The Godesses Must be Crazy | My Legend of Zelda Canon

So here's my incredible thesis. I quite like the Legend of Zelda series, Wind Waker and Majora's Mask in particular being my all time favourite games. But I think that when you look at the official Zelda Timeline provided by Nintendo, the stories don't all match up, and they all point toward a different story than the one that the individual stories tell. Some I'm here to take a look and exaggerate a lot of points for humorous value and jump to insane conclusions.

The first thing I notice is that, from a certain point of view, Ganondorf is actually the victim. He's lived in a desert his whole life and just wanted some more land so he can be a bit safer. And why does Ganondorf and the rest of the Gerudo Tribe live in the desert? Let me back up a bit with my theory.

In Skyward Sword (Which I never finished by the way), there are the Skyloft people, who are strongly inferred to be the ancestors of the Hylians, and since there is another person ruling the surface world during that game, I can assume that he is killed by the Skyloftians, who then proceed to steal his throne. I assume that this ruler, Ghirahim, was one of the ancestors of the Gerudo tribe, and that the rest of his people were banished to the desert. Essentially my theory is that Ganon is the descendant of those people and is trying to retake the land that was originally his, meaning that the people who became the Hyrule Royal Family have always been the original aggressors.

But why would the Hylians do such a thing? Probably because at the start of Skyward Sword, they were practically commanded to by Fi, who was created by the goddesses themselves. Meaning that the very original aggressor of the attack that resulted in the events of all of the games containing Ganondorf, was actually the goddesses.

But again? Why would the goddesses do this? What is the end goal to the Hylians ruling the surface? The Hylians and Gerudo were both living in peace beforehand, so what's the point of it all? The same reason that the surface of Hyrule has a seemingly infinite amount of deathtraps containing caged animals that are disguised as worship temples. And the same reason that the topology of Hyrule randomly rearranges itself every couple of hundred years. Because the goddesses just want to watch the Links, Ganondorf, and the Hyrulian Royal family dance in the palms of their godlike hands. If the goddesses had a direct goal, they wouldn't keep resurrecting/reincarnating the main players on both sides of the conflict, unless the only thing that results from the conflict is the conflict itself.

That's why the stories and gameplay of Wind Waker and Majora's Mask seem more unique. In Wind Waker, the goddesses flooded Hyrule because Ganon appeared to have permanently won because the existing Link didn't come to defeat Ganon, so they waited for Link to reincarnate so the cycle could repeat one last time before Ganon dies permanently. And in Majora's Mask, Link is seemingly in another dimension, and therefore out of the goddesses reach, meaning that the source of the conflict is legitimate conflict between the Skull Kid and Termina.

Esentially though, what my theory boils down to. Is that the goddesses are not goddesses at all, they're just hugely powerful and incredibly bored alien entities who wanted to make some mortals dance. There might be others like them who have their own goals. In fact, the species the goddesses belong to might well be a relative of the Shinigami from Death Note, but with different powers, as Ryuk the Shinigami is also a hugely powerful and incredibly bored alien entity who wanted to watch some mortals dance.

In fact, come to think of it, we don't know for certain that the planet that Hyrule located on is actually Earth. Ocarina of Time mentions Earth once, but more in the idea of the ground beneath their feet rather than as a name for the planet. It could be that the real Earth exists somewhere else in the Zelda Universe, and Ryuk decided to play a game with the lives of mortals, after hearing of the idea from his foreign friends, Din, Farore, and Nayru.

Thanks for sticking around reader(s). Just so you know, I'm perfectly aware that I have some of my facts wrong, and this crazy theory was for my amusement only. This is still canon in my imagination though, because knowing everybody's motivations once the mystery is gone helps me to enjoy the story more. And I think that the fact that the only reason these characters exist is to provide entertainment for the player probably only adds to my theory.

7 Youtubers I recommend

I spend a lot of time on the internet nowadays, since 2008 the laziness virus slowly spread across my body and resigned me to not bothering to go to the TV for entertainment for much longer, due in no small part to the fact that in recent years I'd discovered people just making videos and things for the internet without necessarily having been hired to do so. It's what sparked my desire to become an animator easily as early as when I was 12 years old and discovered people making unofficial Mario Cartoons using games sprites that they had no legal right to back on Newgrounds.

Since then, independent content makers on the internet have always been important to me, as they symbolised the layman making their way in the world without reliance on the cold, unfeeling finger of industry pointing at them and saying "Sod it, he'll do.". Also some of them are just plain funnier, more talented and more creative than alleged professionals I've seen on the TV.

So I thought I'd compile a short list of 7 artists I've discovered in recent years for you to enjoy, I'll also link you to what I think is the best example of each of their works, as well as places they can be found, in hope that they get the views they deserve, because afterall, none of these people have actual advertising, and it's only through methods like this that they ever get seen.

7. Khyan Mansley

Besides being the name of an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh, Khyan is a vlogger/Filmmaker type person who resides on Youtube. I like him because most of his videos have a kind of melancholic, self deprecating feel to it but are still funny. At a mere 76,000 subscribers on Youtube, I consider it to literally be a criminal offence that Khyan doesn't get more recognition. My favorite two videos of his have to be 'It's hard to make friends' and 'Violence Baguettes Violence', the former for its honesty and familiaity of the subject, and the latter for its sheer ingenuity.

Also has a sister who makes amusing stop motion videos who gets even less recognition. Watch hers too.

6. Jack Howard + Dean Dobbs

This one's probably cheating a bit, but I've lumped Jack and Dean together mostly because their best content is when they're together. Together, they form a hilarious double act in their various comedy sketches that they write and act out together that have made me laugh more times than I can care to count. In addition, they each have their own projects going on on their personal channels, Jack does a vlog every couple of weeks, though they have more in common with stand up shows than vlogs, as well as his various short films for University. Dean has his own small vlog series entitled 'Harmless Things' as well as other projects. 

I've mentioned this before but I'm a massive fanboy of Jack Howard specifically, it started when I merely liked his videos but escalated when he responded to a Tumblr post I'd made toward him, which made me giggle like a schoolgirl.

My favorite videos of theirs have to be 'Superglued' and 'Silent Disco'. Please watch.

5. Tom Ridgewell (TomSka)

TomSka is yet another Youtuber from the same tiny circle of friends that the previous people mentioned have been, they're seriously good. Anyway, Tom has created a little series you might have heard of called the asdfmovie series which has most likely eclipsed 60,000,000 views in total, as well as creating his own hilarious sketches as well as incredibly well choreographed fight scenes along with some of the best special effects to ever be seen in a Youtube short. 

Recently however, Tom took a turn for the worse when his friend Edd Gould lost a battle with cancer and he was tasked with continuing Edd's animated webseries Eddsworld, Tom pulled through though, and has produced a better than ever couple of episodes that you should really check out.

Also he signed my Eddsworld poster. That's nice.

4. Arin Hanson (Egoraptor)

One of the great internet animators in my opinion, I first discovered Egoraptor years ago at the start of his popularity when he made a little cartoon called 'Metal Gear Awesome', and I was just hooked from then on. Besides straight up animation, his other endevours include the 'Sequelitis' series where he discusses game design theory in an intelligent and articulate manner when he's not randomly yelling suddenly. Also funny is his Let's Play channel 'Game Grumps', I'm usually indifferent to LP's but this one in particular is excellent to behold, as Arin and his friend Jon are really good at improvising amusing dialogue and have good chemistry.

3. Harry Partridge

Forget 'one of the greats', Harry, I think, is THE greatest animator to ever be showcased on the internet, even better than Adam Phillips, and he was a former Disney animator. Harry creates fully realised animated shorts with more detail and complexity than the average TV show, and he doesn't even have an entire company behind him. His main subjects are parodies of the old 80's Saturday Morning Cartoons with wildly imaginative twists with the blackest black comedy you've ever heard.

His current endeavor is a beautiful looking animated short series called 'Starbarians' which is probably his best looking set of works with incredibly high standards of design, animation, voice acting, the works.

2. Chris Bingham (Bing/Slomozovo)

I've linked two two different channels in this title, just so you know.

Chris 'Bing' Bingham is a 20-ish year old filmmaker on Youtube, he does short sketches, songs, vlogs, the works. I could talk about how his vlogs are all funny and imbued with obvious creativity and love for his craft and other things about his main work, but the main reason I think you should watch Bing is for his vlogs.

