You Can't Go Back if You've Never Been

Or,
Why Back to the Future teaches us that time travel is impossible

Much like vampires, virginity loss, gun shot wounds, every movie and every story has a different way of explaining its own unique universe. In movie (a), vampires are evil and sociopathic, in movie (b) they are sparkly and misunderstood. In movie (a) some character gets shot and immediately rendered unconscious until the paramedics arrive, in movie (b) a character is shot and just sort of grunts stoicly at the pain, like he's stubbed his toe.

While I wouldn't think guns were any longer in the realm of science-fiction (except for the ones Doom made up), it is sci-fi and fantasy where the most egregious examples of inconsistency will arise in film and literature.

"But Blogger Guy, it's just a story!" you might say, if you talked back to blogs, which is a weird thing for you to do. "The writer can make up anything he or she wants!"

Yes. Yes they pretty much can, and while even that still has some negative examples ("Twilight"), any author is free to create whatever they want within the realm of fantasy, be it bathroom graffiti, a blog, or a novel about dragons and elves. Have at it. Elves don't exist, so anyone who says "elves wouldn't do that," is just kind of being an asshole.

ALTERNATIVELY, from that, is science fiction. Not fiction: SCIENCE fiction. Existing science extrapolated with a little ingenuity, or a little imagination, into a fantastical tale of action and adventure and occasionally some naughty bits. But it's the science people forget, particularly people who don't give a good goddamn about science. And I know, I'm one of them-- even this blog post (recently reposted by geeksaresexy.net) points out the importance of science in our daily lives and musings:




Is this a dick move? Rachel probably thinks so.

Is it scientifically accurate? The internet tells us that it is.

Did I post this on Rachel's facebook page? No I did not, I don't know any Rachel, but GeeksAreSexy apparently does and I'd recommend them if my loyalties weren't already aligned with toplessrobot.com first and foremost.

So:

What my point is here, is even science fiction must have sort of an internal reality check, even if it's the most fantastical story or just a real-world story with science fiction elements. Something like, say, Star Trek, with its transporters and faster-than-light travel, uses concepts that are completely impossible for anything 2011 can imagine, BUT, they all do follow their own internal logic. What a transporter does one week, or in one movie, does not contradict what happens in the next episode, or sequel. Nerds have spent countless hours in forums and at conventions discussing the consistencies and hints given in the text as to all the things that a transporter can and can't do, and ditto with a holodeck, warp drive, light saber, or sex robot. Yes, I know these are different movies. No, it's not important if you didn't understand half those words.

But these are fantastical worlds of wall-to-wall sci-fi. What of the real-world stories with only minor science fiction elements?

As usual with me, it seems to take me quite a few paragraphs to get to my point:

One thing I've never really seen addressed in science fiction writing is the fact that time travel is impossible.

"Pshaw, Pope," you might snort, because again you're talking to your computer and that's not really healthy. "Duh it is. So is warp drive and midi-chloriants and rainbow-farting unicorns."

Not so. While certainly unicorns are just a flight of fancy, invented from thin-air, and midi-chloriants are at least as ridiculous, it is something like a warp drive, or a holodeck, or light saber, that scientists look at and begin to work out how to create it in the real world. Hell, the Star Trek communicator from the original 1960's TV show actually ALREADY exists, and has been rendred obsolete... it's a big, bulky flip-phone that went out of fashion in 2002. And with Wii and Kinect technology, can we really be very many decades away from a 3-d image we can kickbox with, or solve mysteries with, right there in our living room?

"You might not think so much of it now. But your KIDS are gonna LOVE it."

... That quote, while germaine to the previous paragraph, is also a quote from the original "Back to the Future." Which is why I've gathered you all here today.

Time Travel is impossible.

It's not something that's going to be invented down the line by some enterprising (no pun intended) scientist, it's not just around the corner, you can't orbit the edge of a black hole or go really fast around the sun or accidentally nuke your fridge and wake up in 1865. Let me clarify:

Time travel into the future is readily possible and easily done. You're doing it right now. You are travelling into the future, one second at a time. And while it is possible to accelerate this (orbiting the edge of a black hole), or manipulate this perception in relation to your own awareness (if you accelerated away from your living room, at the speed of light, for one year, you would see your cat remain completely still for the entire time, because the visual information carried in the light would remain the same in relation to your eyeballs. At the end of one year, if you accelerated back TO your living room at the speed of light, the cat would appear to move at double speed, so that when you arrived back on your couch, two years would have passed and your cat would be two years older)... that's all it is, is just parlor tricks or variations on your present acceleration into the future, one second at a time.

