Haven't seen very many movies lately, but I do want to go see Expendables 2 at some point soon.
But what I have seen is Paranorman.
First warning, this is a kids movie, so if you go to see it in theaters, expect a shitload of children.
That being said, the movie had plenty of adult jokes hidden in it to make it enjoyable for those of us who can vote and buy cigarettes.
I couldn't help but laugh when the adult jokes came in and the laughter in the audience changed from high-pitched to lower.
The movie is basically about the kid from "The Sixth Sense" but a few years older and much more cynical. He can see and talk to ghosts, his family and everyone in town doesn't believe him.
Shit happens.
But then craziness goes down and the town is confronted with the reality that ghosts exist. Good times.
I'm actually rather pleased with the overall moral of the story "Don't judge people who are different than you."
It comes out quite obviously in the adventures of the title character, but it also features very heavily in his overweight best friend, and a gay character who I won't name to avoid spoilers.
The gay character really slams home the moral. Like smacking the audience in the face and saying "With all of this crazy shit going on how could you possibly think that I'M the worst thing out there?"
Cause, really, who cares if someone is gay. It shouldn't matter to anyone but them and their partner. And with all of the war and economic trouble in the world, gay people should really be the least of our worries.
I love that this children's movie decided to make a point about that. It made the already enjoyable movie that much more enjoyable, and it introduces children to the concept that gay people aren't as weird as some people make them out to be. Cause really, throughout the whole movie there is very few signs that the character is gay. They are just another person, who happens to be gay, and that's really how everyone should look at it.
Thumbs up all the way on this movie.
Political/ Economic theory post in the works, I'll get it up here eventually.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Monday, July 23, 2012
Batman: The Dark Knight Rises.
Batman: The Dark Knight Rises.
A Review.
-----MASSIVE GODDAMN SPOILER ALERT---
A Review.
-----MASSIVE GODDAMN SPOILER ALERT---
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Sunday, July 1, 2012
The politics of 2012
This article will cover a variety of topics and make a number of political predictions.
People have been building up alot of suspense for 2012, all of the various predictions and such in addition to all of the political maneuvering for the November election. But what people don't seem to realize is that November is a foregone conclusion.
Prediction #1 Obama will win the election.
A number of things make this a certainty. First, he is a MORMON Republican. The GOP has never elected a non-protestant president. The only non-protestant president was JFK, a Democrat. The entire GOP platform is based on the concept that people of other religions are wrong, so they will lose a significant number of voters simply because he is not of their religion.
Second major factor is that both candidates are already bought and paid for by the corporate Juggernauts of the world. There is no law preventing special interest groups from donating to multiple candidates, therefore they cover their bets by donating to both. Regardless of which candidate wins, he will be in the pocket of the corporations. Currently their is significant civil unrest in the country, and electing another Republican would cause that unrest to grow significantly. Which is bad for business, so it is in their best interest to make sure that Obama wins.
Thirdly Obama managed to pull off two major political victories. He killed off Osama Bin Laden. American public enemy #1, and he got his medical reforms past the House, Senate, and Supreme court (More on this topic later.). This shows him as a strong President who gets things done. Something that the previous administration lacked.
He is going to win the November election. I will be insanely surprised if he doesn't.
Now onto the "Obamacare" legislation.
The Republican party campaigned very heavily against this, but not for the reasons that they say they did.
To clarify, I'll break down what it does.
1- It forces every citizen to get medical insurance, or to join the federal medicare insurance.
This is both good and bad for big business. It forces everyone to spend money on Insurance and doesn't require the corporations to provide it.
However, it specifies that non-citizens (illegal aliens) become ineligible for Medicare and other such public medical coverage. This makes living here very, very dangerous for illegal aliens, and they are the primary physical labor workforce in this country.
The laws also have a clause that makes it so if medical insurance would cost more than 8% of your total family income, then you are exempt from the law and aren't required to pay the penalty tax.
#2- It increases the number of high-risk (i.e. pre-existing medical conditions) that are required to be accepted by medical insurance. And their premiums are to stay in the normal range rather than the astronomical range. This part is kindof a wash as it's good that these people get coverage, however it's bad that it'll likely lead to increased rates.
#3- Tanning beds are given a 10% sales tax. Making the company pay the government for giving you skin cancer that they are likely going to be treating later in your life. It makes sense. Fuck you tanning companies.
#4- Insurance companies are prohibited from creating a "lifetime dollar limit" for medical bills. This is a very good thing for average people and especially the retired. It means that as long as you keep paying your insurance, they aren't allowed to say that you "ran out of money" regardless of how expensive your bills become.
#5- Extending the family insurance age from 24 to 26. Since most people are graduating college and moving back in with their parents now, this makes sense. It allows their parents to continue covering their medical bills for two more years.
#6-Insurance is prohibited from doing any of the following:
- Withholding treatment for children under the age of 19 with pre-existing medical conditions.
- Dropping policy holders from coverage when they get sick.
- Hiding any hidden "Administrative fees" from the policy holder.
- withholding preventative procedures and exams. They are now required to supply breast exams, check-ups, etc. and they cannot charge you a deductible for these procedures.
-Discriminating or charging extra for patients with pre-existing conditions. If you have diabetes, they aren't allowed to charge you more than the person without diabetes.
- No annual spending caps (same deal as the lifetime spending caps. If you have a bunch of injuries or illness in one year, they can't make the "you are out of money" claim.
#7- Physicians pay will be based on quality of care rather than volume.
----------------
Basically the program makes it so that all citizens and legal residents get Private or public medical coverage (patient's choice) regardless of their income. If your family makes $30,000 a year then your insurance premiums will only be $992 a year (3% of their total income for full coverage of the entire family)
While families making $88,000 a year will be paying $8,379 a year (9.5% of their total income.)
