Goodnight every body!
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Transformers: Because “Humans Who Happen to Meet Robots” doesn’t have the same ring to it
A few years ago the nerd community exploded in joy at the announcement that one of the quintessential properties of our childhood was finally being made into a live action movie. Then the joy continued with the announcement that not only did Dreamworks get the rights to it, but that Steven Spielberg himself would be producing along with Tom DeSanto. And then it was announced that Michael Bay would be directing, and the nerd community let out a collective “FUCK, we were so close.”
So I finally watched Transformers a couple nights ago, and again more evidence arises to prove that I can indeed read certain movies really well without actually seeing them. Now I did go into it trying to keep an open mind, watching it as both a Transformers fan (Notice the name; Colossus Prime) and as a casual viewer who’s never heard of Transformers. But it was to no avail as I was just terribly disappointed from two points of view.
One advantage I had about watching it on DVD instead of seeing it in theaters was that I was able to make this distinct observation: It was one hour into the two+ hour movie until we had a name for any Transformer. Before that the movie had a few fight scenes, all containing humans being attacked by Evil Giant Robot #1 and #2. And RIGHT before the hour mark we had the chance to finally see some robot on robot fighting when Evil Giant Robot #3 tries to run down our leading male (I’ll admit though, Shia LaBeouf did a great job) and Bumblebee comes to the rescue, tackling EGR#3 off a bridge and that’s the last we see of the fight while Mini Robot who can’t stop making little noises that no one seems to be able to hear when he’s sneaking around, is chasing down LaBeouf and his girl-friend-to-be. So as a casual viewer I was an hour into a movie about humans who interacted with a couple of generic giant robots (15 minutes of that being actual interaction) and as a Transformers fan I was an hour into a movie about HUMANS instead of kick-@$$ Giant Robots!!!
I could seriously go on and on for several pages stating only the problems that are signs of mass incompetence and skipping over any nitpicking which there’s even more of (seriously, how hard is it to stop and fact check things like what the deepest part of the ocean is), so here’s a quick breakdown of some that just piss me off to no end:
- Was it really necessary to make the Transformers keep spinning and rolling around all the f’ing time? It doesn’t look cool, it looks femmy.
- Apparently Transformers can change their mind about what they want to look like whenever they want. Bumblebee upgrades himself and the little guy changes from a boom box to a cell phone, both in an instant.
- A scorpion looking Decepticon is being blasted hard core by an air strike, yet for some reason doesn’t retreat into the sand until the SECOND air strike hits him. Then he never reappears. “What,” “the,” and “Fuck”!?
- There’s a clear reason why Cybertron fell to the Decepticons; Autobots are about as smart as an inbred child who’s family tree is a straight line, as proven by the 10 minute shtick of them “hiding” outside the Witwicky residence.
- I counted 6 zoom in to someone saying a one or two word expression of fear and disbelief. No movie should have more than 2 unless it’s titled Zooming in on People Saying a One or Two Word Expression of Fear and Disbelief.
- There was pretty much zero character development for any of the Transformers except Bumblebee, and that’s only because he was in more of the movie than anyone else, and even then we just know he’s a scrappy do gooder since he can’t talk. Other than that we know Optimus Prime is a caring leader, Iron Hide is a stupid gun nut who wants to shoot everything (and I don’t mean gun nuts are stupid, the guy used any excuse to ask if it was ok for him to shoot something), Jazz speaks like a white poser (I swear to God, his first words are “What’s crackin’ little bitches?”), and Ratchet has no tact. Decepticons… man… Megatron was the only one with any development and as a Transformers fan I can tell you that it wasn’t Megatron, it was Galvatron. Just trust me, it makes sense.
- Was Bumblebee “lubricating” on John Turturro really necessary? This is a PG-13 movie and no one 13 or over should find that funny. I’m actually shocked that they got away with showing Bumblebee flipping open a hatch in his crotch to spray the lubricant.
- Megatron owns Optimus, it wasn’t even close. What the heck is up with that? The only reason Optimus should loose to Megatron is that Megatron fights dirty. Here though, fair fight and Optimus doesn’t stand a chance.
- The only thing great about the movie was getting Peter Cullen to voice Optimus Prime (but at the same time they loose points for skipping over Frank Welker for Megatron). And ok, the scene where Prime dispatches a Decepticon by cutting off his head was bad-ass!
Seriously, that’s me holding back. From a fan perspective it was outright stupid and lazy, from a non-fan’s it was just lame. But there is hope, a few positive reviews I’ve read from fans have the same feeling that the positive reviews for Star Wars Ep1 had. Where they seemed like they knew it was terrible but just hadn’t realized it yet, and then when it came out to rent and people started talking more and more about the flaws, they suddenly realized, “Wait a minute, that movies was crap!”
