Over the past month I’d been writing a detailed analysis of the state of the Maradonia movie, breaking down what we know, what we didn’t know, and what could be inferred from the semi-frequent posting of pictures to the Maradonia Facebook page. Then, just the other day, the Tesches up and released their movie trailer, which simultaneously answered the majority of my questions while negating the majority of my analysis. Thanks, guys!
At the time of writing, it’s April 2013, and Team Tesch seems completely focused on this movie. The final book in the Maradonia “Saga” was scheduled for publication in 2012 but has been more or less abandoned: there have been no updates regarding the publication date or any news regarding the climactic book in this tale whatsoever in over a year. It’s reasonable to assume there have been delays – hopefully because they’re extensively rewriting it – but the Tesches not acknowledging the delay leads me to believe they’re not even thinking about it.
Which is odd, since they have plenty of time. While Team Tesch is all about the movie, we know that Gloria has had time to post insipid videos to YouTube that are devoid of any content or even rational coherent thought, modeling on the runway, posting tastefully slutty pictures of herself online, waxing philosophical about the state of today’s youth while taking the moral high ground over Jersey shore, and of course, directing and starring in the film adaption of her work.
What do we know about the project? The ball got rolling back in mid-2011, when Gerry Tesch apparently attempted to fuck over a few of his business partners, such as the director Troy Bowman and the cinematographer, Paulian Morris.
Gloria announced via newsletter that she hoped the movie would be finished by the end of April 2011. It’s now two years later and they appear to have about six minutes of godawful footage that they are shooting on a Canon Rebel T3i with a basic 18-55mm lens, which retails for about $550.
Now, I have nothing against the T3i – I own the exact same model camera, and for that price, it’s hard to beat it for shooting digital video. I’ve personally shot short films on it and they look great. However, if I had the money, I would upgrade to a better camera in a heartbeat. The fact that the Tesches have not done so is indicative they can’t afford to do so.
In the first version of this article, I spent most of the time talking about the single most important issue: money. We know that her parents have deep pockets, and there’s evidence that they have been able to talk a few others into investing. However, unlike book publishing, filmmaking is incredibly expensive. Even if you’re renting and borrowing equipment, calling in favors, blackmailing friends and family, and convincing actors to work for free because it will “build their IMDB resume” – moving trucks to build artificial caves and driving numerous vehicles out to different locations in Florida is not cheap.
Here’s the thing: no matter how hard you try, you cannot make a good fantasy movie cheaply. There’s a specific reason that most cheaply made independent films are set in modern times and have minimal special effects or excessive choreography, and the reason is that all of those things are fucking expensive. It’s true that some films can be made for the comparatively low price of $30,000, such as Kevin Smith’s Clerks. But let’s take a closer look at the actual costs for a film like that:
- Shot almost entirely at a Qwik Stop Kevin Smith worked at, so the location costs were minimal
- Set in present-day, so actors could wear their own clothes, or clothing could be purchased cheaply, secondhand
- Very few characters, so the director could fill the roles with his personal friends who would work for free
And that film still cost thirty grand.
Consider a typical scene from Maradonia, where Maya and Joey arrived at a village and are greeted by a crowd of people, and what would go into creating that scene:
- Where did this village come from? If it exists, you probably have to rent it. If it doesn’t exist, you must build it, which means you pay for the location, parts, transportation, labor, and insurance
- For a village scene, you’d need at least 50+ extras. All of these extras need to be properly clothed, which means you need 50+ costumes. These extras probably have to be paid for their time. They have to be bused out to the location which means you must rent a bus. They have to have food so you must pay for a caterer. They need makeup so you need makeup artists, they need bathrooms so you must rent port-a-potties.
All of this is required…for a very simple, very short scene where they arrive at a village. And let’s not even get started about the level of special effects a Maradonia film would require, such as magical flying doves, talking snakes and grasshoppers and frogs and unicorns, and Maya and Joey riding a talking eagle covered in eyeballs, swimming with mermaids…the list goes on and on. And special effects, even if done cheaply that make your movie look like an absolute piece of shit, are still expensive and time-consuming to create. I’m not arguing that Hollywood doesn’t indulge in bloated and unreasonable budgets, because they do, but there’s also a reason why each of the three Narnia movies cost between $150-$225 million dollars.
