Asgard's being Reformatted, he's needed it for awhile. I look to it as an adventure, since I intentionally elected not to save any of my bookmarks, the grand search will be on to resurrect what I have put behind me, especially the array of webcomics. I think I'll switch over to a David-paradigm system for them, but more on that later.
X-Box is still the least reliable system on the console market. Microsoft truly are pros at the having things lock up on my, grats guys, grats (not!). But more on that later as well.
Finished reading Real Life's first book. I'm not an especially large Real Life fan, but I do like comic commentary, nice to see the thought that goes into things. Partially Clips does a really nice job with commentary.
Woo. 9 days until Atelier Iris which I think I've convinced myself to buy despite what I think might be a very contrived merging of systems. And one month to Makai Kingdom, I don't think I can bring myself to not call it Phantom Kingdom though. Well, hopefully those two will tide me long enough for a game with real graphics (I love NIS's art, simplicity and all, but the point stands) to come about (Read, I need KH2 to come out, that's the goal).
Only Jiaz would really even come to understand this, but a mere 11 days until Erementar Gerad is released in Japan...frightening.
More later, sleep now.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
I'm around...
...just very very busy. Summer school is just full of scholastic goodness. I'll get content to places when the time rolls around. Until then. Well, I've got nothing, go read a webcomic or something.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Lucas has failed me.
I was originally planning to talk over several topics of the weekend. Namely X-2 (the movie), but I've blogged that in the past, and my feelings are pretty much the same as before: interesting storyline that is independant of the comics yet preserves the feelings of all the characters with festive extras, Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap (Man oh man is this game cute, and it's different. No Bow/Boomerag/Bombs/etc. from the first dungeon, I got a Suck Jar ... how fitting), Mercenaries (It seems that LucasArts LTD doesn't suck quite as much as LucasFilms LTD, but this one is far from perfect as well), but all those are minor points not worth taking from vital sleeping time when set aside Episode 3.
So, I saw Episode 3 today. Relative to everything I had heard before I saw it, I have to say that Lucas's film is decidedly heavy-handed in favor of males (Padme is the only one with any lines) and it does do a good job of setting up the next 3 movies (though I have some issues, those will be addressed later) but what David says rings truest. There is more time spent in the movie that is set to music than there is to dialog or combat.
The opening is alright. There's mere 3 paragraphs of text at the episode opening, which feels alot smaller than usual (didn't bother to compare it to the previous ones) and the space fight is alot smaller of a scale than I would have liked. We focus almost entirely on the two Type-zero (I call all the base model's Type-zeroes, though I'm sure some nerd can tell me their official name) A-Wing's piloted by our two main Jedi. Certainly there are explosions and other things around them, but primarily they are the focus and it's really a wasted time that could be spent better in grand-scale combat / eye-candy rather than a show of whatever extra kinds of droids they could pull out (Vulture Droids, those little gremlin droid things). The Type-zero X-Wings were nice to see, as were most of the other familiar ships involved in the brief moments of the fight.
I won't go moment by moment here, mostly because I don't really recall everything and I'm certain I'd overlook something, so I'll speak in generalities regarding the movie and it's characters.
The movie in general plays the art card way too heavily. Too often I found myself wanting something, anything to actually occur. Originally I thought that the problem with the movies was Lucas's crappy attempts at a love story and JarJar, however it turns out that the real issue at hand was the sweeping landscape views. Yes, those are nice, but when 50% of the movie is devoted to artbook moments I begin to lose patience. From the preview I thought the movie was going to redeem the series, it was actions and emotion and no JarJar. Instead I found myself longing for JarJar to speak (I cannot believe I said that), because then I'd at least have some dialog and some sort of action. As things stood most of the fights were either shown starting or the ending mopping up, but no real substance to any of them, and it was very disappointing. The betrayl/execution of the Jedi was poignant and awesome, but other than that the movie really lacked much of anything, the climactic moment being ruined by crappy characters. Even the new creatures and machines got at least partial looks over them in dramatic fashion (Obi Wan's mount especially), a kind of attention the Rancor or the Sarlac never got, and, honestly, never really needed.
Mace Windu sucked. I waited 3 movies for Samuel L. Jackson to do something, anything, and instead he seemed to be the fuel to Anakin's fire of rebellion. He was neither encouraging nor mentoring, but left to abject detactment for no particular reason. He was unimpressive in the scope of his few combat appearances throughout the trilogy.
