Fiction is not Reality

The negativity that has been heaped onto Star Wars: The Force Awakens is troubling, but not surprising. Anything loved by the masses these days is an obvious target to get a mastodon-sized turd launched on top of it by the nit-pickers out there. 

The Huffington Post released this jackass blog post titled: 40 Unforgivable Plot Holes in 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens'. I could only stomach a few paragraphs before I stopped reading. Thankfully Matty Granger—someone with far more patience than me—finished reading the Huff Post trash and replied point-by-point fantastically here. I love his essay, and especially how it wraps up at the end. Great job, Matty Granger! 

What's been nagging at me lately with the Star Wars critics, and even more broadly with overall film criticism in general these days, is the overwhelming trend to view fiction films—fantasy especially—as if they are operating under the same Newtonian mechanical constraints as our day-to-day reality. They are not. Even the most realistic films ever made are fiction, farce, make believe, pretend, etc. They operate under a very specific visual language that would not hold up to any reality-based scrutiny. All films can easily be torn down and dissolved under even a simple scientific reality-based fault-finding mission. Art and literature, too, would all collapse under those seeking realism, probing for holes, or any other such nonsense. The world does not look the way Vincent van Gogh painted it. And there are no magical portals to Narnia in anyone's closet. 

Even the way films are shown, with a magical omniscient point-of-view camera jumping around to specific points and spots in time, is entirely absurd if you can't just sit back and accept what is being presented. 

Yes, this is not realistic. And how was this filmed? If that bothers you, stay home.

Imagination—arguably humanity's greatest asset—must be employed to create art as well as appreciate it. Snarky, assclown criticisms of fantasy that come at it from a rigid, reality-based point of view are pretty much the most unnecessary thing in the world. We don't need anyone, anywhere, ever, to tell humanity that Star Wars (or any fantasy) is not realistic or does not operate correctly according to some preconceived set of angry rules that are based on real-world mechanics. 

We all know the real world. We get into fender benders and a dent the size of a quarter costs us thousands of dollars. We twist a knee and we have recurring pain for six months. Some of us like to escape from reality from time to time. We don't need bitter, faux, high-brow film critics to tell us what to think. We want to escape to a magical land from time to time that does not need to adhere to the same mechanics as our daily universe. 

Although I've written this before, I feel it needs repeating: Come to art and entertainment and give yourself over to it. If you only ask what a film could be, rather than just accept it for what it is, then you will never enjoy anything. And I think there is a huge tide of people lacking of enjoyment out there, because the Internet and realistic CGI (computer generated imagery) have complicated what need not be complex. You don't need to pick at films like scabs. Either you like a film or you don't. Let your gut, not your intellect, decide for you. If you don't like something, move on. Once you decide what you do and do not like, this will be your taste developing. Congratulations. If fantasy is not for you, find something that is.

If you hate sushi and decide to order chicken while your friend eats raw fish, are you going to sit there at the table and tell your friend how disgusting you find it to put raw fish in your mouth? I hope not. 

I suspect the realism that CGI has brought to the table is partly to blame here, too. With traditional animation (and older less believable SFX in films), sci-fi/fiction/fantasy, and the slightly more outrageous depictions that often accompany them, we never question them as unrealistic—think Miyazaki anime, Akira, or any Disney/Pixar film. Star Wars definitely trends heavy into the fairy tale zone, with unrealistic events and dialogue such as, "Great shot, kid. That was one in a million!" 

Since films today are all entirely photo realistic, many people assume that whatever is seen on the screen is supposed to operate the same way our day-to-day lives operate. People bring modern-day science baggage to films along with our modern understanding of time mechanics, Newtonian mechanical constraints, and Einstein's theory of relativity. Then we just expand our current scientific ideas into some scientific-based, far-off future where all this crap—lasers, spaceships, light sabers—have all been invented and are real. This approach is wrong. There is no sound in space because there is no air in space. So the moment you accept explosions and laser noises in the dead of space in Star Wars, you have suspended our known reality for the sake of fantasy. And you don't get to pick and chose here. This is not a buffet. If you were on board the Millennium Falcon and it spun like it did in the film, you'd be dead. The G forces alone would cause you to pass out or die. And going from zero to light speed would kill anyone. But remember, if you suspend your disbelief, then you can accept quit a lot...even a farm boy who uses the magical force to know exactly when to fire a torpedo at a Death Star portal. Or a wildly unrealistic but fantastically fun barrel ride in The Hobbit. 

More unrealistic story telling

These barrels would have sunk quickly in real life. 

In Star Wars Clone Wars or Rebels, the unrealistic depictions are questioned far less, scrutinized less, and often enjoyed way more. The Huff Post is not bothering with the "cartoons" because they are under their radar. Cartoons are removed from reality and are given more leeway by viewers and critics alike. If you come at Star Wars or any CGI-based fantasy film with the same frame of mind you might view Snow White or Toy Story, then you will enjoy everything more. Try cutting some slack not just to the films you view, but also to yourself. You are not obligated to be a hard-assed critic just because the Internet has given you a voice. 

