400 Posts

Wow, 400 posts, what a milestone, i wonder what i should do to celebrate this wondrous achievement...*fart*

-Danny

The 33 - Trailer Review

The story of the 33 Chilean Miners stuck underground was one of the biggest stories of the year back in 2010, it was also one that thankfully had a happy ending. Shortly after the event, there was news of a movie in production based on the events and i laughed and thought "yeah, that'll happen". 5 years later, here we are, and i've got to say, it looks pretty damn incredible. I myself am a sucker for true stories with uplifting happy endings, as well as stories of brotherhood, solidarity, friendship, etc. This looks to be something right up my ally in that sense as the trailer shows us a lot of emotion from both aspects, the miners underground and the families above. Some people have been complaining that the trailer spoils the entire movie...it's based on a true story...from 5 years ago! Everyone knows this story, everyone knows how it ends, to complain that the trailer gives anything away is like saying it's a spoiler to tell you that the Titanic sinks, it's a known fact. Point is, this is a damn good trailer, it got me highly invested in seeing a movie that i initially mocked when it was first announced. The 33 comes out 13th November 2015 in the US with no UK release date officially given yet.

-Danny

The Marvellous Mircale of Ms Marvel

In 2014, Marvel launched a new comic book series titled Ms Marvel, following the stories of a Pakistan Muslim Teenager growing up in America. The series quickly took off and has become one of the most popular comic books in circulation, and me being included as someone who loves this series and considers it too be one of the best there is and one of the most unique. Though I have to be honest, I am incredibly surprised by the success of Ms Marvel, nothing to do with the story or art, but the purpose behind her existance. Kamala was clearly invented as a way to expand public interest in reading comics, with the popularity of the Marvel films at an all time high and a lot of new demographics wanting to read comics, Kamala is one of many characters that were created or reimagined for the sake of mass appeal. Which in itself is not a bad thing, there are plenty of cases where that has lead to a lot of great things (Robin being the best example of that). What surprises me is the near universal positive reception Ms Marvel got from both newcomers and traditional comic book fans. Comic book fans, like a lot of fandoms, will jump down your throat and scream their heads off should the creators attempt to differentiate from the norm for the sake of mass appeal, just look at what happened when they made Thor a woman. But no one has complained about Ms Marvel being used as a marketing gimmick.

The reason why I think this is, is because even though she has the title of an already existing character, Kamala Khan and Carol Danvers could not be more different people, the Carol Danvers Ms Marvel was different in every way, from personality, to race, to super powers, to relationships. Also Kamala has very different themes and stories behind her character, a lot of focus is given on her culture, relationship with her family and religion, but never so much that it feels like they've overbearing you with these ideas, but enough to make them feel present but not so much it feels like a gimmick. Also it's not like they're replacing Carol Danvers, she's moved onto being Captain Marvel.

The reason why people complained about Jane Foster's Thor and Miles Morales's Spider-Man is because they were replacing the existing characters and fulfilling a very similar purpose to the originals. Over time they've become more accepted, if anything i'd say Miles Morales is even more popular than Peter Parker right now. But Kamala Khan was different enough that she was worthy of being her own character and is still relatable to audiences even if they don't identify in the same classes as she does.

-Danny

This Is Not A Good Time To Be Sony Pictures

Oh Sony, you're such a good company, you're tech is great, you make some awesome videogames and television shows, so why is it that you fuck up so badly when it comes to movies? I mean, so badly. But i don't mean you've always fucked up, but very recently you've been fucking up. 2014 was not a good year for them, Amazing Spider-Man 2 was panned so badly they're now rebooting the franchise again, and that's just one of the flops, others include Robocop, The Monuments Men, Sex Tape & Annie. Yeah there were a few hits there like 22 Jump Street, Fury & The Equalizer, but none of them were the big money makers (Minus Jump Street). Then there was the whole hassle of The Interview being released or not. Finally the big scandal all of the e-mail hacks and having so many private documents released to the public, showing that all of the rumours and theories people made about Sony Pictures not having a fucking clue what they're doing, were all true. They're the stereotypical hollywood executives that care about nothing more than marketing and really have no idea how to make a damn movie. Then they ended the year with Amy Pascall getting fired, or quitting, one of the other, either way it's probably for the best seeing as she was really not good at her job and potentially a little bit racist.

