Sherlock Holmes: A game of shadows

Well, me and the girlfriend decided we’d better see the new Sherlock Holmes movie.  The first was exciting enough but I’ve always enjoyed Professor Moriarty and was looking forward to it.  There are highs and lows with each movie but I left the theatre feeling profoundly moved by this movie.  Not only was the story griping and intense (but it probably won’t age well), the cinematography was insanely beautiful!  I couldn’t stop raving about it.  It felt like a combination of Steam-punk, Sherlock Holmes, and the Matrix.  The detective work was done well enough but there didn’t seem to be much in terms of “reveals” in this film.  Watson‘s role felt like it has evolved since the previous film and highly compliments the character of the novel.  Overall, fun film, go see!

I want to talk about the cinematography first because it had the greatest impact.  There is a scene where our heroes are running from German gun-fire and heavy artillery.  The scene seemed to stretch on forever and it felt completely different from anything I’d seen.  They had shots where the actors head remained in the center of the shot while they were running and it really caught me by surprise.  They did quick transitions from normal to slow motion all over the place and it was really something to see, bullets flying as the actors looked stationary due to their relative speeds.  It was a fantastic scene and seemed so fresh to see something of this caliber.

Other than that, there was a recycling of the previous movie’s story-telling techniques.  They showed Sherlock’s pre-combat situation assessment a few more times.  It was something I thought they should’ve done more in the first movie and I guess the producers felt the same way.  In this movie it was really close to overdone but they also had a bit of fun with it.  During the second sequence the actual take-down was interrupted by our main heroine throwing a knife at him which was sort-of predictable from intuition.  I was expected as the lady was sitting there, had a guarder belt knife and knew the assassin was in the rafters, not a tough connection to make.  


One thing I had a hard time with was the ramping they did with all of the technology/transitions.  I don't know that it was overly used or not, but the sounds that they used during each of these scenes were incredibly grating. The gears, the loading gun chambers, and the ropes and pulleys are all given these incredibly loud and jerky sound effects that after the 5th occurrence were starting to make me feel uncomfortable and I'm a big fan of things mechanical.

Watson, played by Jude Law, gave an interesting performance.  Sherlock, Robert Downey Jr., relied heavily on his partner in this flick and for the most part Watson kicked a lot of ass.  He seems to be an expert marks-man in these movies and they went to great lengths to show how Sherlock and Watson complement each other.  Moriarty is played by Jared Harris and he does a diabolical job of bringing life to the character.  I especially enjoyed Sherlock and Moriarty’s interactions; they’re both on the same level in so many ways, constantly playing each other.  The supporting cast did a fine job as nothing really sticks out in my mind as poorly conveyed through them.  One thing that occurred to me later on is that Moriarty has a Watson equivalent where he’s an ex-army discharged sharpshooter as opposed to an army medic.  So it’s a good vs evil in a battle of wits and the war-machine.

There were some things that stood out though.  There seemed to be a lack of big reveals in this.  I think that Sherlock novels have this way of explaining all loose ends and they didn’t seem to accomplish this in the movie version.  How does Moriarty get a restaurant full of people to simple get up and walk out of the room during lunch time with Irene Adler, (Rachel McAdams)?   Are they all part of his personal crew?  Does he own the restaurant?  It seems like such a big event for a simple restaurant as Moriarty could easily have had his variety of trained assassins kill her through other means; this over-the-top scene came off as strange.  But maybe that’s just Moriarty being his whacky crazy self!

Why does Sherlock conclude that he won’t be able to beat Moriarty at the end of the movie?  Maybe alone he realizes he can’t beat him in hand to hand combat so he concludes that the only way to defeat Moriarty is to pull him off the edge with himself.  Ok, that’s intense, but a moment before he completes the execution Watson comes into the picture.  Sherlock’s conclusion should then change as Watson would surely even the odds.  Sherlock then “dies” in defeating Moriarty but it is shown only a minute later (the length of the funeral scene) he was whimsically, completely fine.  The only explanation being that he had a compressed oxygen breathing device... but that’s not an explanation!  They fell off a huge waterfall in the middle of winter wearing formal attire and all Sherlock needed was a can of air… to breath under water? Would the oxygen prevent injury from falling?  Who knows!

When they’re fighting on the train that was headed to Watson’s honeymoon destination (Brighton?) they get into a huge gun-fight where the entire half of the train is blown off.  The scene ends with them sitting at the back of the train as it continues towards its destination.  Who is operating this train that he doesn't notice?  If that many cars are removed from the train, you would feel the change in load!  Not just that but the noise of the guns would’ve been hard to miss along with the complaints of the 1^st class passengers having been removed from their apartments (1st class are the first to complain).  This isn’t the first time something like this has been shown in a movie; they do this all the time.  I just find it funny that train operators are so oblivious.  To be fair, maybe it’s perfectly valid, maybe those old engines were so heavy and the vibrations so fierce that one operating it would be virtually oblivious to anything happening outside the engine room. 

When I saw the first movie I was a bit nonplussed about this new take on Sherlock.  Sherlock Holmes novels are so dignified in their nature and the reader is spending much of their time attempting to figure out what’s going on, guessing who could be behind this and what their motives could be.  In these movies I never had time to think, it was simply one event after another and I found myself strapped in and trusting in Holmes’ judgment without using any of my own.  I remember being like, “Holy shit!  That’s crazy!” at the end of some of the Holmes stories as things became clear and how Holmes was on top of it all.  This movie was more of a spoon-feeding detective action movie and the reveals weren’t all that intense.