... All that assuming, of course, that you had called someone ahead of time to feed your cat.

And that you had a telescope that could see into your living room from one light-year away.

But the black hole thing is real, too, you can wiki it: But that's not my point. This is real science and sort of makes time travel boring. You could even put yourself in a coma for a year, and when you wake up, you've travelled a year into the future. Etc. Not so exciting.

TRAVELING TO THE PAST: Impossible. Let's look at the example of "Back to the Future," which of course you've seen, because if you haven't you're in Al Qaeda.

9/10ths of the movie deals pretty straightforward with time travel: Marty travels back in time, fucks up some shit, fixes some shit, then returns to his present day and things are different. Every movie deals with time travel like this. Most do it badly. There are never any ripple effects or consequences. Things you change remain changed, but miraculously, everything else in the entire universe remains exactly the same.

Standard sci-fi tropes withstanding, let's look at the final few minutes of the movie: Marty decides to return a few minutes BEFORE he left, but his car breaks down. He has to run, on foot, to the place where he originally departed for 1955. He gets to the parking lot just in time to see himself, shouting, then returning back to 1955.

The question we must ask ourselves is: What if the Elder Marty (as he is now one week older than the Marty in the parking lot) shouted out to Junior Marty? You know, stood up, waved his arms around, said, "Hey! Hey you! Watch out for the Photo-Mat!"

Well, in theory, Junior Marty (and the Libyan Terrorists) would then look up and be baffled by a second Marty standing on top of the hill.

This is, however, impossible.

Had Elder Marty shouted out, this means Junior Marty would not have gotten into the Delorean. If he doesn't get into the Delorean, he doesn't go back in time. If he doesn't go back in time, THERE IS NO ELDER MARTY TO SHOUT AT HIM, and thus, with no one to interrupt, he could not have NOT gotten in the Delorean.

Still with me?

I'll use another example, from another movie, before returning to the Back-to-the-Future example:

In "Terminator," a robot from the future returns to 1984 to kill the mother of the lead human resistance fighter. She succeeds in killing the robot, and survives. In "Terminator 2," it is revealed that parts of that robot survived, and were being held in a government lab where it was being reverse-engineered to find out how to build the technology, technology which will be used to build the very same Skynet that sends a robot back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor. The future could not exist without the past, but the past in this case, was changed by a future it did not have the ability to create.

Therefore, logically, one possibility remains: as Yoda said, "Always in motion is the future." There are infinite possibilities for the future. In one, you went to work and got paid. You used that money to buy a new car. You drove to the mall and met an attractive member of whichever gender you're attracted to (for the sake of this example, we'll say it's the opposite sex). You have sex and make a baby. That baby grows up to be President of the United States. ... OR ... you don't go to work, stay home all day except to go to the 7-11 for cigarettes; while there you meet a member of whichever sex you're attracted to, go on a date, have sex, and make a baby that grows up to be a serial arsonist. YOU DON'T KNOW. And while I'm not knocking 7-11, these things are impossible to predict. But for whatever reason, in one possible future, Skynet exists and sent something back to 1984 (and something else to 1994). Had it not done that, it never would have existed. But it didn't know that. Going backwards, there's only one timeline. Going forwards, there are many, just like you can only decide which direction to go on a fork in the road, when you are at the fork, assuming your car didn't have the ability to reverse.

So: Back to "Back to the Future."

Had Marty shouted to Marty from outside the parking lot, he would cease to exist, because that means Junior Marty would take a different path and Elder Marty would never be outside the parking lot in the first place. Lazy sci-fi would have you believe that Elder Marty would just remain on the hilltop, cut off from the timeline which spawned him, except for the fact that he RETURNED TO IT. If his parents don't have sex, he doesn't exist at all; if himself doesn't get into the Delorean, he doesn't exist running sweatily to the parking lot.

So therefore he is UNABLE to shout to himself, because if he did, he never went back in time. This timeline can only exist in reality if he DOESN'T shout to himself. Anything else would erase a link in the chain of events, and create a new chain.

Meanwhle, Marty has just returned from 1955. His parents still hooked up, and had three kids, but when he returns to 1985, they're the EXACT SAME THREE KIDS (of which he is the third), just with more motivation. They all now work in an office, despite looking exactly the same. Marty is still a pot-smoking guitar-player, except now his parents suddenly approve of him having underage sex with his girlfriend. And he has an nicer truck.

