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Luna is finished!
I'll put some pictures later today in this entry, but I just wanted to let those of you who care (read: none) know.
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Fractures Contests!
There are many things I could have done to enjoy my last few hours of Premier Membership perks... but none of them like a good old Contest!
This time, the contest is subdivided in three separate categories. The winners will be featured in the following stories of the Fractures Universe. To make a long story short, in this alternate universe Teridax never existed, but the Brotherhood carried on their plans of contest, leaving Metru Nui as the only free land remaining. Now the City of Legends has become a multicultural society, much like in The Kingdom. A new faction, the Cult of Darkness, has appeared and is planning to terrorize the city. Most importantly, you have the chance to design some of their servants/troublemakers!
NOTE: The Fractures Universe and all the characters mentioned don't belong to me. Matoro1 is the creator of the Fractures Universe, and he wrote the contest rules. I'm just helping him to get some more entries.
Category 1: Convict
In the opening chapters of Judgement Day, the following story in the Fractures Alternate Universe, I'm going to have the Toa battling two previously-captured convicts, who have been released from the dungeons beneath the Coliseum for the Toa to train against. One of these characters is a mutated Fe-Matoran Brotherhood Servant who I have already created, but the second convict fighting for a reduced sentence is unknown. If you choose to enter this category, you will have to build said convict, give him/her a brief backstory explaining what crime they commited, which Toa captured them, and what abilities they possess.
Please note that I don't want anything overkill, not a massive, huge, bulky, complex titan. I'm looking for something about as complex as a Glatorian or a Toa with a consistant color scheme. This character will only play a minor role in Judgement Day. Additionaly, and only if requested, Matoro1 may revamp a creation of the winner.
Category 2: Matoran Crafter
Recently, the Cult of Darkness has been forced to make use of Matoran labour. They've used a suicide bomber Matoran to destroy one of Metru Nui's dams, they're going to use another to keep their servants in check, and now they've hired some Matoran builders to construct a base for them, which will appear in Judgement Day. However, to check that the containment cell in this new base in escape-proof, Mudro (the leader of the Cult of Darkness) kidnapped one of the builders and locked him in it, to see if he'd been conned. Unfortunately, he had not been and the unfortunate Matoran was left to die in the cell.
In this option, you have the task of building that Matoran. It has to be male but it has to be one of the stronger types of Matoran; such as a Po-Matoran, Onu-Matoran, Fe-Matoran, Matoran of Magnetism, or a Ba-Matoran.
Obviously the Matoran has to stay true to his respective color scheme (so no blue Po-Matoran) except in the case of a Ba-Matoran or Fe-Matoran. The winner of this contest will have their Matoran crafter feature inJudgement Day, where the crafter will have a chapter written from his perspective, and their creator will have BobTheDoctor27 write a chapter for their fan-fiction story or can have a free MOC request built by him, if asked.
Category 3: Characters
As the final option of the contest, in the final chapter of Over Your Shoulder (the current epic of the Fractures Universe), I'm going to set the story in a bar, where Tollubo, the main protagonist, is getting wasted and I need another male character for him to pick a fight with. Now, this option does not require you to build anything, but I would like anyone who wishes to enter this section to decide on the character's:
- Species
- Name
- Basic Personality
- Immediate History
The winner of this contest will have their described character appear in the final chapter of Over Your Shoulder.
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Remember that you can enter as much or as few categories as you wish.
Please enter, and have fun MOCcing!
Fins aviat, The First Speaker.
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The Subculture of Sprite Comics
So, I've been wanting to write an article like this for a while now, coming from the view of someone actually involved in the forum.
Take note, of course, that not only is this all opinion, it is of the most biased type of opinion you can get. By no means expect this to be the absolute say on this matter. If it does happen to stir up discussion, even up to debate, it will have more than achieved its purpose.
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There's a reason why Artwork III (now "Comics", but old habits are sometimes hard to break) has persisted as one of the most drama filled (and to many others, just plain annoying) forum of BZPower history. Several, to be in fact. I honestly think that AIII has evolved beyond a simple separate section of the forum for people to post their comics.
Artwork III, simply put, is a subculture.
