Season 1 Round Up: Preacher

     

On the heels of the, apparently, very popular television series “Lucifer” comes the hard hitting small screen adaption of a very adult oriented comic book about a tough but spiritually lost country preacher Jessie Custer.  Now I’m not particularly inclined to the “binge watching” epidemic that is apparently sweeping across our planet, but this series’ first season I did check out in, what we shall call “rapid succession”.  Does that mean I liked it?  Well, yes and no.

While “Preacher” is based on the comic book series by Garth Ennis, with art by Steve Dillon I can at best say that it is loosely based on the source material.  It pulls from the material the basic characters, such as Jessie, Tulip, Cassidy, and Arseface, but sets out to tell its own story of manhandled redemption.  Probably the most important aspect of any series is getting characters that you can connect with, relate to in your own way.  Everyone going into this series is probably going to have their favorite characters, but that doesn’t mean that these characters are “good people”.  In fact, a big part of the series is peeling back layers and finding out that characters you thought were one way end up being very different from preconceived notions.

For instance, lets briefly examine Emily Woodrow, a single mother of three children, who is a waitress, the church organist and church book keeper and basically Jessie’s keel, keeping him in line (mostly) with his pastoral duties.  On the surface she is apparently the best person in a town full of pretty nasty people.  Then you find out that she’s stringing along the town’s milquetoast mayor so that he’ll baby sit for her and satisfy her sexual needs while making sure he understands that they are, at best “friends with benefits”.  Then she sends him to his death by mauling from a vampire.  Bear in mind, said mayor isn’t a great person, but still, for the second highest ranking person in the local church, this seems kind of harsh.

Flip to the other side of the coin with one Odin Quincannon who is without a doubt one of the worst possible specimen of humanity to date.  He is the highest ranking person in the town, and he rules the roost with childish fury.  He is a straight up psychopathic lunatic with no redeeming qualities.  Except, as the season unfolds you discover that his entire family was killed in a freak accident while vacationing in Europe.  His…entire…family.  The final shot we have of him in the season is of him cradling a mock-up of his daughter he made out of meat.  This man is broken on a deep psychological level and if you imagine losing your past and your future in one quick moment, you can kind of understand why this guy came unspooled. 

A large portion of this season deals with this kind of dynamic, where people you thought weren’t that bad end up being kind of horrible, and the horrible people end up not being as bad as you thought.  The series tries, sometimes clumsily, to balance the character dynamic within itself, but again, that may be the point of the writers, that within people in general, this balance is clumsy at best.

Dominic Cooper headlines the series as Jessie Custer, the wayward titular preacher who has been given the power of “Genesis”, an ability to inflict his will on others with his voice.  I was pleased to see how Dominic handled this because this could easily be something the studio placed on the effects department alone, but Cooper embellishes the moments where Jessie uses his power with posturing and facial expressions that sell that he’s letting something else take over.  When he really sells it is when it seems like Jessie is abusing the power, but his expressions leave the viewer to wonder if Jessie is using Genesis, or if Genesis is using Jessie.

Jessie is clearly the hub of the series.  Everything revolves around him, but if Jessie is the hub, then the forces that hold it together are Joseph Gilgun as Cassidy, Ruth Negga as Tulip, and Ian Colletti as Eugene.  The character of Tulip in the first two thirds of the series starts to really grate on the viewer, at least for me, and she just comes across as a stubborn irritant.  This is later paid off on by explaining her sordid backstory with Jessie and how they came to be at odds.  I don’t necessarily feel this excuses her behavior, but it certainly informs it.

Eugene, which fans of the comics will know as “Arseface” due to an unfortunate encounter with a shotgun, is actually the nicest guy in town, and offers the most candid understanding of the faults of others.  This is due to him being the town’s outcast, treated as a monster for something he supposedly did (check out season 2 for details).  Eugene is too good for this town and it’s simple as that.  While the town of Annville has turned normal people into monsters, this monstrous looking young man proves to be the one good thing there.  Which, I have a theory, is why the people of this little slice of purgatory really don’t like him.  He’s better than they are.  He is a more decent person than they are, and that bothers them.

