56 - DL 19 - The Great Change III

And now the conclusion of my series about whether people can change.

I’ve looked at this from a few ways. What exactly happens when we encounter people, and why we think in this way. Overall, I think it’s been a rather grim and depressing look, so this blog I’m going to completely turn this around.

To start with, I’m going to tell you the big secret why all of this happens. Are you ready?...

We are afraid of changing ourselves.

That’s it, it’s that simple.

We know ourselves, in fact we know ourselves inside out in every way. After all, we are the ones who made us that way. There is no other way to put it. We created ourselves, through all of our decisions, and experiences, through every book we read, and film we watch, game we play, every punch we take, every punch we throw, we created ourselves.

And what’s amazing about this, is that we have control over it. We decided how we change.

But of course, we live in a fast moving world. Everything around it changing all the time. A new Call of Duty copy-paste comes out every year, a new Iphone Generation, a new sequel to whichever film series are popular right now. There is so much going on, that keeping our integrity intact is something the only thing that we can hold onto, so instinctively, we don’t want to change.

And this has somehow morphed into, we can’t change.

We have an image of ourselves, who we are, what we think, and this sometimes isn’t any truer than the snapshots we take of other people.

But the secret to this is, we can change.

Changing is scary, a huge part of which comes form the meaning society places on things. Whether you use an iphone or an HTC, an apple or windows computer, whether you play a playstation or an xbox, even utterly arbitrary things like whether you wear boxers of briefs becomes some kind of signifier of who you are. And no-one judges this more than you yourself.

Whatever decisions we make, we read into far more than anyone does, judge it, think about how this reflects on ourselves. What’s funny is that, when you think about it, no-one does this to anyone else, and yet we’re still terrified of it. But really, you don’t do it to anyone else, all you take from someone else is a surface impression, so why be scared about it?

With this in mind, that really, no-one is reading that deeply into you, except yourself, a small mindset change can come into place. We can, even in some small way, change.

It’s not that we don’t want to, because we do. Every movie and tv show, and book has characters who change, and we love it when they do, when they get new experience, and conquer old and new challenges. We want to do the same, to grow and change as people, to be able to do more than we used to, and do what we currently do better.

The real challenge is actually something very simple. So much changes around us all the time, that keeping ourselves the same is often all we can do. Our successes and failures, and achievements and shortcomings, can all just be attributed to the fact that that’s just who we are.

The real challenge is telling ourselves is: That it’s ok to change. And once we realise that, we can start swapping phone companies, computer operating systems, game console manufaturers and underwear, and start becoming the person we really want to be.

In short, people can change.

Daniel Lyons.

55 - RA 18 - Outstorying Dan III

I don’t know about you two, but I like when I have vivid dreams. Especially ones where I can fly.

Cue EMTV (Epic Movie Trailer Voice)

Previously, on R. A.’s Blogs!

A great crack exploded next to me, and rain began pouring.

And then the flight was over. Suddenly, whatever force held us in the air gave way, and we began falling, far, far down to the world below.

End EMTV (Dan, you know you can do it.)

I have my own policy about story writing that I haven’t told you before, Dan. I completely agree with your relatable characters in extraordinary situations theory, as long as extraordinary situations involves being apart of a thousand year old war in a fantasy world, and everything between that plain ol’ reality.

This policy comes a saying from Samuel Johnson, which reads “That which is written without passion, will be read without pleasure.” Hollywood could certainly learn something from that saying. My policy basically says that if your idea for a story doesn’t come from a moment of proper inspiration, then it’s not a story worth writing.

Unfortunately, as I’ve explained, this is not a straightforward process. Even though I was feeling inspired, I couldn’t come up with any good story ideas. And while I was dreaming, a subconscious state, I came up with, what I thought, was a pretty neat idea. A city floating in the sky, where people ride on strange skeletal, flying creatures. There is so much creative ground to cover, how was the city created, what purpose does it serve, what cultural traits does it possess? This was an idea born in a moment of inspiration, and as such I think I can write a good story about it.

Let’s start with a girl waking up one morning. She lives in a sleepy suburb, that just so happens have all of its plants green and blossoming, and the light is soft and beautifully backlit (I think, that’s what you said was good lighting, right Dan?) She gets up, gets dressed, has breakfast, and then notices a shadow moving past the window. Excited, she runs outside and stands a few steps away from her door. Her bare feet rest on the concrete, her hair blowing gently in a light breeze. Circling around her, then gliding down and landing gracefully in front of her. From atop this creature, sitting on an intricately textured saddle, is a boy. About the same age as the girl, he hops down, and lands with gymnastic precision in front of her. Clothes clean and the right size, hair perfectly styled, skin free of any oil or acne, and as always, perfectly backlit by the sun. He takes a few steps forwards, to within speaking distance of the girl (film speaking distance, of course, being about 30 centimetres away from one another.)