Palpatine is evil and insidious, but he feels sort of meager at times. His feigns and schemes and revelations seem poorly timed, as if he were a really good evil mastermind, just really shitty about carrying through his plans precisely. Such as everything he tells Anakin about the Jedi tends to be a warning against something that Palpatine has done or has Anakin do already. His temptations unto Anakin are nicely done though, as are his arguements.
R2-D2 gets more screen time that I expected, and I'm not really certain what the point of that was. Certainly he's a usable humor/plot device, moving elevators and opening doors, but I don't think that his fight scenes were really necessary or very good. It seemed like the (not-very) comedic relief role of JarJar was passed onto R2-D2 in a demeaning fashion.
Yes, the fourth, fifth, and sixth movies are set up, but there's a few things that stand as bothersome. While the first two of these movies were obviously aimed at the new generation of viewers (having very little attachement to the previous trilogy (4, 5, 6)) this movie attempted to woo back former fans while maintaining the new fanbase, and falls short on both deals. The name-dropping and hints at the events of the original movies is decent, but brings up plot conflicts and confusion. The seperation of the events stands to aggrevate the problem further as the people and places seem to be there for no reason other than being there.
Specific issues I hold, most of which you could maybe overlook if you tried hard enough. Warning, this part contains Spoilers:
Obviously the movies are still meant to be watched 4 5 6 1 2 3, else Darth Vader's revelation to Luke is really spoiled and ruined.
1) Yes, Chewbacca is introduced, but why? From his relation to Han it doesn't seem like he's any sort of Wookie Nobility or really of any special note to his people. Further, his appear does nothing to secure his connection to Han, nor his connection to any place close to where Han conducts business.
2) While it is nice to have all the vehicles and soldiers set up and foreshadowed, I don't see how so much of the Empire's Technology can fall away in time for the future movies. Obviously this is nitpicky, as these are the modern series, concocted with far more resources than the original trilogy, but it seems a bit sad that the Clone Army's division and ranks and commands and massive array of vehicles will be reduced to carbon copy, rankless, inaccurate, thoughtless Stormtroopers with ATATs ATSTs Tie's (which don't really make a prominent show) Speeders and Swoops and little else.
3) The Death Star (already a full circle) is a compelling throwaway allusion at the end, but honestly, it feels like a plot hole. Leia is barely born, not nearly of age to be stealing the plans for an in-construction Death Star. If the first one takes them 18 years with the full resources of a newly forged Empire (roughly how old Luke and Leia are in A New Hope, being generous) then how come the second one takes about half a year to be constructed?
4) Is Wedge Antilles (or is it Biggs who is Antilles...) really that much older than Luke? Seems unlikely.
Well, that's all I really can summon forth from memory at this point in time. So, I close by saying that if you asked my favorite of the 6, I'd still say Empire Strikes Back. If you asked my favorite of the latest 3, I'd say it is a contest between the first and the second as far as which sucks less (excessive JarJar/Gungins/stupidity vs. badly written love-angst)
In other news, Chronicles of Narnia is going to be an excellent movie.
So, I saw Episode 3 today. Relative to everything I had heard before I saw it, I have to say that Lucas's film is decidedly heavy-handed in favor of males (Padme is the only one with any lines) and it does do a good job of setting up the next 3 movies (though I have some issues, those will be addressed later) but what David says rings truest. There is more time spent in the movie that is set to music than there is to dialog or combat.
The opening is alright. There's mere 3 paragraphs of text at the episode opening, which feels alot smaller than usual (didn't bother to compare it to the previous ones) and the space fight is alot smaller of a scale than I would have liked. We focus almost entirely on the two Type-zero (I call all the base model's Type-zeroes, though I'm sure some nerd can tell me their official name) A-Wing's piloted by our two main Jedi. Certainly there are explosions and other things around them, but primarily they are the focus and it's really a wasted time that could be spent better in grand-scale combat / eye-candy rather than a show of whatever extra kinds of droids they could pull out (Vulture Droids, those little gremlin droid things). The Type-zero X-Wings were nice to see, as were most of the other familiar ships involved in the brief moments of the fight.
I won't go moment by moment here, mostly because I don't really recall everything and I'm certain I'd overlook something, so I'll speak in generalities regarding the movie and it's characters.