Then you have my, hands down, favorite character Cassidy, the hard drinking, hedonistic, drug abusing, self-deprecating vampire.  Again this is a monstrous character that partakes of horrible things but ends up being one of the most decent people in the whole town.  He admits that he’s not the best person, that he’s done terrible things, and unlike a lot of the other characters who straddle this good/bad line (cough-tulip-cough) he actually regrets some of the bad things he’s done.  Even as a blood guzzling creature of rage and murder, he’s not that bad of a guy.  And that’s not saying “Well compared to this guy or that lady, he’s not THAT bad.”  He helps out Jessie in a bar fight without being asked to step in, he protects Jessie when he’s incapacitated, and he’s constantly trying to get Jessie to be the better man. Cassidy is a good guy who does bad things.

When you strip away all the supernatural elements from the story of Preacher, you really are left with an analysis of the choices of complex people and the elements that fashion their decisions.  Everyone ultimately needs something.  Cassidy needs people to understand and accept him.  Eugene needs people to forgive him, but for it to be on their own terms.  Tulip needs closure so she can begin healing.  Jessie needs direction a purpose in his life.  That, my friends, is a congregation of real people.

So did I like it?  Well, I liked elements of it.  If you are looking to it for an insight into the minds or the actions, or spiritually of church going members of society, you will find it very pessimistic, and as a cradle Christian and self-described prodigal son, that kind of hurts my feelings.  Not so much that it’s wrong, because while sometimes way over the top, it’s not 100% wrong, but it’s pessimistic.  Everything is portrayed in such a way that you wonder if its ever going to be set right, so gritty and grimy that it obscures any chance of hope.  A major part of the problem is the town’s preacher, as he’s actually really bad at his job for the first half of the season.  If you want to get a glimpse of a small town church, do not look here.  This is what a church looks like when it has no leader.  A flock with no shepherd, no one to guide it or protect it, will drive itself into hell while singing hymns.  Obviously I liked some of the characters, but will those characters be strong enough or well-rounded enough to get me to come back, to spend my limited personal time to watch the show again?

We’ll see.  Thanks for reading.

Wonder Woman: Is this a New Era?

So over this past weekend I took my wife to see “Wonder Woman”.  In theatres!  I know that shouldn’t sound as exciting as it does, but when you have a fixed income and 4 lovely children, you tend to Netflix or Red Box a lot of your movie viewing.  Which, if you noticed, is why a LOT of my movie reviews happen after the films have left theatres and sat on the shelf for a bit; well there’s that and the fact that it gives me a little more freedom to talk about endings.

So what about “Wonder Woman”?  First let me take you back in time to 2016’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”.  Without diving too much into that film we can all agree that movie had its flaws.  One thing that was almost unanimously agreed upon as done very well was the introduction of Wonder Woman.  Her role was small but pivotal and her action sequences got audiences almost out of their seats.  With that in mind, that powerful response fueling the development of the character, it would seem that a solo adventure for the Amazon princess would be a no-brainer for Warner Brothers.

But Diana Prince’s journey to the big screen is nothing if not a difficult one.  For the longest time “authorities” on box office touted that a movie based on a female superhero lead would not make money.  The problem was that, they weren’t exactly wrong.

Here is a brief chart of the most notable superhero films with female leads since 1984.  Why did I start at 1984, you ask; because that’s the first instance of a major studio producing a female superhero movie  It all starts with Supergirl  The graph below shows in blue the budget for the films, in millions of dollars, and the red shows the box off returns of those films, again in millions of dollars.  The odds were not in Wonder Woman’s favor.

Now with all this against her, how did we get Wonder Woman onto the big screen?  To answer that we need to first look at another major comic book movie studio: Marvel.  With the advent of the Avengers, and Black Widow’s major role in the film, fans started clamoring for her to get her own solo adventure, much like literally everyone else on the Avengers.  Notice that I only selected 6 movies for my graph?  That’s because those movies are pulled from the pages of established comic book studios, which have a fan base the film studios could appeal to and work up from.  And most of them tanked.  The only one to pull up any money was Elektra and it was savaged by the critics, which torpedoed it from ever getting a sequel.  So where were the fans?  Studios believed that, based on these numbers fans were not going to come out to see these movies.  So what changed?

Again, it all starts with Supergirl.  In 2015 CBS and Warner Brothers brought the girl of steel to life on the small screen.  This was a testing ground for how popular a production centered on a female superhero could be, and it worked.  Through careful crafting of a quality product, Supergirl soared through the ratings.  For its second season it moved to the CW where it joined their television superhero universe and branched out into stronger, darker stories.  Suddenly studios had numbers in droves about how fans wanted to see superhero productions featuring strong female leads.  That combined with the strong positive response Wonder Woman got from “Batman v Superman” and suddenly the studios had something they could bank on.  Now it’s fair to say that the seeds of Wonder Woman were planted all the way back in “Batman v Superman” which is great but you know that they needed those Supergirl numbers to pull the trigger on it.