Of course, there are things the Tesches could do. They could absolutely gut the script. They could have every action sequence take place off-screen. They could use special effects created in MS Paint. They could reduce the entire story to a movie that has Maya and Joey wandering through the underbrush and occasionally interacting with other humanoids in shitty plastic costumes. There exists a possibility that this film eventually does get finished. But, I think they will run out of money and the entire project will fall apart and be abandoned.
I desperately hope I am wrong. Nothing would bring me greater joy than the Tesches finishing and releasing this movie.
But even if that doesn’t happen, at least we have some footage we can look at and enjoy, because just the other day the Tesches released their movie trailer and launched an Indiegogo campaign to try and raise funds to continue work on their movie. In the original review, I noted that it was interesting that out of all the pictures released so far, they are were remarkably blasé. They featured dramatic shots of people walking, and staying, and lying, and occasionally looking mildly constipated. I wondered when they would get around to shooting an actual action sequence of some kind.
Turns out that the Tesches pulled a fast one on all of us: they weren’t shooting a movie at all! Sure, they said they were, and there’s a theoretical possibility that some of the footage they’ve shot thus far actually makes it into the finished project, but what they really have done is shoot a trailer to try and convince people to give them money so they can actually shoot a movie. Thus far, it’s proved wildly unsuccessful. Despite their amazing perks, most of the donations have been from Gloria Tesch herself, trying to show the campaign being successful.
The campaign itself is brilliant, complete with underlined text, italics, Unnecessarily Capitalized Words, typos, atrocious grammar and syntax, and it concludes by comparing Gloria Tesch to Stephen King, Anne Rice, Stephanie Meyer, and J.K. Rowling, and then following up by saying that Gloria Tesch has authored 10 books when she’s actually released 5 (and technically two and a half, since she split them up).
Interesting, although the campaign is only for $20,000, in the description it stated that they will “need definitely” $1 million to complete the movie in the next “eight month”. After this was pointed out, the Tesches removed the text, but not before it was screenshotted by a helpful Internet denizen.
Which brings us to the trailer itself.
I would like to really tear into the trailer, but I can’t. It’s everything I ever hoped and dreamed it would be.
I was worried, for a bit, that the Tesches might outdo themselves. That they might have hired some very smart, intelligent people who would be able to craft quality cinema and actually be making a movie worth watching, rather than a movie so eye-gougingly bad that it makes Birdemic look like The Godfather Part II. I should have known better than to doubt the Tesches, as they reached deep within themselves to create a trailer that, astonishingly, is even worse than the material it’s based on.
It’s hard to decide which is my favorite part:
- The absolutely atrocious acting from everyone
- The horribly bad camera work
- Shitty stock footage
- The horrible voice-overs
- The footage randomly switching between aspects.
- This screenshot:
- The mind-bogglingly bad special effects
- This screenshot:
- Mr. Perkins being in focus
- Mr. Perkins sounding like a chipmunk
- Gloria Tesch’s incredibly bad acting skills
- Gloria Tesch’s random bikini shots. Isn’t she playing a 16-year-old?
- The two random henchmen from a fantasy world who are armed with Japanese katanas
- Maya and Joey ARGUING
- 8:44 in when the video smash cuts to Gloria Tesch describing the Maradonia series in the most stiff, awkwardly uncomfortable fashion possible. Periodically, she glances off-screen toward her cue cards. Strangely, she refers to the series as containing six books, rather than the 10 books that the text states. She explains that the Maradonia story slowly turned into a 90-minute feature film. Which doesn’t exist, because they haven’t made it, which is why they are soliciting money from people.
- Incredibly bad CGI fire
- Apollyon’s paper-mache viking helmet and vampire fangs. Wait, what???
There are really no words that can do this trailer justice. Please, just watch it:
Ryan McCarthy on 30 April 2013, 02:21 said:
That trailer is glorious. From the atrocious acting to the seventh-rate special effects, to the abysmal cinematography, this trailer needs to be seen to be believed.
I actually want this movie to be made just so that I could watch it out of morbid curiosity.
