Tuesday, May 8, 2007

So Spider-Man 3 was good

Not excellent, but enjoyable and the fanboy in me can see it twice but not a third time.

What was cool:

Venom. Right off the bat, you have the symbiote which augments all attributes of it's host as per Doc Connors' report. Not only augmenting his powers but also his state of mind. He was in a dark depressing state and the symbiote fed off that. I'm not sure people understood that. It also augmented how much of a geek he was hence the strut scene.

Now actually using Eddie Brock and Venom longer than assumed five minute fight at the end of the movie people thought there would be was cool. Venom looked good, Topher Grace made Eddie brock the asshole he was. The mysteriously absent remains from the explosion is a nice segue into a future film as was the bits left behind.

This also felt like a Sam Raimi movie. It felt like Evil Dead and Darkman. The camera style was there, the classic Raimi comedic scenes were there. The "This would be awesome in 3-d" camera angles were there. Bruce Campbell "I am French" was there. It worked.

The humor was there too, a big deal with Spidey. He cracks jokes and smarts off to the bad guys. He didn't do it so much here but there was some great humourous moments. "Where do these guys keep coming from?"

What sucked:

Venom. The whole thing felt thrown on like the studio demanded it. Especially when all the advertising became about Venom. Sam Raimi more than likely had this grand tale of Peter Parker facing his Uncle's murderer in the Sandman planned out, as well as dealing with Goblin Jr. at the same time. What I expected from this was Sandman and Green Goblin 2 teaming up to face Spidey and the black suit being some sort of power up Parker is forced to use. But that didn't happen.

The villains all find out his identity, again. That's what sucks about Ultimate Spidey, besides the terrible drawn out storylines and ultimatization of characters just to say I made this one by a certain overhyped writer who loves his publicity good or bad and the bad art, er, all the bad guys know who spider-man is. All of them. What's the point of having a secret identity?

Not enough action, too much time spent with the MJ relationship and the completely unncessesary addition of Gwen Stacy and Captain Stacy. Captain Stacy could have easily been any other of the police officers Spidey has dealt with before, Jean DeWolfe for instance. Gwen as this other woman didnt really fit because it wasn't like there was actually an attraction there for Peter he was all emo for MJ. Plus Kirsten Dunst is a piss poor actress and a terrible Mary Jane who seems to think the movie is all about her whenever she's interviewed.

Also, Gwen just looked weird, not quite crossed eyed but close.

What I caught that only a fanboy of my nature could have caught:

Doc Connors missin' an arm, gots himself some symbiote left, potential for the Lizard and Carnage.

Hal Fishman as the news anchor, think about it.

"There's not even a scar" Hinting at the possibility the goblin formula granted accelerated healing abilities.

Plenty of hints and red herrings for the future of this franchise. Because 1, it broke all the records. There will be a Spider-Man 4. Maybe some cast will change, honestly, I don't mind the idea of a new MJ. Tobey Maguire leaving might be bad, especially since the only kid I could think to replace him was Topher Grace. Maybe that nerdy guy from the OC could do it.


But having seen it and knowing there's bound to be number four I can only think of how to do it now. Who's he fight? He's faced his demons, beaten Goblin, Sandman, his uncle's killer and redeemed his best friend. What could possibly go wrong for him now? The universe hates you Peter Parker, show us that. Give us overbearing odds, even with help you won't beat. Scorpion, Electro, Vulture, Mysterio, Kraven, Lizard, hell, friggin' Hobgoblin would be a good enemy now.

I envision a Spider-Man 4 with The Vulture, The Scorpion, and the Lizard. A Spider-Man 5 with Kraven, Mysterio and maybe the Hobgoblin. A Spider-Man 6 with the Sinister Six to end the franchise, which I heartell Raimi would love to do and I'd love to see him do it.

But Spider-Man 3, good, however it has it's drawbacks and I would say too many characters. It does look like parts of the movie were designed specifically for the game though. Especially the final fight and the first Sandman encounter.

I give it a good movie rating.

Saturday, May 5, 2007

Comics!

Ok, so I know I said I was going to post everyday, but then I got distracted and forgot and then just couldn't force myself to write anything. So basically I decided that I'm not going to finish my goal this week. I'm just going to go do my project presentation instead.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Picking a fight online

I wanted to go and pick a fight online for this project once. But then I remembered something, that's stupid. Ridiculously stupid. Now, I admit to having been involved in online arguments, even the pathetic flame war or two, but actually going out of my way to start one? Where is the logic in that?

Who goes around the internet, looking for a populated site such as a message board or a "prominent" blog, and then goes and decides "Hey I think I'll harass these people" and posts stupid things in an attempt to flame them? What is the draw? I tried it once, but couldn't really force myself into posting in a poorly written net lingo style. I can purposefully say things just to piss someone off, but it's quite obvious when I do and then the coversation turns to "Oh you're just saying that to piss me off aren't you?" and ends. Online you do not have a verbal tone, you have a written tone. Most people online are not trained writers and beyond capitalizing their words to make it seem like shouting, or emphasis, the tone is all context. You may be saying something meaning it to be calm, but the reader in turn reads it as an angry hate brainless post and responds as seen fit. That is why fighting online is stupid. Arguing is understandable, opinions disagree, but turning into a fight is different.

Changing from a simple opinion driven but calm discussion to overly opinionated and angered cuss match is just stupid and pointless. Nothing is accomplished by that, except maybe peace of mind for those involved believing themselves to be right. A calm discussion of an argument is the logical way to process whatever the argument is about. If there is a point to it, an actual two sided debate where one side is right and the other is wrong, you will be more likely to prove yourself to be in the right without freaking out in anger. That goes for both online and off. Turning into a heated debate with personal jabs and curses being thrown about will never be a good way to argue.

This somewhat covers that concept of a code of conduct on the internet. If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Didn't your mother ever tell you that? I don't understand what is wrong with so many people online that their arguments turn to fighting with such ease. Perhaps there needs to be some sort of online ettiquette class in schools these days so the next generation doesn't turn out like this Online Generation has been. Kids are getting online younger and younger, and do they really need to be exposed to the concept of a flame war before they've even had their first heated argument offline? Teach them not to flame, teach them not to troll, not to do things they shouldn't online, make them aware that there are consequences to online behavior, but most importantly, teach them to type real words, not the shorthand you get from texting on your cellphones.

Maybe if you get them young, you can prevent the next generation of internet kids from turning into a flame war ridden bunch of a-holes like this one. Oh who am I kidding, there's always going to be that one guy who's just a dick online because he can't be offline. The one who will go to a messageboard, get banned, then keep coming back under different aliases, for months if not years at a time. Yes, that happens all the time online. I'm disgusted by these people. They're also the ones who make a big deal out of deleting comments on blogs, they want people to see what they did. These are the people who cannot argue without fighting online, probably offline too. They're that one annoying guy who has to always be right regardless of wether or not he really is. He's not right, just the loudest. Everyone encounters this guy or girl in their life at least once, usually twice. Imagine those people, online, anonymous, and without the concept of a consequence for their actions. Now imagine if that's what kids saw when they went online and then they learned from that. Flaming, not arguing, there's a difference, kids.

Arguing online, not that big of a deal. It happens, it's expected. Fighting, come on, you should be better than that. Learn to write if you are going to be online. Remember this dear reader, you are probably guilty of this once or twice since coming online. You may have even fallen for the trap of a troll. It happens. Get over it, and move on. Learn and do the right thing for once.

Winning a fight on the internet is like winning the special olympics. Just saying.