“You’re early.” She says, not the least bit complaining about this fact.

“It’s getting close, soon enough I’ll be right on top of you.” He says, a raspy, sexy deep voice coming from this mid teen.

“Oh… yeah. Looking forward to it.” She is practically melting into the pathway.

“So, want a ride?” He lowers his head, looking up at her with clear blue eyes.

“Yes.” The word is muffled by an exhalation of excitement.

They climb onto the winged creature, and fly off into the sunset.

There is an example of something written in a moment of inspiration. And I’m sure when you read it, you could tell that it was something that has some inspiration, has some energy, has some presense in the storytelling world. Sure it might not be that notable, and you might quickly forget it, but you read it, and probably, even very briefly, was caught up in it.

Whenever you are doing work, especially the creative work that we do, Dan with your movies, and Andrew with your music, you should always make it inspired. If it’s not, if you don’t feel inspired by the work you’re doing, then how is anyone else meant to?

R. A. Lyons.

54 - AL 16 - The End To A Thought

So the first workplace incident I’ve even been involved went down recently

The girl who helped me extract the glass from my finger, for a reason I just don’t get, passed by my boss and briefly mentioned it as a workplace incident. It was not, as it happened because I dropped by phone one day, and got the sharp of glass when I was at home in my bed, but still, that happened.

The thing about my workplace is that they are kind of paranoid about safety and keeping people and equipment from harm. Both of which can result in a lot of money being lost, and a lot of people being unhappy, and who wants either of those? So I was at work, the glass in my finger about as present in my memory as it was still in my finger, so I had no idea why I was being called into my bosses office one morning.

Maybe I was getting a promotion? A raise? An added benefits package? A complimentary top of the line recording kit for me to take home? Well no, and I didn’t seriously think it was any of those. In fact I was rather confused, I never missed deadlines, I have always worked overtime, I’ve never stolen or broken anything.

But I was called into the office, and the conversation began with “How are you feeling?”

My boss isn’t an unfriendly person, but he’s also not exactly a touchy-feely type. He treats us a bit like Malcolm Tucker would treat his closest and most dear family, with less swearing.

“I’m fine, I was addicted to ‘Teen Titans’ recently, but I’m all better now.”

“That’s great. So I recently got a report that you had a glass splinter in you?”

“What?” I had totally forgotten about it.

What followed was a long conversation about the procedure for broken equipment or safety hazards in the workplace, and how I always have to report it to him as soon as possible so it can be taken care of. Now, I normally interrupt people all the time, to the extent that friends of mine have punched me out of frustration, but I never interrupt my boss. So when he finally stopped talking, it was just silence for a while.

He expected me to report what was broken, and what I should have done to report it. But the thing is, that isn’t what happened. I dropped my phone outside of work, got the glass in my finger out of work, didn’t break anything in work, in fact the only thing at work that did happen was the glass got removed, which, when you think about it, is a good thing.

So the silence dragged on for a while. Probably for about 40 seconds which, for silence, is a really bloody long time. Finally I said

“I actually got the glass in my finger at home, there’s nothing broken here, I’m pretty sure…”

Then even more silence occurred. My boss had filled out workplace incident paperwork, gotten out the numbers of glass repairmen and equipment suppliers to replace whatever was broken, and probably been quite stressed that more people would get injured and start making a fuss about it. But all of that stress and frantic writing came to naught.

He wasn’t happy, in fact he was quite frustrated, mostly at himself, but also at me for not explaining myself properly, and also at the girl for not explaining it properly. He didn’t shout or anything, but I could tell that the anger ran deep. So once again, without saying anything, I got up and left the office. It was like the most awkward scene our of a movie, except it didn’t cut away, or resolve itself with some kind of punch line.

So nothing especially bad happened, but that was my first workplace incident. Perhaps the lesson is something like ‘Make sure to explain things properly,’ cause otherwise people won’t quite get you.

Till next week

Andrew Lyons.

A Daniel Lyons Dexter Finale Special

What the hell was that!?!?!? A Daniel Lyons special. (note: Profanities inbound, sensitive ears turn away)

So I don’t watch a huge amount of tv, and when I do, it’s usually one show at a time, and in concentrated bursts. There are a couple exceptions, like ‘The Walking Dead,’ but mostly it’s the burst method. Among the many shows I burst watch include ‘Futurama,’ ‘The Legend of Korra,’ and ‘Dexter.’ I was aware that the eighth and final season of Dexter came and went a little while ago, and I managed to completely miss it, but I finally got my hands on the whole thing, and decided to watch it all in one day. Yes, 12 hours of Dexter, in one day.