Lone Wolf on 30 April 2013, 05:22 said:
The final book in the Maradonia “Saga” was scheduled for publication in 2012 but has been more or less abandoned
This means that Maya and Joey will forever stay in the underworld poisoned by the bad guys, which is actually a suitable ending for the “Saga”.
Epke on 30 April 2013, 06:26 said:
<watches the trailer with inappropriate enthusiasm>
Oh, this is terrible! And glorious. I want to see this now, if only to heckle it. I noticed that the guy who plays Joey (both he and Gloria couldn’t pass for 15-16 year olds if they wore bows and sailor suits) is probably the best actor we get to see, as he actually uses his body and not just his mouth… although this isn’t saying much: Gloria is stiff, Apollyon is Every Cliché Ever and anyone else with speaking roles (the two henchmen and the old man) sound like they’re reading off a menu.
Hmm… I suppose with only a verbal agreement, they can’t take his ass to court?
… King, Rice and Rowling? Seriously? That’s insulting to the aforementioned authors who actually can write.
Tim on 30 April 2013, 08:11 said:
Oh no! The umpire of the unnerworld has declare wor against the LAN of Maradonia!
Also holy shit their microphone is awful.
Takugifian on 30 April 2013, 08:29 said:
I love how she went from having started writing at 14, to having started at 10. I guess she’s still at least making a token attempt to keep the “Worlds Youngest Author” bit alive.
That’s insulting to the bar help who refilled the whiskey glasses of the lumberjacks who cut down the trees that were pulped to make the paper on which the works of the aforementioned writers was printed.
swenson on 30 April 2013, 08:31 said:
I want to watch that trailer. I want to watch it desperately badly, but unfortunately I am at work.
…this is what lunch hours were made for, I suspect.
Brendan Rizzo on 30 April 2013, 10:03 said:
You know, Gloria and her family are uncomfortably similar to North Korea, what with their unceasing praise of their dear leader and their simultaneous imability to do even a half-assed job. Compare the Tesches’ monetary problems with this movie to the debacle that was the Ryugong Hotel. And both claim to be the best in everything, and to complete their projects any day now. It’s really quite creepy.
In the trailer, Gloria says that everyone who dinstead to her will receive a gift. I am tempted to give them a dollar just to see if they back this up, though they almost certainly won’t. How would they pay for the gifts, anyway.
I really feel sorry for everyone (except the Tesches, of course) who appears in this movie, as it will be associated with them forevermore.
swenson on 30 April 2013, 10:27 said:
Oh good, I’m not the only one who honestly was thinking… you know… I wouldn’t mind throwing a couple of dollars their way… if it would make the movie actually happen, I would be thrilled.
Master Chief on 30 April 2013, 13:52 said:
Well, at least I can have a few laughs between studying for finals
Taku on 30 April 2013, 16:23 said:
It looks like they’ve deleted the comments of that Alexander person again. Fortunately, he got a screenshot.
There’s nothing in Indegogo’s ToS about deleting comments, but it could be argued that by deleting them, Tesch is violating the ToS below:
Although that might not be enough to get the campaign kicked.
The scary thing is, she’s now up to $400, including her own fraudulent “contributions”.
Fireshark on 30 April 2013, 18:34 said:
Good God, the IndieGoGo page has single quotation marks all over the perks.
swenson on 30 April 2013, 20:46 said:
I have now watched the trailer, and it… wipes away a single tear it’s everything I hoped it would be. Even if I did have to watch it in bits and pieces to keep the stupid from overwhelming me.
Joey was already my favorite sociopath, and this trailer has not really lessened him in my eyes. First, he has a skateboard. Second, he treats Maya with precisely the respect she deserves (less than none). Third, he pointlessly almost gets the two of them killed. And finally, he thinks that two men look like wind or rats’ eyes. Never change, Joey. Never change.
Puppet on 30 April 2013, 22:41 said:
…Is this real?
Creature_NIL on 30 April 2013, 23:20 said:
Was… was that Santa Clause reading from that book in the first part of the trailer?
Durandalski on 1 May 2013, 00:21 said:
I’m really offended by the total Bible plagiarism. Does she think this is flattering to the Bible? Does she think she’s clever? As a christian I’m offended. :)
The rest of this pile of crap is just roflcopters. It would be mildly diverting as a homeschool project done for fun. As an attempt to be taken seriously, it is deserving of the utmost ridicule.
