Later this month, I’m participating in several panels (listed below) at Life, The Universe, and Everything Symposium in Provo, Utah. As I’m preparing, I wanted to know your thoughts.
Here are the panels, and then my questions are below.
Panels
Alphabet Soup: What’s the differnce between an ‘R’ & ‘TV-MA’? (Thursday, February 11, 11-12)
Join us as we demystify rating. We’ll talk about where they come from, what they mean and what they can and cannot tell you as a viewer.
Literary Merit of Science Fiction and Fantasy (Thursday, February 11, 1-2)
Enter the recent debate among writers like Atwood, Le Guin, and Ishiguro on the literary merit of the Science Fiction and Fantasy writer’s world.
I, Robot & the Karate Kid: What’s in a Title? (Thursday, February 11, 4-5)
Why buy the rights to a famous novel and not use half the book? Why use a title that literally has NOTHING to do with the movie just because it’s an adaptation? Why does Marketing get to have such a big impact on TMA? Wouldn’t the art be better if we could get rid of Marketing?
Oxford Style Debate: Is Rey A Skywalker? (Friday, February 12, 4-5)
It’s a head-to-head battle and I am debating whether or not Rey is a Skywalker? This is going to be epic.
(Star Wars Anon, I could use your help)
20 Years of Pixar: The Past and Future of Digital Animation (Friday, February 12, 5-6)
Pixar is the dominant animation studio in the world today. What are the strengths and weakness of digital animation? Why has digital animation largely supplanted traditional animation? Will it ever kill traditional animation?
TV vs Novel. Good Better Best. (Saturday, February 13, 3-4)
Read the book before the movie, or watch the movie, then read the book? Which camp do you fit in? Who did it better and why?
Here’s where you help me out:
- What questions do you have about these topics?
- If you went to this panel, what would you want to know?
- What concepts would you want to share if you were on the panel?
Also, if you’ve been a panelist, do you have any advice?
Please share your thoughts in the comments – and you are welcome to bring a friendly debate.
The L. Palmer Chronicles 
Congrats! What is the focus of your panel. “LIfe, The Universe and Everything” seems like a bit too much ground to cover.
I’d agree with that – but Life, The Universe and Everything is the title of the conference. The panels are listed below. I just rearranged the post to make that more clear – see, helping me out already.
Oh! You’re on ALL of these panels? Yowzers.
OK. I gotta Pixar one: With the recent emphasis on sequels and the box office failure of The Good Dinosaur is another digital studio poised to snatch away Pixar’s crown?
It’s going to be tricky balancing this with my graduate school schedule – but the conference is across town, so it’s doable.
Also, the Good Dinosaur had a lot of wasted potential, and I’m not surprised it limped at the box office.
I found Brave’s premise similarly squandered. The second half of that film was a complete mess.
This looks like a really cool opportunity! For the TV vs. novel one, do you think that there are some stories that work in one medium but not another? (For example, a book that seems impossible to adapt successfully into a movie). There are lots of bad movies based on books and bad novelizations of screenplays. Do you think some of these are because the story just won’t translate into into a different medium, or can a successful adaptation be made of anything, with the right people working on it?
1. I do think there are some stories which work in one medium but not in another because of how they are told – much of Faulkner’s work would be incredibly hard to translate because you need the limited vision he uses.
2. I think the right person, given enough care and time could build a good adaptation – the key to me is to be true to the core of the story and the characters, and then use the strengths of the medium to tell the story well. However, even the right team can get off course – I feel like this is the difference between the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and The Hobbit. The former remained true to the core of the books – there are a few flourishes, but they’re the story. Whereas, The Hobbit does a lot of watering down and filling with fluff to try to build enough to have a trilogy – and Bilbo becomes just a bystander in a story where he should be the center.
It’s a tricky thing.
I’ve been trying to find a place where I can submit a contact form so we can discuss in detail the Rey/Skywalker speculation with some back and forth but not finding one. 😦 Let me come back here later and help you out when I have a few moments to sort my thoughts.
I thought my email was on my About page. I guess not, so I just fixed that.
My email is lpalmer@lpalmerchronicles.com – feel free to shoot me some thoughts.