That seems quite a lofty title to attribute to the forum, especially where the masses of other creative forums have, let's be honest here, a much more gratifying reputation. BZPRPG, BBC, Epics, Short Stories, General Art, all of these have history of being reputable parts of the forum to hang around. Inevitably, Comics and Comedies were shafted into being the least attractive parts of the forum as a whole, which, at that point, was honestly justified. Both were the spawning place of newer aspiring comedians/writers who started out with their skill level not anywhere near tolerable and then moved on once they began to master what they had practiced. For the longest time, Comics was home to the "MSPaint generation", who's only drawback was not that they used a certain tool, but that they used it poorly. This was not a welcome site to any newcomer, and those who saw what they had to offer as a whole routinely turned around without a word, save for the required post in the ever recurring "What Forum Do You Visit The Least?" topic.
But Comics had something different about it - several things, in fact - which led to them developing their own history, legends, generations and more,
For one, it was the method of making the sprite comics themselves. Sprite comics in general have had a poor reputation, mostly because they were the results of ripping the actual game sprites from numerous games and placing them in premade backgrounds from the levels included in the ROM. Complete with some unreadable text and horrendously written stories or jokes, they cluttered up the internet chock full with their sub-mediocrity. Generally speaking, the video game forums faced the brunt of this onslaught, with the obvious connotation that, at the time, most sprite comic makers were satisfied with either directly ripping the game sprites or minute edits to the bases. Very rarely was a whole new spriting style made for an existing sprite base or new sprites made for a series that had no basis in sprites whatsoever.
But for Comics, something interesting happened. Not only were 100% hand-pixelled sprites actually created and used, they actually became the norm. Ironically enough, while BIONICLE's early Game Boy Advance exclusive titles did include a variety of Matoran sprites, never were they known to be used in BIONICLE sprite comics. Instead, the standard was (unknowingly) raised for the entire forum by having different artists make it general practice to create their own representation of the characters, pixel by pixel, and put them in different "poses" for others to use. In other words, what is known as the sprite kit. This practice is unheard of in other general fanbases that have sprite comic communities, and while hand-pixelled creations had always existed, never had they been so expansive and diverse. In fact, it was the fact that each artist hand-pixelled his sprite that led to different styles of sprites existing simultaneously and in turn, different styles of comics. In fact, that is the perfect segway to my next point:
Note: The following is a rather large rant on the history of the Comics Forum; feel free to skip past it if you want to get to the point proper instead of getting a more in-depth look.
While there were numerous kits made before the time, arguably the two most popular in the early days of comics were Razor (made by Marty Razor Kirra) and the various Rayg series (made by InnerRayg). The two were as different as day and night: the massive headed, skewed proportions of Razor Matoran, compared to the more set-like and anatomically correct (for toy-based biomechanical beings, at least) Rayg Matoran, Toa and everything else drew a distinct line in the sand between the styles of comics (there were, of course, several other kits that saw frequent use, such as the Chibi and Rahi Zaku Mega Kit (otherwise known as RZMK), but their styles folded mostly into the Razor and Rayg sides, respectively).
The lines they drew were best personified by the most popular comic makers of those styles back in the day: the Editorialist for Rayg users, and Dark709 for the Razor ones. Dark709's early Razor strips followed a classic formula: a slapstick, almost random sort of style of humor reminiscent of the Merry Melodies of Looney Tunes fame or the more recent SpongeBob SquarePants. The Editorialist had started out with Razor, but soon switched to Rayg and took on the embodiment of a more situational comedy, an almost dry humorist look at the world the characters lived in. While this didn't stop each from crossing into the established "territory" of the other, clear lines were certainly drawn between the two. Lavaside Rahi took note of this in his own article, "In the days of Razor and Rayg..." (which, from the point of view of someone who actually lived through this era, has a lot more credence than my own opinons do). Obviously, with such a common denominator separating the forums, there was plenty of controversy to go around. Razor users were "childish, random and nonsensical", while Rayg users were "stuck-up, sarcastic and rowdy".
The differing styles were in turn represented by the kits they used: the more cartoonish Razor was used for the zany humorists, while the more "edgy" comic makers found refuged in the more grounded in reality Rayg. Even after those two kits fell out of use, their successors more or less followed the same formula with the advent of Razor icon Dark709's Chimoru (which notably gained more of a following after the retooling of the kit into the less ugly Chimoru Omega) following Razor and Rahi Zaku Mini Kit (more commonly known as RZMIK, not to be confused with RZMK, the Rahi Zaku Mega Kit noted above*.