The movie in general plays the art card way too heavily. Too often I found myself wanting something, anything to actually occur. Originally I thought that the problem with the movies was Lucas's crappy attempts at a love story and JarJar, however it turns out that the real issue at hand was the sweeping landscape views. Yes, those are nice, but when 50% of the movie is devoted to artbook moments I begin to lose patience. From the preview I thought the movie was going to redeem the series, it was actions and emotion and no JarJar. Instead I found myself longing for JarJar to speak (I cannot believe I said that), because then I'd at least have some dialog and some sort of action. As things stood most of the fights were either shown starting or the ending mopping up, but no real substance to any of them, and it was very disappointing. The betrayl/execution of the Jedi was poignant and awesome, but other than that the movie really lacked much of anything, the climactic moment being ruined by crappy characters. Even the new creatures and machines got at least partial looks over them in dramatic fashion (Obi Wan's mount especially), a kind of attention the Rancor or the Sarlac never got, and, honestly, never really needed.
Mace Windu sucked. I waited 3 movies for Samuel L. Jackson to do something, anything, and instead he seemed to be the fuel to Anakin's fire of rebellion. He was neither encouraging nor mentoring, but left to abject detactment for no particular reason. He was unimpressive in the scope of his few combat appearances throughout the trilogy.
Palpatine is evil and insidious, but he feels sort of meager at times. His feigns and schemes and revelations seem poorly timed, as if he were a really good evil mastermind, just really shitty about carrying through his plans precisely. Such as everything he tells Anakin about the Jedi tends to be a warning against something that Palpatine has done or has Anakin do already. His temptations unto Anakin are nicely done though, as are his arguements.
R2-D2 gets more screen time that I expected, and I'm not really certain what the point of that was. Certainly he's a usable humor/plot device, moving elevators and opening doors, but I don't think that his fight scenes were really necessary or very good. It seemed like the (not-very) comedic relief role of JarJar was passed onto R2-D2 in a demeaning fashion.
Yes, the fourth, fifth, and sixth movies are set up, but there's a few things that stand as bothersome. While the first two of these movies were obviously aimed at the new generation of viewers (having very little attachement to the previous trilogy (4, 5, 6)) this movie attempted to woo back former fans while maintaining the new fanbase, and falls short on both deals. The name-dropping and hints at the events of the original movies is decent, but brings up plot conflicts and confusion. The seperation of the events stands to aggrevate the problem further as the people and places seem to be there for no reason other than being there.
Specific issues I hold, most of which you could maybe overlook if you tried hard enough. Warning, this part contains Spoilers:
Obviously the movies are still meant to be watched 4 5 6 1 2 3, else Darth Vader's revelation to Luke is really spoiled and ruined.
1) Yes, Chewbacca is introduced, but why? From his relation to Han it doesn't seem like he's any sort of Wookie Nobility or really of any special note to his people. Further, his appear does nothing to secure his connection to Han, nor his connection to any place close to where Han conducts business.
2) While it is nice to have all the vehicles and soldiers set up and foreshadowed, I don't see how so much of the Empire's Technology can fall away in time for the future movies. Obviously this is nitpicky, as these are the modern series, concocted with far more resources than the original trilogy, but it seems a bit sad that the Clone Army's division and ranks and commands and massive array of vehicles will be reduced to carbon copy, rankless, inaccurate, thoughtless Stormtroopers with ATATs ATSTs Tie's (which don't really make a prominent show) Speeders and Swoops and little else.
3) The Death Star (already a full circle) is a compelling throwaway allusion at the end, but honestly, it feels like a plot hole. Leia is barely born, not nearly of age to be stealing the plans for an in-construction Death Star. If the first one takes them 18 years with the full resources of a newly forged Empire (roughly how old Luke and Leia are in A New Hope, being generous) then how come the second one takes about half a year to be constructed?
4) Is Wedge Antilles (or is it Biggs who is Antilles...) really that much older than Luke? Seems unlikely.
Well, that's all I really can summon forth from memory at this point in time. So, I close by saying that if you asked my favorite of the 6, I'd still say Empire Strikes Back. If you asked my favorite of the latest 3, I'd say it is a contest between the first and the second as far as which sucks less (excessive JarJar/Gungins/stupidity vs. badly written love-angst)
In other news, Chronicles of Narnia is going to be an excellent movie.
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