Stargate staggers on to a second direct-to-DVD movie... We've already seen off pretty much everyone that opposed SG-1, all they've got left is Baal... who had a lot of clones but the film starts with us being told that the last clone has been captured and they're about to perform a symbiote extraction on the Tok'ra homeworld.
As Baal is a SG-1 bad guy, this naturally has the usual - banter where he makes grandiose claims about revenge. Unlike most of the other times that system lords have had their backs to the wall, this time it actually works out. Turns out while this guy IS the last clone - the real Baal was smart enough to turn off his transmitter thing and is still alive and well and even built a time machine. We have a kind of "The Sound of Thunder" moment as people are able to SEE changes in the timeline - most notably people disappearing... it turns out that these changes are apparently moving at the speed of plot because there's plenty of time for the remaining SG-1 (O'Neill gets stabbed by the clone, Teal'C and Vayla vanish) get to the stargate and travel back to Earth.
Turns out though, it's not their Earth. Well, it's their Earth but where the Stargate programme never existed because Baal went back in time and blew up the ship carrying the Stargate... well, almost. Turns out Mitchel's grampappy tossed the explosive overboard so that it just ended up frozen in the Artic. Anyway, as you'd guess the chances of them escaping being pretty much nil - they're rescued by O'Neill... except, this being an alternate timeline - he doesn't know them... except Carter, she's a dead astronaut.
What happens next is necessary for reasons of - amazingly - logic and plot. The three of them are all debriefed at length where they explain the Stargate programme, the alternate timeline and how they need to fix things before Baal comes along and rapes the fucking shit out of them. General Landry - because naturally, it being an alternate timeline they don't bump into different people... just people they know from their timeline - points out that SG-1 doesn't have the RIGHT to change what is the status quo for this entire universe... clearly somewhat missing the point that Baal isn't exactly keen on humans... them being mere cattle to him and all. Still, it is a valid argument - who are SG-1 to say their timeline should take priority. Maybe everything in this universe will be just smiles and sunshine? Hahaha and Teal'C might stop saying "indeed". So, anyway everyone signs non-disclosure agreements and agrees not to communicate. They're all relocated across the country and then we get the ol' "years pass" montage in which precisely fuck all happens.
Yeah... this thing has been going on a while and a whole lotta nothing has happened. Presumably the writers realised that too because at this point Baal's uber fleet jumps into system - yeah, this is one of the shots they used for the very misleading trailer - and they sit there. We get a who's who of the old system lords but none of them get much more than a couple of words to say. Naturally, Teal'C is here and Gould Vayla - who is Baal's queen... yeah, choose a woman who is pretty treacherous WITHOUT the extra treacherous alien parasite - that won't come back to haunt you.
It's basically surmised that since his appearance, Baal has been doing very well because of his future knowledge... that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Sure, Baal would know where various Ancient pieces of technology were but the moment he starts doing things in this timeline, his knowledge of future events is going to become useless because... that's how causality works. He'd know the people he was playing against but it seems a bit foolish to say that his every move would be a right one. Evil Vayla makes it clear that she's suspicious of him... jeez, tip your hand why don't you.
Baal - unlike everyone else - seems Earth as a resource to exploit, rather than an enemy to nuke into oblivion and then take what's left in the debris... which seems pretty fucking sensible, even though Earth could essentially put up no resistance in this timeline... or at least - that's what Baal thinks.
As soon as a dozen big fat ships turn up - actually they send some recon flights around the Earth first but that's fairly irrelevant - SG-1 go and see the president. He's just as adamant about altering timelines. Anyway, their Stargate programme is apparently located in the Antarctic now and they're also drilling to the Ancient's weapon platform... so SG-1 head off in some F-16s. What follows is essentially the only pretty combat you'll see... F-16s vs. Deathgliders... And then some Migs... well, actually that happens after a strike on the two sites in Antartica and after Vayla - GASP! You'll never guess! - turns on Baal and cuts him in twain, then orders an immediate bombardment of Earth... but not before loyal Teal'C can run off to enact Baal's final plan.
Anyway, SG-1 go to the Russian Stargate - handy! - and magically, Teal'C arrives to help with a handy gadget for activating Stargates which aren't powered. They find out that Baal's time machine was actually just a massive system of satellites to look for solar flares throughout the galaxy - solar flares being what have caused time travel in previous instances. Apparently though, Vayla knew about this place... so, wait... she KNEW about the secret time travel machine all along and never thought to sneak off and use it herself? In fact why is she sending people there? Why not just nuke the damned place from space? Right about now she's just about queen of the god damned galaxy - there's no reason to do anything but blow this thing up and cement her rule. Also, Teal'c et al don't take more than an hour or two to get to the stargate... and yet Vayla is there about two minutes after them? Since when did they have Ludicrous speed on their motherships?
Regardless of these gaping plot holes, SG-1 basically hold off the bad guys who are ringing in - in something that wouldn't be out of place in an episode, really. Everyone dies, except Mitchell who gets through. Jump to the same scene from the start, except Mitchell is sitting in the hold with a rifle and him and the guy that gets vapourised the first time around shoot the fuck out of Baal and his minions. Which hits the reset button. We return to the present day, Baal burbles about his terrible revenge but nothing happens. The symbiote is extracted and then smashed on the ground. We see Mitchell's locker picture now has his grandfather and him from the other timeline... which really suggests that the timeline hasn't actually been truly reset but merely altered to essentially resemble the original more closely... Oh wait... didn't the EXACT SAME THING HAPPEN IN MOBIUS?! AND for that matter, 2010?
That's the sad inevitability of a time travel theme where things are so thoroughly altered... the reset button is going to be hit at the end because... fans would have a fit if you fundamentally altered the universe they loved and it would essentially be tossing all your old continuity out the window... so, any sci-fi fan worth their salt would know that things in this episode were always going to be temporary. Which really made it something of an exercise in anti-climax... not to mention the fact that this was sorely lacking in action... we spend a WHOLE lotta time in the middle with the SG-1 kids sitting around, moping about their lives and their inability to fix things.
And sure, they defeated Baal - FINALLY... but that's not exactly that exciting... and if he had been sitting on his time machine... why wait until all his clones were dead? Was that really necessary? Not that it really matters.
All in all, it's really... kind of dull. The action takes up precious little of the time and the rest is ponderous and ultimately irrelevant given that the reset button is hit. No character development, no revelations... not even any real fun and not even a particularly interesting plot. Don't bother seeing it - or you'll wish you could go back in time and destroy the DVD you bought.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Hancock, Hancock, Hancock. There are a couple of different types of comedy film… you get the kind of relentless joke after joke films with no real attempt at any serious message, like The Naked Gun or American Pie. Then you get the films that can’t make up their damned minds and switch between serious and comic faster than you can blink – like East is East where scenes of domestic abuse can quickly transition to unattractive girls getting humped by very large dogs… Finally, there’s the films that start out funny and then about halfway through they go “Oh, how about a message and some seriousness?” Like… pretty much every Adam Sandler film and that’s the school from which Hancock seems to be spawned.
This will likely to some people feeling rather disappointed with Hancock because it essentially gets to the halfway mark and suddenly, loses all the fun energy and becomes rather serious and the joke count drops and you wonder what happened to the guy who wrote the first half of the film and why he didn’t write the second half.
Things start out with quite a lot of promise, Hancock is a drunken superhero whose intentions are good but whose methods leave a lot to be desired. Drunkenly destroying large amounts of property while trying to apprehend criminals and carelessly wrecking vehicles as he attempts to save people. Needless to say that this is quite the juxtaposition to Superman… as Hancock’s appearance is greeted with derision and contempt. This really could have been a great premise if only it was explored in more depth but halfway in this film is barely forty five minutes, so depth isn’t something we can really afford.
Inevitably, the PR guy tries to turn Hancock around - he realises that he's inherently a good guy, trying to do the right thing and that people should love him - not hate him. It's not actually made particularly clear why Hancock is so bad at his rescues... He's a sloppy drunk, sure but you don't go around trying to rescue people who keep complaining for no reason... but that's never really elaborated upon... Anyway, PR guy convinces Hancock to hand himself over to the authorities to show he wants to make amends for essentially being a monumental fuck up as regards property damage and so, he's sent to jail.
If you hadn't guessed, this is pretty much the point at which the film gets serious. PR guy's basic plan is - if Hancock is a good guy, turns himself around and stops fucking up that they'll want him back as crime soars... yeah, we've got a city full of people that commit blatant crime when there's a Superman analogy (even a drunk one) around... that's pretty much a given in these situations though. Anyway, we spend some time showing how Hancock is progressing and eventually the chief of police calls him in for a nasty hostage situation from a bank job gone wrong. Hancock swoops in and saves the day without destroying everything.
There is adulation for Hancock as he becomes the hero he should have been, PR guy is naturally now everyone's best pal - although, he still wants to push his world changing branding... but people are really only interested in Hancock. Hancock relates how he woke up 80 years ago in a hospital and recalls nothing of his life before that moment - hence when the nurse asked for his "John Hancock", he assumed that was his name... but little more of his history is related.
Apparently PR guy had a skin full and when they get home, he goes upstairs to sleep it off. The tension between Hancock and PR guy's wife culminates in a kiss - followed by her tossing a fridge at him, knocking him out into the street. He's stunned but the next day - when the film seems to remember that it started out as a comedy - he smacks her about with various kitchen items while her husband is distracted and she agrees to meet up and tell him what the deal is.
Turns out, both of them are part of some race of superpowered beings who have been around for over 3,000 years. Everyone else has died though, apparently the one weakness they have - and yes, it's really as stupid as it sounds - they were created in pairs and they're drawn to one another, when they're in proximity their powers fade and they become mortal and die. Apparently this has happened several times with Mary and Hancock but he got brained when he was mortal 80 years ago and got the most common brain condition in Hollywood, AMNESIA!
The idiot crooks that Hancock beat in the hostage situation are showing just how stupid they are... because, despite the fact Hancock gets shot and wounded stopping a robbery... there is NO POSSIBLE WAY they could have known he was going to lose his powers unless they're psychic... So, they were pretty much going to chase after a guy who is bullet proof. Damn, they deserve the schooling they get.
As you can guess, Hancock decides it is a far, far better thing he does now... and flies off to save New York and leaves PR guy and his wife to live a normal life... even though she's immortal.
It really feels that the breaks slam on as soon as Hancock decides to reform. The second that happens, the film gets to be a LOT more angsty. It's more drama... the comedy comes to be thin on the ground and you're left wondering what happened to that rather amusing initial premise... because that's how the film was sold. Not very good superhero... but then it turns out he's actually a 3000 year old superbeing whose one weakness is Charlize Theron.
We don't really find out just why he's drunk and a fuck up... Oh, he rises to the challenge PR guy sets him but that's such a generic, loser makes good that if it weren't for the superhero angle - it wouldn't be anything remarkable... It's short and yet, it feels like it drags. The initial premise disregarded for no real reason. It's initially enjoyable but it just becomes so generic that the fairly original concept might as well not have been bothered with. It honestly feels as if the writer for the funny first part walked out after penning the first thirty minutes.
Probably best to wait for the DVD to rent... all the wasted potential just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Wall-E is the much anticipated Pixar film about a cute little robot thinger... although, given the fact that Pixar is churning out more films like Finding Nemo than Toy Story or The Incredibles - you have to wonder why people love them so... Disney's insipid influence is clearly starting to show... but at least Wall-E isn't an orphan or something...
So, the film starts out with Wall-E zipping around a deserted Earth city which is littered with mountains of garbage. Him and his cockroach pal hang out and it's all very cute - no dialogue or anything, just him mooching around. Very pretty but beyond indicating that humanity are out in space, not a lot is going on.
So, this could go on forever but then, Eve - a shiny i-pod like robot - comes along and then we essentially have more of the same for a while until she finds a plant, which she takes and then causes her to shut down. Then she gets hoisted off by her ship and we have a long protracted scene where Wall-E is basically trying to get back to her. Again - it's got some great visual spectacle but the plot content is microscopic and dialogue is minimal... but then given the fact that both the main characters are all but mute - that shouldn't be a surprise.
We find humanity has been - as intimated on Earth - floating around in space because things went tits up. This has apparently led them to become pampered blobs who achieve nothing as their every whim is catered for from birth to death by fleets of cutesy robots. Some deranged Right wingers in the USA think this is liberal propaganda but really, it seems like more of an excuse to have the cutesy robots flying around. The humans are pretty much relegated to second place and besides a tangential and mostly irrelevant subplot of romance between two of them spherical humans, only the Captain really has any significance at all.
Because, as it turns out - the EVE robots have been checking Earth for signs of life for 700 and now it's become capable of sustaining life again. Which leads to operation recolonisation - heading back to Earth and starting over... it's not made clear if the Axiom contains the entirety of the surviving human population nor why - as they have FTL - why they didn't just try looking for a new planet... but then, this film makes little effort to be engaging for adults like Toy Story and The Incredibles. Which is sad because part of what made Pixar good was the ability to relate to more than one demographic...
Anyway, for reasons that aren't entirely clear - the plant inside EVE has disappeared and that needs to be stuck in an analyser so everyone can go home... but the prospect of going home starts to get to the Captain, as he realises that humanity has literally spent the last 700 years sitting on its ass. As it turns out though, this is because project "Cleanup" failed and this has - for some reason... mostly that of plot - been kept secret. The auto-pilot, which is literally an evil steering wheel, then decides that the status quo must be maintained...
As one can imagine, this leads to more chasing around. Some of it actually in space, where Wall-E and EVE get to act about as romantic as robots get. Naturally, the plant is found and they must rush to try and get it back... so, a lot more chasing and pretty CGI etc. but often little amusing or interesting... it would be no simplification to say, evil auto-pilot is defeated, plant is returned and everyone returns to Earth and lives happily ever after.
There's just nothing to it. Yes - it's pretty and yes, it's cute but even for a paltry ninety minutes, this really struggles to justify itself plot wise. Of course, that's what you'd expect when you've got your main characters a couple of words away from mute. There's some nice emoting from both Wall-E and EVE, considering they lack actual faces and the obvious thread in the film is as much the relationship between the two of them as it is the struggle to get humanity back to Earth but there's not really much time taken out from the set pieces and mooching around to give any justice to the latter. The relationship is nicely understated for a kids film... but really, that's all you can say about this film. It's a good kid's film.
That's a stark contrast to the aforementioned Toy Story and The Incredibles, which one could say were pretty good films - period. That's because they had layers to them, there was a plot, characters, action and a humour that functioned on more than one level. This film makes no concessions to adults and so... what is there to say? Fine for the kids but not something to seek out unless you're a blind and unquestioning Pixar fan.
So, the film starts out with Wall-E zipping around a deserted Earth city which is littered with mountains of garbage. Him and his cockroach pal hang out and it's all very cute - no dialogue or anything, just him mooching around. Very pretty but beyond indicating that humanity are out in space, not a lot is going on.
So, this could go on forever but then, Eve - a shiny i-pod like robot - comes along and then we essentially have more of the same for a while until she finds a plant, which she takes and then causes her to shut down. Then she gets hoisted off by her ship and we have a long protracted scene where Wall-E is basically trying to get back to her. Again - it's got some great visual spectacle but the plot content is microscopic and dialogue is minimal... but then given the fact that both the main characters are all but mute - that shouldn't be a surprise.
We find humanity has been - as intimated on Earth - floating around in space because things went tits up. This has apparently led them to become pampered blobs who achieve nothing as their every whim is catered for from birth to death by fleets of cutesy robots. Some deranged Right wingers in the USA think this is liberal propaganda but really, it seems like more of an excuse to have the cutesy robots flying around. The humans are pretty much relegated to second place and besides a tangential and mostly irrelevant subplot of romance between two of them spherical humans, only the Captain really has any significance at all.
Because, as it turns out - the EVE robots have been checking Earth for signs of life for 700 and now it's become capable of sustaining life again. Which leads to operation recolonisation - heading back to Earth and starting over... it's not made clear if the Axiom contains the entirety of the surviving human population nor why - as they have FTL - why they didn't just try looking for a new planet... but then, this film makes little effort to be engaging for adults like Toy Story and The Incredibles. Which is sad because part of what made Pixar good was the ability to relate to more than one demographic...
Anyway, for reasons that aren't entirely clear - the plant inside EVE has disappeared and that needs to be stuck in an analyser so everyone can go home... but the prospect of going home starts to get to the Captain, as he realises that humanity has literally spent the last 700 years sitting on its ass. As it turns out though, this is because project "Cleanup" failed and this has - for some reason... mostly that of plot - been kept secret. The auto-pilot, which is literally an evil steering wheel, then decides that the status quo must be maintained...
As one can imagine, this leads to more chasing around. Some of it actually in space, where Wall-E and EVE get to act about as romantic as robots get. Naturally, the plant is found and they must rush to try and get it back... so, a lot more chasing and pretty CGI etc. but often little amusing or interesting... it would be no simplification to say, evil auto-pilot is defeated, plant is returned and everyone returns to Earth and lives happily ever after.
There's just nothing to it. Yes - it's pretty and yes, it's cute but even for a paltry ninety minutes, this really struggles to justify itself plot wise. Of course, that's what you'd expect when you've got your main characters a couple of words away from mute. There's some nice emoting from both Wall-E and EVE, considering they lack actual faces and the obvious thread in the film is as much the relationship between the two of them as it is the struggle to get humanity back to Earth but there's not really much time taken out from the set pieces and mooching around to give any justice to the latter. The relationship is nicely understated for a kids film... but really, that's all you can say about this film. It's a good kid's film.
