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Clue. With a prologue about zombies.
Jun. 13th, 2008 06:34 amIt's more than a bit pathetic how torn I am between doing Blog Like The End of the World and making a "thoughts about canon writing" post. (That the previous sentence wasn't about zombies is your clue which way I finally went. Well, zombies aren't really my thing. However, I warn y'all now, come Halloween I'm going to make a big push to suggest that we all blog as though the aliens really DID land.)
So: the fandom rant. There's a game that's called Clue here and apparently Cluedo everywhere else, where you figure out by elimination who did a crime, where, and with what weapon. Setting aside the keystone cops aspect of not even knowing where and how the person died, there are, what - some 5 variables? And that's just a children's game, for ages 8 and up.
I loathe universes that can't get even that many variables going. I'm going to give Harry Potter a pass because that's really just one story told in 7 installments - but I'm NOT going to give passes to, say, Superman or Stargate SG-1 because no matter what happened in the story, it was ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS Lex Luthor or the Gou'ald, and when you go in knowing 1) who the baddie is and 2) that the hero will defeat them just like they have every other week, there is no tension. There is no surprise. There is no drama. It's just variations on a theme, and the theme's getting thinner by the moment, like an overused tea bag.
BORING, BORING, BORING
A good universe should have at least as many variables as your average game of Clue to keep things interesting.
This post is deliberately nonspoilery for the fandom du jour, (but don't blame *me* if repetition makes obvious things obvious!) but I can't guarantee the comments will stay so.
...and I need to leave for work. Remember - in October, there are wierd flashes coming from Mars, and fight the good fight against the zombies today!
So: the fandom rant. There's a game that's called Clue here and apparently Cluedo everywhere else, where you figure out by elimination who did a crime, where, and with what weapon. Setting aside the keystone cops aspect of not even knowing where and how the person died, there are, what - some 5 variables? And that's just a children's game, for ages 8 and up.
I loathe universes that can't get even that many variables going. I'm going to give Harry Potter a pass because that's really just one story told in 7 installments - but I'm NOT going to give passes to, say, Superman or Stargate SG-1 because no matter what happened in the story, it was ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS Lex Luthor or the Gou'ald, and when you go in knowing 1) who the baddie is and 2) that the hero will defeat them just like they have every other week, there is no tension. There is no surprise. There is no drama. It's just variations on a theme, and the theme's getting thinner by the moment, like an overused tea bag.
BORING, BORING, BORING
A good universe should have at least as many variables as your average game of Clue to keep things interesting.
This post is deliberately nonspoilery for the fandom du jour, (but don't blame *me* if repetition makes obvious things obvious!) but I can't guarantee the comments will stay so.
...and I need to leave for work. Remember - in October, there are wierd flashes coming from Mars, and fight the good fight against the zombies today!
