rob bricken

Coinkydink Or Coinkydonk? Teen Wolf Writers Are No Heroes

Posted on by sgottahurt

teen_wolf_double_creature

Who let the wolves out? Wolf, wolf, wolf...

Though 80’s classics, I never could get into the Teen Wolf movies (soon to be an MTV show).  There was something unfulfilling about them, though they were ripe with fodder (<—a phrase not used often enough).

I was a big fan of both Michael J. Fox and Jason Bateman at the time of each respective release, so what went wrong?

I may have found the answer via Topless Robot’s Twitter feed.  Commenters on the nerd-centric blog pointed out a peculiar Coinkydink (or Coinkydonk – vote below) to site-founder, Rob Bricken, while he was on a tizzy about NBC’s Heroes driving him to drink. 

The facts are these (I sorely miss Pushing Daisies, which was created by Heroes’ only hero – Bryan Fuller):

jeph-loeb

A face only a motherfucker could punch.

tim-kring

Probably overheard saying, "I have no idea what I'm doing."

While this makes little sense to those non-nerd-centric-minded out there, the reason why Heroes sucked sucks so bad (I try to pretend it isn’t on anymore), is that it was created by Tim Kring, the guy that wrote a sequel to a crap cash grab movie by Jeph Loeb, and Tim Kring brought Jeph Loeb on board to help oversee Heroes (for awhile).

(SIDENOTE: Loeb was fired last year, but it happened at the point Leo DiCaprio let go of the wood board Kate Winslet was floating on, if Heroes was the Titanic… basically, it occurred too late.)

So if you’re wondering… what am I bashing more – Teen Wolf one and Too, or Heroes?  My answer is this: I’m not finished. 

While Tim Kring might have went on to create Crossing Jordan and produce Providence (two moderately successful shows I would never watch),  he did work on Chicago Hope and Misfits of Science (two awesome shows I wish were on DVD).  And the first season of Heroes was great, which gains him some ground, but again, he did hire Loeb, so there that goes…

Now Jeph Loeb on the other hand:

  • Wrote the wretched X-Man for Marvel Comics, which facilitated my disconnect with the X-Men Universe in paper-and-ink form (tubby Brett Ratner did the same in regard to the films)
  • Produced the highly suspect, and in retrospect, pretty crappy, second season of Lost
  • While producing and writing for Smallville, he introduced young Superman to Red Kryptonite, which is usually green; now writing again at Marvel, he introduced Red Hulk to battle green Hulk

In his (slight) defense, Loeb did write Arnie’s Commando, and he has been recognized positively for his comic writing (he’s received four Eisner‘s and five Wizard Fan Awards).  But let me get to the nitty-gritty…

Happy Find… A Long Time Ago, In ASCIImation (Plus Star Wars Saved!)

Posted on by sgottahurt

For those of you uninitiated in the ways of the world wide web, ASCII (pronounced ass-KEE) stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. 

BASICally, this encompasses all 95 printable characters on your keyboard.  A term more commonly used in the early days of home computing, many pieces of art have been created using ASCII (and summarily ink ribboned out through dot matrix printers and onto continuous sheets).  

Until now, I have not witnessed a masterpiece like this:

 

Never upset a WOOCII...

Never upset a WOOCII...

Okay, the art is sub par, but the site is insane (click here).  It’s (almost) the entire first film animated in ASCII!  DOS it help erase the memory of the prequels?  Not quite.  But Rob Bricken of the awesomely nerdy Topless Robot has theories about what went wrong (or did everything go as planned?):

I’ll tell you my greatest nerd theory, which I’m still kind of proud of — regarding the midichlorians from Phantom Menace. Like all of you, I was aghast that the Force had suddenly turned into biology and racked my brain trying to explain it. And I did — I became convinced that (George) Lucas had put it in the movie to suck on purpose. I reasoned that Lucas was intentionally making these early Jedi shitty, to which I also ascribed Qui-Gon’s dickish refusal to un-enslave Anakin’s mom — and that Lucas was trying to tell us these Jedi had lost their way with the Force. They had turned it into a science, forbidden Jedi from loving. Had shitty committee meetings instead of doing good. They’d lost their way, and that’s why they could no longer sense the Dark Side when it was right under their fucking noses. So I figured by the third movie, there was going to be a major moment of revelation as the Jedi were getting destroyed, probably by Yoda, about how they’d screwed up, and in that sense, by destroying the corrupted Jedi, Anakin truly was bringing balance back to the Force. And when Luke restarted the Jedi order, he would embrace the spirituality and the compassion that the Prequel Jedi had forgotten, finishing the work.

If you ASCII me, that sounds about right!