Now we come to 2015, an even worse year for Sony in terms of movie quality and reception. Let's take a look at what has been released: Chappie, panned by audiences, mild box-office return, Paul Blart 2: Mall Cop, panned by audiences, mild box office returns, Aloha, panned by audiences, box office flop, Pixels, panned by audiences, box office flop. Everything else they've got coming out the rest of the year can pretty much go either way. Kitchen Sink, Hotel Transylvania 2, Goosebumps, The Night Before. All have the potential to be really good or really bad. The only two movies that are looking really good so far are Spectre and Concussion.

To be fair, a lot of studios release a bunch of films per year and a fair amount of them will bomb, but damn, this is two years in a row that Sony have been going on a losing streak and it ain't getting better anytime soon, you know what they've got coming out next two years? The Ghostbusters reboot, a Smurfs reboot, a movie based on Angry Birds and another based on Emojis...i don't see how this can get any better.

-Danny

Rocky IV - Cheap Thoughts

I've only begun watching the Rocky movies this past year in anticipation of Creed, and despite it being the least good so far from a technical stand point, the one that has stuck out to me so far is Rocky IV. Keep in mind i haven't seen Rocky V or Rocky Balboa yet, though I hear Rocky V sucked even worse. With that being said, Rocky IV is the 4th instalment in the Rocky franchise (Obviously) and it follows the story of Rocky and his former rival, now friend Apollo Creed coming out of retirement to fight against Ivan Drago, played by Dolph Lundgren. From there you get a whole lot of your Rocky cliches, Adrian being against Rocky fighting again, just to come around later, the training montage, the big climactic fight at the end and Rocky single handedly stopping the cold war, typical Rocky movie.

So what is it about this movie that makes it stand out to me? It's weird. Simple as that. A franchise that started out as the grounded and realistic story of an average schmuk like Rocky Balboa rising as the underdog and coming out...well, watch the movie to find out. Here we have a rich & famous Rocky with a robot as Paulie's servant and what is pretty much a supervillain as his enemy and-oh yeah-Rocky ends the cold war! Well okay I may be exaggerating that last point, but considering the movie is an America vs Russia story and the film ends with Rocky giving a big speech about change and working together, come on, the cold war metaphor is less subtle than the Jesus metaphor in The Matrix.

But the funny thing is, even with this being a complete betrayal of what Rocky originally stood for, it's just so fascinatingly odd that i can't dislike it, Paulie has a semi-sentient robot as his implied girlfriend, how do you react to that!? And you can't blame the movie for being cliched, because this is Rocky, the entire franchise is built on these cliches all the way back to the first one. Then there's Drago...god i fucking love Drago, he is literally a supervillain! All the prior Rocky movies had him fight against real people, Apollo Creed was his respected rival, Clubber Lang was a dick but still a person. Drago is like the Russian Captain America, he's been experimented on to be the perfect fighter, has barely any dialogue outside of "i must break you" and "if he dies, he dies" this isn't a boxer, this is a fucking Street Fighter character! He's cheesy, sinister and menacing, i fucking love everything about Drago.

The music is also insane. Rocky has always been known for having great training montages set to great music, Gonna Fly Now, Eye of the Tiger, they're all great, here we have probably the best Rocky soundtrack so far. Hearts on Fire makes for a great work-out track that can get everybody pumped, No Easy Way Out works similarly to get you excited but used in a different context in the movie, more of a reflective state oddly enough. Oh and a performance of Living in America by James Brown...again, this was a weird movie. But seriously, amazing soundtrack here,

The plot of the film is very cliched but again, it's a Rocky movie, you expect this, it's not the plot that people come for, it's the characters, the dialogue, the music, the montages, so it's not fair to criticise it in that aspect, atleast in my opinion. I will say the movie does throw a wrench into the plot halfway through which was...unusual. I won't spoil it, but a big change is made for one of the characters and it feels like a cheap way to cause character development and emotional change in another character, which is usually a no-no, having characters go through tragedy for the sake of other characters development is usually disrespectful to the former and cheap for the latter.