Bing created a series about a year back called 'Past Bing/Future Bing', it's basically a very ingenious vlog series documenting two years of Bing's life, namely his last year of University and his first year of industry work, but the twist is that when he started, he'd already filmed the previous year, so each day he uploaded vlogs alternating between the present day and the same day a year earlier, with Past Bing asking Future Bing to observe how an aspect of his life had changed in that year, which was always guarenteed to be in an interesting way. My favorite part though is that no two days of his life are the same, it seems as if each day he's working to make things for us, the audience, though what's better is that it documents his emotional change through the two years in a very subltle manner. It's basically like watching the story of the life of an interesting guy, in the sense that it sometimes feels like there's a plot, there are recurring themes and characters etc, except that's not true because it's all real.

He's currently working on a webseries called 'Hi, Imma Draw Ya' and another series in tandem with the Guinness World Records called 'Slo-Mo Test Lab', both are regularly entertaining and continue his tradition of conserving his uploads.

ALSO has a sister who makes sketches and vlogs.

1. Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw

Ok, this one's kind of cheating a bit. Whilst it's true that Yahtzee started out on Youtube and has the occasional Youtube upload such as 'A poem for FTL' or his various LP's, Yahtzee's main work is on a website called The Escapist, which hosts his excellent webseries Zero Punctuation, a short video in which he monologues about a recent video game release in sentences covered with wit and variety.

Yahtzee is at the top of this quite simply because he's the funniest person I've seen on the internet, it's not necessarily that he tells a joke every 5 seconds that always hit their mark consistently, or that his amusing analogies and weirdly phrased metaphors always make total sense, or that his labyrinthine knowledge of everything he speaks about is both factually accurate and also worded amusingly, or that his art style is unique and simple to look at..

Oh wait, maybe it is all those excellent reasons.

Watch Zero Punctuation.

Final Word

Obviously there are loads more Youtubers I watch who are equally fun, but if I posted all of them I would never be able to convince you to watch all of them.

That's all for now, one day I will some day write an editorial about 7 webcomics you should read and other internet/independent created content, because I really think there is some real gold hidden on the internet. Like I always say, 90% of everything may be crap, but the 10% is worth dying for, more so on the internet because the wider range of talents, which can range from literally talentless to surpassing professionals themselves.

Laters.

Iron Man 3 Trailer

Way back in the Cretaceous Period of 2008, a little film called Iron Man was released, a Marvel film adapting a character I had no particular interest in on the grounds that all the comics of his I'd read he seemed to be a boring industrialist with a stupid mustache who constantly moaned about being rich, desired by women and owning a home made suit of armour that fired magnets and lasers. The film turned out to be a hit and resulted in a series of adaptations of the other of Marvel's lesser used properties, cumulating in the childhood realising masterpiece that was The Avengers.

Three trailers have been released for the third Iron Man film (Or alternately the seventh Avengers film.) and here are my opinions on them.

Firstly, it seems to me that this interpretation of Iron Man villain The Mandarin is taking heavy inspiration from The Dark Knight Rises version of Bane, being a terrorist of deliberately unspecified ethnicity, an unusually captivating voice, and who is vowing to destroy the very ground beneath the feet of the film's incredibly rich hero in the third installment and at some point destroys a passenger plane. If that's the case it seems unusual that Marvel would draw from such a source, because The Dark Knight Rises was a bit of a flop in my opinion and the Iron Man series was always taking its own route from the Dark Knight Saga, being more obviously humorous due to the overpowering charisma of Robert Downey Jr and not nearly as grimly confrontational about moral lessons.

I do like the obvious continuity between this film and the Avengers though, I imagine there'll only be vague references so as not to make the film difficult to watch for the three people that haven't watched The Avengers yet. But I like how they're continuing Tony Stark's slow character arc of overcoming his
war profiteering days and becoming more selfless, in the case of this film, making him lean too far in the other direction as he is seemingly now paranoid that everything is trying to kill him and as a result has started hoarding all of his technology, which is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to come when you've been attacked by terrorists, aliens and Russians with electric whips in the space of two years.

My favorite part of the trailer has to be the very end when it seems as if Stark has managed to animate the spare armoured suits into doing battle alongside him, including what appears to be the Hulkbuster mech bustling through a wall, which will almost certainly seem like an interesting idea until you get confused about which armours are meant to be occupied by the characters and which ones get shot down, and potentially not get utilised by the writers in any meaningful way like the animated suits at the end of Iron Man 2. Though in that case those suits were being built up throughout the film as being made within a week by a guy who reversed engineered the arc reactor in his garage so why would they have been that good?


That's just my hypothesis though, cynicism is a powerful tool when judging a third installment of a film series who's second film has a bit of a downgrade. There's no doubt that I'm still looking forward to this film, but critical caution is always wise when a franchise gets to this size, and the second film, whilst still witty with an interesting story, was a significant downgrade from the previous film, I'm hoping that doesn't remain too constant in this case.

Mogworld and Jam

I don't read a lot myself, I used to love reading but my attention seems to have vastly depleted itself ever since I started focusing more on films and TV as my main hobby, so now I've got a load of unread books* on my shelf that I haven't finished. Another thing that I'm still a fan of however is Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's Zero Punctuation, a video game review show that's greatly influenced my writing style and from whom I've stolen entire lines of monologue from to try and sound more articulate.

*The last three Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, the first three Dune books, and Harlan Ellison's three short story collections 'I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream', 'The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World' and 'Paingod and Other Delusions' if you're interested.

In the past few years, Yahtzee has taken to writing novels in addition to his other endeavors, the two of which out so far are Mogworld and Jam, the latter of which I've just finished reading. I should stress again that I'm a huge fan of Yahtzee and Zero Punctuation and any negativity expressed in this post should be taken as it is.

Mogworld

First of all let's talk about Mogworld, the plot is about a young lad called Jim, who is a wizarding student, who is killed but resurrected 60 years later by an 'evil' Necromancer. It happens that Jim, along with everybody in his world, is actually a none-player character in an MMORPG of the future in which the AI has gained sapience, his world is then stricken by immortality and player characters, messing up their society. It's a very original story that I'm surprised nobody thought of that goes to a lot of places based on this concept, and when I say that I mean literally for most of the book they hardly stay in the same place for long before moving off to other locations for various reasons.

It got me quite confused for a while and reminded me a lot of Terry Pratchett's The Light Fantastic in that and a few other ways I don't like, namely that the main character Jim, like Rincewind, is a self confessed dirty, self serving scoundrel and coward who considers themselves to be the furthest from heroism that a man can be. And reading Mogworld, Jim's personality seems like an amalgamation of Rincewind and Yahtzee's on-screen persona in Zero Punctuation, and while I find Zero Punctuation funny because his misanthropy is played purely for laughs, it seems a whole lot less funny when there's a story around it because if you can't excuse an amoral character on a count of being funny then they're just plain old unlikable, and it often made me hard to sympathise with Jim and his goals when he's only occasionally spouting Zero Punctuation style overdrawn similes (Though on one occaision, a line of dialogue is identical to one in Zero Punctuation.) and the rest of the time was spent exclaiming how much he hates the ground beneath his own feet.

The other characters are a bit mixed, while some characters such as Slippery John, the cheery amoral thief who speaks in third person, and Meryl, the cheery undead girl who adventures with Jim much to his chagrin are a bit more amusing, even if their dialogue isn't as funny as some of Jim's, they at least don't act miserable all the time, which contrasted nicely. Though back on the bad hand, the character of the Priest who joins Jim occasionally is similarly unlikable on the grounds that, like Jim, he only has one recurring character trait and accompanying joke he drags around that's repeated with every line of dialogue, namely the fact that he's religious, Yahtzee appears to dislike organised religion because he seems to take every opportunity to use the Priest to take shots at them, whether it's relevant to the topic at hand or the pacing or not.

Those are the only real problems I have with Mogworld though, the plot is very tight and interesting and takes several unexpected and exciting turns, even if it is occasionally a bit hard to follow, the characters I didn't mention by name range from harmless to hilarious, and the third act of the book and the ending in particular is one of my favorite book endings I can remember, because the ending is the point Yahtzee remembers he's perfectly capable of writing poignant, thoughful and more importantly, happy moments.