In the summer of 2017 Wonder Woman rocketed onto the big screen and, as you can see the fans responded.  With a budget of $149 million Wonder Woman dominated the summer block buster scene, raking in $435.2 MILLION after being in theatres for only two weeks.  $103 million of that came on its opening weekend alone.  The second weekend (when I got to see it) it dominated the box office easily brushing aside Tom Cruise’s “The Mummy” for top spot.  To put that in perspective, not only did a superhero movie featuring a female lead earn the triple digits for millions on its opening weekend, it took out Tom “Summer Block Buster” Cruise on its second weekend in theatres. 

But I know what you’re thinking; “Michael, talk about the damn movie already!”  Okay, no.

Gal Gadot was amazing in the film.  She was powerful, she was vulnerable, she was funny, and she was deadly as hell.  She was Wonder Woman.  Chris Pine as Steven Trevor was great.  His timing was on point, and his chemistry with Gadot was excellent.  The supporting cast was terrific, and I would love an opportunity to see them together again.  Saïd Taghmaoui to me was a particularly excellent addition.

There is an implied sex scene in the film, and the final fight left a lot of questions for how the action went down in “Batman v Superman”, but the final product was fantastic.  Not only did it give us a broader picture of this amazing character, it also helped fill in some blanks for why she does certain things in Dawn of Justice.  Like “Why was she so willing to work with Bruce Wayne at the end?” and “When she looks at Lois mourning Superman’s death, why does she look to the sky?”

I am actively not telling you about the plot because I think you should go see this for yourself.  It is worth it.

 

Thanks for reading.

"There's Nothing Funny About a Clown in the Moonlight..." A Look a Pennywise

Let’s talk about it.  I mean…”It”.  “It” was a best-selling novel by horror guru Stephen King which hit the shelves in 1986 and was spun into a very well-known miniseries in 1990 on ABC, and this is where the concept of “It” became ingrained in the consciousness of American horror fans.  I remember watching "It" air back in 1990 and it quickly became a Halloween staple for the station for years to come.  The miniseries explored the interpersonal relationships amongst preteens as they dealt with a supernatural nightmare that was threatening their hometown.  The story is actually split into two parts, with one half told as flashback to the time when the main characters were children fighting off the monster, and into their adult lives as the monster comes back once again to threaten them.

Already I can tell my grammar checking software is going to hate this piece.

I’m explaining all this to you because in 2017 we are due to get a remake of “It”.  This of course will include a brand new version of the central character of the film, Pennywise the Dancing Clown.  Even the most casual horror fans will recognize this infamous nightmare, originally brought to life by Tim Curry for the miniseries, and the knee jerk reaction will be that there is no way anyone could compare to Curry’s performance. 

 

 

This isn’t without precedence because Curry has always been an A list performer, a living legend in cult classics, and he’s going to naturally be very difficult to top.  What compounds the problem is that most people saw “It” originally when they were very young.  The show came out 26 years ago and the people who grew up watching Curry’s Pennywise will have that performance firmly implanted in their brain boarded up with only the most impenetrable of nostalgic feelings.

Now, as of this writing I have not found an actual trailer for the upcoming 2017 version.  I’ve only seen the promotional material circulated by Entertainment Weekly of Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise.

Judge for yourself

 

Both the original television series and the book state that It has been terrorizing the citizens of Derry, Maine for generations, arriving on earth in that spot prior to colonists coming over from Europe.  Somewhere along the way, It decided that its prey of choice would be children and somewhere along its time on earth adopted the form of Pennywise the Clown, among numerous other disguises.  Now I did some digging to see if there was some historical significance to the form of the clown, even reaching out to my best friend and Stephen King expert, William Dilbeck.  Is there some in-story historical significance to the clown?

“No, not really, but the clown is memorable.  Mike Hanlon never left Derry, and he collects stories from the old people in town.  In one of these stories, this old man talks about how this gang gets shot to death in the middle of town, and he remembers seeing this clown floating just outside a window, taking pot shots at the gang with a rifle.”

He went on to point out “The clown might represent It’s sinister intent, and well, it never hurts to have an iconic look.  It mostly hunts children, though, and I believe that it uses this as his camouflage.”

