Blessings of Babylon

I finally understand what it’s like to be infatuated with a live-action science fiction TV series over an extended period of time. I had my fling with The X-Files, but that petered out, and though I absolutely loved the revamped Battlestar Galactica, the show went off the rails in the final season, and disappointed me terribly in the end. I also love Red Dwarf, but that series is not really the same thing, and overall I just shied away from “serious” live-action SF television. However, a recent viewing of Babylon 5 let me get a handle on that long-neglected aspect of my geekhood.

Babylon 5 appeals to my sensibilities and desires (which is why a long-time friend kept recommending it to me), instead of forcing me to push them aside for some unambiguous space adventure. There is a passionate, human heart to the series which is never overwhelmed by desolation, because of the series being open to showcasing the worst aspects of human nature.

J. Michael Straczynski apparently set out to write something like a novel, and as someone who prefers books a lot of the time, it’s a quick way to turn a series into mind candy. Viewing Babylon 5 through that lens, I can see something of the spirit of New Wave science fiction in it, perhaps in part because of Harlan Ellison’s role as creative consultant. Whatever the reason, I was constantly making parallels between Babylon 5’s content and some of my favourite science fiction novels, such as Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End (in aliens parallel to religious figures in one way or another, and in transcendent evolution), and C.J. Cherryh’s Chanur Saga (in exploring political difficulties among alien species which no government can truly control). These concepts  likely appeared in other series I haven’t watched, but the literary connection was the first that sprang to mind, and helped to predispose me to the series, and many of the early episodes felt like short stories onto themselves.

As I suggested above, Babylon 5 also has a kind of thematic atmosphere that’s like catnip to me: one in which the harshness and the complexity of sentient nature is a vital concept, and yet there is of course room to show the triumph of spirit and perseverance over all odds, as well as a sense of humour. I have no doubt some would find B5 to be too bleak and cynical, but showing the best of “human” nature isn’t worth much without showing the worst. I always found the various Star Trek series to be too flat and antiseptic, and the allegedly utopian future they put forth was part of that. I’m of the liberal-minded sort, but I enjoy stories in which we are unable to eliminate all the flaws of our current world, because that makes for more complex and exciting storytelling.

I envy Bablyon’s 5 ability to present both the silliest of humour and the highest of drama, both at different times. It suggests a very well-rounded show, one that knows the importance of balance. The special effects are obviously low-budget, but that does not sour much of the experience. I’ve also gotten over my contempt for rubber-forehead aliens and so was much more easily able to accept them than I might have been when I was younger—though I still disagree with the psychological justifications for them.

As to the infamous fifth season, made after the series’ hastily-redone conclusion, I decided to watch it with little hesitation. The way that the fifth season came about didn’t give me much confidence in its content, but I mostly enjoyed the episodes. I interpreted the tail end of season four and all of season five as being essential pieces of a series that were unfortunately shuffled around, so that they jumped back and forth in the timeline. While I do forgive season 5 for most things, it’s still jarring to go from the distant future back to the series’ immediate present, only to go back to a less distant future, even if it’s nice to spend a little more time with the characters, and some important things are still resolved in this last portion.

Babylon 5 also has some great characterization, from minor intrigues to major movements. While it’s expected that humans would play the lead in the series, the non-human characters stop being “those wacky aliens” shortly after the series begins, so that several become just as poignant. There were still a few cringe-worthy jokes and pranks regarding alien characters, and moments when human characters come off as irritatingly smug when they put one over on some aliens of various social standings, but it’s not enough to derail.

It’s not necessarily a sign of a good series when you only dislike the characters you’re obviously meant to, but such conditions can make things pleasant, and Babylon 5 was one of those series where I was favourably disposed towards pretty much everyone in the cast except the obvious scumbags. I loathed Alfred Bester as much as was the likely intention, even more because he always kept surviving when the plot had many opportunities to kill him--just like in real life, often the bastard gets away. Below, I won’t discuss all of the other characters I have an opinion on, but the ones that stood out to me the most.