Finn on 1 May 2013, 00:41 said:
This, This! I cringed as I heard those utterly ripped-off lines. Who does she think she’s fooling? People can see right through these so-called “analogies”. I wonder if this is how Anti-Twilight Mormons feel about Stephanie Meyer. (Probably) I just want to yell at her from across the computer screen.
TakuGifian on 1 May 2013, 01:18 said:
If those few lines offended, think but this, and tear your hair out: the majority of the scenes within the Maradonia books are ripped directly from Bible stories, mangled beyond rationality and then pasted together with a scattering of oh-so-profound Ice Cream Koans (statements that are supposed to seem wise, but are in fact completely devoid of philosophical depth or even rational consideration). It’s really mindbogglingly sickening.
LoneWolf on 1 May 2013, 01:44 said:
Wait, the majority?
Juracan on 1 May 2013, 02:37 said:
Is it just me or does Joey come across the kind of guy who would get killed off in the first fifteen minutes in a cheap slasher film?
LoneWolf on 1 May 2013, 07:05 said:
Yeah, their Joey looks weird.
Takugifian on 1 May 2013, 07:55 said:
Okay, maybe not the majority, but an unconscionably large percentage.
lilyWhite on 1 May 2013, 09:00 said:
On the bright side, you get brilliant proclamations like “Food effect’s your Mood!”
swenson on 1 May 2013, 09:02 said:
And “but what about poison?”
BlackStar on 1 May 2013, 10:21 said:
The real question is, how do they have nearly 6,000 likes on the movie’s Facebook page? I can’t imagine that they really went and made that many sock puppet accounts…
Brendan Rizzo on 1 May 2013, 10:34 said:
I will assume most of those are from people who like it ironically. I cannot believe anything else and retain faith in humanity.
Lone Wolf on 1 May 2013, 11:28 said:
On Facebook, “like” really means “I want to keep tabs on it”.
Ryan McCarthy on 1 May 2013, 12:57 said:
6,000 likes might seem like a lot but look at it this way, at least it doesn’t have 1,000,000 likes like Worlds of the Crystal Moon does.
If anyone is wondering what Worlds of the Crystal Moon is, it is basically another vanity published book series by an arrogant douchebag who thinks he’s the shit.
You guys should consider doing that as a spork because while I haven’t read it myself, I doubt it is any good from what I heard about it.
Yes, I don’t know how a vanity published book series managed to get 1,000,000 likes either.
Fireshark on 1 May 2013, 17:06 said:
There’s a spork of that over at Kippurbird’s wiki. Someone here could still do it, I’m sure, but you should probably check that out first.
Apep on 1 May 2013, 19:54 said:
Oh god. That trailer. Just… wow.
I paused the video so many times just to go “what the heck?” Things like:
Why is this random kid carrying a stuffed bunny?
Who decided to cast this guy (who’s obviously at least in his late teens) as a 15-year-old?
Who are these two schmucks in the armor supposed to be (aside from Generic Evil Minions TM)?
When exactly did
TeschMaya see said schmucks?Why dose the lip-syncing for Apollyon suck so much?
Why didn’t they put Tesch’s cue cards behind the camera instead of off to the side?
When did our “heroes” change their clothes?
Where are these birds Maya’s talking about (aside from conveniently off-camera)?
And a whole bunch of other things I don’t feel like mentioning. Suffice to say, it was hilariously awful.
Tim on 1 May 2013, 21:12 said:
Same reason a guy screaming obscenities in a fake Mexican accent over videogames gets more money from YouTube than most people with actual jobs, ie “people are stupid?”
lilyWhite on 1 May 2013, 21:54 said:
Given the very small number of people who actually like/comment on things on WotCM’s Facebook page, I’m guessing the author paid for them.
Ara-sama on 1 May 2013, 23:50 said:
My favorite part of the trailer is how their watches stop at 3:16. Hi Christianity, we all know you’re going to be the real main character!
