Now that the cast for the next Star Wars installment has been announced, can I mention something about the first movie? On the Star Destroyer, the Empire is having a meeting. Everyone in the scene is inexplicably white and British despite being space aliens who lived a million years ago, and mutton chops are very much in style. They're gathered around a conference table, and the one dude decides he's going to call out Vader, the magic murder cyborg with the laser sword. Her'es how it goes down.
Motti: Any attack made by the Rebels against this station would be a useless gesture, no matter what technical data they've obtained. This station is now the ultimate power in the universe! I suggest we use it.
Vader: Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
Motti: Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. [Vader walks toward Motti, then slowly raises his hand] Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebels' hidden fort- [grasps his throat as if he is being choked]
Vader: I find your lack of faith disturbing.
First off, Motti works with Vader, and must have seen Vader force choke a dozen people by now over something as trivial as taking too long with his coffee order. He must know not to piss him off. He also has to know the Force is real. The Clone Wars where the last of the Jedi were killed off was only about seveteen years prior to this scene. It's not some, "ancient religion." It's a relgiion that controlled the galaxy by the time he was graduating from Space Douche Academy. Plus, he fucking works for the Emperor. Did he somehow think that Vader got less magic since the last time he saw him? Did the Force just suddenly vanish. Motti basically is displaying stupidity on a cosmic scale.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Monday, April 28, 2014
Accentia
I read people were complaining about Peter Dinklage's British accent in The Game of Thrones and it made me realize that none of the character in the series should be using an accent to begin with. It's a fucking fantasy series set on a fantasy world. No one is literally speaking English, it's just a placeholder. Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit can get away with doing that because it was written by a British author and that's his native tongue, but The Game of Thrones is all-American. Then there's Star Wars where Obi Wan and the bad guys had British accents. Even Darth Vader had a British accent before George Lucas dubbed over it. There's a whole universe filled with white people speaking the same language and there's only two inflections? Then there's Star Trek with their translators. They can decipher virtually any language, but everyone aboard the ship still has accents.Kirk can understand what some half-black/half-white alien is saying to him about a half-white/half-black alien, but he can barely understand the two guys sitting in front of him on the ship. The characters are forcefully speaking English in their thick Russian/Scottish/Japanese/fine-ass black woman accents, but they don't have to. They can just yabber on in their native tongues and the translator technology will do the rest better than they ever could. When the universal language barrier is broken by technology, why would anyone ever bother to learn a second language, let alone speak it unecessarily?
The same complaint about British accents goes for historical films like 300, Gladiator, The Eagle, etc. These movies are set in ancient Greece, Rome, etc., but everyone talks with a British accent.
The same complaint about British accents goes for historical films like 300, Gladiator, The Eagle, etc. These movies are set in ancient Greece, Rome, etc., but everyone talks with a British accent.
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Saddest Deaths in Sitcoms
With the recent death of Brian Griffin, I thought it'd be a good opportunity to look back at something I always thought was fucked up: when sitcoms, cartoons and kids shows deal with death.
Cartoons kill off characters all the time, like South Park and Kenny. They're usually back before the end of the episode because, after all, it's a cartoon.
There's numerous reasons why otherwise lighthearted shows kill off recurring characters. In the case of Brian Griffin in Family Guy, it was probably to reduce Seth MacFarlane's workload.
In other cases, it's to nab ratings for sweeps by killing off an unecessary character, like when they killed off Maude Flanders in The Simspson.
Maude was just the most memorable character, but there's been dozens of others, like Bleeding Gums Murphy, Dr.Nick Rivera, Snowball II, etc..It's a simple formula: take a character no one really likes and kill them off, base the whole episode on the characters dealing with the death and you've got an Emmy.
King of the Hill pulled the same shit too as a rating booster when they killed Luanne's boyfriend with propane, or the Cleavland Show where they killed Cleavland's cheating ex-wife, Loretta. Those deaths didn't really effect the show, but allowed them to explore the grieving process, which isn't particularly funny. Since these are cartoons, it's like they're trying to explain death to children with puppets, which isn't their job in the first place.
