No X-Centric on the podcast this week so instead here’s my contribution to the continuing march towards Sidekick’s world-domination.

McGarr's post of 09/10/08 really struck a chord with me. I'm very, very interested to see how his epic comes out and I'm really pleased to see him getting knee-deep in the creative process. In a comment on his post I mentioned my hope that other people would be inspired to put pen to paper.

Now I’ve never been one to shy away from an opportunity to lead by example and so I include here for your reading pleasure a screenplay-style sequence from the X-Men movie I would make if I had Jerry Bruckheimer onboard as producer and an unlimited budget. I may develop this story in lieu of appearances on the podcast, so please no "Is that it?" but more like "Ah yeah, that's it!"

To set the scene for you, we’re shooting on a Pinewood sound stage and I’m sitting in my director’s chair having just seen this morning’s rushes. Whilst I’m going through a nip/tuck of today’s shooting schedule, one of my flunkies comes over with a sandwich and a fresh mug of weak lemon drink. Life is good. I take a break from my brunch to consider some choice gags for my Oscar-acceptance speech, concentrating particularly on that one about the audition tape for... I’m snapped from my reverie by my PA:
“Sir, have you remembered that Mr Bruckheimer is visiting the set today? His helicopter is just landing now.”
“Rodney, call Derek. Tell him we’ll shoot the Danger Room sequence today. And Rodney...”
“Yes sir?”
“Tell him that we’ll shoot the version with the extra explosions.”

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Origins. We all come from somewhere, we all are shaped by where we have come from.

I’ve found myself delving into origin stories recently and have been thinking about this form of story-telling as a whole.

Firstly, I’ll name-check my most recent reads. Courtesy of x-centric Ned, I had a browse at some of the x-men origin series, in particular the Jean Grey, Angel, Colossus, and Magneto Testament (the 6-1-9 this week as podcasters will know!!) comics. I’ve also recently re-read Batman: The Long Halloween which features an updated origin story of a major character (you’ll just have to read if you want to know who!). I enjoyed all of these a great deal, aside from the Jean Grey one, which I found to be fairly boring in all honesty and illustrated with quite bland colouring and sugar-coated images. I don’t think this comic does Jean Grey’s complexity as a character any favours at all, but Marvel obviously saw something in it…

Anyway, with all of these beginnings of characters being explored etc I’ve been wondering how important is the origin story to the art of story-telling? Of course, if you are introducing a new character to the world, then there has to be some kind of back story there to keep you engaged and fill out the character. But, when we are dealing with the likes of the x-men, do we really need to go into their histories again and note certain moments in their life as being a massive influence on them? Hasn’t that already been done by Stan Lee and his writers back in the day? Don’t we just want to see them kick bad guys’ asses, and save the world, and then have a beer back at the School laughing over what was narrowly averted?!

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Link: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/j_j_abrams_mystery_box.html

OK so not strictly comics, well or any where near it really but its the same sort of geekery, so suffer it. J.J. Abrams; Lost, Cloverfield, Mission: Impossible III, etc, etc gave a talk at TED last year and it has been released on the TED web site.

Its interesting to hear him talking about his love of the unknown, the so called "mystery box" and how it relates to not just story telling, but to me life in general. I think this is very obviously illustrated in Lost with the mystery island and also in Cloverfield by the monster you barely see. In Lost, I think its pretty much the mystery that drives you on to watch it. I confess that by the 4th season we should really have something invested in the characters but if this was a series just about those people living in suburbia somewhere handing out wondrous insight in voice over format, would we still be watching?

I would like to think that this sorta comes into the school of thought that "the more you see the less you imagine, so the less you see the more you imagine", but I'm kinda torn. The first few seasons of Lost I was well into, talking it up, hitting Google, trying to work out WTF was going on and really loving the intrigue. After a few seasons though, although I'm still an avid watcher and enjoy it, I'm not really so bothered about trying to work it out any more. I'm happy to allow them to be story tellers and for me to be the audience. My question is though that surely its the "trying to work it out" that is you using your imagination? Or is it? Can you still be fulfilling that part of you that wants to work it out, by not trying to work it out and just being along for the ride, or is the need, the want to "understand". So being along for the ride will get you there it just might take a little longer.

In essence I think he is saying be curious, ask questions and find out why. Its only our own curiosity that has driven us on to make the strives forwards in life that has gotten us here, and that just because we are older doesn't mean we shouldn't have a child's curiosity that may drive us on to have richer and fuller life experiences.

Nothing ground breaking but JJ, I salute you.