Loving the Enemy or my fascination with the Ice warriors

This is an exciting year for Doctor Who fans, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention it.  So I'll be remiss, because I want to talk about something else happening to Doctor Who this weekend, something that is very exciting for me.  The Ice Warriors are back.

Those of you that know me or have read any of my Doctor Who Posts on this blog know that I have an unhealthy liking for the Ice Warriors.  But I don't believe I have ever taken the time to explain why.  In this post I am going to do that, In celebration of the return of the Ice Warriors I am going to let every one know why I love these second tier icy bad guys of the Whoniverse.

I got my introduction to the Ice warriors when I was very young with the Pertwee story the Curse of Peladon.  This story has all of the elements I love in my sci-fi.  A vast Space operatic federation, with intrigue, alien races, schemes, murder and a big fury monster.  Within all of that though is a morality tale about racial discrimination.  This story includes the Ice Warriors (or more accurately Martians)  as part of the grand Galactic Federation.  They are pitted to be the bad guy throughout most of the story, and the Doctor doesn't trust them, because he has encountered them before.  But these Ice Warriors are not the bad guys, and in a way they even turn out to be the heroes by saving the Doctor.

The story was great and had a great atmosphere but what I took away from it over 25 years ago is that the Ice Warriors (and Ice Lords) are awesome.  I had never experienced a story, at least in Doctor Who, where the monster turns out to be the good guy, where the Doctor misjudged someone based on his past history with their race.  Now that is not to say that it hadn't happened but I hadn't thought about it like that at my age.  The story really spoke to me and so did the Ice Warriors.

Unfortunately this is the only time (on TV) that the Ice Warriors have been treated like this.  They were the villains in their previous 2 stories, and again in the sequel to Peladon, and unfortunately we never saw them again on the show.  They have however shown up in novels and Big Finish audios and they have shown up as both the villains and the allies of the Doctor, and this is always exciting.

This Idea that an alien race can have the same sensibilities as the human race really captured me as a kid and still does now.  The idea that there are good Ice Warriors and Bad Ice Warriors is stunning to me.  

Now all of that leads me to mention "Cold War" which is going to air this weekend and bring back the Ice Warriors after nearly a 40 year absence from our TV screens.  The images of the Ice Warrior that we have seen so far are pretty amazing.  They are really going back to the roots of making them viking like with some of the small designs in the costume, while at the same time staying very true to the design.  The story, however is what I am most curious about

This story is a historical and appears to be taking place on a submarine.  I have a feeling it is going to harken back more to the Second doctor's encounters with the Ice warriors, in which there is an ancient Ice warrior who came to earth from Mars during our Ice age and has been rediscovered and hence re awakened.  The Ice Warrior will be the villain in this story.  While it is not the way I would bring the Ice Warriors back (I would bring back the Galactic federation and all of it's space opera glory!) I feel it will not let us down as being a good trapped inside with a monster story.

I look forward to this story and hopefully it will be successful enough to bring the Ice Warriors back the way they should be brought back, with their honor in tact!

Just as a note for those of you who don't know my name of the internet has been Izlear for about 15 years now.  This of course hearkens back to Izlyr, the Ice lord from the Curse of Peladon.    


Why do you love the monsters you love in Doctor Who or any other show you love.  Leave your thoughts in the comments below!      

Life With Fandom Updates and welcomes!

It has been an incredibly long time since I have updated the blog.  I have found myself working on a project (which should eventually be for the blog) that has taken me a lot longer to get finished than I thought it would, but on the bright side it is indeed coming along, so look for that in the upcoming weeks (hopefully).

In the meantime I want to let you all know about some changes that are coming to Life With Fandom.  Since the very beginning of the blog I have always wanted it to be about more than just me.  It started out about my life in Doctor Who fandom, and then evolved into a toy and 80s nostalgia blog.  All of these are things I love and am deeply involved in.  That, however still hasn't really scratched the surface of what I wanted to do.  I wanted to include others.  I wanted Life With Fandom to be many people's lives with fandom.  I wanted to document things people like!  I am able to say I am doing that.

It will be a slow rollout but Life with Fandom is growing.  There will be more than just me writing on the blog.  To begin with we are adding Brad and Stacy Rader, the creator of Battle Babies and the Geekyvixen herself.  They will begin posting pictures and blog posts here on Life with Fandom as we begin to join forces and build the next version of the site.  Other posters are also ready to come on board and will be introduced soon.

We are also planning on expanding even more and we are going to be jumping into podcasts etc.  The videos from New Monster will continue and will continue to be featured here, and of course my new project will be brought to you here soon too.  So I hope I can actually live up to these promises this time.

