Category: Guest Contributors

Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 01JUN2025 – Future of Entertainment

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There was a concept a while back of Narrowcasting (as opposed to broadcasting) where you would aim for certain smaller markets via directed media like the internet. To some degree we see this happening with youtube and tiktok. The monetization would be direct from the consumers and perhaps via pre subscription schemes.

It seems that Hollywood got the narrow part but not the monetezation part. In an analogy to the misquote of Pauline Kael they don’t know anyone that voted for Donald Trump. Their audience is boomers who grew up in the late 1950s and early 1960s and are nostalgic for their college days and the protests against the Establishment. The boomers have not processed that they are now the Man. Meanwhile, Hollywood keeps churning out $200-400 million blockbusters aimed at that tiny (perhaps 5-20%) market demographic. Hollywood depends on the old 80s-2000s mix of movie theater, marketing of merchandise and resales for income. The thing is their little stunt of 2020 killed the theater, the Merch was for kids (or perhaps grand kids) which the boomers do not have, and residuals on the various streaming platforms residuals are bupkus compared to VHS/DVD sales. The big Studios are like the last of the dinosaurs standing around in a swamp in Louisiana on the day of the KT boundary impact saying “Hey Ralph whats that pretty light in the south it isn’t sunrise yet…” They’re dead they just haven’t figured it out yet, and the mammals are crouching in a variety of holes trying not to be eaten.

 

Comment by photog:  I guess I’m waiting for the mammals. It’s a lonely vigil but, “Ya gotta keep da faith.”

 

reply by Tregonsee:

Indeed Photog I’m rooting for the mammals too. Like the Mammals of the Tertiary (now called Paleogene) it may take a while for the producers to get organized. In publishing the transition seems well under way. Most Authors of more plot based SciFi either are at Baen or publish independently. Even giant authors like Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn, Way of Kings, etc.) are tending to eschew the big 5 publishing houses.

Music has been going to self publishing too. What it takes to have a GOOD studio is probably 2 orders of magnitude

Part of it is that for visual SciFi even though special effects are easier than 20-40 years ago (e.g. I’ve heard tell of a copy of the Death Star run in star Wars done totally with effect in CGI in a couple days that is VERY close to the original that took weeks in physical models) it still takes time and money. You still need actors and good ones are expensive unless you’re doing something they want to take a chance on. And even doing minimal sets things get expensive fast, and acting to things and characters that aren’t there on green screen is really hard to pull off believably even for first rate actors. The other part is that the current media seems to fight these efforts tooth and nail.

All that said there are signs things are improving. A movie called Flow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(2024_film) about a black cat and an odd bunch of animals in a post apocalyptic world got the 2024 Golden Globe and Oscar for long form animation. This was published by a 6 person group out of Latvia. I love animation and even though the premise is straight up green nude eel catastrophe the story and animation rival the best of Classic Disney or Studio Ghibli

 

Tom’s World – 31MAY2025 – More About Movies

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TomD

Of the book based Sci-Fi movies of which I’m aware, the one that was most true to the book was the original 2001. Both Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and the latest version of Dune at least try but both are handicapped by intricate and massive substrates that are almost impossible to set up and capture in the context of 2 hour +/- videos.

Although Blade Runner was barely related to it’s source material, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”, by Phillip K Dick, it succeeds on it’s own as a brilliant piece of work.

Though the Star Trek movies will never be mistaken for serious or brilliant work, I still remember my disappointment when the 1st episode without the Shatner/Nimoy cast or the Picard group, offered a close to continuous series of chase scenes in lieu of a plot.

The 1st several Star Wars movies sucked as Sci-Fi but succeeded as entertainment. A decrepit and distorted Hollywood morphed the extension of that series into something bizarre.

I’m almost terrified that Hollywood will take my all time #1 favorite movie, Master and Commander and remake it as a multicultural, multi racial, LGBTQ+ crew fighting for racial equity.

But Which Story?