If I’m poked hard enough, I’ll admit that John Sheridan started to get on my nerves after a while, for just being almost too good. It was a perfection that I agreed with, since I almost always sided with Sheridan in whatever decision or speech he made, but he seemed to get the better of everyone else once too often, and while I loved the themes involved in the end of the Shadow War, the fact that much of the ending consisted of Sheridan alone yelling at the Shadows and the Vorlons felt borderline ant-climactic. In short, I wanted to see Sheridan make more mistakes, to be wrong once or twice, so that watching him was less like crunching on sugar cubes. I finally got my wish with the telepath incident, but it’s not quite enough to change my feelings about Sheridan’s previous characterization.

While I wouldn’t say I like him (nor, truly, dislike him), Londo Mollari is certainly a fascinating character to watch. A patriot willing to do anything, yet hardly innocent in the tragedies he creates or even that nice a person. It’s one of the most epic, yet personal, stories that the series produced, and his love-hate relationship with G’Kar is also wonderfully complex.

It’s not necessary to have favourite characters to enjoy a series, but they’re one of the sweetest bonuses you can find. Mine ended up being G’Kar, but with Kosh and Lyta trailing somewhere behind. G’Kar’s appeal is easy to understand. I like characters with a darker sense of humour, but I like the underdogs, too, and G’Kar is often forced into becoming one against his will—and then has the opposite happen when he’s venerated as a religious leader. That he ended up becoming a writer just cemented it, since I’m a total sucker for artistic characters. The only thing that could have made it better is if he were an actual reptilian and not a marsupial, even though the latter is a more creative designation.

With Lyta Alexander, it’s probably my fascination with seeing characters get jerked around speaking. Babylon 5 also deserves kudos for creating a female anti-hero (in the classic sense, not the warped definition of anti-hero appearing today) that feels genuine. You get the sense that Lyta’s problems, externally inflicted though they are, aren’t just meant to make the audience coo in sympathy, but create her darker side as well. That point is driven home when Lyta becomes ruthless towards the very end of the series: hers is a tragic story.

For a while, I couldn’t understand why I liked Kosh. There was just something strangely lovable about him, though normally I dislike characters that seem to be cryptic just for its own sake. It helped that his Encounter Suit was undoubtedly the coolest-looking prop in the entire series, even in the scenes when it was obviously being rolled along a trolley instead of walking. (And on a nerdy note, his voice is provided by Ardwright Chamberlain, was a writer for Robotech). Still, I felt it was more than that, and it turned out to be that that Kosh was apparently one of the few of his species who doesn’t turn out to be a jackass (and Ulkesh was just outright creepy on a microcosmic level), and this is because Kosh is smart enough to change.

The stagnant ancient race that needs a younger one to show them how to feel again is a ridiculous cliché, but applying this dynamic to an individual character makes it much more believable, since it’s about character development instead of painting an entire species with the same brush. Kosh isn’t completely incomprehensible, and some of his pronouncements show a disdain for younger races that he gradually unlearns, and that change is a matter of intelligence as much as compassion. In doing so, he comes out the better being than the other Vorlons because he is still willing to invite change. Members of ancient races don’t have to be empty totems.

As I’ve said elsewhere, I enjoy characters that lack a showy attitude and prefer to simply act without pomp. Delenn eventually grew into such a character, and it made her very enjoyable. I’m not too concerned about whether or not a series depicts feminine female characters being able to play things their way in a harsh environment, but if you’re interested in such a thing, Delenn is a damn good example, too.

Overall, Babylon 5 put me in a good place. It had themes I could agree with, a good balance of tones, as well as character arcs and character development. It rekindled my feelings of wonder and excitement regarding space-faring science fiction, and live-action SF TV. Hats off.

SDFM Series in Review: Episode 2, “Countdown”

I spent a good part of this episode having a laugh. It starts off with a lot more in the way of overt slapstick, which is just fine--watching Hikaru’s Valkyrie stumble around and crash into buildings never gets old, and later on there’s more of that darker Murphy’s Law humour, as the gravity pods rip away at the worst possible time.

