Binary Bonsai

At 6.15 this morning, I had my first driving lesson, which, yes, at the tender age of 30, might seem slightly late in life, especially for you pesky American’s. But if you’ve ever lived in Copenhagen, you’ll know that really, a car isn’t the best way of getting around anyway, so why bother?

That was until I saw this little flick called Mad Max. I like dogs. I can get behind Vengeful Vigilantism. Shucks, I think I’ll get myself one of them there drivin’ licenses (licensi?).

It was an interesting experience, not least because it was still dark when we started, and rush-hour had set in when we ended.. A friend of mine compared it to playing the drums to a track you’ve never heard before, which is pretty accurate (crutch-rider since ’08, and proud of it!). Though I’ll add that it’s like that, only you’ve also never played the drums before, and you’re doing it in front of an audience of some 50.000 metal fans.

It was a little tense.

But I didn’t cap any cyclists, bump into any cars or accidentally run over any pedestrians (whom I then subsequently sped away from, paying the instructor generously to overlook this minor accident, stopping at a gas station to wipe the blood off the hood, all the while grinning nervously and explaining to passerby’s how the ketchup truck had spilled its load on my hood).

So that was great.

They all look so frail from the inside of the metal monstrum. Those poor meatbags, their meat so tender and their lives hanging capriciously in the balance as I go from one to the other ‘not that one, not that one, not… no, not that one either… That one is good, I’ll take him!’.

Well, I’m not actually scared of driving. But it is pretty stressful finding yourself suddenly behind the wheels of a car in heavy traffic for the first time, thinking to yourself that the car is apt to run amok, Christine-style, with you powerless to stop it. But then you turn the key, and it mostly does what it’s told after that.

Mostly.

Next week I’ve got 5 hour and a half lessons, so be careful.

A story that Blade Runner 2 was being worked on by two screenwriters from DJ Caruso’s Eagle Eye floated recently. It was unclear just how official this project was, and how serious it should be taken. Was it the hopes of this screenwriter, or was it actually in pre-production already?

As it turns out, a bit of both, though at the moment it looks like it’s mostly the hopes of Travis Wright, who wrote a long letter to /Film explaining the status of the project, his involvement in it and this finishing remark:

I know next to nothing about Travis Wright, but for now, the above says just about all I need to hear. And before you start thinking to yourself ‘Hey, you know, I always did want to see attack ships blahblahblah’, allow me the opportunity to convince you otherwise.

Blade Runner Is A Unique Snowflake

In the history of the film industry, few works have been as monolithic, influential and respected as Blade Runner. Despite reception problems, continuity issues and re-releases over the years, it hasn’t lost an ounce of respect- Quite the opposite in fact.

It might not matter how many American Pie, Ernest Goes To… and Porky’s sequels and spin-offs they churn out. They are, for whatever qualities they may have, easily copied. Nor does it matter how many Star Trek films they do, the series was built for it. Jason? Whatever. American Ninja? Knock ýourself out.

But Blade Runner is a unique film in almost every way possible. A perfect storm of source material, talent and serendipity. It cannot be replicated. Even Ridley Scott, in all his visual splendor, hasn’t been able to make a film since, that has been able to get within eye-sight of it. Doesn’t that say something worth listening to?

Perhaps it was exactly because Blade Runner leaves the audience with open questions that it has such an impressive longevity. And perhaps this longevity isn’t an invitation to create a sequel staring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Tell, Don’t Show

There’s a golden rule in writing, which goes show, don’t tell. As rules go, this ain’t half-bad. But there are times when instead of reinforcing the illusion, it breaks it. Consider for instance if you had read this instead:

It’ll be awesome! Oh. Wait. The clone wars were better off having remained an off-hand remark by Obi-Wan.

We don’t need to meet Deckard’s wife, we don’t need to know that Rachel inherited Tyrell Corp and we don’t need to see Harrison Ford pick up the Deckard mantle again (especially after we saw Indy 4, in which Indy wanted nothing more than watching a few episodes of Matlock while gobbling down soup back at the retirement home).

Blade Runner Already Has Sequels

Three direct sequels in fact: Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Humanity, Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night and Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon, none of which I’ve read, and none of which I intend to read.

Also, David Webb Peoples, whom I have mucho mucho respect for (Leviathan, Salute of the Jugger, 12 Monkeys, Ladyhawke) co-wrote Blade Runner and went on to write Soldier¹, which was then done by Paul W.S. Anderson, an absolute hack, who rampages through franchises like the black plaque through Europe. Now, what’s interesting about this, is that Peoples considers Soldier a sidequel to Blade Runner, and of course the film… movie, let’s go with movie — even has a cascade of references to Blade Runner.

In fact, if you want to see attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, it wasn’t in the movie, but thankfully Mr. Anderson was gracious enough to put it in the trailer.

And then of course, the game, which was actually surprisingly good, everything considered. Though it did at times feel as if it was simply trying to touch all of the things that made Blade Runner, Blade Runner, rather than expand the universe.

Hell, Vangelis even did a sequel to the soundtrack, which was… Let’s not go there.

Ultimately, none of the above could capture the kind of lightning in a bottle that drives the original. It’s not impossible. Nothing is impossible. But it is implausible. And I would personally prefer if it was left alone as it is.

