On the Subject of Serious Subjects

I struggle with writing about serious subjects. There is a part of me that wants to come out and declare certain things, to say things about current events, or about issues, or whatever. But it never feels that easy. I don't want to say something... wrong?

Like the Kindle issue. I wrote a post about some petty issues I have with the Kindle platform, not because they were big issues or problems or things that seriously turned me away from Kindle, but because they were minor things that I kept coming across and wanted/needed to vent about it. It's just a minor thing, the sort of gripe you might talk about with your friends, but I'm kind of isolated on the other side of the planet from my friends so I don't often get chances to gripe about things. Thus, rants online.

But there are bigger issues with Kindle and Amazon. I allude to them in that post, but don't go into detail. I have started writing a post about those bigger issues, and issues with digital media and ownership, etc. But it's such a serious topic and it's harder to write about for a few reasons. One reason is that if I'm writing about something silly or petty, if I get a few details wrong it doesn't really matter, it won't affect much. I still did a good deal of research into that earlier Kindle post, but in the end it didn't really matter.

But if I'm talking about serious things I want to make sure everything I say is accurate and correct, and so the amount of research needed goes up. I will want to make more points about the subject, and each point needs to be backed by facts, so that level of research can get exponentially bigger.

My Wizards review took effort to research because I didn't want to portray things incorrectly, and because I wanted to include a number of visual elements (screen captures from the film), but that was all easy stuff. I did read a few articles about the movie, but I was doing that anyway, it wasn't difficult. Sometimes fact checking serious subjects is a lot more difficult. And screen-caps took effort in the literal and strict sense of the word, but it wasn't difficult by any means.

The other reason it's harder to write about serious subjects is that it's just more emotional effort. I feel like this is probably self-explanatory, so I'm not really going to expound on it much. But suffice it to say that when life is already difficult, writing about difficult things (either things directly affecting me or not) is that much harder.

Am I a bad person if I don't make a post affirming LGBT+ people's rights, even while said rights are under threat? Am I a bad person if I don't publicly denounce Mega Corporation X? Or Public Figure Y? Is it worse to write about Kindle without addressing the greater issues with the platform (issues that have recently gotten worse) or Amazon as a whole? Is it wrong to avoid writing too much about serious subjects because life is already hard enough as it is, and focusing too much on those things only makes life more stressful?

I try to be a good person. I care about people. I especially care about those who are downtrodden, or those who are different, or "othered" by society. I have always been different, I have felt the pains of a system that wasn't made for people like me. And so I really feel the hurt other people feel when they face similar situations. Also, ya know, I have basic human empathy towards others.

So there is a part of me that wants to do something when I see serious things happening. A part of me wants to address these things. But I want to do it right, and do it to a standard I'm not sure I can consistently put out. So I shy away from the serious subjects. I don't know how I feel about that, though. Obviously I'm conflicted. 

I don't know if there's a solution or an answer. If someone came to me with this dilemma I can imagine my response/advice would be something along the lines of "I dunno dude, I guess you just gotta do the best you can and if you're not happy with what you wrote, then set it aside and return to it later." Which, I suppose is what I've done (literally, the first draft of this post was written in January, I believe). I may also offer a few words about having "no obligation to involve one's self in any particular issue," or something to that affect. Which, while true and valid, doesn't exactly clarify the conflict inside me. I know I don't owe the world any particular opinion or thought or whatever. But when I see rights being taken away, I want to do something, but I don't know what I can do. When I see wealth disparity rising, and people getting hurt, and my own self getting hurt by broken systems and broken people, I want to do something, but I'm so limited in what I can do. And so, speaking out is something I can do, but that doesn't make it simple or easy to do, and we could easily loop back to the start of this.

So I guess that, for the moment, this post will probably have to stand as my public statement about the world today, and with that being the case I want to say just a few more words. There are a hundred issues I could address, but I'll simplify it down to this:

Everyone should be allowed to exist and seek their own happiness, whatever that may be, without harming others. Be nice to others.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - The Novel - The Review

In 2019 Quentin Tarantino's film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood was released, and in 2021 Tarantino's novelization of his own film released, his debut novel.

It's good. It's basically just like the film, but more. More back story, more inner thoughts, more clarity on a few situations left vague in the film, more Manson cultists, more Sharon Tate, more Hollywood talk. A lot more Hollywood talk. Way more explaining the plot and backstory of Lancer (the show-within-the-movie/book that the main character of the film/book, Rick Dalton (Leo DiCaprio in the film), is guest-starring in the pilot episode of), as well as basically everyone connected to it, let alone everyone connected to just about everything.

This is... good. If you liked the movie, you will probably appreciate a lot of this.

There is just a lot of it. Like... a lot. By two thirds of the way through the book I was starting to get a little tired of the multiple digressions into the career of some 60s actor I didn't and still don't care much about. Sure, some of these digressions are interesting, some help set the scene, some help establish character. All of them are Tarantino geeking out about something he's passionate about. BUT at a certain point you have to stop and ask yourself "How much do I really want or need to know about James Stacy to understand what Lancer is about? And how much of this extra Lancer backstory is all that necessary for anything that this book is or is about?"

A lot of this extra info is factual, real life history (or at least really stories that have been told as if true) about real people who worked in Hollywood at the time of the book. There are obvious fictional elements, notably any time Rick Dalton is mentioned or connected to someone, as he is a fictional person, though the people he mentions and interacts with are mostly all real (exception to this is the other main character of the film and book, Cliff Booth, portrayed by Brad Pitt in the film), though some of the movies mentioned aren't (specifically the one starring Dalton), and obviously the real life Paul Wendkos couldn't have known and liked the fictional Rick Dalton.

