This is one of the best things I've ever seen.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Let's hunt some ORC!
So I had the pleasure of introducing The Lord of the Rings to a friend of mine over the last couple days. He'd never seen the films or read the books before, so we started with The Fellowship of the Ring film (extended edition, of course, as it should always be). He seemed to enjoy it.
I feel like I've just spread the good news of Tolkien. It's fun.
I forgot how much I love Lord of the Rings. Sitting down and watching it again for the first time in a long time was a lot of fun.
There's something about Lord of the Rings that's really unique. In large part, it's the borderline-ridiculous attention to detail. The level of artistry is just insane. In any other movie, you can simply look hard enough and see the cracks in the illusion. But no matter how hard you look, you will only find more and more detail in Lord of the Rings. Every set is believably built; every prop is intricately crafted with all the same artistry that you'd expect the real thing to have. There's just no end to it.
It's kind of like that moment when you see something crazy and have to make sure you're not dreaming. But with Lord of the Rings, there's no pinch to wake you up; you're never pulled out of the story. It's like you're staring through a window into Middle-Earth itself.
No other film series can claim that. Not even Star Wars, practically perfect as it is, can claim that. With Star Wars, you can always find the odd prop in the original trilogy that's obviously a real-world object, or an incredibly off-putting shot of a CG creature. Not so with Lord of the Rings. It just feels real.
We're gonna watch the other two movies over the week. I'll probably write more then.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Criticism
A lot of you probably know how big a part of my life criticism is. I don't mean personal criticism, of course. I mean the analysis and critique of everything from movies to TV shows, comic books, and video games. I spend a likely-unhealthy amount of time delving into all this material, and perhaps just as much—if not more—time reading and listening to critical opinion on said media. I read written reviews, listen to a ton of podcasts, and discuss it all on forums. And now I'm thinking that needs to stop.
I've always tried to stay positive on things, for the most part. I like to let myself enjoy the stories I watch/read. But that doesn't seem to jive with the rest of the criticism world.
I read this awesome article written by George Perez (a huge name in comics writing) about why superheroes don't need to be "dark and gritty." One of his paragraphs caught my eye:
My son and I went to see Captain America about two weeks back, and it was as enjoyable and delightful a trip to the movies as I can remember in years. My days as a bitchy critic of cinema are long past, mind you, and I’m not interested in posting a review. I could do that. I once did do that. I stopped doing that 20 years ago. The proliferation of people who mistake their opinion for criticism made me stop.
It was when I read this that something clicked for me.
See, there's a mentality among critics that there is some unknowable standard of "quality" that permeates all art. That through analysis and critique, the "truth" of the art in question can be gleaned. Furthermore, there's a bizarre mob mentality that goes on both in the critic community as well as in general geek fandom where certain stories are simply declared "good" or "bad," and anyone who disagrees with the absolute quality of those judgments is wrong. Now, many critics will deny this. They'll say that "everyone's got a right to their opinion," or something along the lines of "hey, if you like it, good for you." But when it comes right down to it, those people will discuss their subject with a kind of absolute and harsh language that doesn't mesh with what they've just said.
There's an indeterminate list of qualities within stories that are known by critics to be good or bad. It rarely matters if a movie actually does something unique with a normally-"bad" story element; critics will still only examine the movie based on a pre-set pattern they've set up to gauge the previously-mentioned "absolute quality." While this vague formula actually does work in most cases, it tends to disallow many critics from actually seeing what makes a story great individually. It doesn't matter if a green-colored rose is beautiful; according to the pre-set formula, roses are NOT supposed to be green.
It's been said of the geek community in particular that "there's no gray area." It's impossible to have a discussion about The Dark Knight, for instance, without immediately resorting to either singing the film's praises or playing devil's advocate by saying that it's overrated. In nearly every case, if a story falls into that medium-level category between "amazing" and "terrible," it automatically falls into the "terrible" category, as far as the geek community is concerned. There's nothing that internet-based geek fandom loves more than to be as negative about the things they claim to love as possible. For someone like me, who tries to look on the brighter side instead of immediately jumping to a negative gut reaction, this makes discussing the things I love online very difficult.
