The Legend Must Die

A number of weeks ago, I held a conversation with my sister (who you can find at These Gentlemen) about a stunning new record. The sales of music from the hit TV series Glee have surpassed the Beatles in record sales. And apparently a lot of people are upset about this. Now, this is understandable considering the sheer musical dynasty that the Beatles were responsible for. In the seven years before they disbanded, they recorded 12 studio albums, 13 EPs, and 22 singles, on top of the 56 compilation albums released over the course of the past 48 years, leaving them with approximately 305 songs, making nearly 15 straight hours of music, and that’s not even counting their solo careers. And apparently the cast of Glee, which have only been around the past year and a half, have surpassed this feat.

This is not entirely true, however. Whether we were misinformed, or I simply misheard, the record in question was actually the number of songs on the Billboard Hot 100 list. The Beatles have had 71 songs take place on the Hot 100 list throughout the course of their career, 20 of which actually managed to hold the No. 1 spot. Glee, however, recently surpassed them with 75 songs making it onto the Top 100 list. None of them, however, have managed to be No. 1, with their rendition of Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” being the highest at No. 4. The record sales of the Beatles still trumps the Glee cast in terms of sales. The Glee recordings have sold an impressive 11.5 million in terms of sales, but the Beatles still dwarf them at over a billion albums sold.

Statistics aside though, what if what I had heard was true? Love or hate Glee, this is an issue I see a lot of. The Beatles were a phenomenal band, no one is disputing that. But someday, someone better will come along. The Beatles weren’t always number one, after all. Before the Beatles, there was the Beegees. Before the Beegees, there was Elvis. Before Elvis, there was Sinatra. And just as with everything else, there will be a successor, just as there was a predecessor. The Beatles won’t be the best forever, so there shouldn’t be such a stink when a new talent comes along and surpasses them in any manner of fashion. After all, this is the entertainment industry, so as long as we’re being entertained, it shouldn’t be an issue. Considering the fact that their music continues to be as popular as it is nearly fifty years later is an impressive feat in and of itself.

This is also not to mention that times and tastes are changing.  What defines pop today is radically different from pop forty years ago. In that sense, there are plenty of people today who may not even like that style of music, and because they didn't grow up with it, they may not have that same connection with the music. In reference to Glee however, Glee has surfaced during a critical time period in our lives where the internet is like a second life to us. It’s now easier than ever to purchase music online instead of purchasing a physical copy. Plus, Glee is the first television musical to date. It’s sole purpose every week is to take an average of five or more popular songs anywhere from today’s pop culture to the British invasion of the 60s to the jazzed up musicals of the roaring 20s and who knows where else? This means that every week, they’re releasing roughly five songs that were all popular hits at one time or another. If the cover is good, which many of them are, then hundreds of thousands of people will be downloading at least one new Glee vocal each week. And at a quick and easy $1.29 per song, no one is upset about making a few purchases to add to their mp3 library. Those make for some considerable numbers in the long run, and although when Glee does eventually die, I don’t expect the sales to last quite like the Beatles before them, however there very well could be another successful group or artist that does.

But that’s not the entire issue here. This issue is faced every time a popular song gets covered by anyone. This can be said about Glee, Across the Universe, Mamma Mia, and really, any artist out there that’s ever covered another song. Just like I said in my previous “Book Was Better” post, the original isn’t always going to be the greatest. I’ve heard plenty of excellent covers in my life. They may not necessarily be “better” than the original per se, but are oftentimes a good match if nothing else. I’ve heard at least three different versions of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”, and the Beatles version is actually my least favorite to be honest. You can make your own comparison with the list I’ve made at the bottom.

The point is, Lily Allen’s “Womanizer” isn’t as good as Britney Spears’. And just about every cover Glee-star Cory Monteith tries sucks. But I’ll tell you what, if it weren’t for the fact that they’re chipmunks, I’d even like the musicality of Alvin & the Chipmunks’ “Livin’ on a Prayer” better than the original Bon Jovi’s. And I frickin’ love that song. But they’re chipmunks, so no dice. And you know what else? I think David Cook’s take on “Always Be My Baby” is so different from Mariah Carey’s, a proper comparison can’t even be made, so personally I love them both. When two songs are so radically different, it’s best to just accept them both if you like them.

