The Geek Rant

mood: pessimistic

So, I've just heard word that, scheduled for February, 2009, there's another Street Fighter movie coming out.  Don't worry, it's utterly unrelated to the previous VanDamme laden version (sadly, Raul Julia's last movie).  That, of course, doesn't begin to guarantee that it will be good.  The fact is that, as a movie based on a video game, film makers are not going to take it seriously.  They never, ever do; even now, when we're creating video games that frequently have plots better most Hollywood movies.  So, I don't expect much from this movie.  By the same token, however, since I don't expect much, I'm also not going to get all up in arms about any mistakes they make in story.  But, here's what I've heard:

THE STORY:  It's going to follow Chun-Li's arc, alone.  The fact is that Street Fighter's got something like a hundred different characters.  You can't toss all of them into one movie and do all of the characters justice or have it end up being any kind of good.  The last Street Fighter proved that.  Meanwhile, Chun-Li has a personal plot line that, while not complex, is fine enough to base a movie around.  Her father was a cop, who was killed by M. Bison.  She's out for revenge.  Fighting ensues.  In the street, even!  I've read people who are all up in arms over the fact that there's no Ryu or Ken.  The fact is that Ryu's background sucks.  He's a "wandering warrior".  He travels around and enters Street Fighter tournaments.  Then he wins and finds other fights.  Woot.  Not to mention that most of the character's backstories rarely involve other characters, except for Bison.  Chun-Li would have no frackin' clue who Ryu was and, if she did, she really wouldn't care.

THE CAST:  Kristin Kreuk (seen below) has been cast as Chun-Li.

Now, I liked her in Smallville (as Lana Lang) and she did perform some basic fighting through that series.  Perhaps she's done more since the last time I saw her, but unless she's been training a lot, it's not going to be good enough to carry a whole movie.  Something like this is going to be extremely dependent on the fight sequences.

Also seen is Michael Clarke Duncan as Balrog, which I keep going back and forth on, honestly.  I do enjoy him as an actor, but having him in it is not a guaranteer of an amazing movie.  However, I do love the mental image of little Kristin Kreuk (5' 4") fighting huge Michael Duncan (6' 5").  If the fight is good enough, that alone may be worth my time.  None of the other announced cast has given me any reason to expect this to be anything worthwhile (although the is an actress who's name is Moon Bloodgood.  How awesome is that?)

THE DIRECTOR:  Andrzej Bartkowiak!  You'll know that name from ... okay, no, you won't know that name.  He's got four director credits on IMDB (not counting Street Fighter or tv shows).  Romeo Must Die, Exit Wounds, Cradle 2 the Grave, and Doom.  That alone tells you what were going to be looking at here.  Of those, I've only seen Romeo Must Die.  There's a reason I never bothered with the others.

MY HOPES:  Ideally, they're going to focus on plot enough that it's going to be something worth watching, though I'm not expecting much in this area.  Video Game movies now are what comic book movies used to be.  Chock full of potential, but never given a chance.  If you gave this movie a well known, dramatic director plus writer, then it would automatically draw a worthwhile cast.

As it stands, I hope they put Kristin Kreuk through rigorous training.  I hope that we're not left with sudden, jerky angle, extreme close up, cut away every 1.5 seconds, fight scene, but actual, decent, well-choreographed fights.  Plus, it's Street Fighter.  You have guys throwing fireballs and flying through the air, and you can't escape from that.  So, if you're not going to give us really impressive choreographed fights, then at least give us something amazing to watch.  Alter physics and reality and give us a modern world fight that is, none the less, filled with the mysticism of legend.

There's no chance, whatsoever, that this is going to be good.  But, if they work it right, there's a very good chance they can at least make it FUN.

mood: creative

So, I have returned!

It's been a while, and I've seen a lot of movies during that time, so you get a whole bunch of quick reviews on all of them.  Begin!

Speed Racer:  For a while, anything the Wachowski brothers did was tainted by the, let's face it, pretty damn terrible sequels to The Matrix.  However, I believe that they more than made up for those movies with V for Vendetta, so I came into Speed Racer pretty neutral.  I have to say, I loved it!  It was simply a fun movie to watch.  We don't need complex plots or character motivations, we just need pretty, pretty cars going really, really fast in utterly improbable scenarios.  Definately go see it!