That's a stark contrast to the aforementioned Toy Story and The Incredibles, which one could say were pretty good films - period. That's because they had layers to them, there was a plot, characters, action and a humour that functioned on more than one level. This film makes no concessions to adults and so... what is there to say? Fine for the kids but not something to seek out unless you're a blind and unquestioning Pixar fan.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
It's best to start out by stating two facts.
First off - Bioware is one of those rare game companies that are almost entirely reliable. In fact, only Blizzard are comparable in terms of consistency. Which means that their games are almost always - Neverwinter Nights offered a fairly poor single player experience - fantastic... it's something gamers appreciate and something that is incredibly rare.
Secondly - Mass Effect IS a good game. Criticisms which are about to be laid at its feet are not impediments to that fact... merely things which stopped it being quite as epic as it should have been.
The first thing to point out is - Mass Effect doesn't optimises your configuration... initially this made it seem as if it was an uber whore, putting Sanginus Nox - a machine that managed to cope admirably with Crysis - into jerk city... Fortunately this turned out to be because the audio was running on software alone... once that was sorted the game ran just fine. Also, your experience with the DRM may vary... but as usual, it seems to have been more of an impediment to legitimate players than pirates... Clearly it's asking too much for publishers to learn lessons.
The premise of Mass Effect is fairly standard - you're trying to stop the run of the mill bad guy from destroying the galaxy. It's more elaborate - naturally - but it's hard to go on without spoiling it. Although, the story doesn't develop so much as it is spilled out by various bouts of exposition. This is probably one of the main flaws of the game... you never really get the feeling the plot is developing, you just blunder from one plot update to another. Not only that but if you've played Knights of The Old Republic, there are some definite similarities. Although, that said - while the premise it uses is somewhat cliche, the universe it's set in is definitely interesting and is probably one of the strongest aspects of the game.
It's inaccurate to dub this game an RPG... at least in the traditional sense... the game is more Deus Ex than KOTOR in that there's no RPG style tick-tock round combat - which KOTOR contained... albeit in a rather unobtrusive manner. Although, it's third person and of course, you can pause to issue orders to your squad. At points the game actually manages to give you what are fairly realistic firefights. Which is to say, unlike in an RPG when range attacks will be exchanged briefly before everyone runs at one another to get within melee range - if you break cover to try and run up and bash people on the head here or just stand out in the open, you're probably going to end up dead and unlike KOTOR, if your main character dies in a fight - game over. This can be a little irksome but at least makes sense as the control you have over your squad mates is fairly loose. Which can become frustrating when they stand in the middle of a room and die, overall it's fairly passable - although the enemy AI does occasionally have a propensity to stop hiding and just run at you or try and circle strafe at point blank range.
The combat itself has configurable difficulty, ranging from the hand holding "point in the general direction of something and it falls over dead" to "hardcore gamers only", presumably the options are there so that those not au fait with more realistic, less tick tock combat are not frightened by a game that does occasionally require reasonable accuracy and reflex - at least on the higher settings. Of course, the options included allow you to determine whether the combat is a formality or a big part of the game. Regardless, it's a fairly intuitive system and barring the occasional idiocy of your squad mates it's quite enjoyable. As you'd expect, weapons and armour can be upgraded and there are variety of items out there - some better than others. Rather vexingly, weapon skills are class specific - so, if you're a Vanguard, no matter how good you get, you'll never be able to skill up with an assault rifle. You can still use one but even crouching down on a single shot basis with no wind, you'll be lucky to hit the broad side of a moon. Also, there's a notable absence of melee weapons... you can run up and pistol whip people but no discernible melee weapons but then given the combat dynamics of the game, they'd probably be the equivalent of suicide for all but the most heavily armoured and shielded individuals.
An interesting aspect of the weapons are that you can buy licenses. Basically this means that there are some merchants who will sell you a license and that the vendor on the Normandy can then stock that brand of weapons or such - as there are several companies that produce weapons. It's nothing huge, just an interesting touch that adds something for the more obsessive player to do... although, some of the sidequests would surely provide just as much of that.
Romances and party subplots are a little thin on the ground - but then when you take into account the fact that the game is so short, that's not surprising but more on that later - and on the first play through, despite trying to pursue a relationship with the blue chick, randomly the human girl ended up jumping Sheppard's bones... with no real warning... so, it was rather... hollow, not at all like the romance options in KOTOR or Baldur's Gate 2 where there could be lengthy and sometimes tricky romances. The sex scene that Fox News decided to start foaming at the mouth at is laughable - you're likely to see raunchier things in shampoo commercials. All-in-all, this aspect felt somewhat tacked on... a mere concession to the Bioware tradition. It's not bad but it feels so woefully underdeveloped and for one of the love interests to throw herself at you when you've not really pursued any of the romantic interest options is just poor.
Speaking of tacked on there are two other aspects of the game which feel rather incongruous in this way... the most obvious is the Mako. Basically, when you go to a planet that isn't in the main plot - you get dropped in the Mako... basically a magical tank that never gets flipped over and can go up almost vertical inclines. It's not bad... in fact, sometimes driving around and blowing up enemies in this fashion is actually pretty fun but sometimes bumping around on the uneven terrain of a planet, hoping to find stuff - ore deposits only show up on your radar, not the overview map. It's really the driving around on the uninteresting planets going from point A to B over abysmal terrain that proves to be irksome. In fact it feels as if they've tried to increase the action quotient with this aspect of the game as there are several main plot missions where you're essentially forced to hop in the Mako and drive along a preset route. It's just something that feels slightly out of place in the game but that for whatever reason Bioware shrugged and decided they'd stuck it in there, they might as well make use of it. It's not bad but it just gets boring after a while.
The other is the irritating subgame that you have to play EVERY time you want to try and open a locker or pick up an artifact or even survey minerals. Essentially you have to move an arrow to the centre of a circle in 15 seconds - although, hacking skills are still relevant and if you've gone someone that isn't imbued with the right skills, you should prepare for just about every box to be unhackable within relatively short order... not that it matters. Regardless, it's just a somewhat irritating and pointless endeavour that doesn't add anything to the game except a level of irritation. Fortunately you are sometimes afforded the chance to simply use "omni-gel".
Unlike KOTOR, Bioware seem to have deliberately made this game more console friendly. You don't have a proper inventory... just a big long list of the stuff you've got... also, no searching bodies for loot... although, that's a nice time saver... the level up situation is a lot simpler than previous games Bioware games too. Given the combat logistics, it's not surprising the D&D rules are out the window. There are no attributes like strength, intelligence etc. to mess around with. All you've got are the various skills your class has, some need to be unlocked but beyond getting a specialisation - these are the skills that will have to do you for the entire game.
The rogue equivalents in this game basically get a bunch of tech related stuff that lets them mess with other people. Affect the overheat of their weapons, hack AI and so on... the caster equivalent use mass effect things - which equate to toss people around, mostly... which NEVER stops being hilarious to watch. Plus it tends to render groups of enemies all floaty and useless... and the DoT warp allows you to bypass shields... which is a real bonus with some enemies.
And of course, what kind of Bioware game would it be without the aspect of morality? As with previous Bioware titles, you are often presented with opportunities to act nobly, selfishly or just indifferently. At times, conflict can be entirely circumvented by the correct dialogue and at other times, one can force conflict with a suitably belligerent attitude and even the most satisfying - cold blooded murder in public for your own gains.
An example - choosing the Earth background means at some point your character will be approached by someone from a gang you used to run with. He asks you to talk to a turian who is has a fellow gang member in custody. Naturally you can either choose at this point to take the mission or tell the guy to get lost. When you proceed to the turian, you can then either try and persuade him to free the criminal or tell him the gang member's plan. The latter prompts the gang member to arrive at which point you literally have the option to just turn around and shoot him in the head to prevent him from spreading stories of your somewhat chequered past. So, essentially all the depth that you'd expect... one very slight difference is that the dialogue responses are not word for word what will be said but rather the general tone but as you'd expect the choices you make mould the game and there can be significantly different outcomes given your responses.
The most vexing thing about the game is... just as things seem to be gaining pace... it's over. The main missions and a good portion of the sidequests can be be completed in a little over 20 hours... naturally, there are more sidequests for those inclined to go looking - there are several systems that you never have any cause to go to which are there essentially for the purposes of additional missions. The main plot breaks into essentially 7 missions - naturally, you can just play through them at any point - but it's not exactly compelling. There's no sense of uncovering a mystery like there was in KOTOR - you fight your way through the requisite bad guys and then are generally treated to a few steaming portions of plot exposition. In fact, several times this plot exposition is really only tangential to the main plot and so there's something of a feeling that you're really only seeing the development of the main story in the final act where it's essentially threeish exposition fests which explain something that any astute player will probably have clocked pretty soon into the game.
The fact that the story itself is built upon sci-fi cliche upon sci-fi cliche doesn't help. Ok, there are some aspects of sci-fi that are just so cool that people can't help but use them over and over but surely a different spin could have been put on things... compared to compelling yarns that Bioware has done before this one comes off as too short and too shallow. KOTOR gave you pretty extensive dialogue options with your crew and while there's some banter in the levels, the interaction never really gives you any feeling of true depth and there are hardly any of the spontaneous NPC on NPC interactions of those games - a little talking in lifts but that's about it...
But then, given the games length - that hardly seems surprising... and it really is to its detriment. While Mass Effect certainly does a good job of hitting the ground running the main plot missions don't feel particularly pressing until the last act and then when there's all that momentum built up - the credits roll. Now, as mentioned above - there is the option of galactic exploration, fly to clusters and get assigned missions when you get there, find a bunch of things etc. There's no doubt that there are many more hours in the game for someone who fastidiously WANTS to 100% the game... but surely if the game was better designed then these wouldn't have required you to go somewhere "just because"... and it seems fair to comment that Mass Effect WAS advertised as epic and seems to think of itself as epic... the potential was there but it's never realised and the fact that this is apparently being stretched across a trilogy seems to be a concession to EA's lust for profits over quality games rather than any sort of vision of Bioware.
In the final analysis, it's a fun game that can be enjoyed by RPGers and action game fans in roughly equal measure - although RPG fans may be left somewhat disappointed by the rather shallow dynamics - and while it's good, it feels as if it was really just getting started. No sooner have you got into the swing of things than it's over - oh, naturally there's the replay value of going through it again, looking for those random sidequests, playing it as evil instead of good, etc. but it's never really the same the second time through and given that this game is from Bioware, it's rather disappointing that it's all over so soon. Which is, in it's way - a backhanded compliment... but then, when you're forking over your cash for a game, you probably want something that will take you more than a few days of hard gaming to burn through, don't you? In fairness, still better value than going to see a film and it is enjoyable, pretty and interesting... it's just a shame that it's (relatively) shallow and short... let's all hope that Bioware hasn't sold their soul to the devil by working with EA...
First off - Bioware is one of those rare game companies that are almost entirely reliable. In fact, only Blizzard are comparable in terms of consistency. Which means that their games are almost always - Neverwinter Nights offered a fairly poor single player experience - fantastic... it's something gamers appreciate and something that is incredibly rare.
Secondly - Mass Effect IS a good game. Criticisms which are about to be laid at its feet are not impediments to that fact... merely things which stopped it being quite as epic as it should have been.
The first thing to point out is - Mass Effect doesn't optimises your configuration... initially this made it seem as if it was an uber whore, putting Sanginus Nox - a machine that managed to cope admirably with Crysis - into jerk city... Fortunately this turned out to be because the audio was running on software alone... once that was sorted the game ran just fine. Also, your experience with the DRM may vary... but as usual, it seems to have been more of an impediment to legitimate players than pirates... Clearly it's asking too much for publishers to learn lessons.
The premise of Mass Effect is fairly standard - you're trying to stop the run of the mill bad guy from destroying the galaxy. It's more elaborate - naturally - but it's hard to go on without spoiling it. Although, the story doesn't develop so much as it is spilled out by various bouts of exposition. This is probably one of the main flaws of the game... you never really get the feeling the plot is developing, you just blunder from one plot update to another. Not only that but if you've played Knights of The Old Republic, there are some definite similarities. Although, that said - while the premise it uses is somewhat cliche, the universe it's set in is definitely interesting and is probably one of the strongest aspects of the game.
It's inaccurate to dub this game an RPG... at least in the traditional sense... the game is more Deus Ex than KOTOR in that there's no RPG style tick-tock round combat - which KOTOR contained... albeit in a rather unobtrusive manner. Although, it's third person and of course, you can pause to issue orders to your squad. At points the game actually manages to give you what are fairly realistic firefights. Which is to say, unlike in an RPG when range attacks will be exchanged briefly before everyone runs at one another to get within melee range - if you break cover to try and run up and bash people on the head here or just stand out in the open, you're probably going to end up dead and unlike KOTOR, if your main character dies in a fight - game over. This can be a little irksome but at least makes sense as the control you have over your squad mates is fairly loose. Which can become frustrating when they stand in the middle of a room and die, overall it's fairly passable - although the enemy AI does occasionally have a propensity to stop hiding and just run at you or try and circle strafe at point blank range.
The combat itself has configurable difficulty, ranging from the hand holding "point in the general direction of something and it falls over dead" to "hardcore gamers only", presumably the options are there so that those not au fait with more realistic, less tick tock combat are not frightened by a game that does occasionally require reasonable accuracy and reflex - at least on the higher settings. Of course, the options included allow you to determine whether the combat is a formality or a big part of the game. Regardless, it's a fairly intuitive system and barring the occasional idiocy of your squad mates it's quite enjoyable. As you'd expect, weapons and armour can be upgraded and there are variety of items out there - some better than others. Rather vexingly, weapon skills are class specific - so, if you're a Vanguard, no matter how good you get, you'll never be able to skill up with an assault rifle. You can still use one but even crouching down on a single shot basis with no wind, you'll be lucky to hit the broad side of a moon. Also, there's a notable absence of melee weapons... you can run up and pistol whip people but no discernible melee weapons but then given the combat dynamics of the game, they'd probably be the equivalent of suicide for all but the most heavily armoured and shielded individuals.
An interesting aspect of the weapons are that you can buy licenses. Basically this means that there are some merchants who will sell you a license and that the vendor on the Normandy can then stock that brand of weapons or such - as there are several companies that produce weapons. It's nothing huge, just an interesting touch that adds something for the more obsessive player to do... although, some of the sidequests would surely provide just as much of that.
Romances and party subplots are a little thin on the ground - but then when you take into account the fact that the game is so short, that's not surprising but more on that later - and on the first play through, despite trying to pursue a relationship with the blue chick, randomly the human girl ended up jumping Sheppard's bones... with no real warning... so, it was rather... hollow, not at all like the romance options in KOTOR or Baldur's Gate 2 where there could be lengthy and sometimes tricky romances. The sex scene that Fox News decided to start foaming at the mouth at is laughable - you're likely to see raunchier things in shampoo commercials. All-in-all, this aspect felt somewhat tacked on... a mere concession to the Bioware tradition. It's not bad but it feels so woefully underdeveloped and for one of the love interests to throw herself at you when you've not really pursued any of the romantic interest options is just poor.
Speaking of tacked on there are two other aspects of the game which feel rather incongruous in this way... the most obvious is the Mako. Basically, when you go to a planet that isn't in the main plot - you get dropped in the Mako... basically a magical tank that never gets flipped over and can go up almost vertical inclines. It's not bad... in fact, sometimes driving around and blowing up enemies in this fashion is actually pretty fun but sometimes bumping around on the uneven terrain of a planet, hoping to find stuff - ore deposits only show up on your radar, not the overview map. It's really the driving around on the uninteresting planets going from point A to B over abysmal terrain that proves to be irksome. In fact it feels as if they've tried to increase the action quotient with this aspect of the game as there are several main plot missions where you're essentially forced to hop in the Mako and drive along a preset route. It's just something that feels slightly out of place in the game but that for whatever reason Bioware shrugged and decided they'd stuck it in there, they might as well make use of it. It's not bad but it just gets boring after a while.
The other is the irritating subgame that you have to play EVERY time you want to try and open a locker or pick up an artifact or even survey minerals. Essentially you have to move an arrow to the centre of a circle in 15 seconds - although, hacking skills are still relevant and if you've gone someone that isn't imbued with the right skills, you should prepare for just about every box to be unhackable within relatively short order... not that it matters. Regardless, it's just a somewhat irritating and pointless endeavour that doesn't add anything to the game except a level of irritation. Fortunately you are sometimes afforded the chance to simply use "omni-gel".
Unlike KOTOR, Bioware seem to have deliberately made this game more console friendly. You don't have a proper inventory... just a big long list of the stuff you've got... also, no searching bodies for loot... although, that's a nice time saver... the level up situation is a lot simpler than previous games Bioware games too. Given the combat logistics, it's not surprising the D&D rules are out the window. There are no attributes like strength, intelligence etc. to mess around with. All you've got are the various skills your class has, some need to be unlocked but beyond getting a specialisation - these are the skills that will have to do you for the entire game.
The rogue equivalents in this game basically get a bunch of tech related stuff that lets them mess with other people. Affect the overheat of their weapons, hack AI and so on... the caster equivalent use mass effect things - which equate to toss people around, mostly... which NEVER stops being hilarious to watch. Plus it tends to render groups of enemies all floaty and useless... and the DoT warp allows you to bypass shields... which is a real bonus with some enemies.
And of course, what kind of Bioware game would it be without the aspect of morality? As with previous Bioware titles, you are often presented with opportunities to act nobly, selfishly or just indifferently. At times, conflict can be entirely circumvented by the correct dialogue and at other times, one can force conflict with a suitably belligerent attitude and even the most satisfying - cold blooded murder in public for your own gains.
