SPT2015: Catching Up on Marvel Awesomeness

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I vividly remember right after the release of Batman Returns that I sat down with a small notebook and somehow figured out that if Batman was released in 1989, and Batman Returns was released in 1992, that it would roughly take them another three years to release another Batman film. I don't know where that logic came from, but 11-year-old me was convinced that it would be true and I started a countdown to 1995. Sure enough, 1995 rolled around and so did Batman Forever (for better or worse). The countdown was a little on the excruciating side, especially at that age when time seems to crawl at such a snail's pace and three years seemed like an eternity.

I can't imagine being my present-day 33-year-old self and going back in time to tell my younger self that there would come a time in 2015 that I'd watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on television, which immediately led into the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron, then I'd be in Montreal and Vancouver (to work on two Marvel projects) and be watching Daredevil on Netflix, and a month later would be watching Ant-Man in theaters. There's more on this in the upcoming Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season Two Declassified (/end plug) but I can't think of any other time where there has been new content for a property consistently for six-plus months like there has for Marvel this year. And it seems like this is just the beginning as Star Wars will be following a similar model - and you can bet other intellectual properties will be hot on their heels.

The storytelling possibilities have been fantastic. One lengthy and connected story told over multiple years, through multiple mediums, with multiple focuses. How great is that? It's the comic book page having come to life and sent to the mainstream. I've been enjoying it completely. And yes, I do have a personal bias and was a little spoiled in seeing both Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man at their respective premieres... one of the amazing perks of being the Kimmy Gibbler to the Marvel family. But I'm enjoying every minute of it. Even though Ant-Man is another origin story, it falls in the midst of an on-going story that it's able to weave in and out of seamlessly. Age of Ultron was similar, it didn't need to carry the burden of introducing all the main characters (though it did have to carry the burden of introducing a variety of other characters, which made it a super-dense flourless chocolate cake). 

Ant-Man was a completely different film. If Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a politically-charged action thriller, then Ant-Man is a comedy-charged heist film. Shades of Oceans Eleven, The Italian Job, even a little bit of Mission: Impossible are all in there. It's great how all of the live-action Marvel properties have a very different feel and tone and probably a good reason why they've all been so successful.

One thing is for certain, between a Marvel-fueled first half of the year and a Star Wars-fueled second half, both 11-year-old and 33-year-old Troy are loving every minute of it. And I don't even have to wait three years in between it all. 

Actually The Truth Has Been Out There (A While Now)

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"Mulder! Your tauntaun will freeze before you reach the first marker!"

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Next thing you know, time is missing from your watch... trust no one.

Mulder and Scully are back as the first frame posted to the official X-Files Twitter account has shown the world. It seems like, for the first time in a long time, everyone is buzzing about the return of X-Files, which just began shooting a ten episode run in Vancouver this week. While ordinarily, this would incite a binge view of the entire X-Files series to prepare for the new episodes, it's actually elicited an involuntary twitch in my eyelid. 

A long time ago, in a day job not so far away, we were working on the then forthcoming Blu-ray release of The X-Files: I Want to Believe (the second feature film released in 2008). 2008 of course was a time when Blu-ray was still building momentum and it seemed like all the studios wanted to do the "new and interactive thing that's never been done before!" It seemed like every project was some overly complicated interactive doohickey. Our mandate from the studio was to work with Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz, as well as finishing the amazing work done by several authors who had published official episode guides for the first seven seasons, to create the ultimate episode guide and timeline that would prove to be a constant and invaluable resource to X-Philes. Dubbed "X-Files: The Complete Timeline", we would create the ultimate canon timeline for fans that also would allow you to easily track and layout running themes like the black oil, cloning, alien encounters, Mulder's sister, and more in the days before "hashtag" had become a common part of the vernacular.

But then if you sit down and think about the sheer scope, it's nine seasons, 202 episodes at 45 minutes each, and writing the synopsis and analysis while scrutinizing every frame to find dates and clues as to what day and time the current events were taking place while also tracking all the running elements took about three hours per episode. Math, math, math... that's roughly 25 days (straight, no breaks, no sleeping) just to get through all the material. We had roughly three weeks. As a point of reference, note fan Dan Goldwasser's website where he said the timeline inspired him to go back and watch the show from the beginning, but didn't think he could do it in a year.

Intrepid X-Philes Jessie Drake, Matt Popham and myself split up the seasons and set to work. There was a string of about eight days where I sat on my couch for all eight days straight, watching, writing, lying down to sleep for an hour here and an hour there (and having some of the most frightening stress-fueled dreams thanks to the subject matter). It was a long-haul where I essentially lived in the world of Mulder and Scully full-time, as did those working on the project with us. It was the ultimate binge watch... once again, before the phrase "binge watch" was even a part of the common language.

Serialized television plays so much better when you watch it back to back. It plays even better when you watch several seasons straight through without subjecting your brain to things like the outside world or common conversation. You're fully immersed in the world and you start to notice each and every tiny detail. So much so that we all circled around several issues with Scully's pregnancy which we were able to finally get a final read from the showrunners on addressing within the context of our text, giving fans definitive answers to some of their questions. Once everything was written, it went through several rounds of notes and checks with the showrunners and super-fans to make sure everything was accurate.

The huge amount of writing finally finished, the project then went into the design process and trying to make all of this work within the then-clunky Blu-ray technology. There was a lot of puzzle-solving and authoring conversations that Jessie and Adam Vadnais had in just trying to make the whole thing work, making sure that photos and clips from the episodes actually played and several other tricky elements that are fairly simple to do on your phone seven years later. Look at the recently released SNL app with 40 years of material, photos and video all on there in the palm of your hand. It's amazing to see the exponential progress of technology just in that short period of time.