So the movie expects us to believe that despite this MASSIVE change he has instigated in his parents past, that (1) they still conceived three different children on the exact same dates as in the old timeline, and (2) the exact same sperm reached that egg, three different times, as in the old timeline. Considering George is now a successful author, and they seem a LOT more sexually attracted to each other than previously, I find this hard to believe. Every bit of visual evidence supplied states that (a) They have sex more, and (b) They have a lot more money.

Plus, even though they remember this kid who helped them out back in high school, named Marty... who they never saw again... they wait until their THIRD kid to give him a tribute? Okay, not unreasonable: Maybe they had family obligations to name kids 1 and 2 after an uncle and aunt, or something. But still. Marty is 18 in 1985, which means he was born in 1967. His horny, randy, crazy-in-love parents in CALIFORNIA IN THE 1960'S only had three kids over twelve years? These are some incredibly responsible parents. Kudos to them.

Plus they moved into the same house, on the same street.

My point is, by doing all this shit, Marty of course negated his own existence. Even if his parents have sex ONE TIME on a day they didn't previously, then it's an entire different set of kids they end up with.

Therefore if Marty went back in time, and did anything that affected George or Lorraine in any way, he would cease to exist.

Therefore he couldn't have. The only time line that can move forward is the one in which he didn't affect anything about the past, whether it was days-younger Marty in the parking lot, or decades-younger George and Lorraine at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.

Even just sitting in Doc's house, he'd be eating food, utilizing molecules, air, and food, that would have gone someplace else in 1955, and ended up somewhere entirely different in 1985. He's going to the bathroom, adding mass to the world in 1955 that wasn't there before. Matter can be neither created nor destroyed, but the atoms that make up Marty still existed in 1955, as something else. He has CREATED matter in 1955, which didn't exist before. What would happen, for example, if an atom ran into ITSELF?

"Time Cop" would have us believe that these two atoms would cancel each other out, and both cease to exist. But that's a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, and ridiculous. I don't even know why you brought it up.

More realisitically-- scientifically-- the atoms never co-existed at all. Because Doc struck his head, had the idea for the flux capacitor, stole some plutonium, put his dog in the Delorean, flipped the switch, accelerated the car to 88 mph........ and nothing happened.

Except, wait. That dog went one minute into the future. To his shock and delight, he succeeds.

Minutes later, Marty dives into the car, forgetting the controls are set to November 5, 1955. He accelerates to 70, 80, 88, punches the clutch.... and nothing happens.

The terrorists catch up with him.

Hill Valley news, 5 a.m., a teenage boy and a fifty-something doctor are found gunned down in a mall parking lot, the dog remains unharmed.

Film at eleven.

January is Balls

Three weeks?! That's too long. Not that anyone is hanging on my every word, but any writer worth his/her salt really needs to keep at this thing. If you didn't water your plants for three weeks, they would die. If you didn't have sex with your girlfriend for three weeks, she'd nail the pool boy. These are SERIOUS ISSUES, and also why I don't have plants.

I started this thing cuz there were a lot of movies around, and this being January (for another day anyway), there aren't many around at present. January movies always suck. Always. I don't know why everyone else hasn't picked up on this. If it were a GOOD movie, the studio would release it during March, or June, or if it's a drama, November/December during awards season. I never consciously noticed this until the mid-00's, when studios dumped two Uwe Boll "movies," two Januarys in a row, but it's been going on forever. Remember "Leprechaun?" Sure you don't. 1993. Jennifer Aniston. And a Leprechaun. Total shit (watch it at your next Bad Movie Night). Saw it in January of '93. The tradition continues to this day. (the movie thing. not the me-seeing-them-thing).

I was inspired by a friend of mine to start a second blog; Ironically, she went and deleted all her shit last week. I suspect she'll be back (she deletes her Facebook account every couple of months), but the point is: We're all interested in more than one thing. Said Friend was blogging life, photography, and a bit of modeling (all my friends are hot), I think if I only blogged movies and TV all the time, I'd look like a fat shut-in. And while I HAVE ballooned up to 135 lbs., I'm gonna try other shit on the side.

Eventually. I was gonna see about sports, but the Super Bowl is in a week and then there's nothing interesting on ESPN until March... and then not again until late August. I mean, I dig baseball and all, but... there's 162 games in a season. The first 80 or so I can take or leave.

Also I hit up the Seattle Sci-Fi Short Film Festival this past weekend (#ssff). I don't see enough short films. Neither do you. As yet another friend said, "They are PERFECT for my attention span!"