On that note, the Lancer of Tarantino's imagination is a bit different from the actual Lancer show as it exists in our universe. I can say this definitively because I have actually seen the Lancer pilot episode, the one our fictional Rick Dalton guest stars in (and though his character is slightly revised in Tarantino's imagination, including the character's name, the character is mostly pretty true to what was on screen in our reality, down to looking like he could be played by someone who looked like DiCaprio). For a late 60s TV Western, I thought it was a decent watch. I mean, I'm not actually all that versed in that genre, but considering I was watching that genre from that time period with modern eyes, I thought it was fine. And, even if I think the changes Tarantino made for the film and book would have also been good (and more to the point, served the narrative he was telling), the fact that he goes over pages and pages and pages of backstory and explanation does kinda drag the pacing.

Tarantino also makes a couple weird choices. The book is structurally non-linear, allowing him to weave in and out of various digressions at will. This mostly works, but it makes for a fundamentally wild change to the ending of the book vs the movie.

Anyone who has seen the movie will definitely remember the fiery conclusion. I wouldn't want to ruin the film for any who might watch it and hasn't, so if that's you, then honestly go watch it first, then come back here.

If you're still here, let me just say the film does a great job at building tension, but then allowing the bulk of that tension to dissipate (intentionally so). As a consequence, the viewer begins to wonder if Tarantino has decided to, for once, make a film that doesn't feature explicit violence?

But at the same time, anyone who knows anything about Charles Manson's "Family," who feature prominently in the film/book, and the fate of Sharon Tate, knows that in our reality these plot-lines merge in a terribly violent, horrible tragedy. And so while a lot of the film's immediate tension is released with little fan-fare, there is an undercurrent of tension building up, particularly in any scene featuring Tate or the Manson family.

And thus, in the film Tarantino indulges in that hyper-real hyper-violent fantasy. The murderous hippies, who in reality invaded the home of Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski and brutally murdered the pregnant Tate, in the film and book they are nudged off that path and instead invade the home of Rick Dalton while his stuntman and friend Cliff Booth is there, who in addition to being a stuntman is a former war hero, former PoW, and man who has gotten away with murder. And the explosion of extreme violence is the release of the tension. The existence and relevance of a flamethrower is brought up before, almost in passing, and boy howdy does that Chekov's "gun" go off. It is a brutally violent yet extremely satisfying hyper-violent catharsis. With this alternate history we get to indulge in the fantasy of Tate surviving, of her never even really being in danger as the Manson cult never actually invades her home. It is revenge, almost. It is Tarantino wishing that something could have happened differently. Its him making up just the right people to fit into the world at that time who could have stopped the Tate murders.

In the book, though, that catharsis doesn't really happen. What is the final sequence in the film is given to us as essentially an aside, way earlier in the book, somewhere between the first quarter and first third. It is mentioned that the Manson-following hippies invaded Rick Dalton's home and that he and Cliff defended themselves, and thus we know the Tate murder was prevented. But we don't really see it happen on the page. We don't really get the explosive catharsis. More words are spent on the aftermath and how it re-vitalized Dalton's popularity, than on what was in the film the climax, the peak of the tension getting released.

I assumed, especially as Tarantino repeats himself about a couple other things (mostly Lancer stuff), that we'd get the scene in more detail at the end. But it doesn't happen.

And so while the film seems to be about A) A loving send-up to 1969 Hollywood and B) A fantasy revenge for a senseless and horrible tragedy, I'm left wondering what the book is actually about when that B is so subdued as to barely exist. 

Yes, it is still a good read, I would suggest it if you liked the movie and like to read. It's just that the focus feels a little off from what you might have previously expected. Tarantino loves old Hollywood, that much is clear. He may be one of the world's most well known filmmakers, but in his own mind he's more of a film fanatic than even that, and that has never been more clear than in this book. It's a love letter to that era of Hollywood as much as it is, in a sense, fan fiction of Tarantino's own works.

The ending is not a huge culmination of all the storylines, it isn't the high point climax that the film gets. It does, in a sense, fit the book's more slow burn, meandering style and tone better. It ends on a positive note for Rick Dalton, it has hope for him, and by extension for all of Hollywood. And in a sense that's more what the book is about. In the book, Sharon Tate's survival is, instead of a climax and catharsis, just one piece of the puzzle that is a vision of a still mostly pretty true to life but slightly more hopeful Hollywood. 

And yet the book is still clear that Hollywood was full of boozers, cheaters, egos, literal murderers (and in one of the main characters, even), and all sorts of scandals. So yes, stopping the Manson family before they would do their worst would have been a great thing, but does the rest of Hollywood deserve the redemption that is implied? 

Blog is an Ugly Word

I'm sorry to everyone out there who is happily a "blogger" or otherwise likes the word "blog" itself. But it stinks.

Back in the early days of blogging, in what one might now call the early childhood of the Internet the 1990s, they were called "weblogs" or a web-log. A log, written on the web. Much like a travelog or whatever. A very, very early Internet naming convention. Mail that is electronic? E-Mail! Brilliant. On writing this I realize that "Internet" is probably itself a compound word. "Inter" and "network", "network" itself also being a compound of "net" and "work". Though, those are a little more complicated in form and meaning than the stupidly simple "email" and "blog".

Email, as a word itself, is fine though. Mail is common and understood and has a neutral to pleasing sound alone, "E" is the most commonly used letter in English and also has a nice pleasing sound. "Web" and "Log" are not as universally neutral-to-pleasant separately, and not together either. I mean, "web" sounds fine on it's own. The "w" sound is smooth, and you've got that pleasant "e" sound, and a "b" sound is also a good sound.  Log is fine when you're describing or noting a log, like a fallen tree. Or a log-book, like you're a ship's captain keeping a log of the comings and goings onboard your vessel. It is a functional word, perhaps not beautiful, but functionally fine.

