Vorahk1Panrahk2

It's hard to say definitely. I don't think BZP is responsible for keeping me interested in LEGO and BIONICLE (I was already a huge fan of both before joining BZP), but I think it's safe to say that it enhanced my appreciation for both. There are other webpages out there I would have gravitated toward, but honestly I think they pale in comparison to this website. This one just seems to be a nicer place to hang around. I wouldn't have lasted nearly long at the other ones.

Wasted on the Young The first 70 minutes function quite well as a no holds barred look at bullying and its reprecussions. The main problems are with the editing, which led to some confusion with the narrative, and the script which could have definitely used a little more polish. The first problem is easily thrown aside once you figure out who's who. The script problems are harder to ignore, but I think the director's approach to the material makes theme easier to swallow. The real issues come in the last twenty minutes, when the screenwriters throws aside the story about bullying and segways into a weird revenge story that's more reminiscent of the Saw movies than the previous 70 minutes. It's a huge detriment to the rest of the movie because it doesn't make any intelligent statements about bullying or violence and instead exists just to shock. So, all in all, not a bad movie, but one that badly needed some script revisions.

I almost made this joke when I made OBZPC. I'm glad someone did.

Unless I'm mistaken, the current record is held by Alfed Molina who's silver screen incarnations appeared in Indiana Jones (Satipo), Spiderman (Doc Ock), and Prince of Persia (Sheik Amar). A bucket load of actors are behind him with two. And while it doesn't really matter, I'd hardly consider Emmit to an iteration of Chris Pratt considering the character's appearence wasn't based on him. Anyway, the minifigure looks good even if his hair looked less orange in the trailer. I'm loving the torso piece!

I was under the impression this game would already span the franchise since the teaser says "Four Jurassic Adventures." Also this quote from the article posted on Thursday:

Figured they'd go for the now cliche (and overused) 'T-Rex has short arms' joke, but the teaser as a whole still cracked me up. Although I didn't see a Mac platform logo at the end, hopefully it will end up on Steam as a Mac download like LEGO Hobbit. I want to play it!

WALL-EEEEEEE! Disappointed that the Hubble Space Telescope didn't make it, but I guess since we already have three real life science machine models from CUUSOO that territory has sort of already been covered. Hopefully the final WALL-E model doesn't deviate any from the proposed model (under the 'updates', not the pictured model). It's simply perfect as is.

If I Stay The main issue with the movie is that it tries to meld a coming of age story with a supernatural drama, and the director couldn't make it work. Not just because of the tonal shifts between the two stories, but because it required me to get invested in two compltely unrelated stories. Things get better in the third act when the stories start to become thematically relevant to each other, but by then it's too late to save the movie overall. On top of that, the central premise of the movie is that the character has to decide wether she's going to go on living, or let herself die. And I'm not entirely sure the writing justified her final decision.

Congratulations! I imagine med school applications are super competative, so a huge congrats for getting accepted!

1. No real preference, but blue is my favroite color so let's go with the blue ones. 2. I'm just happy that we're getting transparent colors in large quantities. The purple ones are nice, but I'm also glad we're getting transparent colors in shades of blue. 3. As far as I can tell, the only gold/trans mask combination is Ekimu's, and it is beautiful. Love the other solid/transparent color combinations for the Protectors as well. 4. Not sure what this is referring to? None of the other Toa have a gold/trans mask combination. 5. Won't judge until I see better pictures. 6. Too early to tell.

Although it's true that the skeleton guys will probably be generic fallen warriors... what are they fallen from? We haven't seen anything on the island that look remotely like the skeleton guys. The protectors are too small, and the animations seem to imply that Ekimu and Makuta aren't much larger. The scorpion thing might be a Rahi (or equivalent), but what about the humanoids? They're clearly connected to the elemental masks in some way or else they wouldn't come with them. And those masks look semi-corrupted. Maybe the character's weren't Toa specifically, but they were previous guardians of the Ancient City who tried to wear the elemental masks and got overloaded with power? Hence why the elemental masks were scattered and hidden so no one else would be tempted to try them on. I'm just making guesses here. I'm sure we'll get something more substantial realted to these things when summer hits.

I've honestly never even heard the name 'Mukau' before, but I'm sticking with that just because of how awesome the name is.

While it might be silly that people are trying to find a way to connect the storylines between G1 and G2, I don't think a snarky post like that will do much beyond insult those who are making them. I'd even say that making theories that connect the two BIONICLE stories is kind of fun. So why not let people have their fun? What's it harming?

I honestly never understood the criticism of the Toa Nuva masks. They're different on account of their larger size and the slight 'melted' aesthetic, but I'm not sure how that makes them bad. As for the Nuva figures, I like the silver armor and don't think it clashes with any of their preexisting color schemes. Silver pretty much goes with anything.

This sort of reminds me of Fred Savage from The Prinesss Bride: Which reminds me that I really need to rewatch The Princess Bride.