This is one of those movies that I think everyone should see at least once just to build up more anger and less tolerance for horrible, HUGE blockbuster movies. Especially ones that ruin already great stories.
So I finally watched Transformers a couple nights ago, and again more evidence arises to prove that I can indeed read certain movies really well without actually seeing them. Now I did go into it trying to keep an open mind, watching it as both a Transformers fan (Notice the name; Colossus Prime) and as a casual viewer who’s never heard of Transformers. But it was to no avail as I was just terribly disappointed from two points of view.
One advantage I had about watching it on DVD instead of seeing it in theaters was that I was able to make this distinct observation: It was one hour into the two+ hour movie until we had a name for any Transformer. Before that the movie had a few fight scenes, all containing humans being attacked by Evil Giant Robot #1 and #2. And RIGHT before the hour mark we had the chance to finally see some robot on robot fighting when Evil Giant Robot #3 tries to run down our leading male (I’ll admit though, Shia LaBeouf did a great job) and Bumblebee comes to the rescue, tackling EGR#3 off a bridge and that’s the last we see of the fight while Mini Robot who can’t stop making little noises that no one seems to be able to hear when he’s sneaking around, is chasing down LaBeouf and his girl-friend-to-be. So as a casual viewer I was an hour into a movie about humans who interacted with a couple of generic giant robots (15 minutes of that being actual interaction) and as a Transformers fan I was an hour into a movie about HUMANS instead of kick-@$$ Giant Robots!!!
I could seriously go on and on for several pages stating only the problems that are signs of mass incompetence and skipping over any nitpicking which there’s even more of (seriously, how hard is it to stop and fact check things like what the deepest part of the ocean is), so here’s a quick breakdown of some that just piss me off to no end:
- Was it really necessary to make the Transformers keep spinning and rolling around all the f’ing time? It doesn’t look cool, it looks femmy.
- Apparently Transformers can change their mind about what they want to look like whenever they want. Bumblebee upgrades himself and the little guy changes from a boom box to a cell phone, both in an instant.
- A scorpion looking Decepticon is being blasted hard core by an air strike, yet for some reason doesn’t retreat into the sand until the SECOND air strike hits him. Then he never reappears. “What,” “the,” and “Fuck”!?
- There’s a clear reason why Cybertron fell to the Decepticons; Autobots are about as smart as an inbred child who’s family tree is a straight line, as proven by the 10 minute shtick of them “hiding” outside the Witwicky residence.
- I counted 6 zoom in to someone saying a one or two word expression of fear and disbelief. No movie should have more than 2 unless it’s titled Zooming in on People Saying a One or Two Word Expression of Fear and Disbelief.
- There was pretty much zero character development for any of the Transformers except Bumblebee, and that’s only because he was in more of the movie than anyone else, and even then we just know he’s a scrappy do gooder since he can’t talk. Other than that we know Optimus Prime is a caring leader, Iron Hide is a stupid gun nut who wants to shoot everything (and I don’t mean gun nuts are stupid, the guy used any excuse to ask if it was ok for him to shoot something), Jazz speaks like a white poser (I swear to God, his first words are “What’s crackin’ little bitches?”), and Ratchet has no tact. Decepticons… man… Megatron was the only one with any development and as a Transformers fan I can tell you that it wasn’t Megatron, it was Galvatron. Just trust me, it makes sense.
- Was Bumblebee “lubricating” on John Turturro really necessary? This is a PG-13 movie and no one 13 or over should find that funny. I’m actually shocked that they got away with showing Bumblebee flipping open a hatch in his crotch to spray the lubricant.
- Megatron owns Optimus, it wasn’t even close. What the heck is up with that? The only reason Optimus should loose to Megatron is that Megatron fights dirty. Here though, fair fight and Optimus doesn’t stand a chance.
- The only thing great about the movie was getting Peter Cullen to voice Optimus Prime (but at the same time they loose points for skipping over Frank Welker for Megatron). And ok, the scene where Prime dispatches a Decepticon by cutting off his head was bad-ass!
Seriously, that’s me holding back. From a fan perspective it was outright stupid and lazy, from a non-fan’s it was just lame. But there is hope, a few positive reviews I’ve read from fans have the same feeling that the positive reviews for Star Wars Ep1 had. Where they seemed like they knew it was terrible but just hadn’t realized it yet, and then when it came out to rent and people started talking more and more about the flaws, they suddenly realized, “Wait a minute, that movies was crap!”