We’re introduced to a lot of things in this episode, and the one that I most remember is Lynn Minmay. I’m not actually a fan of Minmay, in terms of holding any affection for her as an individual character, but I don’t hate her, either. The thing about me is that I love the human-allied male Zentradi, and their character arc, so I seem to have to hold some regard for Minmay on some level. I default to giving her the benefit of the doubt in most cases, and, as I said, don’t dislike her. This episode doesn’t really show much of Minmay’s characterization. So far she’s just the generic cute girl, but that will soon change.

Roy and Hikaru’s banter is pretty fun, though the exposition about how the Valkyrie works loses me. The Valkyries are great designs, but talking about their nuts and bolts just isn’t that exciting.

The animation in this episode is pretty bad. You see wonky character art, miscoloured bits, and so on. Bad animation doesn’t get to me that much, so I only notice it when I slow down (except in “Virgin Road”, where it’s impossible not to).

However, the shot of Minmay falling and Hikaru catching her is a wonderful piece of animation, especially when you think about the effort needed to create the rotating effect frame by frame. They way they fall tangled back into the cockpit is also a very natural-seeming way to cap it off.

For some reason, watching those Regults jump along amuses me. Regults in general are funny mecha, aren’t they?

The scene where the Zentradi soldier climbs dazed from his crashed Pod is an image that sticks. The characters are just as surprised as the audience, and it’s one of the key conceits of the original SDF Macross: that these Zentradi are, in the end, simply human, and that makes them far more interesting.

The ending of the episode is a nice subtle look into Hikaru’s shocked psyche. He’s got the survival mechanism to fight when danger comes at him, but afterwards, it sinks in, and it’s far more effective when the Zentradi looks like a king-sized, armoured version of a guy you’d meet on the street. The narrator says little, Hikaru says nothing, but the idea is conveyed clear and sharp. It reminds me of Shinji Ikari’s reaction to his flashback of Sachiel’s defeat: Shinji simply turns over in bed, but that small move speaks volumes.

I…don’t have much to say about this episode, actually. It’s a place-setter in a lot of ways, and while that doesn’t preclude it from being fun, going through the episode piece-by-piece doesn’t yield much material. We’re all still waiting for the payoff.

SDFM Series in Review: Episode 1, “Boobytrap”

This is the beginning of a second-round review of the anime series, originally done for a thread at AnimeSuki.

I’m a comparatively recent anime fan, but I discovered Super Dimension Fortress Macross through a set of surprising circumstances and instantly fell in love with it. Now it’s one of my all-time favourite anime, to which nothing else produced for Macross can compare. With that, let’s start with the first episode.

The opening sequence, showing the arrival and crash of the future Fortress, is a wonderful piece of animation that pulls you right in. The visuals are very cinematic, and the lack of any music or narration helps it to pack that special punch. When the narration kicks in (is it meant to actually be Claudia, or is it just the same VA?), and discusses the difficulties the new government had in forming, it showcases one of Macross’ strengths: it may be a very, very idealistic series as a whole, but it’s not afraid to inject a few small doses of realism, which actually strengthens its more wide-eyed aspects.

Watching Hikaru and Misa in the first episode, I wonder if their development was meant to compliment each others’: that is, Misa is being too mature (chewing out Claudia just for having a little fun), while Hikaru is being too immature (essentially crashing the flight demonstration and driving Roy bonkers). Both of them therefore end up together, in part, because they temper each other’s main flaws.

Of course, Misa and Hikaru develop more dimensions as the series goes on, so this alone is too simplistic an explanation for why they chose each other in the end, and furthermore, I don’t find Misa to be all that bitchy or stuffy at any point in the series. She’s not my favourite character in the series, but she’s by far my favourite of the main cast, and at no point do I find her that awful a person.

Roy, just for a second, lets his astonishment at Hikaru’s flying skills slip. It nicely suggests the maturing Hikaru, and therefore the perhaps archetypal need for Roy to die as part of a further rite of passage.