Thanks Will.

So it seems Stephen King may have had the famous quote from Lon Chaney in mind when writing Pennywise "There's nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight."

That kind of brings us back around to the design of Pennywise for both the television series and the film.  I’ll do a side by side.

 

Designers discussed that the look of the costume is very much inspired by the renaissance period, indicating that It’s knowledge of human events extends far outside Derry, Maine even if It can’t influence those events.  One would think that if It could extend its influential reach beyond the confines of Derry, It would be far more powerful.

The overall weathered, otherworldly appearance of the 2017 Pennywise costume also makes it stand out apart from characters like Jared Leto’s and Heath Ledger’s respective Jokers, as well as the multitude of clowns featured in Rob Zombie’s horror films.  No, this Pennywise definitely stands out, even against his 1990’s counterpart.

Curry’s rendition of the character was far more in keeping with modern interpretations of clowns, with a baggy, brightly colored full body suit, white fluffy ruffles, and outwardly pleasant demeanor, which would later give way to It’s predatory nature.  The 2017 version on the other hand immediately comes across as threatening and unsettling and I can’t imagine this being an effective lure for anyone.  Even people without a crippling fear of clowns would be sent screaming into the hills if they saw that coming at them.

But on the flip side, Tim Curry’s Pennywise can be equally unsettling not strictly by how he looks but more about where you see him.  You see him in the drainage gutters, in the woods, in boiler rooms, outside windows, in places that you aren't supposed to see clowns.  If you saw a clown at a circus or a birthday party, that’s one thing.  You’re technically supposed to see clowns there.  If you see a clown standing across the street, no matter how nice he looks, he’s not supposed to be there and that makes him automatically threatening,  more so if he starts beckoning you over.

So does the 2017 version work?  Well that greatly depends on what they do with him.  Are there going to be scenes where he looks more cleaned up, less threatening, or is he always going to look like he hitchhiked across state lines?  The reason I ask is because if there is a dichotomy in his look, clean giving way to sinister, then that allows a lot more freedom in how effective he can be as a horror icon.  If he’s always going to look like that, then he’s going to lose his effectiveness very quickly.

Either way “It” is going to hit theatres in September of 2017 so let’s hope it lives up to the legacy set down by the original.

Thank you for reading and thank you Will for your input in today’s post.  Please check out his book series, and have a great day.

https://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Dead-Lakehaven-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B00JLPG8HE#nav-subnav

Have We Seen Affleck's Batman Before?

Over the Christmas holiday I was lucky enough to have some old friends over to my house.  Inevitably we delved into discussions about comic book based movies.  Now whether you love it or hate it, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” did in fact happen and it was a game changer.

One of the things it did was offer us introductions to characters that did not cover their origins stories.  Obviously Henry Cavill’s Superman got his introduction in the previous film “Man of Steel”, however we meet both Batman and Wonder Woman without the usual tacked on exposition about how they got their superhero starts.  During the opening sequence we are treated to a flash back of Batman’s basic origins, the death of his parents, but that wasn’t so much to explain his origin, but rather set up a character arch later in the film.  What it left out was the years of training he did to become the Dark Knight.  For that matter, the film left out the greater majority of his superhero/vigilante career.  Dialog in the film indicates that this is twenty years after Bruce dawned the iconic cape and cowl.  Twenty years.  That’s a heck of a place to jump off from.

Admittedly we have more than enough film, and a television series, to cover Batman’s formative years, but as we were discussing the topic we started speculating that maybe we’d seen this version of Batman before.  Maybe, just maybe, we did get to see his origins.

My friend Will (see the shameless plug below) postulated that this was the very same Batman we were introduced to in 1989’s “Batman”.  He cited that the psychologies, methodologies, and in some cases the weapons he used were very similar.  The Michael Keaton Batman, for instance, did not shy away from killing henchmen, and certainly didn’t shed any tears over the death of supervillains.  For that matter, his vehicles are dripping with machine guns, another strong similarity between the two.

But there is a major problem, and that is how old Bruce Wayne looks in the film.  Granted they did try to “age up” Ben Affleck, but he still looks very much the 44 years old he actually is.  If anything they made him a believable 44 years old.  That would have made him 17 during the events of 1989’s “Batman”.  Michael Keaton, while a great actor, does not look 17.