"Web" as a term meaning "The Internet" has somewhat fallen away. You just don't hear people talking about "The Web" quite as much anymore, even if they technically use it every day. It persists in the "WWW"  of our URLs, but almost no one ever thinks about "WWW" meaning "World Wide Web" anymore, or at least not often (unless they're noting that it takes less time and syllables to say "world wide web" than "double you double you double you," which is true). So the "web" etymology is if not a little outdated at least a bit old-sounding. Sure, we say "website" still. I never said the word is dead, just not as prevalent as it was in the radical 90s when we were "surfin' the web" and such. But of course, even if "web" was still just as popular a term generally, that's the part that gets cut out in the shortened "blog"!

"Log" has never really been super accurate for what most people use "blogs" for anyway. I suppose I can concede that in the early days more people were "logging" aspects of their lives, like a daily or weekly journal of sorts. But to me a log is much more... technical. Like I mentioned above, if you're a ship at sea you probably have a log-book, and you record your cargo and the crew aboard your vessel. A "weblog" is then what? A list of the things you have on your website? The people who view your website? Remember "guestbooks" on early websites?

Okay I know I'm getting way too weirdly literal about the word "log". I get the etymology of the word, as I mentioned travelogs before, which is of course a long-standing and still relatively popular literary genre, and probably even more popular now as "vlogs" on youtube. I'm not going to get into "vlog," please don't ask.

Anyway, "blog" has only stuck around just because it was mostly accurate and short and catchy enough to just catch on in those days. "Weblog" got shortened to "blog" (first via someone being cheeky and saying "We Blog," get it? Cue vicious eyeroll) and that was easy to digest. It's shorter than anything else I can come up with off the top of my head like "Internet journal" or any shortened versions of that, or whatever. So I understand why the term endured to modern times and why it has such mass adoption as to not be questioned. A blog is just a thing, that is just the term for it. Like a tree is a tree and a rock is a rock, a blog is a blog and it shall not be superseded.

I just don't like the word. It does not have a pleasant sound or feel to it. I wouldn't know what else to call what I'm doing here, so I shall unfortunately probably just continue to use the word. Maybe I'll just say "my website" or whatever (hey, there it is again, "web"). "I posted a new write-up on my website" or some such nonsense. That sounds a tad silly to me also, partially because of the avoidance of trying to avoid the word "blog" when I'm linking to a website called "blogspot" that I typed and edited it via "blogger" and we all know it's a "blog."

This is such a stupid and petty complaint I do not know if I will ever post this, but it did feel kinda good to write about it. Actually, shoot dang that's exactly why I am going to post it. If I can't be stupid and petty on my own blog where can I?

Almost every time I read a book, I feel the need to write my version of that book

Almost every time I read a book, I feel the need to write my version of that book.

Last year I read Neuromancer by William Gibson and throughout the whole book I kept thinking about how I should write a cyberpunk book with a hacker main character, and the trials and travails they'd have to face. When I first read a Haruki Murakami book (for the record it was Kafka on the Shore, and I wouldn't suggest starting there tbh) I wanted to write a story about a young man lost in the world who faced surreal and incomprehensible situations. When I read Brandon Sanderson I often want to write epic fantasy. Some of the fantasy worlds that I've spent the most amount of time world-building and plotting in have some direct inspirations from Brandon Sanderson.

To be clear, I don't intend to plagiarize anyone. I never want to tell the same story as someone else. I just couldn't stop thinking about writing a story about a hacker dude all the way through Neuromancer. The way my mind works, I suppose, I get inspired by these books and thus I want to write something along the same lines.

Some readers of this blog may know that relatively recently (wait it's been over two years, holy cow) I had a whole, whole bunch of stuff in a storage unit. Basically all my music and movies and media and computers, mementos from childhood, furniture, a large collection of vinyl records, and almost everything I owned was in this storage unit. And that storage facility burned to the ground, total loss on everything. Irreplaceable things. Pictures, videos, writings, notebooks. Out of print foreign movies. All destroyed.

I had a few, a handful of things that were overseas with me. About two suitcases worth of clothing and stuff that made the trip with me, and thus was obviously untouched by the ravaging fire that happened on the other side of the world.

One of those things I had brought with me was, out of all things in the world, the Sega Genesis Mini. I don't even have a particular love for the Genesis library. I absolutely do not like the 2D Sonic games (or most of the 3D ones for that matter). But somehow one of these was in my possession. And since I've been trying out some of these games, mostly to introduce my kids to retro-gaming and occupy them allowing me to occasionally get about two minutes of rest at a time, we've been going through and trying out some of these games. There's a game on it called Monster World IV. And I want to make it. I want to make my version of it. It's a 2D sidescrolling action platformer. Apparently it's a part of the Wonder Boy series, if you're familiar with that (I'm not lol). (Why is it called Monster World IV if it's a Wonder Boy game? Even wikipedia is confused.)

I want it to be... better, though. I like the female protagonist's design well enough. (Wait, Wonder Boy but female protag? Yeah, it's a side story. Oh is Monster World a side series? Yes, kind of, but it's the third MW release and not the fourth.) I want RPG mechanics. I want more dungeons. I want more gear. In essence I want to play Maple Story but have it not be bad.

This is kind of a problem though, isn't it? It's a part of my difficulty focusing on any one thing enough to actually get it finished. If I continually want to write X new thing or work on Y new project, I'll always be starting anew. The curse of the creative, I suppose.

This post is all over the place, I'm never posting this lol. 

Or that's what I thought when I wrote the first draft of this, when I was actually in the middle of reading Neuromancer (though I've updated the language to indicate that I have since finished it, obviously).