To end this week’s post, I want to post a few links to some good covers. By no means am I saying I think all of these are better than the original. Some, I am. But many of them are just good covers. Each song listed has both the original and at least one cover to follow. At least, who I think is the original. There may be a few I'm wrong about.And I’m not saying everyone should agree with me. This is, afterall my own opinion. However give at least of a few of these a listen if you haven’t already and I’ll let you reserve your own judgment. Oh and one last thing. Glee haters can rejoice because I held back. I wanted to do so many more Glee songs, but there's only a couple on here. And these will be audio only, so there's no video bias, even though Chris Colfer's performance broke my heart. Though there are a few I couldn't find a vid-less version of. And yes, I am serious about the Chipmunk musicality. Just listen to it and picture a human voice.

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I Wanna Hold Your Hand – The Beatles

I Wanna Hold Your Hand – T. V. Carpio

I Wanna Hold Your Hand – Chris Colfer

Always Be My Baby – Mariah Carey

Always Be My Baby – David Cook

Livin’ on a Prayer – Bon Jovi

Livin’ on a Prayer – Alvin & the Chipmunks

Dreams – The Cranberries

Dreams – Faye Wong

Me Against the Music – Britney Spears & Madonna

Me Against the Music – Heather Morris & Naya Rivera

Hey Jude – The Beatles

Hey Jude – Joe Anderson

Defying Gravity – Idina Menzel feat. Kristen Chenowith

Defying Gravity – Lea Michele & Chris Colfer

Smooth Criminal – Michael Jackson

Smooth Criminal – Alien Antfarm

Vogue – Madonna

Vogue – Jane Lynch

Hallelujah – Rufus Wainwright

Hallelujah – Elisa

Helter Skelter – The Beatles

Helter Skelter – U2

Helter Skelter – Dana Fuchs

Empire State of Mind – Jay-z feat. Alicia Keys

Empire State of Mind – Glee Cast

Distant Worlds – Izumi Masuda

Distant Worlds – Susan Calloway

Il Dolce Suono – Gaetano Donizetti

Il Dolce Suono – Inva Mula

Il Dolce Suono – Vitas

Scarborough Fair – Simon & Garfunkel

Scarborough Fair – Stella Voci

The Book Was Better

How many times have we both heard and employed the phrase, “The book was better”? Well, of course it was. No one is disputing that fact. I mean, let’s be honest, it’s a pretty accurate statement at least 99.9% of the time. However, although I do agree that reading is important, and more people should actively read (I’ve only just recently started forcing myself to), I do believe that many people overuse this phrase and treat movie adaptations a little unfairly.

Yes, adaptation accuracy is important. It’s important to get the look of the characters and the sequence of events as close to what was originally written as possible. I mean, Superman wasn’t blonde, Frodo doesn’t die and Hermione Granger never had a quickie with Cedric Diggory in the broom closet; so it only makes sense that these details never surface in the movie adaptations of these stories. But an audience should understand when to treat a movie and a book differently.

Now, again, it’s incredibly unlikely that a film will be able to match the amount of detail that a book offers. This is because unlike books and video games, films have a time limit. There’s only so long that they can make it before the audience gets bored. Generally a two-hour film is a good length. Out of sheer popularity, two-and-a-half hours will work as well, but three hours is pushing it. Even at three hours, however, there will have to be things that are cut in film. You simply cannot fit a 600-page book (or a 40-hour game for that matter) into a 2-3 hour timeslot. You’re better off converting it into a TV show, but then of course the production value isn’t as high.

The audience has to understand that there will be cuts. As long as the most important events and characters are in there, then that is ultimately what’ matters most. But sometimes there are scenes cut for other reasons too. There may be aspects that go unexplained because there just wasn’t enough time to show them coming to said conclusion. There probably could have been enough time throw in a quick explanation but it may also have ended up coming off as random. There will also be times when, let’s face it, it’s Hollywood, and they’re going to exploit Hollywood ideals, like romance. That’s a problem, yes, but most people are comforted by the concept of love, so it’s only an issue if it takes time away from what could have otherwise been used to further the plot.