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The previous post (“Have I Got a Story for You”) produced some stimulating comments and feedback (below in bold print):

I think it just proves there’s a ready market for good science fiction out there.  Larry Niven’s Known Space; David Weber’s Honor Harrington stories; Niven and Pournelle with “Footfall” “The Mote in God’s Eye” and “Lucifer’s Hammer.”  The stories are already there.  But apparently the powers that be want a different kind of story but for an audience that doesn’t like science fiction!

For adults all of the below comments give ideas that should easily be translatable to cinema or television series productions.  The technical problems have long ago been conquered with computer generated imagery.  The only problems are lack of imagination and ideological blindness.

And the people who want the good stories are both young and old.  I’d love to be able to bring my grandkids to see age-appropriate science fiction that isn’t just poorly disguised gender and racial grievance propaganda but actually tells a good story about people they can relate to.

In the spirit of selecting something I could bring my grandchildren to (and enjoy myself!) I figure I’ll throw out a couple of safe but entertaining choices.

My first choice has some problems.  The story premise has become dated based on the current state of the art in computing and thinking machines.  It’s Heinlein’s “Starman Jones.”  Max Jones’s unusual rise through the ranks from stable boy to astrogator was predicated on his “eidetic” memory and abilities as a lightning calculator.  Well, that would seem to be a kind of silly plotline today.  Even the most phenomenal human mind cannot hope to compare with the speed and precision of a modern computer.  So, some other skill will be needed to distinguish the young hero.  The FTL process could be changed so that sensing the space warp is an individualistic skill that he happens to possess to an extreme degree.  Or some other skill, whatever.

But the rest of the storyline works fine for a book or a movie concept.  Max and his mentor Sam can show their qualities on some lost planet in a star system far, far away.  I think it would make a billion bucks.

And even more apt Heinlein juvenile would be “Have Spacesuit Will Travel.”  The protagonist Kip Russell goes through a collection of adventures that are ready made for the big screen.  He’s accidentally drawn into an interstellar police action between a galaxy-spanning civilization and a race of evil predators that have invaded our solar system with the intent of conquering humanity and using them as food.

It’s got FTL space travel, time travel and high adventure.  It even has humanity put on trial in front of a galactic court to determine whether they deserve to exist.  What’s not to love.

And of course, the Heinlein juveniles include at least a half dozen more stories that are highly qualified to be considered for the big screen.  All it would take would be a director with a decent ear for dialog and a script writer who isn’t totally woke.

So, any of you guys aware of any recent science fiction that would be appropriate for adolescents and young adults?  It’s a bit more of a specialist niche but I’m sure it exists out there.  All that has to be done is look.

 

Ed Brault

I would love to see Larry Niven’s Known Space stories and novels brought to the screen. Big, sweeping arcs like Ringworld Series, The Fleet of Worlds, or the epic Man-Kzin Wars; or smaller sets like the Gil Hamilton organlegger detective stories, or the individual novels that help flesh out the Known Space Universe: Becalmed in Hell, the Coldest Place, World of Ptaavs, A Gift from Earth, and especially, Protector, and the related Peace Corben novellas. These would probably be best done like The Expanse; a multi-year episodic TV drama.

The biggest problem would be preventing the studio suits from doing a Disney on the stories. I would consider that an Organ-Bank-worthy crime!

 

Abraham

David Weber’s Honor Harrington series would work well, even with a woman hero.

 

Tregonsee314

I think Ringworld has been in development a couple times, most recently with Amazon/MGM. It is Tough to get a large audience for it (especially as you move into Ringworld Engineers and later) as it wanders into hard R territory though one COULD limit that somewhat. It also would probably push limits of even current special effects for Kzin and Puppeteers. I love Protector it has the advantage that it sticks with a couple characters across its story. It probably would want to be a limited miniseries as it is a smidge too long (at 218 PG) to make a single two-hour movie, though you could perhaps time compress some parts and maybe get there. My own favorite for a series (or maybe 2 movie pair like the recent Dune) would be Niven and Pournelle’s Footfall, if for no other reason than the final battle using Project Archangel.

 

TomD

Reply to  Tregonsee314

It’s been decades since I read Footfall, I really would like to reread that. Niven alone

Niven and Pournelle put out so much. I still think Lucifer’s Hammer was the absolute best of the type.