This is one of those movies that I think everyone should see at least once just to build up more anger and less tolerance for horrible, HUGE blockbuster movies. Especially ones that ruin already great stories.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
JJ Abrams: Proof that I’m Not Completely Pompous
Despite what it may look like by my writings, I try to be completely open minded about movies and TV show. There are a very, very select few of them that I dislike so much that I think anyone who likes them is a complete idiot. Now this isn’t going to turn into me saying that I think anyone who like JJ Abrams is an idiot. Far from it, this is about me thinking JJ Abrams is a painfully over rated writer even though I’ve never seen anything he’s written/worked on, and yet I have had people agree with me when talking about him. People who think I have seen his stuff.
His big burst onto the scene was Alias (yes he worked on things here and there before this), which brought Jennifer Garner into our hearts, and eventually Ben Affleck’s bed. Now when I first heard about the show I really wanted to see it, but I got busy and before I knew it had ended up missing the first few seasons. But I did catch commercials from time to time and noticed something: Everyone in the show is lying and everyone changes from bad guy to good guy seemingly every season, giving a sense that no one knows where they want the show to go. I ran this past some people who I knew watched the show, and they all agreed with how contrived that bit of the show was.
Then came Lost, one of the highest rated network television shows ever. When I first heard about this show I again was really curious, but that’s because I originally thought it would be a mini-series. As soon as I found out it would be a regular series I didn’t even try to watch it. Why? Because the premise of the show is people trapped on an island. That’s it. Yes there’s weird stuff going on, but right away I knew that there’s no way they ‘d answer all the questions within the first season, and by halfway through the third season I would find myself yelling “I get it! They’re trapped on an island! Now tell me why!” Now despite the good things I’ve heard about the END of the third season, it appears (at least according to friends I have who are fans of the series) that they found themselves yelling "I get it, just tell me what's going on." And now they’re going to stretch it out to five seasons. I can’t imagine how many people will die from embolisms from the frustration before the series finale.
And now for the mother of it all. My most recent discovery where JJ Abrams makes me never want to give any of my time to anything he’s worked on. No not Mission Impossible 3 (which I heard was just painfully underwhelming). No, not his new unnamed monster movie (what kind of asshole takes this long to just tell people what his movie’s officially called!). No not even his new Star Trek movie about a young Captain Kirk. As it turns out, before Bryan Singer gave us a horrible Superman movie, JJ Abrams wrote a script that made Singer’s version look like the freakin’ Citizen Kane of super hero movies.
Now his planned Superman movie has been long leaked to the world, and blasted by the likes of Peter David, Kevin Smith, Stan Lee, and Mike Mignola, so I will actually not comment on it too much, but it needs to be known by more people just how bad it was. I will say however, if it weren’t a Superman movie, it’s actually a pretty intriguing idea.
In a rather large nut shell: Kal-El (Superman) is the son of Jor-El, the ruler of Krypton (this makes Superman a prince), is rocketed to earth so that one day he can return to free Krypton (which doesn’t get destroyed) from the evil Kryptonians and their robot army. He grows up normal on Earth until he discovers a container that holds a symbiotic battle suit (like Venom in Spider-Man, but it’s Superman’s costume) that gives him all of his powers (so he puts it on and takes it off a lot). As he appears on the scene, FBI Agent Lex Luthor, head of an FBI division that specializes in strange phenomenon (like in the X-Files) tries to convince his superiors that Superman is a dangerous alien who will turn on Earth and take it over, so they need to capture him. Luthor’s desires are shot down, in the meantime a couple evil Kryptonians finally track down Kal-El and show up on Earth. Luthor confronts them to reveal that he himself is a Kryptonian agent sent to gather information on Earth so that Krypton could conquer it with ease. So they team up and Superman must fight all three of them. Then there’s a big climatic fight scene at the end where an army of good and evil Kryptonians fight in the skies above earth. Not just fight, but using a form of Kryptonian flying martial arts, Sky-Fu if you will (I came up with that when going on this rant out loud one time. Feel free to use it).
One of the best things is that after getting blasted mercilessly, Abrams tried to defend himself saying that he didn’t want to make a Superman movie that was based on the comics. It’s freakin’ Superman!!! Show the S-shield to some kid in Malaysia and he’ll say “Superman!” He’s a global icon for THE good guy! Unless someone was pointing a gun to your head, there is no excuse for calling something that insipid, Superman.
Now do I think Mr. Abrams is completely incompetent? No. Just that up until this point he’s been ridiculously lucky. Heck, this “Cloverfield” and Star Trek movie could actually be good. But it’s sad how right I have been so far without ever seeing anything he’s worked on.
