So here is something I like talking about that is not TOO politically heavy handed. That Big McLarge Huge sporting event that happened a few weeks back is also known as commercial cental, you remember that? Yeah I did not care much about it either, mostly cause the Kansas City Chiefs, nor the New York Jets were involved. I know how to pick teams don’t I? but one commercial played and I caught it on apple’s movie trailers after the game.
God Damn you Michael Bay! God Damn you!
Now I fit into a very small niche of Transformers fans. I am not in the “if it is transformers it is good” category, but neither am I in the “Purist” line of thought either. Much like my post partisan pragmatists political affiliation, I take each category of this beloved franchise in turn, and I examine it on its own merits.
The First Transformers film released in 2007 actually impressed me. I thought the character designs were a wonderful way to make the idea of robots that could turn into cares functionally work. The plot was thin no doubt, but nowhere NEAR as thin as the cartoon from the 1980s, and the set pieces were enjoyable. My main complaint was the lack of character development with the Decepticon characters.
The 2009 sequel was an unmitigated disaster. May people have their own ideas as to why, and I want to share my own. The writer’s strike of 2008 happened a few months before principle photography was scheduled to start. This meant that a Shooting Script was never developed, and rumor has it that a full final screenplay was sitting unfinished on Orici and Kruzman’s desk. As the strike carried on Michael Bay (director) and Steven Speilberg (Producer) had a tough decision to make, do we wait out the strike, lose a crap ton of funding or get our funding pulled, and delay shooting? Or do we try to work with what we have. Bay Elected to work with what he had, which mean shooting Revenge of the Fallen with what is called a Film Treatment.
For those that don’t know, a Film Treatment is a piece of prose, often in a short story form, that provides a basic outline of a films plot. For a good example of a Film Treatment I recommend picking up the special edition of “The Terminator” which has its full treatment as a special feature. At 44 pages it tells the story of the film, but you can pick apart what was discarded, what was altered, and what was enhanced.
This led to Revenge of the Fallen being CLOSE to the original vision of the film, but every fan could see where things fell apart. There was a “wait what?” moment within the movie where it all broke down. For me it was around the time Optimus prime got killed and the ever infamous twins escorted Bumblebee and Shia Lebouf across the globe. At that point what was actually a pretty decent action flick degenerated into a bad episode of Beavis and Butt-head.
So now we have this third movie, and again it is sold to me. I will be there, in the front of the line, waiting for my seat on opening day. It is the same thing as why G.I.JOE, and the Marvel Pantheon are so close to my heart. Basically people my age, the 30 year olds, are grown up and want their childhood back. Maybe it is some mid life precursor or something. Will we have a better movie? Well I am of the mind it can not get much worse, and at least the 30 second spot at the Daytona 500 looks promising.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Wow, I am late on this....
It took me a while to write this last entry on Ninja Gaiden, and Metroid. That was mostly because the two games were hard as hell, to the point of me NEVER in my life finishing them (unlike all the other previous entries.) And each shared so many aspects with the previous NES classics that I ran out of things to talk about. So I finally decided to consolidate the two and discuss highlights of each.
Ninja Gaiden was side scrolling beat em up. Its notorious difficulty was born from having to beat not only bad guys and bosses, but also the map and the timer. Precision jumps were the key, and coupled with the Castlevania “flinch” if you were off or got touched by an enemy, you were tossed backwards.
Ninja Gaiden was unique in the NES days for having cinematic story telling, with crudely animated cut scenes between major acts of the game. Taken for granted today, where such events are not only common but often rendered in the games engine, these comic book style graphics were a progressive leap forward, and possibly the first of its kind.
Musically the game was nothing special, and graphically it was hit or miss. While the backgrounds were rendered in stunning detail, you often looked at foes that were more a jumbled mess of pixels then anything else.
in the modern Era Ninja Gaiden has retained its nigh impossible difficulty, and romps through the demon world are little more literal then cult like. the problem is that modern games in the series are pretty forgettable, particularly since the developer at Namco "Team Ninja" seems to have a VERY unhealthy fascination with breasts.
Metroid was another beast. Where as Zelda had you explore what seemed like a large and expansive world, Metroid downsized it to a large alien base. Game play focused on exploration above EVERYTHING else, with power ups scattered far and wide, and your list of objectives was quite narrow.
1) Destroy the two bosses
2) After 1) destroy the bases main computer
Simple until you realized that you started off with none of the tools needed to do that task, and you had all of THIS to contend with. These aliens were not fucking around were they?
It is amazing in Metroid to see that the titular creature usually does not show up in it’s own game till the end. Much like the legend of Zelda before it, I assumed the main character you played was named Metroid, rather then the space jellyfish that the franchise centers around.
The Metroid franchise however is known for more then dungeon crawls, and exploration through upgrades. It can be argued that the Metroid series was the first video game series to have a female protagonist. Furthermore, the nature of Samaus Aran’s appearance belies and refutes any chance to sexualize her as a woman, providing a strong female (though I argue not feminine) character. For that, Metroid will always be remembered while Ninja Gaiden will be tossed aside in the Jiggle Physics bin.
Ninja Gaiden was side scrolling beat em up. Its notorious difficulty was born from having to beat not only bad guys and bosses, but also the map and the timer. Precision jumps were the key, and coupled with the Castlevania “flinch” if you were off or got touched by an enemy, you were tossed backwards.
Ninja Gaiden was unique in the NES days for having cinematic story telling, with crudely animated cut scenes between major acts of the game. Taken for granted today, where such events are not only common but often rendered in the games engine, these comic book style graphics were a progressive leap forward, and possibly the first of its kind.
Musically the game was nothing special, and graphically it was hit or miss. While the backgrounds were rendered in stunning detail, you often looked at foes that were more a jumbled mess of pixels then anything else.
in the modern Era Ninja Gaiden has retained its nigh impossible difficulty, and romps through the demon world are little more literal then cult like. the problem is that modern games in the series are pretty forgettable, particularly since the developer at Namco "Team Ninja" seems to have a VERY unhealthy fascination with breasts.
Metroid was another beast. Where as Zelda had you explore what seemed like a large and expansive world, Metroid downsized it to a large alien base. Game play focused on exploration above EVERYTHING else, with power ups scattered far and wide, and your list of objectives was quite narrow.
1) Destroy the two bosses
2) After 1) destroy the bases main computer
Simple until you realized that you started off with none of the tools needed to do that task, and you had all of THIS to contend with. These aliens were not fucking around were they?
It is amazing in Metroid to see that the titular creature usually does not show up in it’s own game till the end. Much like the legend of Zelda before it, I assumed the main character you played was named Metroid, rather then the space jellyfish that the franchise centers around.
The Metroid franchise however is known for more then dungeon crawls, and exploration through upgrades. It can be argued that the Metroid series was the first video game series to have a female protagonist. Furthermore, the nature of Samaus Aran’s appearance belies and refutes any chance to sexualize her as a woman, providing a strong female (though I argue not feminine) character. For that, Metroid will always be remembered while Ninja Gaiden will be tossed aside in the Jiggle Physics bin.
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