Other cuts may include moments lacking relevance to the plot. There are plenty of wonderful situations that occur in books, but not all are directly relevant to the overall conflict, and would thus take up time that could have been spent on more important moments. Or perhaps there are situations that only the true fans that had read the book would appreciate anyway. The filmmakers are tasked with the job of making a film not only for the fans who already read the book, but also for Mary Jane and Jimmy John who haven’t yet read the book and are seeing this movie because they thought the trailer looked cool. And then there’s the issue of censorship, in which some scenes may be omitted because they were to graphic, macabre, adult, or unnecessary in some other fashion for the marketed audience. Although I’m a personal advocate against extreme censorship, some censorship can be understandable considering the target audience.

All I’m saying is that most of the time the book is in fact better. But no one should enter the theatre hoping that the film will in any way mirror the book. Instead, one should merely hope that they grasp the feel of the book, as well as the overall look of the characters and environments, and that it at least resembles the events as closely as it can. Altogether the film experience and the book experience are going to be two separate things, and they should be enjoyed as such. This is in no way to imply that all movie adaptations are equal. Some don’t even deserve the grace of holding whatever title they bare. Making a couple of necessary changes and bastardizing the book altogether are two very different things. In the end, as long as we don’t change the ending of Percy Jackson or give the Green Lantern the same dorky persona as Peter Parker, the overall movie experience shouldn’t be encumbered by fan outcry simply because a few details were overlooked.

Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief (2/2)

The day I finished the book, Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, my friends and I watched the movie as a comparison. I found myself doing a lot of the same things I did while watching M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender. Every couple of minutes I would raise my hand and comment “er….that didn’t happen”.

---------Spoilers ahead for book as well as movie.--------

Percy Jackson, the movie, felt like a complete disconnect from the actual story. It’s almost a guarantee that a lot of great things will be left out of the movie, but some of the most important things in the book didn’t even exist in the movie. Ares puppeteering didn’t take place, in fact Ares wasn’t in the movie at all. He was kind of a big deal in the book. Kronos also wasn’t in the book, he’s the one pulling the strings behind Luke’s betrayal (and the entire Olympian doomseday prophecy). Clarisse is introduced as Percy’s major rival, yet she’s nowhere to be found in the movie. Pair that with the additional (yet more understandable) content left out, such as Cerberus, the Furies, and the Hephaestus trap, and the actual relevance toward the book is disappointing.

On top of things taken out, the movie added random things in too. In the book, Nereid offers Percy the three pearls just before he leaves for the underworld. The movie takes this and makes it the central plot point. In doing so, the Hydra is randomly thrown in, and upon reaching the underworld (and skipping through the majority of it), Persephone shows up and helps them escape. That doesn’t happen in the book, in fact, the entire second half of the movie was completely different. Percy’s mother escapes the underworld, no problem, Hades isn’t missing his Helm of Darkness, Grover volunteers to stay behind and get raped by Persephone in the underworld, Hades never finds out the truth behind the theft, and Luke openly admits to the theft and claims to be the mastermind behind the whole plan.

And even further than that, a lot of the character portrayals were just unlikeable. I can understand making them teenagers rather than children. Children are going to age much faster than they’ll be able to make these movies (then again, Harry Potter managed). Aside from that though, the demographic is a little more widespread. While 11-year old Harry Potter was in school for most of the first few books, these 12-year olds are traveling the country, battling dangerous beasts in search of an ultimate quest. But if you move past that, the individual characters were quite different from how they were in the book.