I enjoyed the romance between Addler and Holmes in the previous movie but Addler’s part in this was very short-lived.  Whether Addler does officially die in this is hard to follow, Moriarty says she succumbed quite instantly to a rare form of Tuberculosis but we don’t really see her die.  The most we see is her fall onto a table as she collapses but she seemed to be coughing and simply immobilized.  Moriarty could easily have been playing Holmes (and us), making him think her dead in an attempt to unhinge him but other than that and Holme’s farewell handkerchief throwing-off-the-boat we don’t seem to do the character justice.  As it’s an open ending it wouldn’t been surprising to see her in the next film (if they make one).  They could’ve left it open to simply allow for the possibility without having to really commit to including her.

Overall, the movie was fun and only slightly intellectually stimulating.  I’d recommend it if you’re looking for something for eye candy and witty banter.  Robert Downey Jr. seems to be cinematic gold these days and lights up the screen whenever he’s on.  

Dust it off

This is just awesome, I can't get youtube-doubler to work these days but if you start the Tron Legacy: Main Theme music and then watch the Thunderheist video - Jerk it with no sound they actually match up perfectly the entire way through.  Like something weird and robotic, glory to the chicken!

Dust it off and jerk it, jerk it.

Dr. Baltarstar Galactica

I recently finished watching the entire Battlestar Galactica series, I hadn't seen a single episode until recently and with the excessive amount of free time being a university graduate gives you I thought I'd take it on.  All the other characters aside, I found Dr. Baltar's to be by far the most interesting.  His gift of brilliant intellect is what makes him such a frustrating and yet provocative character to watch on screen.  For the entire first season he spends his time trying to appear sane whilst conversing with a vision of Caprica 6, a vision only he can see.  I think he does it well, I'm not entirely sure how no one picks up on his strange behavior but there's something to be said about the sort of quirkiness that comes along with being insanely smart.  If he was someone of normal intellect it might’ve been harder to accept by his fellow crew and characters so it also compliments his background that they go along with his quirkiness.

Not only do I see women that don't exist, I have sex with them.  That's science!

Unfortunately, Dr. Baltar is a worm, and I hated that about him. He was given so many chances to turn around and in one instance he even shoots a soldier holding a gun to Calley’s head while they’re all roughing it on an unknown planet. No idea how it would’ve ended had Baltar not shot him but it was a gutsy move… unfortunately this is where I began to take issue with the story. Baltar has this huge role in the story-line, his screen-time is significant and the roles he plays become bigger and bigger but he doesn’t falter in being a worm until the very last episode. That’s not necessarily true, there’s the Calley’s head saving incident, as well as a few others where he shows some spine, but his ability to completely revert to what he was an episode prior just drives me up the wall. “Dude, you just shot a guy to save a girl from an insane power-tripping soldier, stay at that level of manliness for a few episodes.” The point where he becomes president is also something of an issue.

My first order of business as President will be to sleep with some women and then spend the rest of my term denying that it happened.

Dr. Baltar is elected President by democratic vote. If he didn’t win the position, it would’ve gone to Tom Zerick. The current President, Laura Roslin, was not going to win due to her illness and overall lack of appeal from the public but was only given the position because she was next in line after every other person in a position above her died on Caprica. President Roslin, in a drugged-induced state, remembers seeing Gaius Baltar on Caprica and immediately realizes he’s a threat. She actually spends the rest of the series trying to prove he is a Cylon conspirator to the point where she begins showing negative character traits. One scene Baltar is injured from an explosion and she first bandages him up then removes his bandages upon further consideration (no one would suspect it, the bandages just fell off!). Actually Rolsin’s position as President is restored later in the series by Tom Zerick in a way that is absolutely ridiculous. Tom Zerick is actually elected President then places Roslin in the role of Vice President then steps down and basically trades positions with her. If I voted for Zerick I’d be freaking pissed, the people voted for Zerick and he just gives it to the competition?  I think that has to the most politically incorrect move in presidential history; also, Zerick tries to take over the government illegitimately half-way through the 4th season, why? Cause silliness sells! “Dude, you had it, you were voted in! The people wanted you as president, why’d you give it up?” He claims something untrue, like he never wanted the position, but he’s run for the position a few times.  Actually, putting Roslin back in charge is an example of the corruption he's been famous for fighting against in the past. The initial election was his idea as he was trying to usurp Roslin.

My boyfriend will destroy anyone who tries to take the Presidency from me, that's my kind of democracy.

Then Baltar becomes religious. At first he makes a bold statement and declares before all of his followers, “take my life in the place of this child’s” and is absolutely ready to give up his life up until the child recovers. Then he ends up skulking around, not giving a crap about anything, and being the voice of his vision of Caprica 6 almost word for word. He escapes the ship during a mutiny only to return to it after the battle's won. He begins to speak for his followers though, representing their voice and protecting their rights and freedoms but he doesn’t even know how to use a gun in this episode… I’m pretty sure he was stranded on a planet using guns to survive for a few episodes back in season two, crap!

These are all just examples but my main gripe is that Baltar doesn’t really grow, or his growth is not acknowledged or shown until the very last film length episode. Thing is, with all that he’s gone through he should be tough as nails by the end. He’s survived impossible odds so many times and not always because of his cowardice.  During season 4, a Baltar hater puts a knife to his throat and Baltar doesn’t even care, “do it” he says. I had high hopes for this character, hopes that he’d be a kick-ass president, a genius doctor, brave and inspiring religious leader (not that I’m into that sort of thing). He turns out to be none of these and barely scrapes by by finally doing something when things get desperate.  But his final contribution, his ultimate role is also completely diminished by his final contribution to their journey to a new Earth.

