Five Things I Am Into Right Now, July 2014

Posted on July 15, 2014 by Scott D. Southard

This might as well be called my month of nerd. With the continuously releasing news about Star Wars Episode 7, Doctor Who, The Hobbit, and everyone else fantastical, I’m in many ways in nerd heaven. Heck, I even thought the last season of Game of Thrones was the best one so far (which I wrote about here)! And there have even been rumblings about Indiana Jones!

Now, here is the thing that has been obsessing me more than any other (possibly making me a king of the nerds)- I’ve got an idea for a Scooby-Doo movie.

You know how they seem to release one to two direct-to-video Scooby-Doo cartoon each year? Some are great (and I have seen them all, so I can judge), some are okay and some are frankly bad (for example, when Shaggy sings a love song to his alien girlfriend). Well, I have an idea/plot/synopsis for a Scooby-Doo cartoon movie and it is doozy.

I’m not joking! I have an idea for a Scooby-Doo animated movie and it would be freaking great!

The trick (and it is a big trick) is figuring out how (and who) to throw my synopsis at. You see I would love to write this script (and it wouldn’t take me long), I just need to know if it would be read before I go to the trouble of doing it. So here I sit, twiddling my thumbs trying to figure out exactly how someone gets a message into the world of WB Animation. Seriously, I have no clue.

Now before anyone worries, I won’t be changing anything we know about Scooby-Doo if this script is picked up and the beats we all expect in his stories. I don’t want to break the mold; I just want to create a fun adventure in that world. Also, as a parent of two little kids who are obsessed with Scooby-Doo, it would be really great to do something like that for them.

“Hey kids, guess what? Your dad wrote a Scooby-Doo movie. Want to watch it?”

Oh, these are all just dreams, I get that. Without contacts or an agent (who works specifically with writers around this) to go to WB Animation and pitch the idea, it will only be a fun daydream. I just can’t help but dream… dream of Scooby Snacks and pizzas covered in ice cream, anchovies, pickles, hamburgers, and salami, that is.

Now on to my very nerdy list for this month! Continue reading →

Underwhelmed by Pottermore

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Scott D. Southard

Maybe it is the Ravenclaw in me, but I was expecting something with a little more creativity and inspirational zing from Pottermore.com.

Pottermore… I remember when I first heard of the Web site. What a great idea! An online experience around Hogwarts that also works as an opportunity for JK Rowling to share new insights into the world of Harry Potter. The last part is what got me the most; see, while as satisfied as I was with the end of Potter (both book and on film), a part of me still missed the universe. It had found a home in my heart next to Middle Earth and a galaxy far, far away (not the prequels), and that is quite an achievement.

Pottermore first opened for Beta testers last year. I did not work to become a beta tester because I assumed it wouldn’t be beta tested for that long. I mean, they just got done making a major announcement that stretched the entire world about the new site! You don’t do that unless you are ready to go. I mean, it is unheard of to do otherwise.

Well, surprising it is heard of! My bad.

The Beta testers “owned” the site from Fall to April of this year (while the main page kept promising its opening in a month that was long gone), as I, and most of the other Potter fans waited and waited… Continue reading →

Goodbye Mr. Potter

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Scott D. Southard

I have a new film/book editorial up at Green Spot Blue. It is on the last Harry Potter films and what it means for the series. Here is an excerpt from the beginning.

I remember the first time I read J.K. Rowling.

I was a grad student at the University of Southern California studying fiction writing and I had no hesitation in pooh-poohing (yes, I said pooh-pooh, we snobby writers talk like that) the books to my fellow writers. They were modern-day kid books, surely like a thousand published every year. A flash in the pan, a lucky break.

One of my fellow students argued for the books and, as part of a challenge, gave me the first four books to read, claiming I will be addicted after the first chapter.

…I finished all four books in one weekend.

I never loved the first two movies; I enjoyed them, I liked them, I even bought them, but I didn’t love them.

They were fun, but they really didn’t capture the essence of the books for me. Usually I would watch them wondering what someone like Terry Gilliam (JK Rowling’s first choice, and brilliant notion, for directing the first book) would have done and how long it would be before they were remade… Then the third film came out.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban truly and perfectly captured to me the book series. That is how I envisioned the world when I read them and he laced it from beginning to end with the living, breathing magic that seemed to be missing from the first two films.

He focused the story on Harry’s perspective, captured his wonder, and, more importantly, actually created terror; because, as much as we like to forget that fact, the Harry Potter books are full of it. The first chapter is about a double homicide, don’t forget, of parents while their young child watched. Why is that not more shocking to people?

Yet, for an entire generation of readers the Potter Universe is a place of safety. It is place of escape, of wonder… but it is also a world where a person can be killed simply by a wand and two deadly words.

So what is it that draws readers there with such love again and again?

You can read the rest of the article here.