His big burst onto the scene was Alias (yes he worked on things here and there before this), which brought Jennifer Garner into our hearts, and eventually Ben Affleck’s bed. Now when I first heard about the show I really wanted to see it, but I got busy and before I knew it had ended up missing the first few seasons. But I did catch commercials from time to time and noticed something: Everyone in the show is lying and everyone changes from bad guy to good guy seemingly every season, giving a sense that no one knows where they want the show to go. I ran this past some people who I knew watched the show, and they all agreed with how contrived that bit of the show was.
Then came Lost, one of the highest rated network television shows ever. When I first heard about this show I again was really curious, but that’s because I originally thought it would be a mini-series. As soon as I found out it would be a regular series I didn’t even try to watch it. Why? Because the premise of the show is people trapped on an island. That’s it. Yes there’s weird stuff going on, but right away I knew that there’s no way they ‘d answer all the questions within the first season, and by halfway through the third season I would find myself yelling “I get it! They’re trapped on an island! Now tell me why!” Now despite the good things I’ve heard about the END of the third season, it appears (at least according to friends I have who are fans of the series) that they found themselves yelling "I get it, just tell me what's going on." And now they’re going to stretch it out to five seasons. I can’t imagine how many people will die from embolisms from the frustration before the series finale.
And now for the mother of it all. My most recent discovery where JJ Abrams makes me never want to give any of my time to anything he’s worked on. No not Mission Impossible 3 (which I heard was just painfully underwhelming). No, not his new unnamed monster movie (what kind of asshole takes this long to just tell people what his movie’s officially called!). No not even his new Star Trek movie about a young Captain Kirk. As it turns out, before Bryan Singer gave us a horrible Superman movie, JJ Abrams wrote a script that made Singer’s version look like the freakin’ Citizen Kane of super hero movies.
Now his planned Superman movie has been long leaked to the world, and blasted by the likes of Peter David, Kevin Smith, Stan Lee, and Mike Mignola, so I will actually not comment on it too much, but it needs to be known by more people just how bad it was. I will say however, if it weren’t a Superman movie, it’s actually a pretty intriguing idea.
In a rather large nut shell: Kal-El (Superman) is the son of Jor-El, the ruler of Krypton (this makes Superman a prince), is rocketed to earth so that one day he can return to free Krypton (which doesn’t get destroyed) from the evil Kryptonians and their robot army. He grows up normal on Earth until he discovers a container that holds a symbiotic battle suit (like Venom in Spider-Man, but it’s Superman’s costume) that gives him all of his powers (so he puts it on and takes it off a lot). As he appears on the scene, FBI Agent Lex Luthor, head of an FBI division that specializes in strange phenomenon (like in the X-Files) tries to convince his superiors that Superman is a dangerous alien who will turn on Earth and take it over, so they need to capture him. Luthor’s desires are shot down, in the meantime a couple evil Kryptonians finally track down Kal-El and show up on Earth. Luthor confronts them to reveal that he himself is a Kryptonian agent sent to gather information on Earth so that Krypton could conquer it with ease. So they team up and Superman must fight all three of them. Then there’s a big climatic fight scene at the end where an army of good and evil Kryptonians fight in the skies above earth. Not just fight, but using a form of Kryptonian flying martial arts, Sky-Fu if you will (I came up with that when going on this rant out loud one time. Feel free to use it).
One of the best things is that after getting blasted mercilessly, Abrams tried to defend himself saying that he didn’t want to make a Superman movie that was based on the comics. It’s freakin’ Superman!!! Show the S-shield to some kid in Malaysia and he’ll say “Superman!” He’s a global icon for THE good guy! Unless someone was pointing a gun to your head, there is no excuse for calling something that insipid, Superman.
Now do I think Mr. Abrams is completely incompetent? No. Just that up until this point he’s been ridiculously lucky. Heck, this “Cloverfield” and Star Trek movie could actually be good. But it’s sad how right I have been so far without ever seeing anything he’s worked on.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Kaiju Big Battel: Danger Happened!!!
This Blog is specifically for my Kaiju lovin’ co-horts out there. So if you’re just outright confused click on the link I have posted for Kaiju Big Battel and join in the fun.
For those of you looking at these from the Kaiju page, enjoy!
Note: I post on the message boards there as Bones666, a really old handle I used to use. Anyways, somewhere over there I posted a breakdown of what is below.
For those of you looking at these from the Kaiju page, enjoy!
Note: I post on the message boards there as Bones666, a really old handle I used to use. Anyways, somewhere over there I posted a breakdown of what is below.
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