#ryan tandy

Interview with Ryan Tandy

Tell us about your publishing journey…

I started writing about three years ago, but have been focus on prose for the last 12 months or so. I’ve tried journalism, film & TV scripts and graphic novels, but genre fiction is the thing I enjoy most. I’ve had a few short stories published so far and am looking to bring out my own collection in the next few months as an ebook.

What do you love about…

Reports Ryan Tandy Has Been Found Dead After Drug Overdose

Numerous news sources are reporting that former NRL player Ryan Tandy has died of an apparent drug overdose.

Police have already stated the his death is not being classed as suspicious.

This is very sad news. Ryan Tandy obviously had issues he was dealing with over the last few years.

My thoughts are with his family and friends.

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So I wanted to write something about computer games since the start of the year, but couldn’t figure out what to put down. I’m pretty up on current affairs when it comes to gaming so I thought I’d find some inspiration during my daily news reading. But it turns out the only thing it’s done is make me even more cynical about the general shittiness of the majority of humanity.

It all started with this article over at IGN, which talked about how gamers are becoming more fickle with regards to consumption of new titles and reluctance to play something once the bigger/better upgrade comes out. Then I read this interview with Greg Zescuk, one of the founders of Bioware who retired from the industry back in September. When discussing his reasons for quitting he touched upon the fact that he felt the fans were angry at him for leaving because ‘they think we owe them more games’. This statement is pretty sad in itself, but when you consider the whole Mass Effect 3 ending fiasco (which I will come back to later) on top of this it starts to feel like a guy who love making video games was forced out of the industry because he could no longer deal with the insane demands of the people he’d spent so long pleasing. And when I read some of the reaction to Rockstar’s announcement regarding the delay of GTA V I realised something that I’d be fighting for a long time; not only are gamers fickle, but a lot of them are also entitled, childish assholes.

Now this obviously does not apply to every gaming fan, but the facts are pretty hard to ignore. If you don’t believe me, try this; head over to one of the bigger game news websites and click on an article at random. Now scroll down and read the comment section. The majority of these will be whining diatribes about how X studio or Z franchise is doing it wrong, and how the previous instalment or offering was so much better and how they better not change the game or they aren’t going to buy it, etc, etc. Even removing those comments that are obviously trolling for a reaction, you’re unlikely to find more hate and stupidity in any one place outside of the BNP’s yearly conference. Personally it’s gotten to the point where I can’t even glance at these responses for fear of grinding my teeth into a fine powder.

Part of the problem (although in no way an excuse) is that the games industry has always been a bit more of a two way street than other entertainment areas. Going back ten or fifteen years gaming was very much a niche hobby, meaning developers would be more likely to interact with the fans regarding how the games are made. In fact, there are a lot of people involved in the industry who likely got their first break through modding or expanding games that had already been made. And we have to acknowledge that a medium like computer games lives and dies by the feedback it receives from its users – if film goers hates a particular character and wants them killed off in a sequel the director is unlikely to change it just to please them, as there are likely to be many more who love the character. But if a cover system doesn’t work in a computer game and the people who brought it complain the developers HAVE to fix it for the sequel or it won’t sell. There’s an inherent difference between the mechanics of something working or not working and an opinion over a character or story line element. So while I completely agree that people should be able to say if something’s broken and expect it to be fixed, they have no right to demand someone change their artistic vision just because they didn’t like it. This brings us onto the Mass Effect 3 debacle.

