I spent the last several days trying to figure out what this week’s post should be about, but must admit to being distracted thanks to the fact that I’m on vacation at the wonderful world of Disney with my two youngest kids. (Actually, that should be at the “holy shit I can’t believe it costs this much” world of Disney, but that’s a different post!)
Rather than focus on any one issue, I decided that I’d do a bit of a stream of consciousness post this week, show you some of the stuff that I’ve been thinking about industry wide over the past week and maybe get your thoughts on the same.
As I write this, Avatar is about to earn something in the neighborhood of 2 billion dollars. Frankly, I’m amazed by this. Not because it wasn’t an enjoyable film with great special effects (it was) but because Avatar has the most predictable overused storyline that I’ve seen in years. If you are one of the few people on the planet who apparently haven’t seen it yet, please skip to the next paragraph. For the rest of you, tell me this wasn’t Dances with Wolves in space? Guy sent to study the natives and find their weaknesses, falls in love with native woman, changes sides, and then must fight his own former comrades to save his new friends. We’ve seen this story a hundred, nay a thousand times before, people. Stop spending so much money on what is basically a very unimaginative film!
The fight between Amazon and MacMillan over the price of ebooks goes on. At this point Amazon has admitted that it must eventually cave to MacMillan. They say they’ll restore MacMillan’s books to the site so customers can buy them, but right now all they’ve done is put “buy buttons” back on used copies of MacMillan’s books. Gee, thanks Amazon! Way to screw the author. Then again, that’s not something new for Amazon, now is it?
I spent the last week putting together a proposal for a steampunk zombie novel, because an editor I’d like to work with asked for one from me. I probably wouldn’t have decided to write one on my own, as I’ve never been a huge zombie fan, but once I got into the planning and developmental aspects of putting together the basic idea I had a lot of fun. Now I hope the book sells for the simple reason that it I’m actually looking forward to writing this story. Think the Blue Max meets Dawn of the Dead by way of The Dirty Dozen and you’ll have some idea of what I put together.
So what else happened this week? Oh, yeah, right, the unveiling of the iPad, the supposed ebook game changer. All I can say is…yawn. No surprises and actually some real disappointments when it came to the feature list. I’ll wait until the next generation before I line up to get one, as I want the benefit of all the changes the early adopters force Apple to make.
And finally, on the flight this week I had the pleasure of reading Cailtin Kittridge’s latest, Demon Bound, which was the sequel to Street Magic. I heartily recommend it! (But don’t expect to buy it from that link above, however, because it is published by St.Martin’s and guess what – they’re a MacMillan company!)
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You’re right about Avatar. Good as it was, the plot was very familiar. It’s Pocahontus. And PathFinder. And Wolfskin… I can keep going–should I keep going?
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ROFLMAO! ‘Dances With Wolves in space’ is EXACTLY how my husband described it!
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“There are no new stories, only fresh ones.”
–Eudora Welty
Remember being a little kid, when your dad or mom would tell a bedtime story that you’d already heard a hundred times? You still wanted to hear it. And your favorite book? The ending doesn’t suddenly change the tenth time you read it. You still read it again.
There is comfort in familiar stories. And sometimes when we know the plot they’re even better because we can focus on the nuances. Telling familiar stories has been part of human culture for thousands of years (Ancient Greek Myths, Bible stories, Icelandic sagas, “The Night Before Christmas”, the story of the Boston Tea Party for that matter…). The mark of a good storyteller is to make an old story feel new and exciting, every time. With over $2B in ticket sales so far, I’d say humans are as willing as ever to experience a familiar story told well!
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I guess that’s part of my problem. I didnt see it as a familiar story told well, I saw it as a so so story told the same old way. It looked nice, but it bored me. And that’s a cardinal sin for me, be it print, film theatre, etc.
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Avatar is Fern Gully all over again among the other titles mentioned.
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I think the key to AVATAR is that with it’s fabulous graphics and futurstic vibe it’s aimed at a generation that’s never heard of Dances With Wolves or Fern Gully. Adults see it as a regurgitated storyline, teens and 20 yrs olds love it.
I hate that Amazon is so clueless. I like buying books there because they have a Canadian site and I’m not fond of Chapters(the big chain in Canada) but I also hate supporting them when they’re being idiots and hurting authors more than anyone.
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As another St. Martins (Macmillan) author, I’ll happily buy Demon Bound from my local bookstore. If they don’t have it in stock, they’ll order it for me.
Dances with Wolves in space is how my husband described Avatar. It looks like a fun flick, but I’ll wait to rent the DVD.
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I agree with you with regard to your “I can’t believe these prices” Disney. Was there last year and nearly had a heart attack. Still, it was fun.
Haven’t seen Avatar yet, but plan on it. Like Ian said above, some stories are like comfort food. You know the story, but you still come back for more.
Amazon’s move doesn’t surprise me at all. As you say, way to screw the author.
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Nobody paying to see Avatar did so for an imaginative story. You did see the same visually stunning movie the rest of us did, right?
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I saw the same movie. I didn’t consider it visually stunning, though. At least not to the extent it as built up to be – word before its release was that it would revolutionize science fiction films the way Star Wars did back in 1976. It didn’t do that for me, not at all. (Caveat – I saw the plain jane version, no 3d Imax, so maybe I missed something there.)
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Hi Joe,
Thanks for throwing so much meat into one post!
Avatar: I saw it not knowing any of the hype, and thought the storyline was not only old but oh so stupid (especially the “marines are evil” parts). However, I absolutely LOVED the cinematography. The colors and wildlife, flora and fauna, and the descriptions of how every tree was connected in a complex nuerological system–these elements more than made up for the storyline. And though I’m 39 and familiar with Dances with Wolves (which I hated), I’d pay to see Avatar again.
Amazon: okay, everyone seems to know some dirt on Amazon that I’m missing. I love Amazon and am a very loyal customer. What’s the problem? I can’t tell from your post if you are being objective or not, because two huge companies bickering over pricing isn’t exactly the same as an evil corporation that screws authors versus a good corporation that fights for authors with altruistic ferocity.
Disney: SUCKER! That’s why you avoid having children–no expensive vacations!
Thanks for your thoughts–you rock!
Jenni