Harry Potter: Books or Movies?

I don't really need to give an introduction here, chances are you know about Harry Potter, it's kind of the biggest entertainment product of the late 90's to 2000's, defining a generation and dominating two mediums. As an insanely massive fan, like most people, i compare the books to the movies, so here are my rankings of the franchise, from best to worst. Keep in mind i think all of these are excellent.

Movies: Goblet of Fire, Philosopher's Stone, Order of the Phoenix, Prisoner of Azkaban, Deathly Hallows Pt 2, Chamber of Secrets, Deathly Hallows Pt 1, Half-Blood Prince.

Books: Philosopher's Stone, Order of the Phoenix, Deathly Hallows, Chamber of Secrets, Goblet of Fire, Prisoner of Azkaban, Half-Blood Prince.

So there may be a few things that you will notice about this list, the first one being Half-Blood Prince is my least favourite of both the books and films, the reason why this is, is because it's the dullest of both but for different reasons. In the book, it felt like there was little action, and after Order of the Phoenix built it up so well and gave us a lot of great action, here, we get very little. Most of this book feels like it's just there to set up the final book of the series without giving us much of it's own story, which is what the prior books were all able to do excellently. Then there's the character development, of which still feels minimal in terms of where it counts. Order of the Phoenix had characters overcoming the death of loved ones, letting go of their childhoods and becoming adults and warriors...this book focuses on the love aspect of things...whoopee. Seriously, that whole Harry and Ginny thing just came out of nowhere. The film version has a lot of these problems as well, but to a less serious degree, seeing as it doesn't have as much time as a book does to flesh everything out. My big problem with Half-Blood Prince is that it's boring to look at, everything is grey, even when it's the middle of the day, everything is grey, yes they're trying to symbolise the dark times that they face but when your entire film is grey on grey for two hours, it gets seriously boring to look at. Gone are the zany visuals of prior films, instead it's just stale visuals with no creative magic or special effects to back it up.

Apart from that, there are other things worth talking about, the first one being which ones are better at what. Despite the listings, i would consider all of the books to be better than the films due to their extra details and developments for the characters and fleshing out the worlds even more...that is except for one. The Prisoner of Azkaban is the one where I feel the movie version does the important stuff even better than the book. The emotions are stronger in how they're represented, the atmosphere and tension are darker yet still visually interesting, even the magical creatures and effects are more entertaining and creative. It's the only one that I watch and i feel hasn't lost any significant content from book to film adaptation and still is able to add new content and make it a worthy adaptation. The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best of the adaptations, the reason why it's not my favourite is simply because as just films, not adaptations, i think the other three have more values and are basically more entertaining.

All of the other books I think are excellent adaptations, yes they lose some significant stories or character arcs, but they kept the important elements, they perfectly captures the wonder and charm of the books and never made any changes for the sake of making changes. As just standalone films go, they are damn near perfect in my opinion, some more perfect than others, but for the most part, these are some of my all time favourite films that I can watch over and over again and never get tired of.

-Danny

Ash Williams, Good? Bad? He's The Man With The Gun.

Ash is the main character in the Evil Dead franchise, played by the always great, Bruce Campbell. The Evil Dead franchise has always been a fascinating franchise with me, i don't necessarily like or dislike the movies, but i've always had a deep respect for them and a desire to look deeper into them. Ash is the main part of the franchise that I find interesting, in the first film he's an ordinary guy, he goes on a trip with his friends and are then killed by demons (deadites) from the Necronomicon, in the end, Ash's fate is left unsaid. In the second film is where he starts to get interesting, it turns out he survived the end of the previous film, but is still trapped in the cabin from the first, now on his own, Ash must fight for survival with nothing more than a chainsaw and a rifle. By the end of the film, he is sucked through a vortex and taken to the 1300's England, where he leads an army of knights against an army of deadites, for one final showdown. The best way to describe Ash to to think back to when you were a child and you were afraid of monsters, demons and the boogeyman, well Ash is the guy who tells the boogeyman to go fuck himself.