When ME 3 was released, fans were eager to play the end game of what is arguably the franchise of this console generation. But soon after release the complaints started flooding in about the game’s ending, with fans slamming it for its relatively short length and lack of pay off that left them feeling they deserved more. Under a deluge of bad press, Bioware and publishers EA relented and released a new, downloadable ending which added new cut-scenes to the end of game in an attempt to expand on the fate of the characters involved. Now while this might seem like the best solution for everyone concerned I personally feel annoyed that these companies, both of who would be rated pretty high on the top ten lists in their respective industries roles, bowed down to the completely crazy demands of a bunch of over privileged little bitches who felt like they were owed a better ending by Bioware. Let me just clarify something for you now, fucknuts – they don’t owe you a thing. You chose to buy the games; no one’s putting a gun to your head. The Mass Effect series probably clocks in at 75 hours of total play time if you complete the various side quests, and the character creation system and conversation options means you could play through the whole thing at least twice and have an entirely different experience. So to reiterate the point – THEY OWE YOU NOTHING! And if they chose to end their story, an overarching space opera set in one of the richest science fiction worlds you’ll ever encounter in any medium, with a little ambiguity then good luck to them. It’s their choice, not yours. Can you imagine Christopher Nolan responding to the criticism of Dark Knight Rises by going back and shooting a new ending? Of course not, and if someone at Warner Bros was to suggest this they would rightly have been forced to watch Green Lantern on a loop until their eyes melted. But that’s Hollywood, the cool kid on the block. The kids from the Science club, on the other hand, have to pander.

Maybe it’s just the fact that we as gamers are living in a relative golden age for our pastime. The most vocal majority of gamers tend to be between the ages of 16 and 22, and have never known anything other than triple A titles with hyper realistic graphics and online multiplayer. They have no concept of mind numbing loading times and difficulty spikes that make you want to chew the controller in sheer, tear inducing rage. In short they’re spoilt, and think the world at large owes them something. Had GTA V been released with some game breaking bug, the same people who lit up the Rockstar forums with rage about the delay would have been the first in the queue to moan about it, highlighting the ‘Damned if you do and damned if you don’t’ attitude that’s stifling creativity and risk taking, and forcing publishers to play it safe year after year.

A few weeks ago the latest red band trailer for the Evil Dead remake appeared online, popping up on a couple of horror websites with some fairly positive comments attached. It took me about a week to work up the courage to actually watch the trailer (the very definition of a first world problem), but I eventually got around to it a few days ago. And to be fair, it looks fucking awesome and has shot straight to the top of my Must Watch list for this year.

Now obviously I’m kicking myself at having waited so long to watch it, and for being so down on the project before. But given the overall quality of horror remakes in the last twenty years I think the scepticism was justified. But what if I had allowed myself to be so blinded by my objection to yet another remake that I missed out on the film all together? I’d have been denying myself the chance to see a potentially great movie because I was worried that it MAY turn out to be crap.

So I decided to sit down and thrash out five general rules, based on my vast (ish) experience of films, to be considered when approaching a remake. Please note that this does not apply to the reboot or the reimagining. A reboot is fine as long as they don’t give the Batsuit nipples to try and go ‘Nolan-dark’, and reimaginings are acceptable as long as they don’t just change a couple of small details and recast everyone. That would be a remake. And there are rules about remakes.

1. Original team increases chances of success

The fact that both Sam Raimi (original director/writer) and Bruce Campbell (ASH!!) are both involved in the Evil Dead remake was a massive shot in the arm for my confidence about this film. Both of these guys may not have even been in show business without this film, so would hope they are going to treat it with the appropriate love and respect, instead of just whoring it out to the highest bidder.

The presence of the original director or writer is very rarely a bad thing. Not many people know that Michael Mann’s Heat was essentially a remake of an earlier TV project he did called LA Takedown, just with a bigger budget, and David Cronenberg has recently stated he’d love to remake his version of The Fly (which is a remake, but stay with me here). And anyone who has seen Evil Dead 2 knows it should have really been titled ‘The Evil Dead movie Sam Raimi would have made if he’d had an original budget of more than thirty dollars and a coupon for washing powder’. Although to be fair it probably wouldn’t have fitted on the poster.