Hopefully you will hear from us all more often and soon!  So be sure to welcome our first new contributors to the site!

 

The end of 2012 and beyond

There is so much I want to say to round out 2012.  This year had been a mixed bucket.  On one hand it has been amazing with projects I have been involved in such as new monster, The Oncoming Storm Podcast and even this blog.  I have made some of the best friends I have ever known and I have tried vending at toy shows, which is something I have always wanted to do.  It has been a very fulfilling year.

On the other hand it has been filled with odd little tragedies.  My parents house got hit by a Tornado, my  grandfather had a pretty bad heart attack (he survived).  But in the end every one was ok and every thing worked out.  So all of those personal tragedies worked out in the end.

Almost a year ago I posted on this blog that I wanted to do stuff in the new year.  I wanted to finish things and be proud of them.  I have done that.  I am extremely proud of the accomplishments I made this year.  I was tired of having tons of ideas and not following through.  I began to follow through and I feel great about it.  Could I improve?  Yes.  I already have a box full of projects to be worked on next year.  In the mean time I have been taking a step back enjoying everything that happend in 2012.

But as I did last year I want to set some goals for myself.  The goal I set for myelf last year was open ended and a bit vague (I tend to do that so I can't categorize my failure to comply :) ) This year I am willing to state a few more specific goals.  I want to add an addendum here though:  These are not resolutions - I don't believe in resolutions, instead they are goals.  That worked last year and It will work again. . . I hope.

1) and this has been a secret priority for some time.  I have been developing a fictional world for about 12 years, it has just been sitting in my head and on paper and in notebooks all of this time.  Earlier this year I decided to try to do something with it.  I have been developing a comic to get some of it out.  I have been fighting weather or not to draw it myself OR to find an artist.  At the moment I am drawing it myself. . . that might change tomorrow. . . but regardless I am putting at least one issue out this year!

2)  More new monster!  Last year I said that it was the year of the new monster and for us it was.  We had a blast.  in the new year you can expect to see more Collecting Nostalgia, more convention coverage and maybe even more vlogs!

3)  One things that viewers of this blog will see is more stuff for sale online.  I hope to be doing a kind of online "purge"  of some of my stuff.  so keep an eye out for that and you may find some incredible deals on things.

4) Starting a local show.  I have been in talks with some other locals in this area and we are on target to get some local toy/comic shows going hopefully they will be goos.

5) LAst but not least This blog!  I have neglected this blog for the second half of the year, but I hope to get back to it.  I did such a good job updating at the beginning of the year and then I let it go,  I hope to be back to normal soon.


Those are the things right on top, of course there are more, but a few of those are taking a lot of my time and thought at the moment.  SO be on the lookout for some of these things coming soon.

Als, Thanks to every one who has read this blog and have been supportive of me.  I kind of stumbled into this collecting/ popculture/ blogging community and you guys all really let me be part of it.  I have tried other communities before and it felt so hard to break in.  I am extremely happy to be part of this community!

Doctor Who The Snowmen . . . Thoughts

Christmas means many things for so many different people.  For Doctor Who fans for the past 8 or so years it has meant a new Christmas special, a slightly longer episode that holds us over un til the next season (or season half) begins.  This year is no different and the good doctor returns to us in a christmas special that, in my opinion, stands apart from the rest.

I have made no secret that I have not been a huge fan of the first two seasons of the Moffat produced, but I have also said the last half season has been my favorite of the Moffat produced offerings.  He is taking the character of the Doctor and the show in direction that I fully approve of, and in a direction that is fitting for the upcoming fiftieth anniversary.  I have to say this special continues that trend for my viewing pleasure.  

Lets start with the intro.  I could make this whole post about the intro.  I have actually kind of kept radio silence with this episode and had heard no rumors or anything of the sort, but as the transmission began and the intro began rolling I felt an energy in the air that I hadn't felt in a long time.  The colors swirled and if I'm not mistaken I saw throwbacks to just about every past intro in the shows history.  And then there it was!  Matt Smith's face subtly in the stars.  I had been waiting for this since the show came back.  It is one of those things that in the early days of nu-who us old timers thought that once we got that we would have arrived.  Well, we have arrived.  Watch the new intro below.

As the new intro finished the story began to unfold and we are introduced to snowmen and villains, and more interestingly the new companion. . . or should we say that we were introduced to her again. Yes Jenna Louise Coleman first played Oswin Oswald way back in Asylum of the Daleks and she met a strange demise.  There has been tons of speculation as to what her role may be, but now we begin to get some clarification.