I got religion, I got it real bad

During the finale of the series, Baltar with Caprica 6 leads Hera (the half-human half-Cylon daughter) to the bridge after Hera runs away from her parents… for no reason. It’s difficult to swallow because they’ve been building up to this scene since the third season and it’s never implied what’s really going on, we can only speculate. Here’s what’s wrong with this scene:

·         Hera runs away (nonchalantly) from her parents, ok it’s scary and there’s gun-fighting going on but running away from parents is the opposite of what you do when scared.  Also, it’s like she’s in a trance, continuing to run while not looking that fearful but also able to hear both Laura and her Mother shouting from behind telling her to stop freakin running away from protection.

·         Baltar and Caprica 6 both find out they can see the visions of their opposite (Caprica 6 sees Baltar and vice versa) and then immediately find Hera.  This is the big event that we’ve all been waiting for.

·         Baltar and Caprica 6  walk to the bridge with Hera, and that’s it.  That’s what the entire mission was, to get the kid to the bridge… it’s not this big escape or anything just a relatively minor relocation.  The thing is that Athena (8) could’ve easily done this herself; actually everyone on this ship was perfectly capable of fulfilling this role as it was the overall mission for everyone who decided to stay on board the ship.

Were we supposed to take her away from the gunfire or towards it?

All of this completely diminishes the roles of Baltar and Caprica 6 in this. How hard would it have been to simply have a regular soldier see the kid, realize it’s his freakin mission and take her to the bridge? Not difficult! Actually, I assumed that they’d be the only ones to make it out of the mission alive. That seemed more like the scenario in the vision we’re shown a few dozen times. Turns out the rest of the vision after they walk into the light is that Laura and Sharon/Athena/8 catch up with Baltar and Caprica 6 and high-five over a job well done. What was the point of all of this? I’m not even sure Baltar really learned anything; he probably changes back to a spineless bi-pedal genius 2 days into their settling back on Earth anyways.

The persuit of AWESOME

Dudes, if something isn’t awesome it’s not worth doing.  Except things we need to do.  I was watching a review by Nostalgia Critic on Disney films which included Casey at the Bat.  The short film itself is one of my all-time favorite Disney shorts, one I’ve reflected upon so many times, “Dude, you don’t just let the first two go bye!”  But also loving the umpire and the crowd’s reaction.  After his final swing we jump to the beautiful afternoon in the park where all is joy and serenity and I see a kid running down the street pushing a hoop (I guess the stick part came a little later) and immediately thought to myself, “holy crap, that’s what kids did?”  I can understand it actually, I played tons of silly games me and my friends made up when we were younger.  One such game involved throwing Halloween fuzzy peach candies packages at each’s goals until one of us scored, it was good fun and no-one got hurt during this one.  I and my brother played this for days after school and it drove my Dad crazy (also part of the fun).  Now-a-days?  It’s videogames, movies, and all sorts of intoxicants that help me get through the seemingly boring down-time of everyday life.  It’s making non-play-time excruciating.

These are for throwing!

I look upon my senior co-workers and wonder what drives them; personally I’m driven by the duty that comes with the profession.  I've taken an oath and that oath binds me to a few things, especially quality of work and deadlines are my nemesis when it comes to quality.  Also, losing my job is not a desire of mine so I keep up the good work.  Regardless, I find work difficult when I know I've got probably thousands of hours of entertainment waiting for me at home.  It’s ridiculous, without spending money one can watch YouTube videos, download game trials off PSN (some of which gives you an hour or so of play-time), and dedicated websites release videos that are generally of a quality that can compete with television without the censorship (hopefully it stays that way).  If the power goes out you can read books, I have about 2 dozen on my shelf I haven’t finished, 3 I’m in the middle of actually, and these are days of entertainment.

What I’m getting to is that the quality of free-time is starting to vastly outdo the quality of work-time from an enjoyment/fulfillment sense.  At work I’m an Engineer, at home I’m a freakin superhero/assassin in the renaissance/bounty hunter/dragonslaying battle-mage to name a few.  Sure, in Mass Effect I can also be an Engineer, but those engineers are like BATTLE-ENGINEERS.

  I've got a double-major in Electrical Engineering and Kicking Ass!

These engineers are an engineer in the same sense as a train or sound engineer is an engineer.  They’re basically good with technology and they don’t create anything new, they just have tools to assist their combat… I actually have a hard time believing John Shepard would be an Engineer but whatever, it’s awesome, those attack drones totally make the enemy run out in the open for easy shooting!  So, when I go to work and Engineer a pipe-line reinforcement pad or size a pump for a client I feel like not only is it not epic, it’s made much less epic because videogames have redefined what engineering could be.  Not only am I a non-superhero, I’m a non-super-engineer!  Although I’m glad I’m not working in a Dead Space environment, that’s eff’d up.

Major Dislike, Moulin Rouge

I recently watched the Nostalgia Critic Moulin Rouge reviewmusical extraordinaire, it was quite a bit longer than the title.  The most heavily impacting aspect of the review for me was Nostalgia Chick’s major dislike <salute> of Christian’s behavior when he is deceived into thinking she never really loved him.  She describes his actions with words like, “despicable” “evil” “insulting” “dirty” and “mean-spirited.”  I’ve been thinking about her perspective on that at least once a day since I saw the review/short film/musical.  I’ve been trying to figure out what it is that bothers me about this scene; it’s one that I also greatly dislike but maybe not for the same reasons. 

Despite my confusing military name, I've been known to like many things!