Overall, Rocky IV is a weird movie, it's absolutely jumped the shark but it's also fun as hell and honestly even though i know it's not the best Rocky movie, it's the one i want to watch again more than any other. I give Rocky IV a 7/10.

-Danny

Does Man of Steel Get Superman Right?

Man of Steel is one of those movies that everyone is divided on, cinephiles, Superman fans, regular movie goers, pretty much everyone has an opinion on it. Today I want to talk about one specific element of the movie, Superman. So forget about any problems or praises you have with the story, the themes, the visuals, just focus on Superman, is he a faithful adaptation? Or a new spin entirely? Do they get-him-right?

Superman is one of those heroes that a lot of people have begun to dislike these days because they say he's not relatable. To that I say: Nah. Superman is supposed to be the story of a god becoming a man, he has so much power that he's destined to do something with it and he chose to be a symbol of good, to inspire people to be better and be a real symbol of hope, that's why he doesn't wear a mask, because he wants people to trust him. Superman is the guy that always believes in second chances, that the system can work and there is good in almost everyone. But that doesn't make his life easy, he is constantly having his ideology challenged by others, he is in a constant struggle of balancing the line between man and god and despite his best efforts, he knows he can never save everyone. Anyone that says Superman is over powered is someone who thinks you can solve all of life's problems by punching them. Superman is more than that, but is the Man of Steel that?

Now i'm going to be giving Henry Cavill's version some slack because he's a very young Superman who only just took on this role, so he hasn't entirely figured out what type of hero he's supposed to be or what his role is. With that being said, Cavill's Superman does maintain a lot of the traits of the traditional Superman. For one thing he doesn't see himself above the law, when Zod demands Kal-El turn himself over, he does it without hesitation and without resistance, he follows the military's rules, is always polite and even though he's the most powerful person in the room, he never acts like it. He also does decide on his own faith as being a symbol of hope, even down to the S meaning Hope (Boy, that was stupid). Admittedly they may through the Jesus Symbolism in too much, but i've talked about that in a prior post. Another thing is the fact that Clark Kent is a mama's boy, which is evident here considering that when Zod threatens Mama Kent, Clark tackles him like a speeding bullet and beats the living snot out of him, classic Superman.

Something in this film that a lot of people have a problem with is the destruction of Metropolis and how many people die as a result of the fight between Superman and Zod. This is something that people seem to get wrong, first of all, no one dies as a result of Superman's actions, he doesn't put anyone in danger and isn't responsible for the destruction around him that does cause people to die, that's all Zod's work. If you're going to complain about Superman not going out of his way to make sure the destruction doesn't hurt anyone, he's fighting General Zod! He's not exactly giving him an opening to go help people! And if you're going to complain about the amount of destruction, casualties or not, i think it's been made pretty clear in plenty of other story lines (Justice League cartoon & Superman Vs The Elite spring to mind) that Superman doesn't give a damn about collateral damage.

Something I do have a problem with is when Superman destroys the ship carrying the potential future for Krypton, Zod tells him "If you destroy this ship, you destroy Krypton!" which Superman responds "Krypton had it's chance!". This is a very un-Superman thing to say, he's supposed to be the perfect mixture between the two, he's proud of his roots and respects their ways, the people on that ship aren't guilty of any crime and they don't pose any threat. Superman would find a balance between the two, and if he did have to make the sacrifice, he would do it with a heavy heart, this Superman hesitates for a few seconds and then quickly decides to doom his own species. Which is made even worse considering how much he would have loved to have more people like him.

But then there's the final point that a lot of people seem to be split on, killing General Zod. Again, a lot of people think this is a very Un-Superman moment...and they would be right. Superman is supposed to be a symbol for truth, justice and hope, show the best that humanity can be, and killing people is not part of that ideal. But like i stated, this is a young Superman, he doesn't know entirely who he can be, and even more so, he had no other choice, Zod put him into an ultimatum, they both knew there was no other end to the fight, one of them had to die, after all, what are you gonna do? Put Zod in jail? No cell can hold him! He was backed into a corner and he made a tough choice, and you can see that it did have an effect on him, he's clearly shaken up about having to kill Zod and they can use this as the catalyst to why he doesn't kill from now on, because he knows how bad it feels to take a life in the first place.

