New Star Wars - Ho Hum

So I saw the new Star Wars movie, Rogue One. I mean, I suffered through it. It's the story that takes place between episodes III and IV. Hollywood is hurting for female heroes it seems, so of course the hero is a woman. Hey, I've got nothing against women heroes. Let me make it clear there are many women heroes in the world. But this story is not in this world. Not earth. So what? you might say.

Well, the first Star Wars movie had one woman in it. Princess Leah. She was brave and heroic, but she was the only woman. And then it was noticed that there were no minorities in it either. And the Star Wars people were skewered for it. So they got Billy Dee Williams to play Lando Calrisian, and then they made sure the next movies had plenty of women in them. Okay. By then I couldn't stand Star Wars anymore, so whatever.

But now that Disney has the rights to Star Wars, thanks to a four billion dollar payday to George Lucas, they are going out of their way to make the main hero of the new Star Wars movies a woman. At least so far. (Two for two, anyway.)

Again, I know women can be just as heroic as any man. They can be just as brave. And they can be just as strong-willed. But I ask again the question I've asked many times. Do women want to fight people? Do women want to hurt people? Do women want to kill people?

I have another question. Do women want to see other women fight, hurt, and kill people? Do they? I mean, that's what Hollywood is having them do. Time and again, in the movies and in TV shows, we're seeing women "heroes" take the roles of fighters and killers. Is that what women want? I can't believe women want to fight, to hurt, and to kill people. I can't believe women want to see other women fight and kill people. I don't believe it.

But Hollywood seems to think that to be a hero, you have to physically fight, hurt and kill people. It's laughable if you think about it...just how shallow-minded Hollywood is. And I remind you that to be a hero, you don't have to be a super fighter and killer of other human beings, even human beings who deserve it. Again I would like to use Downton Abbey as an example. In Downton Abbey you have many women heroes. They are brave, they are strong-willed, and they are heroic. But they don't go around fighting, hurting, and killing anyone.

Mary, Violet, Sybil, Edith, Cora, Isabel, Anna, Mrs. Hughes, and the list goes on. They are wonderful, strong, brave characters. They are real heroes.

It is refreshing to know that at least ONE show has it right. I'm sure there are others. I just haven't seen them yet. So the next time Star Wars has to resort to a fighting, killing woman to be the hero, let me point to Downton Abbey. Those are real women heroes. And by far the superior heroes.

Star Wars has fallen into the shallow minded notion that a hero has to be a super fighter and kill. And since they want their heroes to be women, then the women have to be super fighters and kill. To that I say meh. That's all.

Martial Arts Stories Rule

I've always loved stories about martial arts experts. More to the point, I've always liked characters who have displayed unusual talent in many different areas. But they have to be tough. Like the typical Hollywood tough guy from years ago. When I was a kid there were a lot of them.

Clint Eastwood was terrific as "the Man with No Name." Yeah, I'm talking about the spaghetti westerns. He was cool as Dirty Harry, too.

But the list goes on when referring to tough guy actors from the sixties. Sean Connery was tops as James Bond, of course. William Shatner is the one and only James Kirk, and hands down the best ever starship captain. Robert Conrad is the only James West.

Robert Mitchum was a tough guy's tough guy, as was Anthony Quinn, James Coburn, Charlton Heston, and Charles Bronson. These guys make today's wannabe tough guys look like cupcakes.

Of course, you have the classic tough guys like John Wayne, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, and Kirk Douglas.

Then you have the suave tough guys. Sean Connery would be in this category too. (He's the only one who makes both lists.) But included in this list you have guys like Robert Vaughn, Robert Redford, and Yul Brynner.

 These guys are tough guys that actually LOOK like tough guys. There are other guys who've PLAYED tough guys, but in my book they don't cut it. This might offend some people, but to ME they don't look so tough. They include Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Richard Widmark, and Edward G.
Robinson. Those guys don't look like they can beat up my mother-in-law. But the other dudes? Those guys are badass dudes. I didn't list them in any particular order. It's just that the good old days of real tough guys is over. Today you have softies pretending to be tough guys.

Sometimes they can pull it off. Brad Pitt made a decent Achilles in the otherwise horrible movie Troy. Vin Diesel makes a good tough guy in his movies, and Jason Statham is an authentic tough guy in his movies, but that's about it. I'm hoping Dustin Clare can be a tough guy, too. He was the best actor in the recent Spartacus show, and I've blogged often that he might be a great Trent Smith in my novels, Killer of Killers and Killer Eyes. What does the future hold?
We'll see.

