A prequel money grab that didn't need to happen got canceled by HBO

When Game of Thrones ended, five possible prequel series got announced. Now it's down to one...tentatively...about Targaryens. I'm not sure who the intended audience is, but maybe there's just people who want to know more about Targaryens. However, the series that got canceled was going to tell the story of the Long Night and the Doom of Valyria...basically all the stuff I even had a remote interest in to begin with. Now, the only series that seems to be getting a "go ahead" signal of any kind is the one with the blond-headed imperialists riding dragons.

To be honest though, I'm not overly sad that the prequel series (set thousands of years before Game of Thrones's timeline) got canceled. Nothing about the show made any sense from the get-go. The events that happened 10,000 years in the past (from the perspective of the series) are pretty much irrelevant. It was a vague background window dressing at best. There would be no King's Landing court intrigue, no dragons, and only one or two major houses at best.

People might say, "Oh...but what about the White Walkers?"

Well the thing is...we have most of that mystery solved. We already know what the White Walkers are and where they came from...so there's no use going into that unless someone wants to tell that story again (I would recommend against it). The Children of the Forest are basically Native American placeholders or the standard "elf" in most fantasy literature...and everything else can be summed up as a bunch of petty feudal lords squabbling with each other.

So (in my opinion) why did the prequel in particular get canceled? Word is they even filmed a pilot for it, so they were pretty serious, right? How does this make any sense? Here's my theory: it turned out to be a lot more expensive than they thought. Also, studio execs got scared that going forward, there was going to be even greater expense due to the magical bronze age element of all the things. Money is usually what kills projects, so this is where I'm placing my bets on what exactly happened.

I'm actually more excited for the Lord of the Rings prequel series that Amazon is doing than anything taking place in GRRM's world from A Song of Ice and Fire. I think I'm pretty done with that story (and its offshoots). What say you?

Will Doctor Sleep be any good?

I'm probably (most likely) going to a Fandango early release of Doctor Sleep this Wednesday, October 30. The thing is, I'm wondering if it will be any good. Early viewers of the movie have said this:

"Crafts visceral, disquieting dread not too dissimilar to Kubrick's masterpiece."

"Doctor Sleep is great...But bloody graphic with the violence in parts and very upsetting but so well done."

And then Stephen King weighed in as well by saying, "Mike Flanagan is a talented director, but he's also an excellent storyteller. The movie is a good thing. You'll like this if you liked THE SHINING, but you'll also like it if you liked SHAWSHANK. It's immersive."

The thing is, Stanley Kubrik was a legend in his own time, and he's kind of grown from there after his death. 2001: A Space Odyssey, which announced the experimentalism of new Hollywood at the same time that it created a different playbook for visual effects kind of defines who he was as a director. But it was a different age, with a bar that was far less crowded with people who didn't go to film school to learn all of the techniques to tell a visual story. I'm not even sure a director can even impress us these days, because the audiences have seen everything.

The fact that King is giving props to Flanagan (however) is good, especially given King's notorious dislike for The Shining's original depiction in film.

I'm going to try and keep an open mind, but I'm inevitably wondering if Doctor Sleep is going to be any good. I guess I'll find out.

If you want to give your kids the best chance at success in life you should strive to raise them free of all personality disorders.

I don’t think there is enough research going on between personality disorders and how those who have them are prone to use drugs and prone to end up in poverty or homelessness. However, there are lots of studies that go the other way. In other words, lots of people blame poverty and homelessness on creating personality disorders. But in my humble opinion, I think that kind of thinking is putting the horse before the cart. I think personality disorders are the cause (the root of the problem as it were) and the problems growing from this toxic root are poverty, drug use, and homelessness.

According to various psychology outlets and papers, there are ten kinds of personality disorders. They are as follows: 1) Paranoid personality disorder, 2) Shizoid personality disorder, 3) Schizotypal disorder, 4) Antisocial personality disorder, 5) Borderline personality disorder, 6) Histrionic personality disorder, 7) Narcissistic personality disorder, 8) Avoidant personality disorder, 9) Dependent personality disorder, and 10) Obsessive Compulsive personality disorder. If a person gets even one of these into their heads (let alone a whole bucketful) I think it increases a person’s chance that they will 1) get into illegal drugs in their adult life, or 2) end up unable to support themselves as an adult, or 3) both. It’s strange to think about, right?

