Andy goes on and on about nerdy movies (part two)

So Iron Man 2 came out, and following it has come a flurry of news about the next couple of Marvel Studios movie releases leading up to its 2012 magnum opus The Avengers.   Now to most, normal, sane human beings, this is just another superhero movie, only worse, it is a crossover.  Crossover franchises tend to suck, hard, so why would a crossover movie about a bunch of superheroes that no one outside of a sci-fi convention has ever heard of be a good idea at all?  Well in my humble, albeit geektastic opinion, this is exactly why it is a good idea.  No one has any idea what the fuck to expect, so the producers can royally dick around with the characters until they are interesting to a mass audience, and no one gets angry or disappointed.  Except for people like me.

So time for a little backstory on the Marvel universe for all you non-nerds with social lives out there.  The Marvel comics have been around for 50+ years building up the characters who will appear in the Avengers.  These cats in question being Captain America: a super soldier designed to kick Nazi ass from World War 2 who gets accidentally frozen in ice, only to be revived later on in whatever convenient timeframe the story calls for to kick some [insert topical enemy here] ass.  Thor: the Norse god of thunder and badass, who’s father, Odin,  gets pissy with him and decides to knock him down a few pegs by sending to live amongst mere mortals,  Iron Man: whom everyone is familiar with, thanks to two wonderful movies that finally did a superhero justice, and the Fucking Hulk: the jolly green giant who gets bigger, stronger, and more resilient the more the story calls for more full page layouts of utter, biblical style destruction and mayhem.  Traditionally tagging along with these big namers, though more obscure, are Ant Man: a scientist who can shrink, or grow, and still remain amazingly uninteresting, The Wasp: his wife who can pretty much just shrink (exciting), as well as do some sort of stinger bullshit no one cares about, Hawkeye: the bitter, angry, ex-criminal master archer who is kind of like Marvel’s answer to DC’s Green Arrow (though if you aren’t a nerd you probably won’t know who that is either) and any number of other random Marvel characters who’s own series weren’t going anywhere at the time of publication.

In the ensuing decades of each of these characters’ histories constantly changing writers, crossing over, time traveling, dying, being revived, dying again, coming back form the dead in another contrived manner, spinning off, changing parallel dimensions, and generally being fucked with, their back stories get a bit complex.  Marvel decided it certainly wasn’t attracting new readers by intimidating them with such a vast library of (mostly shitty) back reading to get caught up on what had eventually become a rather compelling story, so they did what all good western money making franchises do. They rebooted, and so, “Ultimate Marvel” was introduced, and it was awesome.  Characters were re-written from the ground up in a concise, simple manner.  Crossovers were planned ahead of time and served to enhance all parties involved rather than complicate things.   Character deaths were permanent (mostly) and moving.  Everything generally made sense, and everyone was given a kickass costume redesign to boot.  Ultimate Marvel was refreshing, interesting, entertaining, and great.  Picking it up at a Barnes and Noble one day on a whim was actually a huge part of the reason my childhood interest in comic books, especially Marvel comics, revived itself.  Sure this series went off the rails eventually, and now it’s a steaming pile of twisted rubble and stupid story choices, but for a while it was a ton of fun.

The “Ultimate” reboot of the Avengers was called The Ultimates and seems to have been written with the primary thought in mind; “what if we had to turn the Avengers into a movie?”  So far in the lead up to the actual Avengers movie, the producers seem to have used this comic series as a bit of an inspiration.  The Nick Fury in the Ultimates looks like Samuel L. Jackson, and now SLJ is in Iron Man 2 as … Nick Fury.  The producers don’t seem to have taken many of the best parts of the Ultimates though, as many of those are, simply, some kick ass costume designs.  Most comic book costumes tend to be painted on muscle suits and really shiny spandex.  These things look super as drawings, but in real life, they tend to look stupid as all hell.  the Ultimates approached it’s costumes differently for the most part.  They look kind of like practical objects with a purpose and a thought to realistic design.