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian:  I do believe that I liked this one even better than the first, but I'm still not sure.  Story, action, special effects, acting; all of it was top notch.  I always enjoy watching child actors grow, but I especially loved how much their characters grew (Edward especially!) from the first movie to this.  Now, we all know that Aslan is a parable for Jesus or God or Faith (kind of depending on who you talk to) and watching the movie kind of made me wish that I didn't have that awareness.  The movie was great, but any moment where the comparison was obvious, I found myself analyzing the movie, rather than just watching it and being into it.  But, that's my thing, not yours.  My thought is, if you liked the first movie, you'll like this one.  If not, you may want to skip it.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:  Let me say, right off the bat, that if you don't enjoy Indiana Jones movies, you won't like this one.  If you only kind of enjoy Indiana Jones movies, you probably won't like this one.  However, if you LOVE Indiana Jones movies . . . well, I'm still not sure if you're going to like this one.  The problem with a movie like this is that the original movies have such a cult-like fan base that it was going to be impossible to please everyone.  I do give credit to the fact that this is not a movie that takes itself too seriously.  This is, no more and no less, than a good, fun action/adventure tale.  Utterly improbable, but if you don't spend a wealth of time examining it, a lot of fun to watch.  My recommendation is to watch the first three, marathon-like, before going to see this one.  Then you'll be sure to catch all the references and in-jokes.  Shia LeBeouf is awesome.  Harrison Ford is everything you've come to expect, yet older.  However, he doesn't ignore his age.  The movie doesn't try to pretend he's still a young man, but rather takes advantage of the fact that he's not.  Generally, I recommend it, under the specific circumastances I've laid out, but it's certainly worth seeing it in the theatres, if you can.

The Incredible Hulk:  Holy shit!  If you haven't seen these movie yet, the get out there right now and find a showing!  So much better than the first Hulk movie (and I didn't hate it with the passion others did) and possibly even better than Iron Man.  They've got everything you've always wanted to see in a Hulk movie.  Edward Norton is amazing!  The most intense moments of the whole movie have nothing to do with the Hulk, but have to do with Banner, just trying to keep control.  There's a moment, really early on, where you're just watching and practically shouting at the screen "Jesus, don't do that!!!"  And it's just Edward Norton and one other person.  Great fights, great story, great acting and character.  This all going quadruply if you're a Hulk fan (the set up for another Hulk villain, The Leader, to name one moment).  Plus a cameo from Tony Stark.  My guess is that a bunch of people missed the bit at the end of the Iron Man credits, so this time they put it before the credits.  So, just so you know, you don't have to wait until the end of the credits here.  There, I've now saved two and a half minutes of your life.  You can thank me later.

WALL-E:  I love Pixar movies so much, and I think this is one of the best.  You've seen the previews, you know generally what it's about.  If you have kids, you've probably already seen it.  If you don't have kids you should absolutely see it anyway.  Adorable, fall off your chair funny, and incredibly intelligent.  With a moral too!  The previews are slightly misleading.  I had gone into it thinking that the humans were the bad guys.  Turns out, not at all.  They're really pretty incidental chracters, actually.  But, yeah, a lot of fun.  Highly recommended.

So, I suppose that's it.  I still need to see Kung-fu Panda and Wanted, but those may have to wait a bit.

God, it's been a good year for movies!

mood: annoyed

Okay.  That's it.  I've given it a shot.  However I can't get my head around the travesty that is Spider-man, Brand New Day.

This is the fundamental problem with comic books.  They're afraid to shake up the status quo.  I'd become very excited by the evolution of Spider-man over the past couple of years.  Let's take a look back:

 * Spidey leaves the Bugle and becomes a Science teacher at his old High School.  -  Fantastic!  Peter's growing up.
 * Spidey meets Ezekiel and is informed that his origin is not strictly scientific.  The spider was trying to give him the power.  He's part of an ancient power.  -  This I loved.  Some consider it a retcon, but I see it as a revelation of previously unknown information.  I loved Ezekiel, I loved the Anansi tradition.  I love it all.
 * Spidey develops organic webshooters.  -  Eh.  Always preferred the mechanical webshooters, and the story was . . . okay.  It seemed like they were trying to bring comic Spidey in line with movie Spidey, when it should always be the other way around.
 * Spidey joins the Avengers.  -  Finally!  Peter gets some friends in the Super-human community.  This was way too long in coming.  Spidey gets overt respect from other heroes.  *contented sigh*.
 * Aunt May's house is destroyed.  MJ, May, and Spidey move into Avengers Tower at Tony Stark's suggestion.  -  Have to admit, this made me all warm and fuzzy inside.  Joking moments between Wolverine and Spidey?  Great!  Aunt May's relationship with Captain America and, especially, with Jarvis?  Beautiful!
* Pete dies.  Then evolves to become even more Spidery.  -  This is the point when I would have accepted the evolution of organic webshooters.  It wouldn't have seemed contrived, but part of a larger evolution of powers.  He's accepted the Spider.  But what I truly love is all the help he gets along the way.  Friends and heroes from all across the Marvel universe trying to help stop whatever it is that's killing him, then trying to help him understand the changes he ends up going through.
 * Tony Stark gives Pete a new costume. - Pretty good.  But a little too close to his previous transformation, so the new abilities given him by the new costume are a little . . . lost.
 * Civil War starts.  Tony convinces Pete to register and, as a sign of support for registration, to publicly reveal his identity.  -  While I thought that Pete's decision was incredibly stupid, I was fine with it because, in the real world, people do stupid things.  So, I accepted it.  But the real reason I liked it was that it was the ultimate shaking up of the status quo.  Where could things go from here?
 * Pete goes against Tony and the Registration after Bill Foster dies.  -  And, Parker Luck strikes again.  Pete goes from being pretty good, to the worst he's ever been in his life.  He, MJ, and Aunt May are on the run, and all of his enemies now know who he is and what he looks like.  Bravo!
 * Kingpin sends an assassin after him, hits Aunt May instead.  Pete goes on a rampage.  -  Here's where things start to go bad.  So much build up was put into Aunt May's shooting that it would be anti-climactic if she just got better.  However J. Michael Straczynski wrote himself into a corner.  Peter threatened Kingpin's life in front of a ton of people.  If Aunt May dies, Peter kills Kingpin.  So, Straczynski is left with 3 options.  1) Save Aunt May; 2) Kill Aunt May, make Peter a murderer; 3) Kill Aunt May, have Peter back out.  My vote?  Option 1 or 3.  Much better than where we went.
 * Mephisto offers to save Aunt May, in exchange for which he removes MJ and Peters relationship.  -  This was just . . . wow.  Sure, have the offer.  But then they refuse to accept.  Or they accept and fight their way through it in a only a few issues.  Instead they've created the Brand New Day.  Harry Osborn is back from the dead, Aunt May is alive, MJ is not around, Peter has mechanical web-shooters again, and no one knows who Spider-man is, even those who knew before the unveiling.  God!  That's just . . . such bad writing.

Meanwhile, the Amazing Spider-man stories are great . . . if this were 1977.  I like the new villains, but they should exist within the real world, not this Mephisto created monstrosity that erases all the best storylines of the past 30 years.  Not only the ones I mention above, but Peter and MJ's wedding and marriage and Harry Osborn's descent and redemption.  If MJ and Pete never got married, that changes every single storyline since.  And not for the better.  This is the dime store version of House of M.  But it just won't go away.

There was a time when Straczynski was my favorite writer.  However, he and Mephisto have erased everything he's ever done since he took over Amazing Spider-man, so I guess I'll have to look elsewhere.

I wonder how Joss Whedon's doing?

mood: happy

Welcome everyone.

This journal is going to become a space where I can rant, complain, or inform you on the current going ons in the world of Geekdom.  Because, truly, the internet doesn't have nearly enough Geeks online putting in their two cents on a plethora of issues.

My areas of expertise fall into the following:

 *  Books:  In particular Orson Scott Card's Ender Series, the Harry Potter Series, Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality, and Jane Lindskold's Firekeeper Saga.
 *  Comic Books:  However, primarily Marvel comics (IE: Spider-man, Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-men, Black Panther).  I know very little about DC.  I'm also a huge fan of Strangers in Paradise.
 *  Movies:  Of all kinds, shapes, and varieties.  Not strictly relegated to Science Fiction or Fantasy.  Huge fan of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Serenity (not to mention, of course, Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia).
 *  Roleplaying Games:  Especially "Dungeons & Dragons" and "Mutants & Masterminds".
 *  Webcomics:  On a regular basis - Bad Gods, Comedity, El Goonish Shive, Full Frontal Nerdity, Courting Disaster, Misfile, Nodwick, Penny Arcade!, PvP Online, Sabrina Online, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, Sinfest, 3 Panel Soul, Wapsi Square, and XKCD.
 *  Video Games:  Both PC and Console games.  Been playing since Atari but can't keep up much lately, as being poor has an affect on how many games and systems you can buy.  Currently have in my possession a Playstation 2, a Nintendo DS, and my old Sega Genesis (plus, of course, my computer).

Expect more soon!