A second hiccup is how the public perceives Bruce Wayne.  In the Burton Era films, “Batman” and “Batman Returns” Bruce is not a public figure.  In the first film Alexander Knox, a seasoned reporter who apparently has lived most of his life in Gotham doesn’t recognize him at his own fund raiser, in his own mansion.  The “file” on Bruce Wayne at the Gotham Gazette, apparently the premier newspaper for the city, is barely a few pages deep.  There isn’t any indication that this has changed much by the time “Batman Returns” rolls around.  He’s still a mover and shaker in Gotham, but nobody is surprised when he doesn’t show up for major events.

The third and final nail in the coffin is that the first film firmly roots itself in 1989.  I'll be honest, I wanted this theory to be true, I really did, but I kept coming back to the Joker blasting the musical stylings of Prince through the museum as he and his henchmen destroy priceless pieces of art.  Again, that would make Ben/Bruce 17 during the events of the film.

However I did notice something very important, and that is that the follow up films “Batman Forever” and “Batman and Robin” do a complete tonal shift.  They are almost the exact opposite, thematically speaking, than those of the two previous films, almost as if they took place in a separate universe.

I’d long held that had it not been for the performances of Pat Hingle’s Commissioner Gordon and Michael Gough’s Alfred, there would be nothing to connect the series at all.  But even there, we can see a deviation.  In “Batman” and “Batman Returns” Commissioner Gordon is a competent policeman.  He knows what he’s doing and is good at his job.  Suddenly in “Batman Forever” he’s more bumbling, less sure of himself, and this gets worse in “Batman and Robin”.  Again, almost like it’s not the same character.

My theory is that “Batman Forever” and “Batman and Robin” take place in a universe apart from the Tim Burton films.  Call it the Schumacher universe, and the Schumacher universe began approximately twenty years ago prior to the events of “Batman v Superman”.

This places Ben/Bruce being in his early twenties when he becomes Batman, which is far more reasonable.  Further, the Schumacher universe Bruce attends public functions and is well known to the populace of Gotham, just like our current Bruce Wayne.  Now let’s look at some facts surrounding this universe:

Batman in “B v S” and “Suicide Squad” has knowledge, if not direct interaction with meta-humans like Killer Croc.  This was established in “Batman and Robin” where the first proper meta-humans, people with actual powers, first appear in the form of Poison Ivy, Bane, and to an extent Mr. Freeze.

More importantly there is a Robin established by both sets of films.  Chris O’Donnell plays Robin in both “Batman Forever” and “Batman and Robin”, and we see a heavily, if not fatally damaged Robin suit in a glass case in the Batcave in “B v S”. 

 

The suits look remarkably similar, as if one is the more advanced version of the other.  But this isn’t Chris O’Donnell’s Robin.

 

This is.  By the time “Batman and Robin” rolls around we see Dick moving closer to his Nightwing identity, adopting a costume more closely suited to that role.  That leaves his old costume open for a new Robin to take, a new Robin like…Jason Todd.

We’re never told in “B v S” which Robin wore that damaged suit, but we are pretty clearly told that it was damaged by the Joker himself.  I mean, look at it.  However if we follow that this is the Schumacher version of Batman then it’s probably not Dick’s suit, as he wasn’t last seen wearing anything like that.

But that brings up another good question: Who is the Joker in “Suicide Squad”?  If we follow that this is the Schumacher universe, and that Tim Burton’s films took place along a different timeline, then it’s safe to assume that this universe just has a different Joker.  One thing that was pretty good about Schumacher’s films is that, with the exception of Bane, his origin stories for his villains were pretty comic book accurate.  Like, scarily accurate.  He had Two Face actually scarred during a trial with acid, Riddler being an insane lunatic with an OCD, Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze the victims of accidents…all ripped from the pages of the comics.  So for this universe to have a Joker changed by a vat of chemicals, as alluded to in “Suicide Squad” it makes perfect sense.

There are a few hiccups in this theory.  For one there is the ages and performance styles of Alfred and Commissioner Gordon.  Played beautifully by Jeremy Irons, Alfred is very young compared to his Schumacher Universe counterpart, and J.K. Simmons who is set to take over the Gordon role in the upcoming Justice League film couldn’t play Gordon as incompetent if he tried, and he shouldn’t because it would deviate too far from the theme of the film.  But these are side characters and can afford to be reinterpreted from film to film to film.

The real hiccup is one single line from “Batman and Robin.”

