Star Wars: Attack of the Dead Man's Jedi At World's End

First of all, let me apologize for my absence the past few weeks. I tend to update weekly, but my life’s pretty hectic with my new job. I work night shift, which leaves me with few hours of consciousness each day to do anything other than catch up on various mediums (Dexter, Mass Effect 2, God of War, etc). Also as of late, I’ve had to work Saturdays, so now I usually only get one day off, and that day is spent doing absolutely nothing. So if I continue to go lengthy periods of time without updating, assume it’s because I’m overworked, or have committed suicide from having to work on one stupid shot for FOUR WEEKS.

Anyway, let’s get to the issue. So some time ago the trailer for the fourth coming Pirates of the Caribbean movie was released. Now I’ve always been a fan of the pirates movies. A huge fan actually. The biggest. When I heard they were doing a fourth, I was ecstatic! At least until I heard that Will and Elizabeth were being ex’d. Since then, I hadn’t had any kind of high hopes for it. Still planned on seeing it, but honestly wasn’t expecting much because although the series is almost solely based on the character of Jack Sparrow…Jack, Will and Elizabeth were somewhat of a trio. Will and Elizabeth may have concluded their little love story (albeit in the most awkwardly frustrated way possible), but it just won’t be the same without them.

But perhaps that’s just the point. What if the fourth Pirates movie isn’t just the fourth Pirates movie? What if it’s the start of a whole new trilogy? Now just consider this. Star Wars is an extremely successful series split up into two trilogies. Each trilogy has their own set of characters, stories and sub-plots. One revolves around Luke, Leia, Vader, Han and Chewy, while the other surrounds Anakin, Padme, Obi Wan, Mace Windu and Senator Palpetine. One trilogy is Darth Vador’s reign over the galaxy, while the other is Anakin’s descent into darkness. But the thing that connects them is one underlying character: Anakin Skywalker.

Now consider, all Pirates movies have their own subplots, but consider the similarities. Firstly, the villains. Episode I/Curse of the Black Pearl surrounded Darth Maul and Barbossa. Episode II& III/Dead Man’s Chest&At World’s End surrounded Count Dooku and Davy Jones. Perhaps the next three pirates movies will all surround Blackbeard, much like Episodes IV, V and VI surrounded Darth Vader. Likewise with Elizabeth and Will out of the picture, maybe Penelope Cruz among a few other select characters will continue their roles in future films, amongst the few select characters that make consistent appearances (Barbossa, Yoda, Jack, Anakin, Gibbs, Palpatine).

Basically what I’m trying to say is this. If the fourth PotC movie is the final PotC movie, then I think they’ve made a huge mistake. A series like this cannot simply end on the number 4. But if Stranger Tides is the start of a whole ‘nother set of films, we just might have a dual trilogy on our hands, and if they handle it like that, it shouldn’t get old. It’d just be such a waste to let all of that wonderful Meditteranean mythology and old pirate lore go to waste, and with a character as entertaining as Jack Sparrow, it could really make for a wonderful set of six movies. And I for one plan to give it a fair chance.

Finally There

For a change of pace, I’m not going to talk about things industry related. Not directly at least. It’s been about two weeks since my last entry, and for that I apologize. But there’s a good reason why. My personal life just pulled a complete 180 on me, and I am now situated in Los Angeles, CA. In fact, my last blog post was being written in Baltimore/Washington airport. Since I got here, I haven’t had the time or the resources (internet) to update, so that’s why I’m a little late.

But after a hectic first couple of weeks I can officially say that I am now a part of the industry I’ve been blogging about for the past eight months. I got a job doing stereoscopic conversion for a company called Stereo D, which is why I made the move to begin with. Now, for those who don’t know, which I imagine is nearly everyone, stereoscopic conversion is directly related to the new 3D craze all CG movies seem to want to be a part of. Basically what I do is take flat, 2D footage and draw shapes around the characters and environment aspects. These shapes are animated to follow their movements, so that they can be roto’d, or cut out and separated into layers, which is what creates the 3D effect.