An example - choosing the Earth background means at some point your character will be approached by someone from a gang you used to run with. He asks you to talk to a turian who is has a fellow gang member in custody. Naturally you can either choose at this point to take the mission or tell the guy to get lost. When you proceed to the turian, you can then either try and persuade him to free the criminal or tell him the gang member's plan. The latter prompts the gang member to arrive at which point you literally have the option to just turn around and shoot him in the head to prevent him from spreading stories of your somewhat chequered past. So, essentially all the depth that you'd expect... one very slight difference is that the dialogue responses are not word for word what will be said but rather the general tone but as you'd expect the choices you make mould the game and there can be significantly different outcomes given your responses.
The most vexing thing about the game is... just as things seem to be gaining pace... it's over. The main missions and a good portion of the sidequests can be be completed in a little over 20 hours... naturally, there are more sidequests for those inclined to go looking - there are several systems that you never have any cause to go to which are there essentially for the purposes of additional missions. The main plot breaks into essentially 7 missions - naturally, you can just play through them at any point - but it's not exactly compelling. There's no sense of uncovering a mystery like there was in KOTOR - you fight your way through the requisite bad guys and then are generally treated to a few steaming portions of plot exposition. In fact, several times this plot exposition is really only tangential to the main plot and so there's something of a feeling that you're really only seeing the development of the main story in the final act where it's essentially threeish exposition fests which explain something that any astute player will probably have clocked pretty soon into the game.
The fact that the story itself is built upon sci-fi cliche upon sci-fi cliche doesn't help. Ok, there are some aspects of sci-fi that are just so cool that people can't help but use them over and over but surely a different spin could have been put on things... compared to compelling yarns that Bioware has done before this one comes off as too short and too shallow. KOTOR gave you pretty extensive dialogue options with your crew and while there's some banter in the levels, the interaction never really gives you any feeling of true depth and there are hardly any of the spontaneous NPC on NPC interactions of those games - a little talking in lifts but that's about it...
But then, given the games length - that hardly seems surprising... and it really is to its detriment. While Mass Effect certainly does a good job of hitting the ground running the main plot missions don't feel particularly pressing until the last act and then when there's all that momentum built up - the credits roll. Now, as mentioned above - there is the option of galactic exploration, fly to clusters and get assigned missions when you get there, find a bunch of things etc. There's no doubt that there are many more hours in the game for someone who fastidiously WANTS to 100% the game... but surely if the game was better designed then these wouldn't have required you to go somewhere "just because"... and it seems fair to comment that Mass Effect WAS advertised as epic and seems to think of itself as epic... the potential was there but it's never realised and the fact that this is apparently being stretched across a trilogy seems to be a concession to EA's lust for profits over quality games rather than any sort of vision of Bioware.
In the final analysis, it's a fun game that can be enjoyed by RPGers and action game fans in roughly equal measure - although RPG fans may be left somewhat disappointed by the rather shallow dynamics - and while it's good, it feels as if it was really just getting started. No sooner have you got into the swing of things than it's over - oh, naturally there's the replay value of going through it again, looking for those random sidequests, playing it as evil instead of good, etc. but it's never really the same the second time through and given that this game is from Bioware, it's rather disappointing that it's all over so soon. Which is, in it's way - a backhanded compliment... but then, when you're forking over your cash for a game, you probably want something that will take you more than a few days of hard gaming to burn through, don't you? In fairness, still better value than going to see a film and it is enjoyable, pretty and interesting... it's just a shame that it's (relatively) shallow and short... let's all hope that Bioware hasn't sold their soul to the devil by working with EA...
Sunday, June 15, 2008
M. Night Shymalan - or M Night Shitalan as he's more commonly known - is currently being defined by his meteoric descent into uber lame. He impressed with Sixth Sense but to say it was downhill from there would be like saying the centre of the Sun was a little bit warm. Naturally, as the man works in Hollywood - and people are stupid enough to go and see how much his films suck - the one trick wonder still has a job.
So, to surmise this holocaust of bland boritude so you need not suffer the torture... After a bunch of construction workers jump off their building, cut to Billy Wholesome, the Maths teacher is asking kids about the bees - where did they go. It's not important to pay attention to this. Bees are completely irrelevant. Actually, everything is.
Anyway, after this utterly irrelevant parcel of bland we cut to Billy Wholesome and the other teachers getting told there has been some terrorist attack and it's time for school to be out. Billy talks to his mate who gives us pointless information about Billy's marriage - this will also prove irrelevant! - and then they're off home and then meeting at the train station. The train stops in the middle of nowhere because apparently no one is talking. FOREBODING!
So Billy Wholesome, his weird wife and the extraneous child - that belongs to Billy Wholesome's friend - are hanging out at a local dinner, trying to figure out what to do. Billy Wholesome's friend is there too. He's actually a more interesting character than everyone else put together - but given the number of people dying, you know someone interesting is going to die real soon... and yeah, there isn't anyone else. Sorry, chief. The news in the dinner suggests that the pattern of attacks is spreading across the Eastern seaboard and is affecting smaller population centres. Everyone in the dinner clocks that they're smack bang in the centre of the affected area and people decide to get the hell out of dodge rather than going the wrong way or staying where they are.
Billy Wholesome's friend is intent on meeting up with his wife - oh, you just KNOW that'll end well. Anyway, there are some not very tearful farewells and extraneous child is given to Billy to look after. Billy et al get a lift from some hippies, one of whom suggests that plants have suddenly magically started making the neurotoxin that makes people kill themselves and waffles on in the kind of way you expect of someone in an M. Night film to do.
We have a group of people meet up at the road and they decide to head out into the fields, away from everything... if this was just about any other film ever, these people would live because this is the film equivalent of genius level IQ these days... not running toward the problem, avoiding population centres... of course, they're allowed to do this because it gets them killed. WHAT A TWIST!
Billy Wholesome is pondering this whole conundrum. Why smaller and smaller population centres? Oh, did his friend died. Yeah. No real relevance to anything but presumably they felt they needed to give some closure rather than just have him disappear. Anyway, Billy thinks that ol' hippy was right and somehow plants are responsible... then when the larger group ahead of them end up shooting themselves he decides that the plants reaction is being triggered by smaller and smaller groups of people - you can tell people are going to die when the wind starts blowing... and yes, it really IS that idiotic. This is confirmed when Billy sees two groups converge and get to dying. Ah, poor hapless characters... if this were a monster movie or a zombie movie you may have lived...
Billy's picked up some smart talking kids from the previous group. Thankfully, when Billy tries to stop by a hick house for help they get shot to death... They keep going and get to your bog standard crazy old woman's house. She's one up on the hicks though, what with not want to blow their heads off. The crazy old woman really lives up to her name. She invites in three strangers - she's a shut-in and hence oblivious to "The Happening". Apparently it's just good manners to invite strangers into your house, feed them and put them up for the night because damn she hates them! This isn't exactly helped when Billy is found going through her stuff.
Eventually, she goes outside and then ends up killing herself by smashing the windows in. Billy runs to lock himself in a room. For reasons of dramatic suspense, his wife and extraneous kid are in an outhouse that's connected to the main house with a speaking tube - mentioned earlier for no reason than to set this scene up. It's supposed to be touching but much like the rest of the film, falls flat because the characters are dull and struggle to be two dimensional. Eventually Billy decides he doesn't need no stickin' tree spawned neurotoxin to have a death wish and runs outside into the gale that symbolises the deadly death thing... and he's OK! WHAT A TWIST!
Yup, probably tens of millions of people are dead but it's ok because these jokers survived... It also goes to show just about anyone could have survived this ordeal by staying inside and closing the windows and doors... Anyway, no need to worry about that because cut to a few months later, the trio of two dimenisons are living happily together and Billy got his boring wife knocked up...
Cut to France, a gale starts to blow and... EVERYONE STOPS MOVING! SACRE BLEU! WHAT A TWIST!
This film clocks in at under the regulation summer fare of ninety minutes but it'll feel like longer. There's no easy way to describe this film's genre... possibly suspense? It's not horror and it's a million miles away from action... but it's hard to call this film a suspense because it... well, it lacks suspense. There's a lot of Billy puzzling through events but despite the people dying, there's relatively emotional involvement. The only person who shows anything beyond bland ends up sitting in the middle of the road, slitting his wrists. After having watched this film - you may well know that feeling.
So, to surmise this holocaust of bland boritude so you need not suffer the torture... After a bunch of construction workers jump off their building, cut to Billy Wholesome, the Maths teacher is asking kids about the bees - where did they go. It's not important to pay attention to this. Bees are completely irrelevant. Actually, everything is.
Anyway, after this utterly irrelevant parcel of bland we cut to Billy Wholesome and the other teachers getting told there has been some terrorist attack and it's time for school to be out. Billy talks to his mate who gives us pointless information about Billy's marriage - this will also prove irrelevant! - and then they're off home and then meeting at the train station. The train stops in the middle of nowhere because apparently no one is talking. FOREBODING!
So Billy Wholesome, his weird wife and the extraneous child - that belongs to Billy Wholesome's friend - are hanging out at a local dinner, trying to figure out what to do. Billy Wholesome's friend is there too. He's actually a more interesting character than everyone else put together - but given the number of people dying, you know someone interesting is going to die real soon... and yeah, there isn't anyone else. Sorry, chief. The news in the dinner suggests that the pattern of attacks is spreading across the Eastern seaboard and is affecting smaller population centres. Everyone in the dinner clocks that they're smack bang in the centre of the affected area and people decide to get the hell out of dodge rather than going the wrong way or staying where they are.
Billy Wholesome's friend is intent on meeting up with his wife - oh, you just KNOW that'll end well. Anyway, there are some not very tearful farewells and extraneous child is given to Billy to look after. Billy et al get a lift from some hippies, one of whom suggests that plants have suddenly magically started making the neurotoxin that makes people kill themselves and waffles on in the kind of way you expect of someone in an M. Night film to do.
We have a group of people meet up at the road and they decide to head out into the fields, away from everything... if this was just about any other film ever, these people would live because this is the film equivalent of genius level IQ these days... not running toward the problem, avoiding population centres... of course, they're allowed to do this because it gets them killed. WHAT A TWIST!
Billy Wholesome is pondering this whole conundrum. Why smaller and smaller population centres? Oh, did his friend died. Yeah. No real relevance to anything but presumably they felt they needed to give some closure rather than just have him disappear. Anyway, Billy thinks that ol' hippy was right and somehow plants are responsible... then when the larger group ahead of them end up shooting themselves he decides that the plants reaction is being triggered by smaller and smaller groups of people - you can tell people are going to die when the wind starts blowing... and yes, it really IS that idiotic. This is confirmed when Billy sees two groups converge and get to dying. Ah, poor hapless characters... if this were a monster movie or a zombie movie you may have lived...
Billy's picked up some smart talking kids from the previous group. Thankfully, when Billy tries to stop by a hick house for help they get shot to death... They keep going and get to your bog standard crazy old woman's house. She's one up on the hicks though, what with not want to blow their heads off. The crazy old woman really lives up to her name. She invites in three strangers - she's a shut-in and hence oblivious to "The Happening". Apparently it's just good manners to invite strangers into your house, feed them and put them up for the night because damn she hates them! This isn't exactly helped when Billy is found going through her stuff.
Eventually, she goes outside and then ends up killing herself by smashing the windows in. Billy runs to lock himself in a room. For reasons of dramatic suspense, his wife and extraneous kid are in an outhouse that's connected to the main house with a speaking tube - mentioned earlier for no reason than to set this scene up. It's supposed to be touching but much like the rest of the film, falls flat because the characters are dull and struggle to be two dimensional. Eventually Billy decides he doesn't need no stickin' tree spawned neurotoxin to have a death wish and runs outside into the gale that symbolises the deadly death thing... and he's OK! WHAT A TWIST!
Yup, probably tens of millions of people are dead but it's ok because these jokers survived... It also goes to show just about anyone could have survived this ordeal by staying inside and closing the windows and doors... Anyway, no need to worry about that because cut to a few months later, the trio of two dimenisons are living happily together and Billy got his boring wife knocked up...
Cut to France, a gale starts to blow and... EVERYONE STOPS MOVING! SACRE BLEU! WHAT A TWIST!
This film clocks in at under the regulation summer fare of ninety minutes but it'll feel like longer. There's no easy way to describe this film's genre... possibly suspense? It's not horror and it's a million miles away from action... but it's hard to call this film a suspense because it... well, it lacks suspense. There's a lot of Billy puzzling through events but despite the people dying, there's relatively emotional involvement. The only person who shows anything beyond bland ends up sitting in the middle of the road, slitting his wrists. After having watched this film - you may well know that feeling.
Ang Lee's Hulk was as big a commercial success as it was a critical failure - which is the obvious reason behind the Ed Norton reboot the Incredible Hulk. As a reboot, all of the Ang Lee material is - of course - totally disavowed and we have a fresh start... new actors, new origins and so on.
Ol' Bruce has been on the run for sometime and he's hiding in Brazil. He's doing just fine at that until he accidentally gets blood into Stan Lee's POWER THIRST. It seems Stan Lee's job is now to appear in ALL Marvel films in increasingly gratuitous cameos... Although, this one is still not quite as toe curling as his appearance in Fantastic Four 2.
Anyway, as you can guess. Stan Lee's "gamma poisoning" is instantly equated with Brucie, so General "Thunderbolt" Ross sends his crack team to the bottling plant - including veteran Emil Blonsky. As you'd guess, the capture operation goes tits up and Banner gets angry and then proceeds to trash the team, much to Blonsky's chagrin.
As you can guess, the Hulk does a bunk and Bruce finds himself in Central America. Having been rumbled in Brazil, he decides to go in search of the data that will allow him to cure the raging spirit that dwells within.
Blonsky points out to General Ross that the mission went tits up because of a big green MONSTAH! Ross informs Blonsky that Banner IS the MONSTAH, which leads to Blonsky volunteering for some of your Captain America flavoured super soldier formula. Which comes in handy when he goes to take down Banner for a second time.
Because, there's nowhere else for Bruce to go and get the data than the university of his sweetheart, Betty Ross. There's some of the usual messing around before the military rumble them. What follows is a fairly awesome Hulk vs. military scene on the university campus... Blonsky tried to take on the Hulk one on one... BAD IDEA. He ends up so many shards of broken bone in encased in flesh. If you didn't see that coming... well...
Of course, thanks to magical super soldier formula - he fixes right up and goes for another dose. During the interim, Bruce and Betty go to see the secret Internet contact that he had, who proposed a cure... they go through with said cure and it seemingly works but Banner finds out that "Mr. Blue"... then it turns out that he's actually your run of the mill mad scientist and wants to do the most diabolical of all things HELP PEOPLE! The fiend.
Brucie can't bear the thought of his misery helping to cure disease and the like and insists that all the blood - how Mr. Blue created all this blood is never really explained... presumably he has a blood-o-matic or some such. Anyway, before Bruce can do anything he gets pumped full of tranquillisers and taken into custody.
Blonsky decides now would be a good time to get pumped full of Banner's blood and becomes Abomination while Mr. Blue get some accidentally creating an obvious means for The Leader to make an appearance.
Anyway, Abomination gets his super villains goody bag and finds out the first thing super strong supervillains do is head downtown and start tearing the place up. This leads to some amusing momentary confusion wherein they think the Hulk is loose again. Once they deduce it's Blonsky, Banner decides to jump out the helicopter in the hopes that the cure didn't actually work... jeez, what an optimist. (Un?)Fortunately, the cure was about as effective as crystal therapy and as such we get a protracted fight between Hulk an Abomination that is pretty much everything that the Ang Lee film lacked. The Hulk schools Abomination and then flees the scene - the end... well, except for the gratuitous Stark cameo with further allusions to the Avengers film.
All in all, it's a solid superhero blockbuster. You've got your superpowered bad guy - no Kryptonite mountains here! - you've got your drama, action and big explosions... all in all, this is pretty much everything Ange Lee's Hulk wasn't. The origin story gets about three minutes... and we aren't landed with it at the start... it's a nice change from the seemingly obligatory origin stories that are hoisted upon all superhero films... the obvious problem with an origin is it means you're lumped with a big impediment to pacing. Just look at Spiderman, encumbered by the necessity of setting up Peter Parker. The Incredible Hulk has no such obstacle... and it's nice to see that they didn't feel it necessary to impose it on the story. There are a few nice references in there for those watching - Lou Ferrago as a security guard, giant purple trousers... a few other references. Everything you want from a superhero film or a summer blockbuster and well worth the price of admission.
Ol' Bruce has been on the run for sometime and he's hiding in Brazil. He's doing just fine at that until he accidentally gets blood into Stan Lee's POWER THIRST. It seems Stan Lee's job is now to appear in ALL Marvel films in increasingly gratuitous cameos... Although, this one is still not quite as toe curling as his appearance in Fantastic Four 2.
Anyway, as you can guess. Stan Lee's "gamma poisoning" is instantly equated with Brucie, so General "Thunderbolt" Ross sends his crack team to the bottling plant - including veteran Emil Blonsky. As you'd guess, the capture operation goes tits up and Banner gets angry and then proceeds to trash the team, much to Blonsky's chagrin.
As you can guess, the Hulk does a bunk and Bruce finds himself in Central America. Having been rumbled in Brazil, he decides to go in search of the data that will allow him to cure the raging spirit that dwells within.
Blonsky points out to General Ross that the mission went tits up because of a big green MONSTAH! Ross informs Blonsky that Banner IS the MONSTAH, which leads to Blonsky volunteering for some of your Captain America flavoured super soldier formula. Which comes in handy when he goes to take down Banner for a second time.
Because, there's nowhere else for Bruce to go and get the data than the university of his sweetheart, Betty Ross. There's some of the usual messing around before the military rumble them. What follows is a fairly awesome Hulk vs. military scene on the university campus... Blonsky tried to take on the Hulk one on one... BAD IDEA. He ends up so many shards of broken bone in encased in flesh. If you didn't see that coming... well...
