Interview: Legion of Leia Founder Jenna Busch

Posted on June 2, 2014 at 3:55 pm

I’m a huge fan of Jenna Busch, co-host of Most Craved for CraveOnline. She co-hosted ‘Cocktails With Stan’ with the legendary Stan Lee and she’s written for sites like Zap2it, After Buzz TV, Fanhattan, Screen Crave, Inside Horror, Huffington Post, AOL, Popeater, Newsarama, JoBlo, Blastr, UGO, IGN, Moviefone, SheKnows, Coming Soon, Screen Junkies, Famous Monsters and Geek Week and Inside Horror. Her own site is Girl Meets Light Saber. I’m very excited about her new initiative, the Legion of Leia, to provide more support for girls as characters in and creators of comics and sci-fi. Many thanks to Jenna for answering my questions about it.

What is the Legion of Leia and where did it come from?

The Legion came out of a conversation a dear friend of mine and I had over dinner, right after the cast of the new Star Wars film was announced. I’d written a blog post about how disappointed I was in the lack of female cast members and posted a picture of myself dressed as Princess Leia as a little girl. She showed me one of herself and said, “I bet most of the women we know have a picture like this.” Part of the blog post was about how sad it was that a fan base as full of women as this one wasn’t going to be represented. Star Wars and its female fans have been around for decades and we’re not exactly quiet about it. I remember playing Star Wars with my girlfriends as a kid and having to change the gender of characters so we could all play. I was frustrated that my six-year-old niece is going to have to do the same thing, while my nephew will have a ton of characters to play.

The thing is, I didn’t just want to wag my finger. I wanted to do something positive to support women who create the things we genre fans love, inspire young women who want to be a part of this creation, give fans a place to talk and let the world know how many of us there actually are. On May the 4th (Star Wars Day), I started a Twitter handle (@LegionofLeia) and a Facebook page for the Legion and asked my friends to change their social media profiles to a picture of Princess Leia to support women in Sci-Fi and I was overwhelmed by the response. Not only did they do it, but a ton of celebrity women joined, from Buffy, Husbands and Once Upon a Time writer Jane Espenson to actress and reality star Adrianne Curry to the voice of Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Ashley Eckstein.

Since then, the support has only grown. I’m humbled and honored by the attention we’ve gotten and I want to take it further. We’ve started a website (LegionofLeia.wordpress.com) and began doing weekly profiles of women working in the industry and our new writer Sabina-Lissette Ibarra has been doing Sci-Fi Women Friday pieces for us, spotlighting a new female character we love each week. The plan is to host art and fiction contests, post advice from women who’ve made this their career, bring more writers on board and showcase women, both known and behind-the-scenes.

What was your first fangirl passion?

There were two, around the same time. Star Wars, without a doubt. I mean, I have two lightsabers and a Boba Fett helmet in my trunk! You know, for emergencies. I loved the fact that the Princess really didn’t need saving. Heck, I would put my hair in buns, find my white jeans and a while shirt (or a bed sheet if we were doing the final scene from A New Hope) and use a stick as a lightsaber. I even made her necklace from the last scene out of string and tin foil!

The other one was the Pern series from Anne McCaffrey. I loved Lessa, her powerful Dragonrider heroine, as well as Menolly, the young girl who ran away because she couldn’t live without music, despite the fact that women weren’t allowed to be Harpers. (I actually went into musical theatre because of her!)

What did you dress up as for Halloween?

Okay, so I told you about the musical theatre part of my career, but before I became an entertainment reporter, I was also a makeup artist. Halloween is my favorite holiday! I’ve been Leia, Rogue, and every sort of fantastical creature I could come up with. Fairies, dragon ladies, water sprites (with my hair covered in conditioner so it looked wet) If it involved face and body paint, I did it. I actually dressed as Cersei Lannister for Cupcake Quarterly for their geek pinup issue!

Who are your sci/fi-superheroine favorite characters and why? Your favorite writers/artists?

As I said, I’m a fan of Anne McCaffrey. I also adore Wonder Woman, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Katniss Everdeen (I love the books and the movies), Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica, Aeryn Sun from Farscape, Buffy the Vampire Slayer — I guess what they all have in common is that they don’t need anyone else to save them. They do it themselves. As far as artists, I’m a huge fan of Cat Staggs and I hope to get to work with her one day! I also love Janet Lee’s work. In fact, I brought Return of the Dappermen (which she won the Eisner Award for) on G4’s Fresh Ink when I was guest hosting and she saw it. I kind of gushed. Then we ended up working together on a piece called “Ladybird” with co-writer Rachel Pandich in the comic anthology Womanthology.

