This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: Author Filibuster: From YKTTW
Author Filibuster launched as Author Filibuster Discussion: From YKTTW
Unistrut: There's a line under Michael Crichton talking about him being a scientist working with advanced mathematics. I can't find anything that backs that up. Is it just wrong or do I fail at Google?
theorc: He's a doctor, and I believe he has studied medieval history, but I can't find anything about math either.
Ununnilium: Taking out:
- Starship Troopers was written in by a furious Robert Heinlein, after liberals advocated signing of the nuclear test ban treaty.
...because, well, what's the filibuster?
Twin Bird: How is John Galt a Designated Hero? You won't like him if you disagree with the book's message, but if you like it, he's heroic through and through.
Also, 1984 and Moby Dick. I thought an Author Filibuster was when the action was interrupted for the author to go on a tangent, not when the plot served to illustrate An Aesop. Goldstein's book is definitely an Author Filibuster, and I've never read Moby Dick, but isn't calling an entire novel an Author Filibuster a contradiction in terms?
JW: Ok, maybe I've misunderstood something, but sin't John Galt a raging rapist? Doesn't, you know, sound like a hero to me.
Twin Bird: Because you're not Ayn Rand...
Binaroid: Besides, you're thinking of Roark from The Fountainhead. Galt's a Stalker with a Crush at worst.
Jordan: I remember reading somewhere that the Goldstein parts of 1984 are deliberately tedious and kind of meant to show this kind of philosophizing not solving any problems. Has anyone else come across that?
Pro-Mole: I'm writing this again, so I'm going to do it quickly: no, Twin Bird, it's just a humorous Take That!. We're not The Other Wiki, you know...
- Since a picture is worth a thousand words, this one counts: The cover very first issue of Captain America, published almost a year before America actually entered WWII, depicts Captain America delivering a smashing right cross to the jaw of Adolf Hitler.
- Nearly every other Captain America cover between then and 1945 also had the Cap beating the crap out of Hitler or a random Japanese person. It's just how he rolled.
- In fact, most superheroes were fighting Nazis before US involvement in the war.
No. A cover image does not count for this, proverb or not.
Ununnilium: Moved the John Galt line back up, because I think it works better as part of the main entry than as a joke afterwards; it explains the trope precisely for those who know the context.
- I found that hilarious because my Meteorology Prof and I spent a long discussion about how the compact fluorescent light bulbs contain Murcury and can be even more harmful to the environment than the actual carbon emissions they attempt to cure unless they are properly disposed. Of course proper disposal facilities are few and far between.
- If you're going down that route, you may as well throw 99% of pre-twentieth-century writing under this trope. It was considered acceptable in those days to stop the plot for a little bit in order to spend five or six pages on scene-setting or background. Some authors - Hugo, in this troper's opinion - did it well, other authors - say, Anne Radcliffe - seem to be under the mistaken assumption that one page of plot must be promptly followed by 19 pages of description and rather bad poetry, extemporaneously written by the heroine. But it wasn't usually done in order to preach to the reader, it's just a Dead Horse Trope.
Scene-setting and background isn't the same as this trope.
Antheia: Took out the Zero Punctuation example. Reviews are meant to express opinions, and they don't have plots.
Merciless: I added 1984 back in. That's one of my favorite books, but I had a hard time getting through the "Goldstein" parts. If this doesn't qualify as Author Filibuster, then there needs to be a Golgstein category because Orwell seriously dropped the narrative for a good chapter or so just droning on philosophically.
Took this out:
- Deliberately done in Fight Club. During one of Tyler Durden's nihilistic monologues, he turns to the camera, apparently talking straight at us. There are then some fake flaws in the film where it seems to slip to the side and buckle slightly. This is to make it as clear as possible that these lines were written to be heard by us, and that we're here to listen.
- Also, there are usually one frame insets of porn in those scenes (hence the shaky video). Go on, turn on the frame by frame, I'll wait.
- This one doesn't really count, strictly, given that Tyler and his followers are shown to be pathalogical.
- Calling these scenes an Author Filibuster would assume that the filmmakers agree with Tyler Durden's philosophy.
because the filmmakers aren't actually advocating Durden's philosophy. Also, a character addressing the camera is not really a filibuster in and of itself, and the action doesn't stop for Durden to deliver his message. Durden's message pretty much is the action of the film.
Jyrinx: Boston Legal was doing author filibusters from the very first episode (in the form of an Al Sharpton cameo). I don't recall there being any significant ramping-up in season four; they were an every-episode occurrence IIRC. In fact, I'd say it's fair to consider the show as often wandering into Author Tract territory (like The West Wing), and I was a die-hard fanboy :-)
Cynthia Wakefield: I assume there's a reason Cerebus isn't here? Because it's the most infamous comics example I know of — the actual "graphic novel" coming to a screeching halt for page after page of text that begins with a short story about the writing process and then moves into a LONG misogynistic rant ... and then, a hundred-odd issues later, panel after panel of Cerebus writing as Dave Sim, the author, proceeds to annotate the Bible for issue after issue.
BritBllt: I'm surprised this example lasted as long as it did...
- In Star Trek (2009), this is actually done well, with
AbramsOld Spock explaining in a gentle manner that the film is Alternate Continuity, so you shouldn't be angry about it...a lesson some of us need to learn.- This Trekkie troper has seen more arrogant, condescending preaching from people telling the fans not to whine about the movie than she has actual whines. In fact, she has only seen one whine, and that one was so minor it hardly counts.
- That would be impressive were it not common sense that someone must be whining to be told to stop whining. Cool fabrication though.
- Hey everybody, it's just a movie.
- This Trekkie troper has seen more arrogant, condescending preaching from people telling the fans not to whine about the movie than she has actual whines. In fact, she has only seen one whine, and that one was so minor it hardly counts.
...because no, just no. Spock Prime spending five minutes narrating a flashback scene about the movie's Time Travel premise is not an "author filibuster" in any possible sense. The person who first added it in was just complaining about people not liking the movie, and then the next person took the bait.
I'm deleting the Animorphs example. It's not a filibuster; it's just one or two paragraphs, and the line about the Boy Scouts is just one line that Applegate probably threw in because she didn't want to bring up race/sex prejudice like everyone else.
Count Dorku: Cut this:
- Starting in the '80s, the newspaper strip B.C. became more and more a vehicle for cartoonist Johnny Hart's brand of evangelical Christianity. This has been averted since Hart died in 2007 and the strip has passed into the hands of others.