Of course, thanks to magical super soldier formula - he fixes right up and goes for another dose. During the interim, Bruce and Betty go to see the secret Internet contact that he had, who proposed a cure... they go through with said cure and it seemingly works but Banner finds out that "Mr. Blue"... then it turns out that he's actually your run of the mill mad scientist and wants to do the most diabolical of all things HELP PEOPLE! The fiend.
Brucie can't bear the thought of his misery helping to cure disease and the like and insists that all the blood - how Mr. Blue created all this blood is never really explained... presumably he has a blood-o-matic or some such. Anyway, before Bruce can do anything he gets pumped full of tranquillisers and taken into custody.
Blonsky decides now would be a good time to get pumped full of Banner's blood and becomes Abomination while Mr. Blue get some accidentally creating an obvious means for The Leader to make an appearance.
Anyway, Abomination gets his super villains goody bag and finds out the first thing super strong supervillains do is head downtown and start tearing the place up. This leads to some amusing momentary confusion wherein they think the Hulk is loose again. Once they deduce it's Blonsky, Banner decides to jump out the helicopter in the hopes that the cure didn't actually work... jeez, what an optimist. (Un?)Fortunately, the cure was about as effective as crystal therapy and as such we get a protracted fight between Hulk an Abomination that is pretty much everything that the Ang Lee film lacked. The Hulk schools Abomination and then flees the scene - the end... well, except for the gratuitous Stark cameo with further allusions to the Avengers film.
All in all, it's a solid superhero blockbuster. You've got your superpowered bad guy - no Kryptonite mountains here! - you've got your drama, action and big explosions... all in all, this is pretty much everything Ange Lee's Hulk wasn't. The origin story gets about three minutes... and we aren't landed with it at the start... it's a nice change from the seemingly obligatory origin stories that are hoisted upon all superhero films... the obvious problem with an origin is it means you're lumped with a big impediment to pacing. Just look at Spiderman, encumbered by the necessity of setting up Peter Parker. The Incredible Hulk has no such obstacle... and it's nice to see that they didn't feel it necessary to impose it on the story. There are a few nice references in there for those watching - Lou Ferrago as a security guard, giant purple trousers... a few other references. Everything you want from a superhero film or a summer blockbuster and well worth the price of admission.
Monday, May 26, 2008
You'd think that having the merchandising rights to Star Wars and having metaphorically just excreted 3 new films, that George Lucas would have had enough money to be going on with... but apparently he needs another golden Jarjar or some such, which is the only reason they'd revive Harrison Ford from his slumber to make a new Indiana Jones film.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about this film is the fact it doesn't suck. Yes - pretty much everyone was expecting it to suck harder than a legion of berserker fellatio kamikaze hooker but clearly someone made enough threats on the lives of Lucas and Spielberg to make sure it wasn't holocaustically bad. Let's not be hasty - it's not Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Last Crusade... not by a long shot... but it somewhat surpasses Temple of Doom - by far the weakest of the original three films.
The film doesn't really waste any time... it's not long before some commies are get Indy to try and find some relic, atomic bombs are blowing up and so on. The problem the film has is rather intangible... oh, there are some obvious ones - that there's a dramatic disconnect as soon as they transition to the jungle... and that there's an abundance of silliness toward the end... but it simply doesn't have the "magic". Oh, there's Indy cracking his whip... having fisticuffs... all the regulation stuff but somehow it's just never quite able to recapture the feel of the old films... maybe it all got lost when they stuck in an obscene amount of CGI in there... or the ridiculous interdimensional aliens... or perhaps it's the vaguely irritating Indy junior or the fact the jungle chase scene goes on and on and on and the... on and on some more.
Perhaps it just feels slightly less substantial than its counterparts... it's an enjoyable film but it's easier to think of it as a decent summer blockbuster than it is to brand it a successor to the original trilogy... fun but ultimately, feeling too... sanitised to be true to the legacy. Worth watching? Certainly but somehow falling short of being entirely worthy of the title Indiana Jones...
Perhaps the most amazing thing about this film is the fact it doesn't suck. Yes - pretty much everyone was expecting it to suck harder than a legion of berserker fellatio kamikaze hooker but clearly someone made enough threats on the lives of Lucas and Spielberg to make sure it wasn't holocaustically bad. Let's not be hasty - it's not Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Last Crusade... not by a long shot... but it somewhat surpasses Temple of Doom - by far the weakest of the original three films.
The film doesn't really waste any time... it's not long before some commies are get Indy to try and find some relic, atomic bombs are blowing up and so on. The problem the film has is rather intangible... oh, there are some obvious ones - that there's a dramatic disconnect as soon as they transition to the jungle... and that there's an abundance of silliness toward the end... but it simply doesn't have the "magic". Oh, there's Indy cracking his whip... having fisticuffs... all the regulation stuff but somehow it's just never quite able to recapture the feel of the old films... maybe it all got lost when they stuck in an obscene amount of CGI in there... or the ridiculous interdimensional aliens... or perhaps it's the vaguely irritating Indy junior or the fact the jungle chase scene goes on and on and on and the... on and on some more.
Perhaps it just feels slightly less substantial than its counterparts... it's an enjoyable film but it's easier to think of it as a decent summer blockbuster than it is to brand it a successor to the original trilogy... fun but ultimately, feeling too... sanitised to be true to the legacy. Worth watching? Certainly but somehow falling short of being entirely worthy of the title Indiana Jones...
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Time was, when the world was ending... it would end in America. Usually involving nukes, American soldiers or teens... or people and somehow, amazingly - things would clear right up when (their) red, white and blue was flying again etc. etc. Or not.
In recent years though, for some reason, it seems the British isles have become subject to the apocalypse. Be it infertility or viruses, the United Kingdom seems to be where it's at in terms of destruction and death... it makes a kind of sense. Britain allows for a contained environment for the apocalypse to play out but the rest of the world to be unaffected... or at least, such was the case in 28 Days Later...
Doomsday revisits the same basic idea as 28 Days Later - DEADLY VIRUS! Except this one just happens to be particularly virulent rather than turning people into flailing, murderous red eyed zombies... just kills them in a rather unpleasant way. So, after the outbreak in Glasgow someone thinks it's a great idea to just wall off Scotland and hope that fixes everything... Nuking Glasgow was probably a better prospect but oh well... Apparently this solution works just super until 20 years later, there's an outbreak of the virus in the now terminally overcrowded London and the PM sends generic crack troops in to find a cure.
As it turns out, things on the other side of the wall have gone Mad Max/Lord of the Flies... the total breakdown of social order and reversion of a sort of feudal existence... with some cannibalism thrown in... Plenty of the people die when the cannibalistic inhabitants of Glasgow ambush the APCs the team is in and naturally, they're on the menu but eventually the handy person on the inside lets them out and our heroine gets to go and see Malcolm McDowell, who was supposed to be finding a cure... when actually he's gone all kinds of batshit crazy. What is it with scientists in these situations? Do they go "Oh, well - time to go totally insane?" whenever this kind of stuff happens? Regardless, McDowell doesn't want to help Rona Mitra because he's got a castle now and pretty much set himself up as the king... oh and being batshit crazy, he thinks that technology is evil and that it's time for Rona to fight one of his nights.
Meanwhile, Bob Hoskins manages to accidentally cover Prime Minister Julian Bashir in blood when one of the infected magically enters what should probably be the most secure location in the country and subsequently the thinly veiled Gordon Brown scumbag underling takes over, planning to let the virus kill more people to thin the ranks... which for some reason he decides to tell Mitra "Oh, yeah - I was planning on getting the cure you slogged your guts out for... then sitting on my hands to effectively seal my grip on power. Kthxbye!"
Idiotic to say the least... and Mitra hasn't exactly found a cure. She knows that the people who survived had a natural immunity but there are people with a natural immunity to AIDS. That doesn't mean to say you take a litre of blood from someone with that immunity and magically get a cure. Oh, it would definitely help but this isn't like some GCSE science project you can knock out on a weekend.
Of course, when you've got someone who's saying that they're going to let a bunch of people die after you put your life on the line to save them - it's fairly clear that common sense isn't a plentiful resource in this film... Anyway, Mitra gives Bob Hoskin's a recording of evil not-Gordon-Brown saying he's going to let a bunch of people die, kills the punk who has been busting her chops for the entire film and decides to show his head to his old gang... which apparently means she's their leader.
A few logical asides here... The Reaper virus is supposedly deadly because of it's virulence... and yet somehow there was time for them to rebuild Hadrian's Wall AND outfit it with some fancy defence mechanism? Not to mention the logistics of an effective patrol around the coast of Scotland.
Then of course, one has to ask why people are still hanging out in cities... it would be beyond Captain Obvious levels of obviousness to state that society has broken down in the hot zone... yet cities by their nature require civilisation to sustain them. Even though the population was decimated, even relatively small numbers of people need a considerable amount of food and as it has been 10 years since the quarantine
And of course, the usual silly things - like retina scanners working for someone dead/unconscious... That situation was entirely stupid anyway. We're supposed to believe that there'd be a whopping 2 guards protecting the door to what should probably be the most secure location in the country? If you're that incompetent - you pretty much deserve everything you get.
Of course, films like this aren't meant for logical analysis. It's essentially a romp. The virus serves little other function than to offer a post-apocalyptic environment for our heroine to run about and fight in. The rapidity with which her team is disposed of is hilarious, they might as well have just shot themselves in the head the second they went through the gate... The film owes a depth of gratitude to the inevitable comparisons of Escape From New York and Mad Max... but it's clearly derivative but no less enjoyable in the typical action romp manner.
In recent years though, for some reason, it seems the British isles have become subject to the apocalypse. Be it infertility or viruses, the United Kingdom seems to be where it's at in terms of destruction and death... it makes a kind of sense. Britain allows for a contained environment for the apocalypse to play out but the rest of the world to be unaffected... or at least, such was the case in 28 Days Later...
Doomsday revisits the same basic idea as 28 Days Later - DEADLY VIRUS! Except this one just happens to be particularly virulent rather than turning people into flailing, murderous red eyed zombies... just kills them in a rather unpleasant way. So, after the outbreak in Glasgow someone thinks it's a great idea to just wall off Scotland and hope that fixes everything... Nuking Glasgow was probably a better prospect but oh well... Apparently this solution works just super until 20 years later, there's an outbreak of the virus in the now terminally overcrowded London and the PM sends generic crack troops in to find a cure.
As it turns out, things on the other side of the wall have gone Mad Max/Lord of the Flies... the total breakdown of social order and reversion of a sort of feudal existence... with some cannibalism thrown in... Plenty of the people die when the cannibalistic inhabitants of Glasgow ambush the APCs the team is in and naturally, they're on the menu but eventually the handy person on the inside lets them out and our heroine gets to go and see Malcolm McDowell, who was supposed to be finding a cure... when actually he's gone all kinds of batshit crazy. What is it with scientists in these situations? Do they go "Oh, well - time to go totally insane?" whenever this kind of stuff happens? Regardless, McDowell doesn't want to help Rona Mitra because he's got a castle now and pretty much set himself up as the king... oh and being batshit crazy, he thinks that technology is evil and that it's time for Rona to fight one of his nights.
Meanwhile, Bob Hoskins manages to accidentally cover Prime Minister Julian Bashir in blood when one of the infected magically enters what should probably be the most secure location in the country and subsequently the thinly veiled Gordon Brown scumbag underling takes over, planning to let the virus kill more people to thin the ranks... which for some reason he decides to tell Mitra "Oh, yeah - I was planning on getting the cure you slogged your guts out for... then sitting on my hands to effectively seal my grip on power. Kthxbye!"
Idiotic to say the least... and Mitra hasn't exactly found a cure. She knows that the people who survived had a natural immunity but there are people with a natural immunity to AIDS. That doesn't mean to say you take a litre of blood from someone with that immunity and magically get a cure. Oh, it would definitely help but this isn't like some GCSE science project you can knock out on a weekend.
Of course, when you've got someone who's saying that they're going to let a bunch of people die after you put your life on the line to save them - it's fairly clear that common sense isn't a plentiful resource in this film... Anyway, Mitra gives Bob Hoskin's a recording of evil not-Gordon-Brown saying he's going to let a bunch of people die, kills the punk who has been busting her chops for the entire film and decides to show his head to his old gang... which apparently means she's their leader.
A few logical asides here... The Reaper virus is supposedly deadly because of it's virulence... and yet somehow there was time for them to rebuild Hadrian's Wall AND outfit it with some fancy defence mechanism? Not to mention the logistics of an effective patrol around the coast of Scotland.
Then of course, one has to ask why people are still hanging out in cities... it would be beyond Captain Obvious levels of obviousness to state that society has broken down in the hot zone... yet cities by their nature require civilisation to sustain them. Even though the population was decimated, even relatively small numbers of people need a considerable amount of food and as it has been 10 years since the quarantine
And of course, the usual silly things - like retina scanners working for someone dead/unconscious... That situation was entirely stupid anyway. We're supposed to believe that there'd be a whopping 2 guards protecting the door to what should probably be the most secure location in the country? If you're that incompetent - you pretty much deserve everything you get.
Of course, films like this aren't meant for logical analysis. It's essentially a romp. The virus serves little other function than to offer a post-apocalyptic environment for our heroine to run about and fight in. The rapidity with which her team is disposed of is hilarious, they might as well have just shot themselves in the head the second they went through the gate... The film owes a depth of gratitude to the inevitable comparisons of Escape From New York and Mad Max... but it's clearly derivative but no less enjoyable in the typical action romp manner.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Marvel Studios - the film arm of Marvel - made its first real foray into the superhero movie market with Iron Man... a character who (despite his recent prominence in the Marvel comic world) is far less well known than by the general public... while this claim could equally be levelled at Daredevil, Constantine, The Punisher and so on... none of them were hyped up to anywhere near the extent of Iron Man (even the new Incredible Hulk movie has been quiet by comparison)...
Most superhero origin films have felt a little weak... there's some need to build a character up before they fall into a bath of radioactive goop that gives them great powers and the ability to fit into incredibly tight costumes. In other words - you're spending a significant amount of time pretty much sitting around waiting for the person to go "OMG SUPERPOWERS!" Of course... perhaps by the nature of Iron Man... there's none of that. It's a more logical process... but then, that makes sense as there's a lot more logic to a guy building a big, bad ass power armour suit than there is to someone getting bitten by a spider and getting spider and emo superpowers.
So, anyway... the story goes pretty straight forwardly. Genius billionaire arms dealer Tony Stark - played by Robert Downey Jr. - goes off to Afghanistan to show the American military just how spiffy his new missiles are... why this can't be accomplished in America isn't ever explained because there are plenty of mountains to blow the hell out of in the USA... but there are fewer Afghani militants in the USA waiting to ambush the American military... So, Tony Stark gets taken hostage and is coerced into building his super duper Jericho missile because if there's one thing Taliban types want to do, it's blow the ever loving snot out of the mountains that cover their country.
The Taliban types aren't very bright because Tony Stark has an epiphany and realises it's time to repent for being an arms dealer and right wrongs... How does he do this? Well, he makes a big suit of power armour... quite how you can confuse a giant suit of armour with a state of the art missile is never explained but such plot details are neither here nor there. After a bit of heart to heart with a fellow captive, Stark gets his act together and runs off in a giant metal suit having killed a lot of people - naturally, his fellow captive heroically sacrifices himself to allow the armour to power up and kicks the bucket after a few last words to Stark.
As you'd expect, Stark skeedadles after setting a lot of stuff on fire. Somehow surviving a considerable fall and the disintegration of his armour on the way to moments later be fortuitously rescued by an American army chopper. He seems pretty fine when he gets home - despite having had the trauma of some time in captivity and so on. As you might guess - his business partner is all smiles and sunshine when he returns... until Stark says they won't be building weapons anymore... Of course, his business partner was responsible for Stark's imprisonment in the first place and selling weapons to the Ten Rings - a very unsubtle reference to the Mandarin for anyone that has any knowledge of the comics.
So, Tony jets off to save his dead friends village in another fairly cool action sequence which climaxes in the Tonster facing down to F-22s. Then, naturally Tony finds out that his business budy Stanes has been the one pulling the strings all along and that he has reverse engineered Stark's original powersuit. Which naturally leads to the climactic finale battle. No prizes for guessing who wins... and for those who choose to endure lengthy end credits, Samuel L. Jackson pops up to tell Downey that there's another film in it for him.
All-in-all, it's a good film. The action is slick and the effects all work, the look of the suits especially seems to work very well and while the "arc reactor" may in effect be just as magical as spider bites resulting in the ability to hang from walls, it seems much more plausible... so this film will likely be a lot more acceptable for people who find the notion of people firing beams from their eyes or acting like giant magnets to be rather childish.
In fact, Downey himself sells the character of Stark as rather relateable. There's no specific way to pin it down but he's very much the playboy and yet still, personable and human and not in the Bale's Batman is... with him, it's an act - as necessitated by the character... and that gives Downey more room to manoeuvre. He has that drink welded to his hand, sleeps around and yet, goes out and saves the day... oh, certainly we can't deny the comic book nature of his suit and his brawling antics... but he feels more real than most.
The real issue seems to be villains... It is important to have a villain (or villains) to face off again... and no one likes Darth Maul syndrome... actually, no one likes George Lucas anymore... but he can just play with all the Ewoks his money bought him. But beyond the final minutes, Iron Man has no real opponent... Sure, he gets away with the appearance of his business partner in the Iron Monger suit... but he's more of a finishing piece than someone who has been there all the way through...
Still, it easily surpasses Spiderman - if not in box office receipts than at least in interest and action... while it may not quite match Batman Begins it seems proof that Marvel can produce films that are more than just box office hits... it seems that it's own production studio has allowed it to be GOOD... whether The Incredible Hulk will prove this to be a trend or a fluke, remains to be seen.