Jam

Now onto Jam. The plot of Jam is thus, in the real world roughly glimpsed at in the ending of Mogworld, a couple of Australian jobless 20-somethings get caught in an unusual apocalypse scenario in which the whole of Brisbane wakes up one morning to find that the city has been covered in a thick layer of carnivorous jam that absorbs all organic material that comes into contact with it. So the aforementioned characters, Travis and Tim, must team up with Angela, a journalism student who suspects government conspiracies, and Don, a game developer who appeared briefly in Mogworld, and must to traverse their new society, try not to touch the jam, and maybe even get to the bottom of the cause of the jam.

Now, I like the characters in Jam a lot more, because the main characters are all more rounded and have much more likable characters and don't exclusively exist to give a Zero Punctuation style snarky comment about the situation at hand. Unless you count Don, who is another character who's literally Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation persona transplanted into the story, but Don is a lot more likable than Jim from the previous book because we're not expected to sympathise with his struggles, just listen to him snarkily comment on the main characters troubles.

Apocalypse stories, like MMORPG's, are obviously a concept to which Yahtzee is very readily accustomed to and makes a load of genuinely funny and insightful snarks into the common tropes of apocalypse stories. Yahtzee claims in a couple of Zero Punctuation episodes that in a zombie apocalypse, the zombies could be entirely interchangeable with something else without altering any aspect of the story, which is exactly what Yahtzee achieved here, change zombies to carnivorous jam and the gun and weapon looting to plastic bag theft and this would merely be a humorous parody/satire of the standard apocalypse scenario.

There are some things I don't like about this story though, firstly that it has the opposite problem to Mogworld in terms of pacing, because rather than spending every chapter in a different location, there are about 4 locations in the whole story, with about three fifths of it spent in the one where Yahtzee gets to use an aspect of modern society as a punching bag for the same joke, except instead of organised religion and religious fanatics it's the hipster subculture, and like the Priest in Mogworld, they're pretty much a repeating one joke for the entire book. I don't need Yahtzee telling me that hipsters look and sound a bit stupid when I'd rather have him elaborate on his more interesting cultural observations.

Like Mogworld, the last third of the book is very tense and a little bit emotional with an unexpected twist regarding the origin of the jam that I absolutely loved and would hate to spoil, not quite as powerful as Mogworld's ending though.

Conclusion

Mogworld was mostly hit and miss but fun for one or two reads, Jam was an improvement but still had massive blank spots where not a lot was going on, Yahtzee clearly knows his stuff about the genres he writes about, which is of course why Zero Punctuation is such a massive hit, but I personally don't think that his rapid fire humour works in novel form because generally when he runs out of jokes he startes repeating himself until the story shifts, and those time are very far and in between.

I look forward to any future book Yahtzee writes though, he's unmistakably a very funny and insightful guy and definitely worth listening to, every artist has their good, their bad and their average after all.

My Top 10/11 Favorite Films of 2012

2012 was a good year for films I think, even though there are about three new IP's on this list and the rest being remakes, sequels or adaptations.

10. Taken 2

Good sequel escalation, roughly equal in quality to Taken 1, but with a very 'The Hangover' type recursion in the plot. Lots of very thrilling action sequences from start to finish, as well as good character development for whatever Liam Neeson's daughter was called.

The only thing I don't like though is that there is a theme that questions the similarities between Liam Neeson and the main villain, since they're both amoral monsters willing to sink to incredible depths to protect their families. And then you remember the villain's original motivation was selling sex slaves and you stop empathising with them, making the film's theme kind of a nonissue. Nonetheless, a thrilling action flick, just like its predecessor.

9. Skyfall

As I hadn't seen a bond film before, the action wasn't remotely as over the top as I expected thankfully, the story was interesting and relevant too. I like the characters of Mr Silva, M and Q, even if they do seem a bit familiar somehow. Of note has to be the incredibly captivating semi-animated opening credits that I really really liked for some reason.

8. Looper

Good world building and concepts, the story keeps you guessing at the start when it's interesting but becomes predictable toward the end until the last second. The ending is a bit of a letdown and felt meaningless to me, but it built up well.

It's an interesting and highly unique story concept that takes lots of unexpected twists and turns for the first half, the latter half deflates and ends with a whimper but that shouldn't mar your enjoyment of the film unless you're thinking about it too hard like I was.

7. Dredd

Excellent, tightly packed film, there were so many ways they could have ruin the main two characters of Dredd and Anderson, by making them too dark and unlikable, or over sexualising Anderson, but they chose not to. If anything, my main problem is that it's too short. I feel like I could've watched another half when it was over, I wanted to see more of the Megacities, more villains for Dredd to oppose. I look forward to the hopeful sequel, which will go into production if the DVD sells well according to rumours.

6. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

A very good adventure story, Martin Freeman as Bilbo is more likeable than the entire Fellowship in Lord of the Rings combined due to the fact that he's pretty much the go-to  guy for "Everyman getting caught up in somebody else's adventure", the other members of The Company are also very likable, even if the fact that there's 12 of them causes you to forget the names of most of them. Standout scenes are anything with Bilbo being Billbo, but most especially when he meets Gollum and obtains the ring. 

The main, glaring flaw though is that it's padded as all hell, It takes about 10-20 minutes for Martin Freeman to appear onscreen as Bilbo Baggins, and keeps cutting away from the action to have characters explain somebody's backstory at the drop of a hat which breaks the flow over its knee several times in my opinion, the problems that it has make it not quite as good as Lord of the Rings, which is such a shame because I actually liked all the characters more than anybody in Lord of the Rings, even Gandalf is much more interesting and amusing in here than he was in LOTR, and loved the simplicity of the core story more than Lord of the Rings' story miasma if plots.

5. Amazing Spider-Man

Andrew Garfield was amazing as Spider-Man and Peter Parker, buildup to becoming a hero handled better than in Sam Raimi's films when he seems to gain motivation rather quickly. Fight scenes ok, though the fight between Spidey and the Lizard in the school is the best.

Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey also far better than Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane., even if she does bear a strong resemblance to Lana Lang from Smallville, except more likeable and not a Mary-Sue. Problems include Spider-Man not quite as funny as trailers implied, as well as entire plotlines outright being removed from the film.

Personal bias puts this film further than it would've been, as some of the film's flaws may be difficult for many viewers to look past, and indeed on a second viewing I found the pace to be far slower than I remember.

4. The Woman in Black

Really good ghost story, some overuse of jump scares and creepy children's toys, but, Daniel Radcliffe played a really good character I felt, because the fact he's so young makes you empathise with his hardships much more.

3. Ted

The funniest film of the year from start to finish, while it clearly takes a lot of its traits from Family Guy like the cutaway gags and the referencial humour and nonsequitors, the characters are more rounded and interesting to watch, rather than just vehicles for the jokes like the rest of Seth Macfarlane's works.

A standout scene I must mention is the cocaine fueled scene in the middle of the film that would be a crime for me to spoil.

2. Chronicle

Best POV camera film I've seen, I liked the disturbing character growth of Andrew who is portrayed like a school shooter waiting to happen, but with telekinetic powers instead of guns, I also like the creative use of the telekinesis in that the characters use their powers on the In-Universe Camera, that allows for clearer visuals and greater clarity in the more hectic scenes. The escalation is also quite good, the film builds up to a climax where I genuinely didn't know what was going to happen next.

1. Avengers Assemble.

Best Marvel film ever made, including all the Marvel Studios films leading up to it. Everything I looked forward to happening happened, and then some. I especially liked how lots of the things that happen in the film seem like a reward to the viewers who've been following the story for ages, for example I like how the plot was largely based off the first issue of the Avengers comic that was about 10 pages long, and like with Chronicle, it felt like the threats escalated throughout the course of the film resulting in the climax having more weight to it.

Summation

So those were my favorite films of 2012. Films that didn't quite meet my ridiculously high standards include Prometheus, the Hunger Games and the two claymation films Paranorman, and Pirates on an Adventure with Scientists. Perhaps next year's Animated products will fare better. I look forward to Man of Steel, Iron Man 3, Wreck-It Ralph and Django Unchained, the latter two of which would probably have made it on this list if it weren't for the fact that the European releases were months too late.

Doctor Who - Everything Dies (A strictly opinion based essay)

Everything has it's time, everything dies.

After watching the first part of Christopher Eccleston's series of Doctor Who, I have to say. My mind's changed on which series is my favourite.

I think Eccleston's one series is the best story, it has a clear theme that flew over my head. There is a repeated meme that "Everything has it's time, and everything dies." as The Doctor states in the second episode. And it's true, most episodes are about something dying, or something approaching death.