Are female fans accepted as equals by geeks and fanboys?

That’s a hard one to answer. I’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded, even as a kid, by fanboys who never give my gender a second thought. There are many, many guys out there who support women who love this stuff. In fact, I lost count of the men who supported the May the 4th event. I heard so many stories about their wives, girlfriends and daughters who love the genre and it was absolutely wonderful. On the other side, there are certainly guys who either have issues with fangirls or hold them to a different standard. For instance, I frequently see and hear about women who say they love, let’s say, Batman. They’re immediately quizzed about every single tiny detail of his history and told they’re not real fans if they don’t know something, where a guy is less likely to hear that. I’ve talked about this before, but there was an incident in a comic book store I was doing a podcast at, where a woman had just seen Thor, the movie. She told the guy at the counter that she’d seen it and didn’t know where to start with Thor comics. He laughed at her and told her that just because she thought Chris Hemsworth was hot, that she wasn’t a Thor fan. Things are better than they were, but it’s still an issue.

What do you think about the plans for the new “Star Wars” movie?

I’m thrilled to see Luke, Leia and Han back and I absolutely loved the creature in the J.J. Abrams video. I’m so happy that they’re doing a lot of practical effects. As I said, of course I’m disappointed in the fact that there aren’t more women in the cast. I hope they’ll be adding more.

What indicators do you have that more female stories and characters are being developed?

Well, actually, I think there aren’t enough. I hope that will change. We’re still seeing one “token” women in a cast. Avengers, for instance. Or Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. I mean, Lois is in there, too, but as far as superheroes, there’s just Wonder Woman. That said, we’re certainly seeing more than before! I think that, the more the industry realizes that there is a huge female fan base out there, the more we’ll get.

Womanthology is a good example. We did a comic anthology (created by Renae DeLiz) with art, writing, penciling, etc., all by women and it exploded. I think our goal was $30K and we ended up with $109K on Kickstarter. The industry was shocked! Not only do women love to read comics, but we create them as well! I still get chocked up talking about this, but when I was at Comic Con, right after it was published, a little girl pulled on my pants leg. Tiny little thing. She asked if I was in the book. When I said yes, she asked if she could hug me. Her mom told me that she loved comics, but didn’t know that girls could make them. That’s what I want to change.

Is television a better place to find strong female characters than comics or movies?

I certainly think so. Look at things like Battlestar Galactica, Caprica, Once Upon a Time, Game of Thrones (and yes, these women are strong, despite their situation), Orphan Black and Arrow. There are more characters and time to develop them, which sometimes keeps studios from classifying a show as something as “for boys” or “for girls.” Sci-Fi is certainly on the forefront in terms of strong women (and by strong, I don’t just mean women that “act like men,” but women with a complete character) and worlds that are populated the way our world is. They often have a realistic split between men and women, gay characters, trans characters, people of color … imagine that!

Which comic book heroine deserves a starring role in a feature film?

I’m holding out for a Ms. Marvel film. I have been for a long time. Also, after David Goyer’s terrible comments about She-Hulk, I’d love to see her get one!

Does today’s generation of tweens and teens have a better range of sci-fi/superhero female characters to choose from?

Absolutely, but we have a long way to go. We certainly have more, but they’re often marketed to us all as “badass sexy chick,” doing the “butt pose” in posters. And if she can’t “soften” or fall in love, they kill her off. Now, I have absolutely, positively no issue with sexuality, nudity, love or anything of the sort. There is no reason at all why they shouldn’t be sexy, in love or own their sexuality. In fact, quite the opposite. But there is a difference between someone owning their sexuality and using it in any way they wish, and that being their only justification for being there. I’m just saying, write characters, not caricatures.

If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

Oh, I live in Los Angeles, so it’s definitely Force Push so I could move the other cars out of my way in traffic. (I did say I was a Star Wars geek.) Or maybe flight, so I wouldn’t have to deal with a car at all.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Posted on May 22, 2014 at 6:00 pm

X-Men fans will see this film anticipating the pleasure of watching their favorite X-Men characters in one of the comic book series most acclaimed storylines: the time-bending saga of a desperate trip to the past to undo one tragic mistake. Wolverine, Mystique, and the old and new versions of Professor X and Magneto are all here and there are grandly staged action scenes involving the White House lawn, Chinese ruins, and a sports stadium. But the powerhouse knock-you-socks-off what-did-I-just-see moments come from a new character in the movie franchise, Quicksilver (Evan Peters), who does a little time-bending of his own in the most dull and domestic of settings, a kitchen. Well, it’s a kitchen in the Pentagon, but still. Part “Matrix,” part Chuck Jones, it is sure to be on end of the year best lists. And of course Jennifer Lawrence is terrific as the conflicted Raven/Mystique, whose loyalties shift almost as often as her chameleonic exterior, and who looks sensational in a costume so revealing that would make a Las Vegas showgirl look like she’s wearing a parka.