Here’s a look at what the Ultimates did for Marvel.

This is what Captain America used to look like.

this is what Ultimate Marvel did for him

This is Thor, before

and after

This is Tony Stark putting on his armor back in the day

and this is Tony putting on his armor in The Ultimates

Are we starting to see a trend here? The Ultimates generally took everything about Marvel and made it 1000% more ass-kicking.  Now here is a look at the work done for the films.

Iron Man works great, but he’s also basically an ass-kicking robot, and those are hard to screw up, design wise.

Cap and Thor, I’m not so sold on.  Cap looks good, but doesn’t look like he belongs in World War 2.  Those duds look modern, very modern.  Maybe if he’s covered in mud and Nazi blood I’ll buy it.  The cowl looks stupid.  I can tell they are trying for the helmet look, but having it wrap around his eyes is just way to 1960s.  Overall, it could be worse.

Thor looks entirely stupid.  He’s supposed to be a Norse god (read: a fucking super viking, like if Superman met Beowulf), put the guy in leather and pelts and furs and stuff, and make him dirty and mangy.  I want this guy to look like he just trekked thirty miles in the snow and strangled a bear with his bare hands so he could skin it and wear its skin for warmth.  Combat boots and fancy pants?  Come ooooon, I hope this guy is constantly surrounded in lightning and thunder and general awesome or his costume is going to look as out of place as a dominatrix in a Sunday school.  He looks like a starship pilot from a shitty video game, not the NORSE GOD OF THUNDER.

The makers of these costumes seem to have subscribed to the normal comic book-to-movie costume design theory of “take the spandex costume from the comic and attach a bunch of random rubber sharp objects, then hope it all comes together despite our lack of thought”.  What are all the little flourishes on Thor’s torso?  They aren’t armor, they aren’t part of the various attachments and hooks of the clothing, and they certainly don’t look Nordic.  Then again, I can’t really judge until I’ve seen the thing in action.  Who knows, maybe it all comes together on film.

To be entirely honest I’m not even sure what the point I was originally trying to make was.  I think it was something about not fixing things that aren’t broken and not doing stupid shit for no reason, but I’m tired, so enjoy the fancy pictures.  Continued in part three.  Some day.

Andy goes on and on about nerdy movies (part one).

Yes, Captain America is pretty badass, aaaaand that shit is coming out in 2011.  I know, I know, it’s probably going to be really fucking stupid BUT one can get one’s hopes up.  However…

This might be happening.  Jim might be Steve Rogers.  Let that sink in.  He’s going to save America from the Nazis by crushin’ some skulls.  Imagine John  Krasinski in red, white and blue spandex flinging a shield at your face.  This brings me to my larger point, that the people making comic book movies need to stop sucking at it because they seem to be making a big habit of fucking everything up.  There are exceptions, but they don’t seem like they were done on purpose.

I have a huge problem with the attempt to “reboot” everything as “dark and gritty”.  It worked for Batman because Batman is dark and gritty.  Superman? no, Spiderman? no.  Not everything has to be “realistic”.  Batman being a more realistic movie makes sense because Batman has no superpowers.  A Superman movie can be ridiculous because he is an alien who can fly. Superman doesn’t need to be a film franchise that excites critics and holds a mirror up to society.  Superman should be a move that eight year olds get excited about.  You know who would make a good Superman movie?  Brad Bird.  The Iron Giant and The Incredibles have exactly the atmosphere it needs.  Rebooting Superman and Spiderman could be great things, but I can’t shake the feeling they are just going to be Batman Begins (which was great mind you, and many of us would argue was better than The Dark Knight).  Just keep it simple.  Trying to explain with some sort of bullshit science just how Spiderman sticks to walls is a stupid waste of my time, just give me an interesting story and an exciting experience and I’ll be happy.

Homeless, starving haitians recieve high-tech bibles (to eat?).

Amidst starvation, death, homelessness and extreme thirst, Haitians have something to look forward to.

The Proclaimer!