But in light of my continually renewed attempt to write here, this sort of short but pointless post may become more common.

January 2025 Update

Howdy! It's been about two months since I last wrote here, and I kinda wanted to reflect on that briefly, in part because I have mentioned previously that I wanted to write at least one post a month, if not more. I technically hit about twice a month for a short bit there, but obviously fell off.

That's a sort of a pattern I find in my life a lot. It would be easy to say "oh my interest in the blog thing just waned." But that's not exactly accurate. I do still want to write just as much as I did before. I still do have a desire to do almost all the things that I have fallen off from doing (and there are many). I think it's relatively rare, for me at least, to quit doing something because I just totally lost interest. Occasionally it will happen with media, like a book or game or movie I'm just not getting anything out of, but pretty much never with my actual pursuits.

What happens more often, and it holds true in this case as well, is that there is A) a roadblock or roadblocks, and B) some other project to draw my time or attention away. Those two things separately can really arrest forward progress on any sort of project. Together they're killer.

All of this is a sign, a symptom of what we call ADHD. It is far from the only ADHD trait that I exhibit. But I must clarify that I am undiagnosed for any sort of neurodivergence, so I’m somewhat wary of openly declaring something like “I have ADHD," or even "I think I have ADHD," (though I do think that). But also I’ve never been evaluated for ADHD either, hence the wariness at self-diagnosis. That is somewhat of a sidebar, but clearly I think it's worth mentioning in connection to this subject.

I want to preface this next section by saying that I am not complaining. I am not whining about these things. I record them here at least in part because the act of writing about them is a way for me to process them. Perhaps, if you find yourself here, reading this post, you might relate to some of these things. Maybe reading about them will help you process them as well, though I claim no authority on definitive answers. So, with that in mind, here are some roadblocks:

1) No one cares. I returned to writing a blog not for the edification of anyone else. I am not necessarily writing to an audience. I know that I am owed no one's attention. But to be quite honest seeing that a post has zero views kinda hurts. That's a me problem, I know. I knew going in that I should assume no one actually cares what I have to say or write.

At the same time, though, I am posting these publicly at least in part because a portion of me does want people to see and read them. If I didn't, I would write them solely in an actual paper journal instead of posting online, which is a practice I intermittently do. Another part of posting these online is so that I actually write a full piece, a full "essay" or "article", if you will, instead of the aimless ramblings of a journal (or of the dozens of draft posts I have started but never finished). So, I know I should not focus on the external element and focus instead on the internal reasons for writing. If an audience exists, it will come in time. I am not owed it, I must earn it. Doesn't mean a big Zero doesn't sting a little, but that's life, isn't it? That's art. It needs to be for me first.

2) No one cares part two. Someone who in the past has encouraged me to write, someone who said they'd read anything I put out, when I sent them the link to my Wizards review replied "If I don't care about Bakshi or his wizards, why should I care to read about them?"

Oof.

If this person changed their mind and no longer desires to read the things I write, that is their prerogative, of course. I know they tend to be busy, I believe they mentioned they only have limited time to read these days in the same message. But I didn’t make any demands, I just shared a link, and expected them to get around to it on their own schedule, or never. That’s often how I operate as well, getting around to things when I can. I can’t always drop everything to check out something someone sends me, but I also don’t just immediately reject the suggestion.

Maybe this person knows Bakshi by his other works and legitimately doesn't care to know another single thing about the man or his films. Fine, I suppose. Bakshi isn't for everyone.

But it was still kinda discouraging.

Isn't the whole point of a review to tell you about a thing, so you can decide if you care or not? If you come across a review of a thing you don't have an interest in, reading the review is a way to decide if it's worth changing that or not.

I know some people won't care one way or another. I don't read every review about everything ever either. It was just that combination of the theoretical support with the rejection that kind of flabbergasted me.

And yeah, again, one person's opinion, or the world's apathy, shouldn't dissuade one from doing something (assuming of course that the thing they're doing isn't causing harm and is an okay thing to do). It was just, ya know... oof.

3) Interesting/Worthy Subject. This is related to something I said above, specifically the thing about having a bunch of orphaned drafts. I've started a good deal of write-ups only to wind up unable to find the right way to convey the thoughts and feelings I have on the subject or with less to say than I thought.

This is just a part of the creative process, so it's not a huge problem. It's just a bit of a hurdle or roadblock to getting something out. 

 

I have four published since my return to da blog, and (counting this) seven "drafts". Some are longer than others, none is really close to publish-ready. They would all take a good amount of effort (relatively speaking) to get publish-ready. Looking at this situation positively, I have seven ideas that at one point I thought good enough to start, so that's seven good places to start (well, six, since this one is definitely getting finished and published).

Anyway, this is actually very related to the next potential roadblock:

4) The inner critic. A part of me wants to call it imposter syndrome, as in: let's assume I am actually a decent writer, or at least not totally garbage, but my imposter syndrome tells me I’m awful. But what if it isn’t imposter syndrome? What if I really do suck at writing?

Well, that’s what practice is for, and this whole blog thing was at least in part meant to be practice. 

 

On days I’m not horribly depressed I like to think I’m at least okay at writing. But sometimes putting words down is hard, and nothing seems to be right or good or I just can’t express it, as stated above. So maybe I suck. Maybe I don’t. But those times when I sit and I just can’t get anything coherent out make it hard to keep going, or to try again the next day.

 

This is kind of related to the first two points also, in that if no one is reading it, does it matter? Maybe I post garbage and no one reads it, but I find satisfaction in having written and hitting that button on the top of my screen that says "Publish".