Not Newtonian mechanics being depicted here.

That dirt bridge would collapse, right?

We need to be more lenient with our fantasy films, as we are with our fantasy animation. And we also need to be more accepting of the fact that even though contemporary films may look real, what we are watching is not an extension of our reality, but a fantastical depiction where more is possible. After all, that's the whole point, right?

In Defense of Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Some tiny spoilers. Nothing major.

Art by Virginia Poltrack

Newsflash. No one cares why you hate Star Wars: The Force Awakens. And don't tell me about plot holes. All films have plot holes. Real life has plot holes. Everything is glitchy and imperfect. Even you have plot holes.

With the new release of the latest Star Wars film and its incredible popularity, the usual cast of critics, haters, and detractors have come out of their hiding spots to squawk about everything that is wrong with the film. Cynicism and criticism of everything today has become so commonplace that people barely take notice when something fun gets ripped to sherds. Star Wars is fun.

We all know the story, so I'm not going to rehash it all here. And yes, the prequels were not what the original trilogy was. The funny thing is that The Force Awakens very consciously hit a few familiar themes that the prequels were lacking, in hopes of giving the fans what they were clamoring for. And no, The Force Awakens is not a remake of A New Hope. The film had a few plot line echoes and character parallels to ring familiar notes. Overall, the story, the characters, the scenarios, the way the entire film played out, was entirely fresh and new. Don't bother to beg to differ. No one cares about your humble negative opinion.

All of this is nonsense, though. If you do not like The Force Awakens because you think it has plot holes or too many similarities to A New Hope, then you have little business watching fantasy films. Period. (Obviously I'm joking.) People who enjoy Star Wars movies usually like The Wizard of Oz, The Lord of the Rings, Godzilla, Alice in Wonderland, The Goonies, ET, and many Disney films. We love B movies. We like animation. We like anime. We love to read novels that take us through wardrobes and into magical landscapes. We like make-believe. We cosplay. We role play—it's a bit like putting on a sports jersey. We like Dungeons and Dragons and roleplaying games. We like to pretend, even as full-grown adults, that we are not the people we actually are, but are sometimes, perhaps, a space pirate, or a princess—or even a Wookiee. We like to create things. We draw. We paint. We write. We sculpt. We photograph. We film. We invent. We build. We fix. We make. We imagine. We look for the positive in situations, not the negative. We don't like ripping things apart. I'd argue that no critic of a film has ever swayed someone who loved it to suddenly see their point of view and decide to hate it.

And you are under no obligation to like Star Wars. Just don't drive over to my house just to tell me you hated it. Or for that matter post on my social media wall that you hated it and why. No one cares.

Everyone on the planet who did not like Star Wars should go take some kids to see it. See what they say about it. Look at them while the film is playing. See the wonder in them. The excitement.  Stop looking for plot holes and revisit the holes in yourself. Because if you did not like Star Wars but are still compelled to say negative things about it to people who loved it, then you are a negative person and you should move to a galaxy far far away.

—AF

Braxton Woods Mystique Cover Art

I'm very happy to reveal the amazing cover art for my upcoming novel, Braxton Woods Mystique. Robyn Diaz is the wonderful artist responsible for taking my wacky ideas and realizing them beyond my wildest expectations. Please check out more of her beautiful work over at her website.

Here is a brief description of the book from my literary agency, Trident Media Group: 

Adam Furgang's BRAXTON WOODS MYSTIQUE, following the tradition of THE MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY and FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER, in which two kids discover a buried and long-forgotten carnival, containing a mysterious and otherworldly carnival attraction of a portal to another dimension with eerie and deformed creatures—now they must journey underground to rescue their friends, face their darkest fears and confront the unknown (Ravenswood Publishing, 2016)

Apple Watch OS2

Apple Watch OS2 just dropped yesterday. Better late than never. There are a whole lot of new features that Apple has put into the watch. You can get is straight from Apple right here. I'm not going to go into much detail about all of it. Most of it will never be used by me, or it is not relevant right now.

I do still feel the app selection for this new and powerful watch is pretty poor at best. Many of the apps try and do something that does not need to be done. Simply forcing your iPhone app onto the watch just to, well, you know, have an app on the watch, is well, you know, lame beyond belief. Just don't do it. People don't sit and futz with their watches. They quickly glance at them for information. Any app that requires I use that tiny watch screen for anything more than a few taps is missing the point of the watch.

I made a few gaming suggestions here. I have found a few dice rolling apps so far. Nothing that's blowing my mind though. Nothing where I can shake my watch arm and get dice rolls from that movement. Until that app exists, dice rollers will be less that optimal.