Ahhh, but Ringworld made “real” and the Mote in Gods Eye—–

 

Ed Brault

Lucifer’s Hammer: The surfer dude riding the tidal wave would be worth the price of admission!

 

Tregonsee314

So many attempts and so little success. Looking for successes I think the latest incarnation of Dune, although flawed in some aspects, was probably the most successful of the 3 (4 if you count the aborted Jodorowsky attempt). I think the Jackson Lord of the Rings was very good even without certain sections (sorry Tom Bombadil, you just aren’t central to the plot). The Expanse did middling well, though I lost track of it mid-2nd season.

The failures are more plentiful. Jacksons Hobbit was a mess with unnecessary additional characters and subplots, even though the acting (Bilbo and Thorin especially) was superb. The Foundation series by Apple mangles the timeline (mostly because with the longer timeline there is no character continuity but for the shade of Hari Seldon) and adds wokish subplots all over the place. Effects were nice and Asimov having ONLY humans in Foundation/ Robots universe simplifies that. All in all, it was a disappointment and I bailed after 3-4 episodes. I think it fell flat for the public because many of its ideas seemed like retreads (E.g. Trantor as a planet covered with civilization feels like warmed over Coruscant even though Trantor predates Coruscant by 20+ years and likely inspired Lucas). And Rings of Power? Mauling the lore of Tolkien to pander to a variety of subgroups combined with puerile 4th-grade fanboy scripts produced an utter catastrophe.

Almost anything Sci-fi that Hollywood has done without a sci-fi novel or story at the heart is a mess. Hollywood seems to want to revert to the pre–Star Wars Sci-fi where all is Dystopia and nuclear hellscape. That things might work out is anathema. Even the vaunted Federation of Star Trek has been being mauled with its hidden perfidy in Discovery and Picard. Not to say dark is bad. Babylon 5 was amazing (especially given the limitations of cost and mid 1990’s special effects).

What seems to matter most is that the primary vision for converting the Sci Fi to the screen needs to LOVE the material. JMS wrote much of B5 and was its director, Peter Jackson Adored Lord of The Rings and co-wrote the script, Denis Villeneuve is a Dune/Herbert fanboi. Each loved the story in its original form and tried very hard to leave the original plot beats and characterizations in place, not bend them to tell their own story like Rings of Power or Foundation did.

Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 28MAY2025 – Science Fiction Movies

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So many attempts and so little success.  Looking for successes I think the latest incarnation of Dune, although flawed in some aspects, was probably the most successful of the 3 (4 if you count the aborted Jodorowsky attempt). I think the Jackson Lord of the Rings was very good even without certain sections (sorry Tom Bombadil, you just aren’t central to the plot). The Expanse did middling well, though I lost track of it mid 2nd season.

The failures are more plentiful. Jacksons Hobbit was a mess with unnecessary additional characters and subplots, even though the acting (Bilbo and Thorin especially) was superb. The Foundation series by Apple mangles the timeline (mostly because with the longer timeline there is no character continuity but for the shade of Hari Seldon) and adds wokish subplots all over the place. Effects were nice and Asimov having ONLY humans in Foundation/ Robots universe simplifies that. All in all it was a disappointment and I bailed after 3-4 episodes. I think it fell flat for the public because many of its ideas seemed like retreads (E.g. Trantor as a planet covered with civilization feels like warmed over Coruscant even though Trantor predates Coruscant by 20+ years and likely inspired Lucas). And Rings of Power? Mauling the lore of Tolkien to pander to a variety of subgroups combined with puerile 4th-grade fanboy scripts produced an utter catastrophe.