Marvel’s X-Men are mutants, the next stage of evolution past homo sapiens, with a range of intriguing and sometimes mutable superpowers. They also represent the next stage of evolution as superheroes, with conflicted characters and complex extended storylines that resonate the themes of societal, political, and psychological struggles. Characters go back and forth between the “good guy” (want to work with humans) and “bad guy” (believe humans can never accept or keep up with them so they should be wiped out in a Darwinian overthrow of the less-fit) teams.

We’ve seen the present-day X-Men in a trilogy of films and stand-out Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) in two starring vehicles. And saw the origins of the first X-Men, Charles Xavier, known as Professor X, and Erik Lehnsherr, known as Magneto, in X-Men: First Class. Now, everything comes together in the time-travel saga “Days of Future Past,” a little bit “Terminator,” a little bit “Back to the Future,” as Wolverine goes back in time to change one event in order to prevent the creation of an army of killer robot drones that wiped out most of the mutants and humanity, too.

This will require getting the band back together, including teaming up sometime friends/sometime enemies Charles Xavier (played in the past by James McAvoy and in the present and future by Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (played in the past by Michael Fassbender and in the present and future by Ian McKellen). (Nerd note: In the comic book series, it is Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) who transmits her consciousness back in time to her younger self, but in the movie she sends Wolverine’s consciousness back to his younger self instead.) Thankfully, they minimize the “How do I know you’re really from the future?” stuff and get to the action, starting with breaking Magneto out of the most secure prison facility on earth, buried under the Pentagon. This is where Quicksilver comes in very handy.

Newcomers will enjoy the action and it may lead them to check out the earlier movies and the comics to find out more about the X-Men universe. Fanboys and fangirls will appreciate a couple of insider references. Those old enough to remember the 70’s will appreciate some insider references, too, like the recording device in Richard Nixon’s oval office and the synth-infused score. As in all the best X-Men stories, the themes feel visceral to our times — national security, the definition of “other.” Just don’t try to resolve all the temporal anomalies, and you’ll have a blast.

Parents should know that this film has extended action/comic-book humor, with many characters injured and killed, guns, explosions, fire, some graphic and disturbing images, some strong language, drug use, brief nudity and very revealing attire.

Family discussion: If you could go back in history and change one thing, what would it be? If you could have any of the powers of the X-Men, what would you choose? How should the government make decisions about threats like the X-Men?

If you like this, try: the other “X-Men” movies and “The Avengers”

Godzilla

Posted on May 15, 2014 at 6:01 pm

All the basic ingredients are there for a slam-bang summer monster movie. We have people in helmets and hazmat suits running to try to get away from something scary. We have a scientist pleading with a military officer to trust him and the guy in camo responding that he can’t take that chance. We have a guy everyone thinks is crazy who turns out to be right. We have mumbo-jumbo about radiation and bio-acoustics. We have a tentacle(?) tease 40 minutes in. We have a corporate/government cover-up. People say things like, “There’s been a breach,” and “I can prove to you and the world that this was not a natural disaster.” Oh, and “I’m going to find the truth and end this, whatever it takes.” And “It’s going to send us back to the stone age.”

Buildings will be destroyed and a bridge will collapse. People will be told to stay home and then traffic will be at a standstill as they all ignore directions. We have a lot of globe-hopping so that international forces can be involved and iconic skylines can be trashed. And, most important, we have a very, very big monster to do the trashing. Enormous ships will be tossed around like a rubber duckie in a bathtub.

What we don’t have is a very good story. And for a movie with a lot of destruction, not enough of a sense of real investment in the outcome. The good news about CGI is that you can make anything happen on screen. The bad thing is that everyone knows you can make anything happen, so at a fundamental level, it does not feel real.