Starting with Annabeth, she came off as a mix between Annabeth and Clarisse, and there was a weird love-connection between her and Percy throughout the movie. I don’t know if they hook up later on, but it was not at all implied in the book. Grover is supposed to be scared, fragile, and unconfident in the book, feeling he has something to prove after screwing up bad previously. Yet, in the movie, he’s confident, he’s arrogant, he acts like Percy’s protective older brother willing to take on the world, and the truth of his past is never mentioned. Zeus is forgiving and even somewhat charitable, not demanding Percy leave after having just spared them of war. Hades is easily tricked and not scary at all. Charon is exactly what he should be like in the original myth, not how he’s described in the 21^st century, the list goes on and on. And that’s not even counting Annabeth’s brunette hair, Medusa’s Caucasian appearance, and countless other physical discrepancies.

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Ultimately, however, I’m left with a different feeling with Percy Jackson than I was Avatar.  Although Percy Jackson made almost all of the same mistakes that M. Night made with The Last Airbender, there were two major differences. First, I felt that the production value was higher with Percy Jackson. The visuals were better, the acting was much better, and it just had that finished finesse you expect to see in a film these days. Second, the film was decent as a stand-alone movie. Despite how much was changed from the book to the movie, the plot wasn’t rushed, the revised plot still worked out, and it actually made sense. If Percy Jackson the Book had never existed, this could actually be a decent movie. Unfortunately though, it just makes and my friends wonder just how they plan to handle the next four movies.

Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief (1/2)

So I’ve recently gotten back into reading. Yes, reading. Reading is a form of entertainment just as much as television, music, film, or video games. I’ve been wanting to open myself up to more entertainment mediums because of the field I’m entering, so I’m going to keep a checklist per month of books that I read, movies I see, television I watch, games I play, music I listen to, and anything in addition to that such as graphic novels or performances. But you can look for that at the end of the month.

The point of this article in particular is Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. I am currently on vacation with my school friends in Florida, and on the car ride down, the two that I happened to be riding with had already read it and were currently reading the rest of the series. Having a good 17 hours of driving ahead of me, I decided to pick it up and give it a shot.

I wasn’t very impressed with it at first. The writing felt juvenile, but I guess it makes sense because it’s clearly meant to be young adult fiction, possibly even children’s fiction. Even still, it felt I was reading a story I had written in tenth grade (which I happened to have re-read recently) and was giving me a sense of underdeveloped plot. Sentences were short, description was scarce, everything was a little too “too the point” and some of the plot points were just out-and-out silly. But the reason I gave it a shot in the first place was because it is so heavily based on Greek mythology. I’ve always been a sucker for Greek mythology, as were my comrades, so I kept reading.

It certainly got more addicting towards the middle. Once the actual quest started, I found it more difficult to put down. The premise of the story is that gods and monsters from Greek days of old existed then and still exist now. Ares, Medusa, the Lotus Eaters, everything from Hades to the Iliad is included here, and what I find interesting is the story’s interpretations of the characters. The gods and monsters have grown and evolved just as mankind has, so Zeus is wearing pinstripe and Medusa owns a statue emporium. But they’re the same gods and heroes as olden days, so seeing how they’ve changed over the past few millennia is interesting and fun to try and guess who their next supernatural encounter is.

If you’re into Greek mythology, give it a shot. If you want just a fun light-hearted story with an interesting take on and old mythos, try it out. There’s enough serious undertones in it so far, I mean remember how dark the first Harry Potter was? Exactly, and look where that story went. The way the stories are written show that the characters will be growing older and maturing as the quest gets darker and more important, so I’m sure it gets more serious throughout the books. The only other thing I can say is that the story does bare mild resemblance to Harry Potter. Confused boy hero, desires parental love, crappy homelife with an awful stepfather, cowardly but loyal male comrade, intelligent but somewhat snooty female comrade, destined jerk rival that loves beating him but hates losing (just wait till my father hears about this). All things aside though, I'm by no means saying this is a copy off of Harry Potter. It's still quite different. Really, if you can get past the mildly juvenile writing style, it’s a good read to try out.