Dark709 still stayed as the mainstay Razor/Chimoru representee, but the Editorialist left and was succeeded by not just one comic maker but a whole group of them. Often just called "The Group", they took the essence of Rayg humor to a new level, developing and popularizing the "multi-author series" (or MAS, as they are often referred to as), a cooperative circular format introduced with their Project Klinkerpoop, and moved into a more definite snarky style of comic making. It was also during this age that many users started to switch to different programs for comic making that offered them a wider range of tools. GIMP was the common tool of use due to the obvious benefit of its cost (free!), while Photoshop was used by those who could either afford it or had a copy stashed on their parents' computer for some unknown reason. While before colored text and static pixel lines were used to differenciate between the characters' dialouge, stroked text and word bubbles began to spring up. Graphical effects began to be less pixelated and instead done with brushes, patterns and filters. Backgrounds went from two blocks of color to a gradient and wood pattern, a black line firmly inserted between the two to mark the end of one and the beginning of the other.
Even farther after that, Chimoru Omega began to become larger and larger due to fan additions, with more poses created as time went on. Six Shaded Chimoru Omega (a fan revision by Gerlicky) slowly replaced Chimoru Omega as the de facto version of the kit, and a comic maker named Dokuma made comic history when he actually took
care to make his sprites look like they fit into the photos as a whole and, at the time, made the most photorealistic series to date. Other comic makers like Nuparurocks and RZMIK Revolutionist Emkay took it further with series like The Fourth Wall, Irreversable and Worlds Beyond the Horizon of the Mind, making use of the "Photorealistic Comic Technique" (or PRCT, as Ennar nicknamed it later on). Ironically given its appearance, RZMIK soon became the icon of serious stories within the forum, contrasting the more popular episodic comedic series.
The controversy also continued on, with the same general arguments given before, but with an additional point of argument: graphics vs. humor. Several started to state that one was more important than the other, while another vocal group voiced the latter. This was rooted more in style than actual kit use, but many saw the early veterans as an example of what the comics forum should emulate instead of focusing on "shiny new backgrounds and explosions on unfunny comics were just a shine of gloss over a rusted car". Others found that the older veteran comics were outdated in visuals, and that "No amount of humor in the world could make any unreadable comic enjoyable".
The Group soon faded away and Dark709's visits became less and less frequent. In their place sprung the Continuities, groups of comic makers that banded together to create their own personal cooperative BIONICLE universe and timeline. While the original famous continuity, the North Western Isles Continuity (NWI, of course) had existed during the age of the Group, they never really got anywhere and had faded as well by the time the Group left. BZPower was instead greeted by the International Comic Continuity (the ICC), which gathered many popular comic makers together in order to tie all of their series together in a cohesive timeline. The success of the ICC led to many others making their own spinoff continuities, although none but the Next Generation Continuity (the NCG) managed to stick.
With continuities also came continuity wars, and these spread throughout the forum like wildfire, often escalating into flame wars that had to be broken up by the ever vigilant Pohuaki. Even beyond that were untrue conspiracies of members trying to shut down other series or get people banned, which by themselves gave the forum a more sinister undertone than previously thought possible.
* To make matters worse, most comic makers refer to RZMIK as RZ, and even more confusing is that what most comic makers refer to as RZ/RZMIK is actually RZMIK Revolutions, a fan revision by Emkay and Tahuri, which added colored outlines and 360-degree views to the original kit.
Well, wasn't that an oh-so-informational history lesson, you say, but what does this have to do with your original point: why comics are their own subculture? Well, unlike the other forums, the separation in art styles and humor led to a giant separation within the forum, almost like two opposing political parties. We had controversy and legends and debates and spokesmen, but most of all we had an notable evolving style that enveloped both parties and made several key stops along the way. The kits unified the forum while also separating them, and the evolving status of quality in the forum alongside the many comic makers who came and went gave us something more than just the usual addition and subtraction of artists in the forum. Using sprites gave us a common ground, something that allowed enough diversity for personal style but enough in common to properly track the style of a evolving art style. This was more easier to identify than normal writing, and the common ground made it easier to pick out than general art or MOCs.
The next point was BZPower itself. Unlike the Library, whose forums were given leeway, AIII originally had the strictest revival limit around: 20 days with no posts and the topic was dead. This led to one of the things that have also driven many away from the forum itself: the spirit of competition. Competition, of course, is nothing bad in an of itself, but within Comics it seemed to take on a more sinister tone. The only way to keep your series alive was to become popular, and if your series wasn't popular, it often died with no resulting fanfare.
As a result, popularity became a key player in the forum. The amount of pages and posts in a given topic drew much more attention than it should have, becoming almost like a trophy as to how popular you were among the other members. Competition drove critics to be harsh and for newer comic makers to be constantly put down, but it also gave many members the motivation to improve. Many strove to be "the next Gavla", "the next Dark709" or "the next Nuparurocks", and studied the more popular series intently to see if they could try and do something more.
