Follow me, don't follow me

[gwyn]

So, I got a lovely request to send a vid in for Connexions con, and after talking with the person who asked, we figured I should send one of my MCU vids. And I can't decide--if you were me, which vid would you send:

Shelter - this has the advantage of being a teamy Cap family vid with bonus slash hints, and there really aren't, sadly, a lot of team vids for CA: Winter Soldier.

Orange Crush - I'm kind of most inclined to send this, because I think it might play well in a con audience and it's never really showed at a con (I used it as an example to talk about pacing in a panel last year at VVC, but that's the only time it's been "live"), and it's kinda actiony, but it's not necessarily a slash vid per se.

Sorrow - this is definitely very slashy, but it's also sad, everyone says, and makes people's hearts hurt. Not that there's anything wrong with that in a con, but it is definitely a factor.

Anyway, I need to make a decision soon, so if you have an opinion (especially if you've ever been to Connexions), I'd love to hear it.

Over in her journal, Dorinda was talking about finishing the audio book to The Martian, which I just finished in ebook form last week. I was SO PROUD of myself--it was the second fiction book in a row I'd finished that wasn't work, wasn't a friend's, that I read just for pleasure, something I haven't done since 2007-8 or so. I lost my ability to focus on books that weren't work, and since most of the fiction I read for work is terrible, it's made it even harder to read anything that isn't fic or something I HAVE TO. And she says a lot of things about how I felt about The Martian, and the problems I had with it, and I commented with my opinion. Apparently I have very strong opinions about it! 

And weirdly coincidentally, I was talking with belmanoir about it last night, and about how I'd just watched Apollo 13 again and it pointed up one of the issues I had with The Martian and the XKCD cartoon about it. In the cartoon, he has one of his figures saying that The Martian was basically the book for people who thought the whole of Apollo 13 should have been about the scientists and engineers in mission control. And I laughed, because yeah, I suppose it is, but also that's one of its biggest flaws for me, that it's just a wall of sciencey stuff and Andy Weir is not a good enough writer to do anything resembling characterization--which, I mean, that's not necessarily what he wanted to do when writing the book, but you do have to try to bring people along on your story. It's a cracking good story idea, no doubt. 

But what I really wanted to say is that one of the things that makes all that engineer science stuff so fucking exhilirating and engaging is that it's done by great actors and a good director. Take, for instance, the scene where they think they've found a solution to how to power things back up, and they might be able to bring the Apollo 13 crew home. Ken Mattingly (played by Gary Sinise) and John Aaron (Loren Dean) are arguing about the amps they're using and throwing around all this jargon, and it's just such an intense and wonderful scene because they think they've found it, they think they have a solution, but Aaron points out, "You're telling me what you need, and I'm telling you what we have!" and they have to go back to the drawing board, feeling hopeless and miserable. They're exhausted and frayed. And we feel that, just like we've felt the fear all the engineers have had since the explosion, every step of the way, or we've felt Gene Kranz's determination and anger because Ed Harris is so amazing. 

So I'm really excited about the movie version of The Martian in a way I couldn't be about the book. Because what made that stuff so indelible in Apollo 13 that I don't think the XKCD guy got (since he's a science nerd) wasn't the recitation of facts and numbers, it was these actors bringing alive the facts, the director creating CHARACTERS we feel for and want to see succeed. I think a skilled writer could do that on the page, but Weir isn't that writer, and while the folks who loved all that were happy with the book, it's not what I read for. Seeing the trailer, though, and the little preview movie where Matt Damon as Mark Watney is making a little introductory movie, I can see that a skilled director working with amazing fucking actors is going to take that unfleshed-out part of the story and turn it into something as engaging as Apollo 13 was. I've watched those previews now quite a few times, while I was reading the book, and I'm super psyched about the movie. SO PSYCHED. And not just because Sebastian Stan plays Chris Beck! 

Ridley Scott's been disappointing or enraging me a lot lately (do not start me on Prometheus or his comments about white actors in Exodus), but this is the kind of movie that's so totally in his wheelhouse, and I'm hopeful that he's going to bring out all the good ideas about the book and the characters that I don't think were always successful on the page. (Also, the version I read was I guess the original self-published version, and jesus was that one of the worst, messiest things I've ever looked at. I don't know how much polish the publisher who picked it up gave it, but I hope it was a lot.) I liked Mark Watney and I liked many of the other characters, but they were never fully human for me, and I think Ridley will make them so much more so. When you've got actors like Matt Damon and Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jessica Chastain and Sean Bean (and my sweeties, Sebastian and Donald Glover), you're ahead of the game right there. 

Wow, apparently I really do have strong feelings about this. ;-)

Comments

[kore]

Oh, reading for pleasure, that's amazing! I've lost that ability a few times in my life during major depressive episodes and it's so horrible, and always feels so great when it comes back.

I fucking loved Apollo 13, and I am allergic to Tom Hanks, for just the reasons you say. (Also I love Ed Harris and GARY SINISE in equal proportion to how much I loathe Hanks, so it worked out.) I thought SebStan would be starring in The Martian! I don't want him to get killed off halfway through to make us sad! //shallow

.....wow, choosing between Orange Crush and Sorrow is tough for me. Sorrow is my personal favourite but I guess cons don't like sad stuff? They're both awesome, but Sorrow has my vote.

[gwyn]

I don't know if I gave the impression I hate Tom Hanks, because I actually like him, and I especially like him as Jim Lovell! Sebastian's role in the movie is likely to be small, unless they do what I hope, and really flesh out the supporting cast more. I think they will, but the character he plays, while minor, does have a super crucial role at the end, and he also has the only actual romantic subplot in the story. It's very throwaway, but I imagine he will do good things with it. SPOILER: no one dies.