I have to say I love the character of Clara, She is intriguing, and fun, and cheeky, and I am inclined to say Not the Ponds.  Now, I'm honestly not meaning that as a criticism of Amy and Rory, as I feel I made amends with my feelings toward them in the last half season, but the character that was presented tonight is the character I have been wanting to see in doctor who for a long time.  While she actually does share some traits with Amy, she is a go getter, and very adventurous.  I find her more believable  I can't say why, I just do.  I really feel like it is a case of Moffat having the ideal companion in his head for most of his life, and finally getting the chance to put it on paper.  for me that character came out as juvenile, now we are getting a more well developed character that has been developed by a 40 something professional writer and not the 12 year old mind of the same writer.  It will be interesting how he develops Clara.  I will try and keep this spoiler fee so I will not comment on any more than that!. . . for now.

I will say this.  We are once again introduced to the TARDIS again through the eyes of a companion.  and Oh what a sight it is.  While Clara goes in and back out and does the traditional run around the box and lets us all know that it is indeed "Smaller on the outside" (see what Moffat did there?)  We are introduced to a shiny new TARDIS console that is very reminiscent of the gleaming space age console so many of us grew up with.  Gone is the steam punk cobbled together TARDIS and once again are we introduced to the SPACE AGE.  I love it.  I love the controls behind the console.  I love the white and blues.  I love the rotating pieces above the rotor.  This is the TARDIS, for me, more than any other new who design.  As I am introduced to this room all I can think is "Welcome to Doctor Who"

The story brings in Madam vastra and company and they play, in my opinion, a fantastic role in this story.  Her story is expanded a bit and her role for the doctor himself is very interesting.  I have a feeling that we will see her quite a bit more.  These characters do tend to be more comic relief than they could have been, but, in my opinion there is not a word misused when they are on the screen.  I also like the fact that I feel like they are creating a new home base time for the doctor, He is carving out a home for himself in victorian Londen instead of a more modern London.  Madam vastra and crew have become a small family unit for the Doctor.  I'm intrigued by where they could go with this.

The story itself acts as a prequel to a story from 1967, the Web of fear indicating that the events of this story leads to the events of that story.  i love it when they do that and do it reasonably well.  I feel they did that.

Now I realize I am glowing about this story.  There were problems with it, but I don't feel the need to pick it apart, in the end I liked it and I choose to overlook the faults.  IT is the first time I have wanted to do that in a while so I will just honestly say that and let that be the end of it.

The Doctor is becoming more shrouded in mystery every time he steps on screen, all for a build up to the 50th anniversary, but this time we are given a companion that may be even more mysterious than him. 

I am excited to see the second half season for season 7.  The direction they are going is somewhere I feel is very good  I am excited to see where it leads us to november 23 of 2013.  I have feeling we have a great year to look forward to in terms of Doctor Who!  Check out the Snowmen, because I feel like it is the episode we will look back on and say that is when Doctor Who went into a new era.  I have a feeling it is a good era to be in!    

Of course I was disappointed to not see anything I recognized as an Ice Warrior in the trailer.

Media Dissection!?!?

Last night my wife and I went to see the New James Bond movie.  It was a decent enough movie but that is not the purpose of this post.  When the movie was over, I wanted to talk about it, analyze the pros and cons of the movie, debate weather the villain was a good bond villain.  My wife didn't tO the point where she said "I just want to watch a movie and enjoy it, I don't want to analyze it."  So then that got me thinking, have I become such a fanboy that I can't watch a movie, enjoy it, and then simply turn it off.  I'm not sure!

For me, talking about movies has always been just as important as watching the movie!  When I was young and my parents would take me to the movies when we walked out I wanted to talk about the movie we just watched.  That might be me talking about a fight scene I liked or it might be talking about how a character was, but I always talked abut it.  Heck it might have been ralking about a trailer I had seen.  That interaction  was important to me.

I think as I have grown up, the concept of talking about the media I consume has become even more important to me.  I suppose in a way it seems like a waste of time to simply watch a movie, TV show, or even read a book if you can't analyze it with friends.  This dissection has become the pivot point of my fandom, and maybe fandom in general.  The concept of discussion and analyzing the things we consume is. for me, the central idea of fandom. 