The Zentradi first arrive, and I just love their entire aesthetic. The designs of the ships and uniforms and characters are just wonderful. I particularly love Exsedol and Britai’s designs, both individually, and the way they contrast with each other’s. The interior of their flagship is first depicted as darker than it usually is, and I prefer the lighter shots, which demonstrate the contrast between the ships’ “organic” outside and technological interior. The characters of Exsedol and Britai aren’t explored much yet, but their traits are already shining through: a calm intelligence rather than a silly “warrior race” pomposity, as well as a good working relationship.

I realize that Macross was at some points in its development conceived as a comical series, and some of that emerges in the early episodes, but a muchof the comedy in “Boobytrap” is more along the line of dark Murphy’s Law stuff than broad slapstick or parody--that is, anything that can go wrong will, and usually at the most terrifying time. Of course there’s plenty of other jokes; I particularly like the chagrined look of the mascot on the Studio Nue building as it’s being destroyed.

Odd that the first Zentradi fighter craft seen are the Gnerl “planes” rather than the more famous Regults. I also love the way the Zentradi monitor forms piece by piece; it’s a very cool effect.

Overall, this is a good pilot episode. Most of the human cast gets a chance to shine, and the stage is set. There’s a lot of moments that feel very human, very natural in terms of their presentation, which only helps SDFM be awesome.

Come One, Come All

I'm going to be participating in the SDF Macross Rewatch Thread at Animesuki.

I've already done a sort of annotated series review of SDFM a while ago, but any chance to spread the love of the original Macross series is okay in my book. I'll be going by the AnimEigo subs.

The Peculiar Olympians: Rodimus Prime

“The Peculiar Olympians” is a series of blog posts about my most favourite fictional characters. They are each here for some combination of sympathy, empathy, inspiration, humour, quality, staying power, and/or significance to my relationship with fandom. These are not all the characters that I like, but they are the ones that have stood out to me the most. The list is also alphabetical and nothing more.

On one side is the Predacon Megatron; on the other, the Autobot Rodimus Prime. In many ways they’re each others’ opposite, which makes them a nice encapsulation of my entire experience with Transformers.

My interest in the franchise started with Beast Wars, but an interest in the then-dormant original Transformers material soon followed. Though there was a lot of it, eventually the third season of the original cartoon emerged as my clear favourite in the 1980s corner. This is not for reasons of quality, since the whole cartoon is pretty bad when seen through adult eyes (and perhaps I should have known better as a teen, too), but there was a peculiar emotional resonance to its main characters that remains strong. This lets me cruise through those episodes at a leisurely pace even now. Any episodes outside of this, though, and forget it.

Rodimus Prime was the second leader of the Autobots during the original cartoon’s run. Originally the “teenage” Hot Rod, he was transformed into Rodimus Prime by the Matrix of Leadership at the eleventh hour to destroy the planet-devouring robot Unicron. In the years that followed, leadership began to take its toll on Rodimus, as he grappled with insecurity over being unable to measure up to his great predecessor, Optimus Prime. Other days Rodimus could handle himself just fine, and displayed a caustic sense of humour that Hot Rod never had. However, Optimus Prime was eventually brought back to life, though, and he became Hot Rod again.

I have a yen for angsty and sarcastic characters, making Rodimus Prime a one-two punch. He became an icon of my very first fandom, and a sign of the times I had there. As an adult, my interest in Rodimus Prime hasn’t changed, and I am also more confident in ignoring those who believe the third season was a fundamental drop in quality. Any flaws in the third season of the Transformers cartoon were intrinsic to the series as a whole.

However, growing older has made me realize that if there is anything wrong with Rodimus’ existence, it is that his insecurities formed no larger arc and resolution. Instead, his problems were solved at the end of an episode, only to emerge again after several episodes without incident, and be solved in the same half hour. Having these problems wasn’t the issue.

It seems almost as if the writers were trying to do something different with the beat-’em-up 80s cartoons, but only half finished it, introducing a character facet not often seen in such shows and presenting it with genuine feeling, but not letting it go anywhere. It’s saddening, but also raises the question of whether one could really have expected the Transformers cartoon to suddenly develop the capacity to do long-term character arcs and character development. Why not just give an “A” for effort?

