fixtheworld

Do Cool Good Things - They Come Back

Posted from the US

 

Do cool good things and they come back.

They do.

(I think the opposite is true as well).

-R

 

Bionic Builders - Comic Book Characters Coming to Life

Posted from the US

 

At the Solidworks World 2011 General Sessions this morning the last speakers were the guys from Bionic Builders:

 

They were awesome and mind blowing. The stars are Hollywood stuntman and amputee Casey Pieretti and his personal inventor/design engineer Bill Spracher. Casey's dream is to have bionic limbs of all kinds that literally give him superpowers and capabilities that transcend human (that's him flying in the picture and on stage - he was practicing to have his leg explode off for a special effect). They designed a submarine propeller leg, one for mountain climbing, one that explodes, and I think one that shoots flames and/or baseballs(!) Awesome.

I do some pretty out there things with robots but these guys rocked.

-R

Leave Them New Zealand Hobbits Be

Posted from the US

Having just returned from a trip to Middle Earth (New Zealand) I have been actively following the strange and twisted tale of some major US studios thinking about yanking the two new Hobbit film productions out of New Zealand.

I am quite biased here, as I have friends in New Zealand who will be working on the production - but my overall guess is that anyone who has ever visited the country would appreciate how very wrong it would be to pull the films out of what truly is the only and best place for them to be created.

New Zealanders not only love their Hobbits, they essentially are Hobbits. They are one of the friendliest, least corrupt nations on earth - they live away from it all in their rough and tumble Shire Isle. The way the native Maori have been made part of society is not perfect - but it appears to be a far better situation than the way many countries have dealt with their original peoples. They seem to go out of their way to get along and to try and respect the culture of others - by wit and by being genuine, not by military might. Hobbits be there.

Where the Hobbit gets made may not seem to be a major issue on the global stage. Terrorism and the falling economy and worldwide poverty are much bigger fish. But I think that there is much for the rest of the world to learn from this modest and isolated place - much to learn about how to live in peace and get along.

So let's all join in and support their rally - let the Hobbit stay where it belongs!

-R

Back From Middle Earth

Posted from the US

Just back from a trip to Middle Earth (New Zealand)!

I was able to spend time with some of the very cool artists and film types who live down way under working on a semi-secret project that surely and absolutely involves zero hobbits.

I was also able to procure the very mighty Righteous Bison, quite handy when dealing with voracious Venusians (or Mad Hatters from the Tea Party!):

 

Everyone needs a Righteous Bison of their own - I wonder if I can register it with my local NRA? Best used for zapping highly endangered species and alien wildlife. 

I did manage to have mangled a very large Colossal Squid with my trusty Bison  - but it seems that some local Kiwis claim to have beaten me to the punch and have ole Colossal floating about in a noxious fluid in their National Museum.

 

-R

 

On Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

Posted From The US

I finally was able to see the new film Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World this weekend.

Some quick hit thoughts:

• Will surely be a slacker-indie cult classic
• Very cool mash-up of retro video game vibes + indie music + slackers + Canada/Toronoto
• Great cast
• Is sadly flailing at the box office - but thus is the fate of going all out indie
• Hopefully will make all the $ and then some somehow through DVDs and word of mouth
• Is the kind of film/graphic novel thingie I love
• Actually read all 6 graphic novels(!) - and liked them better - somehow they have more heart and depth and ambience

Why Avatar scored billions in its box office and Scott Pilgrim will likely barely make back its budget is a harsh lesson for any writer, filmmaker, and studio. They seem to both appeal to the core ComiCon crowd (strange blue aliens vs. indie rock video game slackers) - but somehow Avatar widely broadened its appeal across the world and won over practically everyone.

I think Scott Pilgrim suffers from what I will call the "Williamsburgh/Indie" ghetto mentality - which ultimately makes its world much smaller. If you have ever visited Williamsburgh it has bloomed into a indie arts/music Nirvana of sorts - a very inward, self-referential world - a living Facebook of hipsters and artsy types. It's a really cool place - but it bears little resemblance to the rest of the world. One wakes up, heads down to the local ultra-wicked-cool coffe shop, hangs out with other really cool and interesting people, works on one's band/film/art project, and then at night heads to a loft for an even cooler secret show featuring some amazingly uber-hip band (some TV On The Radio/Sleigh Bells mashup). Williamsburgh has distilled the best parts of college into a persistent art-slacker experience - one you never want to leave. It is the land of the Lotus Eaters - and it's good stuff.

Williamsburgh = Austin = Portland = Toronto = Seattle (sort of). These are coral reefs - very specialized clusters that can only exist under unique conditions, often within vast seas of danger and conservatism and blah. They are the fragmented, bastard children of the Beats and Woodstock and Paris of the 1920s and every idealized art dream. The connectedness to the rest of the world is thin - and often alienating. The battle cry is "your world kinda sucks - I'm dropping out and tuning in somewhere else". This is both the greatness and limitation of Scott Pilgrim - it drops a sharp dividing line between those who get it and those who do not. If you do, welcome in, if you don't, well f--k off - who invited you anyway?

I get it, thought it rocked - but.

The genius of Star Wars, of the Beatles, (maybe even of Avatar) - of a rarefied few was this: we'll bring this other place to you, all of you. We know all of you need to escape every once in a while, and everyone needs to have the world widened. We all may not be able to live in the indie cool villages, but we can all live in the Yellow Submarine. For all of Scott Pilgrim's awesome cool innovations and creativity, I think that they forgot this - they built a small bus for a select few - and it's a great ride if you can get on it. 

The harder thing is to crawl over your own walls and beyond those walls of people you think are just not the bees knees - and to somehow get past all of that. That harder thing is what Pixar does well. It's not mandatory - but it can explain success in a small circle vs. wide universal appeal.

I love the fact that Scot Pilgrim exists and I hope that many more films like it can and should get made - but setting expectations correctly up front can help soften the disappointment later.

-R