Avatar: The Last Airbender (2/2)

I had just finished the show, Avatar: The Last Airbender when the movie was released. I had heard how abysmally it did in the theatres, netting a pathetic 8% on Rotten Tomatoes. Granted, Rotten Tomatoes tends to be a bit harsher, where a good movie will receive a 70%. But to get an 8% is still quite an achievement. So after waiting a couple of months for Last Airbender to make its way to the dollar theatre, I finally saw it. I only had to pay $2.50 for this travesty, and even that was probably too expensive.

So what made The Last Airbender so bad? Well, M. Night was clearly given creative freedom for this production, and he made the most of it. In my previous article, I mentioned how the four nations in the show more or less represent the cultures of Japan, China, Tibet, and…wherever Inuits live. So why is it that a bunch of white kids replaced them for the movie? As it turns out, M. Night didn’t happen to like the white kids’ portrayals of characters. He specifically stated he wanted Caucasian children to be the ones auditioning.

As it turns out, even Zuko was originally supposed to be a white kid, but M. Night liked the Indian kid’s portrayal of him, so he changed the whole of the fire nation from Japanese, I mean Caucasian, to Middle Eastern. Zuko, Azula, Zhao, and Ozai, yes Ozai who’s not even supposed to be anything more than a silhouette in the first book shows up throughout the movie. Moreso, even the architecture of the Fire Nation was replaced with that of something you’re more likely to see in Indian culture, and their hairstyles were more American than anything. On top of that, the other three nations were a mixed salad of races if I’ve ever seen one. The Earth Kingdom was primarily Chinese looking, but there was a random African Tribe amongst them. The Southern Water Tribe was mostly Inuit citizens, with the exceptions of Katara, Sokka, and their grandmother, who were all mysteriously white. The Northern Water Tribe was mostly white, with a few darker skinned individuals thrown into the mix. The air nomads were part Tibetan, part Caucasian, part Indian, with a random black guy as Monk Giatsu. The races of all of the characters were just all wrong.

The sequence of events didn’t make sense either. They skipped over multiple plot lines, like the Kiyoshi warriors (and Suki altogether), Jet and his Freedom Fighters, Bumi and the city of Omashu, the pirates, the fortune teller’s love prediction, the Northern Air Temple, Aang’s first attempts at Earth and Fire bending, among others. I realize they can’t fit it all into at most a three-hour timeslot, but the only thing they even tried to incorporate was the Earth bender’s imprisonment, and that was probably only so they could include Earth bending at all. And even that was screwed up, because the Earth benders were surrounded by earth. They weren’t imprisoned at all!

It’s not even just because my friends and I are Avatar fans. I don’t believe this movie was good from a non-fan standpoint because the story was rushed, the acting was terrible, they were in too many places in too short of time, the dialogue was dramatized, the choreography was ridiculous, and the movie as a whole was just a mess. It felt as if he took his six favorite episodes, cut them into pieces, put them in a jar, shook them all up, mixed with wet plot devices and poured them out onto the editing table only to have them randomly taped together and put on the show floor as is.

The ending was different, the names weren’t pronounced correctly, the plot was out of sequence, Yue dies differently, Zuko’s scar is hardly visible, Pakku willingly teaches Katara, Sokka’s not comic relief, Aang isn’t light-hearted and childish, Aang is WAY too dramatic, the Avatar state is done at random times instead of during emotional turmoil, the giant blue monster never occurs at the end, the spirit world is always the same place, Roku’s dragon speaks to Aang instead of Roku himself, Katara’s grandmother willingly tells Katara to follow Aang, Zuko’s past is relayed via some random kid, bending requires a whole dance routine just to lift a rock, fire benders can only bend with already-existing fire, Iroh has dreadlocks, the water scroll is practically happened upon, Yue’s fiancé is nowhere to be found, Zhao instantly knows without proof who the Blue Spirit is, Aang’s capture is completely different, the list goes on and on and on.