One new feature I will mention is the ability to add photos as a watch face. Aside from adding your own photo there is zero customization. That's lame. All the other ways to customize date, time, sunrise, battery life, etc should all be allowed on the photo faces. Also there should be the ability to move the information around the screen so that depending on the layout of the photo, the date and clock information will not cover certain parts of the photos. Of course, if you know how to use Photoshop you can get around this, but a little more customization built in would be nice. Being able to change the information colors too would be a good thing. Here are some faces I tested out using photos from the Internet and one or two of my own.

The other cool feature that I used right away was nightstand mode. If you place the watch on it's side while charging it will go into nightstand mode and become a bedside clock. The lameness here is that it does not stay lit. All real world nightstand clocks stay lit all the time. I'm not sure why Apple won't let the face stay on all night. Maybe the screen will burn? If you touch the face or hit a button the face will illuminate. It's a nice feature but just not there 100%.

The last feature that I used right away is the ability to send multicolor sketches to another Apple Watch user. So far that's just my wife. She has not upgraded her watch yet and has only been getting my multicolored art as a single color. So be aware that multicolored sketches you send will not be seen unless all parties upgrade. The non-upgraded user will receive the whole picture in the last color you chose. This multi-color upgrade is not an earth-shattering feature, but it is fun. Here are two of my lame multicolor sketches I sent to my wife. 

Hopefully soon there will be more apps and the few new useful features that have been added will be tweaked to make them better. 

Thanks for reading.

—AF

Braxton Woods Mystique has found a home!

OK, so this is kind of a big deal for me. A short pause as we cut away from my ramblings to announce breaking news! 

I'm happy to announce that my novel, Braxton Woods Mystique, has found a home at Ravenswood Publishing! Thanks to Trident Media and my agent Mark Gottlieb!

Photos. To filter or not to filter...that is the question

These days I constantly come upon photography blog posts claiming that Instagram style apps, with their many filters, are ruining photography as we know it. The arguments are as ubiquitous as the filters themselves: They are making us take pictures of boring subjects, they are making everyone seem like a better photographer than they actually are. Or, that it's somehow not an accurate representation of reality.

I've heard this line of thinking a lot throughout many creative circles lately, from art, to photography, to writing, and beyond. Self-imposed restrictions on what should be allowed, and the know-it-alls out there ready to tell you that if you use an app filter you are somehow cheating. Nonsense. Self-imposed restrictions are fine. But not for everyone. And certainly not as a general rule.

First off, to get slightly deep, "reality" does not even actually exist in any consistent sense. Sure, we take comfort in the fact that most people perceive things somewhat similarly. A red light looks red to the masses and most will stop for that color at a traffic signal. But within just our own species, there are those among us walking around with filters on all the time. It could be you and you might not even know it. I'm referring to people with color vision deficiency, more commonly known as colorblindness. Yes, they see the world differently than we do. When they use our so-called pure unfiltered cameras to take pictures they still don't see what we do. Are they cheating? Of course not. And who knows what our filters are doing to their photos. Some even suspect Van Gogh may have been colorblind and that his more limited visual spectrum resulted in his limited painting palate. Was he cheating? Nonsense.

Another thing I'd like to point out is that all our pictures are filtered. Until we somehow figure out how to capture what the brain is seeing, all photos are a filtered version of what humanity observes. First off, we see with binocular vision. Second, we see everything upside-down and our brains flip it magically. Then there is the fact that our eyes are roughly that of a 50mm lens. Some of us need glasses, some get headaches in too much light, some wear sunglasses. And then there is the fact that we all perceive the world differently. Some people love to take pictures of graffiti, or of wildlife, or clouds. There are lots of pictures of kids. Some take pictures of their food. And some take pictures of their feet. The more people shoot, the more common similarities emerge. Like that dream where you are in school late for a test and you're naked. Lots of people have that dream. Right? I think the problem here is not that we use too many filters. I think some people are seeing the huge common threads that run through our photos and that makes them feel somehow less special. As Fight Club's Tyler Durden said, “You are not special. You're not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We're all part of the same compost heap. We're all singing, all dancing crap of the world.” Don't despair though. Revel in this knowledge.

Then there are all the cameras. Good God are there a ton of cameras. Go look on the Flicker camera finder. Gajillions of different cameras. Film, digital, cell, SLR, mirriorless, full frame, plenoptic, Polaroid, 3D, Google Glass, etc, etc, etc. The list is endless. They all record so-called reality, each, slightly differently. There is also software onboard digital cameras that is translating the image differently. Then there are the multitude of lenses ranging from fisheye to zoom. Then there are real-world filters already built in to the cameras. Ever hear of an anti-aliasing filter? Well guess what... your camera likely has one built in. Oh, film you say. You love the purity and classic feel of film. Those grains of silver and chemicals look and feel like nothing that digital can ever even hope to approach. That's fine. It's still a specific filtered version of reality, taken with a specific camera, a specific lens, and shot by a specific person and developed in specific chemicals and printed on specific paper. And it's all filtered down a process line to give you a specific filtered version of reality.