Most superhero origin films have felt a little weak... there's some need to build a character up before they fall into a bath of radioactive goop that gives them great powers and the ability to fit into incredibly tight costumes. In other words - you're spending a significant amount of time pretty much sitting around waiting for the person to go "OMG SUPERPOWERS!" Of course... perhaps by the nature of Iron Man... there's none of that. It's a more logical process... but then, that makes sense as there's a lot more logic to a guy building a big, bad ass power armour suit than there is to someone getting bitten by a spider and getting spider and emo superpowers.
So, anyway... the story goes pretty straight forwardly. Genius billionaire arms dealer Tony Stark - played by Robert Downey Jr. - goes off to Afghanistan to show the American military just how spiffy his new missiles are... why this can't be accomplished in America isn't ever explained because there are plenty of mountains to blow the hell out of in the USA... but there are fewer Afghani militants in the USA waiting to ambush the American military... So, Tony Stark gets taken hostage and is coerced into building his super duper Jericho missile because if there's one thing Taliban types want to do, it's blow the ever loving snot out of the mountains that cover their country.
The Taliban types aren't very bright because Tony Stark has an epiphany and realises it's time to repent for being an arms dealer and right wrongs... How does he do this? Well, he makes a big suit of power armour... quite how you can confuse a giant suit of armour with a state of the art missile is never explained but such plot details are neither here nor there. After a bit of heart to heart with a fellow captive, Stark gets his act together and runs off in a giant metal suit having killed a lot of people - naturally, his fellow captive heroically sacrifices himself to allow the armour to power up and kicks the bucket after a few last words to Stark.
As you'd expect, Stark skeedadles after setting a lot of stuff on fire. Somehow surviving a considerable fall and the disintegration of his armour on the way to moments later be fortuitously rescued by an American army chopper. He seems pretty fine when he gets home - despite having had the trauma of some time in captivity and so on. As you might guess - his business partner is all smiles and sunshine when he returns... until Stark says they won't be building weapons anymore... Of course, his business partner was responsible for Stark's imprisonment in the first place and selling weapons to the Ten Rings - a very unsubtle reference to the Mandarin for anyone that has any knowledge of the comics.
So, Tony jets off to save his dead friends village in another fairly cool action sequence which climaxes in the Tonster facing down to F-22s. Then, naturally Tony finds out that his business budy Stanes has been the one pulling the strings all along and that he has reverse engineered Stark's original powersuit. Which naturally leads to the climactic finale battle. No prizes for guessing who wins... and for those who choose to endure lengthy end credits, Samuel L. Jackson pops up to tell Downey that there's another film in it for him.
All-in-all, it's a good film. The action is slick and the effects all work, the look of the suits especially seems to work very well and while the "arc reactor" may in effect be just as magical as spider bites resulting in the ability to hang from walls, it seems much more plausible... so this film will likely be a lot more acceptable for people who find the notion of people firing beams from their eyes or acting like giant magnets to be rather childish.
In fact, Downey himself sells the character of Stark as rather relateable. There's no specific way to pin it down but he's very much the playboy and yet still, personable and human and not in the Bale's Batman is... with him, it's an act - as necessitated by the character... and that gives Downey more room to manoeuvre. He has that drink welded to his hand, sleeps around and yet, goes out and saves the day... oh, certainly we can't deny the comic book nature of his suit and his brawling antics... but he feels more real than most.
The real issue seems to be villains... It is important to have a villain (or villains) to face off again... and no one likes Darth Maul syndrome... actually, no one likes George Lucas anymore... but he can just play with all the Ewoks his money bought him. But beyond the final minutes, Iron Man has no real opponent... Sure, he gets away with the appearance of his business partner in the Iron Monger suit... but he's more of a finishing piece than someone who has been there all the way through...
Still, it easily surpasses Spiderman - if not in box office receipts than at least in interest and action... while it may not quite match Batman Begins it seems proof that Marvel can produce films that are more than just box office hits... it seems that it's own production studio has allowed it to be GOOD... whether The Incredible Hulk will prove this to be a trend or a fluke, remains to be seen.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
If you've watched (or read) the seminal Ghost In Shell - probably one of the best known, loved and critically acclaimed anime made - you might well have been experiencing physical pain of a non-specific nature... or perhaps a more general "I've got a bad feeling about this" for no specific reason.
The reason for this is probably that you're at some level aware that aforementioned seminal anime is going to become... a Dreamworks "live action CGI". That phrase is probably filling you with a sense of unease and foreboding... most likely because the last time you heard it was to describe the holocaustically bad Transformers.
Don't worry though, Steven Spielberg is REALLY keen on the project and his last great film was... uh... Jaws?
Prepare for disappointment.
The reason for this is probably that you're at some level aware that aforementioned seminal anime is going to become... a Dreamworks "live action CGI". That phrase is probably filling you with a sense of unease and foreboding... most likely because the last time you heard it was to describe the holocaustically bad Transformers.
Don't worry though, Steven Spielberg is REALLY keen on the project and his last great film was... uh... Jaws?
Prepare for disappointment.
Friday, April 11, 2008
The funny thing about Jumper - other than the fact Hayden Christensen has inexplicably been cast in a major film after his Manakin Skywalker car crash performance in the Star Wars prequels - is how the protagonist basically forgets his old life then stops by to his old high school sweetheart... and no one remarks upon the fact he disappeared for ages... or the fact that he managed to escape death and so on. Clearly, people just returning from the dead is a regular occurance and one doesn't hold the lack of contact in the interim
Of course, Manakin manages to survive because he's like a less cool, less interesting version of Nightcrawler... yup, he can teleport. Although, Manakin can apparently teleport to anywhere he's seen (with just a photograph) in the whole world. Naturally, having bailed out of school and such, Manakin decides it would be a super idea to rob banks using his abilities. Which makes sense. What DOESN'T make sense is Samuel L. Jackson being part of a centuries old religious order that wants to lay the smack down on the Jumpers.
The Paladins have all manner of doo-dahs to track jumpers and incapacitate them. The only problem being... it's unlikely any of them could have been portable 20 years ago and unlikely most of the could even have existed 30 years ago. Hence the notion of Samuel L. Jackson's ancestors kicking the ass of Manakin's grandfather seems... idiotic. If it's a long standing movement... there were surely some like Griffin who weren't content to stand around and be murdered and even WITH the doo-dahs, they're still at a considerable disadvantage. Sure, Paladins might have had numbers on their side but it just seems hard to imagine them doing a good job.
Regardless Samuel L. Jackson doesn't want no MOTHER FUCKING JUMPERS ON HIS PLANET. So, he tracks Manakin down because... well, Manakin is an idiot having left a trail of breadcrumbs big enough to feed the 5000. Anyway, as you might guess - Manakin isn't too bothered about that - he's sleazing on his old sweetheart (if he liked her so damned much, why did he just forget her for more than 10 years? And how the hell does everyone INSTANTLY recognise him when he wasn't even knee high last time they saw him?) and he's found a somewhat stereotypical Scottish Jumper.
It really doesn't take a genius to work out what happens. Manakin takes his girl to Rome, where he and Griffin bump into some Paladins (his girlie doesn't notice) and then he lets her go home on her own... and she gets pissed. So he explains to her - as all men have to eventually - honey, I can teleport all over the shop... and no, I'm not as cool or as interesting as Nightcrawler. He 'ports her from her house to Griffin's lair... What a schoolboy error - because guess what? Samuel Mother Fucking Jackson has a big box of plot device that allows him to go through the "jump scars" (Manakin did that earlier to follow Griffin, so you can't say that it was entirely unexpected but that merely makes a direct jump to the lair even more stupid).
As you might guess, there's a bit of a fight where Griffin goes mental and does some ass kicking while Manakin kind of douches around and looks helpless while his girlfriend from the OC gets taken by SLJ back through the wormhole. Griffin decides that with the baddest mother on the other side and most of his Paladin pals, it would be a rather super idea to lob a bomb through and let the God they're ever so fond of sort them out. Manakin likes his girlie too much and so steals the detonator for the bomb. Cue the two Jumping all over the world, fighting for the detonator.
Why? Is the only question to ask here... Sure, you can't exactly go to your local hardware store and say "yeah, I'd like a detonator please." but the guy can go anywhere in the world, stop by somewhere and pick up a whole new bomb. Naturally, Griffin being on the side of girl killing - Manakin eventually manages to trap him in an electricity pylon... Electricity is shown to inhibit the ability to jump... but only due to the fact it inhibits the ability to concentrate... or something, in any respects... the chances are the pylon would either kill Griffin or that there wouldn't be any electricity running through it. Him standing there going "Ouch!" is just idiotic.
Griffin out the way, it's time to save the girl! As you can imagine, Manakin has a GREAT plan. Jump right in there! Which isn't so much a plan as idiocy. He's a good guy though, so his plan to jump the entire apartment works just fine. He 'ports it right into a lake and naturally, saves the girl... the fate of the other Paladins is somewhat unclear but he takes Samuel L. Jackson to a cave in the Grand Canyon and tells him that "I told you I was different." Presumably Samuel L. Jackson will agree... because no one else would have been stupid enough to leave him alive.
Finally, we have the touching reunion between Manakin and his estranged mother. She didn't leave because his father was a douche - she left because she was a Paladin and didn't want to kill him. Presumably if she'd quit being in a super secret organisation, she'd lose her health care and a good pension... so, abandoning her son was the logical course of action... and of course, having announced to her that he's alive... she naturally has to kill him... ah, the bond between mother and child - truly unbreakable.
The premise of the film is interesting enough... although, in all honesty it's like a somewhat less interesting take on Heroes... that is to say, ordinary people, extraordinary abilities... except they're all the same and half of them are Hayden Christensen. It's a predictable yarn and essentially follows the ol' boy meets girl but tosses in "boy disappears for 10 years due to teleportation ability" and "loses girls to secret religious order of technological murderers". The only reason to watch is to see people bamph all over the planet. Which is ok but hardly a reason to waste your time.
Of course, Manakin manages to survive because he's like a less cool, less interesting version of Nightcrawler... yup, he can teleport. Although, Manakin can apparently teleport to anywhere he's seen (with just a photograph) in the whole world. Naturally, having bailed out of school and such, Manakin decides it would be a super idea to rob banks using his abilities. Which makes sense. What DOESN'T make sense is Samuel L. Jackson being part of a centuries old religious order that wants to lay the smack down on the Jumpers.
The Paladins have all manner of doo-dahs to track jumpers and incapacitate them. The only problem being... it's unlikely any of them could have been portable 20 years ago and unlikely most of the could even have existed 30 years ago. Hence the notion of Samuel L. Jackson's ancestors kicking the ass of Manakin's grandfather seems... idiotic. If it's a long standing movement... there were surely some like Griffin who weren't content to stand around and be murdered and even WITH the doo-dahs, they're still at a considerable disadvantage. Sure, Paladins might have had numbers on their side but it just seems hard to imagine them doing a good job.
Regardless Samuel L. Jackson doesn't want no MOTHER FUCKING JUMPERS ON HIS PLANET. So, he tracks Manakin down because... well, Manakin is an idiot having left a trail of breadcrumbs big enough to feed the 5000. Anyway, as you might guess - Manakin isn't too bothered about that - he's sleazing on his old sweetheart (if he liked her so damned much, why did he just forget her for more than 10 years? And how the hell does everyone INSTANTLY recognise him when he wasn't even knee high last time they saw him?) and he's found a somewhat stereotypical Scottish Jumper.
It really doesn't take a genius to work out what happens. Manakin takes his girl to Rome, where he and Griffin bump into some Paladins (his girlie doesn't notice) and then he lets her go home on her own... and she gets pissed. So he explains to her - as all men have to eventually - honey, I can teleport all over the shop... and no, I'm not as cool or as interesting as Nightcrawler. He 'ports her from her house to Griffin's lair... What a schoolboy error - because guess what? Samuel Mother Fucking Jackson has a big box of plot device that allows him to go through the "jump scars" (Manakin did that earlier to follow Griffin, so you can't say that it was entirely unexpected but that merely makes a direct jump to the lair even more stupid).
As you might guess, there's a bit of a fight where Griffin goes mental and does some ass kicking while Manakin kind of douches around and looks helpless while his girlfriend from the OC gets taken by SLJ back through the wormhole. Griffin decides that with the baddest mother on the other side and most of his Paladin pals, it would be a rather super idea to lob a bomb through and let the God they're ever so fond of sort them out. Manakin likes his girlie too much and so steals the detonator for the bomb. Cue the two Jumping all over the world, fighting for the detonator.
Why? Is the only question to ask here... Sure, you can't exactly go to your local hardware store and say "yeah, I'd like a detonator please." but the guy can go anywhere in the world, stop by somewhere and pick up a whole new bomb. Naturally, Griffin being on the side of girl killing - Manakin eventually manages to trap him in an electricity pylon... Electricity is shown to inhibit the ability to jump... but only due to the fact it inhibits the ability to concentrate... or something, in any respects... the chances are the pylon would either kill Griffin or that there wouldn't be any electricity running through it. Him standing there going "Ouch!" is just idiotic.
Griffin out the way, it's time to save the girl! As you can imagine, Manakin has a GREAT plan. Jump right in there! Which isn't so much a plan as idiocy. He's a good guy though, so his plan to jump the entire apartment works just fine. He 'ports it right into a lake and naturally, saves the girl... the fate of the other Paladins is somewhat unclear but he takes Samuel L. Jackson to a cave in the Grand Canyon and tells him that "I told you I was different." Presumably Samuel L. Jackson will agree... because no one else would have been stupid enough to leave him alive.
Finally, we have the touching reunion between Manakin and his estranged mother. She didn't leave because his father was a douche - she left because she was a Paladin and didn't want to kill him. Presumably if she'd quit being in a super secret organisation, she'd lose her health care and a good pension... so, abandoning her son was the logical course of action... and of course, having announced to her that he's alive... she naturally has to kill him... ah, the bond between mother and child - truly unbreakable.
The premise of the film is interesting enough... although, in all honesty it's like a somewhat less interesting take on Heroes... that is to say, ordinary people, extraordinary abilities... except they're all the same and half of them are Hayden Christensen. It's a predictable yarn and essentially follows the ol' boy meets girl but tosses in "boy disappears for 10 years due to teleportation ability" and "loses girls to secret religious order of technological murderers". The only reason to watch is to see people bamph all over the planet. Which is ok but hardly a reason to waste your time.
Friday, April 04, 2008
The heart of any good zombie film - or pseudo zombie film - worth its salt, is the sense of a world turned upside down. A place where the rules have changed instantly, inexplicably and irreversibly. People go through disbelief and denial and eventually - if they manage to live long enough - they come to accept the grim truth, that there is only survival now.
Diary of the Dead may employ the now tired narrative method of "billy films everything"... but then, it does it for FAR more sensible reasons than Cloverfield did "I've got der camera, better film everything DUR!" No, Diary makes more sense in its documenting of the events that occur. In fact, in many senses - it's integral to the story.
Pretty much off the bat, things go South. The dead being so rude as to come back to life. A couple of sensible people decide to head out to the well fortified mansion. The rest decide to just mess around and go home. In a big ol' Winnebago... not the best zombiemobile but it seems to do OK. Naturally, people start out not knowing what's happening - not believing and so on.
The dynamic is different to most other zombie films... we start with a half dozen people, who actually all know one another. There are people along the way but the disparate group of survivors, thrown together by fate isn't present... and that is rather a staple of zombie films - fuelling tension between people. Once everyone gets the whole "dead rising from the grave to feed on the flesh of the living" thing though, they're about as cohesive a group as a group of college students can be.
They take a rather different view to the normal groups... there's no holing up in the nearest mall or barn. People want to get home... or at least they do for a while. Eventually they realise that survival and not family reunion is the way forward. About time. Naturally - it's a Romero film - the military are NO help... negative help... did the military kill his family? Although, in a situation such as envisioned by a zombie apocalypse - it makes sense that the military would end up running the show but really, the interactions with other groups are transitory. In fact, at the perfunctory 90 minutes the film itself feels rather transitory...
There's no real chance for the characters to develop... even those who don't have a camera glued to their face - in yet another example of people wantonly ignoring survival instinct... but that's necessary for the method of storytelling... in fact, it's pertinent to the social commentary of the film. In much the same way that Night of the Living Dead made points about racism and Dawn of the Dead pointedly mocked mindless consumer culture - not to mention the shameless anti-military message of Day of the Dead - Diary of the Dead makes very obvious observations about the nature of the media... the distortions of the government, the distance that one gains from events by filming them... and how voyeurism has become so common place.
As zombie films go... danger seldom feels pressing here. Occasionally there are moments - most notably in the barn when there is a horde of zombies encroaching and the Winnebago needs fixed - but on the whole, the group are merely in a situation where potential danger is present... although, they seem to be totally safe inside their vehicle. Zombies do seem to inexplicably appear en masse at rather convenient intervals - really, you wouldn't think there would be dozens of people hanging out in shambling distance of a barn or remote mansion. In Dawn of the Dead it made sense - zombies were heading to malls because of residual memory... there doesn't seem much reason for them to show up in the middle of nowhere... but then, they're necessary for tension and so on... just as their general absence is necessary for the voyeurism and documentary making to occur.
The commentary is pretty tame compared to the rather stark messages of Romero's original trilogy. It's not exactly as bare faced as zombies walking around a mall, it's just "ooo - the youtube generation!" The compulsion to document. It feels as if the story is really just a vehicle for that observation, it's focused on more than the zombies... naturally, there's a bit of "people are rubbish" too but then that's hardly original. It's all very rushed... even though we're dropped almost immediately into a situation where the characters are aware of events - even if some are sceptical - and yet still it feels as if the film is rushing to get everything tied up in a neat ninety minute package. Which is easily to the detriment of the film. Developing the characters, adding in more action... would have greatly improved things.