“Godzilla” begins promisingly, with a terrific opening credit sequence over “archival” footage and glimpses of redacted government reports. And ash, lots of ash, detritus from atomic fallout, pretty cool in 3D. Then there’s a little backstory. In 1999 we see the discovery of a skeleton in a Philippine mine. The rib cage is the size of an apartment building. And there’s goop! If there’s one thing we’ve learned from monster movies over years, it has to be DON’T TOUCH THE GOOP.

Meanwhile, still in 1999, we get our introduction to the adorable family — there always has to be an adorable family — living near a nuclear energy plant in Japan who will provide the emotional core of the film. There’s loving American father (Bryan Cranston) Joe Brody, distracted by some inexplicable but rhythmic tremors. There’s loving French wife (Juliette Binoche), who also works at the plant. And there’s a son, cute tyke Ford. “Earthquakes are random, jagged,” Joe explains. What he is hearing is “consistent and increasing.” We know he will have a hard time persuading his bosses, but we know he is right. And soon tragedy strikes and the cooling towers collapse. The entire community is contaminated and shut down.

Fifteen years later, Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson of “Kick-Ass”) is coming back from a military deployment where his job is “stopping bombs.” After he has an adorable reunion with his own adorable wife (Elizabeth Olsen) and son, he gets a call. Joe has been arrested in Japan, where he is still obsessed with finding the truth about what happened. He has a crazy room with walls covered in clippings connected by string to show the various conspiracies. Ford thinks his dad is nuts. He’s about to find out that he is right.

I don’t want to give away any monster spoilers here, so I’ll just say that there are some surprises for anyone not thoroughly immersed in “Godzilla” lore. I liked seeing the creature pop nuclear warheads into his mouth like Popeye knocks back spinach. And it steps things up nicely when the monster’s power charge shorts out the grids. The special effects are excellent, though only a high-altitude/low opening parachute jump makes full use of the 3D. But the story is weak and the characters are cardboard. The original 1954 “Godzilla” resonated because it personified (monstronified?) our then-new fears about the atomic age. With so many contemporary scares about environmental damage, they should have been able to find something equally potent.

Parents should know that this is a sci-fi movie in the tradition of all monster movies, with extensive mayhem,scary surprises, some disturbing images, and many characters injured and killed. There is some strong language.

Family discussion: What made the scientist and the military come to different conclusions — information or training? What was the significance of the pocket watch?

If you like this, try: the original Japanese “Godzilla” movies

Transcendence

Posted on April 17, 2014 at 6:00 pm

Think of it as “Her 2: The Revenge of Him.” Or Samantha infected by Heartbleed.

Just as in last holiday season’s Her, “Transcendence” is the story of an artificial intelligence contained in a computer program that becomes or is seen as human consciousness. Instead of the warm, affectionate voice and bubbly laughter of Scarlett Johansson, we get the portentous monotone of Johnny Depp, as a scientist murdered by anti-technology activists, whose mind and memories and personality are uploaded to a mainframe before he dies. Apparently he has time to read the Oxford English Dictionary aloud, too, so his voice can be preserved.

Cinematographer Willy Pfister, best known for working with Christopher Nolan, turns to directing for a story set in the world of the highest of high tech but grounded in hubristic themes that go back to Icarus and up through “Frankenstein,” and “The Unknown Known.” Even with Nolan as producer, however, he is weak on narrative, pacing, tone, and working with his talented cast. Morgan Freeman, Clifton Collins, Jr., Kate Mara, Paul Bettany, and Rebecca Hall have never appeared so toned-down and disconnected, just plain under-used. Depp appears mechanical even when he is still human. And the film has the unmistakable flavor of a recut following disappointing early audience responses.

A promising premise gets bogged down right from the beginning when Max Waters (Bettany) introduces us to a post-apocalyptic world where traffic lights no longer work and discarded keyboards are used to prop open the doors of bodegas that are out of more items than they have to sell. The grid is down. It has been down for a long time. And no one knows when it will be back.

We go back five years earlier to meet the brainy, gorgeous, and so-in-love couple Will and Evelyn Caster (Depp and Hall). Here’s how adorbs they are; in her beloved garden (hmmm, Evelyn — is she Eve?) he is installing a copper canopy, to cut them off from cell phone signals and other technological intrusions). They are on their way to present their work to donors, where he explains that she is the one who wants to change the world. He just likes to work on cool stuff.