--------
Note: Average yearly Insurance premiums are $4,968 a year currently. So the cost goes way down for the very poor, but doubles for the wealthy.
The example of $88,000 a year is for a family 400% above the poverty level (which is $22,000 a year)
-----
The entire concept of "Poverty level" doesn't really work on a national scale, considering how varied the cost of living is depending on where you live. $200 a month in rent is fair in some locations while others are charge $2,000 a month. That alone makes a big difference. For a family living in a $2,000/month area, $22,000 a year is severely below poverty as their rent alone would eat up 109% of their income.
-------
End notes: The Obamacare system or "Patient protection and affordable care act" is actually a good thing for the country as a whole. It makes sure that our lowest legal income individuals and families won't be sick and dying. However it does eject our illegal residents from the system.
The Republicans aren't worried that it's socialist, they are worried that it might get rid of the slave labor we have in this country. Illegal immigrants are a major factor in what causes the wealthy to keep their wealth. It's the cheapest and most effective way of cutting costs, and they do it all the time.
What this means for you?:
If you are wealthy, guess what? You are going to be paying more for medical insurance.
If you are poor, you are finally going to be getting the medical coverage you likely desperately need.
About damn time too.
People have been building up alot of suspense for 2012, all of the various predictions and such in addition to all of the political maneuvering for the November election. But what people don't seem to realize is that November is a foregone conclusion.
Prediction #1 Obama will win the election.
A number of things make this a certainty. First, he is a MORMON Republican. The GOP has never elected a non-protestant president. The only non-protestant president was JFK, a Democrat. The entire GOP platform is based on the concept that people of other religions are wrong, so they will lose a significant number of voters simply because he is not of their religion.
Second major factor is that both candidates are already bought and paid for by the corporate Juggernauts of the world. There is no law preventing special interest groups from donating to multiple candidates, therefore they cover their bets by donating to both. Regardless of which candidate wins, he will be in the pocket of the corporations. Currently their is significant civil unrest in the country, and electing another Republican would cause that unrest to grow significantly. Which is bad for business, so it is in their best interest to make sure that Obama wins.
Thirdly Obama managed to pull off two major political victories. He killed off Osama Bin Laden. American public enemy #1, and he got his medical reforms past the House, Senate, and Supreme court (More on this topic later.). This shows him as a strong President who gets things done. Something that the previous administration lacked.
He is going to win the November election. I will be insanely surprised if he doesn't.
Now onto the "Obamacare" legislation.
The Republican party campaigned very heavily against this, but not for the reasons that they say they did.
To clarify, I'll break down what it does.
1- It forces every citizen to get medical insurance, or to join the federal medicare insurance.
This is both good and bad for big business. It forces everyone to spend money on Insurance and doesn't require the corporations to provide it.
However, it specifies that non-citizens (illegal aliens) become ineligible for Medicare and other such public medical coverage. This makes living here very, very dangerous for illegal aliens, and they are the primary physical labor workforce in this country.
The laws also have a clause that makes it so if medical insurance would cost more than 8% of your total family income, then you are exempt from the law and aren't required to pay the penalty tax.
#2- It increases the number of high-risk (i.e. pre-existing medical conditions) that are required to be accepted by medical insurance. And their premiums are to stay in the normal range rather than the astronomical range. This part is kindof a wash as it's good that these people get coverage, however it's bad that it'll likely lead to increased rates.
#3- Tanning beds are given a 10% sales tax. Making the company pay the government for giving you skin cancer that they are likely going to be treating later in your life. It makes sense. Fuck you tanning companies.
#4- Insurance companies are prohibited from creating a "lifetime dollar limit" for medical bills. This is a very good thing for average people and especially the retired. It means that as long as you keep paying your insurance, they aren't allowed to say that you "ran out of money" regardless of how expensive your bills become.
#5- Extending the family insurance age from 24 to 26. Since most people are graduating college and moving back in with their parents now, this makes sense. It allows their parents to continue covering their medical bills for two more years.
#6-Insurance is prohibited from doing any of the following:
- Withholding treatment for children under the age of 19 with pre-existing medical conditions.
- Dropping policy holders from coverage when they get sick.
- Hiding any hidden "Administrative fees" from the policy holder.
- withholding preventative procedures and exams. They are now required to supply breast exams, check-ups, etc. and they cannot charge you a deductible for these procedures.
-Discriminating or charging extra for patients with pre-existing conditions. If you have diabetes, they aren't allowed to charge you more than the person without diabetes.
- No annual spending caps (same deal as the lifetime spending caps. If you have a bunch of injuries or illness in one year, they can't make the "you are out of money" claim.
#7- Physicians pay will be based on quality of care rather than volume.
----------------
Basically the program makes it so that all citizens and legal residents get Private or public medical coverage (patient's choice) regardless of their income. If your family makes $30,000 a year then your insurance premiums will only be $992 a year (3% of their total income for full coverage of the entire family)
While families making $88,000 a year will be paying $8,379 a year (9.5% of their total income.)
--------
Note: Average yearly Insurance premiums are $4,968 a year currently. So the cost goes way down for the very poor, but doubles for the wealthy.
The example of $88,000 a year is for a family 400% above the poverty level (which is $22,000 a year)
-----
The entire concept of "Poverty level" doesn't really work on a national scale, considering how varied the cost of living is depending on where you live. $200 a month in rent is fair in some locations while others are charge $2,000 a month. That alone makes a big difference. For a family living in a $2,000/month area, $22,000 a year is severely below poverty as their rent alone would eat up 109% of their income.
-------
End notes: The Obamacare system or "Patient protection and affordable care act" is actually a good thing for the country as a whole. It makes sure that our lowest legal income individuals and families won't be sick and dying. However it does eject our illegal residents from the system.
The Republicans aren't worried that it's socialist, they are worried that it might get rid of the slave labor we have in this country. Illegal immigrants are a major factor in what causes the wealthy to keep their wealth. It's the cheapest and most effective way of cutting costs, and they do it all the time.