In the first film, Ash is quite a boring character, he's just your ordinary, everyday type of guy, nothing interesting or special about him. The second film is where the development for Ash takes place, he goes from a scared survivor to a warrior turned crazy by the Necronomicon, we see this once polite normal guy go to the boomstick wielding badass that we all love. The third film is where things go fully cartoony, Ash is sick of the deadites and just wants to get back home, he talks to himself, spouts whitty one-liners and basically put, he's crazier than the demons, which just makes him all the more deadly. But this is where he becomes interesting to me, technically speaking he is still the ordinary guy from the first film, there is nothing special about him physically or mentally, except that he can take one hell of a beating. What makes him so fun to watch is his attitude, he's no longer scared of the demons, he's pissed and he's armed (puns!). A man so crazy and out of touch with reality at this point, and seeing all the suffering he's had to go through, it's amazing that he still functions this well, and looks so cool while doing it.

Sam Raimi has stated that he's always viewed Ash as a loser, as pathetic, he always loses and is always getting his ass handed too him, which is why in the original ending for the franchise, Sam Raimi was going to have Ash wake up after the apocalypse for no reason than his own mistake. In my opinion, I agree with Raimi that Ash is a loser, the best heroes are the ones who are always getting put down and never getting their way, yet still continue fighting no matter what, however, I disagree with the idea of ending the series on a note like that. The official ending of the series i feel fits perfectly, Ash gets back to his old life, kicked the shit out of the demons and got the girl, he had gone through hell for a lot of this series due to no fault of his own (for the most part) so ending the series on his clumsy mistake after defeating an ancient evil like the Necronomicon doesn't seem fair. He's a badass, he's a psycho, he's a loser and he's a winner, hail to the king baby.

-Danny

Star Trek Season One Review & Update

Back at the start of the year I said i was going to attempt to watch every single episode of every single Star Trek series out there by the end of the year, little did i know how stupid that idea was and is impossible. Since then, I have reset my goal to watch all of the original Star Trek series by the end of the year. Even though I finished the first season quite a while ago, I never fully reviewed it, so here I go.

Star Trek is a science-fiction series released in 1966 based around the adventures of the Starship Enterprise, a ship with one mission, to seek out new civilisations and explore the galaxy, to go where no man has gone before. Along the way, the Enterprise and it's crew will face multiple challenges and obstacles both physically and morally. When I first watched this show, i was expecting nothing more than cheesy sci-fi and the first episode gave me exactly that, but continuing to watch the show made me realise how clever the show actually was. The show would often have clever and original premises acting as social commentary, still relevant to this day. A good example of this is the episode 'Errand of Mercy' where the Enterprise and crew try to save a planet of pacifists from the warlike species the Klingons, however, the natives show that though Kirk has good intentions, war will just lead to more war, a message that is still relevant, if not even more relevant by today's standards. Multiple episodes of the first season alone have very clever writing and set-ups like this that are memorable and creative. However, while the quality of the writing is superior to what I thought, the production design is sadly what I feared. Even giving it some leniency due to the time period, almost all of the sets look like sets, the sound effects are repetitive, the choreography for the action scenes is laughable. The visual effects are actually pretty good for the time, but for the most part, the show definitely looks the way you would imagine it would. For the most part it's fine due to the fact that the show is able to suck you into the world due to the great atmosphere, but even still, it is the most dated aspect of the show.

Captain James T Kirk, played by William Shatner I have heard a lot about over the years, for the most part people making fun of his performance and speech pattern. Though being honest i never noticed anything wrong with his performance, yes the action is bad, but for the most part i very much enjoyed him as the captain of the USS Enterprise. He was suave with the women, respectable as a captain, had a sense of mercy to him yet also room for other opinions. He was the captain the Enterprise deserved and needed. But the highlight episode for me when it comes to Kirk's character is in the episode 'The City on the Edge of Forever' Kirk and Spock travel back in time to the 1930's where Kirk falls in love with a local woman, however, he soon learns that she must die in order for major historical events to commence. Kirk in a moment of instinct is about to save her life but at the last second stops himself, letting the woman he loves die for the greater good. A man able to make the ultimate sacrifices like that for the greater good is what makes him such a good character, he can be the hero, but not without personal sacrifice, not everyone can make those choices but Kirk can, and he was a very enjoyable character.