John Dunn Book Still In The Works

Just want to let everyone know that the John Dunn book is still in the works. I mentioned in an earlier post that my publisher has fallen behind in their publishing schedule, and I also noted that that was a good thing as far as my John Dunn book is concerned. You never want to rush a publication. Never. I felt Second Chance was rushed a bit, even though it got delayed a couple weeks itself.

But there were a couple minor errors in it and one somewhat major continuity error. It's weird how that happens. I must have read it twenty plus times, and it was edited, as well, but still that one continuity error went unnoticed until after publication and my brother bought and read the book and pointed it out to me. How he could catch it in a single reading and I couldn't after twenty is baffling to me to say the least. Ultimately, it's still a great read, and the one continuity error doesn't ruin the story.

For my John Dunn book, this current delay has proven to be a boon, because I've caught some errors and fixed them, right up to yesterday. I found two misspellings of the mission station Eshowe. Anyone who knows anything about Zululand and the Zulu War knows about Eshowe. But yesterday, I found a place where it was spelled Eschowe. Ouch. Of course I fixed it back to Eshowe, but then I used the "search" app to see if there was anywhere else where I might have spelled it Eschowe, and there was one more place it was misspelled. It's fixed now.

And the usual improvement in prose continues every time you read through it. Needless to say, the writing is tons better at this point. It ranks up there with the finest writing I've ever done, and I think it will hold it's own for all stories concerning the Zulu War and any Historical Fiction book for that matter. It's a true story, after all, and hopefully the editing will begin soon. I'm thinking it will be released early in 2017. Which is right around the corner. Can't wait.

Dr. Strange - Good Movie

I haven't been a big fan of comic book movies, even though as a youth I had read and even collected some of the comic books, especially those from the Silver Age, which was basically the comics from the 60s.

My main problem with the comic book movies is they usually cast the wrong actors to play the parts, and the movie producers almost always believe they have to change the story lines, or even the premise of the characters that made them popular in the first place.

After Richard Donner's Superman movies, there seemed to be a lull in the comic book movie production until Tim Burton put out Bat Man. The problem with Donner's Superman wasn't the casting, it was that Donner made the movie tongue-in-cheek, or just another kid's show/comedy. It had it's moments, but again, it wasn't really for adults. And as an adult, I was disappointed.

Then when Bat Man came out, Burton, again made it a tongue-in-cheek movie, and of course miscast the main character. Nobody and nobody agreed with his choice of casting Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Bat Man. It was unthinkable, but Burton didn't care. He wanted his pet actor.

And unfortunately, Burton set the tone for the following Bat Man movies, meaning they were also tongue-in-cheek and therefore stupid and complete failures. (Until Nolan's Bat Man, that is.)

Then when Marvel finally got into the action, with the X-men, Spider-man, Avengers, etc, they had the same casting problems and the same story line problems, but Marvel got at least one thing right. They were no longer tongue-in-cheek movies. Which for that reason alone, made them far better movies than the DC comics movies.



Dr. Strange from the comics

Which leads me to the most recent comic book movie release. Dr. Strange. Good movie. I enjoyed it. Maybe I enjoyed it more than any other comic book movie. It was that good. The actor Benedict Cumberbatch nailed the part of Stephen Strange/Dr. Strange, meaning he was well cast. And it was nothing close to tongue-in-cheek. It was pretty much right on as far as the story line. I couldn't see anything that had strayed, except for giving the "Ancient One" a sex change.




Dr. Strange from the movie

So, yeah, there they go again. For this ridiculous notion of "political correctness" I suppose, like changing traditionally white characters into black characters over the years, and there are several examples of that, (in Dr. Strange, too, Mordo was a white dude in the comics,) but in Dr. Strange, they also changed a character's sex. In the comics, the Ancient One, from whom Dr. Strange learned the mystic arts, was an older looking Asian man. For this movie, they not only changed his sex, they changed his race. In the movie, the Ancient One is a young looking white woman.

But since the Ancient One dies in the end, I suppose it doesn't matter. And the Ancient One really does die in the comics. So they didn't change that story line. Which means I'm still on board with the Dr. Strange story in the movie.

Can't say the same for the Walking Dead. That show is dead. Don't think it will last another season, if it continues to be as boring and dumb as it's become this current season. But we'll see.

