The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

Post your ideas and suggestions for next year.

There's already been a idea to add some authors to the checklist, which I plan on doing.

Cardsfan111

Would there be any wisdom in switching months for the Sci-Fi/Animation challenges? For those with young children, it's fun to involve them in the animation challenge. However, the start of school in the next week or two puts a hurt on that.

Travis McClain

Other than adding the authors, I previously suggested adding movies involving the military to the checklist and that seemed to be a fairly welcomed idea. It seems there's a ton of SF movies where either the military has to clean up a mess created by scientists, or scientists have to fix something that the military has screwed up. Maybe call it "Science vs. Military" or some such.

Also, I have to say that I had a hard time with the checklist mostly because I was too unfamiliar with several of the genres and actors. I'm all for exploring the theme of a given challenge and I readily concede it was up to me to research the genres and actors to learn about them, but this was the first checklist I can recall where I felt really far in over my head. That's not to say that next year's checklist needs to pander to someone like me, mind you, since obviously there were several participants who had no problem finding and enjoying movies from each genre and starring each actor on the list. But if you do happen to throw a few more bones, it won't go unappreciated.

davidh777

One of the good things about sci-fi in July is that it's so big for relevant theatrical releases, especially with the Comic-Con tie-in. Of course there are animated releases in July as well.

My kids don't start till September so it's not such an issue for me, but my nieces in CA will be starting soon so I understand the schedule.

Travis McClain

I can see the appeal for Animation in July, but I do have to say that July is also traditionally a big month for new Sci-Fi/Fantasy movies at the theater. Not only are we likelier to see new releases during July, but we're likelier to get the urge to re-watch older movies (or finally get around to ones we haven't yet seen) during July.

Just this year, July brought us Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Captain America: The First Avenger and Cowboys & Aliens. Also released in July and eligible for the challenge: Zookeeper, Winnie the Pooh, Another Earth and The Smurfs. Now, according to the very generous CGI clause in the Animation Challenge guidelines, most of these would also be eligible for Animation, but I personally feel most are more appropriate for Science-Fiction/Fantasy (the two exceptions being Winnie the Pooh and The Smurfs).

Cardsfan111

As I posted, I kept thinking there must have been a specific reason why July was chosen for the Sci-Fi challenge. Perhaps we can switch it with the Historical Appreciation Challenge then?

Travis McClain

So it would go:

TV on DVD* (January)
Academy Awards (~February)
Drive-In/Exploitation/B-Movie (April)
Make Your Own (May)
Animation (June)
Science-Fiction/Fantasy (July)
Historical Appreciation (August)
Criterion (September)
Horror (October)
Comedy (November)
Holiday (~December)

I don't see why we couldn't switch Historical Appreciation with Animation next year, honestly. In fact, I kinda like going from that into the Criterion challenge because there's a lot of overlap and this way as long as I prioritized properly, I could sort of draw out Historical Appreciation and not have to rush through the epics in what is typically a busy month. I'll pitch it elsewhere, but it seems fine to me.

My only condition is that since we'd be doing this to accommodate participants with kids, they have to also participate in the Historical Appreciation challenge in August. You'll learn some history whether you like it or not!

lisadoris

I thought July was chosen to coincide with movie releases but I have no problem if there's a switch.

My only comment, and this may just be my issue, was that some of the actors in the checklist seem to have more horror titles under their belt than sci-fi/fantasy which made it difficult to find titles. But maybe that's the point: you've got to work to get the checklist completed! Adding authors is a great idea - you could finish half the challenge just on Philip K. Dick adaptations.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

Unlike horror, action, comedy, etc., there's not really any actors that primarily do sci-fi/fantasy. Then you also have actors that did some but everything they did was pretty much part of a series. William Shatner's done a lot of sci-fi but when you think of him, you think Star Trek. If you go back really far you get folks that did a lot of sci-fi but they also did a lot of horror as well.

I'm thinking about trimming the number of actors down some but then increasing the situations or types of creatures found in these movies instead.

pagefrance

I second the trimming of the Actor's list and while you're at it, also the Directors list. It was these two where I had the least entries on the checklist.
Another suggestion (which I also made for the Horror challenge) was to include "Watch a made for TV movie". There are MANY of these. In fact, practically all the SyFy original movies fall under this category.

Ash Ketchum

I had a hard time with the checklist also and didn't really make much of an effort to complete it. It had too many genres and directors I have absolutely no interest in. I was intent on watching stuff I already have in my collection that I am interested in (Godzilla, Gamera, Ultraman, Power Rangers/sentai, classic Hollywood sci-fi, serials, giant robot anime, etc.) and I barely managed to get through even a fraction of what I wanted to see in those piles.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

Agree with the tv movie.

I'll probably cut director's down to two and try to have one that focused more on sci-fi and one on fantasy.

BobO'Link

While I *did* manage to complete the checklist the Directors gave me the most trouble as IMHO only Roger Corman has enough product and is more closely associated with the sci-fi/fantasy genre. Bakshi is limited, as is Band and Dante. Without checking again I only remember about a half-dozen titles *at best* for each of these three.