First-off, Christian’s a kid.  He doesn’t look it but for this story he’s someone who’s left his home despite his father’s warning in search of this concept known as love.  Most people by the time they’re 16 have discovered the obsessive crush of teen-love or something equivalent.  Christian’s also a writer, an artist, and every artist I know goes through emotional extremes, depression to euphoria, love to indifference.  It’s all about growing up as a teenager.  Christian’s reaction to his betrayal is blinded by his emotions, by what he feels, because everything he does is through these same emotions.  He’s not even really thinking, he’s trying to express something he doesn’t even understand.  William Congreve said, “Heaven has no rage, like love to hatred turned, Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorned.”  I’d say the first is true for Christian.

A woman scorned

Secondly, everything we’ve seen up until now is done through song and dance.  Expositions in musicals are done through a musical montage displaying the progression of the story or character's skills or to slingshot a relationship from mild acquaintance to die-hard lovers in love.  This scene has intense music in the background but for the most part it’s all dialogue.  Making something a musical has this way of making it easier to bare.   Music does make things more emotional though, it’s more of an emotional experience when things are sung; we can’t help it, it gets to us, music is emotion put to sound and it hits us.  But this scene is simply dialogue with intense background music and because we feel the raw nature of this scene, we’re not shielded by the disreality of people singing through their feelings (something that should but doesn’t happen in the real world).  This makes it a scene closer to a tragedy like Romeo and Juliet, where we know the truth but the characters can’t make the connection.

My dream date

Thirdly, and finally, what this scene amounts to is simply a break from the main underlying fiction that has been the movie up until this point.  Up to this point in the musical, Christian’s represented the one thing many people are obsessed with, true love, and he has yet to falter until this scene where it all comes crashing down onto the audience’s emotions.  Should he just believe her when Satine says she was playing him?    He loves her so he’s inclined to believe her either way.  She said she was lying so he believes her, she was lying about the lying so he should just assume she still loves him?  It’s confusing for anyone to figure out, either way it’s a betrayal and to have your idea of this perfect love smashed to bits is not something you can deal with.  It brings us back into reality, something we’ve been thoroughly trying to avoid by watching this film in the first place.  


Christian being hurt, acting childish, and the lack of musical number to accentuate make this experience a slap in the face for the audience.  We’ve just been hit by the reality of “true love” in that the concept of it is entirely bullshit.  Love is very real, and people experience it every day but true love is the love that lasts longer than 12 months.  I’m serious; there have been extensive studies on the idea that the first year of a relationship is literally a euphoric stage in which couples are ignorant of each other’s flaws.  After that year ends, it’s all about accepting what you couldn’t see before and not caring about it either way.  Back to the film, we didn’t want to experience that aspect of reality, we liked the distraction.  Overall, though, it’s an effective scene in that it stays with us or makes us hate it, and maybe it’s better for it.  Who knows, I just know it’s hard to watch.


<Addition: Dec 14, 2011>


Ok, so there's a bit more to this.  If you watch El Tango de Roxanne you'll notice a few things.    

1. Firstly, this scene happens directly before the slut-shaming minus "The show must go on"
2. Secondly, it's your friends doing an interpretive song and dance about your girlfriend being a prostitute and her having paid sex with other men.
3. Correct me if this wikipedia article is off, but "Satine offers to spend the night with the Duke to keep the original ending"

So, number 3... Satine is making a decision here.  I know it's art, it's Christian's writing, but Christian's looking for true love here.  True love would be changing the ending of the play.  Make it a tragedy, make it whatever, it's less important than having each other.  She's not quite strong enough, she gets bullied, badgered, and bought by the creepy Harold Zidler, she's dying of the consumption and this is her last chance to achieve her dream.  Christian is bullied by his friends in the Tango.  It all comes to a climax when both of the main characters discover they could easily hurt the ones they "loved."  


Here's the thing, Satine and Christian's actions show it all.  Satine hurts Christian to save both the show and the theater, screw the logic of "hurt him to save him", it really doesn't fly at all and no one in love would be bought by it.  It's the last of Harold's arguments and we're not entirely sure which one convinces her.  Christian's reaction and slut-shaming are him reacting to being played.  His ultimate goal wasn't necessarily to find a woman to love, it was just to find love.  He found it and it was taken away by Satine so he's pissed off at her.  I'm not entirely sure that they ever really loved each other, I mean Christian had to convince Satine that they were in love in the first place.  Seriously, who does that? 

Satine:  Ah!  Help me!

Christian:  I love you!

On the other side of the argument, people in love hurt each other all the time.  Sometimes people say mean things, get clumsy with words, make unnecessary observations, are negligent about certain details.  In the end, they both get over their mistakes and go back to simply loving each other.  That's what it's about really.  Their entire relationship has only enough time to encounter one obstacle.  We'll never really know if what they had was true love because, well, Satine dies directly after they patch it up; the circumstances tend to put a swing on things.


Overall, I'm just messing around.  Love is an abstract concept and not clearly defined.  Sometimes love is weird, adventurous, or just a bonus for finding a suitable man.  I did a brief search and the most interesting thing I found was that "true love" was first described as the feelings that come from marriage.  So, regardless of how you felt before, once you were married your love became real.  It was then revealed that this isn't necessarily true as divorce rates show, marriage doesn't create new feelings it simply strengthens and reaffirms what's already there so when people found that marriage wasn't giving them the elated "true love" they'd been told to look forward to, the search for it became extensive.  People began to look for it, a love that removes all doubt.  I don't know that Christian found that in Satine, maybe it was just the beginning of a bigger quest.  I mean, really, if you came to Paris in search of something as epic as "true love" and found it within a week of settling in you'd almost feel it was too easy.  No, Christian's first  attempt at love dies so it's try try again.