Spock was also an interesting character, he's a half Vulcan, half human science officer, meaning he understands human emotion, but for the most part functions on pure logic, an excellent combination, he's not baffled by human emotion or why people behave certain ways, he knows exactly how certain emotions can cloud people's judgements, but other times the emotional response is superior to the logical response. Spock's best episode for me so far is 'The Galileo Seven' where Spock is in charge of an expedition crew on a deadly planet when things go wrong and Spock has to make the tough decisions, while everyone else refuses to face the most likely possibilities either do to hope or paranoia, Spock keeps his head on straight and always is blunt about their options. What I love about Spock is his honesty, you don't have to like him, you might not want to take orders from him, but you can always trust him cause he'll always tell you the truth.

Bones was the sarcastic and cynical doctor of the crew, while he may not have gotten as much development as I would have liked, he was still a constantly welcomed crew member, completing the trio of Kirk, Spock & Bones are worked well off of both of them. Acting as the best friend to Kirk and a rival to Spock, yet able to act as the adviser for the two in different ways, to make sure Kirk always thought straight while also teaching Spock to be more empathetic towards other people. As for all of the other characters, they were fine, they all played the roles that I expected them to play and rarely made any kind of variation on them so I don't see the purpose in talking in detail about them.

As for a favourite episode, that would go to 'Tomorrow is Yesterday' another time travel episode where they end up in 1969 and try to find a way back. The reason why this one is my favourite is simply because it's the last thing i expected...a full on comedic episode. The entire episode has the crew stuck at an airfield, trying to escape but everything constantly going wrong. Other episodes had comedic moments or witty banter, but this was the first one that went for straight up comedy, it was a nice surprise and was the most memorable episode for me.

Overall this was a very strong first season, the show was a nice surprise and was better than I thought it would be, the production values may lack along with a small handful of bad or forgettable episodes, but for the most part the writing and characters are solid. 7/10.

-Danny

'Friends' and Masculinity

Friends is a TV Show that no one is going to claim has a lot of commentary on social issues, more often than not it avoided that so it could be a fun form of escapism for half an hour every week. But one topic that they would lay reference to for the sake of a plot point or joke is that of masculinity...they handled it weirdly. The characters are not seen as particularly manly, yet should they ever come across anything that goes against the social norms of how men should behave, they freak out. Two men napping together, a male nanny, Joey making potpourri, they would often criticise and mock these ideas because it's "weird". Now there are plenty of shows that would mock these ideas, especially in the 90's but the hypocrisy of it all is what baffles me, this is the same show that had Ross dressed as a potato and Chandler as a pink bunny have an arm wrestling match and be equally weak...i just realised how weird of an episode idea that sounds. My point being, there it's okay to mock their lack of masculine traits without belittling the idea of people being different, but in cases like Sandy the Male Nanny, he doesn't behave emasculate, it's not even a stereotype on his sexuality seeing as he's straight, but the idea of a guy able to be sensitive is weird apparently, i don't get it. How can a show go from having it be identifiable character traits in our main characters to mocking the fact that anyone who doesn't behave by the archaic standards of men? It's hypocritical and strange that they would give a damn about that in the first place, it makes me question how this show survived in the birth of post-modern television.

-Danny

Star Wars Rebels 'The Siege of Lothal' Review

Finally, a new TV show to talk about! Or atleast...an episode of it. Star Wars Rebels is the animated series running on Disney XD based in the Star Wars universe inbetween episodes 3 & 4. The series follows a group of Robin Hood like characters who steal from the Empire and give to the needy. In the season one finale, they had officially teamed up with the still small sized Rebels. In this hour long premiere of season two, we have our small team of Rebels trying to rescue a minister on the planet of Lothal (where all of season one took place) when they are trapped there by the Empire with the ambush lead by Darth Vader himself, thus our heroes try to find a way off the planet while avoiding the empire.