I have said it before, that my favorite part of a convention is sitting on a panel and talking to the other people on the panel, and people in the room about what they think about something.  The whirl wind of opinions give credence to the concepts and stories that the writers put forward.  As fans isn't it kind of our job to dissect these things?  I'm honestly don't think I react to anything else as much as I react to a good discussion of the merits (or flaws) or somethuing that I really like (or don't like)

Take the wheel of time (or any epic book series) for instance.  I could not imagine reading those books in a vacuum.  It would be impossible for me to read that last word and then just put it down and be happy that I had read it.  The act of reading and consuming these media has been about building community for me.  I can't imagine reading the last "Wheel of Time" book (that will be coming out in the early part of next year) without the community that has become something akin to a support group to me.  The community becomes just as important (if not more important) than the media itself.

And that idea of fan community of course has evolved from people sitting in living rooms discussing things they love to doing it at conventions and gatherings, but of course then it moved to the internet.  Forums and facebook pages, and even blogs like this one has become a way for me to express the things I like and talk about them with a much larger community.  The idea of consuming media without a community is almost foreign to me now.  

How do you consume media and participate in enjoying it,  do you watch and consume in a vacuum, being happy that you had the opportunity to have that media and then leave it at that?  Or do you dissect it and let it become more to you than just something that is turned off.  Let me know I really want to know how the media you consume effects you!          

Star Wars and the Disney Empire!

Like many within the sub-culture of fandom, yesterday I read the news that Lucas was selling most of his assets, including Star Wars to Disney for 4 billion Dollars.  I was on a roller coaster of emotions.  Star Wars is something I love.  It has been almost as important to me as Doctor Who over the years.  Disney however has, for some reason in my mind, represented oppression.  I don't know why it just has, so it is hard for me to rectify my emotions with this.  

Initially the news really bothered me it was one of those things where I needed to back off a bit and consume the news.  I thought about them sterilizing the franchise, killing it with Disney marketing etc. . .   But then I thought about it and and realized it really wasn't any different than what Lucas had done to the property himself.  He has already sterilized the movies that I grew up with.  changing them, and never being happy with them.  Disney could actually be one of the best things to happen to the franchise in some time!

There are a few things to look at though, that are going to be very important to the fan community.  Disney believes in being very proprietary with things that they own.  I mean they own it that is their right.  There have been a lot of law suits over copyright issues with Disney properties.  Shutting down fan projects etc. . .  Lucas has been very fan friendly, allowing fan films, using 501st people for events etc.  He understood the value of fans.  I'm not sure Disney is going to do that!  I think it will be a lot harder to do a lot of the things Lucas has allowed to happen under the eye of Disney and it's lawyers.

Another thing that is bothersome to me is that Disney now owns a huge chunk of my childhood.  Marvel, and now Star Wars.  It is a surreal experience to go into a Disney store and see Marvel merchandise.  To be fair that is all this is to Disney, something else to merchandise.  These characters mean a lot to so many fans.  Iron man and Thor are symbols just like Yoda and Luke Skywalker are symbols to so many people and to see them as a property is hard to fathom.  To see these characters relegated to Disney stores is also hard.

Of course,  I say that and understand that Lucas has been doing this for as long as the Star Wars franchise has been around, but for some reason it feel worse to me when it is Disney doing it it.  I mean, are we going to see Leia lined up with the other Disney Princesses?  I truly hope not.

Out of this deal does come a new movie.  It has always been said that the best stuff that has come out from star wars is the stuff with the least amount of involvement from Lucas himself, so I suspect 2015 will bring a great movie.  The 7th installment and probably the beginning of a new trilogy.  The thing to watch is if Disney will make this an event, where they run Star Wars into the ground by constantly inundating us with movies!  the other thing to watch is how they treat Extended Universe stuff.  Will the extended universe stuff be thrown out, or will it be immortalized on the big screen.  Time will tell!            

So keep an eye on the news and gear up for a couple fun years of watching this all unfold.  Watching where Disney will take the property.  

New things Bog-Nar commercial!

Once again I have been busying myself with bits and bobs but there are really things happening from my time at this point.  The most obvious and the easiest one to share is the Warlords of Wor Bog-nar Commercial that I have just finished with the rest of the New Monster Team.

We had a GREAT time working on this.  and each of us got to do the part we liked best.  what we have really found though, is that we really like shooting in this small scale!  I am a big fan of 80s toy commercials and I am really glad to be doing something in that tradition. We hope to do more so if any one reading this would like us to make a commercial of your product let us know we would love to do it!

so now the Commercial!







Other things I have been doing includes working on some art.  Its one of those things I've really been trying to get back into and it is coming.  I think I will be able to post a draft of the first page of my comic up soon.  Yes it looks like it might be happening.