Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Memories of What Never Was Chapter 31

I've finished up Chapter 31 of Memories of What Never Was and you can find it at the bottom of this page if you feel the great urge.

This chapter is where the characters meet and fight one of the villains of the story for the first time.  So far, this chapter contains more existing text from the previous version than any other chapters before it, but the chapter itself is still significantly changed from the original.  There are also several clues that I added in as to how this particular villain will be defeated, and how the time loop that the world is stuck in will ultimately be broken. 

I also made a few small edits to chapter 29 and 30, which I've re uploaded.  They're pretty small.  And probably unnoticeable to anyone but me, but I'm kind of a little OCD about continuity mistakes and can't rest until I've fixed them.

Saturday, July 16, 2016

Ghostbusters *facepalm*

If you enjoy juvenile slapstick, dick and fart jokes, jokes that just keep going and going and going far past the point of being funny, horrible and offensive stereotypes, mindless action for the sake of mindless action, and plot holes you could drive a solar system through, you may enjoy this movie.  If you prefer well rounded characters, good writing, intelligent humor, and a story that makes sense, avoid it like the plague.  It's not a bad movie because it stars women, like so many people on the internet keep accusing anyone of saying it's bad of saying or implying, it's a bad movie because it's a bad movie.  It's badly made.  It's badly written.  It's badly paced.  The director allowed the actresses to improvise far too much of the comedy scenes, and the editor wasn't allowed to cut them down to appropriate length.  It's just a bad, bad, baaaaaaaaad movie.

Improvisational comedy is rarely, if ever, funny.  Because no one seems to know when it should end.  It may start out as amusing, but then it just keeps going, and going, and going, and going, and by the time the bit finally ends, it's gone way past any point where it might have been entertaining, and just becomes a boring mess of grown adults making fools of themselves.  And the bathroom humor, my god... you'd think there was no other humor in the universe by bathroom humor when it comes to comedies these days.  That is why I hardly ever go to see a comedy these days, because comedies in this day and age aren't funny.  It's just a bunch of dick and fart jokes.  Period.  That's all comedies are today.   And this one is no exception.  I mean, sure, the original had a short blowjob scene, and the dickless comment near the end, but THAT WAS IT!!!  THERE WERE NO MORE!!!  Most of the comedy in the original worked because it was more situational rather than a bunch of people standing around throwing jokes at each other.  Remember the part in the elevator where Ray says to turn on his untested nuclear backpack, and the other two crowd as far away from him as possible?  That was funny because it didn't sit there and tell you WHY it was funny for five minutes after the joke was made.  The people who write and improvised the comedy scenes in this movie do not seem to realize that when you sit around and explain WHY a joke is funny after it's made, IT'S NOT FREAKING FUNNY ANYMORE!!!  It becomes boring and offensive to the intelligence to those watching. 


This movie is an insult to the original.  The original had likeable, sympathetic characters.  It knew when to be funny.  It knew when to be serious.  It knew when to be scary.  It knew when it was time for an action scene, and how long that scene should last.  It had a really good balance between all of those things.  The new one is just a mess.  It's all over the place.  I think I laughed once during the whole movie, because it just wasn't funny.  Sorry, whoever wrote this crap, I don't find dick and fart jokes to be funny.  It doesn't seem to know HOW to be funny, HOW to be scary, HOW to be exciting.  It's just a really good example of utterly inept filmmaking.  There's a lot of talk about sexism regarding this movie.  If you don't like it, and you're a man, it automatically makes you sexist.  No.  That's idiocy.  Especially since the movie turned out to be just so terrible.  This movie would have been just as terrible if the cast was replaced with men.  I would have disliked it just as much.  Not because of the cast, but because the writing was so terrible, the improvised scenes dragged on FAR too long,  and the film, on a technical level, is just crap to look at.  This movie is a blatant cash grab that's not even trying to be good.

Does it deserve the sheer amount of hatred that it's getting on the internet?  Probably not.  But let me explain WHY it's getting that sheer amount of hatred. (besides it being an absolutely terrible excuse for a movie)  For the last twenty years or so, instead of coming up with new, original ideas, the film industry has been recycling old ones because a remake or reboot is cheap to make, and it's guaranteed to make a profit because of the already existing fanbase.  It doesn't have to be a good movie, it just has to look like a good movie in the trailer and it'll make money for not much effort.  This has been going on for decades, and frankly, a whole lot of people out there are sick of it.  The Ghostbusters remake came at a time where people are just sick to death of seeing older movies that they enjoyed, remade badly, (And this one WAS made badly.  Anyone who watches this movie and says it was well made is either delusional or lying.)  and for no real reason except to make the studio a quick buck.  It was basically the last straw.  People have been putting up with this crap for years, and when they saw the first trailer, which looked absolutely terrible, for yet another bad remake of a good movie, they flipped.  No one wants to see yet another lazy, cheap ripoff of something they love.  We've all seen it before, probably multiple times.  So when trailers for this movie started coming out, a whole lot of people who are fed up with this crap just collectively said, "no more."  Had this movie been released five years ago, it probably wouldn't have gotten such a negative reaction out of people.  But the pressure has been building up for quite some time, and this just happened to be the movie that came along at the right time to make it explode.  It has nothing to do with the cast being women.  It has to do with so many people not wanting to see yet another terrible, lazy remake of a good movie. 