Now for anyone who doesn’t watch Dexter, this blog won’t be very interesting, and if you do but haven’t watched the final season, or specifically the finale, then you might want to stop reading because of spoilers.

Right, with that out of the way, I’m going to say what’s on everyone’s mind:

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?!?!” (Hence the title of this special.)

As a writer of films and tv, I can usually understand where a writer is coming from. Even when the plot is contrived, or the characters act completely out of… well, character, I can see what the writers were intending, and go along with it. But with this ending, I am utterly stumped. I have been trying to describe what that ending was to myself for about an hour now, and I have completely failed. It is an ending that resists description, resists definition, resists reasoning, and resists motivation.

It’s funny that an ending like that should be tied onto, what I thought, to be the strongest season of Dexter in quite a while. I really got into the characters, I liked the arcs everyone was going through, I thought the humor was spot on, the drama was stop on, and it avoided Dexter’s usual problems of being hopelessly slow in the middle, and incredibly repetitive.

In fact, I really thoroughly enjoyed the season. We got a lot more backstory into Dexter and how he became a serial killer, and we finally saw his personal journey coming to a close. Anyone who watches Dexter will tell you, without a doubt, that the show has been about Dexter’s evolution.

He starts the series as a serial killer. A detached, unemotional, unfeeling person who lies to the world. But through the whole series, through every trial and tribulation, challenge and emotional talk with the people he’s about to kill, we’ve seen him change. He has learned to have feelings, to have relationships with the people around him, to love, to want to have a family, and finally, to not want to kill anymore. This was the most important, he finally came to a point in his life when he just wanted to settle down and have a family, and he wanted this even more than he wanted to kill people, which had dominated his whole life.

This is powerful. Both of these were major parts of his life, and he has battled with these for the whole show. Will he keep using the people around him as cover, and keep killing? Or will he settle down, have a family, and live peacefully?

The series finale of Dexter was about 55 minutes long. 45 minutes into the episode, everything was going fine, great in fact. The battle was over, the main villain was captured, Dexter had finally decided that family and a normal life was everything he wanted. Deb was on the road to recovery, and would take her place back on the force, resume her relationship with a much more mature Quinn, Batista finally got lieutenant, Jamie was on her way to a dream job, Masuka was adjusting to having a daughter, and Dexter was getting out clean. The show had come to a close, it was satisfying, it was heartfelt, it felt organic in the universe of the show, and every speech that was made, every conversation with Harry, every step to being a better person that Dexter took fell into place.

And then the next 10 minutes happened.

I suppose I can think of it this way, it had its ups and downs, but Dexter had delivered 7 full seasons, 11 full episodes, and 45 full minutes of quality television. Sometimes it was dull, overly formulaic, contrived, and overdramatic, and filled with plot holes, but it was always moving in the right direction, had the right drama, had the characters continuing with their journey. In fact, from a filmmaking perspective, this last season was extremely well done. It was shot very well, edited excellently, the acting was as top notch as ever, the writing sharp and depthful (by TV standards.)

So I can only say that it takes a special kind of writing to manage what the last 10 minutes of this show did. How you manage to completely undo 95.8 episodes worth of character development, manage to ruin every major character’s storylines, and after all that, not actually end the show.

Well, in this last 10 minutes, they did that, and they did it with flying colors.

If you haven’t watched the finale yet, then start watching it, and the moment the scene where Dexter confronts the main villain and he gets captured, switch it off. Invent your own ending, where he joins Hannah and his son in Argentina, Deb joins the force, does good in the world, marries Quinn, and has a family of her own, and other nice, satisfying endings.

But whatever you do, don’t watch past it.

Because what happens next? A storm is brewing in Maimi, and it serves absolutely no purpose for plot or character, but it is nice to have going in the background. Everything starts going completely sideways. Deb, despite being badly torn up, was declared to be ok, but all of a sudden (and with no explanation) stops breathing and has a minor stroke, and now has brain damage and will possibly be unresponsive. So things are now fucked for her, and fucked for Quinn, and also pretty fucked for Batista when you think about it. Why did the writer’s do this? Why spend a whole season getting a character to realise she is a good person, and has purpose, and loves another character (and is a main fucking character I might add) only to throw this curveball in the last 10 fucking minutes of the episode? I don’t know. I sincerely don’t know. I don’t know what the writer’s wanted us (the audience) to feel, to think, to react to this. It completely defies every storywriting rule I know, how the emotional payoff for a character should equal the emotional impact they’ve had. Deb has had a glowing impact on Dexter, and the people around her, and especially on herself, managing to pull herself up from a downward spiral back to a healthy place in her life.

