Disney now owns our childhood

Where were you on that fateful day, October 30, 2012?

You know the one I'm talking about. The day the earth moved, shifting on its axis, when millions of voices weren't silenced, but instead exploded onto Twitter to vent outrage or glee?

Yes, that was the day that news came out of Disney buying Lucasfilm (and all that it owns) for $4 billion.

Believe it or not, I was actually in an office meeting. I had a dead spot in the meeting while the others were looking at things that they needed to talk about and I fired up my phone and checked Twitter. I'm sure my eyes widened when I saw the first thing that popped up.

Twitter became a madhouse for the next two hours at least. The productivity of nerds (hey, that's a great name for a band!) all across the country probably plummeted toward zero at a lightning pace.

All for $4 billion.

Is this a good thing?

Opinions are divided on this. Many Star Wars fans have been disillusioned for years about how George Lucas has pretty much made the franchise unwatchable with the prequel trilogy. Jar-Jar Binks is almost a curse word in nerd circles.

On the other hand, while many around the Net were making jokes like this:

others seem to remember that Disney has actually done a pretty good job with other companies that they've purchased. The Marvel Comics movies have been very good since Disney bought the comic company.

Personally, I'm actually optimistic, though I realize they could ruin a good thing with Episode VII on its way in 2015. On the other hand, it was already ruined, so could it get any worse?

What hits me more is just how much of what I grew up with is now owned by Disney. I grew up reading Marvel Comics, and while I also read a lot of DC (owned by Warner Bros), Marvel was huge in my life. They are part of Mickey's empire.

ESPN (and ABC along with it)? That was my major sports network growing up.

Disney also owns the Muppet Studios, so the muppets are now part of the empire.

A major chunk of my childhood, all under one huge umbrella.

Still, it's not all bad. At least they haven't bought Hasbro.

Yet.

Internet Hate and Why It's So Prominent

On my way home from work today, I was listening to one of my favourite podcasts, the Lasertime show put on by a bunch of the guys who used to do Talk Radar. (For those of my fans who don't read my media/pop culture posts, please keep reading. I only use some of those for reference points in order to make a larger point)

The subject of this particular episode isn't important, but as usual they all went off on tangents anyway, and one of them was on the incessant need for some people on the Internet to hate things. Especially popular things. And to hold onto this hate beyond any sense of rationality.

It really is a phenomenon that I have seen from time to time, though thankfully not too much recently. The reason for that is more where I hang out than because it's quieting down. Because it's certainly not doing that.

I feel your pain, Benny

You find this a lot in relation to various pop culture things like movies, games, books, television, and things like that. People have this irrational need to get into long, pointless arguments about things that really don't matter in the grand scheme of things. Who would win in a fight: Galactus or Darkseid? Did Han Solo really shoot first when he killed Greedo, or is Lucas lame for making that change? Which Star Wars movie is the worst one? Just how many women out there would love to date me if I wasn't already taken? (Believe me, those arguments are legion and have gone on for fourteen years or so. It's also been responsible for a catfight or two)

I've graduated beyond these for the most part, and I've never taken part in them. Now I read (mostly) civilized debates on policy and stuff like that. I still occasionally check out game fora and the like, and you've never seen Internet hate until you've seen the comments in a post about Activision's Call of Duty franchise. The anti-Activision rants can reach legendary proportions.

So why do people on the Internet hate so much?

I think a large part of it is the anonymity that the Internet offers. On most fora that I visit, you can put whatever you want into the profile page. You don't have to use your real name. You can just go by "hist" like I do (well, not exactly like I do, or I may sue your ass off...or the system software just won't allow duplicate accounts. One of the two). You don't have to go by Dave Roy. You don't have to say anything about yourself.

Ok, some things I can go along with

So when Craigslistfan36533 starts ripping on those fans of Twilight or Star Trek or whatever, he can do so with complete confidence that nobody will ever come to his house and beat his face in. He can go to a Trek forum and say anything he wants. He would be different from a troll (as I described in a previous post) because he's not going there just to get a reaction. He honestly believes that whatever he's discussing sucked. He honestly can't believe that somebody likes it.

He just likes to get the hate on and not let it go.

Which brings us to another symptom of this phenomenon. The irresistible attraction to commenting (and hating) on something that really isn't aimed at you in the first place.

Chris Antista on this episode talked about this, and it resonated with me too, partially because I'm guilty of some aspects of this. He mentioned the backlash against things like Twilight (a book series that is obviously not aimed at 30-year-old men) and, more pertinent to me, Justin Bieber. I admit, I have made my share of "Bieber is the sign of doom!" jokes, but they're mostly jokes. I certainly don't hate the kid, and I would never go to a site devoted to him and trash him.

But he is an easy target, and maybe I should lay off those a little bit. I promise I've made my last Bieber joke on this blog.

May the worst demon from Hell strike me down if that is not so.

Ok, that was my last one.

C'mon. Breaking an addiction is hard!

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Internet hate.

One last aspect of Internet hate that I just find really odd, and I believe either Chris or Brett Elston also mentioned this on the podcast is the fact that arguments on the Internet seem to be never-ending.