When he is fatally injured in an anti-technology attack led by Bree (Kate Mara) — we know she is up to no good because of the heavy eye liner — Evelyn decides she can keep him alive in some sense by uploading his consciousness to the mainframe. Max helps her, but when it works, he immediately sees that it is a problem, and Evelyn, furious, tells him to leave. Evelyn is so happy to have Will back in any form that she is happy to follow his directions. Soon, his intellectual capacity is increasing exponentially and she is following his directions to take over a remote, all-but-deserted town, install a football field-sized solar panel energy generator and a five-stories-below-ground lair a Bond villain would envy. She walks through endless corridors like Beauty in the castle of the Beast.

“It’s like my mind has been set free,” the computer-Will tells Evelyn. The combination of the human urge for learning and growth and the unlimited capacity of the computers leads to problems that are only evident when Will is too big to stop. Somehow, even his infinitely magnified intelligence and endless capacity to snoop do not make him capable of understanding women. “Your oxytocin and serotonin levels are off,” he tells her tenderly, if a bit robotically), “I’m trying to empathize.” This becomes extra-creepy (as in “Her”) when he tries to come up with a way for them to be together physically,

Will figures out a sort of 3D printer of any kind of cell, including human tissue. He is able to cure any illness, heal any wound. Without asking or even telling the patients, he tweaks them all as well, inserting himself into their brains. Those anti-technology activist/terrorists are looking pretty smart now, but perhaps not as smart as the government, who allies with them only so they will have someone to blame.

We know where this is going because we saw the beginning of the movie, just two hours earlier. Just to remind us, we get to see the exact same images all over again, but instead it reminds us we have not seen very much in between.

Parents should know that this film includes bloody violence with guns and heavy artillery and some disturbing and graphic images, some strong language, and some sexual material.

Family discussion: Was the computer consciousness Will? Did it stop being Will? What is the significance of Will’s name?

If you like this, try: “Her” and “12 Monkeys” (rated R)

Related Tags:

Science-Fiction Thriller

Under the Skin

Posted on April 12, 2014 at 7:40 pm

This haunting, provocative film is the essence of what it means to call a work of art “adult,” not because of its explicit nudity and sexual situations but because of the way it presents and engages with them. It is fearless, it assumes the audience would rather ponder the questions than be fed the answers, and it has a performance of extraordinary sensitivity and insight from Scarlett Johansson as — well, we are not sure exactly what her character is or indeed if character is the right word.

We are unsure of what is going on right from the beginning, a beam of light with a dot that looks like an eye test. Is it a faraway planet or a star? Is it coming toward us? The only thing we know about where we are is that we will have to figure it out for ourselves and will never be sure if we are right. A man pulls the body of a fishnet stocking-wearing young woman out of a wooded area and loads her into a van. We then see a completely blank place, as though standing in front of a seamless, unpainted backdrop, not so much a space as an absence of everything except a naked young woman removing the clothes from the body. She is clinical and efficient manner if not especially experienced. Soon, she is wearing the clothes and shopping for more, including a fur jacket.

The young woman is beautiful, desirable. She drives around Glasgow, asking men for directions in a light London accent. As they chat, she finds out if they are on their way to meet friends or go home to family. When one says he is alone, she invites him to ride with her. Soon they are back in another void, this one black. He walks toward her, removing his clothes. She walks backward. In one of the most striking images we will see this year, she stays on one level as he begins to sink into liquid. And soon she is out in the van again, still asking for directions, luring another man to his death.

As the woman/alien (we never learn her name) goes about her tasks, at first she is like The Terminator, utterly single-minded, proceeding exactly according to formula. But she begins to develop — what is it? — doubts? Curiosity? She moves from the fur jacket to leather, to cloth, as she begins to be less willing? less able? to keep killing these men. She tries to partake of some human pleasures, but cannot, and finds herself lost, not one or the other or anything in between.

The imagery is powerful, with much made of eyes, reflections, blankness, and the Scottish landscape. Johansson gives a performance of tremendous subtlety, depth, sensitivity, and control, perhaps a reflection of years spent, like the creature she portrays, in the superficial seduction of being a star.

Adapted from the novel by Michel Faber by director Jonathan Glazer, some of the dialog is improvised and some of the men asked for directions did not know they were being filmed.

Parents should know that this movie includes very adult material, with graphic nudity and explicit sexual references and situations and violence including sexual assault. Characters drink, smoke, and use strong language.

Family discussion: Who is this character? Who is her companion? Why are they doing this? What makes her think about trying some of what humans enjoy?

If you like this, try: “Birth” by the same director, and some other films about aliens coming to earth like “Mars Attacks,” “Starman” and “What Planet Are You From?”

Related Tags:

Drama Fantasy Science-Fiction