Continuum XII - Monday
Jun. 13th, 2016 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenCorrection: the hashtag on twitter for Continuum 12 is #Con12.
Woke up reasonably early, so I could take my time with breakfast... though I ended up taking a little too much time, a combination of having dessert (oh, yummy waffles) and chatting with Elaine, who joined me just after I'd ordered the waffles, I had to rush to my room to put on the last bits of my costume, and then rush in to the 10AM panel, since I was a panellist on it!
Costume of the day: teenage Kylo Ren/Ben Solo (grin)
Black trousers (with lots of pockets, so maybe they were cargo pants?), grey skivvy (I had been intending to wear my black skivvy but when I put it on, it was far too warm and I would have melted), black silk shirt, vest-o-pockets (yes, I know I had thought I would wear my new leather vest, but I realised it would be impossible to pin my badges onto it), two name-badges with silver writing on black paper (one said "My name is Ben Solo" and the other said "EMO"), toy light-sabre clipped onto my belt-loop, black shawl draped over my head like a hood, and my plushie Darth Vader.
I stormed into the room of the STAR WARS panel, waving my toy light-sabre, saying "I am here!" Fortunately, though all the other panellists were there, they hadn't quite started yet. The other panellists were Julia Svaganovic, Steve Cameron, Melissa Christie, Liz Barr and Darren Sanderson. Nobody wanted to moderate, so Darren volunteered. It was a fun panel, we got to say things about what we liked and didn't like about The Force Awakens, with a few digressions here and there about other related Star Wars things, and about J. J. Abrams (for example, that he liked Star Trek but he loved Star Wars). That something that many people did like was how Abrams handled the sequel by evoking A New Hope without being exactly the same, and, more importantly, how he managed to "pass the torch" from the older characters (Han, Chewbacca, Leia, Luke) to the next generation of characters, that the older characters were allowed to be older, and that they didn't just have cameos, but also the film wasn't about them, it was about the younger new lead characters. Also I learned something I didn't know; me, I had thought it was stupid how everyone who picked up a light-sabre for the first time knew how to use one (Finn and Rey) but apparently, according to Darren who has taught this stuff, they actually were realistic, in that the moves that Finn and Rey made were full of amateur inexperienced mistakes. It was also pointed out that Finn had had military training, and that Rey already knew staff-fighting, so it wasn't like they had zero experience of fighting in general. So I was glad to learn that.
11AM: Children's Books - the usual suspects: George Ivanoff and Sue Burstynski, with Queenie Chan moderating, and a surprise addition whose face I recognised and whose name has vanished from my brain.
Stuff recommended: Dragon Keeper... and a whole bunch of other stuff that I can't remember because I didn't write it down!
It wasn't just a recs panel, though, there was other thoughtful stuff. When are stories too dark for kids to read? Are parents being over-protective if they limit what their kids are allowed to read, or is it worse if the parents don't care at all? That there is a difference between a story going into dark places and coming out again, versus a story going into dark places and not coming out at all. That the need for darkness-into-light stories is twofold: first, is to give hope to kids who are in dark places in their own lives (even if the darkness in that story isn't exactly the same as their own) and second, to create empathy in the hearts of kids whose lives aren't dark.
(Note: story called something along the lines of "Big and Little" about two trucks, and the big truck has faulty wiring and doesn't always have control of itself... as an analogy for mental illness. An example of talking about something not-fluffy in "an age-appropriate way")
12 NOON: Cross-Generational Appeal - George Ivanoff, Katherine Phelps, Liz Barr
Well, with those three on a panel together, you can't go wrong. It was fun.
"Finger Prince".
Complaints about the assumption that if something is created using animation, it is ALWAYS for kids. Shock on Liz's part that The Simpsons has been shown in a kids' time-slot even though it was NEVER INTENDED FOR KIDS.
I shudder to think about things like Aeon Flux being shown in a kids' time slot. (eyeroll)
The panel distinguished between things created with the intent of having cross-generational appeal (being a "family show") like Doctor Who, and things which were intended solely for kids, but turned out to appeal to adults as well, such as My Little Pony.
1PM: Is the Original always the best? Julia Svaganovic, Zen Fletcher, Ben O'Mara, Craig Irvine, and me.
I was the moderator, and I had a long list of specific remakes/adaptations/sequels I had prepared beforehand from the email discussion, but which I didn't really need to consult very much. The panel were fabulous, being very thoughtful in their responses, rather than just ranting on about their favourites and non-favourites, but trying to analyse why some things worked and some things didn't. First question was "worst remake", next question was "remake better than the original", though interestingly enough, most of the answers to that one were "remake was really good, but so was the original"... which had been the question I was going to ask next, so I had to ask something else. I can't remember exactly what I asked, now. It might have been "what makes some remakes work and others not?" but as I said, good thoughtful responses to that. That the maker has to love the original, but not let it, or what fans think, get in the way of telling a good story. That remakes which are good, usually tie in to current (when it is made) concerns of society. That if something is good enough to be remade, then it is at its heart a good story and deserves to be told to a new generation. That remakes fail when the person making them just doesn't "get it"; which frequently happens when Americans try to make something which originated in the UK (numerous examples).
All in all, a great panel.
2PM Closing Ceremony. One of the things I like about Continuum is that their opening and closing ceremonies tend to be short. This was no exception.
