JT Creative Update | Feb. 12, 2025
What’s Going On
Had a great chat this week with one of my film buddies about a couple of feature scripts I’ve written and got great feedback to use for future drafts. And we may be venturing into co-authorship of a different feature script which I don’t want to reveal too much about just yet.
Writing continues on The Io Insurgency and Android Orpheus, with the former probably getting wrapped up before the latter. Got a couple of sales on a few of my books last week, but things overall continue to be relatively slow on that front.
But, if you’d like to explore a different Theriault author, my sister-in-law has her debut novel coming out this Friday! If you’re a fan of post-apocalyptic stories in the style of Fallout or METRO, I believe you’d enjoy The Soul’s Descent. You can pre-order digital editions here, or grab a physical copy from the same link on Friday, February 14.
Jake’s Weekly Sci-fi Recommendation
This week I’d like to draw your attention to a quirky little film from 2008, the Wachowski’s live-action adaptation of Speed Racer.
I can imagine the trade magazines probably found it odd that the first thing the Wachowski’s would make after their Matrix trilogy of ultra-violent, hyper-stylized, sci-fi action movies (aside from writing and producing the filmic adaptation of Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta), they would make a PG-rated, 2+ hour, bright, pastel-colored adaptation of a children’s cartoon; but I’m so thankful they did.
I know nothing of the original manga and anime from which this movie was borne, and prior to first watching this version of the film in 2021, my only experience with it was as a child at our local Sam’s Club in Southern California, where the beginning of the Casa Cristo rally race in the second act was constantly used to demonstrate the picture quality of the huge line of shiny, new TVs that loomed over the entrance of the store.
It is my understanding that critics and audiences were unkind to this movie when it first came out, and I can understand why. It is goofy, saccharinely earnest, and relies on a glut of digital effects that weren’t—in some places—quite ready to carry a film of this magnitude; but critics and audiences in 2008 were WRONG. This movie RULES.
It is, at its core, a film about art and artists; specifically about making art in a world that seemingly seeks only to exploit artists and their work. Susan Sarandon plays the mother of titular Speed Racer (his actual name), and in a truly lovely, human moment in the second act, delivers a magnificent mini-monologue in which she says,
“When I watch you do some of the things you do, I feel like I’m watching someone paint or make music—I go to the races to watch you make art.”
This pointing of the film’s narrative lens towards its underlying themes is not particularly subtle, and yet grounds the film’s emotional arc with such simplicity that by the time Ma Racer’s words echo in Speed’s ears near the closing moments of the film, they almost brought me to tears.
The final act of this film is as wild as you possibly imagine: a high speed, high stakes race through a convoluted, Hot-Wheels-style track with huge loops, drops, and dangerous obstacles, which contains some of the most visually dazzling images I’ve ever seen put to film.
This movie rocks. Go watch Speed Racer.