South Park sometimes has dozens of deaths per episode. When Chef was killed off (only to be brought back as Darth Chef) it turned out to be bittersweet, mainly because of the fake-out. The episode initially dealt with Isaac Hayes leaving the show due to a conflict of interest (Scientology), but with the chracter reappearing early on it made it seem as though he'd somehow come back. It quickly became apparent that they'd intentionally dubbed his voice in as badly as they could. It was a classic episode, but it took on a different tone once Isaac Hayes died in real life shortly thereafter.
M.A.S.H. has a half-dozen examples of characters being killed off, which is little wonder because it's spun-off of a movie that begins with a dentist commiting suicide. The theme song was written by a fifteen-year-old and has the lyrics, "Suicide is painless and it brings on many changes." (It doesn't ryhme well.) Pick a character like the Colonel or Radar on the show and the either died off-camera or saw someone die. ("IT WAS A BABY!")
Remember in Seinfeld when George's fiancee died because he was too cheap and bought tainted envelopes? That was dark. It single-handedly saved the show from evolving. It could have gone off in a whole different direction with George becoming a husband and possibly a father while hanging around with his single friends, but instead they up and killed his fiancee. They managed to get a few extra episodes out of her death too as George tries to con her parents into thinking he has a upscale second home when he doesn't, and another episode where he tries to find an applicant he likes for a tuition set up in his former fiancee's name.
Then there's the last episode of How I Met Your Mother where the real identity of the "mother" was revealed. Surprise! She's dead, and Bob Saggat's voice has been telling his kids the story over the course of the series to explain why he wants to move on and bang their aunt. Classy.
Sometimes characters have to be written out of the show as the actors who play them quit or are fired. Take Two-and-a-Half Men after Charlie Sheen goes on an world-famous bender and has the most public breakdown since Britney Spears. They had to write him out somehow, so the chose to have him explode like a bag of meat after being hit by a metro train. Don't cry for him, he made more money being fired than you'll ever make working your whole life. You and your children and your children's children. who by then might also be Charlie Sheen's children. Charlie was the main character, though, so it was a little odd for the show to keep going.
It was just as odd as when John Ritter died during the ongoing production of 8 Simple Rules. John was basically the show, and he died, but they kept it going for FUCKING 45 more episodes. It was ballsy in the first place to keep the show going, especially after such a dark turn, but John was only in 31 of 76 episodes. That kind of takes away a lot of the brunt of losing him.What a way to honour a great man's legacy than to prove how unecessary he was to begin with. If a fictional character is that replacable, how replacable are we?
Then there's sitcoms where chracters died because their real-life actors died. This happened to News Radio and Suddenly Susan, two light-hearted comedies about journalism. In News Radio, the legend Phil Hartman was inexplicably muredered by his wife and the whole cast had to come back for the season premier and do an episode where they share memories about his character. The tears were real. They had to bring in John Lovitz, one of his closest friends to replace him, which was off because he'd already played a suicidal separate character in a previous episode.
In Suddenly Susan, the character of Todd Stiles died after the actor, David Strickland committed suicide. Simmilar to News Radio, the cast had to come back after a break and reminisce. The cast shed real tears and could barely make it through their lines. Hilarious! The series itself was light on humour, despite being a sitcom, but that was particularly dark.
So yeah, shit gets dark. Go watch your favourite show tonight and imagine your favourite character dying and how you'll keep watching that show. You fucking weirdo.
Cartoons kill off characters all the time, like South Park and Kenny. They're usually back before the end of the episode because, after all, it's a cartoon.
There's numerous reasons why otherwise lighthearted shows kill off recurring characters. In the case of Brian Griffin in Family Guy, it was probably to reduce Seth MacFarlane's workload.
In other cases, it's to nab ratings for sweeps by killing off an unecessary character, like when they killed off Maude Flanders in The Simspson.
Maude was just the most memorable character, but there's been dozens of others, like Bleeding Gums Murphy, Dr.Nick Rivera, Snowball II, etc..It's a simple formula: take a character no one really likes and kill them off, base the whole episode on the characters dealing with the death and you've got an Emmy.