If you and your buddies are at a bar, having some beers, and you get into a discussion about which ship would kick ass in a fight, the Enterprise or the Millenium Falcon, you'll debate it for a bit, get a bit drunker, start ogling the ladies at the end of the bar, and the argument will be quickly forgotten.

Not so on the Internet (maybe that's because there are no ladies at the end of the Internet bar?). That argument will go on for days and days. It may die down for a brief while, but somebody will always resurrect it. It may be an unsuspecting third party who, by saying something totally innocent, will step in it and look at his shoe like it's covered in dog shit. But something will happen. And the argument starts all over again.

Can this phenomenon be explained? I honestly don't know, because it completely mystifies me.

Just like most Internet fan-hate does.

Which is probably why it's a good thing I'm not a practitioner of it, isn't it?

Have you seen this sort of thing around before in the Internet environments you frequent? Or even where you don't frequent?

Inquiring minds want to know.

RIP - Elisabeth Sladen: Doctor Who is missing something today

The Doctor Who world, as well as British television, were rocked yesterday by the news that Elisabeth Sladen had passed away.

Sladen played Sarah Jane Smith, one of the most popular Doctor Who companions ever. She was loved by millions of Who fans around the world. For many of us, she was the first companion we were familiar with, much as Tom Baker was our first Doctor.

Sarah was my first companion, and yes, I admired her good looks (I was 12 when I first discovered the show, keep in mind). But I also admired the intelligence she was written with, for the most part. The role of the companion in the old Doctor Who series was mainly to look good and to be the Doctor's sounding board, taking the audience's place by asking "What is that, Doctor?" so he could explain what was going on. Somehow, Sarah rose above that. She had a mind of her own, and she very rarely screamed. When she did, you knew it was something scream-worthy, too. Towards the end of her tenure, the writers got away from this a bit, and I think that might be why she left.

Companions came and went, but very often I compared them to Sarah to see if they stacked up. While there were good companions after Sarah, none of them ultimately reached Sarah's high level.

I tried to find a couple of videos to post on here, but they were all too long or they were tribute videos and not actually videos of her on Doctor Who. But in that search, I saw the love that she engendered in fans. There are so many fan-made tributes, some of them put up yesterday after news of her death broke. Others have been made over the years. We Who fans have cherished her memory even as the Doctor moved on.

She was so popular that the producer of the new Doctor Who series, Russell T. Davies, decided to bring her back in a marvelous episode (at least as far as Sarah and the Doctor goes, as the story itself was a bit weak) called "School Reunion."

Just as beautiful now as she was back in the mid-70s, the Who fanbase loved it. They always say that you can't go home again. While that's true, that doesn't mean you can't revisit the past and take the best things about it, modify them slightly, and come up with something else wonderful.

Sarah's return was so popular that Davies decided to create another show for her, called The Sarah Jane Adventures. This was more of a children's show, but it definitely had plenty of older adults watching, those fans who just wanted to see more of Sarah Jane.

There was always some doubt about whether this show would return for a 5th season. Perhaps that was because of Sladen's health problems? I don't know.

I do know that it's fitting for the last episode ever to be named "Good-bye, Sarah Jane Smith".

I hope Ms. Sladen knew how much love we Who fans had for her. I like to think she did.

This is my favourite picture from the new Who series. I cried during this entire scene in "School Reunion."

At the end of her final episode back in 1976, she tells the Doctor "don't forget me."

Like we ever could.

Rest in peace, Sarah Jane.

Rest in peace, Elisabeth Sladen.

You will be missed.

Zombies at the funeral home - looking for family?

Have you ever seen an advertisement that just seemed to be put in a bad place? The advertisement's not bad, but either the timing or the placement in the newspaper just happens to coincide badly with what's around it.

That can happen with billboards, too, as it did in Durham County, Great Britain.

Many of you have heard of the hit series The Walking Dead on AMC, right? I didn't watch it, but I have heard a lot about it. It's a show about a zombie apocalypse, and it's supposed to be really good.

It seems that it has made its way over to the British Isles now. Of course, they have to advertise it, right?

How about right next to a funeral home?

(Photo courtesy of the Daily Mail)

Yeah, that part didn't go over quite as well.

"An advertising firm has been blasted after a billboard for The Walking Dead was put on the wall of a funeral parlour in Consett, County Durham.

An apology has been issued after the ad for The Walking Dead appeared on the side of The Co-operative Funeralcare.

Susan Jones, from the Willow Burn Hospice, in nearby Lanchester, said that while some people may see the funny side, others would not."

Personally, *I* find it hilarious, but I may not have if I'd been headed to dear ol' Grandpa's funeral in there when I saw it.

Thankfully, as soon as the company realized how bad this looked, they quickly removed it.

This was before anybody complained.

"Councillor Owen Temple, who represents the Consett area on Durham County Council, said he was aware of the billboard, but had not received any complaints.

He said: 'Some will be amused, but others may be offended. It left me unmoved.'

Gotta love that British resolve (not to mention gift for understatement).

How about you? Hilarious or distasteful?

Any other hilariously inappropriate ad placements (or any other similar occurrences) you can think of?