Saying goodbye

Saying goodbye: Sometimes celebrity deaths make you sad

by Colleen Guzman

               Today we learned of the tragic untimely death of another celebrity. Anton Yelchin died unexpectedly in what appears to have been a freak accident. It is such a shame because he was still so young and had really just begun to show us what he was capable of as an actor. I love Star Trek and I truly enjoyed the newest installments in the Star Trek universe and I thought that Yelchin played a perfect Chekov. I enjoyed his boyish charm and I thought he took some notes from Walter Koenig that linked the character to my childhood memories of watching Star Trek with my parents. As I thought about this young

man and the character he played I began to wonder what it is about celebrity deaths that make them so important to us. I think some of the impact depends on how attached you feel to a particular celebrity or perhaps how attached you feel to the character they portray. I also think that losing a celebrity in the midst of filming or while they are playing a recurring character is difficult.

               If you've watched the show you may have heard my disdain for celebrities, and it's not that I have anything against them as people but I truly dislike the whole celebrity worship thing many people have going. I really can't stand the amount of money they make, their gall at asking us to help with a charity when they have so much and they get so much for free, their self importance, the fact that they want people to pay almost a full day's salary just to get a photo with them at a convention, etc., etc. I don't really like the whole system that surrounds them but I am not a heartless cad so when one of them dies I do feel for their families and sometimes when one of them dies I feel a little bad when they played a character that I truly loved. I

have made some pretty strong connections to characters, I have cried when they die in a book or show or movie so when I was thinking about celebrity deaths I could see how a person could be saddened by the death of a celebrity if they loved the character that celebrity was portraying. I know that when Heath Ledger passed away and since his passing I have thought about what a riveting Joker he was and how we will never have another Joker who was quite as convincing, quite as disturbing, that there will just never be another Heath Ledger Joker and for that I feel a sense of loss.

               Many times we don't see celebrities as people, we only see them as the character they portray and each time they portray that character we become more and more attached to them and we begin to see them as that character and not as the person they are. This happens more often when the celebrity is portraying a character in a series of movies that haven't completed filming. We've seen this happen more times than we would like and each time it happens it is difficult for the celebrity that follows them to step into their role. It is also difficult for the people who have become attached to the original celebrity to accept that someone else has to fill that role and that they will most likely fill it in a different way, or they may not meet the criteria for perfection that the first celebrity met for us. For some people the loss of a celebrity actually becomes the loss of a character they have become attached to so they mourn that loss.

               In my opinion the thing I think that we need to remember when a celebrity dies is that we did not know them, not truly. We have social media, news stories, articles in magazines, etc. but we don't really know them. When a celebrity dies it doesn't really effect all of us out here in la-la land but it actually does effect their families and the people who knew them as actual human beings and loved them for the people they were not for the persona they hid behind, the character they portrayed or the person we thought they were. People need to remember that celebrities are people, they come from somewhere, they have their own circle and they do not belong to us. when a celebrity dies we should feel for their people and then we should swiftly move on and give the next celebrity a chance.

TMNT Out of the Shadows

TMNT Out of the Shadows : Maybe they should've stayed there

by Colleen Guzman

             I know, I know I am supposed to be the one who goes into these films with an open mind. I am always preaching how people should look at these films as their own works of art created by a person with their own views of how the characters should be and their own unique ideas about what should be going on with said characters. I try really hard to go into each film and look at them that way but sometimes when a film is about characters that you love, that you have invested your time and imagination into, and that you feel

you have seen portrayed in better ways it is very difficult to be objective about the film. I can say that I did not hate the film, it was definitely no Fantastic Four but it had some moments where it was pretty close. I think I am going to rate films based on how many times I go to the restroom, because I drink a lot of soda during the movie and I really have to go to the bathroom very badly several times but in a good film I will suffer, sitting at the edge of my seat, unbuttoning my pants, rocking back and forth until the credits roll and I jump up and run to the restroom. During films I could care less about I get up and go to the bathroom 2 or 3 times depending on the length of the film. During Now You See 2 I went to the bathroom 0 times, during TMNT Out of the Shadows I went to the bathroom 3 times. So I am beginning to think my restroom pattern is a good way for me to score these movies that we attend. The more toilets a movie gets the worse it is. I'll keep working on this concept.

            So for TMNT 2 I was optimistic, I didn't hate the first one it was pretty okay and had some fun moments. Consistently, between the two movies I must say that I am really disappointed that Donatello (my favorite character by the way) has to be portrayed wearing glasses, because of course since he is extremely intelligent he must wear glasses like any good nerd would. I dislike the stereotyping and where else has Donatello every been portrayed as having glasses? The character also seems to be more bumbling than he normally would be. I think getting the characters right is one of the problems these movies had and continue to have and in fact in the second movie Splinter seems like he is just thrown in there because they had too and there was no thought of his character, his leadership and no thought to how we might react to the very obvious change in the voice actor they used for him. I also wasn't very impressed with Casey Jones, I felt like he wasn't edgy enough, the chip on his shoulder wasn't blatant enough and he just didn't have that hit first ask questions later attitude that you are looking for when you see Casey Jones. I think the best characters were Bebop and Rocksteady which is why I used their picture to begin this article. Overall, characterization was lacking in this movie.