King of the Hill pulled the same shit too as a rating booster when they killed Luanne's boyfriend with propane, or the Cleavland Show where they killed Cleavland's cheating ex-wife, Loretta. Those deaths didn't really effect the show, but allowed them to explore the grieving process, which isn't particularly funny. Since these are cartoons, it's like they're trying to explain death to children with puppets, which isn't their job in the first place.
South Park sometimes has dozens of deaths per episode. When Chef was killed off (only to be brought back as Darth Chef) it turned out to be bittersweet, mainly because of the fake-out. The episode initially dealt with Isaac Hayes leaving the show due to a conflict of interest (Scientology), but with the chracter reappearing early on it made it seem as though he'd somehow come back. It quickly became apparent that they'd intentionally dubbed his voice in as badly as they could. It was a classic episode, but it took on a different tone once Isaac Hayes died in real life shortly thereafter.
M.A.S.H. has a half-dozen examples of characters being killed off, which is little wonder because it's spun-off of a movie that begins with a dentist commiting suicide. The theme song was written by a fifteen-year-old and has the lyrics, "Suicide is painless and it brings on many changes." (It doesn't ryhme well.) Pick a character like the Colonel or Radar on the show and the either died off-camera or saw someone die. ("IT WAS A BABY!")
Remember in Seinfeld when George's fiancee died because he was too cheap and bought tainted envelopes? That was dark. It single-handedly saved the show from evolving. It could have gone off in a whole different direction with George becoming a husband and possibly a father while hanging around with his single friends, but instead they up and killed his fiancee. They managed to get a few extra episodes out of her death too as George tries to con her parents into thinking he has a upscale second home when he doesn't, and another episode where he tries to find an applicant he likes for a tuition set up in his former fiancee's name.
Then there's the last episode of How I Met Your Mother where the real identity of the "mother" was revealed. Surprise! She's dead, and Bob Saggat's voice has been telling his kids the story over the course of the series to explain why he wants to move on and bang their aunt. Classy.
Sometimes characters have to be written out of the show as the actors who play them quit or are fired. Take Two-and-a-Half Men after Charlie Sheen goes on an world-famous bender and has the most public breakdown since Britney Spears. They had to write him out somehow, so the chose to have him explode like a bag of meat after being hit by a metro train. Don't cry for him, he made more money being fired than you'll ever make working your whole life. You and your children and your children's children. who by then might also be Charlie Sheen's children. Charlie was the main character, though, so it was a little odd for the show to keep going.
It was just as odd as when John Ritter died during the ongoing production of 8 Simple Rules. John was basically the show, and he died, but they kept it going for FUCKING 45 more episodes. It was ballsy in the first place to keep the show going, especially after such a dark turn, but John was only in 31 of 76 episodes. That kind of takes away a lot of the brunt of losing him.What a way to honour a great man's legacy than to prove how unecessary he was to begin with. If a fictional character is that replacable, how replacable are we?
Then there's sitcoms where chracters died because their real-life actors died. This happened to News Radio and Suddenly Susan, two light-hearted comedies about journalism. In News Radio, the legend Phil Hartman was inexplicably muredered by his wife and the whole cast had to come back for the season premier and do an episode where they share memories about his character. The tears were real. They had to bring in John Lovitz, one of his closest friends to replace him, which was off because he'd already played a suicidal separate character in a previous episode.
In Suddenly Susan, the character of Todd Stiles died after the actor, David Strickland committed suicide. Simmilar to News Radio, the cast had to come back after a break and reminisce. The cast shed real tears and could barely make it through their lines. Hilarious! The series itself was light on humour, despite being a sitcom, but that was particularly dark.