So, why then did I start thinking about this? Let’s chalk it up to personal experience. I work and associate with a lot of people who struggle to “independently” support themselves, and I’ve noticed a trend: a lot of them are assholes. Many of them are terrible communicators, and this terrible-ness extends to avoiding communication altogether, ghosting, or lack of explanation and follow-through. Many of them exhibit toxic levels of narcissism by “splaining” away on various topics as if I were an uneducated slob. They can be bossy and rude. Many of them post a ton on social media, are very active on Instagram, as if every aspect of their lives was celebrity-worthy. Many post antagonistic things on social media as if begging others, “Come fight me, bro!” I suppose this behavior could be called, “Trolling,” but I’d also say it comes from a place of bitterness. Many of them cannot be counted upon to help out with manual labor requests, even though they have all the time in the world to do so. Many of them ask to borrow money with no intention of paying it back. Many of them are perfectionists, meaning nothing is ever good enough for them. They find a way to criticize just about anything. Many of them are ungrateful and undependable. And many of them act entitled as if they were prima donna’s in their own opera. Many of them are okay with casual exploitation. Quite a few measure value in physical appearance only, and this is usually because they have come to value this about themselves for whatever reasons.

This idea of mine grew out of all of the above experiences and with me asking a question: why are my interactions with people who struggle to support themselves so profoundly negative? You see, this flies in the face of what I was taught: that poor people were humble. I have found over and over and over that this is not the case at all. Then I picked up a report about homelessness and read a line that I had previously encountered before (and just never processed what it was actually saying to me): “Personality disorders in the homeless population are two to four times as prominent as those found in the general population.” This wasn’t a “new” thing, but my understanding of what that one line said was like a light bulb turning on in my head. It’s the personality disorder that created the homelessness, and not the other way around. I thought poverty and homelessness was the trauma that resulted in the personality disorder, but I don’t think that’s actually what’s going on here. And it makes so much sense with regard to the reality in which I live.

For example, no one I know (including myself) has fun working with people who have personality disorders, because (for want of a term that encapsulates what this means in practice) they are assholes. To explain it another way, it’s hard to work with a “jerk” (using another synonym), because they are abusive. It takes a very special person to sign-up to being psychologically and emotionally abused every day by another person. So these people with personality disorders end up being unsuitable for the workplace (and for a lot of life actually), which leads to casual and illegal drug use and the partying lifestyle (and generally heading straight for “rock bottom”).

In other words, I think personality disorders in adults are a gateway to illegal drug use and unemployment. And the thing is, no one talks about treating personality disorders as a solution (or nipping budding personality disorders in young people). What I see are people trying to address the symptoms, i.e., things like housing, donations, and the drug trade. But it also makes me think that this is all we can do as a society, because personality disorders are very difficult to cure or treat. For example, professionals are not even on the same page as to the cause of personality disorders in the first place, because it (potentially) can be anything in the environment. Is it parenting? Is it a social group that forms around a child at school? Is it commercialism and capitalism? Is it competition? Is it bullying? Or is it all of the above? Is it something I haven’t listed? If I were to give any advice to a parent, it would be this: raise a child to adulthood without any personality disorders, and you will give your child the best chance you possibly can for them to succeed. But as my friend has pointed out, when I told her my observation and idea, “How the hell do you do that in today’s world?” This comes from a mom who did everything she could to raise her daughter right, and guess what? Her daughter is brimming with personality disorders. Because of these personality disorders, the daughter is probably (and unfortunately) headed for rock bottom at some point. It’s like you can see the train wreck coming, and there’s no way to correct the course.

I do know people who are (to my knowledge) free of personality disorders, and they are a delight to be around and all of them are successful by every measure we have today to view such things. Is it a coincidence? I think not. And the fact that I know people who are free of personality disorders makes me believe that it’s possible to raise children to adulthood without them. I just can’t tell you how to do it. However, it seems like an awfully important goal to strive for, and one that (I believe) is not talked about enough when it comes to what it takes to independently support oneself in today’s society and to achieve some measure of fulfillment with regard to one’s life. “Don’t get infected with any personality disorders, folks,” is easier said than done.

The online reactions to the final The Rise of Skywalker trailer are all over the board.

Star Wars is a beloved franchise, which I suppose means that reactions to it are going to be all over the board. Some love it, some hate it, and many seem to post something akin to "I have very low expectations for this film." Is "the bar" looking pretty weathered at this point? Are people still complaining about The Last Jedi? Yes, yes they are. Here are a few of the reactions I read that struck me as interesting:

"The sequel trilogy has NOT worked for me, but I bleed Star Wars through and through, so I'll see the shit outta this on general principle. I just wish this story and these characters worked for me more."

"If Reylo does not happen I am done forever with Star Wars. I will never buy anything Star Wars or Disney. Why did they bother even setting it up in TLJ?"

"I have very low expectations of this trailer for the final episode...Mainly wanted more of the Mother of All Space Battles. Rey vs Kylo duel? Haven't we seen that a few times before? I'll be there on opening day, but I expect to be disappointed."