Back in February with another tirade. No really.

...

.... February Leprechaun. That's a lot of oddly-placed R's. Or a tongue twister. Or an awful band.

Tron Lunacy

A few weeks back I wrote an entire blog about how the new "Tron" was being insanely overhyped and later trailers looked to be a mess.... also, the entire crew was green except for The Dude (green as in "no experience," not "earth safe," though I suppose the latter could be true, too).

NOT GEEK

Clu looked like ass. The rest was pretty cool, though. Would watch again. Olivia Wilde is more than just a pretty face and out-acted everyone in the movie who wasn't Jeff Bridges (nobody out-acts Jeff Bridges).

GEEK

The writers came from "Lost," the television equivalent of a handjob from a famous person. Sure, everyone talked about that show and it garnered a huge amount of viewers, but at the end of the day, it was still a handjob. Yep, it had an ending, but only an idiot would think it was going to be a satisfying one.

That said, the writers dropped in some pretty clever things. Dillinger Jr (aka Peter Warner aka Sark)'s kid shows up in the opening minutes, played by Cillian Murphy. Bringing back Bruce Boxleitner (who is still a competent actor and was in Babylon 5, even if I didn't watch that, either). ... Wait. On second thought, those were largely casting decisions. The dialogue was nothing special or memorable, except for everything that Flynn says, and I'm pretty sure that was just Jeff Bridges' real personality. Knock on the sky and listen to the sound? Seriously? Imagine if someone said that in the 1982 original movie. Ronald Reagan's head would have exploded.

Not that there's anything wrong with Ronald Reagan's head exploding. I can say that now, on account of he's dead.

Alright, fuck the writers: cinematography, production design, costumes, all great. Acting all great, except for Garrett Hedlund (Sam Flynn) who was adequate. The 3-D neither added nor subtracted from the viewing experience. It'll be the last 3-D movie I ever see, if given the choice.

The director is Joseph Kosinski, which was my primary fear going into the movie, because he'd never directed anything but commercials. This is often a bad sign. Not that directors with his lack of experience always fail, it's just that they fail more often. This guy? Pulled his shit together. To wit:

David Fincher. Started in commercials/music videos. Now has a viable movie career. Kosinski isn't as good as this guy, but it's an example of what to shoot for (even if Fincher is merely a visual stylist. Wilde's performance in T:L shows Kosinski CAN work with actors... Fincher is hit or miss on this).

Gore Verbinski. Started in commercials/music videos, directed 3 movies before he did the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" for Disney. He knocked it out of the park and made 1.21 kajillion billon dollars. He's doing pretty okay.

Rob Minkoff. Directed "The Lion King," which was excellent, then moved to live-action with Stuart Little (pretty okay) and The Haunted Mansion, which was a steaming pile of shit. Pirates: 3 sequels. Mansion: Zero sequels. Nicely done, Rob.

My point is, even in interviews Kosinski talked about having a shorter amount of time than he'd like to shoot the movie, storyboarded things that never got to be shot, working on the script... he may not be a writer, but he took the resources available to him and made a movie that was both entertaining, and true to the original. He done good. And, granted, the grosses may be artificially inflated because of increased 3-D ticket prices, but the movie's still making a decent amount of money. His next announced project? A remake of "The Black Hole." I'm in if you are.

NOT GEEK: A-
GEEK: A

I don't know who's running Disney these days, but this is the smartest move they've made in forever. Of course, they hired a dance choreographer to direct the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie, so..... we'll see.

Killing Time 'til Tr0n

I'm a big fan of homoerotic tension.

I know that's an unusual, perhaps even controversial, stance to take, but I'm sticking with it. When I was tricked by advertising and hype into seeing the very bad film "Eragon" a few years ago, one of the only things I took away from it were that the teen male hero, and his male competition for the female, had more sexual tension than between either of them and the female. THAT'S GREAT FILMMAKING. Accidental filmmaking, yes, but hot n' sexy nonetheless. Not sexy? Everything else about that movie.

So despite the obvious pretty-boy ridiculousness of the lead in "Prince Caspian" when that came out, I was in on the action because dammit, I'd only ever read "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," and I wanted to see what happened next. The result was pretty nifty, I must say, with great battle sequences and a fuckin' CASTLE SIEGE. I mean, c'mon people. I know there were mice and dogs and foxes and centaurs involved, but it was a freakin' CASTLE SIEGE. That shit is awesome. It's not "Braveheart," but regardless of the reality of the characters involved, a castle is attacked, there are gigantic battle sequences, and then a duel between the King of All Narnia, and some upstart British teenager who's been training in the woods for an hour with Peter Dinklage. Great movie. Four stars on Netflix. Would watch again.