So in the end, no Man of Steel doesn't have the perfect representation of Superman, he's a little too mopey and he hasn't fully worked out who he's supposed to be, but he's new to this. For the most part they got him right, i don't see any major problems that contradict the character of Superman, in this version or any other. I like this version of Superman, he's not my favourite but he's good and I look forward to seeing where they'll take the character from here.

-Danny

What Mass Effect Characters AREN'T My Favourites?

I've talked a lot about Mass Effect and my love for it and it's characters, i have done multiple entries in my 'Favourite Characters' Series based on their roster, but that doesn't mean all of them are going to be appearing on that list and this is my opportunity to talk about them. Now i'm only talking about the main characters, the crew of the Normandy, and it doesn't mean I don't like these characters, i do, i'll explain more as i talk about them.

Kasumi
Kasumi has a lot of great qualities too her, she's funny, has a great loyalty mission and is good at what she does, but she's a DLC character, meaning she has very little interactions with Shepard or the rest of the crew, and those interactions are what shows how great a character is and I imagine Kasumi would get along with the others. The big problem here is that she's too passive of a character for me to get that engaged in her story and the fact that she can be lifted out of the game with no difference is what pulls her down.

Zaeed
Similar to Kasumi that he's too passive of a character, but even in the interactions he does have with Shepard, i don't like it. He's too selfish, rash and aggressive, if I was Shepard I would never let this douche bag onto my team. What makes me like him is he's great to have during gameplay, but as a character, i dislike him a fair amount.

Javik
Javik is the only DLC character that actually feels like he's engaged in the main story, maybe that's because he was supposed to be but EA made him day one DLC (Fuck you EA). Even though Javik does play a significant role in the game and has a great backstory and philosophy, he's also boring to take into battle and his personality doesn't really change throughout the game, yes he finally comes to terms with the death of his species but he still gives your entire crew the cold shoulder a lot of the time.

Ashley
I don't think I even need to explain why Ash isn't one of my favourites because she's not anyone's favourite, she's racist, whiny, obnoxious and is always giving you crap, like nothing you can do is good enough for her, she acts like she has no reason to trust you despite you being the hero of the galaxy and she constantly berates other much cooler characters in the process.

Kaiden
But with that being said. Even though Ashley has a bitchy personality, at least she has a personality. Kaiden is more of a blank slate than Shepard is, having no real character or personality behind him and he's pretty much just a lap dog. Except in Mass Effect 3 where they do a 180 by making him kind of a dick, mostly just so he and Ash will have similar narratives and also he's bisexual...well that came from nowhere.

Jacob
Jacob's nice, i liked his loyalty mission and his moral conflict with what he does, but the problem is that it's solved way too quickly in ME2 and from then onwards he plays almost no role, and that includes ME3. Even your romance with him turns out to be entirely pointless as he will marry another woman no matter what you do so...yeah, he didn't really add much.

EDI
EDI has a lot of things going for her, her relationship with Joker, her development from ME2 to ME3 and she's fairly useful in battle, but with that being said she is still an AI, while she learns to adapt to human behaviour, it's still just the basics, preventing her from creating her own unique personality and a lot of the time it feels like her actions are based on what she believes others would do, not what she would do because she doesn't have enough of a personality to know what she would do.

James
I like James, he's loyal, a good fighter and the relationship between him and Shepard is really good, almost like a mentor-student type thing, I also enjoy how he personalises every relationship by giving everyone nicknames. But with that being said, James was created as a surrogate for any new players into the trilogy...for the third instalment. It may just be a case of not getting to spend enough time with him, but our relationship with him in comparison to everyone else on the crew feels pretty weak. Maybe if we got another game with him then i could connect to him more.

So those are the Mass Effect characters that won't be appearing on my 'favourite characters' series, which means anyone who wasn't mentioned either has been or will be featured at some point.

-Danny