What this means for you?:
If you are wealthy, guess what? You are going to be paying more for medical insurance.
If you are poor, you are finally going to be getting the medical coverage you likely desperately need.
About damn time too.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Getting back into the groove.
Greetings readers, It is my pleasure to resume writing to you. A political post is in the works but for now some movie reviews:
Brave (Pixar):
I was rather pleasantly surprised by this movie. It's Pixar, so I expected high quality, but I was rather impressed by how memorable they managed to make each character.
When you look at most movies, the main characters tend to have a basic introduction of who they are, but most often that barely makes it past a job description.
Think about it, what do you know about McClane from Die Hard? He's a cop....and that's about it. How about Jake Sully from Avatar? Well, he had a twin brother who died, and he used to be a marine. No idea what his dating life was like back on earth, no specific details about how he lost the use of his legs, Hell we don't even know anything about his parents. Did he get along with them? Are they still alive? Totally unanswered. Because it's generally not important to the plot.
In Brave, the characters Are the plot. The movie is less about What happens, than Why it happens. The plot itself is simple standard fantasy. Things are kindof annoying, magic gets involved, things get terrible, heroes triumph, heroes realize "kindof annoying" is waaay better than "Horrifucking-awful".
The important part is the personal growth that happens to each and every character in the movie. I swear, every frigging character, even characters that aren't even named. There is a character that I can best describe as ridiculous bad-ass composed entirely of steroids. He's not a named character, he's mostly there for comparative humor. But even he gets to experience some personal growth and gets in touch with his softer side.
Aside from the interesting character growth, it's everything we've come to expect from a Pixar film. It's cute, funny, and memorable.
The Secret world of Arriety:
A Miyazaki film (Howl's moving castle, spirited away, etc) that branches out from it's own genre.
Most Miyazaki films focus heavily on Asian mythology, this one specifically focuses on western mythology. So that by itself was a startling change, but the movie was good so it's ok. Same as Brave it has all of the qualities you expect from a Miyazaki film. The only thing that concerns me about these two movies is perhaps they are staying too true to form. Miyazaki films always follow the same structure. Namely normal person interacting with the supernatural and exploring a different world.
Pixar for quite awhile was following a similar standardized formula (I.E. What if _____ was real and could talk?) In Cars it was that the cars replaced people, yet, were still cars. In Monster's INC it was "What if the monsters in your closet were real and had their own society?". Toy Story is almost the standard for their format "What if toys were alive and could talk?".
The one major shift from this format was Wall-E. In Wall-E everything did what they were already capable of doing. Robots did robot stuff, humans lounged around, and super-computers were evil. But the movie managed to tell an amazing story with very little dialogue, almost all of which had little to nothing to do with the plot. I hope that Pixar continues trying to break out of the mold that it's gotten itself into (UP was another good example of deviation.), and I really hope that Miyazaki gets himself out of his formula, because his movies are becoming very predictable.
John Carter (Disney):
This is a case of the Disney marketing dept dropping the ball off of a skyscraper.
John Carter is based off the book "Princess of Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs (The creator of Tarzan). Princess of Mars is an incredibly important piece of science fiction because it sets the tone for science fiction for the next century. Asimov, Heinlein, Roddenberry, etc. All of the modern Sci-Fi writers based much of their work off of Princess of Mars.
So you'd think that re-introducing modern culture to this historic piece of work would be easy? Well, apparently Disney Marketing can't figure it out.
The movie itself is rather good, not exactly the same as the book, but adjusted slightly to make it more acceptable to modern viewers. At the time it was written, absolutely no-one knew anything about Mars. Now we've sent probes and such, we know about Mars. So the story needed to be adjusted to account for that. But as far as the plot itself is concerned, it remained very true to the original plot. With the only exception of combining multiple story arcs from the John Carter book series into the movie (Which most movies based on books do).
I am actually currently in the process of reading the books to compare everything, but because it was written back before we had CGI the book is heavy in descriptions. Which at the time it needed to be. Nobody had any concept of what an alien might look like. Now the genre is saturated with various aliens so our collective consciousness can fully form what an alien might look like.
Another important concept to consider is that some of the aliens in the book are non-humanoid. (I.E. would have to be a puppet or CGI if they appeared in modern TV/Film) and that was a major first in science fiction. Before then it was assumed that people from another planet would look very similar to people from this planet. Various creatures appeared in fantasy books before then, and that's where Burrough's drew inspiration from. What if life on another world was different than life here? A novel concept that launched the mass of Sci-fi works we have today.
Final comments on John Carter: It's a good movie, and an important piece of Nerd/Geek history. Unless you'd rather read an extremely detail-heavy series of books, I recommend the movie instead (which will likely make you want to read the rest of the books just so you can find out what happens next).
Brave (Pixar):
I was rather pleasantly surprised by this movie. It's Pixar, so I expected high quality, but I was rather impressed by how memorable they managed to make each character.
When you look at most movies, the main characters tend to have a basic introduction of who they are, but most often that barely makes it past a job description.
Think about it, what do you know about McClane from Die Hard? He's a cop....and that's about it. How about Jake Sully from Avatar? Well, he had a twin brother who died, and he used to be a marine. No idea what his dating life was like back on earth, no specific details about how he lost the use of his legs, Hell we don't even know anything about his parents. Did he get along with them? Are they still alive? Totally unanswered. Because it's generally not important to the plot.
In Brave, the characters Are the plot. The movie is less about What happens, than Why it happens. The plot itself is simple standard fantasy. Things are kindof annoying, magic gets involved, things get terrible, heroes triumph, heroes realize "kindof annoying" is waaay better than "Horrifucking-awful".