The opening of this episode shows a quick reintroduction of our protagonists as they fight alongside the rebellion to steal supplies from the Empire, it was a quick and clever way to introduce the crew to any new viewers this season, showing the personalities, roles and relationships of our main characters, as well as showing how they are handling their new responsibilities as part of the rebellion. The characters are in fact what this show relies on to get by, the charm of this being a Star Wars product will only get you so far and it's an idea that has been done plenty of times before, so if you want to stand out, you need memorable characters that the audience enjoys rooting for, which this show does excellently. Kanan is given an interesting character trait that's introduced in this episode, he's a free spirit and always has been, the idea of teaming up with the Rebels doesn't sit well with him. Having to go through formalities and taking orders isn't his style, he likes making his own choices in life, as well as helping the little people, letting other people focus on the bigger picture. Also having read the Kanan comic series (which is really good by the way) it adds that extra layer of depth, a character who once trusted soldiers and was good friends with them who betrayed him in the blink of an eye would make him uncomfortable to be around another group of soldiers.

Ezra has the biggest change in character, gone is the annoying Aladdin rip off from the first season, ever since the danger he faced in the finale of last season, he's now calmer and uses his head more often, he still maintains that boyish innocence and brave nature, but also takes things more seriously and unlike Kanan, does think abut the bigger picture. It's a nice change in the character, giving him natural development to make him feel like a more engaging protagonist, but not too much where he doesn't feel like his distinct self like he was already introduced. Hera feels much more at home fighting for the rebellion, being the most responsible person on the Ghost, it makes sense that she enjoys being around other sensible thinkers who take the situation much more seriously. But she's not a stick in the mud either, telling everyone how bad and stupid their ideas are, she's willing to improvise and take risks, but always thinking ahead and much more reasonably than the others. Zeb, Sabine and Chopper didn't do much in terms of character development in this episode, they're still the exact same as they were in the previous season, which is something that I hope they change, while they were enjoyable in the first season, the lack of development makes them less interesting, so i hope to see significant changes in them by the end of season two.

This story feels more like a stand-alone plot than it does an introduction for season two's arc, that may be fitting seeing as the rest of this season doesn't air until September, but we'll get to that later. The plot itself was well paced for an hour long story, but didn't feel like it needed to be, half of the episode was setting up the characters and the other half was this story, so it could easily have been divided. I was very excited to see Ahsoka back on screen seeing as she was one of my favourite characters in The Clone Wars, but i also assumed she would have had more to do, she's missing for the entire middle portion of the story and even the scenes where she does show up, she's lost in the background until she senses Vader. Speaking of whom, Darth Vader was probably more menacing here than he ever was in the movies, which is not to insult his film portrayal which i still love, but the build they give him here, the characters descriptions of him and the moment when they actually meet face to face was chilling, this is probably the best that i've ever seen Vader. The scene where he and Ahsoka make contact via the force, it was astounding and I cannot wait to see how they settle that storyline.

The cameo by Billy Dee Williams as Lando was nice, though felt unnecessary, seeing him in the first season was great because he had a purpose, if the show is going to have them crossover then i would hope it would be for a major reason and not just feel like fanservice. Also finally, the animation seems to have gotten an upgrade since last season, the motion isn't as clunky, the textures look better, it's still not up to Clone Wars quality, but it's improving, just don't put any more Wookies in the show...goddamn those Wookies designs...

So it's going to be a while till I actually get to review the rest of the series seeing as the proper second season isn't going to air until September, I have no idea why they're waiting so long, but nevertheless, whether i review it depends on the specific release date, afterall, i'll be reviewing Flash and Arrow again by then, so we'll have to see. But until then, this was a very good starter episode for the second season, it's great seeing these characters again and I look forward to seeing where they're going to go with this story. I'm giving the episode a 7/10.

-Danny

Blogiversary

It has officially been one year since I made my first ever post on this blog, strange, it feels a lot longer than that, there have been a lot of waves in writing this blog, some days I have a dozen ideas at once that I could talk about and others I am lookin' for scraps, but for a whole year I have talked about movie news, analysed videogames, talked about superheroes, given my cheap thoughts on a lot of shit and even talked about some serious or personal issues a long the way. My bad spelling & grammar and unfinished ideas included. And throughout it all, barely anyone has read the damn thing, but I don't really care, cause it's a lot of fun to make these posts and here's hoping to another 365 of the damn things.