GEEK

The first two live-action Narnia movies were directed by Andrew Adamson, who previously directed the original "Shrek." I liked Shrek, and despite the complaints of some about too many pop-culture references, it had plenty of other jokes that landed, as well as some non-comedic moments that came together really well, too. And the message about "inner beauty" was an important one, which of course was squandered in all of the sequels in favor of lame poop jokes. Point Adamson, Negative Points for Shrek.

My point being is that Andrew Adamson is a competent director, and made a good enough live-action adaptation of "LW&W" that it made lots of money, and lots of people liked it. Hopefully you're one, too. If not, well, maybe fantasy just isn't your thing. That doesn't make it a bad movie.

"LW&W" was released at Christmas time that year, so when it came time for Prince Caspian, the studio thought, "These kinds of family movies do really well at Christmas. Should we release Prince Caspian at Christmas, too? ... NAHHHHH, let's dump it during the summer, because clearly "The Water Horse" is going to be a huge hit and make a billion dollars and we don't want to put all our eggs in one basket."

I did not see "The Water Horse."

NOBODY saw "The Water Horse."

Speaking of awful decisions, the studio then opted to replace Adamson for "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" with Michael Apted, who has not had a hit since 1999, with a movie called "Tomorrow Never Dies," arguably the worst of the Brosnan-Bond movies. Maybe you liked it, I dunno, but it sure as shit was no "Goldeneye." Apted is also roughly 153 years old (no, seriously, he's 69, and in no condition to be making a kids movie. The closest he's ever come to a kids movie is "Enough" starring Jennifer Lopez, which I guess also doubles as the closest he's ever come to directing fantasy. That's not a dig at women's rights, just a dig at Jennifer Lopez).

My point is that "Dawn Treader" is going to suck and I'm mad about it.

The first two films were able to mine the adventure from the story while leaving the supposed religious shenanigans in the background, if you chose to ignore them. Sure there was Aslan was supposed to be Jesus and blah blah blah, but they weren't all in your face about it. CASTLE SIEGE. Eddie Izzard. TILDA SWINTON HOTNESS. These are important movie-going experiences.

Dawn Treader? Confirmed for mediocre also-ran. It's the "Star Trek V" of this cycle, and it won't make any money, because even if Tron blows (and it might), Tron is going to make Phantom-Menace money, while Dawn Treader makes "Howard the Duck" money.

Nice one, studio.

NOT GEEK

Wardrobe was awesome. Caspian was awesome. Fuck the haters.



........Though Apted does suck a dick.

And was that the White Witch in the trailer? WHAT THE F--

Etc.

An Open Letter to Mark Cuban

I try not to write about sports here, but this is the only blog I have, and until I can think of more than one sports idea every three months, this is where it goes:

DEAR MARK CUBAN,

Despite not having lived full-time in Houston since I was 20, I still feel a strong loyalty toward the city, despite its many abuses to me, during my upbringing. That sounds more overly dramatic than I meant it: my parents were lovely and my little brother only occasionally irritating, but of course the weather in Houston remains as oppressive as it does in Dallas, and the traffic situation down there makes the Dallas traffic look like a walk to the mailbox.

And yet I still feel fierce loyalties to the teams I grew up with, the Rockets and Astros, and by extension, the Texans. I believe there was another football team in Houston for some time, but I have erradicated all memory of it from my brain, due to abuse by a terrible owner-- words which, I must say, cannot be applied to you.

You are a wonderful owner. You have hired good people, let them do their jobs, you have been open with your fans and fans of your team, and your enthusiasm is purely contagious. You know your job, and are keenly aware that privilege is not a substitute for actual knowledge of the game and the team. And, most importantly, of all the professional sports franchise-owners in Dallas, you are the only one to actually allow your sports franchise to play in Dallas. Purists will surely say, "But hockey is a professional sport, too," to which I say, "Go back to Canada, you Molson-drinking moose-rider."

I know all this (except for the bit about Canada, which is hearsay) because I lived in Dallas for over ten years. Sure, part of it was in Denton, and part of it was in the remote outpost known as Sherman, but we all basically fall under the same Dallas umbrella (except for Ft. Worth, which hates you). I'm a fan of your work and of all the owners in professional sports today, you're the one who feels like he's most excited to be there. Not because of potential profits, but because you can actively affect the world around you and the culture in which you live. You know that a championship is more important than how many hot dogs you sold at concessions last week.