The important part is the personal growth that happens to each and every character in the movie. I swear, every frigging character, even characters that aren't even named. There is a character that I can best describe as ridiculous bad-ass composed entirely of steroids. He's not a named character, he's mostly there for comparative humor. But even he gets to experience some personal growth and gets in touch with his softer side.
Aside from the interesting character growth, it's everything we've come to expect from a Pixar film. It's cute, funny, and memorable.
The Secret world of Arriety:
A Miyazaki film (Howl's moving castle, spirited away, etc) that branches out from it's own genre.
Most Miyazaki films focus heavily on Asian mythology, this one specifically focuses on western mythology. So that by itself was a startling change, but the movie was good so it's ok. Same as Brave it has all of the qualities you expect from a Miyazaki film. The only thing that concerns me about these two movies is perhaps they are staying too true to form. Miyazaki films always follow the same structure. Namely normal person interacting with the supernatural and exploring a different world.
Pixar for quite awhile was following a similar standardized formula (I.E. What if _____ was real and could talk?) In Cars it was that the cars replaced people, yet, were still cars. In Monster's INC it was "What if the monsters in your closet were real and had their own society?". Toy Story is almost the standard for their format "What if toys were alive and could talk?".
The one major shift from this format was Wall-E. In Wall-E everything did what they were already capable of doing. Robots did robot stuff, humans lounged around, and super-computers were evil. But the movie managed to tell an amazing story with very little dialogue, almost all of which had little to nothing to do with the plot. I hope that Pixar continues trying to break out of the mold that it's gotten itself into (UP was another good example of deviation.), and I really hope that Miyazaki gets himself out of his formula, because his movies are becoming very predictable.
John Carter (Disney):
This is a case of the Disney marketing dept dropping the ball off of a skyscraper.
John Carter is based off the book "Princess of Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs (The creator of Tarzan). Princess of Mars is an incredibly important piece of science fiction because it sets the tone for science fiction for the next century. Asimov, Heinlein, Roddenberry, etc. All of the modern Sci-Fi writers based much of their work off of Princess of Mars.
So you'd think that re-introducing modern culture to this historic piece of work would be easy? Well, apparently Disney Marketing can't figure it out.
The movie itself is rather good, not exactly the same as the book, but adjusted slightly to make it more acceptable to modern viewers. At the time it was written, absolutely no-one knew anything about Mars. Now we've sent probes and such, we know about Mars. So the story needed to be adjusted to account for that. But as far as the plot itself is concerned, it remained very true to the original plot. With the only exception of combining multiple story arcs from the John Carter book series into the movie (Which most movies based on books do).
I am actually currently in the process of reading the books to compare everything, but because it was written back before we had CGI the book is heavy in descriptions. Which at the time it needed to be. Nobody had any concept of what an alien might look like. Now the genre is saturated with various aliens so our collective consciousness can fully form what an alien might look like.
Another important concept to consider is that some of the aliens in the book are non-humanoid. (I.E. would have to be a puppet or CGI if they appeared in modern TV/Film) and that was a major first in science fiction. Before then it was assumed that people from another planet would look very similar to people from this planet. Various creatures appeared in fantasy books before then, and that's where Burrough's drew inspiration from. What if life on another world was different than life here? A novel concept that launched the mass of Sci-fi works we have today.
Final comments on John Carter: It's a good movie, and an important piece of Nerd/Geek history. Unless you'd rather read an extremely detail-heavy series of books, I recommend the movie instead (which will likely make you want to read the rest of the books just so you can find out what happens next).
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Harry Potter: Protagonist?
Harry Potter: Protagonist?
Greetings my readers. Sorry for the delay between posts, real life got in the way. This post has been brewing in my head for quite awhile now, and I needed to share it with the world.
Harry Potter is a bad character.
Before you get upset, let me explain. The world of Harry Potter is rather interesting, an entire world of culture and mythology hidden under the "real" world. The problem is: Harry is the least interesting character in the series.
Think about it. What has Harry really done for himself? Not much. Everything was either done by chance, dumb luck, or assistance from adults and friends.
Let's start off in book one.
Harry, random orphan boy is informed that he is a wizard.
Something that is decided by birth. He didn't choose to be a wizard, he was just born one.
He then discovered that he is a celeb in the wizard world for something that happened to him when he was a baby.
Yet again, through no action on his part.
He goes to Hogwarts, and meets hermione and Ron. Ron basically teaches him about wizard culture, and Hermione acts as his own personal tutor. Yet again, no real effort. Harry and Ron rescue Hermione from a Troll, which was their fault. And they save her using a magic spell that she taught them how to use.
So far it's random guy with two lexicon of knowledge characters.
Next Harry learns to ride a broom. A skill everyone says he must have inherited from his father. I'll give some acknowledgement here. I don't buy that his ability to fly skillfully was inherited. It's still unexplained and random, but I'll give Harry some credit here.
Fast forward. The three manage to stumble upon a mystery that was all but fed to them by every adult in the cast, and they go charging into the puzzle factory after the wrong villain.
First puzzle: three-headed dog. Already dealt with by the villain.
Second puzzle: vines. Hermione saves the day with her endless knowledge.
Third puzzle: keys. Harry uses his leet flying skills to catch the slowest moving key in the room. Not impressive. Anyone could do that. Give me a ladder and I'll get that frigging key.
Fourth puzzle: Chess. Well "lucky" for Harry, Ron is apparently a chess master. Thanks for being useful Ginger.
Fifth puzzle: Potions. Hermione saves the day again.
Now at the end Harry stumbles upon the mirror of Erised. Which he had "accidentally" found earlier. And it was already explained to him by Dumbledore. So Harry acquires the macguffin, through no ability of his own.
Then the real villain shows himself and attacks Harry. Then proceeds to melt. Apparently nobody every told Harry that his skin makes badguys melt. But apparently it does.
So end of book one, all we can tell is that Harry is extremely lucky and his friends can solve puzzles intended for 11-year olds.