In terms of action... well, there's precious little. Which is at least realistic... the kids never come across a handy cache of automatic weapons and instantly know how to use them... but then, neither are they instantly beset with hordes of zombies from nowhere - ok, it happens in the middle of the film and at the end but not nearly as much as in your average zombie film. So, in other words - don't expect this to be on a par with the Resident Evil films or the Dawn of the Dead remake because there isn't a whole lot of zombie shooting here. In that respect, it follows the similarly shot Cloverfield... no excesses of information or action... just pervasive tension.
If you're in the mood for Blair Witch (minus the excessive amounts of incessant screaming and nausea inducing camera shaking) meets zombies... it's probably a good match but it's far from Romero's best work... and even the cringe worthy Land of the Dead was better - although just barely. For Romero and zombie fans only, really.
Diary of the Dead may employ the now tired narrative method of "billy films everything"... but then, it does it for FAR more sensible reasons than Cloverfield did "I've got der camera, better film everything DUR!" No, Diary makes more sense in its documenting of the events that occur. In fact, in many senses - it's integral to the story.
Pretty much off the bat, things go South. The dead being so rude as to come back to life. A couple of sensible people decide to head out to the well fortified mansion. The rest decide to just mess around and go home. In a big ol' Winnebago... not the best zombiemobile but it seems to do OK. Naturally, people start out not knowing what's happening - not believing and so on.
The dynamic is different to most other zombie films... we start with a half dozen people, who actually all know one another. There are people along the way but the disparate group of survivors, thrown together by fate isn't present... and that is rather a staple of zombie films - fuelling tension between people. Once everyone gets the whole "dead rising from the grave to feed on the flesh of the living" thing though, they're about as cohesive a group as a group of college students can be.
They take a rather different view to the normal groups... there's no holing up in the nearest mall or barn. People want to get home... or at least they do for a while. Eventually they realise that survival and not family reunion is the way forward. About time. Naturally - it's a Romero film - the military are NO help... negative help... did the military kill his family? Although, in a situation such as envisioned by a zombie apocalypse - it makes sense that the military would end up running the show but really, the interactions with other groups are transitory. In fact, at the perfunctory 90 minutes the film itself feels rather transitory...
There's no real chance for the characters to develop... even those who don't have a camera glued to their face - in yet another example of people wantonly ignoring survival instinct... but that's necessary for the method of storytelling... in fact, it's pertinent to the social commentary of the film. In much the same way that Night of the Living Dead made points about racism and Dawn of the Dead pointedly mocked mindless consumer culture - not to mention the shameless anti-military message of Day of the Dead - Diary of the Dead makes very obvious observations about the nature of the media... the distortions of the government, the distance that one gains from events by filming them... and how voyeurism has become so common place.
As zombie films go... danger seldom feels pressing here. Occasionally there are moments - most notably in the barn when there is a horde of zombies encroaching and the Winnebago needs fixed - but on the whole, the group are merely in a situation where potential danger is present... although, they seem to be totally safe inside their vehicle. Zombies do seem to inexplicably appear en masse at rather convenient intervals - really, you wouldn't think there would be dozens of people hanging out in shambling distance of a barn or remote mansion. In Dawn of the Dead it made sense - zombies were heading to malls because of residual memory... there doesn't seem much reason for them to show up in the middle of nowhere... but then, they're necessary for tension and so on... just as their general absence is necessary for the voyeurism and documentary making to occur.
The commentary is pretty tame compared to the rather stark messages of Romero's original trilogy. It's not exactly as bare faced as zombies walking around a mall, it's just "ooo - the youtube generation!" The compulsion to document. It feels as if the story is really just a vehicle for that observation, it's focused on more than the zombies... naturally, there's a bit of "people are rubbish" too but then that's hardly original. It's all very rushed... even though we're dropped almost immediately into a situation where the characters are aware of events - even if some are sceptical - and yet still it feels as if the film is rushing to get everything tied up in a neat ninety minute package. Which is easily to the detriment of the film. Developing the characters, adding in more action... would have greatly improved things.
In terms of action... well, there's precious little. Which is at least realistic... the kids never come across a handy cache of automatic weapons and instantly know how to use them... but then, neither are they instantly beset with hordes of zombies from nowhere - ok, it happens in the middle of the film and at the end but not nearly as much as in your average zombie film. So, in other words - don't expect this to be on a par with the Resident Evil films or the Dawn of the Dead remake because there isn't a whole lot of zombie shooting here. In that respect, it follows the similarly shot Cloverfield... no excesses of information or action... just pervasive tension.
If you're in the mood for Blair Witch (minus the excessive amounts of incessant screaming and nausea inducing camera shaking) meets zombies... it's probably a good match but it's far from Romero's best work... and even the cringe worthy Land of the Dead was better - although just barely. For Romero and zombie fans only, really.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Spectacular, Spectacular Spiderman!
So, the Spiderman movies managed to make an already popular character even MORE so... as if Spidey really needed it. Naturally - it having been some time since the previous incarnation of an animated Spiderman - it was time for a NEW Spiderman cartoon - Spectacular Spiderman.
Another new cartoon, another beginning. Peter Parker has had a summer to hone his wall crawling skillz by the time things start and wouldn't you know supervillains have started popping up, just as high school begins.
Unlike other rehashes, this remains fairly similar to the general Spiderman mythos. Spidey is the smart, fast talking webslinger whenever the city needs him and of course, struggling to balance that with being in the far more hostile environment of high school and also, helping his Aunt May help ends meet.
Somewhat surprisingly, Gwen Stacy is centre stage - in terms of potential love interests - and Mary Jane has only been mentioned in passing... although, it seems inevitable that she will turn up as she's been mentioned several times... not that Spidey really seems to have much time for fraternising between his crime fighting, school, the Bugle and so on.
Currently - and as one might expect of a new series - the show has very much revolved around the creation of Spiderman's well known rogue's gallery. This translate to roughly a villain a week for Spiderman to defeat - just as well he doesn't have much of a social life, eh?
Stylistically, it favours the more... facile animation style that is ever more prevalent in cartoons. That said, while it may be somewhat less detailed than the 90s, the animation is very slick - so the trade off is fair.
We have some interesting development of characters and relationships, the foreshadowing of the Kingpin (who has been behind half of the villains that Spidey has faced) and so on. It's not exactly Earth shattering stuff but thus far, it's proven to be entertaining. Again, it's not a show that should be compared to it predecessors because, while Spectacular Spiderman is much closer to its roots than, say, Transformers Animated - it's simply not executed in the same way. One to watch.
So, the Spiderman movies managed to make an already popular character even MORE so... as if Spidey really needed it. Naturally - it having been some time since the previous incarnation of an animated Spiderman - it was time for a NEW Spiderman cartoon - Spectacular Spiderman.
Another new cartoon, another beginning. Peter Parker has had a summer to hone his wall crawling skillz by the time things start and wouldn't you know supervillains have started popping up, just as high school begins.
Unlike other rehashes, this remains fairly similar to the general Spiderman mythos. Spidey is the smart, fast talking webslinger whenever the city needs him and of course, struggling to balance that with being in the far more hostile environment of high school and also, helping his Aunt May help ends meet.
Somewhat surprisingly, Gwen Stacy is centre stage - in terms of potential love interests - and Mary Jane has only been mentioned in passing... although, it seems inevitable that she will turn up as she's been mentioned several times... not that Spidey really seems to have much time for fraternising between his crime fighting, school, the Bugle and so on.
Currently - and as one might expect of a new series - the show has very much revolved around the creation of Spiderman's well known rogue's gallery. This translate to roughly a villain a week for Spiderman to defeat - just as well he doesn't have much of a social life, eh?
Stylistically, it favours the more... facile animation style that is ever more prevalent in cartoons. That said, while it may be somewhat less detailed than the 90s, the animation is very slick - so the trade off is fair.
We have some interesting development of characters and relationships, the foreshadowing of the Kingpin (who has been behind half of the villains that Spidey has faced) and so on. It's not exactly Earth shattering stuff but thus far, it's proven to be entertaining. Again, it's not a show that should be compared to it predecessors because, while Spectacular Spiderman is much closer to its roots than, say, Transformers Animated - it's simply not executed in the same way. One to watch.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Fresh from the rape of Michael "SFX aren't plot?" Bay, the Transformers franchise rolls ever onward, battered and bruised... but still massively profitable because it will take more than one hack director, inexplicably hired time and again to ruin good films - forget 9/11, THAT is a conspiracy.
Anyway, as proof that Michael Bay failed in his mission to sink one of the most awesome franchise ever created to the briny deep - we have a new Transformers cartoon, Transformers Animated.
As seems to be the trend these days, all previous history of the show has been summarily disregarded and the only thing that has remained is the basic premise and a few of the core characters... well, actually - just the basic premise. Giant sentient robots from Cybertron come to Earth and defend it from the evil forces of... THE DECEPTICONS!
It's best not to talk about Transformers Animated in terms of the original (Generation 1 aka G1) cartoon because they're very different animals... Transformers Animated has a sexy teen Optimus Prime (well, a somewhat inexperienced and scrawny Optimus at least) along with Bumblebee (essentially a hyperactive 6 year old but still the noob of the group), Rachet (who is essentially Kup from G1), Bulkhead (the heavy hitting sensitive one) and Prowl (NINJA ROBOT!) stranded on Earth, protecting the All Spark.
The differences in design and style are big and owe more to Teen Titans and The Batman than G1. ALL the robots - although, more the Autobots - are far more humanised. Pretty much everyone has a face, is capable of gesticulating and body language and even the massive Bulkhead is still extremely human. This is a far cry from the huge, blocky, monolithic very robotic designs of G1 where few concessions were made in terms of anthropomorphism.
The Autobots don't just LOOK more human, they ACT more human. There is a lot of talk about emotions, friendship... They seem entirely capable of feeling pain and are far more prone to damage than their G1 counterparts ever were. In fact, few episodes have passed where damage hasn't been incurred upon our brave robot defenders... which brings us to the next point.
While in G1, humans were... at best, an after thought, in Transformers Animated - they're very much a part of the show. Hell, the Autobots are based IN Detroit. Ok, they're in an abandoned factory... but that beats G1 where they were out in the middle of nowhere, fighting Decepticons in the middle of nowhere and so on. No, the cityscape of Detroit is full of people. The most important of whom is Sari.
Sari gets a key charged by the Allspark - allowing it repair/heal the Autobots and do all manners of mischief to anything with a keyhole. Given the propensity of the Autobots to get totally schooled - this is a fairly skill and probably why they keep Sari around. She also helps acquaint the Autobots with Earth customs and her father happens to run a major robotics company - Detroit is now heavily automated by his robots, to the point where there are robotic police drones - the success of which is predicated upon... MEGATRON! Or rather, the disembodied head of Megatron.
Yes, another BIG difference is that there isn't a weekly smack down between the Autobots and Decepticons. In fact, at the start we don't really have any and even by the end of the first instalment we've only got four, I suppose five if we count Black Arachnia... which we shouldn't. So, instead of Megatron's weekly plan to get enough energon to TAKE OVER THE UNIVERSE, we have various villains of the week - some of whom are orchestrated by Megatron remotely, Sari's father is totally unaware of this... mostly because he's a putz but he's also the second of three main human characters.
The third being the bumbling, technology hating police chief. As one might guess, in a city where technology is so prevalent - especially in the police force - he's something of a comic relief character, prone to a short fuse and slapstick comedy... although, occasionally effective at his job, or at least as effective as one can expect a meatbag to be against a race of hyper advanced alien space robots.
The effect of human characters and the lack of persistent Decepticon threat makes the show dynamic entirely different. G1 was essentially robots! Humans may have been there but they were along for the ride... Sari and a variety of rather less friendly homo sapiens prove to be far more in the driving seat in terms of plot. Sari driven by her inherent need for fun and mischief - the villains mostly by money and/or revenge. It allows for more variation than G1 and the introduction of characters has been far slower - it's only by the end of Megatron Rising Part 1 we have a full team of Decepticons... although, thus far the Decepticons have generally been shown to be far more powerful individually than the five Autobots.
Megatron and Starscream are very much unchanged from their original incarnations. Even though Megatron might be sans body, he's still the consummate schemer, planning and manipulating for his own ends - even if that is just a new body, mostly. Starscream remains the powerful, underhanded, backstabbing and opportunistic turncoat that everyone loves. Even if he's often sporting a cutesy sneer now, he's still quite menacing in his single mindedness to lead the Decipticons.
In terms of the Autobots... Prime is unrecognisable. He's a leader but not the confident, powerful one from G1... he's unsure of himself, dependent upon the advice of the rest of the team and hesitant... Not to mention angsty. Bumblebee is more hyperactive but in many ways, that's in keeping with the younger feel of the show... Ratchet is Kip, there's not much more to say.
As the constant references to G1 should illustrate... while the basic idea of robots that become vehicles is still there - the execution, structure and style are a world away and while the end is still to get children to buy the merchandise, they go about it in very different ways. While the G1 team would be happy to smash some Decepticons, let Spike think he'd helped and go home... Transformers Animated is more interested in plots and lessons. Not only that but the characters are substantially more human in all senses and humans play an infinitely bigger role - it makes it a far more relatable show...
People who cut their teeth on Megatron and Optimus Prime going toe to toe may well baulk at the changes but this is not attempting to be Transformers G1 any more than the live action film. If you watch it, not expecting G1 - you may be pleasantly surprised by some of it... if you're hoping for G1... you'll hate it unconditionally.
Anyway, as proof that Michael Bay failed in his mission to sink one of the most awesome franchise ever created to the briny deep - we have a new Transformers cartoon, Transformers Animated.
As seems to be the trend these days, all previous history of the show has been summarily disregarded and the only thing that has remained is the basic premise and a few of the core characters... well, actually - just the basic premise. Giant sentient robots from Cybertron come to Earth and defend it from the evil forces of... THE DECEPTICONS!
It's best not to talk about Transformers Animated in terms of the original (Generation 1 aka G1) cartoon because they're very different animals... Transformers Animated has a sexy teen Optimus Prime (well, a somewhat inexperienced and scrawny Optimus at least) along with Bumblebee (essentially a hyperactive 6 year old but still the noob of the group), Rachet (who is essentially Kup from G1), Bulkhead (the heavy hitting sensitive one) and Prowl (NINJA ROBOT!) stranded on Earth, protecting the All Spark.
The differences in design and style are big and owe more to Teen Titans and The Batman than G1. ALL the robots - although, more the Autobots - are far more humanised. Pretty much everyone has a face, is capable of gesticulating and body language and even the massive Bulkhead is still extremely human. This is a far cry from the huge, blocky, monolithic very robotic designs of G1 where few concessions were made in terms of anthropomorphism.
The Autobots don't just LOOK more human, they ACT more human. There is a lot of talk about emotions, friendship... They seem entirely capable of feeling pain and are far more prone to damage than their G1 counterparts ever were. In fact, few episodes have passed where damage hasn't been incurred upon our brave robot defenders... which brings us to the next point.
While in G1, humans were... at best, an after thought, in Transformers Animated - they're very much a part of the show. Hell, the Autobots are based IN Detroit. Ok, they're in an abandoned factory... but that beats G1 where they were out in the middle of nowhere, fighting Decepticons in the middle of nowhere and so on. No, the cityscape of Detroit is full of people. The most important of whom is Sari.
Sari gets a key charged by the Allspark - allowing it repair/heal the Autobots and do all manners of mischief to anything with a keyhole. Given the propensity of the Autobots to get totally schooled - this is a fairly skill and probably why they keep Sari around. She also helps acquaint the Autobots with Earth customs and her father happens to run a major robotics company - Detroit is now heavily automated by his robots, to the point where there are robotic police drones - the success of which is predicated upon... MEGATRON! Or rather, the disembodied head of Megatron.
Yes, another BIG difference is that there isn't a weekly smack down between the Autobots and Decepticons. In fact, at the start we don't really have any and even by the end of the first instalment we've only got four, I suppose five if we count Black Arachnia... which we shouldn't. So, instead of Megatron's weekly plan to get enough energon to TAKE OVER THE UNIVERSE, we have various villains of the week - some of whom are orchestrated by Megatron remotely, Sari's father is totally unaware of this... mostly because he's a putz but he's also the second of three main human characters.
The third being the bumbling, technology hating police chief. As one might guess, in a city where technology is so prevalent - especially in the police force - he's something of a comic relief character, prone to a short fuse and slapstick comedy... although, occasionally effective at his job, or at least as effective as one can expect a meatbag to be against a race of hyper advanced alien space robots.
The effect of human characters and the lack of persistent Decepticon threat makes the show dynamic entirely different. G1 was essentially robots! Humans may have been there but they were along for the ride... Sari and a variety of rather less friendly homo sapiens prove to be far more in the driving seat in terms of plot. Sari driven by her inherent need for fun and mischief - the villains mostly by money and/or revenge. It allows for more variation than G1 and the introduction of characters has been far slower - it's only by the end of Megatron Rising Part 1 we have a full team of Decepticons... although, thus far the Decepticons have generally been shown to be far more powerful individually than the five Autobots.
Megatron and Starscream are very much unchanged from their original incarnations. Even though Megatron might be sans body, he's still the consummate schemer, planning and manipulating for his own ends - even if that is just a new body, mostly. Starscream remains the powerful, underhanded, backstabbing and opportunistic turncoat that everyone loves. Even if he's often sporting a cutesy sneer now, he's still quite menacing in his single mindedness to lead the Decipticons.