So when it was reported that you'd said, in a casual offhand way, that you weren't interested in buying the Astros... I was fine with it. Really, I was. Whatever your reasons, that's fine. One man owning a team in both Houston and Dallas is certainly a great sports sacrilege, akin to owning teams in both New York and Boston, or Los Angeles and San Francisco, but even if this was not your reason, it doesn't matter. You have a business to run, you got burned by the Cubs, burned by the Rangers, whatever. It's water under the bridge, and we needn't dwell on it. I didn't think you'd want the gig and your name never even really occurred to me when their previous owner announced the sale.

But the thing is, sports needs more people like you. Someone passionate about the game, not just someone who views it as an investment, or an excuse to stand next to cheerleaders. A rock star, as it were, with enthusiasm and intelligence, passion and personality. Someone Not Jerry Jones. Someone like you.

And so, even though I have only ever lived in four cities: Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and presently Seattle... I feel great confidence in suggesting the next sports team you should buy:

If there has ever been any more long-suffering, desperate, needy, and nowhere-to-go-but-up franchise, can any answer really be more obvious than the Detroit Lions?

Sure, we're all waiting for the owner of the LA Clippers to be declared insane and have his team wrested from his clutches, but you already own an NBA team and I think there's an ownership-cap on that. But if you must own a second team, it should be not baseball.... but football.

RATIONALE #1: The Detroit Lions are not in Texas. So no "sports bigamy" to borrow a term from another writer.

RATIONALE #2: The Detroit Lions play at Ford Field. And while the Ford Motor Company lacks the presence in Detroit that it used to have, MANY PEOPLE IN DALLAS DRIVE CARS. And I just don't mean, facetiously, like, "Many people in Dallas have feet," but rather, it is an impossibility for anyone to get anywhere in Dallas without a car. Sure, the train is coming along nicely, but not to the point where people are just selling their cars and travelling everywhere on foot and by bus (like they do in Seattle). They have cars, they love their cars, and they WILL drive them to Detroit. For you.

RATIONALE #3: The Lions are terrible. Do we need to remind you the state of the Mavericks when you first arrived? You love a project.

RATIONALE #4: Once a season you get to play Jerry Jones in open gladiatorial combat. Well, not personally, but your fans would plunk down $100 for that ticket, too.

RATIONALE #5: I'm not going to name names, but by and large, NFL owners are way, way more douchey than NBA owners. You, sir, are not a douche. You are a folk hero. Except for the HDnet thing.

RATIONALE #6: Within the last three years, Comerica Bank has left Detroit, relocating in Dallas. Think of this as giving something back to the community. If some businessman and entrepeneur from Oklahoma City wanted to give something back to Seattle, I certainly would not turn it down.

RATIONALE #7: Texas has no natural lakes. Michigan, I have seen on maps, has several. Two words, sir: LAKEFRONT PROPERTY. Or is that three words?

and finally...

RATIONALE #8: You would have an office in a state that borders a foreign country. Which, if I recall from the last presidential election, would give you foreign policy experience.

And honestly, not even a random passer-by on the street could do a worse job than the current Lions ownership, and you are far more experienced and passionate than some person that was just happening to pass by. You're Mark Cuban. You've got an illegal cigar RIGHT THERE IN YOUR NAME. There's nothing you can't do.

Speaking as someone who has never lived in, nor even set foot in, the beautiful state of Michigan, I feel myself and the people of this great nation would be behind such a bold move. For fortune favors the bold. And Americans favor cool guys with fortunes.

I for one look forward to your future adventures and endeavors,

Warmest Personal Regards,

Some Guy on the Internet

The Tea Party is Batshit Nuts, and That's Okay!

Eh. Ostbensibly this blog is to split time between my Inner Citizen and Inner Geekboy, but movies have been thin in '010, and even trips to the comic book store have been less than satisfying. Which is not to say I like comic books because no no no, I'd actually prefer to see naked women. Real ones. Let's just quit while we're behind here.

THE TEA PARTY AND WHY THEY'RE FUNNY.

This is not to say EVERYthing about them is funny. Quite the contrary; aspects of them are quite terrifying, like the fact that they have their traditional conservative roots coming from the same political corner as the Nazis. That and a complete ignorance of history (or else they wouldn't call themselves 'The Tea Party') is pretty much sure to seal their fate on a national level in 2012.