 

You thought I was going to say “bat credit card” didn’t you.  Admit it, you did.  That’s fine.  I could imagine 23 year old Ben Affleck Batman whipping out a Bat Credit Card.  It works.

No, this line comes after a dust up between the titular characters of the film and Batman is lamenting for his solo days.  It’s a problem since “Superman” would have been 14 when this line was spoken, certainly not running around in a cape and tights.

However he was probably running around.  We establish in “Man of Steel” that Clark goes on a soul searching quest, one to find his place in the world.  Its implied that he starts this journey as a grown man, after the death of John Kent, but this is Superman we are talking about.  As a teenager he could have wandered the United States as easily as the average 14 year old could walk down the block to his friend’s house.  Further, its established that he has saved people as a kid.  He wouldn’t be doing this with a side kick in tow, and he’d probably be doing his good deeds as far from Smallville as he could reasonably get to avoid people connecting him to the Kent farm.  He’s superfast, roughly the size of a man, and never sticks around for thanks when he does something good.  The legend of a “Superman” would certainly crop up and become part of modern folk lore, like Bigfoot.  “…Superman works alone.”

This could be hinted at during Lois’ conversation with the in-custody Superman.  At this point she’s already figured out who he is and what he did around the world incognito, and now she’s face to face with him with a big “s” on his chest.  It would finally click with her that he’s this modern mythical figure, and why out of the blue the word “Superman” escapes her lips.  That would be how Batman knows the name “Superman” but then reacts badly to the presence of an actual “Superman”, because it’s solidified in his jaded, 20 year crime fighting veteran that people aren’t doing good things and disappearing into the shadows, that they are so self-serving that they had to be rescued by an alien.

At least that’s my theory and like every film theory it relies on circumstantial evidence and some mental gymnastics, but that's part of the fun of film theories.  They are intended to get you thinking deeper about the films you watch, and hopefully this one does that job as well.

 

Thanks for reading.  Please check out Will's book at:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Dead-Lakehaven-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B00JLPG8HE#nav-subnav

 

What is Krypton Actually Made Of?

 

Ever wonder where 1978’s “Superman: The Movie” got its iconic imagery of planet Krypton?  Fans of the Christopher Reeve helmed series can see it in their heads, the white rocky surface of the planet.  This is translated directly in the film when Kal-El erects the Fortress of Solitude on Earth.  This iconic vision of the Fortress is carried over into multiple other series, including “Superman: The Animated Series”, “Justice League”, “Smallville”, and “Supergirl”.

Growing up a fan I just figured the Fortress looked that way to blend in with its arctic environment, which is probably true but then I ran across a thing about Batman, and how much it would cost to become the Dark Knight.  It listed the price of Kryptonite as $25,000.  Obviously a fictional substance, you can’t really purchase this radioactive rock from beyond the stars, however I was bored and had the internet at my disposal and started looking up shopping for kryptonite.  Then I got to thinking about the actual element krypton, and looked up how much it would  cost to purchase the very earthly substance. 

Krypton is a rare noble gas, and is colorless, tasteless, and will asphyxiate you if you try to breath it raw.  So, don’t do that.  But I also found out what it looks like in it’s solid form…

 

Yeah, exactly.  It’s a white crystal.  Know what also is a white crystal?

Yeah, all of Krypton, including their technology.  I couldn’t find anything that definitively said the production team used the element of krypton as inspiration for their design of the planet itself, but is sure seems like they were at least influence by it.

This crystalline structure was probably used so they could better translate kryptonite onto the big screen.  It makes more sense, thematically if not scientifically, to have kryptonite be a glowing green crystalline substance if the planet that it came from is made from a white crystalline substance.  The fact that krypton itself is a white crystal may have been intentional or a happy coincidence.

Either way, if you follow the logic that the planet Krypton was made from solid krypton, then you can purchase a non-radioactive piece of Superman's home world on eBay for somewhere between $10 to $40, depending on what form you are looking for.  Probably best not to try and  make it radioactive yourself, because radiation is bad.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

8 Tips to a Successful Job Interview

Hey gang.  So tomorrow I am conducting interviews for an open clerk position at the law enforcement agency where I am a supervisor.  That said, I got to thinking and I want to share with you some tips on having a successful job interview.  Hopefully you'll find this advice useful in furthering your own careers or getting your first job.

1) Respect the job you are applying for.  A lot of times I've heard the phrase "stepping stone" in reference to the job they are interviewing for.  This turns interviewers off immediately.  They understand that on the entry level no one plans on staying there, but they are interviewing you for that position right now.  You want to go higher, prove yourself on level 1 first.