1. The End of the World: The Earth is destroyed and the last pure blooded Human dies. The Doctor states he is the last Time Lord.

2. Dalek: The last Dalek dies.

3. Boom Town: The last of the Slitheen Family dies.

4. Empty Child: The theme of this episode is that there is occasionally a rare subversion, everything dies, but sometimes you get an extra chance. But, as The Doctor says "Just this once.".

5. Father's Day: Rose's father dies, despite the events of the story.

6. Parting of the Ways: The Earth is wiped out. The 9th Doctor dies. But gets an extra chance.

The central theme, as I've made clear, is that everything, without exception, eventually dies. And that you should make the most of it, whether you get lucky or not.

THAT is a problem David Tennant and Matt Smith have, because after evading death for so long as the 9th Doctor, he starts thinking that he and his friends are invulnerable, that they don't have to take responsibility, and that they don't have to let things die. Both David Tennant and Matt Smith have saved the Universe from non-existence twice, and there appears to be no negative consequences for this. In fact, they actually get rewarded. For example, Steven Moffat admitted that in Torchwood, the Cardiff Rift was now never created since Matt Smith saved the Universe that first time. The 11th Doctor even admits that he knows that he's leading people to their deaths, but keeps doing it anyway.

After clearly accepting that everything dies and getting a second chance at his own life, as David Tennant, he goes on more dangerous adventures, kills the Devil himself, because again, screw responsibility, and gets a lot of people killed in the process and ruins the lives of many many people without the villains help. And after Rose herself learns that everything has to end, she gets to have her Dad back by fetching him from a parallel Universe. And after he loses all his companions for reasons that are totally his fault, he moans for a year's worth of episodes, puts himself in more dangerous situations, tries to sacrifice himself several times and then at the last second decides he's not ready because the 10th Doctor's clearly bipolar. And as Matt Smith, the central theme is "Time can be rewritten.", meaning that using his time machine, he can in fact take no responsibility for causing people's deaths, which is an even bigger step backwards in terms of character. Another theme is the consequence of stories and legends, but there's no responsibility involved because he saves the Universe from being erased by wishing really hard. He almost learns his lesson when he is ready to accept his death at the climax of series 6, but changes his mind again for no discernable reason.

I wouldn't have a problem with this if each Doctor was their own story, that they didn't follow on form one another, because each Doctor has a consistent characterisation, but the fact that it's meant to be the same guy gives me the distinct impression that he's just plain refusing to grow up even after being taught the hard way.

I have a lot of friends in real life who refuse to accept responsibility and grow up, and I don't want my fictional characters acting the same way because that's just stupid to watch. Things like Doctor Who are meant to be escapism.

And just so I'm clear, I love Doctor Who, it's one of my favourite, if not my favourite live action TV series, and I like the characters of the 10th and 11th Doctors, they're, on the surface, more fun to watch than the 9th Doctor. I think some of the standalone stories of the 10th and 11th Doctor are better than the 9th Doctor's standalone stories, it's just that when you stand them next to one another, it becomes clear that the reason they're more fun is that they're thinking in the short term, not thinking of responsibility, not knowing things have to end. This is something the writers need to learn too.

I'm no expert writer, I'm not saying I'm more intelligent than Steven Moffat and Russel T David, I think the fact that they built such spectacle proves they're more creative the I could hope to be. But if I were in Steven Moffat's position, I would end the Silence storyline, specifically end it with the 11th Doctor's death, which is the originator of the Silence's name, his Silence, his death.

Everything dies, after all, and it's about time Doctor Who did.

Arrow (Also I complain about Smallville)

Has somebody placed some kind of curse on some of DC's superheroes names that causes them to not be spoken aloud? I've watched a few live action DC adaptations recently, such as the Dark Knight Trilogy, Smallville, Green Lantern and now Arrow and they all seem very shy about reminding you what the superheroes names are with a few exceptions like Batman and the Green Lantern probably out of fear of sounding ridiculous.

Nevermind. Arrow is a TV series made by the same company that brought us Smallville, and it's crap. It's adapted from DC's Green Arrow stories, it's about a rich businessman named Oliver Queen, who becomes a costumed vigilante who wields a bow and arrow after being forced to learn archery when stranded on a desert island.

I had a love/hate relationship with Smallville, because for every excellent thing about Smallville (1) that made me love it, there was an equally bad thing that made it a chore to watch (2). Arrow has far less of the former. 

(1) Excellent parts in question being the characters of Lex Luthor, Lionel Luthor, Lois Lane and Oliver Queen. The wonderfully tragic storyline of the episode 'Commencement', the excellent dynamics between the Justice Society in series 9. And some of the interpretations of the DC mythos, like the short lived appearance of Booster Gold. Amongst other examples.

(2) Awful parts in question being the decision to make the least likeable character the most powerful character on the planet, outstripping Superman himself and then never using the powers for anything ever again making her look an even worse person for being so lazy after claiming she would do good. Also everything about the finale.

So, it's a reboot of sorts of Smallville's Universe centred around the character of Oliver Queen, AKA, the Green Arrow. Except it strips away the superpowers and general comic book-y aspects, like the titles character's bloody name, and sticks to the purely none-powered characters and depowers the ones that DID have powers. And if you're thinking that sounds influenced by Christopher Nolan's interpretation of Batman you'd be right, from the 'trying-to-be-similar sounding' narration (One of the lines is "In order to protect my city I must because someone else, I must become....SOMETHING ELSE.") to the fact that Oliver Queen builds a secret base that looks suspiciously like the Batcave (Fun fact, in the original Green Arrow comics, he had 'The Arrowcave', which is what I hope the writers of Arrow were referring to.) it makes this series look like it has no originality to speak of, but that's not actually strictly true.

Credit where credit is due I suppose, one thing they get right about adapting it Nolan style is that they understand that if they're making it real then they have to strip away the characters who were unreal, and add new characters they serve new purposes to the plot that the original material lacked. So, gone are whatever supporting characters the Green Arrow had, and bring on the new characters, like Oliver Queen's bodyguard, who is the only likeable character, Oliver Queen's suspiciously alive mother (Who was dead in the comics from the first issue.) and a new sister, though the sister doesn't count because they seem to be implying that she's the adapted counterpart of Green Arrow's sidekick 'Speedy' in the comics by calling her that as a sarcastic nickname.

Speaking of sarcastic nicknames, that's a problem I had with Smallville too. It's ok writers, if you want to make some new material for existing sets of characters, that's perfectly fine, but don't treat the source material as a sarcastic suggestion by referencing it in the form of funny nicknames because it gives the impression that you're laughing at the very thought of such silly comic book nonsense, whilst adapting said silly comic book nonsense and acting as if your version is more dignified.

Back to Arrow though. Besides all that backstory nonsense, I still don't like it all that much. Like I said earlier, I like some ideas for new material, one example being Oliver Queen's different motivation and characterisation, and the duel story mechanic they use, in which each episode will alternate between two stories, one story in the present day when he's back home and becoming a vigilante, and a story in the past back when he was on a dessert island. We slowly learn the circumstances behind his disappearance, his return and his transformation from rich nobhead to rich nobhead with a bow.

It's all for naught though, because I think the writing is shockingly generic, they say their generic badass phrases, their generic sarcastic comebacks, they have their generic plots within interesting ideas, and none of it engages me because I feel like I've seen it all before. Oliver Queen himself is a generic anti-hero, he says gruff things in his gruff voice and then kills people, which doesn't make him likable it makes me agree with one of the antagonists, who's a police officer that believes Arrow is a serial killer, which he clearly is because he goes after specific individuals rather than fights crime, and murders a lot of people he knows to be innocent but lets lots of his victims live for some reason.

I'd recommend this series to people who don't mind the generic, which covers a relatively wide audience. I suppose it's not awful, it just could've been so much better, and I think my problem is that I was never expecting it to be better at any point.

My thoughts on unappeasable fans.

Two topics in the gaming and film circles that've caught my interest recently, Mass Effect 3 and Michael Bay's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Both are intellectual properties who fans recently have shouted about for not being how they want and why I think this is absolutely ridiculous. I should stress, I haven't played any Mass Effect games, nor am I a fan of any Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles media, so this point of view is strictly based on my opinion.

