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.