Snake Vid-edit

War-games have changed. It's no longer about nations, ideologies or ethnicity. It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by gamers and the gaming elite. War-Games, and its consumption of time, has become a well-oiled machine. War-games have changed. Players carry leveling weapons, use leveling gear. Energy drinks inside their bodies enhance and regulate their abilities. Mind reading controllers. PSN and XBox Live Accounts. Emotions rage. Battlefield replays. Everything is monitored, and kept under control by GMs. War-games have changed. The age of deterrence has become the age of obsession. All in the name of distracting us from the real-life catastrophe from weapons of mass destruction. And he who controls the battlefield, probably has the most points. War-games have changed. When the battlefield is under total control, war-games... becomes routine.

Bad decisions

Today was exhausting and it basically a form of self defeat.  Last night I decided to ignore the area of my brain that produces common sense and just stayed up until I became tired or a bit sleepy.  It was one of those, "why not?" situations.  This didn’t happen until I realized it was around 3:30am.  I generally wake up around 6:30am or 7am for my work at 8am which meant that my allotted sleep for the night would be less than four hours and this entire situation was completely avoidable.  I’d spent the last  4 nights staying at my girlfriend’s parents place, cat-sitting, and this was my first night back in my place, so it was now that I realized I'd forgotten my cellphone and it’s basically my only alarm clock these days.  So, here I was; no sleep, no alarm, and definitely starting to really feel the weight of the situation.  I checked everything I could think of, my TV’s alarm would require music or something on it to wake me up.  My iPod Classic had an alarm but it simply made a single *beep* sound then asked if you wanted to hit snooze or dismiss.  I played with it for another 10 minutes before I realized that it wasn’t going to make a second beep, I’d sleep right through that.  My only option was the stove.  Basically, if I keep my bedroom open I can hear the stove’s timer beeping but I didn’t know if it was going to be enough to wake me up, also the timer was really old so the longest time you could put on it was about 2 hours.  By this time it was almost 4:30, it took a while to exhaustively search for my phone and determine the uselessness of the iPod alarm clock.  This was actually ok though, I’d wake up at 6:30, if I felt ok maybe go from there or reset the timer and get going at 7, or 7:15.  All set!

Dude, could've been worse

I don’t remember lying in bed for more than two seconds before I woke up to the oven timer and when I cleared the flashing "0:00" and the oven displayed the time, it was 7:45.  I was like, “shit, I am not going to be on time!”  but also, “holy shit, if I’m on time then I’ve probably gotten the most sleep I could’ve gotten given the situation.”  I sleepily rushed around my house, getting work shirts, pants and snacks.  I grabbed my bicycle from the deck and got it ready.  I threw my jacket on, 7:52, I started down the 4 flights of stairs to the main floor, hopped on my bike and rode into the cold Nanaimo morning.  I arrived at work about 7:58, perfect! 

Here’s the thing that gets me, I woke up at the perfect time, but that oven timer was beeping for probably an hour and 15 minutes.  That means I could hear the buzzer but it wasn’t effecting me until 15 minutes before being late for work.  What the hell work me up?  I was dead asleep and having intense dreams.  Was it purely luck?  I had been playing with the kitchen timer for a bit before I slept, had I subconsciously made a note of the duration of each beep and the time between?  Had my mind determined that after 4500 beeps I really needed to wake up or I risk looking unprofessional?  Regardless, I was able to get through a potentially shitty situation and survived without the aid of a loud and practical alarm and I don’t even know if it’s something I could pull off a second time.  Oh well, pretty sweet, trying not to think about sleep~.

Breaking Dawn, why is it popular?!

Firstly, I need to explain why I went and watched this.  I was enjoying a leisurely Sunday morning when I decided to check to see how Spoony’s been doing.  I looked through his recent activity and found a new Vlog on his experience with Breaking Dawn Part 1.  I groaned at the movie title and clicked, his immediate and initial words were on the level with “it’s bad, it’s so bad” and I had to stop the review right there.  I’m not terribly keen on the idea of having people make my mind up for me and to be fair, I want to be a sort of critic in the future, I should watch a movie myself before I let someone else adjust my view on it.  So, I went for a walk, I was actually planning on going for a stroll up to the mall to watch “Immortals” but when I arrived I realized it was at the other theatre in town (we only have 2) and that I’d miss the first 10 – 15 minutes if I walked it which was my only option, Breaking Dawn was playing here.  There were others to choose from but the only thing I could think of was, “if I watch this movie then I can watch Spoony’s review without clouding my own opinion which I could form whilst watching this probably “bad” movie…  See, that 2 second snippet was already affecting my perspective.

Secondly, I didn’t really watch the movie fairly; see on the way to the theatre I was considering what I didn’t like about the previous encounters with the Twilight Sage.   I haven’t read any of the books, but I did listen to an audio book and my perspective from that was that Bella was really annoying and that’s pretty much it.  I considered this to be the reason why some would enjoy the books; to me Bella’s character is so void of anything personal or real that one can easily replace her with yourself or your own character.  Edward has this in common as well, he’s so simple.  Basically, they’re both just in love to the point of being annoying and have no other significant qualities making them a clean slate personality-wise.  A good example of where this works (I feel like I’m blaspheming to compare the two) are Chrono from Chrono Trigger or Link from the Zelda games.  They have no dialogue so we fill the personality with our own equivalent, to the point where we hate it when others come along and give them a personality “excuuuuuuse me Princess.”  We can fantasize about these characters or put ourselves in their roles so easily, I had the opposite situation with Shepherd from Mass Effect, his character and Dialogue are so well developed that when the character creation screen comes up I just go with the default as that’s what Shepherd looks like and any alterations of his stock appearance just seem to make him foreign.