This unfortunately led to harsher critics, but it also gave the forum a sort of "survival of the fittest" aspect to it. Several members were made to pay attention to what was current or be washed over by the waves of newer or popular comic series' posts coming in. GIMP was pressured onto many users and the result was that the noobish members got weeded out quickly, if not by the death of their series by the critiques that they met. This was not to say that the critics were upright snobs who never really gave any useful advice; there were layers of useful tips and tricks laced into the reviews and there were also countless newer members who were apparently astounded that anyone would find their work anything less than amazing. What it did mean, though, is that the older comic makers were not afraid to be blunt and didn't bother to sugar-coat what they had to say. The newer members either had to get with the program as soon as they could or just leave the forum.
Again, the comic revival limit did contribute heavily to the evolving state of the art style. When comic makers left or when newer comic makers just fizzled out, they died and they stayed dead. This resulted in something resembling the layers of earth in an archeological digsite. The death of a comic series often discouraged newer members, and the rules didn't permit them to restart their series without something new. This led to piles of dead series in "layers" coinciding with the art styles of the age while the new "dirt" or posts of popular and new series covered them and shuffled them lower and lower down the list of topics. MSPaint style comics, while they would endure popularity through the lower levels, were quickly killed during the GIMP layers and remained buried while the current comics continued on. If the comic maker came back, he had to try something different. Very few continued to do the same thing (although there were many notable ones, take my word for it) and when they soon became talented enough, they kept their series going. Basically, the terrible series would, more likely than not, get buried under the new layers of posts very quickly until they finally got something that kept them alive enough to keep up with the top layers.
While it was far from a perfect or even ideal system and by no means meant that every comic series on the top layer was a good one, it kept the system alive and kept the art style evolving.
That's why Artwork III is the subforum it is today. That is why members find it harder to pull away. That is why, even after many have been banned, left the site, or just plain retired, they still check back up from time to time and even return once in a while.
Its not just because of BIONICLE. Its not just because of what they created. Its not even just because of the community of members. No, they all contribute to varying degrees, but that's not it. Some came back after BIONICLE ended. Some came back restarting everything they did before. Some came back even when other people they knew didn't come back with them.
I think its more deep that than. Its because it has unique combination the art style and the rules it was blessed and cursed with that all unwittingly shaped the forum into one of the most interesting subcultures on BZPower. And because of that sense of culture, its a lot harder to pull away.
Spoiler tag removed. The spoiler tag is only to be used for spoilers. - Kohaku
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And with close another year...
... with absolutely nothing. I did have fun on vacation, though.
Cya next year, BZP!
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SLEEPYTIMES!
ME AM TAKE NAP NOW!
BUNNYMANS BETTER NOT TRY TO ESCAPE OR DEFEAT ME!
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SO IT SKIPS A GENERATION HERE AND THERE!!
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Banners
I made several banners for the new S&T contest. Which one do you think is the best one?
Just leave a comment saying which one you'll like best. I'm not sure how many comments will be left here, so I'll determine the maximum number of comments when I see how popular this is. In the end, I'll move the winning banner to Brickshelf (and maybe the others, too) and I'll remove the files from BZPower.
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Latest Entry
PhonES
So I have this
and its breaking and the battery barely lasts a day and its really laggy and slow and has a heart (processor) attack every time i get a message while i have an app open and freezes. So I've been looking at cool phones and I want this >: )
That would be the sony xperia S and its cool and stuff.. and It got rated higher than an iphone 4s in a review on some website that i cant remember the name of and its round €100 cheaper and i tried out the xperia U which is like cheaper version of that and that was very good. I dunno what else to say. I would like this phone
If anybody feels the urge to buy me it i can give you my address so you can post it here :L- Read more...
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BUILD
No, no, not building with Lego.
Building with code!
Microsoft announced their BUILD developers conference today.
I also get a significant amount of money to go to a conference for work of my choosing.
Guess I may be in Seattle the week of Halloween.
(Please give me a free Surface tablet, please?)
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Skin
Is a great book by Ted Dekker! Like, seriously, so good. I could not put it down, blargh.
LIKE AGH THERE WAS THIS ONE GUY AND THIS OTHER PERSON BUT I WON'T SAY ANYTHING ELSE OR I MIGHT GIVE IT AWAY BUT YOU SHOULD JUST GO READ IT. D:
On that note, looks like we have a new skin for BZP, and I must say, I do enjoy it quite a lot! So, a huge thank you to the staff that put so much hard work into it!