Mass Effect 3

Mass Effect 3 was given a lot of criticism recently due to having a controversial ending, I.E, an apparently open ended game where your choices altered the course of the story, ended up having only one conclusion, one that didn't correspond to choices the player made. This does sound like a problem, but I might add these points:

It's a story, you can never be in control of a story unless you're the writer. No matter how it appears, you're only going on a predetermined path set by the writer, the writer clearly wanted all possible stories to converge on one simple truth, whatever it is.

B) You can't write several parallel different stories and expect them to all flow together as one, a bit of one story where you make one choice, and a bit of another story where you make a different choice does not make sense because the character may have no in-story justification for this because the player will often change their mind on a whim.

I haven't played many games with interactive stories, so it could be that I don't know what I'm talking about, but there you go.

Michael Bay's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Onto Michael Bay's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The controversial change from the source material is that the backstory is to be changed so that rather than being mutated Turtles shaped to become humanoids, they're simply aliens who happen to resemble anthropomorphic Turtles. This has caused a great deal of backlash from the fans.

The original story, so Wikipedia told me a while ago, was that in the original comic books, the Turtles were ordinary turtles, mutated by a strange radioactive substance leaking from a crashed vehicle, being a parody of Daredevil. The Turtles were then trained in the art of Ninjitsu by a similarly mutated humanoid Rat, and they became assassins for hire.

So the original story was a vague Daredevil Parody comic in which the main characters were assassins, in none of the following adaptations were either of those elements present, which certainly ought to have changed the dynamic of the story.

The cartoon was changed by marketing to become kid friendly and altered the personalities of the main characters, in which the main characters were a lighthearted bunch who never killed. And being made in the 80's or young kids, presumably dropped the Daredevil references.

Then there were the films, in which the personalities were exaggerated more and involved a story where the Turtles travel through time to feudal Japan, in a storyline that may or may not have been fabricated by the filmmakers.

Then came the cartoon reboot of the franchise, in which there was the major change of a previously human villain turning out to be an alien.

This, fans, is what happens when a franchise outlasts the original creators, things get changed, things move on. Spider-Man's origin story was a radioactive spider-bite, then a genetically altered spider-bite, then a magical spider-bite sent by a higher being, then it turns out he was a mutant with radiation immunity. In Doctor Who, does The Doctor flee because he's an outlaw, because he's bored, or because he's hiding a weapon? Writers have said each.

Changing them from mutants to aliens seems to me personally like changing the missing item in a detective story, it doesn't matter if they're looking for a diamond, or a wristwatch or a small puppy, its appearance it not defined by its purpose. Just like I very much doubt that it will matter if the turtles are aliens, if they were brought up the same, had the same experiences and had the same abilities, they've not changed a lot.

If the writer DOES make the change big however, and making them Aliens rather than Mutants changes the story drastically, it'll be because this is a reboot, and the purpose of a reboot is to change a story we're comfortable with according to modern ideas, not to show us an existing story, because the existing story has already been told and a new writer wants to do something new.

Sometimes however, major changes are not good, such as the Spider-Man comic in which he relinquishes responsibility for his actions and makes a deal with Mephisto, which is bad because the writer wanted erase everything the last 10 years of writers had done and ignored 10 years of character progression.

But as I said, a good change is a change that, after using up all the good stories for one version of a character, changing the character slightly and writing all the stories for that version of the character. Which is what changing the origin story is to me. A bad change, as mentioned, would be using all the good ideas, changing it to write new stories, then changing it back and reversing the progression. Or alternately, using all the good ideas, changing it in a way that doesn't work and using all the bad stories.

Overall

What I'm saying is basically, that writers should be trusted to progress the story in the way that they envision it, Mass Effect's writers should be trusted to have their one ending, because that must have been what they intended. And Michael Bay should be trusted that his weird idea is a step forward. And if you don't like the way it's progressing, then don't bother carrying on and go and write a fanfiction.

Batman: Arkham Asylum + Arkham City

I played these two games recently upon getting my Xbox, mostly because the general hype would have me believe that Arkham Asylum and City were the best liscenced games in the history of liscenced games. While that's probably far from a lie, it doesn't mean they're perfect, but I'll elaborate quickly.

First of all though, the hype is definitely accurate about the well praised combat system, which is the best I can personally remember handling, the general idea of the combat in the Arkham games is "Engage an entire prison block's worth of poor muscular criminals in a fistfight.", and it works very well, you punch somebody a few times, they get hurt and fall down, but not out, then another knucklehead approaches you and you repeat the process until they all stop moving. I understand I just said 'repeat' in a sentence about the combat, but really there's more to it than that, there are a ton of combos within memory so it never feels like you're endlessly smashing them with webs like in Spidey: Shatty Dims, and plus there's the fact that you can target enemies and the combos will take you right to them, and if you can't be arsed hitting them with your limbs there's the option to use gadgets (Batarangs and Grappling Hook in 'Asylum', Batarang, Grappling Hook, QuickBomb, Quick Electrode shot and a bloody ice Grenade.) which can knock out a load of knuckleheads before they get near you.

Also good in the games in the stealth sections, the best way to describe them would be by asking you to remember the scene in Batman Begins where Batman gradually picks off the gun wielding thugs from the darkness by scaring them a whole bunch. In Arkham Asylum and City, this is done through hiding on the top of curiously plentiful wall mounted Gargoyle statues and slowly taking them out silently without the other knowing you're there, because if they do they'll use their bullets to make Batman kick his addiction to breathing..

..Or I assume that was the intention, because in Arkham City, all I ever seemed to do in the stealth sections was to challenge them to a fistfight while they shot me from afar and my armour upgrades and smoke bombs protected me from being shot, yes the sheer amount of upgrades and gadgets, while quite fun in the combat sections, kind of break the stealth over its knee due to the fact that there was little need to be stealthy when I could take a large amount of bullets and disable at least three gun wielding thugs at a time anyway using various methods of stunning, I generally take this option because the stealth, while fun, is time consuming and not necessary unless the enemies can shoot you from very far away.

Back to the good though, what I like about both games is that the ArkhamVerse's interpretation of the various Batman characters are spot on, though in the first game it was more in the style of Batman: The Animated Series characters, which made since because the plot of both games was written by the showrunners of Batman: TAS. Though having just said I liked of aspect of the writing, I was somewhat less than fond of the actual story of both (Stop reading now if you don't want spoilers.), first and foremost being that the games are written by two guys who write for a TV show very well, which doesn't necessarily mean that they can write for a wholly other medium such as video games just as well.

For example, the main focus of the gameplay is exploration, stealth and combat, and while that might be fun for fighting several knuckleheads at once, it's hard to make conflict with the singular villains fall into this category, like the fact that Batman far far outclasses The Joker, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, the Penguin and other powerless villains in terms of fighting ability, and the superpowered characters like Killer Croc, Bane, Clayface, Solomon Grundy, Ra's Al Ghul and Titan Joker who could put up a fight don't feel that powerful. The only boss fights in the games who actually feeels as threatening as fighting their comic counterparts are Mister Freeze who feels as clever and as powerful as he is in the comics, and Scarecrow and the Mad Hatter, who pit you against your own delusions rather than fight you directly. Wheras Bane, who figures out Batman's identity and cripples him though a combination of intelligence and power, does not come across as such in his fights where you trick him into running into a wall a few times.

Also, I have a love/hate relationship with the environments too, in Asylum, I hated navigating the overworld because it felt like a less distinctive version of Hyrule Field and I hated navigating the buildings because every room looks the exact same and made me lose about two weeks of playtime trying to find a room that I had access to but I forgot the route to, and made me feel like like Batman and more like Link if Link was stuck in the Water Temple the entire game. This is why I like the overworld in Arkham City because not only do you feel like Batman traversing the rooftops and drop kicking criminals that're beating up innocents, but the way you travel is both quick and very Batman, specific buildings are often hard to find but they're usually on the map anyway and my problem with the level design is far lesser.

The game has a ton of side things to do for all the psychopath level OCD sufferers like collecting Riddler Trophies and solving riddles, as well as (In City.) side missions where you fight other villains or help people alternately, some of the side missions are very fussy about when and where you're allowed to continue them (Gameplay tip: When the game tells you "Look for more leads.", what it actually means is "Play the main story and we might think about unlocking the rest of this mission.".), but that's nothing that'll put me off the game.

From all my criticism it might be easy to assume I don't like these games, but that's not the case, I like the combat, the stealth, City's travel system and overworld, and the characters, which is more than enough to subsist me. The games are definitely not perfect, but I wouldn't claim to challenge the notion that they're deserving of praise.

