So I Just Watched Battlestar Galactica…

Finally got to the end of season 2.

Oh.

My.

GOD…

It Came In The Mail

Season 2.5 of Battlestar Galactica.

So yes, you can expect this will mean a lot zombified drooling in front of the TV as THE GREATEST FREAKIN’ SCIENCE FICTION TELEVISION SERIES UNFOLDS BEFORE MY UNWORTHY EYES…

Still More Insomnia

But at least there is something new to watch.

I’ll have more to talk about after I’ve actually watched the whole thing, but I gotta’ say, even though it’s not for everyone, the comedy redubbing by the Cartoon Network called Sealab 2021 had me just about dying of laughter. Some really lateral, brilliant stuff. There’s something very Seinfeld-esque about people arguing the merits of having a brain transferred to a robot body while their entire underwater compound blows up around them…

Serenity & How I Overhyped Myself

And now it is well and truly over.

I have watched everything there is to watch relating to Captain Malcolm Reynolds and the crew of the Firefly class frigate Serenity, consumed every extra and hung on every word of wisdom that escaped Joss Whedon’s lips on his commentaries.

I’m sorry to say that I think I overdid it on the expectations for Serenity, which I just watched today.

Having heard of it, and, more importantly, read the reactions by fans of the show in regards to it, I went into this film with extremely, extremely, extremely high expectations. I went into it not expecting anything short of The Greatest Movie, Nay, The Greatest Single Experience Of My Entire Life And Perhaps That Of Our Species And Possibly Plane Of Existence, Rewriting Our Very Notions Of Good.

Instead, what I got was a really great, enjoyable movie, which was enormously disappointing because I was convinced I would be transformed as a human being after watching it, and instead was highly entertained, a far cry from experiencing a shift in consciousness so profound it pushes you up a couple of rungs on the evolutionary ladder.

It’s really a shame, because I do like the movie, but I feel slightly let down by the fact that it wasn’t mindblowing beyond all reason as I’d been led to believe. I think I’ve discovered one of the major dangers of Believing The Hype in this sense, because what I was hoping for, really, was the same sense of delighted surprise I first got upon watching Battlestar Galactica, where I went into it mostly blind, having only heard a few positive responses here and there. The show itself convinced me, not the buzz surrounding it. Unfortunately, having trolled through the Battlestar Galactica forums–and other forums–in the mean time, everything I’d heard about this movie made it out to be quite possibly the most important event in human history, and in the end, I foolishly went into the film expecting it to be just that, rather than what it is; a damn good film.

Perhaps it’s because I’m a writer and not a “dedicated audience” member. Or maybe I’m just getting too jaded and cynical in my old age, or perhaps once again, it’s just being old. But the movie didn’t change my life for the better as so many have claimed it did for them. My experience of it, while positive was a shallow thing; simple enjoyment. I’ll always appreciate it for that, and I certainly treasure some of the lines, some of the moments, and in particular some of the shocks (I mean come on, Wash? Why, Joss, WHY?!?) but for whatever reason, I can’t count myself among the Browncoats or other fans that can point to this as a juncture and life-altering point in their lives. I either lack the vision, courage or faith to let this film take me to that place.

And though this is probably a blasphemy as far as True Fans are concerned, I actually still prefer the television series. It seemed to me that the events of this film were key moments that Whedon–had Firefly not been cancelled–would have ladeled out sparingly, making them far more effective as key points over the course of an ongoing narrative, rather than compress them all into the span of a feature length film. Despite the fact that this had a bigger budget, better lighting and some truly insane steadi-cam one takes, the overall impact of this story would have been better served in an episodic format, giving everyone more time to develop and giving the audience more time to really get dark with Mal and then cheer him on when he finds his purpose.

So for me the lesson learned here is whenever possible, go into a film with minimal to no expectations. Getting caught in the wave of hype will create an expectation in your head no movie can possibly live up to. I like this movie. I really like it. But I’m still pissed it didn’t bring me to Nirvana as I’d been led to believe.

Firefly & Bloggers In Real Life

Not much of the exciting or high-larious to report except that I am now in severe depression/withdrawal over having finished watching the final episode of Josh Whedon’s Firefly and have truly lost all hope in humanity. How the hell a television show this genius could get cancelled is completely, utterly beyond me. I’m a character and dialogue whore, so this show was practically made for me, the way it sucked me in with one amazing line after another and compounded it with characters that I gave a damn about and wanted to see come out of scrapes okay.

Alas, poor Serenity. We hardly knew ye. But they can’t take the sky from you.

I still haven’t seen Serenity yet, but now that I’ve watched the series (Why, American viewers? WHY? WHY DID YOU LET THIS SHOW DIE?!?) it’s something that I mean to rectify in very short order.

I also did one of those you always sort of wonder about but are never quite sure how it would go and met a blogger. Or at least a blogger I liked and who’s stuff I’ve been reading since I got acquainted with him last year over Neil-O’s arrival in south east Asia. His name is Adel Gabot and I only got to know him through mutual comments on each of our blogs after I went hunting around the internet to see how Neil-O was faring after he left Singapore. Since Adel is also a writer, and since we’re both pathetic geeks, we hit it off amicably, and when he came over to Singapore for business over the course of the week, it seemed like a good idea to meet him, so the Wife and had a milkshake with him at the Bug Eyes and it was all good.

It’s a weird thing having to reconfigure your brain though. I mean, when you read someone’s stuff for months, or even years, and get a feeling for who they are, that idea is filtered through your own prejudices and imagination, so naturally, if you’re never met the person, you create mannerisms, rhythms, cadences and characteristics that may not actually be present in the real, living, breathing person. Like even though I got on well with Adel and like him, there was that shock moment when I first heard his voice and realized all this time, his mental image in my head had included a North American accent, which was stupid since he’s from the Philippines, but my natural inclination is to mentally assign everyone a North American voice, since, well, that’s the one I’ve got.

But once you get past the initial perception you’ve formed, and start paying attention to the person in front of you, things become much easier and more pleasant and that was certainly the case here. It’s always good to just sit around and geek out about everything from how lousy the new Star Wars trilogy was to watching an uncensored version of V for Vendetta in the Philippines to just showing off the majesty and lunacy that is Feel The Magic XX/XY on the Nintendo DS. There was even a little shop talk since, we’re both writers, though he’s considerably farther up the food chain being an editor while I’ve mucked around as a happy go lucky gaming journalist.

Speaking of which, these are the topics I would like to address in future posts over the next few days: Gaming Journalism and how it’s NOT supposed to be taken seriously, Were Animals, and the real reason Superman turned out to be such a big blue boyscout.

There. I’ve written ‘em, so now I shouldn’t forget them. Now it’s back to Firefly and going through commentaries so that I can stretch and delay the post-partum depression out a little bit more…