Hello, not-Shepard

Anyways, I said that I cheated or didn’t “watch the movie fairly” and here’s why.  When the movie started up, I was listening to my iPod to kill the boredom of waiting for the movie to start; I was going to shut it off but found that it was just commercials (car and soda) so I put the ear-buds back in my ears and waited for them to be over…  When they ended I was going to wrap up my headphones and put the music away but the first ad was for “New Year’s Eve” and I’d seen it over a dozen times thanks to TV commercials.  I kept the headphones in and it was at this moment that I began to think to myself, what was terrible about these Twilight movies?  Why, Bella and Edward of course… not just the dialogue but the way they delivered the dialogue; don’t get me wrong, all of their lines are dripping with a general hatred of all things poetic, but it’s their delivery of these terrible lines that amplifies what could potentially be a bearable exercise.  I didn’t continue to listen to the music throughout all the previews, some of them were decent enough to grab my attention but most of them saw to my decreasing attention and the music came back on.  When the movie started playing though, I stopped the music.

Jacob’s not a very interesting character but I feel for him, he’s a bit of a masochist; he’s in love with a girl who likes to chase him down and kiss him whenever he decides to get over her; definitely not one of those morally straight edged types, this Bella.  Anyways, his first scene had me laughing out loud.  He receives the wedding invite and immediately takes off his shirt and runs into the woods, “they really didn’t waste time” is what I immediately thought, in retrospect I think they were probably just trying to get this one shirtless scene out of the way.  For the most part the shirt-less scenes were either few or my eyes were pulling a “see no evil” and saving my soul.  No music needed so far. 

Bella: So, when can I become a Vampire again? 

Edward: After the wedding and at least two sex-montages.

A few second later, we see Bella getting ready for her wedding ceremony; I swear she uttered 3 words before I hit the play button and something strange began to occur.  The movie was surprisingly fine, I didn’t know the story but I gathered (correctly when I checked cliff notes online later) what was going on.  She had an intense nightmare where Edward looks really stoned on a pile of bodies and she wakes up and gets over it.  “Mustache Dad” as Spoony rightly refers to him is a definite “music-pauser” and the female vampires are interesting to look at and most of what was going on made sense without dialogue.  Here’s one thing I missed though, the conversation where Jacob’s upset that they’re going to consummate the marriage with her as a human.  Now, I formed this opinion through Spoony’s review but before that I had no problem with the idea that she was still human during these scense.  Up until this point, Edward had been incredibly gentle with her and her bruises were fine in my eyes as she never winced from him touching them.  On a completely different point, after listening to Spoony’s drunken ranting, I realized that there was no reason to wait; she said something to the effect of wanting to enjoy her honeymoon.  Um, I thought that the reason she married him was to become a Vampire with him, that’s it, not because she was all about the sanctity of marriage with regard to sex… it was Edward’s requirement to make her a Vampire, something she wanted.


My main gripe with this is that Bella’s want to become Vampire was changed for the sake of plot convenience and it really sticks out here.  She wanted marriage in order to become a Vampire, and on a secluded island it would’ve been the best place to do it, not in Forks where her Dad can physically see the changes occur, forget explaining the eye-colour?

All of the above aside, I pretty much listened to music for the entire wedding/honeymoon and it made for some interesting musical montages.  I also think it’s funny because montages are generally to speed up or pass over scenes that would be otherwise too long or not interesting in real time.  The montages included (trying from memory):

·         Wedding speeches

·         Trip to Rio (there’s a mini-dancing montage in here as well)

·         Bella getting hanky-panky ready

·         Hanky-Panky all over the island

·         Bella seducing Edward into give him more hanky-panky despite previous bruises (all over the island)

Then Bella gets preggers, it’s totz interesting so I pause mah music.  Bella is wondering if it’s possible, to this question I have another question… how is it possible?  Does that mean that a human egg works with a vampire sperm?  Could a human sperm work with a vampire egg?  It’s not something I’ve ever heard of, but what this does bring to mind is Alucard, the son of Dracula, and Vampire Hunter D.  Both of these characters are sweet and I’m not entirely sure but are probably the result of a similar situation.  Edward does an internet search, so how are these scenarios not part of the results of Edward’s search?  In fact, when I type in half breed vampire, my first result is a Wikipedia on Vampire Hunter D, awesome.  The point is that none of them know what this will result in, or how Bella becoming a vampire will affect the baby, they have no idea but they claim it will kill the baby… maybe maternal instincts again?  I’m not fighting this part, I have no qualms about Bella saying she wants to keep the baby and cheers to her having Rosalie protect her.  I’m neither for nor against abortion but pregger women are not on the same wavelength as men or non-pregger women in any respect so that’s as far as I’ll go on the subject, I just assumed that she’d keep it the second it came up but that could just be predictable story-writing.  Anyways, all of the Vampire lore about sunlight, garlic, and crosses are apparently bullshit so why would Edward start believing vampire lore on half-breed babies as it’s been so inaccurate on so much else?

Don't you forget about me, I've got a sword!