As I write this, we're currently in Week 3 of 4 in DC Comics' New 52 relaunch. I've enjoyed a good 70% of the books, tolerated about 20%, and hated 10%. But there are a ton of fans out there who have been literally looking for reasons to hate the New 52, and they keep finding singular details in a few books to use as banners for their hatred. I've heard people describe themselves as "livid" over a few details, and constantly throwing out "f*** you"s at DC. A few of those people have jokingly (or not so jokingly) asked me if I actually work for DC, because no one could possibly have a positive outlook on all this. And even though that shouldn't bother me, it does. I've started to realize that I don't necessarily want to be a part of the geek criticism community. I just want to enjoy my stories and discuss them, not go looking for things to hate about them. I don't want to be irrational about anything, and I'm not looking to stick my head in the sand and make myself enjoy something when it's crap, but at the same time I really do think that a huge section of the geek community is merely negative for the sake of being negative. I know many, many highly intelligent people that I respect who do this, and it's really discouraging.
What Perez said in his article is true, I think. There's a "proliferation of people who mistake their opinion for criticism." I can deal with people not liking the same stories I do. Really. No skin off my back. But I wish people would be able to realize that their personal feelings are not the end-all be-all of the universe.
At this point, I really think I'm going to pull out of the criticism community in general. I'll still continue to enjoy the same stories I always have, and I'll probably still throw up reviews of stuff I read/watch, but I'm done with all the debating and all the judgment. I just want to be able to enjoy my stories without having to argue with people who think they're on a holy war to stop the terrible writers.
I've always tried to stay positive on things, for the most part. I like to let myself enjoy the stories I watch/read. But that doesn't seem to jive with the rest of the criticism world.
I read this awesome article written by George Perez (a huge name in comics writing) about why superheroes don't need to be "dark and gritty." One of his paragraphs caught my eye:
My son and I went to see Captain America about two weeks back, and it was as enjoyable and delightful a trip to the movies as I can remember in years. My days as a bitchy critic of cinema are long past, mind you, and I’m not interested in posting a review. I could do that. I once did do that. I stopped doing that 20 years ago. The proliferation of people who mistake their opinion for criticism made me stop.
It was when I read this that something clicked for me.
See, there's a mentality among critics that there is some unknowable standard of "quality" that permeates all art. That through analysis and critique, the "truth" of the art in question can be gleaned. Furthermore, there's a bizarre mob mentality that goes on both in the critic community as well as in general geek fandom where certain stories are simply declared "good" or "bad," and anyone who disagrees with the absolute quality of those judgments is wrong. Now, many critics will deny this. They'll say that "everyone's got a right to their opinion," or something along the lines of "hey, if you like it, good for you." But when it comes right down to it, those people will discuss their subject with a kind of absolute and harsh language that doesn't mesh with what they've just said.
There's an indeterminate list of qualities within stories that are known by critics to be good or bad. It rarely matters if a movie actually does something unique with a normally-"bad" story element; critics will still only examine the movie based on a pre-set pattern they've set up to gauge the previously-mentioned "absolute quality." While this vague formula actually does work in most cases, it tends to disallow many critics from actually seeing what makes a story great individually. It doesn't matter if a green-colored rose is beautiful; according to the pre-set formula, roses are NOT supposed to be green.
It's been said of the geek community in particular that "there's no gray area." It's impossible to have a discussion about The Dark Knight, for instance, without immediately resorting to either singing the film's praises or playing devil's advocate by saying that it's overrated. In nearly every case, if a story falls into that medium-level category between "amazing" and "terrible," it automatically falls into the "terrible" category, as far as the geek community is concerned. There's nothing that internet-based geek fandom loves more than to be as negative about the things they claim to love as possible. For someone like me, who tries to look on the brighter side instead of immediately jumping to a negative gut reaction, this makes discussing the things I love online very difficult.
As I write this, we're currently in Week 3 of 4 in DC Comics' New 52 relaunch. I've enjoyed a good 70% of the books, tolerated about 20%, and hated 10%. But there are a ton of fans out there who have been literally looking for reasons to hate the New 52, and they keep finding singular details in a few books to use as banners for their hatred. I've heard people describe themselves as "livid" over a few details, and constantly throwing out "f*** you"s at DC. A few of those people have jokingly (or not so jokingly) asked me if I actually work for DC, because no one could possibly have a positive outlook on all this. And even though that shouldn't bother me, it does. I've started to realize that I don't necessarily want to be a part of the geek criticism community. I just want to enjoy my stories and discuss them, not go looking for things to hate about them. I don't want to be irrational about anything, and I'm not looking to stick my head in the sand and make myself enjoy something when it's crap, but at the same time I really do think that a huge section of the geek community is merely negative for the sake of being negative. I know many, many highly intelligent people that I respect who do this, and it's really discouraging.