I ended up going for Orange Crush, just because so many people voted for it and also I never did play it at a con.

[kore]

Oh no no! That is really Just Moi, heh. I don't know, I was okay with Hanks for a long while and then he was moderately annoying and then I reached like this tipping point where he was EVERYWHERE and I was just like NOOooooooooo. (It doesn't help that Forrest Gump is one of my parents' favourite movies ((why why why)) and they kept bugging me about it.) He seems like a nice guy! A good actor! Just, my Hanks-o-Meter is at FULL.

Sebastian's role in the movie is likely to be small, unless they do what I hope, and really flesh out the supporting cast more. I think they will, but the character he plays, while minor, does have a super crucial role at the end

omg yes

and he also has the only actual romantic subplot in the story.

omg YES yes yes

SPOILER: no one dies.

YAY

(I watched Puncture for CEvans and was not aware people died and was all AUGH. I mean, I watch a film about needle sticks, addiction and legal action, what do I expect, but still. Great film, though.)

[dine]

it's great ConneXions is returning! my immediate impulse was to shout Orange Crush; and after rewatching all three vids, that's still my vote. they're all excellent, but it's my fave by far

[sholio]

I'm not at all familiar with the con in question, but I lean toward "Orange Crush" being a better con vid because it's so active and bouncy and fun. Not that the other two aren't great - I love "Shelter" particularly because, as you say, there are very few team vids for that movie, though I think it's also a very well-done vid just on its own merits. But my vote goes to "Orange Crush". :D

[reginagiraffe]

Definitely "Orange Crush"! It's awesome!

ETA: Wow. My feelings about The Martian are... so not yours. I laughed my ass off and was scared and triumphant and loved every word of it. The thing about Mark is he's an astronaut. These people are not just smart and level-headed and trained to within and inch of their lives, but they're really a different breed. They *don't* panic. They *don't* get (outwardly) scared (for more than a second). They assess the situation and find a solution. And they triumph. Which is what that Apollo scene is all about. The science details aren't really the thing (although I really enjoyed those, too). It's the "here's the problem, now let's find the solution". And the bigger the problem, the greater the glory. And what's bigger than being stuck on Mars!?

[gwyn]

I'm glad that you had a good time with the book! Dira Sudis also really loved it and her enthusiasm was partly why I ended up reading it.

I mean, my dad was an (chemical and structural) engineer, and my second dad was a fighter pilot in Korea and Vietnam. I know those guys very well. My dad basically raised me with the line, "Work the problem," which, when you're a kid, you don't always want to hear! But they both had emotions, they had intense reactions to things even while they were working the problem. It's not a mindset I'm unfamiliar with, I just didn't get the feelings in the book like I should have that might have given Mark a little more depth while he was working the problems. And I do wonder how much of that might be the inability of the writer--if the editors put that good a polish on it that it sounds like they did, the version others read might have more of that (although what Dorinda said makes me wonder). I'm happy that other people had a more positive reaction, I just, for myself as a reader, wanted more. I think that's one thing the movie might give me, though. That sense of dynamic, emotional depth, kinda the way Apollo 13 did--so everyone wins, book people and movie people!

[ranalore]

Despite my absolute, yet PERFECTLY REASONABLE love for "Shelter," I would love "Orange Crush" to get wider play in general, and I dunno, maybe it's me, but I think it's really pretty darn slashy. In fact, rewatching it just now to cast my vote, I had forgotten how very slashy it was, and how heartbreaking via action shots and parallels, and now I am full of Feels, but I knew that would be the case because it's you.

I love the previews for The Martian, but it sounds like the book would definitely disappoint me. I like that kind of science, but if that's all I'm looking for in my leisure reading, I know where to get it without a side of inability to character or string a sentence together.

[gwyn]

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people loved the science stuff in the book, but...I think Dorinda pointed it out well, where I mentioned in a comment that I wanted to know a little more about Mark than that he hates Commander Lewis's '70s shows and disco music (which is all he has for entertainment)--and she said, yeah, we know what he doesn't like, but what does he actually like himself? We don't know. And while I grew up with a scientist dad and a fighter pilot second dad, and am used to tough guys working the problem, I'd like to see more on the page. Which is what I think the movie will be great at. Plus, you know, SEBASTIAN.

[starlady]

You should totally send "Orange Crush," more people should see that vid. I mean, I like all of them, but for a whole bunch of reasons I think it would play particularly well at a con.

I don't particularly feel the need to read The Martian when Ridley Scott is going to make a perfectly cromulent movie out of it which will, presumably, have emotions.

[gwyn]

Yes, cromulence! I think this movie is so going to be in his wheelhouse, I'm really hopeful that it might showcase a return to old Ridley form.

[minim_calibre]

Orange Crush.

[sperrywink]

Okay, everyone loves Orange Crush, ahaha

Which is great, but I still have unholy love for Shleter, so...

*g*

[gwyn]

That's a lot of why I asked--I love all of them. I normally do not love my vids that much, but these three are the vids of my heart.

[kore]

[Entire comment edited and then deleted because SHELTER IS NOT SORROW, MOI, WTF. Apologies to our lovely vidder-hostess.]

[destina.livejournal.com]

I would send Orange Crush. Because I heart it. <3

[daria234.livejournal.com]

I also like Orange Crush a lot <3 but really all three vids are awesome, pick your fave.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

That was my problem! They are all my faves!

[mackiemesser.livejournal.com]

I'm going to add another vote for Orange Crush because it's very accessible and a catchy tune, but it also has multiple layers of meaning in a way the other, more direct vids don't.

[talitha78.livejournal.com]

Another vote for Orange Crush. It's my favorite.