Now by trade, I’m not a roto artist or compositor of any kind. However, I picked up roto quite easily and am doing well so far at the company. Traditionally however, I'm an animator, and anyone who reads this blog can find my work at http://www.chasecg.com. What I ultimately would like to do however is get my Master’s in Media Design because I want to be at the creative head of my own company someday. Whether I form the company or rise to the top of my own, it doesn’t matter as long as I get there. But I’ve always been interested in characters and story most, so I would like to work in character design and story development. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve created stories and characters in my head, so I already have multiple projects in the lineup.

In the argument of movies versus games, I’d really be fine working on either. What’s great about movies is that they have a larger audience, but I would rather develop video games solely because of the vast scale of world they bring, and the sheer length of story they tell. With a movie, you get two hours, three max. But video games are often praised the longer they are, and can get up to forty hours, or fifty hours before reaching their conclusion. These are immense stories that I want to tell because I have too many ideas to trim them down to a two-hour flic.

Another aspiration of mine is to be a voice actor. Once I’m more settled in, have some money to spare, and am not working an insane amount of hours, I would really like to get an agent and start doing voice work for movies, tv, and games. My biggest goal is to be a Disney villain someday. The 2D kind (no offense to Mother Gothel). I don’t simply want to provide my voice though, I want to provide multiple voices that all sound different. Christopher Sabat is a very talented voice actor who sounds completely different in multiple roles (when he doesn’t sound like Piccolo at least), and that’s what I want to do. I’m always making up characters, and alter-ego personalities, male and female, young, old, or otherwise that all sound entirely different, so I would like to provide voice work for various, “Disney-esque” characters if you will. Characters where the voice makes the personality.

Finally, related to that last paragraph, I would like to have a say when it comes to English dubs. While English dubs have gotten better by leaps and bounds over the years, I still keep seeing common mistakes when a great Japanese dub receives a less-than-stellar English voice over. But I’ll save that extension for another post. It’s probably too big of a dream to strive for my own dubbing company on top of my own game company and a professional voice acting gig, but hey, impossible dreams are the ones that keep us working longest. Either way, I’m finally here in the industry. The first job is the hardest to get, but it does get the wheels in motion. So for anyone that’s still struggling out there, and feels like their dreams will never be attained, they certainly won’t if you just sit around all day and don’t do anything about it. I applied to over a hundred industry jobs, both in and out of the country, related and unrelated to my craft, hiring and not hiring, and I finally got one. And that’s really what starts it all.

Disney Retrospective

A number of days ago, Walt Disney Pictures released their 50^th animated feature film, "Tangled". The term Disney has been something of a household name since Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was released an astonishing 73 years ago. At an average of once every 18 months, Walt Disney Pictures has presented us with a new animated classic just about every year. In honor of their 50th title, I want to take a step back, and see where they are as a company, where they came from, and where their future lies.

Snow White wasn’t Disney’s first project. Mickey Mouse was created long before the Evil Queen tricked our fair-skinned princess into eating her way into a coma. Even Mickey wasn’t Disney’s first attempt at a loveable cartoon character. However, what made Snow White and the Seven Dwarves so impressive was the fact that it was, in fact, the first full-length, animated feature film in history. People gathered for miles around to witness Walt Disney’s epic masterpiece. It was unlike anything anyone had ever seen before from the compelling animation, the musicality, the lushly painted landscapes and the rotoscope of real, human-like movement. This paved the way for Disney to make more incredible visual masterpieces. The lead heroine sparked the lineup of a Disney Princess franchise. And the wretched evil queen set the standard for a string of some of the best villains out there.