When all was said and done, as a long-time fan of the series, who was first in the seats when Fight the Future was released when it was totally uncool to do so... I wanted to burn my X-Files boxset in a ceremonial funeral pyre.

I was fried. I hadn't slept in a little over a month, I had gained about 25-30 pounds of what I quickly dubbed my X-Files weight, and probably in the process had taken a couple years off my life.

Worse, when X-Files: I Want to Believe, which our interactive feature was attached to be a special feature on the Blu-ray for, was released, it was met with a decidedly mixed reaction from hardcore fans and casual fans alike. What we thought would be an incredible resource included was released, only a handful of people noticed. Clicking a "tag" (#hashtagweallgetitnow) was a little confusing to some, completely lost on others. A few of the dedicated DVD/Blu-ray review websites picked up on the feature and called it out as something worth note, which was a very welcome feather in our cap. But a big part of me sits here with a Mulder-like wonder if there's anyone out there that uses the feature as a reference, or if it's far too cumbersome to beat a quick Google or Wikipedia search for whatever answers they seek?

All of this a very circuitous way of getting back to the topic at hand, do I think I could sit and watch the show from start to finish as a primer for the upcoming new six-episodes? My complete X-Files television run boxset has a Post-It still strapped to it this day that reads "Do Not Open Until Doomsday" both as a statement of truth and a reference to a famous Real Ghostbusters cartoon episode. It's been seven years after all. And I think the answer is yes, the show is absolutely fantastic. Yes, even those last couple seasons. And the disadvantage to having plowed through it all so quickly on my last viewing is that it didn't have the time to process and sink in, much in a way that happened when my wife and I went back and re-watched all seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation over the span of a couple years. I think it would be great to go back and revisit the show now that some time has passed, and even reference back to the timeline to see how I had interpreted it back then.

Just don't be surprised if that eye starts to twitch.

Spring Cleaning

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"T'was a run-by auction!"

Whew.

Since last posting of "Deadlines and Distractions" in May, it's been a whirlwind of a few months. Between a couple writing deadlines, some pretty intensive production projects, and a bit of a day-job shuffle, I find myself finally coming up for air. And it's interesting that in the process of feeling buried the last couple months, now that my eyes are a little more open (and I'm actually at home for an extended period of time), I'm noticing that I was also a little buried literally as well. Extra clothes, extra furniture, running out of space in the little amount that's affordable in Los Angeles.

Because of that, I've started a little spring cleaning. And a big part of that has been coming to grips with selling off several of those collectable items that I was holding onto that there just isn't the square footage to continue to house. Some of those that I've found have some monetary value are hitting eBay, some of those that I'm finding don't have much more value other than the memories that they've given me are going to Goodwill (which also means some lucky kid is going to hit a South Bay Goodwill and find a whole bunch of cool nerdy stuff for pennies on the dollar, hit your store now!).

At first it was a little difficult to part with some of the items. But after the initial sting of ripping off the bandage subsided, it actually felt pretty good. I mean, I love Kevin Smith's films. I love Mallrats. I frequently still find myself saying, "Tell 'em, Steve-Dave" even though not that many people get it anymore. But do I really need action figures of Steve-Dave and Fanboy signed by Walt Flanagan and Bryan Johnson? Probably not. There's probably someone else out there that would totally enjoy them more than I would, as I'm just letting them sit on a shelf in the closet indefinitely. Point in case of the process: I had a pretty killer rare Batman item and, while I'm a huge fan of the Bat, there really was no reason for me to have this item out and on display. I threw it onto eBay and it sold to a huge Batman fan who has an entire home theater filled with Batman goods. The perfect home for it.

Now that I'm a little into the process of the Great Giveaway of '15, I'm actually enjoying the process. Finding that I'm not missing any of the items that I've parted with and really wasn't sure what some of the attachment I had to them was in the first place. It feels like, especially in nerd culture, we're so consumed with stuff: posters, toys, this knick-knack and that. People bite and claw at the San Diego Comic-Con for free stuff. Doesn't matter what it is, it's just stuff and us geeks want it. And it adds up so quickly. Especially when you're in a small apartment. Plus it's buying me a little bit of breathing room in the combined office/guest room/nerd cave area which makes sitting and reading and getting writing projects finished a lot more comfortable. Not to mention that the sales from the auctions might finally inspire me to buy a decent chair and desk, which I'm sure my aspiring Quasimodo hunch will appreciate.

Deadlines and Distractions

I'm going to focus, wait... plastic bag, plastic bag, plastic bag...

You might notice it's been a little quiet on the SPT front, despite the fact that there's so much that I am dying to write about: Star Wars Celebration, Daredevil, Avengers: Age of Ultron, I've been right in the thick of so many cool pop culture things that should be getting some ink on Still Playing with Toys but alas have not. 

Interestingly enough, Joss Whedon quit Twitter this week and despite reports to the contrary, he insists that it's because he's about to dive back into writing his own material and is trying to avoid the distraction of the 140 character-based world. I can relate. I mean, not to attempt to compare myself to Joss Whedon (c'mon, that's ridiculous, that's like drawing a stick figure on college-ruled paper and saying, "Look, I'm Alex Ross!") but I've been on several deadlines over the course of April and sadly there hasn't been room for much more than those. I haven't browsed the social networks all that much lately, and sadly have neglected ol' Bessie here.

The good news is that I'm coming up for air in May and will have much more time to write so get ready to be bombarded with more SPT news and updates than you can shake a stick at. Starting with a detailed etymology of where the phrase "shake a stick at" came from. Because I certainly haven't shaken any sticks at things. But Joss Whedon probably has, that guy has done everything.