A U.S. based group is sending 600 solar-powered audio bibles that can broadcast the good news to up to 300 people at once, and they are solar powered.  They are calling these techno-bibles “proclaimers”.

So now they can listen to the word and feel better while they are starving and sleeping on the flaming wreckage that was once their home.

Good to know somebody’s lookin’ out for the right interests in this tragedy?

Food would also be a good thing to send, hint.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/earthquake-survivors-get-solar-powered-bibles/story-e6frfku0-1225821184929

Le sigh.

So Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh have been saying some pretty hilarious stuff about Haiti.  I have to give them props for never failing to entertain.  Rush was criticized for his earlier comments, and his apparent plan of action is to dig his heels in.

“Will someone ask Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who is Rahm’s brother and one of the lead White House people on health care whether they’re planning cost benefit considerations for each Haiti victim. Will they consider age? Potential contribution to society? All the other factors we are assured are not ‘death panel’ guidelines in our own health care system. This rescue, however compassionate, should at least have the same transparency as Obama promised for our health care. Remember he told a woman about her 95 year old mother, ‘no, no we probably wouldn’t giver her pacemaker, give em a pill.’ how many Haitians will we decide to give a pill? A legitimate question.”

Yes, the earthquake in Haiti is a great oppurtunity to talk some more about healthcare.  Stay classy Rush.

So Tsutomu Yamaguchi died.

If you don’t know who Tsutomu Yamahuchi is, he is perhaps the unluckiest/luckiest person to have ever lived.  He worked for Mitsubishi in the 40s, and one fine day in 1945 when he was on a business trip in Hiroshima, he was stepping off a train when POW, nuclear explosion three kilometers away.  He was thrown through the air, suffered burns all over his body, and lost all his hair, but he survived.

After spending the night in a fallout shelter, he left what was left of Hiroshima, crossing a bridgeless river on a makeshift raft of dead bodies (not kidding), and catching the last train out of town in order to get back to see his family in his hometown of, you guessed it, Nagasaki.

Mr. Yamahuchi was trying to explain the ridiculousness of what he had seen to his fellow Mitsubushi employees, who found his claims so ridiculous that they called him treasonous for asserting them, when Tsutomu heard a familiar sound.  That sound (which few people on Earth could claim to recognize) was the Fat Man. Tsutomu and the people (who seconds before didn’t believe what he was telling them) he was talking to. survived in a “blast cocoon”, an area of the factory they were in that was sheltered from the blast wave by sheer luck and topography.

This man survived both atomic bombs and lived until he was 93.  Bad ass.

So quit yer’ bitchin.

Terrorism

This article appeared in the Rockford Register Star (via the Washington Post) yesterday.

If you’ve read it, I have some comments.

First of all, I agree with Charles’s initial point.  When Janet Napolitano said “the system worked,” I’m pretty sure she was just trying to cover everyone’s ass after dodging a bullet.  The “system” is stupid, and it has been for almost a decade.  Airport security is a farce designed to make everyone feel safer.  It consistently scans for the last attempted terror attack, but never attempts to pre-empt them.  After the “shoe-bomber” failed to blow up his bomb, we all had to take our shoes off before we got on planes.  Is Al-Qaeda going to try a shoe bomb again after it didn’t work the first time?  I doubt it.  We are just inconveniencing ourselves for the sake of theatre.  Airport security didn’t save the people on that plane in Detroit from this guy’s bomb, a Dutch painter who was paying attention did.  That’s the best system we have, people paying attention to the world around them (which is increasingly seeming like a rare skill).  The Dutch guy, in combination with the fact that this terrorist was incomeptent and couldn’t get his bomb to go off.  Another saving grace of our flawed system is that most terrorists aren’t very good at being terrorists. Our whole airport security system is just a giant clusterfuck of useless posturing for the sake of alleviating anxiety.

I kind of veer off from Charles’s opinion at this point however.  He says

“Guantanamo will close, CIA interrogators will face a special prosecutor, and Khalid Sheik Mohammed will bask in a civilian trial in New York — a trifecta of political correctness and image management.”