2) Be honest, but use common sense in your answers.  If you don't know one of the job skills, tell us, but tell us you are willing to learn.  Don't shrug and say you don't know and leave it like that.

3) In fact, don't shrug at all.  Remember part of your communication is non verbal, and a lot can be said in body language.  If you come across as unprofessional in your mannerisms, then you are coming across as unprofessional period.

4) Answer like an adult.  It doesn't matter if you've been out of high school 2 days or 20 years, if you use slang and swear, they will ask you to leave.

5) Dress like an adult.  T shirts and jeans are for the mall, not a job interview.

6) Stretch before you go in.  It sounds weird but if you are relaxed physically you will come across more confident.  Even if you don't know half the answers, confidence alone can get you a long way.

7)  Know what the job is you are applying for.  If the interviewer has to read the job description to you to jog your memory, the interview is effectively over.  If they ask "Are you able to do shift work?" and your answer is anything but an unequivocal yes, you probably won't get picked.  They are looking for people to fill the position they advertised for, not fill some of it.

8) Be prepared to earn your stripes.  Should you get the entry level job, understand that promotion will likely be a long way off and you are not entitled to a promotion just because you passed probation.  That means pulling long nights, overtime, weekend, and holidays.  Don't get snippy when you don't get the days off you want right away.

I really hope this helps someone out there.  Please share it as much as you can with people you think it will help.

Star Trek: Fixing Plot Holes

Growing up I loved Star Trek.  I mean not to the point where I’d consider myself a trekkie, that was for my sister, but I loved the show and a lot of the intricate details about it.  For instance, while I did not own the blue prints for the USS Enterprise, I had seen them, studied them, and understood them.

So when “Star Trek Into Darkness” the title that needs a colon, came out, I was obviously interested in how this sequel to a pretty bang up reboot to the series was going to do.  Then came the big reveal that Benedict Cummerbatch, who up to this point had been billed as “John Harrison” was in fact the famous Star Trek villain “Khan”!

 

This reveal came out of the blue, and felt so, so out of place.  In the original string of movies, “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” pulled material out of the original series episode “Space Seed”, which established not only Khan as a villain, but established his relationship with Captain Kirk.  When Khan Noonien Singh, played by the scenery chewing Ricardo Montalbán, showed up, the audience familiar with the backstory felt the thematic weight of the moment.  When they name dropped him in “Into Darkness”, it felt phoned in and like they were pulling from material they didn’t earn.  Frankly it pissed me off and I’ve never really forgiven the franchise for this move, especially since while I love Benedict as an actor, he looks nothing like Ricardo.  Seriously…

 

 

Nothing like him.

Then I found this.

 

This is from a tie in comic called “Star Trek: Khan” which actually explains what the hell was going on here.  The episode “Space Seed” takes place centuries after the eugenics war, where Khan and his crew were created as super soldiers.  That’s the rough cut and about as deep as I’m willing to go.  So when Spock and Nero jumped back in time and re-routed history, the ripple effect was felt far and wide.  Rather than leave the super soldiers floating in space, the evil admiral Robo-Cop…I mean Admiral Marcus thaws out Khan, alters his memories and gives him extensive plastic surgery so people would see him walking around and think “Oh hey, that’s a famous criminal from history!”  Because in Star Trek, the average man on the street passed Earth History 101.

Now this makes perfect sense.  This is why Khan hates Marcus, why he suddenly dropped the John Harrision identity, went off the reservation, and revealed his identity with such conviction.  It makes you kind of root for him a bit more too, knowing what he had been put through, which actually brings us back to OG Khan…

The original Khan just wanted his people to live happy, peaceful lives.  That’s what Kirk promised in the original series and almost delivered…until everything went sideways.  The neighboring planet blew up, shifted their planet’s orbit and turned their world into a wasteland.  Which Starfleet would have known if Kirk had ever done follow up missions to check on their status.  Because of this, Khan’s wife was killed and, being a warrior who’s had the most important thing taken from him, Khan swore vengeance on Kirk.  Which again makes sense because it is kind of Kirk’s fault.

So this new information helps me forgive the character of Khan from “Into Darkness”, however it doesn’t help the movie overall because this information should have been given to the audience during the actual film.  That would have smoothed over a major plot hole.

 

As always, thanks for reading.