One False Step

Troy was able to get tickets to an advanced screening of The Dark Knight, and he was kind enough to take me. I’ve been waiting for this movie for a long time, as many of you well know. I’m going to do my best to give you a review without spoilers.

Heath Ledger was amazing. I couldn’t even see Ledger through the makeup, he was so absorbed in the role. He was absolutely chilling in the way the Joker is supposed to be. I’m glad they don’t really give us a look at the origin of the Joker (More correctly, they give us several different origins to drive the point home that his “multiple choice” past doesn’t really matter.)

Aaron Eckhart absolutely defined Harvey Dent. He’s an amazing actor, and he pulled off both sides of the role perfectly. I’d say he was, possibly, even more impressive than Ledger’s performance as the Joker. I was surprised at how much they did with this character. I think he may have had as much screen time as Batman himself.

Christian Bale, for once, didn’t really impress me. Batman was actually the weak point of the film. He really seems to have lost the drive from the first movie. Of course, he’s still passionate about what he’s doing, but somehow it’s different this time. Bale’s Batman voice is kind of embarrassing, to be honest. I think it must be the difficulty of faking an American accent coupled with the difficulty of trying to mask his own voice and sound menacing. He pulls off Bruce Wayne perfectly, but his Batman still needs work. I feel he did a better job in the first movie.

The movie was definitely long. It seemed like two movies, really: On one hand, you have a movie about Batman fighting the Joker, and on the other hand you have a movie about Harvey Dent fighting the Joker. It was worth time spent watching it, but I did feel a little exhausted afterward.

This movie had a few weak points. In addition to the ones listed above, I also found some of the Bat-gadgetry to go a bit beyond my realm of believability. Also, the Scarecrow is only in the movie for about five minutes, with maybe only about five lines. I understand this movie is about Harvey and the Joker, but I would have liked to see a little more of Cillian Murphy’s amazing performance. Hopefully he’ll make a good come-back in the third movie, assuming there is one.

I’m not going to tell you to see this movie.  If you were even remotely interesting in this movie, you’re going to see it.  If you weren’t interested at all, I doubt there’s anything I can say to change your mind.

“All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That’s how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day. You had a bad day once. Am I right? You had a bad day and everything changed”

Degrassi.

Okay, now that half of you are gone, I’ll continue. I’ve watched ten seasons of Degrassi (Junior High, High School, and part of The Next Generation). I’m growing kind of weary. I’m now in season 6 of The Next Generation, It seems as though their goal is to make all of their main characters unbearable by the end of the series. They’ve even given Craig a cocaine addiction.

Emma Nelson is absolutely one of the most annoying and infuriating characters on television. Considering she’s essentially the main character, and her mother was the second best character in the original series (Caitlin is #1!), it just kind of baffles me. Why did they make her so thoroughly ridiculous? So boring? It’s a mystery.

It’s a shame to see the first generation characters being phased out. I suppose they’ve been typecast as much as anyone can be. Joey and Caitlin have been removed from the main cast in this latest season, and I haven’t even seen Spike yet. Snake’s the only one who seems to be sticking around so far. I understand they have to move on, but… It’s unfortunate.

I just spent half an hour trying to find the opening sequence to Degrassi on YouTube, and all I can find are terrible fan edits. Then I tried to find a decent-sized image of the Degrassi title card from the opening sequence. Failed at that, too. In my attempt to bring you some form of multimedia related to this post, I have settled for a vague map of Canada:

Degrassi is somewhere in that red circle.

“The hardest thing is telling someone you love that you like them.”

One major problem I have with this series of Doctor Who is Russell T. Davies’ insistence to bring back the Doctor’s big bad villains one last time. I understand and support bringing back old enemies for him to fight, but why does it always have to be one last time? For example:

The Daleks are absolutely the most well-known and terrifying of the Doctor Who villains. We learned that they were all destroyed in the Time War (and that they took the rest of the Doctor’s race with them). However, we found out in the episode Dalek that one of them survived. Okay, I understand that. One last fight between the Doctor and a Dalek. The Dalek was destroyed. However, in the episode Bad Wolf they’re brought back one last time when it’s revealed that an entire army of them has been hiding behind the sun. Rose Tyler imbued herself with the power of the TARDIS, became the Bad Wolf, and “divided every atom of [their] existence,” wiping out the Daleks forever. In the next season, the Daleks returned one last time, when it was revealed that millions of them have been hiding in the “empty space that exists between alternate dimensions.” Okay, that’s cool. The Battle of Canary Wharf, Rose gets trapped in an alternate dimension, and the Daleks are destroyed forever. They returned one last time five episodes later, in season 3, to fight the Doctor and his new companion Martha in Manhattan (Where it was revealed that the last surviving Dalek has been genetically engineering New Yorkers into a new breed of Daleks). Naturally, the Doctor and his companion are victorious, and the Daleks are destroyed forever. Then they came back, just last week, in the season 4 finale. Apparently the only surviving Dalek somehow, despite it being absolutely impossible, broke the “time lock” on the Time War and rescued the Dalek creator, Davros. Naturally, Davros travelled to 21st century Earth to rebuild his empire. By the end of part one of the finale, the Dalek Empire was back in full force, one last time. Of course, by the end of the next episode, they had all been destroyed one last time.

Is it so difficult to keep the enemies alive at the end of the episode? What’s so wrong with the Daleks returning permanently, rather than killing every single one of them at the end of the episode (With the exception of the one who always seem to escape)? They’re not tricking us. We know they’re going to come back. It doesn’t need to be absolutely shocking every time we see a Dalek and realize they’ve somehow come back to life. Now I just roll my eyes and lapse into a coma for the next 45 minutes.

Another Russell T. Davies cliche is the idea of an “impossible enemy.” For RTD, it’s never good enough to have a well-armed villain causing trouble. They always have to be from some shocking time or place and the Doctor always has to say “No! But that’s impossible!” Examples of impossible enemies include the Daleks (every time), the Cybermen (Because they’re from an alternate reality), the Beast (Because he’s from “before time”), the Carrionites (Because they’re from “the old universe”), the Weeping Angels (Because they’re from “the beginning of time”), the Master (Because he’s dead), the Midnight creature (Because nothing could be that powerful), and Davros (Because he’s dead, too.) What’s so wrong with having an enemy who’s from Last Thursday and just has a really big gun?

So why do I like this show? Because it’s amazing. Despite these obvious shortcomings, it’s really very good. It’s got a rich history on par with the Stars Wars and Star Trek universes. It’s got loveable characters we can relate to. Some of the writers are actually very good. I just can’t wait for Russell T. Davies to hand over the reigns to Stephen Moffat. I can almost gaurantee we’ll start to see fewer and fewer of these ridiculous cliches. Of the thirteen episodes a season, I’d say that eight or nine of them are usually pretty amazing, and those episodes are never the ones written by RTD.

Watch this video, and gaze upon the impossible! It can’t be! What are we going to do!?

I really like Batman.  I could get into his history, like I would with any more obscure character, but I figure by now you all have a general idea of what happened to him and what led him to do the things he does.

I hate the Golden Age of comics, and Batman is the primary reason.  He’s a character who absolutely needs to be dark.  He doesn’t function properly in the daylight.  I think making him any less than a tragic, brooding hero is almost an insult to his character.  I don’t mind seeing those few moments of happiness, but they’re made so much more poignant when surrounded by the horrors of his everyday life.

However, and this apparently surprises some people, I don’t have a problem with Robin.  Perhaps he is a little unrealistic, but not nearly so much as people would want you to believe.  Batman didn’t find a random 13-year-old boy to train as his apprentice.  Dick Grayson’s parents were murdered, and he wanted revenge.  Batman saw this kid about to get himself killed because of his anger, so he took him in to teach him the “proper” way of dealing with the dregs of society.  Batman taught him to be Robin in order to protect him.

I liked Batman Begins because it gave a lot of people a taste of the real, dark Batman.  It was a good movie, and while it doesn’t exactly line up with the comic origin of the Dark Knight, it was a good way to introduce him.  I’m excited for the sequel, but I’m pretty sick of the “viral marketing,” (which is a term that is used way too much these days).  After the 17 trailers and teasers released, all of the photographs, the selected scenes, I feel like I’ve already seen it.  I can’t imagine there’s much more to be revealed in the actual feature presentation.  I know, I know, I have a “I Believe in Harvey Dent” campaign sign in my front yard (Yes, really), but I don’t consider it viral marketing.  I consider it awesome.

Also, some website claims to have leaked an unsolicited script for The Dark Knight written by Michael Bay.  It’s painfully fake, but pretty funny when you think what would have been going through Bay’s brain as he wrote it.