5) Time allocation aka distractions. This is different from my “some other project to draw my time or attention away” above. When I have another project that I’m working on I may legitimately not have time to write posts or short fiction or whatever. But what I mean here is that when I do have time to write, I’m not actively working on something else productive, but I instead do something else that isn’t productive or whatever.

I’m not saying that taking time to enjoy yourself is bad, not at all. I value my distractions, they keep me sane and semi-functional. Everyone needs something to help them relax, to unwind.

But there are times when I’m not unwinding, but I end up just sitting and playing Deep Rock Galactic Survivor or Fallout 4 or whatever else, because I just feel like doing it instead of doing something productive. Time that I don’t need to be cooking, cleaning, taking care of my children, working on something, or anything else. Time that I could be using to write, or work any other various projects, but I just… don’t. Why? Like I said, it’s easier to start a video game than it is to put effort into something. It feels good faster.

 

I do enjoy writing, but it takes much more of a different type of effort. The satisfaction is different. Perhaps more real in a sense, but less immediate. Neither is necessarily worse or better than the other, at least in the right time and place. But that's what I'm saying, sometimes I do indeed go for the easier instead of putting effort into things.

 

The most obvious solution is before starting up a video game to just stop and ask myself "Do I really need this right now? Is there something better I could be doing?" Sometimes the answer really is "Yeah I do need this right now" and then so be it, I shall enjoy it. But not always.

And I think that's it. Those may not be every roadblock to posting, but they are the biggest (or at least most obvious) ones.

So instead of just succumbing to them, I will aim to post here at least once a month. Maybe I end up posting shorter things. Not every post needs to be long or detailed, it just has to be something. Often when I write something like this, I want to be exhaustive. But small ideas are okay too. We'll see!

Thanks for reading!

Ralph Bakshi's Wizards (1977) - A Theatrically Released Saturday Morning Cartoon Fever Dream of Violence

The 1977 film Wizards is a film of contrasts. The story is about twin brothers, the titular Wizards, one good and one evil. Armies of elves and fairies vs the armies of mutants and monsters. Nature vs Science and Technology. 

But it's also a film of contrasts not just in it's story and themes, but in it's quality too.

  

A weirdly large amount of the film is shown in still frames like this. It opens with backstory and exposition about the world getting destoryed by nuclear war, and the birth of the twin Wizards, Avatar on the right and Blackwolf on the left in that above screenshot. But this technique isn't reserved for backstory. Later in the movie plenty of things are quickly covered by still frames and narration. A cost saving measure, certainly. It doesn't ruin the film, but it does somewhat detract from the parts that are good.

 

And there is good in Wizards. It is, occasionally, quite wonderful to look at. Here's just a few examples from within the first ten minutes.

And yet for as great to view as the few minutes of film these shots come from are, that contrast is also extremely apparent. Necron 99, that red robot character above and sort of mascot for the film, clashes greatly with the otherwise mostly-realistically drawn background art of the land of Scortch, where the evil wizard Blackwolf reigns. It's dark, harsh, and twisted, but depicted as if trying for photo-realism, or at least pseudo-realism. As Necron 99 and the other assassins venture out of Scortch on their mission of death, the landscape becomes a bit more surreal, almost impressionistic at times.

Necron 99 and the other assassins, and indeed all the characters, look more like they fit in a Saturday morning cartoon. It's hard to portray in stills here, but they squish and stretch like you'd expect a cartoon to look. Yet the world they inhabit is dark, harsh, or sometimes impressionistic, soft, and barely there at all.

But look at this sequence. This is genuinely beautiful.

One will keep watching the film to get more glimpses of scenes like all those I've screenshoted and shown you above. And you will get them. There is beautiful art, but it's interspersed with those bits of still images, and worse, Bakshi's signature bad rotoscoping. More on that in a bit.

I have to mention some of the character art. Neron 99 above is a simple but compelling design, and it works because of the cartoony nature of the characters, his distinct silhouette, and most importantly the hidden face. We never see his face, if there is one deep into that shadow with a yellow glow for eyes.

But some of the character designs are, while maybe no less memorable, kind of off-putting to look at.

Weehawk, the elf, one of our main characters. And below him, the princess Elinore, wizard Avatar, and the President of the Elves.

Sure, you can say I cherry picked a particularly bad frame of Weehawk. Cut him some slack, he's in the middle of a chase sequence through a forest, robo-assassin with a gun at his back. He doesn't look quite so much like a horrible gremlin all the time, right?

Well, he kinda does. And Elinore there, well she doesn't seem to like clothes. Saturday morning cartoon designs, but in a fever dream. Quick note, that fairy in the foreground there was voiced by Mark Hamill, his film debut. He took a break from filming Star Wars to voice his approximately three lines of dialog in Wizards before the character is shot and killed.

I don't mean to say any of this was a shock, by the way. The violence, the skimpy outfit, the dark tone. I knew going into Wizards what it was, who made it. A character wearing mostly skimpy clothing is a step towards modesty compared to the last Bakshi film I watched, Fritz the Cat, the first X-Rated animated film. A film which features full frontal cartoon cat nudity, multiple sex scenes, heavy drug use, and brief but extreme cartoon violence. Fritz was rated X. Wizards was rated PG (in the pre-PG-13 days, of course, but still not even an R). I don't mean to imply that Wizards is or was an entirely shocking movie, nor is it necessarily especially inappropriate. I just want to highlight that contrast. Cute fairy Mark Hamil: He gets blown away almost immediately. Saturday morning cartoon character designs, except for the skimpy clothes.

Ralph Bakshi is an interesting guy. He set out specifically to make art, not products. To make animated films that were aimed at adults, not children. He grew up poor in Brooklyn in the 1940s and 50s. Bakshi had an edge to him. He wanted animation to portray the world he knew, the things he grew up with, the life he and people around him lived, and the things he grew up loving. A lot of that portrayal of the life of a poor Jewish kid came out in his earlier movies like Fritz and Heavy Traffic. Wizards took that independent edge, animation for adults, but turned it back to the fantasy stories that Bakshi grew up reading and watching.

