, it’s the best, bar none.  Specific needs and requirements and requests would warrant different answers each time, but for general purposes – and as a default answer – this is what I always return to.

Happy Training!

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