“People think it’s an obsession. A compulsion. As if there were an irresistible impulse to act. It’s never been like that. I chose this life. I know what I’m doing. And on any given day, I could stop doing it. Today, however, isn’t that day. And tomorrow won’t be either.”

For the last five days, Blizzard’s official website has featured a splash image of ice. Ice melting. Ice melting with sinister eyes above it. Today, the ice is gone.

Diablo III has been officially announced.

This is the greatest day of my life. It’s like a million Christmases occuring simultaneously. Why do other days even exist, when they pale so vastly in comparison to this one? How can anyone ever claim that they have known true happiness, when this announcement came just this morning?

First, shock. Second, tearful bliss. Third, fear. They had better not screw this up. I hope they find a way to keep the same dark atmosphere of the first two. I hope it will be rated M. I hope the WoW kids don’t swarm to it.

I’ve said before that Diablo II was an integral part of my adolescence. I grew up with the game, and it’s the only one I can truly say without a doubt that I was completely and hopelessly addicted to. Even World of Warcraft never stood a chance against the world of Sanctuary.

I can only assume that this announcement was timed in respect to Comic-Con. I wouldn’t be surprised if the game got its own panel. You can be sure I’ll be there. Front row. In the middle. Kneeling in prayer.

“And the Heavens shall tremble.”

Happy birthday, Elek.

I’d really like to get back to playing Dungeons and Dragons, but there hasn’t been any time for that lately. Everyone seems so busy. It’s strange to see so much on my schedule. It looks like things will calm down after July, though. Or maybe I just haven’t scheduled that far in advance.

Alex Woodward moved down to St. George. His phone doesn’t work down there and he doesn’t have the internet, so I think I’ve pretty much lost contact. He has my e-mail address, so I guess if he makes it to the library I’ll hear from him. I don’t really have friends move away, that’s just not something that happens to me. Alex Murillo went to college, of course, but I have ways to contact him and he comes up for the summer and winter.

The last few days have been unpleasant. I’ll leave that one where it is.

“Sure, there are plenty of fish in the sea. But you’re nowhere near the sea. You’re in the desert. Alone.”

The title of this post is actually relatively clever, I hope no one else thought of it first.

I’ve posted a couple times regarding Crisis on Infinite Earths, the [literally] earth-shattering multi-franchise crossover DC ran in the 1980’s. This was followed a few years ago by Infinite Crisis which expanded on certain themes and invented new problems for everyone. Infinite Crisis was followed by 52, which was quite honestly one of the greatest things I had ever read. 52was followed by Countdown which was, of course, a countdown to the next big thing; Final Crisis, the last in the Crisis trilogy.

DC tends to plan story-lines out one to three years in advance. Usually this makes for some great stories with surprisingly accurate continuity. However, Countdown was thrown in at the last minute, and it’s thrown off the balance. Grant Morrison, the primary writer, recently explained that Final Crisis was actually written two years ago, before the idea of Countdown was even conceived. This means that Countdown was essentially useless, and Final Crisis was forced to disregard certain aspects of continuity. This, coupled with the fact that the first issue of Final Crisis was terribly written, makes me worried about the future of the DC Universe. DC is running this “Where were you when the Martian Manhunter died?” campaign. I don’t know where I was, Grant Morrison, because you killed the founding member of the Justice League off-panel.

Doctor Who is wrapping up. There are three episodes left in this season. They’ll be producing four “specials” during the year-long break in the regular series, and it’s rumored that The Doctor will once again regenerate into a new body. David Tennant is definitely one of the best actors they’ve had in the role, so they’d better have a fantastic replacement lined up. Rumors say Torchwood will be similarly abbreviated; Four-to-six episodes, and taking on a more family-friendly atmosphere to please the young fans of Who during the break. Considering the ratings have never been higher for either show, I don’t understand why they’ve decided to do this.

Now for something I’ve avoided talking about in this post. It’s the giant chrome toaster in the middle of the room that I’m neglecting to mention. The mid-season finale of Battlestar Galactica aired on Friday. The revelations were absolutely Earth-shattering. I know Sterling is still on season two, so I’ll avoid specific spoilers. When the episode ended, I sat in the darkness rocking back and forth for ten minutes. I can’t put into words what I was feeling during the last scene. The writers had cooked up this episode to be the emergency series finale in case the writer’s strike had prevented them from giving it proper closure. If the series had ended there, I don’t know if I’d be alive to write this. Instead, we have to wait until next year to see the final ten episodes of the series.