The Bottomline

I’m not a staunch sequel hater as such. There have been great sequels, I freely admit as much. In fact, I’m personally looking very much forward to TR2N. And hey, T2 was a great, if more family-friendly followup to its low-budget steel-bladed adrenalin-pumped predecessor. It works because Cameron was an unfliching egomaniac, which is probably why Aliens works as a sequel to Alien, despite being a fairly shallow Vietnam-in-Space followup to a much more atmospheric and erotic predecessor (stylistically, the aliens franchise is all over the place, and for that you can blame Aliens). Of course, of all sequels, I still hold The Empire Strikes Back as the best, for managing to expand on the universe, the story, the characters and their relationships, while also being a riveting ride.

But for every one of the classic ‘great’ sequels, there’s a plethora of Indy 4’s. Sequels with high production value, star quality and little else. No vision, no substance, no heart.

Consider 2010: The Year We Make Contact, a movie which isn’t in itself that bad, it just happens to quiver in the shadow of the greatest film ever made, which makes it look like a kindergarten project. And why? Nevermind Arthur C. Clarke’s books, which in my humble opinion never lived up to the film anyway, and consider instead the fact that someone decided that 2001: A Space Odyssey could do with a sequel, probably because:

Consider T3: The Rise of the Machines, which is not only a pretty bad film in itself, but which cheapens what came before by being “essentially a B movie, content to be loud, dumb and obvious, and to leave the Great Ideas to bona fide public intellectuals like Keanu Reeves and the Hulk”².

Consider Alien Resurrection, which is quite frankly disastrous in every way possible. And then some.

Consider Batman & Robin… Or don’t.

Consider any of the Planet of the Apes sequels.

Any of the Jaws sequels.

But more than anything else, consider that we already saw attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion in our minds eye, and it was a sight to see.

Don’t cheapen this. Just leave it alone and pass on by. Please.

Here is the single most annoying habit of highly annoying bloggers: Bloggers who want to decide for other bloggers how to run their blogs, presented in list-form.

And here’s a free ‘extra premium list of the most annoying habit of highly annoying readers of annoying blogs’: Said same complaining bloggers who don’t unsubscribe for everybody’s benefit.

My lists aren’t as verbose as some perhaps, and I sure-gosh-darnnit hope that doesn’t mean I make a list of ‘The Most Annoyingly Succinct Bloggers Out There’, cuz I just ain’t sure I could take that kind of a rejection.

I don’t mind Jeremy, and I don’t mean to be antagonistic, but come on. You have to just face the fact that not only do you seriously undermine your intentions by whining about how others have chosen to run their blog in the first place, but putting said whine into <ul> glass pretty much screams Hey! This isn’t a serious entry. I want to be on Digg! Please! Traffic! Digg me! Please!

It is remarkably rare to see your latest iTMS purchase accompanied by a digital booklet in the shape of a PDF file. Remarkable because whereas a physical booklet requires the use of large color-corrected printers, ink, distribution outlets, delivery vehicles (and men), loss in profits and much more, digital booklets require only ‘print to PDF’, and you’re done. Considering that, I do wonder why all my albums don’t come with booklets.

When they do however, it makes for a nice addition to the otherwise pretty non-tangible purchase that is digitally distributed music. In fact, in the degradation from LP to CD to digital audio, the only thing truly missed by the too-busy-with-life-or-too-sane-to-be-anal-audiophiles portion of the population is the art of proper packaging.

Yes, you can still go out and buy your Amon Tobin on LP with beautiful luxurious cover art the size of your head or order up the latest ultra-deluxe limited edition from Nine Inch Nails and get fantastically well-crafted paraphernalia you’ll look at maybe once a decade. In fact, when you take into account the work some b®ands put into creating their packaging, buying digitally is really a damn shame (never mind piracy).

Well played Lars. Well played.

Now for the bait ‘n’ switch in which we turn our the attention to how iTunes deals with those accompanying PDF files in a most annoying manner.

It lists them in the same file-listing as all the music tracks, which makes sense, after all where else would it list it? But what happens when you’re in coverflow view and you double-click an album-cover to play said album and PDF is listed at the top of the album’s files?

The album doesn’t actually play, as you might expect. It simply opens the PDF file! And adding insult to injury, the PDF file opens in your PDF-reader-of-choice — which in my unfortunate case, is Adobe Acrobat — taking you away from iTunes and probably launching you into the teeth-grindingly long process of telling Adobe Updater ‘please, with all due respect; fuck off’. This will probably take up to several minutes, depending on your system and the PDF being opened with what app, before you can return to iTunes and actually play the album you wanted to listen to in the first place.

Listen. No. Alright? Just no. Bad designer.

This is a perfect example of the system performing an ‘expected action’, which in the user’s mind is most likely absolutely unexpected. After all, when would you expect double-clicking an album cover to open a PDF file? And even worse, this is the only action you can perform in iTunes which will actually transport you away from iTunes!

Other than the recessed headphone jack (possibly the stupidest design decision in the history of ever), there’s only a single thing about the iPhone annoying me on a daily basis, and which, together with the non-glove-compatibility of the interface, has convinced me that yes, the iPhone was most definitely ‘Designed by Apple in (sub-tropic) California’.

The remote control ‘clicker’. It catches on to zippers like a Turkish vendor on a tourist. The shape along with the location along the wire, makes it perfect for incessantly snatching onto anything and everything semi-solid in the neck area, which in my case happens to be the zipper to my jacket.

Had the clicker been entirely smooth, from end to end, this wouldn’t be a problem. And no functionality need be sacrificed. Everyone gets what they want, we all become friends and world peace ensues.

Thank you Steve.