Asahel on 2 May 2013, 00:18 said:
Ok, to be fair, that does sound like it should be completely awesome. I’m willing to bet that makes the resultant letdown even more disappointing…
Juracan on 2 May 2013, 03:50 said:
A very amusing one at that, but it seems to have died after finishing the sporking of the first book…
That’s what I was wondering. It just came across as… random. I mean, I could just be missing something, not having much context of the story to go off of…
Taku on 2 May 2013, 04:08 said:
That’s because, contrary to the standard operating procedures of legitimate publishers, paying a printing/binding service for a run of books means that once they’re sold, there’s no more. Getting hold of ANY of Tesch’s books is really difficult. Besides, who really wants to fork out money for this? Especially when it’s only for a bit of a laugh.
Juracan on 2 May 2013, 07:16 said:
I was referring to the spork of Worlds of Crystal Moon actually…
swenson on 2 May 2013, 08:03 said:
You know, among all the other stupid, I actually had forgotten that part. wham wham wham
Yeah, is that actually in the books? At all?
Requiem on 2 May 2013, 09:23 said:
The amount of what the fuckery in this movie is out the wazoo. I hope the film gets completed, i’d actually rank this movie up with The Room. The acting is stiff as a board, the cgi scenes are strange, and the dialogue wasn’t even edited.
I just want to see some poisoning.
RodeTheSixHundred on 2 May 2013, 14:01 said:
It’s utterly ridiculous, of course, that the henchmen have Japanese katana anyway, but the least those guys could do (if they’re gonna feature them in a movie) is take thirty seconds on Wikipedia to find that you don’t put them on your back, and that they’re worn blade upward at an angle on the left side. Goes to show how little research is put into this stuff…
Tim on 2 May 2013, 21:21 said:
Well, that only applies to authentic ones (it’s because katanas lose their edge fairly easily and resting them on it in the sheath doesn’t help) so maybe those guys are aware they’re carrying cheap replicas that don’t have that issue. It is kind of hilarious just how awkwardly and slowly the one guy draws his, did they not think to let him practice a few times before filming?
Mina on 3 May 2013, 01:14 said:
Troll. I call Troll. The Tesches are just the most dedicated trolls in the whole wide world.
If they’re not, then I just… weep.
Lone Wolf on 3 May 2013, 03:13 said:
The little crying kid is little brother Benji. Apparently, the Forces of Evil ™ have attacked our heroes’ house. The Tesches changed a lot in the script to make it ‘edgier’, it seems.
swenson on 3 May 2013, 08:14 said:
Wait, really? Or are you just trying desperately to make the story make sense?
Lone Wolf on 3 May 2013, 08:20 said:
Gloria posted the photoshot of the scene as “little Benjamin finds his mother dead, killed by the evil fairies.” on Facebook. Here’s the link to the photo:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=504101969622819&set=a.172614736104879.37222.171158016250551&type=1&theater
swenson on 3 May 2013, 09:23 said:
…huh. Maybe it’s a different Benjamin? Unless they’re drawing in stuff from the later books? Regardless, that’s lame already.
Fireshark on 3 May 2013, 14:31 said:
No see, their brother is Benji-mouse, this one is just Benjamin.
Forest Purple on 3 May 2013, 18:49 said:
I want to be a slick Hoodman for Halloween. Actually, I just want to be a slick Hoodman every day of the year.
Asahel on 4 May 2013, 01:28 said:
Why would you send people that are used to hunting entire empires after just two people? You use different techniques when fighting half a million people than you do when you have to fight only two.
Lone Wolf on 4 May 2013, 02:09 said:
Hey, Glo didn’t say that they were hunting empires, just that they were hunters of the Evil Empire.
Asahel on 4 May 2013, 10:22 said:
I know, but I like my version better. :P
Kyllorac on 4 May 2013, 22:00 said:
Apparently “perogie” is a curse word.
Betty Cross on 5 May 2013, 13:11 said:
The Hoodsmen should at least wear hoods. These turkeys don’t even have hoods. False advertising.
Betty Cross on 5 May 2013, 13:35 said:
Who writes this stuff? Oh, yeah, we know who.
Why do the Hoodsmen drop their conlang and start speaking English?
The heavily cliched fantasy-film music makes my brain itch.
Thanks, Rorschach! I’ve needed a Maradonia fix for more than a year now.
