I recently heard that they were going to remake the film Valley Girl (1983), as a musical. I remember that film well (I remember being a little smitten with the titular girl, not shown in the poster). So I decided to re-watch it. Mistake… READ MORE

When I was a kid, I was a model maker, and was absolutely obsessed with Star Wars. Of course those two paths crossed (to someone’s great profit, I’m sure). I started buying modeller magazines to see how to make them look more realistic (I gave up on those magazines quickly because they all seemed too focused on diaramas instead of minute detailing of the vehicles) Along the way, I did learn how to weather and score models.

Yeah, then 1977 happened - that little film called Star Wars - and my focus changed... Read More

Poor stormtroopers, forced to wear limiting armour (you try shooting when your eye slot is so small), relentlessly teased for the inability to shot straight.

What do people know about them? They were the successors to the clone army that defeated the Jedi, supposedly inheriting a peaceful situation. Their activities tended more towards policing than large scale military action. They can’t hit the broad side of a barn.

We know that Lucas modelled much of the Star Wars military universe after World War II films. Maybe the weaponry inaccuracy was also a reflection of that source. It’s not just the stormtroopers who are bad shots. So are the heroes (although the heroes are all Hollywood Grade A good shots when the plot needs). READ MORE

Rewriting a scene is where the magic happens. First drafts are usually crap (although sometimes they have nuggets of brilliance). Many writing teachers will tell you this, but it’s something that every writer needs to learn for themselves.

I want to compare a scene I wrote three years ago as a first draft with the second draft of the scene, which I wrote last week. 

The text still isn’t perfect. I even did two edits to it as I was re-reading it for this blog entry. Is this important? Individually, the small things like which version of the sentence is better aren’t important, but in the big picture of building a well-crafted story, yes, these little decisions add up - to either a good or bad reader experience. READ ON

Lian Hern writes a good tale here, but not a great one. She sets it in a fictional medieval Japan, sort of. We’ll come back to that. In spite of the long names, and similarities among the names, the characters are distinct and sometimes compelling. But everything I’m saying has qualifiers on it, because something was just not … right, and I’m not sure what. READ MORE