The magic didn’t stop with Snow White. Although it certainly wasn’t an original story line by any means, Disney continued to use classic fairy tales as its base when creating feature films. Before anyone knew it, classic tales such as Pinnochio, Cinderella, and Alice in Wonderland had been re-imagined onto the silver screen. All the while Disney became more involved in music. While Snow White only bore two musical interludes, entire movies started being set around the very concept of music. These include the Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, and the original Fantasia, which contained visual representations of multiple classic songs such as “The Nutcracker Suite”, and the now personified “Night on Bald Mountain”.

Disney didn’t rely entirely on humanoid characters however. On the contrary, many of their classic tales featured anthropomorphic creatures to play the lead. This became first apparent with “Dumbo”, which featured a young elephant in a travelling circus. Later classics featured Pongo and Perdy from “101 Dalmations”, Tod and Copper from the aptly titled “Fox and the Hound”, and Bernard and Miss Bianca from “The Rescuers”. There was a lengthy period of time where it seemed just about every Disney movie featured an anthropomorphic hero, from deer to rats to various breeds of dog, Disney certainly wasn't shy about making animals the stars of many of their classics.

Whether animal, vegetable or mineral however, strong character development was never entirely on the lead. On the contrary, some may say that Disney villains are more charismatic than the heroes themselves. Just like the Disney Princesses have spawned their own franchise, so have the villains. In particular, Cruella DeVil is considered one of the strongest incarnations of ‘pure evil’. And Maleficent is sometimes considered to be the ‘queen’ of the villains. Future villains like the warlock Jafar, sea-witch Ursula, and god of the Underworld Hades, succeed in matching Disney’s earlier antagonists with their own unique characters, quick wits, and smooth tongues.

Disney really hit its stride in the 80s and 90s. While nearly every Disney masterpiece is worthy of a space on the shelf, the Little Mermaid sparked what many people refer to as Disney’s Golden Age. From “The Little Mermaid” to Mulan, literally every single films in that lineup make for some of the best movies around. The soundtracks are well orchestrated, the music is funny, the humor is witty, and the stories are just fantastic. Disney’s creative genius overflowed from “The Little Mermaid”, to “Beauty and the Beast”, to "The Lion King", to “Aladdin”, to “Pocahontas”, to “The Hunchback of Notre Dam”, to Hercules, to “Mulan”. Some would argue that in comparison, the rest of the Disney classics almost seem minute (though of course they’re all great). On top of that, Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora gained three new princess in the Disney Princess lineup with less traditional princesses in Ariel, Belle and Jasmine. Pocahontas and Mulan were also technically added to the lineup, but aren’t widely as accepted since neither is really a princess.

Leading up and into the 90s, Disney began incorporating more and more CG into the 2D masterpieces. From the Cave of Wonders in “Aladdin” to the avalanche in “Mulan”, Disney began to rely on 3D animation for some of the bigger events. This became very apparent in the movie “Tarzan”. Tarzan marked a change in the Disney lineup, not only relying so much on CG, but moreso by eliminating all muisical elements entirely. Gone were the days of ‘Hellfire’, ‘Reflection’ and ‘Colors of the Wind’. Instead the entire soundtrack for “Tarzan” was created by Phil Collins. No one in the movie had a solo, no one in the movie sang a song (with the exception of a quick, unofficial spurt via the younger gorillas) This decision was not well received by many, and Tarzan’s popularity suffered as a result. But that was only the first step.

While few would say any of the movies Disney has produced in the past ten years were “bad”, they just weren’t the same. Musical became straight shows and all flamboyancy was essentially erased. The character development wasn’t strong and the movies were rendered as ‘cute’ instead of ‘magical’. Worst of all, Disney created “Lilo & Stitch”, “Brother Bear”, and “Home on the Range”, and called it quits in terms of traditional 2D animation. They still pumped out around one title each year, but each title was now in full CG instead of the widely beloved 2D. Fact is, CG was on the rise, and Disney had to keep up with the times. It was a sad, sad, time for Disney.

