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Veronica Mars
2004 · TV series · 42 min episodes · 4 seasons
Created by Rob Thomas
In the fictional town of Neptune, California, student Veronica Mars progresses from high school to college while moonlighting as a private investigator under the tutelage of her detective father.
5 positive1 mixed15 neutralfrom 21 commenters
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23 comments on Hacker News
I was unaware that Veronica Mars, Sons of Anarchy, Mayor of Kingstown, Tulsa King, Lioness, and Landman were considered "Westerns" (in the USofA sense).
I myself would have reserved that label for his multitude of Yellowstone and Glam Ranching spinoff productions.
My own AV collection of media I enjoy watching or have been involved in the production of does include a collection labled Western .. but these are not the Westerns you are thinking of.
* https://www.roninfilms.com.au/feature/710/milli-milli.html
* https://www.screenwest.com.au/made-in-wa/production-highlights/breath/
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Bastards
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame_(1988_film)
* https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092220/
* etc. (many more)
( Yes, I've been in a film with Nicole Kidman, and another with Hugh Jackman's wife* )
( * Well not then, nor now - but wife for much of the time between ... )
Just FYI, among other things, he co-wrote a number of novels about Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock's brother), which he discusses in this interview[0] and was part of the writers room for the tv show, Veronica Mars -- he describes the experience here[1].
[0] https://electricliterature.com/how-kareem-abdul-jabbar-is-reinventing-the-sherlock-holmes-story/
[1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/kareem-abdul-jabbar-what-i-learned-writing-veronica-mars-1230940/
Very partial list of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar movie/TV roles or cameos:
* Airplane * Fletch * Uncle Buck * A movie called "Matrix" that seems to be unrelated to "The Matrix" * The Critic (yes, the animated one) * Scrubs * Simpsons * Dave (recent TV show not movie) * Glass Onion
Also wrote at least on Episode of Veronica Mars.
This seems like a MUCH more fun sports retirement than just flying to golf destinations and chugging champagne... (not to mention his extensive philanthropy and personal writing)
Yes, that's one of the things that impressed me most about the show before it went off the rails. You had your season-long mystery, some multi-episode questions, and then your single episode mysteries.
It also has one of the best father-daughter relationships I've seen on screen.
I have noticed that quite a lot of how Veronica Mars "worked" got shifted over into iZombie.
The short-ish lived Veronica Mars was quite good a having both a season long story arc, but having self-contained mysteries as well. Some episodes leaning more one way or another, but there was usually some mix of both.
I'd wholeheartedly second the Veronica Mars rec. Start with the first series, not the movie. Aside from the dialog and characterization, it has probably the most deft plotting and pacing I've ever seen in a TV show.
For SF noir, the series of books by Frank Chadwick starting with How Dark the World Becomes isn't half bad.
The Buffy vs. Angel vs. Firefly discussion is a good one. Babylon 5, Veronica Mars, and the recent Battlestar Galactica also fit in. Ditto Dollhouse, Heroes, Alias and Lost.
I'd say:
-- It's just a detail, but recall that the first season of Buffy was actually just a half-season in length.
-- The first three seasons of Buffy had a very clear meta-metaphor. :) It posited monsters as being a good representation for what happens in actual high school life.
-- That aspect of the show hit its stride in the Buffy/Angel romance: Girl sleeps with guy and he turns into a monster.
-- Firefly was good, but nothing in it was as brilliant as, say, the best of Buffy.
-- A lot of shows started with a lot of monster-of-the-week/crisis-of-the-week and emphasized the ongoing story more later into the run. But most of the shows cited did at least some standalone stories all the way to the end. (Babylon 5 is one exception).
-- Firefly never got past that part of the show's evolution. This may be one reason it never matched Buffy's brilliance.
-- Not knowing whether or not a show will be renewed is a huge problem. If you're a fan of Buffy or Angel or Babylon 5, you're familiar with the consequences.
-- The writers' strike messed up multiple shows, or at least their audiences. I never went back to watching Battlestar Galactica post-strike.
-- Joss Whedon tried to oversee three shows at once. That didn't go well. Each of Buffy, Angel and Firefly deserved more of his attention.
-- Dollhouse didn't have real characters, the people running the place excepted. It was never going to work.
-- Some shows have a brilliant idea for an overarching story, in which the big story and the individual characters' experiences and arcs mesh beautifully. Then that story comes to a natural end, and the show is never quite as good again. Veronica Mars Season 1 is a great example. Ditto the first 1 1/2 or 2 seasons of Alias. Ditto Babylon 5 after things were wrapped up in Season 4.
-- I'd put Battlestar Galactica into the same group. The best part was the first season, as everybody builds a society on the fly )as it were) that can survive against terrible odds. The plots with the election and the defeat and the aftermath weren't as good. And the pseudo-mystical stuff toward the end was just weird.
