To err is human, to forgive divine. So I guess if you
forgive these people and companies for making some of the most moronic
decisions of this year, you’re a god. Congratulations! Now cast
your divine attention to learning how DC, Cartoon Network, Disney and more
bungled their way through 2013.
DC Hires Orson Scott
Card, Creates PR nightmare
DC kicked the year off by hiring scifi author and very
outspoken anti-gay rights advocate to pen an issue of Adventures of Superman, beginning a year in which it seemed the comics publisher could do almost nothing right. DC pointed out that its writers’ personal statements in no
way indicated the company’s views, but the decision not only caused fans to
boycott the title, but many stores refused to carry it as well. Artist Chris
Sprouse quit because of the (negative) media attention the whole thing was
garnering, too. DC’s bizarre response was to announce Card’s story had been delayed,
promising it would still be coming out, which kept people angry about DC’s support of Card… but then not ever releasing the issue. Seems
like DC could have avoided a lot of hassle if they’d just done that at the
start.
DC Forbids Batwoman’s
Gay Marriage, Continues PR Nightmare
After the Orson Scott Card kerfluffle, you might think that
DC would be extra-sensitive to any other issues that might construe them as
being anti-gay, right? Wrong. DC’s next big gaffe came when they basically
announced they refused to let Batwoman get married to her female partner Maggie
Sawyer, causing the series’ writer and artist to quit DC altogether. Now,
besides losing the talented team of J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman, this
only exacerbated DC’s problems. Co-publisher Dan DiDio announced that the
company didn’t have a problem with gay marriage, it just didn’t think it was
appropriate for any of its superheroes to get married — which was nonsense for a lot of reasons, not least of which that Aquaman was currently married (which
was swiftly, if awkwardly, retconned immediately thereafter). Again, we believe
that DC didn’t make the decision because Batwoman was gay, but the fact is they
put themselves in a position where they had to basically say out loud “We
refuse to let this gay character get married” mere months after hiring Orson
Scott Card. This was an easily avoided situation that DC managed to fuck up as
badly and publicly as possible.
https://gizmodo.com/dc-s-explanation-of-why-batwoman-can-t-get-married-is-n-1284438491
The BBC and Steven
Moffat Blow Doctor Who’s 50th
Anniversary
Very few pop culture characters manage to make it to the
esteemed 50-year mark, and even fewer series. So the fact that Doctor Who had been around for (most of)
the last half-century was a major cause for celebration. But what do we get? A
mere eight episodes, a 90-minute 50th anniversary special that was mostly just
David Tennant and Matt Smith palling around, and the docudrama about the
creation of Doctor Who, An Adventure in
Time and Space. Surely there was more that could have (and should have)
been done to celebrate this iconic character. More episodes. A (much) bigger
special — maybe one that aired over several nights. Maybe they could have used actor
David Bradley (who played the actor William Hartnell in the docudrama) to play
the First Doctor in the special, to tie Doctor Who’s past and present together.
And again, more episodes. The sad part is
the most exciting Doctor Who product of the year was the 8-minute minisode featuring the return of Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor. That’s not right.
https://gizmodo.com/the-8th-doctor-returns-in-this-doctor-who-50th-annivers-1464430975
Syfy Spends $100
Million to Create Okay TV Series Defiance
Defiance isn’t
bad. It started out kind of rocky, and sure, the finale was pretty terrible,
but it continually improved over its first season and will probably be even
better when it returns for season 2. The problem? In no way does Defiance
justify the 100 million dollars Syfy spent to make it, either in quality or in
ratings. Part of the money was spent on making the accompanying Defiance tie-in videogame, which has
only been a modest success, and part was spent on the show’s special CG
effects, which are nice, but are kind of wasted in what is every other respect
an average Syfy series (and for every really nice CG sequence, there’s a really
cheap-looking CG sequence, because even $100 million only gets you so far).
Basically, Syfy could have ignored the videogame and spent less on CG and
ended up with the same quality and the same ratings. And if Syfy canceled shows
like Alphas and Warehouse 13 to free up money to make Defiance, then this was an even poorer decision.