Then, around March of 2009, be it from wishing on a star or true love’s kiss, what seemed like a miracle occurred, and Disney was working on another 2D masterpiece. Their newest film, titled “Princess and the Frog”, promised to bring back the old Disney essentials, and they certainly delivered. We got a charistmatic villain in Dr. Facilier, a new princess in Tiana, a charming new tale of a re-imagined classic, and a fully voiced score of musical numbers. Disney sent out ads that they were opening back up the 2D studios and hiring artists to fill them. And that’s where we left off until this year.

What seemed like a bright future, I’m not entirely certain of now. Tangled was released only a few days ago and I went to see it. While it was charming in its own right, it wasn’t without its problems. First, it was in CG, which disappointed me. It was a visual masterpiece and honestly one of the best CG films I’ve seen, but I still just seem to prefer 2D because there just seems to be something more personable about it. What I didn’t like about the film however was its music. While Disney usually provides a fantastic sing-a-long score, this movie just fell short. I found myself enjoying it until the next time they opened their mouths. One last thing is that Disney tends to take one of two routes in their miracle endings. Either they outline a guideline for a miracle early on so it can be realized later on, or they come through with a loophole in order to make the miracle work. Tangled did neither. It was one of those miracle tears endings if you know what I mean.

While Tangled was a disappointment, I’m more nervous for Disney’s future. “The Princess and the Frog” gave me so much hope for a return to 90s Disney, but after Tangled, Disney already has their next three projects lined up. In 2011, Winnie the Pooh will be released. While it looks cute, and is in fact 3D, this is nothing new. Winnie the Pooh has been around for years at this point so I’m afraid Disney won’t be offering much to the table. In 2012, a project titled “Reboot Ralph” is scheduled for release. I believe I read that this film will be 2D, but the premise doesn’t sound very promising in that it’s about a boy who gets sucked into a video game. After that, in 2013, Anima the Jungle Cell is slated for release. This one will be 2D, and feature a new Disney Princess in Anima, but all that’s been released about it is that its about blood cells. While we’ve no idea what they may be able to do with this, it sounds like it may just be an Osmosis Jones knock-off, which wasn’t a very good film to be knocked off in the first place.

I don’t know what the future of Disney is going to hold, but frankly I’m a little nervous for it. Disney has always had its hand in creating epic masterpieces for people of all ages to enjoy, but lately they just haven’t been on their game. Maybe “Reboot Ralph” and “Anima the Jungle Cell” will end up surprising me, but it makes me sad to think that 90s Disney may just be a thing of the past. I guess we should all start wishin’ on stars if we want the good old days to ever come back. 

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.

Halloween Top 20 (3/4)

I'm back with the third part of my Halloween List. I've got five more good, scary movies for you to watch this Halloween season.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

This one didn’t hit off as well with the critics, but it did do fairly well with the fans. Either way, I liked it. I hadn’t seen the original Exorcist until about three years after I saw this, so I didn’t know what a movie about exorcism would be like. This movie was pretty disturbing however. It features a young woman who suddenly begins acting strange. She starts seeing disturbing imagery, she losing control of her mind and body, she crawls around like a spider, she speaks in tongues, she screams and roars at everything. Conclusion: she’s been possessed by the devil. The movie isn’t entirely centered around her exorcism however. A concurrent storyline is about the pastor who exorcised her. He manages to relieve her of the devil, but is unable to save her life, and so his methods are called into question as to whether or not they were ethical. The movie itself stands alone well enough, but what really makes it disturbing is watching it knowing that it’s based on a true story. Of course, “based on” can be a pretty loose term, but just knowing that events like this have happened to people kind of sends shivers down your spine.