What Perez said in his article is true, I think. There's a "proliferation of people who mistake their opinion for criticism." I can deal with people not liking the same stories I do. Really. No skin off my back. But I wish people would be able to realize that their personal feelings are not the end-all be-all of the universe.
At this point, I really think I'm going to pull out of the criticism community in general. I'll still continue to enjoy the same stories I always have, and I'll probably still throw up reviews of stuff I read/watch, but I'm done with all the debating and all the judgment. I just want to be able to enjoy my stories without having to argue with people who think they're on a holy war to stop the terrible writers.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Gryffindor!
So I got into the early-access Pottermore beta. It's got a J.K. Rowling-approved sorting hat quiz.
And it put me in Gryffindor.
YEAH.
And it put me in Gryffindor.
YEAH.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
I saw the Wonder Woman TV Pilot
Title says it all.
So, yeah, I saw the pilot episode of the not-picked-up Wonder Woman TV series. It had unfinished special effects and some questionable editing, but it was maybe 95% there.
Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first:
-It's not comics-accurate. It has Diana at the head of a company which merchandises Wonder Woman in order to pay for all of her crimefighting gear and forensics labs for crime-solving.
-The costume is really oversexed. Diana herself doesn't act slutty, but her outfit is extremely revealing. It's low-cut at the top and rides high on her hips when it doesn't need to. It just feels awkward. Also, there are three versions of the suit that are seen: "shiny pants/blue boots," "normal pants/red boots," and "briefs/red boots (the original costume but shinier)." She changes in-between these three costumes with no reasoning, once in-between shots of the same scene.
-Diana kills. In her quest for justice against evil drug-people, she tortures one thug for information, uses another as a human shield in a hallway (causing him to get shot and presumably die), and throws a metal pipe into another thug's throat, killing him instantly. It feels very, very odd. It's not just inconsistent with the comics, it feels inconsistent with the rest of the show.
-Going along with the last point, there's a select few elements of the show that feel a bit too "mature." There's one point where Diana angrily uses crude terms to refer to her overly-voluptuous likeness as a toy doll, and a few scenes with a bit of extreme violence that contrasts bizarrely with the relatively light tone of the show.
-The dialogue isn't that well-done. It's rather bland, in matter of fact. No brilliance whatsoever.
-There's nothing really truly remarkable about the show at all. It just doesn't feel quite important or epic enough to deserve the name Wonder Woman. The pilot episode of Smallville did an amazing job of rooting that show in deep, family-driven drama while staying true to the core of the comics and crafting a story that was perhaps low-scale (being set in a small Kansas town), but felt extremely important. Wonder Woman's pilot does none of this. It just feels like the show is being run by children playing with makeup and action figures.
Now, the positives:
-Diana is presented as a real, human person. It's acknowledged that she's an Amazon from Themyscira (they even pronounce Themyscira correctly), but she's not the stiff-worded, alienated character that she's shown to be in most modern interpretations. She's a twentysomething young woman who manages to feel like an extraordinary yet still normal person. It feels somewhat like the interpretation of Clark Kent in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. She might go out and "kick dudes in the head" (she actually says that to her cat at one point), but she ultimately goes back to her apartment and relaxes in front of the TV like anybody else.
-There's a lengthy fight scene, that, up until the killing at the end, is actually really cool. It's a bit cheesy, but it works, and it's a lot of fun.
-She's got decently well-done romantic tension with her (at this point, former) love interest, Steve Trevor. It's vaguely implied that they have the same comics history of him having been a pilot that crashed on Themyscira, but now he's become an FBI lawyer. Maybe it's the fact that I grew up watching J.A.G. and therefore like the idea of fighter pilot lawyers, but I'm okay with this.
-The whole idea of Diana owning a company, as stupid as it is, does make sense from a certain point of view. The Batman comics recently had a similar idea, where Wayne Enterprises publicly funded crime labs for the local P.D. as well as providing crimefighting tech for individuals acting as Batman-themed crimefighters across the globe. Also, in the pilot, Diana is shown to be almost dismissive of her company, as though it's merely the means to an end—that end being bringing criminals to justice.