So yeah, shit gets dark. Go watch your favourite show tonight and imagine your favourite character dying and how you'll keep watching that show. You fucking weirdo.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Gravity with Gravy
To be fair, Gravity was not a good movie. Much like the space it portrayed it was full of space itself. It felt empty at it's core with one of the smallest casts for a major production. The two main characters (out of three chracters total) felt distant from each other even while sharing the most intimate possible details.Minutes were spent just watching Sandra Bullock trying to breathe. Plus, while trying to be as visually reaslitic as possible, the film was still farfetched. Sandra Bullock escapes an exploding spaceship (SPACESHIP!) to make it to a second exploding spaceship (SPACESHIP!), which she then has to escape and make her way to a third exploding spaceship (SPACESHIP!) which much like Goldielocks and the Three Bears is just the right kind of exploding. The ending was a little agrivating as well. You were already out of your seat and walking back towards your car before you realized how angry you were.
But did it even happen?
Given the unlikely outcome of the ending (she safely lands on earth after supposdely exhausting her retrorockets) and her previous encounter with a halucination, was this all just a dream?
She confesses earlier to George Clooney (Batman!) how she would drive around and listen to the radio, because that's what she was doing when she found out her loved ones had died. Later, she listens to the radio as she contemplates giving in to the cold of space before she hallucinates Clooney showing up outside the window of her escape pod. Clooney is just an oxygen deprived dream she's having, so is everything a dream then? The backstory about her losing her family reminded me of the original ending to Descent where the lone survivor halucinates that it's her dead daughter's birthday while the Gollum-things narrow in on her.
Then there's the scene where she tries to get Huston on the radio and ends up listening to a Chinese man sing a lulaby to his grandaughter and make doggy sounds. WTF was that? What does Carl Sagan have to say about that shit? That ties back in to her and the car and the radio. Really the whole movie is about her listening to the radio.Even Clooney makes his exit while listening to country music on the radio. For all we know he's listening to the same song she was when her life-changing moment happened. He could just be a representaion of her own psyche.
But did it even happen?
Given the unlikely outcome of the ending (she safely lands on earth after supposdely exhausting her retrorockets) and her previous encounter with a halucination, was this all just a dream?
She confesses earlier to George Clooney (Batman!) how she would drive around and listen to the radio, because that's what she was doing when she found out her loved ones had died. Later, she listens to the radio as she contemplates giving in to the cold of space before she hallucinates Clooney showing up outside the window of her escape pod. Clooney is just an oxygen deprived dream she's having, so is everything a dream then? The backstory about her losing her family reminded me of the original ending to Descent where the lone survivor halucinates that it's her dead daughter's birthday while the Gollum-things narrow in on her.
Then there's the scene where she tries to get Huston on the radio and ends up listening to a Chinese man sing a lulaby to his grandaughter and make doggy sounds. WTF was that? What does Carl Sagan have to say about that shit? That ties back in to her and the car and the radio. Really the whole movie is about her listening to the radio.Even Clooney makes his exit while listening to country music on the radio. For all we know he's listening to the same song she was when her life-changing moment happened. He could just be a representaion of her own psyche.
Animation Sequels
While watching Rio 2 in theatres today, I realized tha a lot of animated sequels follows a specific trope. Namely: the main character of the first movie is the last of something and eventually discovers that there's more of his kind in the sequel. That's exactly what happens in Rio 2. Blue thought he was the only blue macaw left, or rather one of the few remaining, and he finds a female, falls in love and has three children. Then, in the sequel, he meets his significant other's father and the rest of the "tribe," only he doesn't quite fit in at first and has to prove himself.
That's EXACTLY what happens in the Shrek series. Shrek is a lonely ogre who meets a princess who turns out to be another ogre. He meets her mother and father in Shrek 2, then has three children by the end of the movie who become part of the main plot in Shrek 3. In Shrek Forever After, he discovers more ogres, but doesn't quite fit in and has to prove himself.
Some of this applies to more movies too. In Kung-Fu Panda, Po thinks he's the last panda. By the end of Kung-Fu-Panda 2, we learn his father is still alive and there's a secret hidden tribe.
It goes on. In Madagascar, we have a set of domesticated wild animals who end up back in the wild. In Madagascar 2, Alex the lion is reunited with his family, and the rest of the animals discover more of their kind.