In one episode of Veronica Mars, Veronica "infiltrates" an animal rights group where this guy gives a speech, ending witht the words, "people wearing fur coats are the target, not the enemy." [Wikipedia says it's episode 3x10, "Follow the monkey"]
It just makes sense. If you want to convince people, you don't want to antagonize them.
There are limits, of course. Some people are just so completely racist, homophobe, antisemitic, whatever, one can't reach them, certainly not charm them into becoming more decent.
But for most other people, the friendly approach is far more promising than the confrontational one. This goes for smaller issues, as well, and is well worth keeping in mind in day-to-day interactions with others.
Firefly is great, albeit short.
I was forced to watch Buffy, but while the first season makes you cringe, it is pretty good. Not as stellar as people claim, but really good. I think Joss Whedans masterpiece wasn't Buffy, it was Toy Story. But do watch the musical episode "Once More, With Feeling"!
Babylon 5, of course, if you can tolerate the (even for the time) bad CGI.
I've just watched DS9 from beginning to end, something I had wanted to do for 15 years now. Hasn't aged well, and I hadn't seen it in English before. Avery Brooks' overpronunciation is painful, but it is the best Star Trek series by far.
Friends was something I've enjoyed as a teen, and later as an adult. It was a totally different experience as an adult. I think that's worth a lot, to have a depth that appeals differently to you in different stages of your life.
Modern Family was way better than expected.
ALF is a bit painful to watch nowadays, it also hasn't aged well.
Golden Girls are probably still great, The Cosby Show definitely is!
Boston Legal is fun, fun, fun! Hey, why shouldn't Nantucket be allowed to habe its own nuclear weapons? But do watch all the newer Star Trek series before BL, so you can appreciate the ST heavy cast.
Dallas! Oh my. Incredible how old Victoria Principal is today.
ER was great, but I haven't seen much of the last seasons. I also liked Chicago Hope, but it clearly lost.
The 2004 Battlestar Galactica. Probably the most modern TV series of its time, great themes and issues, pretty current, fantastic buildup to the big finale and then... disappointment.
Game of Thrones, if only for the shock value ;-)
And at last, the Tv series I've probably enjoyed most in the last few years: the first two seasons of Veronica Mars. But make sure you can stomach it, the season finales are sickeningly evil (especially season 2).
I see a pattern - it is the level of quirkiness. I think the more quirky a show the more likely it is to generate major fan loyalty. The show has to be good as a baseline.
Veronica Mars fans are legion, there is even a slight overlap with Joss Whedon (of Buffy, etc fame) as he had a very rare bit-part in one episode. Braff is known for somewhat quirky stuff too, Garden State was offbeat. Spike Lee is very mainstream hollywood nowadays, working with a-list actors and directing some very profitable movies.
So from the perspective that good-quality quirkiness generates fan enthusiasm it makes sense that these three particular projects would draw interest and dollars in the proportions that they did.
One of the major problems with specifically web-based television and movies is that they just aren't delivering the revenue that conventional media can, by a huge margin. One of the reasons why such projects are possible at all today is that the creators call in a lot of favors from their friends (actors, editors, techs, etc.) and get them to work at minimal rates. But that's not a very sustainable model.
Perhaps with crowd funding projects that then release in more conventional ways (e.g. DVD, netflix, etc.) it'll be possible to solve both ends of this problem. It'll be interesting to see how everything works out.
Anyway, I've been surprised at the absence of anyone trying to either coopt the popularity of web video and such-like or to try to make money on it as a business partner. For example, why isn't there a production studio which concentrates on crowd funded movies? It took Zach Braff seeing the popularity of the Veronica Mars kickstarter to have the idea to do the same thing, imagine if there was a group out there catering to artists with projects they want to fund. Apply a little bit of polish, experience with how to formulate a good kickstarter campaign, select reward levels appropriately, help with fulfillment, help with legal issues, help with distribution, take a cut of the profits.
Celebrity is more or less orthogonal, I think.
Obviously being well-known is important, but it's about reputation more than anything. Zach has a reputation for have a strong creative hand in film and tv projects which have had a very strong connection with fans, as his work on Garden State has demonstrated. The same goes with the Veronica Mars team. Had Rob Thomas or Kristen Bell tried to use Kickstarter for some non-Veronica Mars related project they may not have received as much enthusiasm, because Veronica Mars as a project and as an entity on its own definitely has fans and definitely engenders a significant amount of trust that they'll deliver a product that is worth the investment.
Also, I don't think you have any concept of Zach Braff's reputation or following, and I suspect this project will probably exceed its goal faster than the Veronica Mars project did.
It's not just celebrity. Melissa Joan Hart's project just doesn't seem like it has much thought to it. "Oh they can do it for Veronica Mars, so let me do it too." The project video wasn't great. Plus the premise isn't known at all -- not saying a movie about "Clarissa Explains It All" would be successful, but it would have been more successful.