In terms of the Autobots... Prime is unrecognisable. He's a leader but not the confident, powerful one from G1... he's unsure of himself, dependent upon the advice of the rest of the team and hesitant... Not to mention angsty. Bumblebee is more hyperactive but in many ways, that's in keeping with the younger feel of the show... Ratchet is Kip, there's not much more to say.
As the constant references to G1 should illustrate... while the basic idea of robots that become vehicles is still there - the execution, structure and style are a world away and while the end is still to get children to buy the merchandise, they go about it in very different ways. While the G1 team would be happy to smash some Decepticons, let Spike think he'd helped and go home... Transformers Animated is more interested in plots and lessons. Not only that but the characters are substantially more human in all senses and humans play an infinitely bigger role - it makes it a far more relatable show...
People who cut their teeth on Megatron and Optimus Prime going toe to toe may well baulk at the changes but this is not attempting to be Transformers G1 any more than the live action film. If you watch it, not expecting G1 - you may be pleasantly surprised by some of it... if you're hoping for G1... you'll hate it unconditionally.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Bye Bye Bionic Woman.
After a - by US standards - poultry 8 episodes, the remake of the 70s show is now merely (allegedly) awaiting the official confirmation of its cancellation.
Some might blame the poor timing of the writers' strike but that seems likely to only be an aggravating, rather than causal factor. The simple fact of the matter is that the show was weak, derivative and rather prosaic.
Ever since Buffy and Xena popularised the idea of ass kicking wise ass heroines, we've had a slew of them on our screens. Bionic Woman just goes to show that you can't simply cross your fingers and hope that it'll magically work... and it's very easy to see the similarities to Buffy here. Girl living an ordinary life, gets abilities, has to start fighting bad guys... except of course, whereas Joss Whedon had a rather well articulated metaphor of High School literally being Hell, Bionic Woman went for the rather more tedious Alias angle... fitting that spying in with class, home life and of course, romantic dalliances. At least we didn't have to suffer any Bionic wigs...
It's simply somewhat tedious that there seems to be a compulsion to portray strong women as capable of doing so many roles, so flawlessly that they're essentially perfect and hence, rather shallow and uninteresting characters. Our Bionic Woman is pretty much capable of - on any given day - keeping her somewhat rowdy sister in line and fulfilling her role of surrogate mother, doing an A-grade paper and of course, smashing whatever evil criminal/terrorist gang there is out there and probably managing to flirt with some preternaturally handsome romantic interest too. Women are supposedly better at multi-tasking but that might be pushing it - still, at least she was more likeable than agent Sydney Bristo.
In truth, the ease with which parallels can be drawn to other female led shows the inherent problem with Bionic Woman. It was very much paint by numbers - specifically other people's numbers. Beyond her superhuman abilities - and these days, that's not exactly a unique selling point - there wasn't much to recommend it. The mish-mash of elements never really allowed anything to shine through. There's action but it's not awe inspiring, there's drama but it's not going to knock your socks off, there's humour but it's fairly bland.
Bland, prosaic, mediocre... all apt words to describe the show. It's an inoffensive way to pass the time but so much so that you may find yourself unable to really recall WHAT exactly happened... Oh, there were probably some terrorists in there... something about a bomb but details will be dim. Really, the best thing about the show was Starbuck being the "evil" Bionic Woman and her roll was rather transitory. All in all, the show is - or was - a perfect storm of bland and it's cancellation should not be mourned.
After a - by US standards - poultry 8 episodes, the remake of the 70s show is now merely (allegedly) awaiting the official confirmation of its cancellation.
Some might blame the poor timing of the writers' strike but that seems likely to only be an aggravating, rather than causal factor. The simple fact of the matter is that the show was weak, derivative and rather prosaic.
Ever since Buffy and Xena popularised the idea of ass kicking wise ass heroines, we've had a slew of them on our screens. Bionic Woman just goes to show that you can't simply cross your fingers and hope that it'll magically work... and it's very easy to see the similarities to Buffy here. Girl living an ordinary life, gets abilities, has to start fighting bad guys... except of course, whereas Joss Whedon had a rather well articulated metaphor of High School literally being Hell, Bionic Woman went for the rather more tedious Alias angle... fitting that spying in with class, home life and of course, romantic dalliances. At least we didn't have to suffer any Bionic wigs...
It's simply somewhat tedious that there seems to be a compulsion to portray strong women as capable of doing so many roles, so flawlessly that they're essentially perfect and hence, rather shallow and uninteresting characters. Our Bionic Woman is pretty much capable of - on any given day - keeping her somewhat rowdy sister in line and fulfilling her role of surrogate mother, doing an A-grade paper and of course, smashing whatever evil criminal/terrorist gang there is out there and probably managing to flirt with some preternaturally handsome romantic interest too. Women are supposedly better at multi-tasking but that might be pushing it - still, at least she was more likeable than agent Sydney Bristo.
In truth, the ease with which parallels can be drawn to other female led shows the inherent problem with Bionic Woman. It was very much paint by numbers - specifically other people's numbers. Beyond her superhuman abilities - and these days, that's not exactly a unique selling point - there wasn't much to recommend it. The mish-mash of elements never really allowed anything to shine through. There's action but it's not awe inspiring, there's drama but it's not going to knock your socks off, there's humour but it's fairly bland.
Bland, prosaic, mediocre... all apt words to describe the show. It's an inoffensive way to pass the time but so much so that you may find yourself unable to really recall WHAT exactly happened... Oh, there were probably some terrorists in there... something about a bomb but details will be dim. Really, the best thing about the show was Starbuck being the "evil" Bionic Woman and her roll was rather transitory. All in all, the show is - or was - a perfect storm of bland and it's cancellation should not be mourned.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
While SG-1 may have - thankfully - been put out to pasture and shot repeatedly in the head, it's legacy lives on in a series of straight to DVD releases. Never stop milking a cash cow until it's dead.
Naturally, the last season of SG-1 ended on a bit of a "meh"... with plenty of loose ends and no real resolutions to the current problems the Milky Way faced at the hands of the Ori. Enter - THE ARK OF TRUTH to give us some kind of closure on the whole thing.
Despite having managed to follow the paint by numbers instructions on their deus ex Ascended being killing plot device 4000, the Ori's followers are still going around the galaxy with more zeal than a televangelist and a LOT more fire power.
Where one deus ex plot device failed... another will surely succeed. Enter the Ark of Truth. SG-1 are -naturally - the only people in the entire universe to be entrusted with finding it and hence we start with them, looking... when they bump into Erin's old boyfriend. After some jiggery pokery, they manage to get him to join them and they head back to SGC for cakes and rigorous interrogation by the new IOA douche.
For those who don't know or have forgotten the IOA are the latest in a series of governmental/bureaucratic foils for the brave, anti-paperwork SG-1 heroes... there have been many variations on the theme but essentially they're always meddling for nefarious purposes or just plain stupid. Robert Picardo's petty bureaucrat pales in comparison to the aggressively asinine behaviour of the new boy.
As it goes, the SG-1 team have to take him along as they look for the Ark and the friction between him and Mitchell couldn't have been more by the numbers if it tried. It's been pretty much the same with all the douchebag bureaucrats. Anyway, he's along for the ride and as it turns out after things finally get going... he decides to sabotage his own side by... DUN DUN DUN! Unleashing Replicators. Yeah. Fan favourites.
To be honest, it takes some of the impact out of defeating probably the greatest enemy the SGC EVER faced to just be able to recreate them... and to be honest, you have to question the wisdom of using them to defeat the Ori... Yes. They probably could take down the Ori... but the Replicators aren't really interested in one galaxy. They'd probably prefer to take all galaxies and given their original appearance, it seems likely that after overtaking the Odyssey they'd not hesitate to come to the Milky Way - again. So, in the long sad history of bad ideas... it seems to be another very big one.
On the plus side, at least these are ACTUAL diabolic mechano and not the rubbish T1000 ripoff human form replicators that low budgets have subjected us to in recent years. Nope, these are bonafide evil mechano spider things. Which is for the best. When Replicators became people, it made them tedious. Their whole schtick was that they were faceless and inhuman... Of course, in what amounts to poetic justice IOA douche gets mauled and taken over by Replicators... It's actually fairly stupid. Robozombie.
While this Replicator related fun is transpiring, Daniel, Teal'c et al are searching for their much needed insta-win device on the Ori's home planet. The lone Replicator has been true to its name and there are plenty of them... Quite why they didn't chase after it when the ARG failed isn't elaborated upon. Idiocy seems the likely answer... Anyway, the Ori show up as part of IOA's diabolical plan to use the Replicators to take the Ori out, so the ship skedaddles.
It's around this point that you'll notice it's taken 40 minutes for stuff to actually happen... regardless, it's with incredible ease that Daniel et al find the Ark of Truth. They pretty much waltz in, pick it up and then get captured... except Teal'C, who gets left for dead. Despite the pivotal importance of what happens on Celestus... it feels pretty much like an after thought to the action on the Daedulus.
Which isn't a bad thing... Replicators have always been a fun enemy. The SGC personnel pulling out their shotguns and pumping out hundreds of rounds of ammo - it should be noted that there is actually a scene where Mitchell RUNS OUT OF AMMO! Possibly for the first time in Stargate history. Fully automatic P90s can fire 900 rounds a minute and have a clip of 50 bullets... why it choose this moment to stop having an infinite amount of ammo... we may never know. Also, watch out for the most unnecessary and gratuitous use of profanity since the Transformers Movie.
So, ignoring the somewhat tedious Celestus events... The Daedulus is being taken over by Replicators, they're resistant to the Anti-Replicator Guns but there's a shut-off code. Of course, as it happens the person who knows where the shutoff code is, is the IOA type... who has now become ROBO-IOA HUMAN-REPLICATOR THING! It looks fairly stupid and the notion of Replicators being able to integrate into a person like that to extract knowledge is even more so. Robo-Douche starts beating Mitchell up... I can't blame him. As you may expect, a guy full of metal isn't really phased by getting shot or punched. Or even - as it turns out - getting exploded. Fortunately though, unplugging the Mechano from his brain lets him tell Mitchell that the plot device to deactivate the Replicators is on the back of the crystal. After getting beaten up a little more he manages to tell her this and then blows up the queen Replicator and gets TOSSED from the room.
Someone had clearly been watching Terminator because the explosion leaves a big Replicator style Terminator endoskeleton rip off leering at Mitchell and random soldiers shoot at the innumerable normal Replicators - but then, Sam finds the off switch! The Replicators all fall to pieces. Which just leaves the Ori ships surrounding them, happily firing away.
Probably best to elaborate upon the fact that Daniel has escaped captivity and has had a tete a tete with Morgan Le Faye, the Ancient who has made their journey ridiculously easy... Of course, this is when find that Adria has Ascended and has taken the God complex to its logical extreme. Fortunately, the Ark of Truth is sitting on an unstable table and while laughably distracted, Daniel works out how to switch it on, a Prior comes in and Teal'C shoots the Ark so it falls and the Prior - literally - sees the light. If it sounds contrived, it's because it is. Then - because it's an insta-win plot device - everything is ok!
There's a little time to wrap up but that's about it...
All in all, it feels rather rushed. In fact, it feels as if you've dropped into the middle of things. Given that it takes a long time for the action to get under way, this is probably a blessing in disguise but the action isn't particularly amazing - especially for a movie, even a straight to DVD one. There have actually been more action packed, special effects laden episodes... namely the original appearance of the Replicators... this feels rather cobbled together. The use of Replicators proof - if needed - that the SG-1 vehicle has been tapped dry of ideas. The introduction of an IOA douche seems unnecessary - he has literally no chance for character development before he's locked away and Replicatorised. It seems there had to be someone else they could have used that had some history and despite the fact the IOA are consistently depicted as bureaucratic idiots, this one takes the biscuit. It feels as if they wanted to wrap up the ill advised Ori arc but didn't really know what to do, so they just contrived another deus ex plot device - Stargate is pretty much littered with them, really - stuck in some mandatory action and had it all wrap up in the obligatory 90 minutes.
It feels as if all of this could have been done just as well in an episode - which somewhat highlights the obvious point of this DVD. Money... Which isn't surprising but it doesn't offer the impact that has been achieved in the series. There was little real tension here, no characters were in danger of being developed and no special effects risked awesomeness when they could stick to tried and tested. In short, it's a disappointment. It doesn't have much of a plot to speak of and the action - while putting B5's rather dreary Lost Tales to shame - is nothing the numerous Replicator episodes haven't done before... often better. In fact, it feels as though some of those episodes were gutted and then copied and pasted to fill the immense holes in plot and pacing here.
It's a small mercy that we weren't subjected to the irritation of budget pleasing human form Replicators but really, that's the only good thing you can say about this effort. It's got the A to B to C style plot feel of The Matrix: Reloaded... Earth is threatened but nothing much happens about it. There was a great chance for another great big guns blazing Earth defence battle like they had when Anubis got around to attacking Earth... but no, the Ori sit on their hands for no discernible reason, giving the magical win device time to do it's thing and for Adria to be banished or whatever.
It just feels flat. There's conflict... but it feels so by the numbers... or that you might just have accidentally put a regular episode in... surely this kind of project - which will rake in the dough -should be giving the viewer more bang for their buck? There really isn't a huge amount of that. It simply lacks any real punch. Yes, it's more Stargate but really, after 10 years - we've had enough.
Naturally, the last season of SG-1 ended on a bit of a "meh"... with plenty of loose ends and no real resolutions to the current problems the Milky Way faced at the hands of the Ori. Enter - THE ARK OF TRUTH to give us some kind of closure on the whole thing.
Despite having managed to follow the paint by numbers instructions on their deus ex Ascended being killing plot device 4000, the Ori's followers are still going around the galaxy with more zeal than a televangelist and a LOT more fire power.
Where one deus ex plot device failed... another will surely succeed. Enter the Ark of Truth. SG-1 are -naturally - the only people in the entire universe to be entrusted with finding it and hence we start with them, looking... when they bump into Erin's old boyfriend. After some jiggery pokery, they manage to get him to join them and they head back to SGC for cakes and rigorous interrogation by the new IOA douche.
For those who don't know or have forgotten the IOA are the latest in a series of governmental/bureaucratic foils for the brave, anti-paperwork SG-1 heroes... there have been many variations on the theme but essentially they're always meddling for nefarious purposes or just plain stupid. Robert Picardo's petty bureaucrat pales in comparison to the aggressively asinine behaviour of the new boy.
As it goes, the SG-1 team have to take him along as they look for the Ark and the friction between him and Mitchell couldn't have been more by the numbers if it tried. It's been pretty much the same with all the douchebag bureaucrats. Anyway, he's along for the ride and as it turns out after things finally get going... he decides to sabotage his own side by... DUN DUN DUN! Unleashing Replicators. Yeah. Fan favourites.
To be honest, it takes some of the impact out of defeating probably the greatest enemy the SGC EVER faced to just be able to recreate them... and to be honest, you have to question the wisdom of using them to defeat the Ori... Yes. They probably could take down the Ori... but the Replicators aren't really interested in one galaxy. They'd probably prefer to take all galaxies and given their original appearance, it seems likely that after overtaking the Odyssey they'd not hesitate to come to the Milky Way - again. So, in the long sad history of bad ideas... it seems to be another very big one.
On the plus side, at least these are ACTUAL diabolic mechano and not the rubbish T1000 ripoff human form replicators that low budgets have subjected us to in recent years. Nope, these are bonafide evil mechano spider things. Which is for the best. When Replicators became people, it made them tedious. Their whole schtick was that they were faceless and inhuman... Of course, in what amounts to poetic justice IOA douche gets mauled and taken over by Replicators... It's actually fairly stupid. Robozombie.
While this Replicator related fun is transpiring, Daniel, Teal'c et al are searching for their much needed insta-win device on the Ori's home planet. The lone Replicator has been true to its name and there are plenty of them... Quite why they didn't chase after it when the ARG failed isn't elaborated upon. Idiocy seems the likely answer... Anyway, the Ori show up as part of IOA's diabolical plan to use the Replicators to take the Ori out, so the ship skedaddles.
It's around this point that you'll notice it's taken 40 minutes for stuff to actually happen... regardless, it's with incredible ease that Daniel et al find the Ark of Truth. They pretty much waltz in, pick it up and then get captured... except Teal'C, who gets left for dead. Despite the pivotal importance of what happens on Celestus... it feels pretty much like an after thought to the action on the Daedulus.
Which isn't a bad thing... Replicators have always been a fun enemy. The SGC personnel pulling out their shotguns and pumping out hundreds of rounds of ammo - it should be noted that there is actually a scene where Mitchell RUNS OUT OF AMMO! Possibly for the first time in Stargate history. Fully automatic P90s can fire 900 rounds a minute and have a clip of 50 bullets... why it choose this moment to stop having an infinite amount of ammo... we may never know. Also, watch out for the most unnecessary and gratuitous use of profanity since the Transformers Movie.
So, ignoring the somewhat tedious Celestus events... The Daedulus is being taken over by Replicators, they're resistant to the Anti-Replicator Guns but there's a shut-off code. Of course, as it happens the person who knows where the shutoff code is, is the IOA type... who has now become ROBO-IOA HUMAN-REPLICATOR THING! It looks fairly stupid and the notion of Replicators being able to integrate into a person like that to extract knowledge is even more so. Robo-Douche starts beating Mitchell up... I can't blame him. As you may expect, a guy full of metal isn't really phased by getting shot or punched. Or even - as it turns out - getting exploded. Fortunately though, unplugging the Mechano from his brain lets him tell Mitchell that the plot device to deactivate the Replicators is on the back of the crystal. After getting beaten up a little more he manages to tell her this and then blows up the queen Replicator and gets TOSSED from the room.