Companies Splitting
DVD/Blu-ray Extras
2013 saw the disturbing trend of companies distributing
different extras to its DVD, Blu-ray, and sometimes even the digital download
version of its movies, especially for big releases. It’s like these movie
companies are trying to kill the home video market. Seeing as the fans who
care about the extras are also going to be the same fans who want all of the
extras, forcing consumers to by two (or even three) separate versions of a
title in order to amass all of a film’s supplemental materials is pretty much
larceny. It was bad enough when
companies started putting more extras on the Blu-ray versions of movies,
forcing fans to purchase the more expensive version of a title, but this is
pure, naked greed, which comes mainly at the expense of fans. When no one version of a
home video release is best, why should consumers buy any of them?
https://gizmodo.com/why-the-star-trek-into-darkness-blu-ray-is-going-to-rip-1222160195
Disney Decides to
Rush the new Star Wars Sequel
While it remains to be seen if this will truly end up a
blunder or not, Disney’s decision this year to rush the infinitely anticipated Star Wars sequel into production for a
late 2015 release does not bode well for… well, anything. The script won’t be
turned in until next month, and then director J.J. Abrams has to cast, shoot,
and assemble one of the most special effects-laden movies possible in less than
two years, which sounds like madness. Seeing as Disney is basically relaunching the
entire Star Wars franchise with this
film, which not only includes more movies but a massive amount of
merchandising, you’d think that Disney would want to take the time to do the
first sequel right. But apparently Disney considers its 2015 revenue more
important than the potential future profits of the entire Star Wars franchise. Maybe Episode
VII won’t suffer for being put on this extreme fast-track, but we guarantee
it definitely won’t make any part of the movie better.
Riddick Goes for an R
Rating to Show Us Starbuck’s Boobs
Vin Diesel and the crew of Riddick apparently fought tooth-and-nail for the movie to achieve
its R rating, and it may have resulted in the worst movie of the trilogy. Not
only did it preclude the 13-to-17-year-olds who are any scifi/action/horror
movie’s prime audience, but what did Riddick’s
R-rating achieve? A lot of misogyny and a brief shot of Katee Sackhoff’s
breasts. Not only would the film had made more money if they had stayed at
PG-13, it would likely have been better, too.
Cartoon Network
Cancels Young Justice Because It
Appeals to Girls
The Young Justice
cartoon got decent ratings on Cartoon Network. The Young Justice cartoon was
canceled. In a recent interview, producer Paul Dini revealed the heartbreaking reason behind this — because the audience consisted of so many girls. Apparently,
girls don’t buy action figures, and that is ALL that network execs care about.
They don’t care about quality, they don’t care about viewers or ratings (somehow),
they only want boys as their audience because boys buy the toys. Not only is
this upsetting, it’s imbecilic because 1) Bandai’s Young Justice toys were terrible, so boys weren’t buying them
anyways, and 2) if someone could just make toys that girls want to buy, this
problem would be solved. Girls don’t buy action figures? Then sell them
something else. Don’t cancel perfectly good shows because you are too lazy to
market to half the goddamn population.
https://gizmodo.com/paul-dini-superhero-cartoon-execs-dont-want-largely-f-1483758317
Weinstein Decides to
Dumb down Snowpiercer
Bong Joon-Ho’s movie adaptation of the French graphic novel Snowpiercer is an action-packed, but
thoughtful, examination of class warfare brought-to-life on a train containing the last remnants of humanity. It’s smart scifi. Which is, of course, why
Harvey Weinstein wants to take all the smart out of it for its North American
release, by cutting 25 minutes of footage and adding voiceovers to ensure that the
audience who was almost certainly not going to see Snowpiercer anyways can understand what’s happening. Meanwhile, the
people who actually are interested in
seeing Snowpiercer are furious that
Weinstein is refusing to let them see the original version that the talented
director made. It’s a recipe for disaster that practically ensures that Snowpiercer will tank in America.
https://gizmodo.com/weinsteins-refuse-to-release-snowpiercer-without-cuts-a-1485100225
The Secret of Khan
We may have mentioned our feelings on J.J. Abrams’ decision
to keep Benedict Cumberbatch’s villain in Star
Trek Into Darkness a “secret” previously, so we won’t rehash it here. We’ll rehash it here, here and/or here.
https://gizmodo.com/j-j-abrams-admits-lying-about-star-trek-2s-khan-was-a-1475078061
https://gizmodo.com/keep-khan-out-of-star-trek-12-5303483
https://gizmodo.com/star-trek-into-darkness-the-spoiler-faq-508927844