Almost anything Sci-fi that Hollywood has done without a sci-fi novel or story at the heart is a mess. Hollywood seems to want to revert to the pre Star Wars Sci-fi where all is Dystopia and nuclear hellscape. That things might work out is anathema. Even the vaunted Federation of Star Trek has been being mauled with its hidden perfidy in Discovery and Picard. Not to say dark is bad. Babylon 5 was amazing (especially given the limitations of cost and mid 1990;s special effects).
What seems to matter most is that the primary vision for converting the Sci Fi to the screen needs to LOVE the material. JMS wrote much of B5 and was its director, Peter Jackson Adored Lord of The Rings and co-wrote the script, Denis Villeneuve is a Dune/Herbert fanboi. Each loved the story in its original form and tried very hard to leave the original plot beats and characterizations in place, not bend them to tell their own story like Rings of Power or Foundation did.

Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 27MAY2025 – Niven’s “Known Space” on Screen

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I would love to see Larry Niven’s Known Space stories and novels brought to the screen. Big, sweeping arcs like Ringworld Series, The Fleet of Worlds, or the epic Man-Kzin Wars; or smaller sets like the Gil Hamilton organlegger detective stories, or the individual novels that help flesh out the Known Space Universe: Becalmed in Hell, the Coldest Place, World of Ptaavs, A Gift from Earth, and especially, Protector, and the related Peace Corben novellas. These would probably be best done like The Expanse; a multi-year episodic TV drama.
The biggest problem would be preventing the studio suits from doing a Disney on the stories. I would consider that an Organ-Bank-worthy crime!

Guest Contributor – Bigus Macus – 25MAY2025 – America First

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The Trump Doctrine

This President inherited 30 years of foreign policy built around what was good for the world. The decisions we made as a government in trade and foreign policy were basically, is it good for the world and the global community? And under President Trump, we are making foreign policy based on is it good for America. What that means is foreign policy is about three things: Does it make America stronger? Does it make America safer? Does it make America richer? If something doesn’t do those three things—and hopefully all three things—we are not doing it.
 
Read the rest…
https://wemeantwell.com/blog/2025/05/23/the-trump-doctrine/

Tom’s World – 24MAY2025 – Batteries Not Included

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TomD

For chainsaws you’ll probably want a smaller one to start, maybe 14” or 16” max. I’ve moved a lot of my outdoor power equipment from gas to battery after a lifetime of small motor gasoline problems am delighted.

I’ve now got battery weed eater, chainsaw and blower. No snow blower for me, I live in Florida. I’ve settled on the Ego system. You want the same maker and battery commonality between tour tools. A 56V x 7.5 amp hour battery costs $400, close to double what the tool costs and you can buy tools sans battery much cheaper. I’ve got a 7.5 a 5 and a 2. The 2 will run my weed eater to last much longer than I and with every bit of the power of my gasoline ones but without the hassle.

And stepping down, my battery hand tools have almost totally displaced the 110V from yesteryear. I still have 110V slide miter and skill saw. My battery skill saw doesn’t the ability to, say, rip a sheet of 3/4” plywood easily. But impact driver, 1/2” impact wrench, 1/2” drill, jigsaw, sawzall, trim nailer, router all mostly Makita but with DeWalt and Bosch thrown in over the years have become standard. I hate power cords.

Tom’s World – 17MAY2025 – Pain

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TomD

I had something similar about 12 years ago, on a weekend. It was days before I could get to a dentist who then kicked me to a dental surgeon. But he did take pity on me and wrote a few days supply of some opioid for me. Talk about relief! Before, the incessant throbbing precluded all life functions except misery.

There are so many drug addicted people out there that opioids are being withheld from non-addicted people who really have a short term need.

Other than post surgical on two occasions, the only other time I need opioids was from what I think was whooping cough decades ago. Once I started coughing, I would go into a painful fit of it that would last minutes and reoccur several times an hour. My throat was so raw that I could barely talk. A codeine cough syrup was an immediate and blessed relief.

On occasion, you need opioids and you really need them. It’s a shame that events have made Dr’s and DD’s so reluctant to proscribe them that even people like yourself can’t get them when needed.

In the meantime, the true abusers have an immense, cheap and potent supply of much stronger drugs. As a testament to the Law of Unintended Consequences, it looks like the hard restriction of opioid from the abusers had the result driving them and creating the flood of cheap fentanyl. So now, it looks like the only people who can’t get pain killers are the legitimate users.