Now every time I hover my mouse over a member's name it flashes that red loading sign which makes me feel like I set off some bomb or something and kind of freaks me out, but generally just makes me feel like some awesome Russian spy, which is partially already true. : D
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Grave of the Fireflies
I saw this movie a month or so ago.
Oh... lord. I've never started to cry during a movie before. Never. I stopped myself before it happened, but, oh ...
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The Emporium is Open!
It's here! TheSkeletonMan939's Soundtrack Emporium is open for business!
Now go download something. Oh, and don't forget: if there's ever any music you want, rest assured I'll do my best to try and get it!
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WAT
What did I just write again? Ignore the last posts. Those were rather stupid and rather.....trite, to use an expression.
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Summer Homework
Well, I have a four-page essay due Thursday, have to read two books and write another essay by August 20th, and then read three other books and write stuff about them by September 7th(ish).
Could be worse!
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And Just When I Was Getting Used to the new look
Well, I wake up this morning to a little suprise.
BZ has changed... again.
I have mixed feelings about this. It feels as if we are trying to move backward instead of forward.
On the other hand, we no longer have that mix of eyesore blue and white
On the whole, I like it. It's an ideal balance, though I would have rather seen black and neon green
What are your thoughts?
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What's the "Start" button?
I started this blog for whatever reason.
What now?
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Latest Entry
Ouch.
So I just slammed my finger in the door. Who wants to see my wound?!?
In other news, It's my sister's birthday today, and we went to Tent rocks. I'll post some pictures tomorrow.
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What do I do with a blog?
what are blogs for and why do i have one?
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Latest Entry
BIONICLE Animated Show Help?
I am the member of a group that is dedicated to mining the goldmine that is the Bionicle story. However, in order to do that, we need to get more people back into the series. We're not really trying to revive it (though we wouldn't necessarily be against the idea if it did), but we do want to at least get more people interested. We decided we want to make the show targeted at the original target audience, while keeping it open for older audiences, like ourselves.
Our first idea: make a cartoon. It's not a television show, but it would be uploaded to the internet and shared. Our current problem is that we need animators. We want to get them before we start coming up with story ideas, so if you know how to animate/draw cartoons, please contact me!
We could really use your help. Thank you~~Tobi
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Art Class
Wewt. Tomorrow is my first day going to art class. Imma have lots 'o fun.
Also, I hope I'll be able to enter my flash fire entry before time runs out. I've been working really hard on it.
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superhero movie reviews. (spoilers!)
so, given my name is a superhero movie, i figured i'd do some reviews.
let's start from earliest to latest, mkay? (fun fact: i went to the midnight premiere of all of these. another fun fact: i will use the highest level of grammar i possibly can in these reviews, excuse me if i slip up)
any italicized sentences are usually my one-line reviews i put up on rotten tomatoes, in case you were wondering. also, i loved spider-man more than any of them, no matter what my rating says.
The Avengers (rating: A, 4.5/5)
Let's start this review by saying one thing: there was only one thing wrong with The Avengers. That was Hulk's pulsing, glowing green eyes. They weren't there! There were two scenes that really, really needed them to complete the feeling of the Hulk in that movie. One was when he turned around mid-transformation to the Black Widow, Scarlett Johansson's character, and when he said one of the best lines in the movie: "That's my secret, Captain: I'm always angry." Hands down, that was one of my favorite scenes, but I would've felt more "Oh s@&t, the Hulk's coming" if his eyes just turned. And don't get me wrong, his eyes were green, but they were a dark green. Almost like how our brown eyes look like black dots sometimes, the Hulk's eyes just weren't prominent, and that's one thing I loved about 2008's The Incredible Hulk and one thing I would've loved to see in The Avengers.
Well, also, they didn't mention Cobie Smulders's character's name once. At least I knew it was Maria Hill before I went into the movie.
Now, other that, I thought the movie was PERFECT. Robert Downey, Jr. brought the wittiness and the sarcasm his Tony Stark had in the previous two films, Scarlett Johansson was arguably hotter in this one than in Iron Man 2, (though no matter how gorgeous she is, I feel they should've cast someone else as Natasha. Anyone else?) Chris Hemsworth, while relatively unknown before Thor, actually did a good job fighting the Hulk, (I was HOPING for that as I went in. I grew up watching the Bixby series.) and Mark Ruffalo was a perfect Bruce Banner. His mannerisms, such as rubbing together his hands, his constant signs of paranoia like looking around nervously, it just made me feel more for the character. He's a fugitive and a beast, and he has no idea the next time he'll lose control. Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye was different, yet acceptable. Good actor, and he did a good job as the master archer. However, I want to talk about Chris Evans's character, Captain America. Very different from the Captain America in 2011's film The First Avenger, but yet the same. He's still willing to sacrifice himself before others, he wants to go down with a fight. Very... altruistic. But he's also different. He's in a different world, one he's not used to. Everyone he's loved or cared about has been long dead. I feel like we see a darker version of him, one that's not as accepting as he used to be. And, in comparison with Fantastic Four 1 & 2 (ugh), he did a great job conveying that. He's a better Captain America than Johnny Storm.