One scene I really enjoyed, and this was probably because I had hit play again, was the scene where Jacob runs through the forest in wolf form, pissed off all to hell about Bella’s pregger-state, and comes across his were-wolf brothers.  They have an odd dialogue that reminds me of Princess Mononoke and it turns into a power struggle, this power-struggle was, in my opinion, the single greatest scene in the movie.  The look in the wolf’s eyes, the hesitation, seeing Jacob about to submit to the big black wolf, it was fucking brilliant, my heart was in my throat for that brief second and I have to give kudos to the CG animators for putting my heart there because there was more emotion in that scene than in all of Bella and Edward’s scenes combined.  The wolves weren’t perfect and that’s alright, hair is nearly impossible to make look real (FFXIII, with their amazing CG abilities, generally gave the characters hair with a sort of rigidity to combat this) and flowing fur on running wolves must be hella tough.  The polar opposite of this scene was one that came later when they were all talking to the chief in the wheelchair, after a brief dialogue they all start jogging into the woods, I laughed out loud at this scene.  Usually they transform on the way but this time they took it real slow and all the way into the woods, I even paused my music to listen for a transformation sound and it was hard to hear or I might’ve just imagined it… it was weak, it seemed like they’d obviously cut a corner, or they were sick or animating it and just said, “screw it, everyone knows they can transform” and just had em run into the forest like there was no rush.  The thing was, there was a rush, they were supposed to be in a hurry.  The scene was jarring and seemed lazy.

That's just how we talk, ok?

There was a wolf/vampire battle again, because there needs to be one in every movie.  It went on and on and besides the occasional millisecond of clarity it was too blurry to follow and left me annoyed.  For movies with so many battles they should really work out how to convey a battle, blurry cam doesn’t work and leaves audiences frustrated, audiences that actually like action anyways… I feel like I might’ve been in the minority in this case though.  Bella has labor issues and here’s a scene that I think Spoony’s opinion was dead on with, the Bella cam didn’t really work.  I didn’t know there was a Vampire-styled-C-section in this so when it occurred I had no idea what the heck was going on, especially since Edward just started ripping her apart anyways.  If this was done with some cinematography it would’ve developed into something better, a scene for us to imagine.  The shadow on the window pane from the side, or a fully gory scene with him ripping her open would’ve been crazy as well.  It’s not teribbly important, but what comes next is a bit mind boggling.  Edward stands there with the baby for what must have been a full minute admiring it.  There was this whole plan that was set up to save Bella’s life and it was pretty much dependent on a bit of a one-two-punch sort of thing.  Cut open Bella, remove Baby, and inject Bella with venom while her heart is still pumping, perfect.  I feel like Edward would’ve been on top of this, especially with his speed but it’s another scene that was done for effect and alters the character’s imperative for something else, drama. 

The drama is, of course, poorly executed because it does the CSI/House MD/Medical Vision where it shows her veins coursing with the venom.  As soon as I saw that I’m like, oh… she’s fine… but the rest of the characters don’t know this.  Here’s a prime example of what’s wrong with their delivery of drama, when you want something to be dramatic you put the support cast in a worrisome position but you don’t inform the audience because it removes the drama… unless one of them is going to kill themselves or kill the other character… which almost happens to Edward but Jacob immediately says, “I won’t kill you” and walks away… ok, over-doing it with the ellipses, but do you see where I’m going here?   There was a perfect scene here for some tension but the movie killed the two contributing factors,

1.       Edward will allow Jacob to kill him if Bella dies, and

2.       Bella might actually die here.

It actually looked like Bella could die in this scene, it was portrayed as such and she looked so ill and had just experienced having a blood-sucking baby ripped out of her, it was fairly believable.  I began to imagine Edward raising the baby by himself, a broken man who had lost Bella but still had this oddly-named child to take care of.  Not two second later, we see the venom going through her veins, potentially healing her… not entirely sure about it but it was doing something to her and very much ruined the tension.  Ok, so one of the tension devises is gone but we’re still following a sort of Romeo and Juliet style of story here, Edward and Jacob think Bella’s dead.  This would make for a great scene where Jacob has an intense and final confrontation with Edward without Bella to step it, as she has for every scene prior to this one.  Unfortunately, the scene becomes completely safe when Jacob says he won’t kill Edward.  We have nothing to worry about, Bella’s got the venom moving through her, Jacob won’t kill Edward, and all the audience needs to do is sit there and wait for the air to clear, not much griping us here, is there?  But what about the baby!?

Finally, the threat against the baby is removed when Jacob sees the baby and instantly imprints on her.  I find this scene a bit disturbing but also alleviating.  I was wondering how in the world Meyers would clear up the love triangle in a way that didn’t involve bloody or broken hearts and this wasn’t one that I expected, nor would anyone with a non-pedophilic mind-set.  It was a strange situation all around but making the son of the Chief of the Were-wolves imprint on the Daughter of the Vampires is quite the resolution to the war between them.

Aw, he has his Father's eyes and teeth!  Not sure where he learned to smile though

The movie ends on a cliff-hanger but it really felt like things were pretty much wrapped up… it would’ve taken two minutes of scenes to just have Bella show up fine and a bit of details worked out.  Going into part 2 a bit, everyone’s worried about this baby, as if it’s going to be some ultra-vampire.  I don’t see how this adds up.  Generally, you take two parents, X from the Dad and Y from the Mom and you get a combination that makes up part of each.  The baby isn’t the equivalent strength of both parents combined; it’s some part of each of them without being greater or lesser (depending on the circumstances and the diversity of the genetic backgrounds).  It seems like common sense that the baby of a vampire and a human would be the equivalent of something between, maybe a bit of blood-lust and fairly strong, doesn’t sparkle as much, can eat human food for regular health maintenance etc.  Everyone’s first conclusion is, “KILL IT BECAUSE IT’S DIFFERENT!” and that’s just silly.  Come on, people. 