Here's another argument I've heard: Everyone's pictures are boring. You don't say? This argument is boring. My pictures do not exist on Instagram to get you excited. I did not photograph my son's reflection in a puddle up on a cliff in The Catskills for you. Sure, you can see it on Instagarm if you happen to stumble upon it. Or if you happen upon it because I hashtagged it #puddles just as you searched for #puddles as the stream of puddle pictures introduced you to my picture. That is a cosmic coincidence of another order. Some sort of Repo Man plate-of-shrimp lattice of coincidence for sure. But my filtered photo is under no obligation to land on the Ansel Addams spectrum of your photo-meter-of-happiness. Humanity will have shot as many as one trillion photos this year alone. Filtered photography is not hurting anyone. And photography is not suffering. I'd argue it's thriving like never before.

Filters on apps such as Instagram or Hipstamatic are great. If you don't like 'em, that's fine. If you want to put self-imposed restrictions on the creative work you do, that's fine too. I think too many choices can often be a hindrance to creativity. Sometimes I shoot only black and white, or only on my iPhone, or only in Instagram. Sometimes I do not alter my pictures in Adobe Lightroom after the fact, and instead just leave them as they are straight out of the camera. SOOTC for short. It's a whole movement. #sootc.

If you want to avoid filters and have your photo shooting be as unencumbered as possible, that's fine. But don't fool yourself for one second into thinking you are some sort of upper-crust highbrow purist, while the rest of us plebeian photographers are somehow beneath you, producing crap with our Instagram filters.  We're not. We're everywhere. And we see you through the lo-fi filter!

Don't feel threatened by the less classically trained. We're not competing with you anyways.

Smartwatch RPG Apps I'd Like To See

Smartwatches are taking off in a very big way. Motorola, Samsung, LG, Microsoft, Asus, Pebble, and Apple all have smartwatches on the market. I own the Apple Watch, which despite some rather nifty notification features, has a lackluster app selection so far. I know apps are subjective and one person's killer app is another's entirely unnecessary app. Still, my take on many of the current Apple Watch apps is that most are just gimmicky and useless regressions of far better iPhone apps. Why use the small watch for something your phone does bigger and better?

Smartwatch app developers need to start thinking outside the box to create apps that take the small screen into account.  Simple apps are needed and RPG games are a perfect place to start. I understand that many people like playing games the old fashioned way with pen and paper and such. That's fine. This is not an argument against traditional play. This is just a post about modern tech play and how modern smart devices can aid, or be used for, traditional games. As a gamer I have a few ideas for apps I wish already existed. I did a few mock-ups to help illustrate what could be...

Dice Roller: A nice RPG dice roller app for any smartwatch could be simply awesome. Choose the dice you want to roll, then shake the watch or spin the crown, and presto! The dice randomly rolls and settles on the result. Multiple dice could be gathered for more complex rolls. Most smartwatches lend themselves perfectly to this task. Since many smartwatches are tethered to their phones, results could be displayed on a phone for all to see.

Simple Dice Roller App

Character Sheets: I know many serious RPG players use a zillion stats and complex income tax-style mathematical acrobatics to play games. Here at home with my kids we typically use HP, AC, SP and a few other basic abilities. Games tend not to suffer much from paired-down stats when imagination and storytelling excel. A simple character sheet with editable HP would be awesome on my wrist. I want this now!

Character Sheet Stat App

Maps: Viewing maps on a smartwatch could be amazing. Imagine scrolling around a map with your finger or only seeing a limited view of a larger map. If and when all devices can truly work together, a DM can put a large map on a cell or tablet and players can see a portion on their watch.

Map App

Minis: There are thousands of RPG minis out there. An app for viewing a virtual mini for your character could be a lot of fun. If you play multiple games you could have multiple character minis stored so you could scroll to the one you are currently playing with. This idea could easily be incorporated into a character sheet app. Since I'm not a developer and I'm just tossing out ideas, I'm not sure how much can be combined in one app. My instinct with smartwatch apps is, the less complex the better.

Mini Viewer App

Art: Players, monsters, non-playable characters, items, settings, etc. could all be displayed on a watch. Traditional modules could be created, very simply, so a DM could run a game from a phone and text or communicate small bits of information and images to players. A module app that loads small bundles of art to aid with storytelling and gameplay could be a lot of fun.

Module Art App

This short list is just what has come off the top of my head. Feel free to suggest other ideas. Remember to keep it simple. Smartwatches are small and intimate and there is no need to stuff large concepts into such a small device.