I do, exactly because Rodimus Prime is still an enjoyable character, and I like watching the third season of the Transformers cartoon for him and other reasons. Any other appearance of Rodimus Prime or Hot Rod in Transformers media, whether it’s the same character or just one with the same name, is nowhere near as fun.

The Peculiar Olympians: Beast Wars Megatron

“The Peculiar Olympians” is a series of blog posts about my most favourite fictional characters. They are each here for some combination of sympathy, empathy, inspiration, humour, quality, staying power, and/or significance to my relationship with fandom. These are not all the characters that I like, but they are the ones that have stood out to me the most. The list is also alphabetical and nothing more.

A love for villains with no deeper motivation or backstory than greed and personal enjoyment has become a nostalgic artifact for me. I sometimes miss my larger appetite for such characters, but if a “simple” villain has enough flair, I can still love them. Beast Wars Megatron totally has that kind of style, and looking at him takes me right back to the time when I could better appreciate the undemanding kind of villain.

Beast Wars was my first fandom, the first series with which I sought out material beyond the television show and began to follow online discussions. It lead to a larger engagement with Transformers fandom as a whole (which I’ve since fallen out of), butBeast Wars is still my favourite Transformers series, and its Megatron my favourite of the many unrelated characters to have that name.

Three hundred years after the end of the Autobot/Decepticon war, the primary Transformers factions are now the Maximals and Predacons. A Maximal exploration crew pursues rogue Predacons who have stolen an artifact called the Golden Disk, and the two ships crash on an Earthlike planet. This world turns out to be riddled with stores of raw energon, Transformers’ primary fuel source, and robots must adopt alternate modes derived from local animals/fossils to protect themselves from the resulting radiation. The scale of this conflict first seems small, but further details will be revealed that will introduce the potential to change the course of Transformers history. (And while it sounds ridiculous on paper, and a lot of plot details were never resolved, Beast Wars is still a good show.)

Beast Wars Megatron only wants power. Here and there he makes a bit of noise about wanting to free the Predacons from Maximal rule back home, but it’s abundantly clear that even this tidbit is more about feeding his ego than anything else. Yet his smooth voice, delivered by one David Kaye, lends him an air of refinement, and his ability to play his enemies against each other, with a light but twisted sense of humour sets him a cut above the rest….

…which it makes it all the better when we see how monstrous and bestial he truly is, his sophistication a veneer. Furthermore, as Beast Wars progresses, Megatron grows ever more insane and power-hungry. He loses something in this transition, but retains enough panache that my faith in him only wavers, never disappears.

The same can’t be said for the Megatron’s re-introduction in the sequel series Beast Machines. The merits of this characterization have been debated, but after struggling to accept it for years, I fall squarely on the side that considers Beast Machines Megatron an inferior and implausible continuation. Yes, he conquered the whole of Cybertron as he had always dreamed of, but deliberately put the population in stasis to rule an empty world. In addition he had inexplicable obsessions with cold, mechanical order and the elimination of organics. He had his moments in this series, but they were fleeting, and ultimately he was an unsatisfying re-iteration. Still, the memories of Beast Wars Megatron remain fondly.

State of the Zentard Address, 2011

I forgot to blog about what’s happened in my latest year of Robotech and Macross fandom, for a lot of reasons. Basically, there was almost nothing going on with me that was new, and for a while I quietly imploded in response to the irritations coming from both fandoms.

Right now, all my feelings are still there, but I’ve become more confident about some of them. I’m telling myself to start believing several things:

* That I have not over-idealized the human-allied male Zentradi just because I like them above all else. I am aware of the characters’ place in the SDFM food chain and my desires for them did not overestimate this status.

* I gave every Macross work I tried a fair chance, and just happened not to like them that much. Perhaps my irritation over the fates of my favourite characters means my relationship with Macross is irrevocably broken, leaving me unable to feel that each series really follows from the past, but that’s the way it goes.