Fell Blade on 9 May 2013, 13:16 said:
Love that Maya’s hair changes color every other shot… and that the first couple shots were filmed in the summer while the cave stuff was obviously winter (or Florida’s version of winter).
I don’t really feel bad for the actors, I think they know what they’re getting into. Joey’s line delivery is bad but it’s bad in that “I don’t really give a crap, I’m just here having fun” kinda way. It’s the “producers” and “directors” who get suckered into helping the Tesches and then hung out to dry that I feel sorry for.
Lone Wolf on 12 May 2013, 08:54 said:
Days are passing, and the indiegogo fudraiser is still at 875$, with like 2/3 of that contributed by “anonymous” aka Gloria herself. It seems that this amazing and shocking trailer is the only thing that will come out of the Maradonia-Movie project. A pity, I would really like for the Tesches to continue :(
Taku on 12 May 2013, 09:45 said:
Feel free to contribute as much as you want, Lone Wolf. :P
(I’d much prefer for Gloria to fail horrendously, it might wake her up to the fact that nobody likes her terrible work, and she really needs to reconsider her approach).
And be fair, $25 of that was contributed by the guy who played Joey.
I can’t find evidence right now (becuas eit is late at night), but I’m pretty confident. This is also the guy who used to harass swankivy and others who spoke out against the deceitful marketing tactics and terrible quality of the books.
swenson on 12 May 2013, 21:44 said:
Wait, Joey’s actor did stuff like that? Aww, man, and I was kinda liking him, too. For the sake of anything better to like, at any rate.
Kellan Rose on 26 May 2013, 09:55 said:
See? Who needs the books when my entire collection of Maradonia is right on this site? Great addition to the collection!
I’d love to see you do a sporking of her new (prepare yourselves for this one, folks) sigh music video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAvcAK1iPoU
Here’s the atrocity in all its accidental hilarity. I dunno if you’ve ever seen the Swankivy review, but we now have undeniable proof that Gloria definitely knows we’re out here.
LoneWolf on 26 May 2013, 11:52 said:
Rorschach definitely knows about the video, (s)he commented on it on twitter at ConjugalFelicity.
I don’t think that music videos lend themselves well for sporking, though. And of course, Swankivy should only be REALLY GRATEFUL that Gloria Tesch, this WONDERFUL YOUNG TALENT, had ALLOWED her to play The Ratchet in her music video.
Alicia on 28 May 2013, 00:25 said:
She has four hours left, you guys. I… don’t think they’re going to hit their goal, to be honest. Unless a bunch of moguls see their page and decided to kick a couple thousand dollars in the next 4 hours.
Fireshark on 28 May 2013, 08:32 said:
What? Ridiculous! That girl is a billion dollar industry!
Fell Blade on 28 May 2013, 10:11 said:
Wait, she made a music video?
(checks link)
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! Wow!!! I shoulda figured this was where she was headed based on her facebook pics, but when it gets right down to it… just wow. So much for that innocent little teen lecturing everyone on materialism and this mediocre and corrupt generation.
LoneWolf on 28 May 2013, 11:46 said:
Either Gloria now deliberately promotes her “Ima bad gurrlll” image (she did seemingly lose interest in writing the Maradonia books, though not in making the movie), or she considers herself to be pure and incorruptible, no matter what she does.
BlackStar on 29 May 2013, 16:04 said:
Did anyone notice that the Maradonia movie’s page on Facebook has suddenly gone down to only a little under 5,000 likes? The only explanation I can come up with is that people liked it to keep tabs on it, and now that the Indiegogo campaign has expired they’ve unliked it.
Betty Cross on 29 May 2013, 21:25 said:
Funny in a pathetic sort of way.
There’s a reference in it to “stay up and write,” so maybe the last Maradonia book will be finished someday.
It amuses me that there’s a comment in Russia (a language I don’t know) from somebody named Marina T. One guess who that is.
LoneWolf on 30 May 2013, 03:52 said:
Marina Tesch’s comment is:
“Cool! I like this very much! Well done!
Although it isn’t very good to swear”.