Seeing this movie makes me wonder if M. Night even watched this show at all in the first place, considering Katara’s not a high-strung ninny, Sokka’s not the clumsy comic relief, Aang’s not a childish ball of sunshine, and Zuko’s not a vengeful douchebag. Not to mention that Aang became Ahng,  Sokka was Soak-ah, Iroh was Eeroh, and Agni Kai became Agni Kee, and not one character actually looks like they’re supposed to. Ultimately the movie was a box office failure, and it’s hard to believe that Paramount is more than happy to have M. Night finish the next two.  I don’t see how anyone can even look forward to an Airbender 2 and 3, even if M. Night somehow improves them because the first will still be horrendous. Like any good book, there’s just too much to the series to manage a perfect movie, but I think it’s possible to come close if it was at least two and a half hours long instead of a measly 90 minutes, had proper cultural casting, and M. Night was nowhere near the production of it.

Avatar: The Last Airbender (1/2)

So I recently got into Avatar: The Last Airbender. With the impending release of M. Night’s newest flop, all of my friends were shaking with excitement over the live action title. Being that I never watched Avatar before, my friends demanded I watch it before the movie come out, so I finally gave it a shot. Now, Nickelodeon hasn’t been the same since I was a kid. Without shows like Doug, Hey Arnold and Rugrats before they were All Grown Up, the channel of my youth just isn’t entertaining with all the CG shows and bad acting jobs done by Disney Channel flunkies who think screaming about nothing is funny. I assumed Avatar would be no different, but I was quite wrong.

Starting off, the first book didn’t hook me yet. It was better than I expected, but wasn’t the groundbreaking television series I had heard it was. But it gave me enough to keep me interested in Books 2 and 3. What I found in this show was a well paced program that delved deep into the four elements with a cast of interesting characters. There were only a couple of characters I didn’t like in the show, but even those characters came around eventually. To be honest, I hated the primary antagonist, Zuko for the first two Books. It wasn’t until a certain event in Book 3 that I started to like him, but I loved him after that. Jet also was dislikeable for the first two seasons, but even he redeemed himself eventually.

Azula, Toph, and Iroh were among my three favorite characters. Azula was everything I ever wanted in a villain. She was cunning, she was sinister, she was sadistic, and she was crazy. She had her close allies, and she was very charismatic. She never lost sight of her goal, but she never obsessed over it like Zuko did. She was also patient, took her time, and didn’t take her losses too heavily. She of course wasn’t the only villain, but God was she a great villain. Toph was my favorite amongst the hero party, and Iroh was the best of the neutral characters. But I don’t need to go in depth on why I loved all three of them.

Another thing I loved was the way they physically and culturally portrayed the elements. I’ve been obsessed with the four primary elemental forces since I was a kid, and would like to someday incorporate them into my own projects for the industry I’m entering. As such, I really appreciated the fact that all four elements were extremely cool. I found myself making a difficult decision as to which was coolest. Air and Fire were pretty standard, but Water and Earth impressed me most. Earth benders for the most part with pretty standard, but I really liked the way they molded the earth into specific shapes to create specific objects. Alternatively, Water benders were really impressive because of the sheer amount of stuff they were capable of. Snow bending, Ice bending, Grass bending, Vine bending, Water Absorption, Sweat manipulation, Water Cutting, Mud bending, and Blood bending, just to give an idea of how versatile it was.

I also loved the way that the four nations were portrayed. Racially, the Fire Nation primarily resembled Japanese folk, Earth Kingdom represented Chinese, the Water Tribe favored Inuit, and the Air Nomads were based off of Tibetan monks. Each nation was represented by a different color, Fire being red, Earth green, Water blue and Air was yellow/orange. Their cultural aspects came in the form of their clothing, skin tone, hair color, hairstyle, architecture, military structure and general ways of city living. It really showed a separation between nations, but at the same time a cultural similarity between them, a theme that the show thrived heavily on.

My only complaints with the show were that Zuko was so dislikeable for a majority of the show. Aside from that, there were a couple of specific plot points that should have been developed better. The final battle, while exciting should have been longer. Also the final attack I felt was a bit of a cop out considering the training Aang was supposed to be enduring throughout the show. The characters interacted well with each other and various relationships were formed and dissolved differently throughout the show. The heroes were fun, the villains were great, and all of the additional characters helped move along the show in a fun and interesting manner. But how did the movie fair?