The fight scenes were great. Loved the beginning Captain America vs. Loki, loved Iron Man/Thor/Captain America three-way fight, loved the Avengers beating the bajesus out of the Chitauri, and my FAVORITE will be Hulk vs. Thor, just because I had that sense of nostalgia and childhood shoot up through me. Plus, Joss Whedon directed this film, and I admire his works. He turned a comedy about a cheerleader that hunts the supernatural into an awesome show and he made one of my favorites, Firefly. (Nathan Fillion, by the way, is one of my picks for the upcoming Ant-Man film, but Fillion doesn't want to do it.) So I tip my metaphorical hat to you, Mr. Whedon. Overall, The Avengers is a fantastic superhero film that utilizes the abilities of their fantastic list of actors and isn't ever trumped by the music or the usual loud, obscene sounds that dominate most superhero movies.
But please, don't mention Coulson.
The Amazing Spider-Man (rating: B+, 4.5/5)
When they first announced the cancellation and reboot of my favorite superhero, I was surprised. I had mixed feelings about it. I was simultaneously ###### off, and yet intrigued. I began trying to form ideas of what their plot would be, to the extent of writing my own script. A year later, they announced the villain and the first shot of the suit, and I got mad. I hated the suit. What I hated more, however, were the fan "gossip", I guess you could call it. "There's a lack of dirt around his hips, maybe he's wearing a belt" was the one that made me the most angry. Then a month later we got a shot with the mask on, and I had some anger repressed. I thought the eyes looked like the dot shading they did for comics back then, the common way of doing shadows. Then trailers, posters, featurettes, TV spots, all were being released and my hope for this movie just built up and up and finally, when the night of July 2nd came and I had gotten out of work, I was stoked. And I couldn't have asked for a better night. A movie, however, yeah.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVED this film. LOVED. My favorite film this summer. Only because Spider-Man was in it, though. The Amazing Spider-Man started with an intro similar to the Raimi films, and I had that feeling of nostalgia. I also had the feeling of ripping off, not so much "homage". However, as the beginning sequence went on, I started to just forget that there were 3 other films and I grew to accept that this was a stand-alone film, and that made this a better film for me. The parents of Peter, whom we've never seen, having something suspicious hidden that was worth breaking into. Peter Parker, a smart guy, but he's an outcast and he's grown to want to rebel against the world around him. He doesn't like to talk to people, he just grows away from them and his wanting to go against the machine just expands. He generally has a good heart, though. In one scene, Flash Thompson is bullying a kid by shoving his face in his food. Peter stops him, (though he has to go to extents by using Flash's real name, Eugene) and then he goes over to see if the kid is okay. Well, before being punched in the face by Flash. But I thought that showed that his heart was in the right direction, he just needed a push. That push actually came in two parts: the spider bite, and Uncle Ben's untimely death.
There were actually multiple pushes in this movie. His parents, the spider bite, Uncle Ben, Captain Stacy, etc. The one that starts the chain of dominoes, however, is actually a flood in the basement. Peter finds his father's old book bag as he's moving stuff out of the flooding basement, and finds out about Dr. Connors. In a rather humorous scene, he "borrows" the identity of an Oscorp intern and goes to meet Dr. Connors. (One thing I like about this scene is that he passes by a 3d hologram of Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, who is silhouetted. For some reason, the hologram reminded me of Kevin Bacon.) The scene where Peter talks about the theory of cross-species genetics was a little way of showing his intellect, and the talk between him and Gwen Stacy, portrayed by the lovely Emma Stone, was nice, ("I would say that I work here, but you actually work here, so you know for a fact that I don't actually work here.") but the thing that I was anxiously waiting for was the spider bite. The bite that makes Peter who he is, the amazing, spectacular, sensational and astonishing Spider-Man. But to my surprise, it didn't happen the way it did in the trailer. And as the movie went on, I realized a lot of things didn't happen like they did in the trailer. Some scenes were cut, too.