Fright Night 2011

Fright Night was not the film I expected it to be. I'd heard good things about it from Roger Ebert and TV Tropes, but I didn't think it would be as good as it was, allow me to fill you in.

The story is deceptively simple to say it's such a good film, a teenager named Charley (Played by the guy who played Kyle Reese in Terminator Salvation apparently.), after a series of incidents, suspects his next door neighbour Jerry (Colin Farrel) of being a Vampire, which is an easy assumption to make seeing as he never steps into the sunlight and can't enter a residence he hasn't been invited into. Speaking of which, the Vampire entrance rule always did interest me and made me wonder why I hadn't heard it in more stories, I first heard of it in Let Me In where it was used interestingly, and again here, where it is a recurring plot point that a vampires can't enter people's houses, and the rule is played exactly like a rule, something that can be bent. Such as a scene early on where he enters an abandoned house and explains he can enter it because there's nobody to invite him in, and of course one very funny way of breaking the rule halfway through.

One of the film's main strengths in my opinion is the casting, Colin Farrel plays an extremely scary vampire even before you see him do anything, obviously you know he's a vampire from the start but he seems scary even when doing something entirely innocent such as asking his neighbour for a beer or doing some carpentry. He holds himself in a very scary manner, suggesting himself to be very powerful and intelligent without actually doing anything that would suggest so.

A second great casting choice is David Tennant as Peter Vincent, stage magician, vampire expert and TV personality, I held onto his every word because when he spoken, you knew that he knew what he was talking about. Obviously this is because of his experience in playing The Doctor, so I would naturally pay attention to any character he plays, he even exhibits several Doctor-like characteristic, such as the same accent, knowledge of things unexplainable to humans, acting the centre of attention to disguise his dark and troubled past, and even saying "Well...." the exact same way. At the same time though, he is clearly playing this role to move away from being typecast as The Doctor, as his character swears a lot, is very cowardly, hiding away at the first sign of a Vampires and fleeing when the opportunity arises.

The story is very interesting, it goes to a lot of places I did not expect it to take, which I won't spoil, and though none of the scares really scared me, I still found it very thrilling.

The film is not the greatest film of all time, despite not being able to think of any criticisms. But I would entirely recommend watching it, I myself could watch it lots of times, which I can't say about many films.

My thoughts on upcoming Comic Book Films.

After watching Captain America and staying after the credits for a thrilling 20 seconds of teaser footage for the upcoming Avengers film, an incredibly brief trailer for the Dark Knight Rises, a photograph of the Man of Steel Superman reboot, and just now a teaser for the Amazing Spider-Man film, I thought it'd be time to muse on them and get my hopes up.

Avengers:
It think it's safe to say I'm looking forward to this film the most. It has all the characters from Iron Man up to Captain America, and I have to agree that every single actor playing a superhero in the Avengers films were just born for those parts, every single of their films I've gotten hyped for, and now that they're all banding together to save the world from Loki/Red Skull/HYDRA/The Skrulls (delete as appropriate), I'm definitely excited.

There are two additional reasons for this, one, I did actually read the Avengers comics, owning roughly the first three volumes of Essential Avengers (Incidentally, my favorite stories are the intro story with Loki and when the Hulk is part of the team, and the one where they defeat the Super Adaptoid.), and the fact that the personalities of each member clashes perfectly. Much like they initially did in the comics. Tony Stark and Clint Barton (Hawkeye.) will be the wisecracking pair making jabs at each other constantly. Thor and Steve Rogers (Captain America) will be the more serious ones, focused on the task at hand, and searching for the serious route, but Thor may play bad cop if he feels there is no other option. Natasha Romanov (Black Widow) I imagine will also play this role, or will be the one to put her trust more in SHIELD than in her fellow teamates. Bruce Banner I imagine will create an interesting dichotomy with Tony Stark in that they're both scientists who became who they are through their own doing, but Tony would be the more in control one.

I think the fact that I can write a large paragraph about characters I already know about should give a good idea that I'm looking forward to the heroes bickering more than watching them save the world. Because that was my favorite part of the Fantastic Four film, and Chris Evans was very good at that with a different character, so it will be interesting to see him play such a diametrically opposed role.

Dark Knight Rises:
As a lover of the first two of Christopher Nolan's Batman films, I'm very much looking forward to this one, as I'm very interested to see what storylines they'll explore. Popular rumour among my classroom at College seems to say that Bane (Who will serve as a villain.) will break the Bat's back at some point as he did in the comics. I also hear Ra's Al Ghul will be a villain, having being resurrected or rejuvenated by the Lazarus Pit.

I must admit though, the Lazarus Pit scenario is the one part I will be skeptical of, I was rather hoping that Ra's Al Ghul wasn't literally immortal in this film series, because it would definitely subtract from the realism by having an immortal dude. I liked in the first film, where Ra's Al Ghul implied that he was immortal through the passage of a legacy rather than being one person who lives forever. Because one thing he teaches Bruce Wayne, and I quote "A man can be locked up, but if you become an idea, you can't be stopped, you can become something else entirely, a legend." I took this to mean that the title of Ra's Al Ghul had been passed down from the first guy it appears to be, to Henri Ducard after he died, implying that the ideas and will of Ra's Al Ghul could not be killed, even if each individual person did, which I found far more interesting than "He's just immortal."

I'm also interested to find about what the central dichotomy of the film will be. In Batman Begins, the theme was Ra's Al Ghul and Scarecrow's use of fear as a weapon used to defeat the fearful, and Batman's use of fear on criminals people who take advantage of fear. In The Dark Knight, the central Dichotomy was Batman representing Order and respect for giving everybody a chance to redeem themselves, and The Joker and Two-Face representing Chaos, showing that for all the good Batman can do, he can be stopped by The Joker's sheer unpredictability and a lack of pattern on his crimes. Batman never kills because he believes he doesn't have that right, and The Joker an Two-Face believe they definitely do have the right if fate decides for them.

My guess is that the theme will be that if Batman's moral code and fearlessness can't be conquered. Then somebody like Bane can simply outfight him, despite Batman's quick thinking and intelligence. A kind of 'Intelligence VS Brute Strength' kind of thing. My second guess would be that Bane is a foil of sorts for Batman, as in the comics, Bane is easily as smart as Batman, an can definitely outfight him despite his ninja skills, except whereas Batman grew up rich and chose to make himself what he was after the death of his parents, Bane grew up in prison and had no choice in becoming what he was. But all this is just my speculation, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

Man of Steel:
The photo of the new actor playing Superman wearing the costume has definitely turned my head some. But not in a good way, more of a 'Train Crash waiting to happen' kind of way. The first thing that rubbed me up the wrong was the fact that the teaser photo is so bloody desaturated of colour. Leading me to assume that this film will be a darker remake in vein of Batman Begins and the Dark Knight, whch wouldn't surprise me because Christopher Nolan is producing this film. And while that easily works with Batman because he was always a dark character, I can't see it working well with Superman.

The first problem being is that Superman has no personal problems besides hiding his secret identity, he chose to be who he is because he believes it's the right thing to do and doesn't go much deeper than that (Apart from Smallville where he had no choice in the matter.). I could kind of see it working if they did it like Captain America, where bad things are happening all around him, but he retains a positive attitude because people can be like that, and that he was born to be a superhero before he gained his powers. But if Man of Steel goes for the darker route as the photo implies, I can't see it working without making Superman look like a naive idiot.

Amazing Spider-Man:
Again, this trailer looks like it's taking a dark and gritty approach to the Spider-Man series, and contains a photo on the internet of the new actor playing him wearing the costume, except with the saturation on his bright red and blue costume turned way down. Unlike Superman however, I can see this working with Spider-Man, because when the comics were first written, they were quite ahead of their time in terms of how dark and serious they were. For one thing, Spidey became who he is because he believe it's his responsibility, and a character driven by responsibility can be very serious business. Which does make me look forward to this film, as long as they don't go the whining degree as Sam Raimi's film, and also, I'm hoping that Peter Parker is actually funny, because I could not stand half thes cenes when Tobey Maguire didn't have his mask on because Peter Parker is dreadfully dull, even when he's in a good mood. Whereas the Peter Parker of virtually any other media is characteristic by being just as witty as Peter Parker as he is as Spider-Man.

