Film, Format, Fiascos, and the Future

People hated "The Last Airbender" for many reasons.  I'm not going to argue any of them, as I've seen it (with Rifftrax) and it was mind-numbingly bad in a way that actually beat my incredibly low expectations.  But among the things people say about the film adaption of the beloved franchise – the hate of the actors, the plot, the acting, the direction, the story, the intermittent attacks of slow-mo -  there's one thing I rarely hear brought up.

Why a film anyway?  I mean let's assume that you have some driving reason to turn "Avatar: The Last Airbender" into some other media form, why a film?

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Virtual Stars Part 3: The Risks

Last post I noted that making Virtual Stars (those media creations of "stars" that are entirely fabricated) has many reasons to be an appealing endeavor for the right business.  Of course there are also ways it could go drastically wrong, which I want to address.

Without further ado, let me explore the challenges, risks, and disadvantages of a Virtual Star.

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Media Size and The Changing Media Environment

(Last week I posted to a link on an article about rejected SF and Fantasy novels, and one of our regulars noted that Dune had been rejected for length at one point – and then noted how some series and books seem to be overlong.  That got me thinking and this column is the result).

What is the ideal length of a book?  A series?  A TV episode?  A movie?  A movie series?

You have an idea in mind.  Publishers, TV executives, authors, and everyone has an idea in mind.  I daresay you could, with little prompting start quite a conversation – or argument – about the ideal length/duration of any form of media.  We all have ideas about such things, some held quite passionately.

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