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

Sometimes I like to torture myself by staying awake after I’ve gotten off work.  Usually I go straight to sleep, and wake up the next day at 4 or 5 PM.  Every few weeks, though, I stay awake so I can experience the day like everyone else.  My days off are usually pretty depressing, because people tend to be asleep when I’m awake.  This provides me with time to spend with my friends, and time to get things done.  I tend to spend about four hours wandering around by myself before meeting up with other people.  Here are some pictures of today.

I met up with the Nekrowizard at the bookstore.  He recently purchased a new motorcycle, so I stopped by to take a look.  It’s really pretty nice.

We hung around Sugarhouse for a while before heading to the Gateway.

Tilt was being inspected by the vice president of Nickels and Dimes, so everyone was pretty nervous.  I remain #4 on the Area 51 Site 4 machine.  I’m still #3 on War.  We headed to Sugarhouse Coffee.  I’m not a fan of Sugarhouse Coffee, but I still seem to end up there frequently.

Jessica and David were there.  Obviously.  We talked inside.

Then we all went outside.  I didn’t happen to get a group shot, but we ended up with myself, Sterling, the Nekrowizard, Alexander, Jessica, and David.

I feel like I just wrote the text to a story book.  It seems to me that people react more to pictures, and I’m fine with that because it’s less work for me.  I think I have another television and comic post coming up, though.  I think Sterling used to read those.

“When the Devil goes bald, there’ll be hell toupee.”

I’ve taken to carrying around two new gadgets, and I’m quite pleased with them.

First, I got a new phone. I picked up a T-Mobile Dash (Which is just a re-branded HTC Excalibur). Fits well in one hand. Keyboard is a good size. Sound quality is excellent. It came with Windows Mobile, which is… functional. My only major problem with it is that you can’t turn off the predictive text. I’m not used to it, and I end up misspelling more words and spending more time correcting them. Not only that, but the phone learns these typos as real words, so I end up with predictive typos. I think it was a good purchase.

Those of you who know me in person have probably noticed that I’ve been carrying a camera around recently. You’ve probably had your picture taken at some point. Purely to keep everyone’s attention, here are some photographs I’ve taken in the last three months or so.

I’d like to move this toward a more visual website.  I hope to put up some more pictures.  Unfortunately, half of my pictures are friends-standing-in-parking-lots, so I’ll try to get some more interesting shots.

When I was looking for something to read, I was recommended multiple times by multiple people two different books in the same week. Since I knew Chris in person, and he first recommended A Canticle for Leibowitz, I decided to pick that up first.

Canticle picks up several hundred years after the “Flame Deluge,” the term used by the people to describe the nuclear war that nearly destroyed the planet. The book centers on the Abbey of Leibowitz, where an order of monks work to protect the writings of the Beatus Leibowitz and his peers. The book is divided into three sections, each six hundred years after the previous.

It was a good book, but I did have some problems with it. It’s just my personal opinion, of course, but I thought the first section was much better than the others. It was interesting to see how the Catholic religion evolved after the devastation, going so far as to believing that horrible monsters called Fallouts were sent to earth by Satan. As the story went on, however, it really seemed to me to lose its post-apocalyptic feel. 1200 years later, it really seemed as though it was too far post-apocalyptic; to the degree that it could just be any other science fiction book. It dragged a little near the end, but picked up again for the last few chapters. Despite my minor complaints, it was a good book I’d recommend.

The next book I read was The Stars my Destination. As I said, it was also recommended to me several times. Stars is, essentially, The Count of Monte Cristo in space (Not to be confused with the anime Gankutsuou, which is The Count of Monte Cristo in space with with vampires.) After the first few chapters, I was convinced I had made a horrible mistake with my purchase. The main character, Gully Foyle, was one of the most unlikeable fictional characters I’d ever read. However, like Edmond Dantes, he changed quite a bit throughout the book and in the end I was pleased. Now, I know I said it was the Count in space, but don’t let this deter you. It’s just enough like the famous Dumas book to make you think, but not so much that you can count on what’s going to happen next. It’s full of interesting twists and developments, and not all of the character analogues stay true to their counterparts.

I really shouldn’t compare them, because they’re both so different. They were both great in their own ways. I’m glad I’ve added both to my collection, and if you’re a fan of science fiction (Or “speculative fiction,” if you want to sound professional) I suggest you give them a try.

“Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men.”