2. Never watch the Americanized version of a foreign film

My absolute biggest irritation with cinema today and horror in particular is the insistence of taking a great film and remaking it with an English speaking cast, purely because lazy assholes can’t be bothered to engage their brains long enough to read subtitles. Not only does it make us look like morons (which, granted, a lot of people are), but these remakes always manage to strip away the love and detail of the original piece and leave us with a sterile film that lacks the touch of someone who really cared about the story they were trying to tell. Do yourself a favour and dig out the original, I offer you the Ryan Tandy personal guarantee that it will be twice as good as the remake.

3. Don’t watch a remake of a film that’s less than five years old

This one sort of ties in with the point above, but I still feel it’s relevant. The simple truth is that Hollywood seems to be so scared of risks and new ideas that the safest projects will always be the ones that get back. So remaking a smaller picture that did relatively well with a couple of A listers and slightly better production values is an idea that seems to be met with enthusiasm amongst the power brokers of cinema. Trust me, it’s not.

4. Adhering too closely to the original is a bad thing too (ie accept modernization)

While I agree that any film that goes too far from the original should always be treated with suspicion, it’s also worth noting that sticking too rigidly to the old interpretation can also be a recipe for a stinker. Remakes such as The Italian Job and Ocean’s Eleven (say what you want, I like it) did a great job of keeping the same big beats as the original while making the story relevant to today. And on the horror side of things Rob Zombie’s remake of Halloween gave us some valuable back story for Michael Myers, allowing us a glimpse into what made the man a monster.

5. Give it a chance!

Happy New Year one and all. So I was sat flicking through Twitter the other day when an article from Sarah Kuhn of Apex Magazine popped up on my feed concerning geek girls, and how male geeks seem hell bent on discrediting them on the grounds they have an extra X in the old chromosomal pairing. As well as being a superbly written piece that made me feel a little ashamed of my gender, it also got me thinking about my own feelings about the exclusion and derision that some people feel is necessary to keep the halls of Sci-Fi and fantasy pure. So I just thought I would share my thoughts on the matter, as well as some broader thoughts, from the perspective of a medically certificated geek and male. This isn’t a rebuttal of any kind, as I agree with everything she said in the article, but more of a companion piece from the other side of the room.

I’ve always found the whole elitism attitude that seems to permeate near every niche interest, from comic books to computer games, to be fairly depressing. To my mind fandom should be the ultimate equal opportunities past time. On paper there are no barriers to entry, no tests that need to be passed in order to become a fan of something. You don’t need to be able to run the hundred metres in ten seconds to be a fan of athletics, just as you don’t need to be a great director to enjoy the work of David Fincher.  All you need is a passion for your chosen interest, whatever it may be. Best of all everyone is a novice to begin with, as despite the medical advancements of the last hundred years no scientist has yet managed to inject trivia directly into the brain of a foetus prior to birth (although if this does become reality while I’m still considering reproduction I’d like to reserve the Batman, Firefly/Serenity and Gloucester Rugby information packs for all my potential offspring).

To be honest, I imagine there are a lot of the self proclaimed keepers of geekhood who would scoff at my own journey to nerdism, particularly when it comes to comics. Up until the age of 21 my exposure to the world of superheroes was limited to movies and TV shows containing the likes of Spiderman and Batman. I enjoyed the characters immensely but I never bothered taking the leap to the paper form of these adventures until I was much older. It was probably a combination of the lack of comics shops where I grew up and the desire to not appear too weird to my friends growing up. But after growing up and moving to Cardiff I was able to really immerse myself in the culture and read as many books as I could get my hands on. Now in my mind, this is a perfectly acceptable route into the medium, but there is a small minority of fans who would have me tarred, feathered and beaten to death with replicas of Thor’s hammer for trying to pass myself off as a comic fan with such an uncommitted upbringing.  And I’m willing to bet that a lot of those guys are probably feel like this because of some deep seated lust for revenge after being ostracised at a different point in their lives.