Contrasts. A fairy tale about magic and wizards and the purity of nature. A war film with brutal (cartoon) violence. 

A major plot point is that the armies of the evil wizard Blackwolf aren't motivated to do battle, in previous wars they got distracted or bored and give up easily. But Blackwolf found a secret weapon. Ancient film reels showing Nazi propaganda. Then the armies of evil are motivated to keep fighting, and they start to overcome the elves and fairies and other fair creatures.

And yes, the film does actually show clips of the Nazi propaganda. Bakshi doesn't shy away from, well, anything, but definitely not what appears to be one of the major themes he wanted to address. Indeed, the evil Blackwolf's throne is situated in the middle of a giant red swastika.

Yes, that is cartoon mutants and freaks watching footage of Adolf Hitler.

A film of contrasts. A weird film. Almost a trip, or a fever dream. And despite the late 70s weirdness, it's message is more than a bit on the nose. Bakshi was intentionally trying to make a Good vs Evil Saturday morning cartoon type of movie... just with typical Bakshi edge.

Who would I be to deny a Jewish boy a bit of on-the-nose commentary about Hitler and Nazis? But then again, historical context, creator intent, and a (supposed to be) good message don't make up for sub-par film making. Is Wizards sub par? Do the extended narration sequences, janky rotoscoping, weird designs, etc, take away from the good that is there in Wizards? Another pertinent question is what good is there, aside from the aforementioned occasionally very good art.

Is the writing excellent in Wizards? Maybe not. Maybe it lacks subtlety. It's serviceable enough. But it's at it's best when it isn't talking, I think. When it lets you soak in the atmosphere, like those screenshots above.

I gotta talk about the rotoscoping, though. Rotoscoping is when animators take footage that was previously shot, usually live-action footage, and draw or paint over the top of it, basically copying the movement but creating an animated image or video. The technique had been in use for decades by this point, but the way Bakshi does it is strange, though he had reasons for it.

Basically, Bakshi took live action footage from various war movies previous (I've seen Alexander Nevsky cited most, but also Zulu and El Cid, others) and in his rotoscoping seems to have just painted the vague shapes and outlines of characters and objects, as opposed to actually tracing details, as was the usual use.

You end up with stuff like this, where we have blobs moving around on the screen, but at times it's hard to even tell what you're supposed to be looking at.

Wizards now has at least four distinct art styles. The clash, the contrast. This time, not intentional.

Bakshi was deep into production on the film, but he was running out of money. He had a meeting with Fox executives. George Lucas was also in attendance, making Star Wars at the time as previously mentioned. Bakshi and Lucas both asked for fifty thousand dollars. Fox said no to both. Lucas still made Star Wars. Bakshi used a photocopier to copy film from old movies and then painted over it. A lot cheaper than hand animating the final battle.

Here's Bakshi from the audio commentary: "I thought that if we dropped all the detail, it would look very artistic, and very beautiful, and I felt, why bother animating all of this? I'm looking for a way to get realism into my film and get real emotion."

Did it work? Does it add realism? Does seeing blocks of color vaguely shaped like riders on horseback bring real emotion to the film? Of course it doesn't. It was a cheap way to finish the movie, like the still-frames with narration. I don't fault Bakshi for it, I applaud that he went out and found a way. Like Lucas, Bakshi still made his film. But it clashes. It kind of takes away from the charm of the cartoony bits.

The final battle, where the rotoscoping is most heavily featured, does luckily feature hand-drawn parts as well. And it's pretty brutal. It goes on for minutes, elves and mutants fighting, tearing each other apart.

I have to show you at least one sequence.

The elf then picks up the cyclops's gun and blows away another demon.

Both sides suffer heavy casualties, and we see it. Boy do we see it.

There are dozens of quick shots of action like this. Both sides brutally hacking or shooting away at each other. There are almost no backgrounds, it's character animation in front of rotoscoped blobs, or even raw footage of a storm, or pulsing lights.

Shortly after this brutal death of a character that looks like he belongs in a kid's show, the rotoscoping really takes off. Footage of tanks and airplanes come to dominate the battle, and wait. Is that a shot of elves getting blown away on top of real tank footage?

Ah, yes. Yes it is. I'm trying to give Bakshi and the film the benefit of the doubt here. I'm trying to get into the movie, to feel the I believe intended feelings. That is, sadness at the elves getting blown away, horror at the violence and war in general. A hope that the good guys can prevail and beat this sick twisted reincarnation of the Nazi regime. But I keep getting sucked out of it for a second by weird rotoscoping and now seeing live-action footage.

I've skipped so much of the exact whats and whys here, I'm not writing a summary after all, so I don't know if it's worth getting into detail about how the showdown between the two brother wizards goes. There is an element here that's worth preserving for anyone that wants to watch the film themselves, so I don't want to take that away from you. Leave a comment or otherwise message me if you wanna know specifically what I'm talking about, and will never watch the movie yourself.

But suffice it to say, good triumphs over evil. Blackwolf is killed, his projector of propaganda is destroyed. To quote the film "Hitler was dead again." 

The forces of darkness fade away.

 

And then you're left pondering. Hoping that that's true. Wishing that it were as simple as a good Wizard defeating a bad Wizard.

As a film, Wizards is interesting. It's a curiosity. It's not amazing as a film. If you're a fan of animation history it is interesting enough to watch. It's better as a film than Fritz the Cat, IMO. But if you're just a casual movie-goer, should you see Wizards? You don't need to.