Book two.
Alot of the same happens, only now instead of a stolen-object mystery it's a PG rated murder mystery. Yet again Hermione does most of the thinking and Ron provides the wizarding culture info. But let's fast-forward to the main event. Ginny is missing, Hermione is petrified. Harry and his brigade of ginger's must go rescue Ginny.
But what's this? Charlatan professor who was stealing Harry's limelight tries to pull a double-cross. Nevermind. Nevile's wand backfires and bad professor takes himself out of the fight. Another victory to dumb luck.
But now Harry is on his own. No wait, there is Tom Riddle who explains everything to him in true villain fashion.
Why must villains always explain their evil plans? Just kill the hero and complete your evil plan.
Anyways, giant snake appears and Harry reveals his second real skill: running away.
He runs and the Phoenix Fawkes appears and blinds the giant magic snake. Thank you outside interference.
Oh, forgot to mention. Harry also apparently speaks snake. This first appears in the previous book, but it's not important til now. Natural ability. He didn't go to snake translation classes or anything. Just another bit of dumb luck.
So snake is blind. The Phoenix gives Harry a hat to protect him from all the shitty plot raining down from the sky. The hat also happens to contain a magic sword. Yet again, dumb luck.
More running from the snake, the snake is about to bite him, and Harry does what you'd expect of a 12-year old. He puts his hands out between himself and the attacker.
One of his hands is still holding the sword. Which some how managed to kill the snake. Yet again, dumb luck.
But oh noes! Harry is bitten. He's dying, with his last ounce of strength he pulls the fang from his mouth and stabs the villain, freeing Ginny.
Oh, and Fawkes is back. The bird cries. Apparently phoenix tears can heal any wound. How fortuitous!
Oh, and the tiny bird can also carry six kids and one adult back to safety. Yet again, everyone is saved by the bird.
Moving on to book three.
"The adventures of Dad's old friends where Harry royally fucks up their plans."
Yea, so really, the book is about Sirius and Remus. Both are interesting characters with interesting backstories and semi-unique powers. Remus is a werewolf and Sirius is an animagus. Totally awesome right? Well Sirius discovers that the betrayer of his best friends is secretly hiding away in Hogwarts, pretending to be the familiar of Ron Weasley. So he breaks out of jail. It's somewhat dubious as to why he didn't break out sooner, but whatever.
He meets up with his good friend Remus and they make arrangements to get revenge on the bastard. Sirius is a wanted man so they need to capture the rat-bastard somewhere away from prying eyes. Remus takes a job at Hogwarts as the new Datda teacher (their 3rd one in as many years.)
And then things go wonky. The ministry of magic places Dementors all over Hogwarts to find Sirius (these are the same dementors that he escaped from in the first place, not the smartest idea to use the same inept guards for capture.)
The dementors are drawn to Harry because of the piece of Voldemort's soul living in his forehead. Nobody bothers to tell him this. But he just spends the whole book afraid of the damn things.
So time passes, pretty unremarkably. The only thing of note is that Hermione gets A GODDAMN TIME TRAVEL MACHINE that she uses to take extra classes. This is the only book that features the time travel, and it's only used effectively once. The time-turner could be used to great effect all throughout the rest of the series, but nope, apparently it's only used to compensate for over-achievers.
So all the action of the book happens at the end. Sirius and Remus finally manage to get their hands on the Rat (by kidnapping Ron). Harry and Hermione chases after them and interrupt everything, then Snape shows up and lets the Rat escape. gg everyone.
Then to make matters worse, Remus shifts into a werewolf (who the hell plans their attack for the one night in a month when you know you are a liability?) and the rest of the story is about mitigating damage.
End result: Bad guy escapes, but Harry realizes that Sirius isn't a villain. Sirius goes into hiding, and Remus loses his job at Hogwarts. Oh, and Remus manages to teach Harry how to perform a useful spell.
So the only things that Harry succeeds at in this book are through adult intervention, or the introduction of time travel to give himself a second chance because he fucked up the first try.
Book four: Now, with more adult intervention!!
So the tri-wizard tournament comes to town. Harry is 'somehow' enrolled in it through no small amount of cheating. Instead of ruling that Harry's entrance is clearly an attempt at cheating, the adults rule that he must compete anyways.
Test One: Lack pf preparation does mean failure!!
So all of the contestants cheat and find out about the dragons before they enter the arena. Rather than prepare with things like a "Use this spell to make a dragon fall asleep" or something, Harry just ignores his preparation, he is reminded last minute by an adult that he can summon anything to himself. He doesn't have the common sense to say "Accio GODDAMN EGG". Instead he summons his broom and goes on a ridiculous chase scene, wrecking large chunks of the school.
Test two. Breath under water.
Proof that wizards are idiots. Harry tries to find a spell or something to allow him to breath under water, but apparently has never heard of ASKING THE GODDAMN LIBRARIAN. You'd think they'd have some form of an index. "Excuse me miss magical librarian? I'm looking for something to allow me to breath underwater. Do you have any books on that?" "Of course we do, this is a magical library. All you have to say is 'Accio books on underwater activities' and it'll make a goddamn stack of books for you."
Yea, Wizards are idiots.
Hermione Granger is without a doubt the most powerful person in the entire series. She is a never-ending lexicon of knowledge because she spends all of her free time in the library learning new spells, you know, getting the most out of her education.
Eventually an adult interferes again and Harry is taught the most effective way of breathing underwater.
Test #3 The maze. Yet again, outside interference. One of the contestants is mind controlled and made to take out the other two so that only Harry will be able to complete the maze. Harry has a burst of courtesy and helps out one of his competitors, so both of them are whisked away from the maze to the graveyard. Voldemort is reborn, the blood wards no longer work. Cedric is killed for the hell of it. etc.
And yet again dumb luck saves the day. Turns out that Voldemort and Harry have matching wands, so they can't kill eachother. Harry escapes.