-Adrianne Palicki definitely looks and acts the part. She's a bit of a younger Wonder Woman (even though she's a good bit older than Lynda Carter was when she played the character), but that works. She's got the exact kind of statuesque elegance that Diana needs.
-She's really really hot.
I couldn't find another way to say that.
-The show might be mostly unremarkable, but it's at least fun.
So, in the end, I think this actually might have worked. It definitely needed a few changes (make the costume less shiny and revealing, remove the killing and torture, and maybe tighten up the dialogue a bit), but it would have been a fun show.
At the same time, it definitely would have been nothing more than a guilty pleasure show. I'd much, much rather have a show that took itself a bit more seriously. It's clear that the crew behind this show really didn't know what they were doing, other than crafting a story that basically boils down to excuses to put Adrianne Palicki in tight-fitting outfits with a mildly interesting plot.
I would have watched every single episode had it aired, but it also probably wouldn't have been that great. Like if you gave me an unlimited supply of cheap store-brand soda. Sure, I'd drink it all the time, but I'd be under no illusions that it was anything special.
Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first:
-It's not comics-accurate. It has Diana at the head of a company which merchandises Wonder Woman in order to pay for all of her crimefighting gear and forensics labs for crime-solving.
-Diana kills. In her quest for justice against evil drug-people, she tortures one thug for information, uses another as a human shield in a hallway (causing him to get shot and presumably die), and throws a metal pipe into another thug's throat, killing him instantly. It feels very, very odd. It's not just inconsistent with the comics, it feels inconsistent with the rest of the show.
-Going along with the last point, there's a select few elements of the show that feel a bit too "mature." There's one point where Diana angrily uses crude terms to refer to her overly-voluptuous likeness as a toy doll, and a few scenes with a bit of extreme violence that contrasts bizarrely with the relatively light tone of the show.
-The dialogue isn't that well-done. It's rather bland, in matter of fact. No brilliance whatsoever.
-There's nothing really truly remarkable about the show at all. It just doesn't feel quite important or epic enough to deserve the name Wonder Woman. The pilot episode of Smallville did an amazing job of rooting that show in deep, family-driven drama while staying true to the core of the comics and crafting a story that was perhaps low-scale (being set in a small Kansas town), but felt extremely important. Wonder Woman's pilot does none of this. It just feels like the show is being run by children playing with makeup and action figures.
Now, the positives:
-There's a lengthy fight scene, that, up until the killing at the end, is actually really cool. It's a bit cheesy, but it works, and it's a lot of fun.
-She's got decently well-done romantic tension with her (at this point, former) love interest, Steve Trevor. It's vaguely implied that they have the same comics history of him having been a pilot that crashed on Themyscira, but now he's become an FBI lawyer. Maybe it's the fact that I grew up watching J.A.G. and therefore like the idea of fighter pilot lawyers, but I'm okay with this.
-The whole idea of Diana owning a company, as stupid as it is, does make sense from a certain point of view. The Batman comics recently had a similar idea, where Wayne Enterprises publicly funded crime labs for the local P.D. as well as providing crimefighting tech for individuals acting as Batman-themed crimefighters across the globe. Also, in the pilot, Diana is shown to be almost dismissive of her company, as though it's merely the means to an end—that end being bringing criminals to justice.
-Adrianne Palicki definitely looks and acts the part. She's a bit of a younger Wonder Woman (even though she's a good bit older than Lynda Carter was when she played the character), but that works. She's got the exact kind of statuesque elegance that Diana needs.
I couldn't find another way to say that.
-The show might be mostly unremarkable, but it's at least fun.
So, in the end, I think this actually might have worked. It definitely needed a few changes (make the costume less shiny and revealing, remove the killing and torture, and maybe tighten up the dialogue a bit), but it would have been a fun show.
At the same time, it definitely would have been nothing more than a guilty pleasure show. I'd much, much rather have a show that took itself a bit more seriously. It's clear that the crew behind this show really didn't know what they were doing, other than crafting a story that basically boils down to excuses to put Adrianne Palicki in tight-fitting outfits with a mildly interesting plot.
I would have watched every single episode had it aired, but it also probably wouldn't have been that great. Like if you gave me an unlimited supply of cheap store-brand soda. Sure, I'd drink it all the time, but I'd be under no illusions that it was anything special.
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