Creed - Trailer Review

Creed is the seventh instalment in the Rocky franchise, in this film we follow Adonis Creed, the son of Apollo Creed who now follows in his footsteps to become the world's greatest boxer, being trained by his father's friend and rival, Rocky Balboa. Directed by Ryan Coogler, written by Coogler and Aaron Covington and starring Michael B Jordan and Sylvester Stallone. The Rocky franchise is one i have only been introduced to recently, after hearing about the premise for this film i decided to finally watch the franchise and even though I am only 4 films in, it is still a franchise that sticks out to me for it's grounded story and realistic characters...minus the robot. Also the new talent involved in this film is very exciting, this is Ryan Coogler's second film, the first one being 2013's Fruitvale Station, also staring Michael B Jordan and it was a grounded and emotionally strong character piece and he looks to have been a perfect choice in directing this new instalment. Michael B Jordan is one of the big breakout stars of the past few years, Chronicle and Fruitvale Station have proved to me that this is an A-Lister in the making, and again, he looks like he'll be as dynamic and charismatic as ever in this new instalment.

What impressed me was the focus on Creed's own story rather than trying to act as a nostalgic piece for fans of the original Rocky, where they mimic the famous moments from prior films and reference their own quotes. Yes there is some, but for the most part, it is Creed's story, in fact you wouldn't even know it's a Rocky movie until the Stallone shows up halfway through the trailer. Overall, this film went from a film i was very interested in seeing to one of the top 10 films i'm looking forward to seeing this year. I cannot wait to see this film, Creed will be released November 25th 2015 in the United States, UK Release date TBA.

-Danny

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