I mean, look. These people make Bill O'Reilly seem reasonable. And even Bill O'Reilly bombs every time he goes on Letterman, because appealing to your tiny little Krazy Kult is not the same as mainstream acceptance. And as a comic-book reading, video-game playing, theatre-reading nerd, I know a thing or two about not being able to gain universal acceptance.

So.

In 1992, Ross Perot garnered 18% of the popular vote. Or, to use a more current but less universal example, in 2006, bigoted Texas Governor Rick Perry (the Lt. Governor under then-Gov. George 'Dubya' Bush) was re-elected after receiving approx. 45% of the vote. The remaining 55% was split between the Democratic challenger (38% or so) and author/musician/activist Kinky Friedman. And so, popular sentiment would tell you, if every person who voted for Friedman, voted instead for the Democrat, then the Democrat would have won.

Which I guess makes the Perot argument kind of invalid, because it's not like liberals were voting for him, but then again this is kind of hindsight. Also I was 16 at the time.

Anyway, through all this, the Neo-Republicans bitched and yelled and screamed about "holding the party line." They all must remain unified under their ONE candidate, because "that's what being a good Republican is all about!" ... And so they all rallied behind Bush Sr., even though he was a weak President and laid the seeds of the current Iraq mess, and they all rallied behind Dole, who lacked all charisma, and they all rallied behind Dubya, even though McCain was more charismatic and had more experience, and at least in 2000, was younger than 500. They even held the party line 8 years later with McCain/Palin, even though the country had cooled on Republican shenanigans, and the party itself had trashed the man 8 years earlier. Also Palin isn't qualified to run a 7-11.

So what do we have in 2010? DISSENT. The Republican party is splitting, with the right-wing over here, and the EXTREME right-wing over there.

This is good for Democrats.

What is, of course, NOT good for Democrats, or the people in general, is the entire Tea-Party's platform, in which they feel marginalized and stepped on and not represented by our government, much like (they say) the colonials of North America circa 1776. The reason they feel marginalized is because they ARE in the margins, and their beliefs are so uneducated and outside the mainstream that they can't ever possibly hope to maintain a foothold bigger than the one they have right now. Then again, that's at a national level. In Kentucky (for example), they're actually doing alright in the polls.

Preaching the good old days, wanting to return to "Traditional American Values," and abhorring the entire popular culture. Finger-pointing. Blaming other Americans who don't share their beliefs as the only problem, and a problem that must be stopped. Uber-conservatism, led by a charismatic leader who gives good speeches but doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.

Hitler only grew that moustache because his handlers told him it would make him popular-- Charlie Chaplin was pretty big at the time. And while Barack Obama is educated and has a record of service going back to his formative years, Hitler was rejected from art school twice and wrote a popular book in prison in which he blamed everyone else for Germany's problems.

Meanwhile Glenn Beck used to be a drive-time morning radio DJ and has a miltary-esque flat-top haircut (the military is popular with his fans, but he has never served), and has written a lot of retarded books.

I'm just sayin'.

Basically parts of the country are completely screwed, politically... but we must remain optimistic. Granted, there are just chunks of the country ignorant to history-- no doubt a result of the Republicans slashing of education-- but the same can't be said for 100% of us.

And so, Tea Party... creepy as though they may be... means the crazy nutcases who helped put Bush over Kerry in 2004... have all left the party for Insaner Pastures.

Let the good times roll.

The Legacy of Tron Legacy

Here's a twist:

NOT GEEK

OMG this looks GREAT! So freakin' awesome... the trailers look great, and did you hear DAFT PUNK is doing the soundtrack? The first movie was early electronica as far as the soundtrack, so the producers this time around got THE PREMIER electronica artists of 2010 for this! Is liking Daft Punk not geeky? Let's save that question for someone else's blog, "Hipster/Not Hipster."

GEEK

Dude.

People have been nutting themselves over this movie for months, and the first trailer(s) looked great. I was going to link them (for science) but could not easily find an embedded one, so I just gave up. ... Because I am a Geek, and therefore I weigh 300+ pounds, never shave, and sweat easily. Etc. Etc.

TRAILER ONE: Leaked on the net, it was just two random dudes on their light-cycles. I was cynical, but I let it slide: It's the light cycles. That's like making an X-Men movie and only showing Wolverine in the trailer. Or making a Monopoly movie, and only showing the racecar. It's what we want, but it's not indicative of the final product.