Someone had clearly been watching Terminator because the explosion leaves a big Replicator style Terminator endoskeleton rip off leering at Mitchell and random soldiers shoot at the innumerable normal Replicators - but then, Sam finds the off switch! The Replicators all fall to pieces. Which just leaves the Ori ships surrounding them, happily firing away.
Probably best to elaborate upon the fact that Daniel has escaped captivity and has had a tete a tete with Morgan Le Faye, the Ancient who has made their journey ridiculously easy... Of course, this is when find that Adria has Ascended and has taken the God complex to its logical extreme. Fortunately, the Ark of Truth is sitting on an unstable table and while laughably distracted, Daniel works out how to switch it on, a Prior comes in and Teal'C shoots the Ark so it falls and the Prior - literally - sees the light. If it sounds contrived, it's because it is. Then - because it's an insta-win plot device - everything is ok!
There's a little time to wrap up but that's about it...
All in all, it feels rather rushed. In fact, it feels as if you've dropped into the middle of things. Given that it takes a long time for the action to get under way, this is probably a blessing in disguise but the action isn't particularly amazing - especially for a movie, even a straight to DVD one. There have actually been more action packed, special effects laden episodes... namely the original appearance of the Replicators... this feels rather cobbled together. The use of Replicators proof - if needed - that the SG-1 vehicle has been tapped dry of ideas. The introduction of an IOA douche seems unnecessary - he has literally no chance for character development before he's locked away and Replicatorised. It seems there had to be someone else they could have used that had some history and despite the fact the IOA are consistently depicted as bureaucratic idiots, this one takes the biscuit. It feels as if they wanted to wrap up the ill advised Ori arc but didn't really know what to do, so they just contrived another deus ex plot device - Stargate is pretty much littered with them, really - stuck in some mandatory action and had it all wrap up in the obligatory 90 minutes.
It feels as if all of this could have been done just as well in an episode - which somewhat highlights the obvious point of this DVD. Money... Which isn't surprising but it doesn't offer the impact that has been achieved in the series. There was little real tension here, no characters were in danger of being developed and no special effects risked awesomeness when they could stick to tried and tested. In short, it's a disappointment. It doesn't have much of a plot to speak of and the action - while putting B5's rather dreary Lost Tales to shame - is nothing the numerous Replicator episodes haven't done before... often better. In fact, it feels as though some of those episodes were gutted and then copied and pasted to fill the immense holes in plot and pacing here.
It's a small mercy that we weren't subjected to the irritation of budget pleasing human form Replicators but really, that's the only good thing you can say about this effort. It's got the A to B to C style plot feel of The Matrix: Reloaded... Earth is threatened but nothing much happens about it. There was a great chance for another great big guns blazing Earth defence battle like they had when Anubis got around to attacking Earth... but no, the Ori sit on their hands for no discernible reason, giving the magical win device time to do it's thing and for Adria to be banished or whatever.
It just feels flat. There's conflict... but it feels so by the numbers... or that you might just have accidentally put a regular episode in... surely this kind of project - which will rake in the dough -should be giving the viewer more bang for their buck? There really isn't a huge amount of that. It simply lacks any real punch. Yes, it's more Stargate but really, after 10 years - we've had enough.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
After a mere 9 episodes, the first season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, has concluded.
It's been a tradition, especially in recent years, to end on a bang. To make sure that people are on the edge of their seats for the next few months until the show returns to the air... logically a show that involves a small group of people, fighting to stop robots from the future killing them/creating a computer that will precipitate a nuclear war that kills billions and then round up the survivors for summary execution - that should involve one helluva bang, right?
There was no bang... barely even a fizzle. Quite what the point of having the two episodes together was is unclear as well... perhaps as a fiddle for ratings because they seemed no more related than any of the other episodes. In any event those expecting a return to the action packed, tense and compelling action and drama of the pilot, you can forget it. That seems to be a momet that will never be remembered.
Not that the final episode doesn't tease you with the prospect of some action... but when said action occurs, it's witnessed indirectly... in an artsy style. It merely serves to show how weak the link between Cameron's films and this TV series is. Time and again, this show has tried to replace action with tension... it goes without saying that an excess of action can become tedious... and hence, there is a need for the tension, the suspense or simply the waiting in between... but then, at the opposite end of the scale... there's the excess of tension. Sarah Connor Chronicles doesn't even do that well... there's this tension, between almost all the characters... but it's not building or changing... it's just there.
The pilot set a bar for the show, a high bar. There was action, drama, explosions and tension... all nicely knitted together. The change of pace for the rest of series was like hitting a brick wall in a jet fighter. There are clearly numerous issues with the format that weren't considered... mostly, what do you do with a TV budget to imitate a franchise well known for its action set pieces... the answers is just hope people forget that part.
The lack of action might have been forgiveable... but... the core cast was... at best unengaging and at worst, irritating. Sarah was easily the most irritating. For someone who is supposed to be teach her son how to save humanity, she's really doing a lot of mollycoddling and teaching him how to be a pussy.
The Summernator - aka Summer Glau... it's hard to tell whether the girl has a pathological inability to act or whether her stint on Firefly made her a prettier, blander Buffy. While she is quite frankly preferable to Sarah Michelle Gellar - that's a lot like saying it's better to slam your hand in a door, rather than having poured boiling water on it. Clearly, at some point someone thought "it would be great if we could get her to do the unintentional humour again!" but then didn't bother getting people with the comic skills to do it... Not to mention the fact that her personality in the first episode is apparently turned off in the rest of the show. Shows of her trying to be "more human" are so prosaic, hackneyed and utterly cliché in all honesty, they'd have achieved better results sticking her face over Data's in scenes from TNG.
And of course, the "great" John Connor. It's somewhat hard to believe a whinging, momma's boy will lead humanity. Terminator 3 may not really have made him seem much better but at least he wasn't on his mother's apron strings. The John Connor of T2 was computer savvy, had attitude, leadership... you could see the emergent qualities of a leader in him... with Chronicles John... he's just another teen... WHY IS HE AT SCHOOL!?
His mother is over protective of him, to the nth degree... and yet, she puts him into school? Why? Is that going to help in the war against the machines? Somehow it seems unlikely that even LA will have classes on how to wage guerilla warfare against a numerically and technologically superior enemy. Anyway, while it might be an "ordinary" life... it seems like a strange move as it's clearly putting him in a fairly exposed environment.
Although, his mother acts - by and large - erratically. She wants to destroy Skynet before it's created but, oh - John, off you go to school! There seems to be an inherent conflict between preparing your son to be the saviour of humanity and trying to let him have a normal life... much as there is an obvious clash of interests between her deranged maternal instincts and constantly taking him out on dangerous missions.
The only interesting or likeable character is the hapless FBI agent who is following in the footsteps of the Connors. It's interesting to see how he finds the clues and starts to piece together the truth of Sarah's life. Not that he likes what he finds... Which makes it all the more interesting.
To another, more technical aspect... Perhaps one of the most iconic aspects of Terminator was the Terminator's eye view. The red tinged perspective, scrolling data, analysis... it portrayed the cold, calculating nature of the machine that walked as man. So... to show a Terminator's perspective without it? It's beyond lazy... it just removes that feeling and the way it was used felt like lazy storytelling and a betrayal of something so intimately associated with the film franchise.
The final episode - as mentioned, unrelated to the penultimate - sees the Connor crew finally get their hands on a meaningful lead on that pesky machine, The Turk. To be honest, the Turk subplot has been pretty dull since Andy died... and Sarah's mourning over him is beginning to grate and obviously, we're going to have to endure more of it as the Turk is still MIA.
The other aspect is our FBI friend tracking down the Cromartie... final score, FBI 0 - Robot from the Future 12. Of course, we see literally NO action. Just people getting tossed into the pool. Just typical of the anti-climactic nature of the show thus far and in truth, if you can't go out on a bang people's interest will wane as quickly as the ratings of this show.
It's been a tradition, especially in recent years, to end on a bang. To make sure that people are on the edge of their seats for the next few months until the show returns to the air... logically a show that involves a small group of people, fighting to stop robots from the future killing them/creating a computer that will precipitate a nuclear war that kills billions and then round up the survivors for summary execution - that should involve one helluva bang, right?
There was no bang... barely even a fizzle. Quite what the point of having the two episodes together was is unclear as well... perhaps as a fiddle for ratings because they seemed no more related than any of the other episodes. In any event those expecting a return to the action packed, tense and compelling action and drama of the pilot, you can forget it. That seems to be a momet that will never be remembered.
Not that the final episode doesn't tease you with the prospect of some action... but when said action occurs, it's witnessed indirectly... in an artsy style. It merely serves to show how weak the link between Cameron's films and this TV series is. Time and again, this show has tried to replace action with tension... it goes without saying that an excess of action can become tedious... and hence, there is a need for the tension, the suspense or simply the waiting in between... but then, at the opposite end of the scale... there's the excess of tension. Sarah Connor Chronicles doesn't even do that well... there's this tension, between almost all the characters... but it's not building or changing... it's just there.
The pilot set a bar for the show, a high bar. There was action, drama, explosions and tension... all nicely knitted together. The change of pace for the rest of series was like hitting a brick wall in a jet fighter. There are clearly numerous issues with the format that weren't considered... mostly, what do you do with a TV budget to imitate a franchise well known for its action set pieces... the answers is just hope people forget that part.
The lack of action might have been forgiveable... but... the core cast was... at best unengaging and at worst, irritating. Sarah was easily the most irritating. For someone who is supposed to be teach her son how to save humanity, she's really doing a lot of mollycoddling and teaching him how to be a pussy.
The Summernator - aka Summer Glau... it's hard to tell whether the girl has a pathological inability to act or whether her stint on Firefly made her a prettier, blander Buffy. While she is quite frankly preferable to Sarah Michelle Gellar - that's a lot like saying it's better to slam your hand in a door, rather than having poured boiling water on it. Clearly, at some point someone thought "it would be great if we could get her to do the unintentional humour again!" but then didn't bother getting people with the comic skills to do it... Not to mention the fact that her personality in the first episode is apparently turned off in the rest of the show. Shows of her trying to be "more human" are so prosaic, hackneyed and utterly cliché in all honesty, they'd have achieved better results sticking her face over Data's in scenes from TNG.
And of course, the "great" John Connor. It's somewhat hard to believe a whinging, momma's boy will lead humanity. Terminator 3 may not really have made him seem much better but at least he wasn't on his mother's apron strings. The John Connor of T2 was computer savvy, had attitude, leadership... you could see the emergent qualities of a leader in him... with Chronicles John... he's just another teen... WHY IS HE AT SCHOOL!?
His mother is over protective of him, to the nth degree... and yet, she puts him into school? Why? Is that going to help in the war against the machines? Somehow it seems unlikely that even LA will have classes on how to wage guerilla warfare against a numerically and technologically superior enemy. Anyway, while it might be an "ordinary" life... it seems like a strange move as it's clearly putting him in a fairly exposed environment.
Although, his mother acts - by and large - erratically. She wants to destroy Skynet before it's created but, oh - John, off you go to school! There seems to be an inherent conflict between preparing your son to be the saviour of humanity and trying to let him have a normal life... much as there is an obvious clash of interests between her deranged maternal instincts and constantly taking him out on dangerous missions.
The only interesting or likeable character is the hapless FBI agent who is following in the footsteps of the Connors. It's interesting to see how he finds the clues and starts to piece together the truth of Sarah's life. Not that he likes what he finds... Which makes it all the more interesting.
To another, more technical aspect... Perhaps one of the most iconic aspects of Terminator was the Terminator's eye view. The red tinged perspective, scrolling data, analysis... it portrayed the cold, calculating nature of the machine that walked as man. So... to show a Terminator's perspective without it? It's beyond lazy... it just removes that feeling and the way it was used felt like lazy storytelling and a betrayal of something so intimately associated with the film franchise.
The final episode - as mentioned, unrelated to the penultimate - sees the Connor crew finally get their hands on a meaningful lead on that pesky machine, The Turk. To be honest, the Turk subplot has been pretty dull since Andy died... and Sarah's mourning over him is beginning to grate and obviously, we're going to have to endure more of it as the Turk is still MIA.
The other aspect is our FBI friend tracking down the Cromartie... final score, FBI 0 - Robot from the Future 12. Of course, we see literally NO action. Just people getting tossed into the pool. Just typical of the anti-climactic nature of the show thus far and in truth, if you can't go out on a bang people's interest will wane as quickly as the ratings of this show.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
HD-DVD is dead... long live Bluray.
While it's certain that Toshiba will knock out HD-DVD players, in just a few weeks the fortunes of the rival formats have removed all ambiguity. Many "technical experts" RUSHED to state the bleedin' obvious... wait for it! Every PS3 sold had a bluray player in it!
Gasp. Really? Many men have achieved the rank of Grand Admiral Obvious today.
In all honesty, that was always going to be a tipping factor... while the PS3 might have had slovenly sales compared to the X-box 360 and the immensely popular Wii - it had still managed to sell (as of January 1st, 2008) 10.5 million. So, even though HD-DVD had several studios on it's side and it managed to sell over 2 million players (roughly half were standalone players, others add-ons for existing products)... it was still in a whole other ballpark to Bluray.
Given that Sony has had more than one setback in trying to pioneer a new format, it made sense that they'd win this one... While the PS3 will likely struggle to make up the lost ground that the Wii's hugely broad appeal affords it or the head start the 360 got... it has certainly given Sony the last laugh in this pointless, costly and totally avoidable format war... Still, at least the sudden shift by studios has precipitated a quicker end than many had predicted... ultimately, format wars hurt everyone - the industry and the consumer.
While it's certain that Toshiba will knock out HD-DVD players, in just a few weeks the fortunes of the rival formats have removed all ambiguity. Many "technical experts" RUSHED to state the bleedin' obvious... wait for it! Every PS3 sold had a bluray player in it!
Gasp. Really? Many men have achieved the rank of Grand Admiral Obvious today.
In all honesty, that was always going to be a tipping factor... while the PS3 might have had slovenly sales compared to the X-box 360 and the immensely popular Wii - it had still managed to sell (as of January 1st, 2008) 10.5 million. So, even though HD-DVD had several studios on it's side and it managed to sell over 2 million players (roughly half were standalone players, others add-ons for existing products)... it was still in a whole other ballpark to Bluray.
Given that Sony has had more than one setback in trying to pioneer a new format, it made sense that they'd win this one... While the PS3 will likely struggle to make up the lost ground that the Wii's hugely broad appeal affords it or the head start the 360 got... it has certainly given Sony the last laugh in this pointless, costly and totally avoidable format war... Still, at least the sudden shift by studios has precipitated a quicker end than many had predicted... ultimately, format wars hurt everyone - the industry and the consumer.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Since sometime around the release of Star Wars: Episode 2: Attack Of Further Merchandising, there have been rumours and murmurs of a Star Wars live action TV show... apparently slated for 2009 but clearly not content to wait that long before mugging Star Wars fans - or as some of them like to think of themselves George's piggy bank - there is to be an animated (CGI, naturally) film covering the Clone Wars.
If you're reading that and thinking "that sounds familiar...", it's because it is. The Clone Wars was covered in some depth by the eponymous cartoon - from the chaps that brought us Samurai Jack - and was in fact almost as good as the prequels were bad. Of course, surely this begs the question... why rehash this already trodden ground. As with anything Hollywood - the reason for repetition is always the same - tried and tested = cash in the bank.
In fact, this couldn't be any more of a perfect storm of bankable cash cow if you injected pound coins into a bovine fetus.
Firstly, it's Star Wars... and if you stick that name on something, it'll pull in a few million punters straight off the bat - after all, people were still turning up to Revenge Of The Sith, despite the fact all evidence was... it would suck.
Secondly - it's CGI... Every kid's film for years has been CGI... so, hitting the family demographic again. Not to mention that action, explosions and so on that would be budget busting in a live action film are - while still time consuming - far more cost effective... Which means you get more of 'em.
Thirdly - it's pretty obviously going to be a rehash of - or at least, take several elements from - the immensely popular and critically acclaimed Clone Wars cartoon.
On the bright side, the fact it's derivative of an excellent piece of work where General Grievous doesn't sound like an asthmatic French kiddie fiddler means that there's no particular need to worry about excessive ham fisted dialogue... best to just hope for lots of action and Jedi japery. Perhaps it can instil some confidence in the somewhat resentful and cynical Star Wars fanbase...
If you're reading that and thinking "that sounds familiar...", it's because it is. The Clone Wars was covered in some depth by the eponymous cartoon - from the chaps that brought us Samurai Jack - and was in fact almost as good as the prequels were bad. Of course, surely this begs the question... why rehash this already trodden ground. As with anything Hollywood - the reason for repetition is always the same - tried and tested = cash in the bank.
In fact, this couldn't be any more of a perfect storm of bankable cash cow if you injected pound coins into a bovine fetus.
Firstly, it's Star Wars... and if you stick that name on something, it'll pull in a few million punters straight off the bat - after all, people were still turning up to Revenge Of The Sith, despite the fact all evidence was... it would suck.
Secondly - it's CGI... Every kid's film for years has been CGI... so, hitting the family demographic again. Not to mention that action, explosions and so on that would be budget busting in a live action film are - while still time consuming - far more cost effective... Which means you get more of 'em.
Thirdly - it's pretty obviously going to be a rehash of - or at least, take several elements from - the immensely popular and critically acclaimed Clone Wars cartoon.
On the bright side, the fact it's derivative of an excellent piece of work where General Grievous doesn't sound like an asthmatic French kiddie fiddler means that there's no particular need to worry about excessive ham fisted dialogue... best to just hope for lots of action and Jedi japery. Perhaps it can instil some confidence in the somewhat resentful and cynical Star Wars fanbase...
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