So end result: Harry is declared the winner Through excessive amounts of cheating, and life goes on.
Harry goes back to live with the Dursleys, which makes zero sense since the blood wards no longer works. The best solution would be to have Harry move in with Sirius, where he could be protected by the Fidilius charm (With Dumbledore as the secret keeper). But no, they don't do the logical thing, cause they are idiots.
Book Four: And introducing Queen Bitch of the universe!
Yea, Deloris Umbridge. Fourth DATDA professor, intent on making everything into a totalitarian state.
Children (through the urging of Hermione) decide to teach themselves how to do defensive magic. Harry teaches them all four of the defensive spells he knows over the course of a long training montage, eventually they are discovered, detention, etc.
Nothing else really happens until Harry has a nightmare where Sirius is being attacked in the dept of mysteries. He raises the alarm and his plucky heroes go to rescue them. This is of course a trap. The adults spring into action, and Sirius is killed in battle. (And to think that Harry thought that prophecies were bogus)
End result: Nothing really happened this book. It's just alot of "things are awful" going on. Sirius dies and Voldemort is proven to be alive. That's about it.
Book six: Cheating? It's not cheating if it's adult intervention!!!
Harry gets a new potions professor and a new potions book, complete with Cliff's notes on the better method of preparing a potion. For some reason Snape can write really effective notes in a book, but he has zero ability to provide these same notes in class.
Stuff happens, not much of it not worthy, eventually Draco helps Deatheaters get into the castle, and before being killed, Dumbledore FINALLY gives Harry his epic quest to destroy the Horcruxs.
Really, Harry doesn't do much in this book, he gets a ton of adult assistance (both knowingly and unknowingly). The real interesting people here are Draco and Snape. Both men are stuck in bad situations and must do awful things to protect those they love. Draco verges on redemption in this book, it's clear that he doesn't want to be evil. He's naturally inclined to be a douchebag, but not an evil douchebag.
Book Seven: The search for the MacGuffin!! And also camping.
The trio goes searching for the five remaining soul fragments. Ron destroys the locket (after unkowingly being assisted by Snape), Neville destroys the snake, Hermione destroys the Chalice, Harry destroys the Diadem, Voldemort destroys the fragment in Harry, and Voldemort somehow dies when the snake dies.
So end result of the franchise:
Harry managed to destroy two fragments of the Villain, taught some people four spells, and was a pretty good flier. Everything else was done by someone else. Harry was saved by dumb luck throughout the series, a vast number of times if the stars hadn't lined up perfectly, he'd be dead. But somehow Harry potter always beats the odds and manages to get to the end of the book by accident.
He's not particularly skilled, he's not smart, he's just lucky, and has a shitload of people saving him.
If anything, the story should be about Hermione Granger, or Neville Long Bottom, or Remus Lupin, or Sirius Black, ANYONE except Harry Potter. Even Draco Malfoy would have made a more interesting main character. The narrative would be so much more interesting if it was told from Draco's perspective. Hermione would have been an amazing character by herself, she didn't need to be babysitting the mary-sue luck monster that is Harry Potter. In book six when he drinks the "Liquid Luck" I was worried that the entire universe would overload with too much luck invested in one person.
So yea, Final word:
The setting of Harry Potter is amazing, but the main character is useless. There is zero reason why the audience should have been forced to follow him. He's boring.
Greetings my readers. Sorry for the delay between posts, real life got in the way. This post has been brewing in my head for quite awhile now, and I needed to share it with the world.
Harry Potter is a bad character.
Before you get upset, let me explain. The world of Harry Potter is rather interesting, an entire world of culture and mythology hidden under the "real" world. The problem is: Harry is the least interesting character in the series.
Think about it. What has Harry really done for himself? Not much. Everything was either done by chance, dumb luck, or assistance from adults and friends.
Let's start off in book one.
Harry, random orphan boy is informed that he is a wizard.
Something that is decided by birth. He didn't choose to be a wizard, he was just born one.
He then discovered that he is a celeb in the wizard world for something that happened to him when he was a baby.
Yet again, through no action on his part.
He goes to Hogwarts, and meets hermione and Ron. Ron basically teaches him about wizard culture, and Hermione acts as his own personal tutor. Yet again, no real effort. Harry and Ron rescue Hermione from a Troll, which was their fault. And they save her using a magic spell that she taught them how to use.
So far it's random guy with two lexicon of knowledge characters.
Next Harry learns to ride a broom. A skill everyone says he must have inherited from his father. I'll give some acknowledgement here. I don't buy that his ability to fly skillfully was inherited. It's still unexplained and random, but I'll give Harry some credit here.
Fast forward. The three manage to stumble upon a mystery that was all but fed to them by every adult in the cast, and they go charging into the puzzle factory after the wrong villain.
First puzzle: three-headed dog. Already dealt with by the villain.
Second puzzle: vines. Hermione saves the day with her endless knowledge.
Third puzzle: keys. Harry uses his leet flying skills to catch the slowest moving key in the room. Not impressive. Anyone could do that. Give me a ladder and I'll get that frigging key.
Fourth puzzle: Chess. Well "lucky" for Harry, Ron is apparently a chess master. Thanks for being useful Ginger.
Fifth puzzle: Potions. Hermione saves the day again.
Now at the end Harry stumbles upon the mirror of Erised. Which he had "accidentally" found earlier. And it was already explained to him by Dumbledore. So Harry acquires the macguffin, through no ability of his own.
Then the real villain shows himself and attacks Harry. Then proceeds to melt. Apparently nobody every told Harry that his skin makes badguys melt. But apparently it does.
So end of book one, all we can tell is that Harry is extremely lucky and his friends can solve puzzles intended for 11-year olds.
Book two.