My favorite required "reading" list for a class consisted of Watchmen (the comic), The Road, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, and American Gods. It was a weird class. Competing With the Soviets actually sounds kind of interesting.

For various reasons not entirely important to this blog entry, I've decided that I want to pursue a masters degree. This afternoon I sent in the application to my first choice program, and while I'm nervous about it (as anyone is nervous about an application) I'm satisfied with it. Hopefully I appropriately conveyed my eagerness for the program because it sounds like the kind of thing that's tailor made for my interests. And here is where I thank my oldest sister who spent her one afternoon visiting us to pour over my essay, making sure it was in tip top shape and appropriately sparkly. She's pretty much gotten everything she's ever applied for (which is, like, the opposite of my luck) so having her input was incredibly valuable. My second choice application was sent in yesterday. I'm a little more concerned about this one. I "submitted" my application before the due date, but I'm not sure when the supplementary materials need to be sent in. The resources on the school's website say they aren't needed until April so that should really be the end of it, but I'm worried that I misinterpreted something somewhere and I won't end up giving them a complete application in time. Irrational? Maybe. But the sooner I give them that information the sooner I will get a response, so I plan to have the supplements in within the week- assuming the school responds to my requests for help on the application. Yes I need help figuring out an online application. Kind of embarrassing but there it is. Anyway, I'm really hoping that one of my applications will lead to acceptance, because there is no plan B. Well, there is, but it doesn't have a much larger chance of success. In an entirely unrelated event, my older sister was browsing diamond rings online today, with my oldest sister offering her input. When I tried to ask her what she was looking at rings for, both of them gave me a big shush sign with their fingers. I have no clue what's going, but when I think of diamond rings I think of marriage. I get weirded out enough when my friends get married. I have no idea how I'd respond to a sibling getting married.

After viewing The Winter Soldier I'm still not totally sold that superhero films are truly diversifying. It has shades of conspiracy films, sure, but that the end of the day it still had much more in commong with any of Marvel's other offerings than classic conspiracy movies like The Conversation, or even All the President's Men. You could argue that westerns still have a lot of similar elements between them as well, but there's still a large variety. There's the old school stuff like Stagecoach, and the revisionist westerns like True Grit. Assassination of Jesse James is more in line with the modern biopic (by way of Terrence Malick) than John Wayne movies. Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven is a complete deconstruction. The 8:10 to Yuma remake was almost a straight up action movie. The Good The Bad The Weird is a something between a homage, a comedy, and a spoof. I don't think superhero movies have achieved that diversity yet. There are exceptions like Chronicle (and you might be able to make an argument for Birdman), but as a genre superhero movies have a long way to go, I think. (Still haven't seen 'Guardians'. Still plan to, though.) That said, the superhero genre is a heck of a lot newer than the western so I wouldn't expect it to be at that level of diversity just yet. After all it took a while before westerns started diverisfying- most of my listed examples are from the last 20 years. Hopefully superhero movies are on the same trajectory. Speaking of which, while we're on the subject, it has to be said that westerns aren't really being made anymore, with some arguing that this is because of how saturated the genre used to be. It just got tired. Do you think superhero movies will eventually be the same? With Marvel churning out up to three films a year, combined with DC's developing universe and Fox trying out the universe thing as well, I can easily see people getting bored.

Personally I thought those were really cool. They had cool functions, looked like the characters they were supposed to represent, and some of them came with nice parts (lots of metallic blue on the super battle droid!). And despite being built out of technic, the human characters were convincing as humans instead of robots. Although given most of those technic characters either were robots or had inorganic armor that part probably wasn't too difficult.

I'm having nervous flashbacks to those old Marvel constraction figures, but there's been three years of parts development and constraction set design that will hopefully yield some nicer products. General Grievous, at least, should look pretty cool.

What have I done...

I'm loving the use of Cinderella's carriage wheel on Ekimu's shield. I'll wait until we get better pictures to reserve judgement, but from these initial glimpses I'm not super impressed with the villains. Mainly because those upper leg/knee shells are way too large to jive with the skeletal appearence they were going for. It just looks awkward. We'll see.

I mean, that's pretty much how it works in the real world. And the rule about not giving away food is completely reasonable if there are possibilities it got baked incorractly. It sucks for you that there's so much of this rudeness in a field that you really enjoy. But I'm guessing you were able to just move past it. And juding from your previous entries it seems like you really got the most of your education, so I'd say that's a win for you even if the people weren't exactly the best. And though scary is exciting, nice is different than good! (sorry not sorry.)

"Long rumored to be in production"? Guess I've been living under a rock. The microscale figures are fantastic as are the microscale vehicles. And while the model itself is nice, I can't get too excited about it due to not being a comic book fan. But I'm sure loads of other people are stoked and I'm quite happy for them!

Aaaand this is why I try to avoid collectible things. I know that if I buy one I'll have to buy more and I just can't do that right now. I mean just look at what happened with LEGO. I get one set in 1996 and look where that led me.