The "sub-genres" were a bit problematic mainly due to me not being familiar with many of them. It took close reading of the discussion thread and some research for more than a few to come up with a title I felt qualified.

The "paranormal" sub-genre also feels out of place in sci-fi as I associate this one with ghosts/manifestations/horror type stuff.

The only actor which felt somewhat out of place was Randy Quaid. I'd have to look again to see, but the titles felt very limiting. There were others in the actors which also felt limiting but they were also in some "big name" and/or "classic" sci-fi or fantasy films.

All in all, I felt the checklist was not too bad. Some challenge but nothing that couldn't be overcome by a bit of research. With only a couple of exceptions I completed the checklist using only titles in my collection.

I like the idea of including authors and cutting down the actor and director list in favor of more sub-genre entries *if* they can have no overlap with some of the others. I'm OK with "made for TV" simply because I have a few very good, as well as a few not so good, titles in my collection that fit. The Sci-Fi Channel productions of Dune and Dune Messiah are well worth the time to watch, unlike most of what sy-fy turns out.

BobO'Link

Oh yeah... I'm cool with swapping any of the challenges except Horror - it MUST be in October, and Holiday - it MUST be in December. Having the sci-fi one coincide with theatrical releases doesn't mean a thing for me.

popcorn

Although I didn't go that route this year, having the Sci-Fi/Fantasy Challenge in July is good because it coincides with the 4th of July Twilight Zone marathon. It's always a great way to revisit classic episodes and stay on task. Also, by July most of the summer movies blockbusters are out. There are already many major ones scheduled: The Avengers, Men in Black 3, Snow White & The Huntsman, The Amazing Spider-Man, and (YAY!) The Dark Knight Rises.

Trevor

I love the idea of moving Challenges around to better accommodate including kids, but I'm not sure if the proposed changes would be that much better. Different school districts have vastly different schedules, so some of us may think June and July are best for our kids participating with us, and some will prefer July and August.

This is a crazy idea, and no one else will like it, but what about allowing more personal freedom in the summer months? Some of us would do Sci-Fi in July, and some in August, or even June. Sure, it somewhat diminishes the main goal of these Challenges, communal viewing; but it might be worth thinking about.

Travis McClain

The merits of going to the theater are a subject for another thread (and there's really nothing new to be said on the matter anyway). But I would say that even if you don't get to a theater during the month of July, there are typically scores of new releases that will be heavily advertised and discussed and that kind of attention is usually good for inspiring participants to watch or re-watch similar movies. To wit:

Even if you just wanted to watch movies specifically connected with that assortment, you're looking at Hulk, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, Men in Black, Men in Black II, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. There's also the first Spider-Man trilogy, the direct-to-video Batman: Gotham Knight and of course one might also want to re-watch Disney's Snow White (or any of the other ubiquitous screen versions). That's without going on a Will Smith Sci-Fi kick (Independence Day, I Am Legend, Hancock) or delving into other superhero movies.

So are you proposing a sort of "mix-and-match" June-August block of challenges, where different groups would actively partake in each of the three during different months? I'm willing to go down that hypothetical rabbit hole with you, but I can't imagine it not eventually leading us to what you've already conceded: It would be too detached from the communal viewing nature of the challenges. At that point, it becomes little more than a vaguely synchronized "Rate 'Em as You See 'Em" series rather than a thematic challenge.

Although, I will go ahead and use this opportunity to mention a thought I've had before, and that's to expand most of the challenges to the entire year--with the absolute goal of 100 movies watched per challenge. It can be hard to get into, or stay in, the mood for a given theme for a month. I'd be much likelier to get to 100 Exploitation/B-Movies if I could spread it out.

Of course, this too leads to the same problem as your proposal: there's no real communal aspect to it. It would be an awfully open-ended aggregate of personal lists rather than a specific group sharing a specific theme at a specific time.

I'm willing to trade June for one of the other challenges if that would be more helpful, but I think anything other than specific themes for specific time frames gets too far away from the point of challenges.

Trevor

^ Yep, 100 in a month is pretty insane, and this from one who has done it multiple times in a row. I doubt I'll ever do it even once again though, at least not in the "hardcore numbering" Challenges.

If I could change one thing about the Challenges, I'd make them all "easy numbering" like the Holiday Challenge. 100 TV shows or shorts in one month is ridiculously high enough, I think the goal of 100 movies (or the "hard numbering" equivalent) not only turns a few people off from the whole process, but it cuts down on our discussions. Over three films a day leaves little to no time to participate in the threads.

davidh777

This is a good point. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, my kids go back in September and didn't get out till mid-June.

I'd echo the same concerns. Without the communal watching, things would be more like the What Are You Watching threads, which I've posted in a couple times when I watched something off-challenge, and it seemed to be just people posting on the run and moving on. Didn't really see much point actually.

BobO'Link

You are correct! Sorry about that... My ire kicked in and I got on a justification rant which was totally unnecessary. Didn't mean to thread crap... post cleaned to remove irrelevant text.