And after that? It gets even better. Dexter has a little inner monologue, during which the line comes out ‘For so long I wanted to be like other people, to feel what they felt, but now that I do I just want it to stop.’ I’m gonna be straight with you Dexter, that is a special kind of complete bull shit. You’ve spent the entire fucking series developing your feelings and your connections to people, and that was all going great, with no hint that you were ever feeling otherwise. Even Dr. Vogel said that you weren’t a perfect psychopath because you have profound emotional depth.  So where does this line come from? What prompts it? What purpose does it serve? Does it lead to anything? Does it make any goddamned sense? (No, to the last one.) This line is so ridiculously out of character I actually paused the episode, rewound it, and listened to it again to make sure I heard it right, and I've never done that before.

So how does it cap itself off? So now that the character arcs of Dexter, Deb, Quinn, and Batista have all been thrown out the window, the writers decide to run with this and construct a series of scenes that seem to be in competition of which can make the least sense.

Dexter jumps on his boat, sails over the hospital, and slips into Deb’s room. He says sorry to her (fair enough,) and that he wishes he could take it all back (eh, that’s pushing it) and that none of it had ever happened (that’s really pushing it.) And then he kills her. Yep… Straight up kills her. Disconnects her life support and breathing tube and everything, and kills her. No-one notices (that’s really, really pushing it) and he then picks up her dead body, and carries it to his boat. That’s right, he takes a body, wrapped in a white sheet, and carries it through a hospital full of busy, hyper aware people thanks to the storm, and carries it all the way to his boat (that’s just going too far.) He then sails away on his boat, into the storm, and the most insulting scene of all comes on. Dexter calls Hannah, and his son (Harrison by the way) and says goodbye, and that he’ll see them soon. And just there, there is a glimmer of hope, that the writers may be able to turn this around, and give this show some sort of satisfying resolution, like maybe that the hero that we’ve been rooting for 8 years might get a bittersweet ending. But no, that would be going against the ridiculousness and crazy that they’re channeling. After hanging up, he throws the phone into the ocean, then throws Deb’s corpse into the ocean, declares that ‘I destroy everyone I love’ then drives away into the storm. Yep, he threw his sister’s body into the ocean, then decided to abandon the love of his life, the person who understands him, the one person who has made him stop killing, and his son, his own fucking son, just like that. 7 minutes earlier, he couldn’t wait to be with them, to leave with them and go to Argentina and live like a normal person. But fuck that, we’re running with the crazy here.

The next day, all the shit hits all the respective fans, and lots of dramatic looks reacting to this crazy bullshit are shown; no-one speaks, no-one reacts, no-one moves on, and we don’t know what happens to anyone. Dexter’s boat is found destroyed, Dexter is presumed dead and Hannah reads on her ipad that he’s dead. The show then ends with Hannah taking Harrison, now her sole responsibility, for ice cream in the city of Buenos Aires.

I wish I was making all that up. That this was some kind of sick joke from the writers to test if the Dexter fans were really watching, but it’s not. What basically happened was:

No-one got a satisfying resolution

No-one got a fucking resolution, because we now don’t know what’s going to happen to everyone

Everyone’s character arcs were thrown into a shredder

And the whole series was now a giant waste of time

All that growth Dexter had from being a serial killer, to being a good person, the entire focus of the show. Gone. Just like that.

Well done writers… You thought that you couldn’t ruin an entire series in the last ten minutes of the last episode, but you were wrong.

And then… I can’t even describe it. All I can say is… ‘Lumberjack?’

I truly don’t know what to make of it. There is no talking, there is no information, nothing really happens, and the scene is tacked on after a scene that would act as a perfectly suitable (albeit fucking insane) conclusion. This scene adds nothing, tells us nothing, and really just makes it even more unresolved. The randomness of this sequence is actually quite astounding. I am sincerely curious what the writers were thinking with this scene, what were they trying to do? Like I said, I can almost always identify where the writers were coming from, but I am completely in the dark here.

Dexter was, and is, one of my favorite shows. It had incredible standards of production, writing, acting, and while it had problems, I never stopped liking it, or gave up hope on it like other fans did. But this ending, I don’t even know what to think.

So that was my special, R. A., I’ll read from you on Tuesday.

Daniel Lyons.