Orphan (2009)

This is one cah-reepy movie. It follows a family who looks into adopting a young Russian girl named Esther. But Esther isn’t like most 9-year old girls; she’s psychotic. Aside from the creepiness in general she tends to carry around on her persona, there’s just something very off about her. She makes decisions and talks in manners that many will find unnerving. She persuades her adoptive sister to do bad things, and she brings physical harm to her adoptive brother, all the while threatening to kill either of them if they ever bring word to her adoptive parents. And then she gets a weird obsession with her new father, and we’re not talking a cute schoolgirl crush on her Math Teacher. I mean this girl wants mommy out of the picture. With an overall super creepy vibe and an ending I never would have seen coming, Orphan definitely delivered.

Last House on the Left (2009)

Not that I’m trying to spoil the movie or anything, but you know how sometimes you get a real douche of a villain, but they manage to get away without you, the viewer, getting the satisfaction of watching them get mutilated in return? This movie is for you. This movie features a band of villains that kidnap, rape and kill a pair of best friends that unfortunately end up in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people. Well, as it turns out, one of the girls actually manages to get away, and word is gotten to her parents what happened, and the whole dichotomy of the movie shifts as now it’s the villains’ turn to take a chance at survival. I’m hardly a sadist, but it’s oh so satisfying to watch such awful people get just what they deserve.

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

I haven’t seen this movie in a long while, but what has always stood out to me with this title is the lack of gore. This movie probably has more character deaths than any other on my list, yet in return has the least amount of blood. The story follows the headless horseman, terrorizing a village, riding around lopping off the heads of the villagers, trying to find a replacement. So the movie is just chop, chop, exposition, chop, chop chop, yet no blood. This only further proves my belief that you don’t need wild gory deaths to have a good, scary movie. Saw VI? Lots of gore, terrible movie. Sleepy Hollow? Minimal gore, great movie. If this description isn’t enough for you, it’s made by Tim Burton, featuring Johnny Depp and Christopher Walken [when he was still playing villainous roles], with Danny Elfman on music. This should be a no brainer.

The Others (2001)

I love a good ghost story. Events of the supernatural are something that no human truly understands. Included in this is Grace Stewart, played by Nicole Kidman. Grace is a mother of two with a husband at war. Her tightly knit family lives humbly in a quiet country home, and life in general seems to be pretty normal. Her children develop a disease that makes them weak to sunlight, but nothing too out of the ordinary. Well, not until ghosts inhabit the house. Suddenly strange events begin to take place. The little girl is drawing pictures of a family she keeps seeing. A scary old woman appears wearing the daughter’s clothing. Someone hides the curtains, endangering the children. These events leave Grace certain that these are hostile ghosts that wish to bring harm to her poor children, but perhaps that’s not the whole story. Pay attention all the way through, because there may just be another surprise in story.

Well that’s it for my movie list. Saw 1, Saw 2, Final Destination, Disturbia, Thirteen Ghosts, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Orphan, Last House on the Left, Sleepy Hollow, and the Others are ten good, scary movies for you to enjoy this Halloween. The list ends next time. 

Halloween Top 20 (1/4)

In the spirit of Halloween, my next few blog posts will be featuring lists of good scary movies and games to watch and play for Halloween. First I want to talk about a few movies. Now, the following movies define the word “scary” in different ways. Some are more psychological, rather than pop-out scares. But a good scary movie, in my opinion, does not rely on a) killing off as many people as possible, and b) killing people off in the bloodiest, most disgusting ways possible. Movies like that should really be their own genre because they’re not scary, and they’re not psychological; they’re just gross.

Now my picks aren’t necessarily my top 10, and they’re in no particular order. But they’re all movies that stuck out to me over the years, so think of them as nothing more than recommendations.  So without further ado…

Saw I & II (2004/2005)

Keep in mind I’m ONLY recommending the first two in the Saw series. The first movie presented one of the most brilliant villains of our lifetime. He’s a killer that doesn’t actually kill his victims. The famed Jigsaw killer goes through a life changing experience that makes him appreciate the gift of life itself, and he wants others to experience this epiphany. He captures seemingly innocent people who don’t appreciate the precious gift that God has given them, and puts them into “traps” where they must sacrifice some pain and fight for their own survival. This is a brilliant concept. Every situation is escapable, and most directly reference the reason they’re there in the first place (such as a man who cuts himself being caught in a maze of razor wire), and with the exception of maybe one or two of them, the sacrifice seems pretty fair. Well, as fair as a psychopath can make it.