               One thing I will say for this movie is that there were a few moments when the movie took me back to my younger years to the animated series that I truly loved to watch on Saturday mornings. I really felt like the scenes involving Krang had a very cartoon feel to them and they seemed like they were pretty true to the

direction that the animated series had taken. I would say that I really enjoyed the scenes that Krang had, he has some interactions with Shredder, an interaction with himself and his robot body and of course a battle scene interaction with the turtles. In all of these scenes I got the animated series feel that I was hoping for, so for that alone I didn't hate this movie.

         I don't think that I could truly hate this movie because after all "I love being a turtle" and I love seeing shows and movies about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I an pretty sure I am not going to be purchasing this movie and I didn't purchase the first one but it did strike a spark in me to want to go watch my copies of the three previous TMNT movies and to see if I can find the animated series on YouTube or Netflix. I am also going to re-read my comic books. Overall the film was okay, if you aren't a fan of the turtles then you probably enjoyed it more than I did and if you are a fan, go watch your old stuff and keep reading those comics.

Convention, Convention, Convention

Conventions, Conventions, Convention: Are we over them yet?

by Colleen Guzman

               So I guess everyone has heard about the whole debacle that was Space City Con in Houston. We didn't attend this year, we had in the past when it first started but weren't super impressed so we haven't been back since. Now come to find out the promoter didn't pay actors (god forbid those little darlings not get paid), nor did he pay staffers and other entities that were promised payment. Apparently, checks have bounced and accounts have downright been closed. All I can think is here we go again, this is the beginning of a downward spiral for conventions in general. I mean have we forgotten DashCon already? 

               I realize that not everyone can make it to the grand daddy of all cons, that most people don't have the funds or stamina to withstand something like San Diego Comic Con so these little regional conventions are great for those people, however my question has quickly become "Are they really that great?" I wonder at times what is it exactly that these poor people are paying for? If you have never been to a convention do you realize that some of these people pay in the ballpark of $500.00 to get into the convention, to get to meet a bundled group of celebrities for about 5 minutes or so, they get a group photo that looks like it was taken at Sear and Roebuck in the 1970's (The photo is one my friend's family took with a celebrity at a comic convention, notice the lame background.) they get some autographs and some convention swag and that's about it for $500.00. Then what? Do they get to ride the magical pony into fairy land? No I don't think so. Do these promoters and celebrities know that these people who make minimum wage have to work 40 hours at their jobs for 2 weeks to afford something like that and then that is all they get? No dinner and a movie, no second date, just a strange pic, a how-do-you-do and off with you next cattle in line please....oh and don't forget to go to the vendor room and spend more of your hard earned money. So when these promoters screw the celebrities over and the celebrities have a fit and leave then the people who really lose out are the sad fans who probably spent part of their rent money to pay to meet these idiots in the first place. These celebrities do know that just by speaking to people for less than 2 minutes and signing those autographs, if they just do that for 20 people per day for 3 days they make $2400.00 dollars which is about what a minimum wage worker makes in 2 months not 3 days.

               Now don't get me wrong I am all for conventions and I see nothing wrong with them as a general rule. I mean San Diego has some really nice events like movie announcements and exclusives and that is great and all but these regional conventions don't offer those things because San Diego has already taken them all. So what is it that people are paying for when they go to these conventions? It seems to me that they are paying to meet celebrities and to hear them speak. I know one of the greatest convention moments I had was at Alamo City Comic Con in San Antonio when I went to the panel where Jim Cummings, Rob Paulsen and some other voice actors read the script of Back to the Future using the voices from their animated characters. I felt like that was something special, something unique that I could not get anywhere else. I also saw an artist who was there painting on clear plexiglass, he painted the image backward from his perspective so we could see it come alive from our side of the plexiglass. That was also something special. These things don't always happen at the convention and they can't happen every year because then they become less special and lose their value but I believe that something like this should be happening. I think that when people are putting on a convention they need to give the people some entertainment and not just let them pay to get in so they can stand in line and pay again to get some celebrity to sign a picture of themselves or worse yet to have to pay to get to take a selfie with the celebrity, they don't even come together you have to pay for each or either.

              I think the market has become so saturated with conventions in every city and in every state that they are losing their uniqueness and that special quality that once made them great. In my opinion these conventions need to find a way to get back to the roots of what a convention should be about. If you have a comic convention then have a seminar where I learn how to draw like a cartoon artist, or I get to watch a

colorist take a piece and turn it into the wonder that we see in print. If you have a horror convention then have a haunted house area that is included in my ticket price, or a seminar on how to do spooky make-up with things in your home or zombie prep your house, etc. There are ways you can get people from the community who love the fandom, who have talent who will do these things for free or a small fee. If you have 30,000 paying $80.00 each to get into your event you can have a little something for them to do. If you screw up and you don't have the money to pay for things then you need to be up front, you have to refund people's money and you have to tell the celebrities not to come. All the promoters out there need to think about what they are doing to conventions and the legacy that was built before they tried to ride those coat tails.

          Are we over them yet? No I don't think we are I think we still like to gather and talk to people who love the same fandom that we love, I think we love to see people in cosplay, I think we like to see the talent of the artists and the wares of the vendors. I do however think that we may not be able to take much more and eventually things will have to change or conventions may be simply a memory.