TRAILER TWO: This is the one that gave everyone wood. Slow mood-building, Bruce Boxleitner cameo (that guy looks familiar...), then BAM, score switches to electronic and we're seeing a towering, extremely familiar image of a Space Paranoid. Then the crazy guy with the air guitar. Then the hot chick on the sofa. Then Young Bridges. ZOMG WTF LOL AHHHH.

I watched this trailer about 197 times, and the first 196... okay, let me excise hyperbole (I don't really talk like that in real life): I watched the trailer literally about ten times the first week or so it was out, and after about a dozen, it started to crack for me.

I thought, "Why show these specific elements? They look cool, but what are they telling me about the story?"

Answer: Nothing.

These are things in every single story Hollywood creates. I read this in a review of a movie you and I have already forgotten about, the CGI-animated "Nine" starring celebrity voices and with Tim Burton's name in the credits because it sells tickets. But it applies to most movies: Stock characters. (1) Hero. (2) The friend of the hero/wacky comic relief who has some inherent flaw, but is there as a sounding board/deus ex machine so our hero completes the task. (3) Wise sage (4) A girl. (5) The bad guy.

Go down your mental rolodex. Yes, I just listed the cast for every Shrek and Toy Story film. And I'm not being pretentious, I really really loved Toy Story 1-2 and the first Shrek movie. I haven't seen Toy Story 3 because I am old and you need to get the hell off my lawn.

Anyway: Tron Legacy. These are just the standard movie stock characters. The hero (Flynn Jr), the friend of the hero (Bruce Boxleitner), the wise sage (quite probably Old Bridges), a girl (Olivia Wilde, who at least in the trailer serves no other purpose than to look hot and help the hero out. Really? She can't be the hero? She seems to know her way around weaponry. But this being Disney, it is her job to be pretty and tell the hero "You can do it!"), and the bad guy (presumably Young Flynn).

Well now as stylistic as the trailer is, I'm sorta cranky. But no, I tell myself. Even though everyone is super-excited for this movie, even those people who were born AFTER the original came out (1982), I will STILL withhold judgment. It's just a trailer. They make it to have as broad of an appeal as possible. TOP MEN are working on this film. TOP.... MEN.

I even ignored my own rule about, "It can't be 5-Star movie if it's the director's first film." Cuz it is. The new director has done commercials, but that's it. Then again, the director of the original Tron only ever directed the original Tron. There's wiggle-room.

THEN CAME THE MOST RECENT TRAILER. Clearly buzz is deafening for the flick, because people watched this piece of shit and ARE STILL BUZZED ABOUT THE MOVIE. You remember in Zoolander where Zoolander kept giving the same look, and Will Ferrell was all like, "AM I TAKING F&%# CRAZY PILLS?!!"

It's like that.

I am by no means a video game afficionado, and have played far fewer games than I have seen movies or even owned CD's. But while young-Bridges in the first trailer (seen only briefly) looks like simply an old-Bridges with major air-brushing (see also: Benjamin Button), in the new trailer, young-Bridges face moves, and IT LOOKS WORSE THAN VIDEO GAMES FROM 2005. Like it's not even remotely fooling anyone. Or, apparently it's fooling EVERYONE, because nobody seems to notice. It looks like ASS. It looks less-realistic than the skeletons in Pirates of the Caribbean, and that movie is five years old TOO. Do they just figure, screw it, we spent enough money, people won't notice because nobody cried foul about Gollum?

... Okay, Gollum was shot dark, but he didn't have to look human. But when he shared the screen with a real person, it looked bad, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone here.

CGI-Bridges looks like shit. We still know nothing about the story. It's a first-time director.

While I am not without a childlike sense of joy, and am currently twitching in a POSITIVE way about other movies opening between now and Christmas, every single thing I've seen about Tron: Legacy points to a Phantom Menace-esque experience, or best-case scenario, Revenge of the Sith.

And while Revenge of the Sith was clearly the best of the New Three, it couldn't hold a candle to the Original Trilogy, and we all know this.

Seriously, when was the last time Disney put out quality anything? Even Pixar wasn't their doing; Pixar owned them so many times that eventually Disney shut down its own hand-drawn animation department. Because they got BEAT. By an upstart company with ACTUAL TALENT.

I am too young to be old and cynical. But the movie looks like a C+, and while de-rezzing gladiators looks pretty cool, the actual human fight choreography looks like shit, or at least the 1.5 seconds they've bothered to put in the trailer. And trust me, if it looked good, there'd be more of it.

On the upside, the entire soundtrack is on YouTube, and it is awesome.

Bring on Harry Potter. Bring on 127 Hours. Bring on True Grit.

Let's do this thing.