In fact, there are several comics I've read that are so painfully despairing that only Spider-Man/Peter Parker's hilarious one liners are keeping me from just stopping reading lest I get more depressed, which I think is kind of the point, because he's despairing inside too, and he's just distracting himself with the jokes just as much as us, and I didn't get that from Sam Raimi's Peter Parker, he was despairing on the outside just as much as inside. So I'm hoping this film will use that aspect of the character.

Conclusion:
Well, congratulations to you if you read all my ramblings, I can't say I blame you for not reading this far. I might post me thoughts on yet to be released films at some point in the future if the mood strikes me. Until then, seeya readers.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

So I just got back from watching The Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Being a fan of the original, in the week since I watched the original no less, I was curious to see the prequel having not seen Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, which I'm told this is loosely based off.

I'm going to write my 'Tl;dr' first, and hope people don't just take that and then leave. I liked Rise of the Planet of the Apes the Official Film of the Film. It's a very good sci-fi/drama/animal film with very well written characters.

Most of the time anyway, the characters that matter, though well written, are largely very bare bones, everything is said about them that needed to be said, no more, no less. Which works well for the more prominent characters but makes the lesser shown characters seen shallow. For example, the main two characters, Caeser the Chimpanzee, motion captured by Andy Serkis in another role where he's in a quadrupedal position, and Will Something-Or-Other, played by James Franco. Caeser's character arc revolves around his relationship with Will vs his relationship with other Apes, and it's a very well written character too, I was wearing blinkers on my mind's eye throughout the film, because I knew he would perform a certain action very early on, but didn't want to believe he would do such a thing, because he's so nice and cuddly right?

Will is the more bare bones of the two, his motivations are simple, the film begins with him developing a cure for Alzheimer's to help his ailing father (played by the bloke who plays the father in 3rd Rock from the Sun), and when testing it on Chimpanzees, finds that the effects cause increased intelligence that carry on along the genetic line of one test subject, who's baby Will adopts. Throughout the film, he continually attempts to help perfect the serum as well as taking care of the Chimpanzee, who he names Caeser. He's easy to understand and a very likable main character, you might argue a little bit too likable, every single thing he does is on the behalf of his father or Caeser, but I suppose being too nice isn't much of a problem.

Back to Caeser. The entire plot of the film is basically this, Caeser was born with increased intelligence due to his mother being a test animal for Will's Alzheimer's cure, and the first half of the film is basically "Here is the life of Will and Caeser", since it takes place over the course of eight years, and it's nice, it shows that despite being an animal, he is very intelligent and manages to fit in with human society. However, his animalistic instincts kick in eventually and he is taken in by the authorities and treated like an animal, which he is not familiar with. He is forced to use his increased intelligence to cause an uprising amongst the apes he is kept with in order to free them all from captivity and live in the wild where he believes they belong. It's all very compelling stuff, helped by Andy Serkis doing an incredible job acting the balance between intelligence and sapience and animalistic instincts and tendencies, I especially like the fact that he does not learn to speak until late in the film, really helping the acting tell the story using only nonverbals from its main character.

Moving onto the special effects, special effects in my opinion,are finally reaching a point where you wouldn't know they were being used unless you were told. A good example of this occurs recently in the Social Network, where a pair of twins are neither greenscreened not played by actual twins, and you can't tell because of how seamless it is. This is also used to good effect in Captain America with Skinny Steve and Strong Steve, and finally in this episode, where you could really believe that all the Apes are just perplexingly well trained Animal Actors.

One final point I noted about the movie was both in its favour and against it. In the original Planet of the Apes, the morality of the Humans and the Apes were more black and white, the central message of the film (Let me state this is my interpretation.) was that humans were evil, thoughtless beings who would nearly destroy their planet by accident, and that the Apes were better heralds of the Planet, but just as evil due to their treatment of Charlton Heston's character. In this film, none of the events are explicitly the fault of either party, the Apes, while intelligent were acting through instinct and meant no harm to any of the Humans, and the Humans themselves, while treating the Apes much like they treated the humans in the first film, were at least trying to cure Alzheimer's and did indeed grant sapience to the Apes, if unintentionally. The film is more realistic in the portrayal of the morality of the two factions, being less black and white and more grey and grey.

And while this definitely improves the film and makes the actions of the characters much easier to swallow, it also (Again, my personal opinion.) undermines the message of the original film, because whereas the original film strongly implied that the humans were definitely responsible for the near destruction of their planet and that the Apes were somewhat justified in their treatment of them. The events of the film, looking back, make that film seem like one big misunderstanding.

Overall though, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes the Official Film of the film the Prequel the Phantom Menace was a very compelling drama, disappointing if the trailer tricked you into thinking that it was an action film perhaps, and you are definitely required to have watched either the original or Tim Burton's remake to catch all the references (Though I imagine even those who haven't would get the hillarious "You damn dirty Ape" reference.), but overall, it was a good film. Not a good film for getting into the series however, I would suggest watching the originals before watching this. Especially since the biggest failing of the film is that the very premise of the film assumes that you don't care about the original's twist ending being spoiled.

Captain America: The First Avenger.

So I just got back from watching Captain America, and my opinion? An excellent film, better than Thor, and I liked Thor quite a lot too. I'd almost say it was as good as if not better than the Iron Man films, which next to the Nolan Batman films and Watchmen, are the epitome of a good superhero film.

The story is this, Steve Rogers, a dangerously skinny guy looking to join the army to aid the war effort against the Nazis is repeatedly denied on the grounds of making a stick figure look like it's put on weight. But due to his honesty and courage, is selected by a German Scientist to be America's first Super Soldier. The rest of the film is Steve, as Captain America, helping to defeat HYDRA, a superscience Nazi division, defected from the Nazis, whose leader Johann Schmitt AKA, The Red Skull, dreams of conquering Earth through use of their highly advanced technology.

There are several things I can say in the film's favour, the first and foremost being that Steve Rogers is a rather well written character to say he has absolutely no character arc in the film, a stark contrast to Thor, where the character arc is the main focus. Instead, in Captain America, he starts off as a likable good guy, ends as a likable good guy, and in the middle he does not compromise in this in the slightest.

You really get the impression that Steve was meant to be Captain America from the very beginning, my favorite examples being at two certain points. The first time, Steve is asked if he wants to join the army to kill Nazis, to which he replies "I don't want to kill anybody, I just don't like bullies, wherever they come from.", the second point is when Steve's drill sergeant throws a false grenade near him, and he dives on it to try and save everybody else from the blast at the cost of his own life, believing it to be a real one, while everybody else ducks behind cover. Both of these moments occur before he even becomes Captain America. Overall, Steve made me think "This is how Hal Jordan should've been written in the Green Lantern rather than being forced to be a goodie.".

Also in the film's favour is that the fight scenes are the truest to the comics I've ever seen, throughout the film, Captain America is jumping, thwacking his enemies with his shield and frisbeeing it into them, amongst other uses. And unlikable the last action film I saw, the action scenes were far more coherent, Captain America as well as his squad were always very visible, and what they were doing was always obvious, even in the wordless montage scenes.

The thing that kept me thinking long after the film had ended the most however, was how it related to the other Avengers film, because the way they all connect seem very clever, and this isn't even the things they state outright, many connections I noted were only vaguely implied, it was a lot of fun just noticing how the stories all interconnected, it made me want to watch those films over again. So not only do I want to watch Captain America again, but the rest of the films, because a narrative can be seen throughout all of the films, at least for me anyway.

Lastly, I really loved the Red Skull as a villain, while not as sympathetic as Loki, he's one of the most comic book-y villains I've ever seen in a comic book adaptation. Once he reveals his red face, he spares no expenses and just wears a long black cloak with a skull logo on it. I almost wanted him to tie Steve's love interest to a train track because that would seem very in character for him. My only problem is that while I was watching him, I was thinking of the contrast between how real the Iron Man villains are in comparison, who are in the same universe and act far less cartoonishly evil.

In summation, a fine example of a comic book film, ever since Iron Man, Marvel films have only been getting better, which gives me very high hopes for The Avengers, you might say it is silly of me in today's cynical days to have high hopes for a film, but I'd rather look forward to something and have it be good than not look forward to it and be surprised.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

I really haven't been getting enough use out of this blog recently, I must post my thought more, it makes me feel more productive even if nobody's reading what I have to say. I assume.