Guantanamo is closing because it has been a political nightmare for years that became synonymous in the public eye with disturbing and illegal interrogation practices, vastly unconstitutional imprisonments and attitudes ripped right out of an Orwell novel.  By moving these prisoners into a new prison into the center of the country the U.S. can shed some of that stigma and still keep it’s prisoners (along with providing an ass-ton of new jobs).

CIA interrogators are facing a special prosecutor because they broke the law, and that’s how the system works.  They broke the law under special circumstances, so they face a special prosecutor. You don’t get to torture the shit out of people and then just walk because “they might have known something important.”  That’s not how America works.

Last, our terrorist gets a trial because, again, that’s how our justice system works. What should we do?  Just hang him?  He’ll get a trial, he’ll get convicted, and then he’ll get punished.  That’s how we do it in this country, we go through the proper channels for everybody.  When we give that up, we have lost the ideological battle.  We need to beat them on our terms, not on theirs, or they win.

The term “War on Terror” has fallen out of the political lexicon for a number of reasons.

First of all, it isn’t really much of a war.  Terrorists like this aren’t really soldiers in an army as much as they are criminals with bigger guns and a bunch more crazy.  He says it himself that Khaled was “an illegal combatant under the laws of war: no uniform, direct attack on civilians”.  I think that should be a clue.  Terrorists should be treated like criminals.  High profile, dangerous, and high priority criminals yes, but still criminals.  The moment we abandon our legal system and start punishing criminals without a trial (which we have actually done a number of times already, but who’s counting), we miss the point of the “war” we are fighting in the first place.

Also, and Charles is right on this point, it is a political move.  The “War on Terror” was Bush’s baby, and Obama wants nothing to do with that.  That’s just politics.  It’s stupid, immature, and fairly asinine, but that’s how politics works.  Obama does it, Bush did it, Clinton did it, Lincoln did it and Washington did it.  Obama wants to seperate himself entirely from Bush’s legacy.

To truly win this thing, we have to win with the system we have.  We have to prove that it works.  Once we imprison without trial, torture suspects, make exceptions to the rules for the sake of public opinion, we compromise the ideology that makes us what we are.

The problem of terrorism has been handled poorly for decades by many different administrations, but it could certainly get a lot worse.

2010

This irked me.

It seems to be part of a larger movement as well.  For some reason, a lot of people are very concerned about how to pronouce 2010.  The agreement seems to be “twenty-ten”, and the people pushing this are presenting themselves as some sort of moral authority on the subject, as if it’s grammatically correct and other versions are just plain wrong.  I was taught that when you pronounce a number, you note each place value, such as 1776 being “one-thousand, seven hundred and seventy six”.  Saying “Seventeen-Seventy Six” saves you syllables, and it’s certainly what I would prefer to say, but isn’t necessarily more grammatically correct, which seems to be the issue.

This normally wouldn’t bother me, but a whole bunch of people seem to have taken this issue (is it really an issue?) personally, and I’ve seen it on a number of legitimate news websites.

Two-thousand and ten, twenty ten, two oh ten?

Everyone relax, because it really doesn’t make any difference.

Why Transformers, 2012, and Avatar are the most important movies of the year.

Film history marches forward as a business venture as much as an art.  When people are willing to shell out ten bucks to see a movie in a theater, somebody somewhere is raking in some serious money, which is a huge motivator in the decisions studios make about which films get green lit.  This system produces movies with mass appeal, because the studios want to put out movies that people are going to want, or at least, what they think they want.

In my opinion, the Transformers sequel and 2012 are the logical end of that path.  It is the last step on the long road action movies have been striding down for decades.  Based on the formula the system has set forth, the movies it has produced, and the monetary feedback given to those movies by the public, these are the movies that have been created.  It is film armageddon, the end of the road, and it is horrible to behold.

The final digital master file for Transformers was something around 160 Terabytes.  I have no clue what 2012 would be.