GoH for next year, Seanan McGuire, who has a good presence on twitter; I think she will be a great guest, yay.
Woke up reasonably early, so I could take my time with breakfast... though I ended up taking a little too much time, a combination of having dessert (oh, yummy waffles) and chatting with Elaine, who joined me just after I'd ordered the waffles, I had to rush to my room to put on the last bits of my costume, and then rush in to the 10AM panel, since I was a panellist on it!
Costume of the day: teenage Kylo Ren/Ben Solo (grin)
Black trousers (with lots of pockets, so maybe they were cargo pants?), grey skivvy (I had been intending to wear my black skivvy but when I put it on, it was far too warm and I would have melted), black silk shirt, vest-o-pockets (yes, I know I had thought I would wear my new leather vest, but I realised it would be impossible to pin my badges onto it), two name-badges with silver writing on black paper (one said "My name is Ben Solo" and the other said "EMO"), toy light-sabre clipped onto my belt-loop, black shawl draped over my head like a hood, and my plushie Darth Vader.
I stormed into the room of the STAR WARS panel, waving my toy light-sabre, saying "I am here!" Fortunately, though all the other panellists were there, they hadn't quite started yet. The other panellists were Julia Svaganovic, Steve Cameron, Melissa Christie, Liz Barr and Darren Sanderson. Nobody wanted to moderate, so Darren volunteered. It was a fun panel, we got to say things about what we liked and didn't like about The Force Awakens, with a few digressions here and there about other related Star Wars things, and about J. J. Abrams (for example, that he liked Star Trek but he loved Star Wars). That something that many people did like was how Abrams handled the sequel by evoking A New Hope without being exactly the same, and, more importantly, how he managed to "pass the torch" from the older characters (Han, Chewbacca, Leia, Luke) to the next generation of characters, that the older characters were allowed to be older, and that they didn't just have cameos, but also the film wasn't about them, it was about the younger new lead characters. Also I learned something I didn't know; me, I had thought it was stupid how everyone who picked up a light-sabre for the first time knew how to use one (Finn and Rey) but apparently, according to Darren who has taught this stuff, they actually were realistic, in that the moves that Finn and Rey made were full of amateur inexperienced mistakes. It was also pointed out that Finn had had military training, and that Rey already knew staff-fighting, so it wasn't like they had zero experience of fighting in general. So I was glad to learn that.
11AM: Children's Books - the usual suspects: George Ivanoff and Sue Burstynski, with Queenie Chan moderating, and a surprise addition whose face I recognised and whose name has vanished from my brain.
Stuff recommended: Dragon Keeper... and a whole bunch of other stuff that I can't remember because I didn't write it down!
It wasn't just a recs panel, though, there was other thoughtful stuff. When are stories too dark for kids to read? Are parents being over-protective if they limit what their kids are allowed to read, or is it worse if the parents don't care at all? That there is a difference between a story going into dark places and coming out again, versus a story going into dark places and not coming out at all. That the need for darkness-into-light stories is twofold: first, is to give hope to kids who are in dark places in their own lives (even if the darkness in that story isn't exactly the same as their own) and second, to create empathy in the hearts of kids whose lives aren't dark.
(Note: story called something along the lines of "Big and Little" about two trucks, and the big truck has faulty wiring and doesn't always have control of itself... as an analogy for mental illness. An example of talking about something not-fluffy in "an age-appropriate way")
12 NOON: Cross-Generational Appeal - George Ivanoff, Katherine Phelps, Liz Barr
Well, with those three on a panel together, you can't go wrong. It was fun.
"Finger Prince".
Complaints about the assumption that if something is created using animation, it is ALWAYS for kids. Shock on Liz's part that The Simpsons has been shown in a kids' time-slot even though it was NEVER INTENDED FOR KIDS.
I shudder to think about things like Aeon Flux being shown in a kids' time slot. (eyeroll)
The panel distinguished between things created with the intent of having cross-generational appeal (being a "family show") like Doctor Who, and things which were intended solely for kids, but turned out to appeal to adults as well, such as My Little Pony.
1PM: Is the Original always the best? Julia Svaganovic, Zen Fletcher, Ben O'Mara, Craig Irvine, and me.
I was the moderator, and I had a long list of specific remakes/adaptations/sequels I had prepared beforehand from the email discussion, but which I didn't really need to consult very much. The panel were fabulous, being very thoughtful in their responses, rather than just ranting on about their favourites and non-favourites, but trying to analyse why some things worked and some things didn't. First question was "worst remake", next question was "remake better than the original", though interestingly enough, most of the answers to that one were "remake was really good, but so was the original"... which had been the question I was going to ask next, so I had to ask something else. I can't remember exactly what I asked, now. It might have been "what makes some remakes work and others not?" but as I said, good thoughtful responses to that. That the maker has to love the original, but not let it, or what fans think, get in the way of telling a good story. That remakes which are good, usually tie in to current (when it is made) concerns of society. That if something is good enough to be remade, then it is at its heart a good story and deserves to be told to a new generation. That remakes fail when the person making them just doesn't "get it"; which frequently happens when Americans try to make something which originated in the UK (numerous examples).
All in all, a great panel.
2PM Closing Ceremony. One of the things I like about Continuum is that their opening and closing ceremonies tend to be short. This was no exception.
GoH for next year, Seanan McGuire, who has a good presence on twitter; I think she will be a great guest, yay.
