If you guys didn’t see when I posted it everywhere but here, I got a new computer. It has a 25 inch monitor, and Windows 7, which means I can have cycling desktop images. I’m looking for awesome images, your submission are appreciated.
Like I said, I beat Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. I’d like to say a bit more on the subject, even though I haven’t played any more since. I spent like 3 hours up front trying to get the sound to work. Something to do with the way my TV was set up it didn’t like, so like half the sound effects and all the voice acting wouldn’t come through. Was confusing.
The game was fun, though. It is definitely closer to Sands of Time than any of the others since, which is a good thing. The combat suffers from all the magic powers they give you in my opinion, but I liked the combat in Sands of Time. In Sands of Time people complained that the combat was either too difficult or too time consuming. It wasn’t either, unless you made it that way. If you were any good at it it was fun and not that time consuming. Unfortunately, you could get through it just by mashing square or whatever. So that’s what most people did. In this new game you can use magic to tear through all the monsters without hardly using your sword. If you do use the sword the combat is not quite as fun as that of Sands of Time, but pretty close. The platforming, which is really the best part of PoP, is great. I think it is more difficult than Sands of Time, which I appreciate. I must quibble about the existence of hidden treasures. Normally I enjoy such features in a game, but I wish they would leave them out of PoP. Prince of Persia is the game I want to race through, getting in a rhythm and trying to be as smooth, and fast, and bad ass as possible. I do not want to be looking around for alternative paths to take and secret places to look behind and such. I do that in every other game. I know I don’t really have to, but I wish they wouldn’t even tempt me.
Also in video game news, Kim has decided recently she wants to play Modern Warfare 2, which means she and Aaron have come over several times recently and we have taken turns playing. There’s a new expansion map pack out, which I haven’t purchased yet, but might. I love the game, but it’s way more fun with an audience. We prestiged up again and have gotten the tactical knife with the USP so I got my first chance to be a knifer bitch. I went 24 and 9 on Bailout, one of my least favorite maps. Not all my attempts since have been so successful, but the option to be a knifer bitch is pretty sweet.
When Kim comes she brings her Xbox and Red Dead Redemption, so I’ve had quite a few chances to play that as well. I’ve beaten the first area pretty completely, I think. Still have to skin some armadillos or something. It’s a good entertaining game. It is the sort of game I would prefer to play when I’m alone, though, so its sorta unfortunate I only have access to it when company is over.
Anyway that’s all the games I’ve been playing. They’re all good. You all should play MW2 with me. I have a headset I never use and everything.
I beat Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands today. Musta been like 10 hours. I’ll maybe play through again sometime and try and get all the trophies and whatnot, but I dunno. It was a fun game. It actually got somewhat challenging which hasn’t been in the last 3 POP games, so I appreciated that.
I also have 241 Stars in Mario Galaxy 2. Haven’t gotten that last one. I must have died more than 100 times trying so far. Kinda sad, since every other star was so easy. /sigh I’ll get it someday, I suspect.
I recently posted about The Last Airbender and the casting controversies surrounding it, here. I stand by my arguments in that post, but I am writing again on the subject of the film, now that I’ve seen it.
I’d like to start my review by saying that it’s a huge disappointment and I can’t think of anyone who should see it. It is not as bad as you might think from reading reviews on the internet. Those have been unjustifyably vitriolic. It is still a deeply flawed movie that shouldn’t be seen.
It’s tragic because the movie is really good at a few things. All those things you see in the trailer. The action is good and the world in general looks like the Avatar world would look if it wasn’t a cartoon. If you took out all the talking everything would kinda feel right.
Everything else is awful, though. The acting, the lines, and pacing, the plot. If you know the series, it’s not like it anymore. They killed all the funny cartoony goodness in order to shorten the first season into 2 hours, consequently changing and ruining several characters. They couldn’t have survived even if they had been played well. The exposition is the worst I can think of in my movie watching history.
I know that blame doesn’t need to be placed, but if I was asked I would place it squarely on Mr. Shyamalan. He wrote the screenplay and directed the performances. I’m not sure if the casting was just bad, but I’d bet that the cast could have at least done a passable job given the chance. I think Shyamalan drove the movie into the ground by somehow needing to get exactly 1 season into 1 movie.
It should have been done like a comic book movie. Take the characters and world from the show and make a movie using them. Tell the origin story. Cramming 400 minutes of excellent cartoon into 120 minutes of anything is going to be really really difficult, if not impossible, and I see no reason to attempt it if one doesn’t have to. And nobody ever has to.