"I'm still incredibly miffed at the fact there's been zero in-film explanation of how we got from the end of Episode VI to VII. I have no idea where the First Order came from, or why the apparent victory at the end of Episode VI ended up in the way we are now."

"I, too, have low expectations for this film. I've also found that I'm fine with that. The movie will probably be mediocre, but there will be another Star Wars soon afterwards, and another one, until the heat death of the universe, so whatever really. I've either disconnected emotionally at some point, or discovered that I never really cared in the first place."

"And in the original trilogy you had no clue why Boba Fett was a badass bounty hunter. Or where the Emperor came from or how he rose to power. Or how the original Death Star was able to be rebuilt or partially destroyed when you saw it explode into dust with your own eyes. Or how Jabba was a big bad gangster with so much power. Or what the Kessel run even was, and so on and so forth. Sometimes just accept that everything doesn't need to be shown and explained to you in a tidy way. People don't want to watch movies and the stories they tell. People want to watch fan-fiction and have their subjective imaginations beats confirmed."

And last (but not least) here is what I have to say regarding the last trailer for the last of the "Star Wars Saga":

For what it's worth, this throne in the trailer looks really cool. I'm sure someone good actually sits in it; the thing doesn't look evil at all (snicker).

Any opinions out there regarding "The Rise of Skywalker?" Is it totally going to suck? Is it going to be amazing? Do you have Star Wars fatigue? Is Disney just beating a dead horse? Is there any story left to tell? What say you?

The last two episodes of Titans have been great because they introduced a perfectly cast Superboy.

Superboy joined the Titans on DC Universe, and has been present more or less in the last two episodes. The first episode that introduced him, called Conner, was really good. And bonus...we got Krypto the Wonder Dog as well. Why am I excited? It's kind of fun seeing the dog shoot heat vision beams out of its eyes. Played by Australian actor Joshua Orpin, I think that the casting for Superboy is absolutely perfect.

***Spoiler alert if you are planning on watching the series***

Okay, if you have made it this far, then you probably have either seen the episodes or don't really care. Either way is good. So the way "Conner" (who is Superboy) gets introduced is a bit jarring and messes with the pacing of season 2 just a bit. However, it pays off because Conner is in the right place to scoop Jason Todd out of the air to keep him alive a bit longer (see "A Death in the Family" for more of Jason Todd's ultimate fate). It seems "hamfisted" just a bit. However, I'm so glad they went there. It was really embracing the whole "superhero comic book show" theme. Plus, I think live-action Superboy is better than any of his animated doppelgangers have been.

The introduction of "Conner" feels like a great new direction for the show. Now if we could just get Koriandr to fly around I think I might be a bit more satisfied. 

You can almost hear the shriek of the marmot in this photograph which won the most prestigious award at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

Yongquing Bao of Qinghai, China, captured the moment a marmot reacts in shock at a Tibetan fox about to pounce. Their efforts were rewarded when they won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award at London's Natural History Museum. I think the thing that stands out most to me in this photo is the expression on the marmot's face. It's shear terror, and it's a reminder that the natural world is brutal. You can view the gallery of entries at this link if you'd care to see some of the others. 

It's kind of interesting to me that the Watcher in the Woods is not going to be on Disney + on launch day.

The list of things that are going to be available to subscribers of Disney + on launch day next month is impressive. It took me about a minute to scroll through the whole thing which was featured on io9 and gathered from a tweet storm sent out by the Disney marketing machine this weekend. A lot of people pointed out that The Watcher in the Woods is not on that list. For me, The Watcher in the Woods was kind of a defining movie in the 80's, mostly because it was so scary. In the back of my mind, it was going to be a movie I revisited/rewatched and I'm not so sure how well it would have held up so many years later.

When it first came out, The Watcher in the Woods had its own controversy. For one, Disney told parents not to take little kids to it. The movie’s plot follows the Curtis clan, an American family that moves to England and finds a beautiful old house for sale, with a shockingly low asking price. It turns out the home belongs to Mrs. Aylwood (Bette Davis), who is selling the house–mostly because of the bad memories–and has moved herself to the guest house. Her daughter Karen disappeared suddenly 30 years ago and there’s been a strange presence in the woods ever since. The Curtis’ older daughter Jan begins to feel this strange presence and soon begins seeing images of a young blonde girl with a blindfold. Slowly, Jan begins piecing together the events surrounding Karen’s disappearance. She learns some locals know more than they care to admit and were messing with some dark powers during a solar eclipse.

Many people are saying that Disney might be shying away from making this film available because it's part of that generation of films, i.e., The Black Hole, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Watcher in the Woods, etc. that veered into the weird and strange. I think the weird and strange though is something that's very much in style in 2019. So these films (seem to me) to be ripe for obtaining some kind of cult following, which would only seem to be a good financial decision in the long run since it's just free money.