These movies are the most extreme examples of everything that makes an American action movie what it is, good and bad (mostly bad).  The CGI effects are so pervasive that they look real almost by virtue of having nothing real on the screen left to compare them to.  The acting is so bad I’m ashamed to know it was ever deemed even remotely acceptable by anyone getting a paycheck.  The plot makes no sense (and not in the “there were a few plot holes” sense, I mean I actually couldn’t figure out what was supposed to be going on during most of the movie).  This explains it pretty well.

One of the big draws for Transformers for a lot of people was that Megan Fox was in it (I would call her a bad actress, but that would be unfair, as I’ve never seen her in a movie that Michael Bay wasn’t directing, and no one looks good in his light, even Scarlett Johannsen and Ewan McGregor looked terrible at their jobs in his movies).  Megan Fox is hot on an unnatural level, but it’s never really flouted like it could be (or like Bay has done with his female leads in the past).  Take this shit for example, Bay obviously has no problem just strutting bitches around in their underwear, why is he so modest with Fox?

The biggest problem I have with Transformers and 2012 is that they are both way too long.  There is no excuse for these movies to breach two hours.  I have no problem with long movies if you are using the time to tell a story and don’t want to compromise for length, but when you watch giant robots (that look like huge piles of trash) throwing each other around and buildings just keep collapsing for more than two hours, your brain stops giving a shit.

After seeing these movies, I just decided that we’ve done it.  Movies can’t really get any worse and expect to be take with any ounce of seriousness.  The action movie business is dying, and it’s begun it’s downward spiral.

Then my savior arrived.

Avatar bitches!  Yes my friends, that is a giant blue alien riding a dragon around a landscape of mountains floating in mid air, shooting a machine gun.

I was convinced that I was going to be disappointed after all the hype this thudersmurf epic has been getting from the internet intelligentsia.  I was not.  I would have been if it was in 2d, but it was not.  It was in glorious, ridiculous 3d.

This movie sucks.  It is one of the worst movie to ever be so incredibly awesome. My friend Dan put it best when he said, “if Michael Bay was a brilliant filmmaker, he would be James Cameron.”  He also said “If you want an original plot, go read a book.”  Which is true, this is just Pocahontas/ The Last Samurai/ Dances with Wolves in space.

You must see it in 3d, I’ve seen it three times and I’d like to go again.  You must enjoy the movie for what it is.  I would have almost been happier if it was just a documentary about Pandora (although the final battle at the end was my favorite battle since Kingdom of Heaven).  Jim and his buddies have created an extremely attractive world.

Avatar may have saved action movies.  I hope against hope that 3d movies catch on.  Pirating them is worthless until computer and TV technology catches up (which is going to save them financially), and the new technology is so addicting that i’ve forked over close to $4o so far already.

Thanks Jim, thanks.

Also thanks to Roger Dean (album cover artist for prog rock bands like Yes and Asia) for coming up with all that stuff years ago.

The Hallelujah Mountains!

The arching rock formations around the tree of souls.

Yes, even the friendly colorful dragons.

Seriously?

Brit Hume says Tiger Woods should become a Christian to gain forgiveness.

I may have actually giggled out loud a little bit upon reading this, but actually seeing it was even better.

Consider how much went into creating this experience for all of us for less than a minute while he was talking.  People are paying Brit Hume some serious money, people are paying the people he is talking to. Energy was used to power thousands, nay millions of televisions and computer screens that came from power plants where people work hard to generate the kind of power it takes to light up all these gadgets.  Those workers are eating food from farms and plants all over the world to give them the energy to keep this whole big machine running.  Thousands of people get up early and work hard every day to keep Fox News running smoothly.

All of this grandiose maneuvering distills itself down to one moment, when Brit Hume spends half a minute of national air time telling Tiger Woods that Christianity is better at getting him forgiveness than Buddhism.

Are they more efficient at forgiving or something?  Does he get better coverage or benefits by using Christianity’s converting services?  Does he think that switching religions (and by extension, his entire world-view) will actually help his family grow closer together again?