Oh, and I went and saw it in 2D because I knew it was an upscaled 3D which I don’t approve of. From what I hear I made a good choice. The 3D just makes things more expensive and worse. That shouldn’t matter since if you take my advice, you won’t see it at all. Unfortunately.
If they don’t kill the movie projects entirely I’ll be looking for some drastic changes before I pay to see any sequel, even given my adoration for the original material. /sadface
Lauren’s been gone for several hours and so far I’m surviving okay. I went to the store and bought cookies. 🙂
Just now I noticed a friend of mine from middle school has posted on facebook that she’s engaged and pregnant. I’m sure the two are pretty unrelated. This friend of mine, and I, have 9 mutual friends on facebook. So, including her, that’s 10 people, all about 25, all from my middle school/early high school years. 1 is gay. 2 don’t have any children, that I know of. The other 7 have either adopted, had kids, or are pregnant. 70% is higher than is generally represented amongst my friends, probably, but I found it noteworthy. It seems like that ratio can’t change much in the near future.
Disclaimers first. I am a fan of Avater: The Last Airbender the cartoon series. I have watched every episode of that show twice. I have not seen the movie. I also have not closely followed the controversy around the races of the actors cast in the movie, although I have been aware of such a controversy. On that subject I have some things to say here. I haven’t seen the movie, so I’m not defending it’s quality or content, I just wanna talk about that whole race debate part.
On the left is cartoon Aang, the main character of the show. He is played by Noah Ringer in the film. He looks like that picture on the right. Oh the humanity! They look so different! The cartoon is clearly Asian and this putz over here is so white. He probably can’t even jump.
On the left is Katara. She’s another major character. On the right is her portrayed in the film by Nicola Peltz. OMG OMG OMG. My eyes! Why would you cast such a white chick to play someone from the South Pole of a fictional world?
I could give other examples. As far as I understand people are upset that pretty much every actor in the film is white, while, in their opinions, pretty much every actor should be Asian. I’m going to skim past people lumping many diverse cultures into one gaint group based on fatty eyelids and the general problem of over representation of upper class white people in the media and say that these “Avatar should be Asian” chanters are wrong, and maybe racist. Avatar: The Last Airbender is a cartoon about a fictional world. The voice actors speak English with no accents or affectations (except Iroh, but he’s not a major character) and they are drawn as… well, mostly cartoons, but I think they look like they have European ancestry.
The reason other people think they are Asians is because the cartoon is drawn in the anime style and the fictional world has many traditional Asian themes, like martial arts and some of the clothing and architecture. These things don’t mean the people in the world all have to be Asians, though. It is a fictional cartoon and it’s own world and nothing in it necessarily spawns from anywhere on our planet. Assuming that every cartoon wearing a pointy hat or doing roundhouses is Asian is more a much worse example of latent racism than casting white actors to play cartoon characters.
I think the cartoon characters are intentionally universal. They are supposed to appeal to all children and probably be potential role models for children of any race. I don’t know, but I suspect the creators want all the kids to identify with Aang, no matter how skinny their eyelids are. Carrying that to a live action movie is challenging, and I suspect, pretty impossible. I’m not sure what the casting situations were, and I’m not sure I would do what they did, but I am glad they didn’t try to cast one person of every race. Hopefully they were looking for acting ability and fit with the part instead.
Race based casting makes sense only when a character is strongly linked with the race, and an actor not of the race would through you out of the fiction. The characters of Avatar have no strong races, especially not of the real world, so there is not need to burden the cast with strict racial boundaries.
Yip Yip
one is none.
two is poo.
three is pee.
Look. That’s what happens when I bash my leg with a pen in a specific way. hehehehe.
Sidney came down for a day last weekend. With her mother. We watched one of the brothers play baseball. On the way home from the game the car in front of us got cut off by an old lady running a red light. There was a minor impact. It happened right outside a fire station, so the fire men came jogging over pretty quick. It wasn’t a real wreck, but it still counts as excitement.
And in the same vein Lauren and I saw a women being escorted from Costco by the police. She appeared to be Asian, early middle aged, and alone. Of course, we caught barely more than a glimpse of her and know nothing of the situation really, but we suspect shop lifting. If I were a shop lifter I don’t think I’d target Costco. Their tendency to strap everything together into 12 packs seems like good theft deterrent to me.
Pretty much every time I leave the house it seems the authorities have to intervene in situations around me. I will do my part to help society by staying indoors, maybe even in bed, as much as possible. You’re welcome.