Transformers then. Transformers is a film series based off a cartoon franchise based off a line of toys, always the origin of a hollywood epic I'm sure. To put a long story short, I rather liked this film, though I suspect my fondness is distorted by the fact that like most sequels, I had to compare it to the other two Transformers films, which I wanted to like but was less enthusiastic about watching. And just as being not as good a sequel as the original can drag a good work down (Portal 2 for instance, and arguably Paul, even if that's not technically a sequel.), being a good sequel to a meh series can make you put it on a much higher podium, whether it deserved it or not, but I liked this film despite those feelings.

I think the main reason is that it fixed two ever present problems the previous two films had. Whereas the first two had too much of Sam, who's role in the plot of the Cybertronians was always very boring, and not nearly enough of the Transformers who's names the average viewer could remember (Which for me was Optimus Prime, Bumbleblee and Megatron.). DOTM fixed those pretty quickly, I actually found myself caring more about what Sam got up to, because whereas in the first two Sam wanted little to do with what mess the Autobots dragged him into, he's now seeking out a plot rather than just having it land on his lap. And Optimus Prime and Bumblebee are featured far more in their own film, and do in fact do much more. I'm still annoyed that they first appeared an hour into the first film and Prime was barely in the second for obvious reasons, so instantly I was more interested.

Another thing I liked about this film was that I felt that stuff was mattering. In the first two films (I keep using those words.) I didn't get the impression that the presence of the large alien robotic organisms was having much of an impact on the world as a whole, we only see it affect the main human characters and the army, with the rest of the world not noticing the multi story tall robots running around. But in this film, they apparently noticed that the Autobots were bloody hard things to hide and are revealed to the world, making it seem like they were there much more there. I especially like roughly the beginning of the third act-ish when the main villain basically turns an entire city into a War-Zone and is about to enslave all of mankind, unlike the first film where a city is a battleground and nobody seems to remember. So the fact that things were happening was far more interesting, especially given the villain's cartoonishly unrealistic plot.

Though even without having to nitpick, there's still a lot of things I don't like about the film. And most of these problems are more a problem with the series as a whole, but I digress. The most unavoidable part is in the scenes where the Autobots are fighting the Decepticons alongside the humans. Just to be clear, the average Transformers is one to two stories to tall, meaning the human soldiers can just about touch their feet, and the problem with having them fight together is that you can never see all of it at once, because they try to focus on both fights at once, we can barely see anything because the film tries to keep them both in, so when we see the humans, we can barely see the Transformer they're fighting, and when we see the Transformers, the humans are just a coloured blob. So the action is always very cluttered. Though granted even in the exclusivity Transformer centric fights, you can still barely tell what's going on. One thing that the filmmakers don't seem to grasp is that if you're going to go the effort of painstakingly model, animare and render every Transformer so realistically, the audience would like to see them. They're barely on the screen before the shot changes to a different angle, meaning that lots of their hard work is wasted. And I know how detailed it looks because the transforming sections, I'm told are very accurate and make perfect scientific sense.

Tl;DR: The fighting scenes are too cluttered to enjoy or understand.

Another thing that bugs me is that the fighting scenes themselves go on for far too long, because after the battle begins in the city, it just keeps on going for ages, which viewers of Revenge of the Fallen who hated the battle in the dessert will find annoyingly familiar.

I would complain about the acting in the film, but the average acting quality in the film can best be summarised by two moments within the film where Shia LeBouf's character screams bloody murder for an extended period of time, which was the hardest I've ever laughed in a film, more than any carefully crafted joke. Because no matter how clever, witty or well thought out a joke is, there's something about an amusing sound that throws out your common sense and stimulate a part of your brain reserved for laughing at comedicly timed farts.

One main thing did rub me up the wrong way, which probably shouldn't do, was the Science of the film. I shouldn't complain that a Transformers film is Scientifically inaccurate, but aside from a few issues with mass a few times, the films generally followed real world Science alongside their own rules. But there is one scene where a few Autobots go to the moon and I was noticing the fact that the Transformers weren't leaving metre deep footprints, the fact they were moving the same speed as on Earth, and the fact that noises were happening. The last one I can generally allow but the first two were far too obvious.

One last thing that I really hated about the film was a single scene within it that took place inside Chernobyl. For those not in the know, Chernobyl is a small town nearby a power plant that, due to complications, had a meltdown and released a ton of Nuclear Fallout on the town making it uninhabitable, killing many people and affecting the lives of thousands of others. This happened in 1986. Transformers: Dark of the Moon seems to informs us that this was the fault of the alien baddies. The deaths of real life people were caused by aliens trying to get their tech working or something like that, rather than the result of human error. I'm certain I got more than a few of my facts wrong in real life and in the film, but even so I'm glad I don't know anybody affected by this or it would have irritated me far more than it already did.

To put a long story short, the story is more interesting than the action, both of which are more interesting than the previous films. I'd recommend it to somebody as stupid as I am, because I can easily be distracted by what is clearly a popcorn film. There's definitely been better films this year but this can hold me attention for its two hours.

Pokemon Black and White, review and retrospective.

Pokemon White Review/Experience

Being the overgrown infant of a Pokemon fan that I am, nostalgia got in the way of my common sense when I went to buy Pokemon White, after all the Pokemon are all largely the same, any step forward the games make would be akin to shuffling their feet in a given direction rather than a huge leap of innovation. And having recognised the pattern of Pokemon SoulSilver not giving too much new as well as thoroughly disliking most of the new Pokemon designs, it would appear logical that I should just not bother with new Pokemon games and just replay old ones.

It then occurred to me that all this time I had been playing Pokemon with the wrong mindset, in every game I just mindlessly battled and caught without really thinking, not bothering to implement strategy beyond the occasional Player vs Player match that I could scavenge, and not bothering to catch all the Pokemon until it seems like there's already far too many to even bother with.

So upon starting Pokemon White, I set myself a challenge: build a strategic team rather than just brute forcing my way through, and catch every Pokemon in each area so there's less backtracking later. For those who don't know, the main two selling points of the Pokemon series are the battling and catching of Pokemon, meaning you could either devote yourself to making your team the strongest possible, or enslaving one of every one of the blighters that crosses your sight until you've caught 'em all.

I myself made a compromise between the two, at the time of writing I've caught every Pokemon in every area I've been to (with the help of Bulbapedia, natch) and tried to evenly level up my Mons. It's certainly improved my experience, but it means that I'm doing everything that the game suggests of me and it means that nothing they've designed has gone to waste. :D

Well, I just checked and this document is 4 KB long and I haven't even mentioned what's actually different in the game. And while I'm only up to the third dungeon at the moment, there's definitely been a few new bits. For starters the NPCs feel a lot more human in this game, as they talk slightly more realistically (within reason of course, they still apparently have Alzheimer's since they still repeat themselves every time you speak to them), as well as the fact that this is the first game in the series to address the fact that you're trapping small animals in balls and using them in your virtual zoo exhibit that only you can see like some sort of crazed collector of invisible insects. There's also a few different moves, but nothing too new at the moment.

One new thing definitely worth a mention is the battle animations. In the past Pokemon games, the battle animations have been largely static with the Pokes generally not moving and the animations for the attacks not always making sense. Not so with Black and White, the Poke on are much more animated than before, there's actual an in battle camera that zooms around depending on who is attacking or being attacked. It really makes battles just more fun to watch, the same way the Pokemon Stadium games did when they were released, granted it's not nearly as detailed as those games but a step forward for the handhelds at the very least.

My one major complaint though, like many people would be the Pokemon designs, beyond a few of the starters and the occasional few in between, none of the Pokemon really endear themselves to me the way they did in the previous games, they don't really feel like Pokemon anymore, more like fanmade Pokemon that couldn't make it into previous games. I'm definitely looking forward to being able to transfer over my Pokemon from previous games so I can see them in the new battle animations. Also, as well as the Pokemon, the human characters don't really strike a chord with me either, and while I did say that I liked how they appeared more human, they don't have much of a personality if that makes any sense.

Overall though, it's a good game if you're not as familiar with the series, and an average game if you are, but I'd still recommend the earlier games in the series over these, because if there's one thing that nags me during this game, it's that I can feel the word "Sell out" written over every pore of the game, it only exists because people still haven't gotten bored of Pokemon yet rather than game freak actually wanting to try something different. I'd only recommend this game if you've already played all the games from Red and Blue to HeartGold and SoulSilver, because those games feel much more like the games actually had ideas behind them rather than thoughts of money. Make no mistake, these games have certainly been fun in terms of battling and catching Pokemon, and I fully expect to stick with this game for both those things, if only to be up to date more than anything else.