-Danny

Why The Message in The Pokemon Movie is Wrong

Pokemon is one of those products that original fans love the original series but think the newer stuff it total crap. As someone who grew up on the original series and loves it to death...it's always been crap, as a kid i didn't know that, but as an adult, whenever I rewatch the show i realise that it sucks, i will always love it to death, but i'm not going to pretend that it was good. But even when it comes to the loyal fans of the show who will admit that it's dumb, there is one moment that they treasure as being legitimately smart, the climax to the original movie. The first Pokemon movie ends with all of the Pokemon getting into a fight together and the other characters look on in despair and realise how wrong it is, violence is wrong, treating other's badly just cause they're different is wrong, everything is wrong.

It's a good message for kids but that doesn't make it smart or handled well, how you present your message is just as important as the message itself. Firstly there's the blatant hypocrisy of the message, the fact that Pokemon, a show that's entire existence is based around having animals fight each other it telling us that violence is wrong, and as soon as this is over, their memories are erased and they go back to having Pokemon fight each other, bull-shit. You can't expect kids to take a lesson seriously if you yourself aren't going to take it seriously. Then there's the fact that the message is beat into your head, that image above is only one segment of the message, but literally every character has a speech about this message of equality and it goes on forever. Even as a kid, i felt like i was being manipulated a little, and if you ever try to force a kid to do anything or believe something, they're going to fight against it. If it was just Meowth giving this statement then i would think that it would be pretty smart and well done, but beating it into your head ruins the sentiment.

So again, it's a good message to teach kids but this was handled in all the wrong ways to actually make it have any kid of effect, especially when your main characters don't listen to the message, kids are going to think they don't have too either.

-Danny

That Sense of "Catching Up"...

The three biggest passions in my life are movies, videogames and television and usually they go in cycles for which one i'm in the mood for and different things can set them off. Videogames it's usually because some big event or new release is coming up that makes me want to play a whole bunch of new games. Television is similar, if a new season for a popular show is coming soon, it makes me want to binge watch all the prior seasons. With movies it's different, seeing as new releases are coming out constantly and they're not nearly as big of a time commitment as TV or videogames. Also there's the fact that movies have a richer history behind them, videogames only have a couple of decades behind them, and TV only has a few more, and most of them don't really have many products from the early days that stand the test of time or that you "have to see" for that sense of credit. Movies have over a hundred years of history behind them and because they're not as big of a commitment, thus seen as easier to watch, there's a lot more scrutiny behind not seeing a certain film. How many times have you heard someone say "You have to watch this film" and true, you get that with games and TV, it's not to the same extent as movies. Movies have hundreds of films that you "have" to see and there are plenty of people that will question your love of films if you never see a certain film(s). So with that, i have that sense of catching up that makes me want to watch movies, whenever i see people talk about films that i've never seen it makes me want to watch more. Even when i hear people who are over 2 decades older than me talk about a bunch of films they've seen that i haven't, i feel like i'm falling behind even though they've had over 20 years of a head start on me. With every film i see, that's one more that brings me closer to seeing every film that I "have" to see, which is not a good way to look at things because in reality i'm never going to see every film that I "have" to see because that list is always going to be growing the more people I talk too.

-Danny

Kiki's Delivery Service - Cheap Thoughts

Studio Ghibli are one of the leaders when it comes to animation, they've been in business for over 30 years and have been strong ever since. In 1988 they released two feature length films, one was a serious anti-war drama about two children struggling to survive during WW2...the other was My Neighbour Totoro, so safe to say they have a wide variety of films, but they're mostly known for their family friendly relaxing fantasy films, filled with colourful animation, enjoyable characters and a simple yet charming story, Kiki's Delivery Service is one of those films, but gosh darn it, they do it so well. Kiki's Delivery Service is based around a teenage girl named Kiki, a witch who leaves home to start a life on her own. She arrives in a town near the ocean and thanks to her skills at flying, she starts up her own delivery service and...that's kind of it. The majority of the movie is Kiki getting used to the town and interacting with it's citizens.