Person of Interest Still Not Better Than Blacklist

I had blogged about how I started watching Person of Interest, and I was lukewarm to it. I still am, but I'll admit it's getting better. I'm nearly through season two now, and the story is getting more and more complicated. I did not like the super-girl spy, however. I mean, the bad guys are trying to kill her, but instead of shooting her, like everyone else does when they want to kill someone, they keep trying to inject her with some kind of poisonous serum. But of course, the serum has an antidote, so she doesn't die. Meanwhile, she outfights, outmaneuvers, and outsmarts everyone else, including our heroes, John and Harold. It makes for a boring and stale story line. Not fun.

I've mentioned before that I do believe in strong female characters. But to be a strong female character, that doesn't mean the female character goes around beating everyone up. I'm sorry, but actually, I'm not sorry. I'm not a chauvinist, or a misogynist, or whatever you want to call men who think like I do. It's not an opinion, really. Women just don't go around beating everyone up. And I refuse to believe that women want to see other women going around beating up people or killing people. Is there a woman out there who really wants to see that? I didn't think so.

Being a strong female character is a lot more complicated than going around beating up and killing people. And there are plenty of examples of strong female characters who don't go around beating and killing people. I can think of one woman right off the top of my head who doesn't go around beating up and killing people, yet she's as strong as anyone. Violet Crawley, from the TV show Downton Abbey. I mean this woman is 90 years old, and yet no one gets the better of her. She is smart, and although sheltered, never let's anyone get the jump on her in any way.

I know that TV and movies, or any fictional story, reality is stretched. But the reality is that there are no women anywhere, ever, that go around beating people up and killing them. That doesn't mean there haven't been women murderers or female assassins. And sure, I'm willing to believe that some women can be proficient in martial arts. But that doesn't mean a top female martial artist can defeat a top male martial artist. Ever. Maybe a top female martial artist can take out a dude who's a bookworm and knows nothing about fighting. But against a man who's 6' 4" and weighs 250 pounds and in his prime? I don't think so. Not reality. Not believable fiction. Ever.

So this superwoman spy is going around beating up professional soldiers, guards, fighters left and right, and it's boring, if only because it's so unbelievable. And then she goes around killing everyone to boot. Yeah, she was supposed to be a good guy, I mean, um, gal, but it was so hard to watch. Look, if I want to see a supergirl or a superwoman, I'll read the comic books.

So if this chick in POI is made out to be a better fighter than John, I'm done. Back to Blacklist. It's the better show anyway. Elizabeth is a strong character, but she's not a superwoman. She doesn't go around beating everyone up. She doesn't go around killing everyone. She's a much better character. She's a strong female character, and she's believable. Yes, it's true. Blacklist is the superior show. It has a superior cast, and it has superior characters. Hands down.

John Dunn Release Delayed

My publisher has sent out notice to all of its authors explaining that due to the growth of the company, the release of their current publications is delayed. And for me and my John Dunn book that's a good thing because I'm finding more to improve, correct, and simply polish up before that book is released. I've made the map better, I've found a couple more typos, and I've improved the continuity.

For example, John travels into Zululand, and there's an incident at the mission at Eshowe. But before that, there's a scene where Catherine went to Pietermaritzburg. So what's wrong with that, you might ask? Well for one thing, Pietermaritzburg is twice as far away from where John and Catherine lived at the time, than Eshowe. I should have the scene at Eshowe take place before the scene at Pietermaritzburg. Clearly John would reach Eshowe before Catherine reaches Pietermaritzburg, especially since he departed before Catherine did.

So it's fixed. A few more things were fixed. It's a near perfect manuscript now. Adding the Mangeni River and Isipezi hill and the town of Stanger were major improvements to the map as well.

I figure to submit the final manuscript by Monday, and then wait for edits to begin before I submit any further improvements. Hopefully, the book can still be released in time for Christmas. Fingers crossed.

Improved Map of Zululand

I've made some improvements on my Zululand map. I made the locations of iSandlwana and Rorke's Drift more accurate for one thing. And I positioned the text for the Buffalo River better. I also added the location of the Mangeni River. No other map that I've seen had that river on it. I thought it was important to include the Mangeni River, because it played a role in the famous battle at iSandlwana.

Major Dartnell had his mounted division patrolling in the vicinity of the Mangeni River when he located a regiment of Zulus. It was then Lord Chelmsford divided his 3rd Column to reinforce Dartnell, and of course as any Zulu War enthusiast knows, that's when the Zuluas attacked the British camp at Isandlwana. And then other Zulu regiments attacked Rorke's Drift.

So all three changes to my map are directly related to the Battle of iSandlwana, and the subsequent battle at Rorke's Drift. So here's the  map. Can't wait to see how it looks in the book.