let’s look to the past, shall we?

27Aug09

Once upon a time, I kept a bit of a blog on my MySpace. Yes, I know. I never liked MySpace, and had always assumed that facebook was just as bad, which is why it took me so long to finally give in and join Facebook. Now look at me, right?

Anyway, I had some fun with it for a while there, posting nothing but the rantiest of angry rants for all the world to see. But all that vitriol was hard to maintain, and kinda boring after a while. So I gave up. And then I started a real blog, and forgot all about MySpace. I eventually deleted most of the posts, but I kept a few because they amused me in their creative anger. This is one of them. It has been previously posted on my Vox, but it was at least two years ago, if not longer, so I’m figuring most of the four of you who read this haven’t seen it yet (hi Spender!). So, enjoy my little rant about Christopher Paolini, the 2nd Eragon book, and George Lucas (no, really, it fits. Trust me). (And yes, this is an excuse for no real new content today, because I watched Showgirls last night with the girls, and didn’t have time to write anything new. Maybe I should write about that…)

“alagaesia” translates to “a long time ago in a galaxy far far away”
Current mood: tired <–i like the smilie face, so i kept this part.

So, yanno what totally sucks?  when you are watching a movie, and somewhere in the middle of it you figure out the entire ending.

Even worse is when you’re reading a book and it’s fucking star wars.  except with a different title, and different names for the characters.

this is what I’m doing right now.  reading a book (I know, shocker: liz reads.  fuck you.), wherein with every page I read I get more and more pissed off at the stupid kid that wrote it.

now, don’t get me wrong, I gotta have some grudging respect for this paolini kid.  he did after all get started writing the series when he was fifteen fucking years old.  and then he and his parents went with the idiot POD/vanity press way to get it out there, and flogged the living hell out of that book, and finally got enough notice that Knopf bought the second edition rights and published it, and then flogged the hell out of it some more.  everybody is cleaning up right on down to the bank, and of course the book was optioned for a movie but didn’t they already make this movie trilogy?

you know what though?  yeah, he’s a pretty good writer, i won’t deny that, no matter how much better a few of my friends (and myself, if i do say so myself….) happen to be.  but he should’ve written a few more drafts before publishing.  because the first book?  boring.  boooooooooooooring, except for the first fifty or so pages, and the last fifty or so pages.  and the second one?  not shaping up to be much better.  and it’s a good hundred and fifty pages longer, for crying out loud.

and more than that, but did none of his editors/agents/minions not realize that the kid just wrote… uh… star wars?  I mean, hello?  uncle owen and aunt behru (by whatever the fuck names he gave them, I don’t feel like going to look it up) got offed in the beginning of the first book.  kiddo goes off with his dragon/droids with obi wan/brom to get him trained up.  then his mentor dies.  now he’s learning himself how to survive on his own.  there’s the unattainable badass chick, there’s the smart ass “sidekick”  who, let’s face it, is way much cooler than the main character, who really needs to grow the fuck up.  (and TOTALLY SHOT GREDO FIRST, goddammit!)  there’s the uber-powerful evil empire with its death star/impenetrable capital city, and the evil emperor/darth vader, who took the good guys power of the force/dragon rider shit and went all uber-evil with it.  so I’m pretty sure I know how the series is going to end.  I guess that means I don’t have to read the third one.  at this point I’ll be lucky if I finish the second one, because mostly I want to throw it across the room.

and the sword… didn’t luke’s light saber once belong to his father?  and as I am told, turns out the dead bad guy is eragon’s father, or something like that?  I dunno, but it’s pissing me off.  why doesn’t anyone else see this?

I mean, yeah, the kid is a home schooled super-geek freak, no doubt about it.  and I’m sure he’s read his Joseph Campbell like any good home schooled super-prodigy geek, but this is trending awfully close to george lucas’s tale of the hero’s journey.  awfully close.  maybe good ol’ george should write chris a letter?

“dear chris,

yes, I realize I kinda can’t write either and the first three movies I made in the star wars trilogy are by far the best work I’ve ever done as a writer/director/special fx dude extraordinaire and I really shouldn’t have fucked with the ending of “jedi” because seriously that hayden kid couldn’t act his way out of a lunch bag (a clear one, no less), and that mumbo jumbo I spouted about him being the true Anakin was really just a buncha bullshit, no doubt, and I know, I know, I know, Han shot first, blah blah blah–but still, this trilogy of yours is awfully close to my version of events.  are you sure you didn’t mean “tatooine” when you wrote “alagaesia”?  and maybe the uncle owen and aunt behru characters in your version shouldn’t have died in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY AS THEY DID IN MY VERSION, cuz, dude, I could so pwn you.  I have way much more money than you and I was involved in the Indiana Jones trilogy.  So yeah, step off my series, you home schooled super-geek prodigy freak.

good luck with the movies!  I hope they fuck them up royally!

your friend,

han solo george lucas

p.s. I think Tolkien might want his languages, characters, and world back, too.”

and that brings me to my second point… yeah, the kid is way too fucking pretentious.  oh my god, dude.  you are NOT JRR Tolkien, nor will you ever be.  You are NOT a fifty year old british man, and you are NOT as over-educated as your parents insist you are.  Yes, you were home schooled.  Yes, you have the potential to be a pretty damn good writer in a few years, when you get more experience under your belt.  but for now, write like a normal human being.

KISS.  Keep It Simple, Stupid.  Don’t use twelve words when three will suffice.  if someone says something, just write that they said whatever.  you don’t NEED fifty five different words for “said” because “said” works best, unless you NEED to be extremely specific.  for instance, if someone yells something, you can say they yelled it, instead of said it.  but you don’t need uttered and spoke and alleged and announced and all that shit.  you don’t need to say tears streaked her regal countenance when you can just say that the princess was crying.  see?  I got the same point across with three words instead of five!

and, please for your next series, come up with something original.  I got nothing wrong with going the traditional hero’s journey route.  there’s a reason mythology follows the hero’s journey.  it works.  it’s a great structure for a story.

but if JK Rowling could give it an original (and, yanno, GOOD) spin, I think you should be able to manage it too.  Or else stop forcing your shitty star wars rip offs on the poor unsuspecting kids of the world, who should really just go watch star wars.  they’d be much better off, wouldn’t they?

Advertisement

Filed under: other   |  1 Comment
Tags: eragon, george lucas, han shot first, myspace, old blog, paolini, rant, repost, star wars, vox