Earlier in the film, when Peter investigates his father's bag, he finds a file with an equation labeled the 00 Decay Rate Algorithm. (I liked this nod to the Ultimate comics, where the spider that bit Peter was designated #00 because of the numbers on it's back) Well, upon observing Dr. Rajit Ratha, Connors and his father's superior, he breaks into the 00 testing lab, where he finds Oscorp-branded biocable, (which he later uses to make his webbing) and it's testing in manufactured spiders. Upon plucking the strands of biocable, he causes a brief shutdown and all the company-bred spiders land on Peter, one hiding in his collar. Upon leaving, the spider bites him, and he experiences his first encounter with his powers on the subway, after sticking to a ceiling and ripping a woman's shirt off. I liked Andrew Garfield's mannerisms as Peter, especially after he gets bit, such as him catching the fly and eyeing it as if it were a snack, or how some things bother him. Smashing his alarm clock was one of my favorites.
They managed to pull off Ben's death without the wrestling arena well, but I felt Raimi's Spider-Man had a more emotional way with Peter and Uncle Ben. Peter uses his abilities to try and find Ben's killer, but after his suspect (which turns out NOT to be Ben's murderer) screams, "I saw your face!", Peter gets the idea for a mask. He also crashes into a lucha libre arena, and sees a giant mask that gives him the concept for the final mask. Then he's sitting upside down in his room making his costume, using old watches to make new web shooters, he's doing all these things to improve his vigilantism. One thing I liked about this one is that it actually shows him making his costume. He's sewing his prototype mask, he's painting the spider on the back of his suit, he's using sunglasses to make lenses on his mask. Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man just drew pictures of his suit, and drawing is a lot easier than doing. James Horner's score gave this triumphant burst of music when Spidey first stands on a building in his final costume during the sunset, and then he's off again to catch Uncle Ben's killer. However, a visit to Gwen's house gives him the sad realization that he's chasing the same guy and actually not helping people at all. Then romance, with okay dialogue but Emma and Andrew try to make the best of it, and then a WAY-TOO-SOON identity reveal. Then Peter is off.
During this film, Ratha is pressuring Connors to make this serum to cure Norman Osborn, who is dying of a terminal illness. (Which springs so many theories! My main one is that Norman is cured, but it leaves him with dual personalities, creating a case like the Sam Raimi films where Norman wants to do right but he's overpowered by his second personality- the Goblin. My second theory is that he turns into a beast like the Ultimate comics.) However, with Ratha rushing due dates, he fires Connors and plans on testing the serum on veteran's under the guise of flu shots. Well Connors can't let that happen, so he takes the serum himself... and regrows his right arm! Hallelujah! But on the down side, he turns into a giant lizard and he does the only good thing in the entire film, and that's stopping Ratha from turning a bunch of veterans into giant lizards as well. Buuuuut he's still flinging cars off bridges, so Spider-Man has to go and intervene. After Connors starts changing back and leaves the incident, and Spider-Man saves a kid, the father asks "Who are you?" And in arguably the best line of the film, Peter announces the one thing I've been waiting to hear. "I'm Spider-Man." And that is when I fist pumped in the theater and smiled like a fool.