Someone at my work jumped out of her seat when I mentioned the Veronica Mars project to her. Zach Braff might not have the cult following, but at least he has the Reddit community and Scrubs/Garden State fans to at least get him to reach his goal. Many of the perks for the Veronica Mars project were filled quickly, which slowed down the funding after the big spike, so we'll see what happens with Zach Braff's movie.
Looking back on the veronica mars kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project) I'm surprised to see that most of the largest pledges were hit (1/1 at $10K, 3/3 at $8K, 3/3 at $6.5K, 4/5 at $5K, 10/10 at $3.5K, 30/30 at $3K, 20/20 at $2500, 300/300 at $1000)
This is the fundamental problem of the business of making and distributing art, whether it's TV, movies, music, or games. It's not a commodity, it's not, generally speaking, fungible so it takes a much more principled stand to force change. If you don't like, say, the way a certain bank or grocery store or gas company or what-have-you does business you can just switch to a competing product. Even if that requires compromises generally there will be alternatives which are suitable substitutes. But that's not the case with artistic works. There is only one The Beatles, only one Veronica Mars, only one Citizen Cane, and there's only one SimCity series. You can decide to avoid playing the new version, and you can decide to play some other game, but these are all wholly inadequate substitutes.
And this is how game makers and publishers have managed to get away not only with astoundingly bad DRM but also in releasing quite broken and incomplete games in some cases. It's because gamers continue to let them get away with it.
I don't know how accurate this [1] is (because the citation link is dead), but Wikipedia claims Veronica Mars cost about $1.7 million per episode ($2.1 million for the Season 1 finale). Each episode is 1 hour, so double that, and you assume that the movie would cost about $4.2 million if it had the same quality as the show. And that's not even taking into account that the director and Kristen Bell probably will do the work for less since it seems to be a pet project of theirs. Overall, it seems like it'd be really easy to make back the investment on this one.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver_%28Veronica_Mars%29#cite_note-beaverprod-4
> $10M doesn't create a TV show. It certainly isn't going to create a movie with well know actors like Veronica Mars
...I somewhat disagree. If you're financing a film of an existing property with a lot of goodwill around it (i.e, Veronica Mars), with a short shooting period (2-3 weeks, which is what they're talking about here), then you'll probably be able to get your cast to work at union rates along with points/profit participation.
US TV tends to be on the expensive side, but that doesn't mean you can't produce quality TV for less. In the UK the BBC tends to budget around $750,000-$1,000,000 per episode for prime-time drama, which gives you a good ten episode season for your $10 million.
The co-founder of XE.com (Alexa 500) doesn't have to think too hard before dropping ten dimes. He's not even a huge fan of the show (though he is a fan) and might not be able to play the role due to scheduling.
http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/03/13/veronica-mars-movie-kickstarter-speaking-role/
Sure, it's made $2M in it's first day. It'll likely top out at about $7-10M, because that's how Kickstarter projects which receive early publicity go in terms of growth - they receive about 1/3 of their total funding in the first 24 hours - see below.
$10M doesn't create a TV show. It certainly isn't going to create a movie with well know actors like Veronica Mars - there are definitely other parties kicking in for this.
[1] http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console#chart-daily [2] http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/#chart-daily [3] http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2/#chart-daily
> What's up with Bell? She doesn't seem to understand the concept of Capital Letters aNd WHerE thEy bELONG In A Sentence. Or she's just being coy.
Good question, actually. The only actual weird capitalization she used, "LoVe to you ALL", is actually an in-joke-- "LoVe" refers to Logan/Veronica shipping[0] in Veronica Mars fandom. She's maybe hinting at a possible romantic plot to the movie, maybe just playing around.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_(fandom)
I don't think you have a right to "share" episodes of Veronica Mars. The justification for sharing "culture" is dramatically diminished, in my opinion, when that "culture" is purely commercial. There are a huge number of artists willing to share their culture for free, yet sites like Pirate Bay seem nonetheless to be filled with commercial "culture" not created for the sake of culture itself, but for the sake of profit, and not intended to be shared.
the hacking in the beginning of _Tron: Legacy_ looked pretty realistic to me (apart from the server's apparently being simultaneously sparc and x86).
best of all was the end of _Veronica Mars_ (yes, not a movie) which is the only even vaguely realistic decryption plot i've ever seen.
True. Which is why I'd think twice switching email providers.
Obviously you make a decision every time you give another entity any information, and storing data with Google/Facebook/et. al. carries risks as well.
But, as others have pointed out, the concentration and nature of this information matters too.
I'm reminded of the Veronica Mars episode about the "Purity Test" -
Step 1: get everyone's socially valuable data Step 2: Hilarity/blackmail ensues
Just to be clear - I'm not accusing the site of doing anything nefarious, just pointing out the difficulty of establishing trust.
I suspect there's a lot of money to be made in figuring out how to bridge that trust gap (of course, that's a little bit like the various authentication or email trusted-sender schemes that float about - IF ONLY we could will some universally trusted and known-good structures into existence, certain problems would be that much easier to solve...)