The fact that this group seems intent on calling out girls specifically as being either fake or nonexistent feels like the ugly head of their own rejections rearing up and lashing out. Adolescence is hard enough without having to without the stigma of being labelled ‘different’ to everyone else, so I can only imagine how much of a trial is was for people who were known for having hobbies that were not considered acceptable by the evil, soul sucking rhesus monkeys that are teenage boys and girls. So when, twenty years on, someone (especially a girl who may remind you of the popular crowd who used to taunt you as a pimply youth) presents themselves as interested in same things that used to get you beaten up on a regular basis, it’s very likely you’re going to get a little pissed off. And so you decide to get a little pay back and roundly mock this person and dismiss them because, in your mind, they haven’t had to endure the trial by fire that you went through to become, again in your mind, a geek.

Of course, this is so stupid as to be insulting to anyone with even a 16th of a functioning brain. As Sarah pointed out in her original article she has been a geek since her early days, as have (I imagine) a lot of the girl geeks out there today. Baring a few differences when it comes to shaving and embarrassing odours, their early experiences were probably a mirror image of your own. It seems pretty counterproductive to downgrade or ignore them on the basis they have to pee sitting down. And even if they didn’t go through it all, and have only become fans in last year after their boyfriend convinced them to watch the Avengers on DVD – why the fuck does it matter? There’s no minimal time span that you have to be committed so something before you can consider yourself passionate about it. Who died and gave you the keys to the fucking Tardis?

Personally I say the more the merrier. The explosion, and subsequent success, of comic book films, combined with an emergence into the mainstream media of geek culture, means that more people are taking an interest in comics than we’ve seen in years, and I for one couldn’t be happier. Yes, you can argue that a show like the Big Bang Theory is simplifying our hobbies and interests into a series of stereotypes played for cheap laughs, and that anyone with a Spiderman T shirt thinking they are a geek is diluting the pool, but I respectfully disagree. The idiots who have latched onto this latest trend will, in time, move onto the next ‘in thing’ like the imagination-less sheep that they are, so we don’t have to worry about them in the long term. And if just one per cent of the people who jumped onto the bandwagon end up becoming committed fans of comics, spending their time developing an interest that leads to him putting time and money back into the industry, then every aborted conversation with some chump who it turns out thinks he’s an expert on Batman because he’s seen the Nolan trilogy twice will be worth it.

And who knows, this sudden shift into the public consciousness might be the thing that finally banishes this sort of elitist attitude once and for all. Being a geek is no longer a stigma, to be painted onto your forehead in garish letters by bullies. The same guys who ten years ago would have been taunting are now likely to be just as excited for the new Marvel film as you are. Maybe they’ll realise that these stories and characters are pretty awesome, and will start asking to borrow the latest Justice League instead of ripping it from your hands and throwing it into a nearby bin. And with the ridicule gone, people will stop trying to take their revenge by excluding those they don’t see as ‘big’ enough fans and just learn to chill the hell out.

Now I am aware that the above may be asking a bit much. The only three certainties in life are death, taxes and the fact that there will always be assholes in the world, so the hippish fantasy I’ve described above is unlikely to materialise entirely. But that doesn’t mean we just need carry on down the path we’re currently on. There are enough people lining up hate others because their interests don’t match with what they like, without the fans shunning others for some perceived, imaginary difference. So next time you overhear a girl talking about Star Trek or a skinny jeaned shop worker reading an Iron Man TPB, don’t just automatically assume they’re looking for attention or trying to look cool. Go on over and strike up a conversation, you might just be surprised.

AAP

March 03, 2011 10:00AM

Canterbury-Bankstown prop Ryan Tandy has pleaded not guilty to a charge of providing false evidence about an alleged NRL betting scam.

The 29-year-old appeared in Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday accused of lying to an investigation by the NSW Crime Command's Racing and Casino Investigation Unit.

The unit has been examining suspicious betting on an NRL clash between the Bulldogs and North Queensland Cowboys last year.

The incident involved a plunge on a betting option that the first points of the game would come from a penalty goal.

Tandy was penalised two minutes into the game for impeding Cowboys playmaker Grant Rovelli in front of the posts.

The Cowboys did not opt for a kick at goal, but chose to take a quick tap and scored a try out wide.