One of the things that makes Hayao Miyazaki's films stand out is how natural the unnatural is. In this case, the idea of witches isn't a strange concept, they're not common but people are still aware they exist. Complimenting his style and artwork is almost irrelevant at this point because so many people have talked about his talent in the past that i can't really add anything new. I will admit his writing isn't for everyone, very often you're thrown into a fantasy world with little explanation on how it works or what roles people play, you just sort of have to adapt as they go along. I will say this is one of his simpler films as it shares a lot of similarities to our reality, just happier and...well, witches exist. Also the way how witches function in this film is very interesting, there are no good witches or bad witches, they're just people with special powers, nothing godlike, just something that helps them get by in life, in Kiki's case she happens to be an excellent flier.

There's not much to talk about in terms of story, the majority of the film is her interacting with the townsfolk and yet that's all that's needed. The film has a very relaxed and laid back attitude yet you get very invested in the small events in these peoples lives, like Kiki helping an old woman bake a cake can have a surprising amount of emotional weight. The only relationship in the film i find strange is how Kiki treats Tombo at first, she's sort of rude to him for no real reason, eventually she takes a liking to him but it's still rather uncalled for at first. I will say the ending feels rather jarring, for such a peaceful story it turns into a giant climax with danger and suspense and it doesn't really fit well with the rest of the film, also the movie just sort of ends there, there's not much of an epilogue, there's a disaster, disaster ends, cut to credits.

The animation is of course phenomenal, but again, that's sort of a given, saying a Ghibli film looks good is literally the minimum anyone expects from them. The use of colours is great, the movement is fluid and the designs are unique. The movie does share a lot of tropes that are often found in Miyazaki films, for example, the parents in this film are the same parents he uses in most of his films, hell i'd say these are the exact same parents from Totoro just with a different hair colour. I also think Kirsten Dunst does an excellent job in the lead role, when it comes to sub vs dub, it's pretty 50/50 with Ghibli films, usually the more grounded in reality the film is, i lean towards to dub, but if it's a straight up fantasy then i find the sub to be more appropriate.

To sum it up, the film is very charming, it's very relaxing and has all of the best qualities of Miyazaki, but it also has a lot of his bad qualities and the ending of the movie is a bit jarring. 8/10.

-Danny

Is Wander The Villain?

We don't get enough games that could be considered up to interpretation, the themes, the story, the characters, too many tend to simplify things even in the best of games. Yet Shadow of the Colossus, one of the simplest games in terms of plot is one of the most complex and artistic videogames that I have ever played. One of the elements that could be broken down is the role that Wander plays. The first time I started to piece this together is the role the Colossi play in the game, people would argue that they're not villains, they're creatures that just walk around and some won't attack you until you attack them. Even when they're beaten, the player doesn't get the sense of victory, the game becomes rather sombre and tragic, making you question whether they are actual monsters. We see the game from Wander's perspective, we want to save Mono, the Colossi are our targets, they look like monsters so we assume they must be evil, because narrative dictates that's how it is. But what do we really know about Wander? We know that he stole the sword he fights with, he's trespassing in a forbidden area, made a deal with a demon, killed 16 creatures to bring back the life of a woman who was sacrificed for the supposed greater good. The details of some of these points are quite vague, we don't know why Mono was sacrificed specifically, for all we know it was completely voluntarily, we don't even know the relationship between Wander and Mono, she might not even know him and he is doing this for purely selfish reasons. But that's just speculation, again, looking at the facts, Wander performs multiple crimes with no justification or context given. If the game makes us sympathise with the Colossi and chooses to keep the facts of Wander hidden, only revealing the negative actions he's committed, you have to ask yourself, were we playing as the villain?

So who is the hero? Is it the Colossi? Well no, i wouldn't say they play a role of hero or villain, just victims of circumstance. Is it Mono? No, we know literally nothing about her. The priest and soldiers? Most likely seeing as they fight against the demon, Dormin, they're also the ones that inform us of Wander's crimes, but again, not enough context is given for us to make a decision. The only character in the game who comes close to being a good character is Agro the horse, she's brave, protecting her master and even sacrifices herself to keep him alive. But apart from that, there is no clear hero in this game, and if we're to go by facts alone, Wander shares a lot more traits and plot points to a villain than he does a hero.