This review is getting more of a plot summary, so I'll just try to sum up the rest of the film. Spidey gets an arrest warrant on his head. He also goes down into the sewers to encounter the Lizard head-on. In a clever way, he sets up a web trap, where he connects strands to tunnels so any movements in those tunnels would create vibrations, which would lead back to him. He fights the Lizard and somehow finds out who he is, and vice versa. He tries to tell Captain Stacy that Godzilla is ambushing NYC, which Captain Stacy thinks is stupid but asks others to get info on Connors anyways. Earlier in the film, Peter points out the Ganali device, which Connors describes as creating a cloud over a space as large as NYC, but Oscorp never allowed it because it could be used as a nuclear device, or a way of declaring biological war. So Connor figures, "Hey, Ratha was kinda right. Being a lizard is awesome, so everyone should experience it!" So after a brief debacle between him and Spider-Man at Midtown High (excuse me, Midtown SCIENCE High- which is weird), eventually ending with Spider-Man winning in an awesome way by webbing Connors up in a cocoon, he goes back down to the sewers, takes a higher dosage of the Lizard serum so he can be a giant lizard longer, and plans on stealing the Ganali device to turn everyone into a lizard. Peter follows him (maskless, for some strange reason) and calls Gwen to go to Oscorp and find the file on the lizard cure. (How he knows about this is also weird. It also made me realize that 12389, the file number, is a weird number.) He then goes back to the surface, is ambushed by Captain Stacy, beats the living ###### out of his squad, but couldn't bother to web his face and swing away. Nope, instead he turns around, reveals his identity, and gets shot in the leg. You could've gone when they were all unconscious, Spidey! But the scene was done for 1.) more ways to throw his identity about and 2.) to establish trust between Capt. Stacy and Peter. The Lizard gives a SWAT team a dose of his lovely lizard serum in a gaseous form, then breaks into Oscorp, finds a hiding Gwen with the Ganali device, doesn't bother to hurt Gwen, (because why would you hurt Emma Stone? <3) and then sets it up with the lizard serum. All while Gwen is making the antidote. Wow. So, anyways, Peter webs up his leg and, in a kind of Olympic matter where he's standing alone, there's a spot light on him, the father from earlier moving cranes on a path to Oscorp, he swings and... misses. BUT THEN HE CATCHES SOME BUILDING MATERIALS BEING PULLED UP, and he resumes swinging to Oscorp, where he fights the Lizard. The Lizard breaks his web shooters and rips off his mask, and claims Peter is all alone, before Captain Stacy shows up with a shotgun and starts shooting the Lizard. Peter knocks him into a pit full of liquid nitrogen tanks and he freezes the Lizard. Stacy shoots him a couple times, but the Lizard regenerates and kills Captain Stacy. (NOOOOOOOOO DENIS LEARY) One of the hoses freezes the bottom of the antenna- the one the Ganali device is on. Peter is trying to switch out the serum for the antidote, but the Lizard grabs his leg and, with seconds before New York City is New Lizard City, he switches it successfully. The cloud cures the SWAT team and Connors, but doesn't save Denis Leary. Peter falls and Connors catches him and watches as his arm falls to pieces and blows away in the dust. Captain Stacy makes Peter stay away from Gwen, and then he dies. Peter stands on the edge of Oscorp, looking out on the city and he sighs. Probably thinking, "What a day."
Obviously, he doesn't stay away from Gwen and he does this awesome ending swing which involves him shooting out of a crane and about to shoot a web while he's against a very bright moon and doves fly out behind him. It's my iPhone wallpaper. In an mid-credits scene, a man asks Connors if he told the truth about Peter's dad, to which Connors says no and screams he should leave Peter alone, to which this man just disappears. They confirmed it wasn't Norman, so Electro?
There were a lot of plot holes in this film and a lot in the trailer we didn't see in the movie. There were some inconsistencies, too. (How does Peter have the same prescription that his dad had? How did he get a box of biocable unnoticed? Why does his suit have more damage coming out of the sewers than it did going in? Where does Dr. Ratha go after the bridge scene?) This made me upset. But, because it's Spider-Man, I had to push that aside and love what I did see, and that was a good movie. Also, I loved the score. It gets stuck in my head, just like The Avengers score and the original Danny Elfman score. Overall, aside from obvious scene cuts and the resulting plot holes, The Amazing Spider-Man is a self-explanatory film that has an enjoyable cast and a intense plot, and it leaves you wanting more after the end.
The Dark Knight Rises (rating: A-, 4.5/5)
Coming soon. I'm too lazy to write this review.
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Countdowns
I just realized (thanks to Sumiki's recent entry title) that i have a lot of stuff that needs remembering and I should find some way to force my computer to do the remembering for me.
Well after searching through my computer and googling stuff I found nothing extensive enough, so I just wonder if i could get any suggestions from ya'll. I need some program or preferably website that will allow me to make multiple personal countdowns that i can look up again later. Thanks for your time.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and how do you change the date on blog entries to move them up up the list?
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BZPRPG Vacationers
Since Kray's blog link isn't working, I made a blog myself. From the GD Topic:
To compile.
TD: Inactive save for administrative purposes until Tuesday. Ish.
Krayzikk: Inactive the first two weeks of August
Snelly: Inactive all of this week.
EW: Returning any day now.
Me: Gone the first week of August.
Wade: Mostly inactive the first two weeks of August
Vorex: Chatting with GF on Skype.
Kal Grochi: Gone til August
I think that sums it up.
To keep people from cluttering the GD Topic, you may discuss what's going to happen when you leave here, if at all.
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Suggestions For A New Username
Exactly what it says on the tin. I'm considering changing my present username, and am genuinely interested in any suggestions you guys have for one.
You basically have free reign, as long as the name includes (in prominence) the word 'Void'.
Thanks!
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