To tell you the truth, the actresses deserved a better movie to be in, and all those women out there rabidly attacking men for not liking it, ladies, you deserved a better movie too.  You deserved a movie that equaled the original.  That had badass female characters that weren't horrible stereotypes.  You deserved a movie that was WORTH defending.  This one is not.  Not in any way.  I wish I could say that this was a great movie, a worthy successor to the original.  But I can't.  I wish that this was a well made, smart, scary, funny, well paced, exciting movie.  But it's not.  I wish that all the people who were defending this movie could rub it in the faces of those who were saying it would suck.  But they can't.  This movie is just as bad, just as lazy, and just as poorly put together as everyone thought it would be.  I'm, frankly, quite surprised that there isn't more outcry from feminists about this movie.  Of everyone, I would have thought they would be it's biggest critics.  You have this movie that is a huge step forward for women in cinema, and what did you get out of it?  What were you defending to the death over the internet?  What were you rabidly attacking any man who said it didn't look all that good for?  A bunch of dick and fart jokes?  Horrible stereotypes?  Bathroom humor?  Are they proud of that?  Are they proud to have defended that?  Of all the people in this world, I would have thought that the feminists would be the angriest over it.  You deserve a better movie than this.  We ALL deserve a better movie than this.  Not to mention the whole "what is it with men laughing at dick and fart jokes, they're not funny" question that gets thrown about by women so often, and then when they get their movie, the movie they're defending so rabidly, what is it?  A BUNCH OF DICK AND FART JOKES!!!  Hypocritical much?  I never want to hear another woman say men are stupid because they laugh at dick or fart jokes so long as I live.  Your smug superiority card just got revoked.  Honestly, this movie's biggest critics should be women, but where are all the women complaining about it?  Nowhere to be found.  I'm sorry if I sound like a sexist douche for saying that, but it's true.

I'm not saying it's a bad movie because I'm sexist.  I've written several (bad) books, most of which have female protagonists. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was an absolutely amazing movie with a female protagonist.  I loved every minute of it, and thought Daisy Ridley's character was the best part of the movie.  The next Star Wars movie Rogue One, also has a female protagonist, and it looks completely awesome.  10 Cloverfield Lane had a female protagonist and it was also amazing.  I thought Jessica Jones was even better than Daredevil was, mostly because of Krysten Ritter's performance as the title character.  That role required an amazing actress to give it all of the depth that it needed, and she delivered spectacularly.  And lets not forget the most awesome of them all, Ripley from the Alien franchise.  I'm not saying that the Ghostbusters remake is a bad movie because I don't like women in leading roles in movies.  I'm saying it's a bad movie because it's a bad movie.  It looked like a bad movie from the very first trailer BECAUSE IT WAS A BAD MOVIE!!!  The cast, and the genders of the cast, really had nothing to do with it.  It was just a terrible piece of garbage, and everyone involved in it's making should be ashamed of themselves. 

Save your money.  Watch the original.  You'll enjoy it more.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Memories of What Never Was Chapter 30

I've finished up Memories of What Never Was chapter 30 and you can find it at the bottom of this page.

The last chapter was probably the darkest in the whole book up to this point, so I felt that this chapter needed to be a little more light-hearted to help balance that.  So this is basically our heroes taking stock after battling with one of the Seven, and Brand being Brand to lighten the mood a bit. 

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Memories of What Never Was Chapter 29

Sooooooo, I finished up the first draft of chapter 29 of Memories of What Never Was, and you can find it at the bottom of this page if you feel the great urge to read it.

What I wanted to do with Kriss was have her completely broken in the beginning, then sort of get better, and then have all the pieces that are coming back together inside of her just get completely shattered again.  So this chapter is the completely shattering again chapter.  She is the hero of this story, and this is her darkest moment, the point where she truly sees what she is, and what she has allowed herself to become.  A hero has to be tested and tried before they can rise above their faults and become what they need to become in order to win in the end.  She was getting better, but she was still broken inside.  She needed this so she could stop lying to herself and move on to really healing, but she can't do that alone.  She needs someone to show her the way, but that's a bit further down the line.  There's a few more things that need to happen first.