-Danny

Smosh: The Movie - Trailer Review

I've never been a fan of Smosh, i've found their humour childish, their writing uninspired and they have a tendency to manipulate their unthinking fan-base (Indiegogo anyone?). So they have a movie coming out of course and it looks...well, like a movie by Smosh. But to be fair, this is actually a pretty clever premise, Ian and Anthony try to remove an embarrassing and viral video of them from YouTube so they meet "Mr YouTube" who tells them the only way they can delete it is to travel inside of YouTube and stop the video from happening, they then travel from video to video trying to find it. Now that's actually a pretty clever premise and can provide some clever commentary and satire on YouTube trends, faults and even their successes...but of course that would imply Smosh could do anything even remotely subtle. Almost every joke in this movie trailer is a dick joke, butt joke or something like that, except they have to make it as obvious as possible by yelling things like "you just saw my penis!" "it went up my butt!" because i don't think every 9 year old in the audience fully understood them before. Now of course it is entirely possible that the movie could be the funniest film of the year...but considering this trailer sucks and there's nearly a decade of material from these guys that suck, i seriously doubt that. Why couldn't they give the movie to Smosh Games? At least Jovenshire is funny.

-Danny

Revenge of the Nerds - Cheap Thoughts

You have some movies that are pretty dated, then there's Revenge of the Nerds which is...just uncomfortable. The 1984 cult comedy follows the story of a fraternity of nerds in their first year of college as they are picked on and abused by the jock fraternity and seek revenge. The movie plays out like your typical hi-jinx high school/college teen comedy, except there's a lot about this movie that doesn't work...let's start with the smaller problems. Firstly, the plot is just unbelievable even by teen comedy standards. As an actual university student I was watching this entire movie thinking "in what world would that work?" and almost every problem in the film could be solved by just...going to the police. I mean the movie is obviously exaggerating the roles that these people play, jocks were never that dumb and wouldn't have gotten away with that much in real life, also people are way meaner to the nerds than any self-respecting adult would be, so some suspension of disbelief has to be had but even still, it exists in the real world so i don't get why they couldn't just go to the police for any number of these problems.

Then there's the fact of just how dated this movie is, and I don't even mean by today's standards, but literally less than a decade later people would look back at how stupid this is. While nerds were still uncool in the 90's, there reputation wouldn't be this bad and no one would treat them this horribly, especially in college, seriously, this is friggin' college! These people are literal adults and everyone treats them like crap! Throughout the movie all i could think of was that one episode of The Simpsons where Homer goes to college and yells out NEEEEEEEEEEEERD and even the Jock is befuddled by his behaviour. But going to today's perspective, it is even more dated due to the popularity of nerd culture as well as the respect for the intelligence of individuals, and with every passing year the movie is going to be less and less relevant. Also i don't get the ending, the nerds have a big performance at a charity event and it just looks like random nonsense yet everyone really likes it. Also why is the stoner and the gay guy in the nerd fraternity? I mean yeah they're losers by societies hierarchy of the 1980's, but they're not nerds.

Then there is the biggest problem with this movie and the reason why it's so uncomfortable to watch, almost every character in this movie is a sex offender and commit multiple acts of sexual offence. I don't mean they can be interpreted as sexual crimes, but literal crimes. Putting cameras in girls bedrooms to watch them change, that's a sexual offence, breaking into their bedrooms and stealing their underwear, that's a sexual offence, selling nude pictures of them without their knowledge, that's a sexual offence, sleeping with someone under false pretences, that is literally rape. This movie has us supporting a bunch of rapists, committing acts that were illegal then and illegal now.

This movie is awkward, it is one of the most uncomfortable, creepy and unrealistic depictions of college that I have ever seen, it's funny, i'll give it that, but what it passes off for hi-jinx is actually rape and i can't forgive a film for that. I'm giving Revenge of the Nerds a 3/10.

-Danny