So why am I only recommending the first two? Because after that, the series goes downhill at an accelerated rate. Starting with the third movie, the traps start encompassing innocent peoples lives, so that their survival is in the hands of someone else. And there are even some that aren’t innocent, but it’s still not up to them if they survive. The series picks up again for the fifth movie, reverting back to mostly people who are in charge of their own fate. But the sixth is the absolute worst. It involves an insurance agent that has to choose, out of about 10 people, only about 4 of them can survive these trials. This is no longer the question of fighting for your life, this is now a selection of picking favorites. Basically, this is the complete opposite of Jigsaw’s original objective if no matter what, people will have to die in these traps. Regardless of the fact that these people are put in the hands of Jigsaw’s apprentice, they’re still Jigsaw’s traps that he planned to continue even after his death in the third movie. I can’t even begin to describe how thrilled I am that this series is FINALLY ending this month. The first two are great, but the series as a whole is just an excuse to kill people off in the most inhumane ways possible.

Final Destination (2000)

This is another movie like Saw. Not the content of it, but the fact that the first movie is brilliant, and everyone should see it. The following three movies, however, exploit the brilliant idea of the first movie in order to kill off as many people as they can in as horrifying of ways as possible. The setting of the first movie is a high school class goes on a field trip to Europe. One teenager has a vision of a plain crash, which ultimately causes him and six other individuals to safely get off the plane before takeoff, sparing them. But Death has other plans, and the students begin dying off post-crash, one-by-one, in the order they were supposed to die originally, in a series of freak accidents. They seem like freak twists of fate, but the movie is so chilling, it keeps you wondering if anyone can survive the cold grip of Death. Please watch this movie if you haven’t already. And do yourself a favor, never watch FD 2, 3, and 4.

Disturbia (2007)

This movie is more of a psychological thriller than a true blood horror movie. But it’s still quite good. This movie features a young man name Kale whose mother begins dating another guy after his father is killed in a car accident. There’s something off about this new guy though. The teenage boy feels that the new guy may be some psychopath, but seems harmless in person. Still, something rubs him the wrong way, and he’s got the sneaking suspicion this guy is a murderer, and Kale swears he partially witnessed him murdering another woman. However, considering Kale is on house arrest after a confrontation at his school, there’s not a whole lot he can do. Who is this guy exactly? Did Kale really see what he thought he saw? Can he prove it before it’s too late? Or will his mother be the next victim? Give it a watch, it’s good. 

Thirteen Ghosts (2001)

So this is the first movie on my list that’s like a true blood ghost film. It could just be my obsession with lists in numbers, but I love this movie. It’s from Dark Castle films, which does mean one thing: Gore. However, this movie’s not as bad as you might expect in that area. There’s not as many deaths in this films. The few deaths they have are horrific, but they’re still fairly few in number because there’s actually a plot to this. The film encompasses a family whose rich uncle has just passed on and left his estate to them. They are led to his estate where they are to spend the night. The estate in question is unlike any house I’ve ever seen before. Almost none of the walls are solid. As grandiose as it is, a house full of glass walls with weird writing all over just gives you a weird vibe, and it should. As it turns out, dear old Uncle had some skeletons in his closet, or ghosts in the basement rather, and a booby trap has caused them to be set free. As the title implies, there are 13 ghosts, each more terrifying than the last. They each have their own unique appearance and personality, and all of them make a sizeable appearance in the film. Well, actually, there were only 12 ghosts in the basement. So who’s the thirteenth? Watch it to find out.

So there’s five select titles to give a watch. The rest of the list will appear before Halloween. Keep an eye out for it.

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.

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.