Alot of the same happens, only now instead of a stolen-object mystery it's a PG rated murder mystery. Yet again Hermione does most of the thinking and Ron provides the wizarding culture info. But let's fast-forward to the main event. Ginny is missing, Hermione is petrified. Harry and his brigade of ginger's must go rescue Ginny.
But what's this? Charlatan professor who was stealing Harry's limelight tries to pull a double-cross. Nevermind. Nevile's wand backfires and bad professor takes himself out of the fight. Another victory to dumb luck.
But now Harry is on his own. No wait, there is Tom Riddle who explains everything to him in true villain fashion.
Why must villains always explain their evil plans? Just kill the hero and complete your evil plan.
Anyways, giant snake appears and Harry reveals his second real skill: running away.
He runs and the Phoenix Fawkes appears and blinds the giant magic snake. Thank you outside interference.
Oh, forgot to mention. Harry also apparently speaks snake. This first appears in the previous book, but it's not important til now. Natural ability. He didn't go to snake translation classes or anything. Just another bit of dumb luck.
So snake is blind. The Phoenix gives Harry a hat to protect him from all the shitty plot raining down from the sky. The hat also happens to contain a magic sword. Yet again, dumb luck.
More running from the snake, the snake is about to bite him, and Harry does what you'd expect of a 12-year old. He puts his hands out between himself and the attacker.
One of his hands is still holding the sword. Which some how managed to kill the snake. Yet again, dumb luck.
But oh noes! Harry is bitten. He's dying, with his last ounce of strength he pulls the fang from his mouth and stabs the villain, freeing Ginny.
Oh, and Fawkes is back. The bird cries. Apparently phoenix tears can heal any wound. How fortuitous!
Oh, and the tiny bird can also carry six kids and one adult back to safety. Yet again, everyone is saved by the bird.
Moving on to book three.
"The adventures of Dad's old friends where Harry royally fucks up their plans."
Yea, so really, the book is about Sirius and Remus. Both are interesting characters with interesting backstories and semi-unique powers. Remus is a werewolf and Sirius is an animagus. Totally awesome right? Well Sirius discovers that the betrayer of his best friends is secretly hiding away in Hogwarts, pretending to be the familiar of Ron Weasley. So he breaks out of jail. It's somewhat dubious as to why he didn't break out sooner, but whatever.
He meets up with his good friend Remus and they make arrangements to get revenge on the bastard. Sirius is a wanted man so they need to capture the rat-bastard somewhere away from prying eyes. Remus takes a job at Hogwarts as the new Datda teacher (their 3rd one in as many years.)
And then things go wonky. The ministry of magic places Dementors all over Hogwarts to find Sirius (these are the same dementors that he escaped from in the first place, not the smartest idea to use the same inept guards for capture.)
The dementors are drawn to Harry because of the piece of Voldemort's soul living in his forehead. Nobody bothers to tell him this. But he just spends the whole book afraid of the damn things.
So time passes, pretty unremarkably. The only thing of note is that Hermione gets A GODDAMN TIME TRAVEL MACHINE that she uses to take extra classes. This is the only book that features the time travel, and it's only used effectively once. The time-turner could be used to great effect all throughout the rest of the series, but nope, apparently it's only used to compensate for over-achievers.
So all the action of the book happens at the end. Sirius and Remus finally manage to get their hands on the Rat (by kidnapping Ron). Harry and Hermione chases after them and interrupt everything, then Snape shows up and lets the Rat escape. gg everyone.
Then to make matters worse, Remus shifts into a werewolf (who the hell plans their attack for the one night in a month when you know you are a liability?) and the rest of the story is about mitigating damage.
End result: Bad guy escapes, but Harry realizes that Sirius isn't a villain. Sirius goes into hiding, and Remus loses his job at Hogwarts. Oh, and Remus manages to teach Harry how to perform a useful spell.
So the only things that Harry succeeds at in this book are through adult intervention, or the introduction of time travel to give himself a second chance because he fucked up the first try.
Book four: Now, with more adult intervention!!
So the tri-wizard tournament comes to town. Harry is 'somehow' enrolled in it through no small amount of cheating. Instead of ruling that Harry's entrance is clearly an attempt at cheating, the adults rule that he must compete anyways.
Test One: Lack pf preparation does mean failure!!
So all of the contestants cheat and find out about the dragons before they enter the arena. Rather than prepare with things like a "Use this spell to make a dragon fall asleep" or something, Harry just ignores his preparation, he is reminded last minute by an adult that he can summon anything to himself. He doesn't have the common sense to say "Accio GODDAMN EGG". Instead he summons his broom and goes on a ridiculous chase scene, wrecking large chunks of the school.
Test two. Breath under water.
Proof that wizards are idiots. Harry tries to find a spell or something to allow him to breath under water, but apparently has never heard of ASKING THE GODDAMN LIBRARIAN. You'd think they'd have some form of an index. "Excuse me miss magical librarian? I'm looking for something to allow me to breath underwater. Do you have any books on that?" "Of course we do, this is a magical library. All you have to say is 'Accio books on underwater activities' and it'll make a goddamn stack of books for you."
Yea, Wizards are idiots.
Hermione Granger is without a doubt the most powerful person in the entire series. She is a never-ending lexicon of knowledge because she spends all of her free time in the library learning new spells, you know, getting the most out of her education.
Eventually an adult interferes again and Harry is taught the most effective way of breathing underwater.
Test #3 The maze. Yet again, outside interference. One of the contestants is mind controlled and made to take out the other two so that only Harry will be able to complete the maze. Harry has a burst of courtesy and helps out one of his competitors, so both of them are whisked away from the maze to the graveyard. Voldemort is reborn, the blood wards no longer work. Cedric is killed for the hell of it. etc.
And yet again dumb luck saves the day. Turns out that Voldemort and Harry have matching wands, so they can't kill eachother. Harry escapes.