* It’s okay to say while I respect the freedom of the Macross’ staff, I don’t like what they’ve done with the place, and admitting this fact outright, instead of dancing around it, is the healthy way to be. You can respect canonicity and disagree with the creators both, and it doesn’t make you an entitled prat if you wish things had gone differently.

* That I have stopped trying to find the redesigned and retconned Zentradi to be appealing, and indeed they’re now a little sickening to look at. Macross 7 Neo-Exsedol is the exception, for vague reasons, but regardless, it’s all no surprise. If your favourite character is Bubba Jo-Jim Bob the accountant, odds are you like more about him than his name or his occupation. And once he’s only got those left, why stick around?

Thanks to the enthusiasm of Zen72, I’ve also become comfortable again with the role the Robotech novels and comics had in shaping the fan I am today. There is no point in trying to hide or deny that I once devoured the post-TV series novels and comics. I might have grown critical thoughts later, and my brain might have simply skimmed delicately over the stupider bits, but the attachment remains.

After passing through my critical but hateless period, what’s now happening is that the old Robotech novels and comics are acquiring a sort of demi-nostalgic charm. I can remember them fondly on principle, never mind the way I’ve cut into them more recently. I also still peck away sometimes at my Robotech fanfic-I’d-write-now-if-I-were-more-self-aware, but it’s largely just for that demi-nostalgia’s sake. It’s still anyone’s guess if I’ll wean myself off that story before finishing it, but a return to Tirol and Lantas feels refreshing sometimes.

At the same time, I’ve slid more towards a Macross state of mind. I find the Macross Romanizations, or the Macross-exclusive names springing to my mind first before the Robotech names, and the related storyline details. Some could attribute it to the inevitable “maturity” that Robotech fans with half a brain are supposed to go through, but for me these things are harder than if I were a fan of Minmay or Valkyries. I can’t become a full Macross fan, because I will not jettison that Robotech stuff entirely, even if it can be pretty awful with the Zentradi too.

If I were to give a better reason for dipping into this Macross-ness, it might be the short Macross AU fanfic I’m writing. It’s true that I feel something like a kid smoking on the porch while her parents are asleep--I’ve always been about the safe canon-fics. But I wanted to try something a little different, and be confident I could keep it all balanced.

I still have to make my own fun, because nothing has changed on the fandom front. The promise of a new Robotech “side story” while the main storyline has remained unfinished for five years  just further throws into light how pathetic the entire thing has gotten. At this point, I do in fact blame the people who believe Robotech is going anywhere. Harmony Gold is being as transparently do-nothing as usual, and anybody who can’t see it by this point…yeahhh…it’s hard to feel sympathy.

(The Toynami Glaug looks nice, though. I have to decide if my Matchbox Glaug and the SD Soft Vinyl I’m getting are enough)

Related to my understandings above, I no longer care that I didn’t grow to love Macross Frontier when everyone else did, but the recent MF film, Wings of Farewell, sounds so visually spectacular, I’ll have to give it a try. I even like the costume and effects for
“Magical Girl” Ranka, and normally I dislike Ranka anyway. I’m still looking forward to Yamato’s soft vinyl figure of Classic Britai, and, jeez, something good for me has to come out this year.

A problem I have right now is that I’ve still got a few ideas for projects, but a lot of apathy has set in. For instance, I would like to finally define what I believe the ethos of the pre-U.N. Spacy Zentradi are, and why I don’t consider them analogous to other warrior races with an ethos of honour. I’d like to elaborate on my take on the notion that Zentradi possess “war urges”. I’d like to refine and define my reasons for disliking Macross 7 (without going back to the series), and point out that even if I were more deeply invested in the main characters of Macross, DYRL still wouldn't be all that fun. The urge to write these things has not entirely disappeared, and it may be a matter of time as much as desire, as I don’t have much time to blog these days.

An SDFM remake and a Robotech reboot are still awful and stupid ideas, for different reasons. Fortunately, neither seems to be happening anywhere but in fans’ heads.

One doesn’t know what this year will bring.