But I do keep thinking about it. No one was clamoring for my thoughts, no one is demanding I write this. Nothing compels me, except that I keep thinking about the movie. And so, despite just saying that the movie ultimately isn't that great and you probably don't need to see it... I can't help but think maybe it's better than I seem to want to give it credit for. It is flawed, it is janky, it is a fever dream but not in the best ways. Maybe it's more interesting because of all that.

Whatever the case, it is, occasionally, very nice to look at, and in a way you just don't see in feature films anymore, so that has to be worth something too.

The Endless Stairs

I huddle in a corner, back against the hard, cold cement walls, exhausted from another day of climbing the stairs. There are others all around, fellow climbers, covering this small landing between sets of stairs, those closest to me butting up against my legs which I hold close to my chest. I do not know what floor we're on, if such a concept even exists here.

It's hard to remember what life was like before this. Conceptually I remember life. I remember driving a car. I remember home. I remember working in an office, and a retail store before that, and going to school before that. I remember that those things must have happened. But those things don't exist here.

There is up. There is down. There are places like this, landings between flights, places where one, if they desire to sit and rest, can sit on a smooth floor instead of the edge of a step. There are metal railings along the edge of the stairs and the landing. There is a gap, large enough for someone to leap to their death, an event I've not seen, but have heard others speak of. I've stuck my head into the gap and looked down, down from whence I came. I could see nothing but stairs until I couldn't see anything at all. I looked up, and it was the same.

I awaken. My body is stiff. I must have drifted off. I was not assaulted in my sleep. I was not hauled away and my corner taken. I was not shoved down a flight of stairs. I was not beaten and left to bleed. Not this night. Not most nights, anymore. Once things were worse, people more desperate for answers, people less accepting that this was their reality. Down on the lower floors people are more savage. I started climbing in large part to try to escape the violence. Now I climb because that's what we all must do.

What is night? Conceptually, I know. When the Earth is facing away from the Sun, the surroundings darken. Most man and beast grow tired, sleep. The Earth continues to rotate, we face the Sun again, and light awakens man and beast once again.

But here there are no windows. There is no sun. I don't even know if there is an Earth. There is light, everywhere there is light. I sleep when I can't walk anymore. Most of us seem to lay down for sleep and arise to continue walking at roughly the same time. It's consistent enough that I wonder how much of it is just the suggestion of stopping that makes everyone else want to stop too. That can't be it, not entirely, since some people stop for rests during the "day" and the rest of us keep walking onward.

Now I'm awake, and though my body is sore, my mind is slow, and it hurts to move, I still get up. Most of the people around me stir, though many stay where they are. Whether they're just slow to get up or if they've given up entirely, I couldn't say. I'm not going to wait around to find out. The longer I wait here, the less time I have to climb.

So I climb.

The first step of the day feels like most. Lift my foot, place it on the step, push, continue lifting the other foot and place it on the next step, and push. Up and up I climb. Soon I reach the next landing. There are people here too, of course. I have to step over one person, but most people are awakening too, and even if they haven't begun their climb they're at least getting up and out of the way.

I keep walking. Keep taking steps. It's slow going at first, but soon I get into a rhythm. Step, step, step. Up the stairs. The longer I go the more people join me. Some are familiar faces. We've walked together before. But everyone has their own pace, people come and go. Most of these people are not familiar to me.

We don't talk. People talk, sometimes. I've heard stories. Some people talk about their life before, things they accomplished, dreams they once had. Some people talk about what's at the top. Some people doubt there is a top. Some people talk about others they've met. There are stories told. Some have religious fervor. I've heard about God and Christ and Allah and others. I find it hard to really grasp these concepts anymore. I think I once knew about these things. But here, on the stairs, on the climb, it's hard to let these ideas into my mind. They don't seem... real. I don't remember if I ever thought they were real, but here, they aren't.

Some people talk of hell. Of eternal punishment. This idea... something about this is easier to understand. I don't think I am -- or was -- a bad person. Maybe I was. Maybe I am a sinner. Maybe God is punishing me. My body aches. Sleep is never all that restful. Maybe the monotony, the pain, is punishment. Yet still I walk, still I climb the stairs.

I understand what they mean when they say we're in hell. But I don't believe it. If I thought this was hell, why do I still climb? Why even try?

People give up. Oh yes, they give up. I reach another landing and look at the bodies here. There's an old man sitting in the corner. He's got wispy white hair and an unkempt beard to match. He looks me in the eyes and I can see in him the same despair that I feel in my heart. He's had enough. He hurts. He's tired. He's an old man, he's frail. I feel how he feels, but I'm not frail. So I leave him, I keep moving, I climb another set of stairs.

I don't remember if a day has passed or not. Things bleed together. When did I last sleep? I keep walking, keep climbing, step after step.

There are people who talk of other things. Not of the religions of the place before. There are new thoughts, new ideas, a new spirituality. I hesitate to call it a new religion, as I don't think any of these beliefs are all that formal. There is no Pope of the staircase. But there are those who preach of what the top is. A paradise. Rest, true rest. Not sleeping on cement floors or stairs. Being allowed to stop, and not feeling guilty about it. It's a nice idea, but I don't really buy into it. I climb because... because I have to. If there is a paradise, great. But I don't think there is. I'm not even sure there is a top.

I reach the next landing and there is a woman here I recognize. We walked together, climbed together for a while, long ago. I had a problem. I had to stop, wait to heal, which took some time. She continued on without me. Seeing her now reminds me how I felt then, when she left. She had to keep moving, I had to stop. I couldn't hate her, I couldn't blame her. I knew I would have done the same. But it still hurt.