Alicia on 30 May 2013, 14:57 said:
She kind of reminds me of another notorious “author”, Robert Stanek. She’s not as devious as he is (Stanek wrote a couple terrible novels and chopped them up and retitled them all into like three separate trilogies, and spends the bulk of his time posting sockpuppet reviews and plugging his books). He put the barest minimum amount of work into the handful of books he actually did write and spent the majority of his time trying to con people into buying them twice by mistake.
He is more enamored of the idea of being a successful author but finds the actual work of writing books bothersome and annoying. Tesch seems to view it the same way — she put no effort into the books that she has written and likely won’t finish the series (I refuse to call it a trilogy if it has like 9 books in it). But that doesn’t stop her from parading around as an author, because she greatly prefers the glamor of “book signings” and making a movie (of a book that few have ever even heard of, fewer have actually read, and no one has enjoyed). Her attempts to translate the fame she got from the series into a music, directing, or modeling career may bear fruit but that would just prove that she’s forgotten about the whole writing thing.
(I’ll give Christopher Paolini this much — he at least spelled all of the words correctly in his book and you could parse most of the sentences.)
Taku on 30 May 2013, 18:41 said:
Tesch wrote three big books and chopped them down into three books each.
Ditto.
…
I think Tesch might actually be Stanek wearing makeup.
Tim on 30 May 2013, 19:09 said:
To be fair, Tesch seems more to be a vehicle for her father’s somewhat delusional thwarted ambitions of being a great author. The fact that almost all the mistakes in her books are typical of an ESL German speaker being best proof if that.
I’m willing to believe Gloria is just a stupid kid, dad is the one who’s the secret Stanek.
Betty Cross on 30 May 2013, 19:54 said:
I did wonder how in the world this drek got to be a family project. Most dads would shake their heads and say, “Honey, this is a long way from being ready to publish.” I’ve known for some time that Pappa Gerhart (aka “Gerry”) wrote a large part of it.
Licht on 30 May 2013, 20:48 said:
When and how did you arrive at that conclusion?
(I know I have been away some time… but did I really miss that much?)
Tim on 30 May 2013, 22:55 said:
Well:
1. Her blog entries often don’t match how she actually speaks and sound more like an angry old man ranting about the Youth Of Today.
2. Her work is full of errors a native English speaker like Gloria wouldn’t make and a native German speaker like her dad would. For example, capitalising nouns all the time is correct in German. She strikes me as a little dim, but I don’t think she’d ask someone who speaks considerably worse English than her to proofread.
3. Given her dad must be doing a shitload of work behind the scenes to do all the stuff like movie trailers, it makes far more sense that this is his dream and Gloria’s just his way of achieving it rather than that she somehow persuaded him with her writing. You’d be more likely to persuade the Catholic church that the next Pope should be Jewish.
Licht on 31 May 2013, 00:45 said:
Thanks!
My writing seldom sounds the way I’d speak.
Especially the writing of people trying to sound more sophisticated than they really are tends to sound very strange.
I beg to differ. The way Gloria randomly capitalizes stuff would be strange in German as well. The fact that nouns are capitalized doesn’t mean you can do it whenever you feel like it.
In her case it seems to be some odd stylistic device, rather than an error. Believe me, not even a native German speaker is stupid enough to capitalize nouns in English (randomly, at that).
You do strange things when your child is involved.
In short: I don’t think speculating about this leads anywhere as long as there is no actual proof.
LoneWolf on 31 May 2013, 04:04 said:
Gloria does use the same wrong-but-pretentious phrasing in her speaking (“Writer’s block! Also known as a blockage of the mind’s imagination flow”). The sheer childishness of her works also point to a child doing it, rather then an adult. It’s not the condescending “aww, wee kids, I shall tell you about tooties and pooties” type of work bad adult writers for kids usually produce, whatever condescension Gloria has sounds comic rather then irritating. I think that Gerry obviously had a lot of influence, but I doubt that it was he who actually wrote Maradonia. It wouldn’t surprise me if Gloria and Gerry share some speech patterns, though.
LoneWolf on 31 May 2013, 04:29 said:
Furthermore, if it’s her dad who wrote it (rather then just being involved, but Gloria never denied that her family helped her), why he is content to hide the truth and not take any credit for all these contemporary classics? Just for the money? But I doubt Maradonia was particularly profitable for them.