So end result: Harry is declared the winner Through excessive amounts of cheating, and life goes on.
Harry goes back to live with the Dursleys, which makes zero sense since the blood wards no longer works. The best solution would be to have Harry move in with Sirius, where he could be protected by the Fidilius charm (With Dumbledore as the secret keeper). But no, they don't do the logical thing, cause they are idiots.
Book Four: And introducing Queen Bitch of the universe!
Yea, Deloris Umbridge. Fourth DATDA professor, intent on making everything into a totalitarian state.
Children (through the urging of Hermione) decide to teach themselves how to do defensive magic. Harry teaches them all four of the defensive spells he knows over the course of a long training montage, eventually they are discovered, detention, etc.
Nothing else really happens until Harry has a nightmare where Sirius is being attacked in the dept of mysteries. He raises the alarm and his plucky heroes go to rescue them. This is of course a trap. The adults spring into action, and Sirius is killed in battle. (And to think that Harry thought that prophecies were bogus)
End result: Nothing really happened this book. It's just alot of "things are awful" going on. Sirius dies and Voldemort is proven to be alive. That's about it.
Book six: Cheating? It's not cheating if it's adult intervention!!!
Harry gets a new potions professor and a new potions book, complete with Cliff's notes on the better method of preparing a potion. For some reason Snape can write really effective notes in a book, but he has zero ability to provide these same notes in class.
Stuff happens, not much of it not worthy, eventually Draco helps Deatheaters get into the castle, and before being killed, Dumbledore FINALLY gives Harry his epic quest to destroy the Horcruxs.
Really, Harry doesn't do much in this book, he gets a ton of adult assistance (both knowingly and unknowingly). The real interesting people here are Draco and Snape. Both men are stuck in bad situations and must do awful things to protect those they love. Draco verges on redemption in this book, it's clear that he doesn't want to be evil. He's naturally inclined to be a douchebag, but not an evil douchebag.
Book Seven: The search for the MacGuffin!! And also camping.
The trio goes searching for the five remaining soul fragments. Ron destroys the locket (after unkowingly being assisted by Snape), Neville destroys the snake, Hermione destroys the Chalice, Harry destroys the Diadem, Voldemort destroys the fragment in Harry, and Voldemort somehow dies when the snake dies.
So end result of the franchise:
Harry managed to destroy two fragments of the Villain, taught some people four spells, and was a pretty good flier. Everything else was done by someone else. Harry was saved by dumb luck throughout the series, a vast number of times if the stars hadn't lined up perfectly, he'd be dead. But somehow Harry potter always beats the odds and manages to get to the end of the book by accident.
He's not particularly skilled, he's not smart, he's just lucky, and has a shitload of people saving him.
If anything, the story should be about Hermione Granger, or Neville Long Bottom, or Remus Lupin, or Sirius Black, ANYONE except Harry Potter. Even Draco Malfoy would have made a more interesting main character. The narrative would be so much more interesting if it was told from Draco's perspective. Hermione would have been an amazing character by herself, she didn't need to be babysitting the mary-sue luck monster that is Harry Potter. In book six when he drinks the "Liquid Luck" I was worried that the entire universe would overload with too much luck invested in one person.
So yea, Final word:
The setting of Harry Potter is amazing, but the main character is useless. There is zero reason why the audience should have been forced to follow him. He's boring.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Two do-overs to Review
Tron: Legacy and The Green Hornet
Tron- A worthy sequel to the original. Like the original it was all style and very limited substance. They follow the extremely simple plot and all of the standard tropes we expect in an action/adventure film.
SPOILERS!
Guy rescues dad, dad makes heroic sacrifice, enemy is redeemed, guy gets girl, and heroes escape.
The movie was very pretty as expected, and you walk out of the theater thinking "Man, I really want those batons that turn into motorcycles or jets. Hell yes."
Green Hornet:
A good idea. Horribly executed.
Honestly with the number of big names involved, I expected much better. Seth Rogen was the worst possible choice for the Green Hornet. His jokes stop being funny about two minutes in and you just want him to shut the hell up so that you can go back to watching Kato kick the hell out of people.
Kato was also less impressive than the TV show. To go from Bruce Lee to some Chinese Pop star is just not a fair trade. They did their best to make him impressive, but they had to give him every skill in the world along with reality-bending super powers to make him anywhere near Bruce. Bruce Lee's Kato was an interesting character. This new Kato is a Mary-Sue. Every problem in the movie is solved by Kato, the title character need not even show up.
For my money, it was a reasonable way to spend an evening, the car was cool, the explosions were cool, that's enough to make me stick around. But really, if there is anything else you'd rather see, go see that instead.
Tron- A worthy sequel to the original. Like the original it was all style and very limited substance. They follow the extremely simple plot and all of the standard tropes we expect in an action/adventure film.
SPOILERS!
Guy rescues dad, dad makes heroic sacrifice, enemy is redeemed, guy gets girl, and heroes escape.
The movie was very pretty as expected, and you walk out of the theater thinking "Man, I really want those batons that turn into motorcycles or jets. Hell yes."
Green Hornet:
A good idea. Horribly executed.
Honestly with the number of big names involved, I expected much better. Seth Rogen was the worst possible choice for the Green Hornet. His jokes stop being funny about two minutes in and you just want him to shut the hell up so that you can go back to watching Kato kick the hell out of people.
Kato was also less impressive than the TV show. To go from Bruce Lee to some Chinese Pop star is just not a fair trade. They did their best to make him impressive, but they had to give him every skill in the world along with reality-bending super powers to make him anywhere near Bruce. Bruce Lee's Kato was an interesting character. This new Kato is a Mary-Sue. Every problem in the movie is solved by Kato, the title character need not even show up.
For my money, it was a reasonable way to spend an evening, the car was cool, the explosions were cool, that's enough to make me stick around. But really, if there is anything else you'd rather see, go see that instead.
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