Truth be told, I’m not worried about these books/stories anymore.  I remember Dobby and Dumbledore dying in Harry Potter as well as a few other unfortunately deaths; these deaths impacted the story in a memorable way, making it hard to forget, the ending death total a variable.  Wash’s death in Serenity set the tone for the rest of the movie, suddenly a beloved part of the main cast perished suddenly and we were left wondering, who else could die?  Trinity’s death in the third Matrix, we were left thinking to ourselves, “Neo’s not coming back, is he?”  These stories may be flawed, but the stories are unforgettable because of the characters sacrificed.  Who dies in the Twilight Saga?  I’m not sure I believe anyone important will, they’ll all live to have their fairly-tale ending and fade into obscurity, thank the Gods.

I think I finally understand why these books/movies are so popular.  No real man can compete with Edward; he’s stronger, faster, has a beautiful car and drives it dangerously.  He’s Bella’s savior and he’s incredibly in love with her, he’s courteous and a gentleman.  His flaws aren’t his fault, he can’t help being a vampire so we don’t care that he’s dangerous.  I believe men are less inclined to like the story because Bella (what should be men’s focus) is not the same way, she’s head-strong but weak, she’s annoying and needy, fragile and dependent.  She’s so dependent on her man in such situations that male readers know they couldn’t help her if they wanted to, she’s also got this very strong, handsome, and rich boyfriend who she’s enamored with but also has no qualms about flirting with other men, making her hard to trust.   In summation, Edward is the perfect male role for female audiences while Bella is just the opposite for male audiences… we can’t enjoy it because it’s not written for us.  Now, before you accuse me of being sexist or anti-feminist you should consider what female roles I do find attractive. 

·         Kagero from Ninja Scroll: female ninja, strong and independent, beautiful and doesn’t need men (weird when I think about it like that)

·         Princess Mononoke from Princess Mononoke, same reason as above

·         Actually, most Miyazaki characters have strong, beautiful, and kind women as characters that aren’t concerned with prince charming in the least, they may be more traditional in that they can take charge of a kitchen in some stories but that’s another form of strength

·         I liked Samus before they developed her character

·         Deedlit from Record of Lodoss, she’s strong in her own right but in love with a single human man, as feeble as he may be in regards to aging

Dialogue was never my strong suit either, Samus

Who knows, maybe I’ll like Vampire Bella more now that she can fight for herself and Jacob’s out of the picture to remove those other frustrating, love triangulation (that's triangle and strangulation combined) tendencies.

Traffic Signals

I walked up to a traffic light the other day, I looked in all directions and found the streets to be clear except for the people waiting to cross.  This was a pretty narrow street and since it was all clear I crossed the street.  I continued down the road for a bit and turned back to see the people still waiting there... waiting for the light.  At some point some of us stop thinking about what they're doing and just wait for the traffic signals.  I think that the people could possibly have a few things:
a) long lives,
b) boring lives,
c) missed opportunities.
Ignoring the possibility that they're having an off day, I feel like sitting there during an obvious jay-walk free card is a symptom of something greater.  I'm extrapolating for the sake of interesting posts here.  They come up the traffic light, see it says stop, or see it's flashing (maybe with a counter with the number 3 still on it), basically they can cross but they say to themselves, there's always another light change just ahead.  This is, of course, absolutely the case, but maybe getting into the habit of catching those jay-walk opportunities is good practice for when greater opportunities come and you're tempted to say to yourself, "there's probably another, safer opportunity just ahead" so you don't properly assess the "safe" qualities of the current opportunity, you're waiting for a "sign"

Double Rainbow'd

Double Rainbow'd in Nanaimo, I thought I would find it more spiritually moving but alas, it's just refracted light... scratch that, DOUBLE refracted light in the end!

Dragon Age I

I’ve been going through the original, the epic, Dragon Age: Awakening lately.  You know, just plucking away at it here and there.  Awakening vs Origins has that feeling of the character having aged dramatically, which I find most rewarding.  I’m the new Arl on the street and everybody’s gotta get down with what I’m dropping, yo!  I’d make such a badass Arl in real life, “more wine for the Arl!”  I’m now going to look up what an Arl is… (5 minutes later) while trying to find out what an Arl is I stumbled upon a forum of hard-core Dragon Agians… I really hope they don’t stumble across my blog as I’ve nothing on them!  Arl = Nobleperson is all I got/wanted.  I don’t know how nobility works in the Dragon Age world but I’ve always understood it to be that nobility is a blood thing and you can’t really become a noble through any will of your own.  That being said, there must be some way to actually become a noble as someone somewhere invented the position and then had to elect others to join him, what’s the fun in being a lone noble? 

So far my experience with a game like Dragon Age is that of nostalgia.  The game’s graphics and feel truly remind me of Everquest, a game I spent too much of my high school summers neglecting my friends with.  I would gladly take Dragon Age over any MMO in that it’s “finish-able.”  For Everquest, the name alone is of the same thinking as a quest that just never ends!  I guess the fun is in the journey so by that logic it could be named Everfun!  Either way, no one trying to pursue life-goals that don’t involve corpse-camping newbs or gathering hundreds of friends to kill your local Gods would invest any reasonable amount of time into an online MMORPG.  Truth be told, I had a somewhat similar experience to  James' Experience from Extra Credits and it must have been around the same time as I do remember the Shadows of Luclin coming out and the overall need to head to the freakin' moon to get that lovely experience bonus…

-nerd moment-

Ok, all things considered, I feel like fighting on the moon would be the opposite of an experience bonus, every junior physicist/DBZ fan knows that training under reduced gravitational conditions would actually make your muscles weaker or certainly not progress as quickly.  I can imagine that people might wish to start on a new playing field with cool new characters and quests but the experience bonuses just forced peeps to buy into it to stay competitive…. Doesn’t really matter cause a hard-core gamer will buy all expansions regardless of “need money to buy food to live” conditions, which everyone knows is the most hardcorest (double grammar-attack!).