Taku on 31 May 2013, 06:41 said:
Also, if I may add my bit, in the entire saga, since we first discovered her trolling yahoo Answers and Amazon, her father has not once made any public acknowledgement of the series that we have discovered. Her mother painted some scenes, drew the cover and inside art and her parents collectively printed it, but her father has remained almost entirely unconnected from it. Not even to post reviews of it, attack haters, or troll anti-shurtugal. Aside from the financial and behind-the-scenes work, he’s remained pretty solidly detached from it.
Tim on 31 May 2013, 07:28 said:
Has he, though? Where does Gloria end and Tesch Snr begin? I bet he’s controlling her with a bunch of levers from behind that curtain over there.
Taku on 31 May 2013, 08:03 said:
I prefer to shave with the razor of oakham. Either we have a sinister and masterfully-executed plot by a Machiavellian businessman with delusions of grandeur to turn his daughter into a puppet through which to live vicariously and dupe the masses of their money, or we have a stuck-up rich girl whose parents mindlessly support her in her own quest for fame.
The number of Machiavellian manipulative-evil-genius parents who have managed to remain almost completely publically silent on their role in their children’s efforts is approximately equal to the mass of a strange quark. The number of stuck up rich teenagers who want to be celebrities and whose parents give them everything they want is approximately the cube of the tolerable amount. This scenario, statistically at least, is far more likely than the other.
Tesch is pathetic enough on the face of it without us dreaming up conspiracy theories without evidence in order to needlessly blacken her name further.
Tim on 31 May 2013, 08:16 said:
I think it’s more “either we have someone who routinely writes like a crotchety old man who speaks bad English or we have someone who’s work is alternately her own and that of a crotchety old man who speaks bad English.” Since Gloria does appear to live with a crotchety old man who speaks bad English and seems very oddly silent, I imagine Occam’s Razor says that we’re alternately reading work by her and her dad.
Also, who’s trying to blacken her name? I think she’s a nice but dim girl who’s just trying to make her dad happy.
swenson on 31 May 2013, 08:58 said:
Yeah, but her writing doesn’t really come across as a crotchety old man with bad English, it comes across as writing by an immature person who doesn’t have a firm grasp on grammar (and punctuation. And capitalization.) and thinks pretentious writing is good writing and incomprehensibility = wisdom.
Tim on 31 May 2013, 09:12 said:
Yeah, sometimes. It varies.
Alicia on 31 May 2013, 14:16 said:
I don’t know about the whole, “Gloria is her own father” thing. I just thought it was interesting the way she kind of transitioned from young prodigy author to generalized celebrity to the point where she’s not even making an effort with her writing any more. To me, all that shows is that she is more enamored with the fame of being a writer than the actual novel-writing aspect of it.
(She makes a big deal about how long her books are, even though they have very little content which is simply stretched out using wide margins, odd spacing, and huge font sizes — I think if someone were to re-edit the books solely for the purpose of formatting it like an actual professional novel they could probably cut it in half without even touching any of Tesch’s words.)
Fritz on 19 August 2013, 15:00 said:
The opening was okay, I didn’t have the sound on (my ears don’t need to bleed.) The kid with the stuffed rabbit was okay, not too retarded.
I stopped watching when the goths appeared.
Betty Cross on 9 September 2013, 20:42 said:
Go to the the Maradonia movie page on Facebook if you haven’t done so recently and check out the Alana Terrence goodness. They’ve filmed the fight scene at the school.
LoneWolf on 7 May 2015, 09:11 said:
From the facebook page, it appears that they resumed filming this vapor movie again.
swenson on 7 May 2015, 10:08 said:
Yayyy! I seriously wanna see this thing. If it ever comes out, I want an II Rifftrax of it.
(although, let’s be honest, it would just consist of us all going “BUT WHAT ABOUT POISON” and stopping to sing Mother Nature songs)
Anon on 8 April 2016, 22:29 said:
There are now viewings for the movie going on.
Birdface on 11 October 2016, 04:21 said:
Apparently the movie is on Youtube? I didn’t watch it yet but skimming through the video confirms that it has Tesch in it all the way through ahaha.
ANYWAY:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqO6XjxOq58