That's EXACTLY what happens in the Shrek series. Shrek is a lonely ogre who meets a princess who turns out to be another ogre. He meets her mother and father in Shrek 2, then has three children by the end of the movie who become part of the main plot in Shrek 3. In Shrek Forever After, he discovers more ogres, but doesn't quite fit in and has to prove himself.
Some of this applies to more movies too. In Kung-Fu Panda, Po thinks he's the last panda. By the end of Kung-Fu-Panda 2, we learn his father is still alive and there's a secret hidden tribe.
It goes on. In Madagascar, we have a set of domesticated wild animals who end up back in the wild. In Madagascar 2, Alex the lion is reunited with his family, and the rest of the animals discover more of their kind.
The Town I Live In
My town just lost it's AHL team, The Heat, which was the only "major" sporting attaction it had for it's $65+ million arena. It was originally labelled the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre, and will now lose the "Sports" section of it's name as it's rebranded. Attendance for Heat games was the second lowest in the B-Leagues, and for good reason. I'd been to about four or five games during the five year run, when I recieved free tickets through various sources. People filed out midway through the third period of one game with dismal attendance, with one spectator doing nothing but swearing explitives the entire time in front of me and my then five-year-old stepson before stumbling off in a stupour. Another game I attended was jam-packed, but everyone had turned out to cheer the opposing team. Abbotsford is Canucks country, and the Heat was a seed team for the Calgary Flames. The Wolverines they'd been playing were the seed team for the Canucks. Imagine booing your own B-league team because the opposing team is a pre-school for your favourite A-league team. That's convoluted and stupid at the same time. Now people are hoping the Wolverines will move here, but that's not likely to happen. Why would anyone move here willingly? Also: why watch the B-Team when the A-Team is an hour away?
Briefly, the arena was home to it's own lingerie football team, which is exactly what it sounds like. The non-controversy was how Abbotsford is a conservative town known more for it's churches, if it could be said to be known at all. I've had to explain, in detail, what Abbotsford was to clueless people living two towns over from one of the biggest cities in the province. Attendance was poor, and the team folded. The arena can't even keep what's essentially a roller-derby team.
That's no the worst of it. The worst, of course, is the people. Rob Ford is slowly changing the perception of what the world thinks of when they think of Canada. It's not that far off. An Abbotsford man was recently arrested and decontaminated after attempting to cook meth in his BBQ on his patio of his apartment
...
You're probably wondering if I made that up, or if it's possible. No, and no. Yes, he tried to cook meth in a BBQ in a wildly open space in a downtown area. He was arrested after getting into an argument with his neighbours, who were probably complaining about the smell. No, it's not possible, as far as I know, to cook meth in a BBQ, but then I've never watched Breaking Bad.
Abbotsford has a drug/crime problem. It boasted the highest murders per captia in Canada for two years running a while back. It's so bad that even the drug dealers have moved on. The dealers and gangsters all moved out to Kelowna becuase of the better housing market. I shit you not. Even drug dealers won't live here.
Briefly, the arena was home to it's own lingerie football team, which is exactly what it sounds like. The non-controversy was how Abbotsford is a conservative town known more for it's churches, if it could be said to be known at all. I've had to explain, in detail, what Abbotsford was to clueless people living two towns over from one of the biggest cities in the province. Attendance was poor, and the team folded. The arena can't even keep what's essentially a roller-derby team.
That's no the worst of it. The worst, of course, is the people. Rob Ford is slowly changing the perception of what the world thinks of when they think of Canada. It's not that far off. An Abbotsford man was recently arrested and decontaminated after attempting to cook meth in his BBQ on his patio of his apartment
...
You're probably wondering if I made that up, or if it's possible. No, and no. Yes, he tried to cook meth in a BBQ in a wildly open space in a downtown area. He was arrested after getting into an argument with his neighbours, who were probably complaining about the smell. No, it's not possible, as far as I know, to cook meth in a BBQ, but then I've never watched Breaking Bad.
Abbotsford has a drug/crime problem. It boasted the highest murders per captia in Canada for two years running a while back. It's so bad that even the drug dealers have moved on. The dealers and gangsters all moved out to Kelowna becuase of the better housing market. I shit you not. Even drug dealers won't live here.
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