Seeing her again, after so long, made my heart jump, just a little. This surprised me. We climbed together, yes. We held each other when we slept. We were stronger together, back when we needed strength to resist others. But she left me behind. I thought I'd let her go. I think about just continuing on, ignoring her. I must continue climbing, after all.

I'm shoved out of the way by someone coming up from behind. A rusher. He doesn't say anything, he just runs on up the stairs. I don't understand these types. He won't get anywhere faster. He won't get anywhere at all. He's just going to tire himself out, or worse injure himself. He is just a fool.

But in the slight commotion, she looks up. She sees me. Our eyes meet. I see shame in her eyes. It's too late to flee, too late to keep climbing. And so I step over to her, I sit down. I put my arm around her.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. I pull her close and she rests her head on my shoulder. It feels good to feel someone next to me again, not just a body shoved up against me in a pile as we all sleep, but a real human actually leaning on me.

"It's alright," I whisper back. "You needed to keep climbing. We all do."

"I don't know if I can anymore."

It hurts to hear her say that. The thought has crossed my mind, sure, but I always keep climbing. I have to. I can't become one of those people who sit and let the day waste. One must continue climbing. That's the way of things.

In fact, that thought tugs at my mind as we sit. It's only been a minute or two, but I start to get restless. I feel it, I feel the need to keep moving.

I turn and look at her. She looks at me. I see that same agony in her eyes. I know I feel it too, but I can't give into it. Not yet.

"I have to keep moving. You should come with me."

Tears well up in her eyes, and a few slip out and roll down her cheek. She isn't coming. She can't. I don't know why. I don't know if she doesn't feel the need anymore, or if she denies it. Maybe she's decided that this is hell and she won't participate anymore. I'll never know why if she doesn't tell me.

I close my eyes and touch my forehead to hers. She cries silently. I kiss her forehead and then I rise. She holds my hand, tries to keep me there. She doesn't want to let me go.

One last time I invite her to come, but she just closes her eyes and lets go of my hand.

So I continue to climb.

I hope she can find peace.

I hope I can find peace. 

Is anything waiting for us at the top of the stairs? Is there even a top of the stairs? Conceptually, according to the rules of reality, there has to be. But I don't know if this is reality anymore or not. Others debate this. I stopped trying to philosophize a long time ago. This is where I am. The stairs. There was a bottom. There might be a top, there might not. Either way... I have to keep going.

I climb.

Eventually I tire, but I push myself a little further on. People around me start to try to find spaces to lay down and sleep. Like most nights (or whatever it is) there are some fights over locations. Usually they don't get too violent, not anymore. This far up even a shout and a shove is rare.

I keep moving though. I want to make up for the lost time of sitting with my old friend. It wasn't long, but I need to keep moving. A part of me wonders if I fight through the tiredness if I'd eventually catch a second wind. Something about this feels like a bad idea, but regardless I keep moving.

I want to stop, I want to rest. But the greater need propels me. Making up for lost time is a convenient lie to tell myself, but it isn't the real reason I keep moving, is it? Seeing her again, seeing how she stopped climbing scared me.

I move faster. A part of me remembers how I silently ridiculed the man who shoved me. The thought of rushing up the stairs was silly then, but now I do it. Now I'm compelled, not the normal compelling of life in the endless stairs, but by my own fears. I don't want to stop. Or worse, maybe I wish I did want to stop.

Maybe we could have rested. So now, I cannot rest. 

I step over people. I leap over people. I stumble into people and they curse at me and tell me to stop moving. "It's time to sleep," the voices echo behind me.

But I don't. I keep moving.

I reach a landing that's empty. That's rare enough to give me pause. I'm breathing heavy, so I stop to catch my breath. I look down. There is one person at the bottom of these steps, laying across them, I leapt over them to get up here. There are people on that landing, laying down, sleeping. Looking up, there are no people on these stairs.

I start to climb again, slowly this time. One step at a time. My breath has mostly returned to normal, but still my body is tired from climbing all day, all week, all... year? How long have I been here?

The next landing is also empty. I almost panic. I almost scream. I haven't seen two empty landings in a row, ever. Seeing a landing with less than three people on it is rare enough that seeing two in a row would create a panic.

This is... unprecedented.

Mind reeling, I grasp the railing and look down. The stairs wind down, ever down, a squared off spiral deep into nothingness. I slowly turn my head to look up. The same endless spiral... or is it? Is there an end in the black up there? 

Do I see the hint of an ending up there? Is my mind playing tricks on me, or does the endless black feel a little less endless than usual?

My first thought is of her, actually. I want to go find her. Sure, I'd lose a day's progress going all the way back to her, and then back up to here. But if there's an end? If she's but days away from it, I have to go get her, right?

Maybe I should confirm that there is an end first though. If there is a top, if those who preach of paradise at the top of the stairs are correct, then spending a few days going up to confirm is better, right? Then I can come back and look for her, take her to the top knowing what's to come.

So I head back to the stairs. I climb another set, reach another empty landing. I'm tired. I'm so tired. I force myself up the next set of stairs.

I stop. I lay down in the middle of the landing, I stretch myself out, taking up more space than I think I ever have. A laugh escapes my lips, but I stiffle it. I don't want others to hear me and then come up and see what someone could be laughing about, and then beat me for the audacity of taking up a whole landing. I don't think anyone this far up would be so violent, but it's not a risk worth taking.

Soon I find myself curled up into a ball in a corner anyway. It's comfortable, or as comfortable as it's even been, and better now to not have a throng of bodies all around.

My eyelids are heavy, my mind begins to slow. Sleep has nearly overtaken me. I hope to awake early, get a head start on the climb. 

I awake. I hear sounds below. I get up and stretch as quickly as I can, and then... I begin again. I must climb the stairs. I climb.

Step after step 

after step 

after step

after step

after step

after step

after step

after